He imagined Ryldia walking with them, swaying and strong. But she wasn't strong, was she? His eyes watered. How long would she remain a shell?

Taul's grandmother had told him stories about when she was young and how her own grandmother had walked the fields, blessing them. Now the valleys were a faint memory to most priestesses and matrons. When once it had been their focus, a majestic work, it had become the work of lowborn and foreigners.

“Not in the east valley,” he whispered. “Not yet.”

He hid behind a trunk when the priestesses turned to walk back. A gentle buzzing sounded as they lifted both hands to the sky before starting the next pass. Mornae priestesses had two calls, but only the call to the Dark was acknowledged as being from the goddess. This second one, the call of the valley priestesses, was more akin to the power of Sayin, the power of their ancient enemy, the Alcar. They'd learned this magic from the tribes who once occupied this land. They taught the art of Melkah and Forthai to his ancestors, the first Hosmyr and their blood houses. It took so much effort, so much blood. Their ashes joined with the soil to create the unimagined.

He peeked out from behind the trunk and watched them descend toward the orchard. The buzzing increased. He closed his eyes and imagined bees. It wasn't a far stretch. Many tenders also worked a sorcery with bee hives. Balniss had the gift, though he'd not practiced it since becoming a diviner.

The orchard was empty, since Zaknil had sent the workers to the vineyard down the road. Taul had all the time he needed. He was looking for a particular tree, or any of the ones he had planted. The ribbon would no longer be there, of course, but he would know his trees. His presence was in them. He removed his gloves hesitantly. Would they hide themselves, hurt like abandoned children?

He slid his hands along the bark and made for the younger growth. There was a time when every bend, every turn of the trunks and branches overhead were familiar, but now it looked strange, unknown. He climbed a tree and selected a thin branch. Using a small knife, he cut to the branch's soft center. He pressed his finger inside the cut, closed his eyes, and eased his thoughts.

“I am a tender!” he said.

It wasn't like people from the city would see him. How strange to be worried about doing something that had once been the primary duty of Hosmyr. He melted into his tender's awareness, the sorcery that defined the east valley and all Hosmyr.

A tugging sensation inched through his finger and up his arm. It struggled to find him. He battled his resistance to it and let it continue. The orchard must allow him in, but first it must decide whether he was worthy.

He quickly cut his fingertip and pressed it into the tree's flesh.

Mystical, unseen sap entered him. The first Mornae had called it goddess-life, but that had not really made sense to him. It was so different from the other call, from the other power of the crater priestesses. This was living and gentle, where the goddess-power was awesome and terrifying.

And yet, there was power in the tree.

The orchard's unseen life blood enveloped him, just another graft in need of strength. Through him, it might know more than the boundaries of its roots and branches and leaves. The leaves flinched and tittered. The orchard opened to him; each tree a pathway for him to travel. The knowledge was simple, but there were memories, and the impressions left there by earlier tenders. As boys, they had left their wishes in the saplings every spring. Now they bubbled up to him like spring water from the depths.

Let me find a good consort.

How lovely is Thena.

May I serve my house well.

Let me pass the trials.

And so on. He could stay there for a thousand years and only graze the surface of the words left within the orchard. These were younger trees, planted after the Fall of Saylassa. Its memories could tell him nothing of what had once been. Master Voldin had always warned them of joining with the mind hive of the older orchards. There were powerful words there, words that might take his presence as a threat and assault their minds. Did those ancient sorcerers still aware in the orchard's deep recesses know what ailed it? They had waged that first critical war within themselves and created a new sorcery. Surely, they must know!

Taul and his cohort companions had always considered Voldin's warning a challenge to their independence, a rule meant to keep them from deeper knowledge. Though they violated his guidance often, they only reached back a few hundred years. Certainly, they'd encountered nothing strange or abnormal. Just the usual petitions and prayers.

He lost himself in that soothing warmth. Throbbing life washed through him. He continued to sift through each trunk, searching for the signature of the ones he'd planted.

“Milord?”

The sharp voice buffeted Taul, piercing his reverie.

“Milord?”

Taul sat up and withdrew his hand from the cut branch. He blinked rapidly to clear the unfocused gaze of a tender. The lost look, they had called it.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Just wondering what you're up to there,” the man said.

The man was just a hired hand sent to mulch or water or another menial task.

“Nothing. Off with you. Plenty of work to do,” Taul said.

The man's brow furrowed. “You'll be wanting some of this.” The man showed him a small straw cup. In it was a waxy substance. “To heal the cut there.” He pointed to where Taul had cut the branch.

Taul blushed hard.

“I can do it, milord.”

“No, pass me the salve. I'll do it.”

The brown wax filled the cut. Sap bubbled in response. He dropped from the tree and returned the salve.

“Tell me,” Taul said, brushing himself off, “where are the trees from when Master Voldin served as steward? Do you know?”

The man shook his head. “Before my time, milord. Maybe past the northwest track, a hundred paces beyond.” He motioned to the west to one of the sparse canopies. “We had to take out a dozen or more when I was a boy. Hard to keep track.”

“Why was that?”

“A rot took them.”

“Young trees?”

The man nodded.

“How many work this orchard?” Taul asked.

“Around ten, milord.”

Ten laborers and two tenders. The number of laborers doubled since his time and the number of tenders halved. He'd need to change that… somehow.

“Thank you,” Taul said. “Let me not keep you.”

The man bowed and moved down the row of trees, patting each trunk as he went. But with gloves on. Unfavored shouldn't touch the trees.

Nostalgia twinged Taul's chest. As a young apprentice, his master had encouraged him to touch the trees often to remind them of his presence. Did this man do it to imitate his betters? It wouldn't be enough to save them.

What if the man had the gift, though? Silla Lor'Vamtrin was willing to admit Yatani nomads into her house and even considered them for consortship. Would he let the man tend if he showed the signs? What was permissible now? Did the rules and laws of the past no longer apply? He'd indulged himself too long, avoiding the problem he tried so hard to push aside.

It would be easy to drift off here, lost in the memories of simple prayers and aspirations of those that had gone before. None of them could help him now. There seemed to be only one possibility open to him. He'd ask Balniss to arrange a private audience with the High Matron. He'd explain it to Ryldia once he'd arranged everything and she was healthy again. Whatever deficiency he had contributed to their binding, he would remedy it by this adoption. Surely the high matron could help find a suitable son. Hope ignited in his chest. A girl, even?

He put on his gloves and, head down, trudged toward the road through beams of noon-light cutting through the canopy.

24