by E. E. Knight
Vorl brought his horse around, pointed it straight at Mod Feeney. His heels went out, and his spurs turned inward.
Wistala nerved herself to jump from the wagon. If Vorl rode through the line of people, she’d turn him into a pyre of burning cloak and horsehair. Nothing would reach the wagon but the stench of charred flesh—
The man who at last spoke the truth to Vorl’s company rode up and seized his horse by the throat latch. “Enough, Vorl. Remember the battles of our boyhood. Thanedom against thanedom at Ciril and Starkhollow. Would you see that repeated? Hammar has the friendship of barbarians and more besides, and he’s rich enough to hire mercenaries. Let us put away sword, bury Vog, and take counsel.”
“Elvish bewitchment, taking the heart out of you!” Vorl shouted, turning his horse south. “You’re all under it! I’ll call none of you my friends again.”
The others gave short head-bows to Mod Feeney and turned for the south end of the bridge.
The man who had grabbed Vorl’s horse looked at the linked-arm assembly and smiled. “My compliments on your battlements, Mod,” he said. He rode off.
Mod Feeney sank to her knees. “I should have turned to candle-selling and book-copying long ago,” she sighed.
“I’ll see her a high priestess if it’s my last act,” Rainfall said, falling back into his feedsack chair. A long brown leaf dropped from his hair. “Jessup,” he called. “Take me to Mossbell, that I might die clean in my bed.”
Chapter 16
Rainfall did not die.
As he recovered from the blood loss, it became clear to all that he would never walk again, barring some kind of miraculous healing. At first Wistala wondered if it was best that he had lived beyond his wounding (though she later looked back on that sentiment with shame). He could not walk, and he made a rather pitiable sight being hauled around like an arrowed deer over the shoulders of Forstrel, Jessup’s nephew.
The only time he moved as she remembered him was upon Stog, for he rode the mule about Mossbell’s lands, offering advice—that’s how it sounded to Wistala. He was far too polite to issue anything that sounded like an order to the new tenants. And at table, he presided from his chair with his former charm.
To help him in the house and on the grounds, the Widow Lessup and her whole family moved into Mossbell. With Rainfall unable to so much as work the handle of his well-pump, he needed a good deal of assistance.
Wistala helped him up and down stairs. She regularly wore her game harness, and Rainfall sat atop her back gripping it as she negotiated the tight, winding stairs of Mossbell.
“I should flood the place and pole about, as they do in Wetside,” Rainfall said. She’d heard stories of its famous water gardens before.
Mossbell’s old ferry-call rang thrice for dinner, forestalling another tale of spiced shrimp and tuna. The Jessup and Lessup clans trooped in from the fields in answer.
Yari-Tab had her litter of kittens in an old laundry basket upstairs, and Jalu-Coke followed with a fresh litter of her own in the barn. Thanks to Mossbell’s odd hole-and-corner architecture and rich gardens, the kittens had no end of places to explore, and the older cats feasted upon the mouse and rat population. The inside cats took to following the Widow Lessup about, for she was constantly moving the remaining pieces of furniture and ordering her daughters and sons to clean, polish, and organize, and the curious kittens had learned that explosions of startled insects or mice could result every time a wardrobe was pulled out.
“A hundred years of dust in this house, if it’s a day,” the widow said. “Len-boy, fetch fresh rags from the washroom and tell your sister she’s falling behind on the laundry again!”
Rainfall could only spread his hands and apologize when the widow found a pile of ancient crockery under a chair in the morning-room, or spider-sacs thick as peas in a pod under his bed, until Wistala wondered who was truly the master of Mossbell now.
“Carpentry and cooking are the only indoor work I’ve ever been able to manage,” he said, after another astonished outburst when she awoke a family of raccoons napping out the day in the upstairs linen armoire.
Wistala had become something of a public figure on the estate. The Lessup boys brought their friends, and they’d watch her napping in the sun, not knowing that dragons often cracked an eye as they slept, nerving themselves for an approach. Eventually they’d come up to her in tight little groups of two or three, and one would reach out his grubby hand and run a fingernail across her scales. She’d lift her fringe and drop her griff and bring round her head with a piping dragon cry, and they’d run away shrieking as though expecting to be roasted.
