Читать книгу Fire Angels - Jane Routley - Страница 7

If we had all followed our own wishes, we would have set off the very next day like heroes in some old tale. First however there was the matter of how to be safe in Moria.

Here Tomas took control. As I had discovered under mind search, he was indeed experienced at smuggling magic into Moria and since he had no guilty memories of failure, I had to assume he was successful at it. Certainly he seemed to know what he was doing.

The first thing next morning, he sent Hamel into the village to find a horse and some suitable clothes for me. He asked to see my hands and was torn between disapproval and relief that they were much more work hardened than the hands of mages normally are.

"Don't you use magic for anything, Dion?"

"If most mages have nice hands," I said tartly, "it's because they get servants to do everything, not because they choose to waste magic on household tasks. My foster father and tutors would be most disapproving of the mundane things I use magic for."

Most magic users needed to marshal their powers or they quickly became exhausted and were unable to call on those powers in emergencies. I had never had a problem with this. Magic seemed to just flow and flow from me and so I used it for unpleasant tasks like cleaning out Pony's stable, or bringing wood into the house on cold nights. I had a positively luxurious system of transporting water. A small stream ran through the nearby forest and I had set up a pipe to it. I could magically draw water up through it at will and even heat it on the way.

Other things however like weeding the garden or picking apples I did by hand, partly because I enjoyed the physical exercise and partly because old habits die hard. My foster father for mysterious reasons of his own had never told me that I was more powerful than other mages although he'd never had any qualms about telling me I was more silly. I, isolated under his care, had no way of knowing otherwise and so for the first 17 years of my life I had nurtured and rationed my strength just like any other mage. I still felt uncomfortable taking it too much for granted.

My brother shrugged at my forthrightness and changing the subject asked for pen and paper.

He seated himself at my table and began writing, copying from a paper that he spread out on the table. When I had finished my chores, I came and watched him. I felt better now that the decision had been made. My mind felt free to think about other things, like my mother for instance. The memory of her had been even more present in Tomas's mind than in Hamel's. In Tomas' mind she shone brightly surrounded both by love and admiration, almost like the icon of a saint. I was interested in her despite myself. As I watched him writing, I wondered how to bring up the subject.

Tomas wrote in a fine and aristocratic hand and he wrote in old Aramayan, the language of legal documents.

"You speak Aramayan?" I said surprised and wondered then if I had been tactful.

He smiled at me.

"No. I only know some phrases. Like those suitable for travel documents which is what I'm copying out now. Nice handwriting isn't it?"

"Aye indeed it is."

"It's my brother's. I came to writing very late, but I've really taken to it and I must say I think I do a very creditable job of forgery."

"Your brother's?" I asked mystified.

He grinned.

"Aye Lucien Sercel, my half-brother. Our mother furnished me with a very nice class of relative. So just you show some respect."

"So he's related to THE Sercels? The Lord Electors of Middle Moria?"

"My dear little sister, he IS one of the Sercels. My father is Sandor Sercel, the Lord-Elector himself. Now don't you look so doubtful. It's not proper to doubt your big brother."

"But how..."

"Marnie used to work as a chamber maid at the White Tower of Lammerquais. You know the story. Hot-blooded young master, pretty young maid. Along comes Tomas. I'm his oldest son. His first mispilled seed. And he's proved a good enough father. He's taken good care of the rest of Marnie's children too. If he'd remembered my existence when you were four, we could probably have sent you to school instead of off with Michael. But he didn't discover me till I was fifteen and came up before him for stealing. Lucky for me. And for him. A bastard son is just the kind of person you can ask to do those little tasks that aren't quite honest. Like forging travel passes or smuggling mages into Moria."

He grinned at me again. "You don't believe a word of this, do you?"

"Oh I ...," I was flustered. The Lord Elector Sercel was one of the five great noblemen who elected the Dukes of Moria. Still it was not inconceivable that he could be the father of an inn servant's child or that he acknowledge the fact.

Tomas reached out and pulled a battered tin water flask out of his pack.

"Old Sandor only ever managed to have one legitimate son," he said. "So he was pleased to acknowledge me. Look!"

