WINDREAPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Conar opened the tin-punch door and took out the pie, cut a piece, then bit into it. A glob of thick filling oozed down the side of his hand. Meggie laughed out loud when he licked his palm and fingers before stuffing the remainder of the pie in his mouth.

  "When was the last time you ate, boy?" she asked. At his shrug, she ordered him to sit at the table.

  He obeyed, leaning back in the chair and stretching out his long legs while she ladled steaming stew into a bowl.

  "I need someone to talk to, lady."

  She nodded. "I thought as much."

  "Someone I can trust."

  "That goes without saying." She took the chair opposite him.

  "Someone who won't scold me like I'm a child."

  A frown formed on her wide face. "And what is it you've done for which you might need a scolding?"

  His feelings immediately turned militant, but Meggie's honest, encouraging look softened them. He looked away, not knowing how to begin.

  "Why aren't you at the party?" she asked again.

  He thrust his hands into the pockets of his cords, refusing to look at her. "I've got better things to do than attend some useless party."

  "Like traipsing about in the rain trying to catch your death of cold."

  He looked up at her. "Don't—"

  "Don't what?" she snapped back.

  "I'm not a child, Meggie."

  She made a rude sound with her lips. "You'd never prove it by me." She lifted her chin. "All children, especially little boys, tend to be selfish, and that's exactly what you're being."

  "Selfish? Because I didn't want to go to the gods-be-damned party? Because I wanted to be alone?"

  Her finger jabbed the tabletop, punctuating her words. "Seems to me you like being by yourself afar too much and afar too often for your own good! And where has that being alone got you, eh?"

  "By myself!" he mumbled, picking up a spoon beside the stew.

  "And you like that, do you?"

  "Aye, I like it!" he shouted, shifting his gaze from her probing stare.

  "The hell you do!" She reached across the table and cupped his chin, bringing his eyes back to hers. "You look this old woman in the eye and tell her you like the loneliness that goes with being alone!"

  He tried to move his head, but her grip was surprisingly strong. A muscle jumped in his cheek, his teeth ground together, but he let her keep his face steady.

  "You know what I think you need?" she asked, unperturbed.

  "No, but you're going to tell me, aren't you?"

  "Damn straight!" She let go of his face, pulled her chair around beside his, effectively blocking him from either getting up or ignoring her. "If you hadn't wanted to hear my advice, lad, you wouldn't have trudged through the storm to reach me, now would you?"

  "I was going out anyway," he said in a voice that sounded childish even to his own ears. "I mistakenly thought you might like to see me."

  "Why aren't you at the party?"

  "Stop asking me that!" he shouted. He shoveled a spoonful of hot stew into his mouth, wincing as the vegetables scorched his tongue.

  Meggie broke off a large section of cornbread from a platter. "Here."

  He crammed the butter-dotted bread in his mouth and chewed.

  "Did you know your eyes are turning brown?" she asked, peering closely at him.

  "No, they're not." Washing down the cornbread with more milk, he looked up at her, wondering at the mean look on her face.

  "They are, too. Must be because you're so full of shit."

  He blinked.

  Meggie ignored his astonishment. "You just can't go to that party, can you?"

  "I could if I wanted to."

  "I don't think so." She fused her gaze with his. "You're scared to face that little slip of a girl of yours."

  "Amber-lea?"

  "Your lady, lad. Our Queen."

  "She's not my lady!" came his furious, violent outburst.

  "Who are you trying to convince? Me or you?"

  Wounded and hurt, his soul swimming, drowning, dying, moisture sprang from the corners of his eyes. "She doesn't…she won't…" He stopped, pushed away his food, and viciously shook his head. "Don't do this to me, Meggie."

  "Do what, son?"

  "Remind me of just how much…" He squeezed his eyelids shut. "How much I've lost!"

  When he hunched forward, when his head dropped to his hands, she gathered him into her ample arms, cradling him against her shoulder.

  "Ah, lad," she whispered as his sobs broke free, shaking the wide shoulder she patted. "What are we to do with you, eh?"