Little girls clapped their hands over their eyes when they first saw her, but once they got over their initial shyness stepped across the line into overfamiliarity, even outrage, for they liked nothing better than to set wildflowers in her scales and fringe until she looked as though she was sprouting like a young elf.
“That’s women for you,” Rainfall said, plucking a red blossom from the fold in her skin where she tucked up her griff. “Always improving on nature.”
And then it was time for Rainfall’s granddaughter to return.
Because of the elf’s wounds, the high judge attended Rainfall personally. He came with a dozen attendants and counted out the coin Rainfall owed in back taxes, then sealed Rainfall’s petition to have his granddaughter restored to him with a great deal of melted wax and ribbon. Wistala thought the high judge an odd-looking fellow made mostly of wrinkles and sags, with a dismal attire all of black deep as cave-dark, though it made the polished gold star on his collar flap and the golden tips of his boots look all the brighter.
The judge and his men ate vast meals before they left, leaving the Widow Lessup clucking that the whole household would be eating roots and apples for the next week.
The next day music woke her.
She stretched and followed the lilting tune until she found Rainfall in the music room playing his bell-pipe. This time she couldn’t dance with him, but she could chase her tail and caper until Widow Lessup stormed in with shrieks about what Wistala’s claws were doing to the polished floors.
“I admire your good humor,” Wistala said as she left. “You look fully recovered.”
“Fully?”
“Your eyes sparkle, and your hair is thickly leaved. Such colors!” The willow-leaf locks in his hair had gone red and gold and orange.
“I am happy. I’ve had a letter. Lada comes home today.”
“Do you mind if I ask a question?”
Rainfall’s eyes sparkled. “You’ve chosen a good day to crave a handful of silver to eat. I’m in no mood to deny anything.”
“I should like that. But those tablets with the engraved writing. You held them close all the way back to Mossbell. I’m curious, did you find an old family relic in the ruins?”
Rainfall sat straight upright. “Our legends say dragons sniff out a weak spot the way dogs find bones. There must be some truth in it.”
“If it’s painful to you—”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. Closer to shame, perhaps. I think I told you that Hesstur was one of Eight Sister Cities who founded Hypatia, yes?”
“Yes,” Wistala said.
“Let me sit on you, and you can take us into my library.”
Rainfall put away his bell-pipe and got on Wistala. When he patted her side, she stalked off toward the library, and they soon arrived. The lectern that had once stood under the window was gone, probably sold, but a pair of old chairs filled its place with a velvet-covered object like a small tabletop upon one.
Rainfall seated himself beside it. “Such humble accommodations for history so important.
“When it became evident that the city would fall to the barbarians, those inside did their best to hide their valuables. I’m sure some priest had charge of these tablets and sealed them in one of the lower crypts before all entrances were sealed. She—I say she, for the clues were voiced in the feminine—made some signs in the old law-ton
gue, the father of the Hypatian high-tongue and the grandfather of Parl, though only judges and librarians read it much now. If the fires and collapses left the chamber intact, earthquake or grave-robbers later opened it again, though I expect the only ones to benefit were the rats.”
“This doesn’t tell me what the object is.”
“An idea, more than anything,” Rainfall said, removing the velvet. “When the eight sisters joined, they formed the King’s Council. The tyrant Masmodon did away with the King’s Council when he broke the Imperial Staves, but after the Reformation, the Directory modeled itself—”
You could never get a simple answer out of Rainfall when he fell into history. “What does that have to do with the tablets?”
“These tablets are laws that applied to the Kings on the original Council. It was quite a remarkable idea, kings subject to law. Each of the sister cities were afraid of bad rule, or the assumption of a tyrant like Masmodon, so as a condition of their confederation—”
Wistala wasn’t sure what that last word was but dreaded interrupting now that he was getting to the point.
