“What if I see Harl lying dead of a knife wound?” Jeph asked, knowing it was what they were both thinking.
Ilain sighed deeply. “Then you mop the blood and build a pyre, and for all anyone ever need know, he slipped off the hay ladder and broke his neck.”
“We can’t just lie,” Jeph said. “If she killed someone…”
Ilain whirled angrily on him. “What in the Core do you think we ’ve been doing all these years?” she snapped. Jeph put up his hands to placate her, but she pressed on.
“Have I been a good wife?” Ilain demanded. “Kept your house? Given you sons? Do you love me?”
“Course I do,” Jeph said.
“Then you’ll do this for me, Jeph Bales,” she said. “You’ll do it for all of us, an’ for Beni an’ her boys, too. There ent no need for anything what’s ever happened on that farm to reach the town’s ears. What they make up is bad enough, and to spare.”
Jeph was quiet for a long time as they matched stares and wills. Finally, he nodded. “All right. I’ll leave after breakfast.”
Jeph was up with the dawn, hurrying through his morning chores despite the tired ache in his bones. They had tried all night to get a response out of Renna, but she simply stared at the ceiling, neither sleeping nor eating. After breakfast, he saddled their best mare.
“Reckon I’ll avoid the road myself,” he told Ilain. “Take a shortcut through the fields southeast.” Ilain nodded, throwing her arms around him and hugging him tightly. He returned the embrace, the pit of his stomach heavy with dread at what he might find. Finally, he let go. “Best to get going while there’s still time enough for a return trip.”
He had just mounted his horse when the sound of hoofbeats reached his ears. He looked up to see a cart approaching, carrying the Herb Gatherer, Coline Trigg, wringing her hands with worry, and the Town Speaker, Selia the Barren, looking grim. Selia was nearing seventy now, tall and thin, but still tough as boiled leather and sharp as a Cutter’s axe.
Beside the cart on one side rode Rusco Hog, and on the other Garric Fisher and Raddock Lawry, Garric’s great-uncle and the Speaker for Fishing Hole. On foot behind them were Tender Harral and what looked like half the men of Fishing Hole, armed with thin fishing spears.
Garric kicked his horse ahead when the farm came in sight, galloping right up to the porch where Ilain stood and pulling up so short the beast reared before settling.
“Where is she?” Garric demanded.
“Where is who?” Ilain asked, meeting his wild glare.
“Don’t play games with me, woman!” Garric snarled. “I’ve come for your whorin’, witchin’, murderin’ sister, and you well know it!” He got off his horse and strode up to her, shaking his fist.
“You stop right there, Garric Fisher,” said Norine Cutter, coming out of the house holding Jeph’s axe. She had lived on Jeph’s farm since before his wife died, and was as much a part of the family as any. “This ent your property. You keep back an’ state your business, ’less you’re looking to take a coreling by the horns.”
“My business is that Renna Tanner murdered her own da and my son, and I’ll see her cored for it!” Garric shouted. “Ent no point in hiding her!”
Tender Harral caught up and interposed himself between Garric and the women. He was young and strong, a match for the older if just as bulky Garric. “There’s no proof of anything yet, Garric! We just need to ask her a few questions, is all,” he told Ilain. “And you, if she ’s said anything since Jeph left.”
“We need to do more than that, Tender,” Raddock said, getting off his horse. He was born Raddock Fisher, but everyone in the Brook called him Raddock Lawry, because he was Speaker for the Hole on the town council, and legal arbitrator of disputes in his borough. A mass of grizzled hair from ears to chin, the crown of his head was bald as an egg. He was older than Selia but shorter-tempered, full of righteous passion with a knack for stirring it in others. “Girl needs to answer for her crimes.”
Hog was the next to dismount. He was imposing as always, the man who owned half of Tibbet’s Brook outright and held debts from the rest. “Garric speaks honest word when he says your father and Cobie Fisher are dead,” Hog told Ilain. “My girls and I went to investigate some shouting we heard at the store last evening, and found them in the back room I rented Cobie, dead. Not just stabbed, they was…mutilated. Both of them. Stam Tailor says he saw your sister there just before it happened.”
