Power of Three (12 page)

Chapter

7

IT WAS EARLY EVENING WHEN, WINDSWEPT AND
drenched, they reached Garholt at last and spoke the words at the hive-gate. It opened on to the warmth and smells of the overcrowded mound, and almost every face inside turned up to look at them. There was a moment of unnatural quiet.

It was like a menace. Gair felt gloom and terror flooding up from inside the mound, swirling and mounting over the tapestries, dimming the faces, dulling the warm smells. It was like the uneasiness he had felt ever since the Otmounders came, but far, far stronger. His mouth went dry with it and his knees weak. Then most people went back to what they were doing. Conversation began, exclamations and laughter, and sour remarks from Otmounders.

Adara came hurrying to the foot of the steps. “Where have you all been?”

Miri pushed past her and panted up the steps. “Caught in that storm! Wet through, the lot of them!” It was plain she and Adara had been very anxious. But, when she reached them, Gair saw Miri was frightened, too scared to scold properly. “You meddled with nothing outside? No Powers?” she asked breathlessly.

“No. Nothing,” they answered, semi-truthfully, wondering what made her ask. Though the feeling of gloom had subsided a little, Gair still felt depressed as he answered—but this could have been because Gest was now standing at the foot of the steps with his arms grimly folded.

“I'll see you, Gair, when you're in dry clothes,” Gest said.

All the time Miri was fussing him into dry clothes, Gair tried to feel courageous. It was not easy. Ondo was lying in his bed under a mound of blankets, rolling and moaning, to remind him of his sins. When Miri pushed Gair into the room where Gest was grimly waiting, Gair found he had barely any courage left.

Gest had his belt unbuckled and swinging in his hand. Gair could not take his eyes off it. “What have you got to say for yourself?” said Gest.

Gair thought miserably that Ondo could not have said anything he was less likely to tell Gest. He looked at his father's tall, strong frame and wished he could still think he was a hero. “Nothing,” he said. “He got on my windowsill.”

“I saw him,” said Gest. “You promised not to fight him.”

Gair nodded. Just like Gest promised not to fight Dorig, he thought. “I forgot.”

“Oh, did you?” said Gest. His mouth parted his golden beard in a laugh. Gair looked at it and shivered. “I'd have done the same myself,” said Gest. “But Kasta wants you punished, you know.” Miserably, Gair nodded again. “So we'll have to please her,” said Gest. “Stand over there.”

Gair stood, trying not to quake. Behind him, the belt whistled. He clenched his teeth. There was a heavy thump as the belt hit something—something not Gair. Gair spun round in time to see the belt come down and slash the floor a second time.

“That's for Kasta!” Gest said, between his teeth. “Thinks she can give me orders, does she?” He belabored the floor several more times. Whistle-thump, whistle-thump. Outside, it must have sounded just as if Gest was hitting Gair. Gair could not help smiling—though it was not very happily. Gest was cheating again. Islaw people were as tricksy as Ondo said. Almost— but not quite—Gair would have preferred Gest to hit him.

Gest looked up, hot and irritable from the effort. “What are you looking so glum about?”

“I—” said Gair. “You're cheating.”

Gest stared at him. “Do you want me to hit you, then?”

“No!” said Gair. “No—no!”

“And you're going to go and tell Kasta all about it?”

“Of course not!” Gair said indignantly.

“Then you're cheating, too,” said Gest. “Aren't you?”

“No,” said Gair. “Yes.” By now, he was bewildered as well as miserable. The muddles and troubles of the day were suddenly too much for him. He felt his face harden into an angry scowl. The blood rushed up round his eyes and his fists clenched themselves. He wondered where to hit Gest, and how hard. “You made me cheat! You're the cheat, not me!”

Gest's head went slowly up. He became every inch a cold, proud Chief, and, somehow, Gair did not feel able to hit him. “I am, am I?” said Gest. “Then if that's what you think, you can have your punishment. You're forbidden to go on the hunt. You can tell Adara you're staying behind with the babies.”

“What hunt? When?” Gair was seized by a sudden unreasonable alarm. It seemed to take him by the throat like a hard hand. “You're not going hunting!”

“We are. Tomorrow. You're not,” Gest said, and went to the door. “You and Ondo will be the only boys left behind,” he said as he went out. “That'll teach you to speak to me like that.”

“Don't go!” Gair said despairingly, though he knew it was a silly thing to say and he did not know why he said it. But Gest had already stalked out of the house.

At supper, no one talked of much except the hunt. Orban had given in to Gest's argument. Every available man and boy and any girl who had no other job was to go. They had settled to go the following night, so that they could stay out for three days if necessary, until the Moon was nearly full, and bring back as much meat as they could catch, to provision Garholt for the Feast of the Sun at Full Moon, and for as long as possible after that. It was clear Orban hoped, now that he had given in to Gest, that Gest would give in to him and agree to attack the Dorig when they came back.

Little does he know! Gair thought bitterly, sitting silent beside Ceri. Or perhaps Orban did know, but he seemed not to think one need bother to keep faith with Dorig.

No one was surprised Gair was subdued. Miri managed to sneak him several nice tidbits, even though supplies were so low that supper was rather plain. Miri and Fandi were engaged in their usual battle to get their own family the best helpings. It was very wearisome. If Ayna had not told him the Otmounders were going away soon, Gair would have left the eating-square. The inexplicable feeling of alarm grabbed at his throat every time the hunt was mentioned, and he did not want to listen. He wanted to think about Giants and devise some way of asking Adara who might want to flood the Moor without giving away that he had stood face to face with a Giant.

