Valdemar Anthology - [Tales of Valdemar 02] - Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar (27 page)

Gervis stepped cautiously out onto the edge of the logs.
:If we move quickly.:

But Calida hesitated.

Eyes wide, the mare stepped up beside Gervis who took her arrival as his cue to leap forward. One stride, two, three. As Jors watched anxiously from the other shore. Calida slowly followed, placing each hoof with care.

Wood screamed a protest as the bridge supports caved.

The huge logs dipped and skewed out from the bank, dragged by the river.

Calida half-reared as her front hooves scrambled for purchase in the mud.

Brock bounced over the cantle and disappeared.

“No!” Jors threw himself to the ground. Stumbling to the Companion's side, he grabbed the mare's saddle and heaved. Step by step, as she managed to work her way forward, he worked his way back until, to his amazement, he saw a very muddy Brock holding on with both hands to Calida's tail, his feet in the river. A heartbeat later, with solid ground, beneath all four of them, he dropped to his knees and gathered Brock up into his arms.

“Are you all right?”

He looked more surprised then frightened and returned the hug with wet enthusiasm. “I fell.”

“I know. The bridge broke.”

Brock twisted around to look, and clutched at Jors' arm. “I'm sorry!”

“It's okay. It wasn't your fault.” His heart slamming painfully against his ribs, Jors grabbed a stirrup and hauled himself onto his feet. “Come on, we're almost there.”

 

The tanners' holding looked deserted as they stumbled up to the buildings. Jors called out a greeting, but the wind and rain whipped the words out of his mouth.

Brock grabbed his arm. “Smoke,” he said, pointing to the thin gay line rising reluctantly from a chimney. “I'm cold.”

“Me, too.”

All thoughts turned to a warm fire as they made their way over to the building, the Companions crowding in close under the wide eaves.

:Hurry, Chosen.:
Gervis sounded completely miserable. Covered in mud almost to his withers, his mane hanging in a tangled, sodden mass, he looked very little like the gleaming creature who'd left the Waystation that morning. Calida, if anything, looked worse.

Jors considered leaving Brock with the Companions, but the other man's breathing sounded unnaturally hoarse so he beckoned him forward as he tried the door. The sooner he got him inside the better.

The door opened easily. It hadn't even been latched.

“Hello?”

Stepping inside wasn't so much a step into warmth as a step into a space less cold. It looked like they'd found the family's main living quarters although the room was so dim, it was difficult to tell for sure. The only light came from a small fire smoldering on the fieldstone hearth and a tallow lamp on the floor close beside a cradle.

“No.” Brock charged across the room, trailing a small river in his wake. “No fire beside baby!”

Remembering what Lorrin had told him about Brock and babies, Jors held his position by the door. The younger of two, what he knew about babies could be inscribed on the head of a pin with room left over for the lyrics to
Kerowyn's Ride
.

Squatting, Brock picked up the lamp. “No fire beside baby,” he repeated, began to rise, and paused. “Baby?” Leaning forward, he peered into the cradle.

“Is it all right?” The lamp and the fire together threw barely enough light for Jors to see Brock. He couldn't see the baby at all.

Setting the lamp down again, Brock stretched both hands into the cradle. When he stood and turned, he was holding a limp infant across both palms, his broad features twisted in sorrow. “Baby is dead.”

Jors spun around as the door slammed open and five people surged into the room. They froze for an instant, then the man in front howled out a wordless challenge and charged.

Bending, Jors captured his attacker's momentum then he straightened, throwing the other man to the floor hard enough to knock him breathless. The immediate threat removed, he faced the remaining two men and two women. “I am Herald Jors. Who is in charge here?”

“I am,” the older woman snarled.

The hate in her eyes nearly drove Jors back a step. He didn't need Brock's whispered “mean lady” to know who she was. It took an effort, but he kept his voice calm and understanding as he said, “The child was dead when we arrived.”

“Dory came to say the babe was sick, not
dead,
” she spat as the younger woman ran silently forward and snatched the body from Brock's hands. “The Moonling killed him.”

“He did not . . .”

“You're here and he's there,” she sneered. “You can't see what he did.”

Spreading his hands, he added a mild warning to his tone. “And you weren't even in the building. I understand this is a shock . . .”

“You understand nothing, Herald.” She placed a hand on the backs of the two remaining men and shoved. “Have the guts to support your brother!”

They sprang forward, looking like nothing so much as a pair of whipped dogs.

“Jors?”

He ducked an awkward blow. “Outside, Brock. Now!” If anything happened to him, the Companions would get Brock to safety.

“There's two of you and one of him, you idiots! Don't let him protect the half-wit!”

Fortunately, neither man was much of a fighter. Jors could have ended it quickly, but as they'd just suffered a sudden terrible loss and weren't thinking clearly, he didn't want to do any serious damage. After a moment, he realized that had it not been for the old woman goading them on, neither would have been fighting.
Maybe I should have Gervis deal with . . .

