“Oh, Callie, how can you say that!” Ellemir reproached. “Well, I shall simply have to go and see them for myself! Four at a birth, what a marvel!”
“Still, it is hard for the poor woman. I managed to encourage two women of the village to share the suckling, but even before they are weaned, we shall have to send them a dairy animal.”
News of the quadruple birth spread far and wide around the hills, and Ferrika said she was glad it was still winter and the roads not too good—though indeed it was a mild winter—or the poor woman would be bothered to death by people coming to see this marvel. Andrew found himself wondering what a severe winter would be like, if this was a mild one. He supposed that some year he would find out.
He had lost track of the passing time, except insofar as he carefully registered expected dates of foaling in the horse ranch’s studbooks and got into long, involved discussions with Dom Esteban and old Rhodri about the breeding of the best mares. The days were lengthening perceptibly when he had the passing of time brought forcibly to his attention.
He had come in from a long day in the saddle, and was going upstairs to ready himself for the evening meal. Callista, in the Great Hall, was with her father, teaching the old man to play her harp. Ellemir met him at the door of the suite they shared and drew him into her half of the rooms.
This was not uncommon. Damon had been absorbed in research, and now and again made lengthy journeys into the overworld. His efforts were fruitless so far, but it had the normal consequence of matrix work, and Ellemir had, matter-of-factly, welcomed Andrew into her bed at these times and others. At first he had accepted this for what it had always been, a substitute for Callista’s inability. Then, one night, when he merely slept at her side—she had turned away intimacy, saying she was too tired—he had realized that it was not only this he desired of Ellemir.
He loved her. Not as a substitute for Callista, but for herself. He found this intensely disturbing, having always thought that falling in love with one woman meant falling out of love with others. He carefully concealed the thought, knowing it would trouble her, and only when he was far out in the hills, away from them all, did he let his mind carefully explore the thought: God help me, have I married the wrong woman? And yet when he saw Callista again, he knew he loved her no less than ever, that he would love her forever even if he could never again touch even her fingertips. He loved both of them. What could he do about it? Now, as he looked at Ellemir, small and smiling and flushed, he could not forbear taking her in his arms and kissing her heartily.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You smell of the saddle.”
“I’m sorry, I was going to bathe—”
“Don’t apologize, I like the smell of horses, and in winter I can never get out and ride. What were you doing?” When he told her, she said, “I’d think the coridom could handle that.”
“Oh, he could, but if they get used to seeing me handle their problems, they’ll be willing to come to me instead of bothering Dom Esteban. And he looks so tired and worn lately. I think the winter is weighing on him.”
“On me too,” Ellemir said, “but I have something now to make the waiting worthwhile. Andrew, I wanted to tell you first of all: I am pregnant! It must have happened shortly before Midwinter—”
“God almighty!” he said, shocked and sobered. “Ellemir, I’m sorry, love—I should have been—”
It was like a slap in the face. She moved away from him, her eyes flashing with anger. “I wanted to thank you for this, and now I find you begrudge me this greatest of gifts. How can you be so cruel?”
“Wait, wait—” He felt confused. “Elli, little love—”
“How dare you call me love-names after… after slapping me in the face like that?”
He put out a hand to her. “Wait, Ellemir, please. I don’t understand again, I thought… Are you trying to tell me you are pleased about being pregnant?”
She felt equally confused. “How could I possibly not be pleased? What sort of women have you known? I was so happy, so very happy when Ferrika told me this morning that now it was sure, not just my own wishes confusing me.” She looked ready to cry. “I wanted to share my happiness and you treat me like a prostitute, as if I were unfit to bear your child!” She sobbed suddenly. Andrew drew her against him. She pushed him away, then lay weeping against his shoulder.
He said helplessly, “Oh, Ellemir, Ellemir, will I ever understand any of you? If you are happy about this, then of course I am happy too.” He realized that he meant it as he had never meant anything in his life.
She sniffled, raising her head, like a day in springtime, all showers and sunshine. “Really, Andrew? Really glad?”
