by Gayle Greeno
“Visual pun. Can you guess it?” He leaned on one elbow, mouth serious, but gentian blue eyes sparkling with some secret humor. His one recalcitrant curl had sprung over his forehead and he tugged at it, trying to hide a quickening grin.
Mustering her patience she examined the scattered pieces of paper around her belly button, finally flicked one with her finger. He drew back in mock dismay. “Oh, direct hit! Now the forces are uneven!”
“Jenret, what are you talking about? What visual pun? Or I’m going to punt you out of bed.” She scowled, torn between indignation and the potential of shared laughter. Oh, to truly share something, even laughter.
“Navel engagement!” he crowed. “Naval engagement, don’t you see it? All my little ships having a ‘navel’ engagement!” He blew them aside, kissed her swollen stomach as she cuffed his ear. “Ooww! Beat the father of your child, would you?”
Her tears fell in earnest, as she clutched his head tight against her stomach, the child within her kicking and stirring, and she hoped he could feel it as well. “Jenret, Jenner, love. Please, please don’t leave me! I’m afraid, afraid of this new world changing around us. I’m even afraid of the child I carry because I don’t know what he or she will be, what place the baby will have in this world, what its heritage will be!”
“Our child will have the place we create for it, Doyce, with our labor and love. I promise you that!” Fiercely, he held her, shifted up until she was in his arms. “That’s why I have to go, do what I can do, the best I can do.”
“And I’m supposed to stay at home, tending the fire, knitting, waiting? I thought this was to be a partnership of equals, sharing everything! How can I share when you make decisions without me, leave me here to worry if you’re all right?”
“Doyce, Doyce,” he patted at her back, awkward, ineffectual, wondering why it didn’t soothe. “I’ve talked with everyone I could, including Swan, the Monitor, the Major General and his Guardians. I even had Rawn contact Saam and Mahafny. I wanted her word that you were fine, not likely to deliver early, and she assured me you were as strong as a horse,” He beamed. “I’ve been patient, thought everything through, I promise you. I’m too old, too mature for rash, impetuous decisions now that I have you and our baby to consider.”
“You thought it through, you consulted, you decided! Well, you’re not alone anymore, Jenret, the only one with the right to make decisions!” She pushed herself off his chest, her fists a barrier between them. “You consulted with everyone except me! Damn you, Jenret, how could you be so insensitive ?”
“I didn’t want to worry you until I had to. Mahafny did say you were a bit broody lately, but that it was only to be expected.”
“And if you go—or rather, I should say—when you go, how am I supposed to get word to you if anything goes wrong? How am I supposed to know if you’re safe, well?” Hazel eyes had turned a dangerous bluish-green. “You wouldn’t want me to get any more broody, would you, now?”
“Then let me share my thoughts with you. No matter how far away I am, I promise each night, we’ll pick a time right now, and I’ll do my best to send back to you.” A reasonable solution, clearly, but with a shock he realized she was shoving him out of bed, fists and feet pummeling him relentlessly.
“And what makes you think I’ll be waiting patiently, ready to listen? Why should I commit myself to that when you won’t commit yourself to me?” She gasped, fists and feet still working at him. His bottom hung over the edge of the bed and with an unexpected suddenness and finality gravity took over.
The thud above their heads made the ghatti in the kitchen look upward. Rawn paused, paw hovering over the crock of nutter-butter, and winced at a crash and scrambling sounds denoting thrown objects and a hasty exit from the bedroom. “Jenret’s right. If she’d only speak mind-to-mind with him as we do, everything would be much simpler. Less room for misunderstandings.”
The paw swipe came so fast he had no time to duck. He sneezed nutter-butter out of a nostril, wiped at sticky whiskers plastered against his face. “What,” he projected injured dignity, “did I do?”
“You can both sleep downstairs tonight, and I hope your superiority keeps you warm!”
