Exile's Return

by Gayle Greeno

  Smoke assailed her nose, the first of the morning fires sending up a thin, twisty plume, a finger pointing to the last shadow circles of the moons before they drowned in daylight, their ghost shadows always in the sky if one knew where—and how—to look. The distant fire gave a tiny pop, a snap, not a good omen given her previous thoughts, but she decided to ignore it. At last the one they called Gar-by—Gar-vey, she carefully corrected herself, hearing Nakum’s gentle teasing inside her head—made his way, sleepy and shambling, beyond the guard ring so he could urinate in peace.

  A little cloud of steam rose off cold stone as Garvey streamed urine on it, and he grimaced with effort, emptying his bladder. With his free hand he rubbed his eyes, knuckled the comers to wedge out the gluey sleep deposits. A shake, and he began to tuck himself together. It was then he spied the old Erakwan woman standing just left of the rock he’d peed on, and he nearly shied backward in surprise. How, in the name of the Blessed Lady, had she gotten here, and more accurately, when? Had he practically peed on her? What if he’d mistaken her for the rock? He buttoned his trousers, unable to meet her face. Except, guiltily, he wondered what she was looking at, embarrassing if she were. Mayhap it wasn’t a woman at all, but some sort of will-o’-the-wisp, the tattered remains of his dreams.

  “Morning, m‘am.” He brought his head up, leveled his eyes. How could something look so insubstantial yet solid at the same time? What if she didn’t speak? “Can I help you with something? We’re not real partial to strangers ’round our camp, so if there’s nothing you need, best be on your way.”

  Her eyes were jet black with silvery spangles, like the polished hulls of sunflower seeds, or the liquid dance of streaming rain across polished marble. No, he wasn’t scared, not yet; if he were, help was a mindshout away. For that matter, best take a peek in her mind, determine if she represented a danger. He smiled reassuringly, cast his thoughts to encompass hers, gentle and coaxing as he’d scoop up a new-hatched chick in both hands. But a heavy solidity loomed in front of him as if a door had slammed shut on well-oiled hinges a fraction ahead of his nose. He shook his head, shocked. Either she could block Resonant readings—and certainly he’d no right or permission to read her mind—or she was a spirit, some sort of ghost, without a mind to be read. When had she seized him by the wrist?

  “No widout axing, Garby.” She smiled, her cheeks like plump little crab apples, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. “An wha you mean, ‘your camp’? Dis our land, camp on it mean it our camp.”

  “I ... well, I ... apologize if we’re trespassing. But I ... we ... got the impression like, that you all didn’t mind us ... Gleaners, er Resonants, taking shelter.” Anger smoldered despite himself. Was even this miniscule bit of safety, sanctuary, to be snatched from them now? They’d tried to be unobtrusive with their camps, but scarcely hide nor hair of an Erakwan had they seen. Was the land not big enough to share? To be driven off, driven away yet again, unbearable.

  Hand tucked in the crook of his arm, she walked him unresisting further from camp. Reminded him of his mother Shoshana, she did, dragging him to view her garden patch when he was bone-tired and dusty from the quarry. “Ah, you bein’ trex-passing, Erakwa be trex-passing, least ‘cordin to Canderis ideas. Land no big nuff hold us or you. Silly, how own wha you can’t use? How own land an’way? Land let deer trex-pass, all od’er creatures, why not us?”

  “Doubt any place’d welcome us. Least that’s what it feels like most times.” Why tell her this, confide in her? He still couldn’t decide if she were a ghost or not, though she bumped solid and warm against his side, her hand wrinkling his sleeve, her fingers tickling a bit. But where was she taking him, why was he walking so obediently, as if he had no will of his own? He tried to hang back, found his feet refused, and it frightened him. Her sacklike doeskin dress looked real enough, the tattered blanket shawl as well. Mayhap he still dreamed, only thought he’d gotten up to urinate. But the sky was lightening, the birds commencing their early chirping, everything except him awakening if it were a dream.

  “Hard bein’ dif‘rent, lookin’ same outside, dif’rent inside.” All he could see of her face was the part in her hair, the tip of her nose. He’d not realized what a nice, sort of burnished coppery color she was. Coppery? Or bronzy? How Wim would love to carve her shape in granite with a few simple, suggestive curves to hint at her power. And at the thought of Wim, dead, lost, he wasn’t sure, his heart clutched. Wim and Waite, were they safe, just too far distant to reach? Or entombed under a slab in their own quarry—he’d not thought of that. Do to the sons what they thought they’d done to the father.

