by Jill M Beene
Samiris stalked forward, a twig bending beneath her foot. Before it snapped, she caught herself and eased her weight off the branch. There could be no error in hunting or farming. The land was unforgiving to the smallest of mistakes; a misstep today meant a hollow belly tonight. A hollow belly tonight tumbled easily into weakness tomorrow, and the sickness of the land could smell weakness on the air the same way the wolves of the Northern mountains scented blood. Death was a voracious murderer that stalked their village. Everyone barred their doors at night and prayed it wouldn’t visit their household next.
Samiris had never mastered the bow, but the axes strapped across her back were a comforting, familiar weight. She supposed they would be considered crude by most standards. The iron heads had been hammered from plows left to rust in abandoned fields, and the handles were pine boughs that she had shaped and chiseled herself. The large, curved axe was for felling trees and breaking up the beaver dams that forever threatened to turn her woods into a useless marsh. The small one was for throwing, shaping snares, and ending the lives of her prey.
She was not sure what sort of creature she was hunting this evening. Something had been through here, and not a long time ago. Samiris guessed that it had been only early this morning, before the rain. There were four strong wide tracks, and one dragging track in the middle. Some sort of animal with a long tail, perhaps? The tracks were too wide for a deer. It couldn’t be a common mountain wolf, for those were swift and nimble, leaving very little evidence behind. The beast Samiris tracked was clumsy. If only the rain hadn’t washed away everything except for these confusing impressions, she might be able to ascertain what exactly she was following. Maybe it was a Northern wolf, but a sick one, one that had somehow wandered down into her forest to die.
The thought stopped the air in her lungs as surely as if a hand had squeezed her throat. Northern wolves were dangerous when they were well-fed and sated. Samiris could hardly imagine the horror that would rise up to meet her if she cornered a sick one. The wolves were the size of ponies, with teeth as sharp as Teymara daggers. A trapper had brought a paw into the village several years ago. Samiris could still remember placing her hand up against the withered thing to compare. The paw was roughly the size of a dinner plate, and its claws were wicked, curved things the length and diameter of her fingers.
The idea that it could be a Northern wolf was enough to make Samiris think about turning back. She liked tracking things when she was certain what they were: industrious beavers for their pelts, twitchy squirrels and rabbits for stew meat and jerky, a rare swift deer for fresh meat and warm fur. But these tracks were different. She half-turned her shoulders back toward the manor. She had only been hiking for a half an hour; she hadn’t wasted that much daylight.
It was her father’s warning that pressed her onward.
“Next winter will be a hard one for us,” her father had wheezed at the start of spring. “Begin stocking up as much as you can. Save all the coin.”
His words pierced her somehow, sent a thrill of anxiety sweeping down her spine. Her father had never expressed concern for their future before. He had always been the complacent one, leaning hard on Samiris’ ability to provide for their family, sometimes resting so heavily on her that she could barely breathe underneath the pressure of the responsibility crushing her chest.
So all spring and summer, Samiris had toiled twice as hard. She cut down tree after tree, until the forest grove directly in front of their home dwindled, until the stack of firewood next to the house was large enough to send a plume of smoke all the way to the capital city of Teymara should someone set it alight. The chances to earn coins in the village were scarce, but Samiris accepted every opportunity possible. There was a small ceramic jar in the pantry that had a satisfying weight and rattled when she shook it.
Her hands cracked and bled, she grew even thinner, and the hollows in her cheeks and beneath her collarbones drew concerned comments from Tamrah. All this Samiris did under the perfect blue sky of an unusually mild summer. She cast a baleful eye at the cloud-skimmed tranquility that appeared over her day after day, and kept her father’s words close to mind. “A hard winter,” he had warned. If it was to be hard, it would be short, at least. The fall rains had not yet appeared, and the evening was just now tinged with coolness.
But now, when she wanted to turn back, when the ease of the stuffed stools at the bar in Faro beckoned to her like the whisper of a seductive lover, she remembered her father’s words once again and trudged forward. After an hour in the forest, the tracks became clearer. The creature had followed a small stream deeper into the woods. Samiris loved this part of the forest, where the ceaseless dripping of rain and dew tapped a gentle percussion against the ground.
It was because she was attuned to the normal sounds of the forest that she heard them so far out. Two voices in low conversation ahead. Samiris twisted behind a great tree trunk, enveloping herself in shadow with the same ease as one would pull on a cloak. She listened. There was no sudden silence, no scramble or bark of alarm that would have preceded a search. They hadn’t seen her.
This was her family’s land, and this was her forest. No one had permission to be there. Samiris looked out at the tracks again. It was two men who had been helping a third along, she saw now. That was the strange element in the middle. She was not used to tracking humans, which is why she hadn’t recognized that her quarry wasn’t edible.
Samiris leaned against the tree trunk, considering her options with the rough bark pressed against her cheek and the smell of sap flooding her nostrils. She could step out and confront the trespassers. Or she could skulk back the way she came and avoid this spot in the forest for awhile. Samiris smirked. She never was one for the path of least resistance, and she would no sooner ignore an intruder in her forest than she would a stranger in her kitchen.
