Finding the Way and Other Tales of Valdemar

by Mercedes Lackey

  What alarmed Ree was that Lenar had taken their invitation to eat, something he’d never done before.

  Out of some protective instinct, Ree rose and picked up Meren, who was drooping to sleep in his chair, as he usually did after the midday meal. “Ree—” Jem started, but Ree didn’t want to know what Jem wanted or if he wanted him to stay or was merely censuring him for his cowardice.

  “Have to put Meren in his bed,” Ree said. “Otherwise he’ll wake up in a moment and then be fussy because he won’t be able to sleep again.”

  He held the baby to his chest, the blond/tabby head bobbing against his shoulder as he moved, the whiskers tickling his neck. He carried Meren all the way up the ladder to the attic, still stocked with last year’s hay, smelling warm and dusty as it usually did in this season. They’d built permanent walls up there to make a bedroom for Amelie, and for the last three months Meren had shared the room with Amelie. The ladder presented no problems for him. He liked climbing things. Ree had thought he’d never recover from seeing Meren chase the rooster atop the barn, but then he’d started climbing the uneven wall around the vegetable garden and chasing a butterfly along the top. Ree had almost killed himself rescuing him.

  Though Ree relished having his room for himself and Jem, part of him felt guilty for having Meren up here. The little crib looked so odd at the foot of Amelie’s little bed, covered in the lace coverlet that Lenar—in a benevolent mood—had given her. But when Ree had said they should keep Meren longer in the bedroom, Jem had said he’d be damned if he was going to have the damn boy there till the damn boy was talking. Which just went to show that Jem lived in another world. Ree wished that Meren would talk.

  He lay the warm, heavy little body on the quilt in the crib, then covered him with an edge of it. Not too much, because the attic was warm. He pulled down the side of the crib too, because there was no point making Meren climb over that when he got out.

  Over summer Ree would have to talk to Jem about taking a day or two and a couple of the hired hands and helping build another little room up here for Meren. Amelie would soon be of an age where sharing a room with a little brother wouldn’t be proper.

  As Ree went down the stairs, his worry returned. What if Meren never spoke? What if he became violent as he grew up? Oh, he was sweet and affectionate, and would sometimes put his arms around Ree, and would play and laugh with Jem, but so did kittens. And young tigers. What part of Meren was child? Which kitten? And would the kitten show himself feral?

  “Look, what I’m saying, son,” Lenar’s voice boomed to Ree’s ears as he reached the bottom floor, but he wasn’t yelling. Only being his forceful self. “Is that you should put him in a muzzle.”

  “A muzzle, Father?” Jem said. The yelling would start at any moment.

  “Oh, come, son. It’s not like I’m saying he should be put down. Our Amelie says, and I trust her, that he had enough provocation, and everyone knows that a dog taunted will bite back, no matter how tame. Especially an untrained puppy.”

  “Meren is not an untrained puppy.”

  “No, of course not. Untrained kitten more like, though why your damn young man can’t train that kitten when he trains the others—”

  “Meren is a little boy,” Jem said in the tone that meant he had gone past anger and was now very calm and also very dangerous. Ree had only ever seen him get like this in defense of himself or Amelie.“Jem! What little boy walks a mile and a half of country roads on his own?”

  “An . . . adventurous one?” Jem asked, but sounded unsure for the first time.

  “Look, I don’t like telling you this. I wouldn’t like hearing it if it were a cub I was raising. I’m just saying he’s not quite human.”

  “He’s like Ree.”

  “No, son. Ree grew up as a human among humans. The . . . the change happened afterward and it’s not very deep, perhaps. But this . . . cub was born of people who were changed. I can tell you, Jem,” in a suddenly firm voice, “that no normal human child can walk at six months the way that . . . that . . . little Meren could. And no human child can climb before a year.”

  Jem sighed. When he spoke he sounded tired, as if feeling defeated. “We don’t know how old he is, Father. It’s hard to tell. He might have been six months when we found him. Or more.”

  “Which would make him over two now, and yet he’s not said a word.”