PART TWO
Without shifting his gaze from the window Arras Muscadeine reached blindly for Mahafny Annendahl’s shoulder, aware he dared greatly in touching the eumedico, striving to comfort. Despite her advanced years, she was still an elegant woman, and Muscadeine suspected she’d been striking in her youth, though no less daunting then than now. Truth be known, he wouldn’t have minded some consolation himself, but few attempted such familiarity with a leader and lord, just as few dared it with the eumedico. Well, so far his hand was still attached to his wrist. They both continued their vigil as the wheaten-robed figure grew smaller in the distance, a crazy-quilt marked ghatt capering at his side. A flash of black and orange and white caught the sunlight as the ghatt leaped, tagged the carved knob on the figure’s sturdy walking stick.
“His heart is greater than his girth,” Arras whispered. Now his hand was shrugged from her shoulder, as if she’d just registered his intimacy. He waved a final farewell, though he doubted Harrap could see them framed in one of the top windows of the Research Hospice.
Turning her back to the window, Mahafny shoved hands up her sleeves to hide the palsy. A flow of blue-gray steel melted off the adjacent window ledge and Saam padded beside her, yellow eyes searching her heart ... and her mind. She still wasn’t easy with it, wasn’t sure if she’d ever be, but she was learning. The ghatt had lost as much or more than she through time—his Seeker Bondmate Oriel Faltran, once Doyce’s lover, brutally murdered; his desertion by the Erakwan lad Nakum, now ensconced high in the Marchmontian mountains with his great-great-grandmother Callis, devising ways to save the sacred arborfer trees. And what had Saam gained in recompense for those losses—her? Hardly a fair trade to her analytical turn of mind.
“But not diminished returns, you know.” A sneeze of amusement as she jerked to attention at his mindvoice. “I always choose well, even if not with the longevity I might wish.”
“Have you set your sights on someone after I’m gone?” His answer mattered more than she cared to admit; so few in her life she loved now, or even risked caring about. A wasteful, weakening thing, love. And now two of her weaknesses, Harrap and Parm, had gallantly marched off on an uncharted journey. Oh, the road might be clear, but not the travails they might face. “I don’t want you having false illusions—I certainly don’t. ”
He rubbed her knee, cajoling her to remove a traitorous hand from her sleeve and reach gnarled fingers to stroke his head. “You’re lying to yourself again. You know what you have isn’t fatal, but you wish it were. You just can’t abide being useless. Your usefulness lies in your mind, not in your hands. I think you’d better reconcile yourself to having me around for a long, long time.”
“A poor bargain on your part, then, though I take comfort in it. ” Straightening, she saw that Muscadeine had sat down beside her desk, his mustache twitching. As a Resonant he was familiar with strange gaps or changes in the conversational flow, the internal dialogue of his own kind, or Seekers mindspeaking their ghatti. Only a eumedico, not a Seeker, but still she’d been chosen as Saam’s companion, a gift beyond price.
“You’re absolutely sure this is necessary?” she spoke aloud now. “And that Harrap and Parm are the ones for the job?”
He steepled his hands in front of his lips, schooled himself to restraint. Oh, he had doubts as well, but if you let doubts paralyze you, nothing could be accomplished. “You know we’ve had Hylan Crailford watched for the last two octs, ever since Jenret and Faertom and I sought her out. The Monitor’s people have kept her under surveillance as well, though not as closely as I might wish. My reports say she’s readying herself for a journey, where, we don’t know. She’s left her chickens and spoilable goods with a neighbor, shuttered her house, and started packing a cart.” He swung round, dark eyes challen
ging. “Would you let her wander without supervision? A mind like hers endangers her as well as others.”
“But Harrap and Parm? A man who’s still unsure if his stronger allegiance is to the Shepherds and his Blessed Lady or to the Seekers? And a ghatt with the personality of a court jester?” Even love couldn’t blind her to Harrap’s and Parm’s flaws; after all, they knew hers just as clearly.
“And when you journeyed to Gaernett last oct to visit Swan, she gave you permission to command Harrap and Parm as you saw fit, have them take on this task if it proved necessary, didn’t she?”
A blandly polite expression masking her face, she shook her head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing but rather as if waging internal war with herself and her thoughts. She stopped, suddenly self-conscious at his look. Damn, was the palsy betraying her here as well? She forced herself back to the conversation. “But Harrap and Parm are so innocent!” And hated herself for sending them on such a lonely, precarious mission, nothing and no one to counterweight their innocence. Why not herself, irascible, skeptical, ever on guard? Or Muscadeine, strong, assured, wise in the ways of intrigue and war?
