A Turn of Light

by Julie E. Czerneda

  They were close in height and he guessed age, though there was a rare youthfulness to the other’s face. The straight nose and high cheekbones echoed those of the village scholar, Dusom Uhthoff, but his eyes . . . They shone, as if everything before them was wonderful and new. No. He shone, because everything within him was exactly that. Bannan found himself reaching out.

  The man smiled and met his hand in a warm grip. “You can see me,” he said with great delight and laughed.

  “I can indeed.” Bannan laughed with him. He couldn’t help it. “I’m Bannan. Who are you?”

  “This is Wainn.” The man who spoke stepped close and put a fond hand on Wainn’s shoulder. “I’m his uncle. Kydd Uhthoff.” Similar features, but in the older man, sharper, more inquisitive. Another, like Horst, who didn’t take him at face value. Unlike Horst, Kydd smiled pleasantly. “Welcome to Marrowdell, Bannan Larmensu.”

  Wainn looked at his uncle. “He can see me.”

  “He can?” Kydd gazed at Bannan with greater interest. “And what do you see?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Joy.”

  The uncle’s other hand shot out to grip Bannan’s shoulder, grip and hold. Something warmed his eyes and his voice fell to a whisper. “Then twice welcome, truthseer.”

  Whatever showed on Bannan’s face made Kydd smile. He gave his nephew a tiny push. “Check on the hives for me, will you, Wainn? In the excitement, I can’t recall if I left some of the combs pulled out.”

  “I’d like to leave,” he admitted. “There are too many here.” He smiled at Bannan. “Except for you.”

  Honored, Bannan inclined his head. His eyes followed Wainn then went back to Kydd’s face. The interest was real. The curiosity brimming.

  The potential loyalty, as true as he’d seen in any of his former company.

  Bannan smiled back.

  “He can see me.”

  So much for her attempt to sneak home unnoticed. Not that she was sneaking, exactly. Jenn hefted the full water buckets, proof she’d had a reason to be gone for a while, if not for as long as she had. That Horst had filled the cistern behind their home to the brim yesterday was of no matter. After the lunch expanded to include all Marrowdell, there’d be dishes. Dishes needed water. Water she was bringing—she blinked at Wainn, registering what he’d said. “Who can see you?”

  “The truthseer.”

  Not helpful. Wainn reached for one of the buckets, which was. “Have they started to leave yet?” Jenn asked hopefully, looking ahead. Someone stood by the house, but from here she couldn’t see the area with tables.

  “There are more pies.”

  Meaning no. Jenn slowed as she walked beside Wainn, taking her time up the path. “I’m surprised there’s any left.”

  “Peggs will make more.” With the calm assurance that all would be right with his world so long as this were so.

  Jenn reminded herself it was her sister’s own fault.

  The cheerful murmuring grew louder with each step; low voices and high, laughter and words. They blended into a dull roar, like a distant waterfall.

  Had no one left?

  Wainn stopped. “There are too many,” he apologized, giving back the bucket.

  “Everyone wants to meet the visitors.” And hear what happened. Such goings on! They’d be comparing notes all winter, Jenn thought dourly. Bannan would have told his story by now, several times over. They’d have to wait for her side of it. “Sure you don’t want to come with me and meet them?”

  “I did. He can see me.” This with a smile of delight.

  “So you said.” The buckets were heavy, but Jenn hesitated. “I can see you, too,” she ventured.

  Wainn gave her his father’s look, the one Dusom reserved for a student who’d completely missed his point. “You see what you expect, Jenn Nalynn. He sees me.”

  Patience, she told herself. “Who?”

  “The truthseer. Bannan. He’s looking for you.” Then, to top it off, “I’m glad he’s going to stay.”

  Finding herself gaping like one of Wen’s fish, Jenn closed her mouth. Before she could sort any of this out, the figure by the house noticed them and started toward her. She knew his walk.

  Horst.

  Her heart sank.

  “I’ll leave now,” Wainn told her, eyes somber. “You need to ask your questions.”

  “Wait—” She found herself pleading with his back as he strode off to the orchard, leaving her with the buckets and Horst.

  “Here, Jenn. Let me take those.” The man stepped close with a smile, then stopped, losing it. Something changed in his eyes as he looked into hers. “What’s wrong?” The words were quiet; the demand was not.

