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“We learn from our parents while still in the egg.”
“Fascinating. But what surprises me—”
The tolling of Mossbell’s signal interrupted his thought. “It must be Lada,” he said. “I asked Forstrel to ring as soon as any riders appeared. Wistala, bear me to the front gallery window!”
The front stairwell had a landing with an arched window in it looking out on the balcony between the two trees, made of glass so fine, there were hardly any distortions when peering through. He worked the latches and forced open the frame.
“Odd that she does not ride,” Rainfall said. “She used to love ponies. Yet—it was cool this morning, good of the thane to provide her with more comfortable transport.”
A two-wheeled cart—very like but a little more elaborate than that of the wandering dwarf with the ponies Wistala had met on the road—moved up the lane with a rider behind.
“Perhaps you should remain inside, Wistala.” Forstrel, all hair and limbs, was still ringing the bell as though the barn was going up in flames.
“Young Lessup!” Rainfall called. “Yes, Forstrel, up here, please. I should like to meet my granddaughter on my steps.”
One of the Widow Lessup’s daughters had the sense to put out a chair for Rainfall, and Wistala saw that he was installed before the rig had even turned around in front of the house.
The escort, only a little mud-splattered in the blue livery of Thane Hammar, didn’t descend from his horse. Wistala could tell from Rainfall’s stiff manner that he didn’t care for this discourtesy.
“Here’s your spawn back, and more besides!” the escort said as the rig-driver stepped down and lowered a support for the cart. When that was locked in place, he opened the doors at the back of the cart, and Lada stepped down.
“Phew, she’s tossed all over the inside,” the driver said.
Lada, a little stained about the neck, was helped out of the cart. Her eyes were wide and wet, and she shot an accusing look at Rainfall.
“Rah-ya, Lada, my moppet,” he said, extending his hands. Wistala saw a little skirt behind and decided that some of the Lessup household were standing behind their master. “I’m sorry for the rough journey.”
“Monster! Demon! You’ve ruined everything! Everything!” she said in so loud a voice, her words cracked. She fled into the house, dodging around Rainfall as he reached for her.
“And you’re welcome to her,” the thane’s liveryman laughed. He reached into a bag on his saddle and drew out the doll Wistala had brought. “Here’s her mystery doll, Rainfall. You should be more careful in your plotting than to leave such tokens lying about.”
Rainfall put his arm about Forstrel’s shoulders, and the youth took him inside as the house went into uproar. She heard doors closed, shouting, crying, and quick steps as the Lessup clan gathered to discuss events.
Wistala could do nothing. She watched the rider and rig disappear, then went to Rainfall’s library. If he were greatly troubled, he’d probably go there. She curled up about his tablets and waited, unable to simply fall asleep.
He appeared as the juicy smells of dinner being cooked began to fill the house, brought in by Forstrel in a wheeled basket used for gathering fruit.
“I really must have one of those sick-benches built,” he said as he settled into his reading chair. “Thank you, Young Lessup. Ah, Tala, you appear again when you’re most needed. You can see about getting some dinner, Lessup. I won’t eat tonight.”
The boy placed a blanket over Rainfall’s legs and left, shutting the door behind.
“So much for homecoming joy. But she’s beautiful, do you not agree?”
“I’m just getting so I can tell hominids apart,” Wistala said.
“Perhaps not in a way that can be captured by portraits or sculpture, you have to look into her living eyes to appreciate her. Wild and open, like my son’s. I wonder what her mother was like.”
“Why was she angry to you?”
“I need a glass of wine,” Rainfall said. He moved for his bell—
“I’ll bring it,” Wistala said, glad of an excuse to make the trip to the cellar and back. “Which kind?”
“The blueberry, I think. Something sweet to wash the bitter words from my mouth.”
Wistala crept past the room that had been prepared for Lada and heard sobbing from the crack beneath. Her griff extended a little, and she descended to the wine cellar and searched the tags on the month’s table wine for the blueberry picture.
She carried it back up in her mouth, startling one of the younger Lessup girls as she emerged from the cellar. The child let out a squeak and ran off toward the kitchen. It was the one who liked to tie her hair up in ribbons, Wistala noted absently; all the others in the family simply watched her as she went about Mossbell.