  He clutched her around the waist, his face pressed to her bosom. He needed her, replaced her with the mother he had lost so long ago. He was once more a little boy, his ache being soothed by the only person in the world who understood his pain.

  "Now, now," she crooned, stroking his hair. "You tell your Meggie what hurts you, son. You tell Meggie what she can do to help."

  "Oh, god, Meggie," he sobbed, burrowing his face into the starched fabric of her apron. "I've messed everything up."

  "And what is it you think you've done now? Seems to me you blame yourself far too much for things out of your control."

  "Not this time," he said on a hitching breath. "This time I fucked everything up!"

  "Watch your mouth." She lifted the edge of her apron, pushed back his head, and started to wipe his eyes. He would have turned away his head, but she anchored his chin in her free hand and ran the cotton under his nose.

  "You don't know what I'm capable of doing," he said in a miserable voice, pleading with her to understand. "To other people. To myself."

  "Whatever it is, it can be undone," she said emphatically, smoothing away a stray lock of hair from his forehead.

  He pulled away from her and stood. "Not this time. This time, I've gone beyond help. No one can help me now."

  Her brows drew together in obvious alarm. "What have you done?"

  Again, he brought up his hands to cover his face. "I don't want you to know," he told her through the camouflage of his fingers. "I don't want anyone to know how low I've sank."

  "And especially not the lady, eh?"

  "No. Especially not Liza."

  Meggie rose from her chair and took his hands in hers, bringing them away from his face. She placed his palms together and kissed the tips of his fingers. "Do you know I love you, lad?"

  Surprised, he lowered his head, but was unable to look into the truth of her gaze.

  "Do me the courtesy of looking at me when I talk to you. Do you, know that I love you, Conar?"

  The use of his name made him flinch. Again, he tried to pull away, but she wouldn't let him. "Aye," he whispered, "I know that, Meg."

  She lifted a work-reddened hand to his cheek. "And do you know that I would do anything for you?"

  His head sank to his chest. "I don't deserve such loyalty."

  "The hell you say!" Meggie snorted, her voice tight with anger. "Who put that stupid thought in your head?" She gathered him into her arms. "Oh, lad. What is it that hurts you so?"

  For the first time in a long time, Conar felt safe, wanted, loved for who he was. He knew a moment's respite from the godawful agony that had been a part of his soul for so very long. He clasped her to him like a drowning man and felt the additional tears he'd been trying to hold back slip down his cheeks.

  "You can't, Meg," he groaned, his arms bringing her closer to his madly beating heart. "No one can help me now."

  She pushed him back so she could take his cheeks in her pudgy hands. "This is your Meggie you're talking to, son. I'd give my life for you because you are one of my own. If anyone can help, it will be me!" Her expression turned stern. "Now, you tell me what it is that ails you."

  He felt unmanned, ashamed of his weakness before this beloved woman, and wanted to hide, but he knew she wouldn't let him. Instead, he bit his lip, letting his own face shut down.

  "Don't you go stubborn on me, Conar McGregor! Yes, McG
regor! Aye, my fine young warrior! You can be whosoever you want to be outside these old kitchen walls, but to me, to your Meggie, you are the same ornery lad who caused my Harry to burn two perfectly good chairs and a table! Who damned near gave my old man the consumption while running about in pouring rain as bad as we got outside tonight!" She cupped the back of his neck. "I've got me a good mind to turn your ornery hind end across my lap and smack that orneriness right out of you!"

  His lips twitched in a smile, despite the control he tried to exercise over them. "Don't you think I'm a little too big for that?"

  Her left eyebrow arched. "You're too big for your breeches, you are!" She let go his neck and reseated herself, folding her arms over her large bosom. "Well? I'm waiting."

  "For what?"

  Meggie's head cocked dangerously.

  "Oh," he said, the word dropping like a rock into the silence. He sat down. "You want to know what I've done. Something really stupid."

  "That's nothing new."

  "Really stupid this time, Meg. I've gotten myself into a whole mess of trouble that I'm not sure I can get out of."

  Meggie said nothing.

  "I'm not even sure I'm strong enough to try."