“And in that innocence there’s wisdom, compassion, and wit. Things too many of us sorely lack.” Had he been reading her mind? No, she doubted it, simply that his thoughts had traveled the same path of regrets hers had.
“And mercy, most of all.”
“Yes.” He smiled, made ready to leave. “You’ll have Saam stay in contact with Parm as long as he can? After that, we’ll have to pray other ghatti are near enough for Parm to reach.”
Saam leaped to the desk, sprawled across her papers as if to barricade her from Muscadeine’s expectations. “You know, someday we ought to give him a taste of a verbatim transmission from Parm. All that lovely subtle wisdom interwoven with ‘oops’ and ‘by the way’ and digressions enough to make his head spin.”
The idea appealed, she had to admit it. But Parm was no laughing matter. She poked Saam between the shoulder blades, raised her eyebrows at Muscadeine. “But of course. We’ll see to that.” Belatedly reassured, he left, abandoning her to her own thoughts and worries.
“Hullo! The Lady’s Blessing on you!” Sandals flapping, Harrap strained to match strides with the woman pulling the small two-wheeled cart behind her. She’d almost crested the hill when he’d caught a glimpse of her in the distance, quickening his pace, galloping up the hill as she surmounted the top and started down, momentum and the cart’s weight speeding her descent. He drew a hand over his tonsure, wiped it on his robe, made a face. A hot and sweaty way to meet someone. Exertion had overcome the nip to the fall air, left him radiating warmth like a stoked furnace.
Parm had outrun his greetings, indulging in a skittering dance around the cart where a white and tan terrier perched atop the load. Head cocked, one ear perked, the terrier gave a shrill yip. “Hark!” the woman commanded, and the dog ceased, crestfallen.
“May I give you a hand with the cart?” Harrap puffed along beside her, skipped once, almost adjusted his pace to hers.
“No.” With barely a look in his direction, she stared straight ahead, ignoring his presence.
He caught her rhythm at last, Lady’s Medallion swinging on his broad chest. “Mind if I walk with you a ways?”
“Yes.” Arm and neck muscles strained as she struggled to control the cart’s downhill speed, gravity almost stronger than she. Concentrating, apparently absorbed in maneuvering around a wheel rut, she launched a complete sentence in his direction, made him stumble with its unexpectedness. “Barnaby doesn’t like cats.”
“But Parm doesn’t mind dogs, rather likes them, in fact. And he isn’t a cat, he’s a ghatt.” No, this wasn’t going to be easy, gaining her confidence, discovering what she had in mind. He chastised himself for meekly agreeing to befriend her, watchdog her movements, determine what danger she presented. False pretenses—a sin. He’d not been sent to give aid and succor as a Shepherd should. And as a Seeker, his role eluded him even more, despite instructions from Mahafny and Muscadeine, who knew even less about being a Seeker than he. Eyes screwed shut, brows beetling in dismay, he chanted a brief prayer, lips moving silently so as not to offend the woman beside him.
“I know.” Sweat darkened her serviceable gray work shirt in a wide line front and back, her pantaloons dusted with road grit. For a moment he panicked—what did she know? Found out already, his cover blown? “Too big for a cat.” Harrap exhaled a sobbing sigh of relief. “Don’t particularly hold with Seekers, prying into minds like that. Or Shepherds preserving the status quo ... ‘if not in this life, perhaps another,’ ” she twisted the sacred phrase until it sounded like bogus cant. “In other words, be satisfied with what you suffer here on earth. Always promise the candy, but dangle it out of reach.” She swiped at her face with a sleeve, surreptitiously studying him, he realized with a start. He shifted the leather pack strap from one shoulder to the other to grant her more time.
“Think her curiosity’s about to come to a boil.” Parm had scampered ahead, lolling in a patch of shade as the cart rolled by. “Wish I could ride.”
“So, how’d you come to be a Shepherd and a Seeker?” More urgently, “How do you choose which to obey? Don’t they conflict?” Lady guide him, she was earnest, as if his answer bore a shrouded significance, might help her comprehend other things.
