I moved to sit on the edge of the water trough, but the thick planking crumbled under my weight like a rotten stump. I let gravity pull me the rest of the way down and sat on the grass.
I held the rusted-through pump handle up for Denna to see. She frowned at it. “That pump was new. The father was bragging about how much it had cost to get a well set up here at the top of the hill. He kept saying that no daughter of his would have to carry buckets uphill three times a day.”
“What do you think happened here?” I asked. “Truthfully.”
She looked around, the bruise on her temple a sharp contrast against her pale skin. “I think when I’m done looking for my patron to be, I’m going to wash my hands of this place and never look back.”
“That’s not an answer,” I said. “What do you think happened?”
She looked at me for a long moment before responding. “Something bad. I’ve never seen a demon, and I don’t ever expect to. But I’ve never seen the King of Vint either… .”
“Do you know that children’s song?” Denna looked at me blankly, so I sang:
“When the hearthfire turns to blue,
What to do? What to do?
Run outside. Run and hide.
When your bright sword turns to rust?
Who to trust? Who to trust?
Stand alone. Standing stone.”
Denna grew paler as she realized what I was implying. She nodded and chanted the chorus softly to herself:
See a woman pale as snow?
Silent come and silent go.
What’s their plan? What’s their plan?
Chandrian. Chandrian.
Denna and I sat in the patchwork shade of the autumn trees, out of sight of the ruined farm. Chandrian. The Chandrian were really here. I was still trying to collect my thoughts when she spoke.
“Is this what you were expecting to find?” she asked.
“It’s what I was looking for,” I said. The Chandrian were here less than a day ago. “But I didn’t expect this. I mean, when you’re a child and you go digging for buried treasure, you don’t expect to find any. You go looking for dennerlings and faeries in the forest, but you don’t find them.” They’d killed my troupe, and they’d killed this wedding party. “Hell, I go looking for you in Imre all the time, but I don’t actually expect to find you… .” I trailed off, realizing that I was blathering.
Some of the tension bled out of Denna as she laughed. There was no mocking in it, only amusement. “So am I lost treasure or a faeling?”
“You’re both. Hidden, valuable, much sought and seldom found.” I looked up at her, my mind hardly attending to what was coming out of my mouth. “There’s much of the fae in you as well.” They are real. The Chandrian were real. “You’re never where I look for you, then you appear all unexpected. Like a rainbow.”
Over the last year I’d held a silent fear in my secret heart. I worried at times that the memory of my troupe’s death and the Chandrian had just been a strange sort of grief-dream my mind had created to help me deal with the loss of my entire world. But now I had something resembling proof. They were real. My memory was real. I wasn’t crazy.
“When I was I child I chased a rainbow for an hour one evening. Got lost in the woods. My parents were frantic. I thought I could catch up to it. I could see where it should touch the ground. That’s what you’re… .”
Denna touched my arm. I felt the sudden warmth of her hand through my shirt. I drew a deep breath and smelled the smell of her hair, warm with the sun, the smell of green grass and her clean sweat and her breath and apples. The wind sighed through the trees and lifted her hair so that it tickled my face.
Only when sudden silence filled the clearing did I realize that I’d been keeping up a steady stream of mindless chatter for several minutes. I flushed with embarrassment and looked around, suddenly remembering where I was.
“You were a little wild around the eyes there,” she said gently. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out of sorts before.”
I took another slow breath. “I’m out of sorts all the time,” I said. “I just don’t show it.”
“My point exactly.” She took a step back, her hand slowly sliding down the length of my arm until it fell away. “So what now?”
“I … I have no idea.” I looked around aimlessly.
“That doesn’t sound like you either,” she said.
“I’d like a drink of water,” I said, then gave a sheepish grin at how childish it sounded.
She grinned back at me. “That’s a good place to start,” she teased. “After that?”
“I’d like to know why the Chandrian attacked here.”
