Her father’s farm filled a shallow valley. The house and its outbuildings stood secure in their palisade above the pastures and the plowed rectangles of fields. All the barley and wheat were in, and the winter-wheat field was ready to be planted. There were still apples in the orchard up beyond the house.
People said that one’s old home always looked smaller after one had seen the world. Titus’s farm looked exactly the same as Valeria remembered. The barn had a new coat of lime wash and the house roof was freshly thatched. Like the runestone, that was an autumn ritual.
Valeria’s youngest sister, Gwynith, was playing in the yard in front of the house, tumbling in the dirt with the dogs. She bounced up staring—people on horses were a vanishing rarity in this place—and let out a long wail. “Papaaa!”
She turned and fled into the house. The dogs were much less appalled. They leaped and fawned around the stallions, licking Valeria’s hands in an ecstasy of recognition.
Titus came out of the barn with a pitchfork in his hand and her younger brothers looming unexpectedly behind. Niall was taller than his father, and plump little Garin had grown into a tall, narrow young thing with a voice that cracked as he said, “By the gods! It’s Valeria.”
“On a horse,” Niall said. His voice had been cracking last year. It was almost comfortable with itself now, though he looked as if he did not know what to do with his body yet. “A white horse. Do you think—”
“I see that,” Titus said. His tone was mild, but it silenced his sons. He lowered his pitchfork. “You, dogs. Down. Come here.”
The dogs did not want to obey, but not all of Valeria’s gifts came from her mother. When Titus spoke, the dogs did as they were told. They backed away from Valeria, still wagging their tails, and crouched at Titus’s feet.
His eyes fell on the mule. The shield and armor were covered, but their shape was unmistakable. His face went still. “Garin, fetch your mother. If she’s not still at market with Murna, find out where she is and go there. Bring her back.”
Garin looked as if he might have argued, but when Titus spoke in that particular tone, no one crossed him. Garin ran past the stallions—darting a wild glance at them as he went—and vanished down the road to the village.
“Niall,” Titus said, still with that terrible quiet, “see to the horses.”
“We had better do that,” Valeria said. “They’re not—exactly—horses.”
Titus barely paused before he shifted stride. “Help them, then,” he said to Niall.
Kerrec dismounted and led Petra and the mule toward the barn. Valeria was trying to keep her chin up, but whatever coldness she had expected from her mother, she had at least thought her father would be glad to see her.
“It’s as if he recognizes me,” she said to Kerrec in the barn as they unsaddled and rubbed down the stallions and the mule, “but he doesn’t know me at all.”
“Maybe he thinks he doesn’t,” Kerrec said.
“It makes me feel cold.”
“Mother says it will snow tomorrow,” Niall said. He had bedded three of the plowhorses’ stalls with straw and was pitching hay into the mangers. He flushed, conspicuously shy. “I know, that’s not what you meant. It was hard when you left. You were always his favorite.”
“I was not,” Valeria said.
“Were, too,” Niall said.
Valeria bit her tongue. Now was not the time for that familiar fight.
Sabata was unsaddled and clean. She led him into the middle stall, where he settled himself with hay and water and a handful of barley. Petra was in the end stall. Kerrec and Niall were unloading and tending the mule.
Valeria went back out into the grey daylight and the blustery chill. Titus was in the house—she could feel him there. She almost turned and ran back to Kerrec, but she had given up cowardice when she took the turn toward Imbria.
The house was warm. Titus had stirred up the fire and hung the pot to boil, and was lowering one of the hams from the rafters. Valeria reached up to steady it as it came down.
He nodded his thanks. “You’ve grown,” he said.
“A little.” She set the ham on the big, scarred table. Titus fetched the knife and set to work carving off thick slices.
Valeria let herself fall into the old familiar rhythm. It was strange to go down into the root cellar in search of turnips and potatoes and find it as it had always been—minus the bed that had made it a prison for a daughter who could not possibly be hearing the Call to the Mountain. She came back up again as quickly as she could.
