Ixsosthiel is dead.
In the defence of Qu’Banellon, the Bani homeland, thirty-eight Vendani soldiers have been killed, and one of them is Ixsosthiel.
Kel tries to comprehend thirty-eight warriors slain in one battle, tries to comprehend that the battle is considered a victory (since Qu’Banellon’s perimeter was not breached), tries to comprehend the grief of thirty-eight families across all eight Vendani keeps. But he cannot get past the reality of what has happened to his brother.
Ixsos: who clouted Kel’s shoulder three days ago and said, ‘Take care of mum. I’ll be back soon.’ Ixsos: who has been his father for the past five years, since their father Ixsosikel was killed. Ixsos: who taught Kel everything about swordplay and archery and even about women (although Kel has not had much opportunity to test out that latter knowledge yet). Ixsos: who rode away with the others when The Venduinn called. And was brought back slung over the saddle of his own horse, broken and dead.
The burial was this morning, just a day after the dead were brought home. It was a triple burial, for Gretanor’s Keep is ‘lucky’, having lost only three warriors in the terrible battle.
After the burial feast, Kel’s mother Menathiel gives Kel a distracted hug and lets her friends lead her away to the women’s hall. Kel expects that, if it goes the way it did when his father died, he will not see his mother for days, perhaps weeks. She is not strong, and, not being a warrior, she does not pretend to be; she has lost too many.
When all of Kel’s friends have given him awkward shoulder clasps and even more awkward embraces and been led away to bed by their parents, Kel wanders for a bit at loose ends, trying to find something to think about other than the gaping hole which is his bottomless grief. It is quite dark out, and he meanders around the practice yard. But in a moment, the sergeant-at-arms appears and curtly orders him back into the keep: children are not allowed out after dark, and Kel knows that, or at least he had better!
The feasting hall is mostly empty now: people have gone off to their own chambers to weep a little more or to drink or to tuck their children safely into bed, and the serving wenches and potboys are cleaning up. Kel supposes that he should simply go up to his little chamber and try to get some sleep.
“Kelathiel!” a familiar voice calls.
“Yes, Lord Gret,” Kel replies immediately, swinging around.
The Keeper is standing at the foot of the stairs, and his wife Lady Oliniane is already halfway up.
“Where is your mother?” Lord Gret asks when Kel has come closer.
Kel shrugs. “Sleeping in the women’s hall tonight, I guess,” he mumbles. “Sir,” he adds, because Lord Gret has been insisting on that lately. Kel is nearly a man, and it is high time for him to start behaving.
“You’ll stay with Oliniane and me,” Gret says. This is phrased, not as a gracious offer – although it is one – but as an order.
“Yes, sir,” Kel answers quickly. He and his Keeper have had their moments, and Lord Gret has recently been insisting that Kel reply ‘yes, sir’ first and then ask his endless questions second. “You want me to sleep in your chamber, sir? Till mum is alright again, sir?”
“Get your nightshift and your toothbrush and whatever else you need, and come along, boy,” Gret barks, which is, Kel supposes, an answer.
So Kel fetches his night things from his own bed chamber and then makes his way to the keeper’s great chamber. It is really a suite of chambers, with an office for the Keeper’s desk work, a sitting room for Lady Oliniane, a private necessary and the bed chamber itself, with three children’s alcoves along the inner wall.
Keep children sleep close by their parents in small windowless alcoves until they are eight years old, a hold-over from long ago, when the eight off-spring of Im’Lorn were terrified that Diaz’Duinn would follow them north and try to kill their children. Nowadays, when a child turns eight, he’s assigned a chamber of his own, sometimes with a chamber-mate who is around his age. Kel did start out with a chamber-mate, his second-cousin Blynesthion, but they fought too often, and so the feast-master reluctantly gave Kel a private chamber. But even after you are eight, your parents may bring you back to sleep in a child’s alcove in their chamber, if you are ill, or if you have been behaving really badly, or – as now – if there has been a death.
Although Lord Gretanor and Lady Oliniane are childless, their three alcoves are sometimes used when the Lord and Lady particularly want to keep their eye on a child. Kel himself has slept here more than once. The two most recent times were occasions when Kel’s behaviour had made his Keeper so furious that Kel was ordered to stay in an alcove, with nothing but bread and water, for an entire day and night. The first time was five years ago when his father died: both Kel and Ixsos stayed with them for nearly a month while their mother recovered. Thinking of Ixsos brings Kel to tears again, and he is weeping when he knocks on the suite door.
