they discover something else that they can’t heal. No one has yet
come up with a way to heal death, however, so a physician has to
learn to accept his losses and move on.
Layna was totally devastated, of course, and she didn’t long
survive her husband. Once again natural mortality was thinning the
ranks of those I loved the most.
I consoled myself – as I’ve done so many times – by devoting a
great amount of time to my new nephew. By the time he was six
years old there was no question whatsoever that he was a member
of the little family to which I was devoting my life. When the three
of them, Geran, Davon, and Alten, were together, we could all see
the almost mirror-image resemblances. Davon and Alten would
never have to waste time wondering what they’d look like when
they grew older. All they had to do was look at Geran.
Geran’s sandy-colored hair began to be touched with grey at the
temples after he turned fifty. It actually made him look rather
distinguished. It was in 4051 when the grave sensibility greying hair seems
to bestow upon even the silliest of men brought Geran and me to
the closest thing I think we ever had to an argument. ‘I’ve bee”
asked to stand for election to the town council, Aunt Pol,’ he told
me one summer evening when we were alone together in my garden.
‘I’ve been giving it some fairly serious consideration.’
‘Are you out of your mind, Geran?’ I asked sharply.
‘I could do a lot better job than some of the incumbents,’ he said
defensively. ‘Most of them are just using their offices to line their
own pockets.’
,That’s not your concern, Geran.’
,I live here too, Aunt Pol. The well-being of the city’s as much
,my concern as-it is everybody else’s.’
,Who raised this idiotic notion?’
‘The Earl of Muros himself.’ He said it with a certain pride.
,Use your head, Geran!’ I told him. ‘You can’t do something that’d
attract so much attention to you.’
‘People don’t really pay all that much attention to the members
of the council, Aunt Pol.’
‘You’re talking about the local people. Outsiders – including
Murgos – pay a lot of attention to the people in power. All we’d
need would be to have some Murgo asking around about your
origins. When he found out that you came here in 4012 – just ten
years after King Corek’s assassination – and that I’d come here with
you, everything would fly out the window.’
‘You worry too much,’ he scoffed.
‘Somebody has to. Too many things match up for a Murgo to just
shrug them all off as coincidence ~ your age, your appearance, My
presence, and the fact that I don’t get old. He’d have suspicions,
and he’d take them to Ctuchik. Ctuchik doesn’t worry about niceties,
Geran. If he has the faintest suspicion that you’re the survivor of that
massacre at Riva, he’ll have you and your entire family butchered. Is
getting elected to some silly office that important to you?’
‘I can afford to hire guards. I can protect my family.’
‘Why don’t you just paint a sign saying ‘King of Riva’ and hang
it around your neck? Guards, Geran? Why not hire trumpeters to
blow fanfares, too?’
‘I could do so much for the city and its people, Aunt Pol.’
‘I’m sure you could, but Muros isn’t your concern. Riva’s the
town you’re interested in. Someday, one of your descendants is
going to sit on the throne there. Concern yourself with that, not with
street repair and garbage disposal in a dusty town on the Sendarian
plain.’
‘ All right, Aunt Pol,’ he said, clearly irritated. ‘Don’t beat me over
the head with it. I’ll give my apologies to Oldrik and tell him
that I’m too busy right now to make speeches about corrupt
Officials.’
‘Oldrik?’
‘The Earl of Muros. He and I are rather close friends, actually. He
asks my advice on certain things now and then.’
‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed.
‘I can’t live under a rock, Aunt Pol,’ he said plaintively. ‘The town
of Muros has been good to me. I should do something to pay them
back.’
‘Build them a public park or open a hospital for the poor. Don’t
get involved in their politics.’
He sighed. ‘Whatever you say, Aunt Pol,’ he surrendered.
Despite my intervention that kept him out of office, Geran was
becoming much too prominent in Muros for my comfort. I began
to get an uneasy feeling that sooner or later one of Ctuchik’s agents
might just decide to have a look into the background of this ‘first
citizen’, and so I began making some plans.
As it turned out, that wasn’t premature. It was, in fact, just a little
late.
Young Alten continued to grow, and by the time he was twelve,
he was almost as tall as his father. Every so often, one of the heirs
I’ve nurtured reverts to type, perhaps to remind me that the blood
of Bear-shoulders still runs in their veins. Alten was going through
one of those gangly stages all adolescent males have to endure.
Sometimes it almost seemed that I could see him grow. He was
about fourteen, I think, when he came home one afternoon with a
puzzled look on his face. ‘Are we important people, Aunt Pol?’ he
asked me.
‘Your grandfather seemed to think so a few years back,’ I replied.
‘He wanted to stand for election to the town council.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘I talked him out of it. Why this sudden interest in fame, Alten?
You’re an apprentice cobbler. You’ll become famous if you make
good shoes.’
‘The cobbler I’m apprenticed to broke his favorite needle this
morning,’ he explained. ‘He sent me out to buy him a new one. I
was in the central market and there was this foreigner there asking
questions about us.’
‘What kind of foreigner?’ I asked quickly. I was suddenly very
alert.
‘I’m not really sure, Aunt Pol. He wasn’t a Tolnedran or a
Drasnian. I’m sure of that.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘He was a big man with swarthy skin – darker than a Tolnedran
or an Arend – and he had funny-shaped eyes.’
‘Scars on his cheeks?’ I pressed, my heart sinking.
‘Now that you mention it, I think he did. He was wearing a black
robe that looked sort of rusty. Anyway, he was really curious about
us. He wanted to know when grandfather came here to Muros and
He really wanted to know about you. He described you very well,
and I can’t imagine when it was he ever saw you, since you almost
never go out of the house.’
,someone told him about me, Alten. Go back to the tannery and
get your father and then go find your grandfather. He may be out
in the cattle pens somewhere. Tell them both that this is very urgent.
We all have to get together and talk. Oh, one other thing. Stay away
from the foreigner with the scarred face.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, already moving toward the door.
I knew that there were going to be objections – rather violent ones
so I did something I hadn’t really been obliged to do for quite a
long time. I didn’t try to reason with my growing family; I issued
commands. ‘There’s a Murgo in town,’ I told them when they’d all
assembled. ‘He’s been asking questions about us. We’ll have to leave
town immediately.’
‘This is a bad time, Aunt Pol,’ Davon objected. ‘My foreman at
the shoe shop just quit his job. I’ve got to find a replacement for
him before I can go anywhere.’
‘Leave that to the new owner.’
‘What new owner?’
‘The fellow who buys your shop.’
‘I’m not selling my shop!’
‘Burn it down, then.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about keeping this family alive, Davon. When Murgos
start asking questions about us, we pack up and leave.’
‘I’ve invested my whole life in that shop! It’s very important to
me!’
‘Important enough to die for? Important enough to kill Ainana
and Alten for?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Tell him about what happened on the beach at Riva in 4002,
Geran.’
‘She’s right, Davon,’ Geran told his son. ‘When Ctuchik’s people
start getting close to us, we run – or die. The whole of Cthol Murgos
wants to kill us.’
‘But our lives are here!’ Alnana objected, right on the verge of tears.
‘And SO are our graves – if we stay,’ Geran said bluntly. ‘If we
don’t move – and right now – none of us will be alive next week.’
He stared at the ceiling. ‘Oldrik, the Earl of Muros, is my friend.
We’ll turn the family business over to him. He’ll sell it for us and
send the money to the royal treasury in Sendar.’
‘Surely you’re not going to just give our life’s work to the king,