Moons' Dreaming (Children of the Rock)

by Krause, Marguerite

  “...doing?” Jeyn concluded in the sudden silence.

  “That’s for irresponsibility,” the minstrel announced, ignoring the rest of them as he advanced toward Pirse. “The next one’s for abandonment. Then I’m going to—”

  Pirse, one hand cupped over the injured eye, yelled, “We’re going to be married!”

  Ivey paused. “When?”

  “At Spring Festival.”

  “She didn’t mention it.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “Ivey,” Sene said. “Sit down.”

  “My sister! He took advantage—”

  “Sit!”

  Ivey stalked to Pirse’s chair and sat.

  Chasa said, “Rock and Pool, Ivey, what’s the matter with you? Pirse is involved with your sister.”

  A muscle bunched on the side of Ivey’s jaw. “Yes.”

  “With her consent.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then. It’s not as though she’s a child.”

  “I’d rather she were,” the minstrel said in a tight voice. “She’s been hurt once already by his family. He played on her sympathy while she was still mourning Betajj—”

  Pirse pushed himself away from the wall. “I did nothing of the kind!”

  “You’re the last thing she needs.”

  “Obviously the gods feel he’s precisely what she needs,” Sene told Ivey. “They honor your family.”

  Feather tried to disguise her snort of disbelief as a cough. Chasa eyed her suspiciously, then said, “The honor isn’t in Keeper marrying Shaper. It’s in parenting Dreamers.”

  “A Dreamer.” Sene eyes widened as he regarded Pirse. “A baby? You never mentioned the two of you were having a baby!”

  The prince lowered his hand from his face. “Aye. We are.”

  “When?”

  “Any time. I told you I have to leave in the morning. That’s why.”

  The king turned on Ivey. “Have you learned nothing from your years at this court? You should be congratulating him! Thanking him!”

  Ivey shook a few wet curls out of his eyes and glared at Pirse. The prince accepted the scrutiny, but there was a defiant glint in his unswollen eye. Feather heard the lilt of the mountains in their voices as they spoke, though they seemed unaware of those echoes of kinship.

  “She knows you’ll be back before spring?” Ivey asked.

  “Not exactly. She doesn’t like me traveling the mountain roads in winter.”

  “So you’re going to surprise her.”

  “Better surprised,” Pirse said curtly, “than worrying.”

  “You might’ve considered that before you left her alone.”

  “She’s safe at home.”

  “Is that marriage? A baby coming and you not there to see it?”

  “I’ll be there!”

  “For how long?”

  “I can’t spend my life in Juniper Ridge, though don’t think the thought hasn’t tempted me. Are the demands of marriage more important than my vows?”

  “I never said—”

  “When you marry, will you stop traveling from village to village with your songs and tales?”

  Ivey folded his arms across his chest. “Now that’s just daft. I could no more stop at home… I’d ask my lass to come with me if….” He stopped again, and stabbed a finger toward Pirse. “We aren’t discussing me. We’re discussing Doron.”

  “My wife.”

  “My sister.”

  Feather had had enough. “Who is better off in Juniper Ridge.” Startled, they both looked around. “Well away from either of you.”

  Jeyn hid a smile behind her hand. The king pushed his chair back and stood. “I can see we’re not going to accomplish anything else useful until you two have cooled down. Pirse, put something on that eye before it swells shut. Chasa, come with me. I want to speak to Captain Prester about rigging a ship for winter seas. If the land dragons are going to change their habits, we may soon have trouble with sea dragons as well. Ivey, go change your clothes, you’re wet. I don’t expect to see you again until you’re ready to be a coherent, useful, member of this council.”

  Three voices murmured, “Yes, Sire.”

  “I’m glad we understand one another,” Sene said.

  Pirse, gingerly touching the puffiness around his eye, departed at once. Ivey, still rather flustered, slipped out far more quietly than he’d arrived. Sene made certain each had gone his separate way before he left as well. Chasa shoveled the last bite of tart into his mouth and followed his father.