  She wanted to say it. Wanted to tell him she knew. About him. About Melusine. Demand to know the rest . . .

  She couldn’t.

  Instead, Jenn blurted the first thing she could think to say, “Roche’s gone to steal Bannan’s horse.”

  Whatever Horst had braced himself to hear, it wasn’t this. “Why would he do a fool thing like that?”

  “He thinks—he thinks I’m leaving with him.” It wasn’t hard to seem embarrassed when she so thoroughly was. “I had to say I would. It was the only way he’d let me . . .” The terrible look on his face stopped the rest in her throat.

  “Go to your father.” Horst whirled and walked away with stiff unnatural strides, faster and faster.

  “Uncle!” Jenn dropped the buckets, splashing water on her skirt. She caught up to him. “Wait!”

  “Leave this to me, girl.”

  Leave what to him? What was Horst planning to do? She wanted to take his sleeve, but dared not. “Let me find Bannan. He can handle Scourge.”

  “I’m not worried about his beast. Go home.” A sideways glare that froze her blood. “Go!”

  She had no choice. Jenn started back, glancing over her shoulder every few steps. She saw Horst go into his home. Saw him come out with quiver and bow in his hands. Not the bow he used for teaching or practice. His prized hunting bow. The one that brought down elk.

  She saw him go through the gate.

  The Horst she knew could never harm Roche. Not for this.

  The Horst who’d chased her mother to her death . . . would he?

  Jenn broke into a run, this time for help.

  “I’d rather the rest not know.” A test, of sorts, though Bannan had reached his own conclusions. This was someone he’d trust at his back. Someone he’d gladly call friend, given any chance at all. “Not yet anyway.”

  “Too late,” Kydd chuckled. “Some already do. Others will see it, if not understand what it is about you. Marrowdell welcomes the perceptive.”

  The promised pies arrived, a distraction that brought a surge of villagers to the tables. Including Tir, after an assessing glance toward Bannan and Kydd.

  “Your man’s careful of you.”

  “Tir’s convinced I couldn’t survive without him. Many’s the time he’s been right—but don’t tell him I said so.”

  “Ah, yes. I—” Kydd’s eyes trailed the lovely dark-haired woman who’d brought the pies. She looked up as if she’d felt his regard. With a shy smile, she went back into the house.

  “I take it that’s Peggs Nalynn, the accomplished cook,” Bannan observed, straight-faced. “Is she spoken for?”

  “Yes!” At Bannan’s grin, Kydd looked sheepish. “No. Not yet. But a man can hope.”

  Could he?

  Bannan tucked the unfamiliar notion away. “The empty farm. Surely it’s promised to someone here.” The fields would be harvested by the village as a whole, but there was another, distinct generation milling around the pies. Kydd himself, should he catch Peggs’ eye, might need a home of his own.

  “It’s too close to the Bone Hills for any of us,” Kydd said matter-of-factly. “You might manage, though.”

  Intrigued, Bannan was about to press for an explanation when Horst straightened from his post. Not to get pie; to leave.

  At a guess, he’d gon
e to check on the man from the river.

  If those of Marrowdell were perceptive, as Kydd claimed, had any of them seen what he had—the other shape beneath the flesh? “I wonder when the interesting fellow in the mill will stir,” Bannan said as idly as he could. “I’d like to hear his tale.”

  “You find him interesting.” Kydd raised an eyebrow. “Should we worry?” Not an ordinary question. Not when asked of a truthseer. Like Sybb, his instincts were to protect.

  “He’s survived more than most.” The rest—the rest was like the road. Bannan found he couldn’t share it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. As if Marrowdell offered its secrets to him alone. To deflect Kydd’s attention, he went on, “I daresay Jenn Nalynn knows more. He’s her friend, after all.”

  “What?” The color drained from Kydd’s face. “What did you say?”

  Heart’s Blood. No one knew? “I must have misheard,” Bannan hedged, well aware of the peril of betraying a lady’s secrets. His dear sister gave a wicked pinch. When she could catch him. “A mistake—”

  “Those with your gift don’t make mistakes.” He might have stirred a hive of Kydd’s bees. “Why would you think she knows this man? How could she? Jenn’s never left Marrowdell!”

