by S. R. Cronin
To Ewalina’s credit, she settled in beside my small fireplace, kicked off her shoes, and curled her long legs up under her skirt. Then she listened as I repeated Ryalgar’s analysis. She started to argue with me about the certainty of Ilari’s demise, but after I spouted back fact after fact, she gave up.
“Okay. Suppose I agree we’re doomed. Then what?” I understood it wasn’t an easy conclusion to reach and I respected her for being able to get there.
“Given we’ve nothing to lose, join me in thinking of every ridiculous alternative you can that would involve luskies.”
She tried. Over the years she’d given a lot of thought to what luskies could and couldn’t do, and her insights helped as we talked through the options.
“I’ve never heard the timbre work on more than one person at a time,” she said. “It appears to be a specific interaction between two people.”
“So that rules out shouting commands to their whole army.”
“Or even to a small group of them. Also, it’s a short term thing, always about a specific action. It’s not like you could get one of them alone and then command them to never kill again.”
“Just like you couldn’t have commanded me to fetch water for every traveler who came by my cottage.”
“Exactly.”
“Well that rules out trying to turn each invader into a peace-loving farmer,” I said. “I hoped for that option. So if the best we can do is get one person to do one thing, how do we help?”
“Well, to make any difference at all, we’d need a scump-load of luskies, and that’s a problem. I know of twenty counting us, and most of them are deathly afraid of being found out. Some wouldn’t use their timbre in public to save a life, and a few refuse to use it at all. Are we doomed?”
“No, only stuck. Go home. Keep trying to think of something. I’ll do the same. Maybe there’s a twist we haven’t considered.”
My mother sent Celestine to sit by my side through the birth. Celestine had to give up several chances to sing and play her psaltery to be with me, and I knew she wasn’t happy about it. She didn’t complain though. She brought in two sets of saddlebags stuffed to overflowing, unpacked and hung up her beautiful clothes with care, and then settled into the cottage to be with me.
When I asked about her music, she spoke of it, but her heart wasn’t in her words. What else was on her mind? A lover perhaps? She’d always been a beautiful girl, with her curly coal-black hair and bright blue eyes, and she received more attention from boys than any of us.
She’d been sort of shy around males as a child though. Maybe it was having no brothers? For whatever reason, she tended to ignore boys, so their attention often turned to teasing, the way it does when a girl doesn’t give enough of a response. When she was younger, I’d found her crying in the barn often, upset about how the boys picked on her.
“They do that because they like you,” had never comforted her, and to be honest I never understood why it should. I’d quit saying it, even though it was true, and just held her when she cried.
Now, I wondered what sort of special man had stolen her heart? A kind one, I suspected. I knew she’d talk to me about him when she was ready. Given my mother’s ambitions, I had to hope he was a prince, or close enough to one to satisfy Mom.
At first, I kept quiet about my newly discovered talents, but late one night, after a few goblets of wine, she and I ran out of things we were both willing to talk about. So I told her about being a luski. She responded with curiosity, not fear.
I hadn’t considered how my ability to use my voice would pique her musical interest. She knew all about the timbre of various instruments and was fascinated to think there were vocal timbres capable of eliciting a deep subconscious response in the human mind. At her insistence, I tried to demonstrate. Not only was she not afraid, but she wanted me to keep trying to make her do various things. Why would this work but not that? I ended up showing her most of what Ewalina had taught me.
Finally, I had to ask. “Do you think you’re a luski, too?”
“Oh, I know I’m not. My voice is my life. I don’t think singers could be this thing, actually. It wouldn’t be compatible with singing.”
Interesting.
“Why work so hard at this luski thing now, of all times? I mean, shouldn’t you be, you know, thinking about your baby?”
“I am thinking about my baby, Celestine. I’m scared to death about the world this baby is going to be born into, and in my small way I’m trying to help make it safer.”
“With your voice?” Celestine was incredulous. “How? Why?”
I knew Ryalgar wanted to have the conversation with Celestine that she’d had with me, Sulphur, and Olivine, but Celestine had been here now for days and Ryalgar hadn’t gotten around to it. It was time Celestine learned what we were doing.
She rolled her eyes when I mentioned the Mongols, but once I started in about Ryalgar’s research I got her attention. Every one of us girls respected how our oldest dealt with information as if she had my dad’s brains and my mother’s drive. If Ryalgar said it was time to panic, it probably was.
By the time I finished talking, Celestine responded as I expected. As I had.
“What can I do?”
“You need to talk to Ryalgar.” I knew she would.
Days ran together in the forest, with nothing to mark one from another, but the day after my conversation with Celestine, something happened. I got a message sent by way of a Velka who went to a market in Pilk. Davor had picked a name for our son. My baby was to be called Davot, after his father.
This made me angry on so many levels. I could be having a daughter. Was she not worth naming? And, if a boy, I’d be raising him. Shouldn’t I pick a name I liked to say, given I’d be the one saying it day and night? “Eat your porridge, Davot. Put down that stick, Davot. Go to bed, Davot.”
