by S. A. Hunter
Fideiya continued, “You met her a few times, when you were only little. You described her, I think,” Fiedeiya smiled, “as still, like a statue? She is the Salvai, and she can teach you much.”
Thera felt as if she had suddenly been thrown into cold water. “You will send me away? Away from Allenholme? No, Mama, please! I’m so sorry I worried you. I won’t do it again!” Her mother’s hands clasped Thera’s tightly. Thera breathed her fragrance, sea lily and cailia with a sense of anxiety overlaying all. Thera had taken instant dislike to her Aunt Keiris. Of course, she very properly hid her feelings when forced into her aunt’s company, or even better, hid herself on those few occasions of Keiris’ visits to Allenholme. Besides, the feeling was mutual.
Perhaps, she wondered, “Do you come too, Mama?”
“No, my dear; there will be much to do. I must stay and help your father, and the people will need us here. But I will send Nan with you.” Lady Fideiya released Thera’s hands with a little pat and swept from the chamber with Nan and Rubra in a flurry behind her. “I will tell Shamic to choose an escort for you,” echoed Fideiya’s voice from the corridor.
Thera returned to her window and, leaning against the sill, thumped her chin onto her arm. The last few days she had felt as if she were trembling at the edge of an abyss from which she would either fly or fall. There were the dreams of course. Also, all her senses were coming so much more alive. It was as if she saw, heard, and knew things through the medium of her spirit, not just the physical body. Of course she had been told that the ancient gift was hereditary in the female line of her family, though no one knew to what degree a child would be gifted. Mother said that from generation to generation it varied with the need of the times. The least endowed could at least vaguely sense the Elanraigh forest-mind.
Thera had not yet confided to anyone the extent of the gift she felt burgeoning within. For now she just observed with her new senses, waiting for what would unfold within herself.
* * * *
So, Sirra Shamic will choose my escort, mother says, Thera thought as she reached down to a kirshrew that was chirping and scrabbling with tiny paws at her boot. She carefully lifted it, to cuddle under her chin. “Well, Little One, I can further Nan’s happiness at least. I see how she and Innic look at each other. When Innic is pensioned, I am sure he will ask for Nan to be his life sworn.” Thera pondered how she could manipulate the old Sirra into appointing Innic to be part of her escort party. It was not that she doubted her ability to finagle the old Master at Arms, but it would be a kindness to ensure that Shamic perceived it as his own idea.
Among Allenholme folk, the retired Master at Arms, Sirra Shamic, was Thera’s second favorite person—next only to Nan. The gruff old soldier spoke seldom and sparely, but from her earliest days Thera had been content to be where he was. Thera knew that Nan feared the old soldier’s abrupt manner, and scorned his crude speech. She also knew that the Sirra was gruffest where he loved the best.
Two mornings ago Thera had been out early by the stable. Her plan was to relocate a small nest of burrowing kirshrews who had chosen an unfortunate site too close to the horse trail by the fresh water cistern. Her father had clattered down the outside steps, followed by several of his warrior companions. The Heart’s Own, folk called them. Thera, and most all present, paused to bask in her father’s bright, vivid energy.
Faces turned to him, greetings were called, “Oak Heart!” It was the name his troops gave him in affection, as he stepped briskly into the courtyard and beckoned the stable boy. “Bring my hunter, lad, this pack of break-necks with me are restless this fine morning.”
His piercing blue eyes scanned the courtyard and then his voice boomed out again, “Hail Shamic! Are you here to terrify my recruits into disgracing themselves?”
The startled recruits had indeed been uneasy recipients of Shamic’s glare delivered from under bristling brows as the young Sirra, Maxin, put them through a basic equestrian drill.
That glowering eye transferred itself to the golden haired giant who stood grinning at him. His scowl deepened, “Aye, Oak Heart, mind who threw you on your first horse, when you be yet an acorn in short coats!”
Her father roared with laughter as he swung up onto Windgather, his roan horse. Controlling the fresh mount effortlessly, he waved the stable boy to safe distance and leaning down, bared his strong white teeth in a grimacing smile.
“Aye,” he replied in Shamic’s own broad dialect, “‘een so, you grumping auld curmudgeon.”