Her decision made, she crept forward, ducking behind trees to conceal her approach. She could see a small campsite in a clearing ahead. It was a charming spot near a small brook, the perfect place to spend the night in the woods. When she was within clear earshot of the small encampment, she paused to listen.
“He’ll get better. He’s on the mend already,” one said.
“A couple more days here, maybe. If our luck with hunting lasts that long.”
Samiris peeked her head out from behind the tree. From this distance, she could see the camp clearly. A fresh deer skin, looking like the banner of some rustic dining hall, was strung between two trees, along with strings of drying meat. The third person that they spoke of was most likely in the oilskin tent that had been erected over a low-hanging branch.
They’re no more than boys, she realized.
One was probably Tamrah’s age, the other maybe a year older. Their faces were streaked with grime, their shoulders slumped, and their pants were worn through at the knees. They sat on fallen logs, and a pitiful fire smoldered between them.
Samiris unsheathed her axes silently and stepped out from behind the tree. The smaller of the boys toppled backwards over his log in surprise at her sudden appearance. Samiris would have laughed had her attention not been caught by the elder boy’s careful retreat toward a bow and a quiver of arrows leaning against a nearby tree. Samiris raised her hatchet.
“Don’t,” she said simply.
He froze, one trembling hand reached out toward his bow as he tried to will it into his grasp. His eyes were wide, his lips pressed together in a thin line.
“I’m not going to hurt you, unless you try to hurt me,” Samiris said. “Why are you on my lands?”
The smaller one had righted himself, and was dusting leaves and dirt from his breeches.
The oldest lifted his chin in a show of bravery and replied, “We are headed to Teymara. Father’s cousin has jobs for us in his clay works.”
“What are your names?” she said.
“I’m Silas, and that’s Milo.”<
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“Someone’s ill?”
Silas glanced toward the tent. “Father’s getting better.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Chills. Shakes. He can’t keep any food down.”
“When did it start? What has he been eating?” Samiris demanded, sheathing her axes across her back once more.
“Six days ago. We’ve been boiling the river water to get the sickness out. I don’t know what’s the matter. “
Samiris strode over to their leather packs and squatted beside them. Silas stiffened, but made no move to stop her. Samiris rummaged through them, and found what she expected.
“When’s the last time he had something other than meat?” she asked.
“We’ve been walking for two weeks. We ran out of biscuits on the third day,” Silas said.
“That’s the problem. Come with me, both of you.” Samiris walked into the forest without waiting to see if they followed. From the hesitant sounds in her wake, she could tell they trailed after her.
She found what she was looking for, and waited for them to catch up. Samiris lifted a log to show them.
“Mushrooms,” she said, picking several stalks of brown fungi. “Locals don’t eat them until we get desperate, because they have a bitter taste. But they’ll keep you from getting sick. Only the brown ones. Don’t eat the black ones.”
Samiris yanked some moss from the side of a tree. “This kind of moss... the short, thick kind, can be boiled into a tea. Again, it tastes terrible, but you should have it at least once a day if you’ve got nothing else.” Samiris turned back toward their camp. “Now, let’s talk about this deer you killed in my forest.”
CHAPTER THREE
Some time later, Samiris was tromping back through the woods toward the road. The family could stay for one week, she said, in exchange for the deer pelt. Considering that by law she could have taken the boys’ hands for poaching, they readily agreed. She had thought about demanding some of the meat, too, but they would need it to get to Teymara alive.
Samiris’ feet worked almost without her direction, plodding back through the familiar maze of trees until she reached the road. The lane had once been well-tamped by wagons and carriages going to and fro from the manor and the village. Traders came by to spread their goods in front of the lords and ladies who had lived there much like a peacock displays its plumage to a prospective mate. Now the road was blanketed by a thick coverlet of delicate green shoots. Nature was a sullen landlord, always trying to take back what had been lent out.
Samiris slung the rough satchel with the deer pelt back and forth from shoulder to aching shoulder as she walked. Sea wind ruffled Samiris’ hair and cooled the sweat beading at her temples and on her chest. It was a pinch over a mile down to the village of Faro, a collection of weather-beaten, ramshackle buildings as tenaciously positioned and randomly grouped as barnacles on ocean rocks. The buildings hunched behind a fence of driftwood tied together with wire, with holes large enough to let a Northern wolf through.
After the curse had descended, the citizens of the village had dispersed with the alarmed alacrity of a school of frightened minnows. The visiting fishermen and traders from the nations across the sea had retreated, their departure slowed only by the complicated wards of superstitious protection they formed with their hands against the evil in Leiria as they fled. The villagers lucky enough to have family in the capital city of Teymara hurried to guilt their relatives into taking them in. Of those who could not afford to leave, some hardened to the conditions, clay in a kiln. Many just died. Faro was not a ghost town, but it was just as shriveled and emaciated as its inhabitants.
There were only a few businesses that endured from before. Fishing was scarce and industry that had depended on agriculture withered like a vine cut from the main plant, failing right alongside the farms. But Peg still ran the tavern, the most prosperous establishment in Faro. She was a stout woman, red-faced from the heat of the still in the basement, with a midsection as thick as the casks of fermented beer she stored behind the bar.