Lady Oliniane greets Kel with a warm hug. “I am so sorry, Kel,” she says kindly, which does not help him to stop crying. “Now you settle in there, in that middle alcove, and then I’ll tuck you in.”
“The boy’s fourteen, ’Niane,” Gret growls, emerging from the necessary. “He hardly needs to be tucked in.”
“Nevertheless,” the lady replies with a surreptitious wink at Kel.
“And use the necessary, boy! I don’t want you up and down a dozen times during the night!”
“Yes, sir,” replies Kel meekly, but he and Lady ’Niane exchange grins, and so it is alright that the Keeper is speaking to him as if he is five years old and might wet the bed.
When Kel comes out of the necessary, he takes two steps toward the middle alcove and is swept off his feet in a mighty embrace. “It’ll get better, Kelathiel,” the Keeper says, his voice hoarse with emotion. “You’ll stay right here with ’Niane and me until your mother is able to pay attention to you again, yes?”
“Yes, sir,” Kel replies, the words muffled against the man’s chest. He can barely breathe, but he has never felt more safe. “Thank you, sir.”
When his Keeper releases him from the bear hug, Kel goes into the alcove, pulls the curtain and gets undressed. The little chamber measures at most five and a half feet by three feet, just large enough for a mattress on the floor; Kel has to stand on the mattress while he’s changing. With the curtain closed, it is claustrophobically small, although Kel realizes that there is something comfortingly familiar in the cramped quarters. He hangs his clothes up on the hook at the foot of the pallet, lies down and draws up the covers. The chamber is almost too short for him; if he stretches, he can touch the far wall with his toes, and the near wall is only an inch or two beyond his head.
“Ready, Kel?” Lady Oliniane asks just outside the curtain.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replies.
The lady slides the curtain back and settles down on the floor beside him. They talk for perhaps a half an hour, about Ixsos, about Kel’s parents, about his school-work, about nothing of consequence, about his absolute and devastating loss. Kel asks a thousand questions, and while Oliniane doesn’t begin to answer half of them, she does not seem irritated with him.
Finally she says, “Time for sleep, young man. Lord Gret and I are right nearby, and you’ll feel a little better in the morning.” She kisses his cheek gently, kindly not mentioning that it is wet with tears, then draws the curtain and leaves him alone.
Lady ’Niane blows out the last candle, plunging Kel’s curtained alcove into complete darkness. The great bed creaks as the lady gets into it with her husband, and all is silent in the bed chamber.
Kel turns a few times on the thin pallet. There is no pillow – little ones, for whom these alcoves are meant, don’t sleep with pillows – and he can’t seem to get comfortable. Then the events of the last two days crash in upon him, and he sobs silently for a time. Utter exhaustion follows, and he drifts into that mid-place between awake and asleep.
“I need to leave for Ana’s burial tomorrow,” the Keeper growls softly.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” his wife replies. “It’s too dangerous. She wouldn’t have wanted you to risk your life.”
“The danger’s past. We’ve driven the devils back, and I think the north will be pretty quiet for a while. According to Kora the fighting’s going to move south now, towards the City. I thought I would take the boy. Ana should have some kin there, and Mennie’s certainly in no state for it.”
“Well, if you are traveling, then you should offer to bring her back with you,” ’Niane declares, obviously referring to some ‘her’ other than Kel’s mother. “I don’t like leaving things as they are now, not if the War is really upon us.”
“Alright, I’ll ask Ennis. How old would she be now? Eight? Nine?”
“I’m not sure; I’ve lost track. Not as old as that, I think. But, hush, Gret: the boy will hear.”
“Shall I check?” There is the sound of a large body moving, and then the alcove curtain is twitched aside, illuminating the little space with moonlight.
Kel’s face happens to be turned away, toward the wall, and he lies very still and schools his breathing to the regular sighs of one who is deeply asleep. The Keeper gets back into bed with his lady, but before they resume their conversation, Kel really is asleep.
In the morning, Kel sleeps late and is finally awakened by Lord Gret himself well after the second bell.
“I’d like you to come with me over to Hengst’s Keep,” he says, naming the primary Vendani fortress, two keeps east of his own. “Do you know who Anathiel is?”
