“I miss him,” she said simply. “I miss him every day. If it weren’t for what I felt when he—left—it would be unbearable. At least—I know he must be happy. I have that. They don’t even have that much comfort.”
“I’m glad I got Dirk to go home for that reason, too,” Skif replied quietly. “Kris was something special to him—more than a friend, more than anyone else could ever be, I think. When he finally let himself grieve, he needed his family around him ....”
He took both of her hands in his own and they sat in silence for long moments, mourning their loss.
“Well,” he coughed a little, “I wish you had the leisure to wait on this until you were entirely well again.”
“I know. So do I,” Talia sighed. “But as soon as I can use my feet again, I have to return to duty; in fact, Selenay wrote me herself yesterday that if it weren’t so damnably painful for me to move, she’d have me on duty now.”
“I know, too. Well, it can’t be helped. Listen—I have got to tell you what that tribe is like—” Skif launched into a series of affectionate descriptions of the various members of Dirk’s family, and had the pleasure of seeing some of the sorrow leave her eyes.
“So that’s the last of them,” he concluded. Then he noticed a basket of sewing beside her—and none of the garments were her own! “What’s all this?” he asked, holding up an enormous shirt with both sleeves pulling out.
Talia blushed a charming crimson. “I can’t go anywhere except this couch or my bed. I’m tired of reading, I can’t handle my harp very long without hurting myself, and I can’t stand having nothing to do. I suppose it goes back to my farmgirl days, when I wasn’t even allowed to read without having a task in my hands. So since my embroidery is bad enough to make a cat laugh, I made Elspeth hunt out all of Dirk’s clothing, and I’ve been mending it. I can’t keep him from looking rumpled, but at least I can keep him from looking like a rag-bag!”
Before Skif could tease her further, the sound of a familiar footstep—taking the tower stairs three at a time—caused her to direct all her attention to the open door, her visitor momentarily forgotten.
There was no mistaking it—it could only be Dirk. Skif bounced to his feet and took himself out of the way before Dirk reached the door, not wanting to intrude on their greeting. Every time Dirk had spoken of Talia when he’d been with his family, he’d practically glowed. It had been that, at least in part, that had convinced them that all was well. Well, if Skif had thought he’d glowed when he only spoke of Talia, he was incandescent when he saw her waiting for him, with both her hands stretched yearningly out toward him. A quick glance at her proved that she was equally radiant.
Dirk was across the room in a few steps and went to one knee beside her, taking both her hands in his and kissing them gently. What would have been a hopelessly melodramatic scene for anyone else seemed natural for them. Talia drew his hands toward her and laid her cheek against them, and the expression on her face made Skif hold his breath and freeze absolutely still lest he break the mood.
“Has it been very bad, my love?” Dirk asked, so softly Skif could barely make out the words.
“I don’t know—while you were gone, all I could think of was how I wished you were here; and now you’re here, I’m too busy being glad you’re with me,” she replied teasingly.
“Why then, I must needs find a way to shrink thee, and carry thee in my pocket always,” he said tenderly, falling into the speech-mode of his childhood.
Talia freed one hand from his and laid it softly along his cheek. “Would not having me in thy pocket soon make thee tired of my company?”
“Not so long as it spares thee any pain at all. Oh, have a care to thyself, little bird!” he murmured. “Thou hast my soul in thy keeping, and without thee, I would be nothing but an empty, dead shell!”
His tone was jesting, but the light in his eyes said that he spoke nothing less than the truth.
“Oh, beloved, then we are surely lost beyond redemption,” she whispered “for in truth I find myself in the like case. Thou hast mine in trade for thine.”
Their joy in each other seemed to brighten the very air around them.
Skif soon realized, however, that it is only possible to go without breathing for a limited amount of time. On the other hand, he couldn’t bear the notion that his interference would break the mood of the two before him.
“Dearest,” Talia said with laughter in her voice, “my brotherling Skif is trying to decide between disturbing us and fainting from lack of air—”
Dirk chuckled, and turned his head slightly so that he could see Skif out of the corner of his eye. “Thought I hadn’t noticed you were there, did you? Come out of your corner, and stop pretending you’re here to pick pockets!”
