Whisper of Leaves

by Unknown

  ‘Nearly seven seasons,’ Pera’s voice floated back.

  ‘Seven seasons?’

  ‘Since you were last at Morclan,’ said Pera. ‘But we’ve seen your older brother Merek often.’ She smiled knowingly. ‘He was here earlier.’ There was a pause. ‘Still carrying that little brother of yours around on your hip, or is he carrying you now?’

  ‘Almost,’ said Kira, dragging her thoughts from Merek. ‘Kandor will be thirteen at Turning.’

  ‘Thirteen! Is he thinking of healing?’

  ‘I don’t know. He enjoys swordplay.’

  ‘Ah, they all do at that age.’ Pera came to an abrupt stop and knocked on a door. ‘The room’s well prepared,’ she said, ‘but if you need anything, send Kesilini. I’ll be back later with some food for you.’ Then, with a brief nod, she disappeared back down the passage.

  The door opened and Kira was enveloped by a gust of warm air. A tall young woman blocked the doorway – Kesilini, judging from the blue eyes sweeping over her and the white-blonde hair, intricately braided.

  Kesilini caught Kira’s hands and drew her inside. ‘Thank the ’green you’ve agreed to come,’ she said, giving her a hug and kissing her on the cheek.

  ‘I hope I can help,’ said Kira.

  There were two other women in the room, and Kesilini introduced each in turn. ‘This is Arini, Misilini’s mother, and Eser, Feseren’s sister.’

  Arini’s face was filled with the same relieved gratitude as Kesilini’s, but Eser’s gaze was cold. At least Eser didn’t resemble Feseren, Kira thought in relief, as she moved to the bed. Feseren’s bondmate was distinctly different too, small and dark-haired, and too exhausted even to lift her head.

  ‘Healer Kiraon,’ she said hoarsely, and burst into tears.

  Marren and Kest sat together in the hall, watching the crowd of subdued Morclansmen drifting back to their rooms. A few clansmen came in from patrol and settled further up the table.

  ‘I must admit you’ve surprised me,’ said Marren. ‘I would’ve wagered a cask of ale that Maxen wouldn’t have allowed her coming.’

  ‘Maxen wasn’t there.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Marren.

  ‘Or his shadow, Merek.’ Kest gulped down his tea and refilled the cup. The thornyflower had steeped too long, but he barely noticed. ‘The damage might have been done, though. He’s tried to convince her she can’t heal.’

  ‘That was predictable. It’s long been clear he’s marked Merek for the leadership.’

  ‘It’s a cruel thing to do!’ exclaimed Kest, slamming down his cup and slopping the rest of his tea.

  ‘Maxen views leading as one man standing apart from others, with a vision shared by him alone. Dissent he sees as a challenge to his authority and to the safety of Allogrenia,’ said Marren.

  ‘Yet he risks us all,’ said Kest.

  ‘The Tremen have long trusted in whoever holds the Bough,’ said Marren, ‘and still do, although it’s obviously unwise to presume – as Maxen does – that the intruders mean us no harm, especially given what we know now. As for Kiraon –’ he paused, sipping his own tea. ‘Most men would be proud to have such a daughter, and maybe Maxen would be also, if she didn’t challenge him where he feels most vulnerable – in his healing.’

  ‘And so he seeks to destroy it in her,’ said Kest.

  ‘It’s a dangerous thing to do,’ agreed Marren. ‘We can ill-afford to lose any Healer, let alone our best one. At least you convinced her to come.’

  ‘Only by telling her we had a first-time mother threatening to birth alone. I guessed she’d even risk Maxen’s wrath for that.’

  Marren rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘It’d be better if she were out of his reach altogether. Miken could suggest she goes to the Kashclan longhouse for a time. If she’s no longer healing, Maxen can’t have any objection.’

  ‘Miken’s already asked and Maxen’s refused.’

  ‘How know you this?’ asked Marren, his eyebrows shooting up.

  ‘Her clanmate Tresen told me. Maxen won’t let her heal and he won’t let her go.’

  ‘It’s a pity then that she’s too young to bond. If she were to take a mate, Maxen would have no more say over her movements,’ said Marren, picking up a slice of nutbread and idly turning it in his hands.

  ‘She’ll be seventeen at Turning.’

