Spirit Song

by M C Dwyer

  Nepenthe let a tiny giggle escape, then took himself off to the stables where a slightly awed Alric spent the entire day telling him about all the Ailerons he’d met the night before.

  The next morning, Aidan met Nepenthe with an apology.

  “I’m sorry, Penthe,” he said, and shrugged. “I told you; I’m not a very good teacher. And you should know by now that I’m occasionally an insensitive lout.”

  Nepenthe’s lips quirked upwards. “I know.”

  “Well, then,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “let’s get to work.”

  Eyes turned upward in supplication, Nepenthe could only shake his head. He moved to the perimeter of the room and started jogging, however, without any further protest. Aidan was who he was.

  And he really did try, Nepenthe had reason to think over the next few days and weeks of practice. He kept his temper admirably, and did a much better job of explaining what he wanted Nepenthe to do. It also helped that Nepenthe could actually see some improvement. He was eventually able to do all of the basic forms in sequence without error and without running out of breath. His days shoveling manure no doubt contributed to this, too, giving him muscle and stamina.

  Just when Nepenthe was starting to fall into this new pattern, however, things changed again.

  “I have to cut back on our lessons for a while,” Aidan said one morning near the end of December. “There’s an embassy arriving from Iona. They’re trying to negotiate a wedding between their princess and the king, so the king will be busy—and will need us, too.”

  At Nepenthe’s crestfallen look, he hastened to add, “I’ll try to make it down at least once a week—twice, if I can. In the meantime, keep practicing your forms.”

  Nepenthe sighed and nodded. “I have to go; I’ll be late to the stables.”

  Aidan let him go, and Nepenthe stopped briefly in the seamstress’ room to see if his coat was ready. It was a much-patched woolen affair, but it was warm enough for the brief times he was outdoors. The stables were plenty warm between the exercise and the body heat of the horses, but his evening rambles were too cold to go without, and it was getting to the point that even the run to the stables was uncomfortable.

  Nepenthe couldn’t remember where he’d grown up, but he didn’t think they’d had winters like this. It had started snowing in the first week of December, causing the Ailerons to officially move their evening gathering inside for the winter, but it hadn’t kept Nepenthe from his favorite balcony. He’d spent the evening of the first snowfall there, twirling among the snowflakes and shivering at their icy touch.

  The coat was done; three new patches covered the holes and added to its ragtag appearance, but Nepenthe pulled it on without demur.

  Snug in his new coat, Nepenthe dashed out to the stables, only to be met with chaos. A stallion was loose in the yard, fully tacked for riding but without a rider on his back. His reins trailed on the ground, and in the course of his bucking and rearing, he stepped on one, causing him to stumble and increasing the fear that already had his eyes rolling. The stable hands circled him, trying to creep in close enough to grab his reins while at the same time staying clear of his flying hooves.

  The stablemaster was there, too, cursing at his help and yelling at everyone to keep back.

  In the pandemonium, Nepenthe slipped in between two of the liveried hands and got a clear look at the stallion. It was the beautiful blood bay Aidan had ridden last summer on their journey. The stallion whirled around, aiming a flying kick at the far side of the stable yard, and without stopping to think, Nepenthe slipped out into the open, one hand in front of him holding the apple he’d brought for lunch.

  Peripherally, he heard Wyatt calling for him to step back, but he kept his gaze locked on the stallion’s wide, staring eyes. The stallion stopped and snorted, his head high and his ears back. They held that tableau for a moment, and it seemed as if the entire stableyard held its breath.

  With a toss of his mane and a flick of his ears, the stallion broke the stillness and trotted forward to lip the apple from Nepenthe’s palm. While he was chewing, Nepenthe gathered up the reins and murmured quietly to him.

  “Boy,” Wyatt’s quiet voice said from behind him, “if that hadn’t worked, I would’ve boxed your ears from here until next Sunday.”

  “He was just frightened,” Nepenthe explained.

  “I know,” Wyatt said grimly, picking up each of the stallion’s hooves in turn and inspecting his legs. “He dumped Lord Wolfe and managed to kick him before we could stop him—not that I wanted to,” he added nearly inaudibly.

