Snow Fields - Book Two of The Fields of Mendhavai Trilogy

Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“We thought him lost,” Ansuul told me, leaning forward so that he could see me around his second wife. Ansuul was fluent in Rowheem, the common tongue, so Taphille happily chatted away with his mother to the king’s right.

We sat at a long table that had been set up in front of Ansuul’s home, which he joked every now and again, was his palace. The king sat at the center of the long side of the table, facing out into the clearing where a bonfire burned cheerfully. Taphille sat on his right, with his mother on his right. To Ansuul’s left sat his second wife and myself. Hanosh, Smythe and Yalli, and Taphille’s three sisters filled the other length of the table. Scattered around the clearing were other tables filled with laughing Sanilans.

Our meal was meager, giving testimony to Maudla’s declaration of difficult times. Mostly we had vegetables of varying types in different seasonings. There were two hares on the table at which I sat, the only meat available, reserved for the king’s family and the honored guests. I felt guilty eating it; I took only a small piece from the shoulder and left the rest of it for the others.

Ansuul was still speaking to me, though he was focusing on his meal with great gusto now and no longer leaning around his wife. She picked at her food sullenly and I thought she might be feeling ignored by her husband, or perhaps she had been hoping to bear the king a son and was upset that Taphille had returned. I drew my attention back to the king.

“The year he disappeared, Maudla told me of a dream she had in which her husband and my son had gone out to sea, and though she did not see the end of the dream, she said it felt as though she’d never see her husband again. Taphille was a young boy, small for his age, but very adventurous, always getting into trouble.” He paused, tore a hunk of rabbit from a leg with his teeth, chewed, then continued. “He seemed to have found his way onto Tilay’s ship and hidden away, unnoticed until they were nearly in Garli. Then it was, of course, Tilay’s duty to keep him safe. That is a difficult task I’m afraid, even without enemies attacking.” He paused, wiping away the grease dripping from his chin, with a look of contemplation.

With a sigh, he continued, “I am sad for her. And I am sad for our people. Tilay was a good man, a good sailor. He had a loyal crew and our biggest ship. It took a long time to build that ship. Tilay had many journeys to the mainland, but that ship had only the one.” Sighing again, he cracked the leg bone, then sucked the marrow from it before tossing it onto his empty platter. He leaned back a bit and turned in his chair to face me better. “I am sad for your people, too. Taphille told me what happened there. Your people and mine, we lost much because of these mages. It is good you have defeated them.”

I nodded, picking at my food as my thoughts turned to Mivius and I wondered if we had truly seen the last of The League. We had more allies now, through friendships rather than politics. That, at least, was a relief.

Ansuul grinned at me. “It is also good to have the boy back. For that, we thank you. Maudla assures me we will have much more to thank you for, before we part ways again.”

His attention was drawn away by one of his daughters and I looked up to see Smythe gazing at me, unsmiling. Somehow I knew his thoughts ran the same lines mine did – How-?

At that moment, a loud thumping that reverberated in my chest began in the center of the clearing, and I looked up to see a handful of Sanilans dressed in ceremonial garb beating on a large drum.

Someone cleared our table and it wasn’t until Taphille spoke from beside me that I realized Ansuul and his second wife had gone.

“They’re praying to the gods to give thanks that I’m back, and that you and your men have come in a time of great need. And they’re praying for strength for all of us, and luck so that we may beat back the Khralyans and live another cycle – another year,” he explained.