Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Not at all reluctant, Darian ignored his bruises and aching bones, and trotted to Snowfire’s side, feeling flushed,with pride. When Snowfire was at a loss for words, he translated. Lord Breon, a neat and handsome gentleman of middling age and height, clothed in a businesslike suit of riveted armor, brown of hair and eyes and beard, took the Hawkbrothers completely in stride. But Darian’s fellow villagers started every time any one of them moved suddenly, and kept circling warily around the birds. To Darian’s relief, he caught sight of Huur, Hweel, and an awkward-looking youngster dozing on the rooftree nearest Snowfire, where they had evidently been most of the night, with Daystorm’s bondbird corbies keeping the natives at a respectful distance.

  “My Lord Snowfire,” Lord Breon said when they were finished, a look of profound respect in his eyes, “you have certainly kept things well in hand here. I am sure that the Queen herself will want to thank you eventually.”

  Snowfire shrugged. “We are allies, are we not?” he pointed out. “And if you had not intercepted the foot troops before they returned, we should probably have been forced to defend ourselves from them as we marched these folk toward your holding and safety. Now they need no longer seek shelter among your people.”

  “Beggin’ your pardon!” Lutter spoke up, interrupting him. “But we need to know what we’re to do now.”

  The man was a far cry from his former, prosperous self. He had changed his clothing, but it hung on him loosely, and his middle-aged face bore signs of both fresh and not-so-recent bruises in purple, black, green, and yellow.

  “What are you to do?” Lord Breon looked at him askance. “Why, pick up your lives, man, what else?”

  “Pick up our lives?” he replied, aghast. “What are you talking about? How can we pick up our lives? There’s nothing left here! The barbarians took it all - what they didn’t eat, they destroyed! We’ve no crops, no food, no herds or flocks, how are we to get through the winter?”

  Dorian snorted with contempt, and all eyes turned toward him. Snowfire looked at him curiously, Lord Breon with surprise, and Lutter with astonishment turning to anger at having been interrupted by the village scapegrace.

  “I’ll tell you what you’ve got!” Darian said hotly, amazed at their stupidity. “You’ve got your homes back, you’ve got a pile of weapons and armor that ought to be worth something. You’ve got a dozen or more real warhorses that are each worth the price of a good house, and you’ve got a whole lot more regular horses, too! You’ve got mules and two wagons, whatever was in those wagons, and you’ve got the whole Peligiris Forest to hunt dye-fungus in. You can buy food again, you don’t have to grow it! What are you complaining about?”

  “And you’ve got this.” Lilly, the barmaid, came up dragging someone’s once-fine coverlet, made into a crude bag, across the ground. She let the comers fall, revealing a mixed pile of coins and jewelry. “I couldn’t tell whose was whose,” she continued. “So I just piled them all together, but I know that most of this didn’t come from Errold’s Grove.”

  It certainly couldn’t have, since a great deal of the jewelry was of gold. No wonder the bundle had been too heavy to carry!

  “Shcar had all this in his room,” she continued. “And I thought that when you get done picking out the bits that belong to you, Lord Breon could arrange to sell the rest and buy new stock for everybody who lost beasts and fowl.”

  “What about the stuff you’re wearing?” asked a woman, shrilly, and only then did Darian look up to see that Lilly was bedecked with several heavy gold bracelets, chains, and odd-looking pendants.

  Lilly flushed, but looked angry. “This is mine,” she replied fiercely. “I earned every bit of it!”

  “Oh, earned it, did you?” the woman snarled. “At your ease, in comfort, while the rest of us sweated out in the fields? Earned it, did you?”

  For once, Lilly stood up for herself, pulling herself up tall and staring the woman down. “Yes, earned it! Earned it by waiting on Shkar day and night, doing things I don’t even like to think about, keeping him and his bullies looking at me and thinking about me instead of you, making sure that every time their eyes started wandering toward your pretty little daughter, Stella Harthon, that they got pulled back toward me. How did you think it happened? By magic? I fought for all our sakes with the only weapon that I knew would work against them! And now I’m keeping what I earned from them, I’m taking it, and I’m going to go and buy a real inn someplace else where nobody is going to look down her long petty nose at me again!”

