by Kate Elliott
“You just?”
“I just wish it wasn’t so hard on Lily. Can’t you feel the edge in her, all the time, since he came back? Like she’s not sure whether she’s glad to have found him. He can’t be what she expected. Not now. Hells, even now that I’ve gotten to trust that pack of je’jiri on the Hope, I’ll never really feel completely comfortable around them. Did you see the way everyone stares at him? He’s got to notice. He’s not blind. And I know Lily does.”
“What can she do? If she’s mated to him—” But Yehoshua halted, as if the subject he was encroaching on now was fraught with complications. And the scent of his love for Jenny suddenly overwhelmed the common night smells.
“Which reminds me,” said Jenny casually—but not casually at all. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Yehoshua.”
“Yes?” He smelled hopeful, scared, nervous, and excited all at once.
Jenny laughed. She was sure of herself, without being disagreeable about it. “You know damn well, Yehoshua. I just can’t decide whether your restraint does you credit or not.”
There was a silence. A train whistle sounded in the far distance, calling as if to its mate. Yehoshua’s breathing changed. Hawk took in a sharp breath, feeling what sparked between them. Yehoshua’s reply was not spoken, but had it been shouted it would have been less jarring to Hawk. He slipped several steps back until he came up against the stone wall of the courtyard, the hard, cold stone pressing into his back.
The two forms, Jenny and Yehoshua, molded together for a long, drawn-out space, and then, abruptly, separated.
“Did you hear something?” Jenny asked, sounding almost nervous, and then she chuckled. “I’m as jumpy as a novice,” she murmured. “Maybe I can talk Paisley into taking Gregori into Dr. Farhad’s room.”
“Jenny …”
“You don’t want to?”
“You know damn well—” Yehoshua broke off.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you lose your temper before.”
“I’m not losing my temper—damn it, Jenny.” There was another silence. “Oh, all right,” he said at last. “Go and ask Paisley. She of all people will understand.”
“I suppose she will,” replied Jenny. Her scent, as she walked away, Yehoshua fast at her heels, was quite smug.
The last stragglers from the pub filtered away into the night, singing some ancient tune in perfect four-part harmony. Paisley and Deucalion broke off their conversation and headed inside, but as the door shut behind them Hawk heard her begin to talk again. The exhalation of desire coming off of Jenny and Yehoshua faded, too, as they went inside. The innkeeper sang in a soft, gorgeous baritone as he wiped off the tables, and his song faltered, and then started up again, when Bach joined in. The light click of Dr. Farhad’s fingers on her com-slate ran as an undertone to their singing.
The aroma of moisture on the grass, the perfume of closed flowers, the piercing sweetness of cool air, all caressed him. Out across the green, water lapped against the shore, clean and fresh. Even the stone against his back had a musty, pleasant smell that reminded him of the cool, rock shelters he had slept in with his mother on spring nights, when he was a child.
Where had she gone? He lifted his chin and tilted his head from one side to the other, scenting, and caught her trail on the tarrying end of a breeze. And went hunting.
In this place, she was an easy quarry. He cornered her by the pond, where she stood on the thin white shoreline, staring at the stars as they rippled on the wind-stirred surface. Her bouquet was mixed of constancy, quickness, and the quiet confidence of a master of the art, but underneath it, wearing away always at her being, the core of restlessness that led her never to be satisfied entirely with what she had, and what she was. Her head lifted to gaze upward at the night sky, not as dark as space, nor as brilliant with stars. Breeze pulled at the strands of her hair. She was, not at peace, but for the moment content and yet still questioning, wondering, what she could do next. She was not thinking of him at all. Suddenly her scent changed again, and she turned.
“Kyosti.” She regarded him with astonishment. Her fragrance mixed and altered and blended as he watched her, confusion and pity and fear, and desire the sweeter for being touched by wonder. “The moon,” she said at last. “It’s rising behind you.”
