Owlknight Page 19

  Eleven

  Sleeping in the tiny, austere isolation hut, with the windows wide open to the night air, was very like sleeping in a hard-sided tent. Keisha enjoyed it as a change from Darian’s ekele. Out here where the weather wasn’t controlled, it still got quite cool at night, and she needed to use the blankets left folded up on her pallet. She woke up once or twice during the night at an unexpected sound, and smiled sleepily, as she listened to the life of the Sanctuary go on around her in the darkness, while she snuggled under the weighty warmth of her blankets. Helping out on the rounds had made her pleasantly tired, and she had gone to bed while Shandi and Anda were still deep in conversation with the Healers.

  In the morning, they showed their lack of sleep with yawns and puffy eyes, but neither had lost an iota of enthusiasm. “When we get back to k’Valdemar, you can tell everyone that I’ve got enough to think about for a while,” Anda told Keisha as they mounted into their saddles, with a cheerful wink that told her he knew very well that he had been driving some of the others to distraction with his incessant questions. “I shan’t be pestering anyone for at least a week - and then it will probably be to find out who can help me arrange to build our headquarters.”

  “You won’t have to pester anyone, since I can already tell you - it’s the hertasi chief, Ayshen. He schedules all the work in the Vale,” Keisha told him as she polished off the last drops of her tea: “You are building in the Vale, aren’t you? What are you going to call this establishment of yours? An embassy?”

  “Yes, we’re building in the Vale, and I think I’ll let this Ayshen fellow pick a good spot,” Anda told her. “As for what we’re calling it - well, it’s not a waystation, and it isn’t exactly an embassy - so I thought I’d just call it k’Valdemar Station.”

  “That’ll work,” Keisha acknowledged with hidden amusement. So, Anda didn’t think it was an embassy, did he? Wait until he’s been here a year.

  The dyheli got them back to Ghost Cat in good time; Anda wanted to speak further with Chief Vordon and Shaman Celin, so Keisha decided to have a look at those fascinating goods that the Northern tribes had brought in.

  Since she had spotted her old friend Hywel in the crowd gathering to greet them - now warrior Hywel, a fact he was burstingly proud of - she waved to him and got his attention as Anda and Shandi walked off with the Chief. He waved back, face full of delight, for the fact that he was great friends with Healer

  Keisha and Owl-warrior Darian gave quite a boost to his status.

  She walked over to him as he waited for her; no man of the Northern tribes would come to a woman for a casual conversation, not even so high-status a woman as a Healer. It was nonsense, of course, and these attitudes were gradually changing even among the most recalcitrant of tribesmen - for this once, Keisha was willing to bow before custom.

  “Greetings to you, Healer Keisha,” Hywel said solemnly. He was trying very, very hard to look mature and warriorlike; he had shot up another hand’s breadth in the last six months and was wearing a new leather shirt made from the skins of his own kills. The impression he was trying to make was utterly spoiled by the obvious youth of the face behind the new beard and mustache. He still looked to her exactly like the boy who’d been frantic to save the life of his brother, and willing to brave anything to do so.

  “Greetings to you, Warrior Hywel,” she replied, just as soberly, though it was all she could do to keep from chuckling. “Could you tell me who I would speak to if I were to wish to barter for some of the goods held in trust for Ghost Cat, k’Valdemar, and the Sanctuary?”

  “Nothing easier,” he said, brightening at the idea that he would be able to do so high-status an individual a good turn. “My mother, Laine, has the authority to barter for those goods for the tribe. I am sure she will be happy to bargain with you.”

  That was not in the least surprising; Laine was known to cut a shrewd bargain herself, quite as well as glass-maker Harrod’s wife. The only reason that she was not in charge of Ghost Cat’s dealings with the village was that she had not dared try the language exchange with a dyheli. In part, that was because she was strongly averse to any “meddling with magic and holy things” for herself, and in part it was because she didn’t want to court the horrid headache that always followed such an. exchange.

  Not that Keisha blamed her.

  Laine was learning Valdemaran the old-fashioned way, bit by bit, from her sons, who had gotten the tongues the “easy” way. This would not matter to Keisha, who spoke Laine’s tongue with the fluency of her own.