“—made eight laws, one for each city, that the Kings on the Council would have to obey. The idea that laws applied to kings was the work of the dwarf-philosopher Doomzeg, though some say he was inspired by the practice of Royal Responsibilities in the ancient Blighter Uldam Empire. It doesn’t do to mention those sorts of theories, especially around the priesthood.”
“Naturally,” Wistala said, lost again.
“Not that Blighter Civilization is established. It’s still much debated in the—” Rainfall cocked his head, and his hair-leaves rustled. “You jest with me. But let me illustrate from the tablets: ‘No ruler shall kill, maim, imprison, or exile without trial by judge.’ That’s an important one. ‘No ruler shall make law that applies but to all.’ Oh, I fear I’ve translated that badly, but in essence it prevents a king from issuing an edict preventing, say, one shipmaster from transporting wine if other shipmasters are allowed to. Specific laws were the ruination of many in the days of the despots. ‘No ruler shall accept or give divination’—another old practice that might be used to get around the other laws, declaring yourself or a family member a god so that one’s word becomes religion rather than law. ‘No ruler shall confiscate—’ ”
Wistala stopped him before he could read through all eight and closely examined the tablets. “Why does the ownership distress you, then?”
“When I found them, I swore to myself that I would make the journey to the Imperial Library at Thallia. Oh, I could lose myself there like a drunkard in a brewery! But I find I can’t bear to part with them, even if I had the use of my legs. I’ve spent much time cleaning the inlay. Now they shine like a mariner’s guiding star in these dark times. Is it wrong for me to keep them here?”
“Why in the Two Worlds would you ask me?”
“While your judgment is not yet developed, your heart is usually in the right place.”
Wistala didn’t correct him that a dragon had several hearts. He continued: “You tell me you are not yet two years of age, yet your mind is so far developed.”
“We learn from our parents while still in the egg.”
“Fascinating. But what surprises me—”
The tolling of Mossbell’s signal interrupted his thought. “It must be Lada,” he said. “I asked Forstrel to ring as soon as any riders appeared. Wistala, bear me to the front gallery window!”
The front stairwell had a landing with an arched window in it looking out on the balcony between the two trees, made of glass so fine, there were hardly any distortions when peering through. He worked the latches and forced open the frame.
“Odd that she does not ride,” Rainfall said. “She used to love ponies. Yet—it was cool this morning, good of the thane to provide her with more comfortable transport.”
A two-wheeled cart—very like but a little more elaborate than that of the wandering dwarf with the ponies Wistala had met on the road—moved up the lane with a rider behind.
“Perhaps you should remain inside, Wistala.” Forstrel, all hair and limbs, was still ringing the bell as though the barn was going up in flames.
“Young Lessup!” Rainfall called. “Yes, Forstrel, up here, please. I should like to meet my granddaughter on my steps.”
One of the Widow Lessup’s daughters had the sense to put out a chair for Rainfall, and Wistala saw that he was installed before the rig had even turned around in front of the house.
The escort, only a little mud-splattered in the blue livery of Thane Hammar, didn’t descend from his horse. Wistala could tell from Rainfall’s stiff manner that he didn’t care for this discourtesy.
“Here’s your spawn back, and more besides!” the escort said as the rig-driver stepped down and lowered a support for the cart. When that was locked in place, he opened the doors at the back of the cart, and Lada stepped down.
“Phew, she’s tossed all over the inside,” the driver said.
Lada, a little stained about the neck, was helped out of the cart. Her eyes were wide and wet, and she shot an accusing look at Rainfall.
“Rah-ya, Lada, my moppet,” he said, extending his hands. Wistala saw a little skirt behind and decided that some of the Lessup household were standing behind their master. “I’m sorry for the rough journey.”
“Monster! Demon! You’ve ruined everything! Everything!” she said in so loud a voice, her words cracked. She fled into the house, dodging around Rainfall as he reached for her.