  “So? Grandad says you never said a word until you were past three, and then it was straight to normal talking.”

  Lenar made a dismissive sound. “That’s different, son. I’m sorry it’s come to this, and I’m not telling you you should put him down or that it’s his fault in any way, but I don’t think he is a little boy. I think he’s an animal. A nice pet, I warrant you, but you’ll have to muzzle him. And chain him to keep him from running out.”

  “Chain him!” The outrage was back in Jem’s voice. The idea of little Meren chained up made Ree cringe and feel slightly sick.

  “It is the only thing to—”

  “No, you listen, Father,” Jem said, this time sounding incensed. “You haven’t been around this family enough to know Meren. If you spent more time with him, you’d know he was human. Why don’t you and your lady come to dinner tonight? Simple fare, but good.”

  “Well, I—”

  “I know that we farm folk are far beneath your new wife’s dignity, but—”

  “Now, Jem, I never said that,” Lenar said, still calm, though Jem was now yelling.

  “You as good as said it. And it’s not as if she ever visits, even when you do.”

  “She’s not used to farms. She was raised—”

  “Far above our station, yes, I know, but you can’t claim that Meren is an animal when you’ve spent less time with him than you have with the Damn Young Cat.”

  “The one that follows Ree around? I don’t think I’ve spent any time with him at all.”

  “Exactly. You haven’t!” Jem was now fair and far away and yelling loud enough the farmhands probably could hear him in the field. “If you come to dinner and bring your lady and afterward think Meren is an animal, we’ll talk of having him muzzled.”

  “And chained?”

  “Restrained, at any rate,” Jem said sullenly.

  Ree came into the room, trying to pretend he hadn’t heard anything. Amelie was washing dishes, stonefaced. Lenar left soon afterward, as did Jem to go back to the field. It wasn’t until both of them had gone that Amelie looked at Ree and said, with a narrowing of her eyes, “Grandad Lenar is even more scary when he doesn’t yell.”

  “Yes,” Ree said. “But look you, if Lenar is bringing his wife over for dinner, we need to get ready. Whatever your Da says, the place isn’t fit for a lady of quality just now. Garrad has some tablecloths and things from the old days when they used to hold banquets for harvest festival.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon finding the linen tablecloths and the better dishes, which were glazed and painted with red flowers instead of rough-fired. After Garrad came home, just before sunset, he opened a trap door to the cellar and brought up a massive pewter serving plate and two candlesticks. “Hid them behind the false wall down there,” he said. “We ain’t got no silver, but that properly shined up should make her ladyship feel more at home.”

  It fell to Ree to polish them, while Garrad and Amelie roasted a haunch of venison that Jem had sent one of the hired hands to get from Three Rivers.

  The table, once set, looked very pretty indeed, and then Jem came in, dripping wet and bare chested, having washed himself under the water pump in the yard.

  “I didn’t want to give trouble,” he protested, as Ree yelped in outrage, as he ran to him with a towel.

  “Don’t drip on the tablecloth,” Ree said. “It’s ironed. And watch your feet on the floor.”

  He hectored Jem all the way into their bedroom, where he found him clean pants and shirt and a jacket not so different from the ones that Lenar wore.

  Before Jem had time to
say, “Perhaps I should shave,” Ree had got him warm water for the washbasin in the bedroom and his razor and soaping mug and brush.

  While Jem was shaving—a ritual that baffled Ree, who didn’t shave, because if he started he would have to continue over his scalp, down his neck, and over his whole body except the tail—Ree checked on the preparations for dinner.

  When he came back to the bedroom Jem, who was drying his face, said, “You should dress Meren nicely, Ree. And comb his hair a little. Maybe he no longer needs that bandage around his head?”

  Ree realized he hadn’t seen Meren all afternoon. Perhaps he was still asleep, but if so, that alone would be a cause for worry, because the child didn’t normally sleep more than a couple of hours in the afternoon.

