Valdemar 11 - [Owl Mage 02] - Owlsight Read online

  “Have you heard anything else about this teacher?” Like his name? Darian added silently. It would be nice to know his name and clan.

  “That he isss held in high rrrregarrrd. I think hisss clan isss k’Trrrreva.” Kel rumbled something indecipherable in pure contentment.

  “How about his name, O gryphon whose hearing is so keen?” Darian countered. “Surely you managed to overhear that!”

  “Rrrrr.” Kel lifted his head and looked at Darian sheepishly. “I did—but mussst confesss I cannot rrrrememberrr it!”

  “You forgot his name? Oh, come on, featherhead, you can do better than that!” Darian cried. “You can’t be that forgetful!”

  “Well, it wassss in the middle of the celebrrration, and I had otherrr interressstsss,” Kel protested weakly, flattening his ear-tufts in chagrin.

  “Oh, so you let a pair of bright eyes and a flirty tail drive everything important to your best friend right out of your memory!” Darian countered, in mock-disgust. “What kind of friend are you anyway?”

  “Absssolutely and without apology! I do have my prrriortritiesss! But I did not forrrget everrrrything imporrrtant!” Kel protested, flattening his ear-tufts down so far they became invisible.

  “Only the most important part!” Darian threw up his hands. “Remind me never to ask you to tell a joke, you’ll probably forget the point of it.”

  “You would not underrrssstand ssssophisssticated humorrr,” Kel grumbled back.

  Darian sighed. That was certainly just his luck—and it wasn’t Kel’s fault, after all. It wouldn’t be all that long before Starfall would tell him the all-important name of his new teacher, and Kel did remember that the reason the teacher had been reluctant had nothing to do with Darian.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” he said, his tone softening. “You can’t remember everything, not when there’re a hundred people talking in your ear and a full-blown party going on. At least now I know that this teacher is going to be here, and that Starfall isn’t going to have to find a second choice. That’s the really important part.”

  Kel’s head rose, and so did his ear-tufts. “Well, now that thissss teacherrr comesss, what do you plan to do? It isss clearrr that the Elderrrsss of k’Vala intend you to be theirrr ssspokesssman to Valdemarrrr herrrreaboutssss orrr they would not be trrraining you to be Elderrr to a Vale. Ssso it rrreally will be yourrr Vale and you would be wissse to make long-terrrm plansssss forrr it, and yourrrsssself.”

  “I know; Starfall has made that pretty clear.” He laughed. “And I’ve been thinking about it off and on for a while—not to mention every night before I go to sleep. If you don’t mind listening, I can tell you what I’ve figured out so far.”

  Kel’s ear tufts were jauntily high again, and he nodded. Darian took a deep breath, and began.

  “First of all, we should have enough people that we can defend the place until help comes if we have to—but not so many that it’s anywhere near the size of k’ Vala.” He brushed a beetle away and continued. “This isn’t going to be so much a Vale as an embassy, as I see it. So I don’t think we should have many more people than our original team—except, of course, if you do decide to nest with some charming thing, and she’s agreeable to joining us.”

  Already he spoke of “us” as if he had his little outpost built and settled! He’d have laughed at himself, except that after all his thinking and planning, it really seemed as if it existed.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “we don’t want to have so many people that Lord Breon thinks of us as a possible threat, or that we Tayledras have designs on his holding and estate.” He’d spent a lot of time thinking this over, and felt that Kel would understand why that was so important. Breon could become a real stumbling block if he wasn’t treated correctly, and with respect. “There’s another thing—we don’t want to make ourselves into Lord Breon’s social rival either.”

  “Do you mean, sssetting up a kind of Courrrt of ourrr own?” Kel asked, cocking his head to the side. “I can ssssee wherrre that could put his nossse out of joint, ssso to ssspeak.”

  “Exactly. We want to keep him on our side, completely, because he’s the nearest highborn.” He was glad that Kel saw what he was getting at so quickly.

  “I know about touchy highborrrrnsss,” Kel chuckled. “With the Black Kingsss our nearrr neighborrrsss and alliesss, we have ample opporrrtunity to ssstumble unwittingly into offense!”

