“Are they all black?” Jors wondered.
“You’re thinking it’s wool that won’t take dye much.” Rodney nodded. “True enough, but they throw gray on occasion, and I’ve a mind to breed to white. Still, nothing wrong with black woolens is there, Herald?” He waved a hand at Jors’ Whites, then back at his own dark clothing. “Black’s slimming, they say.”
“Husband! Did you just say Herald Jors looks fat?”
Rodney turned to look up at his wife, opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, although no words came out. Just as Jors was about to protest for him, her lips twitched. Rodney roared with laughter, caught her around the waist, and dragged her down onto his lap, where he kissed her soundly. “I said nothing of the kind, and well you know it,” he declared when they parted long enough for speech. “Now, did you actually have something to say, or are you just interrupting our talk to cause trouble?”
Twitching her tunic back into place as she slid off his lap, she nodded across the great room to where Verain stood talking to a younger version of himself. “Ryan came in to say that ewe you’re so fond of has led another revolt. If you want to keep her out of the stew pot, you’d best get over there and mount a spirited defense.” When Rodney–who’d surged up onto his feet at the news–glanced down at Jors, she tugged him back to her lips by his beard and murmured, “Go. I’ll entertain the Herald.”
For a big man, Rodney could move quickly when he had too. He was almost across the room, already gesturing at his father and brother, by the time his wife dropped into his chair. She shook her head at the crusts left behind by his empty bowl, then turned to Jors and said, “Elane. I imagine you were introduced to a dozen people all at once, shoved into a chair, and told to eat up, so I don’t expect you to remember.”
He didn’t actually. “Your husband is the younger son?”
“Middle. Ryan is older and Ricard . . .” Elane pointed to where a young man walked up and down by the windows, a squalling infant on one shoulder. “. . .Ricard is two years younger. The family runs to boys, but I’ve five sisters so I’m hoping . . .” Her hand dropped to her belly. “. . . to even the odds.”
There was only one thing that could mean. “Congratulations.”
“What?” Her gaze dropped to her hand. “Oh. Thank you. I haven’t known long; it’s still so new. We haven’t been married a year yet.” She half-turned in the chair to smile at her husband, and when she turned back, she frowned. “Are you all right, Herald Jors?”
He schooled his expression before she could define it, hurriedly raising his mug. No one would ever smile across a room that way at him.
:My lips do not move in such a way, Heartbrother.:
A moment later, ignoring the smug, self-satisfied reaction from his Companion, Jors accepted the cloth Elane offered and coughed out an apology.
She waved it off. “Please, you got very little on me. And besides, we were almost relatives, you and I. My father is Dominic Heerin . . .”
Jors nodded in the pause. Heerin owned the mill his uncle brought their logs to.
“. . . and your cousin Hamin was courting my sister Tara. Came to nothing, though. I remember when we heard you’d been Chosen. It was all anyone could talk about. I’d just turned twelve, and I spent all that summer out by the track with flowers braided into my hair hoping another Companion would come by and Choose me. Eventually, my eldest sister dragged me home by the ear and told me Companions preferred useful people over those who shirked their chores.”
Elane shared her husband’s fondness for monolog-ing, Jors noted, and he wondered what their conversations with each other must be like. “This must have been different for you,” he said. “From a house full of sisters and lumber to so many men and sheep.”
“A little different, yes. But not so hard to get used to. Rodney loves this land, for all its rock and hills and the dangers of the forest so close. At first I loved it for his sake, but I’m growing to love it for its own. And the sheep, well, you’ve already noticed their main failing, but he’s determined to breed to white–that ewe he’s defending threw gray twins this season–and he admires them for their toughness as much as the fine wool of their fleece. My sisters say when they see me now, I’ve nothing to talk of but sheep and Rodney. Well, Rodney and sheep.” Her laugh drew her husband’s head around, and he paused in his argument long enough to toss a smile in her direction. “It’s always the way, though, isn’t it, as you move between birth family and found family. This is what made me . . .” She held out one hand palm up and then the other. “. . . and this is what I am. And I’ll tell you this much, Herald Jors . . .” She winked and stood as her father-in-law approached. “. . . shepherds have much softer hands than men who toss lumber about all day.”
