Crown of Renewal

by Elizabeth Moon

  “They’re mages! They’re evil!” came from several sides.

  “They’re children. Gird wouldn’t let you kill one child … I won’t let you kill these!”

  “Then we’ll kill you.” That was Haran’s voice; others chanted their support. “Kill her! Kill her!”

  “You can certainly try,” Arianya said. “But you won’t get to them until I’m dead. And I am not going down without a fight.” She drew her sword.

  Those in front of the mob, armed with hauks and ordinary sticks, stopped their advance at the sight of drawn swords. Five—she and four of Knights of Gird—were outside—enough to block the door. The children and the rest of the loyal Girdish were inside the grange.

  The first arrow bounced off her chest plate, not even scratching it. A homemade bow, she judged, and not a good one. Or a good archer.

  “Gird would not kill these children,” she said, keeping her voice calm.

  Growls and mutters from the crowd. Someone in the back began another chant: “Kill … kill … kill the demons.” Voices joined until it made one roar, bouncing from wall to wall: “KILL! … KILL! … KILL! …” Another arrow struck, bounced away. One hit her helmet, hard enough to feel. Other arrows followed, aimed at the Girdish knights, but none penetrated. The first stone flew past, missing her head by a handwidth. Then one hit her helmet. Her vision blurred and darkened for an instant.

  The very air thickened with malice, and she remembered the account one of the magelords in Kolobia had written of Gird’s death—the thickened air, the way Gird had spoken words that seemed to condense all that anger and hatred into a darkness—a cloud?—that he then took in and swallowed and fell dead.

  She needed those words, and she did not know them. The writer had not written them down. Possibly no one could write them down. She glanced up in time to see another shower of stones and beyond them, above the buildings, just such a darkness. Boiling, churning darkness like the most dangerous of summer storms, but silent … and under it a pallid sickly light that no one else seemed to notice felt completely and utterly wrong.

  Words—I need the words—She sent the prayer as strongly as she could even as two stones hit her, shoulder and thigh, and one of the men beside her staggered and almost fell.

  Nothing happens the same way twice. She did not recognize that voice.

  The mage-hunters screamed at the crowd, the crowd roared, surged forward … and with a resonant thrum as if the heartstring of the world had been plucked, a blaze of light stabbed down, followed by a CRACK and then boom of thunder so loud Arianya was sure her ears were broken. She had an instant to see a line of black, blasted bodies between her and the rest of the crowd, with others fallen just behind them, when the water came.

  It was not rain like any rain she’d been in before. Not individual drops at all, but water in a mass like tipping a barrel onto a fire: solid water, cold, heavy, drenching her in an instant. She couldn’t see; she couldn’t hear anything but a vast roar; she couldn’t breathe. She bent over, trying to make an air space in front of her face; water bounced back up from the paving stones and splashed her face, but she could breathe in short gasps. Water pounded her back, soaking through the surcoat, the mail, the arming shirt. She was wet through in seconds; water ran down her drenched legs, filling her boots; it ran under the back of her helmet and around her head inside it, dripping out of the front, slightly warmer than the rest.

  Despite the roar of the water, she heard the clatter of wood and the splat of wet cloth as market stalls collapsed under the pounding rain and the cries of those pushed to their knees by the force of the rain. Water rose on the stones of the street, flowing back down toward the Hoor; bits of trash floated by, fruit from the market, a basket, someone’s head scarf, a stick long enough to have held up an awning. The city smells, the dirt, the trash, the jacks, combined with the fresh smell of the rain. She tried to look up; she could just see that the men beside her were down on their knees … and so was as much of the crowd as she could see before she ducked her head again to breathe.

  A roof gave way somewhere nearby, with timbers cracking and a different tone of falling water added to the din. Her back was sore from being pounded; she felt she’d been beaten. The water ran clear over the stones now, all the dust and filth of a city street carried away. A frog swam by, then a small fish of the kind found in some wells. Still the water came down, as if the gods were filling the whole world with water. Now all she could smell was the water itself, the smell that rises from clean wells of pure water on a hot day.

  As suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped. A ray of sunlight pierced the clouds. Arianya pushed herself to kneel upright, blinked, swiped the water from her eyes.