He did not turn to look at it; he would far rather look at her. But some dim memory stirred within him. Like a voice heard through muffled layers of cloth, or from down a far distance, he heard words, and it sounded rather like his own voice, and yet not his voice at all. But he repeated some of the words, even though he was not sure what they meant. “‘Now she shines among Lydian women as, into dark when the sun has set, the moon, pale-handed, at last appeareth.’” The pungent smell of garbage being turned out into a can distracted him, and he faltered.
“The wheel of the night,” she said, her voice so low it almost seemed not to come from her at all. “The honor that patterns you. You once told me that you looked your best under the kinnas wheel.” She hesitated, and he felt from her the unexpected perfume of tenderness. She took two steps closer to him and slipped her hand up to cradle the back of his neck. “I’d forgotten.”
He leaned in to her and dipped his head, as was the honored custom, brushing her cheek with his so that she could mark his scent as he marked hers. Something, the movement perhaps, caused her to hang back a moment, uncertain, and then she breathed in sharply and embraced him without reservation.
From across the green, he felt Dr. Farhad sigh and get up and leave. Only Bach, the last presence left in the courtyard, remained, quiet, his metallic scent underwoven with the counterpoint of joy.
22 Taliesin
LIGHT WOKE HER. THIN panels of brightness striped the bed and the blankets and the long lines of Kyosti’s body in an alternating pattern of light and dark. She lay in bed, a little irritated at waking so early, and a little amused that, in retrospect, it would never have occurred to her to close the blinds, because the idea of a sun rising above the horizon in the morning was not one that came habitually to her. A programmed hour in which lights were turned up from low to high, signaling the beginning of the most active shift, perhaps; it was the life she knew best.
Some time after she had fallen asleep Bach had come into the room. Now he rose from the chair on which he had settled for the night and sang, softly,
Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht,
Und lass den Himmel tagen!
Du Hirtenvolk, erschrecke nicht,
Weil dir die Engel sagen,
Dass dieses schwache Knäblein
Soll timet trost und Freudesein,
Dazu den Satan zwingen
Und letztlich Friede bringen!
“Break through, oh lovely light of morn,
and let the heavens dawn!
You shepherd folk, be not afeared,
because the angel tells you:
that this weak babe
shall be our comfort and joy,
thereto subdue the devil
and bring peace at last.”
Lily slipped out of bed and, pulling on her tunic, padded to the window, pushing aside the blinds. The shutters were open, and she could see down into the courtyard and out onto the green. Someone was awake before her: Paisley, staring at the sun’s line as it rose above the low, stark hills. A rattle sounded from the kitchen—the innkeeper and his help, stirring now to prepare for the day.
Lily smiled. Unfastening the window, she eased it open and leaned out over the casement. As if she had heard the movement, Paisley turned and looked up and waved. Lily waved back. After a moment, she put on the rest of her clothes and went downstairs to stand beside Paisley at the gate, watching the sun rise. Bach followed her down. They said nothing for a long while, content in silence. Bach sang a muted hymn, solemn and proud.
“You don’t blame me for it?” Paisley asked at last. “It be you, min Ransome, that I be sorriest to leave. If it weren’t for you, I would never have come
here, have seen such things, to know what I mun do. What I could do.”
“Then I’m glad I brought you, Paisley. It’s a far cry from Unruli Station, though, isn’t it?”
Paisley nodded, stricken to unusual reticence by the thought of just how far a cry it was.
“I’ll make sure that Deucalion understands that you’re the official emissary. I don’t want any misunderstandings about that. Especially when you get back to Reft space. You have to make sure he understands that Reft space—that Jehane—”
“I reckon I know what manner o’ man Jehane be, min. I will tell min Belsonn, as often as I may. It be up to him to believe me. Certain he’d believe you better. Be you ya fair sure you won’t be coming?”
“No, we won’t be. It’s not the right direction for the rest of us to go in, I don’t think.”
“But ya service. Ya tribunal. You don’t mean to be ya spy, surely? What else can ya Hope do?”
