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“He took his daughter and returned to his parents’ house. But, alas, his father had died in the time he had been away, and his older brother was now the head of their family. The brother did not want the child in his house. He said her faerie blood would bring bad luck on them all.”
“That’s silly,” Dillon said scornfully. “Everyone knows that faeries bring good fortune, Mama. I think this farmer was a fool.”
Lara grinned. “I think so, too,” she said.
“So what happened next?”
“Dorjan, the foolish farmer, said his brother must go, and take his child with him. But Ida, his mother, protested, and said if Dorjan sent his brother and the child from their house she would go with them. Dorjan would not relent, and so Ida, her younger son and the infant went to the City. There the son became a famous mercenary, and Ida raised her granddaughter. But when the child was ten years of age the grandmother died.
“The girl kept house for her father until he found a fine wife, Susanna, the daughter of a Midlands farmer. They wed, and Susanna gave her husband a son whom they called Mikhail.
“But the Mercenary was sad, for he wished to better his position in life. The only way he could do that was by becoming a Crusader Knight. He very much wanted to enter the tournament that was held once every three years to choose new knights, but he had not the means. And then he realized he had one valuable possession—his beautiful half-faerie daughter. If he sold her to Gaius Prospero, the Master of the Merchants, he would have everything he needed for the tournament. A fine warhorse, new weapons and the best armor. His battle skills, he knew, would gain him the place he sought. And when he became a Crusader Knight his wife and son would be moved to the beautiful Garden District into a beautiful house with slaves of their own. His son would receive the finest education. But only if he sold his daughter into slavery. There was no other way for him, and besides, he had not even enough coin to give his daughter a dower portion. And so he sold his eldest child, but she was happy to be the means by which her father might advance himself. And she was very proud when he won his place among the Crusader Knights.”
“What happened to her then?” Dillon asked eagerly.
“She was sold again, this time to the Forest Lords. But the Forest Lords were cruel masters, and so with the aid of a small giant named Og, she escaped the forest. She and Og traveled to the desert of the Shadow Princes, and there she learned how to love properly, and how to fight well, for she had inherited her father’s warrior skills. And after a time the Shadow Princes sent her away into the Outlands where she met a handsome clan lord. She wed him, and they had two fine children.”
“Mama!” Dillon exclaimed. “This is your story, isn’t it?”
Lara laughed, and ruffled his dark hair. “You are such a clever boy, my son,” she told him. “Yes, this is my story.”
“Tell me more,” he begged her.
“I will, but another day,” she promised him. “You must remember all I tell you, Dillon, for when I am gone you will have to tell Anoush so she will know who her mother was, and is.”
And in the days that followed she filled in what she had not told him in that first telling. Bit by bit, piece by piece, Lara fleshed out her story. First she gave him his grandfather’s name. John Swiftsword. Next he learned that in order to become a Crusader Knight a man must look as if he were worthy. As young as he was, Dillon scorned such an attitude for his father had always said a man’s worth showed in what he accomplished and did. Not how he looked. Hetar, he declared, was an odd place.
Lara told her son of her own childhood. How her grandmother had taught her all her own skills of housewifery, medicine, the art of bargaining and how to tell a good fabric from a bad one. And how she had had no friends among children her own age, for they feared her faerie blood. Yet she could not recall ever having seen her mother. And later she learned that her father and grandmother had forbidden the beautiful faerie woman who had birthed her to see her. But her mother had put the crystal Lara always wore about her neck with its guardian spirit, Ethne, within to keep her safe.
Lara explained how Gaius Prospero had let her remain at home until her father won his place. And at the urging of her elderly neighbor Lara had on her last night of freedom asked her father to tell her the story of his involvement with the beautiful faerie, Ilona, and how she had come to be born.
The Master of the Merchants had taken charge of his new slave the morning after her father’s victory and his acceptance into the Crusader Knights. But the beautiful slave he thought to profit from was forbidden from being sold into one of the City’s Pleasure Houses by the Head Mistress of the Pleasure Mistresses’ Guild.
“Why?” Dillon asked his mother. “Did they not think you beautiful enough?”
“I was thought too beautiful,” Lara explained to him. “After I had been displayed for sale to a very elite audience of Pleasure House owners, quarrels broke out over who should purchase me. The Head Mistress, in order to keep the peace, forbade Gaius Prospero to sell me in the City. So I was sent off with a Taubyl Trader to be sold into the Coastal Kingdom.”
