HOMECOMING
The house strained against the onslaught of the gale,
its timbers groaning and windows rattling. The wind sheared some
shingles off the roof and they whirled away, vanishing into the
maelstrom of blinding snow squalls. Winter was reluctant to loosen
its grip on the world this year.
The house,
fortunately, was sturdily built with its coastal location in mind
by one who understood the sea in all its fickle and hazardous
moods. Stevic G’ladheon, the foremost merchant of Sacoridia, also
possessed a fortune that ensured his house was built with the very
best materials by the very best carpenters—shipwrights,
mostly.
A cold draft seeped
through the room where he sat reading. He shivered and turned up
the flame in his oil lamp, welcoming the extra illumination and
warmth it emitted. A robust fire burned on the hearth, and he wore
layers of woolens and a scarf, but he still couldn’t keep warm
enough.
He had sensed the
storm building all day, saw the leaden sky fill with heavy clouds
and spit fitful flurries. He smelled the damp of the sea mixed with
the bite of the cold, and he knew they were in for a real
blow.
Sure enough, the
storm shrieked up the coast with a banshee’s fury. If he chose to
part the drapes from his window and peer through the frosted glass,
he’d see only a wall of white.
He could, he
supposed, abandon his icy office for the kitchen, the warmest room
in the house, but his sisters were in there, and the servants, too.
All that female energy crammed into one room was more than he
thought he could bear.
He hunkered more
deeply into his armchair and glared at Brandt’s Treatise of Commerce. It was impossibly dry, and
Brandt such a self-absorbed egoist that Stevic considered throwing
the volume on the fire more than once. But books were precious, and
he’d as soon burn one as he would his own house. He could always
set it aside, but he was far too obstinate to give up on it now.
He’d read the entire thing even if it killed him.
He gazed into the
golden flames on the hearth and thought of the Cloud Islands, and
of how easily he could have assigned himself to this winter’s
trading mission there, but he’d sent Sevano instead. His old cargo
master deserved the voyage to the tropics.
Stevic sighed,
thinking of the glorious sunshine rippling across azure waves,
waves that rolled onto fine sand beaches; of luscious, sweet fruits
always in season. He missed his good friend, Olni-olo, who welcomed
him into his home—really a hut on stilts situated on a tranquil
cove—as one of his family, a family that consisted of five wives
and dozens of children. He remembered all those children charging
across the sand toward him because they knew he brought candy, and
there were the hugs and the laughter. All beneath the tropical
sun.
Aaaah, the sunshine ...
Someone pounded on
the front door, jarring Stevic from his reverie of balmy island
days. What fool is out in this storm?
he wondered, and he rose from his chair and left his office for the
entry hall to find out. His butler, the ever efficient Artos, swept
by him and yanked the door open.
Snow rushed inward
with a bitter gust and a figure of white, like a frost wraith of
myth, emerged from the tempest and stepped across the threshold.
Stevic helped Artos heave the heavy door closed against the
wind.
Whew, he thought when that was accomplished. He
turned to their visitor who set a pair of saddlebags on the floor
and commenced brushing snow off him- or herself. Quite a lot of
snow, actually, but it did not take long for Stevic to discern
Rider green beneath.
“Karigan?”
The figure turned to
him and tossed back her hood. “Father!” She started toward him,
pausing only to slip out of her snowy, dripping greatcoat and hand
it to Artos. Even as Stevic held her in his arms, he couldn’t
believe she was there.
“What are you—” he
began, but just then all four of his sisters spilled into the hall,
their voices raised in astonishment, happiness, and consternation,
and asking a flurry of questions Karigan had no hope of answering.
Just as suddenly as she had come into his arms, she was gone,
embracing her aunts and kissing their cheeks.
“Artos!” Stace
snapped. “For heavens’ sake, man, don’t just stand there gawping.
Go tell Elaine to ready a bath for Karigan. She’s an
icicle!”
Artos obeyed
immediately.
“What on Earth were
you doing out in this storm, girl?” Gretta demanded.
“I thought I could
outride it.” Karigan’s reply was met by tsking from all her aunts.
“You’re as daft as
your father,” Tory said.
“Now wait a—” Stevic
began.
“I shall have Cook
stuff a goose,” Brini announced, and she bustled back toward the
kitchen.
Stevic watched
helplessly as Stace, Gretta, and Tory commandeered Karigan and
urged her toward the stairs.
“You need dry
clothes, girl,” Gretta said.
“And slippers,” Tory
added.
Stevic scratched his
head in bemusement as his daughter and sisters disappeared up the
stairs. “Breyan’s gold,” he muttered.
He stood there alone
in the hall for some moments, still overcome by the unexpected
appearance of his daughter. Only puddles of melted snow and the
saddlebags remained as evidence that Karigan had really come
through the door. He thought to pinch himself to make sure it was
not some dream. She’d felt real enough in his arms ... Usually she
sent word ahead if she planned a visit. Either advance word had not
arrived for some reason, or she was here on business.