“What’s their plan, eh?” She looked serious. “There isn’t much middle ground with you, is there? All you want is a drink of water and the answer to a question that folk have been guessing at since … well, since forever.”
“What do you think happened here?” I asked. “Who do you think killed these folks?”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I don’t know,” she said. “It could have been all manner of …” She stopped, chewing on her lower lip. “No. That’s a lie,” she said at last. “It sounds strange to say, but I think it was them. It sounds like something out of a story, so I don’t want to believe it. But I do.” She looked at me nervously.
“That makes me feel better.” I stood up. “I thought I might be a little crazy.”
“You still might be,” she said. “I’m not a good touchstone to use for judging your sanity.”
“Do you feel crazy?”
She shook her head, a half smile curling the corner of her mouth. “No. How about you?”
“Not particularly.”
“That’s either good or bad, depending,” she said. “How do you propose we go about solving the mystery of the ages?”
“I need to think on it for a while,” I said. “In the meantime, let’s find your mysterious Master Ash. I’d love to ask him a few questions about what he saw back at the Mauthen farm.”
Denna nodded. “I was thinking I would head back to where he left me, behind that bluff, then look between there and the farm.” She shrugged. “It’s not much of a plan… .”
“It gives us a place to start,” I said. “If he came back and found you were gone, he might have left a trail that we could pick up.”
Denna led the way through the woods. It was warmer here. The trees kept the wind at bay but the sun could still peer through as many of the trees were nearly bare. Only the tall oaks were still holding all their leaves, like selfconscious old men.
As we walked, I tried to think of what reason the Chandrian could have had for killing these people. Was there any similarity between this wedding party and my troupe?
Someone’s parents have been singing the entirely wrong sort of songs… .
“What did you sing last night?” I asked. “For the wedding.”
“The usual,” Denna said, kicking through a pile of leaves. “Bright stuff. ‘Pennywhistle.’ ‘Come Wash in the River.’ ‘Copper Bottom Pot.’ ” She chuckled. “ ‘Aunt Emme’s Tub’ …”
“You didn’t,” I said, aghast. “At a wedding?”
“A drunk grandfather asked for it,” she shrugged as she made her way though a thick tangle of yellowing banerbyre. “There were a few raised eyebrows, but not many. They’re earthy folk around here.”
We walked a little longer in silence. The wind gusted in the high branches above us, but where we trudged along it was just a whisper. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard ‘Come Wash’ before… .”
“I’d have thought …” Denna looked over her shoulder at me. “Are you trying to trick me into singing for you?”
“Of course.”
She turned and smiled warmly at me, her hair falling into her face. “Maybe later. I’ll sing for my supper.” She led us around a tall outcrop of dark stone. It was chillier here, out of the sun. “I think he left me here,” she said, looking around uncertain
ly. “Everything looks different during the day.”
“Do you want to search the route back toward the farm, or circle out from here?”
“Circles,” she said. “But you’ll have to show me what I’m supposed to be looking for. I’m a city girl.”
I briefly showed her what little I knew of woodcraft. I showed her the sort of ground where a boot will leave a scuff or a print. I pointed out how the pile of leaves she had walked through were obviously disturbed, and how the branches of the banerbyre were broken and torn where she’d struggled through.
We stayed close together, as two pairs of eyes are better than one, and neither of us was eager to set off alone. We worked back and forth, making larger and larger arcs away from the bluff.
After five minutes I began to sense the futility of it. There was just too much forest. I could tell that Denna quickly came to the same conclusion. The storybook clues we hoped to find once again failed to show themselves. There were no torn scraps of cloth clinging to branches, no deep bootprints or abandoned campsites. We did find mushrooms, acorns, mosquitoes, and raccoon scat cleverly concealed by pine needles.
“Do you hear water?” Denna asked.
I nodded. “I could really do with a drink,” I said. “And a bit of a wash.”
We wandered wordlessly away from our search, neither one of us wanting to admit that we were eager to give it up, both of us feeling in our bones how pointless it was. We followed the sound of running water down the hill until we pushed through a thick stand of pine trees and came upon a lovely, deep stream about twenty feet across.