He turned it upside down and pressed the bottom. It slid away and beneath it was a small cavity. There was a ring fitted neatly into the cavity.

"Look at this. Do you recognize the seal?"

Two snarling wolves against a background of lilies. Any Morian child could recognize that device.

"He trusts you with his seal?"

"Sandor Sercel is a great and powerful friend. I would never do anything to jeopardize that and he knows it. Anyway if I misused it, I've no doubt that he'd have me sent into slavery before the wax was even dry."

"Sandor Sercel is in exile in Floredano," I pointed out. "The Church of the Burning Light has pronounced an anathema on him."

"He signed his lands over to his son before he went. Lucien Sercel is Lord Elector of Middle Moria now. The family lands are largely intact. The Burning Light has no quarrel with him. Don't worry little sister. I use this seal with my half-brothers approval too."

He pressed the seal into the dab of wax.

"Yes indeed, Tomas has learnt his lesson. It is better to be a nobleman's bastard than an inn servant's bastard. There was a time when I would have nothing to do with him for all that he paid to have me taught to read and write."

"Why not?"

"He ruined our mother, didn't he? He made her pregnant and she lost her place and he did nothing. Except go off to Mangalore and get engaged to some well-born maiden the following year, while she got pushed into a miserable marriage.

"Our mother was married?!"

"Oh yes. Our grandfather Joseph Holyhands Senior was a respectable fellow for all he was a drunk. He wasn't going to have any unmarried daughters around with bastard children. So he fixed up a deal with an old farming crony who owed him money. Francois Cremer. A sour old sod."

"He was cruel to her?"

"No. Marnie told me they tried to have a proper marriage at the start, but they never had a single thought in common. She was only eighteen and he was almost her father's age, over fifty, and very set in his ways. Probably a bit obsessed with being cuckolded too. At the end it was just two polite strangers living in a house. Marnie worried that she had made him unhappy, but me, I think it almost killed her trying to fit into his idea of a proper wife. Her gift for foretelling was a continual embarrassment to him although he was happy enough to make use of it when it suited him. She never sang or even smiled if he was in the house and he used to have the maid servant spy on her.

A possibility had occurred to me.

"So how long ...?"

"They were married over 5 years before he died. They had two daughters together, Silva is his daughter, and so was Byrda. Byrda fell off a horse when she was ten and broke her neck."

"So I was born after this Cremer died."

"Oh yes. You and Hamel and Tasha and Karac. But even before you lot were born, she was the village scandal. She said she wasn't made for respectability and that she was tired of having to do what people told her. So she refused to be proper and live with her step-son till she found another husband, and she came back to the inn and worked there as a drudge for her half brother. Spent any spare time she could find with the Wanderers. Her father was dead by then and Uncle Jos ... He never let us eat with them, but he would never have let us starve either."

Another possibility had occurred to me.

"Do you know who my father was then?"

"Who can say?” he said absently. Then he caught sight of my face. His own softened. "Ah Dion don't look so disappointed."

"I'm not," I lied.

"I'm afraid she never told me. Though I don't doubt it was some Wanderer man, from your powers. She went on a journey with them just before you were born. Ah. Now that reminds me. I do have something that she gave me. Something for you. She did think of you."

He began digging around in his pack again. "She talked of you while she was dying. She told me that you were in Gallia at the College of Magic there. When I heard the stories of Dion Michaeline the Demonslayer, I knew she was right."

This sounded so nice that it was probably a lie, though I remembered her warm-hearted face in his memory.

"How did she know where I was?"

"Hard to say. Someone might have told her. She was very close mouthed, was Marnie. Comes from a lifetime of being the odd one out. She may have just have seen it in a dream or vision."

He bought out a cloth-covered bundle and placed it on the table.

"I'm afraid I've been making use of this even though it's yours, which is why I carry it. I hope you'll forgive me, but it has come in mighty useful on occasion."

