Eshiala stared after him. Even if he had not spoken one true word, he must have spent at least an hour setting up a stupid practical joke! Just to make her laugh?
“Why Mommy crying?” Maya asked.
4
And so the days passed. Autumn gold crept down from the Isdruthud Mountains and advanced across the plains to Hub. Three comets hung in the northern sky, a sight never before recorded. Odds of the imperor seeing the year out were being quoted at fifty to one against. Most of the great Winterfest balls had been canceled in anticipation of national mourning.
Suddenly elves became rare as unicorns. The imps chuckled and remarked how Winterfest was normally the most prosperous time of year for elves, and elves were notoriously unable to manage money. All those musicians, singers, couturiers, and so on had undoubtedly squandered their anticipated rewards prematurely and must now flee the capital to escape their creditors.
That failed to explain the departure of the poets, dancers, painters, and sculptors. Then came rumors that elves were hurrying to the skytrees of IIrane from all over Pandemia.
Funny people, elves.
Considering the famine in parts of Shimlundok and the Ambel earthquake, the Imperial Archivist wanted to declare 2998 the Year of Disasters. Shandie would not hear of it and decreed that it be known as the Year of Three Comets.
Nevertheless . . .
Harvests rotted in southwest Pithmot, due to a shortage of troll agricultural workers. A squadron of the IInd fleet was blown ashore in the Nogid Archipelago and the crews posted as missing, presumed eaten. The caliph’s armies rolled the legions back into Ullacarn, recovering everything the djinns had lost at Karthin and Bone Pass. Gnomish partisans ambushed a cohort in Guwush and ripped it to pieces.
Unconfirmed—meaning faunish and therefore non-impish and hence unreliable—sources claimed that a blaze of three dragons had escaped from Dragon Reach and ravaged Sysanasso for a week, before all three had inexplicably fallen dead from the sky. And civil war raged in Nordland. It was nice to know that some things, at least, were normal.
Unbeknownst to anyone else, the good folk of Krasnegar were battling disaster, also. A succession of unseasonable storms took out a section of the causeway at the deepest part of the channel. Without the supplies the wagons brought, the town would starve or freeze before spring. If the herds were lost, it would starve the following winter.
The king organized repairs with wagons and horses and every able-bodied man in the kingdom. The only source of suitable stone was a league away. Furthermore, the blocks could be placed in position only at low tide, and there was no room for traffic to pass on the road out to the damage site. Three times the repairs were begun, only to be ripped out by another storm.
Rap fretted worse than anyone. He wondered if the Gods were testing him, or warning him, or even punishing him. If he had not known before, he knew now that he would never stand by and let the town starve. Yet, as long as there was any hope that the people could solve their problems for themselves, he held back on sorcery. In the end he did not need to use it, but he suffered all the blisters, exhaustion, crushed toes, and strained backs as if they had happened to him.
Meanwhile, the queen had rallied the fishing fleet to ferry the harvest over the bay. That was a wretched business, also, with women wading out into the freezing waves to load the boats. Many a king of Krasnegar had tried building a wharf on the mainland side of the bay, only to see the winter ice wipe it contemptuously away. The little craft could handle foodstuffs, but they were useless for peat or livestock.
Winter came unusually late, so king and queen won their respective battles, but with mere hours to spare. The northern sky was turning to lead as precious cattle and horses stampeded across the finished causeway, laden wagons rolling behind them, and an army of weary foot soldiers tramping in the rear. Krasnegar slammed its door in winter’s face and the snow came before the next tide. It was going to be tight, but the king’s tallies said the people would live.
Never had so many worked so hard. All through the town, husbands were reunited with wives and parents with children.
The wind shrieked in the eaves and rattled casements, while tubs of bathwater steamed and stew pots bubbled. Impromptu singsongs and dances sprang up everywhere. In the saloons, the jotnar began settling long-postponed challenges. Imps began catching up on affairs of all sorts: love, business, and other peoples’.