Lily closed her hands about the cold iron of the gate. Dew wet her palms. “I’m beginning to have an idea. I think it will be too reasonable for the tribunal to refuse, and too valuable. I just need to do a little more research.”
There was another bit of a silence. Then Paisley squirmed, remembering that she was, after all, not yet seventeen. “But min, what be it?” she demanded.
Lily chuckled. “What was the Forlorn Hope originally meant for, Paisley?”
Paisley looked at her, mystified. “It be ya highroad ship, min. Ya exploratory—” She broke off.
“Ya exploratory ship,” Lily finished for her. “Exactly.”
Behind, the innkeeper emerged from the kitchen. “Ah, you’re up betimes, are you? Will you be having something hot to drink, café perhaps, or cocoa?” While he served them, he sang as well, a simple melody that Bach harmonized.
Later, the others came down, some separately, like Gregori, and some, Lily noted with interest, together.
“Good morning, Jenny. Yehoshua.” She regarded them speculatively. Yehoshua flushed and went to sit down with Deucalion at a different table. Jenny merely grinned and eased herself into the seat next to Lily. “You look pleased with yourself.”
“Quite pleased,” replied Jenny, and ordered her breakfast.
Kyosti emerged from the inn, cast about, and focused on Lily. Dr. Farhad came out directly behind him, but she let him sit down at the table with Lily and Paisley and Jenny and went herself to sit next to the others. Kyosti, sitting, looked a little puzzled, and the edge on him, the clean, alien presence he had possessed so strongly, seemed blurred, like a picture, smudging, that is seen to conceal something else underneath. He glanced at Jenny, and at Paisley, and narrowed his eyes, looking puzzled, as if he was trying to figure something out about them.
“Good morning, Hawk,” said Jenny, curious.
“Good morning,” he said without a trace of accent, and lapsed back into perplexed silence.
“Do you want us to come up with you today?” Jenny asked Lily, to cover the uneasy quiet that settled around the table.
“No. I think just Bach and I and Deucalion.” She hesitated. “And Hawk.”
“And Dr. Farhad?” Jenny asked, jesting slightly.
“No.” Lily examined Kyosti intently. His attention, surprisingly, had wandered from her, and he was looking around the courtyard as if he was trying to remember where he was. “I don’t think Dr. Farhad, this time.”
After their meal, and the innkeeper’s directions—he apologized that there were no vehicles heading up that road this day—Lily found herself walking along a wide dirt path with Deucalion beside her, Bach at her shoulder, and Kyosti trailing behind. The day was fair and fine, or so she deduced from the warmth of the air and the clear sky. Deucalion was too quiet—too tense—to notice. The aria Bach sang had a light, playful melody that made the long climb easy, if one walked in step. They passed no traffic, although once in the distance she heard the sounds of animals and saw white backs heading up another slope, a darker beast at their heels. A slight figure, a boy, perhaps, lagged behind, stick in one hand, a small brown carry slung over the opposite shoulder. He saw them and waved, and though she was too distant to make out his face, she waved back, and Deucalion, too polite to be entirely abstracted, waved as well.
This brief human contact cheered her. A few trees decorated the slopes, but mostly it was grass and the occasional crooked line of tumbled stone wall. The road narrowed and branched, and true to the innkeeper’s directions they headed right down a defile, and came around an outcropping of stone into a tiny nook of a valley at the base of which lay a cottage. Smoke rose from its chimney. The whole scene looked so utterly primitive to Lily that at first she did not realize that it was a dwelling. But as they neared, a small brown animal rushed out of the building, making the most horrendous noise, and a figure appeared in the doorway.
She would have recognized his posture anywhere, even at such a range.
“Gwennie. Gwennie, fach. Come, girl.” His voice, without precisely shouting, carried the distance easily.
The beating of her heart quickened, and she felt her breath grow shallow and fast, as if she were climbing to some great height far too swiftly. Deucalion became, if anything, more silent. Bach ceased singing.