The waystation was empty and quiet–although Jors supposed that, given the former, the later went without saying. Hands cupped around a mug, he sat in the doorway and watched Gervais grazing, his coat gleaming silver in the twilight.
Beyond the Companion, in under the trees, it was already night. At the settlement, the gates would be closed, animals and people penned in safely; the youngest and the eldest would be preparing for bed, and everyone else would soon follow. Lamplight might extend the day in Haven, but out here sunrise and sunset still defined people’s lives.
Not so different from where he’d just come. Barring the differences between trees and sheep. And the difference between Herald Jors and Jors with a Companion.
:There is no difference between Herald Jors and Jors with a Companion. They are both you.:
“My grandmother would agree. Although she’d think they both mean Jors with a Companion.”
Gervais lifted his head and turned to stare. Jors wished, not for the first time, he could pick up his Companion’s thoughts as easily as Gervais picked up his. Finally, the young stallion snorted and bent back to the grass. :If you are still annoyed with her about the letter, tomorrow you many tell her it was inappropriate.:
“Yeah.” Jors drained the mug and set it to one side. “Like that’ll happen.”
He didn’t recognize the girl running down the track toward him until she skidded to a stop, bowed elaborately–one plait surrendering, spilling her dark blonde hair down over her face–looked up, and grinned. “Herald Jors. Wonderous One.”
:I like her.:
Jors returned the grin and swung out of the saddle. “Annamarin.”
In the time he’d been gone, she’d crossed from child to girl. She’d be eleven now, almost twelve, the same age Elane had been when she’d spent the summer with flowers in her hair waiting for a Companion. Instead of flowers, Annamarin’s hair held a trio of feathers stuffed into the top of the remaining braid.
“You weren’t waiting out here hoping to be Chosen, were you?” Grandmother’s letter had said Annamarin could benefit from his experience.
“No! No offense,” she added quickly to Gervais, dipping into another elaborate bow. “Companions Choose as Companions will, and Companions will as Companions please.”
:I really like her.: Gervais said as Jors worked that through.
“May I give you greetings, cousin?”
“May you what?”
She sighed, a simple exhalation defining her as the most put-upon creature in these woods. “Can I hug you?”
“Why couldn’t you?”
“You’re a Herald! In Whites! And I’m tragically soiled, though tis naught but good clean dirt.”
“Tis naught?”
Annamarin rolled her eyes. “It means it isn’t. Sort of. Wait . . . my pipes!” She pulled a set of reed pipes out from behind her waistband. “I don’t want them to be tragically crushed! I made them myself,” she continued after an emphatic hug that rocked Jors back onto his heels. “Well, Lyral–she got stuck here for almost a week during fall storms, when the mud was up over her boots–she showed me how. But I made them. Mostly.”
“Lyral?” As they walked toward the settlement, Jors ran through the names of the
Bards he knew and came up short.
“She’s a minstrel. She travels. She sings. She’s the best. I wanted to go with her when she left, but Mama said no. Papa said good riddance.” Annamarin blew across the top of the pipes and back. The rise and fall of the twelve notes sounded like a giggle. “He was kidding.”
“What did Lyral say when you said you wanted to go with her?” It wouldn’t be the first time a “minstrel” had discovered a talent in a child and made promises in order to lure that child away. If Lyral was one of those predators–however unsuccessful this time—Jors needed to find her. He’d be in and out of the settlement so quickly his grandmother would no doubt feel herself justified writing another letter to the Dean. Beside him, Gervais had both ears flicked forward.
