“And that was brilliant, Mother,” he replied, kissing the hand that he held. “Of all the things in the world that are likely to travel, it is trade goods that travel the farthest.”
She blushed with pleasure at his praise, and spread her hands wide. “Well, we learned to live here, we came to love it, we prospered, the children came along - that is the sum of it. Here we do not count the passing of time by the day, but by the season, for the days are very like one another.”
Darian was saved from having to reply to that by the appearance of a fast-moving party of happily shouting tribesmen, with a limping man - Kullen, no doubt - and a boy in the middle. Darian shot to his feet, shouting “Father!” and reprised the running greeting he had given his mother, while Keisha stayed prudently behind.
Rather than joining her sons and husband, Daralie cast a speculative glance at Keisha. “Keisha Alder - your people are the Alders that lived south and east of the village?” she asked. “The ones with all the boys?”
Keisha nodded, and Daralie looked her over carefully. “A Healer and a Herald out of the same family - your mother must be very pleased and proud.”
“My mother is appalled and shocked,” Keisha retorted wryly. “Having her precious girl-babies turn out to be independent women with minds and vocations of their own was not what she had in mind. Husbands, spotless cottages, and grandbabies would have been more to her liking.”
To her pleasure, Daralie laughed out loud. “Good for you, Keisha Alder!” she applauded warmly. “Be sure you keep that mind of your own! Any man worth spending time with will value intelligence over a spotless cottage and a milk-meek maiden, however pretty she is.”
By the warm glance she aimed at her own husband, there was no doubt in Keisha’s mind what Kullen’s preferences were. Daralie was by no means a milk-meek maiden.
This is the woman that raised Darian - came an unbidden voice in the back of her mind. So, what was all that nonsense you were worrying about? Something about Darian really wanting a honey-sweet maiden in his heart of hearts, and not being satisfied with you?
But now the man and boy were approaching, with Darian between them, an arm around each shoulder. When Keisha got a good look at the boy, she was struck by how very like Darian he was.
Daralie followed her look, and smiled fondly. “He could be Darian at the same age,” she said softly.
“Kavin could not be more like his brother if they were twins separated in time.”
But this little boy will never have his mother and father wrenched away from him, if fortune smiles, Keisha thought, watching how the child looked up at his father with undisguised adoration that spoke well for the man’s parental skills.
Kullen Firkin limped heavily, and Keisha’s eyes went to the place at the end of his leg where a wooden form poked out of the bottom of his trews where his foot should have been. It wasn’t foot-shaped, but it wasn’t the peg she’d expected; it seemed to be the narrow end of a fat cone, which was interesting. I should try that shape with a patient some time. . . .
Where Daralie Firkin was small and slim (despite bearing five children), with soft, dark eyes and dark hair going to silver, Kullen Firkin was fair going to gray, with hazel eyes and a tough, wiry frame. The children, except for Darian, took after their mother rather than their father - but neither parent looked at all like the Errold’s Grove “norm,” which was to be brown-eyed, brown-haired, and stocky - muscular in the males, plump in the females. Small wonder that Darian had stuck out as the odd one.
Kullen was in tears, making no effort to hide them, and Darian’s eyes were wet again. Keisha almost decided to absent herself from the reunion, but the glance that Darian cast at her said so clearly, “please stay,” that she changed her mind.
The entire family, including Keisha, retired to the log house, where Darian again told an edited version of his experiences of the past years. During the recitation, several women brought in all of the components of a good dinner - fish baked in clay, roasted onions and cattail roots, a piece of honeycomb and some of the flatbread they’d sampled at Snow Fox.
Daralie thanked them sincerely. “We saw your dinner go flying - and one of the dogs got it,” said the oldest of the women with a wide grin. “It was no great matter to add food to our fire. You certainly have done it often enough for the rest of us!”
The fish was a new dish to Keisha, but it was something she thought she could get used to pretty easily. It had been rubbed with herbs inside and out, stuffed with onions, then folded into an envelope of wet clay, the whole buried in coals and ashes. Keisha had never tasted anything like it.
She felt very much the interloper in this family circle, but there was one thing that she could not help but notice. Daralie was no stay-at-home wife, no matter what she had been doing today when they arrived. It was clear from the conversation that Daralie and Kelsie would be minding the same fish traps tomorrow that Kullen and Kavin had tended today.
It was also evident that this was the ordinary state of things for them - and Kelsie and Kavin were given equal chores and responsibilities based on strength, size, and ability, not on sex. Tomorrow, in fact, Kavin would be helping his father cook, as well as doing some repairs to the log house.
During a break in the family conversation, when Kullen asked Darian some detailed questions about the fighting with Blood Bear, Keisha decided to be bold and ask Daralie a few questions of her own.
“How did the Raven people come to accept you?” she asked. “You aren’t a Man-souled woman, you’ve got a husband and a family, but you act like one.”
Daralie laughed softly. “Well, they didn’t have a choice at first,” she pointed out. “Kullen was in no shape to help them; I was the one with the trapping knowledge and the two strong legs to take me out into the wilderness. They had to accept me, but I can tell you they didn’t like it! It was a bit of a struggle; they did what I told them, but I got no respect in the village. And when Kullen was able to walk about again, they stopped listening to me at all!”
“So what happened?” Keisha asked.
“I don’t know.” Daralie shrugged. “The men had one of their ceremonies, and something happened there that changed them entirely in their attitude toward me. But they won’t tell the women what it was - and I don’t care, so long as they don’t treat me like a nonentity anymore.”
I wonder if the Raven intervened? That was the only thing Keisha could think of, and by the shrewd glance Daralie threw at her, she figured the older woman had come to the same conclusion. But of course, she didn’t know Keisha, she didn’t know how much exposure Keisha had to the totemic spirits and the beliefs of the Northerners. The average Valdemaran would not expect to find spirits intervening so directly in the lives of mortals, and might even greet such a revelation with thinly disguised disbelief.
“So - I take it that you and my son are - partners, after the Hawkbrother fashion?” Daralie then said, her glance sharpening. And before Keisha could answer, she added, “Do you intend to wed?”