Энн Маккефри - Dragon’s Kin

Dalor cast a backward look at Kindan, partly to see if he was really following and partly out of sympathy for the youngest of Danil’s sons.

“There’s some mulled wine down at the hold”—only Dalor and his family called their large cottage “the hold”—“and father said we’d get some as soon as we got in.”

“Nine, can you believe it?” Milla was saying to Jenella, Dalor’s mother, as they made their way into the hold kitchen. “Most of them Danil and his sons, more’s the pity. And what’s going to happen to poor Kindan now? They’ve placed the other two, and I don’t see why they haven’t placed him, too. It must be spooky sleeping in his place all by himself, poor lad.”

Jenella, Dalor’s mother, saw the boys and coughed pointedly at Milla. But Milla, who had her back to them rolling dough, didn’t pick up on the hint. “Is that your cough come back? It’s got chill enough now, but you don’t want it what with you finally expecting another,” she said.

She went on blithely: “Nine dead, three injured, and poor Zenor demanding his place in the mines for his father, not that I blame him, the way Norla, his mother, is dealing so poorly with it all.” She placed the dough in rising tins. “And a shift leader short—what are they going to do?”

“Dalor, Kindan, you look chilled to the bone,” Jenella said loudly, cutting across anything more that Milla might think to say. “Milla, could you be a dear and pour them some of the mulled wine that’s on the stove? Getting up’s so tiring for me right now.”

Jenella was seven months pregnant. Kindan had heard that she’d been pregnant before but had lost the baby. Silstra had gone to help that night and had come back so distraught that her father had had to put her to bed.

“Oh!” Milla exclaimed, turning around. “I’m sorry, boys, I didn’t see you. The mugs are there in the cupboard. Why don’t you help yourselves so I can get these dainties into the oven?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dalor said politely. He was taller than Kindan and reached the mugs easily—Kindan realized that he would have had to get a stool or something to reach them and once again cursed his late growth. He was six months older than Dalor and still a whole hand shorter.

With mugs full of hot spiced wine in their hands—the spirit had left the wine when it was heated or Kindan would not have been allowed to drink it—the two boys found a clear spot at the bench and sat quietly, not trusting that their luck would last.

“Natalon will be sending for you shortly,” Jenella told Kindan.

“Yes, ma’am—” At a sharp nudge and a glare from Dalor, Kindan corrected himself. “—my Lady.”

Kindan had never been quite sure how to address Dalor’s mother. Jenella had always seemed so less able than his own sister, but then again, if Natalon could prove Camp Natalon, it’d be Mine Natalon someday and Jenella would be the wife of a minor Holder.

But to prove Camp Natalon, they would have to mine the coal—and no one, aside from the investigating team, had been in the mines for the past sevenday.

It was normal, Kindan had heard the grown-ups say, not to go back to the mines until after all the bodies were recovered and the funerals had taken place.

“I heard Zenor’s been put on father’s shift,” Dalor commented to Kindan. “With his father gone, there’s no one else to provide for his family.”

“How will he do his studies?” Kindan wondered aloud.

Dalor looked at him thoughtfully and then shrugged. “I guess he won’t,” he said. “Perhaps that’s just as well, with Master Zist giving classes.”

“Like you’d know,” Kindan shot back, forgetting who else was in the room. He looked abashedly at Dalor’s mother before muttering to Dalor, “Sorry.”

Fortunately for him, Master Zist arrived at that moment. “Kindan, please come with me.”

Master Zist led Kindan to the same great room that was normally used by the resident Harper for classes in the mornings. There were three tables in the room, two long ones running the length of the hall and another smaller one set perpendicular to the other two. Master Zist usually sat at that table, with the hearth behind him.

Natalon and Tarik were seated at the nearer of the two long tables. At a gesture from Natalon, Master Zist and Kindan approached and took seats opposite them.

“Kindan,” Natalon began, “I’m told that you wish to stay here in the camp.”

Kindan nodded. He hadn’t really thought much about what that meant until now. He’d have to be fostered. That and he had heard enough whispered words by the adults to realize that he would never be allowed to stay in his cottage by himself. A quick look at Tarik made it clear who was hoping to move in. With Jenella expecting, Kindan could imagine that Tarik, his wife, and three older children would probably be grateful to escape the noise of a newborn.

Kindan felt a flush of anger come over him at the thought of Tarik moving into the cottage that his father had built for his family. Then another thought burned brighter in his mind.

“Sir,” Kindan said, “what did the investigation find?”

Natalon cast a sidelong glance at Tarik, who stiffened and gave Kindan a sour look.

“As often happens when there are accidents like these,” Natalon said, “the results are not conclusive.”

Kindan sat up straighter in his seat, preparing to argue, but Natalon restrained him with an upraised hand.

“We think,” Natalon said carefully, “that your father’s shift had the bad luck to dig into some loose rock and that it caused a slide both over and behind them.”

“But there was a smell,” Kindan protested. “Dask told me there was a smell. I smelled it, too.”

Natalon and Tarik exchanged looks. Tarik shook his head. “None of the men I spoke with talked of a smell,” he said.

“Are you sure you understood Dask correctly?” Natalon asked.

“I thought it took years of training to understand a watch-wher,” Tarik said sourly. “And the beast must have been in a lot of pain.”

“It doesn’t take years to learn the sounds for ‘bad air,’ ” Kindan protested. “It and the other danger signals were the first I was taught.” He did not bother to mention that his teaching in watch-wher lore had come from Silstra, and there had been a very little of it at that.

Tarik shook his head. “I saw no sign of fire.”

“Could have been a small pocket,” Natalon suggested, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “The blast would have started the cave-in.”

“A pocket a watch-wher couldn’t detect?” Tarik sneered. “The way Danil boasted, I thought they were supposed to have magic noses.”

Kindan glowered at the older man, but Master Zist moved quickly to block Tarik’s sight of him. He reached over and placed a hand on Kindan’s arm and squeezed it warningly.

“If someone had driven a pick right into a pocket and made a spark, it’d all be over before the watch-wher could react,” Natalon argued.

“See?” Tarik demanded, seeming satisfied. “What’s the use of them, then? I say we’re lucky to be rid of the last of them. We’ll mine faster on our own.”

Natalon prepared a hot retort, but Master Zist broke in. “What about Kindan?”

Natalon and Tarik looked startled, as though they had forgotten that Kindan was in the room with them.

“That house is too big for him,” Tarik said. “There’s plenty of others who could use the space better.”

“And there’s the memories,” Master Zist said softly, as if to himself. “It’s not good to linger where there are too many memories.”

“Well...” Natalon said, consideringly.

“I could use the house,” Tarik spoke into the silence. He looked at Natalon and said, “You’ve got a new one coming, and me and mine would just be too many underfoot.”