Children of Enchantment

by Anne Kelleher Bush

  “Why?”

  “Because many years ago, long before you were born, Dad was contracted to marry a woman named Rabica Onrada— who died giving birth to the twins.”

  “But Dad never married her?”

  “In some of the estates, and this is the sticking point, a contracted marriage is as legitimate as an actual marriage. If the Senadors who have similar laws rally around Amanander—“

  “So there may be a fight when we get back to Ahga?”

  Brand nodded. “If they all honor the oaths they swore when Dad named you his heir shortly after you were born, you should be recognized as Regent with no discussion, no question. But I want to warn you that might not be the case. And then there’s Phillip.”

  Roderic paused and searched his brother’s face. “You don’t trust Phillip either?”

  “Dad has seven sons—all older than you. It was a long time before you were born and Dad named you his heir. It would have been only natural for the others to have hopes.”

  “Not you.”

  Brand’s face relaxed into a smile. “No. Not me. My mother was a kitchen maid—I’ve risen higher than I ever expected. But Amanander and Alexander, their mother was the daughter of a landed Senador. And Phillip—Dad married him off to old Jarone of Nourk’s daughter—because his mother, too, was noble, the daughter of some Mayher. Some thought Dad should name Phillip his heir.”

  “What about the others? Reginald? Everard and Vere?”

  “Vere ran off years ago. I doubt Dad even knows where he is. He might even he dead. Everard—his mother’s family was well entrenched in the Dirondac Mountains across the North Sea. He has holdings there, and they’re like the Pulatchian Highlanders, not much given to seeking outside company. As for Reginald—” Brand shook his head. Even beneath the shadow of his hood, Roderic could see that Brand’s mouth was twisted in a bitter line. “It comes down to one thing. Dad had too many sons. The One knows he did the best he could by all of us—put me in the Guards, married Phillip to Nourk’s daughter, put Alexander up in Spogan, Reginald in Atland. Everard’s happy in the North Country. As for Vere, who knows? But—” Abruptly, Brand sighed. “I’m only telling you what I think you ought to know.”

  “And Amanander?”

  Brand glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t trust him. He’s like a blade too well oiled; it gleams nicely, but turns too easily in your hand. I don’t believe the story he fed us in Atland—that on his way to us, he captured a Muten war party who told him Ebram-taw’s position, and then very conveniently escaped.”

  “Then how else could he possibly have known—“

  “Just where to look for Ebram-taw? I shudder to think of the possibilities. But it all seemed just too convenient. We wanted, and needed, a speedy end to this rebellion. Amanander arrives and hands it to us on a platter.” Brand shook his head. “It’s almost as if he wanted to get to Ahga as quickly as we did, though why, I cannot say. He’s said nothing to me to indicate that he might make a bid for the throne—but then, he’d be foolish if he did. But thirty years with men under extreme conditions have taught me to trust my instincts—and they tell me not to trust Amanander.”

  “There’s nothing we can do at this point.”

  “No. But I thought you should know what you’re walking into.” A cold blast of air sliced through their cloaks and Brand shivered. “You’d better try to sleep. Good night.”

  He turned away, then stopped when Roderic spoke once more. “Brand. Any word of Dad?”

  The expression on Brand’s face reminded Roderic inexplicably of the King. Brand shook his head once more. “No. Nothing. Get some sleep. We have a long way to travel tomorrow.”

  He gave Roderic the briefest bow. Roderic watched him go, then followed, picking his way through the maze of men and supplies and animals.

  And that night he dreamed. It seemed as if he walked in a gray silence through the shadowed halls of Ahga, beneath high-vaulted ceilings which in his dream stretched away into swirling mists. The corridors were full of gaunt, hollow-eyed people who stared in mute misery as he passed. The weight of centuries seemed to hang in the air, and yet he had the sense of enormous strength in the soaring walls, the firm foundations which had stood unshaken through the days of the Armageddon and all the years since. He wandered aimlessly, and yet he did not stop or pause, yet walked on, as though his feet had a will and a purpose of their own.

