DEBTS (Vinlanders' Saga Book 3) (6 page)

Annikke gathered her into a tight hug. She rubbed the girl’s back, letting her cry out the fear and anger of the attack, the grief of losing the only safe home she’d known, and the uncertainty of their future. Annikke’s eyes filled as she grieved for the young woman in her arms.

Little more than five years ago Annikke’s life had been barren of affection. Then Benoia’s father had sold his daughter’s indenture to Annikke, and Benoia had brought warmth into Annikke’s carefully guarded heart. When Benoia’s service had ended at the end of the year, her father had come for her, but Annikke had bought the girl’s service for another year to keep her away from her father’s belt. So it had gone, year after year. In law, Benoia was her thrall, but the law didn’t govern her heart. As far as Annikke was concerned, the Norns had woven Benoia into her life as her daughter. She would not abandon the girl at the first test.

*

Lord Dahleven’s steady grey eyes met Aren’s. “Lord Tholvar came to me not a candlemark past, nigh frothing with anger, demanding that I send my best Tracker after the woman who injured his son. I would have you locate her and bring her back to Quartzholm for justice.”

Aren bowed. “I’ll leave at once, my lord.”

Dahleven chuckled softly. “Your eagerness is to your credit, but tarry long enough to get the particulars. The woman in question is seventeen summers in age. Her name is Benoia and she is indentured to a Fey-marked woman.”

“Annikke?” Lord Fender’s tone held surprise.

Lord Dahleven’s brows rose. “You know her?”

“I met her five years ago. She did me a service when it would have served her not to, and she healed my horse of lameness. I believe the girl had only just entered service with her.”

“Well, apparently this Annikke has aided Benoia’s escape from Lord Tholvar’s justice. I want to speak to her, also.”

Lord Fender snorted. “His vengeance, you mean. What does he say happened?”

“He says Annikke taught her protégé Fey magic, and that the girl used it to cripple the young man’s leg.”

Fender groaned. “What provoked her to that?”

“Do the Fey-marked need a reason for the harm they cause?” Lord Dahleven’s tone held a bitter edge.

Aren cringed inwardly and wondered what Lord Dahleven would think if he knew that Aren owed his life to a Fey. Even though the Light Elves had aided Quartzholm, most people still feared the Fey and regarded those touched by them as tainted. It would take more than a few songs of praise before folk changed beliefs handed down for generations.

“Aren, I would have you ask around her village about this woman,” Lord Fender said. “When I knew her, Annikke didn’t strike me as the kind who would condone harm being done to another. Not without cause.” Aren’s commander tipped his head and gave the Jarl a chagrinned smile. “If you are in agreement, my lord.”

Lord Dahleven chuckled, apparently not offended by Lord Fender’s presumption. “Indeed. Ask a few questions. But don’t delay your search. Lord Tholvar may be a pompous, self-important ass, but I need his vote in the Althing to change the laws of inheritance. I finally have enough lords in agreement to allow direct inheritance by women, and I don’t want to have to explain to Celia that it didn’t pass because of one disgruntled and petty lord.”

Aren suppressed a smile. Even so powerful a man as a Jarl stepped lightly around his wife. Aren would too, if that wife were pregnant and had been learning to wield a knife.

“Your lady would not want the law passed at the cost of injustice, though,” Lord Fender said.

Lord Dahleven shook his head. “No. Never that. So be thorough, Aren, but be quick.”

Chapter Seven

It was too late in the day for Aren to leave for the village where Annikke and Benoia had lived, so he returned home to sleep in his own bed that night. The cottage he’d rented was sound, and not far outside the walls of the castle. Being close allowed his daughter, Tandra, to serve in Quartzholm’s kitchen garden during the day and be home at night, and the Healers in Quartzholm were able to ease his mother’s painful joints where those back home had not been. He’d worried about his decision, but uprooting his family from their familiar place on the periphery of their old village had been the right thing to do.

As usual, his mother fell asleep beside the fire after the evening meal, but at fifteen summers, Tandra was excited to hear every detail of his meeting with the Jarl.

