by Susan Dexter
“Probably.” Kellis shook himself, rose, and crossed the room to the door. The lock spell dissolved at his touch, and instantly Enna’s voice could be heard plainly.
“—or I’ll have Dalkin break it down.”
Kellis lifted the bar, stepping nimbly back before the swinging panel could more than brush him.
Enna had the poker in her hand again, and the will to use it. She came straight at Kellis around the door, trapping him in the corner, and held off her attack only when she heard Druyan’s voice, calling her name.
“Lady!” The poker’s tip hit the floor with a clunk.
“Enna, I would like some breakfast,” Druyan ordered calmly.
“Praise be!” Kellis was instantly forgotten. “And you shall have it—a new-laid egg, and some fresh bannock, with cream. I’ll bring it up—”
No, I’ll come down.” Druyan tried to swing her legs off the bed and felt unexpectedly giddy. “Or perhaps not.” She sank back onto the pillows.
Enna helped her to lie comfortably once more, plumped the pillows and fussed with the sheets, striving to reorder the bedding. “You’ll not stir from this bed, and there’s an end to it! You’re bled white as a trillium, and it’s rest and healthy food will mend you soonest. No flitting about! And some nettle tea, to build your blood up again.”
“Yes, Enna,” Druyan agreed mildly. “But no calf’s liver, I can’t abide it. Don’t you dare go killing one of my calves for something you know I won’t eat.”
“And that blackguard Kellis!” Enna scowled darkly. “Bolting that door so I couldn’t get in to see to you, not all night long! `Tis a wonder—”
“All night?” Druyan asked faintly.
“Aye—as if he was some sheepdog, set to guard the fold. He tricked me! Sent me to fetch hot water for you and then locked me out, bold as you please. When I get my hands on him, he’ll rue the day he ever stepped thieving foot here.”
Druyan lifted her head to look past Enna. The chamber was empty. except for the sunshine.
Kellis had no notion how he`d come to be at the edge of the marsh. The first he noticed of his surroundings was a soaked boot, which squished till it attracted his attention. He looked down and saw he was standing in water.
All he’d planned was to take himself out of Enna’s way, and he’d supposed himself bound for one of the upland pastures. Instead, he stood surrounded by waving salt grass, his ears full of the tiny sucking sounds the faithest reach of the tide made as it left the land. He stared at the green-gold grass, gemmed with tiny crystals of salt all along its stems. That was how the grass survived its twice-daily flood of saltwater—it excreted out the salt that would otherwise have destroyed it, and glittered with those wind-dried tears like a dragon’s treasure trove.
Pain was like sea salt—kept in too long, it would burn and eventually kill. He ought to have learned that, very long ago, Kellis supposed, stepping back to drier ground. He had held tight to his guilt and self-loathing, and there had been room in him for nothing else—until she had pushed it all aside and made a place for herself, however much against his well-intentioned will. It had let him help her—he was glad of that. That was the sparkle on the salt-gems.
Kellis looked up, and there was that black horse, with his uncanny eyes like a moonless night sky. The stallion stretched his neck, to blow a soft puff of hay-scented air across Kellis’ cheek.
“She lives,” Kellis told him. “And she will be safe.” He could guarantee that, he thought. His tenn of servitude would soon enough be up. Splaine Garth’s lady would be recuperating all that while and longer, and neither he nor the stallion would permit or tempt her again to ride into danger.
By the time she was truly well, he would be gone, on his way to the mirage of the Wizards’ City, no more a danger to her. That was how it would be.
Valadan snorted softly, as if content.
After a week of lying patiently abed, drinking teas of parsley and spinach, sipping soups made from lamb’s quarters and dandelion greens, eating pies stuffed with dried apricots and rhubarb, resignedly accepting black molasses by the spoonful, Druyan was at last permitted to descend the stairs. She might sit quietly in the garden, forbidden to rise from the chair that had been carried there for her use but at least allowed to feel the breeze and the sun against her skin, while she sipped more of Enna’s tisanes and potions. Dalkin was bidden to keep himself in earshot so Enna could inform him at once of any need Splaine Garth’s lady had, and Meddy lay by her slippered feet, no matter how many times the dog was dragged off to her real job of helping Rook watch after the flock.
