Winter passes. The manhorse’s departure from the camp
removed the need to uproot, and the Lirosi men decided to stay in place as
originally planned. Roanne has missed Sian, but she has also been able to spend
a lot more time with Kev. She doesn’t go to the manor anymore—that’s been
forbidden—but Kev is done with Mistress Reeve hitting him all the time and has
used all his charm to persuade Da into taking him on as an apprentice. This
means that he nagged the man into relenting. Now Da is the one hitting him, but
he doesn’t mind. He’s less afraid of horses than he was, and when he’s not
following Da from job to job, he makes himself useful around the camp. He’s
clumsy and inept in small spaces; Joel can’t figure out why the women are so
fond of him except that they must pity the poor witless oaf. Mam says all boys
Kev’s age are clumsy and inept, and she gives Joel the menacing eye as she says
it. He is already preparing to defy nature when his turn comes.
When the weather turns and the earth softens, the camp
moves on. Kev comes with them, much to Roanne’s delight and her brother’s
forced dismay—she’s starting to think that Joel is determined to hide a budding
affection for Kev. If she can persuade Da to think more highly of him, her dream
of being Kev’s wife has a better hope of becoming real. Da seems more inclined
to think less, however. Joel cheerfully recounts every criticism he hears, but
Mam quietly assures her daughter that Da is only harsh when he cares. Kev
responds by doubling his efforts and proves to be more valuable than anyone
imagined. Joel cannot figure it out. “If he’s this good, why did Lord Derrick
let him go?” he wonders.
Roanne shrugs. Lord Derrick let a lot of things go,
from what she’s heard. After losing both his wife and his brother, his
reputation as a dark wizard withered to one of a sad, lonely man. He has not
remarried, though hopeful ladies continue to test their appeal by inviting him
to hunting parties and dress balls. On the day the camp packs up to leave his
land, he has yet to accept any of them.
It takes a month of traveling east to find a new place
to set up camp. This time, the land belongs to a young lord whose wife has just
been delivered of a son. The usual spring celebration is especially merry as a
result. Roanne has attended lots of fairs over the years, but this will be the
best one yet. Kev asks to be her escort. Mam smiles, Da grumbles, and Joel is
sent along to make sure nothing inappropriate occurs between them. Roanne
reminds her father that she and Kev are still children. He agrees on her count,
but not on Kev’s. His voice has settled into its adult range, so perhaps, she
thinks with a curious thrill, Da is right. It makes Kev’s request all the more
exciting.
The fair is busy and colourful. The children wander
from refreshment stalls to gaming rings to dancing squares, collecting treats
and trinkets as they go. Joel and Kev behave like stupid boys most of the time,
pointing and snickering and generally being ignorant. Roanne stays a few steps
ahead of them, wishing Joel was a sister rather than a brother. Norra was too
much older when Roanne was a little child, but eight years is not so vast a
space when a girl is ten. Being older than a brother by two, however, and it
may as well be by a decade.
She can think fondly of her older sister these days.
Before, she was afraid to think of her at all. Da carried on as if Norra was
dead, and when Da carried on so, it may as well be so. Sian had changed all
that, the day when he left the camp. On that day, Mam had revealed a wonderful
secret: Norra was alive. The family’s eldest child was still alive and had
never been far away. Da had been a bit grumbly until Sian had spoken up, and
what the manhorse had revealed was even more wondrous than what Mam had said.
It had not eased Da’s hurt over his daughter’s rash behaviour, but it had
offered hope if he chose to take it. No apologies had been made. Da hadn’t
liked that, and had been glad to see the manhorse go. Sian had taken tearful
leave of the children, holding them both as one in his arms, and when he had
kissed Roanne’s cheek, he had also whispered love in her ear. She had sniffled,
but she had not wept. Joel had. Joel had cried and clung and begged him to
stay, embarrassing Da in more ways than was obvious. The boy had been punished
afterward, but hadn’t cared one whit; he had loved Sian immediately and trusted
him implicitly—and he had the sight, not Da, so he was right to shed
tears at their parting. Winter was colder than reality while father and son
frosted each other out. Mam eventually intervened and a grudging peace was
made.
