Exile's Return Page 8

  The concertina music ceased, supplanted by the plaintive conversation of two flutes. Hylan lived for these rare nights, these furtive gatherings when Terra slipped out of the house, smuggling her along. Terra’s father Owen didn’t approve, and it sent chills down Hylan’s back that she dared defy him like that. Maybe she and Hylan were alike after all. Gradually the group had grown to contain fifty members, mostly young and single, about Terra’s age or a bit more, though a few were older, gray-haired, their families long grown and gone.

  The music, the laughter and gay talk tonight was an exception. Often it seemed they met in dead silence, yet the air buzzed, electric with unheard sound. She’d strain and strain her ears to hear, its pitch beyond her. Mayhap her father’d been right about things not meant for children’s ears, though how did her ears know not to hear—from being boxed so many times? So she’d play with her doll, serve cha in tiny acorn cap cups, content to be near Terra, near Wim, who’d carved her a willow whistle, and Corneil, who’d sweep her onto his shoulders to admire the view. Wim scowled whenever Conneil spent too much time with Terra, or even with her.

  Wim and Corneil argued louder and louder now, Terra trying to mediate. “At least mindspeak,” she pleaded, “the whole group doesn’t have to be privy to your disagreements.”

  “And mayhap they should!” Hands on his hips, Wim stood darkly passionate, face stormy over the sky blue tunic. Even from behind the wagon Hylan could see the knot in his brow, prelude to the headaches that often incapacitated him. “Besides, silent argument’s too damn civilized, too polite, and we barbarians are anything but that—untrained, uncouth savages that we are! So provincial, so utterly gauche! And now a foreigner, a stranger from a land that rejected us as worthless comes to shed his beneficence on us, show us the truth and the light, save the voices crying in the wilderness.”

  Comeil held out his hands in appeasement, striving for calmness. “I’ve explained again and again. We didn’t know, we honestly didn’t realize. Venable Constant took the best, or so he thought—” he smote his brow. “That was the wrong thing to say, the wrong way to say it. I mean—”

  “You meant to say you left the dregs behind. And who appointed you to play missionary, slip into Canderis from Marchmont and convert us lost souls?” Wim had taken a step closer to Corneil, and he was taller, bigger, his wrath enhancing his size.

  “We didn’t know you were lost, truly,” Corneil continued to placate, “but now you’re found. Let us rectify an error perpetrated by ignorance so many years ago, train you to your full powers, give you a place in the world. The opening exists, all you have to do is fill it. The eumedicos don’t have mindtrance skills, can’t read people’s minds, discover the internal origins of an illness. You know our countries have been distant, to say the least. We only recently discovered that they’d mythologized their los traditions. You can fill that role, rise to a respected place in society. Resonants make the best eumedicos, even yours knew that, though they weren’t able to replicate the talent.”

  “And so we come crawling, saying ‘please, eumedicos, find a use for us, give us a place in the world?’ Why should they admit their faults, cede us power? Well, gift it may be, but it’s also a weapon to defend us as we fight for our rights, our safety, no more calculating where to run and hide so we won’t be discovered, judged to be different, a danger. Yes, we can be dangerous, and that’s what I’ll have us be—able to protect ourselves!” He ripped the Lady’s Medallion from around his neck. “I’ll take no gifts from you to mark us as one of your own! Why not notch our ears like prize sheep? I know my kind without a badge!”

  Despite her best intentions Hylan crammed her thumb in her mouth, listening, not understanding. With the piercing protest of a sharp flute note, the whole camp had fallen silent, everyone frozen, listening to the angry voices, faces unsure, some frightened, some elated. And then people began to shift, align themselves behind either Corneil or Wim, Terra still centered between them, the polestar that gave them direction.

  “Must it be completely one or the other? Battle lines drawn to separate us from each other when we’ve already severed ourselves from most of the world? The eumedicos need us, the people they treat need us—why deny them our abilities? But shouldn’t we muster some of Wim’s pride? Even a dog must sometimes remind his master of his fangs. And we’re not dogs to be trained by people who’ve feared the worst of us for years.

  “You’ve got to understand, Corneil, we exist on society’s margins, scrambling to touch its hem. Whatever happens won’t happen overnight. We have our dignity, what little remains, and we won’t willingly relinquish it, not even for the promise of gaining a greater role.” Breathless, Terra appealed to them. “We must find common ground amongst ourselves, be united before we approach outsiders.”