  At last, he stood before the door of the King’s bedchamber, a room which customarily was guarded. But the soldiers were not there to challenge him, and so he opened the heavy door and stepped inside.

  The great chamber was dark. The King’s bed, big enough for three men and their women, was covered in sheets, the heavy drapes drawn against the windows. The smell of dust was thick in the cold air. The fireplace, so high a man could stand in it, was empty, the costly tiles scrubbed clean. Above the bed, the jewels in the crest of the Ridenau Kings looked like common stones plucked from a riverbed, and even the gold lettering looked dull in the gloom. The place was like a tomb. And then he noticed a thin line of light under the door which led into the King’s private study. He opened the door and stepped inside.

  A fire burned brightly, and Abelard stood beside the hearth. “Dad!” Roderic cried.

  The King smiled and held out his arms. Roderic noticed, in the curious detached way of dreams, that one arm ended in a stump, from which the flesh hung in red strands and white bone gleamed wetly. But he did not flinch from the King’s embrace. “Dad, what happened to you?”

  Abelard shook his head.

  “When are you coming back?”

  Abelard’s smile changed from one of welcome to one of sadness.

  “Oh,” said Roderic. “You can’t come back.”

  The King shook his head again.

  “I miss you, Dad.”

  In the dream, Abelard was very tall. He folded Roderic in his arms as if Roderic were once again a small boy. Roderic felt the tremendous strength in his father’s muscles. For a moment, he let himself relax in that embrace, and then the King pulled back. With a sweep of his remaining hand, he indicated the room, the wide desk covered with rolled parchments and dispatches, the framed maps of every corner of Meriga which hung on the walls. He drew Roderic out into the bedroom, and with another motion, pointed to the crest hanging over the bed. His father’s broadsword, the bloodred stones shimmering in the unnatural light, hung in its scabbard over the crest. It was the sword his father carried when he rode to war.

  Despite the darkness, Roderic could see the words on the crest as clearly as though the sun shone full upon them: Faith shall finish what hope begins. The King swung him around so that they faced each other. It seemed in that moment Roderic grew taller, so that he and his father were equal in height. Abelard’s eyes seemed to burn into his brain, and the words on the crest echoed through his mind, as though Abelard had spoken them aloud. Remember, his father seemed to say. Faith. Hope. In this, find your strength.

  Roderic smiled, though he could feel tears welling in his eyes. “I’ll never forget you, Dad.”

  The King nodded gravely, sadly, and pointed to the door with the stump of his wounded arm.

  Roderic woke up on the low camp cot. The light was gray, and the smell of morning was in the air. He dressed quickly and went outside. The camp was just beginning to stir. He watched for a moment—the men emerging from their tents, the occasional whicker of the horses as they were fed and watered. The smell of breakfast cooking wafted by on the slow breeze.

  Faith and hope. Images of the dying Mutens, the starving children, clung to him like a miasma that even the new day could not lift. Such suffering made a mockery of platitudes. What did any of these people believe in, what could any of the Mutens hope for? He knew what his father believed in—the sanctity of the pledge-bond, the indivisibility of the Union. Was that enough? he wondered. Or were they only faded words on a tarnished shield? He remembered the information which Brand had given him the night before and won
dered if all the faith and hope in Meriga would indeed be enough for the task which lay ahead.

  Chapter Six

  “There now, Tavvy.” Jesselyn Ridenau tucked the worn quilt up to her sister’s chin, and patted Tavia’s tear-streaked face. “You have a little sleep, and tonight, Everard will be here. And he always brings you a present.”

  The woman in the bed turned on her side and shut her eyes like an obedient child, despite the fact that she was more than forty. Jesselyn straightened with a sigh and met the eyes of the nurse who stood beside the bed on the other side.

  “I’m sorry to have called you away from the infirmary, Rever’d Lady, but when she gets like that, there’s no managing her.”