“Oh, then.” This time, the twelve notes sounded resigned. And a bit annoyed. “She said she didn’t travel with children, but she’d be back this way in a year or two, and if I still wanted to go, we’d talk.”
“About what?”
“About me going with her, I guess. I dunno.” She shrugged a skinny shoulder, then bent back to the pipes and blew out a string of birdsong that drew answers from the surrounding trees.
“Did Lyra teach you to do that?”
The look Annamarin shot him reminded him chillingly of their grandmother. “It’s a calling bird song, Jors. You spend way too much time in the city. It’s tragic.”
“Can’t argue with that.” So, since she couldn’t have known they’d be arriving today . . . “Shirking chores?”
“No.” When he glanced down at her, she grinned. “Maybe a little. Sometimes . . .” She turned in place and walked backward, staring down the track. “I just want to know what’s out there. You know what I mean?”
He’d never given the world beyond the forest and the settlement any thought before he’d been Chosen. On his first trip to Greenhaven and the mill, he’d found himself falling into sapphire eyes and hearing an emphatic :Finally: in his head. Now he thought about it, Gervais had sounded a lot like Annamarin.
:I was tired of waiting for you. Most of those who are to be Chosen find their way to Haven.:
:If I’d known you were out there, I’d have met you halfway.:
“Jors?”
He smiled down at her. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
As they came out of the trees and into the clearing in front of the palisade, Jors found himself studying the area with a professional eye. The settlement’s grant allowed a certain area cleared for living space, and it looked as though his uncle had recently expanded out as far as he was legally allowed. The edges still looked rough and there were two new buildings inside the palisade.
His mother’s geese saw them first. Heads low, necks extended, the current flock charged out through the open gate, hissing, wings beating at the air. When Gervais lowered his own head and struck the ground with his right hoof, they wheeled neatly to the left, circling the willow fencing around the vegetable garden as though that had been their destination all along. A familiar voice shouted from the garden. As Jors and Annamarin drew even with the opening, their grandmother emerged, threw her cane at the geese, spotted Gervais, and rocked to a stop.
“As I live and breathe! The boy is back!” Less considerate of his Whites than Annamarin, she stumped forward and dragged him up against her generous bosom, leaving a smear of rich black earth across his tunic and down one leg. Given the amount of dirt on her hands, he didn’t want think about the places she’d gripped him.
It was the same possessively affectionate hug he’d always had from her, and it made him feel seven, ten, fourteen . . .
“You’ve filled out,” she clucked as she pushed him back out to arm’s length and looked him up and down. “Well, you couldn’t have stayed all arms and legs forever, I suppose, could you? Never mind,” she cut him off as he opened his mouth. “How long can you stay?”
“Seven days, unless I’m needed.”
“Needed.” Gran rolled her eyes. “I think they can manage without out you for so short a time. Annamarin, get my cane would you, sweetheart. Had her head turned by a minstrel,” she added as the girl cautiously approached the geese. Either his grandmother had gotten a little deaf or she didn’t care if she was overheard. Jors leaned toward the later. “Fool woman put foolish ideas into the girl’s head. I want you to tell her that it’s one thing to have a Companion suddenly appear and declare you special . . .” She nodded to Gervais, who nodded back. “. . . and another thing entirely to declare it yourself. Now, come on.” Hand tucked in the crook of his elbow, she tugged him toward the gate. “It’s bread day. Your mother can’t leave the kneading.”
His mother dusted him with flour and clucked at the length of his hair, then spun him around in time to have his brother’s wife, Tora, catch him up in a hug redolent with the scent of the first wild strawberries.
“Oh, stop making such a fuss over him,” Gran snorted. “He’s just come home; he hasn’t saved the country single-handed.”
Seven, ten, fourteen . . .
When he tried to step away, he discovered he had a toddler wrapped around each leg. They held him in place long enough for Annamarin’s mother to appear, and while she was exclaiming over his appearance, Jor’s cousin Tomlin, Uncle Trey’s youngest . . .
