by Jenna Rhodes
“Tree’s blood,” sputtered Garner as he skidded to a halt, then clapped a hand over his mouth for such profanity. Distracted as he was, Tolby managed a cuff to his ears as he strode past his son and planted himself in front of Nutmeg who chuffed and puffed to a halt, and hoisted her bundle in her arms.
“What is that?”
“It’s a girl!” Nutmeg told him. She began to fall over under the weight, and her brothers dove to catch both the sodden rags and their sturdy sister. Nutmeg sat down on her rump as Garner drew the tattered blanket away from her burden.
“It . . . is a girl.” He blinked.
“She was on a pile of sticks in the river and I catched her,” Nutmeg declared. “It was all broken up and she could barely hang on, but I catched her, and now she’s mine.”
Lily joined them, smoothed Nutmeg’s tousled hair from her face in a quick check to make sure she was all right, then bent down to see what Nutmeg had rescued. Her hand touched cold skin. “She’s alive,” Lily said. “But only barely.” She traced her fingers about the other’s face, gently lifting the tangled hair from her eyes and mouth and shapely ears, then caught her slender wrist, where cruel bracelets bit into her skin, gashing them, and the pain of her touch made the child blink for a moment at her before succumbing again to the darkness. Lily caught her breath. “And she’s a Vaelinar and a slave.”
Chapter Eight
“THE QUESTION REMAINS, then, how are we going to deal with her? And the first of you who says throw her back sleeps at the cider press tonight.” Lily’s eyes flashed a bit as she looked around the room at Tolby, Garner, and Hosmer. Her word had already been made good by banishing Keldan to the boys’ loft at the back of the house where, even if he had his ear to a knot-hole in the floor, he wouldn’t hear much of anything as Hosmer and Garner knew from years of experience. After the river’s find, though scarcely conscious, had swallowed a goblet of apple juice as if starving, and Lily had pulled one of her old, worn nightgowns onto her, the girls had been tucked into Nutmeg’s attic room, where the warmth crept upward at night. Nutmeg had pulled her into bed and stretched out beside her, body curling protectively about the girl under the quilt Lily tucked in about them.
The older Farbranches retreated to the main room for evening chores and talk, and although they sat doing casual things, they all knew there was a great decision at hand.
Tolby rocked back in his chair, pipe in hand, and studied the best way of lighting it, turning it over and over in his hands. A harvesting season though it was, the night held the edge of Frost Month to come, and no one wanted to sleep on the drafty wooden floors of the press even under a pile of blankets, where the machinery and building creaked, groaned, and leaned with every push of the wind and earth.
Hosmer decided to stoke up the small hearth fire a bit, and Garner turned his attention to sewing a patch on his second-best pair of trousers. No one spoke as he quickly put the patch into place, then he inhaled. “Throwing her back’s an idea,” he murmured, pulling the thread through. “ ’Course, we’d have to toss Nutmeg in, too, ’cause I think they’re attached.”
Lily let out a soft chuckle in spite of herself, leaned over, and gently pinched Garner’s round ear. “Who can blame her for wanting a sister with great louts like you around? She wants someone to play with who is interested in more than beating each other with sticks.”
Garner grunted as he dodged only a little from his mother’s hand, and neatly tucked the bone needle into the patch after tying off his knot and biting the thread apart. His hair fell over his brow in careless waves as he did so, and he brushed it back impatiently. His elbow jostled Hosmer casually as he did so, and his brother roused from looking into the small fire.
“I don’t want trouble,” Hosmer remarked.
“What trouble could there be?” Tolby asked.
“She’s one of the invaders.”
“Who came to Kerith centuries ago, bringing much with them, including horses and tools we use today.”
“Slavers,” spat out Hosmer.
“Some, and those days are gone as well. What would you have me do?”
“Sell her to Bregan Oxfort. He’d pay well for her, he always needs an elven escort for the trade Ways.” Hosmer rubbed his nose in defiance, not meeting his mother’s stare, but watching his father’s face instead to see how his words were being taken.
Lily made a sputtering noise, but Tolby cupped his hand over her knee. “I asked,” he said mildly. “Let them answer.”
