Reclamation

Iron Keeper was a good hand with the pole, if a little slow. Aria let the boy keep charge. It was his raft, after all, and the last thing she needed to do right now was tread on anybody's pride, even if it was only her half-grown nephew. His assurances of the tone of her welcome were very nice to have, and she was sure Reed had a place at the hearth for her and a loaf to spare, fairly sure anyway. Although Reed might be out in the city, since it was late summer. Well, Reed's husband, Iron Keeper's father, would do in her place. And Mother should still acknowledge her as long as Aria still had the stones in her hands.

But there were other people in the clan, and who knew what the Skymen and the Teachers had done before the clan had moved out here?

Who knew what they'd done to her children. To her hus…to Nail in the Beam. Iron Keeper didn't seem sad or upset, which meant…she laid her hand across her pouch. It meant no one might know yet about Trail.

She stopped herself from asking him to hurry it along.

Iron Keeper kept stealing glances at Eric, who stood in the middle of the raft with his hands shoved firmly into his pockets.

"Stop staring, Nephew," Aria said lightly. "He's not going to fly away with you watching him."

Iron Keeper blushed. "Iron didn't mean…he meant, I, umm…No disrespect, Sar Born."

Eric nodded gravely. "None seen, Young Man. None seen."

Garismit's Eyes, he's remembered two or three of his manners anyway.

They drifted through groves of Crookers and Droopers and straight-backed evergreens until finally they came out into a channel that had been chopped clear of reeds and saplings. Cabins on supports of bamboo poles squatted above the channel, and everywhere were faces she knew.

"Oy-ai!" called Iron Keeper. "Father!"

Iron Shaper, the smith and clay-baker and the most important man in the clan looked up from his makeshift hearth. Aria raised her hands so he could see her marks. Here was the test. If Iron Shaper didn't even welcome her…

"Sister!" he bellowed, dropping his tongs into the coals and leaping to his feet.

Aria was on the shore almost before Keeper brought the raft to a halt. Her brother-in-law gathered her up into his ropy smith's arms and swung her around. "Knew you'd be back! Told the wife, I did. Knew it!"

The world was full of voices, friendly slaps, and her name. Stone in the Wall. Stone in the Wall! Aria. Auntie. Little sister. Hands to clasp, and faces, and laughter. Home, all of it home.

She barely even noticed the ones who stayed in the shadows and the doorways and just watched her.

Then came the special name.

"Mother!"

Aria spun and all at once her arms were full of children. Storm Water, big and burly as an ox for his age, like his father. Roof Beam, wiry little bundle, and tough Hill Shadow and beautiful, beautiful Aienai-Arla. Little Eye. The daughter she'd been afraid she'd never bear, stood strong and solid on her little round legs.

"My own!" She kissed them and hugged them over and over. "Oh, my own! My own!"

"Stone in the Wall."

Aria looked up and knew what she'd see.

Nail in the Beam. Nameless Powers preserve me. Aria swallowed. So many memories came with seeing his square face and thick, work-toughened body. They'd grown up side by side. There'd been no surprise at all when her parents had marched her to the Temple to meet him and his parents there. He'd built their house, she'd built their stove and laid out their mats. They'd fought over this thing and that, when she'd been home. They'd even blackened each other's eyes, but he'd cradled her head through seven births and listened in silence when she told him what truth she knew about the namestones. He'd had other women, and she'd had other men, but the children had all been his, no matter what the Teacher had said.

"You said you might not be back." His voice hadn't changed. It grumbled like thunder in the distance.

"I was wrong. Nothing new in that, you'd say, I know."

"If you weren't always speaking for me, I would."

They stared at each other. Aria found her throat had closed up tight.

Her silence made Nail shift his weight. "Your place is elsewhere than my home. Your blood will be no more part of mine."

The words of divorce and disinheritance.

"It's better this way." She said it. She knew it was true, but for a long, aching moment, she wished it wasn't.

"These are my wife's children," he said.

Oh, no. It's only been six months…"Who?" she croaked.

"Branch in the River."

Of course. She bowed her head. After her family and the smith's, Branch was the loudest voice in the village. Nail wasn't one to give up rank if he could help it.

"No!" howled Little Eye, clutching Aria's pant leg. "Mother!"