The Crow God's Girl

by Patrice Sarath

  “Give me that!” Salt snapped. “Now.”

  I am so close to death. So close. Soldier’s god, give me strength. She summoned all her innocence.

  “Give you what?”

  “What’s in your hand! Guards! Take it from her!”

  There was a moment of confusion as different guards started to obey, but Lady Trieve shouted, “Hold!” She bustled forward. “No one touches her!”

  “It doesn’t belong to you! Give it here now!”

  “Tell me what it is, and I’ll gladly hand it over,” Kate said.

  “You little bitch, you are standing at death’s abyss. Give me the casing!” Silence dropped on the chamber. The lords turned to look at Salt.

  There was a confused silence.

  “Salt,” said old Lord Shay, his voice as vague as his expression, “How did you know what she had in her hand, if you didn’t know what was left behind?”

  Salt swelled with rage. He grabbed the dagger from his belt and threw himself at Kate. People screamed, and lords scattered. Kate fell back, putting her hands up to protect herself from his knife. He jabbed hard and she fended off the blade, blood coming from her hands, panic overwhelming her as Salt feinted, trying to slip past her desperate hands. She grabbed at the blade to stop him and it bit her deeply across the palms but it was so slick with blood that it slipped between her fingers. The steel kissed her ribs. Pain seared as red bloomed on her colorless clothes and Kate cried out. Salt pressed in and then abruptly stopped dead.

  She focused on Salt’s torso. The fine waistcoat with its carved buttons sprouted an unusual appendage, a red-streaked metal point. Then blood spread out along the tip, staining the fine dark cloth. He groaned and buckled. The knife was pulled from her ribcage, the pain so intense Kate began to lose consciousness.

  The last thing she saw was Salt crumpling to the stone floor, and behind him Colar, pulling free his bloody sword. They stared at each other until her vision darkened, and she fainted to the floor, her empty bloodied hand rolling open for all to see.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Ah dearie, you’re awake. Do you need to go?”

  The old lady who sat in a rocker watching her was friendly and kind, but she didn’t know about keeping anything clean. Kate’s hands were swathed in bloody, unchanged bandages. She had another bandage wrapped around her middle, under her plain linen shirt. It was no longer colorless, though brown bloodstains were no improvement.

  “Yes, please,” Kate said. The woman helped her draw down her trousers and pull them up again when she was done using the chamber pot. Kate had lost any modesty long ago, and nothing really mattered anymore.

  She wondered where Ossen and her brothers were. Safe, she hoped, and far away. Maybe they were near the river by now or had even crossed it. Even with Ossen injured and incapacitated, they could travel unseen and unharmed, stealing from smallholders, making their way north to Temia–or really, to wherever they wanted. Temia was her dream, not theirs.

  She wished she could have gone with them. She should have. What made her think she could change anything by returning to Council and denouncing Lord Salt? Hubris. Simple ego. And here she was, at the end of the line. Lord Terrick had brought her here, claiming her from Lady Trieve after the disastrous confrontation with Lord Salt.

  Light and air trickled in through the window over the bed, a tiny porthole under the slanted ceiling. The smells and sounds of town life wafted up to her, and she could see rooftops and part of Salt’s wall, but that was it. She was in the hands of Lord Terrick and the high god, the little old lady told her, but that was all she knew.

  The sound of voices and heavy footsteps made her look up.

  “Oh! Here is the lord himself, how good he is to see you,” the old woman said, and she bustled over to the door. It was locked from the outside and so she had to wait for the bar to be drawn back before she could open it and gesture the visitors in.

  There were three of them; Lord Terrick, Lady Trieve, and Captain Crae. The householder curtseyed and hastened out of the room.

  “Come,” Lord Terrick said in his brusque way. He looked haggard, but crisp and competent, and completely sure of himself. “We’re leaving.”

  “Not so fast, sir,” Lady Trieve said. “My claim supersedes yours.”

  “She is my foster daughter, Lady Trieve. She’s coming home.”

  “She is my pledge, Lord Terrick, and we are enemies. You have no rights to her.”

