A Turn of Light (97 page)

She stopped as Aunt Sybb approached. Bannan stood and bowed.

“A fair night, Bannan. Jenn, dear—” The lady paused, looking from one to the other. “Your pardon. Am I interrupting?”

“We were just—what’s wrong?” she asked in sudden alarm, for Aunt Sybb’s hem was dusted with flour, her shoes red with mud, and her eyes were full of worry.

“Your father. I can’t find him. He has to eat.”

Bannan was quick to offer his arm as the elderly lady wavered on her feet, helping her to sit. She murmured her thanks and looked up at Jenn.

Who flushed with guilt. How had she not noticed her father’s absence? Too concerned with herself, that’s what. “I’ll take him a plate—”

“He’s not at the mill.” Almost fretful. “He wasn’t at home. You have to find him.”

Jenn took her aunt’s hands in hers, dismayed to find them ice-cold. “I know where he’ll be,” she assured her gently. “Please. Rest here.”

“Go,” Bannan told her, sitting beside Aunt Sybb. “I’ll find Peggs and see both safely home.”

She nodded gratefully and left.

First, to gather some help.

By lamplight, the roses were blood red and black, trailing over the lines of roof and wall, nodding overhead. She’d need a ladder to reach one; not that the flowers would let themselves be picked.

“I’m here for Poppa,” Jenn whispered. The roses bent to regard her. “He thinks Melusine’s gone and it’s breaking his heart.”

Leaves rustled.

She lifted her hands. “He needs you.”

There was a snap somewhere in the darkness overhead, then a single bloom tumbled down. It landed, dew-damp flower and stem, across her palms, and had not a single thorn. Jenn closed her eyes and breathed in its heady scent. “Thank you.”

Holding the rose, she walked through the circles of light cast by porch lamps, then left those behind. The soles of her feet knew the road, her urgent will shortened it; she arrived at the opening to the ossuary within heartbeats and wasn’t surprised at all.

The path was dark, but a glow lit the end. As Jenn went toward it, she heard a sound she couldn’t place at first, then did.

A shovel?

She stepped into the opening, uncertain what she’d find.

A man stood waist-deep in Melusine’s resting place, her name writ in lamplight across his bent back, sod and clods of dirt splayed around him like battle wrack. As if sensing Jenn’s presence, he slowly straightened and turned. Sweat and tears streaked the flour on his face into a savage mask, and she didn’t know who he was.

The scent of roses floated in the air, more than one rose, more than a hundred. Jenn took a desperate, deep breath. Saw him do the same.

All at once, the stranger’s face became her father’s beloved one, though gaunt and worn. Leaning on the shovel for support, he looked up at her as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Jenn?”

Rose in hand, she slid into the hole. “Oh, Poppa.” She took him in her arms and held tight. “We’ve worried,” she scolded through her tears. “You missed supper and Aunt Sybb went all through the mill looking for you. I told her I’d find you.”

He held her then, patting her back gently. “You found me being a fool. There there. You shouldn’t have climbed down, Dearest Heart. Look at your dress. Come now.”

They helped each other out of the hole and collapsed, more than sat, on the dirt-splattered meadow grass. A moth landed above Mimm Ropp’s bones, but offered no comment. A pair of eyes reflected the lamplight; a house toad sat nearby. Comforted, Jenn handed her father the rose.

Taking it, he closed his eyes and inhaled slowly.

“Poppa, didn’t you believe Uncle Horst?” she asked carefully.

Her father let out his breath and gazed at her, spots of red appearing on his cheeks. “I wasn’t looking for your mother’s bones.”

“Then why?”

“Her ring. She wore it, always. The thought of it in the ground . . .” His voice shook.

True, one properly buried bones, not belongings; Rhothans did, Jenn reminded herself, newly aware there could be other ways considered equally respectful by those who followed them. “Maybe Uncle Horst wanted to leave you something of her, here,” she ventured.

“Who knows what went through his thick head?” but gently said. “I’d hoped to find it. You and Peggs have so little of your mother and now, now we’ve less than we thought. Your pardon,” this in a more normal voice. “Excuse the rambling of a foolish old man. I’ve troubled you and my dear sister for nothing.”

Radd’s hands were filthy, the nails were broken and bleeding; he hadn’t just used the shovel. The hole he’d dug was deep and dark, its sides crumbling, and what soil showed in the light was riddled with small brown stones aglint with gold. To find a ring in that?

Bannan believed. “‘What magic really is,’” Jenn repeated softly.

Despite her father’s protest, she jumped into the hole where her mother’s bones had been and reached down, fingers touching the dirt.

And dared to believe too.

Her fingers closed over something small, cool, and smooth. She froze in place, afraid to look in case she was wrong.

“Jenn?”

Holding her breath, she straightened and held out her open palm. A ring lay there, its intricate weave of gold glittering in the light, its tiny roses with their ruby hearts sparkling as if new.

Eyes aglow, Radd Nalynn plucked a rose petal and used it to pick up the ring then enclose it, safe from the dirt on his fingers. He trembled as he tucked the tiny bundle inside his shirt.

He helped Jenn from the hole, keeping her hand in his. “Ancestors Dear and Departed. You’re so like your mother, Dearest Heart. It gladdens my heart you’ve her gifts too.” He smiled at her puzzled look. “Melusine could find whatever was lost; bring what was lost home again. She brought us to Marrowdell. It wasn’t an accident,” gently, as if she’d objected, but she hadn’t. “We came where she belonged. Where we all did.”

So she wasn’t as she was by a turn of light, not entirely. Some of her magic, maybe the best of it, was part of her.

“Come, Poppa. We’d best get back,” Jenn said, feeling lighter than she had for days. “Aunt Sybb’s waiting.”