“No, sir. A relative of my mother’s, sir, judging from her name?”
“She is your mother’s cousin, and also, incidentally, The Venduinn’s stepmother. She too was killed at Qu’Banellon. I would like you to come with me to her burial; no one should be sent to Appelia without blood-kin in attendance. So break your fast and then pack up a bag. We’ll be gone for nearly a week.”
“Should I send word to mum about where I’m going, sir?”
The Keeper shakes his head. “Let’s not worry her, alright, son? The whole Vendan is as safe as a keep just now. If your mother’s ready to leave the women’s hall before you get back, Oliniane will let her know where you are.”
They ride out before noon, twenty Vendani soldiers and Kel and the Keeper. At first Kel is uncomfortably aware that he is the only unarmed member of the party – who will present him with his sword when he turns sixteen, now that Ixsos is dead? But Lord Gretanor was right: the forest is quiet, with no sign of Izokeln or trolls or other marauders. It is almost impossible to believe that what the soldiers are saying is true: that the Battle of Qu’Banellon is the beginning of the War.
They ride for three days, pushing hard, and at suppertime on the third day, they make what will be their last camp. Tomorrow by noon they should reach Hengst’s Keep, just in time for the burial.
Kel is at the edge of the clearing gathering firewood – ‘you don’t wander out of my sight, boy!’ – when another troop of Vendani, perhaps forty strong, come upon their camp. This second troop dismounts and prepares to camp with them; Kel supposes that they too are on their way to Hengst’s for the burial.
Then an odd thing happens. Lord Gretanor walks over to greet a young man as he dismounts. “My lord, welcome,” the Keeper says and briefly drops to one knee before the newcomer.
The younger man impatiently waves his hand at Lord Gret and at the others who are now bowing or kneeling.
There is only one person that Lord Gretanor would kneel to, and that is The Venduinn himself. Kel had imagined Lord Banet as older, perhaps in his forties or fifties, but The Venduinn is thirty at most. He does not look like a King, nor even like a king-in-exile; he looks like any other red-bearded, red-headed, leather-clad Vendani soldier.
Lord Gret seizes The Venduinn in a bear hug similar to the one with which he assaulted Kel, and Kel remembers that his unknown kinswoman Anathiel was also Lord Banet’s stepmother.
Kel tries to stay out of the way for the evening – more than once in his life Lord Gret has made it painfully clear that Kel has altogether too much to say and that he needs to learn to ask fewer questions and take up less space – but Lord Gret calls him over after supper.
“My lord, this is Kelathiel nû Menathiel pé Ixsosikel,” Lord Gret says. “Kel, this is Lord Banet nû Wilngania pé Yld’Enthorn, The Venduinn.”
Kel is not sure if he should bow or kneel or what: the king-in-exile had not appeared very comfortable when the others had done that. “Hello, sir,” he says politely. And literally bites on his tongue to keep himself from saying ‘you don’t look like a king’.
“Ixso’s kid brother?” Lord Banet asks Kel’s Keeper. The Venduinn’s voice is gravelly and soft, as though he doesn’t use it very often.
Gret nods.
“I am sorry for your loss, Kelathiel,” Lord Banet says sombrely.
The Venduinn’s blue eyes are intense and kind. Under that compassionate gaze, Kel fears that he will lose control and begin to cry.
“Know that the thirty-eight who died, of whom your brother Ixsosthiel was one, purchased the safety of over ten thousand Bani,” The Venduinn says. “Including my wife, Princess Qu’enest.”
Kel knows that it is wicked of him, but he does not care about ten thousand Bani, nor about some Bani princess, even if she is Lord Banet’s wife. Let the Bani protect themselves; Kel will never see Ixsos again.
“And you do not care about that,” The Venduinn says suddenly, rightly interpreting the expression on Kel’s face. “You care only that your brother is gone.” The king-in-exile embraces Kel, his body all hard muscle, the chain mail under his leather vest painful.
“Kel, go collect more firewood,” Lord Gret says sternly when The Venduinn has released him.
“Yes, sir,” replies Kel. Gret knows him; he knows that Kel’s impulses are not always wise. Whether Kel would have said something unforgivably stupid is never known, because his Keeper has protected him from that by intervening.
