“Has Father sent help at last?” she demanded.
“Nay, he’s ridden south to Aosta—”
“Always Aosta!”
Bayan made to speak, but Sanglant gave a quick lift of his chin to interrupt him. “He’s ridden south to Aosta where lie other threats—”
“What can possibly threaten us more than Bulkezu and his army? Have you heard about the plague in Avaria? We’ve seen with our own eyes the trail of destruction the Quman army has left in its wake—villages burned and fields trampled. You can see yourself the dead he’s left, there at the walls. All the folk hereabouts, those who survived, say the fortress is haunted by the unavenged dead. A child’s ghost walks at midnight, crying for its mother.”
“Many a child cries for its mother,” said Sanglant, smoothly slipping into her rant, “but weeping for what we don’t have won’t defeat the Quman. Come, Sapientia, here is my daughter Blessing, your niece.”
Aunt and niece eyed each other. Sapientia had weathered her first extended campaign well. She had filled out, gained color, and moved with more confidence. But as she examined Blessing, he saw the old dance of envy warring with interest in her gaze. “I thought she looked like you. But this can’t be the Eagle’s child. She’s too old. Did you father her on some concubine before your imprisonment at Gent?”
He had learned to resign himself to the questions. Sometimes, the best answer was the simple truth. “Do not forget that sorcery runs in her blood. I can explain no better than you why she grows so fast. She was born in the spring, last year.”
“She looks like a well-grown girl of three or four years of age,” objected Sapientia, “not a toddling child of fifteen or sixteen months.”
“So she does.” He had learned to hide his fear. He did not understand what was happening to his daughter. At first he’d believed that the unearthly milk she imbibed from Jerna caused her to grow with unnatural speed, and maybe it had. But Jerna had left them, and Blessing still aged far more quickly than she ought. He had a bad idea that it would not end until Liath returned, as if a link bound Liath and Blessing so closely that what happened to one rebounded onto the other. If Liath only knew that, would she not return to spare her daughter?
She would, if she cared for them at all.