“Ha!” exploded the laugh from old Shamic’s belly, “Ha!” and that fierce eye beamed with pride as he watched his young Duke spin the horse neatly and lead the Heart’s Own to the Elanraigh foothills.
Thera felt the love between her father and the old Sirra like a poignant ache in her heart. The love was visible to her, like the golden glow of bright spring sun reflecting off the churned dust of the courtyard. It did not require the forest-mind murmuring of it to inform her.
Thera remembered many years ago her mother had said the Sirra lost his daughter. Even as a very small child Thera felt a reluctance to ask the old soldier how he lost his daughter. She had sensed she was not misplaced but something sad and permanent, like when Cook’s son had fallen in the river when netting fish and never returned.
Not long after, when she was about five, Thera stood looking out over the undulating hills, toward the purple High Ranges. She was thinking of the Cook’s boy and Shamic’s daughter. “Nanny,” she had said, “Where do people go when they die?”
Nan replied, “Folks go where they can have peace from children’s questions, and they can sit resting with their feet in the cool river all day.” Then, Nan always had sore feet. So Thera had asked the Elanraigh, using the inside voice Teacher had taught her, where people went when their bodies died.
In answer to this early childish request the Elanraigh sent her a feeling like a warm hug from Nan or Mama, but that was all it said.
Thera was aware of two distinct Elanraigh entities. She wasn’t sure which one sent the hug feeling that long ago day.
One entity, the Elanraigh, had a mind-voice—deep and rumbling. This voice reminded Thera of Oak Heart when he would take her on his knee and speak just to her in the special voice he used only with Mama and her. His normal thundering tones would be softened, and burr in his chest like distant thunder. She could feel their resonant vibrations against her cheek as she laid it over the slow steady beat of his heart.
The other entity Thera thought of as the “teaching voice,” or of late, simply as Teacher. Thera knew it was separate from the Elanraigh, yet part of it somehow. Teacher instructed her how to touch the forest-mind and how to be still. Being still was very hard for the small Thera.
Thera had once pushed rebelliously against Teacher’s voice. “Not now. I do not want to be still! I’m playing with the kittens!” Thera had mentally shoved Teacher away and, tossing her hair defiantly, she bent back to Mouseripper’s kittens. She chewed her lip, though, feeling her neck grow warm. This was very bad, she knew, and she waited with curiosity to know what Teacher would do.
Teacher had left quietly, and no matter how hard Thera called during the following quarter moon, Teacher did not return. Thera never defied Teacher again.
Now Teacher has taught her to join, only yesterday she had experienced the wonderful joining with the young sea hawk. Thera rubbed at her forearms where goosebumps raised as she remembered.
Yesterday morning Thera escaped Nan’s vigilance and hid herself in her mother’s private garden, back where the lace fronds grew high. She sat amidst the dry rustling branches and let their shadow-play against the stone wall lull her. Hours passed. All the small itches and buzzing thoughts settled like a cloud of gnats onto a quiet pond. She found her centre.
After a time—Thera couldn’t tell how long—a small hunting bird had landed on the gard
en wall, its raptor’s eyes focused on her as it ruffled sun-gilded plumage.
“Take her, child,” Teacher’s voice had said to her. “She is here for you…”
Chapter Three
Reminiscing about her mystical union with the sea hawk served only to make Thera all the more aware of the constraints about to be put upon her. Suddenly angry, she shoved away from her window, replaced the kirshrew into its basket and ran into the long hallway leading to the main stairs.
Slowing her pace, she solemnly acknowledged the smiling salute of the guard stationed at the head of the stairway. Thera noticed there were more soldiers than usual posted in the hall and main rooms. There was much coming and going of guards, officers, and representatives from the town. It was busy as a gathering for Mid Winter’s Eve, except folk looked solemn and preoccupied.
She saw Sirra Shamic and Horsemaster Harle near the Main Hall entrance and she ran lightly down the stairway past porters and messengers to stand near the Sirra.
Harle stood with his arms wrapped about his massive chest. His brows were knotted over the high arch of his nose. “Word has been sent alright, young Arnott riding Drummer. Fastest we’ve got. Should get there by the time the sun twice blesses the Elanraigh.”
