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The eru furled her wings. The coachman tipped his cap at me.
“Ha-roo! Ha-roo!”
Wheels rumbled over the gravel drive as the horses first walked and then broke into a smooth carriage trot. The coach rolled away down the driveway. I waited for it to vanish into the spirit world, to cross the shadows and return my sire to his rightful home.
But it did not. It simply drove away back toward the main road, moving at a sedate pace as might a lordly man who has just paid a polite social call on a friendly neighbor.
I stared in consternation.
I had just let loose the Master of the Wild Hunt into the mortal world.
46
Rory tugged on my arm. “Is he gone, Cat? I know he saw me! I was afraid he would make me go with him.”
“He’s gone, Rory. You’re safe.”
“His children are never safe. No one is ever safe!”
“No, you’re all safe,” I said with certainty, and I hugged him.
Fortunately I did not have time to dwell on the bargain I had made. There was simply too much to do, with night falling over the displaced population of Four Moons House. Before anything else we sent runners to the nearby villages of Haranwy and Trecon. Then I cleaned the blood off my sword and hunted down the rest of Rory’s clothes.
The icy sculpture of Four Moons House glittered as the moon rose. Moonlight coruscated through the many facets of the ice, splintering light across the terraces and driveway. In this eerie weave of shadow and bright, Bee and the stewards counted heads and sorted people by injury and need. The cold mages who had been Drake’s prisoners were, like the mansa, injured and unconscious. Three were dead. The cold mages who had been at Four Moons House, like Serena, had absorbed some measure of backlash, but on the whole they had not been badly harmed, although all the pregnant women had gone into labor.
All the fire mages were dead. I pitied them, but I could not mourn.
Mostly I sat with Vai’s head in my lap. No sign of injury marked him but he lay oblivious, the only movement the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the sluggish pulse at his throat. Wasa huddled next to me, petting the cowering puppy. Bintou fetched water for us from the well, and the cool liquid slowly eased her mother’s coughing. I even got a little down Vai’s throat. As the evening wore on I slipped in and out of a doze, glancing up now and again to search for Bee. She was always there, busy managing people. I just hadn’t the strength.
In the middle of the night, wagons trundled up under the light of an almost-full moon and a clear sky. Andevai’s half brother Duvai led the contingent from Haranwy. All were men, all armed with their hunter’s bows, spears, scythes, and a few illegal rifles. I went to greet them.
“Peace to you, Andevai’s brother, and to all who live in your compound,” I said in the traditional way. “Do you have peace?”
“I am well, thanks to the mother who raised me,” he replied, “and my family has peace also. And you, Cat Barahal?”
“I am well, thanks to my power as a woman.”
He raised an eyebrow, as if something in my face made him take pause. Then he looked past me to the massif of ice that entombed Four Moons House.
“Will the village give these refugees shelter?” I asked. “On their behalf, and on my own, I ask for guest rights.”
“That is our duty and obligation,” he said. “We will do what we must.”
“The mansa named Vai as heir.”
“We heard the rumor.” He glanced toward Vai’s mother, who had not left Vai’s side. The stubborn line of old resentment creased his brow. “An honor to his mother, indeed. He has made his choice between his two hats. This turn of events cannot have improved his conceit.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about the hats. You must work honestly with him, Duvai. I think you will find him something changed. He is the village’s ally, not its enemy, not its ruler.”
“Is that what you think? You surely were determined to escape him the last time we met.”
A flush warmed my cheeks. “I am something changed as well.”
The resemblance between the two men was keen, although Duvai was lighter, having a mother who had been born in a Celtic village, and being therefore more mixed of feature and complexion. Ten years older, he had the surety of a man in his prime strength, fully aware of who he is and of his place in the world. Besides that, he was a hunter who had braved the spirit world more than once and returned successfully.
“Are you something changed in the matter of my brother?” he said with a chuckle that made me blush yet more. “I would not have taken you for a woman to be bought by the offer of riches and rank, so I must suppose he found another way to capture you.”
“You are mistaken. No man can capture me. But he might have… courted me.”