As the days passed, and Lara told her son more of the story, the boy learned how she had ended up being purchased by the Head Forester and his brother. And Lara told him of how Og had explained the secret of the Forest Lords to her. That Maeve, the old queen of the Forest Faeries, had cursed them with great cause. That Lara, because of her faerie blood, would not birth any child unless she loved the man involved with all her heart. And since she did not love a Forest Lord, Lara and Og had devised an escape plan.
“Then you loved my father with all your heart,” Dillon noted.
“I did,” Lara answered her young son. She was amazed by his understanding of her story for he was scarcely out of babyhood. But she could see in his eyes that he did, and as the days went by she added more detail to her tale. She told him how she and Og had fled the forest, and arrived in the land of the Shadow Princes. How Prince Kaliq had taken her for his lover, but knowing her destiny was greater, educated her and saw that she learned to fight. Kaliq had realized her mother, Ilona, was the heiress of the old queen of the Forest Faeries. He had engineered a reunion between the three, and Lara had learned the truth of her mother’s desertion. Maeve had needed her. Ilona had had no other choice but to return to the faerie kingdom.
And on certain days Ilona herself would join them beneath the tree in the grass, and add her own voice to Lara’s tale. On other days she would arrive with Lara’s young half brother, Cirilo, who was but a year older than his nephew. The two women would watch as the boys played games together in the meadow, Anoush trailing after them.
“They are forging a close relationship,” Lara noted to her mother one warm afternoon. “When I first began my story Dillon thought Hetarians foolish for thinking faeries brought bad fortune. He said faeries only brought good luck.”
Ilona laughed softly. “So my grandson believes we are only good. Well, why not? In time he will come to see that faeries have at least two sides, as do mortals.” Then her voice grew even more serious. “How much longer?” she asked.
“A few more weeks,” Lara replied. “I want to be here when Noss has her new baby, and for a short while afterwards so I may help her.”
“Has she not servants to help her?” Ilona wanted to know.
“Of course, but better a friend, and it gives me more time with Dillon and Anoush, Mother. I do not know when I shall ever see them again once I have departed the Outlands. I ache already with my loss.” She sighed deeply with her sadness.
“At least your children will know that you love them, and did not leave them willingly,” Ilona said, her tone bitter. “It will not be like when I was forced to leave you behind to obey the dictates of the faerie world. Your mortal grandmother was a cruel woman, Lara. She was jealous that I should have any influence over you.”
“She did not know that I had a destiny, Mother. She raised me to live entirely within the mortal realm, for she knew nothing else herself. She loved me in her own way, but like you, I, too, regret the years we were separated. Still, we have each other now, and I am glad for it.” She took up the faerie woman’s hand, and kissed it. “I do love you, Mother,” she told Ilona.
“You have the mortal knack of taking something dark and making it light,” Ilona said with a small smile. “Perhaps mortals do have a certain magic about themselves after all.” She kissed the hand in hers. “No mother could have a better daughter.”
NOSS DELIVERED her child, a second son, early one late summer’s morning. The child was born healthy, howling his arrival, and with a head full of bright red hair like Liam. He was named Alroy, and his mother almost fainted seeing the size of him, for his birth had been quick. Alroy was a large infant with a prodigious appetite when put to his mother’s breast several hours later. His hands with their thick fingers kneaded Noss’s flesh demanding it give forth the nourishment Alroy needed. Noss was enchanted by her second son, and very proud.
All the children in the house were brought to look at the new baby.
“He has hair like Da,” Tearlach noted.
“Big,” Anoush remarked sagely.
“He’s going to be a great warrior,” Dillon said.
They all looked to the boy, curious.
“I see it,” Dillon continued. “I can’t help it. I just do.”
“A useful skill to have,” Lara said.
“It’s his faerie blood,” Asta, Liam’s mother said.
“Yes, it is!” Lara confirmed, “and isn’t that wonderful? I have told my mother, and she will see he is trained properly. My son will be quite a valuable asset to this clan family with such a talent.”
“Aye, he will be,” Liam replied. “But he must not be brought along too quickly lest his skill be harmed.”
Lara looked to the lord gratefully. Now she knew for certain that her children would be safe.
The days were shortening again. Lara could linger no longer, and she knew it. She could hear Ethne, her crystal guardian, urging her to go as she lay in her bed each night. It would get no easier, she realized, as each day passed. It would soon be time for the Gathering of the Outlands clan families, and she had promised herself she would go before then. Noss was up from her childbed, and managing the household well. The boys were at their lessons daily. Anoush, fascinated by Noss with her new son strapped about her body, trailed her as she went about her duties each day. It seemed to Lara that she had no place left in the hall that had once been hers and Vartan’s.