She and her father worked side by side, scrubbing and peeling and chopping. Potatoes, turnips, an onion, a handful of ham chopped fine.
Gwynith reappeared from wherever she had gone to hide and think things over. Clearly she had reached a conclusion. She wrapped her arms around Valeria’s leg and clung as she had done when she was barely old enough to walk.
Valeria tossed the last handful of potatoes into the steaming pot and sat on the bench by the wall. Gwynith climbed into her lap. She smelled of dust and dogs and warm child.
Niall brought a gust of cold wind into the house. Kerrec followed in much more contained fashion.
Valeria saw how he took in the room, sweeping a glance over it that caught every detail. It was a big room for a farmhouse, and high, coming to a peak around the chimney. Compared to a room in the palace, it was tiny and smoky and crowded with people and furniture.
Kerrec did not think that way. At first Valeria could not tell where the thought had come from—then she recognized the flavor of Petra’s presence. Kerrec saw things for what they were.
Valeria was duly chastened. She started to stand up for belated introductions, but Niall was taking care of that. “His name is Kerrec,” he said to his father. “He’s a First Rider. That means he’s a master mage. He’s had his stallion for ten years. The stallion picked him, not the other way around. He’s been bucked off six times. He said—”
Obviously, while Valeria had been trying to mend matters with her father, Kerrec had been seducing her brother in the barn. He had told Niall more in half an hour than Valeria had got out of him in a year.
Gwynith lifted her head from Valeria’s shoulder and peered at Kerrec. “Pretty,” she said.
That shocked laughter out of Valeria. “My sentiments exactly,” she said. “You like him, then?”
Gwynith nodded. “He’s shiny.”
She could see magic. Valeria smoothed her tangled curls. They crackled a little. It was not just seeing, then. Maybe Morag would have a proper heir, after all.
As if the thought had conjured her, Morag herself appeared in the doorway, with Garin and young Murna behind.
Valeria’s father had not changed a bit. Neither had her mother. Morag was still as tall as a man and as straight as a steel blade, and there was still no sign of grey in her glossy dark hair with its red lights. Her eyes were the same odd color as Valeria’s, neither green nor brown, flecked with gold.
She was beautiful. Valeria had never seen that before, though she had heard it often enough. Beautiful and terrible.
Morag’s glance across the room reminded Valeria vividly of Kerrec’s not so long before. Her eyes took in the stranger with the prince’s face and the accent to match, and leaped from him to Valeria.
Valeria braced for the blast, but none came. Morag went as quiet as Titus had. She hung her cloak and hood on the hook by the door and sent Murna to fetch the good lamps from the bedroom. Then she greeted Kerrec with civility that would not have shamed a court lady. “Sir. You’re welcome in this house.”
Kerrec bowed. “I’m honored to be here, Mistress,” he said.
Valeria rose, lowering a protesting Gwynith to the floor. “Mother,” she said.
Morag did not go blind as Titus had seemed to. She saw Valeria perfectly clearly. “You’re too thin,” she said. “Aren’t they feeding you?”
“Mostly I feed myself,” Valeria said.
“Feed yourself better,” Morag said.
“Those horses in the barn are sturdy enough. They can carry a bit more of you.”
“Mother,” Niall said, “those horses are—”
“I know what they are,” Morag said. “And you, too, sir—past and present. So a woman can be Called, after all?”
“So it seems, Mistress,” Kerrec said.
“Has she acquitted herself well?”
“Extremely well, Mistress,” said Kerrec.
“Good,” Morag said. “You’ll eat with us, of course.”
Kerrec inclined his head. The boys and Murna watched wide-eyed. They would be imitating his every gesture for days. Like Rodry, they were in love with him.
Maybe it was a disease of their blood. Valeria was the worst of them all.
Fifty-Nine
Dinner was by no means a silent meal, with the children chattering brightly and Kerrec answering their spate of questions. Valeria said hardly a word. Titus ate in silence. Morag watched and studied and ignored the food and drink in front of her.
