A Play of Shadow

by Julie E. Czerneda

  The room was out of bounds.

  Like the threads, it would have to be temporary. Space in Marrowdell was tight as it was, and hadn’t Wen spent most of her life in a tiny room in the loft with her brother and his wife squeezed into the rest? But there was no arguing with a Treff, especially Lorra, and today, no one would.

  There were two other chairs. One had been claimed by Master Jupp and the other, Jenn noticed, had become a tower of gloves and scarves and hats. Everyone stood and chatted, conversations more animated once Davi came downstairs with priceless bottles of port, wiping the dust from them with the end of his shirt until his niece, Hettie, stopped him.

  Jenn moved through the room, catching bits of this story and that, and it began to dawn on her how splendid and full a life Frann had had, despite being exiled or, perhaps, because of it. Astonishing any one person could have done all she heard; she supposed living so long a life provided an abundance of time for adventures.

  Adventures remembered by those here, whether shared or by story. Memories that kept Frann alive in their hearts as truly as hers kept her whole and here. It was a startling connection and one Jenn wished to think about with great care.

  Semyn came beside her. “I think Lady Lorra wants us.”

  Sure enough, her hand was up and beckoning. Jenn swallowed a mouthful of pastry and made her way across the room, Semyn tagging behind.

  Radd’s eyes lit at they approached and she smiled fondly. Her father and Dusom stood near Lorra’s chair, with Anten and Covie. Each had lost loved ones in Marrowdell; perhaps, Jenn hoped, they found comfort as much as offered it, being together.

  “Come closer,” with an impatient snap. “I’ve this for the boy.”

  “This” being a wooden case on Lorra’s lap Jenn was certain she’d never seen before.

  Semyn stepped up, and Lorra handed it to him. At her commanding nod, he undid the latches and lifted the lid. Inside was a flute, as different from the battered and much-loved instrument Jenn remembered Frann playing at dances as Aunt Sybb’s elegant bay horses were from Wainn’s old pony. In two pieces, silver inlay sparkled against the black of its pipe, and formed a complexity of keys and fragile-seeming mechanisms she couldn’t begin to fathom.

  “Well, boy? It cost enough. Can you play it or not?”

  Radd put his hand on Lorra’s shoulder. “Ancestors Kind and Patient. Give him a moment.”

  Semyn gave a short tidy bow. “I can, Lady Lorra.” Jenn held the case while he took the two pieces and confidently fitted one to the other. As he brought the flute to his lips, an expectant hush filled the room and Lorra almost smiled.

  “Aren’t you going to ask her?” Sharp and angry, that demand, and from the looks all around, everyone was as shocked as Jenn felt. Cynd pulled away from Davi, who’d tried to put his arm around her, and came to stand before her mother-by-marriage. Her eyes had a feverish glitter. “Aren’t you?”

  Speechless, Lorra held up her hand in denial.

  Cynd’s stabbed at the bedroom beyond. “Do you know what’s in there?” She whirled to face the assembled visitors. “Petals. Rose petals. Ancestors Dear and Departed,” the words spat like a curse. She pointed at Jenn. “What’s she done but that? Roses, when she should have saved Frann!”

  Covie’s face was like ash. “No one could have—”

  “Jenn could—we all know it!” Cynd turned to face Jenn, who wanted to hide and couldn’t. “You’ve powers. Real magic! Why didn’t you save her?”

  “Because she shouldn’t.” Wen Treff, who Jenn would have sworn hadn’t been in the room an instant before, appeared at her mother’s shoulder. Her head tilted like a curious bird’s. “How do you think magic works, Cynd?” A long-fingered hand lifted, palm up. “Would you save this life?” Her other hand rose, then dropped. “And end this one?” Her face became shadowed, her tone implacable. “Would you trap Frann at death’s edge, never to join her Ancestors?”

  “No. NO! But—”

  “Cynd.” Lorra found her voice, and it was as gentle as thistledown. “Dear Heart, listen to me. Our Jenn, our wonderful Jenn, did do magic. She brought Frann her dancers, right there in her room. She made sure Frann heard music at the end. Ancestors Dear and Departed. Frann smiled, Cynd. I saw for myself. Her last wonderful smile.”

