The Firebird's Vengeance (60 page)

Sakra smiled his quiet smile. “Then I would say that the conversation went very well indeed.”

Bridget looked out the window, seeing the garden, seeing the future, plans, observations, hopes, and fears crowding her mind, and all of them trying to tumble out her mouth at once. “I’ll have to have Prathad make up a room for her. I have no idea what she’s used to. I hope I can get her to tell me. She’s so … polite.”

“Courtesy is very important in Hung-Tse,” Sakra told her. “She will have been rigorously schooled.”

“Schooling, that’s something else we’ll have to see about. Won’t Mistress Urshila be pleased. There’ll be two of us to put up with.” She stopped herself. “If Mistress Urshila is still alive.” She pressed her free hand against her forehead. “She was right, you know, about more than one thing, and I’m sorry I didn’t learn that sooner.”

“Starting life over is difficult.”

It was then it dawned on her that she had been standing here holding Sakra’s hand for several minutes, and she’d barely been aware of it. It was so natural, so comfortable and comforting. But with awareness now came a flush to her cheeks. His hand was warm, slightly callused, and strong. It would have been improper for her to be seen holding this man’s hand back in Bayfield, in Isavalta it was scandalous.

Bridget did not let go. She just looked down at their two hands, fingers locked together, her white skin and his brown. “I seem to be about to start over again.”

“Yes,” he said simply, but she heard how his breath had quickened.

She looked up into his autumn eyes. “Will you help me?”

In answer, Sakra cradled her face gently in both his hands and bowed his head, giving her a kiss that was full of more promises than either one of them could speak. Neither noticed Anna’s small, serious face watching them from the garden below.

Anna turned away from the sight of her mother and Sakra kissing in front of the garden window, embarrassed, uncomfortable, but not, she found, very surprised.

The garden was very different from the ones she was used to. It was crowded and wild, except for the razor-straight paths cutting through it. There were fountains, but no streams, and huge, bright flowers, cups of red and white, great splays of yellow, trees heavy with pink and white blossoms. Nothing she knew the name of.

It did look like it held plenty of secrets though, under the broad-leafed plants and between the poorly groomed trees, and that made Anna curious. If they were going to stay here a little while, it would be interesting to explore. And safe. She looked at the grey stone walls. She didn’t think they’d protect against magic, but there were other things out there and they were at least strong.

She wondered what Bridget would do if she told her she was scared of this town that had only one wall ringing it on the outside. She didn’t think Bridget would scold, but she didn’t know. Maybe later.

Right now, Anna smelled porridge, and some kind of meat, and something sweet that might have been roasting vegetables or stewing fruit. Her stomach rumbled, and she ran across the garden, heading for the wing of the high house that held the kitchen. No matter where you were, Cooks could be begged from, she was certain.

Following her nose, Anna didn’t pay attention to where else she was going, and she nearly collided with Mae Shan and the Minister of Fire, but Mae Shan held her hand out and Anna was able to pull up short.

They had removed Minister Xuan’s formal garments and dressed him in a warm robe of fur and velvet, but he walked stooped over as if it were too heavy for him. The bones of his face seemed to stand out sharply, and everything he saw seemed to startle him, for his eyes blinked constantly.

Anna bowed hastily, with the deference due to the old, the sick, and the frightening. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.” She glanced at Mae Shan just long enough to see her guard wasn’t mad, and turned to run the other way.

“W-w-ait,” said Minister Xuan. He stammered heavily. Anna supposed his new mouth was trying to learn how to shape words. Or was it his old mouth? Had they given him back his old body or made him a new one? She would have to ask Bridget … Mother.

Mae Shan was frowning at her. Anna gathered her manners back together and bowed again. “Sir.”

“M-mm …” The effort of speech made him sway on his feet. Mae Shan turned him toward one of the crude benches that littered the garden and sat him down as one might an elderly relative. Once he no longer had to stand, his speech became a little more smooth. Probably because he had less to think about. “Mae Shan tells. Tells me. You helped.”

Anna bowed once again, humbly acknowledging her part. She didn’t really want to be reminded of it. She didn’t want to remember the heat, and the blood, and Father breaking into a thousand pieces.

