Foxfire (80 page)

She knew it was the glade Faelia had discovered while she was hunting. Knew, too, the trail that would take her there. Yet when she awoke, she quelled the urge to rush away from camp and joined Mother Narthi and Hircha at the fire pit. They spent the morning melting the beeswax the older children had gathered and mixing in handfuls of knitbone leaves to make an ointment for the burns and scrapes and rashes incurred almost daily.

Their work was frequently interrupted as folk sought help for ailments ranging from moon flow cramping to morning sickness to the joint-ill. With their dwindling supply of barley reserved for nursing mothers and toddlers, it seemed half the tribe was costive.

“Our bowels trouble us more than the Zherosi,” Hircha muttered as she brewed up another decoction of dandelion root and dock.

Blessing Hircha for giving her an excuse to leave camp, Griane wiped her hands on her skirt. “I'll see if I can find some more.” It was the wrong season for harvesting the roots, but her supplies would run out long before the Fall Balancing.

“I'll go,” Hircha replied.

“I'm not an invalid, girl. I'll just follow the stream east for a bit. See if I find a patch of open ground. You see to these folk. Get Colla to help.”

Madig's daughter had a gift with plants, perhaps from nursing her father. In the moons after the raid, the girl had shadowed Griane so persistently that she began instructing her in treating simple ailments. Although Colla was still too young to become her apprentice, she valued the girl's help and knew the work offered a distraction from grief.

No one asked where she was going; the tribe was used to the sight of her scouring the woods with her doeskin bag slung across her chest. She paused beside the stream to fill her waterskin. As soon as she was out of sight, she veered south toward the glade, only to draw up short when she saw Callie and Ela.

Their guilty expressions made her smile. Everyone knew when the two slipped away and had entered a quiet conspiracy to give the lovers some privacy. Since Faelia had warned Callie that it was too dangerous to leave camp after dark, they confined their lovemaking to the daylight, oblivious of the fond looks and knowing smiles that followed them as they casually wandered into the trees.

Griane wondered if Ela had confided her secret to Callie. She had suspected for some time, even before Ela came to her to request a brew to ease her unsettled stomach. She wished now that she had shared her suspicions with Darak; the knowledge that his line would continue would have brightened his last days. But mostly, she was happy that Callie and Ela had found joy during this dark time.

Callie cleared his throat. “What are you gathering today, Mam?”

Since they had seen the direction she was heading, she replied, “Foxtails. There's a glade south of camp.”

“You know Faelia doesn't like people wandering off alone.”

“I'm not wandering. And it's only a short walk. I'll be back soon.”

Still frowning, Callie nodded. She patted his cheek, then carefully plucked a leaf from his hair. Ela blushed. Callie's frown became an abashed smile. She kissed them both and walked on.

Excitement and trepidation built with every step. Keirith had told her about his meeting with Rigat. It was a measure of his trust in Hircha that he had included her in the conversation as well. Keirith had viewed the meeting as a test and believed he had failed it. Today's meeting would be another test; how well she met it would determine whether she could convince Rigat to return to them.

An empire worshiped him now. A queen bowed before him. Rigat had been unwilling to sacrifice his power for Darak. Would he give it up for her?

Perhaps it was too much to expect. Perhaps she should only ask him to call off their pursuers. Even those who had refused to listen to Donncha and Catha were whispering now, wondering how much longer they would have to run.

“People are frightened,” Lisula had said only yesterday. “And Faelia's refusal to speak with them only makes it worse. Talk to her, Griane.”

Faelia was a good fighter and wise in the ways of the forest, but she knew little about leading a tribe. Temet had a cause to unite his band. Darak had his stature as the Spirit-Hunter and a lifetime of leadership. If the two men had chafed at the interminable meetings of their councils, they had understood the necessity of involving their people in the important decisions facing them.

Griane had tried to convince Faelia to do the same. “If they feel they have a say in their future, they'll follow you more willingly.”

