“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
Voices rumbled and murmured through the boarding house walls. Ren struggled to ignore the familiar thumps and groans. He sat back in the room's lone chair, a pipe on his lips, the haze blurring his obvious problem.
The Benthrae boy played on the small rug with the wood blocks Ren had bought him in the low market. Through the haze, the boy looked like a fine addition to the chamber. A boy meant a consort, but somehow Ren had bypassed the traditional path.
He couldn't keep the boy indefinitely. There was his work, and leaving the boy alone was not a good option. Not with low-lifers and whores about. He sneered. He'd not call them priestesses. There was nothing sacred in their flesh. The women in the brothels never said whether or not they were priestesses. Some may have been, once. Or they were valley priestesses bereft of land. Or matrons of failed houses forced out by more enterprising or lucky Mornae.
“I'll be the first to toss them off,” he said to himself.
He didn't have to live in this rot and decay. It was no place to raise a boy. There was a tiny farm in the deep south, near the crossroads. The one with the small wood attached. He had a list of such places, and he knew the owners' secrets. Pulling the right thread would force any of them to sell at a fair price. He'd empty his vault to buy a property. Then he could find a valley woman to care for the boy. Just long enough to find a proper consort.
“It would be our house,” he said. “And we'd begin the cycles together.”
The boy stopped and looked at him. There was no fear in him; the boy had the goddess-stillness. That quality alone made him invaluable. Why had Maunyn rejected him? It still stung Ren when he recalled the look of disdain on his master's face.
He'd like to know what the boy was thinking. Had he been prepared to leave his birth house already? It seemed too easy.
His cheek twitched. A memory flooded him. He'd known some good women in Lowkamas, whether whores or not. It didn't matter. Could he make a life with one? Not a Mornae life. Surely not. But so many valley Mornae had lived a different life already for centuries, if not cycles. Maunyn would scowl at him, but his master had suggested nothing more for him than what he had now. Chits accumulated in his vault, bulged in his pockets. What use were they? He couldn't make himself a lordling without a name behind him, without a house. He was a hired hand, and in the Mornae world that meant he was a servant for life. Only a consortship to a priestess—even a valley one—with a name would give him respectability.
He puffed on the pipe and the embers glistened red hot. Plenty of houses needed his chits, and he'd come ready with a boy. A fine catch for any needy matron.
His master would never allow it. What was it with these lords and their servants? Was he not Mornae? A free man?
He seethed, unable to control his resentment. This Benthrae boy had awakened something in him. He'd suppressed it for so long and now it threatened to break him open.
“I hate my life,” he said to himself.
The boy turned back to the blocks and played quietly. He'd not asked a thing since arriving. Was he already plotting his escape? He'd seen Maunyn, Ren was sure of it. He'd considered returning him, but then he'd have to flee Vaidolin. Maunyn wouldn't rest until he was dead.
They could flee south and join a merchant train. Be a scout or guard, get himself a little nomad woman. Or two. He could teach the boy his tricks if the boy had any talent. He sat back and pondered happily, imagining himself and the boy thieving their way through far off southern cities. They'd reach the fabled Dragonlands where gems filled the rivers like pebbles and there were millions of people… easy marks. His powers would make him a god there.
His lips twisted and smoke sputtered out.
But what if the boy wanted to know who he was? Or people treated him wrong. The boy's gray skin, silver-white hair… Ren might have passed with a disguise, but the boy couldn't. What if he sprouted tall like a Mornae should?
He muttered a curse, and shouted, “What in the goddess's glorious name will I do with you?”
The boy looked up, startled.
“Nothing, boy,” he mumbled. “Uncle Ren's just tired.”
The boy needed a good family. One he'd taken from years ago. That would be a good thing. He could make up for so much taking and give back.
He sat up and pulled the pipe from his lips, staring at the boy. For a moment, he thought himself a lord, deciding the fate of this boy. No, a god, even. He whipped strands of dark with his fingers. It sat like a ball in his palm. The power was overwhelming. This is what it must feel like to be a lord over another.
His power would aid someone that deserved it this time and make him a man worthy of the goddess. A man of the goddess's justice like the Zauhune champion, not the man Maunyn decided he should be.
He sat back and downed a glass of clear, foul-tasting liquor. He could afford better, but he'd never thought himself worthy of anything good. He drank the cheap rotgut of the Halkamas lowborn.
That was all he saw for himself.
The goddess had granted him power, the ancient kind, and though he'd neglected its true practice, it still sat raw and uncut like a chunk of kith. He'd known her warmth, even searing heat. Surely that meant something.
Yes, this boy could change everything.
AUTUMN
The Fall of Saylassa revealed who we truly were, not who we believed ourselves to be.
A rabid beast lurked in every Mornae heart. Fifteen cycles of pent-up hatred and frustration poured out in a conflagration.
