A Turn of Light (7 page)

A treaty that hadn’t spared those of Naalish descent when Prince Ordo needed families to settle the north for him and, not coincidentally, wealth to buy the support of both the House of Keys and Lower House in Avyo. He’d declared all the original property leases at an end, offering those left penniless the choice of Mellynne, a domain as foreign to them as to any Rhothan, or to take his gift of land to the north and start anew.

A handful of settlements were his legacy, Marrowdell among them. No other domain contested the border. No one of Rhoth appeared to care about those sent into the wilds and left to fend for themselves.

Not that Jenn thought of the world in such terms. Her breath caught imagining what it would be like to travel to scholarly Mellynne, with its fountains and art, or to cross the inland sea to Eldad’s great cities, said to spread across the horizon—even mysterious, dangerous Ansnor had its charm. Anywhere, she decided, coming back to her problem, but here.

“I’ve heard there’s a way to change a toad into—” Jenn paused. She didn’t need or want a prince, she needed a way to leave Marrowdell. “To change a toad into the perfect husband. For me.”

“I would be a perfect husband,” Wainn asserted, looking at Wen.

Wen actually blushed.

She was doing an excellent job helping other people’s futures, Jenn fumed to herself, just not her own. “Wen. I need a toad,” she insisted.

“Toads prefer other toads,” Wen told her, pushing the curl from her forehead. She appeared amused. “Why would one want to marry you?”

“I don’t want to marry a toad.” Jenn collected herself. “I want to know how to change a toad into a man. A man to be a husband.” Now her cheeks burned.

“Have you tried this?”

“How could I? I don’t know how.”

“Then toads should be grateful. For if anyone could do such a thing, it would be you, Jenn of Night’s Edge.”

For a woman who hadn’t spoken for most of her life, Wen Treff had no trouble robbing Jenn of speech.

“I can’t tell you how to accomplish this,” Wen continued. “Nor would I betray the small ones. But I do know a change in shape does not bring a change in nature. If you want someone to give you his heart, I suggest you follow your own.” Wen bestowed her glorious smile on Wainn once more, then bent to the water again, her face behind a fall of cobwebbed curls, to talk to fish.

“Well, isn’t this convenient.”

The ox thought so, having pulled the wagon halfway off the road before agreeing to stop.

“I’d say someone wanted to help new settlers, sir,” Tir agreed, coming back to the wagon. He’d been walking alongside the animal to stretch his legs and escape the dust.

“The ideal spot, too.” Bannan glanced upward. What sky showed between treetops was the deep blue of a late summer twilight, a warning they’d soon have to break out lamps to see the way ahead. And here they find the first roadside clearing since Endshere wide enough for one or more wagons, complete with a patch of grass beside a burbling mountain stream? Pretty.

Unfair. Having left the border guard, he’d hoped to look at a pleasing landscape and not see where lurkers could hide or how easily any escape could be cut off. For that matter, he’d like, for once, to look at an earnest face, like any in Endshere, and not see the lie.

Tir leaned on the wagon as Bannan jumped down. “Do they think we’re fools, sir?”

“The good people of Endshere did warn of bandits.” And been willing to provide escort—for a steep price. An escort likely to be the bandits themselves, in his opinion, but he’d been polite in his refusal. No sense leaving ill will behind.

Or revealing himself.

Doubtless word had gone ahead. The wagon and its contents had worth here; there was always the chance a once-wealthy settler had hidden something valuable, not that he had.

“A fire,” Bannan decided. “And a good supper.” He took an appreciative sniff. The afternoon’s warm pine lingered, mixed with road dust, fresh ox droppings, and the grass underfoot. Nothing of the city, nothing of before. “We may,” he added cheerily, “need to open the brandy.”

“Here? Sir?”

“Relax, Tir.” Bannan pursed his lips and gave a soundless whistle. Scourge jerked his head from whatever had him rooting in the bushes. “Watch,” he told the horse.

There was something anticipatory in the baleful stare this produced.

“No bandits tonight,” he announced. Scourge rarely had to attack. Few on foot waited to learn what crashed toward them in the dark, and no strange horse would approach if they had his scent. The wily veterans of his company had valued that assurance, especially during their endless patrols into the broken wilderness across the Lilem River, land Ansnor had claimed and defended as fiercely as Rhoth. The soldiers would curse the horse with affectionate pride by day, and sleep better by night.

When anyone slept, he reminded himself. They hadn’t been at war; they’d never been at peace. Patrol was—had been—a weary sameness of hunting one another through the dark. They’d aimed to survive it, not win. He supposed the Eldad treaty accomplished that much.

“He has his use,” Tir admitted, watching Scourge shove his head back into the shrubs, hunting whatever feckless rodent had his attention. “But on a farm? You can’t tell me, sir, he’ll let you hitch him to a plough.”

“There might be bears.” Bannan grinned. “Or wolves. Rabbits—right, Scourge? You like rabbits.”

An ear flicked in his direction.

“Oh, and that’s going to be easy to explain.” At Bannan’s look, Tir added, “Sir. You do realize it’s not normal for a horse to eat rabbits.”

“In Rhoth,” Bannan reminded him. “Scourge is Ansnan.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“I do. And so must you, from now on. After all, he could be.” Since no one had ever seen an Ansnan mounted, and they used tall horned cattle to pull their wagons, who was to know what their horses looked like? When it came to it, Bannan reasoned, Scourge easily passed for a horse—a powerful, oversized, and ugly one, to be honest—from a respectful distance. Any closer, and there was something odd about the lower jaw, a predatory awareness to the eye, and no stallion had balls quite that shape. Mind you, that close and you’d best be a friend or quick on your feet.

