“Oh, quit hovering, Isaac!” the old woman told him. “I’m not about to kick off in the next minute or two. Cease your fluttering and introduce me to these nice people.”
“If you say so, Aunt Emily,” Isaac said, not reassured. He came around to the guests and held out a hand. “Gar Pike and Alea Larsdatter, this is Emily Farland, Great Grandmother of our clan.”
“Please to meet you.” Alea couldn’t help curtsying, awed by the woman’s age.
Gar followed her example with a little bow. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Ms. Farland.”
“Say ‘missus’ clear, lad,” Great Grandmother Farland said severely. “None of this mumbling, now. I hope you insist your man treats you like a lady, Alea Larsdatter.”
“Oh, he does, ma’am,” Alea said, “but he’s not mine.”
“I am your friend, I hope,” Gar said gravely.
“Well, yes, and the closest I’ve ever had,” Alea said, her gaze imploring his understanding.
“But only a friend, hey?” Great Grandma asked. “Well, you’ll learn the truth of it in time.”
Alea hid her exasperation. Why was it that even total strangers thought she and Gar were bonded? Not that she minded the idea, of course, but …
She froze, shocked at herself. When had that notion crept in? Gar was a friend, a good friend even, but nothing more! “Isaac tells me you’ve come a long way,” the matriarch said, and to Alea, “My sympathies for your loss, lass.”
“Thank you,” Alea mumbled, then remembered the old woman chastising Gar and said clearly, “It’s been two years and more, though, so I’m past the worst of it.”
“Decided on living, have you? Well, it was the right choice.” Great Grandma turned to Gar. “What set you on your travels, though, young man?”
“Heartbreak, I suppose you’d have to say,” Gar said slowly. “Heartbreak of a kind.”
Alea fought to keep her face impassive. That explained a good deal about him; but why had he never told her? Because she had never asked, of course—she had to admit that. He had said it so openly, so readily, that he would surely have answered her, but it was too personal a question for her to have said aloud.
Not the way Great Grandma asked it, of course. “Heartbreak,” the old lady said, musing. “And you have to find a way to mend it before you can go home, eh?”
“That’s … one way to say it,” Gar said, a bit disconcerted. Isaac laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s why she’s the clan chief, lad—‘cause she can see right through you in an instant, man or woman.”
“See right through a problem, too,” Aunt Martha said, coming up, “whether it be a fight between two of her folk or a Belinkun attack, she sees the way, to set it right in an instant.”
“You’re shaping up pretty well yourselves,” said Great Grandma. “Both of you. When I kick off, I won’t be leaving the clan lorn.” She gave Alea a bright, challenging glance. “What trouble would you have me see through, girl?”
Alea stood stunned, then bit her tongue to keep from saying the first and most honest answer. Instead she said, “Why, the way for an orphan to find a home, Grandma Farland.”
“An orphan, is it?” Great Grandma asked. “Well, the way of it is to find yourself a man and make a family of your own, girl, for you’ll never be an orphan then.”
“What if the man won’t be found?” Alea was very much aware of Gar’s gaze on her, amused and sympathetic at the same time—and altogether too interested.
“Then find out who your people are, even if you have to go all the way back to the Founders,” Great Grandma said, “for surely no one comes to life alone, and every one of us is part of something greater. We all have kin, whether we know it or not. Distant they may be, but kin nonetheless.”
Pain lanced Alea’s heart, for she couldn’t help but think of the third and fourth cousins who had gleefully cast her down into slavery when her parents died and no man had come forward to ask her hand. Her voice had an edge as she asked, “What if they be kin but won’t have you?”
Great Grandma had already seen her pain, though, and her gaze had turned sympathetic. “Ah, then, poor child, you choose among the clans that will have you. Like will to like, as the poet says. Find them as are like to you and cleave unto them. Seek out the clan that will have you, and that you will have.” One old wrinkled finger speared upward in caution. “But don’t jump too fast. Bide with them a while and sound them out, for there be some as will have you only to use you, and only one or two that will have you because you’re their kind.”
Alea glanced at Gar, she couldn’t help herself, but as quickly glanced away. “You’re saying that the clan that are my kind will take me in even if they don’t like me?”
“They will that, because, as the other poet says, when you have to go there, they have to take you in—that’s what it means to be your kind. But unhappiness lies that way, child. Don’t settle for half. Seek for likeness and liking both, and don’t take less, though the searching takes you half your life. It will be worth it when you find it.”
Alea stared, confounded. “How could you know?”
“Why,” said Great Grandma with a warm and loving smile, “that was my own tale too, upon a time. I wasn’t born to this clan, child. No woman is, for marrying cousins leads to madness or sickly children, or idiots who are children in bodies grown.”
“Marriage to third and fourth cousins is allowed,” Isaac said stiffly.
“Yes, and we all know your Dory is the love of your life and the life of your love, Isaac, though she be your third cousin once removed,” Great Grandma said with a touch of exasperation, “but there aren’t all of us that lucky.” She turned back to Alea. “I went on wandertime with a band of my own clan, lass, and other bands joined us as we journeyed. My Tyler was among them, but I didn’t say ‘yes’ to him till I’d stayed a month with his family, that I didn’t, and made sure they were my kind and I theirs.”
“No one could be more a Farland than you, Aunt Em,” said Isaac.
“Yes, well, that’s because there’s scarce a one of you that isn’t as much my flesh and blood as Tyler’s, now, isn’t it?” Great Grandma said. “It’s a wonder what age and time can do. But his people was as much like me as my own, maybe more.” She nodded with satisfaction. “I was lucky, that’s a fact.” She cocked an eye at Alea. “You will be too, child—wait and see.”
“I’ll wait.” Alea gave Gar a very direct stare of her own. “You never have taken me to meet your people.”
“It’s a long way home,” Gar said apologetically.
“Help him find the poultice that will heal his heart, child,” Great Grandma advised. “Then follow him home and see if his kind are your kind, and one among them more than a friend.”
Alea suddenly realized which one of them she wanted to be more than a friend, but fear clamored up with desire and left her mute.
Great Grandma turned toward the kitchen with a frown. “The body goes and the senses weaken, but I could swear I smell pork chops cooking.”
“So you do, and they’re ready to serve,” Aunt Martha said, coming up. “Sukey bade me call us all to table, Gran. You’re there, I see, and the guests.”
“Go beat the triangle, then, Martha,” Great Grandma said. “Just be sure it’s not the alarm bell.”
It looked like the great hall of a medieval castle, a double rank of tables made of plank tops set on sawhorses, covered with linen and set with wooden plates and bowls with whittled spoons and forks. The clansfolk cut with their belt knives and drank from pottery mugs. The great keeping room was alive with laughter and jesting, with here and there the wailing of a baby. Great Grandma sat through it all, eyes gleaming with pride, eating little but nodding with satisfaction.