To Skif’s intense relief, the mood had not broken. Perhaps the glow had been dimmed a little, but if so, it had been a deliberate action on their part, to make it easier for him. As he took a chair and pulled it nearer to the couch, Dirk removed the pillows behind Talia and took their place. Now she was leaning on his chest and shoulder instead, one of his arms protectively circling her. The vague shadow of anxiety was gone from his face, and the pain that had faintly echoed in her eyes was gone as well. There was a “rightness” about them that defied analysis.
No sooner were they all settled again when more footsteps could be heard running up the stairs. Elspeth came bursting into the room, her arms full of glorious scarlet silk.
“Talia, the dresses are done! Has—” She stopped short at the sight of Dirk, and gave a whoop of joy. She threw the dress at Skif (who caught it gingerly), and danced around to grab both of Dirk’s ears and plant an enthusiastic kiss squarely on his mouth.
“Well!” he said, when he could finally speak. “If that’s how I’m going to get greeted on my return, I’m going to go away more often!”
“Oh, horse manure,” Elspeth giggled, then rescued Skif from the folds of the dress, and planted an equally enthusiastic kiss on his mouth. “I’m just glad to see you for Talia’s sake. She’s been drooping like a wilted lily since you left!”
“Elspeth!” Talia protested.
“I’m just as glad to see Skif. More—he can help me. Or hadn’t you heard, oh cloud-scraper? You get to help me with putting this wedding together. Talia can’t, and Dirk hasn’t been here.”
“And besides that, Dirk has no idea of what is supposed to go on at weddings,” Dirk said ruefully. “If you told me I was supposed to suspend myself by my knees from a treelimb, I’d probably believe you.”
“Oooh—what a wonderful opportunity!” Elspeth sparkled with mischief. “Maybe I’ll do that. No, I’d better not. Talia might tell you to beat me.”
“I’d do worse than have Dirk beat you,” Talia twinkled back. “I’d tell Alberich that I thought you were shirking your practices.”
“You are a beast, aren’t you? Are you safe to hug, dearling?”
“As of this morning, quite safe.”
With that assurance, Elspeth bent over the Heralds and hugged Talia with warmth and enthusiasm, then tweaked Dirk’s nose with an impudent grin.
“I have been wanting to do that for eons,” she said, snatching a pillow from the pile that Dirk had displaced and seating herself on the floor at Talia’s feet.
“The hug, or the nose?” Dirk asked.
“Both—but the hug more,” she turned to Skif. “You wouldn’t know, since you were gone, too—but you hardly knew where you could touch her, at first. Poor Dirk, practically all he could touch were her fingertips before he left!”
“Oh, I found a few other places,” Dirk chuckled, and Talia blushed furiously. “So tell me, what new and wonderful plans for this fiasco have you managed to crush since I’ve been gone?”
“You’ll adore this one—and it’s new today. The Lord Marshal thought it would be a grand idea to load Talia up on a flower-bedecked platform and carry her to the priest on the shoulders of half the Heralds in the Kingdom. You know, like
the image of the Goddess in a Midsummer pageant.”
“Oh, no!” Talia plainly was torn between laughter and embarrassment.
“Oh, yes! And once I’d managed to convince him that poor Talia would probably die of mortification if anyone even suggested it, the Lord Patriarch came storming in, demanding to know why the thing wasn’t being held in the High Temple!”
“Lord of Lights!”
“After I’d told him that since the Companions had a big part in the rescue, they were being invited, too, he agreed that the High Temple probably wasn’t the best site.”
“I can just see Dantris helping himself to the Goddess’ lilies out of sheer mischief,” Dirk muttered.
“Dantris? Bright Havens, love, Rolan and Ahrodie would probably decide to watch from the choir loft and leave hoofmarks all over the hardwood floor!” Talia replied. “And to think that all I ever wanted was a private pledging with a few friends.”
“Then you shouldn’t have been Chosen Queen’s Own,” Elspeth told her sweetly. “You’re a figure of national importance, so you can’t begrudge people their fun any more than I can.”
