The rain stopped mid afternoon and the clouds parted in the early evening, making way for a beautiful clear golden dusk, but in the end, Bruna did not leave Obernewtyn until the following afternoon, when black rain clouds had closed over the sky again. The healer who had examined Domina had recommended a day of rest and a poultice, saying the mare had not done much more than graze her knees but it was better to err on the side of caution with horses. Alad told me later that Zade had offered to carry Bruna to the lowlands, but the tribeswoman had refused. She had put the poultice prepared by the healer onto the mare’s knees herself and then she spent the remainder of the afternoon honing her fingerspeaking skills with the help of Louis Larkin and his cows.

The old unTalent had become a master of the art of fingerspeech to compensate for the fact that he had no beastspeaking Talent, and in truth he had become so subtle and canny at this form of communication that it was impossible not to think of him as a beastspeaker. Alad often said Louis had such empathy for beasts that it was a Talent in itself, and that this was what made his fingerspeech so rich and subtle.

That evening, Bruna returned to the house in the brief bright dusk to eat, and after the empath musicians had performed their customary three songs, she sang a chant song about the journey made by her ancestors to the desert lands. Within the song was a tale of the laying to rest in the earth of an old woman in a dark fragrant grove of spice bushes growing in a fold at the foot of the great escarpment that reared up behind the desert lands. It made me think of Bruna’s message from the overguardian of the Earthtemple about Straaka’s bones needing to be laid to rest and I guessed she had chosen the chant to reiterate her words. Later, when the sun had set and we had shifted our chairs to the fire to talk, I asked after Ahmedri. I wanted to know if he had the slow, serious charm of his soft-spoken brother, but Bruna merely told me that he had remained on the farm and would likely do so for the length of his stay, to be close to his horse.