Kellis was, Druyan was reluctantly informed, stacking the peat ricks into castles, the turves of fuel having dried enough for that step. And then he was putting new posts in, along the orchard fence; and how he and the iron axe and the iron spade were getting along, Enna did not know and barely cared, but whatever befell the wretch was surely no better than he deserved.
Next day Druyan refused the sun and settled under the apricot trees, with the industrious bees and Valadan for her company. Eventually she looked up from the pages of the book she had brought along to gaze at between dozes, and saw Kellis standing under the next-nearest tree, a fencepost propped jauntily on one shoulder.
“Do you have the slightest idea how to set a post?’ Druyan asked him.
He shook his pale head in cheerful denial of the skill. “My people don’t build fences. But your animals are very well bred, Lady, except maybe for some of the pigs, and the posts look fine so long as nothing bumps them too hard.”
I’ll remember that, next time I’m walking by,” she said, smiling. “That will be soon, Lady,” he predicted, smiling back at her. “You look well.”
“I feel well. But I’m tired too soon—all I want to do is sleep in the sun, like an old dog.” Just crossing her bedchamber got Druyan out of breath, making her heart beat a frantic measure. It was most disconcerting—she had never had a sick day in her life, save for early childhood fevers that had long faded from her memory. “When you’re done with the fence, the flax field needs to be pulled.”
“Pulled?” His right brow rose at the mystery. “I thought we planted that field. On purpose.”
“We did.” Druyan nodded her head at a plant that had strayed into the orchard, likely assisted by a linseed-robbing bird. Its pretty blue flowers were gone, replaced by round seedpods. “You don’t cut flax to harvest it, just uproot it and spread it out to cure. In a week, Dalkin can start rippling to get the seedpods off. Keep the best for next spring’s planting, the animals get the rest, in the winter. The stalks get bundled and put in the marsh to soak. Pru will show you where—we’ve got stones there, to hold them under.”
Kellis nodded carefully. “Sheep are a lot less work, Lady.”
“And I haven’t even touched on braking, scutching, and hackling, before I can spin and weave.” Druyan rolled her eyes. “It takes most of a year, to turn flax into linen cloth. Worth it, too—much better next to the skin than even the softest wool. Speaking of which, there’s a sark of Travic’s in the press. You can’t keep going around in rags and tatters, even if it is summer.”
Kellis looked away, watching the lazy switching of Valadan’s long tail. “I don’t think Enna will like you giving me her master’s clothes.”
“I hadn’t intended to ask what she thought. Travic was my husband, and I wove that linen and sewed that sark. I’ll do what I please with it.”
“Dead men’s clothes are luckless.”
“He wasn’t wearing it when he died,” Druyan said, exasperated. “The sleeve ends were frayed. I was waiting to darn them.”
Kellis shifted the post on his shoulder. “I should set this, while I still remember where it’s going.”
He might avoid the shirt, but Kellis was not quick enough to escape Druyan’s question.
“What does the bowl show?”
His eyes shadowed to a muddy amber, and then he frowned, his mouth going stubborn. “I have not looke
d, Lady.”
“But if the raiders—”
“The only raiders I’ll fret over are those coming here, and I don’t need any bowl of water to spot them.” His mouth was straighter than any furrow he’d ever achieved with the plow. “And don’t be trying to trick me into it, or wheedling, either.”
“Why?” Druyan laughed bitterly. “Do you think I’m apt to go riding out of here like this?” She lifted her bandaged hand an inch and gasped. Valadan’s head came up.
The notion fetched a wintry smile. “This horse would refuse to carry you, were you so foolish.” Kellis reached out to pat Valadan’s shoulder. The stallion snorted and returned to grazing the clover. “What’s the point of seeking news of raids you can’t do anything about? The visions have not been asking me to look at them, and I am not calling them, either. Let it lie.”
“But if we get word to the post riders, it helps them!” Druyan protested. Was he deliberately being dense?
Kellis smiled again. “I’m none so sure about that—but assuming sending your Riders hopelessly outnumbered into danger is a good idea, how would I be getting word to them?”
