Moons' Dreaming (Children of the Rock)

by Krause, Marguerite

  “Tamik’s going fishing,” Pirse told her.

  “Trout will be active, this weather.”

  Yes, of course. Trout. Silly of me to even ask. The shepherd had a long pole balanced over his shoulder and a woven basket hanging against his back. Water rolled in tiny droplets off of the dog Myrtle’s long-haired coat. She was looking larger every day.

  “When are the puppies due?” Doron asked.

  “Oh, not for a few ninedays.”

  Pirse looked closely at the dog. “Ah. Definitely not Star. Careless of me to have forgotten.”

  His echo of her earlier thought made Doron shiver. The Shaper did that too often for her liking. Tamik, meanwhile, had picked one of the knives from the basket and was examining the edge.

  “Nice work. Though not the quality of steel you’re accustomed to.”

  “Betajj brought that knife back from Bronle for me,” Doron huffed in automatic defense.

  “Perfectly suitable for the use it’s put to,” Pirse agreed. She wasn’t entirely certain that was a compliment, but he continued before she could make a reply. “I could stop by after supper, if that’s convenient.”

  “Aye, do that.” Tamik nodded pleasantly to Doron. “You’re welcome as well, dyer. Karalie and I haven’t seen much of you this summer.”

  That’s because an irate widow is poor company, Doron thought, but all she said was, “My thanks, Tamik. Perhaps another day. I’ve no time tonight.”

  “No time?” Pirse regarded her with undisguised disapproval. “Don’t be absurd! Would do you good to get out and visit your friends.” To Tamik he added, “We’ll come.”

  “He’ll come,” Doron corrected sharply. The prince raised his eyebrows innocently at her. “If I have to kick you down the hill.”

  “You wouldn’t.” He tried his dazzling smile on her. “You might enjoy the attempt. Far be it for our staid and serious Doron to enjoy anything.”

  “Well, I’ll be going.” Tamik backed away from the shop. “Karalie and I will be expecting you.” He diplomatically left open the question of how many guests they’d be expecting. Diplomacy, or cowardice.

  As soon as the shepherd was through the gate she reached down and rapped Pirse on the top of the head. He yelped. She said, “I enjoyed that.”

  “Bully,” he complained.

  “So I am. I’ll thank you not to organize my life for me.”

  “You’re not doing very well on your own, are you?”

  She stepped back inside, and just avoided hitting her head on the top of the window by a hairsbreadth. Insufferable man! The sooner he was fully recovered and out of the village, out of her life, the better she would like it.

  * * *

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Am I?” Must be drunk, Dael thought. Didn’t hear Nocca approach. And, little brother, you are not a quiet one.

  He turned, somehow avoiding the big hand that tried to fall on his shoulder. He looked up at his brother’s broad, handsome, concerned features. Dael wasn’t a small man, but Nocca, eight years younger and in his first year in the guard, was half a head taller. He had the family’s gold hair, worn long in the style of the guard. A style Dael had started. He wasn’t happy to have a brother follow him into the guard. It wasn’t as though he’d chosen this life, or wanted to inspire anyone to be like him. It left only Ruudy at home to learn the goldsmith’s trade from their father. At least Ruudy’d brought home a wife with some skill at gem carving. Not that anyone could replace their dead sister, Milla.

  He felt his eyes begin to mist with tears and knew he really was drunk. Milla would be the last to appreciate his being maudlin.

  “What do you want?” he asked his very big little brother.

  Nocca shook his head. “Three days, Captain.” He looked around at the dimly lit inn with disapproval. The big room was nearly empty this early in the day. A pair of farmers sat in one corner, nursing mugs of ale. Dael had woken up behind the bar, on a pallet supplied by a pretty girl. He could remember her face and kindness, but not her name.

  “Three days?” he repeated.

  “You’ve been here three days.” Nocca tugged on his sleeve. “Come home. You can drink yourself into a stupor there. Or in your own quarters.”

  “Can’t drink myself into a stupor,” Dael answered. “I’ve tried.” He lifted his mug and downed the ale in a few gulps. Putting it carefully on the counter before him, he said, “There’s a wine from Sitrine I’ve been meaning to try. It might do the trick.”

