“I could ride him?” asked Renny tentatively. “Ride him to Askelon?”
The farmer glanced at his wife and scratched his jaw. “Well, now, Renny, I don’t be-”
“I know how to ride!” Renny said quickly. “The Dragon King himself taught me, remember?”
“By my lights, ‘ee did,” agreed his father. “But it’s a far ride, and you’d have to walk back all alone.”
“I don’t care,” shouted Renny. “Could I take him? Please?”
“If your mother says so, I say so,” hedged his father.
The woman looked at the light dancing in her son’s eyes and did not have the heart to dash it out. She nodded slowly. “I’ll fix ‘ee a rucksack to take with ‘ee so’s ‘ee won’t get hungry on the way.” She turned and went into the low-built farmhouse.
“I’ll ride him all the way to Askelon!” crowed Renny. “And I’ll claim the reward!”
THIRTY-SEVEN
“ESME! ESME, wake up!” Bria exclaimed, shaking the arm of the sleeping woman.
“What? Oh!” Esme said, jerking awake with a start. “Oh, my! It was a dream!” She turned and gazed at Bria and Morwenna bending over her, and raised a shaking hand to her temple. “I must have fallen asleep… but it was so real-not like any other dream I’ve ever had.”
“You cried out.” Bria glanced at Morwenna, who nodded and took one of Esme’s hands in her own.
“We did not know where you had gone, my dear,” said Morwenna. “When we turned around, you were no longer with us. We were looking for you when we heard your cry. How are you feeling now?”
Esme shook her head slowly, but the images of her dream remained as vivid as before. “I believe I am well. I was looking at the pictures and became sleepy; I rested my head on the bench for a moment and dreamed a very strange and unsettling dream.”
“Tell us, if you wish,” offered Bria. “Can you remember it?”
Esme nodded vigorously. “I am not likely to soon forget. I can still see it as if it had happened right here moments ago.” She paused; her eyes looked past them and into the world of her dream once again. “I was standing on a high plateau…” she began. But Morwenna held up her hand.
“Wait, my Lady,” Morwenna said. “There is one among us who is highly skilled in the unraveling of dreams and their meanings. Come, we will go to him at once, and he must hear your dream.”
Esme rose to her feet. “It is important? It was just a dream.”
Morwenna stopped and took Esme by both arms. “There are many ways in which Whist Orren chooses to speak to his children. Dreams are one of his most important means of revealing himself, and they are not treated lightly in Dekra.” She smiled quickly and added, “But come, we will hear what our dream reader has to say.”
The three left the Ariga library, passing among the tall ranks of honeycombed shelves and tables stacked with scrolls, back up the stairway and through the narrow courtyard to the street. Morwenna led them a little way further along the street to a blue-tiled arch in a white brick wall. She pushed open the gate and ushered them into a green expanse of garden filled with flowering shrubs of many kinds.
“What a wonderful garden,” said Bria. “Who lives here?” She indicated the tiny house that joined the wall at the far end of the garden pathway.
“That you will see soon enough,” replied Morwenna. She raised her hand toward a huge, spreading sycamore standing in the center of the yard, and beneath it a figure propped up in a high, wide bed. Beside the bed another figure, that of a woman, bent near the one on the bed. This second figure Bria recognized as that of her mother.
“Mother, what are you doing here?” asked Bria with some surprise when they came up. Then she glanced at the figure lying in the bed beneath cool white linens. “Biorkis! Oh, forgive me,” she blushed, embarrassed, “I meant to come to you sooner. Please forgive me for shunning an old friend.”
Biorkis, bald as a knob now, but his beard longer and whiter than ever, squinted his eyes merrily and replied, “No need, no need! You have been very busy since you came, I know. A Queen’s time is not her own. Alinea has brought me your greetings, and I’ve met your daughters-lovely little creatures, I must say. Just like their mother.”
“I have only just sent them away with the other children to play,” said Alinea. “Biorkis and I were talking about-”-she hesitated-“about the news of the kingdom.”
Biorkis started forward. “I am no stranger to trouble; there is no need to shelter me from its pain. I have lived long enough to know that fretting over it does no good.” He paused and favored them each with a long, appraising gaze. “Yes, here you are. And though trouble brought you, I am glad to see you, my friends. It has been a long time.”
“Too long,” said Bria, “and for that I am sorry. Sometimes we do not remember how much our friends mean to us until we see them again.”
“Do not be sorry for this old badger!” protested the aged priest. “I am not sorry for myself, nor should anyone be who is loved and cared for as I am here. Look! I am old and cannot walk anymore, so what do they do? They carry my bed outdoors for me! And in return I tell them stories and read to them from the old books. This, they claim, pleases them; so I am allowed to stay.”
Morwenna smiled and settled on the edge of the bed. “This one is a most highly regarded servant of the Most High. We would sooner turn out an elder than Biorkis. We would have made him an elder long ago, but he would not hear of it.”
Biorkis replied gleefully, “Preposterous! The former High Priest of the temple of Ariel an elder? That would never do! No, I am content as I am. But please, my Ladies, sit down. I will have more chairs brought.”
“We can find places here,” said Bria, perching on the arm of her mother’s chair. Esme sat down on the bed beside Morwenna. “The King-Quentin-would like to see you. I am certain he would have come with us, but-”
Biorkis held up his hands. “Your mother has already told me what has happened, and my prayers are with you all. I, too, feel the loss of Durwin even now. How much more must Quentin feel it?-not to mention the abduction of your son, my Lady. But as I will be joining Durwin soon, I do not feel such grief as a younger man might. I cannot but think that the old rascal of a hermit will have some great work already in scheme for us to do when I get there. And so I will tarry here a little longer and rest up for it.”
The old priest spoke so assuredly and with such calm conviction that Esme wondered at it. “You make it sound as if he has only gone on a brief journey to his home in Pelgrin Forest.”
“Aye, and so he has!” cried Biorkis. “But his journey was never to a place so humble as Pelgrin. No, my Lady. He has joined the court of the Most High, Lord of All. If I feel sadness, it is only for the cruel way in which he was cut down. For all the goodness that was in him, Durwin should have ended his days like me, here, surrounded by friends and loved by all.”
Morwenna smiled and patted the pale hand that rested on the sheet. “I am glad to hear that you have decided to remain with us yet a little longer.”
Biorkis nodded happily, his clear eyes dancing at the sight of the women gathered around him. “I would remain always if I could be surrounded by such beauty as I see now.” He paused, then glanced around him, adding in a more solemn tone, “But this visit, as pleasant as it is, shares some more urgent purpose than merely to cheer a babbling old rattlepate. What is it that brings you to me?”
Morwenna spoke first. “A dream. We would like you to hear it and tell us what it may mean.”
“Ah, a dream.” He nodded knowingly, and then turned to address Esme directly. “Why don’t you tell me your dream, then, my Lady, and we will see what can be learned from it.”