“I can find food in the kitchen myself,” Wistala said. She didn’t like people waiting on her; not hunting for her meals seemed dissolute enough.
Lada appeared at the door, a housecoat over her nightdress, though she had on day-slippers and footwrap. Her nose was as red as the spots on the thane’s cheeks. The part of her hair not bound up fell in loose curls that reminded Wistala of flowering vines, though unlike her grandfather’s locks, her hair took after that of men or dwarves.
“Grandfather, I didn’t dress but came at once.”
Wistala made for the kitchen, but Rainfall halted her with a word. “Tala, I want you here so you may bear witness to the truth of what I say.
“Lada, I hope you know you have my love, as does the child you are carrying.”
Wistala’s chin dropped at this.
Rainfall continued: “You must listen to me now. You’ll come to the truth of this fixation now or later, and you can spare yourself much pain by accepting it now: Thane Hammar does not love you, does not care for you, and has no intention of taking you into Galahall as his wife or anything else.”
“Elves lie so—”
“Let’s have none of that,” Rainfall thundered. “You’re a fair token of elvish blood—”
He spoke no further, for Lada shrieked and threw herself against the bookcase with a wail. She began to cry, and push whole rows of books onto the floor.
Rainfall sighed.
Wistala stood frozen, paralyzed at the emotional display.
“Lada, stop that,” Rainfall said.
She threw another set of books on the floor.
Widow Lessup appeared at the library door. “Sir, may I—!” Her mouth clamped shut when she saw Lada knock down a map hung between bookshelves and a scroll-case, and her lips pursed so tightly Wistala would have sworn she was about to spit foua.
“Sir,” Widow Lessup said. “May I take her in hand?”
“Perhaps you can bring her to her room. An infusion might do her good.”
“As you wish,” Widow Lessup said. She marched over to the sobbing girl and grabbed her by the ear, twisting it the way she did her daughter’s.
“Now come along. . . .”
Lada shrieked even more loudly as Widow Lessup dragged her out of the room by the ear.
Rainfall sighed. “Wistala, follow and see that no harm comes to my granddaughter.” He moved from his chair to a lounge just behind his desk. “I’m so very tired.”
Wistala caught up to the pair just as they disappeared into the upstairs washing room. Lada was still in hysterics, sobbing until Widow Lessup overturned a pitcher of water on her head. That stopped the crying for a moment, and the matron shut the door in Wistala’s face.
“Now let’s hear your side of the story,” Widow Lessup said. “For I know my master’s.”
No harm seemed likely to come to Lada in the washing room. She was too big to fit down the drain, and a wooden scrub-stick couldn’t hurt any worse than the tip of Mother’s tail—so Wistala went downstairs and assuaged her appetite in the cool room. She sneaked a pair of brass buttons out of the sewing room, the stress of the fight in the road having left her famished for metal, and immediately felt guilty and went back upstairs to confess to Widow Lessup, but she was still washing-closeted. Her voice could still be heard through the floor crack.
“Men and love! Ho! but that brings back memories. Sonnets and sour cabbage. Let me tell you about men and love, my dear. . . .”
She checked on Rainfall and found him sleeping on his lounge, and diverted herself by reshelving the thrown-down books as best as she could. Rainfall’s system wasn’t pleasing to the eye at all; she preferred to shelve the books so that they made rising wings, with the shortest at the center of the shelf and the tallest at the edges.
But for some reason, she could only think of Auron and Father.
Mod Feeney arrived at Mossbell, worried that there were deaths and hangings within the walls at the very least. Within moments she, Lada, and Widow Lessup were all sitting in Lada’s room with the two oldest Lessup girls.
The house was considerably calmer when Feeney left, but she had a short interview with Rainfall before returning to her other duties.
“I offered her a position as my acolyte in the Priesthood, after the baby comes,” Mod Feeney said. “But she seems bound to have it and wait for Hammar to claim fatherhood.”
“He has little reason to, now that the estate is Wistala’s.”
“I fear for what may be tried next to wrest it from you,” Mod Feeney said. “By the rites, I owe my congratulations to our four-legged friend. Nuum Wistala, you have my duty.”