  “I’d also like to establish a real Healer’s enclave at our Vale,” he continued. “That would take some pressure off Lord Breon’s Healer and earn the gratitude of the local Valdemarans without doing anything to compete with Lord Breon. The presence of Healers—well, that basically shows people we’re peaceful and intend to stay that way.”

  “Had you any thought to trrraining magesss therrre?” Kel asked curiously.

  “Other than our own people?” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Herald Elspeth and Adept Darkwind have built a Mage Collegium at Haven where they can keep a careful eye on those with Mage-Gift who aren’t also Heralds. They did that for a reason, Kel. I’m not sure that Valdemar trusts mages even how, and to have someone teaching mages in Valdemar without the sanction and the oversight of the Heralds could be trouble.”

  “Urrrr. Bessst we not offend therrre eitherrrr. I sssee what you mean.” The gryphon roused all his feathers and shook. “Sssso, assside frrrom not offending anyone, what plansss have you?”

  “I want to make our Vale into the place where people come to resolve their differences,” he said, his eyes alight and his voice alive with enthusiasm. “All kinds of people. I want it to become a place where everyone knows they’ll be safe to work things out without any outside influences. I want it to be the place where Hawkbrothers come when they need to work things out with Valdemarans, or where Lord Breon brings people who aren’t comfortable being in his manor. We could do really good things, Kel!”

  “I agrrree!” Kel’s enthusiasm rose right along with his. “Urrr, would I be the only grrryphon in this Vale? Unless I should find a lady, of course.”

  “Well, you’d certainly be the one with the most experience and seniority,” Darian temporized. “I wouldn’t bring in anyone who wasn’t junior to you.”

  “That would incrrreassse my ssstatusss consssiderrrably!” Kel’s beak gaped with delight; Darian had suspected he’d get that sort of reaction.

  “I’d like you to be the chief gryphon of the Silvers there,” Darian told him fondly. “Frankly, I don’t see why it shouldn’t happen that way. I suspect that the others may not realize what kind of an opportunity we will have until it is too late.”

  “Asss it ssshould be.” Kel chuckled. “Afterrr all, they have had theirrr chancesss, and they ssshould let otherrrsss take risssskss of theirrr own.”

  “In other words—if they’re so fond of the comfort of the Vale that they can’t see opportunity hiding behind a little temporary hardship, then they don’t deserve that opportunity.” Darian laughed, and Kel burbled with delight. “Let’s talk about this on the way home,” he added, getting to his feet. “It won’t take me a moment to clean these birds.”

  “Anotherrr good plan,” Kel agreed. “We mussst sssee jussst how many morrre we can make!”

  Ayshen

  Five

  Keisha kept her eyes down and bit her lip to keep from giggling as she passed her two youngest brothers. Of all the things that she thought she’d ever see in her lifetime, this was certainly the least likely of them! Here they were, up to their elbows in soap and water, doing their own laundry in the yard in full sight of everyone!

  I have to admit they’re going about it the right way, too, she thought as she opened the gate and hurried off to her workshop. Theirs is a better system than Mum ever had.

  Her mother had always washed the clothing in the house, then brought the baskets of wet clothing out to hang on their lines in the sun to dry. The boys, however, had a different system. Instead of using the sinks in the hou
se, they’d had the cooper make them two half-barrels on legs, with stopcocks as in a wine barrel in the bottoms for drain holes. One half-barrel was for washwater, the other for rinsing. They had a fire going in the fire pit with a tripod and a kettle over it, burning trash as well as heating the water for washing. The barrels held easily twice as much as the sink, maybe more, which meant that stubborn stains could soak while they scrubbed other garments. One boy scrubbed, the other rinsed, wrung, and hung, and they traded jobs each time they drained the tubs and refilled them with clean water or water and soap.