Even before he had unwrapped the bundle, I felt the dread. When he had spread it out on the table I saw why. An iron necklace. And such an iron necklace. It was not a thing odd in itself. In the interests of preventing them from becoming too powerful, mages on the peninsula are not allowed to inherit lands or titles. Wearing iron around the neck prevents the wearer from practicing magic, so therefore thin necklaces of iron links are a common feature of aristocratic wear proclaiming, as they did, the wearer's lack of magery and fitness to inherit

The necklace itself did nothing to lessen the dread it made me feel. It was a thing of old and arcane design, of short iron spikes covered in runes and wound together so that it looked like a necklace of thorns. It was a savage looking thing.

"How do you like it?" said Tomas. "Its very old and, I think, valuable."

"But ... But why? Why would a woman who had magic powers give an iron necklace to a daughter with magic powers?"

I'd hoped for, I don't know what, some small token of affection. Instead here was this hateful thing.

Tomas picked it up. "Its not as bad as it looks, you know. Look."

He put it over his head. "See. It just looks bad. The spikes don't stick into you even if you sleep on it. It won't show under your clothes and strangely enough it can't be felt by anyone either. I've sometimes wondered if this thing doesn't have some magic of its own."

"It's iron." I snapped. "Iron hates magic. How can you wear it? I thought you had some magic."

"I don't find it very comfortable its true, but my powers are very slight and I'm used to not using them. On the other hand I've given it to some of the mages I've had under my care and it's been very useful. Wearing it seems to cut you off from any magic you've recently performed, disguising the traces. And it helps to confuse searchers using magic too. I think you should wear it when we are in Moria, Dion. For safety's sake."

I was appalled. It was like suggesting I tie up my hands and feet. "Of course I'm not going to wear it."

He took my hand. "I know you don't like it, but your best protection against Witch Hunters is their ignorance."

"It will make me a helpless target."

"Well if that happens it's easy to take off. It's not a witch manacle."

"It might as well be."

"Dion, what about last night?"

Last night waking in panic from dreams of the stone woman, I had thrown out a mage light without even thinking twice. Last night my brothers had been happy enough to be woken from similar dreams by the light.

"Could you stop yourself from putting forth that magic light when you wake up with a fright? Can you honestly say that?"

"No," I said. It was second nature to me; something I had learned to do as a child afraid of the dark.

"Then you see the sense of wearing this then. You don't want to bring the Witch Hunters down on us before we've even got to Annac, do you? And you know how they are trained. They'll come for you in a group, maybe more than one group and even you may have trouble beating them in an open battle. And once you're a couple of days ride inside Moria, it won't be easy to escape."

"No," I said, glumly because he was right. Unfortunately.

"It is possible Marnie foresaw this need when she gave me this necklace for you," said Tomas.

This seemed far-fetched, though I tried to let it make me feel better. I agreed to wear the necklace. I even agreed to try out sleeping in the necklace that night. Though I did not much like it, I saw the sense in Tomas' scheme. It had also occurred to me that the necklace might be useful for my own purposes.

Although I was known as the Demonslayer, I had only really banished Andre/Bedazzer from this plain. He was still very much alive in his own demon world and like all demons closely in touch with the worlds of magic. He had the ability to reach me in dreams or through mirrors and a famished longing to get back into this world and as I was his only connection here it was unlikely that he would forget about me. For the last three years I had hidden from him in a house without mirrors and slept behind walls covered with the runes of Protection, Distraction and Blindness. Travelling in Moria I would not be covered by the Protective runes and I would be unable to make more. Maybe the necklace would make it harder for him to find me. He was certain to be still looking.

A parish healer cannot in all conscience just up and leave her parish. I had to inform the Parish Board that I was going, and see to the patients who I was supplying with long term treatments.

So later that day, I set out on Pony to do all these tasks.

I called to see Parrus first, but he was not at home. I managed to catch a couple of the other Board Members at home however. The Parish Board consisted mostly of owners of the districts larger farms who had clubbed together to raise sums of money for community improvements such as bridges and healers. The two I spoke to were horrified when I told them that I was going. They were both of them good-hearted men, who agreed that, yes indeed I must go back to Gallia to nurse my ailing sister (this being the story I told them). Both of them begged me to return as soon as I could in a way that made me feel both proud and guilty. Cardun was such a poor parish and as far from the city of Gallia as you could get and still be in the same country. It had been eighteen months without a healer before I came and they had been desperate enough to take me even though I had not had the proper healing training and had no degree. They would have trouble replacing me and once I went the nearest official healer would be 10 miles away in the next parish. The patients I saw after them only added to their pleas to stay.