Rainfall looked at the splash of sunlight on the floor as Yari-Tab, licking milk from her whiskers, plopped down in it. The feline had more or less adopted the library as hers, as it was the highest, sunniest, and warmest of Mossbell’s rooms, and frequently claimed Rainfall’s lap against some of her rangy kittens. “Speaking of which, as the crisis seems to have passed, you might be about your rounds. Will you stay for lunch?”
“I will wrap something from your kitchens, if it’s not asking overmuch,” Feeney replied.
“No, of course not.”
The priestess bowed and left.
“She reminds me of my lack of manners. I should congratulate you, as well, Wistala. You’re a well-propertied drakka now. Have you any thoughts? I’ve reason to believe there might be copper in the twin hills, if you wish to look into mines.”
Copper. My sole surviving brother. Is there anything of Father and Auron in him?
“All I care to do with these grounds is see that they help preserve you, and our friendship,” Wistala said. “And your granddaughter, even if she doesn’t deserve you.”
“For such a young dragon, you have already an old heart. Have some sympathy for such as her. It’s the rare hominid that has much wisdom before a score of years pass.”
The weather grew colder in the next few days, and little changed at Mossbell save for fewer harsh words and exasperated sighs from Lada, who seemed sick and moody and had trouble keeping food down. Mod Feeney and the Widow Lessup made a trip to a herbalist in Quarryness for medicines.
They returned following the strangest procession Wistala had ever seen upon the road, or anywhere her travels had taken her.
Three great hairy beasts, almost the size of a dragon though taller, with tusks and flexible snouts that reached the ground and beyond, each pulled a one-and-a-half-level house on iron-rimmed wheels, with ox wagons and horse carts and dwarf-bearers besides.
“Ah, it’s Ragwrist’s Circus,” Rainfall said. “Later this year than usual; perhaps bad weather delayed him.”
Forstrel made ready to put him on Stog’s back, when summoned to the gates of Mossbell.
Wistala gaped at the long-haired creatures, for fully half the beasts were visible above Mossbell’s road wall. Dwarves rode them just behind the head.
“Those are gargants, out of the glacier dells.” Wistala just saw the head-tip of another, perhaps a young one, following behind one of the houses.
“What is a circus?” Wistala asked.
“Entertainments, diversions, and wonders,” Rainfall said.
An elf on a snow-white horse in a colorful striped coat turned into the gates of Mossbell. “Come, if you please, Mistress Wistala, I think you’ll like Ragwrist and he’ll like you. At least I hope so.”
Wistala couldn’t imagine why it would matter if a traveling elf liked her or not, but she pulled her sii down her griff and smoothed her fringe. Mistress Wistala must look her part for greeting guests on her lands.
Rainfall had been calling Wistala by that title whenever in the presence of any of the estate’s people, to impress upon them the change in ownership, though Wistala left all decisions in the care of her—what was the position again? Oh yes, steward.
Ragwrist dismounted. He did have a colorful twist of twine about his wrist, but it was the coat that really caught her imagination. It was red and yellow and green and brown and several other colors, pleasantly arranged in panels and pleats, making him look like an aggregation of colorful bird feathers. His riding boots were of the deepest black and matched his hair, which reminded her of tree roots.
“Our homeleaf is graced,” Rainfall called in Elvish.
“This traveler is comforted,” Ragwrist answered. His voice had a heartiness to it and came from deep within his frame, and though he spoke normally his words carried from the road wall to the stable.
The elves embraced.
“Is that char-oil I smell in your hair?” Rainfall said. “Honorable frost is nothing to make one shamed.”
“I’m not here the time it takes a drop to fall from a low cloud, and already I’m undone and reproached,” Ragwrist said, though he kept glancing at Wistala.
“Neither,” Rainfall said. “How were the barbarian lands?”
Rainfall straightened his coat’s lapels and collars. “Tiresome. In some villages they hid their children from us, and without their glad cries, a circus is a joyless place. We’ve come away with only enough to sustain us, and the wagons need new axles. There are improvements around here I see, and new faces.”
