Said Rodvard, undoing laces to get out of his Zigraner dress; “Your mother will get someone to fix him and bring him back to life.”
“No. His spirit’s gone away to another body, like father’s and now there isn’t anything left but dust. If mother has a new head made, I shall have to give it a different name.”
The boy looked at Rodvard solemnly, and though the Blue Star was cold as cold upon his breast, he could not somehow draw quite clear the thought behind those young candid eyes—something about a place shrouded in clouds, an old house somewhere, with a diffused golden light. Weariness slit his jaws into a yawn. “There is a place where we can sleep?”
II
They had to take his mother’s bed, not meant for more than one, so that for the first time they lay close wrapped in each other’s arms with a night before them; and this, with the sharp memory of the peril shared on the rooftops hand in hand, was a little more than either could quite bear unmoved, even though the boy was in a corner of the room. They began kissing and holding each other very tight; presently deep breaths said Laduis was asleep. She did not resist (nor desire to). Afterward, Rodvard lay for a long time wakeful (thinking that this had been the sobbing, true union, not an arranged accident like that under the tree; they had pledged each other and were somehow one forever. Now he was committed, and there was a deep harsh sweetness in the thought of devotion and change, live and love, forgetting all ambition, high destiny and even the Sons of the New Day that had brought him to this.)
Of course lark and Laduis rose before them in the morn; the first the pair heard was a double rap at the outer door and the boy’s voice saying; “Mother, we have guests.”
Rodvard rolled out to make the best bow he could with half his laces still undone, and saw a small woman of careworn aspect and maybe thirty-five years, who had just set a heavy basket on the floor. “Madame Domijaiek, I am your humble servant, Rodvard Bergelin. Your son took my—sweetheart and myself in last night to save us from distress.”
“Mother, I listened to the voice of the heart, as you said,” piped the boy. “They are good. Besides a provost came and broke Baron Mondaifer.”
“It is well done, son.” She placed a hand protectingly on his shoulder. “Ser, I am glad that Laduis could help you. Have you breakfasted?”
“I left some of my bread and cheese for them, mother. The lady is a witch.”