by Nagle, Pati
Sarah nodded dumbly and went back to Joe’s bed.
The fever lasted through the night and into the next day, and the white house was filled with Joe’s harsh cries. The hired girls and the cook and the hired man felt sorry for Miss Eamons and the boy, but kept as far from the room as they could. Joe began to murmur incoherently sometime that afternoon, the same garbled, incomprehensible sound over and over. Sarah sat by him holding one bony hot hand in her own, changing the dampened cloths on his forehead, watching him and wishing she could reach him, talk the language of his fever to him. At nightfall he was still delirious, showing no sign of change for good or bad. Bess tapped at the door and persuaded Sarah to take a bite of supper, but she would not leave the boy. A tray was brought upstairs to her.
Toward midnight it seemed to Sarah that Joe was quieter, a little less restless; he cried out less frequently. In the silences she had time to realize how tired she was; her eyes were gravelly red and her head hurt with a dull, pounding ache. When it seemed that Joe was sleeping, really asleep, Sarah went down to the kitchen for a few minutes to make herself tea, a tisane for her headache. There was a certain comfort in measuring white willow bark, chamomile, and cloves into the pot, adding hot water and smelling the rich, calming odor that rose up from the warm teapot in her hands. She took the pot and a china cup with her on a tray.
Joe’s door was open. Sarah frowned and cursed herself for carelessness, worrying about the draft. Then she saw: Joe was gone.
“Oh, God.” She stood in the doorway, unable to move, the tea tray still in her hands. “No, God, please.” Upstairs? Downstairs? Somewhere along the hall? Then she heard the scratchy pad of bare feet on the polished boards of the hall floor and felt a draft. He was at the front door.
Sarah dropped the tea tray and ran for the stairs, took them two at a time. When her shawl caught on something, she pulled at it angrily and a small table crashed down behind her; a vase broke. Sarah ran blindly down the stair, out the door, calling Joe’s name.
He was a pale blur in the moonlight, making his way across the smooth darkness of the lawn toward the north woods. As he walked he was talking, still in gibberish, and his hands flew up in gestures to an unseen listener.
Sarah followed after him. The smooth kid of her slippers skidded on the damp grass and she kicked them off, running barefoot across the lawn, aware of the chill and the brass taste of fear in her mouth. She called to Joe over and over, but the words were jolted as she ran, lost in the darkness, unintelligible. He was almost in the woods; Sarah did not realize at first that he had stopped walking. His small pajamaed body was framed against the dim trees as he waited for her. When she reached him, Sarah was out of breath, unable for a moment to do more than gather him into her arms. For the first time in hours, his skin was cool to touch.
“Mama,” his croaking voice broke the silence. “Mama, look.”
Then Sarah looked into the edge of the wood and saw. First the eyes, a dull violet glitter in the dark. The same jolt that had gone through her years before when she first saw the baby in Dr. Pratt’s spare bedroom went through her again. Sarah held her boy closer to her, rocking him slightly, crooning, “Baby, baby, it’s all right. Joey, come back to the house. It’s all right.”
The boy squirmed in her arms, twisted around to face the waiting shadows. Sarah thought she saw more eyes, more indistinct figures deeper in the woods.
“They’ve come to get me,” Joe said simply.
Her heart contracted. Sarah shut her eyes tightly for a moment. “Shhh, baby,” she whispered, and stroked his long cheek. Like an answer, the creature in the shadows stepped forward into the moonlight and spoke to Joe in a grating stream of language.
“Mama, he’s kin of mine. They’re my people.” Joe’s voice was full of wonder, joy; the words said at last and of course. They cut Sarah to the quick.
She looked at the creature. Tall he was, taller than a man, with a slanting forehead and heavy brow that shadowed his glittering eyes. The creature’s body was broad and muscular, his face long and narrow, his nose more like a beak; his ears were large and sharply pointed, twisting an inch or so above his head. Behind him there was a rustle of movement; wings, Sarah realized. Huge, powerful wings that sprang, she was certain, from bony ridges that ran parallel to his spine.
