Deborah Hale (28 page)

“Mistress Woodbury?” a young woman called from her doorway. “I heard you’d come back to town. Can you stop in later to take a look at my youngest? She had a cough that won’t go away.”

“I’ll try,” said Maura. She had nothing in her sash to help the child, but there might be some starslip growing untended in her old garden…if she could bring herself to go there.

As word spread of her return, more and more villagers turned out to greet her. Some came to ask her services as a healer, but more only wanted to wish her well. It moved her to see that they had appreciated all she’d done for them. Perhaps the people of Windleford had not realized how much they’d relied on her and Langbard until they were gone.

“Well, well!” Anulf chuckled. “A popular lass you are in these parts, High—er, mistress.”

“Not always,” Maura murmured. She longed to set her horse galloping to match her heart, bearing her that much quicker to Hoghill and Sorsha—the one friend who
had
stood by her always.

A few moments later, the beast had scarcely slowed when Maura scrambled from its back and ran into the Swinleys’ house.

“Sorsha?” she called. But no one answered.

Maura ran from room to room in mounting alarm, but Hoghill appeared as deserted as the Hanish garrison. A cold knot of fear tightened in her belly. Then she spied Sorsha’s egg basket sitting on the table, filled to the brim with fine brown eggs.

She sniffed the air. A thick mutton stew was bubbling in a kettle on the hearth, a low fire still burning beneath it.

Maura darted back outside. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted, “Sorsha! It’s all right. It’s only me and some friends. You can come out!”

The barn door flew open and Sorsha raced toward her, ruddy brown curls rippling in the breeze. “Maura Woodbury,” she gasped between bursts of frenzied laughter. “Don’t you ever…give me…a turn like that again…you hear?”

Maura opened her arms and the two friends collided in a laughing, weeping, grappling rush of joy at being together again.

“I near swooned—” Sorsha wiped her warm hazel eyes with the corner of her apron “—when young Bard ran in saying he’d
seen riders coming up the lane. I thought sure it must be the Han come back…as if they didn’t take enough with them when they left.”

“I’m sorry we gave you a fright.” Maura introduced Anulf, Snake and the others. “I was so anxious to see you again, I didn’t think.”

A loud wailing erupted from the barn. “Is it all right, Ma?” Sorsha’s oldest boy peeked out. “Can we come out now?”

“So you can, my good, clever boy,” Sorsha beckoned him. “Bring the little ones, then go fetch Papa. Tell him Auntie Maura has come for a visit!”

“Look at them!” Maura hoisted three-year-old Lael into her arms while Sorsha took Baby Vela and jiggled her into a happier mood. “They’ve all grown so. Have I been away that long?”

“Half a year,” said Sorsha. “Younglings can change a good deal in that time. Until now you’ve never gone more than a day or two without seeing them. This little one’s walking, if you please. And Lael can talk up a storm once he gets over his shyness. You remember Auntie Maura, don’t you, pet?”

The child gazed at Maura with a grave expression for his young years. His thick, dark brows, so much like his father’s, knit together as he puzzled his mother’s question. At last he replied with a silent but definite nod. How much longer could she have stayed away before the child forgot her altogether?

A tempting picture rose in Maura’s mind of her and Rath living across the way in a cottage rebuilt on the foundation of Langbard’s. Seeing Sorsha and the children every day as she’d once done. Providing healing for the village folk while Rath planted crops and raised a few animals.

It was no sense trying to fool herself that they could return to such a life if the rebellion failed. They would be lucky to escape with their lives back to the Islands. And if the rebellion succeeded, there would be no quiet life in Windleford for them, either. Rath would be a prisoner of his position, trapped in that elegant palace that held so many troubling memories for Maura.

And her? Maura dared not guess what the future held for her once her secret became known.

“How far have you ridden this morning?” asked Sorsha. “How long can you stay? Why don’t you all come in and have something to eat.”