“When have women ever had a say in their future?” Faelia had demanded.

The same resentment she had been nursing since childhood. Women were not allowed to hunt or find a vision mate. Unless they chose the path of healer or priestess, they could only hope to become wives and mothers. Faelia had defied those rules. But too often, she belittled the opinions of women who had chosen a more traditional life-path. And her attitude only made them more reluctant to follow her.

Griane dispensed common sense and calming words along with her poultices and infusions, but her nerves were frayed by the conflicting demands of healer and mother, and even more by the dissension among her children over Rigat. Although she continued to champion him, the deaths of Donncha and Catha had shocked her. If he intended to kill every person who spoke against his family—or him—there would be no end to the bloodshed. Added to those worries was the daily struggle to survive and the fear of what the future might hold. And beneath it all, the ever-present pain of losing Darak.

Her hand came up to caress his bag of charms. Through the worn doeskin, she traced the knobs and grooves of his finger bones. She had never opened the bag to look at them, but had memorized their contours.

As a child, she had paid little attention to his hands, save for the time he had smacked her bottom for filling his shoes with porridge. And the day he had ripped the belt out of her uncle Dugan's grasp. Darak held out his hand afterward, but she refused to take it; she was nine years old, after all, not a baby. But she still remembered the warmth of his palm on her back as he guided her to his hut, how he talked with her at supper without the annoying condescension of so many adults, and later, tucked her under the wolfskins with Tinnean and awkwardly tweaked a braid by way of wishing her good night.

She had studied his hands many times after she had grown to love him. Even after Morgath's dagger had done its damage, the strength remained and traces of the beauty they had once possessed. He'd always blushed when she called them beautiful. The blush only deepened as her fingers glided over his skin, massaging the knotted scar on his palm, tracing the calluses on his thumb and the fat pad of flesh at its base.

Her breath caught, and she had to lean against the trunk of a pine. That was the danger of memories; even the sweetest ones could transform the ache of loss into a sharp stab of grief. Especially the sweetest ones.

But the pain reminded her that she was alive. After the first shock of Darak's death, the days had passed in a muffled haze. Her mind meticulously cataloged the hurts she must heal, her hands sorted herbs and brewed decoctions, but her spirit seemed to have left with Darak's. Gradually, it had returned, and with it, the will to keep her tribe strong and her family intact.

She continued walking, drawing strength from Darak's fingers clutched in hers. She would need all her strength—and his—for this meeting with Rigat.

The dappled sunlight among the trees gave way to the brightness of the glade. Accustomed to the muted colors of the forest, the brilliant pink of the foxtails startled her eyes. A skilled healer could use the leaves to regulate the heartbeat, but in the wrong hands, they could be deadly. Even she had feared to use them to help Darak, preferring to rely on the weaker brew of broom and quickthorn.

She shook off the thought and slowly knelt among the colorful spikes. Years of healing were too ingrained to ignore the bounty before her.

She gathered a few handfuls of leaves, wrinkling her nose at their unpleasant odor, and paused to flex her fingers. Heat infused her swollen joints and the dull ache ebbed. She stared skyward before she realized that the sun could never have effected the healing. Shading her eyes, she scanned the trees.

Rigat stood at the edge of the glade, a being of sunlight and shadow like his father. Then he stepped forward, a tentative smile on his face, and he became her little boy again.

Too long since she had felt the softness of his hair against her cheek and the strong bones of his shoulders beneath her hands. Longer still since she had felt the smooth flesh of his back. In her dream, he had been dressed in his old tunic and breeches, but he wore Zherosi garb today. She tried to hide her displeasure as she stepped back to look at him.

The red-gold hair on his chest shocked her. More shocking was his haggard face. Even Keirith's warning failed to prepare her. His eyes were bloodshot and pouched. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth, and the bones stood out like ridges above his hollowed cheeks. She stifled a cry and pulled him back into her arms, wishing she could protect him from the burdens that had turned him from a boy into this tired, old man.