  Cynd’s face crumbled and she went to her knees, head in Lorra’s lap. Lorra put her arms around her.

  There was a sob. Sighs. Someone coughed.

  Then came the sound of a flute, achingly beautiful and slow. The notes soared, softened, pulled at every heart, and no eye was dry when Semyn Westietas lowered the instrument from his lips.

  Cynd looked up. At Semyn. At Jenn. “Thank you. I didn’t—I’m—”

  Jenn went down beside her. “Don’t be sorry. I’d not thought to explain—myself. This is new to me too,” she admitted, and Peggs wasn’t the only one to laugh.

  Which was good and the best thing possible. Jenn stood, looking from face to dear face. “I can’t change nature,” she told them. “I wouldn’t if I could. Even—even for someone I love.”

  “We’re glad of that.” Wainn slipped around his brothers and came next to Wen. The tip of a toad’s nose showed through her mass of wild hair, the creature being cautious around Lorra, and Wen smiled.

  This while Lorra looked from one to the other, a familiar frown taking shape. “What’s this?”

  “This is a gathering. We’ve an announcement.” Wen took Wainn’s hand. “I’m with child.”

  Wen? Jenn blinked, Davi roared something joyful, and Cynd hugged her sister-by-marriage so tightly Wen’s toad let out a croak. Once past their surprise, everyone drew closer to touch and smile—congratulations being ever so much better to give than condolences—while Wainn, looking happily perplexed, found himself lifted off his feet.

  “No!” Lorra surged to hers, hat feather touching threads of red, green, and yellow, outrage in every line of her body. “A child cannot replace her! Be mute again and forever, Daughter, if that’s what you’d say to me.”

  Master Dusom put his son back on the floor, leaving a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Lorra!”

  Wen kept her smile. “What I say to you, Mother, is that the child and I will need this family’s strength. Your strength.”

  “Humph.” There was a long, uncomfortable pause as the two women locked gazes. “And room, I suppose,” Lorra snapped suddenly, slightly less angry, though Jenn was hard pressed to tell. “Convenient!” She glowered at Wainn.

  Who, being noticed, ducked behind Wen, who didn’t seem at all perturbed. “Wainn can’t live here, Mother. You’re too loud.”

  “I’m—” Lorra sputtered.

  Cynd coughed.

  “What?”

  “Davi and I were hoping—some day—to have the loft to ourselves. To move our bed,” Lorra’s daughter-by-marriage explained. “It’s under the slope, you see, and a difficulty for Davi.”

  The matriarch of the Treffs shifted her grim attention to her son, who blushed but said bravely, “My head. I bump it. Often.” He warmed to his topic. “Almost knocked myself out the other day when I was—” Seeing his mother’s expression, the big smith retreated behind his glass.

  “Just like that,” Lorra grumbled at Wen. “You expect me to stop grieving and start making a nursery. Knitting booties!”

  “Grief doesn’t end.” Wen fixed her pale eyes on her mother.

  No, they weren’t pale, Jenn realized, but aswirl with the mad, nameless colors of the Verge. How had she missed that—or was this new?

  The villagers exchanged worried looks. Everyone could sense something more was coming, and it wasn’t happy or good.

  Wen continued, “My promise to stay ended with Frann, Ancestors Dear and Departed, who asked it of me for your sake. The day will come, Mother, when I cross the river and I make no promise to come back. You will griev
e then, as will I.”

  “Leaving us with your get!?” Lorra lashed out. “Never!”

  “Now Lorra. A niece or nephew,” Cynd countered, once more the Treff peacemaker. She started to smile. “A granddaughter, Lorra, or grandson. Or both!”

  Hettie—who likely lumped what Wen had just said with everything else peculiar about Marrowdell, namely best ignored unless you were about to step on it—clapped her hands. “Great-Aunt, just think. Another playmate for our little one!”

  Lorra retreated to her chair, hands gripping the arms as she sat, a thunderous look on her face.

  Of all the people in the room, it was the newcomer who dared speak. Having replaced the instrument in its case, Semyn chose that fraught moment to step forward and offer it back, giving a graceful bow. “It was my honor to play for you, Lady Lorra,” he said solemnly. “Lady Frann, Dear and Departed, must have been a great musician, to have such a wonderful flute.”