He grimaced. “Wait till Sybbie sets eyes on the pair of us.”

Nothing was different, but everything was. Jenn giggled and the moth lifted into the air. Her father laughed. When they finally stopped, gazing at one another, she saw signs of a new peace in his face.

“If we hurry,” she suggested, “we might make it home before she does.” Which they surely would, if she helped shorten the road.

“You go ahead. I can’t leave this,” he said ruefully, nodding at the hole and dirt.

About to help, Jenn glimpsed movement. Three toads came to squat by the first in the lamplight. A rustle in the hedge promised reinforcements. “It’ll be looked after, Poppa,” she declared.

With a curtsy to Marrowdell’s toads, Jenn Nalynn took her father home.

Bannan Larmensu found Dema Qimirpik under a trestle table. His legs, at any rate. They were bare, as were the Ansnan’s feet, and flailing about as the man attached to them attempted to crawl in farther. Given the dema’s proportions were more generous than the table’s, the mood of those watching ranged from perplexed to amused. The few items on the table had been hastily rescued.

The truthseer looked for Urcet. The Eld stood at a distance and, by his expression, would prefer to be anywhere else, with anyone else. Embarrassment at his colleague’s antics or impatience?

A satisfied grunt, a perilous tip of the tabletop that had more than a few grinning, then Qimirpik wriggled out. Though it was educational to discover that a dema wore skin and nothing else under his formal robe, what mattered was revealed hanging stoically from his hands.

A house toad.

The spectators’ mood changed in a flash. “Let it go,” someone ordered gruffly. “Leave it be,” from another.

Qimirpik’s smile faded. “I mean no harm,” he protested, holding the creature gently to his chest. The toad stretched a long and lazy foot, otherwise unperturbed. “It’s remarkable—so large.” He appealed to his unsympathetic audience. “The eyes—they’re unusual—”

“Put it down!” This, sharply, from Gallie Emms.

“He won’t hurt it,” Bannan said to the villagers, taking pity. “Unusual and revered, good dema,” he told the man. “I suggest you observe Marrowdell’s toads from a distance.”

“As you wish.” With great care, the dema bent to lower his captive to the ground. The house toad struggled free just before it touched, hopping back under the table with an offended croak.

Crisis averted, the evening’s last stragglers broke apart, heading for their homes and bed. Bannan stayed by the dema. He’d seen Aunt Sybb safely off earlier with Peggs, both concerned over the miller, and known he could do no more. The tinkers had gone to their tent at the same time.

Slick as butter, Tir Half-face appeared beside Urcet with two cups and a bottle. Bannan didn’t care where his friend had obtained the brandy and hid his satisfaction as the pair left together, presumably after a comfortable spot to enjoy the fine drink.

“My thanks.” Qimirpik brushed at his robe. “I intended no offense, but it’s difficult to avoid mistakes when one travels. Local customs, mores, strictures. Stars above, I swear they multiply the farther I go from civilized climes. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Bannan’s smile faded.

The dema gave him the briefest of looks, then deliberately went back to fussing over the hang of his pleats. “Have I mentioned I’m good with dialects?” he continued. “A hobby. Your friend with the mask—from the hills of Upper Rhoth, without doubt. The tinkers are something of a puzzle, I’ll admit, but I’ll solve it. I always do.”

Perhaps not this one. “What have they told you of themselves?” the truthseer asked curiously.

“Little enough,” admitted the dema. “Those of that profession aren’t the most forthcoming, of course, but these have traveled well beyond what you’d expect, that I’d swear to.”

True, if not in the way he likely meant. Bannan lifted a brow. “How do you know?”

“Observation, my good Bannan.” Qimirpik tapped a finger beside his eye. “The bracelet Mistress Sand tried to sell me? Such amber is found in Mellynne’s foothills, nowhere else. Master Riverstone’s pipe? Ah, I’ve seen one similar but once, and that owned by a fellow dema whose family came from a valley so far to the east, I vow, it’s hard to credit you’re still in Ansnor. The people are white as snow and bray like asses instead of laugh, stars be my witness. You don’t believe me?”

Settling his hip against the table, Bannan grinned. “They’re traders,” he argued, beginning to enjoy the man despite himself. “Bangles and pipes change hands, move from place to place. It’s not surprising.”

“Not like the surprising Jenn Nalynn, hmm?”

At the abrupt switch, the truthseer tensed before he could stop himself. Grateful for the lamplight, he managed a casual, “In what way?”

“Why, the good lady speaks Ansnan as my mother taught me!” Qimirpik slapped his thigh and nodded. “Moreover, Urcet claims her grasp of Eldani, a difficult tongue to master, is beyond reproach. To find such talent and scholarship hiding in a crude—forgive me, but we’re men of the wider world—farm village? A crime!”

“The villagers are well educated,” he replied mildly. Jenn Nalynn, in his hearing, spoke only Rhothan, and that with a charming accent reminiscent not merely of Avyo, but of that city’s elder citizens. She also spoke to toads. In Rhothan, not toad. Whatever toad might be.

Magic? Bannan smiled to himself. If so, it was clever magic indeed. At a guess, Jenn had wished to understand and be understood, rather than try to learn the languages themselves. The turn-born, with their oddly accented Rhothan, must have chosen the other path. Or could they? he thought suddenly. Could they agree to change something about themselves? If not, they’d be forced to learn the language of Marrowdell the ordinary way.

“An interesting group, in truth.” The dema’s gaze sharpened. “And you, my good Bannan, late of Vorkoun, late of her guard, and once of her nobility. You’ve arranged for my esteemed colleague to be preoccupied for a reason. Shall we retire to the comfort of my caravan to continue our conversation?”

Fairly caught, the truthseer stood away from the table to bow. “Lead on, my good dema.”