Path of Fate

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Nurema greeted her with a wave as she scattered corn for her chickens.

  “How is he today?” Reisil called from the fence. Nurema upended her bowl and patted the bottom for the last grains before joining Reisil.

  “Better. He drove me outside with his chattering. Like a squirrel, nothing to say and yet he keeps barking and barking.” Her fingers opened and closed in an imitation of Teemart’s jaws.

  Nurema led Reisil into the cottage, where she went to Teemart’s bedside and fussed at his blankets. Reisil was glad to see her patient was propped up slightly against his pillows and that his face had lost that angry redness.

  “How do you feel?” Reisil asked him.

  “Better,” he croaked, ducking his head bashfully.

  “Throat still sore?”

  He nodded, toying with the ragged edge of the blanket.

  “We can do something for that.” Reisil dug in her pack for the lozenges she’d brought. “Suck on one of these. It’ll dull the pain and reduce the swelling. I’m going to make some more of that brew for you as well. Don’t talk anymore. Rest your throat.”

  She proceeded to make the brew while Nurema went to collect eggs from her chickens and milk her goats. She returned just as Reisil had given Teemart another dose. He made a face as he handed the cup back to Reisil.

  “If it tasted good, everyone would want to be sick,” she said, smiling. “Go back to sleep now. You still need a lot of rest. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Nurema followed her outside.

  “Going into town?” Reisil nodded and Nurema harrumphed. “Good luck. Varitsema’s probably got them all turned upside down by now. Stop back by on your way home. I’ve got some eggs, milk and cheese for you.”

  “I will, and thank you.”

  “Hmmph. Well, then. Did I ask for thanks? Get on with you. I’ve work to do.”

  Nurema made a shooing motion with her hands and disappeared into the cottage. Reisil grinned and set off, her heart swelling. It was a good beginning to the day.

  In town, Nurema’s prophecy proved correct. A whirlwind bustle swept through every nook and cranny. New tiles around the common well. New paving stones to replace broken ones. New whitewash, new paint, new plantings, new railings and steps, new lamps, new flags and banners, new signs. What wasn’t new was cleaned, polished, straightened, oiled, squared, tightened, glued, trimmed, washed, swept or pounded. The pace of it was furious. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Varitsema was everywhere, encouraging, preaching, admonishing. The Patversemese would know Kallas’s worth and supremacy.

  Beneath the fury of activity Reisil sensed a fury of a different kind. The banter she heard was sharp-edged, the laughter bitter as wormwood. The air pulsed with unvoiced malice and hatred. Everyone wore a mask of goodwill, but beneath . . . Beneath the people of Kallas snarled and snapped with the helpless rage of caged animals.

  Reisil moved among them, offering soothing words and smiles and treating various ills: sunburns and heat-stroke, bruises, smashed fingers, cuts and blisters. Everywhere she was in demand and never had a moment to sit. And everywhere the rage seethed.

  The medicinal supplies in her pack diminished and were replaced by gifts of bread, wine, dried apricots and apples, cheese, bacon, sausage, new squash, salt and, most generous, nussa spice from Raim.

  “I’m in charge of the welcome banquet,” the kohvhouse proprietor announced as he handed her a plate heaped with a mouthwatering array. “Varitsema wants it in the plaza for all to attend. He’s given me the keys to the coffers. He wants it to be the most spectacular event the Dure Vadonis and his retinue have ever experienced.” Raim’s eyes glowed with anticipation.

  “I’d be pleased to help,” Reisil volunteered. “I’m pretty good with a scrubber and a dirty pot.”

  Raim clasped her hand. “I think I can find something better than that for you, tark of my heart. Your hands will be welcome indeed.”

  Reisil left him to his planning, taking her lunch outside to a table set beneath a blue-and-cream-striped awning. The breeze carried on its back the smells of freshly mowed hay, manure from someone fertilizing a field, woodsmoke and roasting meat.

  Sudden cries in the street yanked her out of her reverie and she ran to the door. On the corner opposite the kohv-house, perched on the flagpole jutting from its foundation above the door, was Saljane. Reisil’s face paled, her jaw hardening.

  Kek-kek-kek-kek.