“It was Anna’s help that brought you back, Minister,” Mae Shan was saying.

Minister Xuan straightened his back a little beneath the burden of his robe. “I am back. The guardian has gone to Heaven.” He closed his eyes as he said that, and a look of profound relief softened his sharp features, and then his head bowed and his shoulders slumped and his lips parted. Anna’s breath froze in her throat. Had he died? Was it something she did? But then a small snore escaped him.

Mae Shan smiled ruefully, and shifted her position minutely so the minister could lean against her shoulder. “I fear being human is tiring. The minister has much healing to do.”

Anna realized there was a very important question she hadn’t had a chance to ask yet. “Where will you go, Mae Shan?”

Mae Shan smiled gently. “I will go home, mistress. My charge is done. You are safe now.”

“Oh.” Anna kicked her heel against the flagstones.

“I must take the minister back to Hung-Tse,” Mae Shan continued. She was trying to make sure Anna understood. Anna did, but she felt sick to her stomach anyway. “He is the last of the Nine Elders. With him there, we can begin to rebuild what has been lost. He has the authority to choose the new emperor, before … the worst comes to be.”

Anna thumped her heel against the stones a few more times, trying to bang away some of the sinking feeling inside of her. “Are you glad you will be going home?”

“I will be sorry to leave you.” Mae Shan said in her most serious voice, so Anna knew it was true. The pain in her stomach eased a little.

“Oh,” she said.

Mae Shan was looking at her. Embarrassed, Anna stopped kicking the stones, and tried to study them instead. They were all different sizes, cut to fit close together, but there didn’t seem to be any pattern to it, like the stones in the walls.

“Do you like her, your mother?” asked Mae Shan.

Anna squinted up at her. “Do you?”

Mae Shan nodded once. “Yes. I do.”

Anna found she was glad to hear that. She was able to look into Mae Shan’s eyes, and she saw, just by looking at this person she’d gone so far with, who she’d save and who had saved her, that if she’d said no, Mae Shan would have found a way to take her back to Hung-Tse too.

“She’s going to teach me to swim.”

Mae Shan smiled and Anna thought she would have relaxed her shoulders, but she didn’t want to disturb the minister. “That will be fun.”

“That’s what she said.” Anna paused. Mae Shan looked down at the minister leaning against her. Asleep, he had a nicely shaped face. His tattoos obscured most of his features, but the dragons and the phoenixes made him look strong. She hoped he’d be all right. She hoped Mae Shan would too. Her face had turned serious and tired.

She wanted to say how she’d miss Mae Shan, but the only words that would come out were, “Are you sad?”

Mae Shan sighed. The wind strengthened again, rustling the previous year’s leaves and this year’s flowers. “I’m afraid. I don’t know what’s happened to my family. I don’t know when I will be able to find them.”

“I didn’t know you had a family, aside from Lien …” Anna stopped. If he was Mae Shan’s only family, then she had none. He was dead, with Father and with the holy madman and almost with Mae Shan. She bit her lip. When would she be able to stop thinking about that?

“I have five … no, I have four brothers and sisters.” Pain crossed her face, and Anna remembered her bowed in prayer in the scroll room with her uncle. She had never asked her who she’d been praying for.

“You should go home then,” Anna said out loud so she wouldn’t think about that anymore either. So much to think about. So much not to think about.

“Thank you, mistress,” Mae Shan said solemnly, but there was a light in her eyes that made Anna want to smile.

“You’re not my guard anymore.” It made her both sad and happy to say that. “I think you can call me Anna now.”

Mae Shan inclined her head. “Thank you, Anna.”

“Will you be at breakfast?”

“If the minister wakes in time.” That was Mae Shan, always taking care of someone else. She was very good at it. The minister would be fine as long as she was with him. Anna had reason to know.

“I’ll bring you some food if you’re not there,” Anna promised.

“Thank you, mistress … Anna.” Mae Shan smiled.

Anna smiled back, turned, and ran down the path, not toward the kitchen, but toward the dining hall, where her mother would meet her. It would be all right. It was spring, and her mother had a house where they would live together, and they’d talk and she’d learn to swim and write letters to Mae Shan. The air smelled of spring and breakfast, and Anna ran as fast as she could toward her new life.

