Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar (38 page)

The Grove had fallen into silence by the time she finished.

“Not really about her,” she said at last. “More
for
her than
about
her. I think the bridge needs work. And—”

“It’ll do,” Wil said.

She rubbed her lute’s neck. “You think so?”

“I do.”

She nodded. “Me, too.”

 

The morning of her performance, Lelia got up at dawn and wandered down to watch as Lyle put the final touches on saddling Rivan.

“Where are you headed?” she asked.

“West,” he replied. “Not quite Evendim, but close. Forst Reach. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it—”

“Ashkevron holdings.” Her eyes flashed. “I’ve always wanted to see the famous manor.”

He smiled. “Ah yes. I forget that I speak with the Kingdom’s greatest authority on dead Heraldic heroes.”

“Only the pretty ones.” She eyed her twin critically. “You’ll say hello to Mother and Father?”

“Oh, hellfires. Are
they
out that way?”

He grinned. “If I can.”

“You’ll stay away from trouble?”

“Of course.”

“And at the first sign of danger, you’ll ride straight back to Haven and let the Army handle it?”

He nodded solemnly. “I promise.”

She smiled and stood up on tiptoe, throwing her arms around him. “Be safe,” she whispered in his ear.

“If we meet not in this Haven,” he whispered back, “we shall meet in another.”

She let him go, and then turned toward Rivan.

“Bring him home,”
she sang to him.

The stallion tossed his head in a Companion’s nod.

Wil strode in, decked out in riding leathers.

“Are you two ladies going to stand around clinging to each other all day, or are we going to leave?” he asked, glowering.

“I believe my instructor is not what one might call a ‘morning person’,” Lyle said in a mock whisper to Lelia.

“Surely,” she “whispered” back, “he could take lessons in charm from Alberich.”

“Bright Lady.” Wil rolled his eyes. “I’ll have to ask the Dean what I did to deserve this.” He nailed Lelia with a look. “I need to have a word with your sister, Lyle. Alone.”

“Yes, m’lord Herald,” Lyle said, bowing his head and beckoning to Rivan. The two walked out, leaving Wil and Lelia in the Stable.

“Yes?” she asked.

He took a step forward, extending a fist. His fingers uncurled, revealing a silver necklace with the shield of Valdemar hanging off it.

“For you,” he said. “For luck.”

She blinked, reaching out and taking it gingerly.

His fingers closed over hers.

She looked up at him, startled.

“We’ll come home,” he promised her, then bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

“You’ll come home,” she agreed, her heart thumping in her chest.

He turned and started to walk away.

“You’ll come home!” she yelled, running at him and jumping on his back. He grunted as she threw her arms around his shoulders and hugged him fiercely.

Lelia slid down and stepped away, grinning like a fool. Wil looked back once, a faint smile on his face.

The hooves of the Companions chimed as the two Heralds rode out, heading for Haven proper and the rest of the Kingdom they served.

 

Malesa leaned over and whispered, “Nervous?”

“Nope.” Lelia grinned, tapping her necklace.

“Did you finish your song?”

“Yes.”

“And who gave you that lovely necklace?”

Lelia’s grin widened.

“I see.” Malesa raised a brow. “What makes you smile so, dear?”

“Because the Council’s going to vote soon,” she said. “And when I’m a journeyman Bard, I know exactly where
I’m
going.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes.” Lelia smiled. “I’ve always wanted to visit the birthplace of the Last Herald-Mage.”

This is not some Herald’s ballad. We Holderkin are practical folk, and we know what matters: sun and land, wheat and hay, breaking horses to saddle, protecting those in our care. These are the things you should ask about, if you wish to know our ways.

The story you ask for instead ought to be none of your concern. Yet Holderkin pay their debts, and you say this is the only payment you’ll accept.

Know this, then. I was content, even before Nara came. I care for my Steading, which was my father’s before raiders sent him to the God, ten years past. I care for my first three wives, and my two brothers, and my oldest son, who works beside me in the fields. I care for my littles, even those too small to work.

I’ve seen you Heralds scowl. You think Holderkin men care only for themselves. Yet I know well enough the gifts the God has granted me, and I give thanks for them.

Just as I give thanks for the winter day last year, when I visited my cousin Jeth to trade a sure-footed plow horse for some wool. As I followed Jeth into his hall, I heard a high, sweet song, above the crackle of the fire and the whir of the spinning wheel.

Birdsong, I thought—but the voice was human, a girl’s voice. I looked across the room and saw her, bent over the spinning wheel, dark hair hiding her face. She sang of a time when the Goddess freely wandered the fields, feet bare and hair unbound, before she met the God. A woman’s hymn; men do not sing it. Yet hearing her, something inside me woke, and grew restless, and yearned to answer the song. My fields and hall seemed suddenly small, simply because her voice wasn’t in them.

You say such things are known, in your ballads and your lives. But they are not known here.

The girl looked up, and her hair fell back, revealing dark eyes and pale skin. She looked at me without shame, and I met her over-bold gaze. She fell silent then, her song unfinished, and without warning she smiled.

I smiled back. Her face grew red, and she leaned back over her spinning.

I knew, then, that I could not leave without her. I turned to my cousin.

“Your daughter,” I said, for this had to be one of his daughters. “Do you intend to arrange a marriage for her soon?”

 

You ask for our story. I do not know how to tell a story. I only know that until I came to Garen’s Steading, I was not content.

I had my work, in my father’s home: endless spinning, and weaving, and cooking, and caring for littles. The work needed doing; I understood that. I understand it still. Is it different in the north? Here, we know that every person is sacred in the eyes of the Goddess, put in the place we are put, given the work we are given, because that work matters, and is meant for us.

