Carol Berg - Guardians Of The Keep

“Nope. Just checking on things. Not heard from you in a while. Sheriff thought you might want one of us about to take letters or help out or whatever. Easiest if it was me.”

“I’ve just been a bit busy. I’ll write a letter to send back, but before you go, I want to hear all the news from Dunfarrie.”

Paulo’s brown hand twisted the tail of his tunic, and his eyes roamed everywhere in the room except my face. “Course, I don’t need to go back. You got horses here need a good hand.”

“I’d be delighted to have you here, but don’t you think the sheriff would worry?”

“Time I was getting me a job. Don’t want to be a burden. He and Kellea are… well, you know. Don’t need me about all the time.”

I knew that the courageous sheriff, bound by his office to hunt down sorcerers and burn them, had lost his heart to a talented, short-tempered young woman who was probably the last living Dar’Nethi sorcerer born in the Four Realms. But I also knew that neither of them begrudged Paulo a home. “It’s not that Graeme’s making you work at your lessons?”

It wasn’t easy to make Paulo blush, but a spring radish would have paled in comparison. “Horses don’t care if a man can read.”

“I’ll give you a job in the stables. Allard needs the help. But later this winter, we might have to work on your schooling a bit.”

I returned Paulo to Allard, who was waiting in the kitchen, and I said I could find no fault with the boy except that he needed a bath even more than he needed a meal. Paulo scowled and followed the old man back to the stables.

Paulo and I seldom had occasion to speak. But as I made my rounds of the estate with Giorge or rode out for pleasure, I saw him limping about the place. He always grinned before he ducked his head and touched his brow. Allard swore that Paulo had been born in a stable, perhaps of equine parentage. Soon I couldn’t go into the yard without seeing the two of them, heads together.

I never told anyone that I had known Paulo in my former life, though I could not have explained why. I was certainly not ashamed of him. He was a good and talented boy who had been my companion in adventure, brave and steady in circumstances that would daunt many grown men. It just felt good to have a private friend.

Seille came, the midwinter season when we observed the longest night of the year and the ten days until the new year. Seille and Long Night were celebrations bound up with the legend of a wounded god brought from despair by the generous offering of food, entertainment, and gifts from the poorest of his subjects. I found the truths of sorcery, two worlds, and the magical Bridge that somehow linked them and kept them in balance more fascinating than any Long Night myth. But I had always loved the trappings of Seille: gifts bound with silk ribbons, storytelling, pageants, pastries, evergreen boughs, hot cider fragrant with cinnamon and cloves, and splurging with hundreds of scented candles to brighten the cold, dark nights.

With the holidays came the first evidence of real progress with my nephew. I was surprised and pleased to find Gerick in Philomena’s room when I went to her for our nightly hour on the Feast of Long Night. It had seemed a bleak holiday having no family gathering to parallel the festivity in the servants’ hall, so I had asked the maids to garland Philomena’s mantel with evergreen, ordered a special supper for the duchess, and invited Gerick to join us. Though matters between the boy and me had been more detached than hostile of late, I had never expected him to come. But he was dressed in a fine suit and had already lit the candles that Nellia had sent on the tray, adding their perfume to the scent of balsam that filled the air.

“A joyous Long Night, Philomena,” I said, “and to you, Gerick.”

Philomena sighed. Gerick bowed politely, but didn’t say anything. One couldn’t expect too much.

Gerick sat on the edge of his mother’s bed while I pulled up a chair. I poured the wine and shared around the roasted duck, sugared oranges, and cinnamon cakes. There was no conversation, but no hostility either. When we were finished eating, Gerick and I moved the table out of the way. Philomena frowned and said, “Aren’t you planning to read tonight?”

“On the contrary…” From my pockets I pulled two wrapped parcels and gave one to each of them. I had ordered the two books from a shop in Montevial. Philomena’s was an exotic Isker romance, and she insisted I begin it immediately. Gerick’s was a manuscript about Kerotean swordmaking, so beautifully illustrated that I had hesitated to give it to him. I hated the thought that he might destroy it because it came from me. But while I read to Philomena, he sat cross-legged on her bed turning every page. His cheeks glowed in the candlelight.

When he closed the book at last, he jumped off the bed. I paused in my reading while he pecked his mother on the cheek. “Excuse me, Mama. I’m off to bed.” Then, his eyes not quite settling on me, he made a small gesture with the book. “It’s fine. Thank you.” Tucking the book securely under his arm, he ran off, leaving me feeling inordinately happy. Even Philomena’s gleeful report on his most recent demand that I be sent away did not spoil it.

A mere two days before the turning of the year and Covenant Day, I took my afternoon walk on the south battlement, forced to confine myself to the castle because of a snowstorm that had raged throughout the day. The wild whirling snow made me dizzy, and a sudden gust sent me stumbling toward the crumbling southernmost cornice. As I grabbed the cold iron ring embedded in the stone, thanking the ancient guardian warriors for protecting the daughter of Comigor yet again, I began to feel a burning sensation in the region of my heart. I thought I had frosted my lungs or developed a sudden fever in them, or perhaps something I’d eaten was bothering my digestion.

Before going back inside, I pulled on the silver chain about my neck as was my custom when I was alone, drawing Dassine’s talisman from my bodice, expecting to find it cold and dull as always. But, as the storm wind whipped my hair into my face, the snow swirled about me in a rose-colored frenzy, picking up a soft glow from the translucent stone, banishing all thoughts of storms or loneliness or difficult children. I wrapped my cold fingers about the stone until my hand gleamed with its pink radiance, and I relished every moment of that burning, for I had been assured that when the stone grew warm and glowed with its own light, Karon would arrive with the next dawn to visit me.

I could not remember feeling so anxious in all my life, not when I was first presented at court, not on the day I was married. I knew so much of this man who was coming, all those things that had drawn me to him even when I believed him a stranger. Yet I was not foolish enough to think a man could die in agony, be held captive for ten years as a disembodied soul, and be brought back to life in another person’s body without being profoundly changed. So much less difficult had been my own lot, and I was not the same person I had been. He was my beloved, and he was alive beyond all hope, but I was very much afraid.

What would he be like? Though his soul was unquestionably my husband’s, Dassine had said that D’Natheil would always be a part of him as well. I had seen the conflict between Karon’s nature and the instincts and proclivities of the violent, amoral Prince of Avonar that remained in that body. How would the balance between the two have settled out after four months of Dassine’s care? Perhaps he would seem more like Aeren again, the half-mad stranger I’d found in the forest six months before who was somehow both of them.