  “Come,” Hywel said, gesturing grandly, “I will take you to her.” Keisha repressed another chuckle at that; she didn’t need Hywel to show her to his own house, she knew quite well where it was - but conducting her there raised his status another minute increment. The saying she had heard about the Northerners did seem to be true: “You are known by who you know!”

  Not long after that, the two women were going over the goods in the storehouse, with all the pleasure of any two women anywhere in the lustrous furs, the warmth of the amber. His job done, Hywel had gone off to do “man things” - which basically meant sitting about with his young warrior friends, boasting about the animals they would hunt when fall came.

  The familial resemblance between Laine and her sons was unmistakable; all three shared a distinctively high brow, deep-set eyes, and short nose. For the rest, they shared brown eyes, black hair, sturdy, muscular build, and heavily tanned skin with the rest of their tribe.

  “Ah - these are what I wanted - ” Keisha said, when she finally turned over a protective layer of cloth to reveal the skins she was looking for. “How many do you think it would take to line the hood of a winter cloak?”

  “Six,” Laine said instantly, the fringes of her leather dress swaying as she reached for one of the furs. She spread it over her arm, displaying it to Keisha, ruffling up the fur with her breath to show how thick and plush the hair was. “Yes, six. No less. You will not want the fur about the hindquarters, you see, and the belly-fur is thin. And were I you, I should have some wolverine as well, to put about the edge of the hood. The wolverine is so hot-blooded that the virtue goes even into the fur, and your breath will not freeze upon it.”

  Keisha very much doubted that “virtue” had anything to do with it, but she did know that the rest was true. She started to agree, when Laine spoke again.

  “And here - I think that Clanbrother Darian might well like one of these,” Laine continued, taking a cloth off another pile of what had appeared to be pieced and worked goods. She picked one up and shook it out - it was a vest, made of leather, but not tooled, dyed, or decorated in the usual fashions of the Ghost Cat tribe, but actually embroidered with designs. When Keisha examined it further, taking it from Laine’s hands, she saw that it had been embroidered, not with thread or yarn, but very cleverly with tufts of dyed fur of some kind.

  The designs themselves were nothing like those the Northern tribes used, although they seemed faintly familiar. But try as she might, Keisha just couldn’t place them. They were more like some sort of foreign designs that the Northerners had tried to adapt to their own style.

  “I think you’re right, Laine,” she said, as she held the vest in her hands, admiring the workmanship. “Darian will like this quite a lot. He’s not the lover of decoration that Firesong is - ”

  “Ai, and who is?” Laine interjected, giggling, hiding her mouth behind her blunt-fingered hand as was the custom among Ghost Cat women.

  “No one!” Keisha laughed. “But Darian does like to dress handsomely now and again, and this is just his sort of clothing.”

  She and Laine bargained spiritedly for some time, and eventually arrived at a price they both liked. Ghost Cat craved Keisha’s dyes and the food-spices she raised - she would never bargain with medicinal herbs, but she had no compunction about using her spices as currency. The tribesmen had learned that spiced food was a fine thing; it was a taste they quickly acquired, for the spices gave their pl
ain meals a savor they had never had before. In the cases of garlic and some peppers, it was quite good for their health, too.

  In exchange for spices and dyes to be delivered by dyheli, Keisha carried off enough furs to line her hood and make mittens, and she also bought the handsome vest. She had stowed them away in her saddlebags by the time Shandi and Anda were ready to leave.

  Darian is usually the one getting things for me, she reflected, very pleased with herself. It’ll be fun to see his face when I surprise him with a gift, for a change.

  It was at that moment that Anda’s Companion picked up his pace, leaving Shandi and Keisha lagging a little behind. Shandi did not trouble to catch up, and the dyheli Keisha rode was in no great hurry either. Anda disappeared around a turn in the road, and only then did Shandi turn to her sister.

  Shandi wore a stubborn expression; her golden-brown eyes narrowed as she regarded Keisha. “All right,” the young Herald demanded. “What exactly is going on - or not going on - between you and Darian.”