He played for time; his duality still caused him discomfort, distress, this constant stretching between polarities, both of goodness and rightness, but so very dissimilar at times. “Sure I can’t help with the cart?” His big hand reached for the closer shaft. Surely it had been meant as a goat cart, but she no longer owned a goat to draw it.
“No!” She strode ahead, firm in her isolation, her determination of duty. Accepting his help would subtly shift the boundaries of their relationship, but it pained him to see someone suffer so, refuse to share her burden.
“It is a conflict at times. Perhaps that’s why I’m on this journey, to refresh my spirit, wrestle with what I am and what I’m not. Most things can coexist, if you let them—”
“Impossible!” she nearly spat the word at his feet. “Some things, some people, can never coexist, shouldn’t even share the same world—” and broke off as a cart wheel balked, then rolled over a rock. The cart swayed and tilted; she tried to muscle it back before it overturned, but it was too top-heavy. The dog’s claws scrabbled as he slid down the tarp and hit the ground.
“Here, let me.” And, without waiting for her permission, Harrap threw his weight against it to level it. She gave him a grudging look of gratitude and he continued holding the shaft, drawing the cart forward. “Easier with two,” he added, her hesitant smile and nod of agreement more precious than anticipated.
Jenret sidled along the trail, anxious not to brush against branches, not scuffle or worse, slide and fall on the slick carpet of wet leaves, treacherous after last night’s drenching rain. The rain had dislodged more leaves, improving sight lines, but keeping track of Addawanna was a daunting task. Whatever the conditions, the terrain, she melded with them without a betraying trace, almost as if she were part of the land itself. The elderly Erakwan woman moved wraithlike, checking for tracks, beckoning them along with an imperious hand. He paused, intent on Rawn’s mindvoice as the ghatt prowled the undergrowth, while Faertom’s impatient breath steamed the back of his neck.
“Anything?” Hope soared in Faertom’s voice and Jenret wondered sourly how he remained so optimistic after all this time. Easy, he supposed, because each day dangled the lure of locating Faertom’s relatives, reuniting them at last. Well, Faertom still hadn’t found his relatives, and what did Jenret have to show for fourteen days of drudgery? Nothing, not a single confirmed sighting.
“No,” disliking himself for his cursory response, but he was tired, very, very tired of dragging the anchor-weight of Faertom’s hopes. His responsibility. Not to mention the rest of them ragtagging through the woods at his behest: Yulyn Biddlecomb and her husband Towbin, w
ith Sarrett and T’ss bringing up the rear. Two Resonants, one Seeker, one Seeker-Resonant, one Normal, and an Erakwan guide whose goals didn’t coincide with his—at least not from the results so far.
“Perhaps she’s not so sure she wants them found, ” came Yulyn’s comment, then a hesitation. “After all, the Erakwa don’t seem to object to the Resonants’ presence in their ‘backyard,’ so to speak. That’s more than I can say about Canderisians in general. Perhaps she feels if they’re doing no harm, they shouldn’t be bothered.”
“Well, she agreed to help us search. ”
“And she is, but she can do it on her terms, not ours. ”
Irritated, Jenret snapped back, “I don’t remember dragooning her, conscripting her into our service, did I? I asked for help and she volunteered. ”
Faertom stretched his arms as if to reach out to both of them, connect them. He sounded strained. “Please, please,” he tried again, “don’t bicker! Set your minds free to do their work, that’s why we’re here! How can you project reassurance, reconciliation, when we’re squabbling amongst ourselves? Even if they can’t hear us, they can sense our annoyance. Anger carries farther than our mindvoices. Project, and listen for them to respond. ” Sadness weighted him as he concluded aloud, “If they’re here at all, anywhere near.”
Surprisingly enough, Tobwin strode to his side to offer solace, although as a Normal he’d missed most of the conversation. His pockmarked jaw worked as he searched for the words. “Don’t give up, lad. Between them, my Yulyn and Addawanna can find anyone. Yulyn’s had the most Resonant training of you three, no matter how she came by it. If there’s a Resonant to hear, she’ll hear him. And Addawanna can track where yesterday’s beetle crawled.”
But Sarrett began shooing them along, urging them to speed up. “T’ss wants us to hurry. Addawanna’s found something ... someone, but we must move quietly, not spook them.”