The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

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СКАЧАТЬ went to her emptied room to smooth and re-knot the hair Rufus had so pointedly commented on. She frowned to herself as she pulled it tight. So Rufus thought she had spent her night with Haftor. From chilling politeness he had advanced to familiar contempt. Ki shrugged. Let him think whatever he wanted. She would soon be free of it all. She refused to dwell on it. Mentally she composed herself, stiffening her spirit for her battle with Cora. She expected it to be nothing less. As her resolve deepened, her spirits rose. She would make her break cleanly and honorably. Cora, she suspected, would prefer it so also.

      Ki began to hear the familiar stirrings of the household through the walls. Only now were they rousing. Rufus had been the early riser. Others slept late, past the sun’s rising. Ki took a final deep breath and headed for the common room.

      Cora was sitting alone at the table, a steaming mug before her. Ki watched her sip at the gruellike grain soup in the mug. It stirred no appetite in Ki. Ki looked forward to purchasing more brewing herbs, to making her own hot aromatic teas in the morning by her fireside. She drew strength from the image as she took a chair opposite Cora at the table.

      ‘Did you sleep well?’ Cora asked politely. Her face was still soft with sleep. She took another long sip of the soup.

      ‘No,’ Ki answered bluntly. She wished an end to courteous words that said nothing. Like a Harpy, she wished to rip to the meat of her discontent. But Cora seemed not to have heard her tone.

      ‘Nor I. The house was thick with dreams. They should have been pleasant ones, as Nils instructed us. Yet, a dark current seemed to flow through the night and pulled all my dreams and thoughts into its murky waters. I am uneasy. My mind tells me that there is an important matter that I have not attended to, a need I have overlooked. But I can call to mind no detail that I have not seen to. It makes me feel old, so old.’

      ‘Perhaps I can help you bring it to mind,’ Ki said mercilessly. ‘It has never left my mind, all these weary days. Cora, you are close to your reconciliation. I wish to be released.’

      Cora set down her mug, appearing to notice Ki at the table for the first time. ‘Close, but not finished. You remember our bargain.’

      ‘I do. I remember it as much as I regret it. I have spent this morning readying my wagon. I wish to leave.’

      ‘Ah. And where will you go?’

      ‘Back to my life.’ Ki watched the old woman’s face closely. It did not change. But her bird-bright eyes remained fixed on Ki’s green ones, as if probing for secrets.

      ‘And who will go with you?’ she encouraged.

      ‘NO ONE!’ Ki exploded. ‘Why must we dance and tiptoe about this? What mean all these questions? I wish to leave, Cora, to be on my road again.’

      Cora was unruffled. ‘I had hoped that you might find something, or perhaps someone, to hold you here. That has not happened?’

      ‘No. Nothing. And no one.’ Ki did not try to hide her distaste for the subject.

      The expression on the old woman’s face grew firmer. ‘Ki. You will not be pleased by what I must say. It is for your own good. I bind you here until I judge that we have been reconciled with the Harpies. There is something here for you, although you will not open your stubborn eyes and see it. It is in the work you do so well, and the way you do it. I know that you were meant to be one of us. I feel it. Sven made you my daughter, and I intend that you shall remain so. If you will only have a little patience, Ki.’

      Ki rose, her face pale, her eyes terrible. The walls of the room seemed to whirl, to close in about her. She could not find breath to speak, and she felt the walls of her resistance to Cora melt like fog. The threads of her logical reasons for leaving slipped from her fingers.

      ‘Let her go! She is poison to you! Nay, I spoke too gently! Drive her out, stone her forth from the valley! Her soul is a dark and terrible place, full of secrets she will not bare, even in sleep! And you would waste another son upon her?’

      Ki and Cora both jerked about to face Nils. This morning he walked like the old man he was. His face was as haggard, as if he had not slept at all. When he reached the table, he placed his fists on the edge of it, knuckles down. He leaned heavily on it, his accusing glance flashing from Ki to Cora and back again.

      ‘She has no wish to be one of you! She left the Kishi fruit untouched on the table, scorning our gift of togetherness! But she had taken of the liquor of the Rite of Loosening, so she could not close her mind to me entirely. It was a sinister place, of foul deeds and fouler ambitions. Things too hideous for me to think of, she has done! And her poison has spread among you. Your own sons I could not reach, Cora! Few among your family came willingly to my healing of dreams. Holland came eagerly, like a hurt child seeking to be comforted. Lydia fought like a wild thing, slipping away from me even as I thought I had her. The dark man and his sinister …’

      ‘Haftor and Marna,’ murmured Cora.

      ‘Marna came, but without joy, like a beast to harness. Haftor seized his dreams from my control and twisted them, seeking every chance to turn them inside out and examine the ugly seams. He is a strong, wild spirit, Cora. He remembers things I thought we had cleansed him of, things best forgotten. He is another one best put aside from your household.’

      Cora’s hand went to her mouth, shaking her head, her eyes stricken.

      ‘Do not refuse me, Cora! You summoned me here, did you not, to put things to rights? And even you are not unscathed! Joined as you were to this corrupt creature during that travesty of a rite, you have taken the most of her dark spirits! You too, Cora, were closed to me. You know you were! You stood before a dark place in your mind, a place Ki had put there, and you denied me entrance, even as you would not go in yourself!’

      Cora might have replied to his words, Ki might have let herself go and struck him, but from outside the house came the sounds of Rufus’s hoarse yells. The words were unintelligible, but the tone of them made Ki and Cora leap up. Ki raced to the door and flung it open. Cora came behind her, Nils on her heels.

      From all directions, people were coming – from the barns and cottages, from the fields, all hurrying toward the far corner of the pasture. Ki set off at a run. Holland set down a bucket of milk and a basket of eggs to scuttle from the barn yard and through the pasture. Cora moved faster than her old legs wanted to. Nils hurried after her.

      Ki pushed her way through a cluster of people to where Rufus stood red-faced and angry. At his feet was a blood-spattered heap of bones, hide, and tattered meat.

      ‘Harpies!’ he was roaring, over and over. Cora reached his elbow. ‘A decade of breeding went into that bull! Now look at him! Damn them! Damn them!’ A wild pulse leaped and hammered on his left temple. His fists were clenched at his sides, his dark hair pulled wild and unruly from his hair binding. His chest heaved.

      Holland stared at him in horror, going even whiter at his blasphemy. Ki was silent, in her eyes a green reflection of Rufus’s anger and hatred. Their eyes met across the carcass. A jolt of understanding passed between them.

      Cora slapped him. Her old hand whipped across his cheek and mouth, making a loud popping sound in the astonished silence. Lars, coming across the field, winced at the sound, but Nils was nodding his head, looking as if he ached to deliver the same blow to Ki’s savage face.

      It did not move Rufus. It did not budge his head on its neck of standing muscles and veins. The white handprint stood out on his impassioned face. A little blood СКАЧАТЬ