Shadow's Daughter

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Shadow's Daughter Page 21

by Shirley Meier

Now on the plateau, Megan clung to her mother's corpse still, in the wind and snow, wanting to die too. Perhaps it had been her fault. Perhaps if she'd tried harder to get her to eat. Perhaps if she'd noticed sooner about the Dust, she wouldn't have weakened so. Mama, I need you. What am I going to do? You're with Papa but you've left me behind. If I don't cry your name, some part of you has to stay with me.

  That evil little thought cracked the ice in her and she finally started to cry. She let go and got up, stepping back, the hot tears mixing with the cold melting snow-flakes on her face. I can't do that. That wouldn't be right. She sobbed, standing straight next to the funeral platform, threw her head back, and screamed her mother's name into the wind.

  "NEEESSSS, Weaaaveerrr!" The names echoed, flapping their way free, like the ravens roused by her scream. "Daughter of Anayita and Tomas of Raeschku Village!" With each word the body on the platform seemed less and less like someone she knew. "Lixand Weaver's wife…" She stepped back, whispering, "and my mother."

  Rilla hugged her and Gospoznyn Yarishk stood by them as the handlers of the dead raised the platform, the pole grinding into the cairn of rocks, swaying with the weight. Goodbye, Mama.

  Megan stood in the doorway looking at the empty room that had been home for seven years. Shenanya had tried to help, but Marte had come and said that she'd see to things, and since she had kin-claim no one said anything when the feather tick and the pillows were sold, the table and what few clothes Ness had had. Megan had bundled a shirt of her father's and her mother's cloak into her own things, so they might not be sold off with all the rest. Marte took the knife and Ness's good platter. The room was stripped.

  "You obviously can't live here by yourself, or even at the Apprentice Hall," Marte had said firmly. "You'll have your place in my home." And that had been that. Marte had kin-right and was adult, her decisions final. Megan looked at the bare room that she'd swept out as carefully as if her mother had told her to, for the next tenant, and wondered if she were dreaming.

  She shook herself, hugging the bundle of her things to her chest. She'd hidden her best things at the Guildhall, and would stay there mostly, despite what Aunt said. Rilla had been learning without being apprenticed formally and Megan had kept up her own 'prentice fees. IH make a merchant that Mama and Papa'd be proud of. That set her tears off again as she closed the door behind her and set off down to the Dogleg, to Marte and Rilla's room. I'm never going to call that place home, even for Rilla's sake. It's not my home and never will be.

  Marte had insisted she turn out the bundle when she got there and picked over every piece with pinching, disapproving sniffs.

  "No wonder there was nothing left," she sniffed. "Too much spent on fancy things you'd just outgrow." Megan bit her lip, outraged. Her mother had embroidered the cuffs of their shirts when she'd had time. Marte lifted Lixand's old shirt and looked at Megan consideringly. Don't take it… Just don't take it.

  Marte sniffed again and swept everything together into Megan's arms. "Your bed's over that side. Don't know what you've been taught but you'll keep it clean." She nodded at a spot under the shelves, where a pallet lay. Megan swallowed. I know I'm dreaming now. A nightmare. Mama, I'd like to wake up now.

  Megan folded her clothes carefully, stacking them next the pillow of the strange bed that was now supposed to be hers.

  "Here, brat! I won't have you being too sullen, you'll give me more grey hairs than you've got." Marte tapped Megan on the side of the head where the white streak grew, sharp fingers almost too hard.

  "No, Aunt," Megan whispered.

  "Right then. I'm going out. Stay, or go, as you please but don't touch anything of mine."

  "No, Aunt." Megan had clenched her hands as Marte left, blowing out the candle, leaving only the kraumak that used to be Lixand and Ness's glowing in the dark.

  She'd run all the way up to the Nest and asked to speak to Serkai.

  "Megan." Serkai smiled at her as she met him at the gate.

  "Hi, Serk." Megan hadn't wanted to go out, but Marte's room had been worse. "Serk…" Megan looked into his smile, not knowing what to say, full of words that couldn't fight their way out of her somehow. He lost the grin and patted her shoulder.

  "Meg… look, it's cold out here. I could buy you a hot drink or something at the Cup."

