“Yes, my Father. Thank you for all you have done for me. And thank you also, Eldest Sister.”
“Remember that you are to return in the spring,” the priestess reminded her.
“I remember,” Mikayla assured them. “And I keep my promises.”
“Good,” the priest remarked. “We expect that of our Daughters.”
Together the three of them walked through the main Temple into the hall of columns. Mikayla carried the package with Uzun’s body, which was more awkward and bulky than it was heavy.
“Holy Meret!” the Daughter gasped, seeing the shape perched by the outer pillars. “Where did that come from?”
“The lammergeier?” Mikayla asked. “I called it, Eldest Sister. It has come to take me home.”
“Go with our blessings,” the priest said, laying his hand briefly on Mikayla’s head, “but remember that this is also your home.”
“I shall remember,” Mikayla said. “I’ll be back in a few months anyway.” She smiled up at him. “You’ll barely have time to miss me.” She put Uzun’s body carefully onto the bird’s back and climbed up behind it, holding it in place with her body and carefully clutching the scroll in one hand. “Be well,” she said.
“Fare well,” the Husband and Daughter replied in unison, “and return to us at the appointed time.”
The lammergeier dropped her on the Tower balcony less than an hour later. Mikayla thanked it and dragged Uzun’s body indoors as the bird launched itself skyward again.
“Fiolon?” she called. “Where are you?” There was no answer, so Mikayla dragged the body down the stairs to the study, hoping that He Who Causes to Live had packed it securely. Of course, she was pretty sure he had; he was definitely a man who took pride in his work.
“Who’s there?” the harp asked sharply as she dragged the package into the study.
“It’s Mikayla, Uzun,” she replied, “and I’ve brought your new body with me.” She set the body flat on the floor and carefully put the scroll on a shelf behind a pile of books so that it wouldn’t roll off.
“Thanks be to the Lords of the Air that you are safe!” Uzun exclaimed.
“Why wouldn’t I be safe?” Mikayla asked. “I’ve spent the past seventy days shut up with the Temple virgins, and the most strenuous thing I’ve been doing is singing.” She stretched, noticing that quite a few of her muscles had stiffened up during the ride home. She also noticed that her feet were cold.
Looking down, she saw that she was still wearing the sandals and robe of a Daughter of the Goddess Meret. “Please excuse me, Uzun,” she said. “I need to take a hot bath and put some warmer clothes on. I’d forgotten how cold it is on the back of a lammergeier.”
“Of course, Princess,” Uzun said. “Go and thaw out. It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s great to have you back,” Fiolon’s voice came from the doorway, “but you had better thaw out quickly—and change out of those clothes. Haramis is on her way home.”
Mikayla looked at him in horror. “By lammergeier?”
“No, by fronial, but she’ll be here within the hour.”
Mikayla fled the room. Behind her she could hear Fiolon start to explain to Uzun why it had taken him so long to notice Haramis’s approach, but Mikayla knew it was more urgent for her to be properly dressed, with nothing to indicate that she had ever left the Tower, before Haramis arrived.
Mikayla took the quickest bath of her life, hid her clothing from the Temple under the bottom of her mattress, and changed into one of the light tunics Haramis had had made for her. It was noticeably shorter than she remembered it; apparently she had grown a bit taller while she was at the Temple. She hoped that Haramis would be too tired to notice such details.
When she returned to the study, Uzun and Fiolon were still discussing Haramis’s imminent return.
“Yes,” Fiolon agreed, “I should have been keeping a closer watch on her. But she was making a good recovery, and I discovered the system the Vanished Ones used for musical notation about two weeks ago. You were as excited about it as I was, Uzun,” he pointed out, “so surely you can understand how I failed to notice that she had started the journey home.”
Mikayla tried and failed to stifle a giggle. “I can understand it perfectly,” she said.
“We have failed her,” Uzun said mournfully. “We should never have allowed ourselves to be distracted from her welfare.”
“Is there anything wrong with her?” Mikayla asked.
“Mika, she’s had a brainstorm!” Fiolon reproved her.
