by J. V. Jones
It wasn’t, and she knew it. Looking into his eyes, she saw how dark they were, even with the sun full upon them. She tried a second smile and said, “Are you afraid of me?”
Raif’s own smile was slow in coming, but when it did it warmed her heart. “Not yet.”
The moment between them lasted only as long as it took Angus to return with the ptarmigan, yet it was enough. They pulled their horses apart as Angus held the two fat white birds above his head and cried, “I’ll be sleeping in the big bed tonight!”
Both Ash and Raif laughed.
The journey went quickly after that. They talked and rode and swapped stories. Ash was surprised to learn that Raif had never visited Angus’ farm before or met any of Angus’ daughters. She thought it strange that Angus had never brought his daughters north to Blackhail to meet their cousins, but Angus made a joke of it, saying he’d already lost one sister to a clansman and had no intention of losing his three girls as well. Ash laughed along with Raif, yet she was beginning to wonder what Angus feared. Why was it so important to hide his family from the rest of the world?
As midday approached they neared the village that had first appeared on the horizon. The ground was hard here, good for nothing save stone walls and sheep. The Bitter Hills rose to the north, sending winds whistling through tough gray grasses that somehow kept their heads above the snow. Sheep farms dotted the slopes. The air smelled of woodsmoke and manure and damp wool. A necklace of frozen ponds strung across the hills told of glaciers long gone.
The village itself consisted of two streets of stone-built houses sealed with tar. Ash saw signs of pride in ownership in the cleared ground surrounding each building and the well-maintained shutters and doors. Like the bay, the village had a name, yet Angus preferred not to give it.
Angus also preferred not to approach the village too closely, and he took them along a series of low roads, sheep runs, and dry creekbeds, changing course at least three times. By the time they arrived at the bank of a green-water river Ash had lost all sense of direction and couldn’t have pointed the way back to the village if her entire life had depended on it. They followed the river downstream for an hour or so until it ran through a forest of ancient hardwoods. Towering elms, basswoods, and black oaks rose like an army around them. The wind was quiet here, and the only sound came from the horses’ hooves snapping forest litter with every step.
Ash was the last to see the farmhouse. The forest did not thin: It stopped. One moment they were walking through deep green shade cast by hundred-year oaks, then suddenly there were no more trees. Sunlight dazzled Ash’s eyes. Raif took a hard breath. Angus said a single word: “Mis.”
The rear of the Lok farm lay a quarter league ahead, set into a stretch of softly worked farmland and framed by a white elm as tall and stately as a tower. The roof of the house was blue gray slate, and the walls were pale yellow stone. A low door, carved from honey-colored oak and gleaming with newly applied resin, formed the center of the main building, and all paths, partition walls, lean-to’s, and outbuildings were built in an arc around it.
As Ash looked on the door opened. A woman . . . no, a girl . . . stepped onto the path. She was wearing a blue wool dress with a white collar and sturdy work boots. Her auburn hair reached past her waist. “Mother! Beth!” she called, her voice high and excited.
Angus made a sound deep in his throat and jumped down from his horse. Ash glanced at Raif, thinking that he would do likewise, but something must have been showing in her face, for he sent her a look that said, I’ll stay here with you. Ash was surprised by her own relief.
Two other figures appeared in the doorway, a woman with dark gold hair and a girl of six or seven, dressed in the same plain wool as her older sister. The woman held something in her arms, and it took Ash a moment to realize it was a young child. The two girls raced down the path, shouting, “Father! Father!” The woman waited in the doorway, watching. Ash noticed her eyes flick to Raif and then to her. A small chill took Ash as she sat upon her pony and received the woman’s attention.
Angus ran onto the path to meet his daughters. Catching them in a bear hug, he lifted them clean off the ground and swung them in a great circle, all the while calling them “his best girls.”
Ash had to look away.
Raif, who had taken control of the bay’s reins, clicked his tongue, encouraging all three horses to step forward. Snowshoe moved without Ash’s consent. Ash wanted to stop her, considered stopping her, yet in the end she didn’t. It’s just Angus’ family, she told herself. I’m making a fuss over nothing.