  Darian flushed with anger as he saw sour and angry faces among the women still, in spite of the fact that the pile of loot in the coverlet was vastly more valuable than what Lilly wore. How greedy can they be? he wondered.

  But Lutter coughed, and said to Lilly, red-faced, “You’re right, girl. You’ve earned it. And you’ve earned the right to take it and yourself someplace else if you want to. But if we’re going to get the dye-trade going again, we’re going to need a real inn - “

  Lilly interrupted him, shaking her head, though her demeanor softened. “No. If I go elsewhere, I’ll be Lilly, the respectable innkeeper. I can never be that if I stay here. I’m leaving. Besides,” she chuckled weakly, “when I leave, it’ll give your wives a bad example to show their girl-children.”

  “I would like to ask you some questions about your time among those men,” Lord Breon said with delicate tact. “You knew the name of one of the leaders, for instance.”

  “Shkar,” she said, and shrugged. “I didn’t learn much of their tongue. They didn’t need me for language lessons, and what they wanted they could get by pointing.”

  “Nevertheless, you may know more than you think you do,” Lord Breon persisted. “If you’d care to come back with me, after I’ve learned what I can from you, I’ll gladly provide an escort to wherever you choose.”-

  “That suits me.” She turned abruptly arid went to stand among Lord Breon’s men, who, after a stern look from Lord Breon, did not leer or make suggestive comments but simply made a place for her.

  “In the meantime, the woman is right,” the Lord continued, surveying the pile. “Between the loot there, and the horses, you will have more than enough to rebuild what was lost. I’ll trade ten cattle or twenty adult hogs for each warhorse this minute, sight unseen, for instance. Or you can take them to the horsemarket and try your luck there.” He raked his eyes over the crowd. “You’ll have to agree on equal shares, as you all suffered equally, so far as I can see. It will take a great deal of work, but in the end, Errold’s Grove will be as prosperous as it was before.”

  There was some muttering, especially among those who had been the most well-off before the invasion, but finally everyone agreed.

  “Now, as for Darian,” Lord Breon began.

  Snowfire interrupted him this time. “With all respect, we have already taken him into our clan,” the Tayledras said, and Darian’s heart leaped. “We do not consider him a burden.”

  But evidently some word of what Darian had done had gotten to the villagers, for there was an immediate protest. “But he’s our mage! We are going to need a mage!” exclaimed Lutter in dismay. “What if someone like these barbarians comes back?”

  “You need a trained mage, which Dar’ian is not,” Snowfire replied sternly. “He must be trained, and you have no adequate teachers. Nor are you likely to get any, considering how long it took to get you the first one.”

  “But he can heal - “

  “As I believe some of you once pointed out, any of your young people could learn to do, apprenticing for six months with a Healer.” Snowfire’s mouth twitched at the dismay on certain faces; Darian had to hide his face lest his own expression give him away. “I suggest you do that. Perhaps, if at some time, a generous offer is made, you may tempt another mage to come and take residence here. Until that time, I fear you shall have to learn to watch your own borders and defend yourselves.”

  But Darian felt a twinge of guilt as he looked at the real fear
in the eyes of some of them. Terrible things had happened here, things that people would never speak of, but which would shadow their dreams for the rest of their lives. They would never feel truly secure again.

  “What is it, lad?” Lord Breon asked, seeing the doubt in his own eyes. “What is it to be? Do you go with the Hawkbrothers, or do you remain here?”

  He looked from Snowfire’s calm eyes, to Lord Breon’s worried ones, and back again. “I - I have to be trained, first,” he said, echoing Snowfire’s words. “And I’d rather it was with my friends than anyone else. But - “ He shook his head, and tried to put into words the idea he’d had. “But - this place is right on the border, right on the edge of Hawkbrother lands and Valdemar, right? Shouldn’t there be someone who was as much a Hawkbrother as a Valdemaran, right here all the time, to make sure that there are never any misunderstandings?”

