Tempest

by Mercedes Lackey

Neither Bellia nor Rogett had an explanation for that.

  • • •

  In contrast to the petitioners, Jasson Ford was thirty if he was a day, having recently inherited the farm from his father, who had died unexpectedly. This was another reason Bellia and Rogett had come forward with their claim, Syrriah suspected; they assumed Jasson would have less spine to stand up to them than his father would have, being of the next generation.

  Jasson and his family hadn’t come to the town hall; he had sent a message that he would be available whenever Syrriah wished to speak with him, the time and location at her convenience. She chose to meet him at his home on his newly valuable land.

  He had a quiet voice, but one that had strength over the noise of the yard, with a smile to match: not broad, but gentle and open. He was small and compact—she wouldn’t call him plain but, rather, pleasant. He moved with precision, and his hands were strong and capable.

  “Welcome,” he said when Syrriah and Cefylla arrived. “I would have happily come to you.”

  “I wanted to see this coveted piece of land,” Syrriah said. She planned to personally inspect the boundaries of all three properties, of course. But she also was curious about Jasson’s response to the petition and her arrival. He hadn’t come to the town hall to argue with Bellia and Rogett.

  :He shows you even more respect than they,: Cefylla said. The air still had a cold bite to it, but the sun shone, and the Companion opted to stay in the yard rather than take shelter in the stables. :He trusts you to do what is right, without bribery or bullying.:

  Trust her Companion to be blunt about Bellia and Rogett’s methods of persuasion.

  Jasson’s family home was large, clearly added to over the generations, functional and comfortable rather than ostentatious. From the yard, the door opened to the kitchen, a generous, homey space with a sturdy, wide wooden table at its center, weathered silver-gray from age and use.

  As in most large homes, the room was a hive of activity. A young woman and man chopped root vegetables, garlic and onions, and herbs, adding them to several pots hanging on iron rods over the fire. In a comfortable spot next to the hearth sat an old woman in a rocking chair. White film covered her eyes, but her gnarled fingers were sure and deft with the peapods she shelled into a wooden bowl on her lap. The family must have had a greenhouse and coaxed some plants to ripen early.

  Jasson’s wife, Marna, was pregnant with their third child. Her brown hair wisped around her narrow face as she strained a pot of cheese curds. The fire’s heat crashed up against the heat inside Syrriah, and she asked for water.

  “Goodness, of course,” Marna said. The servants who were chopping vegetables glanced at each other, and by unseen communication, the man went to fetch the beverage.

  “I’m so sorry,” Marna said. “We know we’ll have to hire more workers this year, so I’ve been trying to lay in food.”

  “I’m the one interrupting,” Syrriah said. “Thank you.” The cool water helped. A little.

  A gaggle of children raced in, all younger than ten, not a few obviously related. Wide-eyed and quivering with eagerness, they skidded to an unruly halt before Syrriah. The designated speaker of the bunch, a tow-headed girl with features mingling both Jasson’s and Marna’s, took a half-step forward and said, “We wondered—we thought—could we—well, may we pet the pretty white horse?”

  In her mind, Syrriah heard Cefylla’s snort. :Pretty white horse, indeed.:

  :Hush, you,: Syrriah sent back. :It’s a compliment.:

  She crouched down to the children’s level. “The pretty white horse, she’s special. She’s a Companion—some of you know what that means. In any case, you must treat her with respect. If you pull on her tail, I’ll know. Do you understand? She’ll tell me if you do.”

  Solemn nods all around, with another accompanying mental snort from Cefylla regarding what would happen if they mishandled her tail.

  “Hold a moment,” Marna said. She grabbed several carrots from the table. “Offer her these—and mind she doesn’t mistake your fingers instead.” As the children ran out, she added, “And I’ll make sure they give some to the actual horses later.”

  Syrriah went with Jasson through to the main room of the house, an open, beamed spaced that reminded her of the Town Hall. Right down to the tapestries . . . several, in fact.

