Hair of Gold

Hair of Gold

by Dai Alanye

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Copyright Dai Alanye 2012

Smashwords Edition 1.41

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Hair of Gold is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and neither images nor text may be altered in any way. If you would like to share this book with another person, please download an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not download it yourself, or it was not downloaded for your specific use, please go to your book vendor to download your own up-to-date copy.

Hair of Gold is an original work of fiction. All characters, locations, things and incidents are creations of the writer's imagination. Any resemblances to actual happenings or to persons living or dead are strictly coincidental.

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Hair of Gold

Chapter the 1st—Ride!

For two days rough strangers had lurked near our homestead, spying on us from brush and behind trees—shifty-looking men with weapons at hand. It had all to do, my mother felt, with the old wanderer we had taken in.

Him and his map.

Food and drink are here, she said, indicating a bag tied behind the saddle. Mind you wrap the remains well, for it must sustain you two days.

But Mum—surely I can make Caldridge by tomorrow eve.

And risk founder or worse? Drive the horse too hard and you'll be riding shank's mare, and we out a good gelding—do you hear?

Yes, said I, sullen-like.

She gave me a sharp look. Ride and walk, ride and walk.

I know, Mother. And shall you never let me go?

* * *

I say taken in—that wayworn soul—but forced himself in would be more correct. I'd found him lying nigh a tree beyond our north border on Cardan land. Truth to tell, I hesitated to come up to him, but upon seeing me he called out.

Oi, there! Help, please. Show charity for a poor old man what's lost his way. His voice squeaked and quavered with what seemed weakness, and he was thin and dirty and beggarly-looking—an unpleasant sight.

I slowly approached on Brownie, stopping beside but staying mounted.

What would you have me do, sir?

Just lets he... He struggled to his feet, clambering up the tree—a spiny one that must have pricked his skin. If you guides him to a road or track... He rested one hand on my saddle skirt, then grasped my leg—fingers sinking in, his expression going from meek to fierce in a blink. I screamed and kicked but his grip held iron-strong.

Silence! Silence all, he rasped. You has another choice, but not a good one.

A knife appeared in his other hand. Though rusted and nicked, I'd no doubt it would still do its work. Without thinking long I decided to soothe him, waiting for my chance to escape.

Now, younker, he said, you takes him to some place of shelter and safety I'm sure, for Abel don't likes to cut a lad, but he'll do what he must.

I turned for home, my horse ambling and him stumbling alongside, muttering to me or maybe to himself, always in third person.

"He's got the key, does Abel, and none other. He knows, he does. But there's them what thinks they deserves it. No, no—twon't be, not while he's got life in him."

And much more I hardly recall. His voice caught in his throat, and he cackled from time to time. He had nothing but the clothes he wore, and cracked, worn boots—all in poor shape. On his back a blanket roll, and at his waist a drooping sack. Aye, only those and the knife, which seemed bigger by the minute as we went toward home—a long ride and a longer walk for someone in his condition. Yet he made it.

At our blockhouse he ate sparingly as though accustomed to short rations by a long siege of starvation, but drank enough for two or three men—always demanding beer, and looking on water as little more than poison, whether applied internally or without. He slept and lay on his bedroll in the stable, rarely rising except for calls of nature, content with the company of horses and ponies.

"He must get his power back—his strengths up. Then we'll see, won't we? Beer, blast you! Must he die of thirst?"

His mind would wander a bit before all began again.

Twas dry out there, by Ecol, with but a sip of dew for him to get by on, and the sun with no pity. Rain? Aye, he'd be rained upon, and snowed or hailed on, too, like as not. For you see, er... Val-boy, the weather it likes to be contrary, and when he was wet twould make him wetter, and cold, colder, and when dry... Ah, that were worst of all. Beer, if you pleases, now. Help old Abel get his consitooshun going again.

Inside a fortnight he was dead—a hard death, with him wild and carrying on about his map and riches. What traps he had remained in our hands as payment for care of him—and the map, too, little though we could make of it.

Scarcely under sod, he was, when a man of malign countenance came knocking and calling at our door—unkempt and shabby, but with a great long knife in a sheath at his waist. After questioning through the port, our man Kieran decided to admit him, and the fellow entered to be interviewed by my mother, while Kieran stood to one side with a pistol in his hand, and it loaded and primed.

Thankee, Lady, he said, bowing and tugging at his hat, giving her a high title by way of flattery. Preciate it, one does. His bold voice rang off the bare high-ceilinged stone walls.

You are not from nearby—what want you, with arriving unannounced?

Yes, Lady, I'll come to my point right off. Now, it's not of great matter, but I be looking for one Abel DeGroot, a man of advanced years. Barley-water they sometimes calls him, on account he likes his beer, not hard drink as do most. White-haired he should be, of age, and often a great white beard. Not a man of fine, er, sensibilities as it were, but better eddycated than one might think. He'd been wandering in this area, as I hears. So, have you seen such a one, I'm wondering?

