Sons of Destiny Prequel Series 003 - The Shifter (38 page)

"I trust the two of you won't be getting up that late as a habit?" her mother asked her.

"No, Mother. Um... not as a habit." She blushed harder, remembering just what had kept the two of them up so late. Not the rescuing of Traver and that woman, Parma, but the celebrating Solyn and Kenyen had done after their return home. "But we
are
newly wedded."

"Then I trust he pleased you? Or does the boy need a lecture on how to properly twine with a woman?" Reina asked, scooping the herbs on the flat of her blade into the broad funnel placed over one of her jars. "He won't be the first husband some new bride has sent my way."

Solyn feared her face would burst into flames. Struggling with her embarrassment, she finally managed to blurt, "He's just fine! He twines very well. And what little he didn't know, I... well, I showed him what
I
like. And he showed me. A lot. And he's a
man
, not a little boy." A hint of rebelliousness, pushing back her mortification, made her add tartly, "And
if
we sleep in late tomorrow morning, we'll have just and good cause for it—the same good cause that made
you
sleep in late when you married Father, I'm quite sure."

Her mother chuckled, taking no offense at her words. "Good... good... Do you know what happened to my gathering baskets? The flat oval ones with the big handles?"

"I couldn't say," she hedged, silently promising herself again to go buy her mother new ones. "Maybe I left them in the greenvein cave? I could go look, if you like."

"With your husband?" Reina asked, amusement coloring her tone. She gentled it after a moment, adding, "I thought you were done waxing the cheese with him."

This is
not
the conversation I wanted to have, this morning,
Solyn thought, embarrassed once more. Breathing deeply, she mastered her mortification and took her mother's words at face value. Firmly at face value. "We still have to wrap the fresh rounds. It'll be a handful more days before they're done wicking out the last of the whey and are safe for waxing. At that point, it'll be just as well to have two people there, to make the work go faster. All hands will be needed for the full harvest, so the sooner we're done with that, the sooner we can help the rest of the holding. Erm, holdings. Traver still owes his kin his service, until Tellik is old enough to take over all of his chores."

"Mm-hmm," her mother agreed, reaching for the jug of distilling spirits. She grunted, lifting the large, heavy, glazed jar onto the table, then spoke. "You know, if I recall correctly, when your father and I waxed the cheese in that cave, that stone floor was awfully hard. You might want to take a couple of blankets."

"Mother!"

"I'm just saying..." Reina muttered, shrugging blithely. She relented with a glance at her glaring daughter. "Oh, fine. I apologize, and I'll drop the subject. If only to make sure your face doesn't pop like a blister, it's holding so much blood. Help me lift this thing, will you? It's a fresh bottle of mash-spirits, and it's a bit heavy for tilting and pouring accurately on my own. I'm making more of my wound cleanser, since we used up so much on that ax accident. After that, I'll want to prepare several batches of tea sacks for sunburns. People will be out and about in the harvest sun, and too many of them will forget to wear their shade hats."

Grateful the subject would be dropped, Solyn moved to help lift and support the jug. Her mother's words made her think about her own future. "Mother..." She stopped, almost saying the wrong name. Starting again, she said carefully, "My husband and I did a lot of talking, last night."

"Oh? I trust this isn't another euphemism," Reina added, carefully filling the smaller jar with the strong-smelling brew. She quickly capped the jar with a piece of cork and pulled the next bottle over. "I promised I'd drop that subject."

Solyn rolled her eyes.
So much for dropping it.
She supported the jar as her mother guided its contents into the next glazed bottle. "I meant, we talked about the future. He wants me to go to a proper school. At some point, that is. He doesn't know what he'll do in town, but he does want to go with me."

"I thought you were firmly set against leaving the valley and leaving me... all alone in my efforts as Healer," her mother hedged carefully, helping her set the bottle upright again.

"I think things are looking up. Or will be, soon," she added as her mother gave her a sharp look. Solyn smiled at her mother but didn't elaborate. She didn't dare. The herb-room had windows that looked out on the broad yard that connected a handful of the holding's homes and outbuildings, plus her father's forge.

It was the closest their part of the valley had to a village square, and anyone could be out there during the day, walking past or working within hearing range. Only when Traver—and now her Shifterai husband—had been with her, had she been able to tell when no one was near. Kenyen, however, had gone off to tend to Traver's chores, wearing Traver's face.

Thinking of him and his ring made her think of the feel of it, last night. It had been subtle; the pain of her first coupling and the newness of all the various sensations had distracted her. By the second one, the pain had faded enough that she could focus on identifying just what she liked or didn't like about twining. The ring... had been an interesting sensation. It wasn't large, but it was a distinctly different sort of hardness from the rigidity of his manhood, and she kind of liked...

"... Are you done gathering wool?"

Solyn came back to her surroundings with a jump. She blushed, realizing her mother had been trying to get her attention. "Yes, Mother. You, uh, wanted something?"

Her mother nodded at the heavy jug. "Decant that into a smaller set of jugs, will you? I'd like this batch of mash-spirits to last longer than the previous one, and the more air it comes in contact with, the faster it'll go sour. And no drinking it," Reina added tartly. "You're drunk enough as it is on the spirits of your wedding night."

Blushing, she reached for empty, clean bottles. "No more so than
you
were, Mother, I am quite sure."

The Healer chuckled. "I
know
I'm sure."

"When you're done with that, Traver, I want you to take all the scythes and sickles up to the forge. I'll give you some coins to pay Ysander," Ysal Trud Hen, Traver's father, told the shapeshifted Kenyen. "I'll not be beholden to the man even if we're now kin. We're wealthy enough to pay and proud of it... but if he's busy, you use the grinding stones yourself. We'll need those tools sharp for the harvest."