  “Nothing!” Keisha responded before she thought.

  “That’s exactly the problem,” Shandi retorted. “And I want to know why. You said you’d talk about it later - well, this is later, and we can’t get any more privacy than we have now.”

  Except for two pairs of four-hooved, pointed ears, Keisha thought, looking resentfully at Karles’ head. His ears were pointed back toward both of them, although the dyheli’s weren’t. She didn’t relish the notion of having any witnesses at all to this.

  “Come on, Keisha, you know I won’t give up. I know you too well,” Shandi persisted, turning in her saddle to face her fully. “You’ve got a situation here that’s hurting both of you, whether you’ll admit it or not.” She sounded very sure of herself; too sure, Keisha thought.

  “I don’t see how you can claim that,” Keisha said sullenly, looking straight ahead and not at her sister. She couldn’t - didn’t want to - meet Shandi’s eyes. “I’m not in the least unhappy. I have a terrific life; it couldn’t possibly be any better.”

  “Huh. You might be able to convince anyone else of that, but not your sister, and not an Empath,” Shandi retorted energetically. “What’s the problem? He’s not discontent, and you aren’t interested in anyone else. Are you afraid he’s inevitably going to lose interest in you and go chase some other girl?”

  Since that was precisely what had been troubling her, Keisha’s head snapped around and she stared at her sister in shock. “How did - ”

  “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” Shandi replied, staring into her startled eyes. “You never believed that anyone would ever think you were pretty enough to bother with when we were at home, and you don’t believe it now. In your heart,” she continued ruthlessly, “you’re sure this is all some kind of accident on Darian’s part, and one of these days he’ll wake up and realize it.” Shandi sounded calm, collected, and utterly unruffled; the very opposite of the way Keisha felt. “In fact, you’re actually planning on it happening.”

  Put that way, so baldly and unadorned, it sounded ridiculous, and Keisha felt as if she’d been caught doing something very stupid. Embarrassed, resentful, full of chagrin - but it hadn’t seemed foolish all those times when she’d been feeling alone and so unhappy!

  “You haven’t done anything stupid, sib,” Shandi said gently, her eyes softening. “But you almost did. It’s one short step from being sure that something good can’t last to sabotaging it, and making your fears come true. You can’t let things that you know don’t make sense get in the way of a wonderful relationship!”

  But Empath or not, Keisha was not about to admit anything to her little sister. Shandi was, after all, her little sister; younger, presumably less experienced. How dared she sit in judgment on her older sister? Besides, Shandi had no idea of the stresses on her. “Look, that’s not all it is, it isn’t even most of it. I have my duties, my responsibilities, and Darian has his - they aren’t the same, and we’re apart more than we’re together. I can’t trail around after him the way a wife is suppo - ”

  “Oh, please,” Shandi groaned, interrupting her, while Karles snorted in obvious scorn. “What god came down and told you exactly what a wife is supposed to do? Who set up rules like that?”

  Keisha’s temper flared as her resentment mounted. Just because Shandi was a Herald and didn’t have to go along with the kinds of conventions that normal people did, she had no right to make any kind of judgments for her sister! Keisha wasn’t about to flout conventions! “Everyone knows what - ”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Shandi interrupted again. “When has Darian ever told you - or even hinted - that he expects you to sit home and bake and spin? You aren’t everybody, you probably have more wits than any two of my old friends put together - and you don’t have to put up with the small-mindedness of village gossips if you don’t want to. They won’t even know what you’re doing if you live here, for one thing! And for another - no one but you should be allowed to make any decisions about how you live and who with.”

  Keisha opened her mouth - and closed it again. She had no answer whatsoever for that, because Shandi was right - once again.

  “So when did Darian demand or even hint that if you two got married, you had to become a so-called ‘proper’ wife?” Shandi demanded.

  “You can’t answer me, because he hasn’t, right?” Shandi shook her head. “Listen to me, and think. What kind of couples has he had for comparison of what a good pairing is like? I’m not talking about the villagers, either, because he doesn’t really think of himself as one of the villagers, he thinks of himself as a Hawkbrother. He had his own parents - who worked together as a team; his mother certainly didn’t sit at home and wash floors. He has the Hawkbrothers - who are very careful about getting into a marriage, or whatever they call it, but who don’t make any demands that one partner be subservient to the other! So why should he suddenly demand that of you?”

