The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [228]
‘I did bear a child once,’ Sidro said, ‘to a man who cared not in the least. He did turn me out of his mother’s house in his jealousy.’
‘You mean he thought it wasn’t his child?’ Dallandra said.
‘Nah, nah, nah, but that he were jealous of the child. He knew I would love it as much as I loved him, and he brooked no rival in his house.’
‘That was Laz?’
‘It was.’ Sidro looked away, and for a moment Dallandra thought she might weep. ‘But the child, he were born sickly, and he died. Laz did want me back, then, but I went instead to Alshandra’s service.’
‘I can see why! The selfish little beast!’
Sidro considered her for a moment, then smiled, but sadness welled behind that smile. ‘He were that, then. Over the years, he did change for the better.’ She paused briefly. ‘In some ways.’
‘It seems to me that you’ve got the better man in Pir.’
‘Oh, he be that most certainly, Dalla. There be a need upon me to remember it if we do find Laz. Always has he held my heart in his fist.’
‘He hasn’t ensorceled you, has he?’
Sidro shook her head no. ‘Only if love be sorcery, and truly, at times I think it be as dangerous as any spell.’
‘I think you be right,’ Grallezar put in. ‘I do feel blessed that never did I succumb to such.’
‘But Exalted Mother,’ Sidro said. ‘You did bear children of your own.’
‘The children I loved. Their father—’ Grallezar shrugged. ‘I did pick him for his mach-fala and the lands they owned. He did have a good scent, too.’ She glanced at Dallandra. ‘They all be safe upon those lands now, far from Braemel, so I think me I did pick well.’
Sidro smiled her agreement, then paused to sniff the air. They were all sitting in Dallandra’s tent, while outside the rain drummed down, another omen of autumn. For want of much else to do, Sidro had attached herself to Grallezar as something of a serving woman and maidservant. Dallandra still found it unsettling to see the Gel da’ Thae women constantly raising their heads to sample the smells around them, but she had to admit that at times it did come in handy.
‘Exalted Mother,’ Sidro said. ‘Do you think Dallandra’s child be female?’
Grallezar paused for a deep breath. ‘I think you be right,’ Grallezar said. ‘I smell not the male taint.’
‘Well, wonderful!’ Dallandra said, simply because she knew they expected her to be pleased. ‘I’m so happy to hear it!’
She would have felt as happy—and as burdened—with a boy as well, and in fact, she’d been expecting that the child would be male. Later, when she and Grallezar were alone and able to discuss dweomer and its secrets in their private language, Dallandra brought the matter up and mentioned how surprised she was to be carrying a girl.
‘I’d been thinking that this soul would be Loddlaen’s,’ Dallandra said. ‘I was sure of it, actually, the more I meditated upon it.’
‘And why shouldn’t it be?’ Grallezar said. ‘Male or female, the dweomer doesn’t care.’
‘You know, you’re right. All this talk of Gel da’ Thae and Mountain Folk, the People and the Roundears—I’ve fallen into tribe-bound ways of thinking again, I’m afraid.’ She patted her stomach. ‘I’m sure it is the same soul. I truly am.’
‘You would know. Well, poor Loddlaen! At least you have the chance now to make things up to him. Or her, I should say.’
‘What? I don’t feel that I owe him anything. I did what I had to do. Far more souls than one needed me desperately. The times now are dangerous enough that I’ll have to do what I find the need to do again. But this time, I’ll make sure that she’s well provided for if I should have to leave her. And this time she’ll be one of the People on both sides of her line, which will make her life much easier.’
‘So it will. I just realized something. I’ve