“Jeph Bales, you get back on this porch!” Selia snapped.
“You may be Town Speaker, but this is my borough and my property, Selia.” Jeph never took his eyes off Garric. “Thank you to keep out of this.”
Jeorje thumped his cane. “Men have a right to satisfaction.” The words were neutral so that whatever the outcome, Jeorje could support it as his own—or the Creator’s—judgment.
Jeph kept a firm stride, but Garric, taller and heavier, stood his ground. “Say that again,” Jeph growled when they were nose to nose.
Garric shrank back at the words, but Selia could see him dropping his shoulder and setting his feet.
She tensed, ready to cry out or leap from the porch, but something in Jeph’s posture stayed her. Her father used to teach boxing to the children in Town Square, and Jeph seemed to remember his lessons. When Garric swung his roundhouse punch, Jeph caught the blow on his curled left arm and then jabbed, stunning the Fisher while a right cross crumpled his nose.
Garric stumbled back but kept his feet. He might have remained in the fight, but Jeph stayed on the attack, stepping in and adding hooks to Garric’s body that folded him over and blasted the wind from his lungs. Garric lunged forward, wrapping his meaty arms around Jeph and attempting to twist him to the ground, but Jeph planted his left foot, stopping them cold, and used Garric’s hold against him, keeping the Fisher in place to take Jeph’s right knee to the chest.
Jeph shoved Garric back and heel-kicked him into the crowd of Fishers surrounding their fighting space. He kept his fists up, but Garric was either unable or unwilling to rise. Jeorje, no doubt hoping for a very different outcome, gave a slight shake of his head.
Coline Trigg ran from the porch, shoving past him to tend to Garric. His broken nose was bleeding freely and had already begun to swell.
“Core’s gotten into you, Jeph Bales?” Coline shrieked. “So ashamed of your cowardice you need to act like a demon?”
“Ent a coreling, but I’m through bein’ a coward.” Jeph raised a finger at Coline. “And you ent got a right to talk down. Known your gatherin’ half as well as you claim, my Silvy would’ve lived and none of this happened.”
“That ent fair,” Coline said.
“Ay,” Jeph said loudly. “Life ent fair sometimes. Wern’t fair to my family, or to Cobie Fisher. Ent been fair to the Tanner girls—but that ends tonight. Any that don’t like it can get off my property.”
“Sayin’ your son’s the Deliverer?” Raddock moved to stand over Coline and Garric, keeping the crowd’s eyes on his injured kin. “Left Fishing Hole behind on purpose?”
“No one’s sayin’ anything of the sort,” Selia cut in. “Fishers left yourselves behind when you set a girl out to be cored without so much as letting her say her piece. Ent too late to see that and go back to the ways things used to be.”
Raddock glared at her. “Ent the first time folk’ve been divided over a girl gettin’ cored, is it, Speaker?”
Selia stiffened at the words.
“Yet here you are, right in the middle of it again.” Raddock glanced at Selia’s militia. “Wonder whose life you’ll ruin this time?”
Selia clenched a fist, and it was all she could do not to wade in and pummel the old man much as Jeph had Garric. Her militia, too young to know what Raddock was talking about, looked at each other in confusion, but Selia wasn’t fooled. Raddock hadn’t been looking at all the fighters—just the women.
“Ask your elders!” Raddock shouted as Garric was put on a stretcher and the Fishers took their leave.
Jeorje threw Selia a look that was part disgust and partly a deeper hatred. She readied herself, but he said nothing, brushing past her to lead the Watches and Marshes down the road after the Fishers.
Others lingered on Jeph’s property, but they kept their distance as the remaining Speakers gathered.
Meada laid a hand on Selia’s arm. “Wern’t your fault, Selia, no matter what Lawry says.”
“What’d he mean, Ask your elders?” Jeph said.
Selia sighed. “You ent the only coward with a secret, Jeph Bales. They ever talk about the Square Girls’ Club in the schoolyard when you were a boy?”
Jeph blushed. “Ay, but what’s that got to—”
“I was the one started it.”
2
The Square Girls’ Club
284 ar
The sun had chased the demons away, but it was still dark in the shadows under the picnic awning behind the schoolhouse. Selia pressed Deardra Fisher against the wall, kissing her hungrily.