  Lord Breon looked astounded, and Snowfire impressed and pleased. He hurried on. “And Lutter is right. Errold’s Grove is going to need a real mage, sooner or later. The Peligirs haven’t gotten less strange, even after the Storms; if there was a mage here, he could look at stuff that was brought out and tell if it was good for anything besides dyeing. Other things, too. So - couldn’t I do both?” He turned pleading eyes to Snowfire. “Couldn’t I go with you, learn to be a mage and one of the Clan, then come back here and maybe make a little Vale where Tayledras would always be able to come?”

  “It would be a hard life, and often lonely, being neither of this world nor that,” Snowfire said softly in the Hawkbrother tongue. “But you are correct, that there is a need for such a person. Especially here, where there is - scope for a great deal of misunderstanding.”

  “Then that’s what I’d like,” he sighed. Then he laughed a little and shook his head. “Hellfires, I never could take the easy way with anything!”

  “I am glad that you made that choice, little brother,” the scout replied, and switched to Valdemaran. “That is a good plan, and a generous one. You shall come with us and be trained, and when you are ready, you shall return here and be a living example of the Alliance. You shall make for us a haven for our kind, and a place where those of Valdemar will find help when it is needed.”

  Sighs and smiles all around, but Snowfire wasn’t finished yet. “And since it is a plan that shows wisdom beyond your years, I shall do as Hweel and Huur asked me, though you are not quite yet of an age for such a joy and a responsibility.” He smiled. “After all, usually in matters of this sort, our winged ones are far too wise to be bound by convention.”

  He whistled and held up his gauntleted arm - but instead of Hweel coming in to land on it, the youngster woke up, hooted loudly, and blundered in to his fist. Before Darian had a moment to think, Wintersky grabbed his left hand and slipped a shoulder-length glove over it, then held it up. The youngster made a clumsy hop from Snowfire’s fist to Darian’s, and looked deeply into Darian’s dazzled eyes as Snowfire laughed with delight at his expression.

  “H-hello,” Darian stammered, beside himself with so much joy and excitement that he shook. “What’s your name?”

  :Kuari,: the bird said solemnly in his mind. :l am Ktiari. I like you. We’ll be bondmates. Yes? They want it, too: The owl didn’t move his head, but Darian knew that they meant Hweel and Huur, sitting side-by-side up on the rooftree. :I like mice. I want to hunt mice. Bring you some, too?:

  “I have the feeling that Hweel and Huur have decided that this will ensure your place within the clan, little brother,” Snowfire said in Tayledras, with suppressed laughter in his voice.

  Darian didn’t care; the trust he sensed in Kuan’s “voice” won his heart as nothing else could have. With gentle care, he reached up and scratched the youngster’s head at the eartufts, as he had seen Snowfire do for Hweel.

  :Oh, I like that. I like that better than mice. Do that a lot.:

  Kuari closed his eyes in ecstasy, all but melting under the caress, and butted his head into Darian’s hand.

  “I told you,” Daystorm muttered to Snowfire, in a whisper Darian probably wasn’t supposed to overhear. “The boy’s a natural with the birds. He’ll be fine.”

  Yes, I will be fine, he thought, his heart so brimming with joy and contentment that there was no room in it anymore for anger, resentment, or grief. Yes, I will. I’ve got a family, adventure, a worthy goal. I’m home. I’m finally making my own home.

  Darian looked up, and out at the villagers, who were conspicuously silent. “One last thing,” he said boldly. “I won’t even consider returning until there is a portrait of the great mage Justyn displayed in a place of honor in Errold’s Grove.”

  He paused a moment, then added, just to make sure, “A good portrait.”

  Then Darian, Hawkbrother of Valdemar, turned his full attention to his new bondmate’s soft feathers, and the shared bliss that came from being with each other.

  Maybe the young owl’s flight was not all that graceful at the moment, but in time, with support and guidance, he would be a master at whatever he tried. In time, so too would Darian, and he would be at home wherever he went.

  --2 Owlsight (1999)--

  One

  “Keisha?” When Keisha didn’t answer, the fluting voice calling her name in the distance grew noticeably impatient. “Keisha!”