When the boys had devoured their third helpings, Morag sent all the children to bed—over their loud protests. A solid glare put an end to those. They tumbled and clamored their way out of the room, with many glances back.
Valeria went with them because Gwynith begged her. She tucked her in tight beside Murna in the big wooden bed. As she laid a Word of sleep with the kiss on each sister’s forehead, she looked up to find her mother watching from the doorway.
“I’m sorry,” Valeria said. “I shouldn’t have—”
“They’re still your sisters,” Morag said, “whatever else you may be.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Valeria said.
Morag did not rise to the bait. She stood back, leaving room for Valeria to slip past her through the door.
Titus was as silent as he had been all evening, sitting with Kerrec by firelight, nursing a mug of ale. Valeria sat on the bench beside Kerrec, a little defiantly—if anyone cared.
Morag stayed on her feet. “Now,” she said. “Tell us. Rodry or Lucius?”
Valeria let go her breath in a long sigh. “Rodry,” she said.
“How?”
Valeria had rehearsed for days, until she had the story perfectly straight and thorough enough to pass scrutiny in one of her classes on the Mountain. It was all gone from her head, lost in her mother’s stare.
Kerrec spoke beside her, softly, but his words were clear. He began with the meeting in the inn in the town of Valeria Victrix, and told the rest in order. As he spoke, the words took shape. It was like living it all over again, with all the sights and sounds and smells and Rodry’s living, laughing presence.
Kerrec had turned the words into living memory. Everything that Rodry had seen and done that Kerrec could know, he laid before them. The battle, the Dance, the stark and sudden ending, they were all there. Then at the last, he gave them what Valeria had asked for, the legion’s great honor and splendid farewell.
For a long while after he was done, no one spoke. The fire danced and flickered. The wind wuthered in the eaves.
Kerrec sat with his head bowed and his hands folded. He had wrought a great working, as powerful and yet as subtle as any work of magic Valeria knew. He had taken words and memory and woven them into patterns that made them real in the minds of everyone who heard.
It was no wonder he had declined to teach her the trick of it. This was First Rider’s art. It needed strong discipline and indelible memory, and control of patterns that for all her strength, she had not yet mastered.
The stallions humbled her constantly, but it was not often she bowed in deference to a rider’s magic. She was too sure of her own strength. She tended to forget that her magic was art, not brute craft.
After a moment or an hour, Morag stirred. “Thank you, sir, with all my heart. You’ve given us a great gift.”
“I would rather have brought him back alive,” Kerrec said.
“That was in the gods’ hands,” Morag said. “You know what they say to soldiers. ‘Come back with your shield or on it.’ He chose his way. It won him honor. The rest is for us to live with.”
Kerrec rose and bowed. It was a princely gesture, and it nearly knocked him flat.
“You’re exhausted,” Morag said. “Come, you need to sleep.”
“I’ll bed down in the barn,” he said. “If I could borrow a blanket or two…”
“You will not,” said Morag. “I realize that there are gods in our barn tonight—gods who eat hay and sleep in straw and have thick coats against the cold. You need a little more pampering than they do, especially after such a working.”
Kerrec opened his mouth to argue, but he was no more able to resist Morag’s will than one of her children. She bore him off to her own bed. She and Titus would spread a pallet in front of the fire, she said in a tone that brooked no opposition.
Valeria was no doubt expected to sleep in her old bed with her sisters. There was more room than there used to be, with Caia married off to Wellin Smith. Gwynith and Murna would be glad. They were happy that she had come back, though their parents were not.
She almost gave way. But she needed Kerrec tonight after reliving so much pain. She left her parents to their makeshift bed and retreated to the strange-familiar room.
It felt most peculiar to stand in that space. It had always been her parents’ kingdom, with the enormous carved bed that filled most of it, and Titus’s old army chest at the bed’s foot, and the nursing chair that Morag had brought from Eriu. Children only came here on sufferance.