  She gulped and tried to nod, but the tears came back and he pulled her close to let her cry, stepping back into one of the niches in the wall by the gate. She knotted one hand in his long hair that he wouldn't cut until he was a full guard, crying into his chest.

  "Sa… Megan. It'll be all right. It'll be all right. Cry. I don't mind. Here." He handed her his handkerchief. "My mama always said that if someone dies you cry for being left behind. Twice a day—once for you and once for diem."

  She snuggled close to him, feeling real for the first time since the funeral. Her life felt broken, like an iron wheel with three-quarters of the circle perfect but the fourth hammered flat, grinding on cobbles, pulling the rest of the wheel out of shape. The wind blew in on them, smelling of snow and smoke.

  "Serkai, I don't know what to do."

  He nodded, his chin nudging the top of her head. "Come on in. I'll sneak you in and we can talk. It's an emergency. Besides, most of the older apprentices are celebrating the end of testing."

  It wasn’t far, through two small courtyards and then into the squire's barracks. Once inside, at his motion, she pulled off her boots and carried them. He left his standing below his peg before they tiptoed in.

  They scuttled under an open window into the corridor, where Megan could hear the scratching of a quill and the rustle of paper. They turned the corner and leaned against the wall for a second, getting back the breaths they'd held too long, and Serkai winked at her.

  "That's the worst," he whispered in her ear. "Sergeant Tuqashevsky's easier to sneak by on the way out.' He led her to a small wallbed and hid her boots in a cupboard under it. In the distance she could hear balika music and stamping and it made her feel more alone.

  In the dark of the shut wallbed that almost smelled more of soap and leathersoap than Serkai, she cried herself out.

  "They're gone, Ma… Ma and Pa… Pa and I have to stay with h… er!" The straw mattress rustled as he shifted so her head was on his shoulder.

  "You'll be all right, Megan. I'm thirteen now, you're almost twelve, and that's only four years till you can marry me. I'll be a full guard, with a full guard's pay. I'll be assigned to guard some posh Zingas, or even the Zarizan's apartments—he'll be Woyvode by then—and we'll be fine."

  She shifted, sniffed, and wiped her nose. "You're right. It's not all horrible. I have you as a friend, and Gospozhyn. There's Varik, and I bet Shen and Dimi and everyone at the Flats won't stop being my friend, even if I do have to live with Aunt."

  "She's an asshole."

  Megan shivered, wanting to see Serkai's face. She'd never heard him that angry, that hard before. "She's… she's my kin," she said, though she agreed with him.

  His arm around her tightened. "Yeah, right. Sorry."

  They lay together in the warm, stuffy dark without saying anything for a long time. I'm never going to be able to talk to him about the Other Guild. He'd be duty bound to arrest me, she thought. Then Serkai touched her face, stroking, feather-light down her neck.

  "I love you. I want to marry you," he said.

  She tried to smile. "We're too young, Serkai. It sounds silly when you say you love me." She hesitated. "I guess I love you too, I think."

  "Do you want to make love?" he asked, his voice cracking in the dark. Megan nodded against his shoulder, and they squirmed out of the rest of their clothes, tangling trousers and shirtsleeves and long hair in the crowded space. "We have to be quiet, though," he whispered. "You aren't supposed to be here, and if we get caught my sergeant'll have the skin off my back and her tongue is almost as sharp as the whip."

  "Okay."

  Before, when they'd explored each other's bodies, it had been more giggly
, sillier. Now Megan touched him almost solemnly, hearing his sigh, feeling him tremble when she took hold of him. He was careful, holding her like she was breakable when he kissed her. They'd talked about him getting inside her, but decided that they were too young and she'd probably hurt too much.

  "Megan?" Yeah?

  "Do you like this?" He kissed her mouth, then her neck, then her navel and blew gently between her legs. She almost squealed, clapped a hand over her mouth.

  "Th… that's nice." She caught her tongue in her teeth as he kissed between her legs, which he'd never done before. This time, the sparks glowing up and down her back seemed to rise higher and higher toward her head, flow down her legs and to the ends of her fingers, as if all her hair could stand on end until she gasped and clutched his head close, wanting to cry out.

  like a sheet of lightning from his mouth she climaxed for the first time, and when tears came again after, it was because she felt so good. I shouldn't, I shouldn't… Mama and Papa are dead and I shouldn't… but I want to. She felt tired, floating and suddenly not like a child any longer, almost as old as the world and as if she knew everything. Then she cried for herself, slow tears flowing down her face that she wiped away, not saying anything to Serkai.

