The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [105]
"When she left us, she said only that she had to return to where she'd come from, that there were things she'd left undone."
"And she never returned?"
"A few times," Haarn said. "She stayed away longer and longer each time, until finally one day she didn't come back at all."
"How did your father and mother meet?"
"She was pursued into the forest by a band of men. My father chose to aid her."
"Why?"
Haarn shrugged. "He never said. I never asked. What was done was done. Silvanus teaches acceptance of things past and a knowledge of things to do now with hopes for a balanced future."
"She might have been an outlaw."
Haarn nodded, frowning.
"I apologize. I shouldn't have said that."
"It may well have been true. It's not as though I haven't thought that myself. Most civilized people who end up here come because they've been chased from the cities by their own kind or because they're searching for gold or treasure."
"Your mother might not have been able to return after her last visit," Druz said. "Her absence might not have been totally by choice."
"I thought she might have been killed, perhaps jailed."
Haarn was surprised at how much the old pain and confusion returned to him.
"If she was a warrior," Druz said, "she may have signed on to fight somewhere. There've been any number of disputes that have drawn mercenaries to Turmish or the Reach."
Some, Haarn knew, had pitted mercenaries against the druids of the Emerald Enclave. The possibilities twisted his guts. For his mother to have loved Ettrian and fallen to another druid in battle would have been the cruelest of fates.
"She might have come from some place on the far side of the sea," Druz said, as if guessing the twisted tangle of his thoughts. "Maybe she intends to return one day."
"It's been years."
That stopped her only for a moment. "Maybe she has returned and was unable to find you or your father."
"There are ways for her to get in touch with my father," Haarn replied, "places she could have left messages. She never has." He blew out his breath. "There is no excuse for her behavior."
Druz eyed him. "Is that you speaking, Haarn, or your father?"
Anger ran deeply in him then, and he had trouble containing it.
"Grant me Silvanus's patience, woman, but you are arrogant."
"Not arrogant, Haarn. It doesn't take a sage to see you're conflicted in this. Gods' blood, but you'd have to be if you had any kind of heart-and I know you do-but I also heard your father's accusation about you finally getting to see a city. I have nothing against your father, but you didn't deserve that."
"You know nothing about what comes between my father and me."
T know enough to make some assumptions. Your father is bitter about loving and losing your mother, but he was brave enough and strong enough to raise you by himself." Druz eyed him. "Do you want to see a city?"
Haarn hesitated, wondering if she knew him well enough after the past few days to know a he from him if she heard it. He started to speak, caught himself, then said, T don't know."
"You don't know if you want to see one, or you don't know if you want to deal with your father's feelings when he finds out you want to see one?"
Haarn didn't answer.
Druz sighed and wrapped her arms more tightly around her legs.
"I grew up in Suzail," she said.
The name meant nothing to Haarn. He didn't suppose he'd ever met anyone from there before, or perhaps they hadn't cared for anyone to know.
"It's the capital city of Cormyr on the Lake of Dragons," she explained.
"Fve heard of Cormyr." Actually, Haarn had heard very little.
"I grew up in a small house," Druz said. "My father was a blacksmith, a man good with armor and arms, which is a craft that will keep a man hale and hearty in Cormyr, but there are enough skilled craftsmen there that he was never going to get rich. Still, he provided for all nine children and his wife."
She gazed into the fire, and Haarn sensed that she had hurts of her own.
"I was the fourth in the line of children," she continued, "and the first girl. My