Similar things were happening in the castle, too. Not in many weeks had Inos been able to gather her family all together. Secure in their private parlor, she and Rap cuddled their children. Holi remembered his father after a little thought. Ten months old now, he was fat and jolly, obviously a royal Krasnegarian misfit, a honey-haired imp with a faun nose. Eva was jotunnish and nine and becoming very protective of her baby brother. Gath and Kadie were soon to be fourteen . . . where did the years go? Tonight Inos had noticed a few gray hairs in Rap’s brown thatch, and those were new. She would not think about the windburn her mirror had displayed, nor the rest of its lies.
Sitting in their two big armchairs, smothered in children, king and queen smiled wearily across at each other. Later, his eyes said, and I love you. She sent back the same signals. The peat glowed on the big hearth, shining brighter once in a while as the wind gusted in the chimney. Candle flames danced on the mantel. Life felt very, very good.
“That was a close-run thing,” Rap remarked wearily, from underneath Eva and Kadie. He had said that several times. “But it will be all right?” Inos cuddled Holi.
“Oh, the food will last. Fuel will be tight, though.”
“And we will hold the Harvesthome Dance?” Kadie asked anxiously.
“Absolutely!” Inos said. “This year more than ever. We’ll start organizing tomorrow.”
“No!” Rap said, and grinned at her surprise. “Tomorrow we’ll have a family holiday. You kids can have your parents all to yourselves, for once. What do you want to do?”
Kadie’s eyes lit up. “Want you to give me a fencing lesson, Papa dear! ”
Rap twisted his head to regard his daughter nose to nose. “All right—but I don’t trust that bloodthirsty look in your eye!” She pouted, not at all displeased. So she thought she could beat her father, did she?
Gath smiled faintly. He was sitting on the hob by himself, because cuddling was beneath a man’s dignity.
Eva wanted help with her dolls’ house.
“Gath?” Rap said.
Gath’s dreamy gray eyes took on a bothered, pensive look. He scratched his spiky golden comb. “You promised to go through the soldier books with me. ”
“So I did.” Rap frowned.
Inos sent him a quizzical look, married code for Explain! She sensed something more important than dolls’ houses, and Rap’s reaction confirmed it.
“Just after Gath and I went over to the—”
“Very first day,” Gath said.
“Yes. He saw a vision of a soldier, on the beach.”
Gath jumped up and balanced on one foot, with the other behind him and one arm raised. “Like this! Just for a minute. Then he disappeared again. ”
Inos’ contentment dropped a few notches. Why had Rap not told her? Because they had hardly seen each other since, of course. Then why had Gath not told her? But she had hardly seen Gath, even. “Soldiers don’t usually go in for ballet dancing. Just that once, or do you see things often?”
“Just that once.” Gath resumed his seat, starting to look at her oddly. “An Imperial soldier! Dad says there are old books about the legions somewhere.”
“You made out his insignia?”
“Think so. On his breastplate. A star with four points.”
“All the imps wear that!” Kadie snorted. “It’s Imperial. Expect you were daydreaming.”
“And a circle of gold leaves.”
“What sort of gold leaves?” Inos said sharply. “Laurel leaves? Fig leaves?”
“You know!” Gath said, excited now, and staring hard at her. Leaves? She raked over distant memories of Kinvale. “I certainly do not know all the legionary blazons in the Impire!”
“But?” Gath said excitedly. “Yes? Yes?”
But leaves? Oak leaves? A circle of . . .
“Oak leaves!” Gath shouted. “Heir apparent! What’s oak?” Yes, of course! But how could he remember her memories before she did? Would she really have blurted that aloud when it came to her?
Rap edged Eva aside and straightened up, scowling from mother to son and back again. “The prince imperial? You’re sure?”
She nodded, with a let’s-talk-about-it-later frown.
“We’ll check it out tomorrow,” Rap said. “What’s the matter now?”
Gath was looking at him with a very odd expression. “Tomorrow? Er . . . nothing, Dad.”