The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [176]
“Why?” Shaetano laughed, but the sound was oddly brittle. “They kill each other wantonly, men do. What’s one death more?”
“A very great deal to those who miss him. Why did you come here?”
“There’s a question I would ask you.”
“Ask it, and I may answer, though then again I may not.”
“I’d not seen a man die before, not so close.” Shaetano was studying the reins in his hand, or was it his paw? “Will we die as they do?”
“Oho! You’ve scared yourself good and proper, haven’t you?”
With a snarl Shaetano wrenched the horse’s head around, kicked it, and rode off at a gallop. Evandar started after, then halted. For a long while he stood watching the dust settle from his brother’s hasty ride.
“Run all you want, brother,” Evandar said. “I’ll find you in the end.”
EPILOGUE
In a
Far
Distant Land
SPRING
Three are the Mothers of All Roads, not four, not two, but three. If you would walk upon one, you must know all three as well as you know the path from your back door to the marketplace. For if you set out upon one, only the knowing will save you from walking all three.
—The Secret Book of
Cadwallon the Druid
At the turning of the year into spring, Lady Angmar gave birth to twin girls, and a close thing it was, bringing both babies through to life and health, when the only help she had was her old maidservant, Lonna. Right after sunset, when the first pain came, the two women went up to Angmar’s bedchamber, where, much to the old woman’s annoyance, Angmar flung open the shutters over the window. Until the pains began coming close together, she sat in the window seat and watched the full moon, hanging gravid in the sky. At dawn it set while the birds of the island sang it to sleep like bards.
The babies came when the sun had fully risen, so close together that Lonna swore the second was clutching the foot of the first. When the old woman laid them on her breast, Angmar felt more grief than joy. Both were tiny, of course, though not as small as she’d feared with twins. A good five pound each, she thought—maybe a bit more. Would they live? Or would the gods strip her of everything that belonged to Rhodry but her memories? She held them close and listened to each tiny heart, each pair of little lungs. They were breathing cleanly, at least.
“Here comes the afterbirth,” Lonna said.
A last pain overwhelmed her, but once it passed, she could see that her daughters were still breathing, still a proper pink color.
“They’ve got some good strong blood from the Mountain People in their veins,” Lonna said. “Don’t you worry now, my lady. We’ll pull them through. I’m just thanking the gods in my heart that it’s spring and growing warm.”
Once the babies and Angmar herself were bathed, wrapped in clean clothes, and tucked up in the big bed together for the warmth, her daughters roused themselves enough to suckle a little of her false milk. Lonna pulled up a stool and sat down with a long sigh. Angmar yawned in answer. The exhaustion was taking her over, but she wanted to stay awake for a few moments more to savor her newborns.
“The true milk feels ready to let down,” Angmar remarked. “With both the others, I had milk soon and more than enough for two.”
“I remember, truly, and that’s a good omen.”
The bigger of the two infants opened her eyes, still a cloudy blue-grey, and seemed to be staring into her mother’s face. Angmar smiled; she could no more have stopped herself than she could have stopped the sun. Don’t get too fond, she told herself. They could die—twins usually do—but she was too fond already, and she knew it.
“And what shall you name them, my lady?” Lonna said. “Or will you be waiting awhile?”
“One of them already has a name. Marnmara.”
The old woman’s bony hands clutched at a fold of her skirts.
“Could it be?” Lonna was whispering. “Has she come back to us?”
“I’m as sure as I can be until she begins to remember and lets us know herself. All the omens rang true. Rori saw her, you know,