  Marren’s hands stilled. ‘Seventeen? She looks less than fifteen.’

  ‘Kashclan women are slight. It’s said the first Kiraon barely reached her sons’ shoulders.’

  Marren took a bite of his nutbread, regarding Kest speculatively. ‘You seem to have developed a sudden and particular interest in Kashclan women.’

  ‘She’ll be my bondsister after Turning,’ said Kest, ignoring his meaning.

  ‘The thought displeases you?’

  ‘I welcome Kira but not her eldest brother.’

  ‘Ah well, we know that women go their own way,’ said Marren yawning. He rose and stretched. ‘I’m to my bed. Are you sleeping?’

  ‘I might sit a little longer,’ said Kest.

  In the birthing room along the passageway, Kira was busy wiping away the second lot of vomit from Misilini’s face. First the labouring woman had thrown back the mallowflower tincture, and now the harkenweed.

  ‘Your mixtures aren’t aiding her,’ said Eser.

  Kira pushed the damp hair from her forehead, keeping her eyes on Misilini’s pale face. It was hot in the room and she was sweating, but Misilini was racked with shivers.

  ‘What will you give her now?’ Eser’s voice intruded again.

  It must be close to dawn and still Misilini was no nearer to delivering her baby, thought Kira. Arini had said that Misilini had begun to labour around noon the previous day, and yet her exhaustion matched that of a woman who’d laboured twice as long. There was something wrong, but Kira didn’t know what. Maybe it was she who was wrong, coming here, believing she could heal, letting those here believe she could heal. She should have waited for Lern, or her father, or even Merek. They wouldn’t have failed.

  ‘She’s been like this since we heard the news,’ muttered Arini.

  Kira roused. ‘What mean you?’

  ‘At first we thought her sickness was from the shock, but it’s been going on too long, as if she’s forgotten all about the babe. She’s not eating; not sleeping; not taking care of herself.’

  ‘The fault’s not Misilini’s,’ broke in Eser.

  ‘Nor anyone else’s in this room,’ retorted Kesilini, glaring at Eser.

  Misilini groaned and Kira forgot everything but her. The babe was low; it should have been born by now; and it must be born soon if it were to live. She slid her hands over Misilini’s belly, feeling the tight warm skin, and then, without warning, the world turned to fire and she reeled back.

  ‘What ails you?’ demanded Eser.

  Kira stared down at her hands, panting, overwhelmed by memories of Feseren in the Sarnia Cave. Her hands had burned then, too. A sudden understanding came to her, and with it, calmness. This was Feseren’s bondmate, the babe the part of him that still lived; she wouldn’t fail him a second time.

  ‘I need morning-bright and a pan of boiling water,’ she snapped.

  ‘There’s morning-bright in the hall,’ volunteered Arini. ‘I’ll fetch it.’

  ‘I need fresh.’

  ‘I don’t know where it grows around this longhouse . . .’ Arini’s gaze went to Eser.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Eser grudgingly.

  ‘I’ll fetch the water,’ said Arini, following Eser out.

  ‘I didn’t know morning-bright aided childbirth,’ said Kesilini.

  ‘It doesn’t, but the scent gives a gentle welcome.’ And the fewer witnesses I have now the better, Kira thought. She pulled the blanket clear. ‘Help me sit her up, Kesilini.’ Misilini cried out as they eased her up and pushed more pillows behind her.

  ‘You’re going to have this baby right now,’ ordered Kira.

  ‘No,’ shrieked Misi
lini. ‘It hurts.’

  ‘I’ll help you with the pain, but you must push,’ said Kira. Steeling herself, she placed her hands back on Misilini’s belly, screwing her eyes shut as the sear surged up her arms.

  ‘I want to die,’ sobbed Misilini. ‘I want to be with Feseren.’

  ‘Feseren didn’t want to die,’ panted Kira, ‘he fought to live.’

  Kesilini was looking at Kira strangely but the scorch was so great that she could think of nothing else.

  ‘Push, Misilini, push,’ gritted Kira, sweat stinging her eyes, or was it the ash of her own burning? Surely she must be dying? ‘Push,’ she croaked, and then, just as she thought she could bear no more, the room receded and with it, most of the pain. She was in a tunnel much like the Warens, but it was clothed in flame. In the distance, she could see a figure, reeling and stumbling along. It was Feseren, she realised in horror, leading her along the path he’d already followed. Was this death? Or was death beyond the fire, in a place of peace, deep in the quiet earth?