  Hylan knelt now, clutching the wagon wheel’s rim, in awe of and in love with her cousin, her Terra, brave, canny, reaching a hand to each man, the bond welding them to one purpose. She wanted to run, bask in that love, hug Terra’s waist so fiercely she’d never let go. Wasn’t she their mascot, after all? She deserved a place at their sides. She started up, only to falter, foot asleep, prickling pins and needles, and almost cried in frustration.

  And then in the darkness beyond the crescent of wagons, torches flared, shattering the night sky with avenging brightness, dazzling her eyes. So many torches, why? Screams, yells of rage, pulsating wrath that drubbed her with its fury, buffeted her back beneath the wagon as she stoppered her ears. But she could still hear, “Glean-ers! Glean-ers! Reap you from the face of the earth, let the earth drink your blood. Blood! Blood! You’ll not glean out minds any longer!” The words clashed, finally strung themselves into coherent sentences in her mind.

  The torches charged ahead, followed by a press of bodies, more than Hylan had ever seen, more than she could count. Bodies wielding farm implements, rakes, shovels, sickles, scythes, and the deadly mowing commenced. Bodies toppled like reaped wheat as her friends screamed, ran, tried to fight back.

  Wim grappled with two men, Corneil rushing to his aid, beating one off with the concertina, its bellows sobbing and screeching. Wim’s full attention centered on his remaining foe. He pressed his hands to the man’s temples, ignoring the hands locked round his throat, and concentrated, brow clenched, eyes squeezed closed. The man went slack, hands falling from Wim’s neck. “Fight back!” he screamed, vocal cords rasping, “Fight any way you can. They’re armed, we’re not. Our minds are our weapons! It’s justified!”

  Reeling in shock at Wim’s reckless exhortation, Corneil stumbled away, leaving Terra standing alone. A scythe swept into her chest, its point biting under her breast, the curve caressing her ribs. Hylan screamed, began running, tripping over fallen bodies, slipping in the blood-soaked, battered meadow grass. Terra! She must reach Terra! So few were standing now that she knew, faltering and falling even as she watched; the others were strangers, though she’d seen some of their faces in the village, including the man her father’d introduced her to, the man whose name created her song, “Hosea Bazelon.” He’d looked young, with dark, curling hair, moist red lips, sallow smooth skin, but his dark eyes had been ancient and unforgiving. The rest nameless, unlike the people crumpled dead on the grass. Wim spun toward the man who’d struck Terra, lips pulled back in a wicked snarl as a scythe hooked at his throat, blood fountaining from a crescent wound as feral as his smile.

  Bad! Bad! They must have done something evil, been bad for this to happen. Wasn’t her father always right, you get what you deserve? But Terra—bad? Wim, the others? She must be bad as well, but not as bad as the others or she wouldn’t be alive, could redeem herself. Oh, Blessed Lady, please, I’m sorry!

  She collapsed on her knees again, crashing into Corneil’s body. He grabbed her, hand over her mouth, pinned her beneath him, began crawling in retreat, dragging her toward the wagons. Blood from an oozing temple wound mingled with sweat, drenched her face, shielded against his shoulder. He gained the wagons’ shel
ter, breath hot and harsh, eyes deep pits of agony. He checked around, gauged an opening, and burrowed through the high grass toward the waving fronds near the pond. Cradling her in his arms, he sank them both into the smelly, duckweed-speckled water until only their noses remained clear.

  It took most of the night, frenzied revelry counterpointing the weeping for the victors’ wounded and dead, the avengers, whomever they might be, before the area was deserted. The raw, gagging smell of kerosene drenching everything, the sky lit not with sun but with fire as the pyred bodies of her friends flamed high. She’d watched the dancing, soaring flames while Corneil dozed, holding his head clear of the water, raising her own enough to see. The flames were butter yellow and orange, the surrounding pond water a rusty, seeping red, and the duckweed greenly freckled Corneil’s pale face.

  They’d fled finally, furtive, clinging to the remnants of the dark, shying at every sound, hearts hammering as they hid, dashed for ditches. At last she recognized the path through the back pasture that led to Terra’s father’s farm.

