The City in the Lake by Rachel Neumeier Read Free Book Online Page B

. .” Again, he did not complete the thought.
    Listening carefully, Timou believed she heard what her father had left unspoken. After a moment she said, “Or taken?”
    “Perhaps,” said her father, lifting his dark brows in faint surprise. At the question? Or at her, that she had asked it?
    Timou said slowly, “The heart of the King is the heart of the Kingdom. How might the King lose his heart? Or who might take it? And for what?”
    “All good questions, my daughter. But not the one question that is most important.”
    Timou thought them very important questions, but she tried obediently to think of another. “Where—” she said at last, “—where is the King’s heart now, if it has been lost? Or stolen?”
    “Yes. And how can it be regained?” said her father.
    Timou did not answer. She knew that things lost—or taken—may not always be found.
    “You are on no account to follow me, Timou.”
    Timou thought about this. She asked, testing the shape of a half-perceived pattern, “When should I look for you to come back?”
    “Look for me by summer’s end, my daughter; but if I do not return, more than ever you must not follow me.” Her father paused and studied her. His face, usually serious, had become severe. He said, “You are young, my daughter. If I and the mages of the City cannot find what has been lost, do not try. Stay in the village and wait.”
    Timou listened carefully. “You believe there is danger,” she said softly. It was not quite a question. “From what?” She saw that he would not answer, and asked, “Shall I be blind?”
    “If you are, you will stay here, and wait for clear sight,” said her father, a little sharply, he who was seldom sharp with her. “You will wait for the pattern to make itself plain to you. To act blindly or in haste is dangerous.”
    That he thought there was peril in the City, Timou understood. But there was something else in his eyes beyond that, which Timou still could not see. A name? A thought? A suspicion? The words he was not saying crowded behind his eyes. She asked him, “Deserisien?” and saw his surprise.
    But he said only, “No. Not Deserisien.”
    Timou looked at him, into his face. Then she said reluctantly, “I will stay here. If I can.”
    For a moment she thought her father would speak more clearly, explain more plainly. But instead he only nodded and left her without speaking further. He went away down the road, walking quietly through the quiet warmth of the late spring. Behind him, Timou wandered consideringly into the kitchen to make tea and to think.
    The season passed into summer, and then into autumn, and he did not return.
    Timou watched the seasons’ slow changing, and waited patiently for her father’s return, or for the breaking of the curse that held new life in check, or at least for the growth of her own understanding. She waited in vain.

    Sime had her child after Ness, as the season turned brisk and the days shortened. The baby would have been a harvest child, but she was born dead. Perfect and tiny and without a breath of life stirring in her. Sime touched the baby’s face tenderly and gave her to Nod to take out and bury in the place they had prepared. She did not weep. Nod wept enough for them both. His brothers and friends went with him to stand over the grave in silent mourning. The women did what they could for Sime, except for Ness, who could not bear to attend so sad a birth. Timou gave Sime betony tea to stop the bleeding, though there was not much of that, and Manet rubbed her hands and stayed with her when the others at length left her to rest.
    “Why?” said the midwife to Timou wearily. She had wrapped the tiny infant in a cloth for Nod. It hurt her, as it hurt them all, when there was a death instead of a birth. But she felt it more sharply because she was a midwife. “Why should this have happened to the Kingdom?”
    “I do not know,” said Timou.
    “Where is your father?” asked the