“I could have told you the routes!” Druyan snapped. “You’ve followed me all over Esdragon, you know the country by now!”
Valadan snorted a grasshopper out of his next mouthful.
Kellis only raised an eyebrow. “And of course your brother—who’s promised faithfully to see me dead—will listen to me if I go to him with a message?”
There was a silence, broken only by the sounds of the horse grazing, the breeze riffling apricot leaves. Druyan admitted defeat. “I suppose you have a point. And I should not be taking you to task, the first moment I lay eyes on you. I owe you too much for that. Enna told me you stayed by me all night when I came back hurt, never left me. Thank you.”
Kellis shifted the post again, as if its weight was beginning to trouble him. “When I was hurt, you watched after me. No thanks is needed, Lady.”
“I don’t remember very much,” Druyan went on, searching out the words. “Just dreaming about moonlight, and wolves running on the moors. But I’m glad you were with me, Kellis. Enna wouldn’t have known how to help. I was so lost, so afraid—”
“Don’t speak of it. It’s over. Why bring it back?”
Druyan shook her head and let her eyes fill with the green orchard once more, instead of far-reaching blackness. The apricots were yellow and waxing fat. The apple fruits were starting to show touches of color. There would be, ere long, some harvesting to be done at Splaine Garth, and how that necessity was to be managed this year, she had no notion. She knew as well as Kellis did that he had no reason to care how much work it was to make linen cloth. He’d be long gone ere ’twas done.
Druyan called for combed wool and her pearwood spindle the next week and sat by the kitchen door beginning to teach the three remaining fingers on her right hand—which had always done most of the work anyway—to get along without the company of their lost mates. The wound was healing—she could tell that by the healthy itch, even before Enna took off the dressings to exchange them for a lighter wrapping of fresh linen that left her fingers free—and careful exercise would prevent the hand’s going stiff and weak on her. Moving it pained her now, but it would hurt whenever she began, and likely worse later. She set herself to bear the discomfort, and found ’twas not so bad as she dreaded.
Her work was predictably clumsy—the thread came off the spindle thick and uneven, fit only for weaving a coarse rug to be flung over the puddle that tended to appear by the kitchen doorway, just by where she sat. That was fine—Druyan had asked for belly wool to begin with, not caring to waste better fleece while she was still stiff and unproductive.
She lamented her loss most when it came time to wind the wretched yam off the spindle and into a ball. The ball kept escaping her grasp, and she’d have to reel it in, unwinding a deal of yarn in the process. The third time she dropped it, the by-then dirty ball went bounding clean across the yard, trailing thread, and Druyan let it keep going. The sun’s warmth was agreeable, there were wild doves cooing from their nest in the roof thatch above her head, and ’twas pleasant to stop struggling with the spindle, just to sit idle for a while. She was weary, sleepy, and cross. When she’d napped a bit, she’d be ready to work again, and she could fetch the recalcitrant ball of yarn first thing, to stretch her legs.
Druyan did not suppose she had actually been asleep, but then she surely must have been—dreaming unawares of the very sort of day that was actually lapping round her—for she never even heard the horse trot up to her gate and cross the kitchen yard to the water trough. She opened her eyes when the ball of spun thread was laid gently in her lap, and blinked first at it and then at Yvain, who stood grinning at her, handsome in his post rider’s blue and gray.
“I think such an occupation would have sent me to sleep, too, Lady! If ’twere left to me, there’d not be thread enough in all of Esdragon to weave a single cloak.”
“I know I’ve lost track of the days,” Druyan said stupidly, “but you shouldn’t be anywhere near here, should you?” Too late she realized how ungracious her words sounded.
Yvain laughed. His teeth were astonishingly white, like the edges of clouds. She had never noticed that before. “You’ve lost track of nothing, Lady Druyan. By the official schedule, I should be riding above Glasgerion by now, but I exchanged routes so that I might come this way the sooner. You look well.’
Druyan felt her face color—as best it could. She had very little blood to spare for blushes. “Flattery on that scale has to be bred in,” she said. “There must be bards in your family.”