"Yes, Father," he agreed, not looking up from the cart harness he was mending. Seated on a bench outside the family home, a broad, conical sun hat shading his head, he set another pair of stitches through the small holes he had punched in the straps.

Traver still "owed" his family's holding his efforts for the next three or so years. Kenyen sincerely hoped he wouldn't be stuck here that long. As nice and friendly as most of these Corredai were, being stuck here, pretending to be Traver Ys Ten, would mean that the Mongrels were still on the loose. That would mean his wife and new kin would still be in danger from them.

Traver's father lingered. Sensing he had something more to say, Kenyen looked up politely.

"You've done well, boy," Ysal told him gruffly. "Making a wife out of your friend. You've been a bit strange since your fall, but... you've grown up some. It's about time you took on some responsibilities of your own. Any chance you'd convince that girl to move into our holding?"

Kenyen could guess from Ysal's tentatively hopeful tone that he was more interested in how the holding's standing would rise in the valley, having its own on-hand Healer. He also could guess what Solyn would have to say about that. "She needs more training, Father. We've been talking about going to a city, one with a Healer's school."

"Would you go with her?" Ysal asked, his tone neutral.

"Yes. I'll find some work while she's studying. If nothing else, I'd hire out as a laborer for the nearest fields," he said. The words were true, too; Kenyen knew enough about farming from Family Tiger's obligatory farming year every so often back home that he could hire out as a laborer. He just hoped it wouldn't come to that; he was a man of action, even if he was still learning how to think through the mess entangling him.

"You'd leave us short one hand?" Ysal scoffed. "Just to follow 'er to a city?"

"A husband and wife should be together, whatever may come," he stated, knotting the last of his stitches. "And she does need more training before she's ready to work on her own. Besides, if the holding's so prosperous that you can pay to have the blacksmith sharpen the scythes, you can pay the wages of a laborer to replace me when I go."

At that bit of factually delivered impertinence, Ysal chuckled. "Yes, you've grown up, boy."

Snipping the waxed cord, Kenyen examined his work on the cart harness one last time and nodded, satisfied by his repair. He might not be the real Traver, but he wouldn't let the other man's family down. "This should hold a good long time." Tucking the leatherworking tools back into their pouch, he stood up. "I'll go get the barrow cart and load up the tools."

"When you're done with that, you bring her over for supper," Traver's father ordered him as he headed for the barn. "You may be a part of her family now, but she's a part of ours, too."

"I will," he promised.

It was no surprise to Solyn that her aunt Hylin was the first to bring gossip to their door. Her aunt had been doing that for as long as she could remember. That she brought it so early in the morning, when Solyn and her face-changed husband were still hauling in the second set of water pails after breakfast, that was a surprise. Usually her aunt didn't have anything juicy until at least midday.

"Reina? You won't
believe
what happened!" the older woman called out, bustling into the house ahead of the two. "That Tarquin boy? Remember how he was all after Solyn, and then moped around after she got married?"

"I'd have said sulked, not moped, but yes, I remember," Reina countered calmly. She lifted a hand from the tub of dishes she was cleaning and gestured at the cistern, addressing her daughter and son-in-law. "Pour most of it in there, you two. I'd also like the boiling kettle refilled and the fire stoked for the day. You'll need more clean cloths for the cheeses, after all." She glanced at her sister. "So? What about Tarquin?"

"Well, from what I've heard, he's been missing since that night, and
all day
yesterday. We all thought he was just off twining with some girl in the tea fields, looking for consoling," Hylin added dismissively, "but he didn't even come back last night! And apparently this morning Tunric woke up early, found the boy missing, and has been tearing up and down the valley, knocking on doors and demanding to know which 'harlot' his boy's been twining with all day!"

Solyn blushed, though not as much for her aunt's choice of words. A glance at Kenyen, wearing her best friend's face and body, showed he was keeping his own expression shuttered. Wordlessly, they took their time filling the water tank and the kettle, by unspoken agreement wanting to linger and hear whatever other news there might be.

Her mother, calm as ever, rolled her eyes. "I'm sure
that
caused a stir," Reina said. "They may have been twining with the boy, but that doesn't make them harlots. Their families won't be too happy to hear such language aimed at their girls."

"Oh, well, he stirred up quite a few of them, barging in barely at dawn, riding his horse up and down the valley until it was lathered," Hylin agreed.

"So which girl was it?" Reina asked.

"That's just it; nobody knows! Every girl in the Nespah Valley seems to be accounted for. When he finally realized that, Serilla told me that Tunric swore up a storm and took off down the valley, whipping his horse and headed for who knows where," Hylin gossiped. "Such a fine new mare, too. It'd be a shame if he broke and foundered the poor beast so soon after buying her—I hear the mare was traded all the way from the Plains, so you know it's good horseflesh."

A muscle clenched in her husband's jaw. Solyn had already heard about how the Mongrels had demanded the horse as a "tribute" and could guess the rest of his thoughts. Even if locally her fellow Corredai didn't know much about the Shifterai, the horses of the Shifting Plains were known for their quality, said to be second only to the ones raised on the Centa Plains somewhere far to the east.

The care with which the Shifterai treated and raised those horses was also known. It didn't take her much effort to connect everything together. Silently, she nudged him into finishing the task of stirring the coals and adding more wood to the fire. Her aunt's gossip turned to speculation on when one of the younger women would finally have her baby, and her mother gave measured, experienced answers about babies coming in their own due time. The interesting part of the morning was over.

Pouring the last of the water into the kettle, Solyn followed her husband outside. But they weren't alone, out there. One of her other cousins lifted his scythe from one of her father's grindstones and called out, "Hey, Solyn! Did you hear the news about Tarquin?"