  Feather glared at the last remaining Shaper in the room, torn between suspicion, disbelief, and a whole new level of admiration. “Your father couldn’t have planned that, could he?”

  Jeyn seemed honestly surprised. “Planned what?”

  “The future ruler of Dherrica marrying your minstrel’s sister.”

  “It was chance that they fell in love. Dad can’t arrange that.”

  “Much as he might want to.”

  Jeyn chose to ignore that uncomfortable remark. “If anyone’s responsible, it’s Aage. He brought them together.”

  “You can’t deny it’s convenient. You marry Ivey, his sister marries Pirse. Instant alliance between two ruling houses.”

  Jeyn tried to turn the subject away from herself. “Pirse has no throne.”

  “And you’re not married yet.”

  “No. Dad couldn’t have foreseen Doron marrying Pirse.” Jeyn eyed the last of her wine and made a face. “What about Rhenlan? Who marries into that family?”

  “Don’t look at me. The King’s already chosen my husband, remember?”

  “Pity you don’t have any sisters or cousins.”

  “There are,” Feather said with a heartfelt shudder, “some advantages to being an orphan.”

  * * *

  Jeyn left Feather and Dektrieb fussing over the broken support bar on the tapestry stand that Pirse had knocked to the floor, and hurried through the house to the minstrel’s room.

  The room did not actually belong to Ivey. It was one of several guest rooms on the west side of the building, used by a variety of visitors during the course of the year. However, Ivey somehow managed to time his arrivals and departures to coincide with periods when the room was available for his use. He did not leave personal belongings behind when he went away, as Aage did. The wizard, despite his frequent travels, made no secret of the fact that he considered the royal residence of Sitrine his true home, and he treated his quarters there with a proprietary air. Ivey, however, had always claimed that the road was a minstrel’s only home.

  Now Jeyn knew better. Ivey the ever-restless had roots, after all, with his sister in far-off Juniper Ridge.

  He let her in, his expression grim. He had already changed into dry clothing. “Don’t say it. I know. That was stupid.”

  “A little late to be losing your temper about it, at least.”

  “Right. The damage is done and the problem’s far away. It’s not even my problem.”

  Jeyn came further into the room and sat down in the chair near the fireplace. “Pirse has been talking about Doron since he arrived. He says she’s stubborn and opinionated and too self-sufficient for her own good. He loves her very much.”

  “If he loves her why isn’t he with her?”

  “Because she doesn’t want him to be! That’s what Pirse says, at least. What did Doron tell you about Pirse?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t stay around long enough for a talk.”

  “Ran off in a righteous rage, did you?”

  “Aye.” His blush covered his entire torso. “If it was anyone else—”

  “What have you got against Pirse?”

  “It’s his family.”

  “I admit that Dad has a low opinion of Palle, as he had of Dea and Farren before her—but Pirse has proved himself time and again. You’ve brought us the reports yourself! He keeps his Shaper vows.”

  “It’s not the lad. It’s the family. The other members of the family.”
>
  “Ivey, what are you talking about?”

  “Palle.”

  “When did Palle ever have anything to do with Doron? Pirse says she’s never been to Bronle, and Palle’s spent his whole life at the castle, or on the estates of other Shapers.”

  “She was married.”

  “Yes, Pirse mentioned that.”

  “Did he tell you how Betajj died?”

  “No. Pirse doesn’t know. He says Doron doesn’t speak of it.”

  “Betajj died in Bronle. He was a merchant, making his final delivery of goods for the season.”

  “Just a minute!” Jeyn said. “Is this the same merchant you mentioned to Dad a few years ago? The one who disappeared under mysterious circumstances?”

  “Aye.”

  “Stones, Ivey! You said you were investigating the matter because it seemed suspicious, not because it involved your family!”

  “It was suspicious—and still is! The fact that Doron is my sister means nothing, except of course that I may never have heard about it otherwise. Palle is too clever not to cover his trail.”

  “Palle again.” Jeyn leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “You’ve learned something. Why didn’t you tell Dad?”