Ten thousand
li
away, in the city of T’ien, a red fox padded through the streets and where it passed, emerald grass, bright with dew, began to sprout between the stones.

Epilogue

The summer’s night had thrown its quilt over Bayfield, turning the air thick with heat and damp. Mosquitoes whined outside Grace’s screened windows, trying to get inside to find their supper. Grace sat up beside her lamp, mending her gypsy skirt. She needed to get back to work soon. There had been some gossip about the time of Bridget’s … visit. How anyone had found out her niece had returned was beyond Grace. Frank would not have said a word.

Frank. He’d been by to see her several times, and he had gone again, without answers to his many questions. She wanted to speak, but she couldn’t, and she couldn’t even say why. It was as if she were waiting for something.

Perhaps she was. Grace lowered her sewing to her lap with a sigh. She stared at the worn green satin shining in the golden lamplight. No, there was no perhaps. She was waiting. No matter how many times she had tried to tell herself there was nothing to wait for, she could not stop.

She got up and went to the window. If she turned her head just so, she could see the lake and the sparks of the lighthouses marking the safe way out past the islands. She counted them and found the Sand Island light. It burned as bright and steady as the others. The new keeper was in residence with his family, and the work of the place had resumed. Had anyone told them about Bridget? Surely. But what had they said? Did his wife’s face pucker with disapproval when she heard the rumors the town had to offer? Or did she shake her head with pity? What would the keeper and his family do if Grace marched up to their door and told them the truth?

A knock sounded on Grace’s door. She jumped, pressing her hand against her heart as it pounded hard against her ribs.

“Who is it?” she called.

The answer came and it had a smile in it. “It’s me, Aunt Grace.”

Grace ran to the door and threw it open. Bridget stood there, looking neat and normal in her grey shirtwaist dress and white apron. Grace felt her mouth drop open. “You came,” she said, amazed. “You came.”
You kept your promise. You remembered
.

“I’m sorry I was so long, but there are … issues of time in these things. May I come in? If I’m seen, there will be talk, I’m sure.”

Grace stepped aside. Her head was awhirl. She did not know how to name what she felt. It was close to elation. She had not wanted to believe Bridget would simply vanish again, but part of her was sure that was what had happened. That was the rift in her that would not heal.

She closed the door, and latched it, as if she thought Bridget might suddenly change her mind and try to flee. “I … I was just thinking of you,” she stammered.
Collect yourself. This is ridiculous
.

“I’m not surprised.” Bridget brushed at her apron. “In order to … make my crossing I had to call to you, in a way.”

“I see,” said Grace, although she did not. “Will you sit? Would you like some tea?”

Bridget laughed, and Grace found herself smiling at the sound. This was absurd, but she did not know how else to act. Bridget did sit, however, perching herself on the edge of Grace’s horsehair sofa.

“How are you, Aunt Grace?”

A quick, meaningless reply came readily to Grace’s tongue. She forced it back. Now was not the time to fall into the old ways. “I hardly know.” She set her sewing in her work basket and took her own seat again. “I … I think I’ve been recovering. Getting used to being myself again. Trying to make up my mind about what to do with myself.” Her fingers knotted themselves together. “But I haven’t been able to.”

“Well.” Bridget clasped her own hands together, leaning forward, working up her courage, Grace thought. “You could come with me.”

They sat there, face-to-face in the dim, overcrowded parlor with all the paraphernalia of Grace’s profession and deception surrounding them. For the first time in her adult life, Bridget held out her hand to her aunt.

“I wanted to ask you before but … it was so uncertain. I wasn’t sure there would be a place to invite you to. But it’s all done. The Firebird’s … gone, and Anna … Anna’s safe.”

Grace felt her heart constrict. “She is alive then?”

Bridget nodded and Grace thought she had never seen anyone glowing with such happiness. “Alive and well, and running a bit wild, I’m afraid.” She shook her head, but her expression was all mother’s pride. “Will you come back with me, Aunt Grace? Come and meet your great-niece?”

This was it. Grace knew it. This was the moment she had been waiting for all these months. For Bridget to speak the words that Grace had wanted with all her soul to hear from Ingrid and never had. This was the conclusion of all that had begun so many years ago.