It was hard enough
to know what his daughter was up to all the way in Sacor City, and
she hardly ever wrote, and when she did, it was often a reassurance
that all was well and that the king kept her busy.
He did not doubt her
duties were demanding, but vague reassurances about all being well
only served to rouse his suspicions.
He decided to make
himself useful and grabbed Karigan’s saddlebags. He carried them
upstairs and left them outside her bedchamber. From within came the
voices of his sisters rising and falling in good-natured scolding.
Stevic smiled. His sisters were a force to be reckoned with, and it
was no surprise that under their supervision Karigan had grown up
to be the spirited and rather hardheaded young woman she
was.
Stevic headed back
downstairs to his office. He’d pass the time there until Karigan
sought him out, as she always did, as soon as she was able to
escape her aunts.
Stevic tried to
engross himself in the Treatise of
Commerce while he awaited Karigan, but he repeatedly set it
aside to pace, the wind howling without. He was anxious to see her
and discover what, precisely, brought her home.
And, as he often
did, he wondered why she had to be a Green Rider when a relatively
safe and prosperous life as a merchant was ready and waiting for
her here at home with her clan. She’d explained the calling to him,
the magical compulsion that made her a Green Rider, but it only
further appalled Stevic to know his daughter was snared in some
spell that forced her to serve the king. Well, maybe force was not the right word, but one could not
trust magic. He’d thought all remnants vanquished long ago and was
content in that belief, but oh, no, there was just enough to take
his daughter away from him.
He hated worrying
about her, that she might fall prey to brigands along the road, or
tumble from her horse, or foolishly freeze to death in a blizzard.
He ground his teeth, then paused his pacing to gaze upon the
portrait of his wife behind his desk. Kariny was gone so many years
now. The light was dim in his office, but even so, she looked out
from the canvas luminous and breathtaking, almost as if she were
about to step through the gilded frame and be there with him alive
and laughing, chiding him for worrying so much.
To a casual viewer,
her countenance appeared as serious as that of any portrait
subject, but he saw the hidden smile, the glint of humor in blue
eyes. Eyes the artist captured so well. She’d been amused when he
commissioned the portrait, and during the sitting, she teased him
it was too much of an indulgence to hire such an artist of renown
to paint a wife as “unworthy” as she.
Never unworthy, he thought.
She died within a
year of the portrait’s completion, and Stevic was grateful he’d
commissioned it. Otherwise, he feared losing the details of her
features in his memory. Whenever he wished, he had but to look at
the painting and Kariny came back to life for him in some small
measure, the living, breathing woman, her touch and mannerisms, her
chiming laugh, the feel of her hair flowing between his
fingers.
And there was his
daughter, who so strongly resembled her mother. Karigan was now
about the age her mother had been when this portrait was painted.
So young.
Stevic would never
see Kariny grow old. He knew she would have done so with grace, her
beauty only refining, not fading, as the years passed. Instead, she
was stopped in time, captured forever in youthful
potential.
He shook his head.
In a sense, he too, was stopped in time. Stopped in time when
Kariny, along with their unborn child, died from fever. It made him
determined that their first child would go on to live the long,
fruitful life denied Kariny. But now that Karigan had grown up, it
was impossible to protect her. It did not help that she worked in
the king’s service, in a profession that was
dangerous.
Stevic tore his gaze
from the portrait of his wife, and his restlessness led him out
into the main hall. He was met with the aroma of roasting goose.
His stomach rumbled and he decided to brave the kitchen. There he
discovered not only his sisters, but Karigan, gossiping over tarts
and tea. Cook stood at the hearth turning a goose on its spit. As
one they looked up at his entrance.
Why hadn’t Karigan
come to see him first? He found himself a little hurt that she had
not.
“It’s about time you
decided to join us, Stevic,” Stace said.
“I was awaiting
Karigan.”
“What? And you
expected us to allow her into that ice shed you call an office with
her hair still wet? She’d catch her death of cold. She’s been
drying her hair in here, where it’s warm.”
Stevic glanced at
Karigan, bundled in civilian clothes and woolens, and saw that her
hair was indeed still damp. And he let out a sigh of relief. He’d
had a fleeting notion that maybe she was avoiding him for some
reason, but that was preposterous. What cause had she? Still, he
wondered why no one bothered to at least inform him she was done
with her bath. “Well, I didn’t know I was invited.”
“Oh, for heavens’
sake,” Brini said. “As if this weren’t your house.”
“Sometimes I’m not
so sure.”
Brini made a sound
of disgust and fetched him a teacup, but did not pour for him. He
half-smiled and pulled a chair up to the table. All his sisters
were older than he, Stace being the eldest; all unmarried and
showing little inclination for it. And why should they when he
supported them in relative luxury?
When they came to
Corsa to live under his roof, their backward island ways had
vanished in due time, but not their pragmatism; nor did they stand
on ceremony with their little brother. Often, just as when they
were children, it was four against one when some argument came up.