There was no scent of foundry runoff in this water, so we drank and I topped off my water bottle.
I knew the shape of stories. When a young couple comes to a river there is a definite shape to what will happen next. Denna would bathe on the other side of the nearby fir tree, out of sight on a sandy bit of shore. I would move off a discrete distance, out of sight, but within easy talking distance. Then … something would happen. She would slip and turn her ankle, or cut her foot on a sharp stone, and I’d be forced to rush over. And then …
But this was not a story of two young lovers meeting by the river. So I splashed some water on my face and changed into my clean shirt behind a tree. Denna dipped her head in the water to cool off. Her glistening hair was dark as ink until she wrung it out with her hands.
Then we sat on a stone, dandling our feet in the water and enjoying each other’s company as we rested. We shared an apple, passing it back and forth between bites, which is close to kissing, if you’ve never kissed before.
And, after some gentle goading, Denna sang for me. One verse of “Come Wash,” a verse I had never heard before, which I suspect she made up on the spot. I will not repeat it here, as she sang it to me, not to you. And since this is not the story of two young lovers meeting by the river, it has no particular place here, and I will keep it to myself.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Pegs
Not long after the apple was gone, Denna and I pulled our feet out of the water and gathered ourselves to leave. I considered leaving off my boots, as feet that can run bare over Tarbean’s rooftops are in no danger of being hurt by the roughest forest floor. But I didn’t want to appear uncivilized, so I pulled on my socks despite the fact that they were damp and clammy with sweat.
I was lacing up my boot when I heard a faint noise off in the forest, out of sight behind a stand of thick pine trees.
Quietly, I reached out to Denna, touched her shoulder lightly to get her attention, and held my finger to my lips.
What? She mouthed silently.
I moved closer, stepping carefully to make as little sound as possible. “I think I hear something,” I said, my head close to hers. “I’m going to go have a look.”
“Like hell you are,” she whispered, her face pale in the shadow of the pines. “That’s exactly what Ash said before he left last night. I’ll be damned if you’re going to disappear on me too.”
Before I could reply, I heard more movement through the trees. Brush rustling, the sharp snap of a dry pine branch. As the noises got louder, I could pick out the sound of something big breathing heavily. Then a low, animal grunt.
Not human. Not the Chandrian. My relief was short-lived as I heard another grunt and some snuffling. A wild boar, probably heading for the river.
“Get behind me,” I said to Denna. Most people don’t realize how dangerous wild boars are, especially in the fall, when the males are fighting for dominance. Sympathy wouldn’t be any good. I had no source, no link. I didn’t have so much as a stout stick. Would it be distracted by the few apples I had left?
The boar shouldered aside the low hanging boughs of the nearby pine, snuffling and huffing. It probably weighed twice as much as me. It gave a great guttural grunt as it looked up and saw us. It lifted its head, nose wriggling, trying to catch our scent.
“Don’t run or it’ll chase you,” I said softly, stepping slowly in front of Denna. At a loss for anything better, I brought out my folding knife and worked it open with my thumb. “Just back up and get into the river. They aren’t good swimmers.”
“I don’t think she’s dangerous,” Denna said in a normal tone behind me. “She looks more curious than angry.” She paused. “Not that I don’t appreciate your noble urges and all.”
At second glance I saw Denna was right. It was a sow, not a boar, and under a patina of mud it was the pink of a domestic pig, not the brown bristle of a wild one. Bored, it lowered its head and began to root around among the shrubbery below the pines.
Only then did I realize I was poised in a sort of half-crouch, one hand out like a wrestler. In the other hand I held my pitiful folding knife, so small it needed several runs at halving a good-sized apple. Worst of all I was only wearing one boot. I looked ridiculous: crazy as Elodin on his worst day.
My face flushed hot and I knew I must be red as a beet. “Merciful Tehlu, I feel like an idiot.”