  He looked at his clasped hands, searching for the words he wanted to say, needed to convey for her to understand the seriousness of the position into which he had knowingly placed himself.

  But the words just wouldn't come; the shame was too great.

  "Have you hurt someone?" she finally asked.

  "Only myself."

  Meggie sighed. "When you do that, lad, you hurt more people than you can possibly imagine. Do you think the people who love you want to see you hurt?"

  "Some do."

  "None that matter. Conar, Sweeting, don't you know how very much you are loved?"

  He opened his mouth to deny her statement, but despite the tremble of his lips, words continued to escape him.

  She laid her hand on his thigh. "Whatever it is you think you've done to harm yourself, it can be corrected. Is it the drink, lad?"

  He looked up at her in surprise.

  "You always had far too great a liking for the drink."

  "That's not the problem…I can handle the liquor."

  "Every man I ever knew who had a problem with the drink thought he could handle it, too."

  "It's not the liquor," he said, shaking his head in denial. "I wish to the gods it were as simple as that!" He got up, braced his hands on the fireplace mantle, and stared into the lapping flames. "It's the…the drugs."

  If Meggie Ruck was shocked and dismayed by his confession, she didn't let him know. Nor did she leap up to confront him, to screech her fury. Instead, she came to her feet, took up her ladle, and dipped it into the dumplings. "Are you still hungry?"

  "Did you hear what I said?"

  "They need cream." She ladled three fat dumplings into a crockery bowl and set it on the table, then walked calmly to the tin chest. She took out a pitcher of cream and poured a dollop onto the dumplings.

  "Meg?" he inquired, fully facing her. "Did you—"

  "I ain't deaf, lad." She brought the bowl to him and nodded toward his chair. "Sit. You ain't going to eat standing up in my kitchen."

  Feeling like a schoolboy who had been chastened by his term master, he sat and meekly took the bowl. The smell filled his nostrils and his stomach grumbled, begged to be filled. He took a spoon and dug into the slick, aromatic pastries. He cut one dumpling in half and scooped it up.

  "Don't burn your mouth again—"

  He had already shoved the dumpling into his mouth. It was like molten lava. The crinkly feeling on his tongue warned he would pay for his impetuosity. Around puckered lips, he drew a gasping breath.

  "There you go again—not listening!"

  He shifted the sizzling pastry to his back teeth for chewing. "Good," he mumbled, scooping up another spoonful.

  "What kind of drug?"

  "Opium."

  The moment the word left his mouth, his spoon-filled hand stilled halfway to his lips. She had asked in such a matter-of-fact voice, catching him entirely off guard, he'd answered before he thought. A dull flush spread over his face. "That was dirty, woman!"

  She grinned. "I didn't want to spend the entire evening dragging the words out of you one at a time."

  "So now you can lecture me," he snapped, putting the bowl on the table with more force than he intended. The sharp clink of the crockery to wood made him purse his lips with annoyance. "Well, get on with it!"

  "You want a lecture?" she asked in a reasonable, accommodating voice.

  "Hell, no!"

  "You sure that's not what you came for?" she asked, her face all innocence and surprise.

  "I know damned well it ain't!"

  "But you want me to say something or you wouldn't have put the thing on my doorstep."

  "Damn it—"

  "You know drugs are bad for you. I know they're bad for you. What else is there to say? Just stop taking 'em. From what I'm hearing in your voice, you don't want 'em, and you sure as hell ain't proud of yourself for having to use 'em. What that tells me is that you want somebody to make you stop."

  He stood, plowing his fingers through his still-damp hair. "It's not that easy to do."

  "I would imagine not, but many a man has done so and lived to tell the tale." She put her hands on her hips. "If you need to stay here a while to get yourself off them things, you know you can. Nary a soul will know where you are or why you're here unless you want 'em to."

  "You don't know what you're offering. I've tried to get off the damned potion and I always wind up buying more."

  "I'll tell you this much—if you don't stop on your own, someone else will do it for you."

  His lips went taut. "Like who?"