Why do you inquire after him? Do you mean him harm?

Why, no, Lady, not in the least. I'm cut, I am, to think... Rough-looking might I be, but I assures you he, uh... He's a mate of mine from far back, and I wants to aid him, by way of old times' sake. That's all.

You hardly look able to aid yourself, much less anyone else. What are you named?

The man's expression changed at this, my mother told me later. I'd been forbidden the parlor, and could only make out snippets from around the corner.

He drew himself up. Appearances might deceive a soul, Mam, for though I've gone down in the world, I'm not altogether without, er, resources. My name... My name is... Guide Querrel McCombs, if it please you.

Whence do you hail, Guide McCombs?

I am not from hereabouts, Mam.

"So I knew right off. From whereabouts do you hail?"

She had already made up her mind to refuse him, with his unlikely tale and made-up name, and an unlikely profession besides, for Guide is an honorable calling. Not bothering to press him further, she told him she knew nothing of DeGroot, and sent Guide McCombs on his way. Twas obvious he doubted her, she could tell by his expression—and the lurkers gave proof of it.

Now I must ride for help, and leave by dark so as to be undetected.

* * *

Give your uncle my note, and tell him what you can, making sure he sends hardy armed men as soon as may be done.

Should I not ride the faster, Mum? Is it not more sense to...

Do as I say! They lurk and spy now—when they hide themselves better, we'll worry the more. Up now, and God with you. As I mounted she called, Ready to snuff torches. She checked me. Remember to duck your head as you go out—you've but the one to last your whole life.

Of course, I muttered.

Kieran? The torches were capped, and a rank smoldering spread throughout the stable. He made his way to the outside door and eased the bar free—standing by the latch, ready to slide it open. Mother caressed my cheek, then closed the lantern she held. In pitch dark I heard the door grate open, showing a lighter patch before me. Brownie stepped unerringly through, and I turned him to walk round the building end.

My limbs quivered and my breaths came shallow—you may judge whether from the cool of night or my fears and excitements. At the corner I nudged my horse into a quicker pace, heading south toward the road, the extreme darkness as well as my mother's admonitions discouraging me from higher speed. Not even a star shone to guide me, the clouds being low and thick, a breeze ever so slightly rustling in the trees. It was near black a night as can be, and I strained my eyes to pierce it.

We'd not gone thirty yards when darker blobs moved before me, sending a trill of fear up my spine. Animals, monsters?

Men! The spies were upon our land.

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Chapter the 2nd – Beginnings

I have been taught to start a story at the beginning, unless there be good reason. So this will be the beginning—not the beginning of me, for that would be of no interest, I being only a babe then. Instead, this will tell how events that would make me half an orphan began on the fourteenth of Midyear, the saddest day of my life.

It tells of my adventure, and how I became full-grown though yet a child in years, through hardship and sadness and striving. And I hope any who read this may not suffer as I and my family suffered in those times.

I, the recorder, am Valys Clercal, named Val or Lyss by friends and family, and a lineal descendant of the first Clercal who was banished to these wild lands as perverse reward for his rebelliousness. Or, rather, to gloss over the shortsightedness of the proconsuls of his day. He took the name as a sort of defiance of the authorities and high ones, and to deny that any shame beset himself.

At this tale's beginning I had celebrated fifteen years, and would enter upon personal independence and be of marriageable age in but three more, an anniversary I greatly longed for.

* * *

Our stead of Wilderedge lies on the brink of desert land, west and north of Redhills Burg—the capital of Redhills district. To the north into the mountains the land becomes barren and deadly cold in winter. To west it is nearly the same, and we sit nigh the edge of the district on those sides. Yet we enjoy good earth and heavy crops in general, with plenty of rain from the clouds striving to top the mountains. Our soil is dark like most of the Red Hills, except for that one distinctive area, famed not merely by the color of its earth but for the ore of iron dug from it.

Wilderedge being far toward the sparse-settled western end of the district, there existed no way to reach it but a dirt and graveled track from the east, suitable for wagons part of the year, or by foot of man or animal during the rest. Indeed, though we had some wealth and carried goods to and from Redhills Burg, during foul seasons my father must mount his horse and spare the wagons, unless he cared to risk damage on the rough and rutted track by our home.

And on the road this tale takes its start.

We had a near neighbor, one Darryl Cardan, whose holding lay—due to the twists and turns of the hill-line—to east and north of ours. It measured, in fact, a much greater extent, stretching from the road into the hills far deeper than ours, thereby bordering us to the east and hanging over us to the north. But his home stood well back into the stead, and must be reached by a long path of his own, more rutted and worse-made than the road.