  It was Kesilini’s cry of delight that drew her back, and the lusty cry of the babe. The flames ebbed and she glimpsed Misilini’s face, calm and beautiful as she brought the child to her breast, then the darkness surged back, sweeping everything away.

  19

  Kest wedged open the door with his back, eased the tray through, then steadied the door with his foot so that it closed softly. Kira still slept, a small mound in the centre of his bed. He put the tray on the table and gently pushed the shutters open, the glow of late morning gilding the spill of her hair across the pillow. What would Maxen say if he knew his daughter were in the bed of a Morclansman? Of Kest himself? And yet Maxen tolerated the prospect of Merek’s bonding to a Morclanswoman! It seemed he denied his wondrous oldest son nothing!

  Kest settled on the end of the mattress and looked at the sleeping girl closely. She was beautiful, but not in the way Kesilini was. Kesilini had the full beauty of maturity, whereas Kira was still as awkward as a fledgling. She shared Kandor’s straight brows, but her mouth was fuller and the bones of her face finer. One of her hands was flung across the pillow, palm upward, the fingers tapered, and he was reminded of one of the Writings in the Warens. The Terak Kutan admired such hands, accentuating them with rings of metal set with glittering stones. Her pale shoulder was exposed by Kesilini’s too big sleeping gown. But even as his gaze lingered, Kira stirred, her eyes soft and unfocused and then suddenly wide and brilliant gold as they settled on him.

  ‘Kest! How come you here?’

  ‘You’re in my bed in my rooms, and you ask me that?’ he asked, then smiled. Another woman might have shown embarrassment or anger, but Kira simply looked bewildered. Was she so unworldly that she saw no compromise in her position, or was it just that she trusted him? He hoped the latter. She’d wedged herself upright, hair like a halo round her face, and he wished he had shared the bed with her.

  ‘I remember being in the birthing room, then I think I must have fainted.’

  Kest watched her eyes dull to moss green. Sadness or fear; he remembered the change well from their time in the Sarnia cave.

  She dropped her head, and picked at the covering. ‘The birthing room must have been overly hot,’ she mumbled.

  Kest retrieved the tray and set it carefully beside her. ‘Kesilini came and fetched me and I brought you here. She put you to bed,’ he said, pouring the tea and spooning in some honey.

  ‘I seem to be making a habit of falling at your feet.’

  ‘I’d like to claim credit, but this time you actually fell at Kesilini’s. Here, drink this,’ he said, handing her the cup.

  Kira sipped at the tea and he spread more of the honey on the nutbread. She was too thin, the bones in her wrist sharp, her collarbones ridging through her skin. He’d noticed at the caves how careless she was of her own wellbeing. Was it because she’d grown with no mother? Kest had lost his mother young, but there were many in the Morclan longhouse to care for him. Kira had grown in the Bough, without her clan-kin. He handed her the bread and she took a small bite.

  ‘Misilini – is she well?’ she asked, her anxiety plain.

  ‘Yes, Kira, don’t trouble yourself. She has a strong little boy, judging by his bellowing. Now eat. I want to see all that nutbread gone.’ By the ’green, he was beginning to sound like Pera. Kira nibbled at the bread, but her attention now on the chimes in the window.

  ‘The chimes are lovely,’ she said, abandoning her meal and scrambling from the bed. ‘Springleslip, hanawey, mira kiraon, frostking,’ she counted off, ‘but what’s this one, and this?’

  Kest joined her at the window, touching each shape in turn. ‘This one’s a dwinhir, a hunting bird of the north, and this a silverjack, and this,’ he said, holding a sinuous shape in front of her, ‘you already know.’

  Indeed she did; the same shape adorned the ring of rulership her father wore. ‘The running horse of the Terak Kutan,’ she breathed. ‘Why carve the creatures of the north?’

  It was the kind of question Maxen would ask. ‘We came from the north, Kira, and I can’t believe everything there is bad, no matter what we’re taught.’ He ran his fingers over the graceful sweep of the horse. ‘Is this ugly?’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Kira in a small voice.

