Moons' Dreaming (Children of the Rock)

by Krause, Marguerite

  Vray rubbed her palms together. She wanted her mommy’s attention. She was seventeen, not seven. What problems did seventeen-year-olds bring to mothers? Boys, of course. There was one in the village trying to court her. But Lim was certainly no problem, although he wanted to be. She grinned. The boy was so inexperienced he didn’t know the meaning of the word “problem.”

  “There was a guardsman in Edian,” she said suddenly. “I was in love with him before my family sent me away.”

  Cyril had reached the end of one section of the pattern. The loom fell silent, and she reached for the next color.

  Vray folded her hands in her lap, embroidery abandoned. “Handsome. More than handsome. I was eleven when I decided I wanted him. I didn’t know quite what I wanted him for, but I was willing to learn. Only trouble was, he wasn’t willing to teach me. Kept thinking of me as a little girl just because he’d known me all my life. I was flat-chested and skinny, which didn’t help. He likes girls—” She held her hands out a good twelve inches in front of her chest, “—ample. Cows.”

  Cyril did not seem to notice the gesture. However, she was busy sorting thread, and the continued silence of the loom was enough encouragement for Vray to continue.

  “He liked lots of girls, all the time. Different girls. Every girl in Edian. I’m not exaggerating! Of course they liked him, too. The most handsome man in Rhenlan, with eyes the color of a midsummer sky at dusk, hair like ripe wheat, but smooth and flowing, shoulders wide as a door, narrow waist, strong thighs, and in between….” She thought of several possible descriptions, all of which Dael had blushed over when she’d tried the words on him. She decided she wanted Cyril’s attention, not her disapproval, and left those words unspoken. “Charming. The things he would say to flatter a girl! Meant them when he said them, too. Whichever girl he was with he loved the most. I always hated the way they’d smile at him on the street, and the way he’d smile back. All I wanted was for him to smile at me like that.

  “So I set about seducing him. It would have worked eventually, I know it. He was weakening, but I ran out of time. There was this inn he liked. Spent many off-duty nights there. One night, just before I was sent away, I put on a new dress and followed him there. It had an ample bodice, cut to reveal assets I really didn’t have.” She shook her head at the memory. Her maid had nearly fainted at the sight of her.

  “He looked. He laughed, but he did look. Then he dragged me home. Again. He was always doing that. I followed him back to the inn, and upstairs to a room. He was with a girl, of course. I stood and watched for a while. I think he knew I was there and let me stay. Sort of thing he’d do to try and prove a point. I dumped a pitcher of ale over them. The girl was furious, I think more over the ruined bedclothes than out of embarrassment. What did she care about me? I was just a skinny child. He cared. He blushed all over. Such lovely pink flesh.

  “He also got very angry. Made me clean up the mess and pay for the ale, while they went off to a different room. They locked the door that time. And after all he’d done over the years to further my education!” Vray sniffed, still affronted by that locked door.

  The loom began to move steadily once more. Cyril watched her hands, then the shuttle, then scanned up along the cloth. Her expression had not changed, and her walnut-brown skin betrayed no hint of embarrassment.

  Vray threaded her needle. “Of course, that was years ago,” she finished softly. “He’s probably fat and the father of three children by now. He really was too old for me, I suppose.”

  She would never believe that. She would never believe he could get fat, either. But it had been years ago. Even if he never changed, she had.

  Well, she had talked. Even if she hadn’t entertained Cyril, she had enjoyed telling the story. Dael thought she should have been ashamed of her behavior that night, but she still thought it was funny. It was Cyril’s loss that she couldn’t appreciate it.

  Vray pictured the bed, the girl’s hair soaked with pungent dark ale, and the livid shock on Dael’s face, the image fresh and vivid in her mind’s eye. She grinned. It was one of her fondest memories. She’d enjoyed it then, and she enjoyed it now.

  Looking out the window she noticed that it had begun to snow, and wondered if it was too late to start baking a pie for dinner.

  * * *

  “You left it till the last minute, didn’t you?”