Harle thumped his back against the wall. His eyes slanted toward her father’s conference room. “It went hard with Oak Heart to ask for alliance with the Ttamarini. The Old Duke will be turning in his grave.”
Sirra Shamic humphed, then spoke in measured voice, “Nah…Branch ArNarone ne’er thought a good thing to come out of Ttamarina till he fought over the Silver Toss border agin’ em. Then he said they be an adversary to make a man proud. They fight like devils an’ their horses follow their will like they be one body. Branch ArNarone would ha’ made treaty with them too, if the filthy ‘Teths had turned their bloody black ships to Allenholme in his day. Ttamarini or no, we share this good land, and no lizard-man…,” Shamic turned his head as if to spit, glanced at Thera, and cleared his throat, “…will take it from us.”
Harle’s pale blue eyes shifted to Thera a moment. “It’s on the dreams of a child that we base our knowledge? I would rather we’d had some confirmation from Cythia, or the South Bole caravaners,” his heavy shoulders shifted with an audible creak of leathers.
Harle reminded Thera of a great brooding bird as he stood with his massive shoulders hunched and his pale eyes trained on her fixedly. She met Harle’s look evenly. He was unconvinced of her abilities, she knew. Thera read his doubt, but did not take it amiss. She knew he could not hear the Elanraigh.
Shamic, too, regarded her. “You’ve the look of your Elder-Aunt Dysanna who was the Salvai at Elankeep years ago,” Shamic’s eyes were fierce as his large vein-corded hand rested gently on Thera’s shoulder, “A beautiful, wise, woman she was.” He slanted a look up to Harle, “Even if you feel naught of warning, Horsemaster, the signs are there: there’s no word of any kind from Cythia since Beltidemas, and the South Bole caravan be late…should ha’ been here after the freshet.”
Harle’s pale brows lifted, and then he snapped to attention as the double doors of Oak Heart’s conference room slammed open and Duke Leon, their Oak Heart, strode through followed by his companions. Trailing more slowly were the town’s guild masters and marshals.
Oak Heart saw Harle and Shamic and he swung toward them. “Well, the Ttamarini come then,” he announced. His eyes met Shamic’s, “Not just the Chief, Teckcharin, but also his cub, Chamakin.”
“Chamakin,” muttered Shamic as he rubbed at his chest thoughtfully, “means ‘Summerborn’ in their tongue.”
“I’ve heard tell of the lad, my Lord,” said Harle. “If rumors be truth, he is his father’s Heir in all ways—a true warrior.”
Their Duke waved his hand, as if dismissing any doubts. “He would not be Heir if he were not their best. The Ttamarini will not tolerate an unfit leader, be he the chief’s only son or not.” Restless, he waved the two to walk outside beside him. “Come out into the sunlight. I’ve had enough of council chambers.”
Oak Heart breathed deeply the fresh morning air. “Teckcharin comes with three hundred mounted and their own supplies.”
“My Lord,” queried Harle, “how did you receive their reply so soon? The messenger, if they grant him a fresh mount, still could not possibly return before nightfall.”
“They sent a carrier bird,” Duke Leon replied. His bright blue eyes crackled between Harle’s puzzled gaze and Shamic’s disturbed one.
Harle paused mid-stride, “I thought those birds had to have been to a destination before they could deliver messages there?”
Oak Heart smiled grimly. “Just so,” was his bitten reply.
“There have been Ttamarini agents in the town, then,” growled Shamic.
“Well,” Duke Leon shrugged and smiled ruefully, “I also have had agents with carrier birds in Ttamarini lands.”
The Duke turned to watch the dispersal of the town representatives, by foot and horse. Some few were sullen and muttering together, most appeared stunned or anxious, and some, such as the Fishing Guild Master, Mika ep Narin, looked purposeful.
“Was it bad?” asked Shamic, jerking his head toward the departing townsfolk.
“Much as I expected,” replied the Oak Heart blandly.
Harle snorted, “Oh, I can guess. I remember two years ago when you told the town elders about an increase in tithe to strengthen the West Harbor breakwater and install a bastion there. What a howling there was!”