  A crowd swelled quickly about the goshawk. Saljane preened herself and then roused her feathers, shaking them into place. She swiveled her head, cocking it at the wondering people below. She then shifted to stare directly at Reisil, who felt the searing accusation like a brand on her forehead.

  Before anyone could notice who had attracted the goshawk’s attention, Reisil ducked back inside and gathered up her pack, her lunch sitting like a lead weight in her stomach. She retreated out through the courtyard, hands trembling.

  It was more than a contest of wills, this battle between her and Saljane. Reisil could win and still lose if the townspeople discovered her secret. And with Saljane pursuing her, they might.

  And so it went for days. Saljane continued to make appearances wherever Reisil was. Her odd behavior soon became the favorite topic of conversation as everyone questioned the bird’s purpose: Why she hadn’t made her choice? Was this an ill omen?

  “Are you sure it’s ahalad-kaaslane?” asked Pori the coopersmith of Sodur and Upsakes. Only five days remained until the Patversemese entourage arrived.

  The three men stood together near the well in the square where Reisil was drawing water to replenish her empty water pouch. Sodur’s silver lynx sprawled in the shade of the well, tongue lolling from his mouth, his tufted ears flicking back and forth. Upsakes’s weirmart shared the lynx’s sense of the heat and flopped herself beneath the well house along the well’s cool tile ledge, panting.

  “Have we not said so already, many times?” demanded Upsakes.

  “It can’t be aught else. No wild goshawk would behave as this has,” replied Sodur with a sharp glance at his companion.

  “But then why has it not chosen?” Pori clasped his thick hands around his jutting belly, avoiding looking at the short-tempered Upsakes.

  “Who am I to answer for the bird? She will make her choice in her own good time.” Upsakes’s voice was distinctly dismissive and Reisil felt herself bristling. She liked Pori. He was kind and generous and always singing. His shop was a haven to children. Still he persisted bravely against Upsakes’s curtness, his wide forehead creased into a frown.

  “But it is unusual, isn’t it?”

  “The Blessed Lady sends us so few such birds—who can say how such choosings go?” inserted Sodur in a placating way before Upsakes could make a scathing reply. “The goshawk will make a choice sooner or later. Mayhap the one she searches for is not here.”

  That set Pori thinking. “Of course! That’s it!” He turned excitedly to his wife and sister who’d come to stand beside him. “We sent that caravan to Koduteel—they should be back any day. Bird’s got to be waiting for them. Young Kaval went on that trip to learn the business. That’s just got to be it!”

  The rest of those standing about listening caught his enthusiasm as dry tinder catches a spark, and the rumor swept through Kallas like wildfire. Reisil felt a confused mixture of consternation and hope. Smart, handsome, keen-witted and quick to smile, Kaval was a perfect choice. Her heart clenched and she bit back a cry of protest. She could not lose him, lose his tender touch that sizzled across her skin and turned her bones to clay.

  The animosity in the stare she turned Saljane was like a spear thrown from her heart.

  ~Why are you doing this to me? Why do you keep coming back when you know how I feel? When you know how much it could hurt me? Do you want me to lose everything?

  The goshawk preened her chest feathers, making no sign that she heard Reisil’s furious questions.

  “Afraid she’ll make off with your lover? Or wishing she’d pic
k you?” Juhrnus had come to stand behind Reisil and she started, flushing. She should have known that where Upsakes and Sodur were, Juhrnus could not be far.

  She glared at him. The sisalik perched on his shoulder and Juhrnus stroked the lizard’s leathery jowls. “What would a goshawk want with you?” Juhrnus pressed. “I doubt even a buzzard would want you.”

  Somehow, as much as Reisil wanted Saljane to go away, as much as she wanted to be a tark, she could almost have thrown it all away right there, just to see the look on Juhrnus’s smug, sneering face.

  She opened her mouth and snapped it shut. Without a word she turned and walked away, teeth gritted, knuckles white as she clenched her hands together.

  Juhrnus broke into a peal of laughter. Her face flamed, but she remained stiffly straight as she went, never looking back.

