“You didn’t have to kill him. We could have kept him for questioning,” said Tiburé severely.
“You know how that’s always gone before,” answered Rothir in a husky growl, sounding spent. He bowed over in exhaustion, hands on his knees.
“It’s still worth trying to get information out of them.”
“He would have died in any case,” murmured the other, younger woman.
Yaret unobtrusively said Oveyn for the dead stonemen, fleetingly touching her forehead and barely mouthing the words. It was not unobtrusive enough. The grey-haired Tiburé gave her a mistrustful look.
Rothir, straightening up, looked at her also, with a brief nod of acknowledgment.
“I’m glad you made it,” he said gravely.
Yaret nodded back. She too was very glad to have arrived in time, but her stomach seemed to have tied itself into a tight knot and her throat had closed up.
She had seen dead men before. She had never seen one deliberately killed. Across the dead stonemen’s red tunics a darker red was spreading. Their faces, streaked with daubs of grey paint, were now doubly streaked in blood.
These were only human beings, she thought, not made of stone at all, but flesh and skin, their breath extinguished in an instant. The only things of stone about them were the ones studding the circlets round their heads.
Yet when she lowered her eyes to the stoneman lying nearest to her feet, it was not a circlet that he wore. There was no band of cloth or metal: only stones. They must be glued somehow to his scalp.
“Anyone hurt?” said Tiburé briskly. “Arguril, your hand is bleeding.”
“It’s just a small cut,” said the youngest man.
“Rothir, how much of that blood on you is yours?”
“Some. Not too much,” said Rothir. “And Eled is safe inside the cave. He was untouched.”
Tiburé looked around. “Can we assume the stonemen are all dead? None ran off to get reinforcements?”
“Stonemen don’t run off,” said Rothir heavily. “It was a troop of twelve, led by a darkburn, but they split up before they arrived at the tarn. I killed four men at the entrance to the cave. The others didn’t get here till a short while ago: they’d been distracted by the donkeys.”
“What donkeys?”
“Oh,” said Yaret, “are they all right?”
“I have no idea.” Wiping his forehead on his bloodied sleeve, Rothir bent stiffly to pick up his equally bloodstained sword. “All I know is that as the stonemen came around the tarn, your donkeys set up a mighty braying from the far end of it. Most of the stonemen set off to pursue them. They probably thought that we were with them: and the donkeys must have led them a fair dance, because it took a long while before they came back here to find their fellows dead.”
“What happened to the darkburn?” Tiburé asked.
Rothir shrugged. “I didn’t even need to fight it. It ran straight past me and up the track.” He gestured to the far end of the fissure, which narrowed to a steep upward path leading to higher rocks above. “Perhaps it got confused by the cave or the shadows. I don’t know. I didn’t have the chance to check: the stonemen followed right behind it.”
“I’ll go and have a look for it now,” said Arguril eagerly, and he strode up the fissure and began to nimbly climb the steep path.
“Be careful,” Parthenal called after him. Arguril waved a casual hand in answer.
Tiburé was counting corpses. “There are eleven dead men here. Maeneb? What do you think – is there a twelfth man nearby?”
She was addressing the younger woman, who to Yaret’s bemusement did not look down at the bodies scattered around her feet. Instead she turned her face upward. Her solemn features were perfectly symmetrical, giving her the appearance of an idealised yet emotionless statue as she stood there with her eyes half closed, seemingly listening to the sky. The other riders waited, expectant, until at last she shook her head and muttered something in their language.
“Maeneb thinks that at least one stoneman may be still at large,” said Rothir, glancing at Yaret; evidently he was translating into Standard for her benefit. “Did you see any others?”
“I saw a watchman just below the pass on my way up,” said Yaret. “If he’s lying dead here, I might know him.”
“How?” said Parthenal sharply.
“By the pattern of studs around his head. Two very close together behind his left ear, and none behind his right.” She made herself bend down to examine the bloody head of the last stoneman to die. “Not this man. Nor that one.”
