Dragons of the Valley - Donita K. Paul [31]
Paladin gave Tipper one last squeeze and set her on her feet. Mothers and fathers called their children to their sides but did not chastise them for swarming all over their visitor.
Tipper watched the ease with which he accepted their homage. He looked even more confident than when she first met him. She noticed his skin had darkened. His hair too. She looked down at her own. She had matured, grown in wisdom and experience, but the change to her skin tone and blond hair was slight. She hoped that she would, with time, darken to the rich ebony that indicated her father had reached an older age in good favor. Her mother had not, but Lady Peg did not seem to mind.
Winkel came forward and bowed to Paladin. “We are honored to greet you in our village. Our kin in the Mercigon Mountains have kept us informed of your status. In fact, we have closely watched the unfolding history of the chosen princes throughout the ages. We are at your service.” She bowed again, and all the other villagers and even some of the younger children bowed as well.
Paladin beamed at them, the warmth of his smile melting away Tipper’s embarrassment. But at the same time, she remembered how important he was and how he treated everyone he met as if that person was important as well. So did he accept her very forward embrace because he treated all people equally? Or did he greet her in that manner because he felt drawn to her as she felt drawn to him?
She stood back, watching the villagers as each one came up individually or as a family to swear their allegiance to this prince and paladin. Tipper wondered if she should be affronted. Technically the villagers were subjects to her grandfather, King Yellat.
Eventually she ducked into her tent and got properly dressed. Taeda Bel came in later to announce a feast to celebrate the coming of Paladin. “And he’s going to tell us more about Wulder.”
Tipper dropped the braid she’d been winding around the top of her head. “More about Wulder? What do you know about Wulder to begin with? How could you know anything about Wulder?”
The dainty kimen plopped into Tipper’s hammock and set it gently swaying back and forth. “We know the promise. The promise has been handed down for generations. And the promise is Wulder.”
“I’ve never heard of a promise.”
“It’s for kimens.” She tilted backward, then forward, to speed up the hammock’s motion. Her voice took on the tone of someone reciting. “ ‘The One who creates, the One who assigns our task, the One who nurtures, the One who designs our path will send a man to speak words of understanding so that the hand of He Who Is will be close enough to hold.’ ”
Tipper picked up the braid and tightened the weave. She pinned it as a circlet around the crown of her head before she spoke again.
“Taeda Bel, what makes you think that this Wulder of Amara is the one you call He Who Is?”
Taeda Bel jumped from the hammock and glided across the floor to stand beside the tall emerlindian princess. “My heart, not my head, tells me it’s true. Then my brain compares the points of prophecy to the actuality of recent events. There are too many coincidences to be … coincidental.”
“So you feel that what Paladin says is true.”
Taeda Bel’s face glowed with assurance. “No, I trust that it is so because the messenger is trustworthy.”
Tipper walked to her doorway and peeked around the cloth closure. Prince Jayrus, Paladin, sat with children on his knees, and others pushed against him. He spoke quietly, too quietly for her to hear his words. But the rapt expressions of the little ones told her what she wanted to know. This young man with no guile was trustworthy. She knew it in her heart, and she witnessed it in his manner. She would listen carefully to his accounting of the god known as Wulder. She rushed to finish her morning routine.
12
A New Friend
Tipper