  And there, in the sunlight, in a patch just large enough for it, stood a cow. A dun cow. A dun cow whose dry glossy coat gleamed in the sunlight. A cow with a garland of fresh flowers around its neck, roses and bluebells and snow-daisies. The cow looked around the square, then walked over to her as others also looked up and struggled to rise. Arianya could not move. A perfectly dry dun cow with a garland of flowers around its neck appearing suddenly in the street after such a rain? It could be only one cow.

  The cow looked her in the eye with its mild gaze, then reached out and swiped her face with its rough tongue—part caress, part correction. Its breath smelled of mint and green grass and roses.

  “Gird,” Arianya said.

  The cow swiped her with its tongue again. Arianya reached up and grasped the shiny horns, and the cow lifted its head, helping her stand. Joy burst through her; all doubt and guilt fled. Around her others were rising now, their faces filled with astonishment and joy instead of hatred and anger. They were alive. She was alive.

  She stood with her hand on the neck of Gird’s Cow, and the people stared.

  “The cow’s not wet,” someone said.

  “It’s got flowers—they aren’t wet!”

  “It’s Gird’s Cow,” Arianya said.

  “But—”

  And someone else interrupted. “Gird’s Cow—I heared of that. But it was just a cow’s hide over sticks, they said.”

  “Is anyone hurt?” Arianya asked. “We need to help them.”

  One of the knights walked over to the sodden, blackened bodies of the mage-hunters. “Naught we can do for these.”

  “We can bury them,” Arianya said. “And mourn the hatred that brought them to this.”

  A fresh breeze sprang up, bringing more scents of wet grass, fresh flowers, hope. Now the clouds shifted apart, the sun gleaming on wet cobbles, the stones and bricks of houses, the wet clothes. Steam rose from the street as it dried.

  The angry mob had dissolved into individuals—family members checking on one another, neighbors teasing neighbors about how they looked as if they’d gone swimming in the river, merchants too happy to have survived to complain about the collapsed stalls, the missing wares.

  “Reckon we needed a good washin’ out and coolin’ off,” one man said to Arianya. “We was all that hot and bothered.”

  “Reckon we all did,” she said, wringing out her surcoat.

  One by one people came up to pat Gird’s Cow, who stood quietly, tail swinging gently back and forth. The wet caresses left no mark on the cow’s shining coat. Occasionally, the cow would swipe her tongue onto someone’s hand or someone’s face, but that was all.

  The grange door opened with a scrape and splash. Gird’s Cow turned and walked into the grange, with Arianya beside it. Inside the grange, the smell of cow was strong enough to notice but not unpleasant. The cow walked up to Marshal Pelis first. He put out a hand, and the cow wrapped its tongue around it, a double swipe. His brows went up.

  “Well. Gird’s Cow indeed.”

  Then it licked every one of the mages, child and adult both, and walked up to the platform. It put one hoof on the platform and then—a little clumsily—lurched up onto it. It stood there a long moment, then let out a sonorous Mooooah! And vanished. The flower garland dro
pped onto the platform.

  Within the glass, reports came back that the Hoor had risen to bank-full and flowed clear as glass. Every well in town was full or overflowing, every trash heap or muck pile had been washed away, and the only building whose roof had collapsed (though many had leaked) was the one in which the mage-hunters had gathered. The field where the mock battle took place every year was a sodden mess of knee-deep mud, so a much smaller fair replaced it, with competitions for individual skills instead. Arianya spent the next two days handing out prizes for Best Lacework, Best Cherry Pie, Fastest Leg Turner, and the like. The accused mages, child and adult, participated without comment … it was as if people forgot that they knew mage from nonmage.

  As the cavalcade rode away from Hoorlow back to Fin Panir, it was clear that the rain had not been local … all the land they rode over had been refreshed. New-sprouted grass and flowers out of season grew on every side; the trees no longer looked dusty and tattered but full and healthy. In all the vills and towns, the people had the same look as those in Hoorlow: free for a time from anxieties and sorrow, anger and hatred. Here and there, people told of seeing a dun cow appearing immediately after the rain, a cow that swiped people with a rough tongue, mostly those who had been deep in sorrow about something.