  Corneil held her against him, long fingers light against her temples, and she struggled in terror. She knew what that meant, what it did, had seen Wim do it. Bad and now she must pay. “Hush, child, hush.” He leaned down, swaying with exhaustion, kissed her forehead. “Forget, child, forget,” he crooned. “It’s all I can offer you, the gift of forgetting.”

  They must have done something bad ... or they wouldn’t have been killed. I will block my ears like the viper against their charms. Scourge the memories from my mind. Hadn’t her father held her tight in relief when he’d hurried to get her, saying, “Thank the Lady such evil didn’t leave its mark on you—did it?” Hadn’t known what he’d meant, knowing only that Terra had vanished. Bad girl to want Terra, so bad, so sinful. But Daddy’s whip would redeem her because he only scourged the ones he loved, could save. And the pain would make her few fragmented memories of Terra and that night of terror vanish. Forget, forget ...

  ... And so she had, until now. Even those you loved must be scourged from the earth to save them. No, she hadn’t understood Terra and her friends were Gleaners, not until now. And that made her even more determined to save herself—and to save them—from the danger they represented. In cruelty was kindness.

  Full evening now as Doyce left Headquarters and trudged the path that wound through the grounds to the guest house in which she and Jenret had been billeted. The rationale behind such favoritism was to afford them privacy, unavailable in the barrackslike dormitories which lodged both the curious and well-wishers. Seekers though they might be, they were unsatisfied with just one recounting of Doyce’s and Jenret’s, Khar’s and Rawn’s various exploits, whether in tracking down Vesey or, more recently, in averting full-scale war with Marchmont and putting its rightful ruler on the throne.

  “And of the Seekers,” she grumbled to Khar, who’d paused to consider a windblown leaf, “I don’t know who’s worse, humans or you ghatti.” Like their smaller and distantly related cousins, house cats, ghatti were insatiably inquisitive, eager to unearth the truth about anything and everything, despite their inscrutable expressions.

  Padding back with the leaf in her mouth, Khar dropped it, then pounced when it crackled invitingly. “Well, at least we don’t embellish. After all, the truth is the truth. Once we capture that, we’re satisfied.”

  “And speaking of satisfied, I’d be satisfied if Jenret were home to meet me.” Doyce retrieved the leaf, absentmindedly shredding it as she continued along. “I’m ... lonely.” The admission hurt. “I’m blessed by your company, love ... but you know what I mean.”

  “I know. And Jenret does cook better than you do.”

  “What a resounding vote of confidence! I suppose we could eat in the dining hall tonight. Didn’t check the board to see what the special is, though.” But as they entered the brick walk, lights gleamed soft-gold from the rear of the guest house, the kitchen area, and her heart skipped a beat. Khar’s ears perked as well, though she hesitated to disappoint by telling the truth. Company of any sort might take her mind off Jenret’s absence.

  Flinging her coat on the entryway rack produced an unlikely thump as the coat swung against the wall. Puzzled, Doyce patted at pockets she’d deemed empty, scolded herself as she pulled the leather-bound diary free. Carry it around and forget it’s there, would she? Still, she carefully set it on the hall table. With luck, she’d remember to return it come morning.

  Humming under her breath, tremulously happy at the prospect of seeing Jenret again, of being swept tight in his embrace, she didn’t notice the black ghatt with a white forehead star, a short white boot on right foreleg and a long white stocking on the left, until he brushed a welcome against her shin, startling her. Not Rawn. Her hopes plummeted—if not Rawn, then not Jenret. Green eyes somber, filled with a deep, far-reaching sadness, the ghatt momentarily brightened as he greet-sniffed Khar.

  “M‘wa, greetings! Mindwalk if ye will. She babbled to hide her disappointment. ”How’s Bard? He’s here, isn’t he? How’s he doing? How are you doing?” And then noticed with a quivering foreboding that M’wa was bereft of his Seeker earrings, the gold hoop in the left ear, the ball in the right. Earrings removed only when one of a Bond pair died. Hand at her throat, she sagged against the wall, the room blurring before her eyes. “Lady, no! Not that!” She ground the back of her hand against her teeth, welcomed the pain.

