The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

we shall be in snow. The day demands an early start.’

      Vandien raised his mug in a strangely formal gesture. ‘Drink with me to an early start,’ he intoned in a mystic voice. Then he downed the cooling tea that remained in the mug.

      Ki did not drink with him. She remained frozen, mug in hand. She felt as if he had moved a rock in her mind and the toad beneath it had winked one yellow eye. The warmth in her body drained down into the cold pit of her stomach. She watched him narrowly.

      But when Vandien lowered his mug he did not stare at her knowingly as she had feared. Instead, he gathered a handful of dry grasses, polished clean his bowl, and shook the last few drops of tea from the mug. He held up the cleansed items for Ki to note, then set them again by the fire. He stretched. Then he dropped to all fours and crawled under the wagon.

      Ki watched him, mystified. He curled up like a dog and closed his eyes.

      Ki cleaned her own bowl and mug slowly and rose stiffly to put them away. She banked up the fire and moved about her wagon, putting it to rights for the night. The horses had drawn close again. She went to them, reassuring them with small tongue-clicks and gentle scratchings on their throats. Then she sought out her cuddy.

      She did not kindle a light tonight. Enough starshine and firelight came through the small window. She hopped down into the cuddy and stepped to her bed. It was no more than a flat wooden platform elevated off the floor for the sake of storage beneath it. It was large enough to hold two bodies close and comfortable. It was not a sumptuous place to sleep. There was a mattress-bag stuffed full of clean straw to soften the boards beneath. For coverings, Ki had two worn woven blankets, one a dusky blue, the other a brown-gold. In a moment of abandon in Vermintown, she had spent part of Rhesus’s advance on a bed covering of shagdeer hides stitched together. The shagdeer hides were an unwarranted luxury, lush and new in their softness. Ki could strip naked and slip beneath the old woven blankets, pull the shagdeer hide over them, and be as warm as if she slept by a fire on a summer night. After the continual chill of the day, it was a tempting prospect.

      But beneath the wagon was a man in a tunic gone thread-bare, who huddled and shivered like a beast. Ki sat slowly on the bed. The shagdeer hide was rich and warm. The worn blankets had little to recommend them. Their colors had faded, their nap grown worn and thin since the day she had first seen them spread smooth on a mattress of fresh hay inside a new wagon that smelled still of tree sap. When she and Sven had slept beneath these blankets, there had never been a need for a shagdeer covering. The soft touch of them as she raised them to her face was like the gentle movement of a large hand against her cheek.

      Ki roughly folded the shagdeer hides. Then she crawled out of the cuddy onto the seat. She leaned over the edge of the seat and threw the bundled hides at Vandien’s shivering form. She did not wait to see his startled look or hear any words of thanks. She went back to her cuddy, sliding the small door to and fastening its seldom-used hook.

      She did not shed her dusty clothing, but crawled up on the platform and spread the worn blankets over her lap. Her hands rose in the darkness to loosen for the night her widow’s knots. The touch of them on her fingers brought to mind the echo of Vandien’s strange words. She sat still in the darkness, her hair loose upon her shoulders, remembering …

      Ki had been long on her road to Harper’s Ford. She had sent word ahead of her coming and of the sad tidings she must bring them. She would be expected. Yet, as she caught her first glimpse of the long meadows and apple trees that fronted the familiar road, her heart quailed within her. Could she not go on past quietly, her team clopping softly in the night, raising small puffs of dust with every step of their feathered hooves? She had sent them word of their loss. There was really nothing further she could offer them. How could she comfort them, who could not comfort herself? She was tired of her own emotions. Since Sven had passed she had been strung like the strings of a Harp tree, and every breeze had seemed to play upon her. There was nothing left in her of anger or pride or gladness. Her quick laugh and sudden tongue had been stilled. Her wits had grown dull with no Sven to whet them. Every emotion in her was stilled, forgotten, like a city when the sea takes it back.

      Or so she thought as she raised her eyes for one look at the twisted apple tree that had been a trysting place for them. Her eyes froze. A young man stood there, his hair pale in the evening light. A farmer’s smock hung nearly to his knees. His light hair hung long and loose to his shoulders, as befitted a man unspoken for. Ki’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth as he lifted one arm in greeting. In a dream, she stopped the horses. Sven came across the meadow to her, silently, moving through the tall grasses in the graceful stride she knew so well. She dared not speak, lest she break the spell. She did not care how this could be. Just let him keep coming closer. As he drew near, the trueness of his features did not alter. He did not fade nor float as a ghost should; she heard the brush of the grasses against his striding legs.

      ‘Ki!’

      Her heart fell. That tenor voice was not Sven’s but that of Lars. Lars, the youngest brother, as like to Sven as ever.

      She sagged back against the cuddy door. Her shaking heart fell to her stomach. Neither spoke as Lars mounted the wheel and seated himself on the seat beside her.

      ‘Shall I drive?’ he offered softly.

      Ki shook her head. She stirred the reins, and the team pulled. She could think of no words to say to him. Once more a desert possessed her heart. The pain would be new to Lars. Yet the months of bearing the pain alone had taught Ki no ways to quell it.

      ‘Poor sister Ki. I had cold words ready for you for not letting us know sooner. I forget them now. If a time of healing has still left you looking thus …’ Lars let the thought trail off. The wagon creaked beneath them. The horses’ hooves went on clopping in the dust. Lars leaned back heavily against the cuddy door. Ki felt his body sway with the wagon. Irritably, he hunched forward to gather and lift his long hair from the back of his neck. He wiped the sweat away with his sleeve. Ki smiled at the gesture. He was the image of Sven before he was a man.

      ‘I remember how he hated having his hair down on his neck. He used to tease and say that was the only reason he had come to an agreement with me: so that I would bind his hair back with a thong as befitted a taken man.’

      Lars nodded sourly. ‘It’s a foolish custom, but one mother will not hear of parting with. I almost wish I were a boy again, with my hair cropped short. It’s to my shoulders already, and keeps on growing.’

      ‘It will soon stop, by itself,’ Ki said comfortingly. ‘But if it is such an irritation to you, you could always find a woman to take you and bind it back.’

      Lars’s shoulders thumped against the cuddy door as he threw himself back in disgust. ‘You, too eh? I feel like a yearling at a stock fair. Rufus reminds me of my “duty.” Mother must have Katya over to help wind the wool, to put shingles on the barn, to aid with the spring calving. Strange. Up to last year, I was help enough for her when such things needed doing. Now she must have the two of us – and no more, mind you.’

      Ki chuckled. She knew they were both keeping their minds from a darker subject. She knew it, and worked at it.

      ‘So your mother plots against you, with the aid of your older brother. What of this Katya? Can she be so distasteful that you must resist?’

      ‘Katya.’ Lars rolled his eyes up. ‘Katya is plump and pretty, and as exciting as corn bread. Already she has the look of a farming woman. Hips that could birth a nation, shoulders that could take an ox’s yoke, hands to steer a plow, breasts to nurse a brood.’

      ‘Sounds daunting,’ Ki murmured.

      ‘Daunting. That’s the word for her. We grew up as friends, you know, liking one another well enough. She has grown to be a solid, pleasant woman – a woman to go fishing with, or hoe with in the fields. But not a woman I would choose as a mate and partner. I have never desired her that way.’

      ‘Then keep your hair loose upon your shoulders, Lars. It becomes you so. Soon enough a woman will find you and come to bind it back for you.’

      ‘I