A knock came to the kitchen door and Pen-Ilyn entered, but held it wide to admit Ellowyn and an older man. The last time Lia had seen him, it had been on the battlefield of Winterrowd, blood-spattered and leaning wearily against a wagon as he spoke to the survivors. She could hardly tell his face through the grime that day. But she knew him at once. Garen Demont. Something burned inside her heart seeing him, something fierce and tugging. It made her eyes brim with tears. Demont was probably fifty, but he looked younger, with a boyish face – cleanshaven, like Colvin’s – and a mess of untidy dark hair streaked with gray. He wore a chain hauberk and splotched tunic with all the comfortable grace of an experienced soldier and had his maston-sword buckled at his hip, his gloved hand resting on the pommel. Colvin’s hand was on the edge of her bed. Her fingers itched to snake out and snare his, to keep him from going. She knew the moment was coming but it still hurt.
“Are you ready, my lord of Forshee?” Demont asked Colvin sympathetically. “Though I myself loathe parting with you. If you leave now you will reach Bridgestow before dark. There are many ships that anchor there bound for Dahomey. You can make it to the island Abbey by the time we arrive in Comoros with the prisoners, I should think. Dochte Abbey is on the northern coast if you recall. It will only take you and Ellowyn a few days under sail if the weather is fine, I am certain of it.”
Colvin gave her a mournful look, his eyes dark and sad. He stood slowly, as if some heavy burden were fastened to his shoulders. He gave her one final look and then started towards the doorway. “I am ready.”
There was creaking in the loft above and Sowe and Bryn hurried down the ladder. Edmon was awake as well and rose, wincing with pain, clutching his wounded side. Pasqua stuffed the food in a new rucksack and handed it to Colvin at the door.
“Be you safe,” she said gruffly. “Come back to us when your duty is finished.”
Lia ached. She felt the tears sting her eyes as she saw her friends smothering him with attention. It was painful beyond enduring. Who would protect him if not her? Who would guide him when the way was lost? It was agony thinking about being in Muirwood without him. No more walks in the Cider Orchard. Not to see him at the laundry while she scrubbed clothes. His fierce gaze turned back to look at her, his jaw clenched with visible pain.
Edmon saw the look between them. He whispered something in Sowe’s ear and she nodded, wiping tears from her eyes and taking Pasqua by the arm and she and Bryn pulled her outside the kitchen into the fresh morning air just as the sky began to shine. Edmon said something to Demont and Ellowyn and escorted them outside as well, leaving Colvin alone on the threshold. Edmon glanced back and shut the door after himself.
Colvin stood rooted in place for a moment, rucksack dangling from his shoulder. Then he let it fall with a thump and he marched across the room and pulled Lia into a fierce hug. Lia swallowed with pain and pleasure, ignoring the little jolts of agony that came and hugged him back, sorrowing that she was losing him again. She smelled his hair, his leather jerkin, the scent of his skin – inhaled him all in one final memory, squeezing him until her hand throbbed and her side ached and her leg moaned with the motion.
“How I love you,” she whispered to him, feeling him tense at the words. “Please come back to me. Please take care of yourself. Every day you will be in my thoughts and I will be pleading for your safety. The Medium will protect you both. I have faith in that.”
She felt his sigh, his body tremble. Then pulling away slightly, he looked at her with inexpressible pain and longing in his eyes. It was the look of a man being tortured. “This is a hard thing,” he whispered. “Leaving you like this. I can hardly bear it. Will you help me? Will you…Gift me, Lia?”
A smile creased her mouth. “If you want me to.”
He knelt at the edge of the bed and bowed his head so she could reach it. She made the maston sign while she touched his hair. What could she say? It was her first time pronouncing one herself. What would the Medium require of him? Her thoughts were a jumble, all confused. She knew what she wanted to say, but she knew it had to come from the Medium and not her. “Colvin Price,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I gift you with…I gift you with…” She paused, searching through her contorting feelings for the right words. Then she felt it – a spark of warmth and assurance. An insight into his needs. “I gift you with wisdom and knowledge. That you may discern through the illusions and see things as they really are. As they really must be. By Idumea’s hand, make it so.”
The Medium was a warm blanket that fell around their shoulders. It was comforting and peaceful. She took a deep breath, trying to calm the sobs that would come later. He raised his head and stared in her eyes. His iron will had asserted itself again. He rose slowly from the bed and stared down at her. “I will come back to you. That is my promise. I will not break it this time.”
She smiled at him, feeling the tears burn in her eyes as she watched him leave again.
*
“While the Medium reveals itself in many forms and can come as a dramatic manifestation, it usually does not. Some mastons think they need to experience the full, raw power of the Medium before they are convinced of its possibilities. If we have unrealistic notions of how, when, or where the Medium reveals itself, we risk missing the tokens which come as quiet, reassuring feelings and thoughts while we are doing something else. These simple manifestations of the Medium can be equally convincing and powerful as the dramatic ones. Over time we learn how this works. It is something each maston learns for himself.”
- Gideon Penman of Muirwood Abbey
*
CHAPTER FORTY SIX:
Scarseth’s Voice