“I know that,” Mikayla pointed out. “She had it before I left, remember? But if my parents let her travel, she must be much better, and I doubt if they sent her without an escort. So unless you saw her buried under a rock slide or some similar disaster, I don’t see what the problem is.”
“We should have known she was coming,” Uzun repeated stubbornly.
Mikayla ignored him. “How many folk are in her party, Fiolon?”
“Three,” Fiolon replied. “She’s in a litter slung between two fronials, and there are two women with her—both human,” he added.
“They would tolerate the cold better,” Mikayla said absently. “I’ll tell Enya to have rooms made ready.” She tugged on the bellpull to summon the housekeeper.
“There is one problem,” Fiolon said. “How are they going to get across the chasm?”
“Oh dear,” Mikayla said. “You’re right. She left by lammergeier, so that silver pipe she uses to extend the bridge is probably somewhere in her room. And this is not a good time to tear her room apart looking for it. Maybe there’s another way to extend the bridge. Enya might know.”
Enya, arriving at that point, did indeed know. “There’s a device in the gatehouse. Get one of the Vispi to show you.” She reckoned on her fingers. “The Lady, you, Lord Fiolon, and two more humans—that’s five for dinner.” She looked without favor at the large package in the middle of the floor. “I don’t know what that is, but I suggest that you get it out of here before dinnertime. And speaking of time, Princess”—she fixed Mikayla with a stern look—“where have you been the past few months? I’m sure the Lady will want to know.”
“I was at the Temple of Meret, on the far side of—”
“Silence!” Enya cut her off, her fingers making the gesture the Nyssomu used to ward off great evil. “Do not speak that name again; it is a Dark place.”
“Most caves carved into a mountain side are dark,” Mikayla said calmly. “And I certainly don’t expect you to lie to the Lady. Tell her anything that you think an elderly woman too ill to ride even a fronial should know.”
Enya frowned, and Mikayla was suddenly sure that Haramis wasn’t going to hear about her absence from any of the servants. “I’m sure you’ve kept the Lady’s room ready against the day of her return,” Mikayla continued, “but we’ll be needing rooms for the two women with her.”
“How do you know there are only two?” Enya asked suspiciously.
“By scrying,” Mikayla replied.
“Hmmph.” The Oddling woman left to go about her duties.
Mikayla looked at Fiolon and sighed. “I wasn’t trying to take credit for your work, Fio.…”
Fiolon shook his head. “No matter. The less said about any recent events, the better. Let’s wait until we see what sort of condition Haramis is in.”
“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all evening,” Uzun said sharply. “And if the thing Enya was telling you to get out of the way before dinnertime is my new body, I suggest that you do so. The Lady is likely to be shocked enough to find Fiolon here without adding any more surprises.”
Mikayla grinned. “I can just imagine her reaction to coming in to find us in the middle of the ritual to put you into a new body. Besides, I haven’t had time to read all the instructions for the ritual yet, and it’s probably very long and complicated.”
“What shall we do with it?” Fiolon regarded the package dubiously. “It’s awf
ully large.”
“It’s not heavy,” Mikayla assured him. “A lot of it is packing material to protect the body from damage. He Who Causes to Live spent seventy days making it, so you can believe that he packed it very carefully before he handed it over to me to be brought here on the back of a lammergeier. We could probably throw it off the balcony without harming it.”
“I don’t think I want to try that,” Fiolon said.
“I know I don’t,” Mikayla agreed, “but if you take one end and I take the other, we can take it downstairs on our way to extend the bridge for Haramis and her party.” She bent and grabbed one end of the box. After a second Fiolon picked up the other, and they maneuvered it into the hall and started down the stairs.
“Where are we going to put it?” Fiolon asked.
“I think we’d best put it with the devices of the Vanished Ones, and if we can hide it behind a few other boxes, so much the better.” Mikayla frowned. “I’m not sure how Haramis is going to take the idea of giving Uzun a new body, so it’s much better if she can’t find it.”
