The Crow God's Girl (9 page)

Ah. So if Kate hadn’t suggested it, he would have sent trackers. As it was, he would rather dismiss the danger completely. Not everyone agreed with Maksin either. There were some surprised expressions. Kate glanced at Lady Beatra, whose face showed strain.

“Yes, of course, Maksin. But I think it’s best to follow their trail after all. Child-stealing is hardly mischief.”

Maksin glowered. Jerk, Kate thought. You lost precious time just because I suggested it. She kept her mouth shut. As irksome as it was to know that Maksin didn’t want to take her suggestion, it was better that they get to the bottom of this.

“Yes, my lady,” he muttered. Lady Beatra smiled, and turned to Kate.

“And here we have forgotten your part in Yare’s rescue. Thank you, foster daughter, for your bravery.”

Kate bobbed her head in thanks, but she could see that Lady Beatra’s words had not gone over well with her enemies. Torvan and a few of the householders made faces of disdain.

Maksin looked sour. To cover up for his own lapse, the soldier barked, “You! Crow! How did you come upon those brigands?”

Ossen put down his spoon and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “To be sure, good sir, I was coming down the footpath that winds toward the road. I was about half-way and could see the men get the drop on the young lord.” He grinned at Yare, his teeth clean and bright in his dirty face, transforming his delicate face into something approaching handsome. “Young lord put up a fight, for sure.”

Yare beamed and one of the soldiers reached out and slapped him on his shoulder. Whoever or whatever Ossen was, he had just made a fan for life. The crow gave her a sideways glance.

“I asked the crow god for aid and so came the young lady, she on the fine horse, and rode them down.”

There was a deep, charged silence. Kate felt the color drain from her face. Ossen had just put her on the side of the crow god.

When Lady Beatra spoke her voice was careful. She turned to Maksin. “Send your men out at once, Maksin, please. I’d like to see if we can find anything about why this occurred. And to you, young Ossen, we give you our thanks as well, and traveler’s aid.”

Oh shit. Disaster piled upon disaster. Traveler’s aid was much less of an honor and implied less of an obligation than guesting. Kate bit her lip. Ossen cut his eyes toward her and then bowed to Lady Beatra.

“My thanks, my Lady.”

“Mama, no!” said Yare. “He deserves guesting! After Kett went out on the horse, he took them all on, one on one!” He slashed and hewed with vigor.

Lady Beatra nodded, but her face was more pained than ever. “Of course, Yare. Ossen, we give you guesting.”

Kate resolved never to have another mean thought about Yare ever again.

Torvan snorted. “Guesting now,” he said. “And what will the boy do while he sits and enjoys Terrick hospitality?”

“I can work,” Ossen said. “I can pull my weight.”

“Not much weight to pull. You’ve no more meat on you than your namesake crow, and few feathers besides.”

“Torvan!” Lady Beatra so rarely raised her voice that everyone jumped a little. Torvan’s eyes narrowed but he simmered down. “Ossen, we will find a place for you. For now, you may sleep in the stables.”

“Yes, my good lady. Thank you.” He finished his stew as if he thought it would be taken from him.

“Ready, my Yare?” Lady Beatra held out her hands to her son, and helped Yare slosh his way out of the basin, his bare feet red from the hot water. The boy yawned, and Kate yawned in sympathy. It had been a long day.

She took Eri by the hand and led her off to their bedroom, got her into her nightgown, and tucked her in. Eri was asleep almost before Kate got out of her clothes and into her own nightgown.

Despite her tiredness, she couldn’t sleep.

You should have told Lady Beatra about what you heard.
Guilt wracked her. If she had told her at once, Lady Beatra could have sent men at arms to the river right away and Yare would have been rescued that much sooner. Instead, she had not wanted to lose her freedom. Kate felt deeply ashamed.

I’ll tell her tomorrow, she thought. But if Lady Beatra thought less of her, she had it coming.

She groaned and buried her face in the down-stuffed pillow. A sound caught her attention–the door, opening a crack, and tiny little sniffle. Then,

“Kett? Can I come in to bed with you and Eri?”

Careful not to let any pity leak into her voice, she said, “Sure. Come on up.”

Yare clambered up between her and his little sister. Eri muttered something and turned away, and Yare lay still as a board. After a moment his shoulders shook and he tried to keep back his sobs. She could imagine him sharing a bed with his big brother and not being able to cry, because he was a Terrick, and a noble, and crying wasn’t allowed, and coming to the only person he knew for comfort. Kate sat up and rocked him, whispering, “It’s okay, Yare. It’s okay.”

Oh Colar. I wish you were here
.

His father had lied–the betrayals of Council
happened in the small rooms, not in the hall.

Colar knew he must look as if he had been pole-axed. He stood before his father in their chambers in the great house of Salt. The fire crackled warmly, and the small oil lamps were turned down low so he couldn’t see his father’s face. He wondered bitterly if his father played it that way. He wished he could flip a switch and call up the bright electric lights at Kate’s house. That would serve
his father
him well.

He turned away abruptly and went over to the window. Colar leaned his head against the thick blurred glass, and the nausea receded a bit. When he could speak, he kept his voice controlled, clipped.

“When you promised Kate and me that we could marry, what were you thinking?”

“Colar,” his father said. “You have always known that your heart was not yours to pledge.”

“Yes, I know. So why did you allow me to pledge it to her?”

For a moment his father said nothing. Colar turned around. The old man just sat there. No, he’s not old, he thought. No older than Mr. Mossland, and not even really old for Aeritan, despite it being a harsher life. His father was born old.