  At this time of day, the room was expectedly empty, but in the evening, it would be a place to gather, eat, play music, debate. Even so, a fire bloomed on a wide hearth, and above it, more herbs had been hung to dry.

  She walked over to inspect the largest tapestry. The work was stunning, precise, a deft use of color dancing through the weft. She had been known for her own weaving skill, long ago (it seemed) in her former life.

  “The work here seems familiar,” she said. “There’s a large tapestry in the Town Hall, and several smaller ones . . .”

  “All made by my great-grandmother, Trisha,” Jasson said, pride in his voice as he stood beside her. “She was renowned for her skill.”

  Syrriah cocked her head. “There’s one hanging in the Palace, too, isn’t there?”

  “There is,” he said. “A small one. I’m surprised you know.”

  “Her work is exquisite,” Syrriah said. “I recognize her style.” Then she frowned. This particular tapestry depicted a walled garden, with two people standing inside, lush greenery around them. Their backs were to the viewer, and they stood close but apart, not touching.

  It was the decorative border around the garden that had caught her eye. It should have been a regular, repeated pattern of clusters of diamonds—indeed, initially she’d thought it was. But when she looked closely, she saw that the clusters varied.

  Given the intricacy of the weaving, she shouldn’t be surprised at a few subtle errors. It just felt unexpected, given the woman’s skill.

  But no one was perfect, and given the beauty of the tapestry, Syrriah guessed few people noticed the minor flaw.

  Returning her thoughts to the matter at hand, she asked Jasson what he thought of Bellia and Rogett’s claim on his family’s land.

  “Unexpected, certainly,” he said. “Yet not surprising. I can understand their argument: they are descendants of Arnath, not me. But this is the land my great-grandparents received from Arnath, and it seems to me that should be the end of it. River or no river.”

  “Do you have the deed?”

  He shook his head. “Unfortunately, there was a flood—one of the things that made the river change its course—and we lost a number of things. All we have left from that time are the tapestries.”

  The loss of any papers didn’t mean the cause was lost; everyone she’d spoken to had agreed that Arnath gave that parcel of land to Jasson’s great-grandparents, and the town had maps from eighty years ago forward showing the land as theirs. It would have been nice to have something in Arnath’s hand, though, especially if it shed any light on his thoughts when he bequeathed the land to them.

  They walked back into the kitchen. Syrriah intended to ride the borders of the farmland today and of the other two properties as well; Cefylla said they could beat the sunset.

  “I heard you asking about the deed to our land,” the old woman by the stove said. She might have been blind, or close to it, but her hearing was obviously keen.

  Jasson introduced her as his grandmother, Wyn.

  “I was indeed,” Syrriah said, crouching next to the rocking chair. “What do you know about the situation?”

  “This land t’was a gift from Arnath Cormier himself, to my parents, Trisha and Vane,” the woman said. “I was born in this house that year.”

  Trisha of the tapestries.

  “So I’ve been given to understand,” Syrriah said. “Do you know why Arnath gave the land to your parents?”

  “Mother would never say.” Wyn’s hands had stilled; she’d shelled ev
ery peapod. Lost in a memory, her gaze rested on a spot past Syrriah’s left shoulder. “She said she was sworn never to speak of it. But she said the truth was there, if anyone cared to see it.”

  • • •

  Wyn’s words echoed in Syrriah’s head the next morning as she stood in the Town Hall.

  She had a mountain of paperwork to review, and she wanted to chuck it all into the fire, but that wasn’t her normal self talking. Sweat beaded on her brow, and she fanned herself. The apothecary, she promised herself. She’d visit as soon as she could give herself a break.

  Instead of working, however—she couldn’t face all those papers, not just yet—she stood, pressing her hands to her lower back where a persistent ache had settled, and gazed at the masterwork of a tapestry that took up much of one wall.