“But surely she couldn’t be so selfish as to wish him confined to that harp forever!” Fiolon protested.
“Have you ever known Haramis to be unselfish?”
“In the old ballads—”
“No, not when she was a girl. Now, since you’ve met her.”
Fiolon was silent for the rest of the trip down the stairs, and when they reached the storage area he led the way to the darkest corner and stacked enough boxes and barrels in front of the body so that it wasn’t visible from any angle.
“Very good,” Mikayla said, surveying his work approvingly. “You’ve even left undisturbed dust on the tops of the barrels.”
“Let’s go find the device that extends the bridge,” Fiolon said. “The Lady should be here anytime now.”
Mikayla followed him in silence to the gatehouse. Obviously Fiolon didn’t want to admit that Haramis, Crown Princess and Archimage, heroine of so many of his favorite ballads, was less than perfect.
And as long as he doesn’t insist on behaving as if she were, she thought, I’m not going to make him admit out loud that she isn’t.
18
The device that controlled the bridge was obvious as soon as one looked for it. It was mounted on the wall at about shoulder height. Mikayla pressed it, and she and Fiolon went out on the plaza to watch for Haramis’s arrival. The sun was dropping fast, and the evening breeze was springing up, but the solar cell that made up the plaza was still warm underfoot. Mikayla realized that she didn’t feel cold, even in her light indoor robe and house slippers. Fiolon, who had grabbed a short cloak on his way through the storage room, looked at her in surprise. “Aren’t you freezing?” he asked.
“No.” Mikayla shook her head. “I just realized that I seem to have adapted to colder temperatures during my time at the Temple. It’s quite cold there, but after a while I stopped noticing. I was cold when I got off the lammergeier, but we were a good deal higher than this. I’m warm enough here. Perhaps the heat from the solar cell is enough for me.”
Fiolon shaded his eyes and looked toward the approach to the bridge. “There they are,” he said.
Mikayla watched as the fronials approached the bridge and stepped onto it without so much as a quiver. “Those are the Archimage’s fronials, all right,” she remarked. “You couldn’t get an ordinary fronial on that bridge without blindfolding it and coaxing it every step of the way.” She giggled softly. “That guardswoman on the first fronial looks more nervous than it does.”
“There,” Fiolon said with satisfaction. “They’re all safely across. I’ll go retract the bridge.”
Mikayla smiled, perfectly able to understand his desire not to greet the Archimage at the moment. “I’ll go welcome her home,” she said, crossing the plaza toward the party.
The guard on the first fronial had dismounted, as had the woman bringing up the rear. “Princess Mikayla,” the guard greeted her.
Mikayla quickly racked her brain for the proper name. “Guardswoman Nella,” she said. “Be welcome to the Lady’s Tower. The servants will be out to take the fronials in a minute.” She nodded to the other woman, whom she recognized as one of the Queen’s ladies who had some skill in herb lore. “Lady Bevis, be welcome. How is the Lady?” She looked anxiously at Haramis, who seemed asleep.
“Well enough,” Lady Bevis assured her, “but it has been a long trip. She should be put to bed as soon as possible. Where is her room?”
Mikayla indicated the Tower looming above them. “About two thirds of the way up, I’m afraid.” Both Nella and Lady Bevis looked appalled.
Haramis woke and looked around, frowning as she tried to figure out where she was now. It had been a long, tiring, and confusing trip, and all she wanted was to be home in her own bed. She looked up at the Tower. “Good,” she said. “We’re home.” Then she looked around and frowned. Something was different. “What happened to the plaza? It should be white.”
“The snow melted, Lady,” Mikayla said respectfully.
“Oh.” Haramis was confused. The snow had never melted on the plaza in all the time she had been there. Probably the child had done something to it. She glared at Mikayla. “Are you planning to keep us standing here all night?” she snapped. From what she remembered of that wretched brat, she probably was.
“No, Lady,” the girl said. “We were trying to think how best to get you to your room. There are rather a lot of stairs to climb,” she added in apologetic tones.
She seems to have learned some manners at long last, Haramis thought with satisfaction. I must remember to thank Uzun.
