Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (49 page)

“Rhuan—”

He lifted a hand. “Let it be, Audrun. For now, let it be.” He turned, then, to Ylarra. He took the leather thong he had used to tie back his hair from his belt, and offered it to her. When she took it, he held out his arms and crossed his wrists.

But it was Karadath who stepped forward, who ripped the thong from Ylarra’s grasp. Rhuan gritted his teeth as his wrists were too tightly bound, the thong too tightly knotted.

“You should know,” Audrun cried as Karadath turned him toward the steps, “that this ‘inferior
dioscuri
’ has more honor in him than any of you! Than
any
of you!”

THE SUN HAD set. Bethid, in Mikal stent sharing a table with Timmon and Alorn, was working her way through a second tankard when the Sister of the Road, the woman named Naiya, tore open the tent flap and stepped inside. Her face was drained of color.

“Bethid,” she said breathlessly, as if she had been running. “Mikal. Jorda says to come. Come at once.” Her eyes, too, were stunned. “The hand-reader’s dead.”

Bethid was aware that she moved, that she thrust herself to her feet and kicked aside the stool. She ran through the aisles, ran past the Sister, ran out of the ale tent. She heard footsteps behind her, male: Timmon. Alorn. Mikal.

Not Ilona. Not Ilona. Not Ilona—dead.

The settlement was now in an orderly circle. Easier to navigate. Bethid ran through it to the karavan grove, to Ilona’s wagon.

People were gathered there. Karavaners. They had left their wagons to go to hers. Bethid pushed through even as they gave way.

Jorda sat on the steps. Ilona was in his arms. She was a doll cradled there, a child cradled there, while Jorda wept.

“O Mother …” Bethid’s knees faltered, gave. She knelt in the dirt beneath the huge old tree. “No, no, no. Mother, not
Ilona
.”

“Sweet Mother,” Mikal whispered. “No, not Ilona.”

The lantern over the steps shone down on Jorda’s head, burnishing ruddy hair. His beard was soaked with tears. “She’s gone.”

“Are you … is there …” Bethid tried again. “Could you be—”

“Mistaken?” Jorda shook his head. “Her neck is broken.”

One couldn’t tell by looking at her. Jorda held her too closely. Her head rested against his shoulder.

Bethid sat down. Her own eyes filled. She had no words, no words to speak, now that Jorda had said those that destroyed all hope.

Mikal’s voice was thick. “How? What happened?”

Naiya had come up. “I heard nothing,” she said. “No outcry, no scream. My wagon’s closest. I heard nothing.”

“Murder,” Jorda said. “There is a handprint on her throat. But I found her on the steps. She’s all broken.”

One of Ilona’s hair sticks lay in the dirt at the foot of her wagon. The other remained in place, but much of her hair had fallen loose. The wild ringlets cascaded over her shoulders and into her lap. Her face was hidden.

“Who would
do
this?” Bethid asked. “
Who
would do this?”

A tear rolled down the right side of Mikal’s face. Below the eyepatch, the flesh was dry. “Jorda.” He stopped, cleared his throat. “Jorda, perhaps it’s best to put her in her bed. Let the women prepare her. She’d be wanting dawn rites.”

“Who’s to officiate?” Jorda asked. “All the diviners are dead.”

Bethid closed her eyes.

All the diviners are dead.

WHEN RHUAN CAME to Audrun and her children, the crying was ended. Audrun sat on a stone bench beneath a massive, spreading tree with Megritte in her arms, poor mute Meggie, who had, Torvic explained, said not a word since Brodhi pulled them out of Lirra’s cabin. He sat next to her on the bench, a warmth against her side. Ellica crouched upon the ground, tending her sapling. And Gillan, aided there by Darmuth—who was, Audrun learned, far more than merely a karavan guide—sat perched upon a large shelf of stone. She saw the shadows beneath his eyes, the tautness of his features, the pain in his posture whenever he shifted position. Damaged, Darmuth had said before he left them,
but recovering.

Rhuan’s wrists were freed of their binding. She saw a pensiveness in his features as he approached, and an odd consideration as he looked at the cliff wall just behind them with its multitude of staircases hewn out of the stone, the stacked and mortared walls. But when he joined them, she saw again his smile, and the dimples.

“Is your business concluded?” she asked.

“It is.”

She recognized the look of a chastened young man who wished to hide it. “You’re to be punished, aren’t you? I don’t know what it is you’ve done aside from saving my life, but that is, apparently, worthy of punishment among your primaries.”

He gazed at Meggie, whose face was turned away, then looked briefly at the others. A muscle leaped in his jaw. “My punishment is nothing compared to what Alisanos has done to your children.” He looked again at Audrun. “Have they explained?”

“Oh, thoroughly.” A part of Audrun wished to cry again; another portion wished to be angry. But she would show neither to this man, who had done so much for them. “We can never leave Alisanos. My children have been made flesh of its flesh.” Bitterness rose against her wishes. “We are to be
guests
of your people.”

