Two Queens (Seven Heavens Book 1)

by Holden, Ryan

  Enda's smile froze. Not helping, her eyes said.

  “Yes, yes, I'm sure something will turn up. Maybe one of them will break a loom. Better yet, an arm,” Kerdae brightened up. “Have some soup, Brian, while it's still hot.”

  Brian lay awake. Something was wrong. The heather-filled shuck scratched his legs when he shifted position. It bunched up next to him, promising comfort, only to leave gaps where his weight drove him to the rough-hewn slabs beneath. But that wasn't what was bothering him.

  He sighed. Turning on his side he wriggled to find a better-stuffed spot. He longed for his felt sleeping roll and wondered why he hadn't brought it with him. But there was something else the matter, something he couldn't quite place.

  He sighed again. That was it—the sheltered valley had no wind. Home on Mount Finola never lacked it, especially at night. A gentle west wind rode up the feet of the mountain, dropping back down like the waves tickling a seashore. And sometimes a strong north wind marched down the peaks from which Mount Finola was but a hill. And the bitter east wind too.

  There's trouble enough without the east wind. The spring's flash floods came fast when the mountain streams broke their bonds and cascaded down the mountainside. Most years there was a kardja or two with a broken leg. The thin topsoil didn't have much to hold on to against the sucking waters.

  This year it was bad luck. The herd had chosen the wrong place, a narrow wedge between two spurs of the mountain, arms uplifted around them to draw in death's waters. If only they'd moved them further away.

  Brian flipped over in his makeshift bed. He groaned as his weight came down on a knot that hadn't been planed down. Gingerly he slid off the outcropping and rubbed his rib.

  His eyes teared up. He was glad for the dark, glad no one noticed. He'd been strong all day and he was tired. He whimpered softly to himself.

  Enough! I'm a man now. If they won't give it to me, I'll just go and take it. The fools. Darach—what was it but a collection of misfits belched up from the fertile plain? Ungrateful bastards, he said, and laughed at himself.

  Such an outlaw. Feeling like a villain over a few words. What chance is there of forcing my way? No thief could survive long here. He knew what would happen to him: he'd seen it before. Women would put some of their hard-earned bread out on the doorstep, pretending to have forgotten it, disgracing the would-be thief with beggary. No, there was nothing here worth stealing.

  And that brought him back to himself. What he wanted to avoid. Without the herd he was useless. His family's wealth was destroyed in a night. No lands, no crops, no shop like the Lowlanders. A Khardjin without his herd was like a snake with no teeth. A bird without wings.

  No coin laid aside in the dark places of the earth. Why did his mother have to torment him so with the myths of a faraway kingdom where the wind sang but never howled? Where the sun's rays themselves became gold and rain was but silver landing in your pocket? Not small spears that from clouds brought death.

  A light rain thrummed on the roof. Brian paused, listening. How could something be so beautiful and so deadly at the same time? The strongest force and the gentlest touch? His mind spun as he grabbed at threads of reason and folly indiscriminately. His mind throbbed forth thoughts like a snake in death throes. Not able to finish a thought yet too restless to stop. At length fatigue's anesthetic overpowered it and he lay quiet.

  Brian woke, eyes reflexively peering around him. His ears made better progress—the rain had stopped and, most likely, woken him up. His head twisted and wheeled about trying to collect the remnants of last night. He felt as if he were trying to remember a dream.

  Pictures came together. The dying herd. He and his father, soaked to the waist, hauling the straggling kardja to safe ground. His mother snatching up food from the flooding home. The cheerless walk to Darach. Acres of mud. A door, and another door, and yet another shoving him back into it.

  He took a deep breath. More doors today, he thought. Perhaps better luck in broad daylight. What else was he to do?

  Other pictures entered. Hot soup at Kerdae's. Enda's green eyes. His father's broad back. His mother's wan smile. “Friends stick together,” he heard as a whisper's echo from the depths of a cave. He'd get it figured out, he knew that. He was Devlin's son—when did his father seek something and not attain it?

