produce a genuine, living, breathing brother.
The man had been crouching beside one of the figures, polishing its leg with a cloth and abrasive. He looked up, scowling angrily at the interruption. Then he rose, and she saw that he was not unusually tall, just very wide and thick... his black hairiness was barely concealed by a leather overall that seemed to be his only garment... dusty, sweaty, unshaven, unkempt. Unprepossessing. A quarry worker—with a wrist seal.
He saw Ingeld and a smile like summer sunrise turned him into a huge, overgrown boy, black stubble and all. As the lady skillfully brought the chariot to a halt without ever reaching for the brake, Benard's dark eyes switched to Fabia and stretched wide.
The apprentice came running forward, all awkward arms and legs and gaping smile. 'My lady! Great honor.. .'
'Veslih bless you, Thod!' Ingeld said. 'Will you water them for me? And walk them a little?' She accepted the boy's hand to descend and gave him the reins.
Fabia left the car without noticing she had done so. Benard was still staring at her as if she were a sending from the Dark One. She could do no better than stare back at him. Twenty-three was not really old at all. He had incredible arms ... wavy black hair down to his shoulders ... eyes black, lustrous.
She stopped just before she walked into him.
'Fabia?' he said in a sort of squeak.
'Brother!'
'Mother's eyes.' He touched her face with a hairy knuckle. 'Cheekbones from Father, but the rest is all Mother... They told me you were dead!'
'No one ever told me about you at all.'
Whereupon Master Artist Celebre uttered a scream that raised pigeons from half Kosord. He grabbed his sister, swung her up like a child, spun around several times. Setting her down again, he kissed her and yelled, 'Fabia, Fabia, Fabia, Fabia!' He was stronger than the Wrogg in flood and gentler than thistledown. Where had he been all her life? 'Oh, Fabia!' He kissed her again.
Fabia's eyelids prickled painfully. She hugged him in return, and kissed him, all stubbly.
'You two know each other, I see,' Ingeld remarked.
He roared, '
'Because I didn't know. Are you going to crush her to death?'
He laughed and apologized and kissed Fabia yet again, all at once, and finally he let her go. For a moment it seemed as if he would grab Ingeld and kiss her also, but he remembered his manners and bowed low.
'Benard, you'd better know this right away. I told you your father is very sick. He may have returned to the womb already. Fabia is on her way home to Celebre.'
His face went wooden. 'Female succession? What of Dantio? Is he not the heir?'
'He's dead. You know that.' She spoke to him like a mother or a teacher. 'And it wouldn't necessarily be him, even if he weren't.'
'You are not plotting to make
'Only the gods do miracles. Benard, Fabia is to marry Cutrath.'
He turned almost as pale as a Vigaelian. He yelled, '
'Benard—'
'
Across the yard the echoes agreed, '
'Benard—'
'
'Don't be such a puddle-brained, idiotic—'
'Over my dead body and any other bodies I—'
Fabia concluded that they were not going to sit down in some comfortable, shady place for a family chat. Back in Skjar artists ranked just above laborers, well below merchants and artisans, while Ingeld sprang from a long line of royal foremothers—twelve generations in Kosord alone—yet here these two were screaming at each other like bazaar hucksters in a slow spell. Thod, walking the team slowly by, stared with owl eyes at the unseemly squabble.
One might conclude that Benard did not approve of Cutrath Horoldson and that Ingeld thought he was being unrealistic, but the quarrel had sprung up much too fast to be only that. Fabia had seen the same pattern in her friends, in her father's employees, and even in the riverfolk. She was almost certain that Benard and Ingeld were yelling about this because they dared not yell about some other, more important thing. Curious!
'You want my opinion?' she asked.
Benard wheeled on her. 'No, I do not...'
Ingeld said, 'You keep out of ... Yes, of course we do.'
'Tell us, Sister,' he said hastily.
'With no disrespect to your fine son, Ingeld, I will not marry a Werist. Any Werist. Benard, if Stralg wants to use me to control Celebre, then he will leave no rival claimants alive. Saltaja will see you dead before she leaves here, and yelling at each other won't help the situation.'