Daughter of Ancients

by Carol Berg

  “A clumsy encounter with the floor of the Gaelie stables,” I said, stepping back as if she might learn the cause of my injuries by touching them. “Embarrassing mostly.”

  “Hmm . . . so I must pry it out of you as part of our relearning how to be children. Ten-year-old boys are not so easily embarrassed. Tell me, what do ten-year-old boys enjoy? Ah, I’ve got it. . . .” And before I could answer, she hopped down from the stoop and darted into the woods. The shifting colors of her clothes made her disappear so effectively, I might have thought she was nothing but the laughing voice that echoed through the trees, calling out, “Hide-and-seek . . . and you’re seeker!”

  I stood stupidly in the lane, trying to decide if it would better suit my purpose to indulge her whimsy or wait for her to give it up. But I concluded that I wasn’t going to get any information if I wasn’t with her, so I took off through the noonday woodland, stopping every so often to listen and search for her path. She was very good at moving quietly, only occasional bursts of giggling giving her away, and she was very fast. But she knew nothing about covering her tracks, so it was only a matter of staying on her trail and waiting for her to pause too long.

  Only at the end did she succeed in throwing me off, when I strode through knee-high stems of fading mayapples and wood-sorrel to the center of a sunlit glade, losing her trail beneath the canopy of a monstrous oak that stood there alone. I listened, but heard nothing. I crouched down to examine the faint trail of crushed grass that ended so abruptly. She must have used some sorcery to hide herself. Or else . . .

  I looked upward and a small hard missile bounced off my head. I caught the second one. An acorn. Ten more followed the first in quick succession.

  “I thought I won the game if I caught you,” I said, peering into the branches over my head, thinking I saw a shifting blue-green tunic somewhere in the leaves. “Not fair to attack.”

  “But you’ve not caught me yet. There’s a chance I can drive you away with my weapons. And you are down there, and I am up here.”

  “Easily remedied, if that’s what it takes,” I said and swung up to the low-hanging branch that had given her entry to the tree.

  “There, you see? You know how it’s done. You just have to work to remember the rules.”

  She scrambled up higher in the tree. I followed until we were perched on the last two branches that could possibly hold our weight, a height that left us far above the roof of the woodland, able to see across the leafy green sea to the meadows and mountains, sharp-edged and clean in the morning light.

  “Is this not a marvelous tree? I think we should stay up here until sunset,” she said. “How long has it been since you were in such a joyful place as this?” Sunbeams danced in her eyes, and her cheeks were colored a deep rose.

  “Forever.” The answer had formed itself unbidden. I grasped feebly at my purpose. “So what is my prize for finding you?”

  She pulled off two leaves, colored the bright green of new growth, and curled them in her fingers. “I’ll have to think on that. Boys always have to win and get their prize, don’t they? Whether at games or stories. With ten-year-old boys, winning at hide-and-seek is a matter of life’s breath.”

  “I suppose.”

  “The palace in Avonar was the most delicious place to play hide-and-seek. My brothers and I knew every crack and crevice of it. Even better, D’Leon was a Word Winder, and even at thirteen, he could cast windings that made us invisible to each other, so we had to hunt through all five hundred rooms using only hearing and smell. Once D’Alleyn hid in my father’s council chambers during a very serious meeting. D’Leon and I found him just at the same time, and chased him out from under the council table and around the columns and in and out of the room. Imagine ten pompous sorcerers remarking on the change of seasons causing such a disturbance in the air, assuring each other it wasn’t evil spirits or evil omens for the times to come.

  “But Papa knew exactly what it was, and he sent us to our country house for a month with our tutors commanded to teach us proper deportment, which we thought very cruel. My uncle J’Ettanne told me later, though, that Papa laughed himself to tears at the memory of his hoary-headed counselors looking for evil auras and portents when it was only three children playing hide-and-seek. It was one of our best family legends.”

  She sprawled out on the length of her branch like a cat stretching, and propped her head on her hand as if prepared to stay there forever. “Now you must tell me of times when you would play hide-and-seek. I know it’s still done; children’s games do not change over the centuries.”

