Page 56 of Valdemar

“Found some wildlife, thought I’d share. And so I brought along a bear! What’s wrong with you? You seem distressed. You know I only fetch the best!”

—people had tears in their eyes, they were laughing so hard.

Kordas was astonished as well as convulsed with laughter. He had no idea that Rothas was so good at comedic songs! Of course some of this hilarity was probably due to the Bardic Gift—which often gave rise to the saying, “You had to be there”—but this was genuinely a funny song on its own.

:And especially when drinking,:Ardatha observed. :It should be extremely popular in taverns.:

The Bard got not only tumultuous applause when he was finished but a demand to hear it again. And again. By the time people reluctantly let him move on to other music, most of them had it memorized and were singing along, banging on the table in time to the lively tune.

Even Jonaton.

Rothas only had time for two more songs before he needed to leave (something everyone understood at this point, even if it was disappointing for most of them), and he kept to songs he had learned here, that everyone was familiar with, so there was more audience singing.

Kordas had the notion that by tomorrow, everyone living in the Palace would know the new song—and by tomorrow night, it would have spread down into Haven.

I think Sydney would be pleased.

Well, of course he would have been. Rothas was well on the way to making him immortal.

By the time the actual seal of Haven got painted and put up on the official buildings, everyone in the city would know who the little black cat was.

Kordas could almost hear Sydney in his head. As it should be.

Unfortunately, as he learned when he and Isla returned to their suite, young Jon had found out about the loss during supper and had slipped away, and they heard him sobbing desperately in his room the moment they opened the door. Kordas was taken aback; he would have thought that at fourteen, and certainly after experiencing the loss of so much else, Jon’s reaction would have been like Restil and Hakkon’s—sad, with quiet grief. After all, Sydney had been Jonaton’s pet, not theirs. But as they saw when they went to him, Jon was utterly bereft and inconsolable. His brothers were utterly at a loss; Hakkon even offered his dog to cuddle, but nothing helped. They looked helplessly at their parents as Kordas and Isla entered Jon’s room. Jon flung himself at his father. Kordas looked over the weeping lad in his arms at his wife, and all she could do was shake her head helplessly.

He was at his wit’s end within a mark; the poor youngling had cried himself into inarticulate exhaustion. He could not even tell them why he was so bereft, and his grief showed no signs of ebbing. When a knock came at the door, Kordas was very much inclined to answer it, shout at whoever was out there to go away, and slam it again—but when he opened it, intending to do just that, the person standing there was Lythe.

At her feet was an enormous female black cat, the spitting image of Sydney. In her arms was a basket of three black kittens.

This was so unexpected, and he was so taken aback, that he just stood there with his mouth open. She cocked her head, obviously hearing Jon’s crying, and pushed him aside gently.

“Excuse me, King,” she said politely. “But I have come for someone other than you.”

She and the queen cat marched right into the suite and straight to Jon’s bedroom. Kordas followed, bemused. Without any prompting that he could see, the queen jumped up on Jon’s bed rubbing against him and purring loudly.

Jon actually stopped crying for a moment, blinking at the newcomer, who took that as an invitation to shove her way between Jon and his mother, and plop herself in his lap. The cat looked up at Lythe and meowed silently. Lythe gently tilted the basket of three kittens, who tumbled happily into Jon’s lap with their mother.

“This is Sable,” Lythe said, sitting down on the bed where Kordas had been. “She’s Sydney’s great-granddaughter. As soon as she found out how sad you were, she told me I had to bring her to you. Of course, she didn’t want to leave the kittens behind.”

“Really?” Jon gulped, looking for the moment very much younger than his fourteen years, and utterly vulnerable.

Jon was always the most sensitive of the boys. I just didn’t realize how sensitive he was. But there must be more to this than just that.

“Really. I have Animal Mindspeech, you know. That’s how Hakkon’s dog was able to join you all here, already housebroken.” Lythe stroked Jon’s hair once, then petted the queen in his lap. “Sable doesn’t want you to be so sad. She knows how much you loved her great-grandfather, and she tells me—”

Right on cue, Sable meowed.

“—she tells me that it’s all right to be sad. But she wants you to feel better. She says Sydney would want you to feel better. That was why he helped you with your nightmares, and why he got between you and those bullies. That’s why he always came to you when you were lonely. So she came in his place to help you feel better. Do you want to know what the kittens’ names are?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “This one is a girl, and her name is Kallie. This one is a boy, and his name is Fisher. And this one is another boy, and his name is Edrik. Do you like them?”

“Yes,” Jon managed. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you, Sable,” he said, carefully.

Sable meowed, and bumped her head against his hand as the kittens began to nurse.

“I know you’re quite the young man now, but even Jonaton and your father, and Dole, and Sai and his brother Ceri were crying about Sydney tonight,” she said matter-of-factly. “Three wise old men were just as upset about this as you, and Jonaton needed a sleeping potion. So don’t be ashamed to cry. The saddest thing in the world is when someone we love goes where we can’t follow, right? And that’s the worst part. You know you will be missing them for as long as you live.”

Jon sighed, and wiped his eyes with his hand.

“But there will be other things to love. And Sable would like to love you, if you’ll have her.” Now she looked at Isla, who nodded—not the least because Hakkon’s lurcher had put his head on Jon’s knee, looking up at his face soulfully, and Sable stopped licking Jon’s hand long enough to lick the dog’s nose.