  From the determined way in which they were scrubbing, they were doing a good job of it, too. I think they’re going to get the clothes done in half the time it takes Mum, Keisha thought with admiration. They’re faster than she is, and stronger; they’ll surely get half a day on the farm if they want to. Of course, the fact that their brothers are paying them to do their clothes isn’t hurting their feelings at all! Who knows-maybe they’ll start getting business from people outside the family and have a trade of their own!

  Keisha assiduously did her own laundry; it wasn’t that difficult to manage with only the clothing for one person. Just like keeping the workshop clean, it wasn’t a lot of work as long as you kept up with it.

  She had underthings that she’d left soaking in the sink overnight as a matter of fact, and she intended to do a batch of tunics as soon as she rinsed out the underthings. That was why she was in a hurry; she wanted to have her laundry out of the way before anyone came to her with a complaint.

  She reached the workshop without being intercepted, and shortly had a neat line of white things drying in the garden. The tunics went in to soak in the same bleaching solution that she’d had the underwear soaking in—she’d decided that it wasn’t going to hurt to try to bleach out the old stains, even if it removed all of the old color as well. Now that she was doing a little of the dyework that Shandi used to, she was getting more and more interested in doing something with the same substances that had caused those stains in the first place.

  One of them had been a very quiet gray-green; not the same, rather attractive new-mint color that the trainee Healer-tunics had been, but if she could bleach all the stains out and redye the tunics that color—

  It wouldn’t be a bad thing to get people used to seeing me in green. I could ease into it. Besides, sooner or later I’ll have to wear the trainee uniforms, and the moment I do, Ijust know I’ll get them stained, too.

  Maybe she could get herself used to being in green at the same time.

  Meanwhile, while the tunics soaked and her experiment in bleaching worked—or didn’t—there was the garden to tend.

  She left all the windows open as well as the door, even though it was a little nippy, for the bleaching solution gave off fumes she was suspicious of. In her oldest and shabbiest tunic with a canvas smock over it, she went into the herb garden and knelt down beside the rows of seedlings, a bucket beside her.

  Immediately, she felt good: calm, happy, and productive. The garden had that effect on her nearly every time she worked in it. These sprouting shapes under cones of cheesecloth loose enough to allow them sun but heavy enough to protect from frost and heavy rain were from the new seeds she’d gotten from Steelmind. Since she hadn’t known what they were going to look like when they came up, she had very carefully dyed handfuls of splinters and stuck one into the ground right next to each seed before she covered it with earth. Now as she worked beside each row, she pulled out anything sprouting that didn’t have a colorful little splinter beside it. Of course, this was far more work than anyone would want to do normally, but it was only for these new plants. Her perennials, of course, were already well-grown, and it was no work to pick out the annuals she knew from the weed sprouts.

  I’m just glad these new ones are all perennials, she thought, as she pulled out sprouting weeds that were barely visible and dusted them into her bucket, replacing the cones over her precious new seedlings as she worked. There will only be one season of this kind of care.

  She pulled weeds until her back ached, and her hands had grime ground under all the nails. Then she judged that she’d done enough, and called it a done task. She dumped the bucket of weeds onto her compost heap and took the empty bucket into her workshop.

  The fumes weren’t as bad as she’d expected, and the experiment in bleaching was a qualified success. Once she’d rinsed out the tunics and wrung them dry enough to dye, she looked them over carefully and judged that the dye she’d prepared would probably cover the faint stains that were left. Even if it didn’t, she wasn’t any worse off than she’d been before.

  The dye itself simmered in a big pot over the fireplace; she’d left it there all night to strengthen. Now she built up the fire a bit and dumped the first tunic in, stirring it with a peeled stick until it reached the color she wanted. Shortly after that, a line of gray-green tunics flapped beside the line of white underthings, and Keisha had replaced the pot of dye with one of soup fixings.

  That was when she got her first patient of the day.

  A knock on the doorframe made her look up, as Ferla Dawkin came in with her five-year-old in her arms, blood splattered liberally all over both of them.

  By now, Keisha was a shrewd and instant judge of situations. Ferla wasn’t hysterical, wasn’t running, wasn’t even out of breath. Therefore, the situation wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it looked.