  Chapter 4

  The next day a company of knights clattered over the bridge from Patverseme. Their tall, elegant horses moved with the grace of dancers. The riders wore shining armor with brilliant tabards and shields blazoned with the Dure Vadonis’s coat of arms. A black-and-gold diamond pattern circled their chests and trimmed the sleeves and necklines of the indigo cloth. In the center of each man’s chest two crimson lions leaped past one another. Beneath them on the blue field was a red-three pronged coronet denoting the Dure’s rank.

  Upon arrival, they met with Varitsema and several others of the city council. Soon after, all but two returned to Patverseme, the others serving as envoys until the Dure Vadonis’s arrival in four days.

  The two knights were treated with careful courtesy and given sumptuous lodgings and delectable viands. But everywhere they went, the people of Kallas spat behind them, making signs to ward off evil.

  Reisil did her best to soothe the seething emotions, reminding the townspeople of what they had to gain by peace, but she could hardly shake off her own agitation and fury. Beginning the night of the knights’ arrival, Saljane had once again begun baiting Reisil at home.

  She perched on Reisil’s windowsill, shrieking when she lit the lamp. Reisil dropped it, shattering its chimney. The haranguing continued through the night and morning, from the roof, the fruit trees, the fence. Nothing Reisil did made any difference. She reasoned and cried and even screamed back at the goshawk like a fishwife, but to no avail.

  “Are you well?” Roheline asked her on the third day following the knights’ arrival, concern drawing her attention away from the mural Varitsema had commissioned her to paint in the town plaza. It was a celebration of Kodu Riik, nearly finished now. Paint splashed her cheeks, her chestnut hair and the smock she wore over her tunic. Her hands were dyed shades of blue, green, red, pink, yellow and orange.

  “Tired, like everyone else,” Reisil replied with a forced smile.

  “You should try to get some rest while you can. The Dure Vadonis and his party arrive tomorrow. Have you met the two knights he sent ahead?”

  Reisil shook her head, her heavy dark braid snaking down her back with the movement.

  “Well, you are about to.” Roheline stood, her usually merry face carefully expressionless as she nodded greeting to Varitsema and the two knights he escorted.

  “I believe you have already met the talented Roheline. And this lovely and gifted young woman is Reisiltark.” Reisil nodded, feeling herself blush at Varitsema’s description.

  The two knights gave her and Roheline a short bow. They were both tall and handsome, as the tales said knights ought to be. The first had dirty blond hair and blue eyes, a crooked nose that clearly had been broken, and a chipped front tooth that gave him a boyish look. He grinned and a dimple creased his cheek, adding to the effect. The other was as dark as Reisil. There were creases around his mouth and eyes that showed he knew how to smile, but now there was a look of haughty disdain fixed on his expression, which did not vary. His nose was straight and aquiline, his cheeks high-boned, his jaw firm. He wore his hair long, pulled off his face and held at the nape of his neck with a silver clasp. His eyes flickered across Reisil and Roheline, dismissing them both, then traveled to Roheline’s mural. This, too, he seemed to dismiss, standing there with an air of polite boredom.

  “These two gentlemen,” Varitsema continued grandly, ignoring the second man’s inattention, “are Sirs Glevs and Kebonsat. Kebonsat is the eldest son of the Dure Vadonis.”

  Ah, so that explains it, thought Reisil. He’s nobleborn, which has made him rude and self-important. Then again, Juhrnus proved that one didn’t have to be nobleborn to be rude and selfimportant.

  “Bright morning to you. And welcome to Kallas,” said Roheline in a restrained voice.

  “Your work is quite beautiful,” said Glevs in a deeper, more respectful voice than Reisil expected. “I particularly like the way you’ve made the Urdzina. It’s like a ribbon of pure silver.” He pointed to the portion of the mural containing an image of Kallas nestled on the bluffs above the Sadelema. In the opposite corner was Koduteel. The river began at Kallas and wandered through the mural, connecting the scattered images of people working, laughing, crying, playing and dancing. It halted its course with a flourish of drops at the foot of Koduteel. Animals of every sort romped through the mural. Even Saljane had made an appearance, Reisil suddenly noted. Roheline had painted her perched in the branches of a plum tree heavy with ripe fruit, her body melding with the leaves. Only her brilliant amber eye with its hint of red was wholly visible.