  "You taste funny," he teased, but she could feel him smiling against the skin of her thigh. When she pulled his hair he added, "But good!"

  He slid up to hold her, but she wiggled down and said, "Fair's fair. Do men like that, too?"

  She'd seen him climax before, when she put her hand on him. This time she kissed him there. He smelled strong and musky, groaned, and pulled her close, hands opening and closing as all his attention narrowed to what she was doing. She took him in her mouth and he came right then. He was salty and his member jumped against her tongue as she tasted him. He tastes warm.

  The next few weeks were quiet. Marte had pulled Megan out of all but the basic classes, unwilling to pay for anything extra and since, as she explained, the child had a home in-city, it made little sense that the full apprentice fee be levied. Master Yarishk had to agree and return part of the fee. That meant that Megan could no longer stay in the Apprentice Hall or be fed there, and Marte had come with her to clear out her box.

  "Aunt?" Megan asked as they walked down Chashiy Street.

  "What is it?" Marte sidestepped a crowd around a street juggler who was calling people to toss snowballs into the things he held spinning overhead with only physical skill, not using manrauq.

  "Wouldn't it have been cheaper for you to let me stay at the Hall, rather than at your house?"

  Marte grunted. "I make enough money. It's a form of charity we don't need."

  Megan looked down at the box she was carrying. It doesn't make sense to me. It's not charity at all. You just wanted the money.

  After that Tikhiy met her at the gate every day and they walked to first classes together. Gospozhyn Edischch, Tikhiy's great-master had, just this iron-cycle, started giving her the separate lessons Megan had already been learning from her Gospozhyn. Megan's friend was better at geography and plain bookkeeping, and they still teased each other about Serkai and Ivar.

  "Megan," Tikhiy said one morning, "do you think Ivar likes me?"

  "Yeah, why? You planning to ask him to lose his virginity with you?" Megan answered almost automatically, then looked at her friend. She hadn't asked in a joking tone.

  "Yes."

  Megan stopped right there on the steps and hugged her.

  "I'm so glad," she said in Tikhiy's ear. "He was asking and asking whether you liked him or Serkai!" Megan smiled, slowly, then more broadly. "Tikhiy's sweet on Ivar! Tikhiy's sweet on—mmph!"

  Tikhiy took her hand away. "You shut your mouth!" She settled her book and slate more firmly on her hip. "That's nice. Maybe we'll be a quad when we're old enough." She leaned sideways and giggled as Megan dug a finger under her ribs. "Ow! What was that for?"

  "For being a bayishha, arranging marriages at your age!" Megan laughed as Tikhiy just sniffed disdainfully. "I'll see you after my class with Yolculvik Varik."

  "Okay."

  That day was special, a type of warm glowing day that Megan had forgotten existed; a day when everything went right. It carried her through the silent dinner at Aunt Marte's, and the pallet almost felt like hers.

  Marte had been morose for the last few Hands and the housekeeping got bad, so Megan and Rilla tidied after their schooling. Rilla was getting the lessons that Megan was struggling to pay for, prigging—no, she thought, stealing. Gospozhyn said it wasn’t right to pretty up something by calling it something else. Call a goat a goat and not high quality mutton—stealing purses in the market, risking her hands every time.

  Rilla put the scrub brush down one day and said, "Megan you ought to stop paying for my lessons with the Other Guild and use the money for yourself. If you get promoted fast, then you can look out for me better."

  Megan put the broom down and, after thinking about it for a minute, said no.

  "It won't help you learn things you need to know now, when you're younger. And it won't make me a grownup and able to dictate for the family in the courts any faster—if Regent Mikail is ever going to open the courts to the people again—so you'd better learn all you can now."

  It was Rilla's turn to think as she aired out the cupboard under Marte's wallbed in the back room, Megan going back to sweeping around the table.

  "All right. I guess it makes sense." Outside there was a faint thump, a staggering step or two, then another thump. Rilla straightened abruptly, her mouth going tight as she turned to the door. "Meg, is there wine or beer in the house?"

  "No, but…" Megan stood still, broom in hand, as Rilla swore and dived for their gloves and coats by the door.