  “Come home.” Nocca put his hands on his hips and looked insistent. Or tried. To Dael he just looked like a big, long-haired puppy with their father’s eyes.

  “I think they water the ale here,” Dael continued. “But they’re good to me, so I won’t report it to myself. I’m very good at not telling myself things.”

  “You promised Father ninedays ago to travel with him to White Water when you could get leave.”

  “So I did.”

  “Have you asked the king?”

  Clattering noises came from behind the curtain strung across the opening behind the bar. Perhaps the pretty girl was up and working. Dael smiled at the thought of her. The thought didn’t go any further. He really was drunk. Drunk and incapable. “Ruin my disgusting reputation.” He looked at his brother. “Why would a princess want me?”

  Nocca wrinkled his long nose. “No one would want you now.”

  “Just as well, then.”

  “Have you asked the king?”

  Stubborn child. Dael turned and leaned back against the bar. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve been getting drunk. Why must I always state the obvious to everyone?” He was beginning to get annoyed. It wasn’t safe for him to be annoyed. Dangerous things tended to happen. So he stopped being annoyed, and sighed. “What am I supposed to ask the king?”

  “About traveling with father,” Nocca answered with the patience one used to speak to the simpleminded.

  Dael suddenly remembered what Nocca was talking about. After the king had refused to let him take a troop or two to clean out the bands of Abstainers reported along the roads to White Water, Dael had thought of something clever. His father had valuable cargo to transport. If Abstainers heard of a goldsmith traveling with some of his wares, he was sure to be attacked. Which was what Dael wanted, since he planned to accompany Loras’s wagon with a troop of his best people. The king couldn’t object to a training exercise, couldn’t object to Dael being a dutiful son. A perfectly good plan. Of course, he’d have to sober up to put it into effect.

  “How’d I get here?” he asked, abruptly annoyed, with himself and his brother and the king, and others he was probably too drunk to think of, for wasting time.

  “You walked,” his brother answered dryly. “You gave command to Sergeant Hamer and told him to leave you alone. He’s left you alone.”

  Dael nodded. It made him dizzy. He swallowed. “I’ve lost the mood for keeping order in Rhenlan.”

  “Well, you’d better get it back.”

  He stood up and put his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “It’s because of Vray, you see. She constantly annoys the king. She would make him give me the guards I need to serve the kingdom. Gods, I miss her.”

  Nocca removed Dael’s hands from his shoulders. “Is that what this is about? The princess?”

  “No. Of course not. It’s no business of mine. I’m just the Captain of the guard. Why should I care for a girl I raised?”

  Nocca looked thoughtful. “Father said she’s taken Milla’s place for you. Please come home, Dael.”

  Nocca wouldn’t remember their dead sister very well. Besides, it wasn’t true. Vray was herself. Too much. Headstrong child. Dael rubbed his forehead. His head hurt—probably the result of trying to use it. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Good. Maybe then you’ll sober up.”

  Once he was sober he’d start thinking again, and he wasn’t sure that was what he wanted. Unfortunately, it see
med he no longer had a choice.

  “Take me home,” he said, and let Nocca guide him out into the bright day.

  Chapter 11

  Doron’s house was too small. Given the time and energy, Pirse would happily have rebuilt it, beginning by doubling the size of the foundation. But as a recovering invalid he’d had to content himself with minor items such as chimney repair and window caulking; now, with the return of his strength, time had run out. The house would have to remain as it was.

  Pirse sighed and pulled off his shirt as he stepped into the steamy heat of the bath house, a low-ceilinged structure attached by a doorway to the main building in a manner common to the mountain villages. Inside were wooden tubs of appropriate sizes for washing people or their clothing, and a few shelves for soap, wash paddles, and brushes. The squat water tank atop its iron-enclosed fire dominated the room. He chose a tub and slid it into place over the drain set in the smooth wooden floor, then opened the spigot from the tank. Perhaps it wasn’t a matter of the house being too small. What was important was that it was adequate for the woman’s needs, safe and comfortable. Too comfortable. He’d been entirely too self-indulgent lately. He’d allowed himself to begin to like it here.