I felt thoroughly depressed by the time I left the last one. To make it worse, I met the parish priest, one of the few members of the Parish board that I did not like. Mages and priests never get on well, but our feud was a particularly strong one. Basically the priest, as is the way of his kind, believed that chastity was the highest feminine ideal. Since it was a quality that seemed to be lacking in my nature however, I took the more practical view that it was a nice ideal, but if any local girl asked me to dispense a potion to prevent her conceiving a child, I wasn't going to ask any questions. Unmarried motherhood was not something I'd wish on any village lass. The parish priest was outraged at my "encouraging immorality” among the local people especially since the other healers had never gone against the church in this respect. (It was one of the few issues Jerusha and I disagreed on) He had even preached a sermon against me. I promised to stop, but I just kept on doing it behind his back and everybody knew it. I could tell by the big pleased grin on his skinny face that he'd heard the news, though he was polite enough to try and conceal his triumph.

On the way home I felt so depressed that only the certainty that I must go and find my sister held me to my purpose. The people of Cardun had treated me with great warmth and acceptance over the years, helping me change from a scared eighteen year old terrified of disapproval to someone who was brave enough to disobey priests and indulge in illicit love affairs. How could I abandon these people like this?

The last thing I needed was difficult questions from Tomas. They came anyway.

"That fellow who was here yesterday came round again today. Parrus. So what's going on between you two?"

"Nothing," I said a little too quickly.

"Oh yes? It's just from the guilty way he acted I felt sure you must be sleeping together."

"Tomas!" I'd seen enough of village life to know that brothers like priests were notorious for valuing chastity in their sisters, if not in themselves. I'd been seventeen years without a brother and I was going to nip this brother thing in the bud before it got out of hand and Tomas got the idea he had the right to defend my honor.

His next remark was disarming however.

"Look Dion, I'm not such a fool to interfere with the loves of my sisters. I was just wondering, that's all."

"I see." If I didn't protest and didn't admit to anything, I figured he'd lose interest quickly enough.

I was wrong.

"I just wondered if it was just a casual fling or if there was anything to it, you know ... He'd be quite a good match, young Parrus."

"What! What are you talking about? He's a Lord's son. Don't be ridiculous."

"Not so ridiculous. It's not such a great family and he's not the oldest son. If nothing else you could breed some pretty powerful mages together."

"Tomas! You're talking rubbish. Anyway Parrus doesn't even know about my magecraft."

"Yes so I gathered. Oh don't worry, I didn't tell him."

"You gathered? How long where you talking for?'

"Oh... I invited him in. He's very interested in Moria, isn't he? His Morians not half bad either."

That was how Parrus and I had met. He'd come to me initially to learn Morian. Things had gone on from there. We'd both come to desire each other and after Andre ... It seemed kind of pointless to go round saying no to men, just because that was what a nice woman was supposed to do. Life's too short and I was hardly a nice woman to start with.

"You had quite a little heart to heart then," I said sarcastically.

"We had a few drinks," said Tomas smiling blandly as he slid away.

They had had a few drinks too. One of my bottles of wildberry wine was completely empty.

I was relieved that the whole subject had been dropped however and thought nothing more of it. There was much to do to make the hut ready for a long absence and a long line of patients had began to come calling with gifts and requests for medicine.

It was only on the evening of the next day, the evening before we were to leave that I discovered just what the few drinks had lead too.

We were going over my disguise.

"This stuff is a bit nice for a maid servant, isn't it? And this scarf. This is Borgonese, not Gallian."

"Yes," said Tomas. "We had a bit of change of plan. We thought it might be better for you to pass as the wife of a Borgonese merchant. A married woman will attract less suspicion. Here, I got you a wedding ring."

Something was up. Hamel was looking nervous. Tomas on the other hand had the same bland look on his face that he'd had the day before when we'd been talking about Parrus.

"Why Borgonese?" I asked.

Tomas shrugged.

"Actually, it was your friend Parrus' idea," said Hamel suddenly.

