Earth Magic by Alexei Panshin, Cory Panshin Read Free Book Online Page A

them. Either he was a silly old man like Svein and Oliver, haunted by thoughts of woe and doom, or he was a Get, Morca’s son, Morca’s own man. To harry the West was not to meet a bloody end on Stone Heath. It need not be. Stone Heath could be ridden by. Cast the thought out, Haldane, and revel in your fortune.
    But in the moment before he dismissed his fear, Haldane had a premonition, a vision that he knew not whether to heed. He saw himself returning home to find Morca ready to lead the Gets again to Stone Heath. Haldane closed the thought determined that should the vision prove true—which he would doubt—he would warn Morca no, whatever Morca said.
    He halted his horse on the hill above the New Bridge, back on the Pellardy Road once more. At the ford just upstream from the pilings of the fallen bridge there were two Nestorians in gray smocks kneedeep in the chilly water. They bent and searched slowly in the water with their hands, but he thought they watched him, as he would have watched himself if he had been they. He sat taller in the saddle and looked back down the road for Hemming Paleface. Ear served better than eye on the tree-closed road, but there was no more sound than sight of the carl. So much for him.
    Haldane set his horse down the road slope and trotted past the bridge pilings standing bare-kneed. He remembered New Bridge on Rock Run when the bridge still existed. He and his mother had passed over it as they traveled the Pellardy Road on their visit to his grandfather in his dun on Little Nail. Of that journey he remembered two things—the bridge and his steel grandfather, Arngrim. When they had left Little Nail, Arngrim gave him the horn that he still carried, though it was years before he could blow it.
    He had wondered that a bridge so old could be called new and had been told not to fret about things Nestorian. But that was all very long ago. It was before Oliver had appeared from the West, before his mother’s fall, and even before Morca’s hall was built with its second story and its balcony. It was long ago when Haldane was a child and nothing had yet happened.
    He reined his horse at the bank of the stream close by the wading men. He waited for respect. Haldane was armed and the Nestorians were not. He sat tall and dry on a handsome gelding while they paddled with the river bottom. He was a Get and they were cattle. For all these reasons he expected to be given attention.
    The peasants straightened and touched their foreheads with dripping muddy fingers. It was funny to Haldane. Their fingers left smears. One peasant was old. The other was younger and larger and stood in need of a shave come market day. Like many Nestorians, he had a dull and stupid face.
    Haldane was curious to know for what purpose they waded. “What are you doing?” he asked in Nestorian.
    “Gathering clams for our dinner, lord,” the old man said. He pointed to shells looking like damp shale on the riverbank.
    Would they really eat shells? These peasants ate many things like roots and mushrooms that a Get would know enough to kick aside as he walked.
    “Mussels, too,” the younger one said, grinning foolishly.
    Haldane shook his head. “How do you eat such stuff?”
    “In a broth with fish and vegetables,” the old man said. “It is a very good meal.”
    Haldane waved the answer away because it was not to the question he had asked. The plain folk misunderstood much that was said to them. Odo the Steward was a rare man. Most of his fellow natives understood only the plainest of Nestorian country speech, spoken slowly and clearly, often repeated, often rephrased.
    The foolish one said, “We will give you some to take home, lord.” And he proffered a shell smeared with mud.
    Not to be misunderstood, Haldane said, “Your food is unclean. It is not fit to eat. Now, what late signs or portents have you seen or heard tell of?”
    “Nothing, lord,” the older one said.
    “Nothing?”
    “Yes, lord,” said the old