She wonders now if Norra was able to reverse the
witching on Lord Derrick’s younger brother. She has her answer before the
thought fades. Joel suddenly elbows her so hard that her ribs will be bruised
the next day. She turns her head to berate him and sees him pointing avidly
between the baker’s stall and the ring toss. “Sian!” he shouts, joyfully.
“Look, Roanne, it’s Sian!”
She would look, but her brother bolts into the crowd
and she is obliged to follow him. He dodges and weaves with her close on his
heels, but the crowd is condensing, converging, and the path becomes harder to
negotiate. Roanne guesses that they have seen what her brother has seen and are
vying to get the better view of the novelty. She wants to shout and shove at
them even as her heart sickens at what must have become of him to bring him to
this public place. They won’t know him for the sweet soul he is; they’ll only
point and snicker the way Kev and Joel have pointed and snickered all day, when
something odd or unusual captures their derisive fancy. All around her, the
crowd intensifies, jostling and joking, muffling the music that has played
through afternoon. Joel slips further ahead of her. She calls his name, fearful
that some harm will befall him in the manhorse’s defence; he’s just reckless
enough and disdainful enough to get himself into trouble—
She bursts through the last line, which is also the
first line, being the line closest to the finely dressed couple newly appeared
on the green. Joel has been stopped in full flight The handsome young lord is
telling the guard to release him, he’s just a boy and he is a friend, and Joel
is hanging, too slack-jawed to struggle, from the grip of a man in gold and
green livery, and then the lady steps up and smiles, saying he’s more than a
friend, he’s my little brother, and the soft brown eyes begin searching the
crowd for the one she knows must inevitably be nearby …
Kev stumbles from the pursuit, his arrival jarring
Roanne when he barrels into her. “You won’t believe this,” he blurts, grabbing
her arm to keep her upright.
“It’s not Sian,” she declares, blinking tears from her
lashes.
“No, it’s not,” he agrees. Then he starts stammering.
“I mean, it’s not Sian, but it sort of, you know, is Sian …”
She smiles, letting the tears fall. Kev hasn’t time to
stammer more, for the lady has located them and is coming forward herself, her
silken hem whispering over the grass, her face anxious and earnest as she hopes
she will be recognized. As if Roanne could ever forget her older sister’s face.
They embrace. They weep, heedless of watching eyes.
Joel has been rescued and is now clamped to Blais like a bear cub to a tree,
sobbing helplessly into the familiar fair curls. Kev is the only one able to
utter a word. He utters two.
“My lord.”
Blais laughs as he cradles Joel. Roanne cannot believe
her eyes. He is no taller than he was. He is as beautiful as he was … but he
has two legs and no tail. He is a man, fully restored to what he was before she
and her brother came upon him wounded in the wood. “I have disappointed you,”
he observes with a smile in his voice.
Roanne glances at Norra, who makes a sheepish face. “I
have done the disappointing.”
“N-no,” Roanne objects, awkwardly. They are both
right, after a fashion, but they make so glorious a pair that she feels petty
for it.
Kev takes the matter to hand in his usual bone-headed
manner. “I thought you didn’t want to be a lord, my lord. I thought you wanted
to be Lirosi.”
Blais merely smiles, still cuddling Norra’s brother.
“I have decided to make use of what I am rather than wish for something I
cannot be. My son is both a lord and Lirosi.”
“Then that part was true,” Roanne murmurs to her
sister. “That’s why Da was so upset.”
Norra nods. “I did come back with a belly. A
prospective one, anyway.” She sighs. “I expect he’s still upset.”
“Da is always upset about something,” Joel declares,
indignantly.
“Mam will fix
him,” Roanne adds. She can’t take her eyes from Blais, from the boots on his
feet to the snug tan leathers on his legs. He is as blond and tawny as the
manhorse she first met. She is truly grateful that Norra is powerful enough to
have changed him back, but she privately resents that he has been changed. He
was the perfect creature when she and Joel found him in the wood that day. He
was—and was willing to be—hers alone. Now he is Norra’s, a member of the
family, so she will be glad of it and say nothing more. Except, maybe, to Kev.
She smiles on learning that their new son’s name is
Sian.
THE END
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