The Soul Weaver by Carol Berg Page B

missing relatives. Paulo and his string of horses had been relegated so far to the rear, I couldn’t even see them.
    Scarcely able to keep up with the rest of us were a gaunt Vallorean and his family. The man carried a small boy on his shoulders and pulled a wheeled sledge by a rope tied around his broad chest. His wife carried an infant lashed to her back with straps of cloth, while three other children, none more than ten, trudged along beside their pitifully few household belongings, helping steady the sledge over rough places in the road.
    At our first rest stop of the morning, I learned from his weary wife that the man was a master smith. Smiths were prized in every land, but the Leiran governor of Valleor had recently decreed that no Vallorean crafts-man could practice his own trade until he had apprenticed to a Leiran master. As we prepared to resume our journey after the horses were rested and watered, I offered to let the children take turns riding in the trap with Gerick and me. When the smith heard my Leiran accent, he bluntly and unequivocally refused.
    The first stretch of the afternoon was a short steep pitch over a low ridge. The Vallorean family quickly fell behind. When I slapped the reins harder than necessary to convince our pony to make the climb, Gerick eyed me curiously. “What’s wrong?”
    â€œThere are more lost souls in the world than just the mad sheepherder’s son,” I said, relaxing my grip a little. “And I would dearly love to make Evard walk with them a while.”
    â€œIs it true you almost married King Evard? No one ever mentioned that at Comigor.”
    â€œHas Tennice been telling you stories?”
    â€œSome. When I asked him why you looked like you were going to spit every time you said the king’s name, and how you always called him Evard and not King Evard, Tennice said you were going to be queen.”
    As we rolled through the hazy afternoon, I told Gerick about the beginnings of Evard’s and Tomas’s friendship, and the understanding between the young King of Leire and my brother about me. And in order to explain how Tennice had used his knowledge of the law so I could choose for myself whom I wanted to marry, I had to tell him about my cousin Martin, Earl of Gault, and his magnificent country house called Windham, and how I’d met Karon there, falling in love with him before I’d known he was a sorcerer.
    Gerick listened, but made no comment.
    It felt good to be on the move. For all its beauty and comfort, Verdillon was only a temporary home. My home was with Karon, but I wasn’t at all sure where. The rose-colored palace in Avonar was D’Natheil’s place, not Karon’s . . . not my Karon’s. Despite what I’d said to Radele, I couldn’t envision myself living there, and that left me feeling rootless and more uncertain about the future than I had ever been. Yet my unease could be only a small portion of what Gerick must feel. That consideration gave me patience with his silence and his moods when I had patience for nothing else in the world.
    The air grew cooler as we moved slowly upward, and for the first time in weeks no storm broke in the afternoon. A breeze rippled the leagues of grass to either side of the road like an emerald sea. Gerick took over driving the cart, and despite the constant jolting, I fell into a drowsy reminiscence of Windham. Telling Gerick about those days had made the memories incredibly vivid. I could almost hear Karon’s robust baritone harmonizing with Martin’s off-key bass on a particularly bawdy song at a Long Night fete. When I laughed aloud at the memory of it, I felt Gerick’s eyes on me. My skin grew hot. Certain that he would ask what amused me so, I tried to decide if telling him the words to the song would be at all proper for a mother to a youthful son.
    But his question, when it came, was very odd. “Why do you wear your hair so short?” He