The sheets were fresh and smelled of cedar from the press. They were the best sheets, the wedding sheets, woven of creamy linen and embroidered along the edges. Morag must have had a premonition of important guests and—Valeria had no doubt—sudden sorrow.
Kerrec had managed to undress and fold his clothes tidily before he slipped under the down-filled coverlet. Valeria did the same. His skin was blissfully warm. She wrapped herself around him.
Neither of them was in the mood for more tonight. Kerrec fell asleep in the middle of a kiss. Valeria lay awake while the lamp burned low.
The room was warm—one wall was the kitchen chimney. Faintly, with a bit of an echo, she heard her parents’ voices on the other side. She made no particular effort to catch the words. It was clear enough what they were talking about.
She fell asleep listening to their voices rising and falling, murmuring through the cry of the wind.
“Are you going to get married?”
Valeria opened one eye. Murna’s face hung over her. The weight bouncing on her was Gwynith’s, and Niall and Garin were hovering beyond.
Murna had asked the question. It was Niall who said scornfully, “Riders don’t marry, stupid.”
“They do, but it’s not very common.” Kerrec was awake and apparently undismayed to find the room full of curious children.
“So are you?” Murna demanded. She was nothing if not persistent.
“No,” he answered before Valeria could stop him.
“Are you going to?”
“Caia is having a baby!” Gwynith announced loudly.
Murna was still young enough to be easily distracted. “Yes! Mother says it’s a girl. Caia thinks it’s a boy. Wellin Smith doesn’t care as long as it’s healthy.”
“Wellin Smith is a wise man,” Kerrec said, sitting up. Gwynith transferred her bouncing self to him. “She isn’t having the baby today, is she?”
“Today!” Gwynith sang. “Today!”
Niall plucked her out of Kerrec’s lap. “She’s crazy,” he said. “Mother says breakfast is ready whenever you are.”
Valeria glowered. “She sent you?”
“Just Murna,” he confessed. “The rest of us came to help.”
Valeria threw her pillow at him. “Get out! Out!”
It took a while, but they roared and tumbled out, all four of them.
Kerrec fell back in the bed. He was shaking with laughter.
Valeria was still furious, but s
he could not help but see the humor in it. Her face cracked into a smile. In a moment she was laughing as hard as he was.
When the last gust of giggles was gone, they were in each other’s arms. Kerrec was grinning. He looked no older than Niall. “Now that never happened to me before,” he said.
“You’re lucky,” Valeria muttered.
“Oh, no,” he said. “You are. These children—they’re wonderful. Your mother and father have their terrifying aspects, but they’ve raised you well.”
“They’re none too happy with me,” Valeria said.
“They don’t know what to say,” he said. “They’re not sure they know you any more.”
“And you know them well enough to tell me what they’re thinking?”
“Sometimes the view is clearer from outside.”
“So what would you have me do?”
“Whatever’s in your heart.”
“My heart wants to get up and get dressed and go to the Mountain.”
“Does it?”
He was using his teaching voice. She hated when he did that outside of the schoolroom.
She particularly hated it when he was right. “My heart, damn you, wants to make them see I’m still Valeria. Maybe I cut my hair and left my skirts behind, but I didn’t change my blood.”
“Tell them that.”
“Because you told me to?”
“Because your heart told you.”
“You are my heart,” she said, “damn you.”
“Your heart-damn-you is grateful for the honor.” He sat up again and stretched. There was art in it, deliberate stretching of each limb and muscle, a dance of suppleness and strength.
She hated to get up and brave the cold air and the icy floor, but it was either that or stay in bed until spring. The prospect was terribly tempting.
A storm was raging outside, a white blast of wind and snow. Breakfast lay on the table. Everyone was out—storm or no storm, there were stock to feed and stalls to clean, cows and goats to milk and wool to spin and clothes to make and mend.
Valeria eyed the pot of porridge and the jug of cream and the bread and soft cheese and apple butter, and swallowed. Later, she thought. She took a deep breath instead and opened the door.
Song of Unmaking Page 36
