Exile's Return Read online

  “Never abandon your manners,” she noted with wistful dignity. “If you lose them, who knows what else you might lose.” Ghatti were notoriously polite when it came to conversing with humans, even another Seeker. Without permission to enter, a human’s thoughts remained private, despite the ghatti’s ability to read human minds, discern truth. “Parse’s coming. Takes a while, but he’s coming. He insisted, and he won’t accept any help.”

  Despite her resolve, Doyce made a face. The librarian, a retired Seeker, had taken a half-day off; no one here but her to help, and the library was on the third floor of the Headquarters’ east wing. That meant Parse had two flights of steep stairs to navigate, plus the long hallway. And all on crutches, balancing on his one remaining leg. He’d never managed that far alone, and she listened, straining to hear the thump of crutches, prayed she wouldn’t hear the thud of a falling body. Ask Per’la to call someone to help? The fact that she hadn’t showed she’d taken Parse’s resolve seriously, judged it important for him to conquer this on his own. Not up to her to intrude. “Shouldn’t you at least be with him for moral support?” Her hands tugged restlessly at the sashed tabard that constantly seemed too short in front now, stuck out like a coal scuttle.

  “He wants to do it alone. Said he has to cope without leaning on anybody, even me.” The ghatta pulled away, licked again at her tail stump. “He thinks he’s lost everything, not just his leg. He’s pushing me away, he’s pushing Sarrett away, all of us ...” Stricken by her own revelation, the ghatta trailed off, miserable.

  “Well, he does have to learn to cope on his own, but he may be overdoing it. ” They both cocked an ear at a thunderous curse and a sharp, racketing sound that meant a crutch had fallen, slaloming down the stairs.

  “What are we going to do?” Per’la paced the desk’s edge, poised to jump.

  “Give him a little longer, then we’ll go see, if we have to. ”

  “I know what it’s like,” the ghatta whimpered. “Nothing seems right anymore. When I jump I feel as if I’m off balance, when I go to sleep there’s nothing to cover my nose for warmth. And ... and most of all,” she could barely force the words out, her muzzle screwed in agony, “it was so beautiful! Wasn’t it?” she appealed to Doyce.

  “Absolutely gorgeous, ” Doyce agreed. And it had been. It was more than mere ghatti vanity that made Per‘la ache with loss, although preening pride was one component, and that—that absence of symmetry and grace—perhaps she could assuage. “Love, I’ve an idea. ” She began unlacing the pale blue ribbon that closed her undertunic’s neck opening. “What do you think?” She dangled the ribbon by Per’la’s nose, and the ghatta touched at it with a tentative paw.

  “Round my neck?” the ghatta paused, unsure. “I don’t think so ”

  “No, silly, ” and Doyce gently tied the ribbon around Per‘-la’s tail stub, making a bow, adjusting it until the ribbon ends hung even and not too long. Per’la twisted this way and that, examining it from all angles. “Flick it, ” Doyce suggested, “see how it feels. ” The ghatta complied, captivated by the rustling sound.

  “Tickles,” she admitted, “but I think I like it, at least for,” and ghatti good humor flickered in peridot eyes, “dress up. Would Parse buy me different colors?”

  “Buy you what in different colors?” Absorbed in their makeover, neither had registered the sounds indicating Parse had at last conquered the stairs and the long, polished hall. He edged the door open further with his crutch and sidled into the room, red face clashing with flyaway carroty hair.

  Dodging her own awkwardness, Doyce sprang to drag a chair toward him where he canted against the wall, chest heaving. He waved her back, irritable, face contorted, eyes screwed shut, his body abruptly rigid with anticipation. At first she felt hurt, rejected, only to realize that Parse labored in the midst of a sneeze, allergies indomitable as always. He exploded, both crutches collapsing from under his arms as he plastered himself against the wall for stability, balancing on his left leg, the pinned right pants leg limply waving. “Naa-choo!” and he exploded again, not daring to lift a hand to cover it and risk disrupting his precarious balance.

  Its legs scraping, Doyce slid the straight chair toward him, its back turned so he could grasp the top. Then she bent at the knees to gather the strayed crutches splayed to each side of him. He literally swallowed the next sneeze, let it explode inside, head jerking back as his hands went white-knuckled on the chair back. Propping his crutches in place, she waited for him to drag himself upright. “Care to sit down?” Hauling out a handkerchief, she signaled in front of his face, flagging his attention. He grabbed it greedily.

