by M. C. Elam
“Who she be, a raid survivor?”
“Aye, a raid survivor, the last of the healing line of Baline women. Tell Granny. She’ll know the import of it.”
“Need a hand, Captain?”
Melendarius placed a finger to his lips. “Tell only Granny Stone of me, lad.”
Marcus glanced over his shoulder. “Nay, clearing a bit of snow is all,”
“Thought we heard you speak, sir.”
“Grumbling at the cold be what you heard, lads.” He turned back in time to see Melendarius and the wolf disappear.
“What will they say of you, little one?” he whispered.
He gathered the child close and settled her against his chest. She relaxed there as though she belonged to him, and he drew his cloak around her.
He grabbed the pummel of the saddle, placed one foot in a stirrup and mounted. Baron sidestepped, compensating for the weight shift until Marcus sat firmly centered.
“Mayhap if I tell all I know when they ask, save the part about Melendarius, that might get the job done enough to satisfy me men. What think you little one?” He thought a minute. “You be alone in the world. That be true, tender, sweet and alone. Found on the mountain be the true way of it. Anything else the men be supposing on their own. I’ll no mention the wolf though, aye?” He patted her back.
He’d not tell that part. After all, how in the name of mother church could he explain it? If he spoke true and told how he found the wee lassie clutching the wolf’s side and whimpering in the icy wind on a mountain cliff, the men would think him daft. Poor old Marcus, gone over he has, they’d say. He felt the child move against his chest. Heed Melendarius then. He found her on the trail. A puzzlement true enough by any account, but he couldn’t help wondering what part the wolf played. The old man might have passed him a wee clue on that account. Best put it out of his mind and get on toward the Widening. He leaned slightly forward in the saddle, and clicked his tongue urging Baron along.
An hour later, they prepared a camp on the small plateau known as The Widening. They saw to the horses and settled a feedbag around the head of each with a goodly munch of oats to reward them for a safe ride. Marcus built a fire from scraggly pieces of scrub foraged along the way. When the tinder struck a spark and the kindling blazed, he placed on larger, chunkier pieces of wood, set a tripod over the flame and hung a pot to boil with a fist or two of wild rice and a few chunks of salt pork. The bread in his pack would do for sops. They melted snow in watertight skins and one by one, each horse drank its fill.
“Make speed, fellows. The wood be naught but spindly scrub so high up. We’ll no have a fire long this night.”
Each man added a bit to the cooking pot, some onions, winter peas, carrots and a potato or two. Soon it bubbled away. Though simple enough fare, the aroma teased them, and pressing chores completed, the men drew near waiting for the stew to be ready.
“Eh, me innards call out for a tankard or two to go along with the stew.”
“Your innards be pickled in the tankards down your gullet since the moon called forth the harvest,” said Clayton.
“Me thinks you no be the one to speak of pickled innards.” Beamus Rutledge raked a hand through his thick black beard and scratched his chin.
Marcus listened to the good-natured banter between the men, restful now that their attention focused on food and drink instead of trail dangers. He was right about them. Not a single soul questioned the uncertain bulge evident beneath his cloak. None presumed to intrude upon his privacy by asking what he concealed. By the time they settled around the fire and scooped out portions of the meager stew, Marcus knew what to say. He filled his own bowl and broke off a chunk of the loaf before passing the bread to one of the men. He opened his cloak, and the little girl stirred. He offered her a bit of bread soaked in the rich juice of the stew. She opened her mouth and ate it as hungrily as a puppy.
“See the waif I found on the trail?” Marcus said. “She be hungry, poor babe.”
“Aye, Captain. Not much more than three seasons I’d reckon from her size,” said Klea. A first lieutenant and Marcus’s best friend, Klea spoke for the men.
“Not much more.”
“Another left to the wilds by the raiders, do you think, Captain?” Klea asked.
“I suspect she be a child of Baline, Klea. Sure, I am you’re right on the matter. Owlmen must have left her. Pure wonder she survived.”