  Fin Panir itself had been drenched with the same healing rain. The Company of Gird’s Cow, who had been struggling to carve a wooden cow, had been stunned to see their incomplete carving come alive. “The right color, even!” Salis said. “We was all workin’ on it, y’know, and then come the rain, and we couldn’t even stand upright, let alone see anything … and when it stopped, there was Gird’s Cow, the real one, just like I imagined it.”

  Arianya had a momentary vision of Gird’s Herd, an infinite number of identical dun cows, and pushed it down. “What did it do?” she asked.

  “Walked up to me and gave me a lick of that rough tongue like I’ve never had before,” he said, grinning. “Like a big dog, only the tongue’s that rough, you know. Bein’ slapped with a bit o’ coarse sackin’. But I knew what it meant. Hugged that cow’s neck, and it gave me another one on the shoulder. We walked ’er around the city, then back up here, and she’s in the meadow now, sleek as you please.”

  “She’s still here?”

  “What! You don’t think I’d send Gird’s Cow away, do you?”

  “No, but …” She explained about the many sightings of Gird’s Cow, including the cow that had licked her in front of the grange in Hoorlow.

  “Well.” Salis scratched his head. “Well, I dunno about that. Maybe Gird has all the cows he wants now, or maybe the cow … just is where she needs to be, wherever that is.”

  Chaya, Lyonya

  With Dorrin and most of the magelords gone, Chaya settled into its usual summer routine. The handful of remaining magelords adopted modern dress and Common tongue. High Marshal Seklis left. A courier came from the Sea-Prince, reporting that Dorrin had been taken safely aboard a trader known to the Sea-Prince and should reach Aarenis—Barrandowea-Stormlord willing—well before the end of the trading season. Kieri already knew from the King’s Squires who had escorted her what ship she had taken, but the Sea-Prince also sent a chart of the probable route. Kieri sent back a note of thanks.

  Kieri expected the western elves to return to their elvenhome after the magelords were out of Kolobia, but they didn’t.

  “Your queen is our king’s granddaughter,” Caernith said. “Your children are his great-grandchildren—”

  “But only half-elf,” Kieri said. “From what the Lady said, Dameroth fathered many half-elven children.”

  “In different times. Your queen is the only one of Dameroth’s children alive in this time. And the only one who ever came to such prominence; married a half-elven ruler and thus had children also half-elven, carrying the elvenhome gift from both parents. He wants to know how they get on.”

  “He could visit,” Arian said a bit tartly. Kieri glanced at her. Tilla had a handful of Arian’s hair. She reached up and patiently unhooked the tiny fingers. “I wonder if I was as active at this age. I see others born within the same fiveday who are not yet sitting up so strongly. Tell me, Caernith, are elven babies faster to learn skills than human babies? I’d have thought, with such long lives and a longer pregnancy, they’d be slower.”

  Caernith smiled, a surprisingly sweet smile. “They learn many things faster, milady. These two in particular; I suspect it’s having elven blood on both sides. You’ve noticed their babbling often sounds like singing.”

  “Yes, I have,” Arian said. “And my mother said I started singing very young.”

  “They will learn speech early and then sing in earnest. It would be well to have musicians play here every day or so to educate their ear. And they may be on their feet, though still a little unsteady, well before they’re a year old. Elven children are not babies long—they grow and learn quickly for the first two years, outstripping human children. Later, however, they will seem to stay the same for a long time—an elf child of thirty winters may be no more than chest-high on an adult and far from adult in other ways. They need more years to learn elven lore and history, you see.”

  “And half-elves?” Kieri asked.

  “Their pattern is more like the human but faster in the early years. You, lord king, began standing at just half a year and speaking words perhaps three tendays later, according to the elves who knew you then. When you were lost, you had both elven speech and human, as if a much older child, though not excessively tall. And you, my lady, were much the same. These two—” Caernith reached out to ruffle Falki’s hair. “These two bid fair to exceed either of you. I will be surprised if by the end of the next quarter-year they are not on their feet and speaking.”

  Though Kieri still had many duties as king and lord of his elvenhome, he and Arian found time to play with their children. And on Midsummer, when he went to the King’s Grove to sing the sun into harmony, he presented his children to the Old One in the bone-house as well.