  Kest felt greatly relieved at her answer, realising with a jolt how much he didn’t want her to be like Maxen or Merek. ‘But this one is definitely funny,’ he said, fingering the silverjack. ‘Big ears and a stubby tail.’

  Kira threw back her head and laughed. ‘Ah, so now you’re claiming the north is beautiful and funny.’

  Kest paused, taken with this new image of her. It was the first time he’d seen her relaxed and happy. Her eyes were luminous, the smile on her lips soft as she fingered the chimes. If he bent his head now, he could kiss her.

  ‘And how do you know they really look like this?’ she asked, her eyes dancing as she looked at him. ‘Maybe they had stubby ears and a big tail.’

  ‘They were here too when Kasheron’s folk arrived. They hunted them down to the very last.’

  ‘You’re saying Kasheron ate meat?’ asked Kira in astonishment.

  ‘Of course. The people were starving when they first lived in the forest, and starving people eat anything. At least they got rid of the wolves, for once the silverjacks were gone the wolves were forced to hunt elsewhere.’

  Kira’s eyes had fluoresced to gold, clearly shocked by the revelations of the eating habits of her forebears, but Kest had ceased to be surprised by such things, knowing that some of the Writings lying neglected in the unused caverns spoke of even more bizarre practices. All that had happened was that the Tremen had been selective in what they’d chosen to remember – it was probably the same with all peoples, he thought.

  A whoop made them both turn, and two little boys ran by the window, disappearing round the corner of the longhouse, then quickly reappearing for the chase back. Another joined them, slightly older, with a dark-haired child in tow, and all four darted away into the trees, explosions of giggling slowly fading.

  ‘Morclan has many children,’ observed Kira.

  ‘Twenty-three at last count,’ said Kest with a smile. ‘The two little boys are Eser’s.’

  ‘Eser’s? I didn’t realise she was bonded,’ said Kira, unpleasant memories of the other woman’s animosity returning.

  ‘She isn’t, and her sons have different fathers. Eser’s only a season older than you,’ he felt bound to add. Kira was clearly shocked and his smile broadened. ‘You’re in the wild and uncouth Morclan longhouse now, remember.’

  ‘Children are the blessing of the trees,’ murmured Kira, recovering enough to repeat the phrase common at birthing celebrations.

  ‘And vital, given that no one has entered Allogrenia since Kasheron’s time, at least until recently,’ added Kest.

  There was a short silence as they both considered the intrusion of the Shargh, then Kest retrieved the tray from the bed and set it on the table.
‘And now we have one more child to thank you for. Come and finish your meal, Kira.’

  She started on the nutbread again, the chimes singing softly, the coming and going of children’s voices almost as musical. How would it be to love not one man but two, and to birth a child to each. It was scarcely comprehensible.

  ‘Kesilini tells me you took away Misilini’s pain,’ said Kest.

  The sunny room vanished and the sear and smoke swept back, as vivid as in the birthing room, making Kira’s fingers throb. ‘That’s not possible,’ she said, surreptitiously flexing them.

  ‘Misilini says you did too.’

  Kira took another bite of the nutbread and struggled to swallow it.

  Silence stretched and it was Kest who broke it. ‘Now that I don’t have any Protector duties, I’ve had time to explore some of the Writings in the remoter caverns.’

  ‘You know of them?’ The nutbread was a painful lump halfway down her throat, but at least Kest had changed the subject.

  Kest nodded. ‘But over the seasons the maps have been lost and few Protectors bother trying to find their way about unless they have a particular reason.’

  The question was obvious but she refused to ask it.

  ‘I’ve been looking for the answer to our riddle about Shargh flatswords,’ said Kest at last.

  Kira’s heart leapt. ‘Have you found anything?’

  ‘Nothing of Shargh wounds, but much on Sinarki. Do you know of Sinarki?’

  ‘Daughter of Bekash and Tarina, first female Leader of the Bough,’ she rattled off.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Her daughter Tesrina later became the second female Leader of the Bough. All Leaders before and since have been men.’

  ‘Did you know both women bore a special title? They weren’t just Leader Sinarki and Leader Tesrina, but Leader Feailner Sinarki and Leader Feailner Tesrina.’ Kest’s eyes held hers, reminding her of the Drinkwater’s deepest pools, clear and intense.