The animal turned tail and trotted back to the cottage to stand beside the man in the doorway. He simply watched as they neared, not moving, and yet Lily knew that he would recognize her as easily as she recognized him. Soon she could see his face: he looked older, without looking aged, and there were a few streaks of silver in his brown hair. His face was composed—far more composed than hers, she imagined, because a grin kept trying to break out onto her lips, and she kept forcing it back, trying to keep with the dignity of the situation and the quiet serenity of the valley. Perhaps he had left such ties behind, preferring, after everything, to start his life utterly anew. She felt a sudden misgiving. She should not have come.
At two meters she halted, and he looked at each of them in turn, that steady, calm gaze that she knew and loved so well.
“Well, Lily,” he said, in exactly the same tone he had always used at the academy. Then he did smile, and she let out the breath she had forgotten she was holding. “It’s good to see you.” He came forward, and they embraced. After a moment, he stepped back and turned to regard his son. “Well, Deucalion,” he said in exactly the tone she recalled from the academy—the one he reserved for those students he thought ought to be doing better. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yes,” said Deucalion. Neither of them moved toward each other.
Heredes—Taliesin, she corrected herself—switched his gaze to Hawk, and for what was surely the only time since she had known him, she thought he looked uncomfortable. “But, Lilyaka, who is this? I didn’t know you were traveling with je’jiri—” He sounded almost disapproving, and then he faltered, and blinked. “Hawk?”
Kyosti was examining the covered pens behind the cottage, which were dank with the odor of some animal that had but recently left them. He did not respond to Heredes’s question, or even appear to have heard it, or realize that it was meant for him.
“He’s been—ill,” said Lily.
“So I see.” Heredes regarded him a moment longer, his expression unreadable, and then waved toward the door. “Will you come in?”
“I’ll wait outside,” said Deucalion quickly. A look passed between the two men that was to Lily unfathomable.
“As you wish,” replied Heredes, quite reserved. “What about Hawk?” he asked Lily.
“Who knows? We’ll just have to see.” Heredes turned, and she followed him inside, Bach trailing behind her. Despite her expectations, the interior was neat and clean and well lit by its four windows. It boasted only a bed, a table and chair, and a portable cookery. A white, flat, thin substance she did not recognize littered the table, and she went across and touched it. She stared at it a moment before she realized that the markings on it were writing—words. “What is this?”
He laughed.
“That’s paper. I see you still have your composer.”
“Oh, yes.” She turned back to him and grinned. “I could scarcely do without him.”
Patroness, Bach sang, in a sharp key, I was not aware that the lack of my presence wast something thou considered.
“It isn’t, Bach. It is something I devoutly wish will never come to pass.”
His cadence, in reply, was brief, but ascending.
“Tea?” Heredes asked.
“Yes.” She paced the room, measuring it out as she had measured cells on that long journey to find him.
He chuckled finally, watching her from his station at the cookery. “You may sit down, if you wish.”
But she didn’t sit. She halted in the middle of the room and stared at him, shaking her head. “I thought you were dead.”
He blinked. “Didn’t I tell you once, that it’s terribly—”
“—boring being dead?” she finished for him, and they both laughed. She sat down. He put a kettle on the cookery burner. “What are you doing?”
“Ah, but here, Lily, one does not make tea in any fashion but the traditional way. It would be heresy. This will take a few minutes.” He crossed to sit on the bed. “Actually,” he said after a pause, “it was rather dull. Evidently I was in a coma. I had a bullet in my brain. It’s a very lowering thought, when one comes to know of it.”
“When did you find out?”
“Much later. I was on Bella’s ship by that time, under the very best medical care, but it was still a difficult recovery.”
“You ought to have been dead.”
“Yes, I suppose I ought to have been. But I’ve always hated doing what other people expect of me.”
“Is that why you came here?”
He considered the question gravely. “No. Perhaps, in the end, this was the likeliest place for me to have gone to ground.”
“Concord Intelligence is looking for you, you know.”
He smiled, wry. “They’re looking for all of us, all that are left. They don’t know to leave well enough alone. We won’t trouble them.”