  Tob, plodding along beside the wagon, looked up at the friendly hail. Their neighbor surveyed them from the other side of his stone fence. Jordy, walking a couple yards in front of Tob at Stockings’ head, called back, “Have you nothing better to do than watch the road for us, then?”

  “Don’t tell me Herri didn’t give you a piece of his mind.”

  “I didn’t hear any complaints about the goods we brought.”

  “You were lucky.”

  Jordy turned and walked backwards for a few paces, exchanging a smile and a rueful glance at the sky with Tob. “Aye,” he admitted.

  Their neighbor laughed and waved them on before returning his attention to the fence he was mending. Tob took one hand out of his pocket long enough to pull his cloak snug at the neck. The snowflakes that drifted down from the iron gray sky were growing fatter and more frequent. It would be wonderful to get home and stay home. He hoped they never had such an arduous summer again.

  Treating Broadford as the hub of a wheel and the other villages they visited as the tips of its spokes had served a purpose. Jordy’d managed to complete all of his pickups and deliveries and still return home frequently enough to at least begin to build a relationship with the newest member of the family. Stockings probably hadn’t even noticed the many extra miles she’d walked. Tob hadn’t much enjoyed the many nights of rough camping in miserable weather, nights which in a normal year they’d have spent safe and dry in some village inn, even at the cost of one or two days’ delay. His father’s only real worry had been this final trip. Snow would have immobilized the wagon.

  The bushes along the left edge of the road were brown and bare of leaves. Stockings swung through the opening in the hedge, lowering her head as she leaned into the harness to pull the wagon up the final slope into the yard. A dusting of snow clung to the roofs of the buildings, dim patches of white in the fading light. A gust of wind blew cold, damp flakes against his cheek. They were very lucky, all right!

  Jordy threw open the stable doors. A delighted Matti leapt out of a pile of straw, dropped the kitten she’d been playing with, and squealed, “Daddy!” Pepper’s head appeared at the window of the goat shed, and a moment later she was pelting up the hill. The two children managed, just barely, to keep out from under foot as Tob and Jordy maneuvered Stockings and the wagon into the dry security of the stable.

  Ignoring his younger sisters, Tob began unloading what little remained in the wagon, mostly spices and the durable thread his mother used in her weaving. Jumping to the ground, he gathered up a few empty sacks from the tailboard and started around the front of the wagon to put them away.

  Someone entered the stable from the yard. Tob stared. Billowing hair, bright eyes, slender neck. Her cloak lay carelessly across her shoulders, open in front to reveal a single lightweight calf-length tunic of pale green. The tunic slid across her soft, gentle, curves as she moved. She smelled of wood smoke and cinnamon and sweat—a woman’s sweat. She was beautiful.

  She was Iris.

  Tob tripped over one of the shafts in front of the wagon and dropped most of the sacks. Iris shook her head as she passed him. “Careful, Tobble,” she chided kindly. “You must really be tired.”

  “Hello,” Tob replied inanely.

  His father, who was inspecting Stockings’ hooves, looked up at him sharply. Iris didn’t notice.

  “Pepper,” she said, resting one hand on top of the eight-year-old’s head. “I think Mama wants you. Supper’s almost ready and she’s put the dishes on the sideboard.”

  “I better go,” Pepper agreed. Matti ran out after her.

  Jordy smil
ed pleasantly at Iris, showing none of the reactions to her appearance that were afflicting Tob. “Look at yourself, my girl. Summer dress, flushed face, flour on your hands—you and Cyril are baking.”

  Iris’s light laugh made Tob’s chest ache. His chest and other parts of his body. “All right, it’s obvious. Now, guess what we’re baking?”

  “Spiral rolls,” Jordy guessed at once.

  “Apple pie. I’d better go back. Is there anything I can take with me?”

  Jordy bent and picked up another of the big mare’s hooves. “The box of spices. Cyril will be glad to see that. Tob, show her which it is.”

  Tob hurriedly wiped his damp palms on his trousers and joined Iris at the back of the wagon. She returned his smile absently. “This one?” she said, indicating a moderate-sized crate with the toe of her slipper.

