The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [49]
“They were? By the Dark Sun herself! I never knew that.”
“You didn’t?” Meranaldar frowned in thought. “Oh, yes, of course. It was Princess Carra whom I told, and I don’t remember you being there at the time. The refugees ran dangerously short of water, you see, and the priests claimed a greater share. They based their reasoning, if one can call it that, on doctrine. Since they’d been born into the religious elite, they claimed, then in a previous life they’d done something to accrue great merit, and thus they deserved more of everything in this life.”
“What a pernicious idea! I’ll wager there was a corollary, too, that the common people deserved whatever ill luck came their way.”
“Exactly. The reasoning had ceased to be compelling, with Rinbaladelan in ruins behind them and so many people dead. The soldiers on the ship tossed the priests overboard, where they could have all the water they wanted.” Meranaldar paused for a smile. “That very evening it rained, and the barrels they’d brought along for drinking water were filled to overflowing. The soldiers took this as a sign of the gods’ approval. Thus are new doctrines born.”
They shared a laugh as they walked on. Dallandra had often wondered why the dweomermasters insisted that their belief in multiple lives be kept secret. She was beginning to understand.
They were walking together in the forest, following one of the cool, shaded lanes between the trees. When he’d first come to the Westlands, Meranaldar had been a thin man, hollow-chested and stoop-shouldered, but forty years of riding with the royal alar had strengthened him. Now, no one would ever have confused him with a warrior, not with his slender arms and soft hands, but he stood straight and moved with the graceful ease of someone who knows his own strength.
“Tomorrow the first alarli should arrive,” Dallandra said. “I’ll be interested to see how many new babies we have, if any.”
“There will be some,” Meranaldar said. “At the Day of Remembrance, I noticed that a good many women were pregnant. What we need to do is tally up the number of our changelings.”
“That’s true. We were up to forty-seven of them this spring. I’m particularly wondering about Carra’s new granddaughter.”
“Indeed. So far, the changelings seem to have very kindly spread themselves around, one to a family. It’s a good thing, since they can be such a burden.”
“Yes. The gods must be taking a hand.”
Meranaldar smiled, a bit too indulgently in her opinion. He could be condescending, the scribe, but she was too grateful for the knowledge he’d brought with him to hold it against him. Besides, she knew better than he did that it wasn’t the gods who were lending their aid, but a once-human man: Aderyn.
Whenever she attended the birth of a wild child or held a newborn in her arms, she could feel Aderyn’s presence—naught so perceptible as a ghost, but rather a touch of mind on mind, a sense that he was reaching out to her across the planes. To fulfill his wyrd, Aderyn in his last life should have helped her heal the Guardians and the flock of half-formed souls that followed them. He’d shirked that duty. Now, while he still existed in the state that ordinary mortals call death, he was carrying it out as best he could, guiding their souls to birth and physical life.
The first alar to appear at the festival brought with it the oldest wild child, Zandro, Salamander’s grown son, who lived with Salamander’s father, Devaberiel Silver-hand, the most famous bard in the Westlands. The other men in their alar set up the bard’s tent next to the prince’s, a sign of rank as well as a convenience. Dallandra strolled over to greet them. Devaberiel seemed thinner than the last time she’d seen him, and his moonbeam-pale hair had turned completely white. His eyes, the dark blue of the night sky in moonlight, still snapped with life and good humor, and his face, though finely drawn, showed none of the folds and gouges of old age that signaled, among