  “And I’ve just arrived,” Bannan pointed out.

  “Of course. My apologies.” The man composed himself at once, giving the hint of a bow. “Our Jenn has a good heart, you understand, but she’s a free spirit. It’s not possible to keep her where it’s safe.”

  Considering where he met her, Bannan wasn’t surprised. “Here’s your chance to ask,” he observed with pleasure as Jenn Nalynn, as if summoned by her name, came around the house.

  Instead of joining the gathering, she flattened herself against the wall where no one else could see her. She was barefoot, her hair falling from its knot and the hem of her dress soaking wet. Their eyes met, roses bent to stare at him, and she waved a desperate summons.

  Bannan moved at once, Kydd with him. Tir’s head lifted and he signaled him to wait as he was. If both new arrivals left, the villagers were sure to be alarmed.

  As they weren’t, he noted, by roses that moved.

  Jenn stepped from the wall to meet them. Her eyes, huge and purple in a too-pale face, locked on Bannan’s. “You must come with me,” she urged, hands clenched together. “It’s your horse.”

  No, it wasn’t. Or was something more. He went stone cold, thinking of Horst’s abrupt departure, thinking of the stranger in the mill. “What’s wrong?” He kept his voice down.

  “What’s he done?” Kydd demanded, all trace of the affable beekeeper gone.

  So. He wasn’t the only one to suspect a greater problem than a stray horse though, to be fair, Scourge was capable of being an immense problem on his own.

  “Nothing, if we hurry! Please.” She turned and ran off toward the gate, tanned legs flashing.

  The men followed, Bannan for his part regretting his enthusiasm for lunch.

  A chill breeze swirled around them, nudged them from behind, raced ahead. It tore the head from a rose and spread petals on the road. The road that shrank until they were at the village gate faster than they should have been.

  Than they could have been.

  Bannan grabbed Kydd’s shoulder. “What just happened?”

  The other’s eyes were full of wonder. “I—I don’t know.”

  The road from the village. He’d taken it this morning, hoping for something new. Something different. Joy bubbled in his chest.

  Marrowdell was both.

  The sun burnished the dirt to red gold, framed by towering trees that should have been maple or oak, but somehow weren’t. Jenn stood with her hand on the gatepost, staring down the road. The nearest trees tilted their tops the same direction. Leaves shuddered loose but didn’t reach the ground. They hung in the air, as if surprised by the wrong season, then drifted back to their branches.

  A nut fell to the road and bounced. A squirrel chattered in triumph.

  “We don’t cut the old trees,” Kydd informed him quietly.

  Bannan nodded in mute appreciation.

  Not finding what she sought, Jenn sighed and glanced back at them. The trees stood straight again, simply trees. “We’re too late,” she said. “They could be anywhere.” She gestured at the ragged wall to the side of the road. The slashes Bannan had noted met the ground as narrow ravines. He could see up the nearest. It was floored with rubble, choked by thick dark vegetation, and rose at an angle that would vex a goat.

  Scourge would love it. Especially if there were rabbits.

  “Jenn.” Kydd laid a tender hand on her arm. “Please. Tell us what’s going on.”

  “Horst’s gone after Roche,” she said miserably. “With his—with his bow.”

  The same hand gripped tight and pulled her to face him, not gently. Bannan took an involuntary step, then stopped. He didn’t know enough to interfere.

  “What did Roche do?”

  Had he not heard such terrible surmise in a voice before, too many times? There were few innocents left in the border marches; those on both sides had been guilty of slaking more than bloodlust. Feeling sick, he looked closely at Jenn.

  “What did he do?!” Kydd roared.

  “Not what you fear,” he interjected, relieved. It was there, the truth, written in her face. Misery and worry, yes. Nothing worse. Nothing . . . shattered. The other man’s eyes shot to his and he replied, “I’m sure,” to their unspoken demand.

  Misery, worry, and now indignation. Jenn tugged free. “If you’d let me speak,” she protested, “I’d tell you.”

  “Please,” Kydd said tightly.

  “Roche wanted to take me from Marrowdell.” She glanced at Bannan. “On your horse.”

