Kerowyn's Ride

she spoke. The tail of hair was as thick as Kero’s wrist, and as gray as the coat of Tarma’s mare. “Your grandmother and I are Goddess-sworn sisters, and I know I’ve explained that to you already.” When Kero finally nodded, she continued. “Well, what I didn’t tell you was that before I met her, my Clan was wiped out by the same bandits she’d contracted to stop.”

“It was one of my first jobs as a Journeyman,” Kethry put in, after Tarma paused for a moment, staring off at a long cloud above the trees. “They had taken over a whole town and were terrorizing the inhabitants. Tarma followed them there, and I managed to intercept her before she managed to get herself killed.”

“Huh. You wouldn’t have done much better alone, Greeneyes,” Tarma replied sardonically, coming back to the conversation. “Well. We decided to team up. It worked, and we—actually managed to take out the bandits and survive the experience. That was when we figured we’d make pretty good partners.”

“Then things got a little complicated,” Kethry chuckled, popping a grape into her mouth.

“A little complicated?” Tarma raised both eyebrows, then shrugged. “I suppose—in the same way that stealing a warsteed can get the Clans a little annoyed. Anyway, the main thing is that we got back to the Plains, she got adopted into the Shin’a’in, and she vowed to the elders that she’d build a new Clan for me. Eventually she met and wedded your grandfather Jadrek, and damn if she didn’t just about manage to repopulate Tale’sedrin all on her own!”

Kethry chuckled, and actually blushed. “Jadrek had a little to do with that,” she pointed out, raising an eloquent finger at her partner.

“Well, true enough, and good blood he put in, too.” Tarma stretched, tossed the braid back over her shoulders, and clasped both gnarled hands around her knee.

“That’s another story. We three raised seven children, all told. When the core group claimed the herds, we added adoptees from other Clans, orphans and younglings who had some problems and wanted a fresh start. Tale’sedrin is a full Clan; smaller than it was before the massacre, but growing. Kind of funny how many young suitors we got drooling around the core and the core-blood—but then, to us, a blond is exotic.”

“But—I don’t understand—” Kero protested. “If my uncles and aunts are all Shin’a’in, why aren’t I? How did I end up here instead of there?”

“Good question,” Tarma acknowledged. “The way these things work is that even though Keth vowed her children to the Clan, what she vowed was that they’d have the right to become Clan, not that they had to. It’s the younglings who decide for themselves where they want to go. We don’t make anyone do anything they aren’t suited for—the Plains are too harsh and unforgiving for anyone who doesn’t love them to survive there. So—when we’ve got a case like Keth’s, vowed younglings of adopted blood, the children spend half their time with the Clans until they’re sixteen, then they choose whether they want to become Shin’a’in in full, or go off on their own. Five of those aunts and uncles of yours chose Shin’a’in ways and the Tale’sedrin banner when they came of age to make the choice.”

“Mother didn’t. And?” Kero asked curiously. Why would anyone choose to stay here? The Keep may be the most boring backwater in the world.

“I was getting to that.” Tarma gave her one of those looks. “Of the two that didn’t go with the Clans, one picked up where his mother left off, and took over the White Winds sorcery school she’d founded and set up at the Keep—just moved it off onto property he’d swindl— ahem.”

She cast a sideways glance at Kethry, who only seemed amused to Kero. “Excuse me. Earned. That’s your uncle Jendar. It’s not that he didn’t like Clan life, it’s that he’s Adept-potential, and all that mage-talent would be wasted out there. There’s another son, and he’s mage-gifted as well. That’s your uncle Jadrek, only he’s a Shin’a’in shaman. But your mother Lenore was last-born, your grandfather died when she was very small and we had some problems with the school that kept us busy. Maybe too busy. She—well—” Tarma coughed, and looked embarrassed. “Let’s say she was different. Scared to death of horses, and had fits over the Clan style of living, so we stopped even sending her out to the Plains. Bookish, like Jadrek, but no logic, no discipline, no gift of scholarship. No real interest in anything but ballads and tales and romances. No abilities besides the ones appropriate to a fine lady. No mage-talent.”

“In short, she was our disappointment, poor thing,” Kethry sighed, and twined a curl of silver hair around her fingers. “She spent all her time at the neighboring family’s place, and all she really wanted to be was somebody’s bride, the same daydream as all the girls she knew. I scandalized her; Tarma terrified her. Finally, I fostered her with the Lythands until she was sixteen, then brought her back here. She came back a lady—and suited to nothing else.”

Kero thought about her mother for a moment, surprised that for the first time in months—years—the thoughts didn’t call up an ache of loss. Even when Lenore had been well, she’d been fragile, unsuited to anything that took her outside the Keep walls, even pleasure-riding, and likely to pick up every little illness that she came in contact with. No wonder she didn’t like Tarma or her Clan. Living in a tent for three moons every year must have been a hell for her.

“So what were you going to do?” she asked carefully. “Mother wasn’t the kind of person you could leave on her own. She was better with someone to take care of her.”

Kethry smiled slightly, the lines around her eyes deepening. “A gentle way to put it, but accurate. Frankly, I had no ideas beyond getting her married off. I wanted to find a really suitable husband for her, one she could learn to love, but after one experience with suitors, I despaired of finding anyone that would treat her so that she’d survive the marital experience.” Her eyes hardened. “That suitor, by the by, was Baron Reichert. Not the Baron then, just a youngster hardly older than Lenore, but already experienced beyond his years. One might even say,