Stirred from her haunted thoughts by her friend’s practical, hospitable questions, Maura laughed. “Sorsha Swinley, you sound just like your mother—always wanting to feed folks. We only came from the other side of the river and we’ve all broken our fast. We will have to be on our way back before nightfall.”

“So soon?” cried Sorsha. “We’ll have to make the most of the time then, won’t we?”

“Aye, mistress.” Anulf turned toward the women. He had shown Snake how to make the baby chuckle by hiding his face behind his hands, then peeping out at her. “The pair of you go do as you please and don’t fret about us. We’ll just park ourselves out here and keep watch. If you need us to entertain the younglings while you visit, it would be more a treat than a chore.”

Sorsha passed the baby to him before he had a chance to change his mind. “Could I bribe you to stay when Maura leaves?”

Anulf pulled some silly faces that made the baby crow with glee and even coaxed a smile from shy Lael. “If whatever I smell from your kitchen tastes half as good, mistress, you might be hard-pressed to get rid of me!”

“Does that mean I could coax you to take a honey biscuit and a cup of ice-mint tea?”

The men tried to decline politely, but Snake cried, “I’ll have theirs, then. Have you got any cider?”

“Plenty.” Sorsha laughed. “And there are biscuits enough for everyone. Come on, Maura. You and I always had our best talks over kitchen chores.”

Leaving the children with Maura’s escort, they went inside.

Sorsha put water on to boil for tea then turned to her friend.
“Let me look you over proper. You’re a bit thinner than when you left, but well enough apart from that.”

Maura lifted the hem of her gown. “I still have the walking shoes you gave me. They’ve taken me many a mile since that night.”

“Many a mile where, though?” Sorsha sat down in her accustomed place at the table opposite Maura. “A great many strange things have happened since you left. Did you have a hand in bringing them about?”

Maura nodded.

“I knew it!” Sorsha wagged her forefinger. “And what became of that Rath fellow you left here with? I had a few bad nights worrying about him, I can tell you.”

“I can vouch for that.” Newlyn Swinley appeared in the kitchen doorway, his dark rugged countenance alight with a welcoming smile. “I told her the fellow couldn’t be any worse than me, but that didn’t seem to ease her mind. Dunno why.”

Maura chuckled. “Sorsha knew she could handle you, that’s why!” She turned to her friend. “Now you know how I felt when you came home married to this mysterious stranger. But we both fretted ourselves for nothing. Remember at your wedding when you gave me your whole bride’s wreath and told me you hoped I’d find a man who would make me as happy as Newlyn’s made you?”

Sorsha looked dubious. “Rath the Wolf?”

Maura nodded. “We were married this summer on Galene.”

“The island?” Sorsha motioned Newlyn to have a seat, then moved to the hearth to brew the tea. “How did the two of you end up there? And how did you end up wed? When you left here, you didn’t look as if you trusted him much more than I did. What
have
you been doing since you left here?”

“Having the kinds of adventures you used to hanker after when we were young.” Maura ticked some of them off on her fingers. “I was kidnapped by outlaws, then escaped and rode through the Long Vale on a stolen horse. I rescued an old
woman from the Echtroi and found a hidden map to the Secret Glade. I was attacked by lankwolves in the Waste, chased by death-mage and crossed Raynor’s Rift. I sailed to the Vestan Islands on a smuggler’s ship, watched the Hanish Ore Fleet sink in the warding waters and met the Oracle of Margyle.”

Sorsha’s eyes grew wider and wider.

“Careful, love,” said Newlyn, “the teapot’s overflowing!”

Sorsha lowered the kettle back onto the hob in a daze. “By any chance did you find the Waiting King and wake him up?”

“It didn’t happen
quite
that way,” said Maura.

“Oh my!” Sorsha staggered back to the table and sank onto a chair her husband pulled out for her. “I said…didn’t I say, Newlyn? I said all the upheaval in the kingdom lately must have something to do with you and Langbard and what went on here in the spring.”

