The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [56]
She saw the question in my eyes and shook her head. “I didn’t tell them about you. Not because I was trying to save you. It just didn’t occur to me. I would have told them if they asked. But I think they will figure it out in the end, and then they will come to question you as well.” Two tears slipped down her cheeks, and she did not wipe them away. “They will come for you, because they are frightened of Misfits like Jes,” she said. “Because of what he could do, and because he could pass for normal.”
I stood up without a word and walked stiffly into the barn. It was empty, and I threw myself into a loose bale of hay and wept. I cried for the pity of Jes’s end, and for all that had been done to Rosamunde, and for Jes’s friends, who must now be living in fear of discovery. I remembered my prediction on the day we had parted at Kinraide. I had been sure I would never see Jes again, but foolishly I had imagined the loss to be his, not mine.
I sensed Sharna nearby, seeking entrance to my thoughts. “Sharna,” I cried bitterly to him, “why is life so full of pain and danger? There seems no end to it. Where are peace and safety in the world?”
“It would take a wiser beast than me to answer that,” he told me, nuzzling my arm sweetly.
“Then teach me to be wise, for I cannot bear this pain,” I sent, and looking into his sad shaggy face, I opened my mind so that he would see what I had learned.
“It is a hard thing to lose a brother,” he sent, and oddly, I felt he really understood what I felt. Then he told me with compassion that wisdom was not something one could teach, but a thing each person must discover for himself.
“I can’t bear that he died like that,” I sent.
“Death comes in a thousand forms,” Sharna sent. “All who live, not only beasts, live with death riding on their back, though none knows what face it will show for them until the moment they face it. But beasts do not fear death or regard it as a burden. Only the funaga think death is evil. But it is nature. Evil exists only in life. There is much good and evil allotted to each life, and there is much that is neither good nor bad. Death is such a thing as that.” He licked me roughly, then left me alone with my grief.
“What has happened?” came Rushton’s voice.
I knew that I ought to get up and make some excuse for my tears. But anger flowed through me at the thought of him reporting to Madam Vega that I had made friends, and my pain became a raging fury.
I sat up and glared at him through swollen eyes. “Nothing has happened that you need to report to your mistress,” I hissed. “I am not planning to kill anyone or burn down your precious farms. There is no dire plot in hand. Nothing … of any importance has happened. I have just heard my brother has been murdered.” My rage died as quickly as it had begun, and I lay my head down and wept anew.
After a long moment, I heard the hay rustle and opened my eyes to see Rushton kneeling in the hay beside me. He reached out and touched my arm as gently as he had ever touched a hurt animal. “I suppose you will not believe it, but I am no informant,” he said. “I am sorry about the death of your brother. You must think badly of me to imagine I have no compassion, though it’s true I have cared for few since the death of my mother.”
I was so astonished by his gentleness and his words that my tears stopped. Rushton went on in the same soft, low voice. “My life since my mother’s death has been given to anger and cold purpose. I could almost envy your affection for your brother, though now it brings you pain.…”
His voice faded, and for a long moment he said nothing, only staring into my eyes with his searching gaze. Then he bent closer until his breath fanned my face, his eyes probing.
“Why do you plague me?” he whispered, as if I were a dream or a wraith.
I shook my head, bewildered by the tenderness in his tone, and he sat back abruptly.
“Come now. You must return to work,” he said gruffly but not unkindly. “It is not wise to grieve too long.