"Hamel!" said Tomas in warning tones, but it was too late.

"You see he wants to come with us and we thought he'd be very useful and he could be a Borgonese merchant because being Gallian wouldn't be a good idea in Moria at the moment and he speaks very good Borgonese and so he could be your husband and you could be ... Look I know we should have discussed it with you Dion, but you were busy and ..."

"You what ...? Take Parrus into Moria! Are you insane? You'll get us all killed."

"It could be very useful to have two mages, Dion," said Tomas. "Parrus really wanted to come. He could be very useful to us."

"No! It's crazy. I don't want Parrus tagging along. It won't work Tomas. They'll know he's not Morian. They'll throw him into jail just for being a Gallian."

"Well I judged it would be well," said Tomas as if there was no point in this discussion. "And so I decided he should come."

"You ... Well, I think it's a stupid idea. I ..."

"What do you know about it anyway? I'm not interested in your opinion. You know nothing of Moria and what will work and not work. For God's sake, Dion. Stop wasting my time with things that aren't your concern. Do I tell you how to perform healing?"

I just gaped at him.

Tomas rounded on Hamel. "You said you'd back me up on this. Thanks very much Hamel."

"We should have discussed it with her. It just wasn't right."

"What else haven't you told me," I said. Anger came blasting through my shock.

"Nothing," snapped Tomas. "Stop fussing. It will be all right"

The way he spoke, that long suffering tone of a man dealing with a fool; that was the last straw. This insane plan, the fact that they hadn't even asked me, they'd just assumed they could force it on me - the whole thing went off like a firework in my brain.

"That's it," I shouted. "If Parrus goes, I'm not."

"Oh that's just wonderful," shouted Tomas. "Stay then. We'll take Parrus."

"Fine!"

"Dion don't be like that. Tomas ..."

"And you shut up," snapped Tomas. "You've done quite enough, Hamel."

Silence in the room. The fire crackled in the hearth.

"Tomas you'd be angry too, if someone just sprung something on you like this. Let's just talk it over."

Tomas snorted.

"Listen Tomas, women have just as much mind for reasonable discussion as men, no matter what you think."

"Oh listen to Mr Expert," sneered Tomas. "You know all about how to handle women."

"Well I handle my wife well enough, don't I?" said Hamel levelly.

"You ... You shit!" shouted Tomas. He spun round and in a madness of anger made as if to hit Hamel.

"No! Stop!" A surge of panicky power came out of me and Tomas froze mid-punch. A second thought and I made his arm come down and stick to the tabletop so that Tomas had to crouch beside it.

"Sweet Tansa's mother!" said Tomas, wonderingly.

Hamel blinked, then turned away suppressing a smile.

"That was well done, little sister," said Tomas admiringly.

"Don't little sister me. It won't work." I turned to Hamel. "I don't think we should take Parrus. It's too dangerous."

"It's dangerous whether we take him or not Dion. But a married woman with a husband there with her. They're less likely to be looking for a healer in those circumstances."

"But two mages, that's pushing our luck. And one of them a Gallian. Moria is at war with Gallia now."

"Well I said so too and that's when Parrus said he could pass for a Borgonese. Do you think he's lying?"

No he probably wasn't lying. Parrus had been five years in Borgon and he was good at languages. His knowledge and fluency in the Borgonese tongue was no doubt very good.

"He just has to pass for three days," said Tomas. "Until we get home."

I scowled at him.

"You could let me go," he said, politely nodding at his wrist which was still stuck to the table.

I turned pointedly back to Hamel.

"Are you allowed to do this? Use magic on helpless people like that," said Hamel, doubtfully. "Doesn't the White College forbid it?"

"Tomas Holyhands isn't a helpless person. He's ... He's a dammed snake."

Tomas grinned.

"Two mages would be very useful in Moria," said Hamel. "It's likely that Tasha has got herself mixed up in something very bad. We might need a mage to help get her back. And you'll be in hiding after doing the searching spell."

They had a point here. It was something I had thought of myself.

"You'd be better to take me South than Parrus," I said.

"Oh Dion, it doesn't sound like the South is any place for a woman."

