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Daughter, wife, mother, widow, madwoman, saint. It might almost make a cherry-stone rhyme for children.
There were other words she could include to describe the stages of her life. Friend. Pilgrim. Lover. Councillor. And, perhaps a shade unfairly, prisoner. It was surely shameful to have that last echoing in her head as her feet counted down the steps towards her long-unseen daughter.
And yet, when she had first heard that Iselle’s path was converging on her own, the instinctive reaction of Ista’s body had been to flinch as from the return of a gaoler. Which was childish and more than slightly ridiculous, after everything she’d been through in the preceding months. Years.
(But when her gaol bars had been built from love, and the desperate devotion of family, what else could she feel, before she recalled herself?)
So her heart hammered as she prepared herself to meet her daughter, dressing in the white which denoted her saintly affliction. It was the first gown in some time which would truly pass muster if summoned to inspection – the grime of the road, not to mention the obstacles they inevitably seemed to encounter, quickly reduced most of the Bastard’s symbolic robes to rather less holy shades. Another mark of His perverse sense of humour, potentially – an object lesson for His disciples in what it meant to be beholden to a deity of disorder and chaos. Still, her retinue were equal to the task of making her presentable, and she looked all that she should by the time they were done with her.
When Illvin arrived to escort her, he stopped mid-stride as she turned towards him with an intake of breath. She raised her eyebrows. "That bad?"
He snorted. "You couldn’t possibly look bad. You just took me by surprise, is all. I was under the impression you were preparing to reunite with your daughter, not storm a fortress."
"My gown –" She selfconsciously smoothed down the white fabric.
"Not the dress. Your expression."
Ista sighed, and tried to school her face. I fell out of practice at this while I was mad. "I am looking forward to seeing her. Truly. It's just... It's been so long." Months, miles and Gods had all come between them.
Illvin put his arm around her shoulders, reassuring her and steering her all at once. "She'll be delighted to see you." He took her arm in a more decorous escort as they approached the reception room.
And Ista forgot to fret over her own appearance as she stepped through the doorway. She had been anticipating a young woman; a girl – but it was a woman grown who greeted her, one who would be wearing the Mother's green to Temple now instead of the blue of the Daughter. A woman who commanded all of Chalion-Ibra, and its armies, and who had been spending her summer on campaign.
She knew what her expression must show, because Iselle had always taken after her in looks, and her daughter's own feelings were writ plain on her face. For both of them, so much change, seeming almost to eclipse the familiar entirely.
They embraced, and even the feel of Iselle's body had changed, altered by growth and childbirth. Ink was ground into the grooves of her fingertips, and her eyes, especially, were far older. Ista didn't miss how Iselle's gaze travelled over her gown, before searching her face carefully. Yes, child, you know what you're afraid to see there.
Truthfully, Ista was no more restrained in looking closely for evidence of the curse's lingering effects. But her daughter stood tall, and though there was more weight on her shoulders she carried it boldly, so that it seemed a natural part of the strength and grace of her. Ista bathed in the sight of her; the joy she had never expected to be hers, and greedily listened to news of how little Isana was faring as they dined. The polite disinterest of the other dinner guests, dy Cazaril excepted, as Iselle dwelt on minute details of Isana's small achievements, amused Ista. But what good was being Royina, if not for allowing one to be mildly inconsiderate on occasion?
Bergon was the one to finally force a subject change. "I trust all went well on your latest patrol?" he said.
"Yes, very well," Ista said, neutrally. She had no doubt that he, along with Iselle's other advisors, had discussed her sainthood at length, but she found herself reluctant to speak of it.
Illvin, however, was quick to supply details of their latest victory – a cunning demon, skilled in changing hosts and – inevitably – dragging pieces of their souls along with them. Restoring them had been delicate work, which she was proud to have succeeded in. She might grumble about how her God steered her, but she was well-trained to it these days. "The rest of what we encountered was fairly common stuff," she ended with, which raised eyebrows among some of her listeners. Not dy Cazaril – he was grinning at her. And not Iselle, either, who listened to her with the seriousness she had always paid to her teachers and to temple divines.
So it should have been no surprise that her daughter had already swept Ista up into her own strategy. "Your timing was impeccable," she said. "For we will be finishing the last of this phase and moving on to Visping itself in a few days' time."
It would be such a simple, longed-for thing to accept, and be subsumed into Iselle's orbit and campaign. To stay with her daughter; to be a mother again in practice, and a grandmother after that. But –
- a dream. Where she stands on a hill overlooking a border town with a white-robed figure at her side, smiling His radient, infuriating smile at her.
"Dearest Ista. Your wits, once again, could untangle a knot which vexes me."
"Flattery? Still?"
"It amuses me, you know. And it amuses you also. You cannot hope to hide these things from your God."
An exasperated sigh. And a smile. "Tell me about this knot, then."
"Ah, but Ista! You'll discover it for yourself, soon enough."
And she says –
Ista left for the border town of Oby the next day, back in her travelling clothes that would never come quite properly white. She left Illvin on requested loan to Iselle's forces, and the air next to her felt empty as she turned her horse towards the gates.
It was her choice, after all. That was the thing about the Gods – they gave you a choice; they couldn't force obedience or compliance from the most weak-willed child. So it was that Ista chose to ride away from her daughter, instead of remaining at her side. Because her God needed her.
Didn't her child need her too?
But Iselle – strong, clever, and brave – was more than capable of achieving all she aimed for, and binding her country to her cause. There was no time, among both their purposes, for the quiet stillness needed to rebuild the relationship that should have been as natural as breathing to both of them.
More than that. Ista's work was no burden to her. It fired her motion and her thoughts, and she could not falter in it. Nor did she wish to.
I am called, she had stated to her daughter, with a finality that was part regret and part not. I go.