The next morning the two troops ride together for a time with the two lords side by side at their head. Kel tries to melt back into the keep troops, but Lord Gret waves him up to ride alongside as usual.
“You’ll stay where I can see you, youngster,” Gret growls. “If I let one hair of your head be harmed, my lady wife and your dear mother will dice to see who gets to remove my head entirely from my shoulders.”
The Venduinn barks, an odd sound that Kel realizes is supposed to be laughter. Lord Gret chuckles with him in his usual low rumbly grumble, the noise of a bear trying to imitate human laughter
After a while, the two men seem to forget that Kel is there and begin to talk.
“Princess Qu’enest was unhurt?” Gret asks.
“Yes, thankfully. And Q’ani and the others. Except –” The Venduinn stops, quite choked up.
“Yes, I heard about ’Norn,” Gret says. “’Enarn must be devastated.”
The Venduinn shakes his head impatiently, and tears fly. “It’s too much, Gret. The price is too great. ’Norn, Anathiel, Ixsosthiel. It’s bad enough that they die, but I can barely stand to look their kin in the face afterward.”
Lord Gretanor reaches out to clasp the younger man’s hand. “What does Lord Ennis say?”
Banet shrugs. “He says we are coming to it. That the War has begun and that it will all be over in two or three years.”
“All of it?” Lord Gret asks, a tone of wonder in his voice. “All of it, Ban?”
“That’s what he says.”
“Speaking of the wizard,” Gret says, “’Niane and I thought, since things are quiet and likely to stay so, that I should ask Lord Ennis if I can keep her now.”
“You can ask,” Banet replies, his voice hollow with grief and despair. “But I’ll tell you what the old man’s answer will be: she’s safe where she is, and given what she is, she has to remain there until the War is over.”
“I don’t understand,” Gret complains.
“You think I do?” the king-in-exile says bitterly and spurs his horse away to ride alone.
“Sir, who were you talking about?” asks Kel when Lord Banet is out of ear-shot. “Who do you want to bring back to the Keep with you, sir? And, sir, can Lord Ennis just say ‘no’ and not explain himself, not even to The Venduinn? And what does it mean, sir, that it could all be over in two years? Why did you sound so surprised, sir? Do you think I’ll ever get to fight, sir, or will the War be over before I’m old enough?”
Lord Gret graces him with a warning look. “Button it, Kelathiel!” he growls. “I didn’t bring you on this trip so you could chatter my ears off.”
“Yes, sir,” Kel replies quickly: he knows that look. But at least for a time he has something to think about other than Ixsosthiel.
They come in sight of the first of the great Keep’s watch-towers just before nooning, and Kel is surprised when The Venduinn’s troop begins to wheel away.
“You’re really not going in?” Lord Gret asks Lord Banet before he rides off.
“Hengst and I agreed a few years ago that I should stay away,” The Venduinn replies. “The troop will ride wide sweep to make sure that the procession to the burial grounds is as uneventful as it ought to be. I said my farewells to Ana at Qu’Banellon, and no one would be helped if I show up this morning. No one.”
Without a further word, The Venduinn swings the great black charger sharply left and disappears into the trees after his soldiers.
“Sir …?” begins Kel.
“Shut up, boy,” orders his Keeper wearily.
The great courtyard of Hengst’s Keep is in chaos, and the number of visitors who are arriving confirm the experience of their trip from Gretanor’s Keep: the north is entirely safe, and people feel free to travel as they seldom have in the last few years.
There are nine biers in the courtyard, eight in a row and then one set slightly apart. People are everywhere, standing at the bier of their own loved one, or moving from bier to bier, or greeting one another.
“Come,” Gret growls, and Kel hands the reins of his horse to a horse-boy and follows his Keeper to the bier separate from the others.
Anathiel is much younger than her cousin his mother, easily ten years younger. She lies on the bier as though she is asleep, except that there is a terrific wound on the top of her head. She is very pretty, with long curly red hair, and an attempt has been made to arrange it so that it hides the deadly injury. She wears Vendani leathers, and the three green stripes on the left breast pocket indicate that she is a Captain. Someone has placed a trailing vine of northern thistle – thorns and blue seed balls and leaves and all – between her clasped hands: you wouldn’t hold it that way normally, because the thorns would prick your hand, but Kel supposes that it doesn’t matter to her now.