Ilain gasped, covering her mouth.
“Horrible,” Harral agreed, “and that’s why it’s best we see Renna right away.”
“So clear the door!” Raddock ordered, pushing forward.
“I am Speaker in Tibbet’s Brook, Raddock Lawry, not you!” Selia barked, silencing everyone. Jeph reached out to help her down from the cart. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she gripped her skirts to keep them from the dirt and strode over. The younger men, outweighing her several times over, shrank back at the force of her presence.
One did not get to be Selia’s age easily in Tibbet’s Brook. Life in the Brook was hard; only the sharpest, most cunning and capable folk survived to see full gray, and the rest treated them accordingly. When she was younger, Selia had been forceful. Now she was a Power unto herself.
Only Raddock stood his ground. He had ousted Selia as Town Speaker more than once over the years, and if age was power in Tibbet’s Brook, he was stronger, if not by much.
“Coline, Harral, Rusco, Raddock, and I will need to go in and see her,” Selia told Jeph. It wasn’t a request. The five of them were half the town council, and he could only nod and stand aside, allowing them entrance.
“I’m going, too!” Garric growled. The crowd of Fishers, his kith and kin, gathered angrily around him, nodding.
“No, you’re not,” Selia said, fixing them all with a steely glare. “Your blood is up and none can blame you, but we ’re here to learn what happened, not stake the girl without a trial.”
Raddock put a hand on Garric’s shoulder. “She ent getting away, Gar, I promise you that,” he said. Garric gritted his teeth, but he nodded and stepped back as they went inside.
Renna was still lying in the same position they had placed her in the night before, staring at the ceiling. She blinked occasionally. Coline went right to her.
“Oh, dear,” Selia said, spotting the bloody knife on the night table. Jeph cursed silently. Why had he left it there? He should have thrown it down the well the moment he saw it.
“Creator,” Harral breathed, and drew a ward in the air.
“And here,” Raddock grunted, kicking a basin by the door. Renna’s dress was soaking within, the water pink with blood. “Still think we’re just here to ask a few questions, Tender?”
Coline looked over the bruises on Renna’s face with a concerned eye and a firm hand, then turned to the others and cleared her throat loudly. The men stared dully for a moment, then gave a start and turned their backs as she drew back the covers.
“Nothing’s broken,” Coline said, coming over to Selia when her inspection was complete, “but she’s taken quite a beating, and there are bruises around her throat like she was choked.”
Selia went and sat down on the bed beside Renna. She reached out gently, brushing the hair from Renna’s sweating face. “Renna, dear, can you hear me?” The girl didn’t react at all.
“Been like this all night?” Selia asked, frowning.
“Ay,” Jeph said.
Selia sighed and put her hands on her knees, pushing to her feet. She took the knife, and then turned and ushered everyone out of the room, closing the door.
“Seen this before, after demon attacks, mostly,” she said, with Coline nodding along. “Survivors get more of a fright than they can handle, and are left staring off into the air.”
“Will she get better?” Ilain asked.
“Sometimes they snap out of it in a few days,” Selia said. “Sometimes…” She shrugged. “Won’t lie to you, Ilain Bales. This is the worst th
ing ever happened in Tibbet’s Brook as far back as I can recall. I’ve been Speaker on and off for thirty years, and seen a great many folk die before their time, but there ent never been one killed in anger. That kind of thing may happen in the Free Cities, but not here.”
“Renna couldn’t have…!” Ilain choked, and Selia took her shoulders, gentling her.
“That’s why I was hoping to talk to her first, dear, and get the story from her lips.” She glanced at Raddock. “The Fishers have come looking for blood, and they won’t be satisfied without it, or a good explanation.”
“We got reason,” Raddock growled. “It’s our kin dead.”
“Case you ent noticed, my kin’s dead, too,” Ilain said, glaring at him.
“All the more reason to want justice,” Raddock said.
Selia hissed, and everyone fell silent. She held the bloody knife out to Tender Harral.
“Tender, if you’d be so kind as to wrap this and hide it in your robes till we get to town, I’d be grateful.” Harral nodded, reaching for it.