  His dream world collapsed into the world's sunrise. Fake light fled as life's light entered. He made himself get up and, one foot at a time, made his way out of the attic. Why can't it be tomorrow? Or, better yet, a week ago?

  Breakfast was no comfort this morning. He stood, hands at his sides, willing himself to be thin. Seemed like wherever he stood he was blocking something: the fire, oatmeal that was boiling over, the door as Kerdae came in from building the forge's fire, the cupboard for the bowls.

  He tried to help Enda. He set about stirring the oatmeal but when he stopped to let her by the spoon fell in the pot. After that he just stood. He never got in the way with his mother in the kitchen. What was different?

  He thought he should say something. That's what visitors did, talked. Gossiped. What gossip had he heard? She would know it all by know. He'd said everything last night—what else was there to talk about?

  At last the oatmeal was ready. He bolted it down despite its lack of flavor. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten oatmeal without cream. The ever-useful kardja were milked in season, their milk's creaminess ensuring that any the foals didn't consume made its way to their human masters: no self-respecting herder would touch plain oatmeal. He sighed.

  He trudged outside after muttering thanks. It felt good to be out in the brisk air. No more being cramped and stuffy. He paused and watched the last of the sunrise reds yellow out.

  Oh well, the day has to start sometime. Brian set his face to the village. It was a rare shop whose owner wasn't awake and at his work by this time.

  He wondered what it was like to live in town. Never have your own space. Always see your neighbor's house and his neighbor's, both up and down the boot-beaten path.

  A baby started crying. It seemed to be coming from about two houses down. Nothing else changed. What kind of mother was that? he thought.

  He reached the first door. His nerves settled somewhat, to be in the task and no longer dreading it, but they remained tender. He knocked.

  “Good morning, sir, how are you?” he said to the pock-marked face that answered.

  “What's it you're interrupting me for?” a voice matching the pock-mark said.

  “I was wondering—.,Would you—,” he said.

  “Out with it, boy, I don't have all day,” the pock-marked man said.

  “I want to work,” Brian blurted out. “I mean, can I work for you?”

  “Hmm. Want to work. Where I come from that's called a lie. Strange you should say so, why just last night some fool was banging at me door looking for work too.”

  Brian reddened. “I'll tell you this. If I had work—or, like as not, pay—to give, I'd choose you over him. He was a foul-looking bloke, looked to be a stone rolled down the mountainside. But I've naught like that.” He paused, then leered at Brian. “If'n you're really wanting work, bring me some firewood.”

  He shut the door and disappeared.

  A woman opened the next door. Her left arm had a baby snagged under it. The cherubic face looked up at Brian breathlessly, then bawled. So that's who it was, he thought. Her right hand propped the door partway open.

  “H— are you?” in the midst of the child's bawling.

  “Fine, thank you. How are you?”

  She smacked him on the cheek with her free hand. “That'll teach you to be pert with me.”

  “I didn't—”

  “Don't interrupt, neither. Answer me: who are you?”

  Enough words made it through the baby's vocal avalanche this time. “I'm Brian, Devlin's son.”

  “Say ma'am, you rude boy. What do you want?”

  Two minutes later Brian staggered away, hand to his sore ear, h
is fear of a grizzled chin answering a door quite vanquished. Anything but a human mother bear.

  “Have to be careful with that one,” a man said. Brian looked up, not realizing that anyone had noticed his flight. The man held a walking stick in his left hand which, contrary to its occupation, was leaning against him at the moment. His right held a single oak leaf, clasping it as if he were the first man in the first garden and no one had ever seen a leaf before him. He stood tall, his straight gray hair darting down past his shoulders to crown his forest green cloak. Eyes a shade darker gray than his hair peered from under craggy eyebrows at Brian.

  “She can't see the good in any but her own children and nothing but that with them. Pity it has not brought out any good of her own.”