  Shandi was too logical, and fired off her arguments too quickly for Keisha to respond. She felt a headache coming on, a shaft of pain coming from her temple, even as she felt flushed and very uncomfortable. Why wouldn’t Shandi just drop the whole subject and leave her alone?

  Now Shandi changed her tone to one of coaxing; she lowered her voice and cocked her head to one side. “Keisha, just because you get involved with someone, even marry him, that doesn’t mean one of you has to get swallowed up by the other. Darian doesn’t want that - if he did, trust me, you’d know it, and you have a good sense of self-preservation; you’d be running away as fast as a dyheli could carry you!” She laughed.

  Shandi certainly did that, when Mother tried to swallow her up. . . .

  But Shandi didn’t make that comparison, which was probably just as well. “You say that you and Darian are apart more than together now that you’re both taking on your full responsibilities - well, things change, and you have to change with them, you ought to know that by now! You’ll probably have to work some things out, maybe make some alterations in how you work, but - ”

  Me? Why should I be the one to have to change? “I don’t think it’s fair for me to have to make all the compromises!” Keisha said - and cringed when she heard the whining tone in her own voice.

  “So don’t! When I said ‘you’ I meant both of you!” Exasperation crept into Shandi’s voice. “Listen to what I’m saying, and don’t keep jumping to the worst possible conclusion! You make some compromises, he’ll make some, you’ll work out what’s acceptable to both of you. But don’t undermine your own happiness because you think you haven’t got anything to offer him, and don’t drive him away just because you’re afraid of a commitment!”

  I’m not afraid! Keisha wanted to snap - but she knew, instantly, that it would be a lie. So she didn’t say anything at all.

  Fortunately, that seemed to be the end of Shandi’s lecture. Shandi left her alone then; she didn’t ride ahead or lag behind, but she didn’t say anything more. Finally Keisha thought of something to say.
>
  She couldn’t help it; she sounded sarcastic. “How did you become such an expert on - on - ”

  “On romance?” Shandi looked over at her, and winked, taking her question at face value and ignoring the sarcasm. “Forced into it. Between all the boys that chased after me in Errold’s Grove, and all the Trainees who came to me with boy- and girl-problems, I got to be an expert fairly quickly.” She sighed heavily. “Everybody goes to an Empath for a shoulder to cry on.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Keisha said involuntarily, thinking of the number of times that Shandi’s disappointed suitors had done just that to her - and that broke the uncomfortable stalemate. They both laughed, Shandi heartily, Keisha weakly.

  By unspoken consent they did not discuss anything remotely uncomfortable after that. Shandi changed the subject to something completely innocuous. They spent the rest of the ride talking about trivialities, nothing that used up an awful lot of brain power, which was just as well.

  Shandi had given her a great deal to occupy her thoughts.

  Darian woke in the late morning feeling just as much turmoil and confusion in his mind as he’d had when he went to bed. In fact, he hadn’t really expected to sleep, but his exhausted body had decided otherwise. He turned himself out of the hammock he’d awakened in, in one of Silverfox’s workrooms, and found (as he’d expected) a fresh set of his own clothing waiting for him beside the window. And cleaned boots.

  The hertasi were busy this morning.

  Getting dressed, he hurried up the staircase to Firesong’s ekele above, certain that he would find his mentor there, probably engrossed in a magical text.

  He was not wrong; Firesong looked up as soon as he poked his nose in the door. “Get over here,” Firesong ordered, pointing to a low chair. In a moment, his teacher had Darian sitting down with food in front of him. Firesong turned his apparent attention back to the heavy book from which he was making notes.

  “Don’t say anything just yet,” Firesong cautioned, without looking up. “Eat first.” And he sat there with his arms folded across the pages, drawing delicate diagrams, while Darian did just that. Darian obeyed him, even though the food had no more taste than old leaves, and kept catching in his throat.