She just wished he had sons. Not daughters.
Angus put his daughters down, and both girls stepped away from him, allowing him a clear view of their mother at the door. Angus stripped off his gloves, pulled down his hood, and stood and looked at his wife. His eyes were dark as he waited for her to beckon him. With half a smile she called him forward, and the space separating them contracted to nothing at all as Angus moved toward the door.
Ash knew then that Angus had lied about his wife. All the threats she supposedly issued, all the rules she supposedly made, were nothing more than thin air.
Turning away from them, Ash met eyes with the eldest of the two girls. She was beautiful, Ash realized that straightaway, with hazel eyes and skin that glowed with good health. As the girl looked at Ash, her hand moved up from her side and was taken immediately by her younger sister. Such a little thing, yet neither girl even glanced at the other as they touched.
“Darra, I have brought visitors.” Angus’ voice broke the moment. Holding his wife’s hand, he pulled her down from the step and onto the path. “Raif’s come all this way to see you. He’s brought a fine pair of ptarmigan.”
Hearing Raif dismount at her side, Ash did likewise. Her eyes never left Angus’ wife.
Darra Lok was dressed in a plain wool dress without jewelry or trim of any sort. Her fair hair was piled on her head in a style that Ash knew took only minutes each morning to fix. As her dark blue eyes met Raif’s, she let the child she had been carrying at her hip slide to the ground. The little blond-haired girl headed straight for Angus, crawling fiercely through the snow and calling, “Papa!” loudly. Angus snatched her up and threw her into the air like a sack of grain. The child loved it. Giggling madly, she demanded, “More! More!”
With both arms empty, Darra looked to Raif.
“Da’s gone,” he said quietly.
“I know,” she murmured. “I know.” Ash could see that she wanted to take hold of Raif and hug him, yet he stood apart from her and all she could do was touch his sleeve. “Tem was a good, good man. I never met anyone more honest and more fair.”
Raif nodded.
Darra smiled. “And he could dance . . . my, how he could dance . . .”
No longer nodding, Raif turned away.
Darra’s hand moved in the air after him.
“Cassy, Beth!” Angus said. “Run and open the barn.” He held out his youngest daughter. “And take Little Moo with you. Hurry now.”
The middle daughter pouted. “But Father, we want to meet the lady with silver hair—”
“Later.”
The girls heard something in their father’s voice that made their backs straighten. The eldest came and took Little Moo from her father’s arms, and the three sisters headed for the side of the house. Ash watched them disappear, envy stabbing softly at her chest. When she glanced up, she saw Darra Lok watching her.
Angus gripped his wife by the wrist as he led her toward Ash. “Darra, this is Ash. She’s from Spire Vanis. We’re taking her north with us.”
Darra’s face was as pale and smooth as wax. She was shaking in a strange way, as if she were either very cold or very afraid.
Ash didn’t understand what was happening. Darra’s large eyes were filled with so much emotion, they frightened her. Glancing over her shoulder, she looked for Raif, but he was some distance behind her now, tending to the horses.
“Ash.” Darra
seemed to test the word as she spoke it. “Welcome to our house.”
Ash didn’t know what to do. This was no time for smiles. Darra Lok looked distraught. Her welcome seemed almost to hurt her as she spoke it. “Thank you,” Ash said. “I’m glad to be here.”
Darra Lok made a nervous gesture with her hands, brushing imaginary dirt from her apron.
Angus moved himself into a position between his wife and Ash, touching both of them on the shoulder. “Well, ladies,” he said. “I think we should all go inside and have a little brose by the fire.”
Ash didn’t know what brose was. Suddenly nothing made any sense. Did Darra Lok know she was the Reach? Was it fear she saw in the older woman’s eyes or something else?
Angus held on to both of them as they walked toward the house. Raif followed after, leading the horses. When the eldest daughter returned from the barn, carrying horse blankets and feedbags, he called her by name: Cassy. What the two said to each other, whether they touched, or hugged, or kissed, was something Ash never knew, as she stepped into the warm, firelit interior of the house, leaving Raif and Cassy to the snow.
