“Ah, well. I was fond of the girl too, but she was Brenwyr’s whole life. So little else has made her happy. I do whatever I can for her, within reason and beyond. Consequently, I am no less grateful to you, Highlord, for bringing Aerulan back than if she were my own heart’s love. Now let me find you an intact undershirt and so to dinner. We can discuss details afterward, when my sister has had a chance to collect herself.”
Besides supplying his guest with a new silk shirt and drawers, Brant presented him with a dress coat of blue and silver brocade, quite elegant but so large that Torisen had to roll up the cuffs to avoid dipping them in the soup. Brenwyr didn’t attend the simple but hearty evening meal, eaten in the great hall. The company on the whole seemed very pleased with this unexpected visit from their overlord. At any rate, they represented the largest collection of happy faces he had seen in a very long time. He was glad to observe Burr seated at a lower table, talking and eating with evident relish.
This is how it should be, he thought, slipping a tidbit to Yce under the table, not like the gloomy meals at Gothregor with everyone wondering where the next bean would come from.
Brenwyr joined them after supper in her brother’s quarters, carrying a rolled-up Aerulan as if afraid to put her down. She had donned a rich, brown dress with gold embroidery at the collar and cuffs and carried herself carefully. Berserker flares always gave her a terrible headache, Brant had explained. From her heightened color, however, it didn’t appear that she cared what her head did short of exploding.
Brandan and Torisen had already arranged for winter supplies as well as for rye and wheat seed for the autumn sowing—this, over formal glasses of thin, sour wine that explained why so few guests asked for a second round.
So far, they had taken care of about a third of Aerulan’s price.
“I hardly know what else to ask for,” said Torisen, leaning back in his chair, putting aside his barely tasted parsnip wine. “This means more to me than you can know.”
Brandan regarded him quizzically. “You are an unusual fellow, Highlord. Most people would ask next, ‘Where is the gold?’ ”
Torisen shrugged. “I’ve never had more than enough for the essentials.” Even when he had been commander of the Southern Host, Ardeth had kept him on a short allowance, presumably so that he wouldn’t draw attention to himself with extravagance, an annoying, unnecessary measure. Why dress or eat better than one had to? “To me, sums like this seem unreal. Fabulous.”
“You do know, I suppose, that Caineron and his allies sneer at your poverty.”
“What, because I don’t clutter Gothregor with golden images of myself striking heroic poses?”
“One needn’t go that far. I look at it this way: you are Highlord. We are all your people, and your mode of life reflects on us all. You can’t afford to appear shabby, for the sake of the Kencyrath.”
Torisen made a face. “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed a simple commander.”
“So I had gathered. But it was your duty to step forward and you did. Think of it as a necessary sacrifice.”
“You might also consider settling an allowance on your sister,” said Brenwyr, speaking for the first time. “She shouldn’t have to make do with hand-me-downs from the late lordan.”
“She’s wearing Greshan’s clothes?” The very thought made his skin crawl.
“And before that, Aerulan’s; and before that, some overweight Hurlen streetwalker’s. Besides,” Brant added, “if she graduates Tentir and is stationed with the Southern Host, she will need not only new clothes but arms, armor, and whatever else befits her position as the Knorth Lordan.”
Torisen stirred uneasily. He still wasn’t at all sure he wanted her to go. The empty place on the map that would represent Urakarn continued to haunt him. But he had to agree: Jame needed an allowance to finally get out of second-hand clothes, especially her late uncle’s. The image came back to him from Autumn’s Eve of Greshan neither alive nor dead, swaying, chewing maggots and swallowing them:
“ ‘m hungry. Dear father, feed me . . . ”
“All right,” he said. “An allowance for my sister and enough for me to uphold the office into which I’ve been thrust. Will you hold the rest in trust for me?”
They both glanced nervously at Brenwyr who had retreated to a dark corner of the room.
“We are content,” she said in a husky voice, holding the hand of the smiling girl who sat next to her.
The two travelers left early the next morning. It promised to be another hot day, but clouds building to the north in a gray wall suggested coming changes.
Torisen still felt slightly dazed. Was that all it had taken to save his house? If so, what a fool he had been to make so much of it. Jame would be very pleased to hear his tidings. On impulse, he turned north on the Old Road to tell her in person, meanwhile sending the news south with a post rider to Rowan. Brant had also sent a messenger to divert the last supply wagons to the Knorth keep and was repacking others, to their drivers’ disgust, to follow them. It wouldn’t be luxury, but it would be enough.
With luck, the Gothregor garrison would have calmed down by the time he got home. He didn’t want much made of his sudden return to common sense.
Adric wouldn’t be pleased when he heard. On the other hand, Torisen didn’t think that Brandan would hold it over his head the way the Ardeth, that arch-manipulator, would have.
Before they left Falkirr, he had had Burr gather materials for the map. Not that he meant to scry on the Brandan himself, assuming he could learn how to: now more than ever, that would feel too much like spying on a friend. However, if his blood could preserve the Brandans’ privacy from Mother Ragga, he felt it his duty to do them that service.
Still, was it really dishonest to want to know how his friends fared and if they were in trouble?
Enemies, now, that was a different matter.
Was Jame one also?
His strange dreams had irritated his itch to know how she was doing—or was that what she was doing?
Your Shanir twin, boy, breathed his father’s voice in the back of his mind. Your darker half. How can you trust her? Destruction begins with love, and you love her, don’t you, you poor, weak fool.
No matter.
She was sure to get into trouble, wherever she was. This was Jame, after all. Whose coat, shirt, and skin had she been about to remove, in the past, present, or future? The memory of Brenwyr’s curse made his skin crawl. Shanir, unclean, unclean . . . If all lords should turn out to be of the Old Blood, that would explain much; but it would also mean that he—no! Unthinkable.
So ran his scattered thoughts, chasing each other’s tails until he was tired of them.
Toward noon, they crossed the Silver to the New Road to be on the same side as Shadow Rock where he proposed to spend the night. A flight of golden leaves fluttered overhead, bound from a northern host tree to one in the south. Extra bark hung like oversized, fibrous coats on some trees, waiting for cold weather to pull them close. Leaping squirrels caused Storm to snort and Yce to give furious chase until Torisen called her back.
The New Road here was still quake-wracked and broken. Shadow Rock, the Danior keep, was one of the smallest in the Riverland, set opposite one of the mightiest, the Randir Wilden. Little Danior hadn’t a garrison large enough for extensive civil engineering. They had, however, fertile fields and orchards, newly gleaned. Nearing the keep under the shadow of its perilous hanging rock, it became obvious that the house was celebrating the harvest.