Deardra, more than willing, gripped Selia’s hair, threatening to pull the pins free. Selia’s heart beat like the feet of schoolchildren at afternoon bell. These stolen moments were what she lived for. Her hand slid down Deardra’s back, gripping her bottom through her skirts and pulling her even closer.
“We—” Deardra gasped between kisses. “We need to calm down. Bell’s going to ring any moment, and Raddock will come looking if we’re not there.”
“Let him look,” Selia said.
Deardra put her hands on Selia’s breasts. Selia tried to lean in, but Deardra pushed her back instead. “Fine sight that would be, his sister out behind the school kissing his promised.”
Selia crossed her arms. “Raddock and I ent promised.”
“Good as,” Deardra said. “Da’s going to ask Edwar any day now.”
Selia felt a talon in her gut, like a demon trying to claw its way free. “Don’t want to marry Raddock.”
“Creator, why not?” Deardra asked. “He’s sure to be Speaker for Fishing Hole when Da retires. Ent a man in the Brook with better prospects.”
“Got prospects of my own.” Selia smiled, leaning back in for another kiss. “Don’t need a man. Got Deardra Fisher.”
Deardra pulled away. “Night, Selia. Square Girls’ Club is fun, but it’s just till we find husbands. Ent got but two members anyway.”
Selia gave a tight smile, trying to hide how the words stung.
Deardra reached out, stroking Selia’s arm. “Din’t mean—”
Her words broke off as both girls started from the sound of the great bell atop the schoolhouse.
There was a sound of scrabbling feet on the gravel of the yard—young Harl Tanner running barefoot past them and into the school.
Deardra’s eyes went wide. “You don’t think . . .”
“What’s it matter?” Selia pulled free of Deardra’s grasp and smoothed her dress. “Just fun till we find husbands, ay?”
“Creator, Selia,” Deardra snapped. “You know what—”
“Harl Tanner ent been on time for school a day in his life.” Selia turned to head for the door. “Ent no way he got here early enough to peep on us.”
Raddock was waiting at the steps when they turned the corner. “Where have you two been? Schoolmam’s waiting.” A cacophony of children filled the great classroom.
“Just checking the wards.” Selia could not keep a snip from her tone at his assumption it was any of his business what she did with her time. He was only a few summers older than her, and they weren’t promised, whatever the Fishers might think.
Selia’s mother Lory was waiting by the front desk with fifteen-year-old Meada Boggin and a young woman so beautiful Selia’s breath caught. Deardra glanced at her, noticing the look with a frown. In a town as small as Tibbet’s Brook it was rare to meet someone for the first time, but the woman was in the conservative black skirts and high-necked white blouse and bonnet of Southwatch. They had their own school and Holy House in Southwatch, and some folk went their whole lives without visiting Town Square apart from Solstice festivals.
“About time,” Lory said. “Full house today. Asked Meada to throw in with the younger students.”
It was Sixthday—market day—and harvest season. The schoolhouse was packed this time of year while parents went to the square to shop. For many children in Tibbet’s Brook, market day was their only schooling each week, and Selia’s mother wo
rked hard to make it count. Most children learned warding at home, but few had letters, or maths past counting livestock.
“This is Anjy Watch.” Lory gestured to the young woman. “She’ll be staying in the room upstairs for a few seasons, helping teach the Watches who come for market day. Selia, will you show her—”
“Of course,” Selia blurted.
“Wonder what’s wrong with her,” Deardra snipped, “watches want to be rid of her for a few seasons?”
“Looking for a husband,” Raddock guessed. “Watches send the pretty ones sometimes, when they want to hook strong young backs to add to their numbers.”
“Ent that pretty,” Deardra muttered.
Lory rapped her straightstick on the desk, and the din of children quieted. “Everyone fetch your slates.”
There was chaos as dozens of dirty children, many of them barefoot, bustled around the slate piles and fetched chalk from the dusty bin, streaking dirty coveralls and skirts with the white powder.
