by John Brown
But that couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it happen. She didn’t have time to open the door to the cellar, descend, and close it up again.
She looked out the front window and saw nothing but Nettle working the field in the distance.
She whirled round and faced Talen. “Hunters,” she whispered.
Talen had been leaning against the wall in his chair, balancing it on two of its legs. He came away from the wall and brought all four legs to the ground.
She motioned with her head towards the river. He needed to put that bow down. If he had truly been guarding against something in the woods, then he would have been outside. Both of them would be. They needed to appear to be friends. No, they needed to appear to be more than friends. It would have been better if Ke had been sitting there, but Talen would have to do. She only prayed he wasn’t a fool.
She could not speak, not if she didn’t want to alert the man outside, so she hastened across the floor toward Talen. He must have seen the alarm in her face because he stood and looked with worry to the windows.
One, two, four steps, and she crossed the line he’d drawn. He began to raise the bow, but either his fear had paralyzed him or he wasn’t a fool after all because he allowed her to come right up to him, grab the wrist of the hand that held the bow, and whisper into his ear.
“They’re outside,” she said.
“Fir-Noy?”
“I’m going to sit on your lap,” she said. “Like a lover.” Then she pushed him back into his chair.
Talen’s eyes were round with alarm. He clenched the bow.
She pushed the bow away and settled on him. “Put the bow down,” she whispered. “Put your arm around me.”
He was frozen.
“I am your girl from Koramtown,” she whispered. “I’m visiting.”
Something rustled along the outside of the house. He turned his head toward the sound. He reached back and leaned the bow against the wall, but he didn’t let go.
She raised his free hand to her ribs.
“I’m Lily,” she said.
“What?”
“Lily,” she repeated. “The daughter of Ham, a farmer, living just the other side-”
She could hear a man at the door, and from the corner of her eye she saw the shadow of someone take position by the open shutter. She immediately dipped her mouth to meet Talen’s. She’d kissed boys before. None of the Mokaddians in her village. Her mother had made sure they traveled to Koramtown regularly, more often this last year since Sugar was soon to be of age for marriage negotiations. She closed her eyes and cupped his head with her free, flour-dusted hand.
Talen sat as stiff as a piece of furniture. She opened her eyes and found him staring at her, his eyeballs big as her face. It was like finding a large caterpillar on the end of your nose.
More men gathered outside the door.
“The bow,” she said midkiss, “drop the bow.” His mouth was parted in shock, frozen open like the stone of a statue. She had stolen her share of kisses from Koramtown boys, and this one wouldn’t fool anybody. She flickered the tip of her tongue inside his mouth. Maybe that would bring him around.
The bow and arrows clattered to the floor. And to Talen’s credit he tried to move his lips. They were dry, and the whole thing smelled of the morning’s sausage, but he acted. Of course, she didn’t think either of their performances would be enough.
Then someone tried to force the door.
“You there,” said a man, looking in at them from the window. “Open that door!”
Talen shot up like a flushed animal and dumped Sugar to the floor. She was still getting up when he swung the door wide.
Three men pushed in, weapons bristling: a young one in front with half of his teeth missing and two older men behind. Before Sugar could move, the young one stuck the point of his sword inches from Talen’s neck. “You,” he said. “Where’s your father?”
“He was summoned to Whitecliff,” said Talen.
“We should have known your family would cause problems,” he said.
A man with eyes like ice appeared behind the three that stood in the doorway. “Put the sword down,” he said.
Sugar did not know him, but from his clothing, she suspected he was the bailiff. “Talen,” he said. “I told your da to order the Koramites in the district. I wanted them calm. Instead, I get reports of all sorts of things happening here last night.”
Sugar froze. Had someone seen Talen rousting them out from underneath the old house? They’d heard voices in the night, but they’d been in the distance. And what if Talen decided to turn on her and Legs? He was half convinced she was Sleth already.
It had been a mistake to stay. She should have taken Legs and run. They could have hidden in the woods somewhere until dark fell. Now it was too late.
“Why did you have to provoke the Fir-Noy?” asked the bailiff.
Talen said nothing. He stood there like a scarecrow.
The bailiff looked from Talen to Sugar and back again. “Who’s this?”
“Nobody,” said Talen.
“Nobody?” asked the bailiff.
“Zu,” said Sugar, “I’m Lily from Koramtown.”
“And why did you bar the door in the middle of the morning?”
Talen said nothing, just stood there with his mouth open.
“We…” said Sugar and looked down. That’s what she supposed someone caught in a forbidden embrace would do. She hoped she hadn’t hung her head too quickly.
“Speak up!” said the bailiff.
“We were,” Talen said. He looked as if he’d swallowed a chicken whole. “Sporting.”
“While the father is away,” said the bailiff. He shook his head and looked around the room. “You and your altercations with those Fir-Noy armsmen have caused me a bit of work. I’ve been ordered by the Shoka lords to conduct a personal search of every Koramite homestead in my district.”
“I am sorry, Zu,” said Talen.
“Look at me,” said the bailiff. “What are you hiding?”