“Of course, darling, if you are.” Whatever complications this might cause, he added to himself. It must be his child or she would have told Damon first.
She picked up his confusion. “But how could Damon feel? He shares my happiness, of course, and is glad!” She leaned back, looked up into his face and said, “Would this also be something wrong for your people? I am glad I do not know any of them!”
Repeated shocks of this kind had made Andrew almost numb to them. “Damon is my friend, my best friend. Among my people this would be considered treachery, a betrayal. My best friend’s wife would be the one woman forbidden to me.”
She shook her head. “I do not think I like your people at all. Do you think I would share my bed with any man my husband did not know and love? Would I bear a child for my husband to father, by a stranger or an enemy?” After a moment, she added, “It is true, I wished to bear Damon a child first, but you know what happened, and might happen again. We are too closely kin, so now we may decide to have no children between us, since he does not need an heir of Ridenow blood, and a child you give us is likely to be healthier and stronger than one he might give me.”
“I see.” He could admit it made some sense, but he paused to examine his own feelings. A child of his own, by a woman he loved. But not by his beloved wife. A child who would call some other man father, on whom he would have no claim. And how would Callista feel? Would it seem another mark of her distance, her exclusion? Would she feel betrayed?
Ellemir said gently, “I am sure she will be glad for me too. Surely you do not think I would add a feather’s weight to her sorrow when she has had so much to bear.”
He still felt uncertain. “Does she know?”
“No, though she may suspect, of course.” She hesitated. “I always forget you are not one of us. I will tell her if you wish, though one of our own would want to tell her himself.”
The complex courtesies of such things were beyond him, but suddenly he wished to do what was right in his adopted world. He said firmly, “I will tell her.”
But he would choose his own time, when she could not doubt his love.
He went into his own room, in confusion, and while he made himself ready for the evening meal, his thoughts ran a strange counterpoint to the mundane business of bathing, trimming the beard which, in defiance of custom, he had begun to grow, putting on his neat indoor clothing.
His own child. Here, on a strange world, and not even the child of his own wife. But Ellemir did not think it strange, and Damon had, evidently, known for some time and approved. A strange world, and he was part of it.
Before he was ready, he heard riders in the courtyard, and when he came downstairs he found Damon’s brother Kieran, returning from a wintertime visit to Thendara with his eldest son, a redheaded, bright-eyed boy of fourteen or so, and half a dozen Guardsmen, paxmen and hangers-on. Andrew had not liked Damon’s eldest brother Lorenz, but he found Kieran likable, and welcomed news from the outside world, as did Dom Esteban.
“Tell me how Domenic fares,” demanded the old man, and Kieran smiled, saying, “As it happens, I saw a good deal of him. Kester”—he indicated his son—“is due to go into the cadet corps this summer, so I felt it best to refuse his offer to take Danvan’s place as cadet-master; no man can be master to his own son.�
�� He smiled to take the sting from the words, and said, “I do not wish to be as hard on my son as you had to be on yours, Lord Alton.”
“Is he well? Does he manage the Guards competently?”
“As near as I can tell, you could hardly do better yourself,” Kieran said. “He sits long and listens to wiser heads. He has asked much advice from Kyril Ardais and from Danvan, and even of Lorenz, though I do not think”— he smiled sidelong at Damon, a shared joke—“that he really thinks much more of Lorenz than we do. Still, he is wary, and diplomatic, has made the right friends, and has no favorites. His bredin are well-behaved lads both, young Cathal Lindir, and one of his nedestro brothers—I think the name is Dezirado?”
“Desiderio,” said Dom Esteban, with a smile of relief. “I am glad to hear that Dezi is safe and well too.”
“Oh, aye, the three of them are always together, but no brawling, no whoring, no roistering. They are as sober as monks all three. You would think Domenic realized, like a man three times his age, that such a young lad in the command will be watched night and day. Not that they are sad-faced prigs either—young Nic always has a laugh or a jest— but he is holding down the responsibility with both hands,” Kieran told them, and Andrew remembering the merry boy who had stood beside him at his wedding, was glad Domenic was doing so well. As for Dezi, well, perhaps a responsible and challenging job, and knowing that Domenic acknowledged his family status as the old man would never do, might at last help the boy find himself. He hoped so. He knew what it was to feel you did not belong anywhere.