“And I suppose it’s too late to back out now.”
“Out of the wedding, or being Queen’s Own?” Dirk chuckled.
“Guess.”
“I’d rather not. I might not like the answer.”
“Look,” Elspeth interjected, “since Skif is right here now, why don’t I drag him off and tell him what I’ve gotten set up so far? That way we won’t be interrupted.”
“Good idea,” Dirk approved.
Elspeth gathered up her dress and drew Skif with her into the bedroom, shutting the door after them.
“I really don’t need any help in getting these things organized, but let’s pretend I do, all right? And let’s take lots of time about it,” Elspeth said in a low voice. “Being Heir has some advantages. As long as it’s me that’s up here, nobody is going to come bursting in on them the way they do when the Healers aren’t with her. You’d think people would give them a little time alone! But even though he’s just gotten back, they won’t.”
“But—why?”
“Why are people always up here? A lot of reasons. The Lord Marshal always manages to think up something more about Ancar he’d like to know. Kyril and Hyron are always asking about Hulda. Only the gods know what her powers could mean. Even her friends, Lady bless ’em, are always coming in to ‘make sure that she’s all right’. Havens, I’m as bad as they are! Here, as long as you’re here, you can help me—I want to show this off.” She hid behind the wardrobe door for a moment, emerging in the scarlet dress. “Lace me up, would you? Then there’s the emergencies, though gods be thanked we haven’t had any really bad ones, like the backlash of a Herald getting killed.” Her face clouded, “Except for poor Nessa. Well, Talia fixed that quickly enough, once she was well enough to handle it.”
“Gods, does everyone in the world pop in and out of here?”
“Sometimes it seems that way. You know, I don’t think anyone ever really realized how many lives she’s touched until we thought we’d lost her. That dress, for instance—have you ever seen anything like that fabric in your life?”
“Never.” Skif admired the gown, with an eye trained by thieving to evaluate it; it was of scarlet silk, and patterned through the scarlet of the main fabric were threads of pure gold and deep vermilion. It was incredible stuff.
“Neither have I—and I have seen a lot of Court gowns. It came by special messenger, after Dirk had them keep watch for the trader who smuggled in the argonel and the arrows to her, then got the message out to Rolan. Dirk was hoping he could find him and thank him, and let him know she was ail right. Well, he managed to get back across the Border before Ancar closed his side, and he got Dirk’s message and sent this in reply. The note that went with ft said that among his people the bride always wore scarlet, and while he knew that this would not be the case among us, he hoped his ‘little gift’ could be put to good use. ‘Little gift!’ Mother said that the last time she saw anything like this it was priced at a rate that would purchase a small town!” Elspeth finished tying up the laces in back. “Talia thought it would be lovely to use it for attendants’ dresses. I am not going to argue with her! Mother would never get me anything like this unless they discovered diamonds growing on the trees in Sorrows!” She wiggled sensuously. “Then there was the other truly strange gift. Did she ever tell you about the woman she helped up in Berrybay? The one they called ‘Weatherwitch’?”
“A bit.”
“Out of the blue came this really elderly Herald—I mean, he was supposed have retired, that’s how old. He came with a message from this Weatherwitch person—the exactly perfect day to have the wedding, and you know fall weather. Since we’re having it outside, we’d been a good bit worried about that. Talia says Maeven’s never wrong, so that’s why we’re having it then.”
She pressed her ear briefly against the door and giggled. “I think it’s safe enough to go out now, but I’ll bet it wasn’t a few minutes ago. Let’s go show off.”
As far as Skif could tell, neither Talia nor Dirk had moved an inch since they’d left them—although Talia’s hair was a trifle mussed, and both of them wore preoccupied and dreaming expressions.
“Well, what do you think?” Elspeth asked, posing dramatically.
“I think it looks wonderful. No one in their right mind is going to be watching me with you and Jeri around,” Talia said admiringly.
