The Leopard (Marakand) Read Online Free Page A

Ahjvar didn’t marry. The sea takes so many men, you know. But wherever he came from, anyone can see they’re fond of one another, and the boy’s been good for him. Master Ahjvar was—well, he didn’t look after himself properly, didn’t think about regular meals. You know what men are like when they live alone. Now that the boy’s there, he does whatever it is lords can’t do for themselves, and Master Ahjvar’s the better for it, even if young Ghu is a bit short in his wits. I can’t see there’s any harm in his being simple, myself, so long as his master treats him fairly, and Master Ahjvar’s not a man to hurt the innocent. A quick wit’s more likely to grow restless and discontent, when the Old Great Gods’ doom for you is nothing but a spade and stewing-kettle, now, isn’t it?”
    Deyandara smiled, consolingly, she hoped, as one who had never had to face that fate. “Master Ahjvar’s a lord? Of where?”
    A godless man could not be a lord of anywhere, not among the tribes of Praitan, surely not even among the tribes of the Tributary Lands. And godless he was. The goddess of the Duina Catairna had told her so.
    “Where from? That I couldn’t tell you. He’s never said as much, but we all know. He has that air about him. The north, maybe, by his speech. Praitannec. Maybe you’d know better than I?”
    Deyandara shook her head. “He might be the man I’m seeking. He might not be.” But he had to be.
    “You’re a bard, mistress?”
    A question asked for mere courtesy, to introduce the topic, with the bard’s ribbons garlanded around her brow and fluttering down behind, and the komuz at her shoulder. Deyandara’s bow was wrapped and slung behind the saddle, the muddy leathers she wore when she was not about to enter a village cleaned and bundled away. This close to the cities, the tribes were peaceful, and a bard could not afford to look like a straying hunter.
    “You’ll be coming back when your errand’s done? The smith’s our headman, and his wife keeps the tavern. Travellers always have a good welcome from them. You’ll be heading inland to the chief’s hall, of course, but stay a night here, first. If you go to the smithy and ask . . .”
    “Tell them I’ll be back by this afternoon, then, if not before.” Or else she’d have the whole village trooping up to Master Ahjvar’s to make sure she didn’t escape them. That she was a bard was a lie, of course, but wearing the ribbons seemed safer than not. Still, the woman should have questioned it. Or was she so worn by the road that she looked old enough to be what she claimed?
    It was simple ignorance on the widow’s part of what it really meant to be a bard, that was all; there were few left among the tribes of the Tributary Lands. They took their news from tramp pedlars and drovers and entertainers from the city, their stories from play-actors and puppeteers. Nabbani stories. These here were a lost folk who had forgotten their own tales. Deyandara’s tutor Lin, no bard but a foreign wizard, had said so. She had given Deyandara old stories of the southlands of Over-Malagru, stories from before the colonies were ever planted, from the days when the tribes had had kings and paid tribute to no overlord, from even more ancient times, from the great years of peace under the emperor of Marakand, and back and back, to when the summer rains were frequent and kind, and the forest stretched all the way to the coast and the folk, using only axes of stone, cleared lands in the river bottoms, worshipping the goddesses of the waters. They had feared the darkness under the oaks and burnt the hills of the gods to make new pastures . . . Deyandara might not believe all the tales, but she had drunk them in.
    She would give this folk some of those stories back, when her errand to Master Ahjvar was done. And they would not understand it was their own history, and the hill overlooking the bay at Gold Harbour a stronghold from which a queen had ridden to