The Bonemender (19 page)

As Féolan glanced around the room, his eyes rested on Councilor Orienne. He remembered her auburn hair, piercing dark eyes and keen attention from his last Elder’s Council. Today, though, she seemed oblivious to the discussion at hand. She had been staring almost avidly at Gabrielle throughout Féolan’s presentation.
Perhaps she disapproved of a Human presence at Council. She didn’t appear hostile, though—fascinated, rather.

In any case, there were no questions, and Féolan was asked to stay and translate for Gabrielle. Tilumar welcomed her in imperfect but passable Krylaise and introduced her to the seven other Elders. Gabrielle put her hand over heart and bowed to each.

She spoke with poise, asking Féolan to begin by giving her personal thanks to the Elves of Stonewater for their hospitality. He briefly explained who she was and how she came to be there.

Gabrielle was then asked about Verdeau’s numbers—how many they started with, which she knew, and how many they left with, which she didn’t, though she could confirm Haldoryn’s guess that the losses were not crushing. Were reinforcements expected and from where? Did they have archers, horses, other special contingents? Was the leadership of the Basin armies intact? Here she faltered a little, and Féolan, wanting to spare her reliving Jerome’s death, asked if she wished him to tell the story. She shook her head, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin in the gesture of determination already familiar to him.

“King Jerome, my father,” she began, “was killed on the field.” She took a breath to steady herself. “But General Fortin, his military commander, directs our forces, and my brother Tristan will support him. The Verdeau army will not falter.”

“May I ask a question?” It was Orienne. “I understand you were captured on the battlefield by the
Gref Orisé
. I have been long away from Humans, but I did not think it was usual for their women to fight. How is it that you happened there?”

“I am a bo—a healer,” Gabrielle amended, using the Elvish term. “I was treating the wounded, not fighting. I went onto the field when my father was injured.”

Orienne gazed at Gabrielle long and intently. Féolan could feel Gabrielle fighting to be still under her gaze. At last Orienne dropped her eyes and said in heavily accented Krylaise, “I am sorry. That was uncourteous.” Switching back to her fluid Elvish, she added, “May I speak privately to you after? I would explain my ill manners.”

F
ÉOLAN
waited with Gabrielle in the drafty entranceway for over an hour, Gabrielle becoming more and more jittery beside him. “I don’t know what she wants or why she looked at you so,” he said patiently, yet again. “We’ll just have to—” The door opened, and Orienne slipped out.

“They can finish up without me,” she said. “Is there somewhere quiet we can go?”

They went to Féolan’s dwelling. Small but spacious, beautifully crafted though sparely furnished, it would be filled with light and birdsong when the windows were opened. Now they were shuttered against the cool spring night, and the effect was snug and private. He lit a fire and several ceramic wall lamps, poured three goblets of wine and sat down to translate. Though there were chairs and a table at the far end of the room, they sat instead on deep curved cushions, covered in shades of green, gray and blue, pulled close around the fire. Gabrielle watched how Orienne tucked her feet neatly behind her, looking elegantly at ease rather than sprawled, and tried to arrange herself the same way.

“I hope you will forgive me for staring so and at a guest,” Orienne began. “It is not my custom. But when you walked in the Council Chamber, I thought for one moment that you were my niece, whom I have not seen in nearly thirty years. You look so like her, I cannot tear my eyes away.”

Féolan nodded, ready to smile at the chance likeness, thank Orienne for her time and bid her goodnight.

But Gabrielle spoke up. “What happened to her?” she asked. This was not just polite small talk: her voice trembled with tension. Féolan had never seen Gabrielle so nervous.

“She and her husband shared a love of wandering,” Orienne replied. “She wished to see the ocean and her husband’s homeland in south Barilles. They set off on a journey to the coast.”

South Barilles? thought Féolan, curious now. As far as he knew, the Elves had long ago left the coast to Human settlement.

“I wondered if Wyndra was wise to go, for she had a newborn baby. But she laughed and said, ‘Easier now than when she’s walking!’ She was ever headstrong and fearless ... even with her heart.”

Féolan looked up sharply at the hint of bitterness in Orienne’s voice, wondering if he had read this story aright. Orienne nodded. “He was Human, a scholar who came to Fernrill settlement to study our histories.”