As she moved over to inspect the next few corpses, she had to push down a surge of revulsion. It was not just the fact that these men were so newly dead: there was something about the studs stuck to their scalps that turned her stomach. Each was a worked and rounded stone. The skin around them looked so sore and red that it was almost as if the stones had been driven straight into the flesh… but that surely was not possible.
“Not these ones either,” she said, trying to ignore the nausea that was swelling in her throat.
“There are more over by the cave,” said Rothir. The bodies were tumbled just inside the narrow entrance; he and Parthenal pulled them out for her to examine.
“No. None of these. The watchman is not here.”
“Are you sure?” demanded Parthenal.
“Yes.” She swallowed. “Those stones around their heads. They look as if they’re…”
“Sharpened, and drilled through the skull,” said Parthenal.
Yaret stared up at the tall man, appalled. “But why? And how could anyone survive that?”
“They don’t all survive,” said Rothir. “For those that do, that’s what makes them stonemen. In their own minds they become invincible. As cold and unbreakable as stone. It appears to be a rite of passage.”
“But who would endure that? What must it do to them? The pain! And the infection, and the damage. Who would want to – to promote such an idea?”
“You may well ask,” said Rothir grimly.
“They drug themselves for infection and the pain,” said Parthenal. “They seem to be impervious to pain when fighting too. It’s apparently a mark of rank and courage for them to endure as many stones as possible.”
Yaret looked down at the dead men and away again. Courage? Why waste courage on such pointless agony?
“Are you all right?” said Rothir tersely. It was clear he would have no patience with any squeamishness.
“Yes. None of these men have the same pattern of stones as the watchman that I saw.”
“Very well. There’s not much that we can do about him,” said Tiburé in her no-nonsense manner. “He’ll be far away by now. But I doubt if he’ll be able to find his company and bring reinforcements back here quickly. Let me see Eled. Meanwhile, get these bodies out of sight.”
They began to drag the corpses further up the alley, so that no sign of them was visible from the tarn. The bodies left long trails of blood. Yaret helped the younger woman, Maeneb, move the last of them, the man who had impaled himself upon his comrade’s sword. Maeneb dropped him just before they reached the pile of bodies, her revulsion seemingly even greater than Yaret’s own.
Yaret said Oveyn again, underneath her breath, because once did not seem to be enough.
Maeneb looked at her aloofly. “What was that?”
“Nothing.” Yaret amended this, because it was not nothing. In some circumstances it was everything. “It’s just something we say after a death.”
“Even an enemy’s death?”
“Any death.” But particularly for a death that you had caused, thought Yaret. It was an acknowledgement if not quite a plea for pardon.
Arguril came striding back down the slope at the end of the alley. At Parthenal’s enquiring look, he shook his head.
“I could see the darkburn’s trail for a little while,” he reported, “but then it disappeared as it crossed the higher ground. And there’s no scent of it that I can follow. It’s headed out into the wild.”
“Very well. Can you take the horses to the tarn to drink?”
The younger man began to gather the horses, with Rothir’s help, and led them down towards the tarn. Yaret followed, guiding Poda to the water’s edge.
There she gazed around in the forlorn hope that she might catch a glimpse of distant donkeys. The tarn looked like a great bronze mirror; the falling sun painted amber fires across the bleak hills to the south.
But they are cold fires, she thought, and this is a cold world. Some bird circled way up overhead: apart from that, there was no life visible beyond the noisily drinking horses. She scanned the slopes again, in vain, for donkeys. The sickness in her throat increased, and she turned to stroke the mare, murmuring words in Bandiran.
Seeing Rothir glance at her, she said, “I am thanking Poda. It was she who fulfilled the task, not me.”
“It was both of you, I think,” said Rothir. “You did well. Don’t worry too much about your donkeys. I expect they will look after themselves.”
