I
Here things begin with a woman called Asfoa, who had no kin or clan. She was born at Bealnew, which was in those days the seat of the Earl of Eylavol. She was orphaned as a child, and a nameless vagabond found her crying outside the earl’s house.
‘Who are you, little girl?’ asked the vagabond.
‘Asfoa,’ said Asfoa.
‘Where is your family, Asfoa?’
‘Wolves got them.’
‘Wolves,’ said the vagabond. He knew wolves well. ‘I know wolves well.’ He reached out his hand. ‘Come with me, little Asfoa.’
Asfoa asked the vagabond his name.
‘I have no name. Know me only as a wanderer, a luckless man cursed to walk the wilds, deprived of my people and all worldly pleasures.’
Asfoa took the vagabond’s hand and went with him. He raised her on the road, and he taught her all she ought to know—hunting and foraging, healing and fighting, and many other things besides. And as long as she knew him, the vagabond kept a nifty sword at his side, old and well made. Though he bore no name himself, he could not let so fine a blade be just as nameless. He called it Sleme, and it was the only sword Asfoa ever held. Then, after twelve years had passed, Asfoa asked the vagabond for his name once more.
‘I have no name,’ he said. ‘I am but a lowly vagrant. It is my lot to spend this wretched life alone, but for this briefest of interludes with you.’
That night, while Asfoa slept, the vagabond went away. She awoke in the morning to find Sleme lying on the ground where once had been her warden. She never saw him again.
Now Asfoa put all she had learnt to use. She wandered the wilderness alone, her course set only by the stars and her liking, her bed but the ground at her feet, until she came one day to a place called Klagenn. That was a valley on the coast, with a small town by the mouth of the river. At the top of the valley stood a most marvellous waterfall. The very moment Asfoa set her eyes upon it, the moment she saw the sunlight sparkling on the water, the moment she felt its flow on her hand, she knew she had found her home. With the help of only one kindly fellow from the town, she cleared a spot in the woods and built herself a small house. There she remained, to wander no more.
Asfoa became well known among the people of Klagenn, but they did not terribly like her. They shunned her, living alone in the woods, and they called her a witch, even though she neither dabbled in magic nor bore much ill will for anyone. But that did nothing to move her, for no harsh words could part the river from its course.
Then came war. The elder Arkelo, the Mawkan king, came forth from his homeland with conquest in his head and glory in his heart, intent upon asserting his kingship over all the folk of Norlonn. News of his coming was quick to reach Klagenn, and a troop of fighters gathered in the town, ready to hasten away and support their earl—it would have been Threlbega the Thrifty-throated in those days—against the conqueror king.
In the middle of this was a man named Gaylodho Ayrkenennan. He was known as Gaylodho the Wealthy because he had inherited a fantastic sum of wealth from his forebears, who had made their fortune trapping the lynx that roamed the uplands for their pelts. Gaylodho was something of a haughty chap. He thought very highly of himself, deeming his wealth a measure of his good nature, and he bore a fearsome temper. At even the slightest provocation, he would let loose his whole boundless fury. Indeed, it was sometimes said there was no less stealthy fellow, for his bellowing ever preceded him.
Gaylodho bade Asfoa, skilled with sword and spear alike, join his party in fighting the warmonger king. She wanted nothing to do with it.
‘Get out of here,’ she said. ‘I will fight none but those who bring their blades to my very own door.’
Gaylodho gave her every foul word he knew, but Asfoa would not be swayed. She watched his warband race away to Bealnew, where the earl was gathering her army, and that was the end of it.
But though the earls fought with fervour, each one eager to protect their lands, to make themself the king’s killer, their fervour was outmatched. The king and his folk wrought such grief upon their foes, dealing wounds far deeper than flesh or bone, and bearing them in kind, that the earls’ willingness to fight withered as swiftly as it had bloomed. The king won his war and forced the earls to submit, the first of his kin to do so.
Asfoa soon saw Gaylodho’s warband trudging back home, half as many as had left. The king had conquered their homeland, killed their kin, and levied his first tax, but it made no difference to her—the river yet flowed.