  She shrugged. "That's nothing you can keep hidden from friends forever. When Legion finds out what you've been up to—"

  "He doesn't give a goddamn about what happens to me! And neither does his Queen!" He plopped down into the chair by the fireplace, then snatched up the woolen socks and shirt Harry had supplied and put them on.

  "Have I ever given you bad advice, son?"

  "No!" His angry strides carried him to where his boots sat.

  "Then you know what I tell you is for your own good, don't you?"

  "Sometimes," he acknowledged, sitting on the hearth to draw on his mud-encrusted boots.

  "How do you expect me to help you, lad?" Her voice was gentle, as kind as an angel's.

  But he didn't want kind words. Looking up, he spoke from between clenched teeth. "Just be there for me."

  "There are others who would also be there for you, if you asked them."

  He shot to his feet. "Like my Queen?"

  "If you wanted her to be."

  "The bitch hates the sight of me," he thundered, jerking up his cape from the hall tree where Meggie had draped it.

  "Again, who are you trying to convince of that—me or yourself?"

  "I need to convince no one!"

  "She loves you. Don't you know that?"

  "No! I sure as hell don't! I came here to talk to you, Meg. To get your help. I can't—"

  "You can do anything you put your mind to," she said, her eyes narrowing in concern as he pulled open the door, letting in the rain. "You can get off them drugs you don't want nor need. They won't help you forget her."

  "I'm not trying to for—"

  "Aren't you?"

  He stood, uncertain, in terrible emotional pain. Rain washed over him, making him blink. The brisk wind ruffled his hair, billowed his cape.

  "You can do whatever you've a mind to," Meggie assured. "You've just got to want to do it."

  He searched her face, seeing her emotions emblazoned there. He knew she loved him—he could feel it—and he loved her. He knew her words were meant to heal, to help, to feed the hunger in his ravaged soul, but his pride would not let him accept her judgment of Liza's feelings toward him.

  "I can't go to her,
" he said. His shoulders slumped beneath the heavy weight of his wet cape. "I won't go to her. Not again."

  Despite the incoming storm, Meggie stepped up and put her arms around him, drawing his protesting body close. "Then, you come to me, baby," she whispered. "When it gets bad, come to me. I'll always be here. Always." Tears streamed down her cheek. "You are one of my own."

  Chapter 7

  * * *

  Thom stomped his feet on the wet ground, scowled up at the tin roof under which he and Sentian hovered to get out of the rain. "He could be in there all night," he fumed, slapping his arms around him for warmth. "He could be pumping that damned Dorrie!"

  Sentian frowned, but kept his mouth shut.

  "Should we ought to see if he's still in the kitchen with Meggie?" Thom asked. When his companion didn't answer, he nudged Heil with his boot.

  "What?" Sentian snapped, glancing up.

  "I asked if we should—" He stopped, cocking his head toward the kitchen door of the Green Horned Toad. "Here he comes."

  Conar stepped out into the pouring rain, pulled the cowl of his great cape over his head, and hunched his shoulders into the onslaught of the chilling wind. As he turned the corner of the building, Sentian and Thom slipped out into the rain after him. Thom was also aware of the three large black shapes that blended into the slanting rain and followed farther behind.

  * * *

  Conar's boots squished in the mud, making hollow sounds, lonely sounds as he pulled them free of the muck. He turned his face upward, allowing the cowl to fall from his hair, and let the cold liquid wet his fevered face. He liked the feel of it, and it helped to quiet the fierce need that had been building in him in Meggie Ruck's too-warm kitchen. He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting the sweet coolness of rainwater.

  His head lowered at the sound of a loud laugh. He narrowed his eyes to see through the driving rain. Ahead stood his final destination. He hunched his shoulders, bent his head into the wind, and made for the dirty yellow light spilling from one of the seedier taverns in Boreas Town.

  He opened the door to the Spittin' Cat Tavern, smelling frying bacon, cheap wine, and unwashed bodies. He shut the door behind him and swung the cape from his shoulders, then shook his head to rid his sodden hair of rainwater. When he turned around, everyone in the tavern stared at him. All movement, sound, and conversation ceased.