Moons' Dreaming (Children of the Rock)

by Krause, Marguerite

  She didn’t know why she was nervous. She knew the ceremony. She chewed on a knuckle and watched Pepper as the girl carefully wrapped and placed the half dozen loaves of cinnamon bread she’d made herself into a big basket. One of Pepper’s young friends was taking her vows, and Pepper was sending a present for the party afterward.

  Vray’s contribution would be to not make any mistakes. There were only a few words she had to say. Still, she’d never taken any Keepers’ vows before. If any of the children should stumble over the words….

  She shook her head, banishing the worrisome thoughts. The children would have their parents to help them. No one would mind if she had to ask for help. Which she wouldn’t. After tonight, she would know what to expect for the midsummer ceremony. There was nothing to be nervous about.

  The door opened, letting in cold air along with Tob and a load of firewood. “Hello,” he called as he dumped his burden in the bin near the hearth. He striped off his gloves and held his hands out to the fire. “Brrr.”

  Vray looked at his boots and where he was standing. “You’re dripping on the rug and I’m not going to clean it.”

  He gave her a put-upon look but retreated to the rag rug near the door. Vray got up to pour the boy some warm cider. While he was pulling off his boots, Cyril and Matti came out of the other room. Cyril went to the fire to check the stew pot and Matti climbed into Vray’s lap.

  * * *

  The room was comfortably warm, the air rich with the smell of cooking vegetables and an underlying aroma of cinnamon and yeast, illuminated by fire and lantern light. Tob’s cheeks, toes, and fingers still tingled with cold but the cider had begun to warm his insides. He sat in silence, wishing the girls would go away, glad they didn’t, wanting to talk to Iris, but not sure what to say.

  It was Matti who broke the silence. “I want a story, please.”

  Iris stroked her hair. “A story? Now?”

  “You won’t be here when we go to bed,” Pepper pointed out and sat down at the table. “So we should have a story now.”

  “Oh, it’s we, is it?” Iris laughed. “Stories in the middle of the day. I’m not sure it’s proper. What do you think, Tob?”

  He looked up from his cider. “I’d like a story, please.”

  Iris looked thoughtful. He liked when she looked thoughtful. The way her eyes narrowed made her look a little bit like a cat.

  “Let’s see. Do you know about the time the Abstainers tried to steal the horses from the big horse fair in Edian? Not just any Abstainers, either, but a band led by the queen’s brother, Soen.”

  “Edian?” Pepper was looking suspicious.

  “Is this going to be about him?” Matti demanded. “You’re always telling stories about him.”

  Iris squeezed Matti’s waist. “I know,” Iris said patiently. “I’m from Edian. It’s not my fault if the town’s hero is the captain of the guard, and Redmothers there learn lots and lots of stories about Dael. This is a very exciting story. You like exciting stories, remember?”

  “Other towns have heroes,” Pepper pointed out. “You’re Broadford’s Redmother now. Tell an exciting story about Broadford.”

  “Does Broadford have heroes?” Matti wondered.

  “There’s Dad,” Tob spoke up. “I’ve heard Herri tell lots of stories about him.”

  “Daddy saved Jenk from drowning when the river flooded,” Pepper said. “That was heroic. Wasn’t it, Iris?”

  Iris was silent for a few seconds before she said, “Yes.”

  Tob wondered why she looked annoyed. Maybe she didn’t like anybody being brave but her Dael. Dael just sounded like a guard performing his duty, as far as Tob was concerned. He wasn’t all that special. Tob knew, because he’d met this famous Dael a couple of times. Tob remembered the aftermath of the Abstainer fight in the lake country three summers before. He and Jordy had shared camp that night with Dael’s guards. He remembered noticing stains of dried blood on the captain’s tunic. Dael killed people. Maybe Iris liked to remember him because he was tall and handsome. Maybe she ignored the man’s violent nature just because he did brave things. What would she do if Tob told her he knew him? That Dad saw him when they were in Edian? Maybe she’d want Tob to take a message to him. Would she want to see him?

