Blood Seed: Coin of Rulve Book One (10 page)

Leading Padiky, he trudged toward the gate. He felt light-headed and foggy, and the ground seemed to shift under his feet. A full ice reaction was beginning and he didn’t want Mariat to see it. There was no secluded place, so he stopped in the midst of several grazing horses and positioned Padiky between him and the entrance gate. Quivering, he leaned his forehead against the horse’s neck, twined his good hand in her mane, and stood there until the worst had passed, and he could go on.

By the time he got back to the wagon, a few drops of rain were falling. Mariat had already packed up their remaining wares, and she and the onion-lady were shoving the last trestle table boards into the wagon. Sheft winced as he got into his jacket, then harnessed the horse to the wagon while Mariat gave the woman a pot of honey for her trouble. Within minutes they were on the road home, and the drops increased to a drizzle.

Mariat reached behind her and pulled out the pale yellow blanket, and moving close to Sheft, threw it over their heads. Then she asked him the dreaded question. “What happened to you?”

Perhaps he could bluff her. “What do you mean?”

“Sheft, it’s obvious. There’s a big bruise on your cheek and your hand is all swollen. You were in a fight, weren’t you?”

He nodded.

“With…?”

The anger he felt earlier flooded back. “With Gwin and Voy. Gwin decided to take Padiky and drive you home himself.” His voice became hard. “With stops along the way. I didn’t think you would care for it.”

Her eyes filled with tender dismay. “I wouldn’t.” She put her arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder. “But he’d never get me to leave without you.” 

“Mariat, he was right in what he said about me. Any man in the village can give you a better life. For weeks I’ve wanted to speak to you about that, but I—didn’t have the courage.”

The rain pattered on the road and glistened on Padiky’s haunches, but the blanket was keeping them dry. “Why,” Mariat murmured from beside him, “would it take courage?”

He glanced down at the top of her head, then out at the wet and stony road. “Because I don’t want to lose you.”

“Then let’s not talk anymore about it. I won’t be lost, but will stay right beside you.” He held the reins in his left hand, and she gently took the right and cradled it in her lap.

Ashamed of the dishonesty that hid things from her, but glad of what truth he had managed to speak, he laid down for a moment a great burden. On the rainy way home, the air was full of the smell of fallen leaves, and they sat under their private pale sun, as close to each other as love demanded.

Sitting with her two friends at the table, Ubela glanced out the open window in the back of the alehouse scullery. Nothing but muggy air came through. The unseasonable combination of yesterday’s rain with today’s hot sun left puddles in the street and humidity in the air. Drone-fly weather. A good, hard frost—already overdue—would get rid of them, but now they swarmed everywhere. Just like the small, persistent rumors she was itching to pass on.

The alehouse hadn’t opened yet; so Cloor, busy in the brew-shed out back, had set them to making bunches of flybane to hang from the rafters.

She sat back in her chair, stretched luxuriously, then glanced around the table. “So we all agree Temo’s a bore. Who’s next?”

Wena giggled. “I wonder if the guys talk about us like we talk about them.”

Melis looked up from the pile of herbs she was sorting. Her long, thick lashes never failed to elicit a stab of envy in Ubela. “Of course they do. Only they say coarser things. So what’s your opinion of Delo’s boys, Ubela?”

“Well, the younger son isn’t bad looking, except of course he’s so
short
. And the older one, Gede, has that tickly mustache.”

“How do you know it tickles?” Wena asked, her eyes as wide as a puppy dog’s. 

Ubela made a face at her. “For Ele’s sake, girl. Take a guess.”

“I found out about Gede’s mustache the same way you did,” Melis remarked, examining her nails.

“What!” Ubela exclaimed.

“Don’t get your nose out of joint. It was before you and he got together.”

Ubela bit off a piece of string and tied a bunch of flybane together. “That’s over, anyway. Now I’m looking at Gwin. All those muscles under that tight shirt.” She spoke as casually as she could, but with a thrill of excitement at the risk. Gwin’s late-night visits to Cloor’s, after she was left alone to clean up, were a secret even from her friends. If her stepfather ever found out—but he wouldn’t.

“What about the hayseed?” Wena asked. “He’s tall, with broad shoulders. And those seductive, unreadable eyes!” Her dreamy smile disappeared at Ubela’s snort. “Well, he’s tall, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Wena loves the hayseed,” Melis chanted, throwing flybane at her. “Wena loves the hayseed.”

“I do not!” Wena brushed the leaves off her blouse. “He’s so strange I’d never want to be alone with him. Not really.” She blinked furiously, a habit, Ubela noticed, when something upset her—like getting caught in a lie.

“Well you better not,” Ubela said, lowering her voice, “because I have a story to tell about him.”