The battle for the best helpings was complicated by Ondo, lying in bed and calling out fretfully from the house. Fandi and Kasta connived together to send Ondo in the best food. Kasta several times took things from Orban when he was not looking.

Orban bore with their fussing until the end of the meal and his fourth mug of beer. Then he said, “You spoil that boy, Kasta. He'd be as well as I am if you let him alone.” Kasta at once exclaimed that Ondo was
very
delicate and—with a venomous look at Gair—in
great
pain besides. “Nonsense!” said Orban. “He's as tough as boots. I'm sick of this cosseting. He's going on this hunt, stings or no stings. Make a man of him.”

Kasta and Fandi both clamored against him. Kasta clamored Fandi down and went on clamoring alone. She was one of those who could talk and talk and talk. Gair listened to her harsh voice—“Just like a duck,” Ayna described it—and hoped she would lose the argument. But Adara once said Kasta had never lost an argument in her life. She just talked everyone insensible. Gair tried to resign himself to being left behind in Garholt with Ondo. But for Ondo, it would not have been too bad. There would be Ayna for company, and he could help with the root-flour, taste preserved fruit, mix honeycakes and shell nuts. It was like being small again, but fun, as it always was, preparing for Feasts—but not with Ondo there, swollen and angry.

Kasta was still quacking away when Banot and the other Chanters gathered between the wells to chant luck for the hunt, and she only fell silent when the chanting began. Gair leaned against the round stone hood of the fourth well to listen, and to wonder, as he often idly did, why Banot's harp had one whitish string that never seemed to break. But the uneasy feeling began to grow out at him from the walls of the mound and snatch at his throat, as soon as the chanting finished and Adara came to tell Gest and Orban how the luck lay. It seemed to lie well. But the feeling pressed and grabbed at Gair, and he felt something was wrong, though he did not know what. When Ayna came to be consulted, he went up onto his windowsill to avoid it.

The windows were now sealed for the night. Gair had no view except the great vault of Garholt itself with its tapestries shimmering shadowily in the light, the ring of old, round houses, the half-built new ones and the inner ring of wells, like little houses themselves. He could see everyone gathered round the space there and Ayna, conspicuous with her fair hair, standing very upright to be consulted. He could faintly hear her answers.

“Deer, in the Northeast … yes, beyond the river … keep to the hills above Otmound.”

Orban looked thoughtful here. He seemed to ask if the Dorig from Otmound were likely to attack the hunt.

“No,” said Ayna. Orban did not look altogether pleased. He wanted to abandon hunting for war if he could. The feeling of oppression and gloom grew so strong on Gair that he wanted to shout out to them not to go.

He fell asleep that night to the sound of Kasta quacking at Orban. In the morning, she had stopped. Orban was looking tired and dismal and Kasta smug.

“I think Ondo's staying,” Ayna said gloomily. “Lucky Ceri! I wish I could go on the hunt.” Ayna, because of the value of her Gift, was not allowed to hunt very often. Ceri wished his Gifts were that valuable. He did not think himself lucky at all. Three hard days in the open appalled him. He would rather have had Ondo.

“I wish you were going, Gair,” he said dolefully.

Rather than answer, Gair slid away from the bustle of preparation and climbed onto his windowsill again. Scodo and Pad limped among the looms and called jeeringly up at him. Gair ignored them. He looked out at cloud shadows racing on the flat Moor, over to the hazy hills in the North where the deer might be even now. Below him, Miri's son, Med, who was Beekeeper these days, was kneeling by the hives telling the bees about the hunt and asking them to guard Garholt while it was gone. Behind Gair was bustle, and the clatter of the forges. There was no reason why he should feel depressed. He had been left behind before. Nevertheless, Gair found he just could not bear to stay in Garholt while everyone prepared to go hunting. A little dazzled from watching Sun and clouds, Gair glanced back into the mound. Scodo and Pad had gone. No one was looking at him. Gair swung himself off the sill in a leap which carried him over Med's head, to land on the hillside just below. There, he waited. You were always polite to bees and their Keeper.

Med looked up and grinned as Gair landed. Med had bees crawling all over him, dark on his arms and legs, gently strolling on his neck and face and whirling round his head. “They were glad to oblige you over Ondo,” Med said, “but they lost a lot of workers over it. So don't do it again, will you?”

“No,” said Gair. “Tell them I'm sorry.” He was sorry. Bees had died to revenge him.

“And they say the strawberries are ripe by the wood,” Med added cheerfully. “You'll be first there if you go now.”

By this, Gair knew that the bees had freely forgiven him. He thanked them, and Med, and then went off to the strawberries, largely because Med and the bees would expect him to. But he ate only a few. Five minutes later, he was trotting steadily among the marsh grass, in the direction of the Giants' pulsing house.

His depression lifted as he trotted. He began thinking of the Giants and wondering who could be plotting to flood the Moor. It must be the Dorig. Dorig lived underwater and ate fish. Giants lived by the land more than people and grew things from it to eat, so it followed that they would not want it underwater. Gair, as he trotted, looked round the bare, cloudswept landscape and saw that it would be easy to fill the Moor with water. All the Dorig need do was to complete the ring of hills with a wall or so and dam up the slow, winding rivers. But, surely, if the Giants knew their plans, they were going to stop the Dorig trying? Gair intended to listen to Giants again and find out what they meant to do.

Or he thought he did, until he came upon the Giant Gerald gloomily wandering in the wood beside the pulsing house. After that, he knew why he had really come. He wanted to know if the Giant was like Ondo, or if, as Ceri had said, he was even more like Gair. Or if—which was the most troubling thought—the Giant resembled both because Gair was like Ondo.