  Keisha Alder ignored her sister Shandi’s continued calls; she was in the middle of a job she had no intention of cutting short. The sharp smell of vinegar filled Keisha’s workshop, but she was so inured to it that it hardly even stung her nose. Shandi could wait long enough for Keisha to finish decanting her bruise potion, straining out the bits of wormwood with a fine net of cheesecloth. Keisha wrinkled her nose a little as the smell of vinegar intensified; the books said to use wine for the potion, but she had found that vinegar worked just as well, and there was no mistaking it for something drinkable - unless your taste in wine was really wretched. A cloth steeped in this dark-brown liquid and bandaged against a bruise eased the pain and made the bruise itself heal much faster than it would on its own, so despite the odor the potion was much in demand. She needed so much of it that she always had several jugs or bottles of the finished potion in storage, and more jars of it in various states of preparation. It had to steep for six weeks at a minimum, so she tried to empty one jar and start another once a week.

  Keisha held her hands steady; she didn’t want to waste any of it in spillage. She even wrung the cheesecloth dry, then reached for a stopper whittled from a birch branch and her pot of warm paraffin. As soon as the last drop was sealed into its special dark-brown pottery jug, and the jug itself placed safely on a high shelf, she knocked the soggy fragments of herb out of the wide-mouthed jar, added two handfuls of freshly crumbled dry wormwood, and poured in vinegar to the top. Footsteps behind her warned her that Shandi had come to the workshop looking for her, so she wasted no time in tying a square of waxed linen over the top of the jar and setting it at the end of the row of nine more identical jars.

  She turned to face the door, just as Shandi stepped across the threshold into the cool gloom of the workshop, blinking eyes still dazzled by the bright sun outside. Although not dressed in her festival best, Shandi was, as always, so neat and spotless that Keisha became uncomfortably aware of the state of her own stained brown breeches and far-from-immaculate, too-large tunic. Shandi wore a white apron embroidered with dark blue thread, a neat brown skirt, and a pristine white blouse with the blue embroidery matching the apron, all the work of her own hands. Keisha’s tunic and breeches were hand-me-downs from her brothers, plain as a board, indifferently shortened, and both had seen their best days many years ago.

  But what else am I supposed to wear for working with messy potions, dosing sick babies, and sewing up bloody gashes? she asked herself crossly, annoyed at herself for feeling embarrassed. This isn‘t some tale where everyone wears cloth-of-gold and tunics with silk embroidery! Shandi would look pretty sad after a half day of my work!

  “Keisha, are we going to the mar
ket or not?” Shandi asked impatiently, then screwed up her face in a grimace as a whiff of vinegar reached her.

  “We’re going, though I don’t know why you want to go so badly,” Keisha replied, hoping she didn’t sound as irritated as she felt.

  “Dye,” Shandi replied promptly.

  “No, thank you, I have too much to do right now,” Keisha said impishly, grinning as Shandi first looked puzzled, then mimed a blow at her for the pun.

  “You know what I mean!” Shandi giggled. “You never know what the hunters are going to bring in, and I’m still looking for a decent red, one that won’t fade the first time someone looks too long at it.” She smiled. “You know I need to have you along. After all, you know so much more about these things than I do. And you’re better at bargaining; I’d be sure to get cheated, and then you’d be annoyed because you weren’t with me to save me from a sharp trader!”

  Keisha’s irritation had vanished, as it always did around Shandi. No one could stay irritated with her sister for long; Shandi’s nature was as sweet as her innocent face, and she played peacemaker to the entire village of Errold’s Grove. Keisha and Shandi were almost the same height, with the same willowy figures, same golden-brown hair and eyes, and almost the same features, but in all other ways they were as different as if they had come from opposite sides of the world. Sometimes I think when the gods gave out tempers, they gave me all of the thorns and her all the rose petals. “You’re right, of course, I would be annoyed.” She rinsed her hands in lemon-balm water to remove the vinegar smell and any lingering trace of wormwood - poison, if ingested - and dried them on a clean rag. “And I should have remembered about the red. How many of the girls have you promised embroidery thread to?”

  “Only three - Hydee, Jenna, and Sari. I wouldn’t trust the rest with red. They’d be sure to do something tasteless with it.” Shandi’s bright brown eyes glowed with suppressed laughter. “Ugh! Can’t you imagine it? Roses the size of cabbages all around the hems of their skirts!”