  Kate glanced from one to the other. Crae did the same, she noticed.

  “A sad pledge, who can do nothing for you here,” Lord Terrick said.

  “That’s my business.”

  “Lady Trieve, let me be blunt. Your allies have always been few and far between. You can’t afford to imprison the girl, no matter what sort of promise she made your House. You need her out there.”

  Kate’s heart leaped even as she advised herself caution.No doubt he would take her back to Terrick, and she would live out her life among the householders. She would be trading Lady Trieve’s vengeful prison for an intolerable sort of servitude. Lady Trieve hesitated. Lord Terrick pressed on.

  “She is better a free pawn than a prisoned queen, Lady Trieve,” he said. “Let her be a bargaining chip.”

  Lady Trieve got really angry. “A bargain? What do you propose, Lord Terrick? I give you the girl, and you promise not to invade my House? I’ll kill her first.”

  Kate bit back a squeak. She didn’t doubt it. Captain Crae moved restlessly, but he said nothing.

  “Give me the girl, and I will see to it that in the next Council, Terrick stands with Trieve, against Camrin and Salt. Or, I will side with them, and you will be where you were before, a small House, stretched too thin to defend its own. And this girl–” he jerked his head at Kate–“will be in your kitchens, scrubbing your floors, just when you could have used more allies.”

  “And what will you do with her?”

  “Bring her home. She is my foster daughter, wayward though she might be. She will be embraced by Terrick once again, and will be set upon her correct path.”

  Kate went very still. Terrick and Trieve still concentrated on each other, but she could feel the Captain’s gaze on her. She ducked her head and hugged her elbows, trying to look contrite.

  Trieve snorted with laughter. She gave Kate a sidelong glance. “If I were you, I’d take Trieve. Believe me, scrubbing my floors will be less scathing than returning a wayward daughter.”

  When Kate spoke, her voice was very soft. “I just want to make things right.”

  There was a silence in the little room. The captain spoke up first

  “My lady, I would much rather not have the girl in Trieve.”

  His wife looked at him, surprise in her expression. “Really?”

  “Too much trouble,” he said succinctly. “Let her father have her.”

  Trieve sighed. “Well,” she said. “And there is that.” She waved an abrupt dismissive hand. “Fine. Take her. I release you from your pledge, but you Terrick, I hold to yours. Leave off your attack on Favor and renounce your claim to my House.”

  Terrick made a deep bow.

  “Oh, thank–” Kate began, but Trieve interrupted her.

  “High god, girl, don’t speak. If you make another promise we’ll find ourselves back here, and I’m done.”

  “Good,” Terrick said in his gruff way. “Come with me.”

  They emerged at the door of a narrow little house on a crooked, shadowed street. There were two guards outside the door, and up the street could be seen a part of the great House that was Salt’s holding. To Kate’s surprise, Lord Terrick had come alone, with just two horses. He helped her into the saddle. She managed the reins with her fingertips, and she pushed her horse after his toward the main gate.

  It was a fine day. They rode the narrow streets until they got to the main thoroughfare, crowded with people and cart traffic. The gates were open since there was no danger. Council was over, the lords were all traveli
ng home, and the crows had been routed. No one gave them a second glance, though she got a few curious looks.

  Lord Terrick kept up his silence until they had ridden perhaps an hour outside the city, keeping the horses to a fast-moving walk. It felt good to be out in the open air and the sunshine. A breeze chased the clouds across the sky, and giant shadows scudded across the land, dipping into the valleys and over the hills to the northwest. That way lay the river, Red Gold Bridge, and Temia.

  Kate longed for it, beyond reason. She knew they would reach the crossroads and she would turn south toward Terrick. She kept looking northward. She had a sudden premonition of her longing eating away at her, until she would either run away from Terrick or waste away.

  What is happening to me?

  She had never felt this way, ever. Something had broken loose inside of her, maybe when she declared herself Lady Temia. Temia had become her House, and she hadn’t even noticed it until just now.