"Dion is the stronger mage," said Tomas. "We would be better to take her. But we'll see how the land lies in Annac before we make any decisions. But you can see the point of our plan can't you Dion."

I looked at him and sighed. Curse Tomas. I was already considering Parrus' coming as a possibility.

"But can it be done safely?"

"I really do not think it will be any more dangerous than just taking you alone," said Tomas. "I've done this before. Many times. You must trust me to know, Dion. Now be fair. I don't tell you how to do healing, do I?"

"Why on earth would Parrus want to go into Moria?" I wondered, though part of me knew the answer already. It was not much of a life for a well trained young mage to be hanging round on the family estates, overseeing the farm work. And possibly Tomas had worked on him a little. My respect for Tomas' powers of persuasion was rapidly growing.

"You just don't want him to find out about you," said Tomas. "You're afraid he'll go off you."

At that moment it occurred to me that Tomas might be match-making. No. That was too insane.

"You shut up Tomas," I said briefly.

"Look he knows about our mother now. We told him. He seemed more amused than anything else."

That sounded like Parrus.

"But we haven't told him about the magery. And we won't either, till you're ready. Not many men take kindly to being outdone by a woman. Come on Dion let me up. My knees are killing me."

"When was I going to find out about this wonderful plan, as a matter of interest?"

"Parrus is going to met us tomorrow at the border crossroads."

"Not till then!"

"You'd have been less likely to turn back then. I've always found it best not to offer people too many choices."

"You are a snake."

"But I'm a smart snake. And I'm a snake on your side. You'll come home alive, sister. Don't worry. Come on now, please let me loose."

"You should have asked me first," I said. "Then none of this would have happened."

But I let him loose and I let them persuade me that Parrus should come with us. I didn't see that I had much choice. I had no intention of withdrawing from the expedition and I suspect Tomas knew as much.

Later when Tomas was outside checking the horses I asked Hamel.

"Why did Tomas get so angry at you before?"

Hamel shrugged guiltily. "The issue of marriage is a sore one with Tomas."

"Why? Tell me Hamel. Is it a subject I should avoid?"

"Several years ago Tomas was in love with a woman in our village. For him it was the great love, though he's always been something of a ladies man. In those days, he just took life as it came. He worked at the inn looking after the horses. He and I and Lucien Sercel used to go fishing together. And there was this woman. Marie-Lousie. She was a wealthy farmer's daughter and was courted by most of the village, but she favored Tomas, loved him, I think. A loving passed between them and she became pregnant. Tomas was overjoyed by this. He thought her father would be forced to let her marry him, a thing that would have not been possible before. But Marie-Louise wasn't about to marry the ostler at an inn and have the entire village laughing at her, or to bring her father's wrath and maybe his disinheritance down on her. So she accepted one of her other suitors, the right suitor, another well-off farmers son. I heard her tell Tomas that to marry an inn whore's bastard would shame her too much. I don't think Tomas had ever given such ideas any thought before then. He changed and became bitter. He left the inn and went to work for the Sercels and Lord Sandor began to make something of him as he'd always wanted to."

"It must have been very hard on Tomas."

"It wasn't the worst thing. The worst thing came a few years later. Tomas had hardly been back to Annac in that time, but one day Marnie sent for him. The two of them went out to see Marie-Louise and when they came back, they came back with Tomas' son. It seemed that her new husband had never forgiven her for being pregnant to another man. He'd taken to beating the both of them, but especially the "cuckoo in his nest". The poor child was but three and yet he was near to death when Tomas bought him home. They healed him as best they could, but he will always limp and he will never hear again in one ear. Tomas loves his son. Since he has had care of Martin, he has become even hungrier for things. I can understand what made him so but sometimes I cannot like this new Tomas. This was the only time he ever spoke badly to our mother. He told her she had made him believe in a way of living that was just not practical, that his illegitimacy had ruined his life and now his son's. Marnie wept."

He stared into the fire. "Part of her believed him."

"But they made it up?"

"Oh yes! Tomas adored Marnie and she cared for Martin until she died. She had a way with children. In some ways she was much like one herself."

"What did you think of our mother?"

