“Aye. Archdivine.”
Her slow strokes turned into more perfunctory pats, as she sat up and took thought, and then breath. “So. My counsel to you tonight—as your Temple superior, my oh-so-learned divine and demon-burdened boy—is to go downstairs to the guesthouse bathing chamber, wake the attendant, get a bath—wash your hair”—her fingers paused to rub together in mild revulsion—“get something to eat, and go to bed.” She added after a moment, “Desdemona shall like that, too.”
Pen glowered at her slippers. “That’s not my Temple superior, that’s my mother.”
“And if she were here, I have no doubt she would tell you the same thing,” she said briskly, pushing him upright off her knee despite himself. “Shoo.”
“That’s all?”
“Clean your teeth, I suppose. Though you usually do that without being told. Your soul will keep for one night, I promise you, and your body and mind will be better tomorrow.”
He and Des snorted in unison, this time: he at Llewyn, Des at him. “Agh.” He stretched, and clambered up; he had to balance on his hands and knees before he could rise to his feet. Des had made no interrupting comment throughout this interview. There weren’t many people his demon much respected, but Princess-Archdivine Llewyn kin Stagthorne was high on that short list. It seemed the feeling was growing mutual.
He commanded over his shoulder as he made for the door, “You go to sleep, too, Your Grace.”
She smiled wryly at him. “Oh, I shall be able to now.”
Pen heaved himself out of bed the next morning thinking the princess-archdivine might have been overly optimistic about how much recovery one night’s sleep would provide him. He contemplated the walk all the way down across town and out to the Fellowship, not to mention back up again, and ordered a horse brought around from the Temple mews, instead. It proved another slug, suiting his mood perfectly as he sat atop it in a daze while it ferried him to his destination. By the time he arrived at the palisade and gate of the shamanic menagerie, he had come awake, helped by a cool, moist wind up the valley of the Stork that promised rain.
He handed off his mount to a helpful groom, then found his way to the fox family’s stall in the shorter stable block that overlooked the menagerie yard. Lunet was in attendance, he was pleased to discover, sitting on a stool under the broad eaves and looking none the worse for yesterday’s wear. She greeted him with good cheer.
Pen asked anxiously, “Does the family seem well, after their forcible relocation?”
“Quite well; take a look.”
They both leaned on the lower door and peered into the straw-lined stall. The vixen was laid out looking placid enough, nursing two cubs while three slept curled in a furry mound, and the last tried to stir up trouble by gnawing on what parts of its siblings it could reach. The vixen lifted her head warily at Pen, but laid it back down with a tired maternal sigh. The shamaness, it seemed, worried her not at all.
“The cubs are happy enough, if rambunctious,” Lunet told him. “We’ll need to let them out for exercise, when we’re sure, ah, their mother is settled.”
Meaning the vixen, or the demon? The demon was ascendant, there could be no doubt, rider not ridden, if letting the vixen have her way with her family. It wasn’t the fox who was dealing so smoothly with their human captors.
Des, thought Pen, can you discern any change since yesterday in the demon?
The vixen—no, the demon lifted the vixen’s head again as she felt her fellow-demon’s uncanny regard, but she tolerated the inspection. That much of her Temple tameness lingered, at least. A hopeful sign?
No new loss since yesterday, Desdemona allowed, in her density. Calmer, which is good.
It could be too early to tell. Pen wanted to be able to declare her stabilized, and Des knew why, but he also needed the claim to be true.
Hamo and his lad will be able to judge for themselves, if he gives it some time.
His lad? Oh, Hamo’s own demon. Younger than you, is he?
Most demons are. Hamo is only his second human rider; he was a mere elemental not long before that. She added a bit grudgingly, Hamo seems to have been good for him. He has developed quite well. That one could be ready for a physician in one more well-chosen lifetime.
Always the golden prize, much the way a Great Beast suitable to make a shaman was the goal of the shamans’ own carefully reiterated sacrifices. That might make a career for the cubs. The shamans preferred long-lived beasts, to build up spiritual strength and wisdom, so they would certainly prosper better in such care than in the wild, where half the litter would not survive their first year.
Voices carrying through the damp air pulled Pen from his meditations, and he turned to discover Learned Hamo rounding the stable block, accompanied, a bit to his surprise, by Oswyl and his shadow Thala. Oswyl must have gone to exchange reports as promised with Hamo this morning, though Pen rather thought it was curiosity, not duty, that brought him along here.
Oswyl nodded at the shamaness Lunet, who waved back in her usual friendly manner, and punctiliously introduced her to the bailiff of sorcerers.
“I thank you for your hard work yesterday,” said Hamo to Lunet, trying to return the civility, but his gaze was drawn inexorably to the stall. “Can I… may I go in?”
Lunet pursed her lips. “Of course, Learned, though we are trying not to disturb the mother fox too much.” The hint being that Hamo should withdraw promptly if he did. He nodded understanding, and Lunet drew open the lower door, closing it after him.
The vixen looked up abruptly, then rose and shook off her cubs, who complained and retreated from the human. But her posture did not speak of defense. Hamo fell to his knees before her, then sat cross-legged in the straw. She came to him without fear. Hamo was, Pen realized belatedly, the first person the demon-vixen could recognize.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Without speech, but not without understanding, because Hamo placed his hand out flat to the floor and whispered, “I am so sorry for your loss.”
Oh. Of course. Of course. Because Learned Magal had lost her demon, but the demon had also lost her Mags. Did demons mourn?
Oh, yes, breathed Des. It is not something we come into the world knowing, as elementals. But we learn. Oh, how we learn.
Pen’s stomach fluttered in a flash of formless, unanchored grief. Not his own. He had to inhale and exhale carefully.
The vixen placed one black paw atop the man’s outstretched hand. Pen needed neither hearing nor Sight to interpret this language: I am sorry for your loss as well.
Hamo turned his head to his watchers only long enough to murmur, “She’s in there. Something of her is definitely still in there.” Then all his attention returned to the animal.
Lunet jerked her chin, and muttered, “They’ll be all right. Let’s leave them for a little.” She, too, felt the sense of intrusion on some painfully private communion, Pen fancied.
In the gray morning light, the four of them went over to the mounting blocks where Pen had first seen the shamans… only yesterday? He, for one, sat with a grunt of relief.
Oswyl looked down at his hands clasped between his knees, and asked, “Do you think he loved her? Hamo and Magal.”
Pen made a releasing gesture. “Clearly so, but if you mean a love of the bedchamber, likely not. It would be vanishingly rare for two sorcerers to be so physically intimate. But there are other loves just as profound. Delighting in her as a protégé, hoping for her bright future, all of that. And the future of her demon. Think of two rival artists, perhaps, admiring each other’s work. The survivor mourning not just what was, but what could have been.”