  Paran Oathkeeper, the Tribe rejoices in the birth of your children. Put their hands on my head.

  Kieri put each of the children’s hands on the old skull for a moment.

  We know them. They are ours. Bring them again when they can stand on their own.

  Regular news from Tsaia reported continued unrest in Fintha, often spilling over the border, but no more iynisin attacks. King Mikeli had decided to recall Arcolin from Aarenis, in light of Arcolin’s report, to undertake a stronger defense of Tsaia’s border with Fintha. In Aarenis, Arcolin had reported to Mikeli that the danger was less: the Kostandanyan troops had held off Immer’s in Fallo, and Cortes Cilwan had been retaken. Arcolin’s letter to Kieri mentioned Count Vladi’s warning, along with the circumstances:

  He had been drinking, and I am not sure what he meant by “demon-ridden.” Perhaps what Dorrin told us of—what almost happened to Stammel, another being in the same body. That is what Andressat thinks the code his son pricked on his own body means. But rumors have multiplied—that Alured has died of wound fever or has lost a leg or was deposed after the defeat by his own commanders. No one I trust has certain word about him other than he was injured in Fallo, thrown from his horse in the midst of battle. Sorellin reports no more trouble from Rotengre; trade is beginning to return up the Immer from the coast.

  Ganlin of Kostandan, Mikeli wrote, was going to marry Rothlin Mahieran, but not until she had finished her training at Falk’s Hall. That surprised Kieri; he’d been sure she would marry sooner.

  The Kostandanyan ambassador explained: “They wanted a Girdish woman at first, but with more Girdish troubles, Royal Council thought better Falkian knight. Our king has no care either way, just wants Ganlin married to good rank.”

  So the summer wore on, drier than most but yielding good crops of the summer grains. Kieri’s days were full, dawn to dusk, but nothing seemed as perilous as the year before. Arcolin came back to Tsaia well before Autumn Court, having negotiated with Foss Co
uncil to bring along one cohort of the Company. He sent Kieri a fuller account of the state of Aarenis, including a new rumor that Alured had died on a voyage to the pirate base at Whiteskull.

  As Caernith predicted, the twins grew and learned rapidly, their first infant sounds quickly coming to resemble near-speech, and musical speech at that. The elves of Kieri’s elvenhome seemed almost as fascinated by the babies as he and Arian, but they were not alone. Kieri’s human subjects also came to see them, bringing gifts. By the Autumn Evener they were both standing, even lurching from one parent to another, not quite walking. Both could say a few words clearly enough to be understood.

  Though Kieri wondered where Dorrin was and whether she had completed her task and about the future of Aarenis and whether a new ruler like Alured would rise to menace everyone again, the twins’ progress distracted him again and again. What would they do next? When would they speak whole sentences?

  Then, in one tremendous downpour, the rains returned and continued for three days. The usually placid river near Chaya rose above its banks, flooding the water meadows. Every well in Chaya overflowed.

  “She did it,” Arian said as they stood by the windows watching rain stream down.

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Kieri said. “We’ve had dry years and wet years before.”

  “The taig says this is different.”

  Arian was right; he could feel that himself. Late as it was in the year, the rose garden burst into early-summer bloom. In the Royal Ride, wildflowers spangled the grass even as the rain continued. Then it vanished, leaving a blue sky and bright sun. The little river’s floodwaters went down with unnatural speed, leaving it bank-full of clear water. Days later, a courier arrived from Tsaia to report the same rain there, everywhere it seemed.

  “Will she come back?” Arian asked.

  “If she lived through whatever she did … maybe.”

  Winter came with its usual snows, and in the spring the new growth returned. The twins were not just walking but running, busy, curious, and endlessly chattering. Tilla’s red hair had continued curly; Falki’s dark hair now waved a little. The first ships into the river port brought word that Alured’s domain had fragmented. The Immer ports formed their own alliance, based on the Guild League, and one of Alured’s captains ruled in Cortes Immer, apparently with no ambitions to extend his realm. Lûn and Rotengre were free cities again, though Rotengre retained a bad reputation.