In the short time it took to walk to the door, Darra Lok had composed herself, and when she turned to Ash and bade her strip off her cloak and take the seat closest to the fire, she looked and acted like a different woman. Smiling gently, she helped Ash with cloak ties, her fingers making quick work of the hooks and laces. Angus stood in the doorway, watching them, an unreadable look on his snow-burned face.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Angus Lok,” said his wife. “Stoke the fire and fetch me the heavy iron pot—the one for heating bathwater. Oh, and you might as well fill it while you’re on your way.”
Angus smiled at Ash. “I told you what she was like.” With that he went about his appointed task with the all the grumbling and puffing of a man perfectly happy yet pretending not to be.
Ash looked around the large farmhouse kitchen. Undressed stone walls glowed like old parchment in the firelight. The blue slate floor was covered in worn rugs of all shapes and sizes and thicknesses; the oldest one looked to be a balding fox pelt that lay like a faithful dog beside the hearth. The fireplace was as big as a shed, and cast-iron shelves, roasting racks, and gridirons were suspended at various heights above the flames. An armory of knives, graters, skewers, roasting forks, and nut-and-bone crackers hung above the hearth on meat hooks, and a great black warming stone sat in the middle of the flames.
It was a hard-used, well-cared-for place. The large birch table that sat in the center of the room had been scrubbed down to the raw wood, and every chair in sight boasted a slat, spindle, or leg that had been repaired with newer stock.
“Sit,” Darra said, hanging Ash’s cloak over the back of a chair to dry. “I’ll warm us some brose.”
Ash did as she was told, finding a stout little stool to her liking. She watched as Darra poured frothy amber beer into a pot, then thickened it with a hand of oatmeal. “I’m sorry if my coming here has upset you.”
Darra did not stop what she was doing as she replied, “No, Ash. It’s me who should apologize to you. I offered a poor welcome. I . . . you . . .” She struggled for words. “It’s not often Angus brings visitors to the house.”
She had meant to say something else, Ash was sure of it, but before she had chance to question Darra further the door opened and Raif and all three of Angus’ daughters burst into the room.
“Look, Mother!” cried the middle daughter. “Raif brought down two ptarmigan on the dog flats. He said they were flying as fast as eagles when he took them. And he’s promised to teach me how to shoot.”
Raif’s smile was tactful. He had probably said no such thing.
“Hush, child,” said Darra. “Raif, come and warm yourself by the hearth. We haven’t got any black beer, I’m afraid, only brose.”
“Brose will be good.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Angus said, emerging from another door with a huge iron pot filled to the rim with water. “Tem’s black beer has doubtless ruined your palate for life.”
“It was useful for keeping flies away in summer,” Raif said.
“Aye, and women and maidens, too!”
Everyone laughed. Ash guessed that Tem’s beer was famous for being bad. She smiled, then joined in the laughter. It was good to learn something small and homely about Raif’s life back in the clan.
“Father.” The middle daughter turned the word into a reprimand. Her large gray blue eyes rolled in the direction of Ash. “We haven’t met the lady yet.”
Ash felt her cheeks color. Cassy sent her a sympathetic Sorry my sister’s acting like a fool look.
Angus frowned. He fitted the iron pot onto the warming stone, where its height and breadth halved the light in the room. That done, he turned and surveyed his three girls, who were lined up from smallest to tallest by the door. After a moment he growled at them, sounding just like an aging and much-put-upon wolf. Little Moo growled right back, mimicking him perfectly. The two elder girls tried but did not succeed in keeping straight faces.
“Daughters!” Angus complained to no one in particular. “Who would have them?”
“Grrrrrr.” Little Moo growled again. She was really very good at it.
“All right! All right! You’ve worn me down!” Shaking his head, Angus turned to Ash. “Ash, these are my daughters: Casilyn, the eldest, and close to you and Raif in age. Beth”—Angus glowered theatrically at his middle daughter—“the talker of the family. And Maribel the—”
“Growler,” said Beth, quick as only a child could.
Angus very nearly gave himself away by laughing. “The baby.”
“Moo! Moo!” said Little Moo.
“Aye,” Angus said. “My youngest child, for reasons known only to herself, refuses to answer to any name other than Little Moo.”