“Yes. If they’re alive.” She found that it hurt to speak.
“Those donkeys saved my life most probably, and Eled’s too, by drawing away so many of the stonemen for so long. I am grateful to them.”
Yaret nodded and bit her lip.
“I can only tell you that when the second group of stonemen arrived at the cave,” said Rothir, seeming to pick his words with care, “there was no blood to be seen on their weapons or their clothes.”
“Well,” she said, “that’s something.”
“Arguril? Give the horses another minute to drink, and then we need to get back out of sight.”
So after a last long look for the donkeys she turned back into the stone alley, and entered the cave.
It was much bigger than she had expected: the narrow opening led into a high, vaulted space. Even the horses – once they had been persuaded to squeeze in through the entrance – had ample room to wander round inside. As her eyes adapted to the dim light she saw that the cavern appeared to be part natural, part worked by tools. It was cool but the floor was largely dry.
Well beyond the entrance, in the shadows and lit by a pair of candles, Eled lay, with Tiburé kneeling down beside him to inspect his injuries. Yaret crouched by his other side and touched his hand.
“Eled. How do you feel?”
“Weary,” he said with a half-smile. “Although Rothir was the one doing all the work.” His sword lay beside him, untouched and unbloodied.
“You will do the same for him some time,” said Yaret.
“I hope not,” said Rothir, looking down at them. “I’d prefer not to be in this situation again.”
“I’ll give you a little ethlon,” said Tiburé. “Only a few drops, mind. But it will be enough to quell the pain and make you more comfortable.”
Holding a small vial to Eled’s lips, she trickled a minute amount of a brown liquid into his mouth. It must have acted as a stimulant as well as a painkiller: for within a few seconds, his tense face relaxed yet paradoxically became less sleepy. Once again he looked suddenly much younger.
“Rest now, Eled,” said Tiburé. “We will take counsel outside the cave. We’ll let you know what we decide.” She stood up and looked at Yaret. “You may stay here with Eled.” It was not a suggestion but a command.
“Yaret should join our counsel,” Rothir told her.
Tiburé, frowning, put a question to him in their own language.
He answered her in Standard. “It was Yaret who found Eled after he fell from his horse, by the Darkburn river head, and looked after him for several days before I got there. Eled had been pursued by a darkburn of a new sort.”
“What sort?”
“Ask Yaret,” said Rothir shortly, “but not in Vonnish.” He turned away, looking very tired. Parthenal put a hand on his shoulder, speaking gently in their tongue.
“Yes, I’m fine,” said Rothir, as the two men left the cave together.
Tiburé raised an eyebrow at Yaret. “Come, then,” she said brusquely, so Yaret patted Eled’s arm and followed her out into the daylight. Even though twilight was imminent, it seemed momentarily dazzling after the deep gloom of the cave.
Tiburé sat on a rock, an austere, authoritative presence; the others stood, with Maeneb some way apart from the others. It was a strange counsel with the bodies of their slaughtered enemies lying so close and being ignored by all.
When Tiburé questioned Rothir in Vonnish, he answered in Standard – presumably for Yaret’s benefit. Briefly he told them how he had found Eled and Yaret near the Darkburn forest and how together they had cared for Eled until the camp had been attacked at night.
She noted that he referred to her only by her name, not mentioning her gender. Yet she was sure that he knew. He was leaving it up to her to say – or not. At the end of his account he added, “Stick to Standard: Yaret does not talk Vonnish.”
“Then we’ll save it for our secrets,” said Parthenal, with a twist of his mouth. Standing next to Rothir, he was the taller of the two men; not quite so broad, but darker and more handsome. Indeed, he was very good-looking: as his assessing gaze moved up and down Yaret, she again felt that he had seen straight past the crooked nose and journeyman’s clothing. She had experienced that sort of look before, but only when she’d been in female dress back home.