  “I wasn’t much for games,” I said. “I’ve no brothers or sisters, and we lived remotely, so other children weren’t about very often. My father was away. The war and all. And my mother . . . I lost my mother when I was small. I spent most of the time alone or with my nurse.”

  “So you have no family legends, no games to tell of? That’s so very sad!”

  Her expression revealed such shocked sympathy that I found myself trying to soothe her by spewing out words. “Well actually, my mother had one story about playing hide-and-seek in our house . . . the house I grew up in. Though not so cheerful an outcome as yours, I suppose. Maybe I shouldn’t spoil—”

  “No. Now you’ve started, you must tell the story.”

  “When my mother was very young, she was playing with her brother and his friends, and hid herself in an old cupboard deep in the cellars. The others abandoned the game without telling her, and she couldn’t get out of the cupboard. She’d been told so many stories of wicked monsters who hunted naughty children in the dark that she was too frightened to make a sound, and it was two days until she was found. It wasn’t until she met my father that she could bear being in a dark confined space again. My father says it was the only thing she was ever afraid of.”

  It wasn’t exactly the humorous story she’d told, but I didn’t think it was so awful that it would make her turn pale. The light and shadow were so tricky, I thought perhaps I was mistaken. Whatever her judgment of my tale, she didn’t say, but instead, with movement faster than I could grasp, she shinnied her way down through the tree branches and dropped lightly to the turf. “I’ll race you back to the house.” As she disappeared into the trees across the glade, she cried over her shoulder, “The loser has to tell a secret!”

  I dropped through the branches, getting well tangled and scratched, half cursing at her foolery. Though I told myself I only entered the race to win her secret and keep her out of mine, I would have run after her even without the promise of a prize.

  Three fences and D’Sanya’s loose apparel yielded me the victory. She had long legs, and ran with the speed and grace of the fell-deer on the Comigor heath, but my legs were longer, and I could leap the fences without slowing or catching my garments on the fence rails. I was sitting on the garden fence, trying not to appear winded, when she collapsed on the grass just beside it five heartbeats behind me.

  “I’m out of practice,” she said cheerfully, between deep lungfuls of the hot air. “Give me two weeks and a man’s breeches, and I’ll leave you gasping in the meadow.”

  “No doubt of it,” I said, grinning at her. “You’d have had me today except for the fences. But I’ll claim my prize anyway.”

  “Hmm . . . a secret. Let me think.” She closed her eyes and pushed up her floating sleeves to bare her arms. By the time she spoke again, I’d almost forgotten what I was waiting for.

  “I have it!” She popped her eyes open and sat up, and I did my best not to fall off the rail. “It’s nagged at me ever since I began hearing everyone speaking of my father with such reverence. D’Arnath—the epitome of a kingly ruler, the symbol of all nobility, the savior of his world. One would think him a candidate for godhood! But—now this is for you alone, my play friend—what would everyone think if they knew that holy King D’Arnath was an inveterate card cheat? He hated to lose more than anything in the world, and even when he would sit in on our children’s games, we�
�d find him slipping a card from his sleeve, or fingering the pile of them, using sorcery to discover the sword trump or whatever he wanted. What do you think of that?”

  I could do nothing but laugh.

  “Next race, when I win, I shall expect an equally scandalous confession from you, sir!” she said. Then she jumped up from the grass, grabbed my arm, and dragged me into her house.

  I spent the rest of the day with her. We ate fruit and drank wine. We unpacked three crates of books she’d had shipped from Avonar, and I climbed up and down the steps in her library five hundred times, commanded to admire each volume and place it exactly where she wanted. Among the new books was a folio of drawings of Dar’Nethi ruins in the most ancient corner of the city. She held that one aside until our tasks were finished, and then spent two hours on the carpeted floor showing it to me, telling me what the places had been like when she knew them, and where the Archivists who’d done the sketches had guessed wrong.

  Na’Cyd came in frequently to seek D’Sanya’s advice or opinion about some matter of business—food supplies, painters, two possible candidates for admission—but she put him off each time. Each time the aristocratic consiliar bowed gracefully and retired without comment or sign of annoyance. When the angle of the light falling through the tall windows told me evening was near, I mumbled something about her having business to attend to. “. . . and I need to bid my father good night and start down the road to Gaelie.”

