Chapter Three

Reminiscing about her mystical union with the sea hawk served only to make Thera all the more aware of the constraints about to be put upon her. Suddenly angry, she shoved away from her window, replaced the kirshrew into its basket and ran into the long hallway leading to the main stairs.

Slowing her pace, she solemnly acknowledged the smiling salute of the guard stationed at the head of the stairway. Thera noticed there were more soldiers than usual posted in the hall and main rooms. There was much coming and going of guards, officers, and representatives from the town. It was busy as a gathering for Mid Winter’s Eve, except folk looked solemn and preoccupied.

She saw Sirra Shamic and Horsemaster Harle near the Main Hall entrance and she ran lightly down the stairway past porters and messengers to stand near the Sirra.

Harle stood with his arms wrapped about his massive chest. His brows were knotted over the high arch of his nose. “Word has been sent alright, young Arnott riding Drummer. Fastest we’ve got. Should get there by the time the sun twice blesses the Elanraigh.”

Harle thumped his back against the wall. His eyes slanted toward her father’s conference room. “It went hard with Oak Heart to ask for alliance with the Ttamarini. The Old Duke will be turning in his grave.”

Sirra Shamic humphed, then spoke in measured voice, “Nah…Branch ArNarone ne’er thought a good thing to come out of Ttamarina till he fought over the Silver Toss border agin’ em. Then he said they be an adversary to make a man proud. They fight like devils an’ their horses follow their will like they be one body. Branch ArNarone would ha’ made treaty with them too, if the filthy ‘Teths had turned their bloody black ships to Allenholme in his day. Ttamarini or no, we share this good land, and no lizard-man…,” Shamic turned his head as if to spit, glanced at Thera, and cleared his throat, “…will take it from us.”

Harle’s pale blue eyes shifted to Thera a moment. “It’s on the dreams of a child that we base our knowledge? I would rather we’d had some confirmation from Cythia, or the South Bole caravaners,” his heavy shoulders shifted with an audible creak of leathers.

Harle reminded Thera of a great brooding bird as he stood with his massive shoulders hunched and his pale eyes trained on her fixedly. She met Harle’s look evenly. He was unconvinced of her abilities, she knew. Thera read his doubt, but did not take it amiss. She knew he could not hear the Elanraigh.

Shamic, too, regarded her. “You’ve the look of your Elder-Aunt Dysanna who was the Salvai at Elankeep years ago,” Shamic’s eyes were fierce as his large vein-corded hand rested gently on Thera’s shoulder, “A beautiful, wise, woman she was.” He slanted a look up to Harle, “Even if you feel naught of warning, Horsemaster, the signs are there: there’s no word of any kind from Cythia since Beltidemas, and the South Bole caravan be late…should ha’ been here after the freshet.”

Harle’s pale brows lifted, and then he snapped to attention as the double doors of Oak Heart’s conference room slammed open and Duke Leon, their Oak Heart, strode through followed by his companions. Trailing more slowly were the town’s guild masters and marshals.

Oak Heart saw Harle and Shamic and he swung toward them. “Well, the Ttamarini come then,” he announced. His eyes met Shamic’s, “Not just the Chief, Teckcharin, but also his cub, Chamakin.”

“Chamakin,” muttered Shamic as he rubbed at his chest thoughtfully, “means ‘Summerborn’ in their tongue.”

“I’ve heard tell of the lad, my Lord,” said Harle. “If rumors be truth, he is his father’s Heir in all ways—a true warrior.”

Their Duke waved his hand, as if dismissing any doubts. “He would not be Heir if he were not their best. The Ttamarini will not tolerate an unfit leader, be he the chief’s only son or not.” Restless, he waved the two to walk outside beside him. “Come out into the sunlight. I’ve had enough of council chambers.”

Oak Heart breathed deeply the fresh morning air. “Teckcharin comes with three hundred mounted and their own supplies.”

“My Lord,” queried Harle, “how did you receive their reply so soon? The messenger, if they grant him a fresh mount, still could not possibly return before nightfall.”

“They sent a carrier bird,” Duke Leon replied. His bright blue eyes crackled between Harle’s puzzled gaze and Shamic’s disturbed one.

Harle paused mid-stride, “I thought those birds had to have been to a destination before they could deliver messages there?”

Oak Heart smiled grimly. “Just so,” was his bitten reply.

“There have been Ttamarini agents in the town, then,” growled Shamic.

“Well,” Duke Leon shrugged and smiled ruefully, “I also have had agents with carrier birds in Ttamarini lands.”

The Duke turned to watch the dispersal of the town representatives, by foot and horse. Some few were sullen and muttering together, most appeared stunned or anxious, and some, such as the Fishing Guild Master, Mika ep Narin, looked purposeful.

“Was it bad?” asked Shamic, jerking his head toward the departing townsfolk.

“Much as I expected,” replied the Oak Heart blandly.

Harle snorted, “Oh, I can guess. I remember two years ago when you told the town elders about an increase in tithe to strengthen the West Harbor breakwater and install a bastion there. What a howling there was!”

The Duke merely smiled.

In the small silence that fell, Thera used her gift to gently touch her father’s thoughts. She was surprised to learn that many at the recent meeting in Council Chamber did not accept Fideiya’s feelings of approaching danger, much less her own vision of Memteth sails.

Oak Heart brooded as he paced along, a small crease between his brows. “Peace has lulled Allenholme since my grandfather’s time, except, perhaps, for the occasional high-blooded skirmish between the youth of both camps.”

