He paused to savor the roast set before him. Eleeri and Mayrin smiled at each other as he talked.
“The house in Estcarp prospered also, and for many years there was much travel and trade between the two. My mother was of the Estcarp house. Of later years, the trade had lessened, but she had said when danger came, her house stood by kin, as was right. I think that those of the Karsten house were given shelter, but later they moved on. I know little more. My mother herself was wed shortly before the Horning and dwelt not within the keep.” He finished, reaching hungrily for the trenchers of bread.
“I thank you for that. Do you write to your mother?”
“Letters go with trade goods to other places. A letter may come to her hand in time.”
“Perhaps then you could say that Cynan of her house in Karsten wished this to be known to his kin.” She straightened, allowing her voice to take on an impersonal note. “I, Cynan of the House of Bear’s-Kin, returned to my keep to die within those walls. The land is yet in turmoil, so I have survived. But age comes upon me, I will lie in the land that once was ours. Let my kin remember there are two houses, that one day they may return. This message I send by the mouth of one I name kin-friend, sword-sister. Aid to her at need is laid upon our house, even as she aided me when I stood alone. This I, Cynan of the House of the Bear’s Kin, do swear.”
She reached for her pack then, producing the two plump packages. Formally she laid them upon the table, undoing the twisted grass string which bound them. In turn she held each up so that the lord and lady might see.
“To the lord and lady of the keep, I offer guest-gifts. May they be received from one who would be friend to you and your kin.”
Jerrany rose to bow. “They are received as guest-gifts,” he said slowly. “Friends in this land are always good to have, but those who move too swiftly may stumble. Yet we, too, would hope to have gained a new friend.”
Eleeri nodded, seeing that he did not move to take up the gifts. She laced the pack shut again and sat to continue the next course offered. As she ate quietly, she mused on the power she had displayed to them. It was growing, it seemed. When she had arrived in Karsten, she had been no more than a child with the horse-gift. But her time in Karsten seemed to have changed her. Meeting the lady in the place of the Old Ones. The gift of the warding stones. Cynan’s teaching. All seemed to have brought growth to her gift.
Once she had crossed into Escore, found her Keplian friends and her hold, things had changed further. The hold had closed about her in warmth. It was both unfamiliar and oddly familiar. As if after long wandering she had returned home. She eyed Mayrin as the woman ate. She, too, seemed to have some of the gift.
Mayrin looked up, to return the glance and smile a little. Then she reached for the gift. She laid it out, biting back unseemly groans of delight. A vest of rasti fur, and another for Jerrany. Her eyes glowed at the soft feel of the fur as she stroked it.
Jerrany reached for his own guest-gift. He had seen the quality at first glance and had deliberately taken time so as not to show his own interest. Eleeri watched as he took it up.
But Jerrany was giving nothing away. He passed her more food, pressing wine on her as well. She drank sparingly of that; water was her usual drink.
The conversation moved on to hunting and Eleeri realized with some amusement that the lord was now trying delicately to discover her home territory. His questions circled cleverly. At one time querying if certain bushes would grow in her area, at another if hill hens were within her borders. She answered truthfully. It was unlikely he would find her. The canyon was high in the mountains where few trails ran. Nor was the entrance easy to find, even for one who followed the Light.
Once the meal was concluded, she reached for her pack, unlacing the drawstrings with swift fingers. Then she began to unfold furs, some the dazzling white of the mountain leapers, others the silver-tipped rich brown of river rasti in winter. She had had to work very carefully to get those last. Rasti hunted in packs and would attack anything that was food if they hungered. They were swift, cunning, and deadly, appetites on four legs, feared by even the most skillful hunters. They could be killed. But those who fell dead were at once eaten by their kin. To have cured undamaged furs proclaimed her far and wide as a hunter of unmatched skill.
Jerrany drew in his breath. There was now no doubt, this one was of the Light, but what a hunter, also. He must indeed write to his dam and kin. He would send word also to the Green Valley and she who dwelled there. His lady caught his eyes, speaking wordlessly with tiny movements, her eyes alight with hope. He nodded slightly, hand twitching in a signal that she should move slowly. For several hours they bargained over the finest furs either had ever seen. The girl had come from the mountains somewhere, that was certain. Leaper furs of this whiteness could only have come from beasts living in snow more than half a year.
He allowed the rasti furs to slide through his hands. But this was the puzzle. These were lowland animals; this type tended to live by rivers on flat land.
Eleeri retired to the offered room for the night while he still sat pondering. She had to be of the Light. She’d passed forged iron, runes of ward and guard; she’d then called Light in runes herself. But the pendant his lady had admired was that of a Keplian. Those accursed followers of evil had killed many over the years. Would it be wise to broach to the girl the matter of the missing one?
He shrugged, departing for his own bed. There he found Mayrin of no mind to let slip an opportunity.
“Where do you then think her to live?” he was queried when he confessed his bewilderment.
“I know not. She brings furs from mountain and plains. Aldred says she came from the east along the lakeside. Those rasti furs are of a kind that makes a home by rivers; maybe she followed the stream that flows into our lake. But I cannot be sure. None of us have traveled far to the east. Those are the lands of the Gray Ones and the Keplians.”
“She is not evil,” his lady was swift to point out.
“That is seen, but how she lives in such a place, I do not know.”
His lady shrugged. To her it mattered not where the girl lived, as long as she was sure of her innocence. That she was, after the demonstration in the hall. She was sure of another thing, also. Eleeri had a sense of humor. She had marked the wicked twinkle as their visitor called power to her runes. It had been as if she were saying, There, you misjudged me. Mayrin had felt a sudden feeling of liking flow between them as eyes met. She wanted to know more of Eleeri as a friend.
She lay curled in her warm bed, mind drifting into sleep. But even as she relaxed, her heart wept, remembering.
She loved Jerrany. He’d been her idol from the time she was old enough to admire his youthful courage. He, in turn, had been kind to the younger girl who followed him. He had told her of his ambitions, to raise up a house again. His father had died in Estcarp’s wars, and his mother fled to Escore with her new lord, a man Jerrany disliked. He would carve out new lands for himself, not be beholden to another.
That was as well, Mayrin had thought silently. Her hero’s stepfather liked the boy no more than the boy liked him. Jerrany’s mother had produced other children to her new lord. It would be they who inherited his holding, close to Mayrin’s own in a dangerous land.
She herself had been promised to another, a man she feared. But her own father was adamant.
“What if you do not like him, silly chit? You know nothing of him but his looks from afar. You will wed him and unite our houses.”
But Escore, too, warred, and the man died—to her very great and secret relief. Jerrany announced soon after that he planned to seek a new home. She had been heartbroken: she would never see him again. He was brother, friend, protector, and he was deserting her.