“That, only temporarily,” he replied. “Only until trees are cut, and materials are brought, and men who can build are found, and a karavansary is constructed at a place of your choosing along the road. A proper karavansary, where travelers may stop on the way to Atalanda. Then you will have a home again, and a husband.” He gestured briefly, indicating the children. “When you found yourself in Alisanos, you said nothing about your own welfare. You wished only to find your family. And so you have. You have your chicks back. You have accomplished, against all odds, what you wished to do.”

Audrun nodded, acknowledging that. “And this
road will be safe? Davyn may travel it without fear of being changed?”

“All will be safe, and infinitely human, so long as they stay on the road.”

“Will
you
bring him to me?”

Rhuan smiled. “It would be my honor.”

He had done much for them, but she had to ask it. “Could you not bring him here? Now?”

The smile faded. “I may not. I’m sorry, Audrun. Not until the road is underway. If I brought him, he would be at the mercy of Alisanos. I think you would not wish that on him.”

It hurt not to cry. “No,” she agreed. “I would not.”

She knew she should rejoice that Davyn would be able to come at all. Yet when would that be? How long must she wait?

But still, she had more now than when she had first awakened in the deepwood. Her children, safe; herself, safe.

Except one child remained missing. A child she had had no opportunity to know.

To distract herself from that, she asked a question. “Why are you being punished?”

“I came home too soon. Or perhaps I should say I came
back
too soon; this is not my home.”

“I don’t understand.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It means that my final disposition, as the primaries call it, must be put off. Some argued against it, saying that the decision should be made now, but others said there were
extenuating circumstances. And so I am to begin all over again.”

“Begin
what
all over again?”

“That journey Alario mentioned. Brodhi is quite furious … I think he would happily kill Ylarra for suggesting it, but Karadath agreed. So he and I are to return to the human world for another five years. Five human years.”

Audrun blinked. “Is that all?
That
is considered punishment?”

“Brodhi considers it so.” Rhuan grinned, and dimples appeared. “It means we’re still children, as the primaries view it.”

Audrun rather thought there was more to it than that, considerably more to it, but as Meggie moved in her arms she let the subject drop so she could resettle her daughter. “What will you do now?”

“I have a job as a karavan guide. I intend to return to it.” His eyes softened. “And there is someone I need to see. Someone whom I have had to treat as a friend when I desired otherwise … very much otherwise.” He grimaced, lips twisting. “It’s more than a little taxing, keeping secrets from one you esteem—”

Audrun’s brows rose. “
Esteem?
Is that what you call it?”

It showed in the lowering of his lids. “No.”

“Keep no secrets from a woman you love.”

His head came up, and she saw the desperate appeal for her understanding. “I had to, Audrun! It’s part of the journey.”

“But how can you start over again without
continuing
to keep those secrets?”

“From her? No. Not again. Not this time. Because I know, I
know
that I can trust her to keep them as well.” His mouth jerked briefly in a self-deprecating hook. “As you say: ‘keep no secrets from a woman you love.’ I won’t do it again. I will offer my hand, so that she may read it and know all that I am. But others? Well, still I shall tell them nothing beyond what is always said: I am Shoia. I can survive six deaths, but the seventh is the true death.” He chewed briefly at his bottom lip, considering something. “One day … perhaps one day such secrets will not be necessary. Perhaps one day all humans may be told who and what we are.”

Audrun studied him a moment in speculation, seeing within her mind the olive-skinned woman with dark, wild ringlets, hazel eyes, a slim, tall body, and secrets of her own. “Will you ask her to braid your hair?”

He shook it back from his face. “I think possibly so—if she’ll allow me to braid hers.”

She could hold him to her no longer. It wasn’t fair.

“Then go,” Audrun told him. “Waste no more time here. You have done much for me and mine. I bless you for it, and I thank the Mother of Moons. But it’s time now for
you
to accomplish a goal—one, I suspect, you’ve set aside for too long.” She managed a smile. “Go to her, Rhuan.”

He nodded. Then he stepped forward and bent down over her, placing a gentle kiss atop Meggie’s tangled
hair. “May the Mother of Moons bless you, little one. May you find your way home.”

As he turned and walked away, Audrun fought back tears.

It was Torvic who asked what she wished to ask, and did not. “What about the baby? Who’s going to find her if Rhuan isn’t here?”

Audrun drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs. Then expelled it sharply and declared, “We will.” She steadied her voice, and felt her spirit respond. “
We
will, Torvic. We’re her kin.”

B
ETHID HEARD HER name echoing through the grove. She could not imagine who would shout so, when all knew what had happened, when all knew she was sitting with Ilona through the night. It was customary. That anyone would disturb the vigil was astounding.

She rose from the trunk across the narrow aisle from the cot. Earlier she and Naiya had washed Ilona’s body and replaced her clothing with the traditional linen burial shift. Night had fallen; illumination was dim. The only lighted lantern was the one at the door hanging over the steps.