“Mayhap, Captain, seems right to me.” Klea knew there was more. The attack on Baline happened nigh on a month past. How could a child so young survive all that time alone on the mountain? Why, at their current elevation snow covered the trail year round. No way to live this high without the true heart of a hermit and hide thick enough to keep out the cold.
“Aye, mayhap. I don’t know, lad. But alone she be and I scooped her up.”
“What will you do with the wee tad of a thing, Captain?” Beamus asked.
Marcus shrugged and wiped a stream of threadlike drool from his mouth. His lips, raw from the cold, stung and burned.
“She’ll be needing a place sure. A might easier if she be a lad. Every man can use another son. But a lass?” he sighed. “Well, I reckon me and Gram can tend her.”
“Mayhap Granny Stone be up for taking her to raise?” said Klea.
“Mayhap.”
He had covered the ground necessary, no mention specifically about where he found the child and no mention at all of Melendarius and the wolf. Those two facts removed would make easy her path into Ascalla. He’d mention finding a wee lass in his report, and if King Ian be needing more on it, he’d tell as how Granny Stone took her to raise.
Just outside the ring of light from the fire, Melendarius and the wolf watched the men make camp. He saw Marcus turn and peer into the shadows where they stood. A sensitive sure, he thought. Granny Stone recognized it all those years past when he had brought the boy to her. The crystal at the tip of his staff began to glow and a haze of blue light encircled them. Klea caught a glimpse of them for a second, blinked and peered into the darkness.
“Captain, did you see a man standing yonder?”
Marcus looked in the direction he pointed. “Bit of haze be all I make out, Klea.”
“Aye, bit of haze.”
Funny about the wind, Marcus thought later before sleep took him. Slowing like that, just long enough for him to hear the babe and claim her from the cliff. He wouldn’t even wonder about it except that the whole day its bitter fury ravaged them, near to gale force toward the last. Then, nice as you please, it eased save for the whispers that told him to look up. Melendarius, he thought, had to be his doing.
He wondered about Gram again and her superstitions. What might she say of the lass when he took her home? Even when he named Melendarius in the mix, she’d have words on the matter. A story never failed her tongue in all the years since she claimed him as her own and raised him to manhood. His eyebrows shot up in surprise that he had settled his mind on making the lass a home. He’d see her safe from a life of drudgery. The healing line, he thought. Shadow people had a way with healing. Gram said as how they be born to it. Mayhap she be one of them. King Ian, now there be a kindly man. Fond of children he was, and Marcus knew if he claimed the little girl, the king would but nod his head to the matter, and sign a paper handing her into his care.
“Humph.”
“What’s that,” Klea mumbled half-asleep. He sat close to the waning fire, wrapped in his cloak, a dark lump silhouetted against the glowing embers. He turned his head toward Marcus. “Sorry, Captain. I did not hear you.”
“Nothing, lad. Find your sleep. I was only thinking of how the wind died away just in time for me to find her.”
“Oh, aye, strange that for sure, Captain.” He pulled the cloak tighter and drifted once more.
Deep-bellied snores mixed with occasional grunts ringed the fire. Marcus gazed at a sky clear as glass. The sun would burn bright at dawn, and they’d turn the horses toward home. The little girl snug
gled closer, burrowing beneath his heavy cloak and into the vast realm of his heart.
4 - The Missing List
Marcus raised a surprised eyebrow when he spied Horace Runderly gulping ale in Levon’s Tavern, especially after he had double-checked the missing list with Father Wryth a few days after the last patrol. He had nodded his head to each name as the priest read them off, and Runderly’s name appeared midway through. Horace, Annabelle and their boys spirited off by Owlmen as far as anyone knew. So, the sight of Horace guzzling a pint in the tavern, his cheeks all redded up from the brew and a calloused hand squeezing the rump of a pretty wench, set Marcus back a step or two. He could see that the man was far gone with drink and the wench set on lifting a bit of coin from his pouch.
“Horace,” he called across the smoky room. Horace didn’t hear him and no wonder. The din of laughter, animated conversations and occasional arguments, did a fair job muffling even his deep-throated bellow.