Newlyn nodded. “So she did. Almost as often as she said you’d come to a bad end on account of that Rath fellow.”

Over many cups of ice-mint tea, Maura told them the whole story—or as much of it as she could bear to tell just then.

“Think of it,” Sorsha murmured at last. “My timid little friend turned out to be the Destined… Oh my!”

She scrambled to her feet and made a curtsy so low, Maura feared her friend would topple onto the floor. “Highness!”

“Sorsha Swinley, don’t talk nonsense!” Maura grabbed her friend by the arm and caught her in a swift, fierce embrace. “Part of why I came here today was to get away from folks calling me Highness. Now, I want to hear all about what’s been happening in Windleford and Hoghill while I’ve been away.”

“Near as nothing compared to all that’s gone on with you,” Sorsha insisted.

But once Maura asked about the children and one or two of the village folk, six months of family doings and local gossip soon came trickling out. Now and then as she sipped her tea, Maura could almost imagine the months turning back and her old, uneventful life within her grasp.

Newlyn had listened in deepening silence to Maura’s account of her travels. Now he rose from the table. “I reckon the two of you have plenty to talk about that you don’t want a man around to hear. Farm chores don’t wait on quests or battles, so I’d best see to them.”

“Tell those men we’ll have dinner soon.” Sorsha jumped up and gave the stew a stir.

Once Newlyn had left, she sat down again and refilled the teacups. “Now tell me whatever it was you didn’t want to say in front of Newlyn.”

“How could you tell?”

“Because I’ve known you so long, of course.” Sorsha wrinkled her freckled nose. “Now, out with it!”

Maura blew over her tea to cool it. Though she hadn’t meant to bring the matter up so soon, she should have known it would be hopeless trying to keep anything from Sorsha.

“There is something more. Something I found out while I was in Venard looking for the Staff of Velorken…” She hesitated, fearing what she was about to confess to Sorsha might somehow taint their friendship.

“Aye, go on.”

“Remember how you once told me my parents must have been murdered by outlaws?”

Sorsha stared into the depths of her cup. “Do you reckon I should have told you the truth?”

“You knew?” Maura almost choked on a mouthful of tea.

“Just what I overheard Mam telling Pa once. About how she reckoned the shame of it killed your mother.” Sorsha reached across the table and closed her hand over Maura’s. “You felt like such an outsider in the village already, I didn’t want to make it worse, so I thought up that outlaw story.”

How had Sorsha’s mother guessed what Langbard had never suspected? That didn’t matter. A warm wave of gratitude for her kind neighbors engulfed Maura. In their friendship and tolerance, she had been richly blessed by the Giver. If they could
continue to accept her, then perhaps others might when they learned the truth.

“We were only young then.” She clung to Sorsha’s hand. “Yet it never changed the way you acted toward me knowing my father was a death-mage.”

“A death—?” If Maura had hurled the cup of scalding tea in her face, Sorsha could not have looked more horrified. “Oh, Maura, no! That can’t be!”

S
orsha leaped from her seat and rounded the table to gather Maura in her arms. “What an awful thing to find out! You poor dear! Are you sure it’s true?”

A bubble of laughter burst out of Maura, mingled with a sob. “I wish I could doubt it. But it is the only explanation that answers all the riddles of my past. Why did you sound so surprised? You said you knew…about my mother dying of the shame.”

“The shame of bearing a fatherless babe.” Sorsha shook her head. “Once I got old enough to understand, I thought it wasn’t such a terrible thing to pine away over. This does make more sense, though I wish it didn’t. How did you find out?”

Maura had barely choked out her story when a reproachful young voice called from the doorway, “Mam, are we
ever
going to get our dinner?”

“Of course, pet!” With a guilty start, Sorsha flew to the hearth. “Tell those nice men to bring the little ones in, and you go fetch Papa, like a good boy.”