  Not lose Bard, too! Too much, too much to bear. Bad enough that Bard and M‘wa strove to cope with the loss of their twins, Bryta and the ghatta P’wa, but now M’wa stood totally bereft, orphaned yet again by the severing of his other Bond. Oh, Lady take him to Your bosom, but wouldn’t it have been kinder if You’d let that Marchmontian’s broad-sword kill all four that day, let them ascend to the havens together, never wrenched apart, separate, and alone?

  “What?” M’wa sat, clearly puzzled. “Humans do overreact, don’t they?” he asked Khar as Doyce’s panicked thoughts wove through his brain. “So much easier if they could read the truth as we do.” He licked a paw, scrubbed at a bare ear, then jumped to the hall table to sniff Doyce’s frozen face. One foot landed on the diary and he halted, momentarily distracted, fixing Khar with a look of concern. “What’s that?—as if I didn’t know. And what’s it doing here?”

  Balancing on her haunches, Khar nosed Doyce’s cold hand. “Later,” she apologized. “Best you explain yourself now before she passes out.”

  “Bard’s fine, truly,” M’wa ’spoke Doyce. “Truly. He’s in the kitchen, come see for yourself. We have an idea for the earrings. He’ll explain. Thought Bard’d be right behind me so you wouldn’t jump to conclusions like that.”

  Legs like jelly, Doyce tottered through the living area into the kitchen where Bard stood at the sink, scraping carrots with grave deliberation, completely involved in his work. He aligned them on the chopping board and began rocking the knife, minting carrot coins. His skin glowed taffy gold in the lamplight, tight, tiny curls the color of maple sugar. Always tall, always thin, even thinner now, worn with grief, shoulders slumped over his work.

  Wordlessly she came from behind and locked his waist in a fierce hug, even though she knew how he hated emotionalism. She couldn’t help herself. His hands overlaid hers for a moment, then he unwrapped himself with unflustered dignity, pressed one palm against her belly. “Light must be bad, mistaking me for Jenret like that.” He registered her paleness, eyes dark with shock, and hooked the kettle off the iron stove. “Think I was a ghost? Here, a cup of cha calms. Your hands are like ice.”

  M’wa leaped onto the drainboard, flicked a carrot paring into the sink, clearly in private communion with his Bondmate. Doyce sat at the kitchen table, legs outthrust, mug balanced on her stomach, the warmth penetrating, soothing. Amazing that the baby hadn’t registered her panic, reacted as well. “If I’ve had a fright, it’s your fault.” Hoped he heard only the petulance, not her underlying fear. “What ...” she almost couldn’t bring herself to say it
, “what ... have you done with your earrings? Does it mean you’ve decided not to be Seekers any longer?” And now, despite herself, anger flared. “You can’t quit just like that. Once a Seeker, always a Seeker, so long as your Bond shall last. ”

  Adding the carrots to a tin dish already containing potatoes, brussel sprouts, and onions, he dribbled oil, stirred until they were coated and slid them into the oven to bake. “Mayhap, mayhap not,” he answered at last, still peering into the oven. “Oh, our Bond’s intact. It’s the only thing that’s kept us minimally sane since ... they died. And no matter what Mahafny may say, what skills she thinks I have, I don’t want to be a Resonant. I don’t choose to be, do you understand! The mindlink Byrta and I shared was ours alone, a private connection. I don’t choose to hear what other minds think. I’m not sure I want M’wa to share what he learns from other minds.” Rare for Bard to speak at such length—almost as if he’d rehearsed it, his first truly solo declaration without Byrta to share the dialogue.

  He wheeled to face her. “In short, M’wa and I are taking a leave of absence, sanctioned or not. As to the earrings,” his hand rubbed his earlobe, daring her to stare at the nakedness, “well, I think I’ve found a better use for them.”

  M‘wa interrupted, hasty to smooth over Bard’s abruptness, near rudeness. “When Byrta broke her leg last fall, a little farm girl helped her. A brave child who challenged the Gleaners when they attacked P’wa and Byrta to steal their brains. Bard and I arrived in time, but without her we’d never have driven them off.”

  “And what she yearned for, Byrta told me later,” Bard took up the story, “was jewelry, something to bedeck and adorn herself with. The family’s poor, no extra money for indulgences. We thought to give her our earrings as thanks—in remembrance of her bravery. Have someone else cherish the memory of Byrta and P’wa.” He swallowed. “It’s only jewelry, and jewelry can be replaced more easily than ... other things can be.