  Tob studied Iris, angry and suspicious, suddenly afraid she’d go away. He should tell her she belonged in Broadford. This new fear was worse than thinking about her with Lim. At least Lim was here. At least he could compare himself to Lim. He spoke up. “I don’t want to hear about Edian, Iris. Tell us the sort of Redmother tale you teach Mankin.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “Perhaps I’ll give you the short version of the story about how Greenmother Coria saved an island in the northern sea from a volcano.”

  “What’s a volcano?” Matti asked.

  “A mountain that burns,” Iris said. “It’s something I’ve re—” She faltered, then started again. “It’s a very long story. It’s got dragons and a couple of princes and a fisher folk flotilla caught in a great wave and Coria putting wild animals to sleep so they could be brought safely to the mainland. It took me weeks to learn the tale. But Mankin,” she smiled proudly, “recited it back to me after I’d told it to her only once. The girl has the best memory of anyone I’ve ever met. Redmother Vissa started training my memory when I was your age, Matti, before I even took my vows, and I still couldn’t have remembered such a long tale all at once at Mankin’s age.”

  “If it’s a long tale you’d better start it,” Pepper said. “Supper’ll be ready soon. Then you’ll have to go.”

  Iris nodded. “You’re right. The short version of Coria and Heelm Island. Centuries of centuries ago….”

  Tob leaned forward to listen, happy to hear a new tale. And happy to have Iris’s mind away from Edian and Captain Dael.

  * * *

  “Is everybody here?” Herri yelled from behind the bar.

  Canis, sitting at a table near the wall on the other side of the inn’s common room, called back, “Ask Iris.”

  Vray lifted the skirt of her robe and stepped up onto a chair. As soon as Herri noticed her, she nodded.

  His bellowed, “Quiet!” brought all conversation in the room to a halt. The people present looked expectantly between the innkeeper and Vray. Herri continued, “I hereby declare this the official midwinter gathering of Broadford. Redmother, take charge.”

  Friendly, smiling faces turned toward Vray. She relaxed and smiled back. She wasn’t really nervous now. It was only a gathering. Unlike the festivals, which were filled with as much feasting and celebration as a day would hold and attended by every member of the community, the gatherings called at midwinter and midsummer were smaller, more personal affairs. Everyone who had come to the inn tonight had a specific reason to be there. Last summer had seen a completely different gathering of people, and next summer would attract yet another group. The entire ceremony would take less than an hour.

  “We gather in support and approval of six vow-takers,” Vray began. “We are not witnesses. A vow may be spoken, but it is made not with our friends or family. A vow exists within us, where only the gods may truly see our sincerity. We are not judges. A vow may be broken according to one person’s understanding, yet still be honored in the mind of another. Truth is complex, and only the gods know our intentions. We gather to welcome these people to the responsibilities they choose today. Only the gods know where their vows will lead them.”

  She located the six children seated here and there in the common room with their families, and addressed her next words to them. “For some of you, today’s may be the only vow you ever take.” She looked at ten-year-old Mankin. “Or it may be one of several. But each time you vow, remember this—you vow for your entire life. Remember this, too.” She put warmth and reassurance into her voice for the six-year-olds. “We know how you’re feeling. We’ve been where you are now. All of us. All the way back to the Firstmother.” Her training held her voice steady, but tears alr
eady glistened in the eyes of several of the parents. From the direction of the bar she heard a suspicious sniff.

  “Oriel?” she said gently to the brown-haired boy seated nearest the hearth. “You go first.”

  The six-year-old, with his father’s assistance, imitated Vray and stood on his chair. He hitched up his pants, scratched at his nose for a moment, then clasped his hands behind his back and closed his eyes. “My name is Oriel. My family has shown me what it means to be a Keeper. I know the nine gifts of the gods to their children. They are animals and plants and water to give us strength. The air above and earth below, our place to live. Intelligence,” he pronounced the word carefully. “so we can think and plan. The bending of power which brings us magic.” He paused, face screwed up in thought.