The two women quickly fell to the familiar, comforting lit
tle tasks of getting a meal on the table. If they were both thoughtful and subdued while they ate, no one else seemed to notice. Young Bard kept Snake and the men busy answering questions about the far corners of the kingdom they had seen and the battles they had fought under the Waiting King’s command.

The little boy’s eyes shone with excitement, the way his mother’s used to whenever she’d heard some tale of adventure. “It’s like a story come true, isn’t it, Mam?”

“Aye, pet.” Sorsha helped the child to another slice of oatloaf. “But life doesn’t always turn out like stories.”

Anulf scraped his bowl clean. “I used to scoff at the old stories, Mistress Swinley. Then I found myself in the middle of one as outlandish as any I’d ever heard when I was the size of your lad.”

He told of how an argument in a tavern had led to him getting sent to the mines. “On the way there, I felt like I was as good as dead already. Then this stranger began talking about how he’d seen the Destined Queen with his own eyes, and how she was on her way to wake the Waiting King. I thought he must be daft, but the more he talked the more I found myself wanting to believe him.”

Maura listened, almost as entranced as young Bard. Rath had only given her a brief account of the mine rebellion, downplaying his own role. Now it thrilled her heart to hear the whole daring, desperate story. The longer she listened, the more convinced she became that Idrygon was wrong—Rath did not need the false trappings of a legend to inspire belief and courage in others.

Newlyn Swinley scarcely seemed to heed their guest. Instead, he stared into his bowl and ladled Sorsha’s mutton stew into his mouth with dogged concentration. Perhaps he was trying to block out memories from his own time in the mines.

After the meal, Odger, Tobryn and Snake went off with Newlyn to dig rooties. Anulf offered to mind the children so the women could take a walk over to Maura’s old home.

On the way there, Maura told her friend the rest of what she’d been able to piece together about her past.

“What an awful shock it must have been to find out like that,” murmured Sorsha. “It does explain a good deal about you that always puzzled me. Your poor mother! Do you reckon the death-mage forced himself on her? It chills my blood just to think of it.”

“He said he’d loved her and kept talking about how she’d betrayed him.” Maura glanced up, expecting to glimpse the thatched roof of Langbard’s cottage even though she had seen it collapse in flames on the night she and Rath had fled Windleford. “I think she may have seduced him as a way of escaping.”

“Oh my.” Sorsha’s eyes widened.

“If that
is
what she did—” Maura shook her head “—I cannot decide whether to admire her or despise her.”

Sorsha stooped to pluck a stalk of laceweed. “Pity her, if she felt that was her only hope.”

Maura replied with a nod and a sigh. She gazed around the tiny pocket of land where she’d lived for so many placid years, never guessing what her past or future held. Parts of the old place seemed so familiar, she fancied it might have the power to take her back to a time before any of this had happened. Yet when she glimpsed things that were changed or missing, her old life felt distant and lost beyond retrieving.

A strange air of peace hung about the place. Since the night of the fire, shrubs and flowers had grown up, spreading a mantle of soft, forgiving green over the blackened ruin of the cottage. Maura could picture Langbard sleeping peacefully beneath it.

But what of her mother? The body of Dareth Woodbury lay beneath this earth, too, laid there by Langbard’s loving hands. Had her spirit found peace in the afterworld that had eluded her in this one?

Wandering over to her herb garden, Maura knelt and began
to harvest leaves from some plants, flowers and seeds from others. The familiar task brought her a measure of comfort and calm as she spoke of troubling matters.

“Does it truly make no difference in how you feel about me, Sorsha, to know I likely have Hanish blood?”

Sorsha sank onto a flat moss-covered rock on which she had often sat in the past for talks with her friend. “You didn’t think it would, did you?”

Maura lifted a cluster of windwort blossoms to her nose and inhaled their wholesome scent. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if it had. It changed the way I feel about myself.”

“You mustn’t let it do that. You’re the same person you always were. The same person you’d have kept on being if you hadn’t found out. This is not going to make a particle of difference to anyone who cares about you. What about your husband…have you told him?”