“Well, Elspeth and I are agreed; we’ll take care of the wedding arrangements,” Skif said with a proprietary air. “That will free you up a bit more, Dirk—that is, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all, and I think it’s very good of you,” Dirk replied, surprised. “Especially since you know very well that I don’t have to be freed up to do anything except spend more time up here.”
“That was the general idea,” Elspeth said mockingly.
“Enough, enough! It’s settled then,” he laughed, “and much thanks to you both.”
“Remember that the next time I do something wrong!” Elspeth giggled back.
She teased Dirk for a few moments longer—then her face clouded with anxiety when she realized that Talia had fallen asleep. She’d been doing that a great deal lately, sometimes right in the middle of a conversation. Elspeth was afraid that this was a sign that she would never be quite well again.
But Dirk and Skif just exchanged amused glances while Dirk settled the sleeping Herald a little more comfortably on his shoulder. Elspeth heaved an audible sigh of relief at this; surely if anyone would know if something were wrong, Dirk would.
Dirk hadn’t missed the anxious look or the sigh. “It’s nothing important,” he told her; quietly, to avoid waking Talia.
“He’s right—honestly!” Skif assured her. “Dirk’s mother told us she’ll be dropping off like this. It’s just a side-effect of speed-Healing. It has something to do with all the energy you’re using, and all the strain you’re putting on yourself. She says it’s the same kind of effect you’d get if you ran twenty or thirty miles, swam a river, and climbed a mountain or two, then stayed up three days straight.”
“According to mother,” Dirk continued, “It has to do with—fatigue poisons?—I think that’s what she called them. When you speed-Heal, they build up faster than the body can get rid of them, and the person you’re Healing tends to fall asleep a lot. When they stop the speed-Healing, she’ll stop falling asleep all the time.”
“Show-off,” Skif taunted.
Dirk grinned and shrugged. “See all the useless information you pick up when you’re a Healer’s offspring?”
Elspeth protested; “Useless, my eye! I thought for sure there was something wrong that nobody wanted to tell me about—like there was when she wouldn’t wake up. Nobody ever thinks to tell me anything anymore!”
“Well, imp,” Dirk retorted, “That’s the price you pay for poking your nose into things all the time. People
think you already know everything!”
The Border was officially closed, but refugees kept slipping across every night, each of them with a worse tale to tell than the last. Selenay had had a premonition that Ancar wasn’t quite through with Valdemar, and had stayed on the Border with a force built mainly of the defectors from Hardorn’s army, now fanatically devoted to her. She had been absolutely right.
This time the attack came at night, preceded by a storm Selenay suspected of being mage-caused. There was a feint in the direction of the Border Guardpost, a strong enough feint that it would have convinced most leaders that the attack there was genuine.
But Selenay had Davan—a Farseer—and Alberich—a Foreseer—with her, and knew better. Ancar meant to regain some of his lost soldiers—and plant some traitors in Selenay’s new Border Guards. And to do both, he was going to use some of the other talents of what was left of his army of thieves and murderers.
But the force of black-clad infiltrators who attempted to penetrate the stockade-enclosed village that housed the defectors and their dependents met with a grave surprise.
They got all the way to the foot of the stockade, when suddenly—
Light! Blinding light burst above their heads, light nearly as bright as day. As they cringed, and looked up through watering eyes, four white-clad figures appeared above them, and out of the darkness at the top of the stockade fence rose hundreds of angry men and women armed with bows, who in no way wished to return to the man who called himself their King. Suspended from the trees by thin wires were burning balls of some unknown substance that flamed with a white ferocity.
“You could have knocked,” Griffon called down to them, “We’d have been glad to let you in.”
“But perhaps it is that this is no friendly visit—” Alberich dodged as one of those below threw a knife at him in desperation.
“God, Alberich, I believe you might be right,” Davan dodged a second missile. “Majesty?”
“Take them,” Selenay ordered shortly. If a few were taken alive; what they had to tell was interesting. More interesting by far was the assortment of drugs and potions they had intended to use on the village. Drugs that, according to those Selenay questioned under Truth Spell, would open the minds of those that took them to the influence of Ancar’s mages—and Ancar himself.
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