VII
The yard behind the Great Hall was not really a yard at all, but only a green corridor whose walls were formed by tangled, thick-grown hedges. It had been used for the rite of coming of age since time out of mind, long before Cort and his predecessor, Mark, who had died of a stab-wound from an overzealous hand in this place. Many boys had left the corridor from the east end, where the teacher always entered, as men. The east end faced the Great Hall and all the civilization and intrigue of the lighted world. Many more had slunk away, beaten and bloody, from the west end, where the boys always entered, as boys forever. The west end faced the farms and the hut-dwellers beyond the farms; beyond that, the tangled barbarian forests; beyond that, Garlan; and beyond Garlan, the Mohaine Desert. The boy who became a man progressed from darkness and unlearning to light and responsibility. The boy who was beaten could only retreat, forever and forever. The hallway was as smooth and green as a gaming field. It was exactly fifty yards long. In the middle was a swatch of shaven earth. This was the line.
Each end was usually clogged with tense spectators and relatives, for the ritual was usually forecast with great accuracy—eighteen was the most common age (those who had not made their test by the age of twenty-five usually slipped into obscurity as freeholders, unable to face the brutal all-or-nothing fact of the field and the test). But on this day there were none but Jamie DeCurry, Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns, and Thomas Whitman. They clustered at the boy’s end, gape-mouthed and frankly terrified.
“Your weapon, stupid!” Cuthbert hissed, in agony. “You forgot your weapon!”
“I have it,” the boy said. Dimly he wondered if the news of this lunacy had reached yet to the central buildings, to his mother—and to Marten. His father was on a hunt, not due back for days. In this he felt a sense of shame, for he felt that in his father he would have found understanding, if not approval. “Has Cort come?”
“Cort is here.” The voice came from the far end of the corridor, and Cort stepped into view, dressed in a short singlet. A heavy leather band encircled his forehead to keep sweat from his eyes. He wore a dirty girdle to hold his back straight. He held an ironwood stick in one hand, sharp on one end, heavily blunted and spatulate on the other. He began the litany which all of them, chosen by the blind blood of their fathers all the way back to the Eld, had known since early childhood, learned against the day when they would, perchance, become men.
“Have you come here for a serious purpose, boy?”
“I have come for a serious purpose.”
“Have you come as an outcast from your father’s house?”
“I have so come.” And would remain outcast until he had bested Cort. If Cort bested him, he would remain outcast forever.
“Have you come with your chosen weapon?”
“I have.”
“What is your weapon?” This was the teacher’s advantage, his chance to adjust his plan of battle to the sling or spear or bah or bow.
“My weapon is David.”
Cort halted only briefly. He was surprised, and very likely confused. That was good.
Mightbe good.
“So then have you at me, boy?”
“I do.”
“In whose name?”
“In the name of my father.”
“Say his name.”
“Steven Deschain, of the line of Eld.”
“Be swift, then.”
And Cort advanced into the corridor, switching his stick from one hand to the other. The boys sighed flutteringly, like birds, as their dan-dinh stepped to meet him.
My weapon is David, teacher.
Did Cort understand? And if so, did he understand fully? If he did, very likely all was lost. It turned on surprise—and on whatever stuff the hawk had left in him. Would he only sit, disinterested and stupid, on the boy’s arm, while Cort struck him brainless with the ironwood? Or seek escape in the high, hot sky?
As they drew close together, each for the nonce still on his side of the line, the boy loosened the hawk’s hood with nerveless fingers. It dropped to the green grass, and Cort halted in his tracks. He saw the old warrior’s eyes drop to the bird and widen with surprise and slow-dawning comprehension.Nowhe understood.
“Oh, you little fool,” Cort nearly groaned, and Roland was suddenly furious that he should be spoken to so.
“At him!” he cried, raising his arm.
And David flew like a silent brown bullet, stubby wings pumping once, twice, three times, before crashing into Cort’s face, talons searching, beak digging. Red drops flew up into the hot air.