“What does he want?” she asked at last, although she knew.
The creature broke into harsh speech again. Joe listened, seemed to understand.
“His name is Hreu, Mama. He’s come for me. It’s time. Do you see?”
So soon, Sarah thought.
“They are my kin. I never belonged here, except to you, but I’m one of them.” Joe raised one hand ruefully and gestured over his shoulder at the reddened, bony lumps on his own back. “They’ll know how to take care of me, Mama,” he added softly. He was still holding her hand tightly.
Sarah stared ahead of her at the creature, her mouth set like pale stone. “They will take care of you? Where were they when you were a baby? Where were your kin when you were left in the woods? Joey—” she tightened her grasp on his hand. “It’s too soon. It’s not time yet.”
“It’s time, Mama. It’s how they do, leaving the babies to be found and raised up by others. When the change comes, they know, and they come to get them. It’s my turn now.”
Sarah dropped down to her knees, holding the boy, and suddenly it was as if he were the adult and she the child. He spoke to her slowly, in a considered manner, with inexorable reason. “I love you. But this is so strong. I can’t not go with them. I have to, Mama. They’re my people.” In those words Sarah heard echoes of years of taunts and bruises.
Then Joe giggled, a high, giddy sound. “In another year I’ll look like Hreu. You couldn’t explain that in town, not wings!”
Briefly he looked like any ordinary little boy, his face lit with mischief. A profound sorrow washed over Sarah; it took her a moment to control her voice. “I won’t ever see you again.”
Joe stopped giggling. He looked at Hreu, struggled with broken syllables and his own vehemence, then turned back to Sarah. “Come with us, Mama. Hreu says you can, if you want. There aren’t many of us left, but enough. You could come.” In the dark his eyes flickered back and forth, from Sarah in the moonlight to Hreu in the shadows. “Please come.”
For a moment Sarah played with the possibility. Standing in the chilly night air with dew on her feet, she thought of her years of waiting for the flash of difference that would conquer her, the flash she had seen in Joe’s eyes and in Hreu’s. Joe was right. Hreu was right: she could not keep her boy with her any longer. At best he would become a prisoner in her house; at worst he might be killed by the people of Tannesburg. She thought yearningly of flight, of adventure, of Joe’s voice lingering over the words “my people,” making even Sarah an alien.
Very slowly, very deliberately, she said, “If you have to go, go with my blessings, Joseph.” Her voice said darling, baby, little one, sweetheart. “I couldn’t go with you; I’d only slow you down. You’ll be learning so much, growing up.” Sarah drew a shaking breath and looked over Joe’s head into Hreu’s violet eyes. Did they understand what they did to the people left behind? “I love you, baby.”
He flung his arms around her neck, tight, and hung on for a long moment, his narrow cheek pressed against hers. “I love you too, Mama. I won’t forget you, I promise I won’t . . .”
It was Sarah who pushed him away, gently. There were tears on his face when he turned to follow Hreu and disappear into the wilderness.
∞
Sarah was discovered by the cook the next morning, huddled on the steps in the kitchen, the hem of her robe still damp, ruined with dirt and dew. She was so deeply asleep that the cook was afraid and sent for Dr. Pratt, seeing to it that Miss Eamons was wrapped in blankets and settled in a chair by the fire. When Sarah woke, surrounded by the ruddy concerned faces of the cook and the maids, she began to cry, huge, gasping sobs that echoed softly, hoarsely in the
kitchen.
“Sweet lord, the boy’s died in the night.” The cook sent Bess upstairs to see, and in a few minutes the girl was back, as pale as Sarah, to report that Joe was gone, his bedclothes all twisted up and the door wide open. Sarah wept, unhearing.
Dr. Pratt and the cook pieced together what must have happened, the boy’s delirium and fevered escape, Miss Eamons’s waking and fruitless pursuit. The doctor did what he could; left laudanum for her, and went home to tell his wife.