“It’s rather flattering, actually,” Denna said. “With the exception of some rather irritating posturing in bars, I don’t know if I’ve ever had anyone actually leap to my defense before.”
“Yes of course.” I kept my eyes down as I tugged on my other sock and boot, too embarrassed to look her in the eye. “It’s every girl’s dream to be rescued from someone’s pet pig.”
“I’m serious.” I looked up and saw some gentle amusement in her face, but no mocking. “You looked … fierce. Like a wolf with all its hackles up,” she stopped, looking up at my head. “Or a fox, I suppose. You’re too red for a wolf.”
I relaxed a bit. A bristling fox is better than a deranged, half-shod idiot.
“You’re holding your knife wrong though,” she said matter-of-factly, nodding toward my hand. “If you actually stabbed anyone, your grip would slip and you’d cut your own thumb.” Reaching out, she took hold of my fingers and moved them slightly. “If you hold it like this, your thumb is safe. The down side is that you lose a lot of the mobility in your wrist.”
“Been in a lot of knife fights, have you?” I asked, bemused.
“Not as many as you might think,” she said with a sly smile. “It’s another page out of that worn book you men are so fond of using to court us.” She rolled her eyes, exasperated. “I can’t count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.”
“I’ve never seen you wearing a knife,” I pointed out. “Why is that?”
“Why would I wear a knife?” Denna asked. “I am a delicate blossom and all that. A woman who goes around wearing a knife is obviously looking for trouble.” She reached deep into her pocket and brought out a long, slender piece of metal, glittering all along one edge. “However a woman who carries a knife is ready for trouble. Generally speaking, it’s easier to appear harmless. It’s less trouble all around.”
Only the fact that she was so matter-of-fact kept me from being startled. Her knife wasn’t much larger than mine, but hers w
asn’t a folding knife. It was a straight piece of metal, with thin leather wrapping the grip. It clearly wasn’t designed for eating or performing odd jobs around the campfire. It looked more like one of the razor-sharp surgical knives from the Medica. “How do you keep that in your pocket without cutting yourself to shreds?” I asked.
Denna turned sideways so show me. “My pocket is slit all along the inside. It straps to my leg. That’s why it’s so flat. So you can’t see I’m wearing it.” She gripped the leather handle and held her knife in front of her for me to see. “Like this. You want to keep your thumb along the flat.”
“Are you trying to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it?” I asked.
“Like you have any virtue,” she laughed. “I’m trying to keep you from cutting up your pretty hands the next time you have to save a girl from a pig.” She cocked her head to the side. “Speaking of. Did you know that when you’re angry your eyes—”
“Loo pegs!” A voice came through the trees accompanied by the dull clank of a bell. “Peg peg peg …”
The great sow perked up and trotted back through the brush toward the sound of the voice. Denna took a moment to replace her knife while I picked up my travelsack. Following the pig through the trees, we spotted a man downstream with a half dozen large sows milling around him. There was an old bristling boar too, and a score of assorted piglets scampering underfoot.
The swineherd eyed us suspiciously. “Hulloo!” he shouted. “Dain’t be afeerd. Tae wain’t baet.”
He was lean and leathery from the sun, with a scraggling beard. His long stick had a crude bronze bell hanging from it, and he wore a tattered bag over one shoulder. He smelled better than you’d probably expect, as ranging pigs keep themselves cleaner than those kept penned. Even if he had smelled like a penned pig, I couldn’t really hold it against him, as I had no doubt smelled worse at various points in my life.
“Oi taut Oi heard sommat daen tae water aways,” he said, his accent so thick and oily you could almost taste it. My mother referred to it as a deep valley accent since you only found them in towns that didn’t have much contact with the outside world. Even in small rural towns like Trebon, folk didn’t have much of an accent these days. Living in Tarbean and Imre for so long, I hadn’t heard a dialect this thick in years. The fellow must have grown up in a truly remote location, probably tucked far back into the mountains.
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