“You had better introduce yourself, Yaret, and tell us your account,” said Tiburé without a smile. Yaret wondered if the grey-haired woman was always this dry and stern.
“I am Yaretkoro Thuleikand, a weaver and pedlar of cloth from Obandiro in the north,” she said. Then, since the presence of the two women seemed to make it safe, she added, “daughter of Hath, grand-daughter of Thuli.” And she bowed as gracefully and formally as she could manage, first to Tiburé, and then more generally to the others. “I am glad to have been of use.”
“Of great use,” put in Rothir, “as should already be plain.” But Yaret observed without looking at him that Parthenal’s gaze had chilled.
“Rothir guessed my gender very quickly,” she explained, “but was wise enough to say nothing, for which I am grateful. It was easier for Eled to think me male.”
Then she described her first sighting of the riderless horse and the finding of Eled. They listened in grave silence to her description of the creeping darkburn she had seen down by the river. As before, she found it difficult to describe something she had seen so briefly, yet had felt so strongly.
“Burning inside?” queried Tiburé with a frown.
“Red, like an ember.” Yaret could tell that they were sceptical.
“We have come across nothing like that,” said Arguril, digging impatiently at the ground with his sword. “A crawling darkburn?”
“Yet Eled said the same of it. And I saw its trail,” Rothir answered.
“And when did Rothir find you?” Parthenal asked her.
“On the fourth day,” said Yaret. “I made camp and tended to Eled in a sheltered opening in the rocks near where he fell. He regained some consciousness on the first night but was not lucid for a day or two. Since then he has remained largely as you see him now: he cannot maintain detailed thought or even stay awake for very long. The head injury must be severe. I also feared infection of his leg, and I still fear that the enforced travel of the last few days will have inflamed it.”
Tiburé was staring at her with a faint frown. “Why did you do all this?”
Yaret was silent. Surely it was obvious that she had had no choice?
“What am I supposed to say?” she said at last. “Because I am some sort of hero? That is not true. What else could I do? He needed help, and I was there.”
“Well, we all owe you our gratitude.”
Yaret bowed again. “I take your thanks,” she said, although she could still sense Parthenal’s suspicion of her.
“So, what next?” asked Tiburé of the group in general. “Do we follow the stoneman sentry, and hope to intercept him? Do we keep looking for the darkburn that ran off? Do we just leave now? And if we do, where can we take Eled to be cared for and be safe?”
Each began to speak in turn; Maeneb entirely in Vonnish, and Parthenal and Arguril in a mixture of Vonnish and Standard.
Yaret watched them as they spoke. Arguril was proud, frowning and heated: Parthenal cooler and more measured. Maeneb was more detached still, speaking without looking at anybody and sounding as if she plucked words out of the air at random. As far as Yaret could discern, Arguril was eager to pursue one of other of their enemies, while Parthenal wanted to ensure Eled’s well-being above all else. Where they could carry him to seemed to be a matter of debate.
Only Rothir spoke entirely in Standard. “We might convey him to a village. Go east to Herval: perhaps they would take him in. But then what? What if Herval were attacked? In any case, how could we just leave Eled there, not knowing when he might recover? No; my vote is for Farwithiel. There we know he would be safe.”
“Only if the Farwth allows us back there, and lets us stay,” countered Tiburé in a tone of doubt.
“And it’s a long way to back-track,” said Parthenal. “At this rate it could take us another month before we can return to–” He stopped for a moment before resuming his argument in Vonnish.
“I’ll go back inside the cave if it’s easier,” offered Yaret.
“You understand that we cannot fully trust you,” said Parthenal, still cool.
“Of course. I cannot fully trust you either,” said Yaret equably, turning to depart.
“This is unnecessary,” said Rothir with some impatience. “Yaret has gone out of her way to keep Eled alive for over a week now. We cannot doubt her goodwill. But I expect she would like to go home and has no further interest in our doings or our destination.”