  “You’re joking?” The inappropriateness of her choice was enough to startle him out of his bemusement. He picked up the correct, much smaller box and placed it in her hands. “This is all one family needs for a year.”

  “Oh, of course. Thank you.”

  He stood, staring after her as she slipped out of the stable. He continued to stare, his mind full of vague and disturbing thoughts, until his father’s voice said, “Tob.”

  “Yes, Dad?”

  “Come here.”

  Jordy had nearly completed grooming Stockings. Tob accepted the cloth his father handed him and began rubbing the animal’s deep brown coat. They worked for several minutes on opposite sides of the mare.

  “Dad,” Tob said at last.

  “Aye.”

  “Iris has changed.”

  “Has she?”

  “Yes. You saw her. She’s so… pretty.”

  “She’s always been pretty, lad.” Jordy stepped back to examine Stockings with a critical eye.

  “Not that pretty.”

  “She’s not as thin as she was.” The admission was made absently as Jordy roused Stockings from her doze and led her into her stall. The horse stuck her nose into an empty feed rack. Guiltily, Tob clambered up into the loft and dropped a couple of generous forkfuls of hay into place. When he returned to the floor, he found his father studying the general disarray around the wagon.

  “Sorry, Dad. It’ll just take me a minute to finish.”

  Jordy regarded him with a rather odd expression. “I think our Iris is not so much prettier than she’s been all summer, as healthier. Less upset than she was at first, certainly. She’s come to trust us, lad. To have confidence in her life here. But that trust may still be fragile. If you care for her, go gently.” He paused, then retrieved his cloak from the top of the feed bin and swung it over his shoulder. “I’ll see you in the house.”

  Tob leaned weakly against the side of the wagon after his father had gone. Care for her? Of course he cared for her. Didn’t he? As a family member? She needed someone to look after her. She used to need someone. Obviously, she had changed. She was beautiful. No, Dad was right. Her face hadn’t really changed. It was more than that. Something inside her.

  He shivered and looked down at his hands. Or, he wondered with an insight he didn’t really want, was the change inside him?

  Chapter 34

  Vray stood in the darkness in her corner of the attic. “Not again.”

  Where had she left it this time? She would never have guessed a year ago how difficult it would be to keep track of a cloak. A year ago she hadn’t owned a cloak. She had shivered through cold weather at Soza wrapped in a blanket that didn’t leave her shoulders for ninedays at a time. If you never parted with something you could hardly lose it. It was too easy, too tempting, to forget all that. Her present abundance was making her careless. She had warm skirts and blouses, and a long, sleeveless, quilted tunic, one of Cyril’s peculiar yet practical designs. Jordy had brought the hooded woolen cloak, dyed a rich rust brown, all the way from southern Dherrica just for her. She faced the increasingly colder mornings well dressed and content.

  Her trouble was that the cold mornings had been giving way to mild afternoons, a warm streak that she appreciated for as long as it would last. Vray had paused in the act of unlacing her blouse, suddenly conscious of the missing cloak. She’d worn it on her morning visit to Canis to learn more of Broadford’s history. She’d worn it back, too. It had rained just before midday and she remembered adjusting her hood against the cold drops that were washing away the first snowfall. She’d worn it out to the stable after lunch. Tob had been mending harness and she had wanted to listen to his travel tales while she worked on her embroidery.

  In the privacy of her curtained alcove, Vray made a face. She saw the cloak clearly in her memory, draped over the side of the wagon. If the sun hadn’t come out to warm the later afternoon she wouldn’t have forgotten it. She had two choices; retrieve it now, or face the morning chill without it. Even without it she’d be better dressed than she’d been at Soza. A quick dash across the yard would do her no harm in the morning.

  Vray sat on the edge of her bed. “I’m spoiled,” she admitted aloud. “I don’t care. There’s nothing wrong with appreciating comfort.”

  She pulled on her boots and retrieved her quilted half-jacket from the end of the bed. Let Tob tease her about devoting too much of her memory to Redmother business and leaving nothing for herself. Pepper said he was always insufferable after a summer spent adventuring with the carter. If the little ones could ignore him, so could she.