“You are going, aren’t you?” Dillon said to her as she put him to bed one evening.
“I will be gone when you awaken tomorrow,” Lara heard herself saying to her son. “Do not forget me, or that I love you dearly. Do not allow Anoush to forget me, or doubt that I loved her, too. I go because it is my destiny now. Do you understand, Dillon?”
“Yes, and no, Mama,” he told her.
She nodded. “I would wish it otherwise, my son. I believed that when this time came for us your father would be here. Yet I seem to have no choice in this matter.”
He nodded. “Will we ever see you again?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she assured him. “I just don’t know when, Dillon.”
“Do not forget us, Mama,” Dillon said to her.
“Never!” Lara swore. “My blood runs in your veins, Dillon, my son.”
He reached up, and touched her cheek with his small fingers. “You will be back, and before we are grown,” he said with assurance. Then he closed his eyes, and Lara sat by his side until his even breathing indicated that he had fallen asleep.
Standing, she went to the cot where her daughter lay sleeping. Anoush had her dainty form, but like her brother she had Vartan’s coloring. She would be beautiful one day, Lara thought. Bending, she placed a kiss on her daughter’s smooth forehead. Then leaving her two children, Lara returned to the hall where Liam and Noss were sitting.
“I must go now,” she told them.
“Wait till the morrow,” Noss begged her friend.
“If I do not leave now,” Lara said, “I do not know if I can. Dasras is now my son’s horse. I have spoken with him. Teach Dillon to ride him immediately,” Lara told Liam. “And remember your promise. Roan may not have Dasras, no matter what he offers you.”
“Will you find a way to communicate with us?” Liam wanted to know.
“I will try,” Lara promised. She went to Noss, and kissed her on both cheeks. “I trust you, dear friend,” she told her. “Do not let my children forget me.”
“I will be worthy, I swear it,” Noss declared.
Lara then walked from the hall and out into the night. Above her the sky over the Outlands was ablaze with stars. “Aral change!” she said, and in her temporary form as a great plains owl she arose into the air to circle Camdene just once. And then, its great wings flapping, the night bird turned and flew toward the coastlands.
Chapter 3
THE PLAINS OWL flew steadily through the night sky. On the earth below the grazing cattle gave way to grazing sheep. The invisible barrier between Fiacre lands and those of the Felan had been crossed. The owl flew on until it saw below the village of Adrie where Rendor, Lord of the Felan, made his home. Some few miles beyond the village lay the waters of the great sea of Sagitta. The great bird was tempted to fly out over the sea, but it was beginning to tire. With a whir of its wings the owl dropped to the land below. As its clawed feet touched the ground Lara said, “Aral change!” and was immediately restored to her own form.
“I thought you would come tonight,” Rendor’s voice said from the open door of his house where he awaited her. “Welcome to Adrie, Lara. Come in!”
“How did you guess?” Lara asked him, smiling as he led her into his hall.
Rendor’s deep laugh warmed the hall, and he pointed to his high board where Andraste, her sword, and Verica, her staff, lay. “I knew if you sent them ahead that you would not be far behind,” the Felan clan lord chuckled.
Lara laughed in return. “I might have come on the morrow,” she said.
“You would never leave the sword and staff alone long,” he replied wisely. “Their sudden appearance quite startled a young maidservant clearing the evening meal from the table. She shrieked with her surprise, and the staff spoke quite sharply to her, causing her to faint dead away. I cannot recall when Rahil and I have laughed so hard,” he finished with a grin.
“Oh, I am sorry!” Lara apologized. “Verica dislikes magical travel, but as I did not choose to ride, it was the simplest and easiest way to transport him. He wanted me to fly the whole distance carrying him in the owl’s claws.”
“Come and sit by the fire,” Rendor invited her. He walked to a sideboard and poured two small goblets of wine, handing her one.
“I will stay with you but a few days,” Lara said. “I know you must soon depart for the Gathering.”
“My men and I will personally escort you to King Archeron,” Rendor said. “The king must be reminded that Lara, widow of Vartan, daughter of Swiftsword, is greatly honored among all the Outlands clans. For all his scorn of the City and Hetar’s government, Archeron is still Hetarian, and appearance is everything to him.”
“Is he aware of how well you understand him?” Lara asked Rendor.
“I doubt it,” Rendor replied. “He knows I am not a barbarian, but deep in his head, the doubts linger. If I were to come into his hall in furs, waving my sword, with helmeted warriors at my back he would not, I believe, be in the least surprised.” The clan lord chuckled. “I always feel he is just waiting for me to reveal my true colors and prove Hetar right, that Outlanders are savages.”