At least they no longer sat on him to force him to submit to their
wishes.
Henpecked though he
might feel from time to time, he was grateful for how they stepped
in when Kariny died. Karigan had been so little, and he so lost.
They provided that maternal core for Karigan, took over when his
own grief made him incapable of minding his affairs. They raised
Karigan while he traveled on merchanting ventures. While he
traveled to escape the pain.
Yes, he owed his
sisters much. He grabbed the teapot and filled his
cup.
“Karigan is too
thin,” Gretta said. “I do not think much of that Rider captain if
she cannot keep her people properly fed. Now don’t you roll your
eyes at me, young lady.”
Stevic assessed his
daughter and he did not think she looked as starved as Gretta
suggested. Karigan’s hair hung long and loose, and had acquired a
funny cowlick, but essentially, she looked unchanged. The same, but
now that he thought about it, different. Something in her eyes. He
could not put a finger on it and frowned.
“So, what brings you
home?” Stevic asked Karigan. “If we’d known you were coming, we
could’ve readied your room.”
“Sorry,” Karigan
replied. “I’m actually here with messages.”
Business, then, Stevic thought in
disappointment.
Karigan smiled.
“Though I may not be able to leave for a couple days with this
weather.”
As if to accentuate
her words, the house shuddered with another blast of wind. Stevic
sent a prayer to the heavens that the storm would not abate too
soon, stranding Karigan for an extra day or two. Not that he had
any faith in the gods, but it couldn’t hurt to ask, could it? He
missed her!
“Have you been
well?” he asked.
“Yep,” she replied,
and she reached behind herself for the message satchel hanging over
the back of her chair.
“How are things?” he
pressed. “They aren’t working you too hard, are they?”
“Weapons training is
not fun,” she replied with a grimace, “but otherwise things slow
down in the winter. I’ve been helping to train new
Riders.”
The chair creaked as
Stevic sat back and folded his arms. It wasn’t a very satisfactory
answer to his thinking—he wanted details. What might she be holding
back?
She did have a knack
for finding trouble. He’d heard all about that swordfight she got
into with some brigand at the Sacor City War Museum. The story was
all over the merchants guild, and of course he’d received a
detailed letter of the event from his Rhovan colleague, Bernardo
Coyle, who, as a result, did not consider Karigan a proper match
for his son. Stevic had crushed the letter and cast it into the
fire, thinking Karigan deserved far better than some ignorant
Rhovan for a husband anyway.
In contrast to what
he heard from his fellow merchants about the museum incident, he
found Karigan’s own accounting rather lacking. All she ever said
about it was that the outing with Bernardo’s son hadn’t gone well.
Nothing about any brigand, nothing about a swordfight.
“You are scowling,”
Brini told him. “Careful, or your face will freeze that
way.”
“I am not scowling.”
“Hah.”
By now Karigan had
undone the flap of the message satchel and drawn out a letter
sealed with the familiar gold imprint of the winged horse. She
passed it across the table to him. He assumed it was the usual
request from Captain Mapstone for supplies. Almost three years ago,
Stevic pledged to outfit the Riders if Captain Mapstone helped find
Karigan, who, at the time, had gone missing from school. She had
managed to get mixed up in Rider affairs and had played a part in
preventing a coup attempt against King Zachary. When Karigan had
turned up alive after all her adventures, the captain had made sure
Stevic followed through on his pledge.
He cracked open the
seal and found Captain Mapstone’s neat, precise writing within.
Dear Clan Chief G’ladheon, she began.
He wished she’d be more informal with him by now, but he supposed
familiarity was inappropriate in official
correspondence.
The letter was, as
he thought, a request for additional supplies, but the quantities
she asked for took him aback. Over the last
year, she wrote, our complement of
Riders has grown significantly, to which Karigan can attest. We’ve
been grateful for your generous donations of supplies in the past,
but the king and I understand this sudden increase in demand may
pose a difficulty for you. Therefore the king proposes to
compensate you at tax collection time with relief on your annual
burden, or to provide a direct payment.
Then, to his
delight, she chose to address him personally and in his mind’s eye,
he imagined her leaning closer and lowering her voice as if to take
him into her confidence, but his pleasure proved short-lived as he
read on: Stevic, the king is preparing for
future conflict. Opposing forces are on the move—old enemies of the
realm. I cannot say more about it here, but I wish to impress upon
you the deep need for these supplies. We look forward to the
earliest delivery as weather and your schedule
permit.
Stevic rubbed his
chin and read the last line of the letter to the sound of Cook
chopping parsnips at the sideboard: Whatever
may come, you can be sure my Riders will be in the thick of it.
Their readiness to face all enemies depends on you furnishing the
supplies they need.
He glanced up at
Karigan, who was laughing at something Gretta said.
Captain Mapstone’s
Riders—his daughter—would be in the
middle of this conflict, this threat, facing these enemies the king
was preparing for.
Despite the warmth
of the kitchen, his insides turned as cold as the storm that raged
outside.