  Lord Wolfe again. Nepenthe found himself vaguely curious to meet this person—or at least observe him from a safe distance.

  “What did Lord Wolfe do?”

  “He used a crop on him,” Wyatt said shortly. “I probably would have kicked him, too. We train all of our horses with a lunge whip, but we never use it on the horses. It was the first time in his life that Jasper here has felt a whip.”

  Satisfied that the horse had sustained no injuries, Wyatt turned to his waiting stablehands and motioned them back inside.

  “Show’s over,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Back to work.” He turned to Nepenthe. “If you wouldn’t mind bringing in Jasper?”

  Nepenthe nodded and clicked his tongue at Jasper. The horse shuffled forward, and all three returned to the stables.

  Lord Wolfe was nowhere to be seen, but if he’d been on the receiving end of one of Jasper’s hooves, he was probably in the infirmary. Nepenthe surreptitiously looked around and managed to catch a glimpse of Alric, who gave him an awed look and a thumbs-up before ducking back into the stall he’d been cleaning.

  They arrived in a section of the stables where the stalls were extra large and had tall walls. Nepenthe had cleaned these stalls, but not yet met any of their inhabitants. The horses were on an exercise schedule that, if they hadn’t been taken out for riding, got them out of their stalls so the stable boys could muck them out. Nepenthe had found that he preferred cleaning these stalls; the stallions generally did their business in one corner, rather like a well-trained house cat.

  “Put him in the crossties,” Wyatt said, coming to a stop near an empty stall with “Jasper” emblazoned on the brass nameplate. Nepenthe took the proffered rope and clipped it to the bridle. Retrieving the rope’s mate, he got Jasper secured and turned back to Wyatt for further instructions.

  Wyatt was gazing at him thoughtfully.

  “Do you know how to groom a horse?” He finally asked.

  “Yes, sir; Aidan taught me,” Nepenthe said, sudden anticipation stirring in his chest. Was Wyatt offering what Nepenthe thought he was?

  “Well, see that you do a good job. I’ll be back in a bit to check.” He turned to go, then paused. “Oh, the tack goes in the room at the far end of this row. Give it to Emily; she’ll deal with it.”

  Nepenthe nodded, then ducked around the corner to find the bucket of grooming tools he knew were stashed at the end of every row. He returned and smiled happily at Jasper.

  “You don’t know this,” he told him confidingly, “but you just made my day a whole lot brighter.”

  Jasper snorted and shook his head, causing Nepenthe to laugh.

  With some difficulty, as Jasper was a tall horse, Nepenthe managed to get the buckles undone and slide the saddle off Jasper’s back. The underside was soaked with sweat, and he bumped his elbow into the horse’s shoulder.

  “You poor baby,” he said. “I’ll get you cleaned up.” He hefted the saddle up onto his shoulder and managed to carry it to the tack room.

  A woman cleaning a bridle looked up at Nepenthe’s entrance. “Hi,” she said with a smile. “You must be Nepenthe.”

  At Nepenthe’s look of surprise, her smile grew.

  “You’re a bit famous at the moment. Don’t worry; it’ll pass.” She nodded at an empty saddle rack. “Just leave the saddle there; I’ll clean it.”

  Nepenthe hefted the saddle onto the rack and
waved goodbye.

  “See you around!” the girl called after.

  Returning to Jasper, Nepenthe spent the next half hour making his coat shine. He hummed under his breath, a mindless, wandering tune that nevertheless managed to put Jasper to sleep. He drowsed in his crossties as Nepenthe brushed him clean.

  When Wyatt returned, he nodded in satisfaction. “Would you like a new job?” he said, startling both horse and boy.

  “Really?” Alric had told him to expect to be mucking stalls for six months, at least. It had been barely a month since he started.

  “If you’re that good with all of our stallions, then yes, the job is yours. Your job will be to groom and prep the stallions for anyone who requests one. You’ll still need to be here fairly early in the morning, and we should find you some livery.”

  Nepenthe blinked. He’d get to wear the king’s colors?