Kel regards her for a long moment and then looks up at Gret, who is weeping openly. “She doesn’t look old enough to be The Venduinn’s mother, sir,” he says.
“Stepmother,” Lord Gret corrects. “She was the second wife of The Old Venduinn. Yes, she was a lot younger than old Lord Yld’Enthorn. She was only a few years older than her stepson Lord Banet. They were battle companions, more than mother and son. Have you seen enough? When your mother feels stronger, she will want to know how Anathiel looked, whether she seemed at peace.”
Kel studies the dead woman a little longer, not sure what he’s supposed to be looking for. “Is she at peace, sir?”
“I don’t know,” Gret says. “She may have left behind too much to be at peace.” He looks down at Kel with what might be pity. “That’s enough for you, at any rate. Go and see if our horses have been fed and watered, will you? And watch yourself around Vengeance; he’d as soon nip your shoulder as look at you.”
So Kel goes into the barn and makes sure that both his own mare and the Keeper’s great charger have been well cared for. Vengeance does attempt to nip him, but Kel dodges aside, then bangs the stallion on the nose, to show him who is boss.
When he emerges from the barn, he locates Lord Gret in the crowd. The Keeper is standing with Lady Koratnor, his sister.
Lady Kora is terrifying. She does not wear Vendani leathers, but southern-style chain mail that glimmers nastily in the sunshine. Her red hair is flattened, and she holds a metal helm in one hand. Kel has always firmly believed that she has eyes in the back of her head, as she is capable of catching him at pranks when she is actually looking the opposite way.
She seizes Kel in a hug as painful as The Venduinn’s – why do people wearing chainmail insist on comforting him? – then holds him at arm’s length and looks him over. There is no question of Kel looking anywhere except into her piercing eyes; Kel wants to squirm, but wills himself to remain still.
“How is your mother?” Lady Kora asks after a moment of this silent and uncomfortable examination.
“Not very good, ma’am,” Kel replies. “Were you at the Battle, ma’am? At Qu’Banellon? Were you there when Ixsos…when he …?”
This is the wrong question to ask, because Lady Kora draws him close again, nearly crushing his ribs. “They did everything they could for him when he was hurt, Kel,” she says into his hair. “Lord Ennis himself treated your brother, but even he couldn’t save him.”
“Let the boy go, Kora,” a voice says. “You’re in mail; you’re going to do him an injury.”
It is Lord Issofeln, Lady Kora’s southern husband. Ixsos told Kel what happened when Lady Kora informed her brother that she was marrying an Izschadian: Lord Gretanor went on a prodigious two-day drunk and only permitted the wedding to be held at the Keep when he sobered up enough to comprehend that Lord Ennis himself had given his approval. Kel tries not to stare like a northern hick: Lord Issofeln has alien-looking sandy light-brown hair and, except for his moustache, is clean-shaven. Like his wife, he wears chainmail.
“Thank you, sir,” Kel says gratefully to the southern lord when Lady Kora finally lets go. “Is the Sacred City still holding, sir? Of course it is; I shouldn’t doubt that, should I? How long have you been in the north? Were you at Qu’Banellon too? Is this really the beginning of the War? Do you think that the fighting will move south now?”
Lord Issofeln stares at him in alarm, quite taken aback by the barrage of questions.
“In the south,” Lady Kora informs her brother with a grin, “No one under the age of sixteen speaks to an adult until explicitly given leave to do so.”
“What an excellent tradition!” Lord Gret affirms and draws Kel to his side so that he can’t get into any more trouble. “Perhaps I shall institute that at the Keep,” he teases Kel.
“That’s the one you want me to sponsor to the Squires?” the southern lord murmurs quietly to his wife.
But before Kel can ask what ‘the Squires’ are, the horn for the funeral procession blows. The horn is a great tusk from some huge southern beast, and its sound is the most mournful thing Kel has ever heard. It resonates through Kel’s body, and suddenly his grief for Ixsos is immediate and raw again.
The procession forms up. Lord Ennis the wizard goes first, and then six soldiers lift up Anathiel’s bier on their shoulders and follow. Hengst, a giant of a man, walks alone behind the body. Dressed all in black, he looks more like a geological feature on the landscape than like a person. His red head is bowed, and he is a study in grief. After him come, presumably, his children and grandchildren: a young woman and man and their six children and then three teen-aged boys. The boys seem alright, not too affected by the death of their stepmother, and they glance about curiously to see who is watching them.
