For a moment she felt tears sting her eyes. Shastro had sounded almost forlorn as he bade her good-bye. And he was fond of her, that she knew. He did not desire her but he enjoyed her companionship and the time they spent talking together. Surely he might yet be reclaimed for the Light? Then she remembered the old woman he’d had tortured. He’d believed she’d be interested to see the ghastly spectacle, but perhaps she could teach him differently? She didn’t want him as a lover, but if she wed him perhaps it would help Karsten. And perhaps not, a harder part of her mind said. Where would she be if she failed?
She wondered now if… speculation disappeared in a sudden blaze of joy. Keelan was yelling as they rounded the bend to the last stretch of road. Ahead she could see the walls of Aiskeep. She bit down on the desire to scream and shout with her brother. The duke’s guards must not be surprised at how pleased she was to see a keep supposedly foreign to her. It would be so good to be home and free of that kind of caution.
She could hear Keelan’s shouts echoing back. “Open, in the name of the heir. Open the gates.”
And old Harran’s welcome acid tones. “All right lad, all right. I’m old but I’m not deaf yet.” She pulled up in front of the gates as they swung back slowly. From the corner of her eye she saw the amused looks the guards were casting about. Keelan was shouting back upward.
“You sure you aren’t deaf? These gates need oiling; you don’t seem to have heard that?”
“I heard, I heard. What about you doing something around here. I’m an old man. I can’t do everything.”
“Why not, you’ve always said you did it all before,” Keelan retorted at full volume. His target spluttered. Keelan started to laugh, Aisling giggled helplessly, and Hadrann and the guards joined in. Old Harran spat in disgust.
“Humph! You get in here before bandits come looking to see who’s making all that noise. We can’t afford no ransom not even what they’d ask once they got a good look at yer.” Still grinning Keelan rode through the now fully opened gates. The guard captain turned to Hadrann.
“Lord, there’s half a day yet and an inn within reach by nightfall if we ride hard. It would save us a day on the journey back to Kars. Give us leave to go.”
Hadrann reached for his pouch and pressed coins into the captain’s hand. “You’d be welcome to stay the night here I know, but if you wish to go we won’t delay you. Thank you for your care.” The man accepted the coin and bowed slightly.
“Thank you, my Lord. We decided earlier. We will ride back now and be in Kars the quicker.” He reined his mount back to join the others who waited. He spoke briefly, and seconds later they were riding northward.
Hadrann rode through the massive gates to join Aisling and Keelan where they had dismounted. Wind Dancer had jumped from his carrysack and was prancing eagerly about. The horses were taken away, and it was Aisling who ran toward the door first. It opened, and within stood two familiar figures. She embraced them both, hugging and almost weeping her joy.
Ciara was practical. “I can’t greet you properly, dearling. Let us rid you of that shape first.” They linked, and “cousin Murna” melted away to be replaced by Aisling’s laughing face.
“That’s better.” Wind Dancer trilled, and she smiled. “Him too, he says.” They dispelled the big cat’s disguise, and he bounced merrily. Aisling stooped to hug him and straightened.
She looked at the beloved faces of her grandparents and allowed brief tears to fall. This was what Shastro had lost and now sought in every light love. This she had missed every day at the court, where all was false and smiles hid hatred or fear. This was her place no matter how far she went or how long she was gone. Home. She was home again.
XIV
They swept into the keep in a joyous laughing noisy group, Wind Dancer butting knees, bouncing, and bawling with the best of them. He was swept up and hugged as often as anyone else. After a short while he left his humans and went to find his dam. Shosho didn’t like noise and excitement. Being a normal-sized cat she sometimes got stepped on during such celebrations.
Aisling had spared him a thought as he padded off. The picture she received was Shosho rubbing happily against her giant son. She grinned and turned back to the welcome. Ciara had sat finally on her large comfortable chair before the fire, before speaking to her grandchildren.
“Dearlings, I’m so happy to see you home again. You are home again, I hope. For the winter at least?”
Aisling knelt to hug her. “Of course we are. Hadrann can only stay a few days though. He must ride on to Aranskeep. I said we’d send guards with him for safety?”
“Of course. Harran can go with six men.” Ciara waved down polite objections from Hadrann. “No, lad. There’re bandits about at this time of year. It’s on the edge of winter, and like bears, they too seek to lay up fat for winter.” She turned to Aisling again. “We have new neighbors in my family’s old garth. I forgot to tell you when you were home last.”
“What happened to the others?” Aisling remembered them as a pleasant rather stupid family from one of the smaller garths on the keep’s lands, garth born and bred, doing their work by rote because it had been good enough for their grandparents. Nothing new, never any innovations. They’d saved up all their lives to buy a garth. Everyone down to the small children contributing coppers where they could. Ciara had sold them the land and ancient sturdy house on a sliding series of payments. Now her grandmother looked sad.
“I should never have weakened. They wanted a garth so much and they’d worked so long and so hard for it. But you remember what they were like. They were one of our families, hard-working but not really very bright and too trusting. They could never remember a time when they’d been anything but protected by the keep. That garth is outside our lands at Aiskeep and isn’t protected, so it’s the perfect target.”
Aisling looked at her. “Bandits?”
“Bandits,” her grandmother confirmed with a sigh. “Just at this time last winter from the signs. We rode that way in spring to find them all dead. The door was unbroken. I think one of the bandits simply knocked, said he was stranded and could they offer shelter, and they let him in. The whole family down to the little children perished. Some of the walls had holes hacked in them, but all the hiding places were empty.”
Lord Trovagh made an angry sound. “The family gave us every copper they had. There was nothing to find, but the bandits had tortured one of the women to be sure. They left sometime in early spring. Anyway they were gone by the time we arrived.”
Ciara completed the tale. “We mended the holes in the walls, scrubbed blood from the floors. Then we sold the garth to Jontar’s second son. The lad’s smart, and so’s his wife. First thing they did was hang heavier doors and shutters. We paid for the wood.” She sighed. “We saw to it this time the door was on iron hinges inside, iron barred, and of real strength. There’s been too much blood spilled in Elmsgarth.”
For a moment her eyes were bleak as she remembered her own family, murdered in the Horning so many years ago. Ciara had been nine. She’d survived because her mother had got her into hiding and because the Lord of Aiskeep owned a debt. She recalled further and smiled. She’d repaid him by wedding his sickly son although that had been her wish and no sour bargain. Tro was her life and her love. She’d kept him alive through every winter ailment since, cared for Aiskeep as the old lord would have wished. And if that had meant she could never leave the keep or wander as she’d once dreamed, well, there had been other dreams worth the price she’d paid willingly.