Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar Read online

  “Even when they’re wrong?” Jem demanded.

  Lenar only nodded, looking miserable and . . . lost, even.

  Ree cleared his throat. “Look, you . . . no one needs to. Why . . . why can’t you leave the place to Jem, and Jem . . .”

  “Jem is my heir,” Lenar said, booming the last word. His gaze told his son that he wasn’t going to hear any argument on that, and Jem, though his lip curled as if to make a scathing remark, kept quiet. “The farm . . . He can inherit the farm, but he’ll have a lot more to look after. He’ll have to do his army duty or go to court, or—”

  He stopped, but Jem didn’t say anything, nor did Ree. They’d both assumed for a while it would be that way. If Jem was the son of a Lord, he’d need to get known as such in the outer world. Ree understood what wasn’t being said. Ree could not go with Jem when he went–not unless he was willing to go on a leash or in a cage–and lots of things could happen when people were separated. Even as-good-as-married people. Hell, even married people, like what had happened with Lenar and Jem’s mother.

  As though to underscore it, Lenar said, softly, “You’re both so young . . .”

  Which Ree took to mean that they couldn’t possibly know what they wanted for the rest of their lives.

  Garrad made a clucking sound that usually meant he’d just heard something nonsensical, which Ree took a little comfort in, but not too much, because Garrad said, “Life is unpredictable and things happen. Look at me, with two boys and a wife, and then left all alone, all those years. If anything happens, I want Ree to be safe. And Meren. They can’t go to the army or to court. They can’t find their own ways. They have to know there will always be this.”

  “But, Father—”

  “No buts,” Garrad said with more than a hint of his old strength—and all of his stubbornness. “This way, no one can argue about Jem and Ree living in the same house.” His eyes gleamed, warning Ree he was going to tease someone. “Ain’t anyone else’s business whether they’re sleeping in separate beds or not.”

  Jem groaned and blushed fiery red, and Ree tried not to wince.

  Lenar didn’t react at all—which was so unlike him he had to be really worried. “Father, the law says I can’t—”

  “I could be wrong here, but . . .aren’t you allowed to make extra laws, for things that affect just your lands?” Ree tried not to look appalled at himself. He’d just blurted out something he’d half thought about, and now. . .

  It wasn’t just Lenar who stared at him. Garrad and Jem were both looking as if Ree had had a litter of kittens or grown an extra head.

  His face heated, and he fought the urge to curl up and hide. It was just as well his face fur hid his blushes. He fell silent.

  “Go on, Ree,” Lenar said, in the kind of grave voice that could give way to an explosion at the drop of a hat.

  Ree tried to collect his thoughts. What was the saying? But he’d heard something about what was called Particular Laws. The Empire was so big no one person could know what was needed in every little pocket of it at any given time. And Lenar might think Ree was daring too much, and taking his inheritance and Jem’s too. But Lenar didn’t look upset and . . .

  Might as well hang for a cow as a chicken? Ree figured he was headed for the whole herd. “I thought the Lord gets to make extra laws, so long as they don’t break the Empire’s laws. So . . .you can’t make a law that says Meren and me don’t have to be listed as safe hobgoblins. But, you can make one that says if we—or any other hobgoblin—pass some kind of test, we’re human in your lands and get to be treated that way.”

  Ree couldn’t remember where he’d learned all of that, but he thought it was maybe bits and pieces he’d heard over the years. Lenar and Jem talked sometimes—and Garrad too—when Ree was clearing the kitchen or putting the children to bed. And given the family’s tendency to shout, he’d heard just about everything. He was pretty sure Lenar was the one who’d mentioned the Particular Laws, though, although he hadn’t been talking about anything to do with hobgoblins then.

  Lenar looked as though he’d been hit and hadn’t got to falling over yet. “You know,” he said slowly, “That just might be possible. I’d have to speak to a few people about it, but . . . it could work.”

  “You do that.” Garrad wasn’t making suggestions. They were orders. “I ain’t changing a thing.”