Talen’s eyes were wide with fear. If anyone was going to give them away, it would be him. “Nothing, Zu. Nothing.”
The bailiff shook his head. “Of course not.” He signaled to his men to search the house. “I need something to drink.”
“We have no beer,” said Talen.
“Then fetch me a draught of sweet water from your well,” said the bailiff.
Talen complied without hesitation, leaving Sugar alone with the men. One of the bailiff’s men stood on the far side of the room opening cupboards. She could hear the second upstairs and the third in the back room and still others out in the yard. The bailiff himself paced about the room and then noticed the cellar door.
“Girl,” he said. “Open this up.” Then he drew his sword and stepped back.
“You do not need to worry, Zu,” she said, indicating his sword. “I will gladly open the door, but nothing is down there. Only a few cabbages and potatoes. I saw them myself this morning.”
“Oh, is that the trysting spot for Koramite youth?” The bailiff shook his head. “I thought Talen was being prepared for a Mokaddian marriage. I expected more of Hogan.”
Sugar looked down. They would consider it filthy for him to sport with a Koramite. Was that why he’d been so stiff? She walked over to the door. She hoped Legs had heard the men and had hidden in the small cubby they’d made last night.
“Get a light,” he said.
“Yes, Zu,” she said, and then moved to the other side of the room to fetch a lamp.
The man searching this end of the main room was poking his sword deep into barrels of beans and barley. What he expected to find there she could not guess.
Sugar found one of Zu Hogan’s lamps and the oil jar. She poured a bit into the lamp. Then she took it to the fire, retrieved an ember with some small tongs, held it close and began to blow.
“I don’t understand why a girl from Koramtown would risk hunters, alone it seems, to come
all the way up here.”
Sugar blew once more and the wick caught fire. “I came early yesterday,” she said. “News of the Sleth had not yet arrived.” Then she pulled up the cellar door.
He pointed at the stair with his sword, indicating she should go first.
Sugar nodded and began to descend the stairs a few steps. As she did her light illuminated the room below and the fact that while Legs had crawled into the cubby, he had not hidden his foot. It, along with the end of his trousers, was plain to see.
The bailiff positioned himself above to get a clearer view of the cellar.
Sugar switched the lamp to her other hand, moving it so that it cast a shadow over Legs.
“Lift it higher,” said the bailiff, “I can’t see.”
“Yes, Zu.” Her mind raced. What could she do? What lie could she tell him?
None came to her mind.
She shifted the lamp.
“Ho,” boomed Zu Hogan from the doorway. “What is this?”
The bailiff turned, and Sugar saw her chance. She quickly descended the remaining steps and hurried to stand in front of Leg’s foot. She held her lamp out as if she were trying to give the room its best possible illumination.
“What kind of a lunatic challenges Fir-Noy armsmen?” asked the bailiff.
Zu Hogan put his hands on his hips. “The same kind that challenges Bone-Faced rot.”
“That’s all good and fine,” said the bailiff. “But you’ve put me in a position. Do you know how lucky you are? Any other Koramite and you’d lose your head. I would have to take it myself.”
“We have far greater things than Fir-Noy honor to worry about,” said Zu Hogan. “The woman held in Whitecliff, she’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Stolen out of the tower by a creature that cast Droz and his whole guard about like puppets.”
The bailiff stood stunned. “Goh,” he finally said. “Her creation, then, come to free her? Or that of her hatchlings?”
“We don’t know where it came from or whence it bore her. The dogs can’t track it.”
Sugar sat down. There was no doubt about Mother now. She wondered what kind of creature it was that had rescued her. But she couldn’t imagine it. She couldn’t picture her mother as Sleth any more than she could picture her as a dog.
What would Zu Hogan do? He wouldn’t turn her in, would he? Not after hiding and lying for them.
“She’s probably all safely tucked away now in some wicked bolt hole.” The bailiff cursed. There was a brief pause in their conversation then the bailiff said, “This does not bode well for your people.”
“It does not bode well for any of us,” said Zu Hogan. “Because when you do find them, even if you take one hundred men, it won’t be enough. The creature was shot through with arrows and stabbed with spears. Captain Argoth delivered a blow that would have beheaded a horse. Nothing. The ballista men shot a dart and smote the beast squarely in the chest, and it still managed somehow to vanish. It cannot be harmed by normal means.”
The bailiff looked down at Sugar.
“What’s more,” said Hogan, “if it’s taken her, then I suspect it most certainly has the two hatchlings that escaped.”
The bailiff nodded. “We’re done here.”
He called his men off, and as suddenly as they’d come, they left.
Sugar whispered to Legs to stay put then she walked back up the stairs.
Hogan, Talen, and Nettle stood out in the yard. She joined them to watch the bailiff and his men walk back to the woods where they’d tied their horses.
“Do you think he suspects?” asked Nettle.
“No,” said Zu Hogan. “Although I do wonder how he missed marking Sugar.”
“We created a ruse,” said Talen.
“Oh?”
“We were…”
“Yes?”
“Sporting,” finished Sugar.
Nettle raised an eyebrow, but Zu Hogan looked down at her with a sad smile. “Purity’s daughter indeed,” he said.