  A helpful childish whisper prompted from somewhere in the room, “That’s seven.”

  “I know,” Oriel said. “And our bodies. And our love, so that there will always be more Children of the Rock. I vow to keep these gifts. I vow to keep my body healthy with the right use—”

  “Proper use,” his mother prompted.

  “—proper use of the gifts of plants and animals and water and air and earth. I vow that I’ll be a helper in my family and my village by thinking and loving. And I don’t have to vow anything about magic,” he concluded, opening his eyes, “because my parents are Keepers and so am I.” His round face was flushed with pride and relief and, hopefully, his first inspired understanding of the words he had said. “And I vow to do whatever I’m supposed to do to help everybody else keep their vows. Because we are all Children of the Rock.”

  “Well done, Oriel,” his father said.

  The common room erupted with hand clapping and slapping of tables, shouts of approval and good wishes. Oriel, grinning, plopped down in his chair. As soon as the clamor died down a bit Vray picked out the next vow taker.

  After each of the six-year-olds had recited their Keeper’s vows, Mankin made her commitment to become a Redmother. As she received the gathering’s congratulations, Vray sighed, glad the ceremonial part of the evening was over. She smiled fondly at the people, all of them now moving toward the food tables and warmth of the hearth. Some noticed her and smiled back.

  Oriel’s father called out, “Why are you still perched up there, Iris? Come have some mulled wine.”

  “How lovely,” Vray answered. She stepped down just as the door from the kitchen opened and a laughing young man stepped through, a tray perched on his muscular arm. She stared, hardly able to draw breath, totally disoriented as he moved forward, his attention on the food.

  Candlelight shown on his silky black hair, caught the sparkle of his eyes. Vray saw his broad shoulders, and the confident grace with which he moved, and did not recognize a thing about him except the green and saffron embroidery on the neck of his tunic. Embroidery she’d done for Tobble. Her little brother Tobble.

  She blinked, and Tob became Tob once more. Only—Vray took a deep breath and stumbled a few steps into the crowd. She was grateful Tob hadn’t noticed her. Tob, who was always underfoot lately. She took a seat, and accepted a cup of warm wine from Oriel’s father.

  Her eyes went back to the young man who stood beside Herri, laughing merrily at one of the innkeeper’s jokes. She still hardly knew him. No, she didn’t know him at all. He’d grown. He’d more than grown. Tob wasn’t a child any more. What happened to the boy she’d walked here with tonight? She covered her mouth to hide an embarrassed smile, and tried to forget the confused tingling of her body, tingling warmth that would not go away, despite her realization of who she was looking at.

  Don’t be a fool, she chided herself. We all stop being children sooner or later. Vray put down the wine cup and hugged herself closely, as memories of Soza returned. She looked away from Tob and into the fire blazing in the wide hearth.

  Some just lose their childhood sooner than others.

  Chapter 36

  When Pirse showed up in Raisal in the middle of autumn, the only member of the royal household who didn’t seem to be surprised was Sene. At first, Feather took it for one more demonstration of Sene’s knack for knowing everything about everything. During the ninedays that followed, however, she learned that Sene had welcomed Pirse as if he’d been expecting him because he was. Before Aage’s departure for one of his visits with Morb, Sene had asked the wizard to find Pirse and send him to Sitrine. With his usual supreme confidence, it never occurred to Sene that the Dherrican prince would fail to answer his summons.

  Feather hardly noticed Pirse’s arrival. She had too many other things to worry about. A few ninedays earlier, without warning, the king had taken her aside and revealed that he was aware of her less-than-daughterly feelings for him. He’d given her a long, serious lecture about how he wasn’t offended, and understood that her reaction to him was rooted in a perfectly natural desire to express her gratitude for his protection. He also made his wishes clear. Whatever its harmless source, the attraction had to stop. He did not evict her from the royal residence, or banish her from future council meetings, even after she told him that she did not want to change the way she felt. He’d been kind, but as immovable as stone. From that day on, it was as if a wall had been erected between them. Subtle as the change was, perhaps even undetectable to anyone else, day by day Feather struggled with the hard reality. Sene was no longer part of her life.