  “She’d drive me to drink,” Lorra muttered darkly, “playing at all hours.” Her lips pressed together, then out came a grudging, “’Dear and Departed.” Her eyes fell on the case, still in Semyn’s hands. “Keep it.”

  The baron’s son gave another deeper bow, eyes shining, and stepped back.

  Lorra pointed at her son’s glass in wordless demand. Pulling free hatpins, which Cynd collected, she took off her hat, also passed to her daughter-by-marriage. Filled glass in hand, only then did she look around at the faces regarding her with a mix of caution and hope. “Heart’s Blood. What are you all waiting for? A story? The woman was impossible. Ancestors Dear and Departed. We fought. Constantly. That’s the end of it.”

  She took a sip and glared at Wen, whose smile deepened. “A grandmother.”

  Covie raised her glass. “You won’t be the only one.” Gallie did the same and then Zehr chimed in demanding a toast for grandfathers-to-be, involving Radd and Dusom, and just like that, there was a different feel to the room as Marrowdell grew excited for its future.

  Not all. Wainn’s eyes didn’t leave Wen. Had he known?

  Wen wouldn’t leave, would she? Besides, Jenn reassured herself, across the river was merely the other half of Marrowdell.

  Unless Wen Treff meant to live in the Verge, but how could she, being flesh and blood? She was, wasn’t she?

  What would it be like, to call the Verge home? To fly with dragons—

  Semyn touched her hand, and Jenn welcomed the interruption to what were, she admitted to herself, unsettling thoughts. “Jenn, might we leave? I’d like to know how Werfol is.” He hugged the case. “And show him my flute.”

  “I’m sure we may,” Jenn assured him. The rest were into another round, a smidge of pink on Lorra’s cheeks. Ancestors Witness. Was that even a smile?

  A good time to go.

  Cynd, seeing them donning mittens, came over. “Jenn. Dear Heart.” Her eyes filled. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “My mother would say you asked what everyone wondered,” Semyn offered.

  “She would?” Cynd looked startled, then shy.

  The opinion of a baroness still having weight, Jenn thought, hiding a smile. “We’ll start on the mending tomorrow, then?”

  When Frann’s clothing would be added to the load: what could be worn put aside for that purpose, what couldn’t carefully picked apart at the seams to be pieced into quilts, braided into rugs, or used as patches and rags. Nothing would be wasted.

  In answer, Cynd hugged her, winter coat and all.

  Cooking over a fire most of one’s adult life, while in fear of that life, favored meals both simple and quick, taste being optional. There was, however, the occasional favorite to be whipped up in a single pan, barring undue scorching.

  With a wooden spoon, Tir divided what they’d affectionately called “That Bloody Slop” on the marches, and now referred to as “Weed’s Special Eggs,” into quarters, the boy having insisted some be left for his brother, and scooped each portion into a waiting bowl. Bannan wasn’t sure how much of the boy’s love for the messy mix of hot spice, beer, egg, stale bread crusts, and sausage was its flavor, or Tir’s fierce threat to add, when he could find some, the eyes of blind fish and salamander’s fiery tails when no one was looking. Fearsome, save that his eyes would twinkle above his mask.

  Those eyes worried rather than twinkled as Werfol accepted his bowl only to poke listlessly at the contents once the Beholding was said.

  “I’ll keep Semyn’s share warm in the oven,” Tir said. He stepped over the toad, giving the pile of cushions a dour look. “And I’m not dropping any, dragon, even if you try to trip me again. I’m onto your tricks.”

  Not even this reminder of their invisible housemate could spark interest in the boy. Bannan raised an eyebrow. “What did I teach you, nephew?”

  Surly best described the look this gained him. “That what I see as a lie could be what someone wants to be true but can’t be sure about.”

  “And?” the truthseer prompted.

  “And the people who loved Lady Frann want it to be true that she’s now a Blessed Ancestor and happy forever, but the only thing true today, Uncle—” Werfol’s voice rose, “—is that her bones were buried in dirt! Everything else was a lie! Everyone here is a bloody liar!”

  “Mind!” Tir sat, a scowl drawing the scars on his head white. He wagged his spoon under the boy’s nose. “Being what you are, lad, gives you no right to speak ill of others. Especially good folk of faith.”