The girls leaned forward.

“Yesterday, at the market-fair in Ferce, he and Mariat were
seen
together. With no brother or father
anywhere
around. I’m told he had his filthy hands all over her.”

“She
let
him?” Wena, looking shocked, dropped her hands in her lap.

“I heard it wasn’t a matter of
let
. I heard Mariat looked very scared.”

“That’s not like Mariat to go off with someone like him,” Wena objected. “She used to be pretty sensible.” A terrible thought seemed to come to her, and she started blinking again. “Maybe she couldn’t help it. Maybe those eyes of his cast a spell on her, and took away her free will.”

“I think that’s exactly what happened,” Ubela said. “Just listen to this. Someone I know has a friend up in Ferce, and this friend’s brother was one of the toll-takers at the fair. He actually remembers this wagon coming in from the south, which would be from here. A strange-looking man was driving, he said, and a young girl positively
cowered
next to him. The toll-taker said he wasn’t going to let them in, but this strange man gave him the evil eye, and the poor toll man found himself admitting them. There’s your proof that Wena is right.”

“That’s hardly proof,” Melis scoffed.

“Don’t be so naïve! The hayseed’s mother was a street-walker in a heathen city, a place crawling with sorcerers and wizards. Who knows what her son is?”

“Tarn’s his father though,” Wena mused. “That makes the foreigner—”

“A half-breed,” Ubela said. “Some kind of mongrel.”

Melis pulled flybane twigs out of the pile in the center of the table and wound them with a string. “Everyone knows he’s demon-seized. We all saw one of those seizures at the harvest, right there in the common field. People like that don’t have any self-control.”

“Every time he comes into town,” Ubela said, “he stares at me like a lecher.” She shivered daintily. “I swear his eyes take off every
stitch
of my clothes.”

“Men seem to do that to you quite often,” Melis remarked.

Ubela frowned at her, but Melis only lifted her eyebrows innocently.

Wena, who seemed to have missed this exchange, wore a worried expression. “First you, Ubela, and now this business with Mariat. Why doesn’t the council step in?”

“They never stepped in after Dorik’s son-in-law was killed,” Melis pointed out.

“Well,” Ubela said, laying down the bunch of flybane she was working on. “That’s another whole story. It’s a scandal what went on in the Holdman’s house. People say Dorik’s daughter died having
twins
. They’re all denying it of course—two babies by two different men.” She raised her eyebrow again. “And with all of them living there together, with Dorik a widower, it isn’t hard to guess who the second man was.”

Wena put her hands to her cheeks. “You’re terrible! Dorik with his own daughter? How can you
say
such things?”

“It’s not just me. Everyone’s talking. And that’s not all.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “For sure there was two murders! The son-in-law has a convenient ‘accident,’ and the second twin is quietly disposed of. All to avoid scandal. Then the other baby died, so now there’s four deaths there, not three.”

“Oh no!” Wena exclaimed.

“Murder shmurder,” Melis said. “The foreigner is the real problem. He’s what you call a corrupting influence. Parduka always said so. Women used to feel safe here, and now look: we’re all in danger.” She pursed her lips, leaned back in her chair, and stared into the mid-distance. “Him and those dangerous silver eyes. That hard, lean body. He needs a strong woman to tame him.”

Ubela shot a glance at her. “Your father would have a fit if he knew what you were thinking.”

Melis pulled a sprig of lavender that had gotten into the pile and brushed it reflectively under her nose. “I’m not thinking anything, Ubela. What are
you
thinking?”

“If Mariat got taken in,” Wena said in a small voice, “then none of us are safe. The council is supposed to do something. It’s their job to protect the women of our village.”

“He’s strong, and he’s quiet,” Melis said. “You’d never hear him coming. Once he got you alone in some barn, just imagine what he could do to you.”

Silence fell upon the group, and Ubela
did
imagine it, her heart pounding with forbidden scenarios. Scenarios shared, by the look of them, with the other two: Wena with a blush creeping up her cheeks, and Melis with the hint of a half-smile playing over her lips.

Ubela glanced into the alehouse. Cloor would open up soon, and Gwin would surely come in later. She pulled the neckline of her blouse down over her shoulders, spit on her fingers, and twirled her hair into ringlets over her ears.

#   #   #

The warm drizzle started up again just after Gwin joined his father at Cloor’s. He had two reasons for going there, one of them named Ubela. Last time, she’d let him get his hands under her blouse. This time, she might be even more accommodating. Voy was sitting at the table, already in his cups, along with Vehoke, Delo the cattleman, and Cloor himself. Pogreb was there too, but the old man sat facing the hearth and ignored the others.