  He almost ran out of the bedroom and up the ladder to the attic. The crib was empty and felt cold. Ree felt as though he’d swallowed a lump of ice. If Meren had walked to the village again . . . Lenar wasn’t requesting that he be put down, because he hadn’t actually injured anyone. If someone threatened him or scared him, and Meren bit him badly . . . Ree and Jem had told Meren over and over not to bite anyone, but did Meren understand them?And what if anything hapened to Meren? He was only two, at most two and a half, though Ree doubted it was that much. He might be fast on his feet and easy of balance, but he couldn’t defend himself. Worse, half the villagers would be out for him. His biological parents had killed the mayor’s nephew. People had long memories.

  The icy feeling in his stomach spread as he struggled down the ladder, half blind with worry. He’d get Amelie: she could usually figure out which way Meren had gone, by what seemed like magic but was more likely just that she spent a lot of time watching her little brother. Ree crossed the great, echoing room, and ran into the kitchen, where Garrad was busy around the big woodstove, while a freshly shaven Jem was lighting the candles on the pewter candlesticks. Something in Ree’s face—if not his hurried exit from their bedroom—made Jem look up and blench. “What’s wrong?”

  Ree wanted to tell him that Meren was gone, but then again didn’t want to tell him, and what came out in an odd, strangled voice was, “Where’s Amelie?”

  “Melie went to the garden,” Jem said. “Why, Ree, what’s wrong?”

  He was so worried he couldn’t think, much less speak. The garden on the side of the house, such as it was, was Melie’s domain. She’d planted daisies and bulbs, and in spring and summer, she would cut flowers for the table. But at this time of year there were no flowers yet. “Garden?”

  “Vegetable garden. You know, some of those peas you planted that you bought off that peddler? The one that said they’d be the first after the snow? Well, they’re full up and tender and sweet and we thought they’d make a nice dish for the din—Ree, where are you going?”

  Ree plunged out the door, running full tilt to the vegetable garden. Evening had descended and the barn, the animal pens, the big tree in the yard, all cast blueishblack shadows.

  The shadows were longer past the gate in the little fence—designed to keep the goats out, not an active little boy in—that encircled the vegetable garden, except for the outer part, which was encircled in a tall stone wall. The pea plants, frail and gangly, were the only conspicuously green thing. The other plants were only starting to pierce the ground.

  For a moment, he thought that Amelie had Meren with her, because he heard her voice,from behind the screen of pea stalks and poles. But then he realized she was singing softly to herself. He opened his mouth to call “Amelie,” but before he could he saw Meren.

  The little boy crouched on the top of the wall, making faces. In the failing light he looked like a displeased cat or a creature out of the forest. He was on all fours.

  His real parents had calluses on their hands, Ree thought, dismayed. As he watched, Meren arched his back up, lowered his shoulders, opened his mouth and hissed in threat. At that moment, despite his little overalls and shirt, he looked utterly feral.

  A wild beast. He’s a wild beast. He was never my little boy.

  While Ree stood frozen, Meren let out a yowl that could have been any of the male Damn Cats challenging a rival and jumped from the wall. Straight down into the space between two rows of pea plants—hidden from Ree’s view by the screen of green tendrils and tall poles.

  He’s going to hurt himself, Ree thought. And then Amelie screamed, the sound tangling with a loud snarl, a sound that couldn’t come from any human throat.

  Ree’s thoughts were all a jumble. Melie! And then, He’s attacking Melie. He’s jealous of her. She’s human. She won’t let him fight. Like cats that hate the family baby.

  He ran before he knew he was. His knife was not in the sheath at his waist, where he normally kept it. He’d taken it out to cut something and forgot to put it back.

  I promised Garrad I’d do what it took if this day came.

  He grabbed a large, heavy rock from the side of the path and plunged forward, fear and concern for Amelie propelling him, even as he was not sure what he could do, if anything.