“Moo! Moo!” repeated Little Moo, eminently satisfied that her name situation had been explained.
Ash smiled shyly at the three girls. Cassy smiled back; Beth curtsied in an elaborate manner, losing her footing on the knee bend and knocking into the door; and Little Moo giggled, growled, and said, “Moo! Moo!” a few more times for good measure.
“Girls,” Angus said, “this is Ash. She’s traveling with me and Raif for a while. And tonight she’s our special guest and must be treated so by all of you. Understand?” All three girls nodded. “Good.”
“Father, can Ash sleep with me and Beth tonight?” Cassy raised her bright hazel eyes to meet Ash’s. “If you’d like to?”
Ash nodded. Cassy was almost as tall as she, but better filled out, with proper breasts and hips. Her hair was glorious, sometimes red, sometimes golden, thick and wavy and full of light. Ash thought for a brief moment of Katia, of her dark beautiful hair that no amount of pins could tame, then shut the memory away.
“Cassy, why don’t you take Ash to your room?” Darra poured hot cloudy liquid into a set of wooden cups as she spoke. “Help her bathe and change if she’d like to. She’s had a hard journey and may want to rest before supper.”
Ash sent a look of thanks to Darra. Meeting Angus’ family had left her shaken and exhausted.
“Can I come, too?” Eagerness lit up Beth’s small pink face. “I’ll help with her clothes and hair.”
“No,” Darra said. “Just Cassy.”
“But—”
“I said no. You can go up later, once she’s rested.”
Beth closed her mouth. Her bottom lip trembled.
A moment passed. The kitchen was so quiet Ash could hear the impurities in the firewood sizzle as they burned.
Then Raif stood and extended his arm toward Beth. “What say you and I go outside and shred some wood? I’ll have you hitting bull’s-eyes by sundown.”
Ash loved him for that. It was the act of someone who knew what it was to have sisters and brothers of his own.
Issuing a high, excited scream, Beth ran to Raif’s side and hugged him fiercely. Together they left the house, Beth hit
ting Raif with a barrage of questions about bows, arrows, ptarmigan, the lady with the silvery hair.
Angus and Darra exchanged a glance, then Angus slipped on two thick sheepskin mitts and picked the now hot iron basin from the hearth. “Follow me,” he said to Cassy and Ash.
He led them up a flight of stairs and into a tiny, odd-shaped room. Once he’d placed the iron tub on the floor, he lit an oil lamp and left. Ash noticed how his hand came up to touch his daughter’s cheek as he crossed toward the door.
“Would you like to wash now, or rest?” Cassy gestured toward one of the two boxed pallets that lay against opposing walls. The room was sparsely furnished, with plain walls and a rug of woven rushes. The only item of furniture beside the pallets was a small table that had originally been built for carpentry work, as the many hammered nailheads, saw marks, and chisel gouges attested to.
“I’m sorry the room’s a bit bare. Beth and I hardly spend any time here.”
Ash shook her head, thinking of her own silk-lined, thick-rugged, amber-warmed chamber in Mask Fortress. “No. I like it very much. The bathwater looks tempting. I think I might wash first.”
Cassy came forward to help her with the hooks and eyes of her skirt. Her hands were rough and callused, split in part by old scars, and Ash reminded herself that Cassy lived on a working farm.
“Father’s away a lot some years,” Cassy said, obviously noticing wherever Ash’s gaze rested. “Last spring Mother and I had to shear the lambs ourselves. They kicked a lot.”
Ash made no effort to hide her own street-worn hands. “Usually Father tries to go away in the winter, when there isn’t much to do except feed the chickens and milk the ewes. But sometimes the birds come in summer and spring and there’s nothing he can do about it.”
“Birds?”
“Messages . . . from people.”
“Oh.” Ash waited, but Cassy said no more. “Can no one in the village help with the sheep?”
Cassy shook her head, sending her auburn hair dancing. “No. We never talk to anyone in the Three Villages. We keep to ourselves.”
Ash thought that strange yet didn’t say so. Stepping out of her skirt and underskirt, she watched as Cassy tested the bath. What was Angus afraid of? What made him hide his family away?