  D’Sanya pushed me back to the floor. “You shall do no such thing. Na’Cyd can see to all my business; he is very wise and needs to assert himself more. As for you, I have decided on your prize for winning the game of hide-and-seek—a picnic supper. I’ve already given orders as to its contents and delivery, and I really must insist.”

  Then she left me for a while, saying she was going to change her clothes and rid herself of the dust from the book crates and our adventures in the woods. She offered to send for fresh attire for me, but I said I would look in on my father and perhaps borrow something of his. We agreed to meet in the library in an hour.

  As I set out through the garden doors, taking a shortcut to my father’s apartments, I stumbled over a small pair of boots sticking out from under the barberry hedge just to the left of the garden doors. The boots were attached to someone’s legs. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you.” Before I could glimpse a face, the person scrambled away into the thick greenery. I saw only the lurker’s back. Slight. Dark hair, cut short and ragged. Was it Sefaro’s daughter, keeping an eye on me? I walked more slowly after that and kept my eyes open.

  My father was standing on the little terrace outside his sitting room, staring into the blue-gray haze that had settled over the rim of the valley. It took several greetings to catch his attention.

  “Can’t say what I was dreaming about,” he said as he rummaged through his clothes chest and pulled out a clean shirt. “Nothing of importance. Your day must have been more interesting than mine, especially if it isn’t done yet, and you need a change of clothes.”

  I sponged myself off and changed into my father’s full-sleeved white cambric shirt. Made before he fell ill, it hung large on me. As I tucked it into my breeches and grabbed a brush to clean up my boots, I told him of the day and how we had not spoken a single word of substance since the Lady’s apology when I first met her. “Maybe this evening I can get some answers.”

  “So she feels guilt when faced with evidence of slavery, yet she was herself a prisoner.”

  “When we went riding, she said she’d been a prisoner for three years and was ‘enchanted’ when they tired of her. She claims to know nothing of the years between then and now.”

  “That may be exactly the truth. Just because her enchantment has this . . . deadening . . . effect does not mean the woman is evil. Perhaps she’s just inexpert in the use of her power. She was so young when she was taken.”

  “She lived in Zhev’Na and wore no collar,” I said. The glimpse of Sefaro’s daughter had sobered me considerably. “Her father was the first and most bitter enemy of the Lords. I’ll not believe her uncorrupted until I hear what happened in those three years. Perhaps if I consent to this game of hers, I’ll get the chance. But I never imagined this business would involve playing hide-and-seek or climbing trees.”

  My father smiled and straightened my collar. “Sounds as if you’d best get in some running practice, too.”

  “She’s unbelievably fast. I’ve never imagined a woman could come close to catching me at full speed. And when she rides . . .” I pressed my hands to my eyes and tried to get her image out of my head before I started babbling about how the sun caused her skin to glow golden when she lay in the grass. “I wish we could just get to business, and get it over with. I keep thinking of how the Singlars are getting on; we have so much to do yet. I need to get back. And you’re trapped here. Damnation! She can’t be what she seems, but I can’t get her to speak anything but nonsense.”

  “Don’t be in too much hurry. Ven’Dar still has five months. You’ve taught your Singlars to care for themselves, and L’Tiere will not vanish before I get there. I doubt I am any more dead here than I will be there. Whatever else she may be, I think the Lady has judged you wisely. It might be very good for you to learn how to enjoy yourself a bit.” With a clap on the shoulder, my father shoved me out the door.

  CHAPTER 9

  The full moon had moved across a quarter of the sky by the time D’Sanya and I arrived at our picnic supper high in the foothills beyond the hospice. The world was so quiet as we walked up the light-washed path, I might have believed no soul existed but the two of us. The path leveled out and in twenty steps more we emerged from the scattered trees and rocks into a grassy meadow. In the center of the meadow, looking like a patch of snow left lingering into summer, sat a low table covered with a white cloth and carefully placed silver spoons and crystal wine goblets. Whoever had set out the plates of roast fowl, the bowls of cherries and plums, the hot, cinnamon-dusted pastries, and the chilled wine was nowhere in evidence.