The forms were observed. Advertisements were placed in the papers, letters to the sheriffs of neighboring counties—but nothing more was heard of Joseph Eamons, and he was at last regarded as dead, gone as mysteriously as he had come twelve years before. Through the fall and winter, Miss Eamons did not mix with her neighbors, and it was said she took the boy’s death far too hard, and he only an orphan and not even real kin. Still, people were kind to her and solicitous. Through her veil of grief, Sarah came to realize this and was distantly grateful.
When spring came, she began to go about more, started concerning herself with church work and the library committee. She was again the handsome Miss Eamons, crisp and deliberate in her lawn dresses and cashmere shawls, her civility careful but warm. Only once did she break the calm, when a well-meaning lady from the Women’s Auxiliary suggested that Sarah might adopt another boy. Then her smile disappeared and there was only bleak anger when she spoke. “They are not like dolls, Mrs. French. You do not replace one with another.”
No one mentioned the idea to her again.
In May, when it was warm enough to spend afternoons on the sun porch, Sarah took her knitting there and sat, looking out at the empty green of the lawn. One afternoon as she sat, Carrie appeared. A man had called and was asking to see her.
“What is his name, Carrie?”
“He says it’s Mercier, ma’am.” Carrie struggled with the pronunciation. “He’s from clear up in French Canada. Should I show him in?”
Her curiosity piqued, Sarah nodded. Carrie returned with a tall man, dressed in a light summer wool suit. He was middle aged, handsome in a quiet sort of way; his red-brown whiskers brushed the collar of his shirt when he smiled. About his eyes there was a look of tiredness, and something more than tiredness in their expression.
His voice was low, attractively accented. “Miss Eamons? Thank you for seeing me. I realize it may seem strange to you, a man you don’t know—you will understand. I think. I read your advertisements.”
It took Sarah a moment to remember. “Advertisements?” she repeated blankly.
“Yes, ma’am. And I have been in Tannesburg for a few days, asking questions. I hope you do not mind this, but I think you are the person who can help me. I had a daughter.”
Something in the way he said it made Sarah really look at him for the first time. “I see,” she said slowly. “Mr. Mercier, may I offer you some tea?”
He nodded gratefully, and Sarah rang for another cup. By common consent they spoke idly about the weather until Carrie returned with the teacup and hot water. When she was gone, Mr. Mercier began his explanation. “Adele, my daughter, was an unusual little girl. We adopted her, my wife and I, when she was only a few weeks old. A foundling discovered near our village. When my wife died, Adele and I became even closer, all in all to each other, you would say. Then, about eighteen months ago, she was taken ill, dreadfully so. I lost her.”
“You lost her,” Sarah repeated deliberately, considering.
“I lost her,” he agreed. “She was different from other children, Miss Eamons. Adele was—”
“Thin and bony with a funny voice and a nose too big for her face,” Sarah said, conscious of a mounting excitement. “Am I right, Mr. Mercier?”
He smiled, not happily but as if he had found a resting place after a very long journey. “You are right, Miss Eamons. When she left, I didn’t let go easily. I tried to follow after her.”
“Did you ever find—”
“No. I’m sorry, Miss Eamons, I never did. But Adele told me before she left that there were others, other children like her, other people like me and you who raised children and loved them and lost them. I have been searching for someone like you since I knew she was lost to me.”
They talked quietly for a long time. The sun set, and they sat in the lavender twilight, still talking, while Carrie rattled dishes noisily in the parlor, trying to remind Sarah that it was past the hour when a gentleman could sit unchaperoned with a maiden lady. Finally, Sarah asked Mr. Mercier if he would like to stay for dinner.
He smiled and glanced toward Carrie’s officious silhouette in the parlor window. “Not tonight, I think. But I would like to come back again, if you will permit me to.” He rose and gathered up his hat and stick.
“Tomorrow. Please.” Sarah urged. For the first time in months, her smile was generous and touched her eyes. “We have a lot to talk about.”
He took his leave, and Carrie saw him to the front door. From the sun porch Sarah could dimly see him on the path and then on the road, walking toward Tannesburg. When he was out of sight, Sarah sat down again, thinking of Joe without pain for the first time in months. Cuckoos, Mercier had called Joe’s people, for the bird that left its young to be raised up in other nests. Cuckoos, a sign of spring.