  Lenar sighed and shook his head. “Wait and see, Father. I don’t know if this will work, yet.” He turned to Jem and Ree. “This damn fool old man wants to leave you two the farm—both of you.”

  “But . . .” Jem frowned. “Shouldn’t it be going to you? I mean, you’re Granddad’s heir and all that.” Ree squeezed Jem’s hand. It was so like him, to argue for Lenar and against himself. Ree felt tears prickle in his eyes.

  “Your father’s got more than he needs,” Garrad said with a chuckle. “Besides, he can take his pick of anything he wants that was here before you two arrived, so long as he can carry it out.”

  In other words, the things that might mean something to Lenar, like the portrait of the family, painted back when Lenar had been young. That made sense to Ree.

  Jem stopped bristling quite so much, although the set of his jaw said there’d better not be anything else upsetting in Garrad’s will.

  “I’m glad the farm is going to you two, actually,” Lenar said. “It might have been home once, but . . . it’s your work that’s made it what it is now. And Dad’s right: I do have more than I need.”

  He chuckled softly. “Besides, I think it’s a good idea, what he wants.”

  Which meant there was more in the paper than Lenar had revealed so far.

  “It seems to me that a place where the folks as haven’t got anyplace else can be welcome is a good thing,” Garrad said into the silence. He gestured to Jem with a bony hand. “You and Ree took a hell of a risk, coming into the farm when you did. Ain’t no doubt if I’d been well, I’d have met you with a pitchfork.”

  His expression softened, and he smiled. “You two showed me there’s more to good than being human. Seems to me there’s others out there as could use the same chance.”

  Ree swallowed and ducked his head to hide the way his eyes burned. He’d wondered more times than he wanted to count if Meren’s parents could have been saved, could have learned to be human again. After all, Meren was as human as Ree, or more. Maybe all they’d needed was somewhere that gave them a chance to be human. And maybe not, too. That was the hardest thing: Ree didn’t know.

  “After you two, it goes to Meren,” Lenar said softly. “If he doesn’t have any children—adopted or otherwise—the farm comes back to my family, but it’s got to stay a sanctuary.”

  He smiled, and Ree realized that Lenar’s eyes were too bright, too shiny. “If I can get the two of you able to own property, I’m all for it.”

  Ree didn’t go to the manor often—he kept himself to the farm and the forest, mostly, so he didn’t unnerve people. Today was different.

  Today was the ceremony Lenar had concocted to make him human. Not that Ree had any illusions about it: He’d still be killed on sight anyplace outside this valley, but here he’d be officially human and able to do all the things any other man could do, at least unless Lenar’s Lord, or his, or further up all the way to Emperor Melles himself said otherwise.

  To hear Lenar tell it, that didn’t happen unless a Lord started abusing his people.

  The important thing was, once something like this started, it was hard to take it away. People would get used to the idea that hobgoblins could take a test and become officially human—although Ree didn’t have any idea what was in the test. Lenar had said it was better that way, and for official things, it was better to trust that Lenar was right.

  Which was why Ree walked up to the manor in his best clothes with his tail wrapped tight around his left leg and his stomach wrapped even tighter into knots that made him wish he hadn’t eaten before he left the farm.

  The thick wooden gates stoo
d open, with two men watching the stream of people coming in. It looked to Ree as if everyone in the valley had taken advantage of a fine winter’s day to come see what would happen. That was a good thing. It was just that Ree’s stomach didn’t agree.

  He recognized both the guards; they’d been village boys once, among the one’s he’d helped free from rogue soldiers years ago. Now they looked every inch the real soldier, but they both waved to Ree and smiled.

  Inside, the manor’s Great Hall—a big, low-ceilinged room that could fit everyone in Three Rivers with space to spare—was filling up fast.

  Ree couldn’t help wondering how many had come to see “Garrad’s hobgoblin” perform and how many actually cared about him. He didn’t let any of that show; he just walked through the crowd to the front of the room, where Lenar had a solid chair, a chest to hold important documents, and a guard watching the people.