“Dozens,” Yvain agreed cheerfully. “But I was never one of them. I am glad to see you, Lady, all flattery aside.”
“That’s a new horse, isn’t it?” Its blood-bay coat closely matched Yvain’s own hair. Siarl had done the Rider proud with the remount. “Why not put him in the barn, out of this hot sun? If Dalkin’s in there, he’ll fetch you some hay—”
“I’m sure the horse will think ill of me, but I cannot tarry so long, and I’ve not had him long enough for him to expect better.” The captain hesitated. “I’ve grave tidings.”
Druyan’s eyes jerked toward Yvain’s face. She marked the unhappy set of his mouth, masked only a trifle by the pleasantries exchanged a moment earlier. “Not Robart—”
“No!” Yvain said hastily, and breathed a curse upon his clumsiness. “Your brother’s hale, Lady, last I saw of him, and none of us was dungeoned for treason, either, though that was a near thing.” He swallowed. “We’ve lost Kernan.”
“Lost? What happened?” Her heart began its too-familiar racing, and Druyan was glad she was not standing.
“It was . . . just after you were wounded. He and his partner were headed back to their regular route when they chanced on a party of raiders. Kernan sent his second for aid and went on himself to raise the town, alone. He was killed.”
Druyan’s eyes brimmed. Yvain went on, playing with the wave badge at his throat.
“The wonder is we’ve lost no Riders ere this—and lost them in places we can’t explain away, places they shouldn’t have been. Had Kernan been ten leagues off his route instead of merely two—” He sighed. “I don’t suppose any of us thought we’d have to play this game so long, dodging our own duke to protect his lands—it’s true, you know, about the army. Most of the men have been sent to fell timber, and they’re a good month’s march away. Brioc expects to have his fleet ready come spring.”
“Will any of us be left by then?” Druyan asked bitterly. “There’s plenty of good sailing weather still to come.” Seeing the sun made the farmer part of her rejoice, but the rest of her quailed.
“Keverne will stand,” Yvain said, shrugging. “There’s a small garrison posted there. The coastal settlements are left to fend for themselves, despite the increase in raids upon them this summer. The larger towns have watches or garrisons of their own, lesser places may be assumed not
to require protection. That’s what I was told.”
“My uncle is a fool,” Druyan said harshly.
Yvain patted her left hand. “Well, don’t let the defect run in the family! Don’t come chasing after us again, Lady, well or not.”
“But—”
“The Riders will still keep watch and aid one another when the word is passed. But the raids come too thick now, Lady. Being there to meet them isn’t serving so well anymore. We tried, but we’re done. We are messengers, not warriors.” He still had hold of her hand. “May I pay my respects to your husband, before I depart?’
Never saw that coming, Druyan thought, reeling still from his tidings. She could only flush and stammer a stupid excuse that she thought Yvain did not for one instant believe, as he lifted her suddenly cold left hand to his chiseled lips. He was smiling—Yvain was always smiling—as he released her hand back to her. He knows, Druyan thought miserably. But what use would the captain make of his knowledge?
Kellis watched the birds. Easy to do—they were everywhere, filling the air wherever he chanced to be working. Most eggs had hatched out, and there were fledglins to be fed, so the parents were busy and always on the wing. He studied ascents, descents, takeoffs, and landings, soarings upon updrafts of warm air. He paid close heed to the swallows in the barn, the larks above the barley fields, the blackbirds that filled the marsh with song. He took note of hawks, herons, and crows.
It had come to him, as the raids from the sea increased, that the attacks were too numerous, too closely spaced, for each one to be originating on the far shore of the Great Sea. It just could not be, not from what he had seen of the Eral. Their captains threw together expeditions too haphazardly, every arrogant one of them obeying no will but his own. Coordination could not be coincidence.
Kellis remembered how it had been for his own homeland—a raid or two a year—then all at once a dreadful spate of them, unrelenting. Eventually it was learned that the Eral had established a foothold on a peninsula, a base from which they could launch forays in hours rather than days. He thought much the same thing must be happening in Esdragon. He trusted his nose more than his eyes, and he had smelled the same man-scents in more than one raided place. It was not chance.