“I certainly ought to go home,” she agreed.
“And tell no tales there?” demanded Parthenal sardonically.
Yaret shrugged. “I am not given to telling tales. If you wish me to say nothing on my return home, I will say nothing.”
“And what will you tell your people?”
“I got lost. A donkey fell down a hole. I fell in love in Moreva. I got ill at Deloran and had to stay there for an extra week.”
“That wouldn’t work,” said Rothir. “Tell them what you told me of Deloran.”
“What?” said Tiburé sharply. “Deloran, the farmstead a dozen miles from the Darkburn head? Bruilde’s place?”
“Yes. You know it too, then?” asked Yaret. “Just over a week ago, when I called there, it was deserted. The whole place was burnt out. A recent burning: its stones were warm.”
“What happened to its people? Did you discover that?” asked Tiburé with fierce urgency.
Yaret saw that their faces were now turned to her with anxiety – and in Maeneb’s case, possibly with horror.
“I assume they got away,” she said. “The carts were gone as well as all the animals. They didn’t take many of their possessions. But I saw no evidence that anyone had died.”
“Could you tell what caused the fire? Where it started?” Parthenal demanded.
She shook her head slowly. That had worried her, until other more immediate worries had pushed it right out of her head. Now she recalled the scene.
“The outbuildings were burnt as thoroughly as the house,” she said. “The area around Deloran was unharmed, so it was no wildfire. The flames could perhaps have leapt from one building to another on a high wind.”
“Not without burning the woods around as well,” said Tiburé. “The look-out platform in the cedar tree? Was that burnt?”
“I do not know the look-out,” she said, startled. But there was much about Bruilde that she had not known. She remembered her grandfather’s letter, still sealed and buried deep in her pack inside the cavern. Although that was private, she could perhaps look at it now. Grandda would not mind in the circumstances.
“What about elsewhere? Was there anything unusual?”
“I heard rumours of fire and war,” she said a little hesitantly, “on my journey south, at Moreva and elsewhere. And I found that things in some places were… not quite as normal.”
“Explain,” said Tiburé severely.
“Please,” added Rothir, which earned him a half-amused look from Parthenal.
“Just let me get my map and order book,” said Yaret. She went into the cave to retrieve them from her pack, and tucked the letter to Bruilde into her pocket.
Back in the dimming daylight, she spread the map open on a flat rock and pointed out her route. She had copied it from Grandda’s old worn map, adding her own notes and observations.
“Here I started, at Obandiro.”
“Never heard of it. I thought there was nothing there,” said Parthenal, before Tiburé shushed him.
“Here are the towns and villages I passed through on my way to Outer Kelvha. At Moreva I found people to be edgy and anxious. There was a shortage of supplies; Kelvha had been buying them up. The same at Gorod. Nobody knew quite why, although I heard tales of fighting on the borders. There is always something going on in the Kelvhan borderlands, but this time it seemed worse than normal; yet there was a lack of definite news.” She thought for a moment. “I did not see the usual number of Kelvhan traders.”
“What do the Kelvhans trade there?” asked Arguril.
“Leather-work: saddlery chiefly. Horses, but not their best ones. Flashy war-gear – ornamental breastplates and badges and whatnot that would be useless in an actual battle.”
“You don’t like them,” said Parthenal, half amused again.
“I don’t like what they sell,” she said. “They keep all the most serviceable stuff and trade what’s inferior. I think they see the Outer Kelvhans as lesser people than themselves.”
“Did you speak to any Kelvhans on this journey?”
Yaret shook her head.
“You said your grandmother is from Ioben, in Outer Kelvha,” Rothir said. “Do you know the language?”
“I know my grandmother’s language, Ioben, which is similar to our own. I can get by in Kelvhan. I don’t speak it well.”
Parthenal said in fluent Kelvhan, “But you speak it just well enough to trade, perhaps.”