  Amelie was still screaming “Meren, Meren!” and the snarling went on. There seemed to be a high snarling and a lower one, which made no sense. That is, until Ree rounded the screen of plants and—

  For a moment, he just stared, unable to understand. There were Meren and Amelie, but Meren was not attacking Amelie, as Ree expected. Meren was . . . There was a gaunt, half-starved dire wolf, and Meren was clinging to it or it had him. Amelie was standing beside the dire wolf, obscuring Meren while she pounded the wolf with the little basket she used to collect vegetables, all while screaming, “Meren, Meren!”

  There was blood on her dress, blood on her hair, and when she turned and said, “Papa, Papa. Meren!” Ree saw a long streak of a scratch across her rosy cheek.

  The rock fell from Ree’s hand when he realized that Meren wasn’t holding the creature’s muzzle, but caught between its long teeth, still struggling and scratching and biting, but trapped and bleeding. One sudden crunch of those powerful jaws and Meren would be gone forever. It was only Amelie beating it with her basket that had kept death at bay. Barely.

  Ree jumped, his own claws out, reaching for the creature’s neck, digging in. The thing would open its mouth to breathe. Everything did when being strangled. If only it didn’t crunch down first in surprise.

  He squeezed hard and suddenly, and the wolf opened its jaws, and Ree yelled “Meren!” and hoped Amelie understood and got the little boy out of the way. He didn’t dare look to see if she had: the animal was starving, desperate, and he had to stop it. The hand that wasn’t clutching the wolf’s throat flailed for the rock he’d dropped, for anything he could use as a weapon. Then the rock was in his hand, and he was beating at the dire wolf’s head, beating, beating, beating.

  “Ree. Ree, stop!” He came to, as though out of a nightmare, to Jem’s hand on his arm. The dire wolf was dead. In fact, there was blood and brains of dire wolf over quite an area, including Ree’s suit, face, fur and the nearest plants and ground.

  “Meren?” he said.

  “Amelie and Garrad have taken him to the house.”

  “Is he—”

  “It doesn’t look good,” Jem said. “He’ll need a Healer. Amelie said she was attacked and he jumped down to defend her.”

  “Yeah,” Ree said. “Yeah.” He ran his hand over his face, trying to remove the blood and gore but only succeeded in smearing it further. He stood on legs that felt so nerveless they could barely carry him.

  “You go ahead,” he told Jem. “See if you can bring the Healer. I’ll . . . I’ll come.”

  Jem gave him a concerned look, but ran. Only fear for Ree could have kept him here. Ree had to hold onto plants, and stakes, and the fence, and then the side of the animal pen. He walked as though in a dream. Meren saved Amelie. And I thought . . . He saved Amelie. Cat. Human. What does it matter? He loves. He’s loved. He’s intelligent enough to protect those he loves. He struggled to the water pump and pumped out water. Cold, i
t felt good on his face and head, his arms and hands—even over the clothes.

  Lots of humans couldn’t talk. They were born with defects of mind or body that made it impossible. But they weren’t animals: they were people. And Meren was at least as much people as those unfortunates.

  Please let him be well, he asked the distant sky with its indifferent, cold stars. Let me have my little boy again. I’ll never complain if he doesn’t talk or if he runs along the damn wall chasing the damn butterflies.

  Outside the kitchen, in the yard, Lenar’s carriage with the shield on the door—showing a sword entwined with a ham and proving his lordship had a sense of humor—stood, but one of the horses was missing from its traces, and the driver in his shiny red livery was milling around, aimlessly, looking displeased with his surroundings.

  The kitchen was very silent. At the still-set table, with the good wax candles burning on the burnished candlesticks, Lenar’s wife sat. She was very young and bland-looking, and her eyes widened and her mouth opened a little when she saw Ree, but she said nothing.

  It was Garrad, who was standing by the door to the interior of the house, who said, “Son. You need to wash.”

  “Meren, he—”

  But before Ree could say any more there was the sound of hooves in the yard, and then Lenar’s shouting voice, and a middle aged man whose face was a curious shade of pale green came hurrying through the door. “The child?” he asked Garrad. “Lord Lenar, he—”

  “Meren is upstairs,” Garrad said. “With his father and his sister. Just you go on up. Jem will tell you what happened.”