  “Cora and Eli are around here somewhere; they’re my other two helpers in this section. Find them tomorrow when you come in.” He smiled at Nepenthe’s somewhat stunned expression. “You’ll do fine, boy. Take the rest of the day off; you’re due an occasional half-day like anyone else. But stop by the palace seamstress and tell her you need a set of stable greens. She’ll know what you mean.”

  With a dazed nod, Nepenthe returned Jasper to his stall, pulled off his bridle, and left to follow Wyatt’s instructions. He was halfway to the door before he realized he still held the sweaty bridle in his hands and had to turn back to return it to Emily.

  The seamstress was busy with her crew of stitchers but paused when Nepenthe stepped through the door.

  “Back so soon?” She said in surprise. “My work usually lasts longer than that.”

  Nepenthe flushed and shook his head. “The stablemaster said to ask you for stable greens.”

  “Ah,” she said, her brows returning to their normal scowl. “Follow me, then.” Heaving her ample body up, she turned on her junior seamsters and seamstresses. “No slacking off while I’m gone,” she said, shaking a finger in their direction. They hunched their shoulders even further, and Nepenthe spared a moment of thought to be grateful that he’d been given a job in the stables. Though if the seamstress ever saw his stitching, she might try to recruit him. He made a mental note to never reveal that particular skill. He wasn’t sure where he’d learned, but he knew he didn’t want to be stuck here in this cold room, stitching in silence. He shuddered and followed the seamstress out of the room.

  Back in the hall, the seamstress retrieved a key from around her neck and used it to unlock a door Nepenthe hadn’t even noticed, tucked back as it was in an alcove. Opened, this revealed a cedar-lined walk-in closet that was stacked high with different colored uniforms and bolts of new cloth.

  Genuinely curious and not averse to keeping the seamstress away from her cowed subjects a little bit longer, Nepenthe asked, “Does the cedar keep the mice out?”

  “No,” the seamstress said darkly, walking to a particular shelf and rifling through the stacks of livery, “but it does deter the bugs. For the mice we keep a good stock of mousetraps and several cats.” She pulled out a set of livery and held it up, staring critically at Nepenthe. He felt somehow lacking under her gaze.

  “Here,” she said, tossing it to him. “Try this one on.”

  Nepenthe clutched the clothes to his chest and reluctantly began to unbutton his coat.

  “Hurry up, child. I’ve got three boys of my own; it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  Not quite daring to stick his tongue out at her, Nepenthe settled for merely pulling the shirt on over his own. It was a little too big, but that was preferable to the opposite.

  The seamstress nodded. “It’ll do. There’s space in the seams for it to be let out a bit, so when you finally hit your growth spurt, come back and I’ll adjust it for you. Here’s a second set, too, so you can wear one and wash the other.”

  Nepenthe scowled. If he had any say in it, he’d stay this size just to spite her. He picked up his coat, bobbed a slight bow, and left.

  In the privacy of his room, he tried on the entire suit. The pants were a bit long but otherwise fit. Both pants and tunic were made of a good, thick wool that would keep him plenty warm while working in the stables. He laid them out with a smile, ready to be worn on the morrow.

  Tasks finished for the day, he skipped off to the library to visit Orin and maybe find a book to read.

  Chapter 10

  True to his prediction, Aidan only visited the training area once in the week that followed. Nepenthe kept in form, running laps and practicing the sword sequences, but no one came to join him—even Tad was nowhere to be seen.

  Everyone must be busy, Nepenthe decided. He never had figured out exactly what Tad did; he seemed to be some sort of assistant to the king, so it made sense that he was busy, too. Nepenthe sighed and tried to not feel sorry for himself.

  In the stables, things weren’t so great, either. While Nepenthe loved caring for the stallions, Alric had taken offense to Nepenthe’s sudden promotion. On this particular morning, he greeted Nepenthe with a low bow and a sarcastic, “So happy to see you, your majesty. Please let me know if my humble self can be of service to you today.”

  Nepenthe bypassed him with a frown, not knowing what to say in the face of Alric’s jealousy.