  Crutches pinned in place, he blew, while Per’la exchanged a long-suffering glance with Doyce. “Thank you, no,” he managed with what dignity remained. “Though I wouldn’t mind perching.” He indicated her worktable and began his step-swing, step-swing to it, finally hooking a hip onto the edge, laying the crutches aside. “Didn’t she tell you?” He sounded almost accusatory.

  “Tell me what?” Per’la stared ceilingward, no help there.

  Despite himself, Parse began to laugh. Per’la rubbed against the rigid arm balancing him on the tabletop. “I thought losing a leg was the penultimate indignity, short of death, that is.” He laughed again, wiped his eyes. “I am definitely not in the Blessed Lady’s good graces these days. There’re other indignities as well, I’ve discovered.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, Doyce, love. I’ve boils on my bottom. Couldn’t sit if you paid me, couldn’t even if it meant my leg would grow back! The eumedicos said my allergies are breaking out in other ways!”

  Sinking down heavily, Doyce hugged herself, bent double with laughter, then straightened to ruffle the carroty hair. “Oh, Parse! Poor lamb, isn’t there a salve, an unguent that will do some good?”

  “Well, good is a relative term. Mostly I’ve just got to stay the course, though Twylla’s promised to brew up some horse ointment she swears might help—said it also works on asses.” He turned sober, serious, in the blink of an eye. “Stopped in to see the Seeker General after I visited Twylla at the infirmary. She said you might need some assistance.” He gestured around him at the books, her piles of scribbled note cards, waiting to be reorganized, refiled to puzzle sense out of them. “Please, Doyce,” he begged, “I’ve got to do something to take my mind off this, off everything. I’m a good researcher, even Sarrett admits to that.” All the humor drained from his face as he uttered the name, his blue eyes suspiciously bright. What had happened between Sarrett and Parse? She’d expected their marriage announcement once Parse was out of danger. But gossip said that Sarrett had volunteered for additional circuit-riding lately, had spent less and less of her brief stay overs with Parse as his rehabilitation progressed. “It’s about the only thing I can offer these days. That I’m any good at any more.” He drubbed at the table, grim and lost.

  “That’s hardly the case.” Another casualty of the war, not physical but mental—the loss of self-esteem. She wasn’t the only one who needed bolstering. “You know the eumedicos and Twylla think you can be fitted with an artificial leg, may even be able to ride short circuits. If you think the Seekers Veritas plan to put you out to pasture, you’re wrong! We won’t let you—I won’t let you, Per’la won’t let you, and,” she plowed ahead before she could change her mind, “Sarrett won’t let you! When are you going to do the right thing and marry her, Parse? Given your moods lately, I’d flee as far as I could if I were Sarrett.”

  Khar, lazily monitoring her mindthoughts from the distance of the plaza, chimed in, “Well, you’ve left yourself vulnerable with that one, beloved. Don’t be surprised if he uses the opening you’ve given him.” Mouth open in a little “o,” she belatedly realized what Khar meant.

  “Just the way you’ve married Jenret?” A bitter, retaliatory smile accompanied Parse’s verbal dagger. “Harrap’s been ready to perform the ceremony I don’t know how many times. Yes, Doyce,” hi
s lips twitched. “How many times has it been by your reckoning? Jenret’s so dejected he’s lost count.” A double distress seized her heart: that Parse, always so exuberantly cheerful and compulsively curious had fallen to such petty meanness, an enjoyment of hurting; and that she and Jenret had never quite found the proper time or opportunity to wed, despite sharing the large guest house on Seeker Veritas grounds. Had she been pushing Jenret away, putting him off as surely as Parse was Sarrett? Or was Jenret holding her at arm’s-length, constantly traveling, running away from her?

  Nervous, she ran fingers through newly cropped red-brown hair—nothing to twist behind her ears now. Her exposed neck burned flaming hot. Lady help her, she was too old at thirty-eight to play those sorts of games, wasn’t she? She polished off the excuse she’d proffered Jenret, the others—Mahafny and Swan; innocent Harrap, both Shepherd and Seeker; Arras Muscadeine; her mother and crippled sister, living far away but determined to join the celebration when word was given. “There’s been too much going on. Every time we set a date, something crops up. You know that, Parse, you have to know that. The world’s not the same and priorities are different now. Have to be different.” An excuse, an exculpation, but it played with sweet reason to her ears and, she hoped, to Parse’s.