  Chasa, however, was always there. Even after Pirse appeared on their doorstep, Chasa made a point of drawing Feather into all of his conversations with the Dherrican prince. There was, not surprisingly, a lot of conversation. When they were young, Pirse had learned monster-slaying with Chasa and Jeyn. The three shared fond memories of their adolescent adventures. Feather began to understand some of Chasa’s anger with Jenil. If the Greenmother had not whisked her away to Garden Vale, she would have been a full member of this inner circle, a participant in the daily activities and grand schemes that even now, years later, reduced Pirse, Chasa, and Jeyn to breathless laughter as they described the incidents to Feather. Instead, her only memories of those years involved tapestries and Brownmother training.

  The next time Jenil showed her face in Raisal, Feather would have a few things to say to her.

  Most of the conferences with Pirse, however, concerned the present rather than the past. Sene quizzed him for hours on the state of affairs in Dherrica. On other days, the discussion centered on Rhenlan. Pirse had not been observing events as closely as Sene had, but he knew about the unrest among the Keepers-and he had heard of Captain Dael.

  “A fine swordsman,” Pirse said over supper on the day after midwinter. “He takes his vows seriously, too, by all accounts. More seriously than Hion and Damon take theirs. He could do it.”

  “A Keeper, learn to slay dragons?” Jeyn asked. They were dining in the king’s audience hall for the sake of its wide hearth. Feather did not think the day had been particularly cold—not compared to what was usual in Garden Vale at this time of year—but with the setting of the sun enough of a chill crept into the air to make her willing to take the seat closest to the fire. Jeyn sat to her right at the long, linen-covered table, her brother across from her and Pirse, in turn, to Chasa’s right, across from Feather. Sene occupied the head of the table, between his children. For the moment, the king was concentrating on using a piece of crusty bread to mop up the last of his fish chowder. However, the tilt of his head assured Feather that he was listening to every word his children and their guest were saying.

  “What about you, Feather?” Chasa asked. “What do you think?”

  Feather silently thanked the gods that her memory retained the content of conversations even when she was not consciously paying attention. “We all know the Redmother stories. Shapers are traditionally the monster slayers because Keepers have enough to keep them busy with their herds and crops.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Jeyn argued.

  “Personality, mostly,” Chasa replied. “Dael has the self-discipline, an
d if you’d seen him against that phantom cat you’d know he’s fast enough.”

  Sene swallowed his last mouthful of bread and followed it with some wine. “Rhenlan needs a monster slayer. If not this winter, then the next. That’s Aage’s prediction, and I believe him.”

  “Dragons in the western coastal villages?” Pirse shook his head. “I respect the foresight of the wizard Aage, but that seems unlikely to me. Most dragons attack in spring and summer. By Fall Festival, the danger is past.”

  Chasa took an apple tart from the platter in the center of the table. “What happens? Do dragons disappear, the way phantom cats do?”

  “No. It’s just rare to find one moving about in winter,” Pirse explained. “They hate the storms that blow up along the coast. Too much wind, awkward for flying.”

  “Awkward for sailing too,” Chasa returned. “That doesn’t stop fisher folk from going out, if they’re hungry enough.”

  The door to the hall jerked open, the motion too abrupt to come from the hand of a servant. Since only members of the royal staff were allowed this far into the building without escort, Feather expected to see one of the king’s guards, or perhaps a messenger. Therefore she didn’t recognize the man in the mud-splashed trousers, damp brown hair flattened against his skull, until he was halfway down the length of the room.

  Pirse knew him, though. He jumped up and away from the table.

  “Ivey, what are you….” Jeyn began.

  Ivey reached the end of the table. “By your leave, Your Majesty,” he said. Not waiting for Sene’s response, he hauled back his fist, and punched the still-retreating Pirse in the eye.

  Pirse staggered against the wall and into a needlework stand, which toppled over with a clatter. Chasa leapt belatedly to his feet. Sene bellowed, “Ivey!”