  It was a depiction of the town, the surrounding land, and the entire region, with a skilled use of colors and lines that left Syrriah breathless. Green fields, red begonias, blue water . . . the valley seemed real, nestled between the protective arms of the hills.

  Around those hills, a decorative border . . . Syrriah’s eyes widened. A border of clusters of diamonds, but as with the tapestry in Jasson’s home, the pattern was erratic—indeed, there didn’t seem to be a pattern at all.

  No, wait—yes, but it wasn’t a regular pattern. She could see some repeating elements, but not in a way she could explain.

  She recalled tapestries in Bellia and Rogett’s houses, clearly made by the same hand. Had they had erratic borders, too? She called them up in her mind’s eye. Possibly . . . she’d have to go back and check.

  Mistakes in one tapestry were expected. The same mistake over multiple weavings? Highly unlikely, especially in something rudimentary like a border.

  And the more she gazed at this tapestry and recalled the others, the more certain she became that there was some rhyme to the seeming unreason.

  She was so lost in contemplation that the sudden voice behind her made her jump.

  “I leave you on your own for only a few days, and you’re already slacking on the job, Intern Herald?”

  “Joral!” Syrriah hugged her Senior Herald.

  When they had begun her internship Circuit, Joral had maintained the propriety of the teacher-student relationship, but he’d soon learned Syrriah’s worth and abilities. Now his round face split into a smile. He reminded her of her oldest son, Shane, who had just completed his own internship Circuit, even though Joral had a good ten years on Shane. It was their eyes, she’d mused, both the lighter brown ringed with dark and the kindness within.

  “You caught me,” she admitted. “It’s not just that I’m avoiding the paperwork; there’s something about this tapestry, and others in the area, that has me baffled.”

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She pointed out the irregular border.

  “I know nothing about weaving, but I trust your expertise,” he said. “It does seem unusual.” He clapped her on the back. “Catch me up on the matter at hand, and when we’ve got that resolved, we can look at this again.”

  He was right about their priorities, and in the mayor’s office, she told him about her interviews with the various parties. He agreed with her working position that the law favored Jasson and Marna—the land itself was what had been bequeathed—but agreed they should review the papers, and possibly interview more people before they reached their final decision.

  Syrriah sat by the slightly open window again, although it wasn’t enough to tame the flush and perspiration, which further distracted her from her work.

  Frustrated, she found her mind wandering back to the tapestries and their unusual borders. Finally she got up and went back out to the hall with paper and pen, and sketched the diamond clusters.

  “Syrriah . . .” Joral said.

  “Just . . . give me a moment,” she said. “It’s probably nothing—but the tapestries were made by Trisha, Jasson’s great-grandmother.”

  “And Arnath deeded the land to her husband,” Joral said. “That’s a rather tenuous connection to the problem at hand.”

  She looked from the paper to him. “We don’t know Arnath deeded the land to her husband. He could have deeded it to her. Look.” She indicated several symbols. “These are both six clumps, and the second symbol in each is the same. What if it’s a substitution cypher, and that symbol is an R? Arnath, Trisha?”

  “Which means . . .” Joral pulled his chair closer to hers. “That letter could be an A.”

  “It could have nothing to do with the problem at hand,” Syrriah said, but the flush she now felt was excitement.

  “It could, or it could not,” Joral said. “Still, we should explore all avenues. You should copy the border from all the tapestries.” He grinned. “I’ll stay here and continue reviewing the paperwork. Fresh pair of eyes, and all that.”

  • • •

  They kept the town hall from becoming crowded again by allowing in only the parties directly related to the property dispute: the Shases, the Crans, and the Fords.

  There were still more people than Syrriah would have liked, especially given that she still didn’t think much of a fair lot of them.

  She’d convinced Joral they could stay an extra day so she could consult with the apothecary. Since they didn’t have an urgent next stop, he’d agreed.

  That meeting couldn’t come fast enough.

