by Jenna Rhodes
The wind through the orchard sounded like the sea, her da told her. Never having been to the sea, she didn’t know; to her, it was the wind whipping through the branches and leaves. It sounded very loud that night. She looked up and pointed at the moon, saying the Dweller words for things she’d known her whole life and taken for granted. Rivergrace looked as if she’d never seen the moon before. But she listened to the noise of the river which also reached them, and dropped Nutmeg’s hand. Nightgown balled in her fists to free her legs, she raced across the chilled ground, crying something, and Nutmeg could only race after.
At the river’s edge, Grace stopped and swayed. She put a fist to her mouth, her nightgown flowing about her reed-slender body, and pointed back up the river. She threw a desperate look as Nutmeg caught up, panting.
“What is it?”
Grace pointed upriver.
“The river.” Nutmeg lay down on her stomach and reached to the water, and patted it. “River. It’s water. It’s water in the River Silverwing.”
Grace stared at her. She pointed upstream. Nutmeg jabbed a finger at her, and then swam her hand through the air, as if floating down that river. An expression flitted across Rivergrace’s face and she nodded quickly, emphatically. She put her thumb to her chest, and made the same motions.
“I found you,” Nutmeg said. “Floating down the river.” She got to her knees.
Rivergrace inhaled sharply. Then she pointed at herself and held her hand in the air. One taller. One even taller than that. And she held out her hand beseechingly to Nutmeg.
Nutmeg chewed her lip uncertainly. She put her hand on Rivergrace’s shoulder. The other took her hand and held it in the air, Lily’s height, then Tolby’s height, then cupped the top of her head.
“Ohhh.”
Rivergrace stared keenly into her face. Slowly Nutmeg shook her head. She put up one finger. “Only you,” she said, and then floated her hand down the river again. She pointed at Rivergrace and held up the single finger again.
Rivergrace covered her face with her hands, and began to weep again, nearly silently, as if she’d spent her whole life without speaking, and feared to make any noise. Nutmeg embraced her, thinking that being a slave must have been even worse than she could imagine. Afraid to eat. Afraid to cry no matter how bad things were that happened.
A sound clattered down the mere that neither the wind in the orchard nor the river in its bed didn’t make. Nutmeg turned Rivergrace about, listening. Without any idea what it could be, a chill ran down her spine. Rivergrace rubbed her nose on her gown’s sleeve, and listened as well. Her glance darted to Nutmeg in worry. Nutmeg beckoned.
Downriver, dark as it was, she found the cave in the bank she remembered, the one that river otters had abandoned for the coming winter. She dove into it, and pulled Rivergrace after, as hoofbeats and the jingle of leather and metal and the grunts of riders drew closer. In the mud they huddled and Nutmeg’s first worry was what Mom would say in the morning when she saw the girls. Then she began to worry that the riders might find them.
The horses stopped at the river’s edge. She could hear the splash as the animals milled around. She could smell the stink of the Bolgers riding them, and Rivergrace’s hand dug into hers.
“Stinker,” Rivergrace muttered softly, and Nutmeg understood her in faint surprise. She leaned into Nutmeg, as far away from the den’s mouth as she could, but they were far bigger than otters and the hole held little room.
Nutmeg held her hand over her mouth, to keep the smell out, and to keep from coughing or breathing too hard. Her heart thundered in her chest, and she could feel Rivergrace’s doing the same in her thin body. They ought to have run. Run and then climbed. Now they were trapped.
Nutmeg squeezed her eyes shut.
The Bolgers grunted and shouted among themselves, as if fighting. A heavy thud was followed by another, and then the sound of the creatures walking slowly along the riverbank. The reeds and brush that covered the banks crackled as something pawed through them, searching. The Bolger snuffled as if he could scent them over his own stench.
Maybe he could.
Nutmeg and Rivergrace huddled closer.
Grunting, the Bolger leaned down and looked in. For a long moment, the three stared at each other. The creature did not move, except to curl one lip back, and the moonlight gleamed off his ivory tusk. His arm hung down, relaxed, his knuckles brushing the soft, muddy ground. He flexed his hand, broken talons clicking on each other. His eyes fixed on them for what seemed forever, staring intently at Rivergrace. He looked as if waiting for Rivergrace to speak, but she shook against Nutmeg and not a sound came out of her but a smothered squeak. He’d been branded, a bunching of scarred skin. He rubbed his arm.
