by Ru Emerson
“I'll give you something, if you like,” Brit Arren said. “Found it off shore, waiting for good news. Doubt it got what it wanted.” He whistled shrilly; two of his men came down the plank with a grey-clad third between them. Tevvro's eyes were furious, his mouth a thin, hard line. Ylia stepped in front of him. Pale eyes met hers, dropped away. Tevvro had lost badly enough that his confidence was shaken. For the moment.
“I have messages for you, and for your Heirocrat, from the Chosen House in Nedao,” she said finally. “There will be no change in the House, Grewl will tolerate no fanatics. And a message from me, personally. I do not interfere with the Chosen, nor with any who follow that way, so long as they leave me alone. If your Heirocrat is intelligent, he will accept this; if your Prince is wise he will reinstate trade with Nar before he loses all. There are other ports, other money as good as his.” She gave him a shove. “Go.” Tevvro, his shoulders sagging, turned. Brit Arren's men nodded him down the docks, where his ship waited.
She and Galdan stood, arm in arm, watching as Fury cleared the sandbar and the point to vanish out to sea. “Wonder what he meant,” Galdan said finally.
“I don't know, What it sounded like, though—” She shook her head. “Flatly impossible. Not even Corlin could manage to turn a Sea-Raider from murder and plunder and make him into a trader!”
“Wager?” he demanded. But she merely laughed.
They bridged back to the Tower and into the midst of a joyous Fest: Most of Nedao was jammed into the City streets. At first, three minstrels and the royal musicians all held an awed, astonished silence as the Folk danced and piped and sang. But not for long: It was impossible to hold back from either the moment or the music. There was dancing in the square, dancing on the bridge and in the narrow lanes between cottages.
Somewhere in the midst of it all, Bendesevorian and his sister quietly disappeared; before middle night, there were no Nasath left in the City. Nisana, who was watching the festivities from the royal box, was not concerned by this. ‘They will not return to their Elders. They will be about, in the mountains. We will see them often. And the Folk will come among us frequently now, for they no longer fear us.’
“Gone prescient in your old age, cat?” Ylia demanded aloud cheerfully. Lisabetha laughed and leaned back against Brelian; he brought her to her feet and took her out to dance. Lossana and Corlin followed moments later.
'Hah,’ Nisana retorted. And when Ylia would have commented further, ‘Shhh! They are singing the one about me again! The part where I felled Lyiadd!’
Ylia opened her mouth again, and Galdan laid a hand across it. “Well, didn't she?” And Ylia, who had managed to bury her last memory of that moment so deeply it could not hurt her to think of it, laughed. Nisana cast them both a very annoyed look, stretched and padded off after Ber'Sordes’ minstrels.
Further down the street, near the barracks, Erken stared in mild astonishment at the merry little pipers with their bare, goat-like feet and hairy legs, the tiny horns on their heads. At those who accompanied him, spilling across the open grass in dance. He knew they were at Nalda, but he hadn't seen them, had found it near impossible to believe. He wasn't certain he could now. Folk! But the music was touching something deep inside him. Not only him, for there was Marckl, capering like a lad with his lady. And there were Marckl's daughter and Ifney's Ivanha, clapping and cheering him on.
Nearby stood Lennet and Alxy, heads close together. Alxy, now Alxeidis XXIV, who had spoken only an hour before with the Nedaoan Main Council, to assure them of the honesty of his intentions, and to tell them that his own Council would be given to understand they could approve any bride for him—so long as that bride was Lennet, the Nedaoan Bowmaster's eldest daughter.
Erken blinked as a hand touched his: Ysian stood there smiling, her green gown caught up and knotted aside to keep it above her bare feet, her hair loose in a cascade of curls. Her eyes were alight, and she looked like a lass of twenty. “Here you are!”
“Well, yes,” he replied doubtfully. Ysian laughed.
“Now, I have been reckoning it quite carefully, and as I see it, you are my sister's daughter's husband's father, and therefore kin to me. I insist that you take Father's betrothal dance with me!”
“Dance. Betrothal?” It took him a moment; he caught her by the waist, then, swung her around. “You and our Golsat? I would gladly dance with you for that.” He took her hands; the music caught him up and warmed him as nothing in his life ever had.
The music faded with the stars, and folk moved from the streets to go home, to sleep. A few remained in the square, still dancing, or sitting and talking.
Ylia and Galdan stood on the southern balcony, watching the dawn spread across the line of eastern mountains, pale blue shading to peach-orange just above the deeper purple of peaks. Selverra slept in Ylia's arms, small fingers caught in her shirt; Ylia leaned back against Galdan so he could support them both.
“In another hour, the herds will be putting out to pasture. People will be harvesting the first grain next month. The apples after that. I think he'd hate that most of all, don't you?”
“Hate what most of all?” Galdan leaned forward to kiss Ylia's brow, Selverra's fingers.
“That—all he wanted to do, all the damage he did, he didn't really change anything.” Her eyes went to the horizon; the gold was spreading, she could see well enough now to see the first early horseman riding out along Marckl's Road. “Not the things that really matter.”
Not the things that really matter. Nedao—eight parts of her people dead, those that lived no longer Plainsfolk; Yls—her Sirdar a lad who had not thought to rule for another forty or fifty years, his grandsire's Council and half the First and Second Houses dead. My son, dead. My Lady taken against her will.
He gazed out over the valley. Selverra stirred against her mother's shoulder, subsided again. Just across the bridge, someone was awake, crossing his yard to milk a cow, his daughter to feed the geese. Not far away, two men pushed a small boat into the river and broke out nets as they slid under the bridge. And as the first rays of sun touched the trees on the high ridges behind them, the smallest bell in the Chosen's compound began its sweet tolling, to waken the household. He drew a deep breath, inhaled the heady fragrance of dust, cool river water and ripe peaches and apricots, all mixed.
Things that really count. Perhaps she was right.
And so my tale draws to an end, though for those of us who lived it, it was of course no end at all. Ordinary, everyday things prevailed, as they always do; though ordinary for Hedao now meant Bendesevorian and his kin, who dwelt in our mountains, and Folk who came to our Fests.
But as one who had lived through it all, I could not regret the commonplace, the routine of seasons and hours and days. We had fought for those things, after all.
Be well. Be content. And live for a fullness of years.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Ru Emerson
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-0966-2
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29