Yoleth stepped away from the Gate and began to hasten, in a dignified manner, up the dusty street. She glanced back once at the Gate. It was not there. The stony-faced goddesses and heroes gazed at her blankly, denying any knowledge. She stepped back again, scanning the wall, until suddenly the Gate winked back into view. She blinked at it as it teased her eyes. Its width appeared to be perpendicular to the wall. But when she stepped nearer, it opened right before her. The Keeper stared at her in bored competence. Yoleth nodded once and turned away again. Her lips pulled into a tight line. When she had been a Human, it had been a smile. It still expressed her satisfaction with her night’s work, which perhaps she could make tidier still. She detested loose ends.
She hesitated at the first cross street, but the child’s miserable call wailed out again. She hastened toward it. The light of dawn was tingeing the sky; too soon folk would be up and about. She wanted her task completed and herself far away before that time. Let no one even wonder about a Windsinger hurrying down a dawn street in Jojorum.
At the next turning she caught sight of him. His pace had slowed to a walk. At every step the boy glanced about fearfully, but most often he turned his eyes up to the sky that was fading into blue. A rosy blush was rising on his golden skin. He rubbed at his bare arms as if they stung. ‘Mother!’ he cried again.
‘Boy!’
He turned to the Windsinger’s call, his eyes going wider in fear.
‘No, boy, don’t be afraid. I’ve come to find you. You’re to come with me.’
‘No. I want to go to my mother. I was following her, and then suddenly she was gone. I must catch up with her. I don’t like to be in this place alone.’
‘What’s your name?’ The Windsinger’s tone demanded an answer.
‘Chess.’
‘Exactly. Chess. I knew it was you. Your mother has sent me to find you, and take you to a safe place. She wants you to wait there for her, and do as I say, and she will come for you as soon as she can. Come along now.’
‘Why doesn’t she come now?’
Yoleth shrugged eloquently and took a chance. ‘I don’t know. She did not tell me. Does she not sometimes tell you to do things without saying why?’
Chess nodded slowly. He rubbed again at his arms, and then hugged them to his sides. He glanced worriedly from Yoleth’s face to the blue sky above her.
‘Then come with me. I have no doubt that when she comes for you, she will explain everything. But for now, she wants you to do as I tell you.’
Giving him no time to consider her words, she rushed him down the street, striding so swiftly that he trotted at her heels. The innmaster would want a few more coins for this. Well, no matter. He was already too well bribed to say no. It made all her arrangements more certain. They came swiftly to where a signboard depicted a white duck in a blue pond. The boy’s skin glowed rosily, and he cried aloud when Yoleth gripped his shoulder. She ignored it.
‘Take this,’ she instructed, pressing a tiny blue stone into the boy’s hand. ‘Give it to the man they call innmaster. Tell him you are come to help at the inn. You are to work nights at tables, and to sleep in the cellar by day. You are part of the bridegroom’s jest. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Repeat it, then.’
‘I give this thing to the innmaster and say I am come to help him, and work on tables at night, and sleep in a cellar all day. I am part of the bridegroom’s jest. But why are you leaving me? When will my mother come?’
Yoleth stifled her impatience. ‘She will come when she can. And I must leave because there is a place I have to be soon, if I am not already late. The innmaster will take care of you. Do all he tells you, and your mother will be very pleased with you when she comes. You want her to be pleased, don’t you?’
Chess nodded, but his small mouth was ajar with uncertainty.
‘Good.’ Yoleth pushed him, not ungently, through the doorslats of the inn. With a glance up and down the street, she hurried on her way. Her lips were once more stretched tight on her face.
‘I am growing impatient.’ Rebeke spoke coldly. ‘Did not Yoleth and the others know the hour set for this meeting?’ Rebeke stood motionless upon the black stone floor of the High Council chamber. She refused to pace, or even to shift her feet. If the High Council wished to be so discourteous as to deny her a chair, she would not let them enjoy her discomfort.
Five of the nine High Council Windmistresses returned her look. Their eyes were emotionless. They could have been statues gowned in deep blue and placed upon white chairs. The dull white High Council table was shaped in a half circle. Rebeke stood at the focus of all eyes, surrounded by stony gazes. She turned her head slowly, meeting each set of eyes in turn.
‘When will the others arrive?’ she demanded again.
Shiela shrugged. Her seat was to the right of the center chair, which was empty. ‘How can we say? You gave us little enough notice that you wished to speak to us. Your action is unusual enough, to say nothing of the hour you have chosen. Dawn hasn’t even warmed the fields. Besides, the High Council is accustomed to summoning the Windsingers they wish to address. Not the other way round. Lately, any summons we have sent to you has been ignored. Will you pretend surprise that others return your rudeness?’ Shiela sniffed delicately through her narrow nose.
Rebeke did not flinch. She met Shiela’s words silently, staring her down. The faces of the Windmistresses were impassive, but Rebeke could feel their uneasiness like a small cold wind. They did not like to look at her. She was more Windsinger than any of them. She had left her Human form behind like cast-off clothes. The shape of the ancient race was nearly fulfilled in her, and their legendary powers as well. She possessed already what they still strove after. But it gave her no beauty in their eyes.
Her blue cowl was tall above her brow. The blue and white of her eyes had gone flat. A swelling in the center of her face was a memorial to a once patrician nose. Her mouth was lipless, the corners nearly reaching the hinges of her jaws. The lissome movements of her arms within her loose sleeves suggested that the structure of her elbows and wrists had changed. The High Council could have forgiven the changes in her physiognomy. But they could not forgive the power that thrummed through her voice when she uttered the slightest word. Rebeke made certain they did not forget it.
She let the silence vibrate. ‘Yoleth,’ she said at last, ‘would certainly take pleasure in refusing to meet with me. But Cerie and Kadra and Dorin; were they even informed of my request?’
Shiela stiffened. ‘It is not the place of a Windmistress to question the High Council. Nor do we have to account to you for our whereabouts. You wished to speak to us. We have a quorum. Speak.’
‘I shall, but not because you command it. I will speak because I have no time for your petty intrigues. I have other things to attend to. Yet well I know that if I do not speak now, you will later plead ignorance, and make me out to be the unreasonable one. So I will speak swiftly now, and you will listen. Listen and remember.’
Rebeke stared slowly around at the semicircle of hostile faces. ‘At least I need not wonder if I have your attention,’ she said mirthlessly. She lifted her right hand abruptly and took a perverse pleasure in the flinching of the two Council members nearest her. ‘The wind has brought me rumors. Do not think I jest or exaggerate when I say the breezes bring me news …’
‘Superior abilities are never an excuse for the misuse of power!’ Shiela cut in angrily.
‘Silence!’ Rebeke’s voice was gentle, but its power rocked the room. Shiela went white as if she lacked air. ‘Ignorance is never an excuse for rudeness. As I was saying, the wind has brought me rumors. There is the Romni teamster, called Ki. You are all aware that she lives and travels under my shadow. Not my protection, nor my indulgence. My shadow. She is mine to rebuke,