Then I paused. The woman who brought the message had used odd words. She said, “He wants the boy to be named Davot in memory of him.”
In memory of? Was Davor dying? Probably not. More likely, Davor gave serious thought to his odds of surviving a fight with the Mongols and he didn’t like his chances. He was scared. He wanted to leave a bit of himself behind when he died, especially if that death was soon.
I massaged this new understanding into my tight ball of anger and felt my tension relax. Davot wasn’t a bad name, and I could use an affectionate nickname of my choosing.
Votto sounded cute.
I put my hand over my belly. “Votto? If it’s you in there, everything’s going to be okay. Your mama and your dad are both doing their best out here to make it so.”
I think he believed me.
Chapter 9. Sleeping Donkeys
The next day another message came, this one from a Velka who’d gone to a different market in Pilk. She’d spoken with Ewalina, who sent word that she’d enlisted luskies to help us. Several women had hissed at her to go away when approached, but she’d still managed to recruit twenty-three of them scattered around the realm. The women ranged in ages from eighteen to seventy-eight; the lone man was a miner in Tolo. All agreed to come train with us because the Mongols scared them more than frightened and angry neighbors did. What should she tell them? Could we use them?
I needed to send back a reply, and soon.
I got my answer later that day, by accident. I’d been trying all sorts of variations with my voice based on the wild ideas Ewalina and I discussed. I whispered instructions to unsuspecting people who could barely hear me. I shouted to those too far away to hear me well. In both cases, I got nowhere.
We’d speculated about trying to influence something not human, so I’d also given orders to rose bushes and pebbles. I wasn’t surprised when they ignored me, but I kept looking for that advantage no one suspected.
My biggest hope had been to use my talents with animals. That success had obvious benefits given our enemy would ride in on horseback. For whatever reason, though, cats, dogs, donkeys, and squirrels
all ignored me with equal aplomb. My timbre didn’t resonate with them.
After hearing Ewalina’s news, I decided to give it another try. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our small band of luskies could stop the Mongols horses in their tracks?
Little fluffy balls of white clouds speckled an otherwise blue sky on that day and the winter winds blew elsewhere, so I went outside for a bit of air. A tethered donkey stood nearby and he gave me a tired glance.
“Go to sleep, little donkey.” I used my best singsong voice. I’d already discovered how humans tended to obey an order to rest, but this donkey ignored me. As I repeated it, Celestine rode up from the other direction, amused at my efforts.
“Go to sleep, little donkey,” she sang along with me, laughing. The donkey gave her a quizzical look, then laid down in the dirt and closed his eyes. It would have been funny, but then her donkey did the same, stopping in the middle of the path, dropping to the ground, and coming rest on the hem of the lovely blue frock she wore. She gasped in indignation as her animal fell into a deep slumber while laying on her dress.
“You’re a luski for animals!” I declared.
“I can’t be. There wasn’t an animal on our farm that ever did what I said.”
“Did you try singing to them?” I thought singing could be the key.
“I sang to them all the time.”
So much for that theory.
“So what made these two respond to you now?”
She stood up and yanked the edge of her skirt out from under the slumbering animal and studied the damage to her pretty clothes.
“I have no idea,” she said.
“Then we need a lot more donkeys so we can find out.”
It didn’t take long for us to discover animals all ignored me whether I spoke, sang, or played an instrument when I gave my orders. I tried giggling, shrieking, whispering, and whistling for good measure. I couldn’t deliver my message to them and get them to care.
Celestine met with a similar lack of success.
The only time they paid attention was when I used my luski voice, and Celestine sang along with me. It was like one of those clever little boxes you can only open if you hold down two buttons in two places at once.
Even with her and I working together, the animals seemed less inclined to obey than humans.
We began to attract people as we borrowed more donkeys and brought in whatever other pets we could find. Soon word reached Ryalgar. She arrived in our yard out of breath and flushed from running.
“Well done!” She hugged each of us in turn. “Show me.”
We did our best, but by then our cadre of donkeys had gotten tired of being tired and the cats had all wandered off. Only the small dog continued to try to please us, now doing tricks even when we made no noise at all.
“This was all more impressive a while ago,” I told her.
“I believe you. Obviously, we need to know how this works with horses. If we can make them lie down and stay down, then we’ve got the invaders right where we want them. Battle over.”
“I doubt that’s possible,” Celestine said. “Horses are extremely loyal to their humans. It would be one thing to get a tired horse carrying a stranger to lie down, and quite another to get a well-trained horse to defy the wishes of its human partner.”
Good point. I couldn’t imagine Nutmeg falling asleep while she carried me.
Ryalgar agreed. “We have to try this on horses with riders they know. And then, we have to have to try this with bigger groups, with so many hoofs hitting the ground we can barely be heard.”
“We need more luskies, then too,” I said, happy to have my answer for Ewalina.
“And way more singers,” Celestine added. “How many people in the realm sing well? Or does the quality of the singing matter?”
“We need more information about horses. Unless you think we can get hundreds of squirrels to stage an attack for us.” Ryalgar looked at me hopefully and I shook my head. “Okay then, let’s not waste time on other animals. We need to get out of the forest and run tests on the one creature that matters.”