  She descended the ladder to the main room. The banked fire revealed shadows and emptiness. Tob was no longer at the table where she’d had last seen him. A glimmer of lamplight peeked out from under the curtain blocking the entrance to Cyril and Jordy’s room. Relieved to be unobserved, Vray tiptoed to the front door and slipped outside.

  Under the overcast sky the night was very dark. The yellow light that leaked around the edges of the stable door seemed all the brighter in comparison with the blackness of the other farm buildings. Vray ran lightly across the yard. With luck it would only be the carter making his final check on the animals. She really didn’t want to face Tob’s teasing tonight.

  The stable door moved noiselessly under her hand. Once inside she heard Jordy talking to someone at the far end of the aisle between the stalls. Stones! Tob wouldn’t hold his tongue just because he was with his father. Vray quickly ducked between the wagon and the partition that separated it from the storeroom. She’d just have to grab the cloak and slip out again without being seen.

  Her hand closed on soft wool just where she’d left it. From the end of the aisle a voice answered Jordy. Vray hesitated, startled. The voice did not belong to Tob.

  “You can’t blame Sitrine.”

  “Sene is a proper king.” The calm tenor voice of the blacksmith, Lannal, was unmistakable. Vray abandoned the cloak and dropped to one knee in the shadows behind the wagon. Bending further, she peered through the spokes of the front wheels.

  She’d been correct in guessing that Tob was in the stable with his father. It had simply never occurred to her that they would not be alone. Lannal sat on the oat bin, his thick forearms crossed over his chest. Beside him Herri occupied Jordy’s three-legged stool. Jordy himself was cross-legged on the floor, his back resting against the door to Stockings’ stall. A familiar pair of boots dangled at the upper edge of Vray’s field of vision, revealing Tob’s location, perched at the edge of the hay loft.

  “Still,” Jordy said. “I expected stronger feelings. Damon’s greed is a threat to everyone. I thought I could make that clear.”

  “They agree he’s a danger to us,” Tob’s voice floated down reasonably. “And to Dherrica. But they’re also sure that King Sene will never support us against Damon. They’re both Shapers, after all.”

  Jordy’s face twisted sourly. “I asked no one in Sitrine what they thought their Shapers would do. I asked them, Keeper to Keeper, what they could do to help us. They’ve forgotten how to think for themselves. They depend entirely on their rulers.”

  “We a
ll did,” Herri said quietly, “before the plague.”

  “Leave Sitrine for now,” Lannal suggested. “I understand the people of Dherrica are a little less complacent.”

  “Aye. But they’ve too many problems of their own to bother with Rhenlan’s affairs. Many in Dherrica say they’ve had enough of kings, though.”

  Vray’s face went hot with an equal mixture of anger and betrayal. How dare he? A Keeper’s place was to keep, not to concern himself with Shaper affairs! She’d known Jordy to be outspoken in his criticisms. She’d heard it for herself, and heard more from neighbors and friends over the summer. Justifiably critical, considering her father’s mishandling of the kingdom and his gross mishandling of his son the prince. But it wasn’t his fault! Vray had wanted to shout that at the carter several times, when she’d overheard his opinions of Hion’s muddled rule. She wanted to stand up and shout it now.

  Instead, she firmly pressed her lips together, reminding herself that Jordy also lacked traditional respect for the Dreamers. Of course, just because he considered the Dreamers ineffectual didn’t mean he should try to work his own weather magic. Not that he would consider it. Jordy had no real respect for magic, either. Whatever the shortcomings of the Shapers of Rhenlan, a Keeper like Jordy wasn’t justified in making arrangements to replace their authority with something of his own devising! No respect for any tradition, that was the trouble with him. Just like Damon.

  The abrupt comparison chilled her. Her brother was a terrible person, totally selfish, spoiled, intent on reshaping the world to rules only he understood. Tradition was a joke to Damon. He laughed through recitations of vows, stories of Redmothers. He said he didn’t need reasons, or vows. She hadn’t seen it before, but Jordy had exactly the same attitudes. Jordy, who she had foolishly thought she might trust.