  “I intend to.” Ivey combed his fingers through his damp hair, and his expression relaxed into a wry smile. “I only started putting the pieces together on this last trip. When I got to Juniper Ridge, other things pushed it out of my mind.”

  “You’ve been negligent long enough, minstrel,” Jeyn said, in her best imitation of Sene’s sonorous tones. “What have you learned?”

  Ivey smiled in appreciation of her mimicry, but the good humor quickly faded from his face. “It was a boating accident on the river. To make matters worse, no word was sent to Juniper Ridge. Doron had to worry for six long months, until I found out from an innkeeper friend, and took the news to her myself.”

  “If no one bothered to contact her, who led the Remembering?”

  “There was none. The Shapers of Dherrica no longer let us train Redmothers. All of our traditions are dying.”

  “If Pirse were king, he’d set things right.”

  “I know that,” Ivey snapped. “I just wish he would have left my sister out of it.”

  “Aage sent him to Juniper Ridge. To Doron specifically. The Dreamers wanted them to be together. To have babies.” She hesitated, considering what she had heard, and what she knew of Pirse and his continuing exile from a throne that, in justice, should have been his. “To help each other, perhaps. To heal each other?”

  Ivey scowled. “That would be like them, wouldn’t it?”

  “They are healers—and it seems to have worked.”

  “They’re also baby mad.”

  “You’ve been helping them. You brought Vray to that Rhenlan village.”

  “That’s different. Doron is my family!”

  “That doesn’t exempt her from doing the will of the gods.”

  “Aage’s prophecy.” Ivey sat down on his bed and matched Jeyn’s elbows-on-knees posture. “I’ve been reciting it in every village and town for as long as I’ve been a minstrel. I just never expected it to apply to Doron.”

  “We all want to protect the people we love. I’m protective of my brother, too.” She smiled, teasing once more. “Don’t worry about Doron. From the sound of it, she can handle Pirse. No one forced them into bed together, you know.”

  “Aye, I imagine not,” he growled. “She’s bigger than he is.”

  “Is she?”

  “Bigger than most. Betajj had an inch or two on her, though.”

  “What else do you know about Betajj? How could Palle have anything to do with his death?”

  “I’m certain that he ordered it—but I have no proof. Worse, I still don’t know why. I don’t know if Palle hoped to gain something by Betajj’s death, or if it was all a tragic mistake.” Ivey dropped his head into his hands for a moment, then straightened and sat back in his chair. Fatigue from his long journey, mingled with old grief, deepened the lines around his nose and mouth. “It’s been over four years. You don’t know what it’s like in Dherrica, princess. Secrets and lies, wherever you turn.”

  “Because of Pirse’s exile?”

  “That’s part of it, of course, but Dherrica had problems even before Dea died. The guard was captained by a decent man, and many of them were devoted to Pirse. Over the years, though, Bronle had split into factions, some more loyal to Palle than to the throne.”

  “When Palle became king, the factions should have united behind him.”

  “They did—for a time. Palle’s greatest weakness is that he doesn’t inspire loyalty, he buys it. Half the Shaper families, and more Keeper merchants than I like to admit, no longer bother to do what’s right if they can get away with doing what’s convenient.”

  A shiver raised the hairs on Jeyn’s arms. “Has the entire kingdom forgotten its vows?”

  “Most of the villages are still all right. It’s Bronle that’s in danger. Bronle, where Betajj died. As I said, I can’t prove that Palle was involved. Those who know the truth are either loyal to Palle, or too afraid of him to speak out. All I have to go on are the rumors of rumors.”

  Jeyn rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Tell me the tale, minstrel.”

  “My sister Doron is a dyer. Betajj was taking the dyed cloth to market, his last trip of the season. He traveled from Juniper Ridge to Dundas by wagon. In Dundas, he and three other merchants boarded a river barge for the voyage down to Bronle. He made the same trip three or four times a summer, every year.