Yet knowing this, I still longed to walk the barren ridges, to look out over the narrow valleys, to feel the wind tangling my hair. When I was younger, I’d spent my days outside on sheep watch, and been happy; but that was long ago, before I was replaced by littles too young for other tasks. By the time Garen came, my days were mostly spent indoors, with my mother and my sisters and the other wives of the Steading.

But the Goddess never gives us a task without also giving us what we need to complete it. And what She gave me was song.

I sang as I worked, hymns and teaching songs, songs no one could find improper. The work went better when I sang. The walls and roof felt less near, the wind and sun less far. I was fortunate; my father’s firstwife welcomed my songs, perhaps because the littles also worked better when I sang.

Then a stranger entered my father’s hall and met my improper gaze. And—I do not know how to say this. When I looked into his gray eyes, I saw open fields and the spaces between clouds. For the first time, I thought maybe marriage—the marriage I knew my father must arrange, soon or late—might be more than just another set of walls.

 

Of course I left without her, that day. There was the dowry to negotiate, and the priest to consult, and the ceremony to arrange. But at last we knelt together, beneath the open sky, the men and the women of our households around us. It was one of those rare spring days, when the sky is so blue you fear it will break in two, exposing the first level of Heaven above.

But I forget—you don’t believe in Heaven, only in endless Havens and countless gods, with none to tell which is true.

The priest chanted the ritual prayers. We gave the ritual responses, and if my attention was more on the curve of Nara’s neck and the sun on her bound hair than on my own words, still I meant those words.

At last the priest asked for our vows. “Do you, Garen Aranson, vow to serve the God and honor the Goddess? To defend your Steading and your fields, your brothers and sons, your daughters and wives?”

“I do so vow.”

“And you, Nara Jethsdaughter. Do you vow to serve the God and honor the Goddess, and to obey your husband and your elder wives in all things?”

Nara smiled. “I do so vow.”

The priest drew us to our feet. I looked into Nara’s dark eyes; they seemed as large as all the sky. I could have gazed at her forever, but then she bowed, as the ceremony demanded, and stepped back to join the women of my household, showing she accepted her place as one underwife among many.

The priest sang a hymn then, recounting the first meeting of God and Goddess—when the Goddess grew restless, and wandered beyond her realm, and could not find her way back. Both households joined him in that song, all but me; the God gave me no gift for singing, and I knew my voice would be no tribute.

Nara stood with my other wives, her shoulders straight, her eyes cast properly down. She sang with my other wives, her voice no louder than theirs. Yet somehow her song rose above the others—and though I knew better, her voice still seemed not one among many to me, but its own, distinct.

 

I was happy, married. I did not expect that.

Garen’s Firstwife, Latya, had work for me, of course, laundry and cooking, cleaning saddles, grooming horses, mending tack. But often that work took me outside, where I could linger over the blooming of orange paintbrush and purple lupines, where I could watch the shifting gray clouds. I sang beneath those clouds, and I sang in the hall, too. So long as the work was done, and done properly, Latya did not complain.

It is true that proper and improper matter a great deal more to Latya than to my mother, or even to my father’s firstwife. Latya expects hair to always be bound, and collars to always be buttoned, and tunics and leggings to always be ironed beyond creasing. Yet I am dutiful, as much as I am able.

I did not see Garen often, those first months, save for mealtimes and the nights he came to my room; he had his work, just as I had mine. But sometimes, I would turn from grooming horses to see him in the stable doorway, silent, listening to me sing. He would smile, and I would smile back, and the stable walls would seem to fall away, as if we stood together beneath the sky, just as we had on our wedding day. My work somehow always seemed lighter, after one of those meetings.

But I am telling this out of order. Before the stables, there was the first time Garen came to my room, the night we were married. I was shy and afraid; my mother had told me to expect pain. Yet Garen was slow and gentle, as concerned for me as for himself. When we came together, I felt as if we were closer than skin and bone should allow; felt as if we shared a single body, a single space. Afterward, I pressed my body close to his, not wanting to let the feeling go, yet knowing that all things fade, in time.

Garen brushed my loose hair aside, and he whispered in my ear, “I am glad you have joined my Steading.”

“I am glad, too,” I said, and meant it with all my soul. The times after have been like this, too, more often than not. Is it so for everyone, or only for us?

It seems immodest to ask.

 

Lying with Nara is not like lying with anyone else. My first three wives are dutiful. They give what is required. But they draw away from me when that duty is done, and I from them. I don’t linger in their beds as I do in hers. I could lie with Nara every night, if not for my other wives. I could spend my days watching her, if not for the work of my Steading.

But that is not for you to record, and it is not for sharing with your fellow Heralds.

Say instead that spring turned to summer, summer to fall, the seasons in the order the God set them. Raiders attacked other Steadings and Holdings, but spared mine. Latya bore another son, and my second underwife, Isa, a daughter. Nara showed no signs of bearing children, but she was good with the littles. Like me, they seemed to listen for her song.

One stormy afternoon I entered the common room to hear Nara singing as she twisted dried grasses to rope, while wind pounded the walls and hail pounded the roof. The littles sorted grasses by length around her.

Nara sang of Jania’s ride. You do not know this song; it is a Holderkin song, about a maiden whose brother was killed by raiders while they were on sheep watch. The raiders dishonored the girl, but she escaped, riding alone through darkness and storm to warn her Steading of the attackers. She knew her duty, you see. She delivered the warning first. Only afterward did she take her life, to keep her dishonor from her family.

Yet when Nara sang this song, I heard more than duty and honor. I heard the joy of hooves on stone, of rain on skin, of wind through hair. I longed to sing with my wife—but no, I’d not sully her verses with my rough voice. Instead I smiled as I listened, entranced as the littles.