He'd forgotten the first brother. The piece of firewood caught him on the side of the head. As he started to fall, he felt unfriendly hands grab his body.

“No!”

Then the hands were ripped away, and he hit the floor. Two bodies hit the floor after him, closely followed by the third.

“Never hit a Herald!”

“Get up, you cowards! That's a Moonling—not a real man!”

“But, Ma . . .”

He killed
my
grandson”

Hers.
Jors thought muzzily.
Not grief. Anger. Anger at the loss of a possession.

“You never loved him!”

Apparently, the child's mother agreed.

“You always complained about him! You said if he didn't stop crying you were going to strangle him! If anyone killed him . . .”

“Don't you raise your voice to me, you cow. If you were a better . . .”

“ENOUGH!”

The doors slammed open again. Hooves clattering against the floor boards, the Companions moved to flank Brock. From Jors' position on the floor, it looked as if there were significantly more than a mere eight muddy white legs.

“Don't lie there with your idiot mouths open! They're just horses!”

“They're not
just
horses, you stupid old woman!”

Jors felt better about his chance of recovery. Gervis was angry but not frantic.

“A baby is dead. Is time for crying, not fighting. A Herald is hurt. You hurt a Herald.”

“You will cry, and you will make the Herald better!”

“I will
not
.”

No mistaking that hate-filled voice.

“Then
I
will.”

Nor the voice of the child's mother.

For the first time, Brock sounded confused. “You will cry?”

“No. I will help the Herald.”

Jors got one arm under him and tried to rise.
:If you say . . .:

His Companion's cry went with him into darkness.

 

Jors woke to the familiar and comforting smell of a stable. For a moment he thought he'd dozed off on foal-watch, then he moved and the pain in his head brought everything back.
:Gervis!:

:I'm here.:
A soft nose nuzzled his cheek.
:Just open your eyes.:

Even moving his eyelids hurt, but he forced them up. Fortunately, the stable was dark, the brightest things in it, the two Companions. He could just barely make out Brock tucked up against Calida's side, wrapped in a blanket and nearly buried in straw.
:How long?:

He stretched up a hand and stroked the side of Gervis' face.
:Sorry.:

The tea was still warm and tasted awful, but Gervis made him drink the whole thing.
:I take it we're in the stable because you and Calida wouldn't leave me?:

:The old woman said the young woman could do as she pleased but not in her house. I do not want you to be in her house.:
The obvious distaste in the young stallion's mental voice was hardly surprising. Even on short acquaintance the old woman was as nasty a piece of work as Jors ever wanted to get close to.
:Brock told two of the young males to carry you here.:

:Good point,:
Jors acknowledged.

:And,: Gervis continued,
:I think they were frightened when they realized they had struck down a Herald.:

:They
knew
I was a Herald!:

:Poor guy. Good thing he was there. If he hadn't been, I wouldn't have put it past the
mean lady
to have finished the job and buried both our bodies.:

Gervis sighed, blowing sweet, hay-scented breath over Jors' face.
:There is already much talk against him taking a Companion.:

All of which he needed to know but didn't answer his question. About to ask it again, he stopped short.
:Calida can reach Isabel from here? I couldn't reach you from here!:

He sounded so put out by it, Jors couldn't prevent a smile.
:Never mind, Heart-brother. Calida and her Chosen have been together for many years; when we've been together for that long, I'll hear you if I'm in Sorrows and you're in Sensholding.:

Jors wrapped one hand in Gervis' silken mane.
:Me either.:

 

When Jors opened his eyes again, weak autumn sunlight filtered into the stable. An attempt to rise brought Gervis in through the open door. He pulled himself to his feet with a handful of mane and, throwing an arm over his Companion's back, managed to get to where he could relieve himself.

:The bridge is gone. The priest cannot come.:
He pawed the ground with a front hoof and added.
:I don't think the old woman would send for a priest even if he could come.:

Jors took a deep breath and, holding it, managed to swing himself up on Gervis' bare back.
:Let's go, then.:

The tanners had a graveyard in a small clearing cupped by the surrounding oak forest. When Jors arrived, the three men had just finished filling in the tiny hole. As Jors stopped, half hidden by a large sumach, Brock wiped the tears from his face on Calida's mane and stepped up to the grave.

“There is no priest. I will say good-bye to the baby.”

“I'm not listening to a half-wit say anything,” the old woman snarled. She turned on one heel and started down the hill. “I only came to see the job was done right. Enric, Kern, Simen; back to work, there's hides to be sammied.”

Two of the three moved to her side, the third looked toward the young woman and hesitated. “He was my son, Ma.”

“He was my son, Ma.” She threw it mockingly over her shoulder. “Look around you, Simen. I've buried a son, two daughters, and a husband besides, and it don't make hides tan themselves. Stay and listen to the half-wit if you want.”