  D’Sanya took off her sandals and looped them over one of her silver-ringed fingers as we walked through the springy grass and took our places on cushions set on either side of the table. Candles in silver holders sat in the center of the table, but we didn’t light them. The moon bathed the meadow in light.

  “Did I not promise a prize worth the winning?” D’Sanya was laughing at me as I marveled at the perfection of each delicacy I loaded on my plate. “What use to be a princess of the Dar’Nethi if one cannot bring something more to the table than meat and bread? Since I’ve used my talents for one useful thing tonight, I’m now entitled to use them for something frivolous.”

  The useful thing she’d done had been to heal my lame horse, who now grazed peacefully far below us at the lower end of the moonlit path. We had ridden from the stableyard across the valley to find the stone marker that would indicate our path into the hills. Impatient, I refused to follow the track the long way around and took off across the grass, racing to beat D’Sanya to the path. Halfway across the valley floor, my horse reaped the worst consequence of nighttime riding. His shoulders and head dipped suddenly. As he stumbled to a halt with an ear-shattering shriek, I felt, more than heard, the ominous dry-wood snap of a slender bone. I leaped from the saddle and rolled quickly out of the way, cursing all rabbits, gophers, and blind, stupid riders.

  D’Sanya had circled back while I tried to comfort the wild-eyed beast who struggled to his feet, tossing his head and snorting painfully as he tried to put weight on his right foreleg. Paulo would yell at me unmercifully—and deservedly—for ruining a fine mount for an evening’s pleasure.

  “Are you injured?” asked D’Sanya.

  I reached for the quivering beast’s neck but he shied and tossed his head. “Unbruised. But Nacre . . . I’m afraid I’ve done for him.”

  “Take care of it quickly, then, before the poor creature goes mad.”

  Take care of it? What was s
he thinking? That I’d slit the poor beast’s throat, then wash my hands for dinner? “Not yet. If I could get a Horsemaster up here to see to him, we might be able to save him for breeding. He’s a fine runner.”

  “Well, of course, I don’t mean kill him! How can you let him suffer so? Surely you can take care of a horse’s hurts.”

  My face blazed, and my insides churned. In ordinary times, I used my sorcerer’s power not one day in thirty. That way, I was never required to grow my power beyond whatever happened to germinate in me on its own, just by the fact that I was born my father’s son. The ways the Lords increased their power were grotesque and cruel, and I refused to use them any more. The ways of the Dar’Nethi were maddeningly slow and impossible to master; my feeble attempts to use them did little but cause an unhealthy craving in my blood. As I’d expended everything I had when I entered my father’s body and tested him that morning, I had not a scrap of power left. No ordinary Dar’Nethi would live that way. Gathering power from the experiences of their lives was as compelling to them as breathing.

  Well, she was going to find out sooner or later that I was no ordinary Dar’Nethi—not when it came to sorcery. “No, I can’t.”

  “You can’t? You mean you won’t.” She slipped from her horse, glaring at me. But when I failed to respond, her expression of indignant accusation softened into puzzlement. “No, you’re saying that you don’t have the power; and you don’t summon it. Ever?”

  “Not since Zhev’Na.”

  “Of course.” She expelled a quick breath of sympathy. “Here, let me take care of the poor beast. Hold him still.”

  I grabbed the trailing reins, caught hold of the bridle, and held Nacre’s head, trying to remember the things Paulo had told me could soothe a pain-maddened horse. But my efforts were unnecessary. D’Sanya touched Nacre between his eyes and whispered a few words, instantly quieting the animal. She had adorned every one of her fingers with a silver band, some plain, some intricately worked, and they glittered and shone in the moonlight as she ran her fingers over Nacre’s leg from shoulder to hoof. The depth and intensity of her enchantment almost knocked me off my feet. Though it was over in an instant, I felt as if I’d been sucked up into the heart of a whirlwind and then set down again in the hospice pasture with all my joints put together in the wrong order.