"What does a person think of their mother? You love your mother. But to tell you the truth, for a long time, I tried not to think of it at all. The world, people round Annac, my father even, could not decide if Marnie was whore or a fool, bad or mad."

This was the question I badly wanted an answer to.

"What do you think?"

"She was just Marnie. Her rules for right and wrong were different from other peoples. It may have been the Wanderer in her. Tomas told you about her marriage? She used to say that people are who they are and shouldn't have to try to be something else just to please other people." He shrugged. "Perhaps parents are always a mystery to their children."

"But why did she have so many children, by so many men? Its true, isn't it? Each of us had a different father."

"And you know the thing that still puzzles me. She didn't have to have any children at all." He looked a little embarrassed. "I suspect you may have discovered this yourself. A woman with magical powers can prevent herself from conceiving. Marnie told me she chose to have us all."

"All except me," said Tomas.

Both Hamel and I jumped guiltily. Tomas came into the room and sat down beside the fire.

"You're wondering why Marnie had so many children, Dion?" said Tomas. "When Marnie was working for the Sercels, she was trying to be respectable. She was trying to forget that she was the bastard child of a passing Wanderer woman and our grandfather, trying to live the way people in our village and her father and half-brother thought proper. But she fell in love with Sandor Sercel and she loved him so much that I was conceived, unintentionally with intent if you can understand that. And I ruined her.

"Of course she meant nothing to Sandor and when she realized this she was heartbroken. She went down to the wild side of Lake Lammer, with desperate confused thoughts in her head and me growing inside her. She told me both our lives hung in the balance then, for she was not sure who to do away with. She liked the thought of throwing herself in the lake far better than the more sensible thought of getting rid of me.

"A storm came across the lake, the sky was thunderous grey, so heavy she felt as if it would crush her and the lake was black and angry thrashing at the shore. Yet where she was, a patch of sun had broken through the clouds. It was like another world and like a voice from that other world she heard the sound of someone singing and she saw a man coming along the lake's edge. He was a Wanderer with hair like milk and he was dressed all in rags. His feet stuck out of his tattered shoes. She had not spoken to a Wanderer since her mother had left her at Grandfather's door as a six year old child and the sight of him filled her with a strange joy. He came up to her as she stood there and said "Do not destroy the child within you. Foretelling has shown that your children will repay all the ills you will suffer for their sakes and be your most abiding joy."

There was silence in the room except for the crackling of the fire. In my mind's eye, I could almost see the lake, with the angry black clouds rolling over it, the strange unearthly sun and on the shore, the fair-haired servant girl and the tattered man with milk-white hair. I felt so sad for her, this betrayed girl with the now familiar face. She was so young when it happened.

"She followed this man to the Wanderer encampment and stayed with them for several days. I'm not sure what happened there, but somehow they comforted her so that she was able to go on. She always said she felt completed when she was with them. Part of the problem between her and old Cremer was that he forbade her to see them."

"She never thought of travelling with the Wanderers?" I asked. It was an idea that sometimes appealed me.

"It seems appealing in summer, doesn't it," said Tomas, "but in winter ... Such a life is very hard with a small child. Sleeping under hedgerows and begging. People are not good to Wanderers. Look how many leave the Wandering life. Only the real wild Wanderers keep wandering all their lives and they are not always the easiest of companions."

I nodded remembering the drugged or drunken Wanderers I had seen in the forest.

"To answer your question though, in my darker moments, I have thought that she got the rest of us simply so she could get you Dion. Because it had been foretold that her seventh child would be special.

I stared at him in horror.

"Tomas," cried Hamel. "That's an awful thing to say. You know you don't think any such thing. Our mother would never have let her life be driven by foretellings like that."

Tomas grinned and I realized that he was scratching at me. It seemed to be his way.

"Marnie loved children. She liked men too, she loved men, but children... To her men were but a fleeting pleasure. That is the way among Wanderers. Brothers are the ones who care for their sister's children, just like Uncle Jos, despite his grumbles, cared for us. After Sandor Sercel and then old Cremer, she didn't expect much from men. So her children were the real source of joy for her. And the men she chose to be our fathers, I think they were the ones she loved most. We are souvenirs, Dion, remembrances of happy times.