Levon’s, packed with men taking a bit of ease at day’s end, was a popular spot in Falmora. Snow, mingled with the bits of mud dropped from their boots, had mixed with the rushes strewn across the wide plank floor and turned it into a slippery mess. Mistress Levon kept the windows shut tight, and with blocks of smoldering peat piled high on the hearth, the place fairly steamed. He’d be glad for the fresh outdoors despite the cold.
The kitchen door swung wide, and Marcus glimpsed a staff of three younger Levons, girls save one, a stout little lad who turned a spitted haunch of venison over the fire. The girls bustled to and fro intent upon their chores. Klea Levon perched on a stool in one corner. His long legs stuck out at absurd angles that made him look like a toady-frog set to leap. He concentrated upon the bowl of a large pipe into which he fingered a plump wad of tobacco that he tamped-down with his thumb. A sweaty sheen set his face glowing, and Marcus figured the satisfied expression on his mug meant a full belly. Klea saw him and waved. He hoisted his arse off the stool and headed toward the taproom with no regard for the reason the door stood open in the first place.
“Awk, you clumsy puppy. Nearly made me spill the stew.”
Admonished by his mother, Klea cleared the way. A trace of a smile raised the corners of his mouth, and he shrugged a sign to Marcus that he’d be along directly. Mistress Levon stepped through the doorway lugging a huge kettle. She set it near the hearth, and retrieved a long rod that leaned against one wall. The curved end resembled a shepherd’s hook but only half as large. She looped it over the pothook inside the hearth, pulled it forward, hung the kettle and pushed the whole apparatus back into position above the fire. The chore complete, she surveyed the room, caught sight of Marcus and nodded.
Once he knew he had her eye, Marcus tipped his head toward Horace and the girl. She followed his gaze. A disgusted expression stiffened her chin. She wiped her hands on her apron, strode across the taproom, grabbed the girl by the hair and gave it a yank. Everyone in the place heard the girl’s squeal above the normal din. It echoed from wall to wall and sounded like a chicken having its neck wrung in preparation for the pot.
“I’ll have none of that in me place you trollop. Get your things and be off before I take a clever to you.” The girl stumbled and fell; half crawled across the floor in the muck and mud before she pulled herself upright and ran. Mistress Levon turned back to Horace. “And you, you drunken fool, do you no have respect for the wife you left sleeping upstairs above your head. You’ll not have another drop here this night.” Her hand struck quick as a snake and the contents of the full tankard Horace held rushed over the table into his lap.
Marcus touched her shoulder. “Klea and me need a word with Horace before he finds his way upstairs. What say we save a tad for Annabelle to scold?” Klea had managed the journey across the taproom without mishap and stood beside him.
“Aye, Marcus. Have at him, then.” She faced the nearly silent room. “If they be another one of you keen on something more than a tankard, a meal, and a bit of song, I’d ask you to find your way from my door, and take your pleasure at yonder brothel.” When no one answered, she mumbled under her breath, passed by Marcus, gave Klea a motherly pat on the rump that turned his cheeks even redder, and disappeared behind the kitchen door. Klea looked after her wondering how she could reduce him to a wee lad just by the way she looked at him.
“Spect your mam be in need of a new servin’ wench,” said Marcus.
“Nay, Captain. Mam’s some hard on the lassies. That one’ll have to do a good deal a beggin' afore she gives in and takes her back.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow and gestured toward the kitchen. “Think you she will?”
“Oh, aye. Sure of it in fact. The lass be beggarly poor, a whoring to live. Mam be set on saving her.” He grinned wide, showing a mouth shy a few teeth.
“Good woman, your mam.” He eyed Horace Runderly and changed the subject. “Horace and Annabelle be on the missing list.”
“Aye. They come two days past. Annabelle’s kin took sick a week afore the raid, and Horace went with her to tend them. They be nary one in Baline when the Owlmen come down on the place. Leastways that be what Annabelle told Mam.”
“Lads, too?”
“Nay the lads. They stayed behind to Baline gatherin’ the rest of the crops.” Wrinkles formed across his forehead, the satisfied expression from earlier lost in talk of the raid.