Peg served biscuits hard enough to break a tooth, stew so watery you could see the bottom of the bowl, and thick beer served up as an apology alongside. The tavern was also the place where all trades in Faro took place. People lingered here when there was nothing else to do, like lazy flies over a cow.
Samiris ducked through the low doorway and paused at the threshold to let her eyes adjust. The low light from the fireplace flickered over familiar faces. There was a low murmur of conversation among the smattering of people. Samiris spotted Kalan at the bar. His thin face broke into a grin, as if he had been waiting for her to show up. She gave him a friendly nod, letting him know she’d be over in a minute.
“Trade,” Samiris announced, setting her bundle onto the nearest empty table. “Deer pelt.”
Several heads turned toward her, but only Peg and Ivan, the wiry blacksmith, meandered over to inspect the fur.
Ivan stroked the deer pelt with his scarred hand. “A silver daric. Be worth much more with meat inside it.”
Peg tsked him. “It’s still worth more than a daric. I haven’t seen a skin this fine in ages.”
“Looks like a scrawny one,” Ivan said.
“Looks like the first warm sleep I’ll have in years,” Peg retorted, a smile on her ruddy face.
“I’ll keep your bed warm, Peg!” A man called out from a back table. “Won’t cost you a daric, neither.”
“But for a daric, I can have something that will always be up to the task, Tomas,” Peg replied smoothly. “This deer skin won’t tire after five minutes and leave me cold.”
The tavern jeered and clapped at her statement, and Samiris chuckled along with the rest.
“I’ll offer two silver darics and a meal,” Peg said.
“Three and a meal,” Samiris countered.
“Done,” Peg said.
Coin was exchanged, and Peg bundled the deer skin into a ball and spirited it away down the stairs. She slept on a pallet by her still, tending her brew all night as a mother tends a colicky child.
Samiris slid onto the vacated stool next to Kalan, noting that he had made someone else scoot over to make room for her.
“So where is the meat from that skin, anyways?” Kalan nudged her side.
Samiris smiled. Kalan was no taller than she was, his shoulders no broader, his hair the color of three-day-old straw, his eyes a shallow blue. Had he grown up in a time or a family of plenty, his arms might not have been so lanky, the half-moon bruises under his eyes less pronounced. But Kalan was the second-eldest of the three sons of a widow. He was always hungry.
“Poachers got it,” she said.
“There’s poachers set up in the forest?” He frowned. “You should have rousted them.”
“They were just passing through on their way to the capital city. I can hardly blame them for starving. It’s no loss to me. I probably wouldn’t have caught that deer. You know I’m hopeless with a bow.”
“Good thing you make up for it with your other talents,” he said, slinging a thin arm around her shoulders.
Her talents. Samiris wondered if Kalan thought he was wooing her. She wished he wouldn’t try. They both knew their arrangement was based on friendship and mutual need. He was the extra in his family, the spare, the dead weight that needed to be trimmed so that the rest of the family tree could survive.
His elder brother provided for the family by sailing with a fishing boat that ventured deep out into the ocean, out to where the reach of the curse weakened. It was dangerous work, and nearly every voyage at least one sailor didn’t return. There they said, the breakers were as tall as hills and as crafty as a Northern wolf. The waves broke over the ship when the wind blew, plucking men off the deck like a hunter pulls ticks from his hound.
Kalan’s younger brother had been gifted in leather works, ab
le to turn even a crusty hide into a buttery pair of boots. He was the prodigy, the gifted one, the unexpected coin under the dresser. He was apprenticed to a boot maker in Teymara, and every once in awhile, he sent a letter home with a gift tucked into the folds.
Kalan was the middle child. Too cowardly for deep sea fishing and lacking any special talents, he hunted the hills near the village, fished from the shallows of the sea, and foraged in the woods with his mother. Samiris would marry him because the laws of the country demanded it. In order for her father’s estate to pass to her, in order to keep her sister Tamrah safe, Samiris must marry.
As with most things, the property laws in Leiria favored the men. Property could be bequeathed to a daughter, but she must be married in order to inherit. It was just another disconnect between the leadership of the nation and those who lived there. If the landowner died prior to the daughter marrying, the royal family would receive the inheritance. As if they had any need of it.
It was well known in the village that Samiris would choose a husband, and when the traditional courting age of seventeen arrived, there had been more than a few suitors. Boys and men arrived with fresh-scrubbed, hopeful faces and tucked in shirts, posies of hill flowers gripped in calloused hands. Any other girl would have been flattered, any other girl would have encouraged the attention, any other girl wouldn’t have noticed how they looked at the kitchen garden longer than they ever looked at her.
Samiris was not stupid. Her eyes were clear, her skin flawless, and her hair was quite lovely whenever Tamrah badgered her into doing something with it, but her appearance was not the kind to inspire such mindless devotion from the male populous of the village. Nor was it a kind disposition that brought them flocking to her like cockroaches to a dropped hard candy. Samiris was known for her practicality, for her sarcasm, for her frowns and piercing glances and sound ideas. Sweet was never the word used to describe her.