“Yes,” answered Yaret, also in Kelvhan. “And order food, and talk about the weather. I find their tenses difficult.”
“They are complicated,” said Rothir, in Standard. “Where else did you go?”
Yaret consulted her order book, reminding herself of where she had heard what. Only vague tales for the most part; they sounded like nothing in the retelling. She told them anyway, in case they meant more to the Riders than they did to her.
“In the Gostard Inn I heard rumours of a burning.” She recounted her visit there and the story spread so eagerly by the unpleasant man. “He blamed a wizard called Liol,” she added.
“Liol?” repeated Parthenal, and laughed. Rothir looked indignant.
“That seems unlikely,” said Tiburé, inscrutable.
“He did not know what he was talking about,” said Maeneb, very quietly.
“So the innkeeper told him. But I heard more rumours of burnt villages elsewhere, before I got to Deloran and found it razed. All in all, there was a general sense of wariness and fear: of drawing in of horns, and stocking up, and hunkering down, and readiness for war.”
“War against who?” said Rothir.
Yaret shrugged. “Unclear. Kelvha got mentioned, but perhaps purely because they are the most warlike people around those parts.” She folded up the map and put it back inside her order book.
“You travel a wide range,” said Tiburé. “Why is that?”
“I suppose I do. But my grandfather liked to travel, and selling his cloth gave him a good excuse. Once he became unfit I just kept following his route. I enjoy travelling too.”
“Why?”
Yaret considered. “I like the solitude. Only it is never solitude, walking the land.”
“What about the towns?”
“I have never seen one I prefer to Obandiro,” she said. Parthenal laughed.
“You never meet with trouble?” Maeneb asked her. “Being female, I mean, even if you are disguised?”
“We call it not disguise, but male mode. There are some who choose it permanently in Obandiro. When I am travelling it usually keeps me safe enough. I don’t have to maintain it the whole time, because there are several on the route who have become friends and know me; like Bruilde.” She put her hand inside her pocket and felt the folded sheets of paper.
What would Grandda want her to do? Coming to a quick decision, she pulled the letter out.
“My grandfather wrote me a letter every year to give to Bruilde,” she said. “He knew her from a long time ago. And she would send back a reply. I never read any of the letters, although he would tell me bits out of them. Gossip, mostly, little anecdotes. So I expect this one is much the same. I will read it out and see.”
“How did he know her?” Tiburé asked.
“Through trying to sell her a nice plaid cloak, I expect.” Yaret carefully broke the seal and unfolded the sheets. It gave her a small wrench of the heart to see her grandfather’s familiar slanting handwriting. It was almost as if she had him next to her, tall and smiling; stooping now – always leaning on a stick – and saying the words along with her as she read aloud.
“ ‘My dear Bruilde,
‘How time goes on! I wonder sometimes on these cold spring mornings how many more letters I will write to you; how many more winters my old bones will carry me through. Ah, but we were young once, weren’t we? And I remember as if it were last week that summer evening with the swallows darting above us so wild and free – do you remember too? With the scent of cut grass sweet in the air, when I carried you to the hay-barn and we–’ Oh,” said Yaret, staring at the letter in her hands. “Oh my. I had no idea.”
Grandda had vanished from beside her. The others waited, silent, until Tiburé said dryly, “It seems he knew Bruilde very well.”
“Yes… Better than I thought.” Some re-ordering of her assumptions would be necessary. Later on. She looked down at the letter again, glad now that Grandda was not here beside her after all.
“I think I’d better skip that bit.” She turned the page. “But here is the news, such as it is. ‘The apple harvest was good this year and our roots practically leapt out of the ground, so our cellar will be well-stocked. Just as well, as trade has thinned from the west, whence tales come with every traveller of blight and fire. I have had this story from a pair of stockmen and three shepherds hunting for work as well as various pedlars of small goods. Of course they want to think it’s more than ordinary disaster. Yet the blight is nothing out of the ordinary, I think, it sounds like common root rot after all their rain.