  “I know,” Parse’s expression went cold and wintery with self-knowledge. “Cold feet. Or in my case, cold foot.” He tossed the next words at her, defiant, daring her to contradict him. “What kind of life can I offer Sarrett as a cripple?”

  Emboldened despite herself, Per’la round-eyed with shock as she read the subtext of Doyce’s thoughts slightly ahead of the spoken words, she plunged ahead. “Why, the same as before but far more efficient, Parse.”

  “Efficient?”

  “Of course, fewer stockings to knit, fewer stockings to wash, fewer boots to polish!”

  She braced herself, waited for him to throw the inkwell, his fist clenched around the cut glass, Per‘la poised to bat his hand if he did. Instead, he struggled to swallow laughter. “Oh, by the Lady,” he finally choked, “better to laugh than to weep, any day.” Shakily, he toyed with the bow on Per’-la’s tail. “Badge of honor, hey? But, Doyce, if you’re determined to be so practical, so pragmatic, let me suggest something to you: if you get much bigger, I’ll suspect twins. Best marry Jenret and quickly—twice as many diapers to change and wash, twice as many nighttime cries....” He cocked a brow, let it sink in. “Now I believe I made you an offer?”

  “Perish the thought of twins, Parse, but I’d be delighted to have your help.” A sweeping gesture indicated stacks of notes, the books awaiting research. “There’s so much to organize, still so much to investigate. Not to mention developing a coherence to it all.” If Swan didn’t cherish her assistance, her nursing and care, her devotion, at least she could do this—and do it well. And that, like everything else, meant to the best of her abilities. Nothing more, nothing less. No matter the pain of being shunted aside—from Jenret, from her true vocation as a Seeker Veritas, from ministering to Swan. Truth was truth no matter the venue. Perhaps truths lurked in this, just awaiting discovery.

  Parse’s interest was eager, unfeigned, as he turned over scraps of paper, glanced at their contents.

  “The thing is,” she tried to push herself back on track, to do what she could without longing for what she couldn’t, “is that I really want to start off with a bang, discover what truly happened when Matthias Vandersma first Bonded with Kharm—what was it like to be the first, what was his world like then? Not just supposition, but facts, details. Emotions, too—I’m greedy. So little survived from those first years once the Plumbs began to explode.” Another time, another world, so like and unlike her own.

  He nodded, eager to tackle the puzzle. “If there’s something here, we’ll find it.” He warmed to the task, considering plans. “If we advertise in the daily broadsides, perhaps we’ll find someone with relics from those early days, an old log-book or something.”

  No sense dimming his enthusiasm, and perhaps he was right. She slid him a pile of letters tied with a faded red ribbon. “Well, you can start here. It’s not all the way back, but these are letters from Magnus deWit to his cousin during the near-insurrection when Crolius Renselinck was almost ousted as Seeker General. It’s something we have to cover honestly and truthfully, show both sides.”

  Slipping the letters into his sash, Parse grabbed his crutches and thumped to an old accountant’s desk relegated to the library. Slanted to hold ledgers and perched on tall legs so the worker could stand, it was perfect for him. He caught his elbows on the lip and began sorting, swaying and humming.

  They both settled in, Doyce returning to the decrepit book she’d glanced at before. How had it come to be in the Seeker Veritas library, behind the ledgers, dusty, disregarded? Not even a code number on its cracked spine. Blowing, she dislodged more dust, prayed her thoughtlessness wouldn’t trip off another bout of sneezes in Parse.

  The writing was atrocious—printing veering into a staggering cursive script embellished with ornate curlicues, wandering back to print. Almost impossible to decipher. And the orthography, well, spelling clearly hadn’t been this person’s strong suit. Somehow she suspected the journal had belonged to someone quite young. Hardly a fair assessment: education had faltered during the Plumb years, and the flighty, labored handwriting and uneasy spelling could be equally indicative of someone of any age unused to marshaling thoughts and committing them to paper. Turning the book to catch the light, she concentrated, speaking under her breath, sounding the words as she realized much of the spelling was phonetic.