“No customers in the general store either?” Gwin remarked to Vehoke.

The thin, earnest-eyed man wiped his long nose in a handkerchief and shook his head mournfully. “It’s the rain. More days like these will make a pauper out of me.”

“I hear you,” Rom said. “The road gets so bad in that hollow north of here the farmers can’t make it down to my shop.” He turned to Delo. “So how are those two boys of yours?”

Delo folded his hands over his ample stomach. “They work too hard, especially Gede. Poor boy lives like a monk, devoted to the cattle, you know. Just like in your smithy, Rom. What would you do without Gwin here?” 

Gwin smiled sourly as his father clapped him on the shoulder. He’d had another run-in with Rom’s second wife, and his father—again—had taken her side.

A drone-fly buzzed past Vehoke, and he tried to snatch it from the air, but missed.

“Now you’ve knocked it into my ale,” Voy said, peering into his mug. “Ubela,” he shouted.  “Bring me another round!”

“Just fish it out,” Vehoke said. “It surely hasn’t drunk as much as you have.” He chuckled at his own joke, but no one else did.

Ubela sashayed in to refill their cups, and Gwin exchanged a glance with her—
I’ll see you later tonight.
He noticed with disapproval that his father stared appreciatively as the little flirt left the room. When he turned back to the others, Delo was peering at his face.

“That’s a big bruise you’ve got there,” he said.

Gwin rubbed his jaw, which was still sore. “It happened at the market-fair yesterday. You didn’t hear about it?”

Nobody had, and all looked as if they wanted to. It was what he had counted on. “Well, the whole thing bothers me, bothers me quite a bit.” Gwin waved a fly away and looked around the table at the expectant faces. “Here’s the story. Voy and I took Oris up there for the day. The other two were getting something to eat, and I was buying some honey for my stepmother, when I looked up and almost dropped the jar. Not two strides away from me was the foreigner. He had Mariat with him, you know, Moro’s daughter? She was alone, no brother or anything. His hands were all over her and he was dragging her toward his wagon.”

“He
abducted
her?” Delo asked in a shocked tone.

Gwin spread out his hands. “I’m not accusing anyone. All I’m saying is she looked small and scared, and he just loomed over her.”

“He musht’ve seen her on the road and lured her into coming with him,” Voy said.

“Probably through sorcery and the evil eye,” Delo muttered. “We’ve all heard the rumors.”

Pogreb turned away from his contemplation of the fire to listen. Outside, rain spattered down in another brief shower.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Mariat was coerced,” Gwin said, “and I’m sure the foreigner managed to control himself at first. But then Mariat found herself in trouble, far from home and surrounded by strangers. I tell you she looked downright desperate.”

Delo sat back, shaking his head. “I have to say it. No one here ever really cared for that boy. Remember how he reacted to that knife Blinor had, the one with the swirls on the hilt? It was years ago, and the whelp was only six or seven years old, but I can’t forget the way he pounced on that blade. The greedy look on his face, it wasn’t normal.”

“Tarn had to actually pry it out of his hand.”

“I remember that,” Delo said, scratching one of his chins.

“The foreigner never made friends with any of the lads,” Vehoke added. “Thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

Rom nodded. “When he was just a boy, we could overlook things for his father’s sake. But now he’s grown, and Tarn can’t seem to control him anymore.”

“Now,” Voy said, “he thinks he can help ‘imshelf to our women.”

Gwin let the words hang in the air, then continued his story. “I was worried about Mariat. I told the foreigner I was going to take her home myself.”

“To make sure there would be no shtops along the way,” Voy explained carefully to Delo.

“But as I went to get my wagon,” Gwin went on, “I got this.” He pointed to his jaw. “Never saw it coming. Think he used a tree branch or something and knocked me flat. By the time I could get up, he’d run away.”

Vehoke plunked down his cup, splashing ale on the table. “By Ele! What a cowardly thing to do! You could’ve been badly hurt.”

“We can’t have people like him running amok,” Delo stated, his voice high-pitched with indignation. “Frightening our young girls, flashing the evil eye, ambushing people. Something has to be done!” 

“I don’t want to cause the man any more trouble, but I’m beginning to think the same way.” Gwin waved off a fly that buzzed around the spilled ale.

“What did you do then?” Cloor asked.

“We saw him leaving the fair with Mariat and followed as fast as we could. But we never did catch up with them, did we, Voy?”

They all turned to Gwin’s friend, but he was snoring with his head on the table.

Something apparently occurred to Vehoke, for worried wrinkles creased his forehead. “Maybe you didn’t see them because they weren’t there. On the road, I mean. Maybe he drove
off
the road, for a—oh Ele!—‘a stop along the way.’”