Authors: Deborah Chester
Always
cautious, always taking the worst trails in order to keep under as much cover
as possible, they rode all day through the mountains. They passed other,
smaller waterfalls also hanging frozen. Natural springs that in summer would
seep from the rock faces now lay dormant in the grip of winter.
Once
Caelan spotted a band of lurkers high in the rocks overlooking a ravine, but
they were too far away to be a problem.
By
twilight when Caelan and Beva descended into the thick pine forests of the
plateau, Caelan was saddle sore and weary. His wounded shoulder ached, and with
each landmark they passed, he grew more eager for home.
Finally
the forest cleared and there stood the while limestone walls. Thin spirals of
peat smoke curled in the air—smelling homey, warm, and beckoning. Recognizing
their stables, the weary ponies quickened their pace, and Caelan would have let
his mount gallop in had his father not been there.
The
watchman, Old Farns, called down from the walls, and Beva replied. His grave,
even voice could not be mistaken. In minutes, the gates were being pushed open,
and Caelan found himself being greeted by familiar, eager faces crowding around
to see him.
Farns
stood to one side, his hands swathed in the thick, clumsy warding gloves. He
held the warding key while they came through.
“Just
in time, Master Beva,” he said, relief clear in his gruff voice. “It’s almost
nightfall.”
Caelan
did not hear his father’s reply. The gates were pushed shut and locked, and Old
Farns reset the key. People surrounded Caelan, clapping him on the back, asking
questions, faces glowing with simple pleasure to see him again.
Happiness
filled him. The servants were openly pleased at his return. Perhaps they did
not yet know why he was home, but even then they would not care. Caelan grinned
all around, glad of the welcome. It was good to be home, safe and loved, once
again.
“Let’s
take you in to the fire,” said Anya the housekeeper. Plump and motherly, she
clucked over both Caelan and Beva. “Worn through and half frozen alike. This
weather’s no good for traveling.”
“Any
trouble?” Beva asked.
Old
Farns shook his head, then looked up to study the night sky. “Snow will be
coming again. We expect a storm, the way the wind’s turned to come off the
glacier.”
“Good,”
Beva said curtly and handed his healer’s kit and saddlebags to his assistant.
Gunder
was lanky and taciturn, a devout believer in
severance.
He had come to E’nonhold
years ago to serve as an apprentice, but lacked sufficient talent to become a
healer. Instead, he seemed content to remain here forever, humbly serving Beva
in any capacity he was allowed.
“There
are Neika in the hold,” he said quietly. “One with a broken leg that needs
setting.”
Beva
nodded. “I will make my rounds presently.”
Gunder
bowed his balding head and strode away, shoulders stooped against the wind.
“May
be in for a long howler,” Old Farns said, still sniffing the wind. “We’ve not
enough peat gathered.”
“Then
we’ll have to be cold,” Beva said. His voice was short with fatigue. “There’ll
be no forays until we have word the army is well beyond the borders of Trau. Is
that clear?”
Without
waiting for a reply, he walked away.
The
servants exchanged glances of consternation, then streamed after him,
chattering among themselves. Anya snagged Caelan by the arm, snuggling him
close to her ample warmth and chucking him under the chin as she had done when
he was little.
“Still
growing,” she said. “You’re head and shoulders above Old Farns now. I’ll vow
you’re hungry enough to eat the walls.”
Caelan
smiled, nodding. “I could eat everything in your kitchen.”
She
laughed. “There’s venison stew and fresh baked bread and cheese made this
summer and apples baked for a pie and even browly cakes with seed tops, if a
certain miss has kept out of them.”
“Lea,”
Caelan said, his gaze yearning toward the house, which stood square and plain,
lights shining golden at its windows. “Is she up?”
“Up?”
Anya said with a snort. “I’d like to see her stay in bed, with you expected
home at any hour.”
“Caelan!
Caelan!”
A
little voice was shrieking his name. Lea came bursting from the door, dashing
past her father and the others, her arms outstretched for one person only.
She
barreled into his legs and clung tight. “Caelan, Caelan,” she said over and
over.
His
heart squeezed tight. Caelan crouched down and hugged her until he thought she
might break. Her blonde curls smelled of rosemary and lavender, fresh from her
bath. She was small and sweet and tender. He loved her so much he ached with
the joy of holding her in his arms again.
“I
missed you, little one,” he whispered.
“Missed
you more!” she shot right back.
Laughing,
he stood up and swung her high in the air, making her squeal. Only then did he
realize she’d come running outside into the snow in her nightgown and
houserobe, thin cloth slippers on her feet.
“Silly
girl,” he said, pretending to scold her. “You’ll freeze into an icicle out
here.”
Still
tossing and tickling her, he carried her into the house, where the warmth was
like an oven, wonderful and fragrant with the smells of food and cleanliness.
Caelan paused on the threshold only to briefly dip his fingers into the basin
of Harmony that was set in a wall niche; then he was inside with Lea squirming
merrily in his arms, squealing with mock protest as he kissed and tickled her.
Their
happy voices made the walls ring, and from the corner of his eye he saw Beva
wince. Anger stirred in Caelan, but he ignored it right then, wanting nothing
to spoil this moment with Lea.
Finally
he set her down, but she continued to cling to him, still giggling, her face
round and alight with an inner joy that could not be quelled.