  "Here, if you can get out for a couple of hours, maybe the rest of the day… she's gone and gotten d—"

  BANG. Marte nit or fell against the door, groping at the latch. Megan turned startled eyes to Rilla, who understood what was going on.

  Marte fumbled the door open and stood there, swaying. "Hey brat! Or is it brats, now? Yeah. Two of you. Whatcha doin'?" Her tone was a mixture of innocent curiosity and anger. Rilla and Megan stood speechless as she staggered in a step and swigged out of a flask she carried in one hand.

  "Shit-it…'s empty," Marte said owlishly and dropped the jar, shattering it on the floor. "You, whore's brat! Cleanin' fer me are you? Not good enough, 'm I—"

  "I'm no—"

  "Shut UP!" Marte lunged for Megan, Rilla diving out of the way, under the table. Megan jumped sideways— no room—and was trapped by the wall and the broom she still held. Marte grabbed her by the ear and one arm, kicked over the pile of Megan's things in her way, and dragged her over to where the broken bits of jar lay on the curt floor. "Clean it up," she snarled, shaking Megan hard enough to rattle her teeth together, then flung her at the mess.

  Megan fell, holding onto the broom as if it could somehow protect her, sprawling over the clay pieces, felt one slice into her wrist, and cried out. This can't be happening. This can't be real. Nothing like this could happen to me. She's my aunt. She's kin… She rolled to one side, dropping the broom, trying to crawl backward toward the door, Marte not giving her a chance to get up.

  Megan saw her hand go back, the beginning of the swing, her head snapped back hitting the floor, the end of the full-armed slap a black-edged shattering in her head.

  "Clean it up! Clean it UP," Marte shouted through clenched teeth. "Not good enough… I'll show you, brat…"

  Marte's face was all Megan could see; familiar, inhuman. The flash of another slap, and another—whipping her head around, hair in her eyes, cold grit on hands, sharp pain in one leg. She kicked me, help me, someone, anyone. The last swing, a bunched fist, thundering down the dark.

  She woke up a moment later. Marte had left the door swinging open, letting in colder air and the smell of sour cabbage from down the hall. Rilla sat, holding Megan's head on her lap and all she could muzzily think was why?


  Why? And the answer. She hates me.

  "Megan? You okay? You'll be okay. She's not usually this bad." Rilla stroked Megan's hair out of her face, then helped her up to the pallet.

  "When…" Megan started to cry then, and Rilla held her.

  "When is she Wee this?" the younger girl asked. Megan nodded, throat closed by tears. "Whenever mam's hitting the sauce again, she gets like that. After one flask she gets ugly, and after two she gets too soused to aim properly. After three she passes out and it's all right, an avalanche couldn't wake her."

  Megan huddled on her pallet with the two blankets pulled around her, her face and head and leg hurting, holding onto Rilla. All she could think was, Oh. That makes sense. The bruises were coming up and her wrist stung where the cut had clotted. She sniffled, wiped her nose carefully on the blanket because her handkerchief was in the pile Marte had kicked over.

  "Is she going to be back?" Megan asked, dizzy, the idea frightening enough to make her sick.

  "It's okay, it's okay, Megan, she'll be too drunk to hit by then." Rilla grimaced. "And tomorrow she'll be sugary sorry and apologize all over you and be so nice you'll want to barf because you know she'll just do it again." She got up to close the creaking door.

  "Okay." Megan limped over to the water basin and washed her wrist and face, then came back to the pallet and started carefully folding her things together again. "Do you have room in your box for my things?"

  "Un-hunh, I think so," Rilla said, leaning over to help.

  "Thanks, Rilla." The cousins worked together in the quiet for a bit before Megan said, "We just have to make sure there's always two jugs of wine in the house."

  "Megan!" Rilla whispered urgently, from up over the apothecary's shop, stopping her cousin as she was about to turn into the Dogleg. "Don't go home yet. Can we stay at the Guild for a bit?"

  Megan peered up into the dark. At this corner the buildings' overhangs leaned close as foundations rotted, braced apart at the top by a couple of beams, cutting off what little moonlight might have found its way to the street. Rilla leaned out on the wooden bracers of the second floor, over the window full of jars of leeches and the chest with the thousands of tiny drawers. "Hsst, up here!"

 

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