It was warm enough, but Sarah did not sit outside long. Dinner would be ready shortly. Paul Mercier would be back in the morning.
Nine White Horses
Judith Tarr
I wrote this story for a friend as a Solstice gift. “Write me a story about Charlemagne’s horse,” he said. I sat down to do that, and this is what came out. I’m quite fond of it, because it’s so very me: medieval historical setting, fantasy twist, and of course, all those white horses.
∞ ∞ ∞
For Jonathan
∞ ∞ ∞
The king’s grief knew no bounds. His nephew whom he loved, his Paladins, his wise and worldly Archbishop, were dead. Betrayal and treason had killed them—and the fault, in the end, was entirely his.
He had a kingdom to grow and defend, pagan Saxons raiding again in the north and east, Rome demanding that he render unto it what was God’s and a good part of what was his as well, and a pack of obstreperous nobles baying so loud he could barely hear himself think. He sat in his camp outside of Narbonne, which was not his ally nor exactly his enemy, and found in himself no desire to move. He could not even weep. He had shed all the tears that were in him.
His cooks tried to tempt him with fine meats and local delicacies. He had no appetite for any of them. His mayor of the palace brought him accounts to figure and decisions to make. He turned his face away. He was empty; a hollow king. He was not sure that he would ever be full of either life or joy again.
In the morning—it might have been the third day in that place, or the fifth; it did not matter—he thought he might shut himself in his tent and simply not come out again. But the wind was blowing off the sea, buffeting the walls; each gust smote harder than the last. Even in his state of dire accidia, he observed that the rear wall was close to slipping its moorings.
He watched as the pegs worked their way loose, dazzling him with glimpses of merciless sunlight—for the storm was all wind; the sky was bitterly, brilliantly clear. The wall tore free and boomed like a sail, with a hapless page clinging to one corner.
Other tents within the camp had given way altogether and gone flying inland, giving him a clear view all the way to the horselines. Those were in less disarray than he might expect: his master of horse was good at what he did.
Amid the tossing manes and scrambling horseboys, Carl’s eye found the one who had, one way and another, come into his heart and refused to leave. He was a big horse, a fit mount for as big a man as the king, grey as ash, with a high arched neck and a waterfall of silver-grey mane.
“Tencendur,” Carl said, and even in his grief he smiled.
He could swear the little curling ears pricked, though they could hardly have caught the sound of h
is voice through the howl of the wind. “Tencendur my heart,” he said.
It was no day to be out on a horse—even the best horseman might struggle to keep his seat—but Carl hated his tent suddenly, hated the chair he had been sitting in and the tent that was tearing itself apart around him. He braced himself and forayed out into the gale.
It struck the breath out of him, buffeted his body and flattened his cheeks to the skull. It was like a gate with half the defenders of a city on the other side, barricading it against him. But he was stronger, just.
He could not see where he was going; he had to navigate by memory and by occasional glances to the side, to straighten his path if it started to wander. The wind blew the smell of the horses toward him. Then he was among them, and the gale was somewhat less in the shelter of their bodies.
The wiser among them had turned tail to the wind and dropped their heads and resolved to endure. The younger and the more foolish started and skittered and deafened each other with the explosive snorts of alarm, but hours of wind had taken the edge off all but the worst.
He made his way to Tencendur’s place in the line. Someone was there with the stallion, a wild-haired boy in a rough shirt and bare feet. The feet were filthy, but something about them made Carl pause.
It was not that they were particularly small, but they were narrow, and they lacked the calluses that distinguished the habitually barefoot. These feet were accustomed to be shod, but not for a while, from the look: they were scratched and bruised as well as thick with dirt.
The boy was doing something with Tencendur’s tether: securing it, one would think. Except that, like the feet, something was not right there, either.
Just as Carl hurled himself against the wind, the boy tugged the tether free and clambered onto the stallion’s back.