Lara giggled at the thought of Rendor in furs waving his sword. Then she grew serious. “We are far more civilized here in the Outlands than in Hetar with all its rules and mores.”
“Then why do you return to it?” Rendor asked her.
“It is that damned destiny I seem to have been given,” Lara told him. “I knew, and Vartan knew, too, that one day it would call me from the Outlands. I have no idea why I am going to the Coastal Kingdom, but that is where I am meant to be now. In the night I have asked Ethne, my crystal guardian, and she agrees. But Archeron’s realm and that of his brothers is not my final destination, Rendor. I do not yet know where I will go, but when it is time I will.”
He sighed. “I am sorry for it. We need you in the Outlands.”
Lara shook her head. “You are protected, and you are capable of managing the Hetarians, dear Rendor, that I know. Though I have taught you all, you learned the lesson best next to Vartan. The Outlands will be safe under your guidance.”
Rendor’s wife, Rahil, came into the hall. “Ah,” she said, smiling, her warm brown eyes lighting with her pleasure at seeing their guest, “you have arrived, Lara. I bid you welcome. Did my husband tell you of the poor maidservant?”
“He did, and I am so sorry to have frightened the girl,” Lara apologized.
Rahil laughed. “Our people are not used to such magic,” she said. “Are you tired? I have prepared a guest chamber for you.”
“I am tired,” Lara admitted. “I have not shape-shifted in some time now, and I flew the distance between Camdene and Adrie without stopping.”
“And I do not doubt you have not slept well, if at all, since…” Rahil hesitated.
“No,” Lara replied. “I have not slept well since Vartan’s death.”
“Then come along,” Rahil said. “I will show you to your chamber.”
“Good night, Rendor, and thank you for your hospitality,” Lara said as she rose, and then followed Rahil’s comfortable shape from the hall.
Her chamber was inviting, with a small fire to take the chill off the night, and a comfortable bed. Lara bid her hostess good-night and, stripping off her gown, climbed beneath the coverlet. To her surprise she was asleep almost immediately, and she did not awaken until half of the next day had passed. She probably would have slept a few more hours but that Rahil entered the chamber bearing a tray of food.
“I have decided that you must be cosseted,” she told Lara. “For the moment you have no responsibilities but to yourself. You must regain your strength if you are to continue on your journey.” She took a bowl from the tray, plunked a spoon into it and handed it to Lara. “Eat,” she commanded the younger woman.
Lara did not argue. The truth was she was still tired, and felt weak. The bowl contained a delicious stew of meat and vegetables, which she savored slowly. When the bowl was half-empty Rahil tucked a slice of bread and butter into a corner of the bowl. Their eyes met, and Lara smiled. “Thank you,” she said, and then she continued eating.
“I have three daughters, and like their mother none knows when to rest. I see you are much the same,” Rahil noted. “Did Bera not see to your welfare in the days following Vartan’s murder?”
“Bera lost her reason after what she had seen. She could do nothing more than weep, and curse fate over what had transpired.”
“Then you did it all? The preparations for the departure ceremony? For all the guests? You sent the messengers out?” Rahil was surprised, and a little bit shocked.
“Noss looked after my children,” Lara said. “And Bera recovered enough to move from Vartan’s hall into a smaller house with Cam. I saw her settled before I left.”
“Liam now rules in that hall?” Rahil nodded almost to herself. “It was a wise and generous thing to do, Lara.”
“Our home was the finest in Camdene, and should be the lord’s house,” Lara replied. “He and Noss have taken Dillon and Anoush to raise with their sons. And Noss has had another boy, Alroy. He was born with red hair like Liam.”
Rahil smiled as she took the empty stew bowl from Lara and replaced it with another dish containing a baked apple swimming in rich golden cream. “So Noss will have three lads and a little lass to bring up. I have been told she is a good wife to Liam.”
“They are fortunate in each other,” Lara said. She spooned up the apple, licking at the corner of her mouth to catch a stray bit of the sweet.
“When you have finished you are to go back to sleep,” Rahil told her. “I have brought you a cup of wine into which I have mixed a sleeping draught. You should sleep until the morning.” She took the empty bowl that had held the apple, noting with pleasure that Lara had eaten every scrap. Setting the bowl on the tray she handed her guest the cup of wine.
Lara sipped it slowly. She was sated with the good meal, warm, and actually beginning to relax. “You are so good to me, and I thank you,” she told Rahil. “When I arrived last night I felt drained of all my strength. I am yet weakened by everything that has transpired in these last few months.”