“What’s he like?” she asked, as she washed their wooden supper bowls.

Aren leaned back and slung one leg over the corner of the table. “He is a true leader of men, worthy of respect, and he wears his authority lightly.”

“But is he handsome?”

He considered his daughter, who had come into her Talent of nurturing plants two years ago, and was now filling out her woman’s body. Sometimes he noticed the young men watching her as she did her chores, and it filled him with trepidation. It wouldn’t be long before she thought to marry. He needed to distinguish himself in Lord Dahleven’s service so she could choose a husband worthy of her. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“Do you think grey eyes, and hair the color of burnt copper pleasing?”

“Ooh, yes! And is he tall?”

“I don’t know. Am I tall?”

“You know you are. How does he compare?” Tandra stacked the last of the dishes on the shelf.

“He is perhaps a hand taller than I.”

“And his shoulders, are they broad?”

“Broad enough to shoulder the responsibilities of the Jarldom—and the two children Lady Celia has already born him.” Aren lifted a brow at his daughter, reminding her that the object of her interest was both married and far above her.

“Then he is indeed handsome. But old.”

“He’s not much older than I am,” Aren protested, dropping his foot back to the unpolished floor.

Tandra laughed and he joined her, mingling is own deeper chuckle with her lighter toned mirth.

*

Aren departed when the eastern sky began to grey. Lord Fender had arranged for provisions and a swift mount, for which Aren was grateful. His old horse was at the end of its useful days, and was good for little more than carrying packages home on market day.

Lord Fender’s directions to the village were clear, and Aren’s mount got him there by noon with energy to spare. As he rode closer, Aren passed several narrow tracks that disappeared into the forest, but he stayed on the main thoroughfare, a dirt path barely wide enough for a cart. On the outskirts of the village he was greeted by a woman hanging laundry outside a cottage with a bright red door set in an otherwise plain exterior. Aren dismounted. If custom was the same here as in his old hamlet, this woman was the village whore, and probably a rich source of gossip.

“A fine day to you!” she called. “You look thirsty and road weary. Would you care to water your horse and rest yourself for a bit?”

“I would indeed, mistress … ?”

“Nellor.” The woman smiled, then turned and hollered over her shoulder. “Koreg!” A boy of about nine summers came running around the side of the cot.

“Yes, ma?”

“Take the man’s horse to the trough, then walk it so it doesn’t get stiff.”

“Aye, mam.”

Aren watched carefully for a moment to make sure the boy and Pinter were safe together, but the boy clearly had managed horses before.

“I’ll not be long, mistress.”

“Now that’s a shame.” The woman grinned. “But a man as hale and hearty as you isn’t likely to be, I’d guess. I’d be happy to take my time with someone like you, though. Come inside, and I’ll see to your needs while Koreg sees to your mount.”

The woman seemed friendly enough but Aren felt no inclination to accept her offer. Still, that was no reason to be impolite. “Nay, mistress, though the thought is tempting, I’m here on the Jarl’s business and cannot tarry. What I need most from you is information.”

The woman sighed a bit wistfully, but she speared him with a sharp look. “My time is still valuable, however you use it.”

Aren dug a half-kron from his belt pouch, no doubt twice what she usually earned of an evening, and held it up. “So is mine, mistress.”

The woman nodded. “What information do you seek?”

“What do you know of the women Annikke and Benoia?”

Nellor’s eyes narrowed. “You say you’re here on the Jarl’s business?”

“Aye.”

“Not Lord Tholvar’s?”

Aren indicated the swooping hawk embroidered on the left breast of his tunic. “I serve Lord Dahleven.”

“And what does a Jarl want with two women from our little village?”

“It’s not for the likes of me, or you, to question a Jarl’s motives.”

“Then it’s not likely that the ‘likes of me’ could have aught of value to say to the likes of you or the Jarl, is it?”

Aren saw he’d misstepped. “Lord Tholvar brought a complaint against Benoia on behalf of his son Sveyn, but it will be the Jarl who decides what merit that complaint holds and what’s to be done about it.”

