Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen Page A

the thighs made them giggle until I pointed out how chafed a rider might become without such extra padding. “Though,” I added, “no one but a true Royal needs extra padding.” A lesson at such a time is always a good idea with these doltish Lands boys.
    Their mother smiled and nodded at my bit of moralizing, though her mother frowned.
    “Linni could use it,” said the younger boy, coming back with a damp cloth to make a swipe at the table, clearing it of the few crumbs. There was a scramble at our feet as the house pets fought over the scraps.
    “Stick-legs. Old bony behind and fore.” It was the middle boy, the one from the Hall. He and his sister had obviously never been close, though for him to speak so in front of me meant the name-calling was more ritual than real.
    I cuffed him anyway, before his mother could speak to him. He looked at me through slotted eyes but made no sound, not even a whimper. “She is a Royal now, your sister, your better. You will not use such words about her again.” There was no arguing with my tone and he knew it.
    Rising, I said, “I would sleep here tonight and tomorrow have a quiet word with Granny alone.”
    There was a sudden small silence in the room; it chilled me even though the fire in the hearth chose that moment to flare into life, a small pocket of sap bursting in a piece of wood. Then the two women spoke at once.
    “It will be so,” said the granny.
    “I will make your bed up,” said the mother.
    I took the slack-jawed middle boy to bed with me, more for punishment than amusement. I wanted to hurt him again for his name-calling and I was not gentle with him. He did not complain of it, indeed he did not have enough imagination or experience to do that. But even his presence in the bed did not warm me. I spent most of the night awake, trying to imagine in what way he and Gray were related. Only at the end did I realize that it was to the Lands girl Linni he was linked, not the Royal Gray. The Gray Wanderer was someone he would know only in story and in song. A strange sowing that must have been, so many years before, that had deposited that particular nestling in this particular nest.
    Morning finally arrived and when I arose and parted the curtains there was no one left at home but the grandmother and me. The boys had all fled to their chores and their mother was at the Hall tidying the memoria for another day of grieving.
    “Old woman,” I said.
    She turned toward me, her face unreadable, and smoothed her hands down the sides of her worn gray skirts.
    “She will be a great griever,” I said. “Perhaps the greatest our world has ever known.”
    She nodded.
    “And the Queen would have her begin now, crafting poems of grief. But…”
    She nodded again. It was then that I saw the intelligence shining in her eyes and it became clear to me that Gray had sprung from a line of crafty Lands women, though the planting was of a Royal seed. I really needed to go no further, but truth impelled me. “The Queen has sent me to—”
    She cut me short. “You will make them remember me?” she asked, her eyes suddenly luminous, her mouth opening wide.
    “Grandmother, I will.”
    “Then I will make up the attic room. It has not been given a shaking since the departure of our Grieven One.” She turned and left me to stare into the fire. I heard her footsteps going up the wooden treads and the creaking of the floorboards overhead. The morning fire was only bright embers, but the embers seemed haloed with rainbows. I held my hands out to the hearth but I felt no warmth.
    I do not know how long I stared at the dying fire, but there was a sudden touch at my elbow. I jerked around. It was the old woman. She held out a Cup to me. Clearly it was a family treasure, cut from a single piece of black stone and expertly faceted, centuries old. I took it and it was a solid, balanced weight between my hands. I could feel the carvings imprinting on my palms as I rolled it between