  The guard nodded to Ree—he was another of the young men Ree had helped save—and gestured to a spot to the right of Lenar’s official chair; it was far too plain to be called a throne. Ree took his place there and tried not to let his nervousness show. This was all he’d been told, to come to the hall and stand where he was told.

  He should have worn a hat; at least then he’d have something to do with his hands. He couldn’t have said whether it was better that he couldn’t hear the words in the buzz of whispered conversation, but at least this way he didn’t hear anything he didn’t like.

  Ree hadn’t tried to find out what Lenar was telling people about today’s ceremony. He figured it would be enough to get people to come to see without letting them know too much. The more people who saw this, the better, according to Lenar. That way they’d be talking about it as a good thing before the official documents started their long trail through Imperial bureaucracy.

  Fortunately he didn’t have to wait long. Lenar must have been watching for his arrival, because he walked out from a side door. He’d obviously chosen to make a point: He was wearing a red silk shirt and a cloak of snow-bear fur. His cloak pin was the Imperial crest, and it glittered as though it was worked in gemstones and precious metal. People fell silent, the hush cascading through the hall as people who’d noticed him elbowed their neighbors and pointed.

  The ceremony itself went by in a kind of blur for Ree. He read a passage from a book he’d never seen before, then swore an oath of loyalty to the Empire and its local representative—namely Lenar. The rest of the test was to explain what the oath meant. Ree thought he managed that well enough.

  After that, Lenar’s Mage came forward, and Lenar announced that the Mage would examine “the applicant.”

  That made sure no one’s attention went wandering. Three Rivers had never been big enough for a Mage even before the magic storms, and most people had never seen a Mage actually do magic. The thought didn’t make his stomach rest any easier.

  The Mage smiled and whispered, “Relax. This is going to make you feel strange, but it won’t hurt.”

  That wasn’t what Ree was worried about. What if he didn’t . . . if he wasn’t . . . No. He’d deal with whatever the Mage found when he found it. He took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m ready.” He spoke loudly enough for his voice to carry, and if it shook a bit, well, that was to be expected for something as important as this.

  The Mage must have been waiting for him to speak, because he made a complicated gesture, and everything went . . . odd. The hall and everyone in it seemed to be a long way away, or maybe it was Ree who was a long way away, and there was a pressure on his mind, not really doing anything there, just looking. He fought down the instinctive desire to push that pressure away and make it leave him alone. It had to be the Mage, doing . . . whatever it was he was supposed to be doing.

  The pressure moved, and Ree found himself remembering things he’d thought long forgotten. The smell of Jacona in the summer, clutching his mother’s skirt at a fair and watching a Mage make lights spark from people’s fingers, the cold and hunger and fear that never went away when he’d lived on the streets of Jacona, running from larger boys, hiding and hoping they wouldn’t find him, hating that they were bigger and stronger than him . . .

  The magic circle, with its blur of pain and the screams that had started as two animals and him and became just him. And the fur that kept him warm after that, the claws that made it so much easier to catch food and escape gangs, at least until the searches started and the street rats got rounded up and taken away. Losing what it was to be human, bit by bit, until he found Jem, and Jem brought him back to life, made him human again.

  Then the weird distance went away and the pressure was gone, and he was back in the hall, with the Mage saying something to Lenar that Ree’s ears rang too much to hear. His face fur was damp.

  Whatever the Mage said, it must have been good because Lenar smiled and came over to shake Ree’s hand. “Welcome to the Empire.” He gave Ree a parchment certificate that had to have been done up before the ceremony.

  The certificate didn’t say anything about whether Ree was human or not; instead, it said that Lenar had examined him and made him a “citizen of the Empire,” There was other legal-type wording there that, as Ree understood it, gave him the same rights—and responsibilities—as someone born and still human. “Thank you, my Lord.” That wasn’t a title Ree usually used, but here, now, it felt right.

  He heard a soft harumph of approval from behind him and, turning around, saw that Garrad was there. He’d had two sturdy lads carry him up on a litter, and he was sitting straight on the chair in the litter, holding his stick. His eyes glittered.