“It's all right, Mam,” he whispered, his breath warm against her cheek. “Everything will be all right now.”

Reluctantly, she drew back. “Talk to me.”

She sat with him among the foxtails, his hand clasped between hers. No longer a boy's hand, but a man's, just as the triumphs he recited were a man's. Only two moons ago, his face had been alight as he described each obstacle overcome, each new piece of knowledge gained. He seemed to take little joy in his successes now. Perhaps even magic grew stale.

He mentioned the queen, but only in passing and always with a sidelong glance as if gauging her reaction. Of Donncha and Catha, of the men at the hill fort, he said nothing.

When his voice finally ran down, he began plucking blades of grass. She waited for him to look at her, but his head remained bowed.

“You've told me much about Zheros. What about this land?” His hand moved between hers, and she tightened her grip. “The children of the Oak and Holly are your people as well.”

“If you're just going to blame me—”

“Have I blamed you? For anything?”

“But you have doubts.”

“Of course, I have doubts! Donncha is dead. And Catha. And most of the men of my tribe. Our tribe.”

“And Darak.”

“And Darak.”

He waited, obviously hoping she would say that he couldn't have saved Darak. But she refused to assuage his guilt. She had to be ruthless, using any weapon to win her boy back.

“You look awful,” she said.

The abrupt change of subject made him start. “I'm just tired.”

“No wonder. Dashing around the empire. What does the queen say about that?”

The flush started at the base of his throat and rose up into his cheeks. She knew that they ruled together, but were they also lovers? Distaste vied with admiration for the woman's cunning. What better way to bind the adolescent man-god to her than sharing her bed as well as her throne?

“She tells me to be patient,” Rigat finally said.

“Well, at least she has common sense as well as beauty.”

“How do you know she's beautiful?”

“She changes bodies every year. What woman in her right mind would choose an ugly one?”

The familiar grin made her ache. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “I haven't forgotten my . . . homeland. But first, I need to consolidate my power in Zheros.”

“Ballocks.”

He gaped at her. No one in Zheros would dare speak to him that way, of course. But she had wiped his bottom and washed his dirty clouts. No matter how much power he possessed, she refused to be awed by him.

“To hear you tell it, everyone in Zheros jumps if you so much as sneeze. If your power is not consolidated now, when will it be?”

He yanked his hand free and leaped to his feet. “I can't do everything!”

“Then do nothing.”

“What?”

“Stop winning the war in Carilia. Stop winning trade concessions from . . . that place with the worms. Just let the world muddle along by itself.”

“I can't.”

“Why? Why?” she repeated, her voice fierce. “Because you want them to need you? To admire you? To fear you?”

He stalked away, leaving a trail of crushed foxtails in his wake.

Once, she had been enough for him, but no longer. Much as he loved her, he loved the power—and all that it brought him—more. It had seduced him. Just as it had seduced Morgath.

But even as she denied the possibility, she realized something else. “That's why you sent the Zherosi after us, isn't it? So you could swoop in and rescue us. Oh, Rigat . . .”

He whirled around to confront her again. “And where would you have been if I hadn't rescued you from Donncha? And Catha?”

“I survived Morgath and the First Forest. Keirith lived through that ordeal in Zheros. Faelia's a veteran of a dozen battles. We didn't need to be rescued from two frightened women. And whatever their faults, Donncha and Catha didn't deserve to die.”

He was breathing hard, his body poised for flight. As she struggled to rise, he hesitated, then strode forward and held out his hands to pull her to her feet.

She clung to them and deliberately softened her voice. “You've lost sight of your vision of peace.”

“It was hopeless, Mam. From the beginning.”

“Maybe so. But vengeance is an abuse of your gift. You know I love you,” she added as he opened his mouth to argue. “I'd give my life for you. But I won't stand by and watch you—”