  “Urdzina?” asked Roheline, bringing Reisil back to the conversation.

  “You call the river Sadelema,” explained Glevs with a deprecating little wave.

  “We of Patverseme call it Urdzina. It means little rivulet,” said Kebonsat in a bored tone that said the river was hardly worthy of being called such. Reisil bristled.

  “How dull. Sadelema means ‘sparkle.’ I think its preferable, don’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, she picked up her pack and slung it over her shoulder. “I should be going now. May the Lady smile upon you all,” she said, flashing an apologetic look at Roheline, whose paint-spattered hand covered her smile, and set off across the plaza.

  She had gone halfway when there was a clattering of hooves and a galloping horse burst in the plaza in front of her. Its rider pulled up. The dappled gray gelding snorted and pawed at the ground, its neck arching as it sidled side to side.

  “Kaval!” Reisil exclaimed with glad surprise.

  “Bless the Lady for my luck! I’ve found you first thing.” He jumped to the ground and swept Reisil up into an exuberant hug.

  “I’ve missed you sorely, my own tark,” he said in an aching voice against her ear as he set her down. He went to his saddlebags and fumbled inside, returning with a small roll of cloth. He handed it to her. “I cannot wait any longer to give this to you. It’s been burning a hole in my bag for weeks.”

  Reisil smiled and unrolled it carefully. It was a silk scarf. It had been dyed in soft shades of twilight, then painted with brilliant wildflowers. Reisil shook it out. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “I can’t believe it’s for me.”

  Kaval took and draped the scarf around her shoulders. “Everything’s for you,” he said. “I thought I made you understand that before I left.”

  Reisil blushed, dropping her eyes to the ground.

  “Who are they?” Kaval’s voice turned suddenly hard and suspicious, his hands crushing the silk scarf. Reisil followed his gaze over her shoulder. Varitsema herded the two knights toward them.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Too much to explain it all now,” she said. “There is to be peace with Patverseme and these knights are part of the ambassadorial entourage. The rest of the party arrives tomorrow. If we fail to welcome them properly, the Iisand Samir has promised severe retribution. Severe, Kaval,” she said, squeezing his arm warningly. It was all the explanation she had time for before Varitsema descended on them.

  “Bright day, young Kaval. I hope the Blessed Lady smiled on your journey. Your f
ather is well?” Varitsema clasped Kaval’s hand jovially, though his eyes remained watchful and stern in his narrow face.

  “Very well. He is seeing to the unloading of the wagons.” Kaval eyed the two knights with belligerent antipathy.

  “But you could not wait, I see.” Varitsema smiled at Reisil, but that measuring expression never left his eyes, and he kept them fixed on Kaval. “I would introduce you to Sirs Glevs and Kebonsat. They are in service to the Dure Vadonis, who arrives tomorrow.”

  “Welcome to Kallas,” Kaval said in a slow, unwilling tone as he reached out to clasp each man’s arm in greeting. Gone was the jubilant, carefree man who’d galloped in search of Reisil. In his place was a stiff, guarded stranger, aloof and wary.

  “You’ve just returned to Kallas?” inquired Kebonsat, his face equally hostile.

  “Yes. We’ve been to Koduteel. The roads are dry. Your journey there should be an easy one,” he said tightly.

  “It is our hope.” Kebonsat’s gaze flickered to Reisil, who stood frozen in place. His scrutinized her as if seeing her for the first time. Perhaps he was. She doubted he’d bothered to look before.

  She knew what he saw—a masculine-looking woman with a face of flat planes and bold features. Beautiful she could never be called, but attractive enough. She was no match for either man in height, but neither was she tiny at a full seven inches over five feet. She was slender but strong: a woman made for work, not pleasure.

  Kebonsat’s gaze shifted back to Kaval and Reisil bristled, feeling like a goat at auction. Kaval stepped closer and slid a possessive arm about her shoulders. She just barely resisted the urge to shake it off and slap them both. They were making her a trophy in some sort of rivalry that had sprung up the instant they laid eyes on one another. Glad as she was to see Kaval, as good as it felt to be in his arms and feel the warmth of his smile, she would not put up with this sort of posturing.