  Granther sayed i shoed kepp a dairy. Ha, ha, i meen diary. Dairys is four kows ! I m two right daun wat i want to re-memer. cereous or fun, reel things or things i think of alot. Gess i ken try it. But sum things are ceekret two me, i woodnot dair put them daun heer becuz evun tho Granther sez this kan bee my ceekret book, i doent allays trust Ryk when he goez nozeing around. Mower twonite. Must sharepen sickel, go kut reads now.

  Closing the book and sliding it away, she folded her arms on the table, rested her chin on them. She’d been right, the diary of a youngster, interesting but not germane. Mayhap she’d take it home, struggle through a few more pages when she had spare time. Problem with resting your chin on your arms like this, she decided, is that you can’t yawn properly. Drowsy, try not to give in to it. From the other side of the room Parse’s humming floated about her like droning, distant bees. Best get all the naps I can now, she rationalized, because there won’t be much chance later. And if Parse is right about twins, Lady forfend, I’ll never sleep again! The last thought she had as she drifted off into sleep was, I wish I’d known Matthias Vandersma.

  “How much does she want to know?” Yellow eyes quizzical behind half-shut lids, Mr’la lolled against the warmth of the paving stones, white stomach and blue mackerel tabby sides bulging. “I swear these ghatten are never going to be birthed—they’ve taken up permanent residence!” But her tone rang smug with pleasure.

  And well it should be, Khar knew, because Mr‘la was one of the few ghatta to ever bear a third litter. Ghattas were seldom blessed with more than two litters during their long lives, a combination of the contraceptive powder they voluntarily took to avoid coming into heat and disrupting their Bond, and the fact they weren’t generally prolific creatures. Having ghatten survive to adulthood was yet another problem. Sometimes they had to be destroyed by their mothers because of an inherent wrongness, a warping of the mind that would harm any human they Bonded with. It was so, indeed Khar had destroyed her own first litter several years past and still mourned the necessity. But Mr’la had produced perfect, strong-willed little offspring each and every time. A blessing.

  “Oh, I don’t think they’ve taken up permanent residence,” she countered, grooming Mr’la’s cheek fur, moving upward to explore inside an ear. “In fact, once they start exploring on their own, you’ll wish you could hold them safe as you do now.”

  Wa’roo gave a f
alanese moue of agreement as she rolled over, dainty narrow head with large olivine eyes snapping up to check where her female ghatten had slithered off to, stalking a blowing leaf. She rolled again in relief, belly pale gray against the cream paving stones, and the exposure of that soft underbelly made the little male ghatten leap in mock attack, a short-lived one when he recognized the chance to nurse. With a sigh she swept a foreleg over him, protective, encompassing. But despite that, she exchanged a glance with Terl, the eldest ghatti present.

  But it was Terl who spoke, mindvoice quavery but quick. “How much does Doyce want to know, Khar? You never answered Mr’la.”

  Mem‘now, all tiger-striped yellow, wended his way into the center of the group, waiting for enlightenment, thick tail sweeping the pavement. The female ghatten launched herself, pinprick teeth and claws sinking into Mem’now’s tail tip. “Yeeouch!” Mem’now leaped and spun, cuffed the ghatten with both front paws, not a claw exposed, more a wrestling into submission, a tumbling frolic evoking ghatten giggles. “Twylla may have to amputate it, thanks to you! See if I ever let you listen to another Tale-Telling, missy!” he scolded. He continued to tickle the ghatten but spoke to Khar. “What exactly does Doyce want to know?”

  Khar picked her words with care, unsure how the others would react. But if Doyce wanted to learn, Khar would do her best to help, because Doyce was her beloved, her Bondmate, and nothing she wanted would be denied if Khar had a paw in it. “She yearns to understand our earliest days, about how Matthias Vandersma Bonded with Kharm—what it was like. Sometimes,” she wondered if she should say it, if it were true, right, but it must be because she was ghatti, and ghatti drank truth from the very air about them, “the past sheds light on the present. It may be important not just for her, but for everyone to understand how our joined lives came to be—the obstacles, the fear and falsehoods that stood in the way of our trust and our Truth.”