Brightly Burning

from the udder, with firm, steady, pulling strokes. Then he let Lan take over, and after a couple of fumbles, Lan found that he was milking just as well as Pa had. He leaned his forehead against Brownie's warm flank, breathing in the scent of fresh straw and warm milk, and watched the white streams hiss into the pail. It was somehow a very soothing experience, though by the time he'd filled the pail and Brownie had nothing more to give, he discovered that his hands were tired and a little sore.

He brought the pail to Pa Chester, who took it with a grin after a quick glance inside to measure the level by eye. 'Good lad! Ye've a natural hand for it, I see. Fingers sore?'

Lan nodded, flexing them.

'That's expected. Takes practice, just like anything else. Think ye can do another?' Lan took a glance around and saw that Tuck had already joined his brothers at the chore, so he nodded, and Pa Chester gave him a new, clean pail and carried off the full one to the dairy house. Lan got his stool from Brownie's stall and wondered which cow he should try next.

'Take Swan, she's gentle, but watch her tail,' Tuck called; Lan looked around at the nameplates until he found one for 'Swan,' with a white cow munching hay in the stall beneath it. He approached the heifer making the same soothing noises he'd heard the others make, and when she looked around at him with mild, curious brown eyes, he put one hand on her haunches and ran it along her side. He put his stool down beside her and got into position.

Just as he got his hands on her udder, something warned him to turn his head aside, and as he did, he caught a blow on the back of his head that stung. 'Hey!' he said indignantly, as the cow turned her head guilessly to look at him again. 'What was that about?'

'Warm your hands up; she hates cold hands,' one of the other boys said. 'Well, how would you like cold hands on you there?'

'I don't have a there,' Lan retorted, but he saw the point, and stuck his hands in his armpits until they were warmed up. This time when he tried his luck, Swan sighed and let down her milk for him.

He milked one more cow before his hands refused to cooperate anymore, but by then, most of the milking was finished anyway. He went into the dairy and washed up, then helped to pour the pans for rising; Pa and Ma insisted on a scrupulously clean dairy.

Dinner was concocted from the leftovers of the noon meal, but the food was no less tasty for corning around the second time. After dinner, one of the older boys showed Lan how to carve, using the old pocketknife that Lan's gift had replaced, and he spent the remainder of the evening whittling on what he hoped would be a reasonable boat for Tuck's youngest brother. This time Tuck took the turn at reading, and did a tolerable job at it. Granny kept holding up her warm hands to admire her fingerless gloves, which tickled him considerably, and before everyone went off to bed, Ma produced an apple pie and a wedge of cheese for a treat.

When Lan and Tuck went up to bed, though, Lan kept staring into the darkness, thinking about Jisette Jelnack, unable to sleep.

'Stop thinking so loud,' Tuck whispered, finally. 'You're keeping me awake.'

'Am I really?' Lan whispered back, startled.

'Well, not thinking loud; I'm not that good a Mindspeaker. But you are keeping me awake. What's wrong? Was it something that happened back in Haven?' Tuck's acuity startled Lan; he hadn't expect that sort of insight from his friend. 'You might as well tell me. If I don't get it out of you myself, Kalira will tell Dacerie and Dacerie will tell me.'

'Isn't there anything secret to them?' Lan replied, both irritated and touched by his concern.

'No. Get used to it,' Tuck replied promptly. 'Now, spit it out so we can both get some sleep.'

Slowly, reluctantly, Lan told him what had happened when he and Kalira had been waylaid by the Jelnacks, and for the first time, he told someone besides Pol just what had happened that night in the school. 'What's bothering me is that she's right. I am responsible—'

'Huh.' Tuck didn't immediately launch into assurance, which in a curious way, comforted him more than that assurance would have. He wasn't going to give Lan a comforting answer just because he was Lan's friend....

'All right, I can see your point. And you are responsible; I mean, if they'd been picking on someone other than you, nothing would have happened. But that doesn't mean that the old bag is right either. You're not a murderer.'

'How am I not—' he began, then stopped. 'Because I didn't intend to kill them?'

'Right. And maybe that seems like an irra—erra—' Tuck searched for the word he wanted.

'Irrelevant?' Lan suggested.

'Right. That kind of difference. But it's not. It's a big difference.' Tuck sounded quite sure of himself, and a moment later Lan found out why. 'I've had First Level Judgment, and in the law there's a big difference. There's premeditated murder, and that's where the guy plans it out and goes and does it in cold blood, on purpose. Then there's simple murder, where maybe the guy gets into a fight with someone, and instead of backing off, gets a weapon out and kills the other guy. Now, that didn't happen with you, because you never got a chance to defend yourself, and you were ganged up on. That's the law. So you aren't a murderer.'

Tuck was so sure of himself that Lan began to believe him. 'So what am I?' he asked, uncertainly.

'I'm working that out; give a fellow a moment, I haven't even gotten a test on this yet!' Tuck replied a little crossly. 'Now, what's next?' Silence in the darkness, then, 'Ah! Got it. There's manslaughter, where a guy kills someone by accident, but that isn't you either, because it has to be someone helpless, and that toad Tyron wasn't helpless, you were. So what that leaves is accidental death in self-defense.' Solid self- satisfaction filled Tuck's voice. 'That's the one that fits, all right. You were the helpless one, you got ganged up on, they wouldn't let you go, and they were going to hurt you a lot. You couldn't help it if your Gift got away from you—heckfire, you didn't even know what it was and you hadn't got any training in it! How could you do anything with it? And how could anybody expect you to?'

'I don't know....' Lan was still troubled, but Tuck wasn't listening to him, he was plowing straight ahead as if this was just another classroom exercise.