  Now, she tamped down her annoyance, knowing much of it wasn’t directly related to the situation before her, and laid out the facts as she and Joral had determined them. She wished Jasson’s grandmother, Wyn, could have been strong enough to make the trip to town. The old woman had planted the seed in her brain, a seed Syrriah hadn’t consciously remembered until they’d sussed out the meaning in the tapestries.

  Trisha had sworn never to speak of the reason Arnath Cormier had given her the land. But the truth had been there all along, right in front of everyone in the town.

  “The borders on the tapestries are a code,” she told the assembled people. “One of the questions we’ve been asking is why Arnath deeded the land to Jasson’s great-grandparents. Trisha Ford—that was her married name—answered that question in the code.”

  “This sounds like a trick,” someone muttered. One of Bellia’s sons, if Syrriah wasn’t mistaken.

  “You dare question the word of a Herald, an Arrow of the Queen?” Joral growled.

  “No, no.” The man took a half-step back. “It’s just . . . how do we know that the information in the tapestry speaks the truth?”

  “Trisha had no way of knowing this would happen generations later,” Syrriah said. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let me tell you what happened.”

  Arnath and his wife had no children; that fact was never under dispute. Trisha had been an artist under his patronage, and they had fallen in love. The terms of the patronage were, in fact, in the town’s history.

  The story of their love was in the tapestries.

  When Trisha fell pregnant with Arnath’s child, he couldn’t allow the family name to be besmirched, couldn’t allow his wife to suffer such indignity, so Trisha was hastily married off to another man, and Arnath gave them a piece of land. A gift for their child’s future and for her silence. It was the best he could do without raising suspicion.

  Trisha had kept her word, had never spoken the truth. But she’d poured her heart out into the tapestries.

  In the tapestry that hung in Jasson and Marna’s hall, depicting two people in a lush, walled garden, she had illustrated her love for Arnath and his love for her. In the tapestry in the town hall, which showed the entire region, she’d woven a description of the lands bequeathed to her—and her child with Arnath. In a small tapestry that hung in Arnath’s family home—now occupied by Bellia’s branch of the family—Trisha stated she understood why Arnath could never marry her or acknowledge their child.
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br />   Syrriah suspected that last tapestry would never again see the light of day.

  There were more, all on the same theme: hidden messages of unrequited love between Trisha and Arnath and love for the child they’d made together.

  Syrriah and Joral had spoken with several elders of the community, one even older than Jasson’s grandmother (who was Arnath’s daughter, they now knew). The ancient man remembered Trisha’s swift wedding, remembered Jasson’s grandmother being born soon enough that people had winked and smiled at how passionate Trisha’s wedding night must have been.

  “So the deed of land was a gift for his bastard,” Rogett said dismissively. “It doesn’t change the fact that his heirs—”

  Beside him, Bellia made a noise, deep in her throat. A hint of a moan. She was, Syrriah guessed, one step ahead of him.

  “The laws of inheritance,” Syrriah said, “are clear. The more direct an heir, the greater the claim on the property. Arnath died without a will, and at that time, his closest heirs were his niece and nephew—your parents.” She indicated Bellia and Rogett. “That’s why the land was divided equally between them.”

  She glanced down at Jasson, biting back her smile. “Now we know there was a direct heir: Trisha’s daughter, Wyn. Your grandmother. She rightfully has claim to all the land, not just yours. I would guess that she would be fine with you maintaining the property on her behalf.”

  Bellia had pressed her lips so tightly together, they’d lost all color. Rogett looked as though he would be sick.

  Jasson looked stunned.

  He cleared his throat. “Well. I . . . that’s quite something to take in.” He glanced at his wife. “I have no interest in taking away someone’s livelihood and home,” he said, now leaning forward to acknowledge the two people who’d tried to take away his own home. “I also don’t have the manpower to work all three farms.”

  Bellia and Rogett started to look less panicked, but he continued. “I will ensure that proper and legal paperwork is drawn up to ensure the two families are given tenants’ rights for as long as they are willing to maintain the lands,” he said. “For a small annual rent.”