In a public stable, Scourge would mouth hay, though he preferred the mice that nested in it, and delighted in sweet mash, provided Bannan or Tir slipped in meaty table scraps.

Whatever the great beast was, he was a legacy. Bannan’s father had been his rider, as had his father’s uncle. Scourge chose whom he would endure, as he had ever since stalking from the mist that morning into the Larmensu paddock.

Had the closeness of the Larmensu holding to the troubled border attracted him? Or simply a temporary overabundance of rabbits?

Regardless, as a mount, Scourge proved more than ready for what he loved most. Battle and blood.

If Bannan didn’t produce a worthy heir to Scourge’s saddle, he assumed the war steed would abandon him to seek his own. Eventually. He’d miss him. Cantankerous, irritable, dangerous. Tireless, courageous, and, above all, loyal.

Well, above all, bloodthirsty. Scourge’s loyalty depended on his opinion of what his rider had in mind.

That he so willingly took this road?

“Rabbits,” Bannan said firmly.

Jenn stormed all the way to the village fountain before she noticed her shadow. She stopped. Wainn stopped. He didn’t speak. His eyes were wide and sad and unutterably patient.

“What do you want?”

“I’m not allowed to visit alone.”

Did he expect her to walk back to the Treffs’ with him and spend more time watching Wen mouth soundless words at perch? Before she could snap a reply, Wainn continued. “I wanted to thank you, Jenn Nalynn, but you walk very fast.”

What was wrong with her? After dipping her finger in the water, Jenn shook her head and sat on the fountain’s ring. She patted the stone in invitation. “I’m glad I could help, Wainn. Wen’s talked to you before?”

He dipped a finger in the water too, catching the droplets on his outstretched tongue, then sat his lanky frame with care. He did everything the same way, she realized, as if unsure the world around him could be trusted to wait as it was. “I hear everything she says. I’m a good listener.” A mottled gray toad hopped toward them over the cobbles and made itself comfortable against Wainn’s bare feet. He bent to look at it. “You won’t turn him into a man, will you?”

Jenn eyed the toad. It blinked its limpid brown eyes at her, then yawned toothily. “Not,” she said dryly, “if it means a man who wants mice for supper.”

Wainn chuckled. “You have a good heart.”

Good or not, it felt empty. She offered the toad a toe to rub its chin against. “All I want is to see more of the world,” she said gloomily. “Why is that wrong?”

“I thought you wanted to marry a toad,” he said, looking confused.

Jenn burst out laughing. Birds chirped in answer and a late beam of sun found its way through the apple trees to sparkle on the fountain. “I can’t believe I bothered Wen with such nonsense.” She lost her smile. “I guess I was desperate. You can’t visit Wen alone. I can’t choose my life alone. I’m sure Poppa won’t let me leave Marrowdell without a husband.” She patted his hand; it still clutched his hat. “And you, dear fellow, are spoken for.”

“‘Spoken for?’”

She touched the concerned furrow between his brows. “Wen likes you.”

“Yes.” His puzzlement faded, replaced by a dazzling smile. “I’m a good listener.”

“You are indeed. Let me know when you want to visit again. I’ll come if I can.” Jenn looked along the road to the mill, thinking of her father working when he should be home, eating his supper alone if he had any appetite left. Her fault. She’d best go and make amends. He could never stay angry at either of his daughters; it wasn’t fair to leave him unhappy. Then she would spend time with her aunt, as much as she could. “I have to go. Good night.”

Wainn stood and offered his hand to help her to her feet, a courtly gesture as natural as his muddy bare feet. Hers, Jenn thought ruefully, were no better. She might be wearing black stockings.

“My uncle has a book,” Wainn informed her as he released her hand. “A book about changing one thing into another.”

From nonsense to instruction?

She shouldn’t encourage this, Jenn told herself, fighting a surge of hope. Not in herself or Wainn. “It’s not possible.”

“Wen said if anyone could do such a thing, it would be you.”

The sunbeam disappeared. Silence made a wall around them until a bee buzzed past on her way to the hives. One of Kydd Uhthoff’s bees. Not the lesser of the two brothers, Jenn reminded herself. Not in knowledge. In Avyo, Kydd had been in the midst of studies at the university when his family was exiled. What those studies had been, no one said, but his keen dark eyes had a way of looking through a problem—or person.

If anyone here could have a book to help her, it would be Kydd.

Wainn nodded as if he’d followed all this. “I can ask him for the book for you, if you like.”

If anyone here would immediately want to know why she was borrowing that particular book, it would be Kydd. He was curious to a fault—and, like his brother, a close friend of Radd Nalynn. Jenn swallowed. “Leave that to me, Wainn. I’ll visit your house tomorrow.” If it was on one of the many shelves, she should be able to borrow it with no one the wiser. Dusom was always glad to share, especially if a former student took interest in reading. “What’s the title?”

“It’s not in the house. It’s in a hive. All the Mellynne books are in the hives. The books from Ansnor are in the hives too. Uncle says they make good winter coats for our bees.”

Books from Mellynne? Ansnor? Who would . . . Jenn closed her mouth and took Wainn’s sleeve, tugging him with her. “Show me.”

The main orchard nestled in the lee of the cliff behind Marrowdell, protected from wind, exposed all day to the sun. There were six more apple trees where the road split in the village center to go around the fountain. At this time of year, every branch bent under its load of ripening fruit, tempting the milk cows on their way to the shed and driving Wainn’s old pony to feats of inventiveness at the latch. Or, as now, to lean his head over the gate to nicker plaintively about his lack of apples, hairy lips working as if to summon the fruit closer.