  Which Scourge would love more than rabbits. He grinned, remembering the many harmless stable hands the four-footed menace had laid flat. A would-be horse thief? “I hope your friend bounces,” he said without sympathy.

  The beekeeper remained tense. “When you left me, Roche followed you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. He found me in the mill. Accused me of—” her cheeks flamed. “He made me angry, so I said I’d leave Marrowdell with him. To get rid of him, not because I ever would!” She waited for Kydd to nod. “Roche went to get the horse and I came home. He can’t catch Scourge. I thought,” this with some asperity, “he’d spend the rest of the day tromping through the brush.”

  She trusted Scourge to ignore a harmless fool. She might be right at that, Bannan decided cheerfully. Though he’d lead the fool on a chase he’d never forget.

  “But Horst found out.” Kydd stared over Jenn’s head at the empty road. “He’s gone after him.”

  “The man’s grim,” Bannan observed, still amused. “He’s hardly going to kill the lad for being smitten.” His smile faded at the dread on Jenn’s face. It was real.

  Kydd looked equally shaken. “We’d better find him first.”

  Jenn wasn’t sure which was worse, the way Kydd covertly studied her as they walked, as if Roche’s botched kiss had left drool on her face, or how, unlike Bannan, he’d immediately believed Horst capable of murder.

  No, she was sure.

  Kydd knew what Horst was. He knew about Melusine and Horst’s promise. Of course he did. He’d been there. Wainn and Devins, Peggs and Hettie, the twins—all had been children, Roche barely more. But Kydd? At sixteen, he’d have been included in the hunt for her missing mother, been told the truth, been part of the secret. How could she have thought otherwise?

  Because, Jenn told herself, everyone had lied to her. Not in words, but their lack.

  All at once, it didn’t feel like summer anymore. The road was cold underfoot. Long, thin shadows pinned the old trees to the dirt. She’d always looked forward to fall, with its blaze of colors, and loved its nippy air. She’d watch for the tinkers’ wagons from the oak’s branch, shout when she saw them coming. The hum and clatter of the millwheel would be music on nights aglitter with frost and stars.

>   This wasn’t the same. This change was small and mean and troublesome, like the first deluge of spring, when larders were almost empty and even Davi’s draft horses mired in the half-frozen mud.

  Bannan whistled between his teeth, short and soft. “For Scourge,” he explained. “Better safe than not.”

  “Horst would never loose an arrow unless sure,” Kydd said.

  “They’ve history.” Bannan didn’t elaborate.

  Another worry, then. When he was sure, Horst never missed. Jenn walked faster.

  Horst and one other. Of those who’d gone to him to learn the bow, Roche had taken it most to heart. The “whisss-thunk” of arrow tip into wood had gone on for years, leaving scars on the windowless side of the Morrill home. He no longer missed the straw targets; this winter, he was to join Horst in his hunt.

  She was still angry at Roche. She’d love to push him in the commons pond with Satin and Filigree and Himself—after hugging him with relief. Which might confuse him.

  No hug.

  As for Horst . . . Roche was the closest thing to a son he had. How could he turn on him like this? Why?

  They reached the path to the trout pool with no sign of horse or men. Bannan whistled again, this time with a small frown.

  They’d be missed shortly, if not already. Just as well Kydd had come along. She cringed to think anyone else might believe the same as Roche, that she’d—that she’d try to convince Bannan to take her with him.

  Though he wasn’t leaving, according to Wainn. Bannan claimed to be a settler. Be that as it may, she thought. Surely there were better choices than here.

  “You must be sorry you took our road,” Jenn said abruptly.

  Bannan had been focused on the brush to either side. He blinked at her, then gave a slow smile. “It’s been interesting. And not your fault,” this with emphasis. “I blame Scourge.”

  He’d said that before, at the mill. She’d taken it as a joke, the way the others had. Maybe it wasn’t. She’d heard Scourge speak.

  Did Bannan?

  “Why would he want to come this way?”

  “I don’t know.” The warm amber deep in his eyes intensified as he remembered. A pause and shrug. “There’s no accounting for the creature. First he dumps me on the road, completely uncalled for, and runs off. Then he comes prancing to my aid as if he’d never left. I suppose I’ll forgive him. After all,” his smile widened, “he heard your call for help.”