Melody was gone, but I still needed to burn her body. It's the way things are done in Yuulith. Lots of people there believe that ashing the body releases the soul from it; that otherwise it has to stay till the body decays. Which may be how it is, if you believe it strongly enough. I could have done it on the farm, but her best friends, along with me and Blue Wing, were Jeremid and Loro. They'd want to be there when the pyre was lit, to say a proper goodbye, and plenty of others would too. And she'd come to the ceremony, for their sake and mine, I had no doubt.
I'm getting ahead of myself though. When I drove up to the barbican, it was late enough that in Six-Month it would have been near dawn, but in Two-Month there was a lot of night left. In spite of my warm cap and coat and mitts, I felt about half froze. Overhead in the gate tower they didn't believe who it was; told me to go away and come back at sunup. I told them that somebody better get down there and at least shine a lantern on me, or I'd have their ass on a stick. It took a minute, but finally someone shined a target lantern between the bars of a view slot, and in another half minute what they call "the spy's gate" opened and a guard stepped out. The spy's gate is just wide enough for a man. It's like a ten-foot-long tunnel through the wall. In case of siege, you can use it to let spies in and out after dark. It has a small portcullis at the inner end that they can drop and trap you inside, if they want to. I told the guard who'd opened it that I needed to take the gig in. He could see who I was then, and explained apologetically that they weren't allowed to open the main gate for anyone after midnight, not even a general. Said it had been the rule for a long long time, peace or war.
That not only irritated me, it felt like an insult to Melody, so I grabbed him by the greatcoat, shook him, and held him up against the stone wall.
"You go back inside," I hissed, "and find the officer of the guard, and tell that son of a bitch that General Macurdy will personally flog him right down to the bare ribs if he doesn't get his ass out here right away." And at the time I meant it, though I'd never have done it.
When I let him go, he hurried back inside leaving a string of yessirs behind, and closed the spy's gate after him. It took a few minutes for the officer of the guard to get there—he'd pulled his breeches on over his night shirt and smelled like stale beer—and after seeing for sure who it was, ordered the main gate opened, looking almost as worried about that as he was scared of me. I heard the windlass and chain grind, and watched it raise up. Then I drove the buggy through, and heard it being let down again.
The guards outside the palace itself were no problem. They invited me to sleep in the guard room, but I told them I wouldn't leave Melody. Said I wanted firewood brought out to the graveled walk, and half a dozen blankets. They'd have gotten in trouble if they'd woke up any household help, so while one of them led Socks around to the palace stable, two others brought out wood and kindling, and another came out half buried with army blankets. I laid a fire, lit it with a pass of my hand, wrapped myself in blankets with my feet toward the flames, and went to sleep on the ground.
I woke up stiff, with frost on my eyebrows. The sun had just come up and was shining in my face. The door guards had kept the fire fed, and when the household help was up and about, they'd told them where I was, and why. So almost as quick as I stood up, the steward came out and asked what I wanted done with "Colonel Melody's mortal remains," volunteering a small building used for holding bodies. Somehow I didn't want to leave it though, and asked him just to let the king and queen know. And to have something brought out that Blue Wing and I could eat. Blue Wing was awake ahead of me, and sat on the roof of the buggy with his feathers fluffed out against the cold.
The food arrived a few minutes ahead of Wollerda. When he came out, it occurred to me that I looked pretty strange—a little crazy, you get right down to it—sitting in the buggy wrapped in blankets, sharing heated-up leftovers of last night's supper roast with a great raven the size of a turkey buzzard. With the frozen body of my wife on the back seat, and the remains of my fire black and gray on his front walk. So when he urged me to come in—the guards would watch the gig, he said—I went inside with him.
Minutes later he was giving orders for a big ceremonial pyre to be built on the parade ground in eight days. That gave him time to have people sent for—officers from the march north, and especially the rebel army—and time for them to get there. I asked what if the weather turned warm, but Liiset said not to worry. Which brought to mind Kittul Kenderson putting a spell on the dead dwarves so they wouldn't spoil. The weather had been a lot warmer then.
I borrowed a saddle horse and rode north myself to tell Jeremid. It didn't seem right to send someone else. I got there in time for supper, and right away he sent a rider to let Loro know, and Jesper and Tarlok. After we'd eaten, he poured himself wine, while I drank sassafras.
"I don't know what to say, Macurdy," he told me. "I expected you two to grow old together. I'd decided early on that the best I could hope for was, she might marry me if you got your Varia back. But as long as she had a chance with you, she'd never settle for anyone else."
Grow old together. That was one thing we couldn't have done, unless Varia'd pulled off a miracle with her; I'd figured that when the time came, she'd get old and I'd take care of her. Old age wouldn't have been a problem, I didn't think, though it might have been tough for a while when she found out she was aging and I wasn't.
Jeremid hadn't gotten married. Instead, he had himself three concubines. For different moods, he said. I don't think I could be happy that way, but his aura told me he was. Content, anyway.
I hadn't planned to spend the night there, but I did. When it got late, he offered me the company of one of his concubines for the night. I told him I wasn't ready for something like that yet.
The day of the fire was mild and bright and still. There were probably a couple thousand veterans of the invasion, a lot of them ex-rebels down from the hills, plus palace staff and thousands of townfolk. The pyre was a big one, and it was me lit it off, of course. It took off quick—a small fortune in lamp oil had been poured on it—and the smoke rose straight up. Folks stood there till the whole pile burnt down; took a while. It's sort of a rule that you don't walk off early from a funeral fire. And way up high—about as high as birds fly, I guess—I could see Blue Wing soaring in big circles.