  He kicked off his trousers and reached across the tub to turn off the water. A cool breeze touched his naked back just before Doron’s voice said, “Pirse.”

  He turned. One hand on the half-open door, the other balled into a fist at her side, Doron glared at him. “Since when does anyone take a bath in the middle of the afternoon?”

  “I’ve earned it. I split the last of the firewood. Would you mind closing the door? There’s a bit of a draft.”

  To his surprise she stepped further into the room before swinging the door shut. She was wearing a simple, long-skirted dress of pale green with no sleeves, stained here and there by the products of her shop, in spite of the apron tied at her waist. He noticed that her face was flushed. The warmth of the room, or perhaps the exertion of her climb up the road from the dye shop.

  “Since when do you come home before sunset?” he counter challenged.

  “The village of Alder has been attacked by Abstainers. One of their people has arrived, looking for advice. We’re gathering in Tamik’s barn to talk to her.”

  “Alder. That’s the other side of the range, isn’t it?”

  “Aye. Four days’ travel when the roads are clear.”

  “On foot. That would be less than one day by horse.”

  “You don’t own a horse.”

  “I’ll borrow the potter’s.”

  They stared at one another. She said, “Why do we bother to argue when each of us knows what the other is going to say?”

  “Do we?” he asked. “If you know how I feel about Abstainers and don’t want me to leave, why were you so eager to tell about Alder?”

  “The woman has come for advice, not a swordsman.”

  “But my advice when facing Abstainers is a swordsman. Several, if you can find them.”

  He stepped impulsively forward and kissed her on the cheek. He intended it as a gesture of gratitude and acknowledgment of the care she’d shown an unwelcome stranger. He was also not without hope that such an act of effrontery would end the discussion, and quite possibly their relationship, very neatly. But she did not flinch away. She didn’t even slap him.

  Her face beneath his lips felt hot. He was the one to pull back, startled, abruptly reminded that only a few layers of thin summer linen separated them, none of it his. She had one hand on his chest, but not to push him away. With his breath quickening, he kissed her again, properly this time, his hands finding her hips and pulling her close.

  Once her dress was off and added to the mound of his clothes, he could barely feel the hard wooden floor beneath them.

  * * *

  Sweaty. Sex in the bath house was always sweaty. Doron stuck out her lower jaw and blew a sharp of puff of breath upward, fanning the damp hair away from her forehead. Pirse, sprawled on his back beside her, opened one eye. “A bit warm?” he asked.

  “We shouldn’t have done this.”

  He rolled onto one elbow, facing her, all suggestion of lassitude gone. “By the mothers, why not? If it’s your dead husband you’re thinking of….”

  Mention of Betajj brought only a distant sweet ache. She reached up and tugged at his ear. “I was thinking of the fact that we haven’t time to bathe. We’ll be missed.”

  A puff of daffodil-yellow smoke near Pirse’s feet coalesced into a black-robed woman, her pink face fringed with short, oat-brown hair. She smiled fondly down at them while they scrambled for their clothes. “Oh, good. I told Morb you should be feeling better by now.”

  Pirse got quickly to his feet. The pleasant haze induced by their love-making gave Doron a last impression of the young prince’s physical grace and poise, even looking embarrassed and slightly put out; then cold reality smashed down on her and she saw only a muscular but too-thin, too-pale lad with too many smooth white scars marring his skin. “Don’t Dreamers respect privacy?” she snapped.

  “No, they don’t,” Pirse answered for the woman. “Doron, this is Savyea.”

  To Doron’s discomfort the Greenmother beamed at her. “Oh, I know Doron. A fine, strong family. Normally I wouldn’t dream of intruding, children, but I told Morb better me than Aage.”

  “Morb is in need of me?” Pirse accepted the trousers Doron held up toward him, his puzzled gaze never leaving Savyea’s face.

  “He’s grown far too used to your work. Sene’s son could manage a dragon or two for a change.”

  “Dragons? Where?”