“She already wears a slave bracelet. We didn’t do that to her, we’d just be passing the trouble along.”
“And, of course,” Garner offered, “it’s not like anyone would want to know how we got a slave?” His lip curled at his brother.
“Oxfort wouldn’t ask. He’d just drop coins in our hands, and even if he did ask, we’ve got that. It would prove the tale.” Hosmer jerked a thumb at the hearth and remains of a bundle of sticks lashed together with poor rags and leather scraps, hardly sturdy enough to float a sparrow downstream, let alone a body, but it had, though little had survived to be caught on weeping willow roots downstream. “If anyone is going to ask questions, I’d rather they’d be asking them of the Merchant Prince than bringing them to our door. No one would dare step on his toes for long. He’s Kernan kind, and powerful, with armies to protect his caravans.”
“What could we possibly gain by passing her along like that?” Tolby’s hand stayed on his wife’s knee, but it squeezed a little.
“Gain?” Hosmer threw one hand up in the air, in appeal. “Oh, Da. We could sharecrop the orchards and move into town. We could buy that vineyard salon you wanted, and you could retire from keeping the groves, and just work on your brew and warehousing. And Mom . . . Mom could be near healers when she needed them, and have a small tailoring shop like she used to when you first courted her, and make fine gowns when she felt like it, and there would be lots of girls for Nutmeg to play with, and a real school, too.”
“I see you’ve been thinking about this for a while,” Lily responded mildly.
“I have! Ever since that last band of Bolgers came through and rousted us for hard cider year before last. I swear they’ve developed a taste for it over that swill they call booze, and they’ll be back again soon enough, and there will come a time when Da can’t handle them and with us not around—” He ground to a halt.
“I see. Why is it you might not be around?” Tolby drew a small glowing stick from the fire.
Hosmer looked at his father closely. “I can’t stay in orchards my whole life, Da. It isn’t in me. Sooner or later, I’m going to go and see what I want to do.”
Tolby nodded slowly. He looked at Garner who merely shrugged. “I’ve no plans,” he said lightly. “Yet.” As wiry as the others were stocky, one had to look closely at his face to see the Tolby in him; his looks favored Lily more.
“The trouble with young bucks,” the older Dweller remarked, as he let go of his wife’s knee and actually lit his pipe and took a puff on it. “Is that they’re ready to butt heads before they know what a full rack of antlers is, and what weight they’ll be carrying. And before the old buck is ready to retire.”
Hosmer cleared his throat. “What can we do?”
“Think of it this way: what if it were Nutmeg? What if we did have Bolgers attacking, and we’d put her on a raft and floated her downriver to safety? How would you want her finders to treat her, eh?” Tolby’s thick brows lowered heavily. “I shouldn’t even have to ask.”
“I’d kill anyone who hurt her,” his oldest son declared. “You know that!”
“There may be a day when we can’t be here to help Nutmeg, and she has to depend on strangers. What then? We were all newcomers once.”
“Dwellers belong here,” Hosmer answered defensively. “We’re some of the first kin! We’ve never invaded or taken slaves.”
“People are people.”
Garner shifted weight. “Not to them,” he said, backing up his brother
. “ ’Course,” and he retreated a little. “I’ve seen Galdarkans bully, too.”
“If she is valuable as a slave, we would have had riders through here already. I can’t say how long she’s been on the river rider, but she wouldn’t have lasted more than a few more days. She’s near starved. From what I know of Vaelinars, they don’t age as we do and their lives are as long as the great trees of the north. She could easily be as old as Mom and I put together, yet still be a child.”
“She is about Nutmeg’s age, physically. Her teeth are still young, with ridges, although she’s lost one,” Lily said. She pushed a hand in her apron pocket and brought out the band which had served as a bracelet, with a ring forged to it for fastening chains. “This one slipped off over her hand. The other Da cut away, and she’ll have scars from that, always it looks. The metal did more than gash her, it branded her as if . . .” Lily stopped uneasily. “As if something evil branded or tattooed itself into her flesh.” She held it out to Hosmer. “Do you wish to put it back on her?”
He stared at the loathsome thing, rearing back. He glared at the floor before muttering, “No.”
