"How shall I see my reflection," Alea asked bitterly, "when there is no mirror tall enough?"
"Almost as tall as Magnus, you mean?" Cordelia smiled. "Why would he want a minikin my size, when there is so much of him?"
Alea stared at her while she tried to quench a wild unreasoning hope, and had to lower her gaze to contain it. "No man wants a woman who's as tall as a tree …"
"Except a man who is a mountain," Quicksilver said, amused. "Besides, there is movement to mention."
"How?" Alea frowned. "What matters motion?"
Allouette made a small sound of exasperation.
"No, damsel, I do not know the workings of men's minds as you do!" Alea snapped. "I know only the result of your deeds—hurt that has burned so deeply that the wound can never heal and a heart locked away where none else can touch it!"
Allouette seemed to shrink where she sat, and Cordelia clasped her hand, saying to Alea, "That was unjust. It was not the woman you see before you who hurt my brother, but the she-wolf she was before my mother healed her."
"Indeed," Quicksilver seconded, "and we say that whom she assaulted, we from whom she tried to steal our beloveds."
"But failed!" Alea said hotly. "She did not fail in what she did to Magnus! I do not know what it is, I know only what I have guessed from the scraps of comments he has dropped now and again, but I know enough to gauge how deeply she has hurt him!"
"And how badly that has walled him from you?" Cordelia asked, her voice low.
Alea started to answer, but her voice caught in her throat and she had to shake her head angrily to clear the words. "I do not want that from him! Indeed, his loathing of sex, of any hint of it, was no doubt my protection in those first few months of our journeying together, when I was sure every man wanted to use me as his toy no matter how repellant I was, for I was at least female! To use but never to keep—and it took me long indeed to believe that your brother wanted my companionship and my welfare and finally my protection, but never my body! Aye, I suppose I should thank you for that." But her tone was bitter.
Allouette's eyes were wide and tragic, though, and she said softly, "One cripple healing another, then."
"Healing?" Alea snapped. "How can he be healing? Oh, I have tried, I suppose, much good it has done me—aye, much good indeed, when he has not healed a bit!" Then she stopped, staring in amazement at the words that had come from her lips.
"Do you wish him to be more to you, then, than a shield-mate in battle?" Cordelia asked gently, then answered her own question. "Of course you do, if you would see him fully healed."
"Aye, I wish it!" Alea cried. "But how can that be? I am not the sort of woman to be able to heal a man!"
"You are exactly the sort of woman to heal that man," Allouette said with certainty.
"To protect him, at least!" Alea turned on her. "Let none dare to strike at him again, for she shall meet two swords instead of one!"
"There is none here who will seek his hurt," Allouette assured her, voice low, but face composed with a serenity that discarded any possibility of fear.
By her very confidence, she struck doubt into Alea's heart, so that she spoke with more vehemence than she might have otherwise. "How can anyone be healed from wounds such as that!"
"By truth and kindness and forgiveness," Cordelia said, "even as our mother healed Allouette."
Alea turned to stare in surprise.
"She was most horrendously twisted from infancy on," Cordelia explained, "kidnapped from her real mother and reared by those who sought to fashion her as a tool for their own purposes—by people who knew exactly what they did and what pain they inflicted and cared not a whit, as long as it accomplished their ends. They twisted her and warped her into believing the world was far worse than it is, and no goodness possible."
"Twisted for their pleasures, too," Quicksilver said, her voice low.
Alea understood instantly what she meant, understood five possibilities on the instant, and winced at the thought.
"Do not feel sorry for me," Allouette said. "Do not pity me, for I deserve it not. What I did, I chose to do, and it does not matter that those choices were based on lies and on hatreds that were based on still more lies. It was nonetheless my decision, my choice, and I deserved every torture wreaked upon me."
"When the deeds came after the tortures?" Quicksilver snapped. "Be not so ingenuous, sister! You had not the ghost of a notion that you had any choice at all." She turned back to Alea. "Pity her indeed, for she was debased and humiliated so badly that I wonder she had any will to live. Forgive her, too, for when she learned the truth, remorse overwhelmed her, and threatens even now to drown her in spite of all the love and praise Gregory lavishes upon her."
Alea stared at Allouette, and the minutes stretched as Quicksilver and Cordelia held their breaths. Then, "I shall forgive you," Alea said, her voice cold, "when Magnus is healed."
"Do you see to it, then," Allouette said, "for only you can."
Cordelia and Quicksilver were still a moment more, then nodded, and Alea stared at the three of them, appalled and feeling completely helpless and inadequate.
A SINGLE CANDLE lit the room, showing the woman who lay propped up by pillows in the wide bed with the grieving, gray-haired man beside her, her hand in both of his, gaze never leaving her face. For a moment Magnus wondered who she was, then realized the shrunken, wrinkled face on the pillow was that of his mother. He froze in shock.
"Speak to her," Gregory said softly at his shoulder. "She will waken for you."
Magnus still stood unable to move as he heard the door close quietly behind him. At the sound, the old man looked up.
Four
ROD LAID HIS WIFE'S HAND ON THE BLANKET and rose with a smile of welcome and pleasure stretching the lines and creases of his face, a smile at the sight of his eldest son—but a muted smile, struggling to emerge through sadness, and through wrinkles that his son had never seen. Rod Gallowglass held up his arms, and Magnus leaned down to embrace his father.
After a few minutes, Rod's hold loosened; he stepped back to gaze up at his son with pride. "You came," he said softly, "you came in time."
"Praise Heaven." Magnus was surprised to find his own voice shaky. "Are you … are you well, Papa?"
"As well as can be expected," Rod said sadly, and turned to lead Magnus to the bedside. "Sit down, son, and tell her you're home."
Magnus sat. For another moment, he felt he was looking at a stranger again; then he saw the familiar features beneath the ravages of disease and took his mother's hand. But such a frail hand, so wasted and bony! The eyes opened, though; she frowned, puzzled, as she looked up at the hulking stranger beside her bed. Then she recognized her son, and her smile transformed her face. For a moment, the years fell away, and she was as he remembered her from his leave-taking. "You came," she said in the voice he recognized. "You came back." With great effort, she raised her arms a few inches.
Quickly, Magnus slid his arms under hers and leaned close to press her into a very gentle embrace.
Rod hovered near, anxiety warring with joy as he gazed upon his eldest and his wife. For a moment, his eyes clouded as he remembered the boisterous golden-haired toddler bouncing off the walls as he learned to levitate and the anxious young mother who rushed to collect him. Then the reality of the present became more important than memory, and he gazed upon the two with fond concern.
When Magnus let his mother go and laid her gently back on the pillow, she beamed up at him with pride and said, 'Tell me, now. Tell me all that you have done."