“And you’re welcome to her,” the thane’s liveryman laughed. He reached into a bag on his saddle and drew out the doll Wistala had brought. “Here’s her mystery doll, Rainfall. You should be more careful in your plotting than to leave such tokens lying about.”
Rainfall put his arm about Forstrel’s shoulders, and the youth took him inside as the house went into uproar. She heard doors closed, shouting, crying, and quick steps as the Lessup clan gathered to discuss events.
Wistala could do nothing. She watched the rider and rig disappear, then went to Rainfall’s library. If he were greatly troubled, he’d probably go there. She curled up about his tablets and waited, unable to simply fall asleep.
He appeared as the juicy smells of dinner being cooked began to fill the house, brought in by Forstrel in a wheeled basket used for gathering fruit.
“I really must have one of those sick-benches built,” he said as he settled into his reading chair. “Thank you, Young Lessup. Ah, Tala, you appear again when you’re most needed. You can see about getting some dinner, Lessup. I won’t eat tonight.”
The boy placed a blanket over Rainfall’s legs and left, shutting the door behind.
“So much for homecoming joy. But she’s beautiful, do you not agree?”
“I’m just getting so I can tell hominids apart,” Wistala said.
“Perhaps not in a way that can be captured by portraits or sculpture, you have to look into her living eyes to appreciate her. Wild and open, like my son’s. I wonder what her mother was like.”
“Why was she angry to you?”
“I need a glass of wine,” Rainfall said. He moved for his bell—
“I’ll bring it,” Wistala said, glad of an excuse to make the trip to the cellar and back. “Which kind?”
“The blueberry, I think. Something sweet to wash the bitter words from my mouth.”
Wistala crept past the room that had been prepared for Lada and heard sobbing from the crack beneath. Her griff extended a little, and she descended to the wine cellar and searched the tags on the month’s table wine for the blueberry picture.
She carried it back up in her mouth, startling one of the younger Lessup girls as she emerged from the cellar. The child let out a squeak and ran off toward the kitchen. It was the one who liked to tie her hair up in ribbons, Wistala noted absently; all the others in the family simply watched her as she went about Mossbell.
Rainfall opened the cork-and-wax top and poured himself a generous
glass. “Once I had thirty of these,” he mused as he rolled around the purple liquid. “And I didn’t have to make my own wines. Though if the estate prospers now, I’ll continue the practice. There’s a satisfaction in enjoying the fruits of one’s own labors. That’s the one thing I’ve learned all these wretched years since the troll came. Oh, and about dragons. Forgive me, Tala.”
“You ask my forgiveness? Since you saved me from the river, you’ve lost the use of your legs and your granddaughter’s love.”
“If you’ll indulge me in applying a correction: Don’t be so quick to mark fate and toss it into baskets marked ‘fortune’ and ‘misfortune’ as though you’re sorting apples. It was an illness that forced me to cease traveling as a judge—a heavy misfortune—yet that same illness kept me in Tysander, where I diverted myself at the circus and lost my heart to the most skilled rider that ever sat atop a horse. My wife could stand on a horse’s bare back with reins tied to her hair all day and still beat me with her strategy at Advantages when we played at night. I imagine if her father or grandfather had spoke against me, she would have cried out, too. I should never have shouted at her. Unforgivable.”
“What is the quarrel?” Wistala asked.
Rainfall looked out the library skylight—still cobwebbed and dusty, the Widow Lessup hadn’t climbed a ladder in the library yet—and blinked.
“She’s convinced herself she loves Hammar.”
“A man who stuck her in a cold attic?”
“Apparently she blossomed up there like a solstice succulent shut in the Yule dark. Hammar is young and wild. Nature and instinct took its course.”
“So they are mat—married?” Wistala asked.
“They can’t be, not under Hypatian law, because of her age. But sadly, she’s not too young to bear his child.” Rainfall’s fingers tightened on the glass stem, and it broke.
Her host blotted up the wine and his own blood with blotting paper. “And the last of the thirty are gone. Oh, what shall I do, Tala? I’ve suspected he wanted to add Mossbell to his lands, but to resort to this?”