“So call some of my servants!” she snapped.
Mikayla smiled faintly. “Yes, Lady,” she murmured, bowing her head briefly. Three lammergeiers swooped down to the plaza. One landed, but the other two hovered while Mikayla unhooked the litter from the rear fronial and passed the carrying straps to one of the great birds. Nella hesitantly followed her example with the front end of the litter, looking up at the bird with some awe. Obviously she had never been this close to one before.
The fronials just stood there, as if this were an everyday occurrence. Haramis wondered a bit at that. Certainly she had put time and effort into training each generation of fronials, but she had not realized that she had trained them quite this well.
The birds flapped their great wings in unison, carrying her smoothly toward the balcony. A few seconds later the third bird, with Mikayla on its back, swept past her to set the girl on the balcony. By the time the birds gently lowered the litter, one of Haramis’s Vispi servants was there to take an end of it. Mikayla took the other, and between them they carried it carefully to Haramis’s bedchamber, where Enya was waiting to put Haramis to bed.
Haramis stifled a sigh of relief when she was finally settled in. At last I’m home. I don’t have to move anymore; I don’t have to spend any more time being jolted over mountain paths between two fronials. I’m home. “Where’s Uzun?” she asked. “Why hasn’t he come up to see me?”
Mikayla, who had been assisting Enya, looked uncomfortable. “He’s in the study, Lady,” she said. Haramis noticed that the girl seemed to be worried about something.
“Doesn’t he know I’m back?”
“Yes, Lady,” Mikayla assured her, “and I know that he’s looking forward to seeing you when you are able to go downstairs.”
“Why doesn’t he drag his lazy body up here?” Haramis demanded fretfully. Doesn’t he realize how ill I’ve been?
Enya muttered something about dinner and fled from the room, casting an anxious look at Haramis as she did so.
What’s the matter with her? Haramis wondered. Why is everyone acting so strange?
“Lady,” Mikayla said hesitantly, “have you forgotten that you turned Master Uzun into a harp? He can’t climb stairs; he can’t even move on his own.”
By the Flower, Haramis thought, I had forgotten that. But I’m not going to admit it and have them all
treat me as if I were an idiot. “Well, have the servants bring him up here, then!” she snapped.
“Right now, Lady?”
“Yes, now!”
“As you wish, Lady.” Mikayla curtsied and left the room.
Can’t I get anything done here without an argument? Haramis wondered irritably.
Her question was answered sometime later when she heard voices in the hall. Enya had brought her a light supper, and Lady Bevis was sitting with her while she ate. Her bedchamber door was open, so the comments coming from the hall were clearly audible.
“I still don’t think this is a good idea.” The voice was that of a young man. Haramis didn’t recognize it.
“It is the Archimage’s specific order,” Mikayla said, in tones that suggested that she agreed with the first speaker.
“We got it up the stairs without its hitting anything.” That was the guard the King had sent with Haramis—what was her name? Oh yes, Nella, or something like that. “Why should there be a problem?”
“Harps are very delicate instruments,” the young man said. “Master Uzun hasn’t been moved from his place in the study for many years. I am afraid that subjecting him to the change in temperature and humidity involved in moving him to the Lady’s bedchamber may damage him.”
“I don’t care if it does.” That voice must be Uzun’s, Haramis realized; it had the sound of harp strings. It was followed by a sudden thud.
“Careful!” three voices snapped in unison: two human and one harp.
Nella’s voice said, “I’m sorry; nobody warned me that it talked.”
“And you’re already out of tune, Uzun,” the young man remarked. “I told you it was too cold in the hallways.”
“You can retune me when we get to the Lady’s room,” Uzun said calmly.
By now, even Haramis could tell he was out of tune. That clumsy guard must have dropped him.
“My place is with the Lady,” Uzun continued, “no matter what happens.” Haramis had a vague memory—or was it a dream?—of being in the mountains with Uzun when he was still a Nyssomu and seeing him freeze, almost to the point of death.
Lady of the Trillium Page 18