That evening I ate with Wollerda and Liiset and Jeremid. And Omara. Liiset had invited her; she'd been assigned as Liiset's secretary, lady-in-waiting, and healer to the palace.
Wollerda asked me again to go to Duinarog as his ambassador, but I told him no. There'd likely be too many ylver who'd resent me, the general of the invasion that killed so many of them. And anyway I didn't want to. Then Liiset asked if I'd reconsider going to the Cloister. She believed Sarkia was having second thoughts about a lot of things in her life. There wasn't any question now: she was in decline after more than two hundred years. I told Liiset I appreciated the invite, but I just wasn't willing. That she should send Sarkia my thanks, and my best wishes that she could wrap things up all right.
Next she said I'd need someone to look after household matters for me on the farm. And that if I wanted, Omara was willing to take the job.
For just a minute I was tempted. I already had plans of my own that I hadn't let on, and they included getting further trained in healing. She'd be as good a teacher as I could hope to have, and I liked Omara, liked how serious and honest she was. And for looks, she was scarcely behind Varia and Liiset. But I said no to that too. Making sure Omara knew that I liked and admired her.
That's when I told them I wasn't going to stay in Tekalos.
"Where are you going?" Wollerda asked surprised.
"Back home to Farside," I told him.
You could have heard a pin drop.
"When?"
"I'm leaving here tomorrow. By way of the farm, to tell the staff I'm going, and to get Hog. They'll take care of things till you sell the place to someone."
He sat there stunned, so I explained. "An awful lot has happened to me: I started a war where thousands of men died. And loved two women and lost them both. Now I need to get away, let things settle out in my mind. I can help my dad on the farm, probably log some, and just be in my own world awhile. Then . . . then I expect I'll come back. I'm not sure why, but it seems to me I will."
I didn't say anything about what I planned to do before I crossed over.
After we'd done talking, Wollerda invited me to his bath. Not Jeremid and me, just me. But when I got there, Liiset was there too. Standing nekkit like that, she'd have quickened a statue, so I got right in the water before I got a hard-on. We talked a bit, and Wollerda asked me to stay for just a few months—long enough to help him with some problems. We talked about them awhile, and I got some ideas I told him about, but I could see he really didn't need me. He just figured if I stayed around that long, I'd be over losing Melody and decide not to go.
Liiset told me that going through the other way was a lot different than coming through to Yuulith. She made it sound kind of like a hole opening in a water tank, squirting water through in one direction. Anyone could go through with the flow, the problem being whether you arrived alive or dead, sane or insane. But going through the other way, against the pressure so to speak, seemed to be possible only if you had enough ylvin blood and talent.
I didn't worry about it. I had no doubt I could do it. Anyway, after a few minutes, I said I needed to get some sleep, which was true enough, so we got out and dried off, and I left.
In my room, I'd just gone to bed when someone rapped on the door. I figured it was Jeremid, curious about what got said in the hot tub, so I called out, "Just a minute," and going over, turned the latch and opened it.
It was Omara standing there.
"Hi," I said. "What brings you here?" I was pretty sure I knew.
"Liiset suggested I come."
"Suggested? Or ordered?"
"Suggested. She is not Sarkia or Idri."
Her aura showed no sign of lying. I could feel old junior swelling, and found myself stepping back, letting her in. I watched my hand close the door behind her, turn the latch and set the bolt.
"I was glad to," she went on. "Wanted to. You are a very attractive man, Macurdy. Compelling." She stepped out of her robe then, nekkit as could be, and twice as pretty.
"Well then," I said, and peeled off my nightshirt. We put our arms around each other and kissed, then kissed some more, warm and wet. She felt good, awfully good, pressed up against me. After a minute we went to bed, and I drew the bed curtains.
After a while we got up and washed. "You are a very nice lover, Macurdy," she said. "But why did you draw the curtains?"
That kind of surprised me. "To keep the warmth in," I told her.
"I thought so. Are you unable to keep yourself warm with the mind?"
"Warm with the mind?"
According to her it was simple enough; most folks with much talent could learn. "It's limited, unfortunately," she went on. "It simply increases the rate at which the body creates heat from the food you eat, and circulates that heat. You can even concentrate it into your fingers and toes. It doesn't suffice for severe weather, though. Had you been unclothed and outside in the bitter weather recently, you'd soon have felt cold, and after a time would have frozen." She looked at me as if considering something. "There is another, very superior technique requiring more talent, but it takes careful training. As in fire starting, you do it by drawing heat from the Web of the World. The difficulty lies in control; you can easily and quickly injure or kill yourself with it. I can train you to use it safely, if you'd like."
"How long would it take?"
"Two or three days, perhaps. Or a week."
My glands were telling me, "Say yes, Macurdy, you fool," but I heard my mouth saying: "Omara, that's something I'd like to learn, and you're the one I'd like to learn it from, but—" I shrugged. "I want to go home to Farside. It feels to me like it's what I need to do, what I'm supposed to do. And if I don't go now, I may not ever."
"I understand," she said, and I think she really did.
She stayed awhile, to teach me the technique for warming the body from inside, and for me there wasn't any trick to that one at all. Then we got friendly again, and after that she put her robe back on and left.
Just for the heck of it, I left my nightshirt off and slept on top the covers that night, warm as toast. The only thing was, at breakfast next morning, with Wollerda and Liiset, I ate about twice as much as usual.