  When Ree went to him, he found himself pulled into an embrace by the elderly man’s frail arm. “Welcome to the family, heir,” the old man said, softly.

  They buried Garrad on a bright day when the snow crunched underfoot and the wind was quiet. Ree, Jem, and Lenar had spent the day before digging beside Garrad’s long-dead wife’s grave, sharing memories and being grateful that in the end he’d gone peacefully, in his sleep.

  Ree didn’t say, but he figured the old man had held on until he knew his home would pass on the way he wanted it to, then stopped fighting the call of all those who’d passed before.

  When you’d outlived most of the folk you’d known, it must get lonely. He wanted to find a quiet corner to grieve, but with Jem and Lenar both barely holding together—oh, they were being strong, and family-stubborn about it, but Ree could see how brittle their control was—it fell to Ree to arrange everything and make sure Jem was too busy to let go until after the burial, when they’d have a bit of time to themselves to sort out life without the old man.

  He suspected Loylla would have helped, only she wasn’t able to get about and wouldn’t be for a while yet.

  It was the people that surprised him. People he’d once told off for ignoring that an irritable old man’s chimney had been smokeless for days, people Garrad had once had no use for . . .

  Men stopped by the farm with wrapped pots of stew or haunches of beef, and helped with the chores without anyone saying anything, then wouldn’t let Ree or Jem thank them. And now, they trudged up the path to the farm, men, women, and children, all of them in their best clothes, even the mayor, and they seemed to Ree to be . . . well . . . to mean it.

  Lenar’s priest gave a short speech, mostly asking any gods that might be listening to help Garrad’s soul get where it was supposed to be. Ree supposed that was the way the army priests did it because there were so many different religions and gods in the army that you couldn’t pick any one set of them without offending most of the men you were ministering to.

  After, they lowered Garrad’s body—wrapped in an old sheet Ree and Jem had sewn into a shroud—into the ground, then all the men helped fill the grave. Ree tried not to look at the soil falling, tried not to think about Garrad down there. It felt as though they must be hurting Garrad, as though they were suffocating him in the black loamy dirt, but it wasn’t true. Wherever the old man was, he wasn’t there
. That was just . . . a shell, like summer scritch-bugs left when they grew. Garrad had grown and gone elsewhere, with his wife and his brother. And there, hopefully, all the hard binding of the old shell was gone, and he was free and young again.

  The men packed the soil tight, tamping it down with the backs of their shovels, then everyone helped to clean up before they left, and that was that. It was quiet, and simple, and there wasn’t any fuss, but somehow Ree was comforted by all those people coming to help.

  The house seemed terribly empty after everyone had left, with just him and Jem and Amelie—sniffling a bit, but not actually crying—and Meren.

  No one said anything, just . . .they all wanted comfort, and they all held each other, standing in front of the fireplace.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what this is doing to you,” Jem said roughly. “Don’t you ever think I don’t appreciate you.”

  Ree hadn’t even considered that. He’d just been doing what had to be done. That Jem wanted him, preferred him over any of the village girls, that was a daily miracle.

  Meren tugged at his pants; Ree bent to lift the boy and set him against his hip. Meren’s face fur was so wet it lay flat against his skin. Amelie tried to wipe her eyes with a soaked handkerchief, then gave up and rubbed her arm against her face.

  Ree held them all as tight as he could, feeling the weight of his family even more now. Not that Jem didn’t do as much as he, but right now . . . Well, that was how it was. If he wasn’t fit for something, Jem carried the weight.

  Shared between them, it wasn’t that much.”Come on,” he said in a voice that only shook a little bit. “We should get dinner. There’s enough left from what folks brought that we needn’t cook.”

  They’d get better. After a while it wouldn’t hurt so much to look at the spot where Garrad wasn’t, and maybe they’d even be able to laugh again and smile when they remembered him.

  Later, in a month or two, he and Jem would move into Garrad’s room and give Amelie their old room. She was getting too old and too much of a lady to sleep in the attic, separated by only a thin partition from Meren’s room.