  “Dey be safe. But Addawanna don know ’bout rock shaped like her. Weight her spirits down.” She dragged against his arm to demonstrate, soft laughter bubbling.

  How could she sense, have any idea what he thought? Erakwa weren’t Gleaners as far as he knew. He strained to free his arm but she remained attached. “How do you know they’re safe?” He wanted to howl at her, but his throat wouldn’t oblige with more than a harsh whisper.

  “Earth tell me. Earth tell me many t‘ings. Feel.” Dead serious, she crushed his fingers around a pouch that hung at her waist. The sensation reminded him of the time as a child that he’d trapped a bumbling, fat bee in a jar, the same vibrations transmitted through glass to his tingling palm. But with that he’d felt vexatious anger, and with this, nothing of the sort, just a peculiar, prickling energy. “Need be axing you somet’ing, Gar-vey man.”

  He tried to concentrate, still enveloped by the emanations from the pouch. “What?”

  “I t‘inking wise man like you, man who know hurt when loved ones lost, no wan ’flict dat on od’ers.”

  A jay’s raucous cries shattered the air, an acorn whizzed by his head. Ah, they’d invaded someone else’s sanctuary. The scolding cries upset him, made him want to hurl something back. Always an interloper. Damn all, he hadn’t meant to invade the jay’s territory, but he got blamed for everything. “I’d inflict pain on those who inflicted pain on me.”

  “Den why you keep Wycherley priz-ner? He, de od’ers hurt you, yours?” Another flying acorn grazed his ear, stung. For a crazed moment he wondered if she’d instructed the jay to torment him? Or did he merely torment himself? “Jenret got woman he love, woman great with child don’ know where her man be.”

  He rubbed his ear, rubbed at his eyes to erase the sight of her. She’d released his arm, stood in front of him, wrists on hips, her hands turning out like the tips of a bird’s wings. “I can’t let him go. Don’t you see? He and the others are the only bargaining chip we have left. At least to protect those of us here in the forest.”

  “An did I say gib him up to his own? You t‘ink his own be dem od’ers who hurt you. Your kind his own. Gib him to highest of your own. Dat one from Marchmont, one dey call king comin soon. Let king decide wha do wid him. King keep you safe, make bridge to your world.”

  “I don’t ... know. Wouldn’t the king punish us for seizing Wycherley?” But any punishment meted out by a Resonant who understood the direness of their straits couldn’t be as severe as outsiders would be. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it, but I can’t promise anything. Don’t want to lie to you.”

  “Oh, you no lie to Addawanna.” A beckoning motion, and Rawn strolled from behind an oak, stretched with a cocky, insolent strength. “My friend tell me dat.”

  The big ghatt made Garvey uneasy, his mostly healed scratches twinging with remembrance. Still, neither ghatt had offered him harm since that one night, and despite himself he couldn’t blame their reactions. You fought for your friends, your loved ones. And Wycherley and Sarrett and Yulyn and Towbin were fighting to help them, their own kind in Wycherley’s and Yulyn’s case, even if no friendship had been offered in return.

  “I said I’ll think about it.” How had they gotten so deep in the woods? He couldn’t see or smell the morning campfires any longer, hear any sound of human habitation other than their own hushed voices.
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  “Don t‘ink too long. King comin soon, prob’be by time sun jes past high.” She pointed behind her. “Dis way to highway, case you ferget. I goin now. See you der in liddle while, you and friends.”

  He turned toward what he hoped was the direction of camp, the black ghatt pacing him. “You,” he said, “don’t you be tattling on me to Wycherley, hear me?”

  An acorn stung the back of his neck, and he spun to see Addawanna, still solid and real. “Ya! Dat one I t’rew, jes mind you no ferget.”

  Faertom sat, moping, on a log in front of the fire. He’d already gathered four loads of windblow wood and stacked it, sand-scoured their breakfast dishes beside the trickle that Addawanna deemed a stream, chopped fresh spruce for their beds, rebuilt the fire, and swept up with a pine branch. Proper little stay-at-home housewife he’d become while Addawanna roamed out there somewhere. And the sun wasn’t even high yet.