But the young couple’s oldest daughter, who appears to be around Kel’s age, seems devastated. When the procession starts moving, the girl attempts to step forward to walk beside the Keeper, her grandfather, but her father grabs her around the middle and hauls her back into place. Then she just leans against her mother and staggers along, her head down, not even watching where she is going.
The other Keepers join the procession right after the family, including Lord Gret. Kel expects to be handed off to one of Gret’s soldiers, but his Keeper does not let go of him. They walk, in slow measured paces, out of the Keep and up into the woods via a well-worn dirt path. Lady Kora and Lord Issofeln walk just behind them.
At one point, Gret reaches down to wipe tears off Kel’s face. “Are you alright, son?” he asks quietly.
“I’m just remembering Ixsos, sir,” Kel replies. “It sort of comes in waves, sir. I feel like it’s the end of the world, sir, then I feel like I can handle it, then the next minute it’s the end of the world again. Is that normal, sir?”
“Perfectly normal,” Gret reassures him, and his arm tightens around Kel’s shoulder.
At the grave, Lord Ennis speaks for a long time about what the Battle of Qu’Banellon means, about the sacrifice the nine from Hengst’s Keep have made. When it is time for the kin to speak, the other eight bereaved go first, and then Hengst speaks last. He calls Anathiel ‘Ana’, as Lord Banet did, and talks about what a good woman she was, a good stepmother to his children. He also talks about how honoured he felt to have been married to a Venduinn, and Kel notices that several of the other Keepers, Lord Gret included, shift uncomfortably, as if they think it’s not appropriate for him to mention that.
When Hengst is done speaking, the Keeper’s grand-daughter again attempts to step forward, and again her parents drag her back.
Then it is time for every person present to drop dirt into each grave, a part of the burial rite that Kel has always hated. When it is the grand-daughter’s turn, she releases the handful of earth into Kel’s cousin Anathiel’s grave, then simply flings back her head and howls like a wild animal.
In response to this the Keeper, just in front of her, whirls around, his huge hand up as though he would strike his grieving grand-daughter.
Several things happen, all at the same time. The visiting Keepers – all seven of them – take a step forward as if each of them wants to go to the girl’s defence. Lord Ennis, who is at the third grave, even beyond Hengst, spins in response to her anguished cry as if he also would go to her but won’t let himself. And Lord Banet emerges from the trees above the gravesite, his hand on his sword.
Then the girl’s mother grabs her and draws her into her arms, and the howling is muffled.
Hengst drops his hand and jerks his head at the girl’s mother to tell her to move away from the edge of the grave. The other Keepers relax again. Lord Ennis turns and places a hand on the shoulder of the bereaved woman standing at the third grave. Lord Banet fades back among the trees. Kel supposes that not a dozen people would have been facing the right direction to be able to see him.
“Sir, who was that girl?” Kel asks on the way back to the Keep. “The one who was so upset?”
“Nobody you need to concern yourself with, Kel,” Lord Gret growls, and Kel knows better than to press it.
There are so many people there that they cannot use the feasting hall for the burial meal, but hold it out of doors in the great courtyard. Kel is exhausted; it has all been too much, so he gets himself a plate of food – no matter what else is happening, he can always eat! – then finds a quiet spot, leans against a tree and watches the crowd.
The dynamics are interesting, although, as usual for Kel, he is left with more questions than answers. If the eight Keepers are a synod of equal lords and ladies in the Vendan (which is what Kel learned in school), why do the other seven Keepers seem to avoid Hengst as much as they can? Hengst is the Keeper of the central fortress, and he is grieving; should they not be surrounding him? Come to think of it, is Hengst really an equal among the other Keepers? Kel realizes that he has never heard the giant man referred to as Lord Hengst, but only as Hengst. What is the under-current of tension running among the more senior members of the Vendani community, as they gather in small groups, talking earnestly among themselves? Are they making plans about the War? Or are they wondering, as Kel himself is, why The Venduinn would watch his stepmother’s burial from a position hidden among the trees rather than be openly present as the chief mourner? And where has the grief-stricken grand-daughter gotten to, who howled so tragically at her grandfather’s second wife’s grave? The rest of Hengst’s family is present, circulating among the guests as is proper, but both the upset girl and Lord Ennis seem altogether to have vanished. Is Lord Ennis with the girl? Why would he bother, particularly, with her? And what about this littler girl, ‘not as old as eight or nine’, whose circumstances have somehow changed because of Lady Anathiel’s death, whom Lord Gret wants to take home to Lady Oliniane? Kel notices at least five different girls about that age underfoot at the feast, but none of them looks to be in need of relocation to Gretanor’s Keep; all of them appear to be comfortably in the care of their own parents, as far as Kel can tell.