“Rufussss,” he hissed quietly, so quietly that only the three of them could have heard him. “Owe.” Then he grunted and stood back up, bellowing out something to the others and striding away. His bellows followed sharp slaps and grunts, but seemed to be obeyed.
Rivergrace and Nutmeg clung together, listening. With much jostling and splashing, the Bolgers forded the river and rode away. Nutmeg could think of no reason why the Bolger had not shared his discovery of them. When the sounds had faded completely away, they crept out and ran home. Nutmeg made her wash before they tumbled back into bed, in fresh nightgowns, although Nutmeg’s other gown only came to Grace’s knees, and she curled tightly against Nutmeg’s plump body to stay warm, and they fell asleep. Both slept soundly through the sudden, drenching rain that hit and soaked the grounds, washing away the troubles of the day and early night, and stopped just before dawn.
In the morning, Lily found the discarded gowns, all muddied and damp. She waited for Nutmeg to crawl out of bed with a yawn, and raised the garments in her hand as she sat on the top step of the loft, for Nutmeg to comment upon.
“Rivergrace,” Nutmeg said in wonder, “has never seen a convenience before. But now she knows just how it works.”
Lily smiled. She put the gowns down. “Then, later today, you can show her how a laundry tub works.”
They did not discuss the night further.
Chapter Ten
723 AE, Harvest Month
“LIKE A TWIG, she is. She’ll break in the wind,” grumbled Garner.
“Is not! She can do anything I can, and faster.” Nutmeg wrinkled up her nose, glaring at her brother, even as he reached out and pulled one of the fancily plaited braids that Rivergrace had woven into his sister’s hair. Grace wore the same crown of braids, hiding the points of her delicate ears, though nothing could hide the extreme slenderness of her body or the highlights of her brilliant eyes, colors of the most vivid blue-green with sparkles and streaks of golden sunlight through them.
“Not,” echoed Rivergrace, putting her chin up, even as she settled into a position behind Nutmeg, glancing up at him through a defiant fringe of bangs that would never allow themselves to be braided no matter how Nutmeg tried, instead framing her forehead with chestnut curls that caught the red and golds of every sunbeam. The last of Harvest Month sunlight brought freckles out on her fair skin, dusting her nose.
Garner crossed his arms and tried to parody his father’s sternness. “I can’t let just anyone do this job. It has to be done well, if it’s to be done at all.”
“We can do it!” vowed Nutmeg, hand over her heart. Grace hesitated a moment, then signed her fingers over her chest as well, although he could read a touch of bewilderment on her face. She understood much more than she had those many days ago when first truly awakening, and he gave her credit for that.
“Please let us. Please!”
He waited for Rivergrace to say something else, but she merely looked up at him with pleading eyes. Garner looked down at her. “Well, Grace?”
She didn’t say a word, but put her hand out and wrapped her fingers about the bail of the bucket he held, and gave him another long look with sorrowful eyes.
“She says please, too!” Nutmeg bounced impatiently.
“I haven’t heard her say it.”
Rivergrace pulled slightly on the bail. Nutmeg said accusingly to her brother, “You know she doesn’t like to talk.”
“I don’t know any such thing because you won’t let her get a word in edgewise. You do all the talking for everyone.”
“Do not.” Nutmeg huffed and stumbled for an insult, and gave up, crossing her arms across her chest and glaring at Garner.
Garner shook his head. “I can’t let you two do my chores anyway. Da told me especially to get this done. He wants it done right, and those baby goats can knock you over, eat too much, not let the others in. Takes strong arms and good eyes to feed them right.”
“We can do it, please,” begged Nutmeg, her retreat to insulted silence forgotten.
Rivergrace tugged gently on the bucket handle. “Please,” she said breathily, and then looked down as if she’d said too much. He let the bucket go into her hold. “All right,” Garner told them, and handed Nutmeg the other three buckets of feed. “Just make sure you do a good job of it!”
