CHAPTER ONE

There was a crash, and the tinkle of broken glass.

“Geoffrey!” Gwen cried in exasperation, “if I have told thee once, I have told thee twenty times—thou must not practice swordplay in the house!”

Rod looked up from Gerbrensis’s Historie of Gramarye to see his smaller son trying to hide a willow-wand sword behind his back, looking frightened and guilty. Rod sighed, and came to his feet. “Be patient with him, dear—he’s only three.”

“ ‘Tis thy fault as much as his,” Gwen accused. “What business has so small a lad to be learning o’ swordplay?”

“True, dear, true,” Rod admitted. “I shouldn’t have been drilling Magnus where Geoff could watch. But we only did it once.”

“Aye, but thou knowest how quickly he seizes on any arts of war. Here, do thou speak with him, the whilst I see to the mending of this vase.”

“Well, I didn’t know it then—but I do now. Here, son.” Rod knelt and took Geoff by the shoulders, as Gwen knelt to begin picking up pieces, fitting them together and staring at the crack till the glass flowed, and the break disappeared.

“You know that was your mother’s favorite vase?” Rod asked gently. “It’s the only glass one she has—and glass is very expensive, here. It took Magnus a long time to learn how to make it.”

The little boy gulped and nodded.

“She can mend it,” Rod went on, “but it’ll never be quite as good as it was before. So your Mommy won’t ever have it looking as nice as it did before. You’ve deprived her of something that made her very happy.”

The little boy swallowed again, very hard, and his face screwed up; then he let loose a bawl, and buried his face in his father’s shoulder, sobbing his heart out.

“There, there, now,” Rod murmured. “It’s not quite as bad as I made it sound. She can mend it, after all—psi-witches have an advantage that way, and your mother can manage telekinesis on a very fine scale—but it was very naughty, wasn’t it?” He held Geoff back at arm’s length. The little boy gulped again, and nodded miserably. “Now, buck up.” Rod pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at Geoff’s cheeks. “Be a brave boy, and go tell your Mommy about it.” Geoff nodded; Rod turned him toward Gwen, gave him a pat on the backside, then stood back to watch.

Geoff toddled over to Gwen, stood mute and apprehensive until she was done melding the last piece back in place, then lisped, “I sorry, Mommy. Di’t mean to.”

Gwen heaved up a sigh that said chapters, then managed a smile and tousled his hair. “I know thou didst not, my jo. ‘Twas happenstance; still, when all’s said, thou didst break it. ‘Tis why I have told thee to keep thy swordplay out of doors. So thou wilt ever keep thy manly arts out of housen from this day forth, wilt thou not?”

Geoff nodded miserably. “Yes, Mommy.”

“And thou wilt obey thy mother henceforth?”

“Uh-huh… But, Mommy!” he cried, in a sudden wail of protest, “was raining!”

Gwen heaved a sigh. “Aye, and I know, thou couldst not go out of house. Yet still, jo, ‘twas then time to draw up thy pictures.”

Geoff made a face.

Gwen bent an accusing eye at Rod.

He looked around, frantically, then pointed to himself, with an incredulous look.

Gwen leaped up and marched over to him… “Aye, thee! How many times hast thou said thou wouldst show him the drawing of a moated keep? That, at least, he would draw—once, and again, and a thousand times! Wilt thou not do it?”

“Oh, yeah!” Rod slapped his head. “I didn’t really have to do research this morning. Well, better late than never…”

They both whirled around at an explosion of wailing, screaming, and angry barking.

Magnus had come in from the boys’ room and found the evidence. He stood over little Geoff, waving a heavy forefinger down from the height of his eight years of life-experience. “Nay, ‘twas foully done! To break a present to our Mother that I was so long in the crafting of! Eh, little Geoffrey, when wilt thou learn…”

And Cordelia had sailed in to Geoff’s defense, standing up to her big brother from five years’ age and forty inches’ height. “How durst thee blame him, thou, who didst bar him from his own room…”

“And mine!” Magnus shouted.

“And his! Where he might have played to’s liking, with hurt to nought!”

“Be still, be still!” Gwen gasped. “The baby…”

On cue, a wail erupted from the cradle, to match Geoffrey’s confused bawling.

“Oh, children!” Gwen cried in final exasperation, and turned away to scoop up eleven-month-old Gregory, while Rod waded into the shouting match. “Now, now, Geoff, you haven’t been that naughty. Magnus, stop that! Scolding’s my job, not yours—and giving orders, too,” he added under his breath. “ ‘Delia, honey, it’s very good of you to stick up for your brother like that—but don’t be good so loudly, okay?… Sheesh!” He hugged them all, pressing their faces against his chest to enforce silence. “The things they don’t tell you about the Daddy business!”

On the other side of the room, Gwen was crooning a lullaby, and the baby was already quiet again. Rod answered her with a quick chorus of:

“Rain, rain, go away!

Come again some other day!”

“Well, if you really want it, Daddy.” Magnus straightened up and looked very serious for a minute.

“No, no! I didn’t mean… oh, stinkweed!” Rod glanced at the window; the pattering of the rain slackened, and a feeble sunbeam poked through.

“Magnus!” Gwen’s tone was dire warning. “What have I told thee about tampering with the weather?”

“But Daddy wanted it!” Magnus protested.

“I did let that slip, in an unguarded moment,” Rod admitted. “But it can’t be just what we want, son—there’re other people who actually like the rain. And everyone needs it, whether they like it or not—especially the farmers. So bring it back, now, there’s a good boy.”

Magnus gave a huge sigh that seemed to indicate how disgustingly irrational these big people were, screwed up his face for a moment—and the gentle patter of raindrops began again. Cordelia and Geoffrey looked mournful; for a moment there, they’d thought they were going to get to go out and play.

“Odd weather we’re having around here lately,” Rod mused, wandering over to the window.

“In truth,” Gwen agreed, drifting over to join him with Gregory on her shoulder. “I cannot think how he does it; ‘twould take me an hour to move so many clouds away.”

“Yeah, well, just add it to the list of our son’s unexplained powers.” He glanced back at Magnus, a chunky boy in tunic and hose with his hand on the hilt of his dirk. His hair had deepened to auburn, and the loss of his baby-fat had revealed a strong chin that puberty might turn to a lantern-jaw—but Rod could still see the affectionate, mischievous toddler. Strange to think his powers were already greater than his mother’s—and his father’s, of course; Rod had only knowledge and wit, and a computer-brained robot-horse, on his side. But Magnus had the wit already.

They all did. Cordelia was a flame-haired fairy-slender version of Gwen. Golden-haired Geoff had a compact little body that would probably grow up into a unified muscle, where Magnus would probably turn lean and rangy; golden hair that would probably stay that way, though Magnus’s was darkening; clear, blue eyes that seemed to show you the depths of his soul, and a square little chin that seemed made for deflecting uppercuts.

And Gregory, who was fair-haired and chubby, though not as much as a baby should be, who was so very quiet and reserved, and very rarely smiled—an enigma at less than a year, and a prime focus for Rod’s chronic, buried anxiety.

Each of them gifted enough to drive Job to distraction!

There was a knock at the door.