by E. E. Knight
“Please! Pay no attention to rumor,” Rainfall said in a rather squeaky tone that mimicked Hammar’s. “I heard a two-headed, feathered lizard attacked Galahall. She has but one, and as for feathers, it’s plain to see she bears none.”
“Kill that creature!” Hammar shrieked.
“Pull and loose!” the tall man ordered.
Wistala hugged the road as the archers fired. The sharp strikes hurt, but the arrows bounded off down the road. The men couldn’t have chosen a worse angle to fire upon dragonscale.
Stog screamed piteously, as though mortally wounded, though no arrows came anywhere near him.
She loosed her bladder, and the horses, already unnerved by Stog’s bellows, began to dance at the smell. She shot forward, still piddling, a road-hugging green javelin moving straight for the thane. The thane’s big red horse reared, its front hooves awhirl, and Hammar, perhaps overbalanced by the enormous helm on too slight a body, went backwards out of his seat.
Wistala pounced upon him, pinned his arms with her sii and left one saa pressed against his belly, ready to pierce and gut.
Hammar screamed, almost as loudly as Stog.
“Anyone draws a blade, and I open him,” Wistala said to the men, who were fighting to control their horses.
“Hold, hold everyone!” Rainfall shouted in his deep and commanding tone. Then in beast-tongue: “Quiet, Stog.”
Stog left off his bellows.
“Murder will only make things worse,” Rainfall said. “Hammar, you would spill blood on a road like some common brigand? You bring shame on your title. Let him up, Wistala.”
Wistala, hot anger still in her veins, replied: “Let me at least bite off a finger or two as a reminder not to—”
Hammar squeaked like a rabbit.
“Oh, very well,” she said, releasing him. Rainfall knew the best course of action in this odd little world the hominids called civilization.
Hammar wiped his nose as he rose. “Mark! You think you’re so clever, elf. There are those who know how to deal with dragons. I’ve an acquaintance—”
“Killing a Hypatian Citizen of any line is murder, good thane. Come, let us forget this ever happened. I won’t have Lada’s child growing up fatherless. I will write to you.”
“You are a famous correspondent,” Hammar said, resettling the helm on his head. The tall man retrieved the thane’s horse. “Some might use the word informer. Know! I will write you, and if you do not agree to my terms, you’ll find yourself in court again and again until you turn to wood like your forefathers. Then I’ll have you made into chamberpot-coals.”
His men chuckled. Rainfall came forward with Stog, and they parted. One put hand to hilt, but the thane barked at him and Rainfall passed through.
Wistala watched them until they were out of bowshot, then hurried to catch up with the mule.
Chapter 18
They returned to Mossbell to find the household under frosted
enchantment. The house looked beautiful beyond words to Wistala, with the greenery silvered. From the ferns clinging to the wide chimney to the grass from the fountain to the wall along the road—a little despoiled by goat tracks—the house looked fairy-dusted in the early dawn light.
The new owner of Mossbell and her steward left Stog to wander on the lawn.
But the enchantment ended as soon as Wistala carried Rainfall into the house.
“Sir, you’ve returned,” Widow Lessup said. “We’re agog here. The thane! His Honor came looking for you in the night.”
“We saw him on the road. I’m sorry I was out—he didn’t threaten anyone, I hope?”
“Oh, no, sir! It’s—Lada’s room, you must go up to her. She ran out to him, barefoot as a nymph. I’m not sure what was said, but she came back into the house in tears. She’s barred her door somehow, and I’m afraid for her. I sent Forstrel for Mod Feeney. I was afraid she’d hurt herself!”
Wistala bore him upstairs. Lada was still in her room, sobbing, with two of the Lessup girls outside, tapping on her door and trying to bring her a morning infusion.
“Anja, tell my granddaughter that I saw the thane on the road. I’d like to see her in my library. And if she doesn’t want that infusion, I will be happy to have it. Tala?”
“The library?”
“Yes.”
Wistala brought him up to the top floor—the skylight admitted the diffuse morning light through a melting frost pattern. He moved from her back into his desk chair.