“Then what do we do?”
Hosmer looked up, the fire bringing out the gold over the gray in his hair. His gaze flickered with the thoughts running through his head. “We keep her,” he said firmly.
“What if someone comes searching for her? Or sends Bolger hounds after her?”
Garner snorted. “Put her and Nutmeg in the onion-and-garlic cellar. They’ll never smell ’em there!”
“Baths for a week!” chuckled Hosmer. “But it would work.”
Tolby let out a satisfied cloud of smoke, perfuming the air with its spicy apple blend of toback and his own herbs. “Good lads. Now, I won’t say I haven’t been thinking of going to the city, but those plans are off a ways.”
“Till the statute runs out on his charges anyway,” Lily added and stood, gathering up the hem of her dress, merriment crossing her face, and sprinting away as quickly.
“Bah,” said Tolby. He blew a smoke ring in her direction. “Off to bed, then, plenty of work tomorrow. Those apples won’t wait for us!
The boys dashed off from the main room, circling through the kitchen where they could be heard getting a pannier of bread and cheese before thundering up the back stairs to their loft.
“Funny. I don’t remember mentioning food.” Tolby cocked his head, listening to his sons storm the staircase.
“I don’t think it needed to be.” She leaned down, kissing his temple. “Thank you.”
“No thanks needed. They’re good lads, they’d have come to the right conclusion on their own.”
“And what is it you think?” Her hand twisted in her apron.
“I think it’s astonishing how quickly the Gods decided to give us another girl, my love.”
“By the grace of the river.” Lily looked up at the ceiling beams toward the other part of the house, where Nutmeg and the stranger slept.
“Rivergrace. Good name for a new Farbranch.” Leaning out of his chair, he picked up the scraps of the raft and tossed it in the fireplace. The wood caught smokily, and the leather lashings flared up with a great stink as the fire began to consume the evidence.
Lily waved away the smell, coughing. “Tolby! Next time you’ve something smelly to burn, do it outside!” She dodged away from him.
He winked at her. “I’ve a bit to do before I sleep. I’ll meet you in bed in a moment or two.” Tolby stood and hugged her before making his way out the back door to see to the farm and other things. Lily caught a glimpse of him framed in the doorway by midnight sky and stars before he passed through.
She waited till the door closed and the sound of creaking stairs and such had quieted all over, then she went to the kitchen and down into the root cellars, lamp in hand. The area had been cut as a maze, purposely deceptive, against marauders and other dangers of living alone in the country. She’d only seen Ravers once in her life, but all knew the Demon wrath they held, and the malicious Bolgers were enough to put anyone in a stew. She stepped down twice more before reaching the dry and cool root cellar, where bags of onions and garlic lay nestled. She dug up a small box there, and opened it. Her dowry had come in this box. Nestled in a beautiful square of fabric was the ring Tolby had given her for his pledge. She could no longer wear it, years of farming increasing the size of her knuckles, so she kept it here, along with coins of their hard work, coins even Tolby did not know she saved. She pulled a remnant from her apron, spreading it out, and examining it carefully by the lamp’s soft illumination.
Handwoven, crude, yet beautiful, it might have been a blanket once, but time had raveled it away till it could only serve as a neckerchief, and that had been its place when she took it from Rivergrace while she slept. Lily smoothed it out. Dark fabric rippled under her touch, and she could make out silvery threads running through it, and perhaps a rune or two which faded the moment she tried to focus on them. Magic ran in the weave of the material. She knew it. Magic that the Gods had taken from all of them, except the Vaelinars who did not bow to the Gods of Kerith and held their own powers. She should burn it, to protect them all, but she could not, as it was all Rivergrace had left of her beginnings. Someday her other daughter might want this. She folded it carefully, pressed it into the box, and buried it deeply in a corner under the edge of a rack.
Chapter Nine
NUTMEG WOKE TO FIND her bed shaking. Rubbing her eyes against the crust of heavy sleep, she blinked in the twilight, a gleam of splintery moonlight coming in through the tiny attic window, and saw the other lying on her stomach, her body shuddering. Nutmeg put her hand out, wondering, and touched her. The girl turned her face toward Nutmeg, cheeks dripping with tears, nearly soundless with her sorrow, her thin body quaking with need.