“Is there other news, brother-in-law?” Ellemir asked eagerly, and Kieran smiled. “No doubt I should have taken heed of the ladies’ gossip in Thendara, sister. Let me think… There was a riot in the street where the Free Amazon’s Guild-house stands, and the story goes that some man claimed his wife had been taken there unwilling—”
“That is not true,” Ferrika said angrily. “Forgive me, Dom Kieran, but a woman must come herself and beg admission there!”
Kieran laughed good-naturedly. “I do not doubt it, mestra, but so the tale runs in Thendara, that he sent hired swords to take her back, and they say his wife fought alongside the Amazons defending her house, and wounded him. The tale grows ever greater with each mouth that repeats it Someday, no doubt, they will say she killed him and nailed his head to the wall. Someone was exhibiting the body of a two-headed foal in the market, but my paxman told me it was a fake, and a clumsy one at that. In his boyhood he was apprentice for a time to a harness-maker and knows their tricks. And, let me think a moment, oh, yes. As I rode through the hills, I heard of a field of kireseth in bloom with the warm days, not a true Ghost Wind as in the summertime, but a winter blooming.”
Dom Esteban nodded, smiling. He said, “It is rare, but it happens, and it used to be thought fortunate.”
Callista explained in a low voice to Andrew: “Kireseth is a flower which blooms but rarely in the hills. The pollen and flowers are the source from which we make kirian. When it blooms in high summer, with the heat and wind in the hills, it sweeps down from the hills in a wind of madness, a Ghost Wind they call it. Men do strange things under its influence, and when there is a true Ghost Wind we ring the alarms and barricade ourselves in our homes, for the beasts run mad in the forests, and sometimes nonhumans come down out of the hills and attack mankind. I saw them once as a child,” she said, shuddering.
Dom Esteban went on: “But with a winter blooming, it cannot last long enough to be serious. A village’s folk will forget their sowing and ploughing, leave their gardens untended for a day or two while they play the fool, but after a few hours the rain comes to settle the pollen to the ground. The worst thing I ever heard during a winter blooming was that the scavenger wolves in the forest grew bold—the pollen affects the brain of man and beasts alike—and came into the fields to attack cattle or horses. Mostly a winter blooming is only an unexpected holiday.”
Andrew remembered that he had been warned by Damon not to handle or smell the kireseth flowers in the still-room.
“It has one other side effect,” said Ferrika, with a broad smile. “There will be more work in that village for the midwife, when autumn comes. Women who have chosen not to have children, or even old matrons whose children are grown, sometimes find themselves with child.”
Dom Esteban guffawed. “Ah, yes, when I was a lad they used to make jokes at weddings, if the marriage had been arranged by the families and the bride was reluctant. Then one summer there was a wedding—oh, off to the north, near Edelweiss—and a Ghost Wind blew during the feasting. The festivities were rowdy, feasting and drinking and… well it was indecorous, and went on for days. I was too young, alas, to take much good from it, but I remember seeing some things usually shielded from children’s eyes.” He wiped tears of laughter from his face. “And then, more than half a year later, many children were born about whose parentage there was, to say the very least, a question. Now they do not make such jokes at weddings any more.”
“How disgusting!” Ferrika said with a grimace, but Damon could not help laughing, thinking of the wedding whose vulgar jokes and rowdy games, made in jest, had turned to an orgy under the influence of the Ghost Wind.
“I don’t suppose they thought it was funny,” Ellemir said soberly, and Dom Esteban said, “No indeed, chiya. As I told you, they do not ever make such jokes at weddings there now! But indeed, there used to be tales in the hills that in summer, when the Ghost Winds blew, some people in the Domains would hold festival, an old festival of fertility. Those were barbarian days, before the Compact, perhaps even before the Ages of Chaos.” He added, “But, of course, a winter blooming is nothing serious.”