It was a great plan. Ryalgar and Celestine began working on it right away, making arrangements. In their excitement, they forgot one thing.
The day before we planned to meet the group of horsemen at the forest’s edge, I found myself in a puddle of water. The midwives had warned me about this. It meant labor would start.
I started to clean up the mess, hoping a midwife would come by soon. It seemed they were always hovering around these days, but the next footsteps I heard were Celestine’s as she came back from the lodge with food for us.
“Ick. What happened here?”
“You need to get one of the midwives. Quick.”
“No! You can’t have a baby now. You have to wait a few more days.”
“She can’t wait.” Aliz walked behind her, carrying fresh towels and sheets for us. It was the sharpest tone I’d heard my grandmother use to anyone.
“Go get the midwife,” she said to Celestine. “I’ll help Coral get comfortable.”
Before long I had Celestine, Grandma, two midwives, and Ryalgar at my bedside. Once it was apparent nothing important would happen soon, the conversation turned to the arrangements for testing horses.
“We can do this without Coral,” Ryalgar said. “We have other luskies coming; Ewalina has found over twenty who will help and she’s bringing four of them.” She turned to me, almost as an afterthought. “You can have this baby without us, right?”
“She can, but she doesn’t have to.” Grandma was firm. “Reports show all is quiet around Ilari. Yes, I read the Recorders’ notes too. If we go without Coral, we waste the day trying to duplicate what Celestine and Coral did. Perhaps their bond as sisters matters. Or maybe Coral’s specific voice does. Or maybe not but we won’t know. We’re better served to cancel and reconvene it in two anks when Coral and the baby are strong enough to travel. Less time wasted and less frustration on the part of the riders we need to help us.”
I could see the struggle on Ryalgar’s face. Up until now, she’d thought she was in charge, but now she understood she only got to run things when Aliz didn’t disagree with her.
Wisdom won out over her pride.
“Yes, that makes perfect sense, Grandmother,” she said. I, for one, knew how hard it was for my sister to say such a thing.
My labor was long, as most first labors are, but caring relatives and healers anxious to make me comfortable surrounded me. I knew others faced this painful ordeal with far less support. In the last passionate burst of pushing the baby out, I screamed, not a yell of pain but one of triumph. Producing this little human was one of the greatest achievements of my life.
I looked down at the bloody squealing mess in the midwife’s arms and saw … Davor. A tiny Davor, with a burst of the same black hair on his head and most definitely a pizzle between his legs.
I was disappointed for a second, but as his little scrunched face turned towards me, I melted. He was Votto, and he was exactly who he was meant to be.
The midwife laid him on my stomach, nudging him toward my teats to suckle. I’d been told feeding him would help with the afterbirth and would calm him as well. It calmed me. I stroked his shiny hair as he fed, my fingers lingering over the silky touch, and when I looked up half the room had tears in their eyes.
“There is magic in this moment,” Aliz said.
She was right. There was.
Two anks after Votto was born I was ready to ride. A mild winter storm had made its way through Ilari, and the Velka’s weather forecasters determined we now had days of clear skies ahead. The time to experiment with luskies, singers, and horses had arrived.
During his first eighteen days, Votto established himself as a model baby. He fed with gusto, slept soundly, and gave everyone endearing looks with his wide eyes. There wasn’t a woman in the forest who didn’t adore the child. It seemed he’d inherited his father’s ability to charm.
As fo
r me, I didn’t doubt I’d lay my life down for him. So I balked at the idea of taking him with me to the forest’s edge for Ryalgar’s research project. Why put a newborn in such danger?
“We can make a carrier for you,” the women insisted. “He’s too little to be away from you for hours. He’ll be hungry. He can sleep bound close to your body as you ride. Trust us. You’ll both be happier this way.”
The fatigue from round the clock feedings left me little energy to argue with anyone. I may have been a luski, but in those first weeks after Votto was born, I pretty much did what other people told me to do. I was too tired to do anything else.
The contraption did seem to hold him well. He slept as we rode along the Velka’s half-hidden donkey trail to one of the seven entry places into the forest. I’d never been to this one, located on the border with Gruen, midway along the forest’s southern edge. I wondered what waited for us on the other side.
Chapter 10. What a Horse Wants to Do
Chaos took over before we arrived. I dismounted to see women, men, and animals milling about in mistrustful confusion. Five women huddled together, wearing costume-party masks that covered the upper half of their faces. I could pick out Ewalina’s tall slender body among them and recognized her tufts of fluffy greying hair. I reminded myself she was a stranger to me.
My father stood with several of our farmhands and twice as many of our horses. The farmhands kept their distance from the masked women.
Celestine had left the forest the day after Votto’s birth and she waited for us too, with several singers she’d brought so we could try more variations. The singers seemed leery of the masked women, but not as frightened as the farmhands.
I wondered. Should I hide my identity too? Of course I should, although a mask would provide little disguise with my bright red hair and at least half the people here already knowing me. Next time I’d bring one, along with a scarf or hood to cover my hair.