  Brian didn't say anything. Who was this old man? Gossips spoke of other persons and let loose with their own opinions. But they didn't sound like this man. His father would never make so free with his words to a stranger but the way this man declared it—slowly, evenly, without hesitation—somehow fit. Like when Devlin took a look at an injured kardja then pronounced its injuries, probable causes, and the care prescribed.

  Brian tried to think what to say to this, feeling as if some acknowledgment should be made on his part, but the man walked away, looking again to his leaf.

  Brian walked on.

  He passed a group of women standing in the middle of town. Hastening his gait he kept his eyes trained on another weaver shop a score of yards away.

  The women fell silent as he passed them. Then whispering began. Brian couldn't make out the words nor was he curious to.

  He reached the threshold and summoned up his courage to knock. The women, freed of the immediate presence of his intrusion, had no fear in speaking aloud again, though the distance was quite small.

  “Devlin's boy,” an alto-voiced woman said.

  “Ramona's brat, you mean,” a soprano-voiced woman replied.

  “Ooh really?” several of the women cooed. Not that they knew any less than the others.

  “Yes, plain as the nose on my face. Just look at him,” the soprano said.

  “Very plain indeed, isn't it?” the alto countered.

  More tittering. By this time Brian had quite forgotten to knock, forgotten even that a door stood in front of him.

  “Humph. Why don't you tell them, then, what is so very plain? How it all happened, how that-” here the soprano's voice grew quite soft and Brian's straining ears missed the next phrase. “Well good day,” came next in clear tones, and Brian heard a swish of clothes mark her passing.

  The little concord broke up, voices going this way and that, calling a reminder out to a neighbor or speaking further with a companion on the way. Brian heard no more of interest: indeed, heard nothing, not the birds overhead nor the wind through the trees.

  His mother... bearing a brat... what? There comes a time in a child's life when the implicit trust given to parents is struck at the roots. For some the trust falls at the first blow; for others, it is merely chipped away in the long years of a splintered life. Some recover to greater strength. None, however, pass unmarked.

  “Ramona's brat,” the woman had said.

  Brian, for all the hurts life had meted to him, had not yet seen the ax blow that would hurtle him away from the child's faith in his parents. Not until this day.

  “Just look at him,” crashed in his ears. Like leaves blown on his face during a windstorm in the fall he saw himself, in this pool or that lazy bend of a creek. Dark-haired. Dark-eyed. Dark-skinned. Like his mother. His father? Blonde. Blue-eyed. Skin so light it reddened every year at the return of the sun. Like everyone else in Darach.

  “Well, don't mind me,” a woman said, swinging the door open. She had a water pail in each hand. “It's not like this is my own home or anything.”

  “Sorry,” Brian said. He grimaced and stepped aside.

  The woman laughed. “'Tis not a crime, boy, needn't be so white-faced.” She walked away.

  Brian's feet led him away from the house. Away from the village of Darach. His mind fluttered and spun and his feet staggered. He reached out his left hand to rest himself against a tall oak on the edge of the clearing.

  Unbidden his parent's faces flashed upon him, faces they wore when it was time to go to Darach on market days. His mother—excited, flustered, telling Brian all the wonderful things that would be there, the same things he'd seen several times already. His father—jaw clenched, quieter than was his wont, a bit sharp in his instructions. Could it be true?

  Impossible.

  But could it?

  Two

  Brian decided to keep his ears open. Surely he hadn't heard all there was to hear. But how could he make the women talk? He expected they'd talk anytime he was nearby so long as they thought he couldn't hear. How could that be done, though?

  Despite his few trips to town he knew enough to know that those who spoke most weren't likely to be those who knew most. But who would know?

  His mother, of course. He didn't like the feeling of talking to her about this at all. He was sure she could explain it, yet... it would be so painful to ask. How did one ask that of a woman? Of one's own mom?