Maura shook her head. “It’s one thing for you not to mind, Sorsha. You’ve known me all my life, and the Han have never done anything too awful to you. How do you reckon Newlyn would feel if you told him?”

When her friend did not reply right away, Maura glanced over to find Sorsha gnawing her lower lip, her brow rippled in anxious furrows. “I see what you mean. Perhaps you would be better off just to keep it quiet.”

“That’s the trouble.” Maura tucked the sprig of windwort into an empty pocket of her sash. “I’m not sure I can.”

As she continued to gather herbs, she poured out the whole story of Idrygon—how he had discovered her secret and was holding it over her.

“I don’t like the sound of him.” Sorsha’s fists clenched. “I don’t care if he tossed every Han out of Umbria with his own two hands. We wouldn’t be any better off, would we?”

“You’re wrong about that.” Maura scrambled up from the ground. “I never much cared for him, even before this. But he’s a man who knows how to get things done.”

“Perhaps so.” Sorsha didn’t sound convinced. “What are
you
going to do?”

“I have to tell Rath, of course. In the end, everyone will have to know. I just want to wait and choose my time.” She gazed around the garden. “I wish Langbard were here!”

“He is,” said Sorsha. “In you. You observed the ritual of passing with him, and even if you hadn’t, he spent all those years teaching and training you.”

She rose from her sitting place with a sigh. “Now, I reckon you’ll have to go see those folks in town with their aches and pains. While you’re gone, I’ll make supper so you can eat early and be on your way. I wish you could stay longer, though.”

“So do I!” Maura wrapped an arm around her friend’s shoulders and together they walked back through the fields to Hoghill. “This visit has been like a tonic to me. I will come again as soon as I can. I promise.”

Maura spent a busy hour in Windleford doing her best to treat a number of folks who were ailing. She returned to Hoghill to find Sorsha red-eyed and worried, while a great string of sausages burned on the griddle.

“What’s wrong?” Maura grabbed a fork and turned the sausages. “Nothing’s happened to the children, has it?”

“Not yet.” Sorsha gave a loud sniffle. “But it might if their father doesn’t come to his senses!”

“Why? What’s the matter with Newlyn?”

“A fit of daftness!” wailed Sorsha. “He just storms in from the barn and announces that he means to go fight against the Han. He’ll not listen to a word I say!”

“I’m sorry, Sorsha.” Newlyn stepped through the door that led to the bedchambers. He was dressed for traveling. “While there seemed no hope of getting rid of the Han, I was content to go about my business and stay out of their way. Now that there’s a chance, I have to do my part to win our freedom.”

“No, you don’t!” Sorsha jumped up and grabbed a handful
of her husband’s woolen vest. “The Waiting King has plenty enough men without you. Tell him, Maura.”

Enough? Not against the combined ranks of two Hanish armies with their metal weapons and mortcraft. But if it came down to a fight like that, the presence of one Windleford farmer more or less would not matter. Except to be one less Umbrian dead in a noble but hopeless cause.

“There is a great host assembled, Newlyn. You would be one more or less among thousands. Sorsha and the children need you far more.”

“I don’t flatter myself that the Waiting King can not do without me.” Newlyn looked torn yet determined. “But this is something I must do—for myself and for the younglings. I want them to grow up free, and to know I struck a blow so they could. Even if it is just one.”

“I’d rather see them grow up unfree than fatherless!” Sorsha sounded angrier than Maura had ever heard her, but Maura knew that anger was only fear fueled by love. “And how am I to manage a place this size on my own with three little ones?”

“There’s couple of lads from the village can come and tend the stock until I get back.” Newlyn glanced over at Maura. “Win or lose, it’ll all be over soon, won’t it?”

Maura nodded, wishing she could think of something to say that might change his mind. “I was going to ask if Snake could stay here with you. He’s had a hard life, but I think he has a good heart. I’m sure he would be glad to help out.”