“Nor any laughing matter,” Ferrika said, “for the women who find themselves bearing an undesired child!”
Andrew saw Ellemir frown a little in puzzlement. He followed her thoughts easily enough: Could any woman not want a child? Callista said, “I could wish for a winter blooming here. I must make more kirian, because what we have is nearly gone and we should keep it in the house.”
One of the stewards, eating his meal at a side table where he could be quickly summoned at need, raised his head and said, in a diffident, rusty voice, “Domna, if that is truly your wish, there are kireseth flowers on the hillside above the pasture where the twin foals were born, the one where the old stone bridge stands. I do not know if they are in bloom still, but my brother saw them when he rode that way three days ago.”
“Truly?” Callista said. “I thank you, Rimal. If the weather holds fine—though it is not likely to—I shall ride that way tomorrow and replenish my store.”
That night there was neither rain nor snow, and after breakfast, when Kieran Ridenow had taken his leave—Dom Esteban urged him to stay for a few days, but he said he must take advantage of the good weather—Callista ordered her horse saddled. Dom Esteban frowned when he saw her in her riding skirt.
“I do not like this, Callista. Chiya, when I was a lad it was always said that no woman should ride alone in the hills when the kireseth is in bloom.”
Callista laughed. “Father, do you truly think—”
“You are comynara, child, and none of our own would harm you, mad or sane, but there might be strangers or outlaws in the hills.”
“I will take Ferrika with me,” she said gaily. “She has had the training of an Amazon Guild-house, and can defend herself against any man born, whether he intend robbery or rape.”
But Ferrika, summoned in half seriousness, refused to go. “The dairyman’s wife is near her term and may give birth today, domna,” she said. “It would hardly be seemly to leave my proper task and go pleasure-riding into the hills. You have a husband, my lady, ask him to ride with you.”
There was not much for Andrew to do about the estate— the repairs from the storm had been completed, and the ranch was still in its winter dormancy, despite the fine weather. He had his horse saddled.
Away from the household, he thought, when they were
together, he might find the right moment to tell her about Ellemir. And the baby.
It was still early when they set out. To the east, the sky was layered with purple and black flaps of thick clouds, latticed with crimson from the sun behind. As they rode along the steep trails, looking down into the valleys below, with patches of snow clinging below the trees, and the horses on every hillside cropping the sprigs of new-sprung grass, his heart lightened. Callista had never seemed merrier, more beautiful. She sang snatches of old ballads as they rode, and once paused, childlike, at the mouth of a long valley to send a long, sweet “Hallooo—ooo—ooo” down the slope, laughing gaily when the echo came back a hundredfold from the high rocky slopes. As they rode the sun climbed the sky and the day grew warmer. She unfastened her dark blue riding cape and slung it across her saddle horn.
“I did not know you could ride so well,” Andrew said.
“Oh, yes, even at Arilinn I rode a great deal. We spend so much time indoors, in the screens and the relays, that if we did not get out of doors for exercise, we would be as stiff and lifeless as the paintings of Hastur and Cassilda in the chapel! We used to take our hawks, on holidays, and ride out into the country around Arilinn—it is not hill country like this, but flat plain—and fly them at birds and small game. I was proud that I could handle a verrin hawk, a big bird, like this”—she spread her hands apart—“not a lady-bird as most of the women did.” She laughed again, a ringing sound. “Poor Andrew, I have been captive, and ill, and house-bound, so much that you must think me some delicate fairy-tale maiden, but I am a country girl, and very strong. When I was a child I could ride as well as my brother Coryn. Now I think my mare can beat your gelding to that fence yonder!” She clucked to the horse and was off like the wind. Andrew dug in his heels and raced after her, his heart in his mouth—she was not accustomed to riding now; she would be off in a moment—but woman and horse seemed to blend into a single creature. When she reached the fence, instead of pulling up her horse, she went flying over, with a laughing cry of excitement, the gray mare rising like a bird in the air and coming down lightly on the far side. As Andrew followed, she drew her horse to a walk and they moved along more slowly, side by side.
The Forbidden Tower Page 32