  “He’ll either get over it, or he won’t,” Cora said, greeting him in the aisle. “Either way it’s not your problem, it’s his.” She shrugged. “We’re starting on Onyx today.”

  Nodding, Nepenthe turned towards Onyx’s stall. Cora had become a fast friend, though that might have had more to do with Nepenthe’s obvious rapport with the horses than any great draw of his own. He could calm the most skittish stallion simply by standing by the stall door. Onyx was particularly feisty this morning, prancing in his stall at Nepenthe’s approach. Removing the halter from its hook by the door, Nepenthe pushed Onyx’s nose back so he could enter the stall.

  “Move, dummy,” he said affectionately.

  Onyx whickered and nudged Nepenthe with his nose, confounding his attempts to halter him.

  “Stop that!”

  Obediently, Onyx held still long enough for Nepenthe to slip the halter on and up over his ears, then clip a lead rein on. By the time he got the horse in the crossties, Cora had returned with the grooming bucket and a saddle and bridle. Working together, they quickly got him brushed clean and tacked up.

  “Is he exercising today?” Nepenthe asked.

  “No, one of the nobles requested him. Lord—I forget.” At Nepenthe’s look of concern, she quickly added, “Not Lord Wolfe. Him, I remember.” She glowered at the thought.

  Since he hadn’t returned since the incident with Jasper, Nepenthe still didn’t know what he looked like. He’d imagined a paunchy older man with a large red nose, but for all he knew he could be an athletic young man. For now, he was simply grateful Jasper was safe from him.

  They moved down the row, cleaning and saddling the stallions, some to be ridden by nobles and others to be exercised in the paddock attached to the rear of the palace. Some ways behind, Alric followed, mucking stalls and shooting dark glances at Nepenthe. He ignored it as well as he could, avoiding eye contact whenever possible.

  Nepenthe breathed a sigh of relief when Alric turned the corner and started on a new row. Eli, the other stablehand that worked on the stallions, was working on the horses that had returned from their exercise. Nepenthe went to join him.

  Eli merely nodded at him and continued his work, and Nepenthe picked up a currycomb and followed suit. Without thinking about it, he began humming softly while he worked. After a while, he realized that Eli had paused and was giving him a considering look.

  “You’ve a bit of the spirit blood, haven’t you?” he said, his slightly accented words proclaiming him to be from somewhere in the south. It was the first time Nepenthe had heard him speak, and he jumped, startled.

  “Yes,” he answered softly.

  Eli nodded. “That wou
ld explain the horses. They like those that have been touched by water and earth, especially. Which are you?”

  Nepenthe prodded his memories, wondering if they would reveal anything further. It produced the laughing face of his mother, her green-tinted eyes sparkling in the sunlight. “Water. My mother was a spirit, I think. Or at least part spirit.” He frowned, trying to remember, but the memories hovered just out of reach.

  It was frustrating, this not remembering. He remembered enough to know the earring’s purpose, but he couldn’t remember why it was important. He scowled.

  Eli nodded. “Bad memories, then?”

  Nepenthe shrugged then sighed. “No memories. I can remember about four years, but nothing before.”

  Frowning, Eli asked, “Were you injured? That happened to my mother’s brother. He hit his head and forgot his own name for a time. The doctor said to surround him with familiar things, and eventually his memories all returned.”

  With a faint smile, Nepenthe returned to his brushing. “That’s no good,” he said. “I don’t know where I’m from, so I don’t know what’s familiar.”

  “Four years,” Eli persisted. “You would have been ten? Eleven?”

  Nepenthe flushed to the roots of his curls. “Thirteen,” he whispered. That much he knew, for he’d received that information with his name—his true name, the one he kept hidden.

  “Truly?” In his astonishment Eli dropped his own brush, startling the stallion he was standing next to. He took a moment to soothe the horse then turned back to Nepenthe. “Forgive me, but I had no idea. We’re nearly of an age, then.”

  “I’m small,” Nepenthe said apologetically, shrugging.

  “That’s hardly your fault,” Eli said with a smile. “Well, I hope you regain your memories one day. And if that brat Alric continues to give you any grief, I’ll slip a word in his ear that you’re older than he is by at least four years.”