  His father might know. Brian dismissed the thought as fast as it came. That was the worst idea yet. Not only would he be very closely connected with the issue but there was a chance... Brian shuddered to think of it. A chance that there was a secret and his father did not know it.

  It would be too painful regardless. Devlin would respond to Brian's question with other questions. In the worst possible case, Brian would be the cause of his father finding out and the poisoning of his family forever.

  No, not his father. Beside him his mother seemed a downright easy choice. No, not easy. Just direct. Besides, he might be able to lead up to the subject without, he breathed, accusing her.

  It was easy enough to think this since his mother was on the far side of mountain. His impatience, however, made him throw that strategy aside for the time being. He wouldn't see her for a few more days and—who knew?—maybe he'd know a lot more by then.

  Anyways, he didn't have much to go on if she were here. He was sure to get better answers if he asked better questions. There had to be some way to get-

  “Where's my firewood?” the pock-marked man bawled at him.

  “Sorry, I'll get it right now,” Brian sputtered. He was halfway to the dusky half-light underneath the forest canopy when he realized he hadn't agreed to gathering anyone firewood. He groaned. Embarrassment kept him from speaking to the man without delivery and pride would not let him walk away.

  He didn't mind the shade under the trees. It was a different sort of stuffy and vastly preferable to a cabin's interior. He wandered along the creek that shouldered the village with its lazy flow. Without meaning to his feet walked just as slowly, not avoiding the afternoon's doorways on purpose but taking his time for the armful of sticks.

  It still couldn't compare to the mountainside. Up there, the sun on your face, the wind at your back. A score or two kardja ranging about, clipping at the undergrowth of a steep meadow.

  His arms full he returned to the door. The man was nowhere to be seen—what to do now? Knock and risk his ire or just leave the firewood? If he just left it he gave up his claim for payment. Recognition, at least, and perhaps another job on the way to being taken on.

  Life in the mountain was simpler: there was father and mother. Father decided, son did. Mother overruled in a few cases, mostly relating to things inside the house, but her word was likewise inviolate. The kardja were pets, only dangerous to those who did not know them.

  The mountain storms and weather could surprise you, but for one born and bred in its shadow, what was that? If it did step in and disrupt life—like drowning a herd—that was just what one expected sooner or later. Or so Brian's mind told himself. Hard but not complicated.

  He didn't even know who was in charge in the village. Was there a leader? A few old men, a couple wealthy craftsmen? So
me loud women whose henpecked husbands caused the village to follow their opinions in all but the most extreme of cases?

  And money. This was a trading town filled with tradesmen. A khardjin helped whenever needed for he knew none could survive the mountain alone for long: seasons came and went and sooner or later help would be needed. So help was freely given, at least so far as did not involve the giving away of one's own kardja herd.

  Brian walked around behind the house and, seeing a wood pile, added his portion to it. He turned around and walked on, each moment awaiting another squawk to tell him to get more or complain of the pieces brought. But none came and he was soon back on the footpath.

  He looked over at the next door ahead. He couldn't bear the thought of dealing with that now, not with his mind presently occupied. He walked back into the forest for more wood.

  Little progress was made that day in any matter excepting the wood pile. The pock-marked man berated Brian's work but invited him back the next day. He yelled at Brian when Brian said he was going up the mountain and wouldn't be back for several days. So much for the man's favor.

  Supper that night was a repeat of before, only less talking. Brian feared that they knew what the women did. What if they did? What if they inwardly despised him and just feared offending his father? I'm not just homeless and destitute, I'm the illegitimate offspring of a foreigner. It would be a long time before he called someone “bastard” again.

  He rose early, breakfasted quickly, and went on his way. Finally, Brian thought, enough of that town. He strode on, his mountaineer's feet stretching into an easy gait on the grassy footpath. The thought arose that this was a temporary retreat, that the same problems still faced him, but he brushed it aside. He was heading back to his parents, back to the mountain: things always looked better from there.