The Duke merely smiled.
In the small silence that fell, Thera used her gift to gently touch her father’s thoughts. She was surprised to learn that many at the recent meeting in Council Chamber did not accept Fideiya’s feelings of approaching danger, much less her own vision of Memteth sails.
Oak Heart brooded as he paced along, a small crease between his brows. “Peace has lulled Allenholme since my grandfather’s time, except, perhaps, for the occasional high-blooded skirmish between the youth of both camps.”
“Huh,” grunted Shamic.
“The old ways,” continued the Duke, “reverence for the Elanraigh, has faded. We’ve been enjoying this tranquil prosperity. The power of the Elanraigh is given lip-service only. We call upon it for the blessing of a tree for shipbuilding, the charming away of an inconvenient wind, or the finding of a lost child or beast. Over these years fewer and fewer Allenholme children have been born with the ability to even sense forest-mind.” Duke Leon shook his head.
Harle stated, “They are merchants and craftsmen, that is what occupies them.”
Thera felt her father’s natural optimism assert itself.
He rested his hand on Harle’s broad shoulder, “Do not judge them harshly, Horsemaster; they are a stalwart folk and when the time comes, they will give all they have to save this land.”
He finally saw Thera behind them, and his expression lightened.
“Well lass, you go on a journey soon, I hear.”
“Mama says I must go, Sir, but I would rather stay with you.” Thera’s heart flared with hope at the thought of reprieve from being exiled to Elankeep with her aunt.
Oak Heart smiled tenderly, “Ah, what a warrior lass you are!” he rumbled, and his arm clenched around her. “You’re a lass to make a father proud, and too precious to risk to Memteth evil. If that’s indeed what comes this way.”
Thera leaned her head against her father’s shoulder, and sighed.
“By the One Tree, Harle!” exclaimed Duke Leon, releasing Thera. “Those mounts of ours had best be prime if we’re not to look outshone by the Ttamarini. Do we go to the stables and badger our recruits into becoming horsemasters in a seven day?”
Harle threw his head back in a basso laugh, “Aye, my Lord, that is a task to my liking!”
“And you, my girl,” her father eye
d her shrewdly. “Well now—but keep out of trouble this morning, and at midday,” he paused, “you may ride with me all the way to Kenna Beach.” Oak Heart obviously expected her to be cheered.
Because she loved him, Thera smiled, and her father apparently was not deceived.
“Well now, if your mother agrees, perhaps we can delay the departure to Elankeep until after the Ttamarini arrive.” He grinned. “Aye,” glancing toward the keep, he nodded to himself as if rehearsing what he would say to his lady, “it would be a wise move, I think. The Ttamarini revere the Goddess, a girl-child with your gifts will give us status with them.”
Thera watched her father and his companions continue on their way to the stables, Oak Heart and Harle towering above all the rest.
She saw young Jon strike a mock blow to Kertin’s shoulder and they started a push and shove tussle which the older warriors laughed at.
Then came Sirra Shamic’s unmistakable bellow, “You fribble-headed cockerels, any Memteth raider could split you from brisket to bowel with one blow, whilst you stood gaping foolishly.” He clapped both recruits on the shoulder, with some weight behind the blow, “Save your bile for battle, lads.”
“These Memteth, they be sharks. They make no truce, no parley. They will fight ‘til they be dead, or we are.”
Thera flinched at the frayed harshness of Shamic’s voice. Shamic is afraid! Afraid for us all. She stood, transfixed, as the reality of what this conflict with the Memteth may mean for her people played across her mind.
She stood hearing and observing all about her; the clatter of servants’ clogs as they ran their errands from residence to laundry building and kitchen to bake house; the longer paced step of the guardsmen’s iron-cleated boots; the sudden skittering of the hounds nails on the cookhouse porch as they fled from some approaching terror.
Thera saw Cook, known for her hasty temper, especially since the death of her son, emerge from the cookhouse annex. Cook stood frowning, red hands propped on ample hips as her simmering gaze swept the courtyard. She spotted the Pot Boy, the same boy Thera had seen dropping a dead mouse into the servants’ stew crock two days ago.