Kel would like to take his Keeper aside and discuss these matters, for it is any Vendan’s right to ask his Keeper what is going on. But from Lord Gret’s response to Kel’s one question on the way back from the graveyard, Kel has an idea that if he so much as asks these other questions, he will get put off and probably shouted at as well.
In the middle of the afternoon, the folks from Gretanor’s Keep are ordered to be ready to depart by the fourth bell. Kel is shocked. No one begins a journey this close to sunset: it is potentially dangerous, and it is insulting to those who could host an over-night stay. But that is the word, and as the sun begins to dip below the trees, Lord Gret, with Kel again positioned close at his side, leads the twenty guards out of the Keep and back into the forest, headed for home.
The whole three days riding back, Kel promises himself that he will ask his questions, but Lord Gret is in such a foul temper that Kel simply does not have the nerve. When they get home, something else occurs which completely puts the situation at Hengst’s Keep out of his mind.
“You come straight up to my office when your lessons are done today,” Lord Gret orders when Kel gets up the morning after their return. “No mucking about in the practice yard with your friends, yes?”
“Yes, sir,” replies Kel. “Why, sir?”
Lord Gret’s mood has not improved. “Because I am telling you to, boy!” he growls. “Now go get some breakfast and take yourself off to the school room. If the docent tells me that you are tardy or inattentive, I will make you sorry!”
“Yes, sir,” answers Kel and flees the Keeper’s chamber. How long will it be before his mother comes out of her seclusion?
In the afternoon, when Kel reports in, the Keeper is in slightly better temper.
“I apologize for this morning, Kelathiel,” he says, looking up from his papers and maps. “I have been as tetchy as a spring bear these last few days. Pay it no mind; it has nothing to do with you.”
“It’s alright, sir,” Kel replies generously. “You wanted me for something, sir?”
“In ’Niane’s sitting room,” Lord Gret says, pointing at the closed door across the hall from the office. “Your mother’s waiting for you.”
Without a backward glance, Kel flies across the hall and flings open the door: there is his mother, sitting on the little settee with Lady Oliniane.
“I’ll just leave you two alone,” the lady says, patting Kel’s mother’s hand.
Kel’s mum does not look good. In the seven days since he has seen her, she has lost weight, perhaps as much as ten pounds, and her clothes hang on her as if they have been borrowed from some larger woman. Her eyes are dark and hollow, and her skin is pastey. She smiles tremulously at Kel and opens her arms to him, and, after a moment’s hesitation, he steps forward and embraces her.
When they are both more or less done crying, they sit cuddled together on the little settee and talk.
“Lord Gret said that, regardless of how poorly I feel, I must come and see you,” his mother says quietly. “He said that children may seem to accept that parents go away sometimes for good and sufficient reasons, but that the children are not as unaffected as they appear to be. He tells me I must spend some time with you at least twice a week.”
“How are you doing, mum? What do you do all day in the women’s hall? How long do you think you will stay there? Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You are doing it for me, son,” his mother replies, drawing his head down to rest on her shoulder. She is never bothered by his incessant questions, and if he peppers her with a series of them she simply answers the one she chooses. “It has been a long time since a Keeper has given me a direct order, as Lord Gret did today, but I think it was a good thing.”
So, for the whole seven weeks that Menathiel resides in the women’s hall, Kel stays in the care of the Keeper and his wife. But, at first every four or five days and then with increasing frequency, Kel is ordered to report to Lady ’Niane’s sitting room right after school and is able to spend a quiet hour with his slowly recovering mother.
It will be years before Kel thinks again of the girl from Hengst’s Keep who howled at his cousin Anathiel’s grave, or wonders whatever became of the other girl that he never saw, the one who was ‘not as old as eight or nine’.
Content © Gale Macaulay-Newcombe. All rights reserved.