  Her whole being thrummed with her longing, so that when Lord Terrick pulled them up at the crossroads, she flushed, wondering if he could see in her face what she was experiencing.

  If he did, he didn’t mention it. Instead, his expression became more sour than ever. “You should know that I will be soundly scolded by Lady Beatra, when I tell her what I’ve done.” He reached back and unhooked one of the packs from his saddle, hooking it onto hers. Her horse shifted under the weight.

  He said, “You’ll be safe enough, I think, to travel on your own from here. There are good honest smallholdings between here and the river, and you can get lodging for each night until you reach the landing. I’ve given you money for crossing, and you have food and grain. It shouldn’t take you longer than five days to reach Temia.”

  He was giving her freedom. Tears pricked her eyes. She would never see Terrick again, and they were the closest thing she had to family... no, they were family. If she was Lady Temia, they were her foster family. She couldn’t pick and choose in this new life but had to accept it whole cloth.

  “Thank you, lord father,” she managed steadily.

  “Well,” he said, his voice gruff. “It was not the way it should have been, girl.”

  He wouldn’t apologize, she knew that, and a part of her stiffened at his stubbornness. But he had been a good father by his own lights and by the calculations of her new world, and all she felt at the moment was a deep sorrow that she had failed him. Was that another result of her strange new self? she wondered. No matter.

  She looked at him, trying to keep her voice from shaking and her tears from flowing. “I know that I have brought dishonor to Terrick,” she began, “but I promise you, lord father, that I will act honorably in your name. I was gifted with your fosterage, and I will not deny that to anyone.”

  “That will be repayment enough, child. Fare you well.”

  “Fare well, sir.”

  He clucked to his horse and reined him around. She watched him head south, and then pressed her heel to her horse’s side and turned him north. It was hard to see at first for the tears, but her horse trotted steadily toward home, and eventually her sadness lifted.

  The first night on the road was hard. As darkness fell, she felt less and less confident that she could safely knock on a householder’s door. She had been a crow too long for that, and yet not long enough to make herself comfortable on the crow’s road. Instead, she pushed the horse off the road and into the woods, trying to find a place to make camp. She ended up in a rocky clearing, sparse with underbrush. It would have to do.

  Kate made a small fire in a circle of rocks, the way the crows did it. She wasn’t near water so she used some from the rough canteen that Lord Terrick had given her, and soon had the kettle boiling. That would do for her vesh, as well as to wash with.

  While the water cooled, she fed the horse a handful of grain and sat down to peel off her bandages.

  She must have been unconscious when she was bandaged, and no one had cleaned her wounds, so with trepidation she picked away at the dirty cloths on her hands, unwinding them painfully. To her relief the cuts on her palms were bright red but healing. She flexed her fingers experimentally; it did not feel as if Salt’s attack had gone through tendon, though the wounds had the dull ache of a deep cut.

  The wound along her torso was more worrisome. If it had been a belly wound, she would have been dead long since, so she wasn’t worried about that, but infection was still a problem. It should have been sewed up. She probably could have done it; it wasn’t something you forgot how to do, and Talios had taught her well. But it was too late to do much good now. She took off her shirt, a little self-consciously, though there was no one about, and unwrapped the bandages around her ribs. One part of the bandage stuck, and she poured the cooled water on it, wincing at the pain.

  It was a long process to wash away the blood along the long deep cut. It hurt so much she had to stop and cry a few times, panting. It was full dark by the time the wound was as clean as she could get it, though it was oozing blood again. To the good, she thought. That would help keep it clean. She was grateful to put her shirt back on; she was shivering and the mosquitos were starting to come out.

  She spent most of the night boiling water, washing bandages with the bit of soap in the pack, and hanging them to dry by the fire. The work kept her absorbed and busy, but she still flinched at every noise, every cracked branch, that sounded in the woods around her. She hoped that predators were frightened more by her fire than they were attracted by the scent of blood or the temptations of herself and her horse.

  When she finally rolled herself into her bedroll, she was still too jumpy to fall into a deep sleep. She woke every few minutes, fearful and sad.