  Jesselyn nodded and slowly caressed Tavia’s smooth cheek with her own work-worn hand. She touched her sister’s long dark braids, which were streaked with gray. “You did right. I had to come back here anyway, just to make certain everything’s ready for tonight.” She glanced around the room which, though small and shabby, was as cheerful as she could make it. The curtains at the narrow window were bright yellow, tied back with blue ribbons, and the floor of scrubbed pine planks was covered with a rug braided out of scraps as colorful as they were varied. Dried flowers bloomed in an earthenware pitcher on the table which stood beside an empty cradle. “If there’s nothing more, I’ll leave you with her while she sleeps. She won’t wake now for several hours.”

  The nurse nodded and picked up a woven basket spilling over with mending. Jesselyn shut the rickety door softly and stepped into the low-ceilinged hallway of what had been her home for the better part of her life in these eastern foothills of the Okcono Mountains. She leaned back against the white-washed wall and pushed a wayward strand of fine brown hair out of her eyes. She was more than tired—she was exhausted. She was barely thirty and felt sixty. There was so much to do between now and the time Everard was expected. She had no idea why he was coming, though she supposed it had something to do with her father’s disappearance, which she had heard about just a week or so ago from a traveling band of laborers who followed the seasons in search of work. But her fatigue was not just a result of her brother’s anticipated visit. Every day was like this—as more and more refugees streamed up from the South, and the sick and the old and the poor found their way to her door. Most of the time all they found was an easier death. For the harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. The old words of the ancient Scripture ran through her mind unbidden, as though by reflex. She smiled a little to herself. Renegade priest and excommunicant she might be, but she still knew her Scripture.

  “Rever’d Lady?”

  The voice, so soft that it might have gone unheard by any other ear, startled Jesselyn. The Muten woman stood hesitantly in the door as if she expected to be rebuffed, her face shadowed by the worn scarf she used to hide the ugly scars of wounds inflicted in childhood. Although Jesselyn accepted her story without question, and welcomed the woman as she did all who came to her, nevertheless she often felt inexplicably uneasy in the woman’s presence. Jesselyn forced herself to speak as gently as she could. “Yes, Sera? Has my brother come?”

  “No, ‘m. We’ve found one of the Children in the wood— he’s in a bad way. Could you come to the infirmary?”

  At once, Jesselyn forgot any misgivings about the woman and automatically gathered the patched skirts of her worn clerical dress about her. “A bad way? Has he been hurt?”

  “No, ‘m. They said it looked like the purple sickness—” Before the words were even out of Sera’s mouth, Jesselyn was out the door and running along the beaten dirt path toward the infirmary, completely disregarding the bitter March wind. There was no disease among the Muten population so deadly or so virulent. It was said that one could sit down to his dinner and be dead before he raised his hand to his mouth. If this truly were the purple sickness, the sufferer must be quarantined as quickly as possible, and it was dangerous for the Muten attendants to even so much as breathe the same air. “Mharri, Chas’n,” she called as she stepped over the threshold of the long white building nestled among a stand of sheltering pines.

  It was over. She knew as soon as she saw the looks on the faces of the Muten attendants. They had arranged themselves as far away as possible from the door of the inner chamber where the newcomer had been placed. The occupants of the low white cots stared up at her with frightened eyes. There was a sweetish smell in the air.

  The Muten lay on the white bed, still and unmoving. Clearly he had died in agony, his back twisted and bowed in a convulsive rictus, his skin marred by blotchy purplish lesions from which red-tinged mucus still dribbled. Dark blood spooled down his chin from a corner of his mouth. Both of his secondary arms were splayed outward, his primary arms clenched in fists on his chest. Sighing, she leaned against the door frame as her two human attendants peered around her.

  “There was nothing you could have done for him, Rever’d Lady,” whispered Mharri, her pale eyes in her ancient face soft with sympathy.

  “No.” The old woman was right. But why did she feel so defeated, as though this were one more burden laid across her shoulders, a burden which she had no way to bear? She looked around the cool white room. “The body will have to be burned—everything he touched will have to be burned.” As she was speaking, she heard a new commotion outside—the sound of pounding hooves and eager shouts of greeting. Everard had come.