It might be easier to convince Snake to stay if she made it sound as if he would be doing the Swinleys a good turn.

Sorsha didn’t seem to hear anything Maura had said.

“Please, Newlyn,” she begged her husband. “After what we went through to be together, don’t toss it all away!”

“All
you
went through, Sorsha!” He pulled his vest from her fierce grip. “It was you who hid me from the Han, kept me alive and gave me a reason to live. You brought me to Windleford and found a way for me to stay here. I’ve done nothing but run
and hide since I stumbled out of that cursed mine. Now I need to stand up and fight.”

Maura swung the griddle away from the fire and tiptoed out of the kitchen.

Not long after, Sorsha called everyone to supper, apologizing for the burnt sausages. Her eyes were still red and her voice sounded hoarse, but she had an air of peace about her.

When her boys demanded more stories from Anulf, she announced with a convincing pretense of enthusiasm, “Papa’s going to go away with Master Anulf and Auntie Maura for a little while. I reckon he’ll come back with stories to keep you entertained for a long time.”

“Can I come with you, Papa?” asked Bard.

“Me, too!” Lael pounded on the table with his spoon.

“Next time.” Newlyn winked at his sons.

Maura hoped there would be no
next time
like this in their lives.

“For now,” said Newlyn, “I need you to help look after Hoghill and take care of Mam and Vela.”

Bard looked disappointed, but replied with a grave nod. Lael followed his brother’s example, though he looked a bit puzzled by what his father had said.

After supper, Newlyn went into the village to hire someone to tend the farm in his absence.

“I’m sorry.” Maura watched as Sorsha packed a few supplies for her husband. “If I’d known this would happen, I never would have come today.”

“Don’t be daft. It was good to see you, and this business with Newlyn isn’t your fault. It’s just something he has to do. I reckon you understand that better than I do.”

Maura nodded.

“He’s been such a good husband. I couldn’t have asked for better. It’s as if the simplest meal I cook for him is always a feast and the most ordinary day a blessing.”

“I reckon that’s how the Giver would like us all to live,” said
Maura. If more folk treasured the simple blessings of freedom once they had been won, then perhaps the dark years of oppression might have served some purpose, after all.

Sorsha dropped Newlyn’s pack on the table and caught Maura’s hand in a tight squeeze. “Find that Staff of Velorken quick as you can, to drive the Han away without too much bloodshed.”

Newlyn’s full weight seemed to settle on Maura’s shoulders. “I will, Sorsha.”

She must. With so many lives at stake,
try
would not be good enough.

“Any sign of them yet?” Rath tried to keep the edge of alarm from his voice.

“Not since the last time you asked, sire.” The young Vestan soldier had no better luck concealing his impatience. “I promise I’ll let Her Highness in the moment she arrives. Should I order a few men to go looking for her party?”

“No.” Rath did not refuse the offer quite as quickly as he had the last two times. “I’m sure they’ll be along soon.”

If they weren’t, he might ride out to look for them.

Hearing footsteps and the murmur of voices from outside, he leaped up and opened his arms to receive his wife. “Thank the Giver you’re back. I was beginning to wor—”

He started when Idrygon stalked into the tent instead.

“Back? I didn’t go anywhere.” Idrygon looked around. “Where is Her Highness?”

“She’ll be here any moment.” Rath swung away.

“Where did she go?” Idrygon’s tone suggested he not only had a right to know, but should have been informed of her going in the first place.

“Just for a quick visit to her old home in Windleford. There was nothing she could do on the march today. I made certain she had a reliable escort.”

“How could you have let her go?” cried Idrygon. “We need her to find the staff!”

Rath spun about. He had chafed under Idrygon’s tyranny for too many weeks. Swallowed too many orders he didn’t agree with for the sake of a cause he’d been reluctant to lead in the first place. “If that precious staff of yours is there to be found, she will find it! And you know as well as I do, the Han have retreated from the Windle.”