Aerin herself bore up under the wedding and the feast afterward as best she could, but as this meant that she withstood them stoically as a martyr might withstand torture, she did not notice either Tor’s eyes or Galanna’s fury—she was only too accustomed to ignoring Galanna whenever possible; the one thing she did observe about the bride was the twelve rings, which were hard to miss—nor did she notice any more than usual stiffness in the courtesy that those around her offered her. And Tor, who was either viewed as dangerously enamored and therefore to be treated with caution, or as pitiably misguided and thus to be protected—or, as a few implausibly simple souls believed, capable of deciding his own fate—did not know till much later all that he had betrayed.
Aerin peeled out of her fancy clothes and fancy manners and pelted off to the barns at the first opportunity, and thought no more about weddings.
She had taken some time away from her leather-working to begin experimenting with the fire ointment. Most of the ingredients she found easily, for they were common things, and a first sol’s education included a little basic herb-lore—which Aerin had learned gladly as an escape from deportment and history. One or two things she asked Hornmar for, from his stock of horse cures; and he, thinking she wished perhaps to try some sort of poultice on Talat’s weak leg, granted her the run of his medicines as he had his tool chest, and again asked no questions. She was aware of the great boon he offered her, and this time she couldn’t help but look at him a little wonderingly.
He smiled at her. “I love Talat too, you know,” he said mildly. “If I can aid you, you need only to ask.”
Teka and the redroot were a little more difficult.
“Teka, what is redroot?” Aerin asked one afternoon as she applied an uneven patch to a skirt she had always detested, and glowered at the result.
“If you spent a quarter of the time about your mending that you have over that old saddle, you would be better turned out than Galanna,” said Teka with asperity. “Rip that out and do it again.”
Aerin sighed, and began to pick at the irregular stitches. “I suppose there’s no point in mentioning that I have no desire to be better turned out than Galanna.” She picked a moment in silence and added, “For that matter, Galanna never wears anything that has a patch or a tear.”
Teka grinned. “No. She takes out a great gash and puts in a whole new panel of different cloth, and it’s a new dress.”
“I would like to make a new floor mop out of this thing,” replied Aerin.
Teka lifted it out of Aerin’s hands and squinted at it. “The color has not worn well,” she explained, “but the cloth is sound. We could re-dye it.” Aerin did not show any marked access of enthusiasm for this plan. “Blue perhaps, or red. Don’t overwhelm me with your gladness, child. You’re always wanting to wear red, in spite of your flaming hair—”
“Orange,” murmured Aerin.
“You could do quite well with this skirt in red, and a golden tunic over—Aerin!”
“It would still have to be patched,” Aerin pointed out.
Teka sighed heavily. “You would try the patience of Gholotat herself. If you will do something useful with that wretched bridle that has been lying under the bed for the last fortnight, I will re-dye your poor skirt, and put a patch on it that not even Galanna will notice—as if you cared.”
Aerin reached out to hug Teka, and Teka made a noise that so sounded like “Hmmph.” Aerin fell off the window seat and made her way over to the bed on her hands and knees and began to scrabble under it. She re-emerged only slightly dusty, for the hafor were dutiful floor-sweepers, held the bridle at arm’s length and looked at it with distaste. “Now what do I do with it?” she inquired.
“Put it on a horse,” Teka suggested in a much-tried tone.
Aerin laughed. “Teka, I am inventing a new way to ride. I don’t use a bridle.”
Teka, who still occasionally watched Aerin and Aerin’s white stallion in secret to reassure herself that Talat would do her beloved child no harm, shuddered. It was the luck of the gods that Teka had not been watching the day Talat had jumped the fence. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Someday,” Aerin went on with a bold sweep of her empty hand, “I shall be famous in legend and story—” She stopped, embarrassed to say such things even to Teka.
Teka, holding the skirt to the light as she made deft invisible stitches around the patch, said quietly, “I have never doubted it, my dear.”
Aerin sat down on the edge of the bed with the bridle in her lap and looked at the fringe on the bed curtains, which were the long golden manes of the embroidered horseheads on the narrow canopy border, and thought of her mother, who had died in despair when she found she had borne a daughter instead of a son.
“What is redroot?” she asked again.
Teka frowned. “Redroot. That’s—um—astzoran. Red-root’s the old term for it—they used to think it was good for some things.”
“What things?”
Teka glanced at her and Aerin bit her lip. “Why do you want to know?”
“I—oh—I read a lot in the old books in the library while I wasn’t ... feeling quite well. There was some herb-lore, and they mentioned redroot.”
Teka considered, and some of her thoughts were similar to Tor’s when Aerin had asked him to teach her swordplay. Teka had never thought about whether Aerin’s fate had more to do with what Aerin was or what Damar was, or for reasons beyond either; Teka merely observed that Aerin’s fate was unique. But she knew, knew better even than the cousin who loved her, that Aerin would never be a court lady; not like Galanna, who was a beautiful termagant, but neither like Arlbeth’s first wife, Tatoria, whom everyone had loved. None of the traditions of Arlbeth’s court could help the king’s daughter discover her fate; but Teka, unlike Aerin herself, had faith that the destiny was somewhere to be found. She hesitated, but she could remember nothing dangerous about the no longer valued redroot.
“Astzoran doesn’t grow around here,” said Teka; “it is a low weedy plant that prefers open meadows. It spreads by throwing out runners, and where the runner touches the earth a long slender root strikes down. That is the redroot.” Teka pretended great concentration upon her patch. “I might take a few days to ride into the meadows beyond the City and into the Hills; I am reminded that there are herbs I need, and I prefer to gather my own. If you wish to come, I will show you some astzoran.”