The students in from Southwatch were the exception. Their white shirts and blouses were clean and bright, boots and shoes polished to shine. There were no patches or holes in their charcoal-gray pants and skirts. Each had their own slate, chalk held ready without a sign of it on their clothes.
The Watches sat quietly in neat rows, eyes on the schoolmam, and Lory rose to the occasion, teaching advanced reading and mathematics to the older students while Selia and the other teaching assistants broke the rest into groups for more remedial lessons.
Anjy took the younger Watch children. Selia watched a bit longer than was proper, pulling her eyes away and turning back to her group hoping no one noticed. “You have one hundred and fifty cattle.”
“Ent got half that many,” Mack Pasture said.
“Figuratively,” Selia explained patiently. “Imagine you have one hundred and fifty cattle.”
Mack closed his eyes, brow knotting as he struggled to envision such wealth. He began to smile. “All right.”
Selia fought the urge to roll her eyes. “You sell ten percent of them. How many do you have left?”
The smile left Mack’s face. He opened one eye, as if reluctant to let his imagined cattle go. “One hundred . . . forty?”
“One thirty-five, idjit.” Harl Tanner spat.
“That’s enough out of you, Harl Tanner!” Selia snapped. “What did I tell you would happen, you spat on the schoolhouse floor again?”
Harl’s face went deathly pale. “Ay, please. Don’t tell my da. It’ll be the outhouse for sure!”
Selia didn’t know the term, but she could guess its meaning well enough. Young Harl was more apt to instill fear than feel it. If he was afraid of his father, there was good reason. “Then that floor had best be scrubbed clean.”
Harl was on his knees with a bucket and brush when Lory rang the bell and the other children spilled out into the yard.
Raddock and the other teaching assistants came to stand by Selia as the children filed past. “You should tell his father anyway.”
Selia thrust her chin Harl’s way. “Why, when the threat of it is enough to pull the wood?”
“Da says lessons don’t set in without a trip to the woodshed,” Raddock said.
“Tanners call it the outhouse,” Selia said.
“Whatever they call it, Tanner needs a whupping.” Raddock said the words loud enough for Harl to hear, and the boy looked up.
The brush fell into the bucket with a splash as Harl got to his feet, advancing on Raddock. “What’s that, Fisher? Reckon I din’t hear it right.”
Raddock had twenty-two summers to Harl’s thirteen, but he shrank back at the dead stare Tanner leveled his way. It was only when he noticed Selia watching that Raddock steeled himself and took a step forward. “Said your father’s going to hear about this.”
Harl laughed. “That I spat on the floor? Ent nothin’ compared to what he’ll do he hears I let a stinkin’ Fisher talk down to me.”
Raddock stuck a finger in Harl’s face. “Listen here, you little—”
He screamed as Harl grabbed the finger and yanked it aside, fist flicking out to crack against the older boy’s eye socket. As Raddock stumbled back, Harl bared his teeth and leapt on him, taking them both to the floor.
“Enough!” There was an audible crack as Lory’s straightstick whipped across Harl’s shoulders. The boy screamed and Selia tensed, ready to interpose herself as he turned that feral gaze toward her mother.
Lory was uncowed. Again the straightstick fell, and Harl hopped off Raddock with a yelp. “Out of my schoolhouse, Harl Tanner, and don’t you expect to be let back in until your mother comes to see me!” The stick cracked against his backside. Harl scurried past the exiting students and out the door, laughter at his back.
“Night, I think he broke my finger,” Raddock moaned.
“Serves you right,” Lory snapped. “Selia had Harl in hand until you saw fit to make yourself the law.”
“Ay, mam. Sorry, mam.” Raddock cradled his right hand in his left. The index finger did indeed look crooked.
“Let me have a look.” Lory took a firm hold of the hand, examining. “Dislocated, not broken. Take it to Sallie Trigg and she’ll give you something to bite on while she sets it right.”
“I’ll drown that little piece of demonshit,” Raddock growled as they followed the children out the door.
“Wouldn’t bet on it.” Deardra nodded to Harl, who had joined the boys and the handful of girls who clustered in the yard for Edwar’s weekly boxing lesson. “Harl’s learning to break noses while you bury yours in books.”