Rainfall sighed. “I’ve not used them, but my legs feel terribly tired.”
Anja brought in the infusion, and Rainfall drank it gratefully. “I’m forgetting you, my noble steed. Anja, can you—?”
“I can find food in the kitchen myself,” Wistala said. She didn’t like people waiting on her; not hunting for her meals seemed dissolute enough.
Lada appeared at the door, a housecoat over her nightdress, though she had on day-slippers and footwrap. Her nose was as red as the spots on the thane’s cheeks. The part of her hair not bound up fell in loose curls that reminded Wistala of flowering vines, though unlike her grandfather’s locks, her hair took after that of men or dwarves.
“Grandfather, I didn’t dress but came at once.”
Wistala made for the kitchen, but Rainfall halted her with a word. “Tala, I want you here so you may bear witness to the truth of what I say.
“Lada, I hope you know you have my love, as does the child you are carrying.”
Wistala’s chin dropped at this.
Rainfall continued: “You must listen to me now. You’ll come to the truth of this fixation now or later, and you can spare yourself much pain by accepting it now: Thane Hammar does not love you, does not care for you, and has no intention of taking you into Galahall as his wife or anything else.”
“Elves lie so—”
“Let’s have none of that,” Rainfall thundered. “You’re a fair token of elvish blood—”
He spoke no further, for Lada shrieked and threw herself against the bookcase with a wail. She began to cry, and push whole rows of books onto the floor.
Rainfall sighed.
Wistala stood frozen, paralyzed at the emotional display.
“Lada, stop that,” Rainfall said.
She threw another set of books on the floor.
Widow Lessup appeared at the library door. “Sir, may I—!” Her mouth clamped shut when she saw Lada knock down a map hung between bookshelves and a scroll-case, and her lips pursed so tightly Wistala would have sworn she was about to spit foua.
“Sir,” Widow Lessup said. “May I take her in hand?”
“Perhaps you can bring her to her room. An infusion might do her good.”
“As you wish,” Widow Lessup said. She marched over to the sobbing girl and grabbed her by the ear, twisting it the way she did her daughter’s.
“Now come along. . . .”
Lada shrieked even more loudly as Widow Lessup dragged her out of the room by the ear.
Rainfall sighed. “Wistala, follow and see that no harm comes to my granddaughter.” He moved from his chair to a lounge just behind his desk. “I’m so very tired.”
Wistala caught up to the pair just as they disappeared into the upstairs washing room. Lada was still in hysterics, sobbing until Widow Lessup overturned a pitcher of water on her head. That stopped the crying for a moment, and the matron shut the door in Wistala’s face.
“Now let’s hear your side of the story,” Widow Lessup said. “For I know my master’s.”
No harm seemed likely to come to Lada in the washing room. She was too big to fit down the drain, and a wooden scrub-stick couldn’t hurt any worse than the tip of Mother’s tail—so Wistala went downstairs and assuaged her appetite in the cool room. She sneaked a pair of brass buttons out of the sewing room, the stress of the fight in the road having left her famished for metal, and immediately felt guilty and went back upstairs to confess to Widow Lessup, but she was still washing-closeted. Her voice could sti
ll be heard through the floor crack.
“Men and love! Ho! but that brings back memories. Sonnets and sour cabbage. Let me tell you about men and love, my dear. . . .”
She checked on Rainfall and found him sleeping on his lounge, and diverted herself by reshelving the thrown-down books as best as she could. Rainfall’s system wasn’t pleasing to the eye at all; she preferred to shelve the books so that they made rising wings, with the shortest at the center of the shelf and the tallest at the edges.
But for some reason, she could only think of Auron and Father.
Mod Feeney arrived at Mossbell, worried that there were deaths and hangings within the walls at the very least. Within moments she, Lada, and Widow Lessup were all sitting in Lada’s room with the two oldest Lessup girls.
The house was considerably calmer when Feeney left, but she had a short interview with Rainfall before returning to her other duties.
“I offered her a position as my acolyte in the Priesthood, after the baby comes,” Mod Feeney said. “But she seems bound to have it and wait for Hammar to claim fatherhood.”