“We will!”
“Will,” Rivergrace echoed, and the two bounced off, buckets in hand, stopping only long enough to roll up the cuffs of their overalls, and nudge each other excitedly. Garner hid his grin till he went round the corner of the pens, and headed to the press where Hosmer stood, mopping his face, and taking a break from turning the great wheel of the machinery.
“Get the girls to feed the goats like Da wanted?”
“Of course,” Garner said, taking up a ladle of water and pouring it over his brother’s sweaty head. “Did you doubt I would?”
“You know Nutmeg and chores, and her stubborn streak.”
Garner let his grin out. “Hos, you just have to know how to handle women.” He dipped the ladle again and this time took a long drink as Tolby rounded the press with crates of new apples, putting them into the crushing bins. “I’ll be sure to tell your mother you’ve become an expert,” he said, as he passed by them. Garner sputtered the last of his drink out as Tolby’s chuckle trailed behind him.
He went in through the kitchen back door and slid his arm about his wife’s waist, hugging her roughly, as the breath rushed out of her and she fought for a laugh and to throw his arm off. He sat down at the table a moment. “Derro. What is it you’re doing there?”
She held the bracelet up. “I took my ribbons from the fair and braided this for Rivergrace. It’ll hide those awful scars for now, although I hope because she’s young and young skin heals well, in a few years they’ll hardly be noticeable.”
He flicked it with a fingertip. “But those are your fair ribbons!”
Lily tossed her head. “I have a beau,” she said, eyes sparkling, “who will buy me new ones next fair!”
“Do you now?” Tolby stole a kiss, and then sat back down. “I hope he has more money than I have!”
“No, but more hair!”
“Hey. Now, my love, that is not fair.” Tolby chuckled to himself, as he swiped the palm of his hand over his thinning gray hair. “The hat wears it off, I swear, and I would be a foolish man to work without a hat against sun, wind, and rain.”
“And you, my love, are anything but a foolish man.”
“Sometimes, I wonder.” Tolby pulled out his pipe and tapped it down, after examining the bowl and deciding half a smoke was better than none, and all he had time for anyway. The boys would be all right left alone for a while. “I thought I saw Bolger sign a few weeks ago, right after we found Grace, but the rains had come through and I couldn’t be sure. Looked like a hunting party, I found signs of a kill or two, but I’ve seen nothing since, and yet . . .” He paused to strike his flint and set the toback alight. “I feel guilty. It’s good to see nothing, but it doesn’t sit right that no one has come looking for her. Not family, not owner.”
“She’s only a child.”
“Less valuable, then? Perhaps.” He clamped his teeth about the pipe stem. “Remember when the Bolgers came through two years ago, in the spring of ’21?”
“How could I forget? They wanted every jug of hard cider you could unearth for them.”
He blew out an aromatic cloud of smoke. “But that wasn’t what they came for, Lily. They pulled all our hats off, and looked at our ears, before rummaging through the kitchen and larder and around the cider press, or had you forgotten?”
Lily dropped the ribbon bracelet onto the kitchen table, where it lay like a river of satiny colors, all bound together magically. She made a face. “Filthy Bolger hands tugging at my hair to see my ears. I made you all bathe twice after they left. Yet, it seems I did forget, neh? Unpleasant memories.” She tilted her face at Tolby. “They couldn’t have been looking for her, then. She couldn’t have survived two years on the river! Someone else would have found her long ago, and the journey . . . why, she’d have been to the great sea in weeks. Besides, they seemed to be looking for someone male.”
“Oh, no, no. It’s not Rivergrace I’m minded of. But Bolgers have come here before, looking for the elven, I’m thinking, and I don’t know from where they would have come. Do you remember when I was but a young buck, and still courting you in town, and there were Bolger raids, and a bunch of us joined the guard and came riding out?”
“That’s how you found these lands, wasn’t it?”