Nutmeg reached for her, her heart filling with ache. “Derro,” she whispered greeting softly, the Dweller word for hello, how are you, good-bye, take care, all in one. “It’s all right. I found you.”
“Aderro,” the girl echoed, her eyes opening wider in the moonlight, and she put a slender hand up to scrub the tears away.
“Derro,” repeated Nutmeg firmly, correcting her.
The girl buried her face on Nutmeg’s shoulder as they hugged, and her tears made a very damp spot on Nutmeg’s nightgown. She didn’t know what could be wrong, and she didn’t want to wake anyone and make the stranger more afraid than she already seemed to be. Nutmeg waited a moment, then said as she pulled back, “Are you hungry?”
Rivergrace stared at her, biting her lip, her eyes welling up.
“Hungry?” Nutmeg rubbed her stomach through her cottony nightgown and then brought her fingers to her mouth and made nibbling sounds and motions.
The other nodded wearily and then sighed, as if nothing could be done about it. Nutmeg clambered to her feet, and tugged the other out of bed with her. “Come on!” Then she brought her hand to her mouth, saying, “Ssssh.”
Rivergrace nodded, her long hair all in a tangle about her face, and Lily’s nightgown dragging in a pool about her feet, and followed Nutmeg down the loft stairs, one at a cautious time, as if she’d never seen wooden stairs before. Feeling a bit like a mouse, Nutmeg scurried the two of them through the main house and to the larder. She found a candle nub near the cooking hearth and lit it carefully, bringing a soft glow to the room. Grace hung back a little, and Nutmeg squeezed her hand reassuringly. Her newfound sister nodded slightly as she followed her lead.
“You can eat anything,” Nutmeg declared, throwing the cupboard door open, and Grace reeled backward with a gasp, landing on her bottom on the floor, flinging both hands to her mouth.
She got to her feet, crying soft, wordless sounds, grabbing at Nutmeg and pulling her away, shutting the cabinet doors clumsily, hiccuping as they flew open again and she fought to shut the doors and find the latch for them, and pull Nutmeg out of harm’s way all at the same time.
Nutmeg caught her flailing hands. “No, no. It�
�s all right. It’s all right,” she repeated slowly. She held her quietly for a few moments, watching the girl shiver as rapidly as a tiny, captured bird with its wings fluttering, mouth open, eyes so wide that they looked as if they’d swallowed the moon. She waited a bit longer, till Grace squeezed her hands, then took a long, quavering breath.
Nutmeg let go of one hand only to unhook the cabinet door. She opened it carefully, stood on tiptoe, and took out a cloth napkin wrapped about a bit of soft cheese she knew had been left over. Then she reached back and found the box of smoked strips. Pushing the napkin into Grace’s open hand, she balanced the box on her knee and managed to get it open and free three strips from it before the lid slipped back into place and she replaced it on the shelf.
Then she latched the larder doors and sat down, pulling on Grace’s hand again. She fed the soft cheese to her in small bites, taking one for herself now and then, and they both enthusiastically devoured the smoked meat as well. Nutmeg took one of the many corked kegs of apple juice stacked against the larder and they shared that as well, pleasantly cool and definitely needed after the salty meat.
Grace sat back and uttered a tiny belch. Her eyelids fluttered and she covered her mouth. Nutmeg giggled. “Full,” she said, and patted her stomach. She managed a delicate burp as well. Rivergrace did not giggle, but her mouth twitched a little. Then she stood, and pulled on Nutmeg, as if still afraid they might be caught stealing something to eat.
Once in the main room, Grace roamed about a bit, ducking her head and muttering a word now and then. Nutmeg followed, till Grace stood at the door. She opened it, and the night’s air bathed both of them, billowing their nightgowns about them. Rivergrace shook again, then took a step out. Nutmeg wasn’t sure what the girl wanted, but she had to visit the convenience Da had built for her and Mom, so she led her that way, and as she used the shed, it seemed to be what the other needed, too. Nutmeg made her wash after, as Mom taught her. Having a sister was work, she decided, sort of like being a mother, but she would do it right.