  Ferla’s words confirmed that. “If you’re not busy, Keisha, Dib’s gotten into a fight—”

  “Bring him over to the fire and lay him down on the rug,” she said, and his mother put the boy down while Keisha got clean rags and a fresh bucket of water. The boy had been quiet right up until the moment that Keisha sat down on the floor beside him; then he set up a howl like a Pelagir monster before she’d so much as touched him. He was a sorry sight, face red, blood in his hair and oozing from his nose and mouth, angry tears running down his fat cheeks. Keisha ignored the tears and the howling, she was used to them; she went straight to work, gently washing off the blood until she could make an accurate assessment of the damages.

  “Well, Ferla, he’s lost a tooth, he’s got a nosebleed, and he’ll have a fine black eye in a bit, so I’d say he was the loser in this battle,” she finally told the anxious mama. “Here, Dib—” She made him lie down on the floor and pinched a rag over his nose. “You lie there and we’ll see if we can’t get your nose to stop bleeding. Who’d you take on?”

  “Maffie Olan,” came the muffled reply. “He called me a dumbhead.”

  “Well, that’ll teach you to ignore people who are bigger than you are when they call you names, won’t it?” she asked matter-of-factly as one big brown eye gazed at her around the rag held to his nose. “Do you know what I used to say when my brothers called me a dumbhead?”

  “Huh-uh,” the child replied.

  “I’d say, ‘It takes one to know one, so what are you, then?’ Try that instead of tearing into a bigger boy next time.” She winked at him. “Maffie’s not so dim that he can’t work that one out for himself, and it’ll make him madder than you. Remember, if he comes after you and hits you first, then he’s a bully picking on you littles, and you can tattle to his mum, for she won’t put up with Maffie turning into a bully. And you know his mum will tan his hide for him.”

  “Keisha!” the mother said, half laughing and half aghast. “Is that anything to tell him?”

  She cocked an eye at Ferla. “All I know is it worked for me. My brothers stopped calling me names because they got tired of getting a licking from Mum that was worse than anything they dealt out to me. They couldn’t complain either, because they’d started it by name calling.”

  Her bit of advice had certainly silenced the child anyway; he seemed to be pondering it as they waited for his nose to stop bleeding. When Keisha judged that it had been long enough, she had him sit up and cautiously took the rag away from his nose. There was no further leakage, so she got up and mixed him a quick potion; chamomi
le for the ache in his eye and nose, marsh-mallow and mint to counter any tummy upset from swallowing blood, and honey and allspice to make it into a treat.

  “Now,” she said, handing him the mug. “Here’s a sweetie for being brave and doing what I told you.” His face lit up, for every child in the village knew that when Keisha told them something was a “sweetie,” it was worth eating or drinking. She never lied to them about the taste of a medicine; if it was bad, she told them, and advised them to get it down fast so they could have a sweet to take away the bad taste.

  He seized the mug and happily drank down the contents. She made up a poultice of cress and plantain, and gave it to his mother.

  “Have him lie down a bit more with this on his eye, and when he can’t keep still any longer, let him go play. It’s a pity about the tooth, but at least it’s a baby one.” She looked down at Dib, who stared solemnly up at her. “And mind what I said about fighting.”

  “Yes, Keisha,” the boy said, with a look as if he was already contemplating mischief, as his mother helped him to his feet. The two left with Dib trotting sturdily along beside his mother, battered but unrepentant.

  Keisha went out to check her drying laundry and found it ready to bring in; a distant growl from above made her glance quickly up at the sky to the west, and she frowned when she saw how quickly clouds were building in that direction. Thunder-towers, for certain sure. No telling how long it would last, either; a spring rain could be over before sunset, or linger for days.

  She gathered in her clothing without folding it as she usually did; she just unpinned it from the line and dumped everything in the basket, anxious to beat the rain and get her things inside the workshop. She made it inside before anything came down, but the first drops started plopping into the dust just as she closed the door. It was as she was doing the folding inside the workshop that she heard thunder rumble again, much nearer, then heard the rain suddenly strengthen, rattling the thatch and pelting the path outside.