Waves of emotion poured off Gabrielle as he translated—startling, churning, mixed-up blasts of feeling that Féolan could not begin to interpret. Gabrielle was shivering so violently Féolan was afraid she was ill. He put his arm around her, but she didn’t seem to notice him at all. Her eyes never left Orienne as the sad tale continued.

“Neither of them ever returned. After six months had passed, we sent people searching for them. We never found them. It will be twenty-eight years this autumn since she left.”

“My parents found me that year, hidden in a hollow log by the sea amongst a group of murdered adults,” Gabrielle blurted out.

It took Féolan a minute to grasp the meaning of her words. His body seemed to comprehend before his mind: it felt electric with
excitement. His heart skipped and throbbed in his chest like a skin drum. He gave the rhythm words: Let it be true. Let it be true.

Gabrielle gave him an urgent look, waiting for his translation, then softened at his expression. “My mother told me only this winter,” she said. “But Féolan, it might have meant nothing.”

“What does she say?” Orienne now, trying to understand, with her rusty Krylaise, the high emotion in the room. Féolan tried to clear his head and repeat Gabrielle’s words. Slowly Orienne reached out her slim hands and clasped Gabrielle’s between them. They were lost in each other. “My sister’s daughter is dead, then,” she said slowly. “And my great-niece is alive. Gabrielle, I believe I first laid eyes on you at your naming ceremony. You were just one week old, and your mother named you Twylar.”

“I need to be sure,” Gabrielle whispered. She reached with shaky fingers for a rough rawhide cord around her neck. It was long, tucked deeply down her front. She tugged at it. “I didn’t want it to look worth stealing,” she explained. “So I put it on this leather. But ... “ Now, at last, Féolan saw the glitter of silver at the end of the cord. He leaned forward, anxious to see. It took one glance to identify the tiny necklace: a babystone. He had watched Danaïs fasten just such a one around Eleara’s neck on her name day. Orienne was weeping now, cradling the little jewel in her hand as though a baby still wore it.

Gabrielle, distressed, turned to Féolan. “We give such a stone to babies on their nameday,” he explained. Stars above, all he wanted to do was take this woman in his arms, but this was her story, not his, and she did not want him now. Not yet. “The stone—”

“The stone is called
jeldeñi
,” said Orienne. “It is the stone of your mother’s house. We all admired how your babystone matched your eyes. They were lighter, then.”

Gabrielle burst into tears, and now Féolan’s arms were welcome. He wrapped her tight, remembering Gabrielle’s sudden tension over their mid-day meal and her hesitation at the falls, imagining how the pieces of her life must have fallen into place with nothing but speculation to hold them together. If she’d shown me the damn necklace I could have told her, he thought. But that wasn’t quite true, was it? He could have told her enough to change the odds, but now it was for sure, and her life was forever changed.

B
UT HOW WAS
it changed? Gabrielle did not know how to find the words, or the courage, for all the questions that clamored in her heart. She watched Orienne refill the tall wine flutes, finding a soothing familiarity in the gesture. No stopping now. She had to know.

“Orienne, what does it mean—to be ... what I am?”

“To be half-Elven? I’m afraid it is not always an easy life.” Orienne spoke to both of them, now that she saw how it was with them. But her eyes lingered on Gabrielle.

“Your mother asked me to study this question before your birth. I visited many settlements in search of an answer. Most of our knowledge dates from the last war against
Gref Oris
. That was a long and bitter struggle with great losses on both sides, and in such times Elves and Humans alike are more reckless with their love. Who can blame them for grasping at what happiness they can, when death looms so likely? But not all died, and an unusual number of half-Elven babies were born the next year.”

Orienne sipped at the amber wine and gazed into the fire, gathering her thoughts. She sighed. “There is no pattern, it seems, to how the Elvish and Human traits will blend in any one
person. Some of the children seemed almost entirely Human, with only subtle signs—unusually keen eyesight, perhaps, or nimble, clever fingers—of their Elvish side. Some were very Elf-like, in looks and even abilities.” Her eyes returned to Gabrielle. “Your mother was a skilled healer, strong in the gift of the hands. This, I understand, she has passed on to you.”