“Took an ax to the thigh last fall, poor thing.”
. . . limped into the summer kitchen followed by the rest of the settlement’s children, four dogs, and a goat.
He only managed to free himself from their welcome by reminding them he had a Companion to tend to.
Jors set the saddle aside and let his forehead fall to thump against Gervais’ withers.
:They’re glad to see you.:
:I know. And I’m glad to see them.:
:But?:
:But I’m Jors with a Companion.:
:You are my Chosen.: Gervais’ mental voice was matter-of-fact. :Why do you need to be anyone else?:
:I don’t . . . That isn’t . . .: He turned to rest his cheek against the warmth and ran a hand up under Gervais’ mane. :Am I a terrible person?:
:No. You are a Herald. You cannot be a Herald and a terrible person. Therefore you are not a terrible person.: Responding to a nonverbal prompt, Jors scratched along the arc of his neck. :It is not terrible for you to want your family to see you as you are, not as you were.:
“See lo, where yonder Herald stands!”
Jors turned to see Ammamarin just inside the lean-to, barely visible over an armload of hay.
“I know it’s tragic,” she said, “but this is the best of what’s left. There’s not a lot of grazing yet, but Mika’s been taking the goats to the south clearing if the Wonderous One doesn’t mind sharing.”
“His name is Gervais. Have you forgotten?”
“He’s too beautiful for a name.” She spread her arms, the hay dropping into the manger. “He is a song walking above the mud we less lovely creatures tread upon.”
:Have I mentioned that I like her?:
:You have.: Jors pulled his brushes from the saddlebag. “Trust me, he walks in plenty of mud.”
“Can I help?
“You could play something for me.”
“I only know three real songs.” But she perched on the edge of the manger and pulled out her pipes. “Mostly, I just twiddle, you know, make stuff up.”
Jors draped his jacket beside her, then bent to brush the dirt from Gervais rear leg. “So make stuff up.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected, but her twiddles were just that; random notes strung together. Not unpleasant but not exactly music either.
:You know what you expected.: One hoof up on Jors’ knee, Gervais rested his weight against Jors’ shoulder. Jors grunted and pushed back.
“Annamarin!”
The twiddling stopped. Jors dropped the hoof and straightened. Their grandmother looked between the two of them and snorted. “That woodbox won’t fill itself, child. And no one will be pleased if the bread is baked only half throug
h. Don’t look to him!”
“He’s a Herald!” Annamarin declared as she jumped down.
“Am I blind now? Woodbox!”
“If this labor ruins my hands and I can tragically no longer play, you’ll weep with sorrow at the loss!”
“If that woodbox doesn’t get filled, you’ll be sorrier. And you,” Gran added as Annamarin ran off. “Did you think I wanted you to encourage such nonsense? I will smack that minstrel if she returns. Filling the child’s head with clouds. You need to tell her what comes of running off, away from one’s family in search of adventure.”
“Gran, I . . .”
“You didn’t run off, did you? You rode. It’d be different for that one, wouldn’t it? There’d be no pretty white clothes and a sense of self-importance for her. She needs to know what’s out there, doesn’t she? And she needs to know what’s here. Safety, security, no one goes to bed hungry–your grandfather and I created this from nothing, I’ll thank you to remember. You missed a spot, there on the left leg above the hock.” Shaking her head, she met Gervais’ eyes. “I’m sure he does his best. He never was much for chores either, always off in the woods with a bow. Still, I’m pleased to see you don’t look like he’s been neglecting you. He missed another spot there . . .”
His Uncle Trey, his father, and his older cousins came home at twilight. They’d spent the day marking trees to be cut when the ground dried, those that had been winter-killed and those topped off in spring storms. Jors was astounded to see that Uncle Trey, a mountain of a man with more energy than any other three combined, was now almost entirely gray and his broad shoulders had begun to stoop.
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