Crown of Renewal(196)

The grange door opened with a scrape and splash. Gird’s Cow turned and walked into the grange, with Arianya beside it. Inside the grange, the smell of cow was strong enough to notice but not unpleasant. The cow walked up to Marshal Pelis first. He put out a hand, and the cow wrapped its tongue around it, a double swipe. His brows went up.

“Well. Gird’s Cow indeed.”

Then it licked every one of the mages, child and adult both, and walked up to the platform. It put one hoof on the platform and then—a little clumsily—lurched up onto it. It stood there a long moment, then let out a sonorous Mooooah! And vanished. The flower garland dropped onto the platform.

Within the glass, reports came back that the Hoor had risen to bank-full and flowed clear as glass. Every well in town was full or overflowing, every trash heap or muck pile had been washed away, and the only building whose roof had collapsed (though many had leaked) was the one in which the mage-hunters had gathered. The field where the mock battle took place every year was a sodden mess of knee-deep mud, so a much smaller fair replaced it, with competitions for individual skills instead. Arianya spent the next two days handing out prizes for Best Lacework, Best Cherry Pie, Fastest Leg Turner, and the like. The accused mages, child and adult, participated without comment … it was as if people forgot that they knew mage from nonmage.

As the cavalcade rode away from Hoorlow back to Fin Panir, it was clear that the rain had not been local … all the land they rode over had been refreshed. New-sprouted grass and flowers out of season grew on every side; the trees no longer looked dusty and tattered but full and healthy. In all the vills and towns, the people had the same look as those in Hoorlow: free for a time from anxieties and sorrow, anger and hatred. Here and there, people told of seeing a dun cow appearing immediately after the rain, a cow that swiped people with a rough tongue, mostly those who had been deep in sorrow about something.

Fin Panir itself had been drenched with the same healing rain. The Company of Gird’s Cow, who had been struggling to carve a wooden cow, had been stunned to see their incomplete carving come alive. “The right color, even!” Salis said. “We was all workin’ on it, y’know, and then come the rain, and we couldn’t even stand upright, let alone see anything … and when it stopped, there was Gird’s Cow, the real one, just like I imagined it.”

Arianya had a momentary vision of Gird’s Herd, an infinite number of identical dun cows, and pushed it down. “What did it do?” she asked.

“Walked up to me and gave me a lick of that rough tongue like I’ve never had before,” he said, grinning. “Like a big dog, only the tongue’s that rough, you know. Bein’ slapped with a bit o’ coarse sackin’. But I knew what it meant. Hugged that cow’s neck, and it gave me another one on the shoulder. We walked ‘er around the city, then back up here, and she’s in the meadow now, sleek as you please.”

“She’s still here?”

“What! You don’t think I’d send Gird’s Cow away, do you?”

“No, but …” She explained about the many sightings of Gird’s Cow, including the cow that had licked her in front of the grange in Hoorlow.

“Well.” Salis scratched his head. “Well, I dunno about that. Maybe Gird has all the cows he wants now, or maybe the cow … just is where she needs to be, wherever that is.”





Chapter Thirty-seven


Chaya, Lyonya

With Dorrin and most of the magelords gone, Chaya settled into its usual summer routine. The handful of remaining magelords adopted modern dress and Common tongue. High Marshal Seklis left. A courier came from the Sea-Prince, reporting that Dorrin had been taken safely aboard a trader known to the Sea-Prince and should reach Aarenis—Barrandowea-Stormlord willing—well before the end of the trading season. Kieri already knew from the King’s Squires who had escorted her what ship she had taken, but the Sea-Prince also sent a chart of the probable route. Kieri sent back a note of thanks.

Kieri expected the western elves to return to their elvenhome after the magelords were out of Kolobia, but they didn’t.

“Your queen is our king’s granddaughter,” Caernith said. “Your children are his great-grandchildren—”

“But only half-elf,” Kieri said. “From what the Lady said, Dameroth fathered many half-elven children.”

“In different times. Your queen is the only one of Dameroth’s children alive in this time. And the only one who ever came to such prominence; married a half-elven ruler and thus had children also half-elven, carrying the elvenhome gift from both parents. He wants to know how they get on.”