  He didn’t understand how the Erakwan woman could be content simply sitting and waiting, watching, not doing anything. Or was she? Hard to know what went on in her mind, not that he’d dare try his Resonant skills on her, but her bland face gave away nothing each time she returned to camp to rest and eat before leaving him again. So he stayed put, impatience brewing stronger than an unstrained pot of day-old cha. There was nothing else to do, nowhere else to go. Oh, he could go back to the capital, he supposed, stay with Darl. More distractions there, but the things he’d see and hear would only upset him more—the recriminations, the roiling fears about Resonants. So he sat, in stasis of sorts, useless here, useless there. Useless pretty well described his plight. He let his hands dangle between his knees. Worthless. Couldn’t help anybody, let alone himself. All his thoughts running around inside his head and no one to hear. No one who wanted to hear.

  “Faeralleyn.” The call resonated in his brain, made him nearly fall backward off the log as he looked around wildly, a trickle of hope no larger than their private stream flowing through him. A trick, it had to be. Listen hard enough and you’ll hear what you want to hear. Or he was going mad.

  “Faeralleyn, over here!” And at length he made out her face, pale against the shadows where the cedar hung lacy.

  “Mother?” Blessed Lady, he’d known in his heart she’d come to him! How could a mother deny a child of her heart, her flesh? No more than he could deny her—and that gave him pause. What if she asked him to give this up, called it a fool’s errand, insisted he return home. Except they had no home, nor did he, only the surety of her love as shelter. She was prideful, but so was he, now that he had something to be proud about. He watched, bursting with barely contained emotions, as she picked her way to him, sat a calculated distance away on a rock on the fire’s far side. “How are you, Mother?” Not Mama, Mam, not any of the things he usually called her.

  “Alleyn. ” The diminutive his family used, a necessity, or one would spend half one’s life calling for Faerbaen or Faerclough or Faeraday or Faeralleyn. Only outsiders knew him as Faertom, though he liked it. She waited until he snapped out of the reverie the litany of names induced. “Alleyn, I had to come, had to see you—”

  “Of course, ” he interrupted, knew he was beaming foolishly, lovingly. How he basked in her presence, like the sun’s radiance beating down on him, warming him.

  Stubbornly, she plowed ahead, and with an effort of will he forced himself to be Faertom, not Alleyn, suddenly cold. “I felt you should know that Wycherley and his friends are going to be released into the custody of the King of Marchmont. So you wouldn’t worry any more about them. And ... ” She studied her hands folded in her lap. Rare to see them still, not flying about the daily tasks of home and hearth. “I’m trying to convince your father and brothers to return home. With the king’s protection it may be possible. ”

  “Back to the island, you mean?” Faertom was up now, pacing. “The king can’t be everywhere, protect everyone. And he won’t be here forever, whatever brought him here.”

  “I’m well aware of that. ” She sounded tart as a green apple. “I’m too old—” he made a gesture of horrified denial, but she pressed on, “to completely start over again, but I’m willing to try in small ways—try to make friends with women in town, share what we have in common about raising a family, running a home—surely we have that that unites us. ” A wry raising of her eyebrows, “Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be completely surrounded by men all the time?”

  “But what about Father, Baen, Clough? Will they agree?”

  “Oh, eventually. With the proper persuasion. ”She looked at him as if he had two heads, six legs, was incapable of comprehending the obvious. “Familiarity’s a powerful lure. They like change even less than I. Sooner or later they’ll realize the island’s safer—and more comfortable—than hiding in the woods. That they have to stand up for what’s theirs. Besides, they know there’s no gainsaying me when I set my mind to something. I’m rather like you that way. ”

  He worked at wedging his toe under the log, wondered if he could flip it, anything to concentrate on, let him muster his strength to resist her. “So why did you come here to tell me this?” There—it was out in the open now.

