The Simbul’s Gift

Bro gagged down another spoonful of the cold porridge. He hated it when his mother talked about his father, expecting him to take Rizcarn's part. He'd loved his father, missed him and mourned him, but when push came to shove, he couldn't—didn't want to—replace Rizcarn.

"Dent says it'll take two years at least to train a colt," he muttered. "Says we'll do it together. Says he'll show me how it's done. He's got good hands—" he paused, leaving the words, for a human, unsaid.

"A tree doesn't grow until a seed's been planted, Ember. A lot can happen in two years." Shali tucked Bro's hair behind his ears again. "If it's a colt."

And if the mare foaled a filly, instead? Bro closed his eyes. A lot would happen in two years, no matter what happened after they led the mare into the birthing shed. In two years he'd be back in the Yuirwood; he couldn't—didn't want to—imagine being anywhere else.

"A pretty girl might catch your eye."

Bro flinched. Shame burned for a second time, then his anger flared: He'd never look at a human woman. Never. And Shali knew it. She looked at the sky; they were each alone and miserable.

"Momma! Momma! Bro!"

A child's voice broke the silence. Bro and Shali glanced toward the path where Tay-Fay ran as fast as four-year-old legs could carry her. She stumbled as she stopped and avoided a fall only by lunging for Bro's knees. The bowl speckled all three of them with cold porridge and laughter. Bro shook his head dramatically, then swung his sister into his lap.

"What's the matter, Little Leaf?"

Her true name was Taefaeli—Light-through-the-Leaves—a Cha'Tel'Quessir name: Adentir did understand, better than Rizcarn would have understood were the situation reversed. But Taefaeli knew nothing of the forest. She called herself Tay-Fay and hadn't yet noticed that she didn't look like her mother or brother.

Tay-Fay gasped for breath. "Poppa says come quick. To the shed. The momma-horse—"

Bro pushed his sister off with a kiss on the forehead. Tay-Fay whimpered as he stood and threatened worse until he picked her up. She was spoiled, human, and a thorough pest; no Cha'Tel'Quessir tree-family would have put up with her. She fought when he passed her to Shali.

"Later, Little Leaf. I'll take you to the bank above the stream. You can pick flowers, pinks for the mare, yellow-bud for the foal."

Her sniffles became a grin that Bro returned effortlessly. He couldn't explain the joy he felt when she smiled, but Tay-Fay was the reason he hadn't left Sulalk yet and the only reason he might still be here two years hence.

* * *

Adentir greeted Bro with a grunt and a gesture toward the straw sheaves heaped against the wall. With no other instruction, Bro hauled an armful into the shed. The mare ignored him until he got the straw spread, then she pawed it and tried to lie down.

"Hold her standing while I tie up her tail," Dent said. "Keep her calm. You know best."

Bro did. Five years ago, Dent would have held the mare while Bro did the chores; now Dent wrapped the mare's tail in a tattered length of cloth while Bro stroked her head. In the Yuirwood, the Cha'Tel'Quessir were hunters and, for their own sakes, they quenched the innate rapport they felt with wildlife. It was different on a farm—harder in some ways because, in the end, farmers were hunters, too. But before the end, farmers needed rapport with their animals.

"Good, Bro ... good. Let her down now, if she's ready. Keep her calm. That's good, Bro."

They worked together well enough at times like this, and Dent was careful to praise his wife's son, which wasn't, in truth, something Rizcarn had done very often. And maybe that was the root of Bro's problems: It wasn't easy to be around Dent without feeling disloyal to his father. The only way he could balance the guilt was with rudeness.

Not that guilt or rudeness mattered right then. The mare had foaled before. She tolerated men's hands because they'd always been on her. Straining, resting, then straining again she birthed her foal while Bro whispered gentleness in her ear.

"Got yourself a colt-foal, Bro," Dent exclaimed when the birth was well underway. Bro and the mare sighed together, but there'd never been any doubt, not in Bro's mind.

When the mare was standing again, Bro joined his stepfather in the doorway. The mare whuffled her acceptance of this offspring, then, in the grip of nameless instinct, she licked the life into him.

"You're a man of property now, Bro," Dent said, a bit too casually, as the colt thrust a spindly leg forward, tested its strength and collapsed. "Time to start thinking of your future. Gudnor's widow- sister has come to keep house for him, now that his wife's gone. She's got two daughters, dowered by their dead father and both unspoken for. Be a good time for you to make yourself useful to Gudnor. I give you leave."

Bro ignored him; his future most emphatically did not include Gudnor's sisters, regardless of their dowries. The silence grew thick, until Dent cut it again.