“You are the eldest son of Terrick. You must do what is best for your House. An alliance with Kenery, through marriage with his daughter–”

“A House you despise,” Colar put in.

“What would you have me do, Colar! We are a small House!” His father got up, and began to pace. “We have only a small army. Good men all, but you know how it is. We are land-locked, we have no true trade, except for our brandy and our good name.”

“Which you just sold cheap,” Colar said. His voice was flat. “You bartered it to Kenery for security.”

“A House can start with less and gain far more.”

Colar stared at his father, still in the shadows. His father plo
tting? With a calm he didn’t kno
w he could summon, he turned up the flame in the lamps, sending the darkness to the corners of the room. When he finished, he could see his father better and he shook his head at the man’s irascible expression.

“I had to make sure you weren’t joking,” he said. He couldn’t believe he was talking to his father this way and from his expression, neither could Lord Terrick. “What do you expect to gain from this?”

He could tell his father was eager to explain.

“An alliance with Kenery gives us the strength at arms to expand beyond our borders. The House of Favor is lordless. It’s open to us, and if we move quickly, with Kenery at our side, we can take it. Terrick will be divided and the greater for it.”

Favor was Lady Trieve’s ancestral home. It was indeed lordless, her brother slain, the scandal caused by her husband-captain still rocking all of Aeritan. And now his father wanted him to wed a daughter of Kenery, in exchange for Kenery’s support of their taking Favor. Two Houses, one Terrick. And he would be lord, without waiting for his father to die. He knew little of the House for it was far on the other side of Aeritan, almost to the Southern Sea. When he managed to speak, he said, “You trust Lord Kenery?”

Terrick permitted himself a rare, dour smile. “No. But you understand now?”

Kenery had the army, Terrick had the reputation, and most of Aeritan would fall in behind them. There would be war, of course, but when in Aeritan wasn’t there war? He did this for me. He is making this throw for me.

Once, he wanted to only be a good son of Terrick and its lord in his turn. Then, through a turn of fortune, his world had widened when he went to America. Now the world had turned again. He had the chance to become Lord of Favor at age eighteen. He would be an equal to his father, and would no longer have to do his bidding.

“And if I say no?”

“Then you choose against your family and leave your House vulnerable to war. What do you think this Council is about, Colar? Even now, there are Houses conspiring against Terrick, because they think we are weak. Choose the girl, and you throw Terrick to the wolves.”

Colar closed his eyes. The one argument that he could not refute, and his father played it as deftly as if scheming came naturally to him.

“And what of my good name, lord father? What of my promise to Kate, and what becomes of her?”

His father’s expression became closed.

“She is foster daughter of Terrick. We will do right by her. We will find her a good husband, a householder or a free smallholder, whatever she wishes. She can even remain in Terrick as an honored householder, and become midwife or doctor, as she wishes. We will not turn her out.”

Colar almost laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

That was straight out of New York and his father went from blank to furious. He hated when Colar spoke in the idiom of his other life. Colar didn’t care. “You can’t do that, unless you want her to know in how little regard you hold her.”

“It’s no more than she can expect! What do you think, Colar? That we would let you throw yourself away on a girl of no consequence?”

“When I was dying, you sent me away willingly enough!”

He thought his father was going to hit him. Colar stood his ground. Once, not so long ago, his father had blackened his eye. He would kill him before he let him do it again. Maybe his father saw that because Lord Terrick stepped back, his fists clenching and unclenching.

“If you want the girl that badly, she can become your light-woman after you marry, so long as you get a proper heir first. But you will marry the Kenery daughter, and you will give up the stranger girl.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek and it was a long moment before he could speak.

“I’ll tell her. Not you.”

“Well enough,” his father said. Colar picked up his cloak and headed out of the chamber. He didn’t know where he was going; he just had to get air, clear his head. Salt was a big enough city; he’d find an alehouse easily enough, maybe even a street girl. It didn’t much matter anymore anyway.

“Colar!” His father said to his back. “We’re not finished!”

“Yeah, dad. We are.”

He didn’t slam the door behind him. He didn’t have to. Colar stormed down the stairs to the town, his father’s voice floating after him.

In the days after the kidnapping, the weather turned from golden late summer to rain-drenched autumn, throwing up a spattering of rain against the walls of the great House. The men at arms made a few desultory forays in search of the brigands, but gave it up when Lady Beatra called them back. Kate kept her promise to herself and told Lady Beatra what she had heard.

Lady Beatra heard her out, her eyes on Kate and her expression concerned and absorbed. When Kate finished, my lady pursed her lips and folded her worn hands on the desk.

“And you told Maksin, Kett?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded and sighed as if she knew without Kate having to go into detail how that had gone.

“Well,” she said at last, “You did your best to warn this House, and for that I thank you. And I thank you as well for helping rescue our Yare, for that was no small thing. You have great bravery, my dear, and for one so young. But sometimes bravery is foolhardiness, and I think I would feel better if you stay closer to home from now on.”

So there it was. Well, she had known it would happen.

“Not even to the village, Lady Beatra?” she said, struggling to keep a pleading note from her voice.

“No, child, and I know you will miss that, for you do love your wild ramblings. I too, growing up in Saraval, loved to walk and ride along the hills.” Her expression became far away as she looked back into her past, and then Lady Beatra came back to herself. “No. With these child thieves out and about, it is far too dangerous. And it is well for you to stay home, because you have become a right little housekeeper, but there is still much to learn.”

Just shackle me to the kitchen, why don’t you.
Kate gave a wooden nod, and Lady Beatra responded with her own, as well as a little gesture dismissing her. Kate made a credible curtsey.