“Your mother kicked him out,” Raddock complained. “That should mean boxing, too. Tell the Speaker—”
“If Father needs to be told, Mother will do it,” Selia said. “See what happens if you take it on yourself to do it for her.”
“It’ll be the outhouse.” Deardra laughed. Raddock glared at his sister, air hissing through his broad nostrils.
“Grandfather would strip that boy’s hide off for fighting in the classroom,” Anjy said.
“Grandfather?” Selia asked. Anjy pointed to Jeorje Watch, standing with Selia’s father and Tender Stewert while the children assembled for the lesson. Edwar beckoned them over.
“I don’t know why you insist on teaching this barbaric sport to children,” Tender Stewert was saying. He was slender in his plain brown robes, a city-trained Tender come to the Brook to spread the Creator’s word.
“Ent a sport, Tender.” Jeorje was tall and stood straight as a post, looking down to meet the Tender’s eyes. “Man needs to know how to defend himself. Creator defends best those who keep a spear at the ready.” Jeorje was the shady side of sixty, his trim black beard streaked with gray, matching the stark contrast of his black and white suit.
“Defend against who?” Stewert broke eye contact, looking instead to the sky. “In time of Plague, all men must be as one.”
“Ay,” Jeorje agreed, “by ridding ourselves of the sinners that brought it about.” He pointed with his cane at a small group of female students. “It’s teachin’ girls that ent Canon.”
“I teach whoever wants to learn.” Edwar nodded at the young woman by Jeorje’s side. “Good for a girl to know how to step back and throw a right hook when a boy won’t take no for an answer.”
Anjy’s eyes widened at that. She spread her skirts and dipped. “Please, Grandfather, may I take the lesson?”
“Absolutely not.” Jeorje crossed his arms and threw Edwar a sour look. “Girl’s hook is the least a Southwatch boy needs to worry about, he’s fool enough to lay hands on anyone ent his wife.”
“Honest word,” Edwar agreed. “Selia, Anjy’s never been to market on her own. Why don’t you and the others show her around?”
“Of course,” Selia said. “We’re headed that way now. Raddock . . . jammed his finger, and needs to see the Triggs.”
“Your father won’t let you box, either?” Anjy asked as they headed up the road to Town Squa
re at Raddock’s angry pace.
“I get private lessons,” Selia said. “Da doesn’t want the boys to know what I can do.”
“Boy’s in for a surprise, he tries to get his hands on this!” Deardra gave Selia’s bottom a squeeze, and they both laughed. Raddock scowled, but Meada was used to it, and kept her eyes on the road ahead. Anjy’s face colored, but she did not look away.
Deardra gave Selia a wink. “What brings you to town, Anjy?”
“Grandfather says it’s past time I found a husband,” Anjy said. “But there ent a lot of boys my age in Southwatch. Says no granddaughter of his is going to be someone’s second wife.”
“Corespawned right,” Deardra said.
Anjy gasped at the blasphemy, but said nothing.
“So you’ve come looking for love,” Selia said.
Anjy shrugged. “Grandfather says love grows out of a good match.”
“He’s right.” Raddock’s eyes were on Selia as he said the words.
Selia put her hands on her hips. “And what would you know of it, Raddock Fisher?”
Raddock said nothing, picking up the pace even more. Town Square was packed with carts and booths as hundreds of folk gathered to barter their goods. There was shouting and laughter, the smells of hot food and fresh produce mixed with the stench of animals and the hiss of hot iron quenched. More than a few hagglers seemed close to blows, unable to agree on the relative value of what they had to trade.
Anjy stopped short, and the others kept on a few steps before noticing. “It’s so . . . crowded.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Selia promised as she and Deardra took the Watch girl’s arms from either side and guided her into the press. Anjy’s head swiveled back and forth, taking in the sights as they followed Raddock to the Triggs’ booth.
Harve Trigg was a kind man not yet forty, with gentle hands and dirty fingernails. He worked the front of the booth, tending his potted plants and powdered herbs, mixing cures and brewing tonics. He took one look at Raddock’s bent finger and sent them in back.
Sallie Trigg, the town midwife, was bigger than her husband, with thick meaty arms. She glared sternly at Raddock when he showed her his finger. “Been fightin’?”
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