Vanyel huddled on the stool and watched them, blinking in the half-dark of the kitchen, as they got their lives put back together with a minimum of fuss. Someone went to deal with the bodies, someone saw to the hysterical young mother, someone else planned of rites. Yes, they were mourning the deaths; simply and sincerely, without any of the kind of hysterics he’d half feared. But they were not allowing their grief to get in the way of getting on with their lives, not were they allowing it to cripple their efforts at getting their protections back in place.
Their simple courage made him, somehow feel very ashamed of himself.
It was in that introspective mood that the others found him.
* * *
“ - I know it was a stupid thing to do, to run off like that, but - “ Vanyel shrugged. “I won’t make any excuses. I’ve been doing a lot of stupid things lately. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Well, don’t be too hard on yourself. Foresight dreams have a way of doing that to people,” Savil said, crossing her legs and settling back on her stool beside the hearth. “They tend to get you on the boil and then lock up your ability to think. You wouldn’t be the first to go charging off in some wild-hare direction after waking up with one, and you probably won’t be the last. No, thank you, Megan,” she said to the wide-eyed child who offered her tea. “We’re fine.”
If the settlers had been awed by Vanyel, they’d been struck near speechless by the sight of the Tayledras. They didn’t know a Herald from a birch tree, but they knew who and what the Hawkbrothers were, and had accorded them the deference due a crowned head.
All three of the adults were weary, and relief at finding both that Vanyel was intact and that the queen-drake was indisputably deceased had them just about ready to collapse. So they’d taken the settlers’ hospitality with gratitude; settling in beside the hearth and accepting tea and shelter without demur.
Vanyel had waited just long enough for them to get settled before launching into a full confession.
“So when I finally managed to acquire some sense,” he continued, “I figured the best way to find my way backwould be to look for where all the mage-energy was. I did everything like you told me, Master Starwind, and I opened up - and the next thing I knew it was nearly noon. Somebody’d opened up a Gate - I think somewhere nearby - and it knocked me put cold.”
“Ha - I toldyou those things were Gated in!” Savil exclaimed. “Sorry, lad, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Then what?”
“Well, I didn’t think there was anyone around here but Tayledras, so I thought one of them had done it. I started to open up again to find the vale, and I heard a call for help. I got here, and when I saw that colddrake - kill the old man - I just - I just couldn’t stand by and not do anything. I didn’t even think about it. I wish I had, I think I overdid it.”
“With a colddrake, particularly a queen, better overkill,” Savil replied, exchanging a look of veiled satisfaction with Starwind. “You may have acted a fool, but it put you in the right place at the right time, and I am not going to berate you for it.”
“Aunt Savil, I,” he flushed, and hunched himself up a little, “I got here before the old man came out. I didn’t doanything until he - I mean - I was just hiding in the bushes. I guess,” he said, in a very small voice, “I guess Father’s right. I ama coward. I could have saved him, and I didn’t.”
“Did you knowyou could have saved him?” Moondance asked, quietly, his square face still. “Did you knowthat your mage-powers would work against the drake?’’
“Well - no.”
“You ran towardthe danger when you Mindheard the call for help, right?” Savil asked. “Not away?”
“Well - yes.”
“And you simply froze when you saw the strange monster. You did not flee?” Starwind raised one long eyebrow.
“I guess that’s what happened.”
“I think perhaps you have mistaken inexperience for cowardice, young Vanyel,” Starwind said with conviction. “A coward would have run away from a plea for help. A coward would have fled at the first glimpse of the drake. You were indecisive -but you remained. It is experience that makes one decisive, and you have precious little of that.”
“M’lord Starwind?” One of the homespun-clad men of the settlement was standing diffidently at the Tayle-dras’elbow.
“Phellip, I wishyou would not call me ‘lord,’ “ Starwind sighed, shaking his head. “You hold your lands under our protection, yes, but it is a simple matter of barter, foodstuffs for guardianship, and no more than that.”
“Aye, m’ - Master Starwind. Master, this drake - she just be chance-come, or be there anythin’ more to it?”
Starwind turned to look at him more closely, and with some interest. “Why do you ask that?”
Phellip coughed, and flushed. “Well, m’lord, I was born ‘n’ bred west a’ here. M’people held land a’ Mage-lord Grenvis - hewere all right, but - well, when ‘is neighbors had a notion t’ play war, they useta bring in drakes an’ th’ like aforehand.”
“And you think something of the sort might be in the offing? Phellip, I congratulate you on your foresight. The thought had only just occurred to me - “
“Da?” One of the boys couldn’t contain himself any longer, and bounced up beside his father. “Da, there gonna be a war? With fightin’ an’ magic an’ - “
Phellip grabbed the loose cloth of the boy’s tunic and pulled him close. “Jo - I want ye t’ lissent’ what m’lord Starwind is gonna tell ye - m’lord, youtell ‘im; ‘ edon’ believe ‘is of man that fightin’ ain’t good fer nothin’ but fillin’ up graveyards.”
“Young man,” Starwind fixed the boy with an earnest stare. “There is nothing‘fine’ about warfare. There is nothing ‘glorious’ about battle. All that a war means to such as you and I is that people we know and love will die, probably senselessly; others will be crippled for life - and the fools who began it all will sit back in their high castles and plot a way to get back what theylost. If there wereto be a war - which, trust me, Phellip, I shall try most earnestly to prevent - the very bestyou could hope for, young man, would be to see these lovely fields around you put to the torch so that you would face a very hungry winter. Thatis what warfare is all about. The only justifiable fight is a defensive one, and in anyfight it is the innocents who ultimately suffer the most.”
The boy didn’t look convinced.
Vanyel cleared his throat, and the boy shot a look at him. “Pretty exciting, the way that drake just nipped off that fool old man’s head, wasn’t it, Starwind?” he drawled, in exaggerated imitation of some of the young courtiers of his own circle.
The boy paled, then reddened - but before he could burst into either tears or angry words, Vanyel looked him straight in the eyes so fiercely that he could not look away.
“That’swhat you’ll see in a war, Jo,” he said, harshly. “Not people in tales getting killed - yourpeople getting killed. Younglings, oldsters - everybody. And some fool at the rear crowing about how excitingit all is. That’swhat it’s about.”
NowJo looked stricken - and, perhaps, convinced. Out of the corner of his eye Vanyel saw the farmer nodding in approval.
Out of nowhere, Vanyel felt a sudden rush of kindred feeling for these people. Suddenly they weren’t faceless, inscrutable monoliths anymore - suddenly they were people. People who were in some ways a great deal more like him than his own relatives were. They had lives - and loves and cares.