Kitiara weighed what she could tell this stranger who in some ways reminded her of Gregor, though he was neither as tall nor as handsome. 'Just tell him that I've been practicing,' she said finally. 'And that I'm ready.'
They were standing just out of sight of Kit's home, in a clearing below the elevated walkways between the vallenwoods where Kit often came to practice her swordplay. The stranger was preparing to take his leave when Kit thought to ask his name.
'Ursa Il Kinth, but you can call me Ursa if our paths cross again.'
'Wait!' Kit cried out almost in desperation as he turned to go. 'Take me with you, Ursa. All I need is a real sword or dagger, and I could help protect you during your travels. I wouldn't be any trouble. I have relatives in the North, and they can help me find my father. Oh, please, please, take me with you!'
'You, protect me?' Ursa snorted. 'I should hope it would be a few years before I need the protection of a child!'
Again he erupted into laughter, this time more derisively. 'If it would be any child it would be you, little Miss Kitiara,' Ursa said over his shoulder as he took a few steps away from her. He gave a sharp whistle between his teeth, and a muscular gray steed burst from the woods. In a minute he had mounted her and was riding off, still chuckling.
A fiercely determined Kitiara had started to run after him when she heard sharp cries from the direction of her home.
'Kitiara! Kitiara! Come home! I need help!'
Kit stopped and looked resentfully in the direction of the summons.
'My labor has begun! Hurry!'
Sighing, with one last look at Ursa's back, Kitiara clambered up the nearest vallenwood. Halfway up the tree, she climbed onto the walkway that would take her home, where her mother was ready to give birth.
Chapter 2
Running in from the sun-dappled walkways, Kit momentarily lost her bearings as she plunged into the cottage. It was midday, but almost no light penetrated through the shutters. Rosamun had managed to close them somehow, in the interest of modesty, when she went into labor.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Kit heard more than saw her mother, who was breathing heavily. Rosamun was squatting on the floor to one side of the common room, next to the big bed. She looked up frantically when she heard Kit enter.
'Oh, Kitiara! I… I didn't want to keep Gilon from his day's work this morning, but-' Here Rosamun stopped. She fixed her eyes on a point somewhere over Kit's head, twisted the bedclothes in her hands, and started a low moan that built to an unholy screech. Kit was already backing up toward the door when the sound ebbed and Rosamun slumped against the side of the bed.
'Please, please, get Minna,' Rosamun gasped.
Terrified, Kit bolted out the door and raced along the elevated walkways between the giant vallenwoods toward a local midwife's house, heedless of the people she jostled. Her encounter with the roguish stranger and thirst for adventure momentarily forgotten, Kit felt suddenly not a moment older than her eight years. Oh, if only Gilon hadn't gone off to chop wood today… If only Rosamun could manage on her own… If only there were someone else to help besides Minna!
Kit paused to catch her breath for a second before opening the gate to the midwife's front walk. Kit thought, as she always did when passing Minna's house, how the elaborate gingerbread cottage nestled between two giant vallenwood limbs resembled its owner-prim and haughty.
Kit knocked on the door. The moment Minna opened it, Kit grabbed her arm and started tugging her outside. The short, plump midwife was wearing her trademark muslin apron that, if it were not always so clean and starched, Kit would suspect she wore even to bed. Her wispy auburn hair was elaborately coiffed and beribboned.
'Hurry up! We have to hurry! It's my mother, she's gone into labor. You must come right away,' Kit said as she pulled.
Minna tugged right back, easily freeing her arm from the child's grasp. The midwife paused and collected her dignity around her. As Kit stood by the front door, shifting impatiently from foot to foot, Minna busied herself around her home, gathering potions, herbs, and vials, which she placed carefully in a large leather sack while nattering away at Kit.
'My dear, you look flushed. Catch your breath. I must find my aspen leaves. Aspen leaf juice really makes the best clotting drink, you know. It's quite rare in these parts. I have Asa-you know Asa, that funny, black-haired kender who appears in town every now and then? — I have Asa collect the leaves for me specially whenever he is near Qualinesti or Silvanesti. Of course, he's not all that reliable as a gatherer. Although I'm sure if he says they are aspen-wood leaves, then they probably are…'
Glancing in a mirror as she patted her hair in place, Minna caught a tense look from Kitiara, who was barely able to keep from shouting at the midwife to shut up and get out the door.
'Is anything wrong dear?' Minna asked, peering at Kit concernedly with her small, olive eyes.
'Yes, yes!' Kit declared, stamping her foot. 'I told you! My mother has started having her baby. She needs you!'
'Well, there's no need to be rude, I'm sure. There's enough of that in Krynn these days,' Minna said with an injured air. 'People have been having babies since the beginning of time. I'm sure your mother is doing just fine,' she added, checking her leather rucksack full of whatnot one more time before pulling it closed. 'Ah, here are the aspen leaves. I shouldn't worry. I suppose your father is home with Rosamun?'
The query seemed innocent enough, but Kit, always thin-skinned when it came to questions about fathers, mistrusted Minna's reasons for asking. The midwife made it her business to know all the gossip there was to know in Solace, and everything she discovered through her snooping she passed on to dozens of acquaintances at the morning market. Kit knew that Rosamun was one of her favorite topics.
Rosamun intermittently suffered strange trances and was chronically abed with fever and imagined ills. After Gregor had left her, things had only grown worse. Kitiara supposed Rosamun blamed herself for Gregor's going. Well, she should. She had practically driven him away with her homebody concerns.
It was difficult to understand what Gregor had seen in her mother in the first place. Maybe she had been pretty once, Kit admitted grudgingly. She was a good enough cook. Yet whatever Rosamun once was, more and more in recent months she had become the kind of sickly, indoors drudge that Kit planned never to be.
Rosamun didn't have very many friends or people sympathetic to her sick spells. That's where Minna came in. Kitiara had to admit that Minna tended to her mother as best she could. And she never pressured Gilon to pay her mounting bill.
Even so, Kitiara detested the bossy busybody.
Kit looked out the window and wished she were anywhere but in this house, anywhere except perhaps her own cottage. She couldn't forget the anguished sounds that Rosamun had made, and the look of fear on her face.
'Well, who's in a hurry now, young lady? Do your best to keep up.'
With that, Minna swept past Kitiara and out the door. Kit would have liked to kick her in the behind. But the thought of Rosamun at home, in the throes of childbirth, made her repress the impulse.
Indeed, Kit practically had to run to keep up with Minna, who moved along the walkways with quick strides.
When they reached the cottage, Kit saw that her mother had climbed back onto the bed, where the blanket