Gabrielle felt a rush of wonder. For the first time her connection with the woman who bore her seemed real. It was as though Wyndra had reached down through time and handed Gabrielle a torch: a gift and a responsibility.

Orienne had spoken again and stopped, while Gabrielle was wrapped in these thoughts. Féolan touched her hand and translated: “Those with a more even mix of traits often had a more difficult time. Never really at home with either race, they wandered as minstrels or traders. There were a few scholars and teachers among them and outlaws too.”

Gabrielle only half-heard this report. She already knew where her path lay. Yet she could not bring herself to voice the question on which so much hinged.

Féolan’s arm tightened around her, and she leaned into his steady strength. His voice was the merest murmur in her ear: “We have already pledged to find joy in what we have and not despair at what might have been. Nothing we learn now will change that.”

“I know what you would ask.” Orienne leaned toward Gabrielle, reached for her hand and held it between her own. Gabrielle searched the older woman’s face—how strange, that her age had somehow become clear as they spoke—and saw the sadness before she heard the words. Poor Féolan, she thought. Despite his brave words, she knew what he had hoped for.

“I wish,” said Orienne, “that I could promise you a long life among us, Gabrielle, but I’m afraid that life span is as uncertain as the other half-Elven traits. I know of one, born soon after the war, who lives yet, though age weighs heavily upon him.”

Had she misunderstood that? One look at Féolan removed all doubt—he fairly hummed with suppressed excitement. But Orienne cut in hastily: “Please, do not let that mislead you. It is an unusual case. And at the other end, there were some whose lives were much shorter.”

“How much shorter?” Gabrielle was deliberately blunt. It was time to put her fear to rest, whatever the answer.

Orienne’s eyes grew sorrowful, her voice gentle. “A few lived barely two hundred years. I’m afraid you cannot count on more than that. I am sorry.”

Gabrielle blinked. Her life had just been more than doubled, and Orienne was sorry! A breathless laugh escaped her. Her eyes met Féolan’s—was she crazy to be so happy? And he was smiling at her, that smile that melted all the bones in her body.

“Two hundred years, Féolan,” she whispered. “We have—”

She never got to finish. Féolan had pulled her into his arms, and his kiss drove the words right out of her head.

Not that she cared.

M
ORE WINE AND MORE TALK
, and at last Orienne stood and kissed Gabrielle on the forehead and said, “We will celebrate your return in true Elvish style, Gabrielle. But the celebration must wait, I’m afraid, until we are done with these
Gref Orisé
invaders. In the meantime, may I be the one to welcome you into your family? It is a great joy to me that you live and that we have found each other.”

It was late. Féolan walked her to the little guesthouse, and Gabrielle was grateful that he did not press her to speak as they threaded their way through the still night. She knew his thoughts brimmed with the life they could now plan together. Hers were a more complicated mixture of joy and sorrow, not ready to be spoken. The stars looked far away and cold this late at night. Did their silvery patterns foretell a person’s path in life, as some claimed? She felt strangely alone for one who has had just reclaimed her family.

At Gabrielle’s doorstep, Féolan brushed his knuckles along her cheek. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Gabrielle nodded. “It’s a lot to get used to.”

And then it was time for their goodbyes, for Féolan would be gone before first light. Gabrielle drew her hand slowly from his elbow to his fingertips, memorizing the swell of muscle in the forearm, the smooth skin, the intricate join of bones and tendon at the wrist, the long fingers. She tried not to hear the voice that added, in case he does not return. Some time passed before she looked up.

“All the words and phrases that people use on occasions such as this—take care, stay safe, come back soon—stick in my throat like a burr and refuse to come out,” she confessed. “I can think of nothing to say that feels true in my heart except that I love you.”

“It is all I need to hear,” said Féolan.

T
HAT NIGHT IN BED
, the bits and pieces of Gabrielle’s life wheeled around her, assembling and coming apart in random combinations.
You are my real mother
, she had told Solange, and it was true. Her father had died in her arms on a battlefield.
That too was true. How did that fit with Wyndra, the Elf who had borne and lost her so long ago, or the mysterious man who had won her love?

How were Gabrielle DesChênes of Verdeau and Twylar of Fernrill to become one person?