“Aye, least we dinna find them dead.” Marcus swiped one hand slowly across his face, adjusted the linen mask and wondered if death might not be preferable to what awaited the boys in Lawrenzia. “Not a wonder though that Horace be strong into drink. Lost his first born that way too.”
“Three sons and all of them took.” Klea shook his head. “Think you King Ian be moving on Lawrenzia this time?”
“Can’t say. He’s no called for me since the last patrol.” In truth, Marcus didn’t know if Ian Hawkins planned a retaliatory attack at all. A march into Lawrenzia meant organizing a large force, far larger than anything Ascalla possessed even allied with wee Andors to the west. He had heard rumors that the king had friends far south along the seacoast, but rumor made a weak army. Even if the king staged an assault, launching any kind of attack couldn’t happen in winter. Well, matters to hand, matters to hand, he thought.
“Best we get Horace on his feet. See does he know the wee frozen laddie Father Wryth’s holdin’ in the cellar under the apse. The good Father’ll be glad enough at three more off his list,” Marcus said.
“Mayhap we walk him by to your place when the Father be done. See does he know the wee lass.”
Marcus winced but the linen mask concealed his expression enough that Klea failed to notice any change. Instead of answering, he turned his attention to the man sitting at the table, remnants of a tankard of ale dripping from his lap.
Horace Runderly had a rolling eye, not that it really rolled about, but it did sit at an odd angle in the socket. If he looked left, the eye followed exactly the way it should, but when he glanced right, the eye shifted upward and stayed there, giving him the comical look of a greeny lizard hunting bugs. Now, utterly drunk, his eye stuck in one position no matter which way he looked. If Marcus, who never poked fun at a man’s infirmities, had a sharp urge to laugh, it stood to reason that letting him linger much longer might draw guffaws from anyone that happened to notice his buggy expression.
“Let’s get him clear a here, Klea, afore we be obliged to take on half the tavern over that eye. Seen Horace riled for less.”
Horace had lost a fair bit of the coin Annabelle gave him matching pennies with the lass, and he didn’t have enough left to pay his tap bill let alone order another tankard. Just as well, Marcus supposed, since he needed to sober the man for straight talk, and another draught of ale would make his job that much harder. With Klea on one side, and Marcus on the other, they heaved him out of his chair and walked him toward the entrance. His legs flailed about as slippery as eels with none of the muscle, and his boots dragged toe first through the muddy reeds on the flo
or.
“Got a might a coin to settle on Mistress Levon,” Horace’s slurred speech came through amid a few explosions of gas as he struggled against the arms that held him. “Constable be along to lock me away, I don’t pay.”
“Aw, Horace,” said Klea. “Ma’ll settle up with you when you be not so far gone in drink.”
Knowledge that none bore intentions of his arrest worked, and they managed to get him moving toward the door. Behind a long wall constructed to keep winter winds clear of the main room where the patrons lounged, the tavern’s double-door entrance opened into the street. Here, a boot rail ran the full length of the entryway. Marcus noted that given the weather and the number of men inside, the clumps of mud under the boot rail seemed surprisingly lacking. Evidence he supposed that men intent upon drink didn’t take time to clean their feet. He’d often dismissed the amenity himself.
Once outside, cold air hit Horace like a bucket of water over the head. He made a couple of gasps, grabbed his stomach and emptied its contents amid farts of protest from the other end.
“Ye, gods, Horace,” Klea yelped and dodged the rancid spew. He clapped one hand over his nose while the other gesticulated in a mad attempt to shoo away the odor. “Bit of a waste droppin’ that ale don’t you think?”
Horace started to topple. They each grabbed an arm, walked him a few steps from the mess and propped him against the building.
“Aye, friend. Don’t know what’s got into me.”
“More what’s comin’ out, I’d say.” Klea’s foggy laugh resonated in the crisp air.
“The lass and all. Annabelle hears ‘bout that, it’ll be my hide sure.” He lowered his head. “‘Tis a shameful disgrace I be.”
“You had a wee spell is all. Losing the lads be to the heart of it. Annabelle’s right to cuff you a time or two, but she’s a solid lass. She’ll know to forgive,” said Marcus.