Longeye Read Free Page A

mean that my time will be spent—"
    "Can't you use your longeye?" the sprout interrupted. "Sam says you saw our village from leagues away!"
    "Seeing is not the same as going among ," Meri said, patiently, for it was the duty of those elder to teach the young. "In addition, the longeye is a gift of the sea, and is less use than you might think, among the trees."
    "I—" began the sprout, and pressed his lips suddenly together as his mother raised a hand.
    "You," she said, "have been quite rude enough for one evening, Jamie Moore." She turned her head and gave Meri a smile. "We understand that you are here to aid the trees, Master Vanglelauf. It is what we asked of Lady Sian. Had we wished for a jester, that is what we would have asked her to send."
    "And right daft she would have thought us, too," Jack added, with a grin.
    Elizabeth nodded, and seemed about to say something else when there arose an outcry from the house across the green, the accumulated power flaring into new and terrifying patterns.
    "Gran!" Jamie cried, flinging to his feet, running heedlessly back toward the house, with his mother not two paces behind.
    The Newman elder rose more slowly, and turned, staring at the house without moving. Meri gained his feet also—courtesy, he reminded himself, though he trembled at this new display of raw, potent power.
    "May I escort you, sir?" he asked, desperately hoping that this proper and polite suggestion would be rejected.
    Jack shook himself—"Eh?"—and looked over his shoulder. Meri could see that cheeks were wet.
    "Nay, then," he said softly. "That's a gentle offer and I'm obliged, but—I can walk on my own." He shook his head, seeming not to notice the tears that ran into his beard.
    "Never thought she'd go first," he said, "and leave me at the last."
     

Chapter Two
    Waking was a long, languorous business.
    Becca stretched, luxuriating in the smooth slide of sheets along her limbs and the flex of muscle and flesh. She slipped back into a drowse, becoming by degrees aware of the warmth of sunlight upon her face, and a ruddy glow beyond her eyelids. A sweet, riotous scent tickled her nose—roses, lavender, teyepia and gradials—beneath it the prickle of pine and the clean, woody odor of elitch, a touch of turned earth.
    She smiled and nestled her cheek into the cool pillow, a little closer to awake now, lazily following the frenzy of birdsong until she smiled and stretched once more.
    "You may wish to bear in mind, in the interest of your future well-being," a clear voice said dryly from near at hand, "that one does not demand of a Queen. Even so mild-natured a Queen as Diathen."
    "Yet it was not the Queen," Becca answered languidly, "who struck me down."
    A short silence and then a sigh that sounded more irritated than comfortable was her answer as she drifted inevitably toward the shores of true wakefulness.
    "A Queen," Sian said at last, "depends upon those who owe her loyalty to protect her. Does it become necessary for her to raise a hand in her own defense, she cannot afford to be seen as . . . less than strong. Are you awake, Rebecca Beauvelley?"
    "For the moment, it seems that I am." Becca opened her eyes and met Sian's sea-green gaze firmly. "Until you decide otherwise."
    "This conversation has a familiar odor to it," Sian observed, perhaps to herself. She sat a-slouch at some remove from the daybed, one boot planted firmly on the glass-topped table, the chair tipped precariously back on two legs. She moved her arm in a meaningless sweep. "I grant it may seem mere whimsy on my part, but you must own that twice I've acted to preserve your life."
    "A boon," Becca snapped, fully awake now—and fully irritated, "I neither requested nor desired!" She sat up and thrust the covers aside, faintly surprised that these things were allowed her.
    Sian raised a thin golden brow. "Come now, would you rather be dead?"
    "In fact," Becca answered, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. "I would ! What do