“Huh,” grunted Shamic.

“The old ways,” continued the Duke, “reverence for the Elanraigh, has faded. We’ve been enjoying this tranquil prosperity. The power of the Elanraigh is given lip-service only. We call upon it for the blessing of a tree for shipbuilding, the charming away of an inconvenient wind, or the finding of a lost child or beast. Over these years fewer and fewer Allenholme children have been born with the ability to even sense forest-mind.” Duke Leon shook his head.

Harle stated, “They are merchants and craftsmen, that is what occupies them.”

Thera felt her father’s natural optimism assert itself.

He rested his hand on Harle’s broad shoulder, “Do not judge them harshly, Horsemaster; they are a stalwart folk and when the time comes, they will give all they have to save this land.”

He finally saw Thera behind them, and his expression lightened.

“Well lass, you go on a journey soon, I hear.”

“Mama says I must go, Sir, but I would rather stay with you.” Thera’s heart flared with hope at the thought of reprieve from being exiled to Elankeep with her aunt.

Oak Heart smiled tenderly, “Ah, what a warrior lass you are!” he rumbled, and his arm clenched around her. “You’re a lass to make a father proud, and too precious to risk to Memteth evil. If that’s indeed what comes this way.”

Thera leaned her head against her father’s shoulder, and sighed.

“By the One Tree, Harle!” exclaimed Duke Leon, releasing Thera. “Those mounts of ours had best be prime if we’re not to look outshone by the Ttamarini. Do we go to the stables and badger our recruits into becoming horsemasters in a seven day?”

Harle threw his head back in a basso laugh, “Aye, my Lord, that is a task to my liking!”

“And you, my girl,” her father eyed her shrewdly. “Well now—but keep out of trouble this morning, and at midday,” he paused, “you may ride with me all the way to Kenna Beach.” Oak Heart obviously expected her to be cheered.

Because she loved him, Thera smiled, and her father apparently was not deceived.

“Well now, if your mother agrees, perhaps we can delay the departure to Elankeep until after the Ttamarini arrive.” He grinned. “Aye,” glancing toward the keep, he nodded to himself as if rehearsing what he would say to his lady, “it would be a wise move, I think. The Ttamarini revere the Goddess, a girl-child with your gifts will give us status with them.”

Thera watched her father and his companions continue on their way to the stables, Oak Heart and Harle towering above all the rest.

She saw young Jon strike a mock blow to Kertin’s shoulder and they started a push and shove tussle which the older warriors laughed at.

Then came Sirra Shamic’s unmistakable bellow, “You fribble-headed cockerels, any Memteth raider could split you from brisket to bowel with one blow, whilst you stood gaping foolishly.” He clapped both recruits on the shoulder, with some weight behind the blow, “Save your bile for battle, lads.”

“These Memteth, they be sharks. They make no truce, no parley. They will fight ‘til they be dead, or we are.”

Thera flinched at the frayed harshness of Shamic’s voice. Shamic is afraid! Afraid for us all. She stood, transfixed, as the reality of what this conflict with the Memteth may mean for her people played across her mind.

She stood hearing and observing all about her; the clatter of servants’ clogs as they ran their errands from residence to laundry building and kitchen to bake house; the longer paced step of the guardsmen’s iron-cleated boots; the sudden skittering of the hounds nails on the cookhouse porch as they fled from some approaching terror.

Thera saw Cook, known for her hasty temper, especially since the death of her son, emerge from the cookhouse annex. Cook stood frowning, red hands propped on ample hips as her simmering gaze swept the courtyard. She spotted the Pot Boy, the same boy Thera had seen dropping a dead mouse into the servants’ stew crock two days ago.

The oblivious Pot Boy lay belly down, playing penny toss against the granite wall of the residence. In a fury, Cook descended on him, her ladle smacking his buttocks in time with her words, “I-sent-you-to-the-smokehouse-an-een-since,-you-useless-grub!”

“Ow! Ow-ah. Ow!” The boy wailed and danced, hand clapped to his bottom. Cook eyed him, her foot tapping. The Pot Boy sniveled and bent, keeping a wary eye on Cook’s ladle, to retrieve his two pennies.

Thera saw Cook throw her hands in the air and then take the Pot Boy by the shoulders. She made him face her as she spoke slowly and deliberately. She shook his shoulders as if in emphasis. The boy dredged under his nose with his ragged sleeve, smiling moistly, and nodded his straw-thatch head. Cook, still blackly frowning, delved into her pocket, retrieved a wedge of meat-pie wrapped in cheesecloth and slapped it into the Pot Boy’s grubby hand.

The boy skipped off on the belated errand, and Cook watched his direction for a moment. Her look was thoughtful and sad. Then she turned in a business-like way and re-entered the cookhouse with majestic swagger, slamming the door on the various hounds whimpering at the threshold odors.

All these commonplace things and people that are my world, Thera thought, the Memteth will destroy if they can: the Cooks and Pot Boys, Nans and Shamics, mothers and fathers.

Thera turned and walked back inside, her steps as measured and careful as if she walked on boggy ground. A hot flame burned in her heart. Anger fluttered like a dusty winged moth in her throat and chest. “No,” she murmured. “No!”

“You must teach me!” She sent to the Elanraigh, “I will do whatever I must to stop this from happening!” Acknowledging her pledge, forest-mind rumbled its fierce and gratified response.