  “I didn’t come here to demand you come home with us. ” He hung his head, hurt surging anew—still unwanted! “I came to tell you your friends will be safe. And that you should go, join the king’s party as well. Alleyn, your father was too hasty in shunning you. We need people like you, people who know how our world works, what our rules are, and how the outside world works, someone who can bridge both worlds. So few of us have had dealings with outsiders, but you count some of them as friends. Don’t you understand? I’m proud of you. ”

  “Sure,” he echoed dully, “friends. Respected and admired by all who know me—except for my own kind. ” Her pride eased some of the ache but couldn’t banish all of it. Mothers always forgave, approved—but the rest, never. In truth, what else did he have, what other hope but to cast his lot with that other world? And at least it would be something to do.

  “Alleyn? Who’s that over there? Is that Addawanna? I never heard a thing. ”

  Even at this distance he could read the compassion in Addawanna’s eyes and didn’t want any part of it. Was this what the rest of his life was to be like—everyone looking at him with compassion as if he were crippled in some way? “You’d best go, get back to the others. Give Jenret my regards, if you can. Tell him I’ll see him later. ” He wanted so badly to hug her, denied himself the comfort, standing there woodenly. Undeterred by his expression, she circled the fire and embraced him. It would be so easy to fool himself that all was well, that this simple embrace made it all right. The island would never be home to him again despite his mother’s welcoming arms. Not with his father there. He didn’t want to see King Eadwin again or the others, but if one world were destroyed, he’d have to build a new and stronger one from the rubble and remnants. Except he wasn’t sure he had the strength or the stamina anymore.

  Addawanna clapped her hands once, his mother hugged him harder, reluctantly released him. “All in good time, Addawanna. All in good time,” his mother warned the doeskin-clad figure. “And I take it it’s time. Watch over him for me.”

  Addawanna shook her head regretfully, almost apologetically. “His life nod in your hands, my hands no more. In his own.”

  Claudra’s mouth quirked wryly. “I know. They grow up.” Head held high, she walked away, back straight.

  “No got all day! Busy time ahead. Some t‘ings change for bedder, od’ers not. Scurry, Faertom!” She flicked her hands at him, scowled. “Hab come allaway back fer you, den allaway back again. Bones be tired.”

  Despite himself Faertom grinned. The day her bones were tired, weary, his grandchildren would be old. If he ever had grandchildren, that is.

  As he shuffled along, ankle chains rattling, the ground turned level and firm under his feet. Almost like ... no, it couldn’t be ... a roadway? He scuffed his boot sole, swept it sideways to test his discovery, ca
utious not to stress the chain too much. Nothing made sense, they never changed camp at midday, just before lunch; transfers always happened early in the morning or at late afternoon to allow setup before dark. Something was up, and damned if he knew what. Not for the first time he cursed the sack muffling his head. Hearing and smell as well as vision were obscured, the flour-dusty closeness mixing with the moisture of his breath, his sweat, coating him with a thin layer of paste when the sack was removed. “Rawn, where are we headed this time?” The highway beneath his feet gave hope, as did the knowledge his chains had been pared thin, the arborfer knife secure in his boottop.

  “And if it slips, slices your foot, don’t blame me.” Rawn sounded testy, impatience ratchetted another notch tighter. Interesting sign—but of what? “As to where we’re going, you’ll see.”

  “And wouldn’t I love to, though. Next time you can tie the sack round your head. ” Patience of the Disciples, he hated it when the ghatt went all snippy, then slid into evasiveness.

  Rough hands grabbed at the binding around his throat and Jenret Wycherley balked, panicky at the intrusion. The sack came off, none too gently, and he stood blinking, squinting at the expanse of smooth road unraveling before him. In the distance, two figures, one far smaller than the other, waved and a tethered black stallion gave a gladsome whicker of welcome, pawed at the ground. Ophar! And ... he slitted his eyes, his long, dark lashes like a shading hedge ... Faertom and Addawanna?

  A sweeping glance revealed Sarrett and T’ss, Yulyn and Towbin, bound as he was but staring raptly ahead. Garvey’s bulky presence and broken face loomed at his shoulder, but he ignored him. Just the five of them, or did other Resonants hide close by? “What am I? Bait to trap another trusting traveler?” He wiped his cheek against his shoulder, depositing a white smudge on the black sheepskin tabard, an excuse to examine Garvey without directly confronting him. Now, now! his heart sang. Snap the chains, slip the knife between Garvey’s ribs, and they could escape, run like the wind along the road. Surely they’d find a house, a village, another traveler along the way. Freedom beckoned, heady as the finest wine, leaving him drunk with desire.