  “They reached the outskirts of Bronle at dusk. Betajj and another man wanted to camp where they were for the night, and continue to the market landing at first light. The other two merchants and the barge owner voted to finish the voyage in the dark. Less than half a mile before they reached the wharves, the barge capsized.”

  “Capsized? Don’t you mean foundered?”

  “Capsized. Like a wood chip in a millstream.”

  Jeyn stared at him. “I may have lived in Sitrine most of my life, minstrel, but I’ve been to other lands more than once. Chasa and I visited Pirse and Emlie when we were young. I remember traveling the river between Bronle and Dundas. A Dherrican river barge is as steady as a house.”

  “Aye.”

  “Was there a storm?”

  Ivey shook his head.

  “Was the barge poorly laden? Was the river running too low? Too high?”

  The minstrel rejected each of her suggestions, then cut in before she come up with ideas even more outrageously unlikely. “I’ve asked all those questions, and more, these four years past. Instead of answers, I find more questions. Of all the people aboard, only Betajj drowned. Of all the cargo aboard, only Betajj’s goods were lost without a trace.”

  “They sank?”

  “The river at that point is less than ten feet deep. At dawn, the other merchants retrieved their cargo from the bottom, or found it washed up on shore at the next bend in the river.” Ivey’s mouth twisted with grim humor. “Don’t scowl so, Your Highness. You won’t make sense of my tale until you’ve heard it through to the end.”

  “Then tell me! Or are you saving the best part for my father?”

  “I wish I were. From a hint here, a fragment of overheard conversation there, I’ve pieced together a few more details. The barge owner was not well known in Dundas. He traveled that stretch of the river for only that one summer. The next spring, a new man came up from Bronle, and he’d never seen or heard of the other one. The merchant who voted with Betajj to spend the last night outside of Bronle was a Dundas man, and friend to Betajj. The other two were strangers. I traced one of them this past summer. He’s become one of Palle’s favorites at court. On the night of the accident, and the morning after, guards and bystanders helped retrieve cargo. A few of those bystanders had never been seen in Bronle before, and haven’t been seen there since.”

  “Have they been seen elsewhere?” Jeyn guessed.


  “Aye.”

  “Working for Palle?”

  Ivey flipped his hair back over his shoulders with a casual flick of his head. “That, Your Highness, is what I need to discover next.”

  “How?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Then it’s definitely time go talk to my father.”

  Chapter 37

  Damon rode into Bronle as the winter night fell, under gray clouds heavy with snow. A bitter wind whispered through the narrow streets of the capital and dug at the cracks and crevices of the soot-grimed stone buildings. Here and there, the yellow glow of candles or a glimmer of ruddy light from a hearth fire leaked around the edge of a shutter or under a door. For the most part, however, Damon and his escort climbed the hill to the castle through a bleak dusk unrelieved by the least sign of life from the inhabitants of the town.

  When they reached the castle gates, a muffled voice hailed them from the darkness atop the wall. One of the guards at Damon’s back identified himself, and the gate swung open in a chorus of creaks and rattles. The noise grated on Damon’s ears, but his horse barely flinched, and moved forward readily at the touch of Damon’s heels on its flanks.

  Damon dismounted in the courtyard and handed his reins to his spokesman. The other guard stayed close at his heels. Damon vaguely recognized the Dherrican guard corporal who led them into the castle from his previous visits. Fortunately, she knew her job and walked ahead of them in silence, saving him the trouble of trying to remember her name. They reached the guest rooms at the same time as a harried pair of servants who, at a brusque nod from the corporal, scurried inside ahead of them.

  The corporal waited in the corridor while Damon and his guard entered their quarters. The servants laid and lit fires in the sitting room and bed chambers, then continued to bustle about for several minutes. Damon threw his cloak over the back of a chair and ignored them. As long as lamps were lit when he needed them, food placed on the table when he was hungry, and his chamber pot emptied whenever he used it, he cared nothing for the details of how the tasks were accomplished. He was a Shaper, heir to the throne of Rhenlan, with far more important concerns to occupy his mind.