“He has little reason to, now that the estate is Wistala’s.”
“I fear for what may be tried next to wrest it from you,” Mod Feeney said. “By the rites, I owe my congratulations to our four-legged friend. Nuum Wistala, you have my duty.”
Rainfall looked at the splash of sunlight on the floor as Yari-Tab, licking milk from her whiskers, plopped down in it. The feline had more or less adopted the library as hers, as it was the highest, sunniest, and warmest of Mossbell’s rooms, and frequently claimed Rainfall’s lap against some of her rangy kittens. “Speaking of which, as the crisis seems to have passed, you might be about your rounds. Will you stay for lunch?”
“I will wrap something from your kitchens, if it’s not asking overmuch,” Feeney replied.
“No, of course not.”
The priestess bowed and left.
“She reminds me of my lack of manners. I should congratulate you, as well, Wistala. You’re a well-propertied drakka now. Have you any thoughts? I’ve reason to believe there might be copper in the twin hills, if you wish to look into mines.”
Copper. My sole surviving brother. Is there anything of Father and Auron in him?
“All I care to do with these grounds is see that they help preserve you, and our friendship,” Wistala said. “And your granddaughter, even if she doesn’t deserve you.”
“For such a young dragon, you have already an old heart. Have some sympathy for such as her. It’s the rare hominid that has much wisdom before a score of years pass.”
The weather grew colder in the next few days, and little changed at Mossbell save for fewer harsh words and exasperated sighs from Lada, who seemed sick and moody and had trouble keeping food down. Mod Feeney and the Widow Lessup made a trip to a herbalist in Quarryness for medicines.
They returned following the strangest procession Wistala had ever seen upon the road, or anywhere her travels had taken her.
Three great hairy beasts, almost the size of a dragon though taller, with tusks and flexible snouts that reached the ground and beyond, each pulled a one-and-a-half-level house on iron-rimmed wheels, with ox wagons and horse carts and dwarf-bearers besides.
“Ah, it’s Ragwrist’s Circus,” Rainfall said. “Later this year than usual; perhaps bad weather delayed him.”
Forstrel made ready to put him on Stog’s back, when summoned to the gates of Mossbell.
Wistala gaped at the long-haired creatures, for fully half the beasts were visible above Mossbell’s road wall. Dwarves rode them just behind the head.
“Those are gargants, out of the glacier dells.” Wistala just saw the head-tip of another, perhaps a young one, following behind one of the houses.
“What is a circus?” Wistala asked.
“Entertainments, diversions, and wonders,” Rainfall said.
An elf on a snow-white horse in a colorful striped coat turned into the gates of Mossbell. “Come, if you please, Mistress Wistala, I think you’ll like Ragwrist and he’ll like you. At least I hope so.”
Wistala couldn’t imagine why it would matter if a traveling elf liked her or not, but she pulled her sii down her griff and smoothed her fringe. Mistress Wistala must look her part for greeting guests on her lands.
Rainfall had been calling Wistala by that title whenever in the presence of any of the estate’s people, to impress upon them the change in ownership, though Wistala left all decisions in the care of her—what was the position again? Oh yes, steward.
Ragwrist dismounted. He did have a colorful twist of twine about his wrist, but it was the coat that really caught her imagination. It was red and yellow and green and brown and several other colors, pleasantly arranged in panels and pleats, making him look like an aggregation of colorful bird feathers. His riding boots were of the deepest black and matched his hair, which reminded her of tree roots.
“Our homeleaf is graced,” Rainfall called in Elvish.
“This traveler is comforted,” Ragwrist answered. His voice had a heartiness to it and came from deep within his frame, and though he spoke normally his words carried from the road wall to the stable.
The elves embraced.
“Is that char-oil I smell in your hair?” Rainfall said. “Honorable frost is nothing to make one shamed.”
“I’m not here the time it takes a drop to fall from a low cloud, and already I’m undone and reproached,” Ragwrist said, though he kept glancing at Wistala.
“Neither,” Rainfall said. “How were the barbarian lands?”