“Aye, my love, it was. No one knew what the Bolger hounds were looking for then either and that was . . . could it have been? Twenty-some years ago. Tales told said they looked for a ship or boat on the river, but liars that they are, most of us dismissed that.” Tolby sighed then, as if amazed at the passage of time. “We drove them back without a clue what it was that had set them off. The mountains are far away, and the other grovers out here, well, none of us use Bolger help. The critters have some intelligence, but they’re sly and sneakers, and I won’t use a whip or bully somethin’ to get it to work with me. So they come and go, without any of us knowin’ why or being any the wiser. At least they don’t seem to have found their quarry.” Tolby took two great puffs on his pipe after that bit of a speech. “I just wonder who they might have been looking for, and who would use such a band of creatures to hunt with.”
“Are you sorry we took her in?” Lily looked at him solemnly, folding her hands in her lap, watching his face as well as listening to him closely.
“Never. I’m not one to say that the Gods take away and give back, I’m not so grand as to have a God’s eye turned on me, you see, but if the Gods did take note, they’d not have found a better foster mother than you, my dear.” Tolby smiled softly at her, holding his pipe.
“Are you thinking of looking for her people?”
“No,” he answered flatly. “You and I both know, Lily, slave or parent, whoever had her took little care of her. If it had been the two of us, and our little ones, they’d have been cared for even if we had to open our veins to keep them fed. No one took care of the little one like that, no one, and they won’t be getting her back from me!”
Lily stood, came round the table, and slid onto her husband’s lap, looping her arms about his neck, and snuggled against him listening to the pulse pound fiercely in his indignation. “Thank you,” she whispered to his jaw.
“Had to be said,” Tolby muttered gruffly. “Remember the nights we’d find her sneaked back downstairs, feet in the larder cabinet, eating everything she could stuff into her mouth, half sick with it, and terrified when we caught her?”
Lily nodded against his chest. “How did you stop her?”
“I couldn’t have her thinking she was stealing it, could I? Keldan noticed it, smart lad. ‘Da,’ he told me. ‘She eats like a bird, a peck here and there. She’s got to be still hungry, but I think it scares her.’ So I watched, and he was right. She hardly ate at the meals, afraid of taking what she needed and wanted, so she’d steal back downstairs in the middle of the night and eat what she could lay her hands on. So I started waking in the middle of the night myself, quietly go upstairs, wake her, take her by the ha
nd and lead her down, and fix her a small snack. I won’t have a child who thinks they have to steal to eat. Then she knew she wasn’t stealing, couldn’t be stealing, and she settled right down then. And your tucking small snacks away in a napkin and giving it to her when you sent the girls up to bed, that helped, too. She is still a mite skittish, like one of those hot-blooded northern horses, but she’s a smart lass. Just mistreated.” He puffed angrily. “Mistreated horribly.”
“No more,” Lily breathed against her neck.
“Not if we have anything to do about it.” He held her back. “She has a very long time before she needs t’ worry. We Farbranches are a stout lot, and we’ll be guarding her.”
Chapter Eleven
SHE WOKE IN THE darkest of the night chasing dreams. For a moment, she lay in complete panic until she saw the thready gleam of moonlight filtering in through the window and knew she could breathe. Not rock and earth over her, but a roof, and a bed that cradled her. Rivergrace quieted, listening to the deep, soft sounds of Nutmeg next to her, and when her drumming heart had stilled a bit, she got up, carefully, quietly, easing out of the bed and down the creaky wooden stairs so as not to wake anyone. She had remembered the noisy spots and could get up and down them with the barest whisper of noise that even the sharp round ears of the others could not catch, although she trembled at each groan of the weathered wood. She could hear it, sharp as could be, the moaning of the wood, bent and carved into steps, lamenting its loss of life as a young, verdant tree.
Without lamp or candle, Rivergrace lifted the latch on the back door and went outside. The ground felt both damp and icy cold under her feet. Soon she would either not be able to make the trip at all or would have to find boots to wear. Grace hurried across the yard and into the grove, and down the lane to the river. The journey seemed both farther and nearer every time she made it. Definitely colder. She crouched on the bank, looking into the still, deep waters, drawing her gown about her like a tent as proof against the coming winter, hugging her arms about herself. She knew well now the difference between the sound of the wind in the trees and the Silverwing in its bed, both rushing on a journey through the valley.