‘But the fire… now that is something else, Bruilde. Something unexplained, and it makes me very uneasy. Even in a stormy season, lightning does not strike three, four, five times and hit a homestead or a forthouse every time. Not many survivors seem to have been left; and those that did escape tell garbled tales. The places were fired by black monsters, they say, by stinking ghouls. Make of that what you will.’”
“Darkburns,” muttered Arguril. Tiburé gave him a look and he fell silent.
“ ‘Thuli has another view of all this,’ ” read Yaret, before raising her head to explain, “Thuli is my grandmother. I wonder if she – well, anyway.” She bent to read again.
“ ‘According to her, it is only to be expected because of the lack of reverence that people have nowadays for the hidden ones and the old ways. Obandiro, of course, being the exception; so we shall never suffer from these blights. Thuli does enough obeisance to protect the whole town – well, our side of it at least. She is always putting food out for them. When I tell her it’s a pointless task – because the hidden ones don’t eat – she says that they appreciate the act. Thuli is a sensible woman in so many ways, yet quite irrational about this.’ ”
“Hidden ones?” asked Tiburé.
“Oh,” said Yaret, who was pondering her grandparents’ relationship, “you know. Lins and hobs and woodwones. My grandmother takes them very seriously.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” said Arguril.
“That’s because you don’t have a grandmother,” Parthenal told him.
“But what are they?”
“Your territory, I think, Maeneb,” said Tiburé.
“Spirits of the land,” said Maeneb in a clear, silvery voice. She seemed distracted, as if she were listening for something else. “Spirits of water, trees, and earth. They exist in many legends. People give them gifts and honour them. I have never seen one.”
“Well, you wouldn’t,” Yaret said. “They’re hidden. Look at them and they disappear.”
“I have never felt one either,” added Maeneb.
“You believe in them,” Rothir said to Yaret, his face grave while Parthenal’s was still amused.
“I… don’t disbelieve. Certainly I would never say aloud that lins don’t exist.”
“In case they hear you?”
“Quite.”
Tiburé sighed. “Well, whether they exist or not, I think we can dismiss them as the cause of burnt-out homesteads. What else does your letter say?”
Yaret turned to the last page. “ ‘I wish you would tell me what you think about all this, Bruilde. Have you heard such stories in your own parts? Could it have anything to do with the one you call ignoble? It is all a long way from you, I know, and probably has no relevance.
‘I also am too far away from you. I wish I could see you. I am keeping well enough, apart from the old bones, and am well looked after. Thuli is a good wife – at least she often tells me so – but I miss your wickedness, Bruilde. I miss your…’ ” She let the hand holding the letter fall. “He never intended me to see this. Read it yourself if you wish.”
Tiburé took the letter from her. After a moment she said, “You can hear this bit. ‘I know you will take care of Yaret, as you always do, and I think you can trust her with more information than you have in the past. She has led a sheltered life but her judgement is good….’ And then he writes his farewells. He signs the letter, Ilo. What is his full name?”
“Ilodi Juleikend.”
The older woman shook her head. “Bruilde never mentioned him. Not by that name, at least.”
A sheltered life, thought Yaret. Really? Sheltered from what – apart from her grandfather’s secrets? She felt a spike of disappointment and resentment towards the old man who had cared for her so well all her life, and had concealed so much. Some of the resentment was on her grandmother’s behalf. She thought of the solid, clever and commanding but otherwise unknowable figure of Bruilde. Then she broke her usual rule and asked a question.
“How do you know Bruilde?”
Rothir answered. “She is one of us.”
“Bruilde? One of the Vonn?” Although Yaret was startled into the second question, she did not really expect any further explanation.
Nor did she get one. Tiburé, directing a look of reprimand at Rothir, said sternly,
“Enough of gossip. We need to decide on what to do with Eled. Where do we take him? Where do we go next?”