Rainfall straightened his coat’s lapels and collars. “Tiresome. In some villages they hid their children from us, and without their glad cries, a circus is a joyless place. We’ve come away with only enough to sustain us, and the wagons need new axles. There are improvements around here I see, and new faces.”
Rainfall marked his pointed stare at Wistala. “Poor manners, so glad was I to see your face and get the news. This drakka is Wistala, the rarest gem I’ve ever met on four feet. She’s brought me back into the world, from hair-tip to foot-pad, and saved much more than my lands.”
Wistala preferred that Rainfall’s effusive manners remain directed at courtesy, as she felt little liking for praise that to her mind she hadn’t earned. “If you’re old friends with Rainfall, you must know that he does go on sometimes,” Wistala said.
Ragwrist danced in an elegant sort of balancing bow that put Wistala in mind of a goose drinking. “Such Elvish!”
“She’s gifted with tongues. Her Parl is intelligible, though the palatals sound a bit loud.
“I was hoping you’d set up about the new inn near the bridge,” Rainfall suggested. “The owner is our good friend, and if you’d send your criers about, he’d welcome the chance to serve visitors.”
Ragwrist sniffed the air about Wistala, looked as though he was going to say something, but turned back to Rainfall. “Of course. Assuming the troll stays west of the road, that is.”
“The troll is dead. Wistala’s doing.”
“This is news! Oh, we must have some wine and hear about this.”
“Shall we meet inside in a dwar-hour?”
“Let me say but a word to my lead gargant-dwarf, and then we shall drink. But quick! If we are to perform, I must attend as we encamp.”
“May I see the show?” Wistala asked.
“Nothing would please me better,” Ragwrist replied. “Provided you stay downwind, if I may abjectly beg your pardon. We have horses, and they are not used to a dragon’s airs.”
Wistala did watch from downwind, and enjoyed herself immensely.
They placed the three wagons in a line in the fields next to the inn, with tenting flanking wagons to somewhat conceal the behind.
The wagons themselves unfolded on one side so as to make a linked stage, with poles that Rainfall told her were as tall as ship-masts set at either end with a cable between. Balancing acts, exhibitions of swordfighting, and ev
en a comical dwarf negotiated the line from one pole to the other with some skill in the case of the former, and a great many shrieks of fear and expostulations from the latter.
The dwarf wavered midway, trying to prove that he could do anything an elf could and now apparently regretting it, for he kissed his hand and then slapped his behind with a ribald oath in preparation. At the next step he fell to the joined screams of the crowd and disappeared for one eyeblink into the stage with a crash that struck Wistala as coming an instant too soon. But the dwarf bounced back up, high in the air, then came down on the stage with a loud thud.
“Dwarves always bounce back!” he roared to the crowd.
On the stages men threw axes in such a way that they cut plums from branches, which they then threw to the children; hominid females in clothing so scanty that Wistala wondered how they avoided lung infections danced or sang or jumped and turned and tumbled so high, it seemed they were made of air and sunshine.
In between the shows the dwarves brought a gargant out for the amazement of all, and one of the dwarf handlers let the gargants rear up and put an enormous foot on each shoulder as he knelt, then with shaking legs he came to his feet.
The underdressed hominids came out again, riding horses around the crowd as those at the back suddenly had the best view and others fought for position. They stood on their horses’ backs, or leaped between mounts, or dropped off the sides of the horses and vaulted from one side to the other, and finished by rearing their horses up and having them turn circles.
Wistala wondered if Rainfall’s mate had once performed such tricks from under a few wisps of thin cloth.
With the shows ended, Ragwrist came out and announced that any in the crowd could have their fortune read—“If you dare!”—in the blue tent by the famous Intanta, possessor of a shard of the seeing-star, which fell to earth in the days of the dragons and had been the object of no less than six wars.
Others could visit the green tent, where the finest crafts from around the Hypatian Empire and beyond even the Golden Road in Wa’ah could be found—“Happy is the wife possessed of even the smallest bauble bought or traded from our display!”—at bargains merchant-houses couldn’t afford to give thanks to the need to keep a roof overhead.