  Werfol scowled back, undeterred. “Liars aren’t ‘good folk.’ Liars are bad!”

  Bannan put aside his bowl. “Enough.” He waited for the infuriated gold of those seeing eyes to cool before going on, “What does your mother say to do, when you don’t yet understand something and become angry?”

  Long lashes brushed a round cheek, then lifted over a too-innocent amber gaze. “To count to fifty, Uncle, in Naalish. Backward, if I’ve been impertinent, but I haven’t, have I?”

  He resisted the urge to smile at the little scoundrel. “Forward will do.” Seeing a flicker of triumph, he quickly added, “to one hundred. Sit by the fire, to give Tir and me peace for our lunch.”

  “May I not have my lunch, Uncle?”

  Oh, now he was hungry? Before Bannan could reply, Tir, still scowling, snatched up the bowl. “I’ll put it w’your brother’s.”

  Werfol climbed down from his stool and gave a small bow before going to sit as he’d been told, the image of dejected dignity. Lila and Emon had their hands full with this one, Bannan thought with some admiration.

  No, he did.

  And wasn’t that a thought to ponder? He and Tir ate in silence, it being difficult to talk over Werfol’s clear and determined counting. The temper would pass; his mother’s always did. Afterward, the boy would be able to listen.

  If he knew what else to say. Bannan remembered all too well the turmoil of his parents’ interment. He’d been dazed not only by grief, but by his own gift. Unlike Marrowdell—Werfol had no idea how pure and sweet their faith was—what seemed the lies around Bannan had been real, formed by malice and greed. If it hadn’t been for Lila—

  The house toad sat up, facing the door. “Company,” Tir remarked. “I’m telling you, sir,” he said as he shifted back from the table, “a dog’d do the same and keep your feet warm.” The mysterious lack of dogs and cats in Marrowdell being a subject of which he never tired.

  Bannan rose to his feet. “Ignore him,” he advised the toad. He’d a hand on the door when the knock came, and opened it at once, smiling.

  Finding himself eye to red flared nostril, he lost his smile. “What’s wrong?”

  A hoof scored the planks of his porch, but Scourge didn’t push forward or raise an alarm. Instead, a breeze found his ear. “I have honored Frann. Her final breath joined that of my enemy,” with dark satisfaction. “My duty is done.”

 
; Finally. “I’m sure she’d be impressed if she knew,” Bannan said, as truthfully he could. When Scourge didn’t budge, he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “You’re not coming in. I’ve furniture; you won’t fit. We’ve discussed that.”

  “You’re letting in a draft, bloody beast,” Tir complained, coming beside Bannan.

  A rumble. “I’ve come for the truthseer. It’s time he learned to ride.”

  “Hate to say it—” The former guard slapped Bannan’s shoulder. “—he’s as good as he’s gonna get by now.”

  Werfol’s count slowed, but didn’t stop, to Bannan’s relief. He wasn’t privy to Scourge’s voice. Yet.

  Tir chose to misunderstand. Bannan didn’t. As far as Scourge was concerned, he’d trained generations of Larmensu truthseers to be his rider, replacing the old with the new. To the old kruar, Werfol was next in line.

  And at five years old, in no sense ready to ride a full-sized horse, let alone a giant battle-proven kruar.

  Heart’s Blood. Away from Marrowdell, away from magic, the bond between truthseer and kruar had made sense, been a matter of survival. For both, Bannan freely admitted. Here, what was the point? Other than to make his current rider feel old.

  He supposed it was habit. An inconvenient, untimely, and dangerous one.

  Bannan stepped forward. “No.” Scourge, head turned to fix him with a red eye, slowly took a step back. Bannan followed with another step. “Not.” The kruar left the porch.

  Another. “Now.”

  Head low, legs braced, Scourge curled his lips back from his fangs. “MINE,” roared the breeze.

  Bannan winced at a startled cry from inside the house.

  That, the boy heard.

  Ancestors Mad and Misbegotten. “Leave Weed out of this!” he shouted, as furious as the kruar and much colder, here in the snow. The idiot beast had grown a thick warm coat—he should know, he’d groomed it often enough—that feathered his legs and hung below his jaw. Add little balls of snow clumped here and there, and Scourge could be mistaken for an aged draught horse out to pasture.