  The black cloak rustled as Savyea made a soothing gesture with both hands. “Now, dear, don’t get excited. Morb dwells too much on monster-slaying in my opinion. But I won’t say he’s not practical about it. That’s why he’s asking after you now, so that you’ll have plenty of warning.”

  “Greenmother,” Pirse paused in the lacing of his tunic. “Is there or isn’t there a dragon?”

  “There are always dragons,” Savyea returned with equal patience. “At present Morb thinks you’ll be concerned about one that is moving along the coast. He asked me specifically to tell you that it will be hunting on the shore due north of Dundas in three ninedays, if unopposed.”

  Doron dressed, berating herself for a fool. Dragons and Dreamers marked the boundaries of Pirse’s existence. Admittedly, he’d extended himself a bit since arriving in Juniper Ridge, but only because he was a dutiful Shaper. The villagers—Keepers throughout Dherrica—were right to respect him. That didn’t mean they should presume to love him.

  For the past few days, Doron had been intending to remind him that he had better things to do with his time than to mend fences and chop wood. A little fun on the bath house floor didn’t change that. Certainly there was no reason to resent a man being true to his vows. She said, “Don’t forget the Abstainers.”

  Pirse glanced at her, all brisk efficiency. “Plenty of time. Trust me.”

  “Well, if there’s no hurry,” Savyea said brightly, “don’t mind me. Just go on with what you were doing. Priorities are everything, you know.”

  A scent of sun-warmed earth and cut clover lingered in the air after the Dreamer disappeared. Doron found herself sharing a bemused, somewhat embarrassed look with the prince. Then she remembered he was leaving. “I’ll go ahead to Tamik’s,” she said, turning away. “Tell them you’re coming.”

  “Doron.” He grabbed her upper arm and tried to peer into her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t, Your Highness.” She gazed levelly at him. “I’ve done my part. You’re well again.”

  “There’s more between us than that.”

  She pulled firmly out of his grasp. “I’m no innocent girl to need pretty words and well-meaning reassurances. You’ve work to do. Let that be the end of it.”

  Once more she started for the door. His voice behind her was cool, determined. “I’ll be back.”

  “The villag
ers will welcome you, I’m sure.”

  “See that you do,” was his parting remark as she escaped from the room.

  * * *

  There was no evidence of sheep in Tamik’s barn, for his flocks had been out on the mountain all summer. Instead, the large structure smelled primarily of the hay stored in its upper reaches and the vegetables in the root cellar below. During the winter, the entire village would be fed out of the surplus put aside in the shepherd’s barn. When Pirse entered, a fair number of the Keepers were already present, standing in a loose circle on the bare clay floor, most talking quietly with the people nearest them. In the center of the circle stood Tamik, Doron, and a woman with long, dusty-brown braids who could only be the stranger from Alder.

  Pirse tried to slip into the circle, but a few determined hands propelled him into the center beside the barn’s owner.

  Doron said, “Jonna, I think this is everyone. Will you tell us what happened?”

  “Six Abstainers,” the woman replied immediately. “We missed a few goats a nineday ago, but Corl thought it was wolves. Then seven days ago the storage cave at the head of the valley was ransacked. Some items stolen, but most destroyed, trampled, casks smashed open. The next day we saw them for the first time. Four men and two women, we think. They fired both farms on the south bank of the creek. You know where I mean, Hanig,” she added, directly addressing one of the Juniper Ridge women. Hanig nodded grimly.

  “Was anyone hurt?” Tamik asked.

  “Aussol was burned trying to save his chickens. I don’t know how serious it is. I left first thing in the morning. That was five days ago. Who knows what’s happened since?” She looked past Tamik. “We’re a small village, Highness. Seventeen families scattered the length of a valley.”

  “I know the place,” Pirse replied. “I visited five years ago with Captain Cratt and a troop of the Queen’s guards.”

  Jonna’s expression grew, if anything, more serious. “I remember the captain, though I don’t remember you. They were following up a report of Abstainers to the south.”

  “I’m afraid we never found them. It’s conceivable this is the same group. Or part of that group.”