The Song of Andiene - By Elisa Blaisdell Page 0,14

He spoke to me, and called me … promised me revenge. Gray, on the high cliffs above the fog.”

“That was a dream, child.” Hammel held up a hand to stop her from saying more. “No, child. Think what the city folk would think if they heard us saying ‘My lady,’ or ‘Rejin,’ and making obeisance. Habits are easy to make and hard to break. For as long as you are here, you are Rile, my wife’s brother’s daughter, spoken to as to any other child.”

She frowned, then nodded. “Then I shall be Rile.” She looked around her in puzzlement. “What manner of place is this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why have you chosen to live like this?” she asked simply.

Hammel looked at her as if to see if there was some sarcasm, some under-meaning in her words. Her face showed none. He smiled grimly. “You should have learned more of your land. A ruler must know more. We do not live this way because we choose to.”

“Then who compels you?” she began. Then her voice trailed off into silence. Color rose in her cheeks. “I ask your forgiveness. I lack wisdom.” She looked at them uncertainly. “Had you heard of me, before?”

Hammel shook his head. “You were only one among many, a child.”

“I saw and understood, but did not speak … I know not why … till that day. They never taught me, but I watched them.” She shivered, and did not seem to be able to stop. Kare put a comforting arm around her. “How long have I slept and dreamed?”

“For a week.”

“A week?” She looked at the coarse brown robe she wore, looked at her fingernails cut short and grimed with soot. She reached up and touched her shorn hair. “I was afraid it might have been years.” She shivered again. “Blood and fire.”

“Forget that,” said Hammel. “Try to forget it. It is past.”

“Not past,” she said urgently. “Still to come.” Then she shuddered. “Why did I say that?” She faced Hammel appealingly. “You must forgive me. I have no knowledge, no practice in dealing with people. I do not even know where I find the words to speak.”

“Come,” said Kare. “Let us eat. You are tired.” She rose and ladled out their meal. Andiene looked cautiously at her bowlful, tasted it carefully. Then her hunger overcame her fastidiousness.

Ilbran watched her as she ate. She was hungry as a courser, and the fish stew had to be thinned with water to stretch to fill four bowls.

He glanced at his father and mother. Kare watched her with maternal protectiveness; Hammel with quiet appraisal. And he himself? Exasperation and resentment. A mouth to feed, a constant danger—he could see no way to honorably be rid of her. He wished that she had taken shelter elsewhere, anywhere, so her blood would not be on his hands. And if he listened, in his mind he could hear the echo of the grizane’s words. “Whatever choice you make, it will bring you sorrow.”

Chapter 4

“There are some in the city, nobles, who’d be glad to have her,” Ilbran said to his father, a few mornings later. “Raise her for two more summers, then marry her and name themselves king. If I were one such as the one I spoke to on Festival day, I would know their names, know who they are, which ones are ambitious.”

“I’ll have no part of kingmaking and politics,” Hammel said softly. “She would be safer outside the gates.”

“Yes, but how will she pass the guards?” Ilbran asked. “Unless we can curl her hair and darken her eyes and broaden her bones?”

Kare looked up from the lace that she was knotting. “Her hair can be curled well enough to pass the guards, and if she keeps her eyes cast down, they will not see their color. This city is full of ones who look enough like her.”

“If we only wait till the hue and cry dies down,” said Hammel, “she could go and take refuge in the forest.”

“What! What kind of refuge … ?”

Hammel smiled at his son. “It is not so bad as that. I brought your mother from out of the forest, once. It is safe if you know its ways.”

Ilbran had known that his mother had been born in the forests to the north, but he had never thought of what that meant. He looked at his father as he had not done before, trying to see him as a young man, wandering for the pleasure of it. How