  How do they do this? She looked up at the bit of sky she could see between trees. How did her people live alone without others, on the road with no one to be with? The fire was a small, friendly presence beside her, but it could not comfort her completely. She missed Ossen and her brothers.

  She hated being alone with no one to rely on. But they hate it too, she thought with a sudden clarity. What one crow felt, they all felt. They could journey all over Aeritan, walking the crow road, and never be alone.

  Could she pray to the crow god for that connection? With all of her courage, she spoke out loud to the forest. “I don’t know if this is what you want,” she began. “I’m not sure it’s what I want. But if there’s a way to–to make me feel as if I am one of your people, it would be a comfort to me right now.”

  There was no sound, no difference in the shushing wind, or the crackling of her little fire. She could hear her horse breathing as usual, stamping a foot to shake a fly. The woods sounded just the same.

  Slowly drowsiness descended upon her, and with it came a warmth and calmness she hadn’t felt before. Kate’s tight muscles relaxed and her eyes fluttered. She finally let herself sleep, knowing that if anything came on the attack, she would know, because she was no longer alone.

  Two days later, Kate sat in the saddle and surveyed the river. Salt’s northern border was the southernmost outskirts of Gordath Wood, where the river ran through the ancient forest between high cliffs. There was a landing here. Three jetties thrust out into the river, and there were a few ramshackle buildings where chandlers, ropemakers, and sailmakers plied their crafts. There was one river boat, spidery oars at the ready, and Kate grinned when she saw it. Now how did Captain Varenn know exactly when she would be needed?

  She clucked to the horse and pushed him down the road toward the wharf, dismounting at the river’s edge.

  The captain recognized her too, grinning in reply.

  “There you are,” she said, as Kate led her horse up the rickety wharf to the River Lady’s mooring. “You’ve been causing trouble, I hear. The river towns have all been full of it. So–passage to Temia?”

  “If you can travel that far north,” Kate said. She cocked her head. “You sound as if you were expecting me, Captain.”

  “People talk and crows squawk,
crow girl. The River Lady knows a good landing place up to Temia–there’s an old port that used to bustle in the days of the King, they say. I’ll get you there. That old scarface already paid for your passage with a handful of pearls.”

  Kate led the horse on board, securing him with the rest of the livestock aft. The wind off the river freshened, bringing its scent of rotting wood and fish. The River Lady cast off, the deck crew coiled their ropes, and the rowers pushed away, the spidery oars soon falling into a rhythm. The boat surged as the wind caught the sails and the oars slid through the water, creating round puddles behind the swirling wake. Gulls flapped around them, crying lonesomely.

  Kate leaned along the rail, watching the dark brown water slip beneath the oars. The wind lifted the hair from her neck, and her anticipation heightened. Home. She was almost home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The River Lady glided up a narrow slough deep inside the forest. The river ran strong here, and the rowers bent to their oars, because the sails could no longer catch the wind. Gordath Wood closed out the sky overhead, except for a narrow sliver of blue and clouds. The water looked green in the twilight, brown in the shadows of the banks, knotted with roots and dark with rich soil. A splash caught Kate’s attention and she looked back to see a sleek otter dip into the water and swim off, a slight wake following its progress.

  After that the only sounds were the dip of the oars in the water, the creaking of the tholes, and the hiss of the water against the keel.

  “Oars up,” Captain Varenn said, her voice crisp and almost conversational. She didn’t have to shout. Her well-trained crew lifted their oars in unison, and the blades hung in the air, dripping silver water. On her own, the River Lady continued her forward motion, and then slowed, and drifted. “Starboard back two.” Two quick chops of the starboard oars, and the ship snugged next to the shore. Two lines snaked out and she was secure.

  Kate frowned. She hadn’t even seen the stone piers in the mass of green underbrush. But now she could see an entire complex. There was a stone jetty with steps going down to the water, and leading up into the wood. She could make out a building at the top of the stairs, its roof peeking through the overgrowth. Despite the evidence of civilization, the hair prickled at the nape of her neck. This landing hadn’t been occupied in years. Lots of years.