“What in the Core you think you’re doing?” Raddock shouted, snatching the knife before the Tender could take it. “The whole town’s got a right to see this!” he said, waving it around.
Selia grabbed his wrist, and Raddock, outweighing her twice over, laughed until she drove her heel down on his instep. He howled in pain, letting go of the knife to clutch his foot. Selia caught it before it could hit the floor.
“Use your head, Lawry!” she snapped. “That knife’s evidence and all have a right to see it, but not with two dozen men outside with spears and a defenseless girl numb with fright. The Tender ent gonna steal it.”
Ilain fetched a cloth, and Selia wrapped the knife, giving it to the Tender, who stowed it safely in his robes. She gathered her skirts and strode outside, back arched and head up high as she faced the gathered men in the yard, who grumbled angrily and fingered their spears.
“She’s in no condition to talk,” Selia said.
“We ’re not looking to talk!” Garric shouted, and the Fishers all nodded their assent.
“I don’t care what you’re looking to do,” Selia said. “No one’s doing anything until the town council meets on this.”
“The council?” Garric asked. “This ent some coreling attack! She murdered my son!”
“You don’t know that, Garric,” Harral said. “Could be he and Harl killed each other.”
“Even if she didn’t hold the knife, she done it,” Garric said, “witchin’ my son into sin and shamin’ her da!”
“The law is the law, Garric,” Selia said. “She gets a council meeting, where you can make your accusations and she can say her piece, before we name her guilty. Bad enough we’ve had two killings, I won’t have your mob doing a third because you can’t wait on justice.”
Garric looked to Raddock for support, but the Speaker for Fishing Hole was silent, edging toward Harral. Suddenly he shoved the Tender against the wall, reaching into his robes.
“She ent tellin’ you all!” Raddock shouted. “The girl had a red dress soaking!” He held Harl’s knife up for all to see. “And a bloody knife!”
The Fishers gripped their spears and shouted in outrage, ready to push right into the house. “The Core with your law,” Garric told Selia, “if it means I can’t avenge my son.”
“You’ll murder that poor girl over my dead body,” Selia said, moving to stand directly in front of the door with the rest of the council and Jeph’s family. “That what you want?” she called. “To be named murderers yourselves? Every Fisher?”
“Bah, you can’t hang us all,” Raddock scoffed. “We’re taking the girl, and that’s that. Stand aside, or we ’ll go clean through you.”
Hands in the air, Rusco stepped aside. Selia glared at him. “Traitor!”
But Rusco just smiled. “I’m no traitor, ma’am. Just a visiting businessman, and it isn’t my place to take sides in this kind of dispute.”
“You’re as much a part of this town as anyone!” Selia shouted. “You’ve been in Town Square twenty years, and on the council near all of ’em! If you’ve a place that’s more home than this, maybe it’s time you went back to it!”
Rusco just smiled again. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I got to be fair to all. Standing against a whole borough is just bad business.”
“Once a year at least, half the town comes to me, ready to run you out for a cheat, like they did to you in Miln and Angiers and Creator knows where else,” Selia said, “and every year, I talk them out of it. Remind them what a benefit your store is, and how things were before you came. But you stand aside now, and I’ll see to it no decent person sets foot in your shop again.”
“You can’t do that!” Hog cried.
“Oh, yes I can, Rusco,” Selia said. “Just you try me if you think it ent so.” Raddock scowled, and it turned venomous when Hog went back to stand with Selia in the doorway.
Hog met his eyes. “I don’t want to hear it, Raddock. We can wait a day or two. Any man puts hands on Renna Tanner before the council meets is banned from the store.”
Selia turned to Raddock, her eyes blazing. “How long, Lawry? How long can Fishing Hole go without Bales’ grain and livestock? Marsh rice? Boggin’s Ale? Cutters’ wood? I’m betting not nearly so long as we can go without ripping fish!”
“Fine, you call the council,” Raddock said. “But we ’ll lock the girl up in Fishing Hole until she has her trial.”
Selia barked a laugh. “You think I’d entrust her to you?”