Caelan
was relieved that even his father had not yet quenched her merriment.
“I
have a surprise for you,” she said. “Want to see it now?”
“Caelan,
you will bathe and warm those feet,” Beva said sternly. “Anya has prepared your
room.”
“Yes,
Father.”
Lea
was still tugging on his sleeve. “Come and see it now.”
“In
a minute,” Caelan told her. “I’m chilled through. You don’t want me to catch
cold, do you?”
She
pouted and stamped her little foot. “If you have a bath, it will take forever.
Then you will be hungry, and you will eat forever. No one will let me wait that
long. Come now before I have to go to bed.”
“All
right,” he said, laughing. “I’ll come now.”
Grinning,
she pulled him across the room by his sleeve.
As
they reached the doorway, Beva straightened from the fire where he had been
pulling off his boots. “Lea,” he said, “will I get no home-greeting from you
this night?”
She
paused, her forehead wrinkling in dismay. In a flash, she ran to him and hugged
him tight. “I’m glad you’re home. Father. I’m glad you brought Caelan back to
us. Goodnight.”
Beva
touched her golden curls briefly. “Goodnight, little one.”
Then
she was back, taking Caelan’s hand and jumping up and down as she led him out.
Her chatter was nonstop and only made him laugh. He did not look back at his
father as they left. Beva had only his own coldness to blame if she gave him no
more greeting than that.
Her
sleeping room was a small, plain cube like all the others in the house. But Lea
had stamped it with her own personality, filling it with hanks of flower
bouquets picked last fall and now well withered, birds’ nests, necklaces strung
from wooden beads, crooked sticks with curly bark,
and a makeshift tent
fashioned from an old hide draped between her clothes chest and a chair.
Down
into this she scrambled, beckoning for him to follow.
Caelan’s
tired, cold joints creaked as he got down on his knees and crawled into the
tent beside her. He was too big for it. His head poked against the hide, and
Lea’s elbow jammed into his side as she turned around.
“Is
this the surprise?” he asked.
“No,
silly.” She was busy rummaging among her collection of cloth dolls sewn from
scraps by Anya’s kind hands, with horn buttons for eyes and hair made from
shawl yarn. “We have to wake up the dolls, I’m afraid. You were so late I had
already put them to sleep.”
He
had a vision of having to greet each doll by name and kiss it or something.
Caelan yawned and rubbed the back of his neck. He was too tired for this.
“Here!”
Lea said triumphantly. She pulled out a slim, flat box and plunked it in his
lap. “I have to hide it, you see, so I let my dolls guard it. No one would ever
look for it under their bed.”
“No,
indeed,” Caelan agreed solemnly. He picked up the box and wondered with an
inward sigh if he would find dried worm remains or colored sand inside it. “What
is it, then?”
Lea’s
face was round-eyed in the shadows. She tensed with excitement. “Open it,” she
whispered.
Gingerly,
he flipped the small catch and raised the lid. Nine pebbles, each about the
size of his thumb, lay jumbled inside. He tried not to sigh.
“Very
nice,” he said without interest and started to lay down the box. Some glimmer
from the lamplight sparked a glint of green. Caelan frowned and picked up one
of the pebbles. Squinting to see it better, he held it up to the light.
It
was angular in shape, with crisp facets. The green surface was rough, yet as he
slid his finger over it he knew it could be polished. Quickly he picked up
another pebble, and another, examining them all.
Excitement
started thudding in his chest. Suddenly he couldn’t quite breathe normally. He
looked at Lea’s upturned face. “Are these what I think they are?”
“I
wanted you to tell me,” she said. “After all, you would know for sure. Are they
emeralds, Caelan?”
He
held the stones in his hand, hefting them. “I think they are.”
She
giggled and leaned against his arm. “Good ones?”
He
didn’t know. They were certainly big enough to be extremely valuable. “Great
Gault,” he whispered, not caring for once if he swore in her presence. “Lea,
where did you find them?”
“I’ll
show you tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve been wishing and wishing for you to come
home. And now you have. Maybe my talent is for shaping the thread of life.”
He
burst out laughing. “Where did you hear
that !”
“I
thought it up myself. Don’t laugh at me.”
Hastily
he straightened his face. “I would never laugh at you.”
“Yes,
you are. Your eyes are still smiling.”
He
drew down his mouth and crossed his eyes in an awful grimace.
She
crowed with laughter and punched him. “Silly!”
He
put the emeralds back into the box and closed the lid with unsteady fingers.
These stones represented a fortune.
More
than enough to buy his way into the army.
The
thought came unbidden, and swiftly he thrust it away. He wasn’t going to steal
his own sister’s treasure, but perhaps he could find some of the precious
stones for himself.
“Where
did you find these?” he asked.
“In
the ice caves. Where else?”
“You
shouldn’t be playing in places like thai,” he said automatically. “Especially
in winter.”
Sometimes
lurkers made dens in ice caves. And some of the caves, especially the older
ones, sang. It was a trick of wind blowing through cracks in the ice, some
said. Others who believed in the old ways said the earth spirits sang to lure
the unwary. Either way, the melodies rang out like crystal, hypnotic enough to
draw the listener deeper into the caves, until there was no way out again.