Andre Norton - Songsmith

She sang the old song quietly, as tears filled her eyes and slipped quietly down her face. When she was finished, Jervon had fallen asleep again. The red mud had dried, and was now hardening into its crust upon his forehead. Hyana placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “You love him, do you not?” she murmured. “This… Alon.”

“Yes, I love him,” Eydryth whispered, leaning her face against Hyana’s shoulder, unable to meet the older girl’s eyes. “I love him… more than I can say.”

Hyana hugged her gently, stroking her foster-sister’s curls. “Tell me, does he return your love?”

Silently, the songsmith nodded. “But I fear for him,” she murmured. “He was heading into great danger.”

“We will aid you, Sister,” Hyana promised, drawing back and clasping Eydryth’s hands in a reassuring grip. “I will tell Mother and Father to prepare to ride forth tomorrow.”

Eydryth shook her head. “Tomorrow may be too late. We must go as soon as possible. Tonight. Alon went alone to track Yachne, to a Place of Power—Dark Power. I dare not delay until daylight.”

Hyana looked grave. “There is no moon tonight,” she said quietly. “The Power of the Shadow is at its strongest, now. Especially in one of the Dark Places.”

The songsmith nodded. “I know. That is all the more reason to go before dawn.”

Joisan and Kerovan’s daughter nodded, then, quietly, slipped from the room, leaving Eydryth alone with her father.

The songsmith sat beside him, his hand clasped in hers, watching him sleep. Softly, she sang to him again, as memories ran through her mind like playful children. Jervon… carrying her on his shoulders when she was very small. Jervon, practicing swordplay in the courtyard with Kerovan, his face flushed and full of life. Jervon, teaching her to lunge and parry with her own wooden sword. Jervon, picking her up after her first hard fall from a horse, his face drawn with worry… Jervon, standing with his arm around his wife, the last time she had seen them together before Elys disappeared…

Eydryth’s memories dissolved into dreams as she dozed, sitting on her father’s bed, still holding his hand.

The songsmith started awake when the door opened to admit Joisan. Her foster-mother had changed her dress for riding trousers and thigh-high boots to protect her from underbrush. She wore a padded leather jerkin and heavy tunic, and her chestnut hair was braided tightly.

In her arms, she carried a bundle of clothing. “I brought some of your clothes,” she whispered. “So you can change out of those damp ones.” She gazed down at Jervon. “How fares he?”

Eydryth tapped the mud with a testing forefinger. “It is dry, and cracking,” she said. “Dahaun said to remove it when—”

She broke off as Jervon opened his eyes. His gaze traveled from Joisan to Eydryth; then he blinked, and it sharpened. “Joisan?” he whispered, staring at the Wise Woman.

Both women gasped in sudden hope and amazement. “Jervon!” Joisan exclaimed, her hand going out to clasp her friend’s. “Jervon, you know me?”

“Of course I know you,” he replied, obviously bewildered. “But… who is this?” He pointed at Eydryth.

The songsmith gulped, then raised the hand she still held to her cheek. Her tears splashed down, hot and salty. “Father…” she whispered. “Oh, Father! Thank you, Amber Lady! Thank you, Dahaun!”

Jervon stared at her, his eyes widening incredulously. He sat up, grasping her shoulders hard. “ Eydryth ?” he whispered. “Is that you? But… but…”

Joisan hugged her foster-daughter, who was now crying too hard to speak. “Yes, Jervon. It is Eydryth. You have been… ill… for a time. A long time. It was only tonight that your daughter brought home a cure for your malady, and it was thus that you have awakened at last!”

Jervon reached out to hug Eydryth, cradling her against his shoulder. Joy welled up in her, such joy as made all her struggles, her sacrifices, seem as nothing by comparison to the feeling of having her father’s arms around her, hearing his voice speak her name.

After a moment, Jervon spoke again, his voice strained and still bewildered… but already he was beginning to grasp that there had been changes… vast changes… that he yet remained unaware of. “Time…” he whispered. “Joisan… how much time?”

The Wise Woman drew a deep breath. “Six years, Jervon,” she said, steadily, giving him the truth.

“Oh, no…” Jervon whispered. “My child… grown into a woman. My wife…” Sudden hope brightened his voice. “What of Elys?”

“Still missing, Father,” Eydryth said, pulling back a little to look at him, run her fingers over his dear, familiar face. Tenderly, she chipped away the last of the red mud. Now that his expression was animated, full of life again, it seemed that the intervening years had wrought but little change in him.

Her father stared at her. “You look so much like her,” he said, wonderingly. “You have grown into a beauty, Daughter.”

“What is the last thing you remember, Father?” she asked.

“The Seeing Stone,” he said. “I climbed… I looked…” He drew a quick breath. “Eydryth, I saw her! I saw Elys that day! She lay within a Place of Power—one I would recognize if I saw it again. In my vision, she was lying upon a pallet, her hands folded upon her breast. Our son…” He drew a deep, ragged breath. “Our son was still within her. I could see the swell of her belly. Elys was surrounded by a mist, a glamourie of some kind, that shields her from view… but”—he grasped his daughter’s hands tightly—“she is alive , Eydryth! Alive!”

“Oh, Father!” she whispered. “If only we can find her… save her!”

“We will,” he promised, and his words bore the ring of a sacred vow. “We will.”

Joisan stood up, one hand resting on each shoulder. “I must carry these happy tidings to my lord,” she said. “And then… Eydryth, we are all still waiting for your story.”

The songsmith smiled up at her foster-mother. “I will be with you shortly,” she said.

“We will both be there,” Jervon amended. “If there is a story to be told, I want to hear it, also.” He smiled ruefully. “I have much catching up to do, it seems.”

Less than an hour later, Eydryth, dressed in fresh clothing, her hunger truly satisfied for the first time in days, sat on one of the stone benches in the Great Hall, finishing her food, her tale (cut to the bare bones) told. “And so,” she concluded, “Alon went to track the witch alone. I fear for him.” She glanced at her family’s faces. “So much so that I ride back out tonight. Guret must already be waiting with the horses saddled.”

“I will ride with you, Sister!” Firdun was the first to speak. “I have no fear of a sorceress!”

“And that lack of fear is precisely why you will remain here,” Kerovan told his impetuous son, grimly. “ I will ride with Eydryth.”

“And so will I,” Hyana and Joisan said, together.