“Then where?” he asked. “I’ll be corespawned before I let her stay here with her kin, where she could run off.”
Selia sighed, glancing back at the house. “We ’ll put her in my spinning room. It’s got a stout door, and you can nail the shutters and set a guard, if you wish.”
“You sure that’s wise?” Rusco asked her, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, feh,” Selia said, waving dismissively. “She’s just a little girl.”
“A little girl that killed two grown men,” Rusco reminded her.
“Nonsense,” Selia said. “I doubt she could have killed one of those strong men herself, much less two.”
“Fine,” Raddock growled, “but I’m keeping this,” he held up the knife, “and that bloody dress, until the council comes.” Selia scowled, and their eyes met as they matched wills. She knew Raddock Lawry could whip the town into a frenzy with the items, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter.
“I’ll send runners today,” Selia said, nodding. “We ’ll meet in three days.”
Jeph carried Renna out to his cart and they took her down to Selia’s house in Town Square, locking her in the spinning room. Garric nailed the shutters closed from the outside himself, testing the wood carefully before grunting and agreeing to leave.
CHAPTER 21
TOWN COUNCIL
333 AR SUMMER
DAWN CAME THE NEXT day, and Selia’s bones ached as she swung her feet out of bed. The pain had come to her joints a few years past. It was worst when it was rainy or cold, but lately she felt a twinge of it even on the warmest, driest days. She supposed it would worsen ere she died.
But Selia never complained, not even to Coline Trigg. The pain was her burden to bear. She was Speaker in Tibbet’s Brook, and that meant folk expected her to be strong and stand up for what was right. No matter how her limbs screamed, no one ever saw any sign that Selia was anything other than what she had always been, a rock of support they could lean upon.
She felt that added weight heavily as she rose and made her ablutions, dressing in one of her heavy, high-necked gowns. She didn’t know Renna or her sisters well, but she knew their mother, and how Harl had treated her before the corelings took her. Some said she went to the demons willingly, to escape him. If he was at all the same with his daughters, Selia could well imagine Renna needing to kill in her own defense.
When she was done, she saw to Renna, dressing her in one of her own gowns and sitting h
er up to take some porridge. She wiped the girl’s mouth clean when she was done and left the spinning room, dropping the bar.
She had her own meal, then went outside. Rik Fisher was standing on her walk, holding his thin fishing spear. He was seventeen and not yet married, though Selia had seen him walking with Ferd Miller’s daughter Jan. If Ferd approved the match, they would likely be promised soon.
“Need you to run an errand for me,” Selia said.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Rik said. “Raddock Lawry said to stay right here and make sure the girl dunt leave, no matter what anyone said to me.”
“Oh, did he?” Selia asked. “And am I right to guess I would find your brother Borry around back, by my nice shutters that Garric nailed shut?”
“Yes’m,” Rik said.
Selia went back into the house, coming out with a broom and a rake. “Won’t have idle hands milling around my house, Rik Fisher. You want to stay here, you’ll sweep my front walk spotless and have your brother clear the leaves and dead grass out back.”
“I’m not sure I…,” Rik began.
“You’d leave an old woman to do work you’re too lazy to?” Selia asked. “Perhaps I’ll mention that to Ferd Miller, the next time I see him.”
Rik had taken the broom and rake before she finished the sentence. “That’s a dear boy,” she said. “When you’re done, you can check my wards. Anyone comes calling, have them set on my porch. I’ll be back soon.”
“Yes’m,” Rik said.
She took a crock of butter cookies and went to where the children played in the Square, sending the swiftest to deliver messages in exchange for a cookie. By the time she made it back to her house, Rik was done with the walk and was sweeping her porch. Stam Tailor, the first person she had summoned, sat slumped on her porch steps, clutching his head in pain.
“Regretting yesterday’s ale?” Selia asked, knowing the answer already. Stam was always regretting yesterday’s ale, even as he reached for today’s.
Stam only groaned in reply.
“Come inside then, and have a cup of tea to soothe your head,” Selia said. “Want to talk about what you saw, night before last.”
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