What that meant, she could not tell. But she could guess what he was thinking. Her mother was a monster. So what did you do with the child of a monster? Sugar knew the answer to that question.
She also knew her mother. There would be an explanation if she could talk to her. There had to be.
About a quarter mile down the road from Hogan’s place, the bailiff halted the men. Prunes reined in his horse with the rest of them.
“I’ve been commanded to post a watch on Hogan,” said the bailiff. “So two of you are going to stay behind. Prunes, you and Gid will have the first day. I’ll send someone to relieve you in the morning.”
That was just Prunes’s luck. He gets an opportunity to sleep, but he has to do it with that garlic-eater at his side. Still, some rest was better than none at all. Prunes simply nodded then peeled his horse from the column, Gid following behind.
They hobbled their horses in a small glen on the far side of the hill and began hiking to find the right position to watch the Koramite.
A few steps up the slope and Gid began to sing under his breath. “A lady green with lips so wide, I could not help but kiss her. But when I’d had my fill of tongue, I put her in the roaster.”
“Will you shut up,” said Prunes.
“They’re not going to hear us.”
“I don’t care if they do hear us. We’re not going to find anything here.”
“How do you mean?”
“This is Captain Argoth’s brother-in-law. We’re not going to find anything here but some rest. And that’s what I intend to take. And that is also why you’re going to be quiet as a mouse.”
“You don’t know what loyalties flow in that Koramite’s veins,” said Gid. “In fact, for a Koramite on the run, this might be the very best place to hide.”
“See,” said Prunes, “that’s what comes of eating too much garlic. You get brain vapors.”
“It’s got nothing to do with what I eat.”
“Stinking vapors of the mind,” said Prunes.
Gid made a rude gesture, but Prunes ignored it.
Soon they found an outcropping of rock that gave a clear view of the farm, then positioned themselves just behind the brush line.
As soon as they sat down, Gid took out a whetstone and began sharpening his knife.
Stupid eager-that’s what he was. If Sleth did indeed pay the Koramite a visit, then they’d need more than knives. Goh, the Koramite’s reports of that creature in Whitecliff gave Prunes the shivers. And if that thing showed up, the best thing to do would be to run. Run or hide in some hole. Then Prunes realized he’d sat in the wrong place. “You need to sit over here,” said Prunes.
“Why?”
“Because that places me upwind of your stinking carcass.”
But Gid gave him a look that said he wasn’t moving. After a few moments, Prunes sighed in irritation. The man was an affliction, but it wasn’t worth a battle. He picked himself up and found a better spot. “You’ve got first watch,” said Prunes. “If I catch you sleeping, you’re going to dance to a hard pipe.”
Gid grunted. “And who do you think will be my partner?”
But Prunes had already laid back and closed his eyes and wasn’t even going to consider giving Gid an answer.
19
SUMMONS
Talen stood in the house, facing his father who had just related the events at the Whitecliff fortress the night before. Da’s face was bruised from when the creature had knocked him aside. His throat was worse. It looked like he wore a blue-and-purple collar. The creature had throttled him and damaged his voice. When he finished his tale, none of the others spoke.
Talen didn’t care that the boy and the girl were standing right here with them. “The evidence, it appears, is overwhelming,” he said. “The Fir-Noy were not making this rot up.”
Earlier, he hadn’t known what to do. He and Nettle had not been able to sleep. They had discussed the situation from the moment the girl and
boy had gone down into the cellar last night until the sun rose. They could give the girl and boy the benefit of the doubt, as it seemed Da, River, and Ke were willing to do, and assume huge risks. They could distract the two until Nettle could call the authorities to come collect them. Or they could kill them. But the questioners would want them alive. The laws of the hunt would demand punishment. Furthermore, if they were Sleth and there was a nest of them, then anyone who killed the boy and girl could expect the same retribution that was visited upon the village of Plum.
But to leave them alive in the house? And then the girl had confessed. All his talk of bold action, and he had been able to do nothing. Then the bailiff had shown up. But he hadn’t known it was the bailiff. He’d thought they were the Fir-Noy armsmen come back. He couldn’t tell them the boy and girl were the hatchlings. Those armsmen would automatically assume Talen’s family had been harboring them.
He should have never let her sit in his lap. Never let her kiss him. Lords, her tongue…
He kept expecting something to happen, to feel a shift of some kind. He could detect no change in himself, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t worked some kind of magic upon him with her touch. How could you kiss a Sleth child and not be changed?
It was obvious they had only two options-kill them or bring a hunt. And he preferred someone else face the ire of the nest. “It’s time to give them up,” said Talen.
“No,” said Da in his rough voice. “That will never happen.”
And yet there Da stood with that massive bruise on his face. Perhaps he was trying to tell Talen it was foolish to talk about such things in front of the boy and girl.
“River and Ke will be back soon enough. We’re going to keep them safe, Talen.”
Da wasn’t acting. He was serious. “With that woman’s beast looking for them?”
“We don’t know what that thing was,” said Da.
“Who cares what it was? It rescued her. That’s all we need to know.”
“That’s not all we need to know.”