Now it came to pass that the government of Northway, our state, took it in their minds to build and pave a true street to replace the rough track our stead had used from the first land-breaking five generations gone. Instead of pebbles and mud it would have a stone foundation, ditches to carry away the rains, bridges and culverts and causeways to pass the runnels and streams and marshes, with cobbles or cut stone to top all—full fifty-odd miles to meet the end of pavement down-road.

A glorious thing is a full-paved street, and one of high expense. My father wondered greatly at the governors' doing. And here I must say a word of our method of rule.

Two parties vie for office. These men—one hundred-twenty of them—meet time-to-time at Parley House to decide laws and taxes and policies and justice—but not war. We rarely contend for general domination or to advance one faith above another. As for borders and resources, however—mines, fishing grounds, rich districts—we quarrel over those often enough, greed being a universal in the human character.

* * *

On that sad morning, my father ordered me to linger near home, then rode toward our neighbor, the infamous Cardan. Accustomed always to stay by him—for I remained long the only child and his pride and favorite—I disobeyed and took my way by a different route. When he went beyond sight I urged my little horse to a fast pace—and circling round, cut his trail inside the oilnut plantation that borders our land on the east.

At a careful distance I followed, and saw him ride onto the other land. On the hillside above Cardan's land, inside the fringe of trees, I watched him ride halfway to the blockhouse—tying his horse among bushes a goodly hundred yards short and traveling on foot toward the stockade gates. He'd gone there on an errand of conflict, yet chose to pursue the ways of peace. The paving, he had learned, was to come to the entrance of Cardan's path, then abruptly turn and trace that path beyond Cardan stockade, and into the back-lands. The work, you see, was for Cardan's good, and to the injury of us.

This Cardan was a member of Parley, having bribed and forced his way in, many electors seeing it to their advantage to back him. He went to Redhills twice per annum with the others, and over some few years gained much influence there. The new street was his corrupt bounty for years of political effort—effort expended largely, I suspect, in his own interest. Worse yet, to pay itself for the cost of street-building, the government condemned wide tracts of land parallel to the new pavement in order to sell them back to the owners or others. Even beside Cardan's path this held true.

The route, we found, ran upon the very border of our land, more distant and seemingly inconvenient for Cardan. The reason soon became apparent. Though work had only begun near Redhills, tracts of both his land and ours were condemned—his mainly affecting rough pasture and ordinary plowed land. Ours took in near a quarter of the oilnut plantation, the mainstay of our livelihood and possible future wealth.

Soon Cardan's land had returned to his ownership—bought cheap at secret sale—while ours remained in limbo, neither offered back to us nor put up for open sale.

This matter my father hoped to settle face to face with Darryl Cardan, all previous attempts at negotiation having been ignored.

Father stepped out, and when he reached partway there one gate opened, and an armed man stepped forth—Darryl Cardan himself, we later learned. He shouted and my father replied, still coming on. Cardan lifted his long-gun, and I saw a puff of smoke—and with the report my father fell as if pole-axed.

You might imagine my feelings. I screamed something—I remember not what—and forced Brownie down the hillside. He made his way too cautiously for me on the steep, as I kicked his ribs and slapped him with the reins, but did his best, sliding on his haunches at spots. It seemed ages—and when we cleared the thick-set trees near the bottom, I could see my father up and running with great limping strides toward his horse. He ripped his long-gun from its sheath, and as he did, Cardan, having reloaded, managed to shoot again.

The bullet struck the horse. It leaped, tearing loose from the bush and running off. I had slowed as I saw my father reach his steed, but now I raced forward, and as I did my father capped his gun, took aim and shot. When the smoke cleared Cardan could be seen caught in the act of reloading. He seemed to fold in the middle, his weapon for a moment supporting him—then sprawled upon the earth.

I reached my father and leaped down. He knew what must be done, and with my help mounted. Another bullet flew by, cutting the leaves overhead, and we saw men running out of the gate. My father gestured me to the far side of Brownie, and off we went, me running as never before, the horse towing me along. Shots followed us but none came near as we reached the trees, working our way between and angling up the hillside.

We came upon Father's horse, drooping against a tree-stem and bleeding its life away from a shot in the lungs. We waited till it fell, then by dint of much struggle I retrieved the saddle and all, and we made our slow sad way home.

My father said but one thing to me before we reached the blockhouse. You have never failed me, Valys.

My heart swelled, and tears, till now withheld, ran down my face.

* * *

My mother nursed him well, despite her caring for a babe in arms—my young brother. The ball had torn the muscles of the thigh, perhaps nicking the bone—and recovery took long despite my father's great will. Before he could walk without sticks a summons came for him to go to Redhills Burg for trial on a charge of willful murder. This must be false, for he'd done no more than manslaughter, and that after provocation. Yet he had failed to formally report it, an oversight claimed as proof of guilt.

Still, we kept confident he would be found innocent, and on the trip he would stop at Inscher to gain my uncle's aid. His elder brother was Master of Caldridge Stead, the family home-abode, a large