The Door into Shadow by Diane Duane Page B

come with it.”
    He sounded nervous. Lorn laughed, and reached out to squeeze Herewiss’s hand. “You’ll do all right…”
    They rode on through the evening, and a short while later, at a turn in the road, a low huddle of squared-off silhouettes appeared against the horizon. Lamps burned like yellow stars in some of the houses’ windows.
    “ Your guest—” Freelorn said abruptly to Segnbora.
    (A rude sort,) Sunspark said.
    “ He’s not,” Segnbora said, unsure exactly why she was defending the intruder in her mind. “You started that, firechild.”
    “ You said ‘they’ before,” Freelorn said.
    “ Hh ‘rae nt’ssëh,” Segnbora said, then corrected herself with a smile. “It is they. But it’s also he. Mostly he.”
    Freelorn’s expression was impossible to read. “Are you— still you?”
    Oh Goddess, Lorn, if I only knew! she wanted to cry; but she kept her voice calm. “I’m not sure. Lorn, let it lie…when we have time, I’ll take you and Herewiss inside and introduce you. I’m me enough to function, at least.”
    Freelorn hastily cast around for something else to talk about. The lane had widened into a road of a size to drive cattle down, and was well tracked and rutted. “Been a lot of traffic here, I’d say.”
    “ For this time of year, yes.” Segnbora gazed up at the town. “What day of Spring is it?”
    “ The fifty-eighth,” Herewiss said. “A Moon and two days till Midsummer. Why?”
    “ Just wondering… Used to be my mother and father would start for Darthis now, to do Midsummer’s in the city with the rest of the Houses. We used to pass this way. But we haven’t done the trip since they built the inn at Chavi. My father started having trouble with his legs. It was arthritis, and he couldn’t take the long rides any more…”
    I don’t know why we’re paying all this good money for you to waste your time studying something that doesn’t work, she remembered him saying– and then, without warning, was in the memory as much as in her body. Holmaern was hobbling to the gate outside the house, and she was walking with him, as slowly as she dared: too slowly and he would notice. At the time, she’d heard nothing in his words but disappointment at her. But now, impossibly, Segnbora could underhear his frustration and pain, his determination to keep control of himself in the face of the ailment that even their local Rodmistress’s expertise could do no more than slow down. From down in the darkness inside her, great eyes that burned low studied the memory, and her reaction to it; and the shape that owned the eyes said nothing.
    “ You know this place, then,” Herewiss was saying. “That’s a help.”
    She found herself blinking back unexpected tears. “They’ll be glad to see players. Not many come down here, especially after the bad weather sets in. They probably haven’t been entertained since last summer.” She glanced at Freelorn. “If things are as bad in Arlen as they are here… don’t overcharge them, Lorn. From the look of the fields, this year’s harvest won't be any better than the last.”
    Freelorn nodded. Good harvests were a king’s responsibility. Bad ones were a sign of trouble—like the empty throne in Arlen. “I’ll see to it,” he said.
    Segnbora nodded. Inwardly she felt a twinge of satisfaction, for Lorn was changing. In many respects he was still the same brash, adventurous prince she loved so dearly, but increasingly he was overcome by thoughtful silences…which was as it should have been. The land through which they traveled was his by right, and its plight was desperate. The crops in the fields were poor; the people they’d seen of late, over-taxed, had a threadbare look. What prince could see this and fail to feel his heart swell with outrage? A cause was growing in Freelorn’s mind, not some self-centered desire to get back what should have been his, but something more worthy, something with other people’s needs at its