  “Rever’d Lady?” One of the Mutens across the room gestured toward the water buckets. “Our supplies of soap and clean linen are very low. If we must see everything is washed, is it possible—“

  “Of course. I’ll see more are sent over from the laundry.” Suddenly she felt very weary. There was so much to do, and so few to do it. “Only humans handle the body, do you understand?” She spoke more harshly than she intended, and instantly she regretted it. “I’m sorry,” she said to no one in particular. “I’ll be back to say the rites after I’ve seen my brother.”

  Later, as the sun slipped like a red disk behind the rounded western hills, Jesselyn stood within the circle of the firelight, and recited the ancient burial rites of the Muten tribes in a language liquid with vowels and meaning. The wind-whipped flames leaped high in all directions, obscuring the dark shape of the funeral pyre at the center.

  Throughout the ceremony, she was conscious of Everard’s reassuring bulk beside her, his very presence comforting in a way the old words could never be. As she lowered her arms from the final blessing, Everard shifted on his feet. He was a big man; beside him the Mutens were dwarfed and she herself felt child-sized. Of all her many brothers and sisters, only Everard contacted her. Her work among the poorest and the lowliest of the Mutens had made her a pariah among her own people. Abruptly she realized she had no idea what the reason for his visit was, or where he might be going. He had come provisioned for a long trip. As the crowd slowly dispersed, he tilted her chin up. “You look tired, Jessie,” he said, breaking the silence.

  She shrugged. “A lot has happened lately—refugees of the rebellion arrive every day from the South, sometimes as many as two or three dozen. It must be horrible down in At-land.”

  There was another long silence, and finally Everard plucked at her sleeve. “Come. A cup of hot spiced cider will do you good.”

  “I’m sorry. We’ve no spices—I traded the last of them to the Mayher of Bartertown to buy us a little peace.”

  “I brought you more. And don’t worry—that lordling will not trouble you again. I encountered his minions on my way here, much to their regret.” He put his arm around her shoulder and pressed her close to his side, and for a while she stood content. At last she drew away and managed a smile in the flickering light.

  “Spiced cider sounds good.”

  As they turned to go, Mharri approached, her back bent beneath the ragged shawl she wore against the evening chill. “Rever’d Lady, great lord.”

  “What is it?” asked Jesselyn, preparing to ask the woman to wait until the morning. Out of the corn
er of her eye, she thought she saw Sera pause in the shadows, just beyond the periphery of the light.

  “There’s been no chance to give you this, Rever’d Lady. But the poor soul—he had this in a pouch around his neck. He was clutching it when he died. We found it when we carried him out to the pyre. It looks like the sort of thing the Children use for their messages.” Hesitantly, she held out a hide-bound package, greasy and worn from much handling.

  “Have any of the Children touched this?” asked Jesselyn sharply.

  “No, Rever’d Lady. But before it was burnt, we thought you’d better have it. It does look as if it’s come a long way.”

  Jesselyn nodded and took the package. “That would explain who the poor wretch was.” She turned her face up to Everard. “Some messenger—bringing this to one of the Northern tribes, no doubt. We’ll have a look and perhaps you’ll see it gets to wherever it was to go.”

  Everard was like a mother hen, Jesselyn thought as she leaned against the high back of the one comfortable chair in the room which served her as sitting room and office and, if necessary, supply closet. She sipped at the cider he handed her. For a man so big and burly, he moved lightly, even gracefully. His eyes watched her closely, and though they had not lost that glint of humor, he looked as careworn as she felt. She closed her eyes and let the hot steam curl around her nose.

  “Feel better?” He settled on the floor by the hearth near her feet.

  “Much.”

  “You’ve had a hard time.”

  It was not a question, but she shrugged in response. “It has never been worse. The stream of refugees is nearly constant— we’re always short of everything. If you hadn’t sent those supplies a month ago, I don’t know what I would have done. There’s never enough food, enough clothing. I try to find them little plots of land, or settle them with some of the neighboring tribes, but—” She broke off, suddenly too exhausted to continue.