The woman chewed on that for a moment, considering.“What do you want to know?”

“Only the truth as you know it, mistress. What do you know of Annikke and Benoia?”

“There are some as still fear Annikke’s silver hair, but I’ve never seen that she’s any different since that summer she was marked. Quieter maybe, but not crazed. She and that girl of hers, they play no favorites. They willingly heal the likes of me and my son as much as they do anyone.”

“As long as you can pay,” Aren suggested.

“Nay. The two of them sell their herbs in the market, but they heal as needed. They’ll accept a chicken or eggs as offered, they have to eat after all, same as anyone, but Annikke asks nothing of those who are ailing.”

“And those that annoy them?”

The woman snorted in derision. “What stories is Sveyn telling? If Benoia slapped him, it was no more than he deserved. He’s a randy one, and not familiar with, ‘No.’”

“He’s had trouble before?”

“Trouble? Not him. No one makes trouble for Lord Tholvar’s son. Not if they’re wise. Some of the girls that serve in his house, now,
they
might be said to have had trouble.”

Aren nodded and flipped the half-kron to the woman. “My thanks, mistress.”

She caught it handily, and grinned, revealing a gap where a tooth was missing. “Stop by again, sir, when you’ve more time. I can be generous with my hospitality.”

*

A collection of dry-stacked stone cottages and tradesmen’s shops comprised the small village that clustered at the base of the hill upon which Lord Tholvar’s house stood. Aren wore Lord Dahleven’s livery, so he drew the interest of all who saw him pass.

Aren didn’t draw his horse to a stop until he’d reached the blacksmith’s shop on the far side of the village. Mistress Nellor had told him that she knew no ill of Annikke or Benoia. Indeed, they had set her boy’s arm the year before with nary a sneer at how Nellor earned their keep. While some in the village were still wary of the Fey-marked woman and her servant, and few would call them friends, her herb craft was well known and they called upon Annikke when they were ill or injured. The smithy’s wife had been helped most recently by the herbalist, as had Lord Tholvar’s dairyman, and she’d given Aren directions to both.

The smith thrust a horseshoe into the coals, and wiped sweat from his brow with a muscular forearm as Aren dismounted beyond the heat of the forge. “Ye’re far from the Jarl’s holdings, sir. What brings ye here?”

“The Jarl has sent me to find your herbalist, Mistress Annikke, and her servant Benoia.”

The smithy frowned. “Aye?”

“Aye. Do you know where I might find them?”

“Their cottage can be found down the next track to the left, sir.”

“But they’re not there, are they?”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen Benoia since two days past. Longer for Mistress Annikke.”

Clearly, the smith wasn’t the talkative sort. Aren tried a different tack. “I should congratulate you. I understand you have a fine new son.”

A sudden smile brightened the smith’s face. “Aye! He’s a big and lusty one, too.”

“And your wife? She’s well, I hope?”

“Thanks to Mistress Annikke and her girl. They helped my Elin. Stayed with her through two long days of hard labor and saw her safely delivered. So I must ask you, sir, what does the Jarl seek them for? While I’d not second guess the Jarl, I’d not be happy to see harm befall those two.”

“Harm?” A passing man stopped and lowered his handcart. The sour smell of drink wafted from him as he leaned against the shed support. “That Fey-spawn deserves what harm she earns.”

“And you are?” Aren asked the newcomer.

“I’m the girl’s father, who that Annikke stole from me.”

“Who you sold, you mean,” the smith said.

“Benoia is Annikke’s thrall?” Aren asked.

The smith jerked his head in what Aren took to be reluctant assent. “Treated her more like a daughter, though. More than Fornos there did.” He lifted his chin, indicating the other man.

“What do you know of the matter? Wait till that squalling babe of yours gets older. You’ll learn a thing or two then about raising children.” Benoia’s father spat into the dust of the street and pushed his handcart filled with wood over to a low building with a thatched roof, muttering to himself all the way about ungrateful daughters and meddlesome neighbors.