by Evie Byrne
While she was at it, she went on to record the boar hunt. It had been a long, mind-twisting night, for sure. And it wasn’t over. They had three, maybe four, hours of darkness left. All sorts of craziness could ensue in that much time.
What did the knife have to do with a fountain, anyway? Was Hetta trying to give her a message? She couldn’t discount the theory that Hetta came from some oppositional faction. Eva tapped her fingers impatiently on the keyboard. She needed to know for certain before she reported anything. Time to talk to Wat. While she’d been writing, she’d heard him coming in and out of his room across the hall.
“Wat?” His door stood ajar. She poked her head in. “You busy? Oh, I’m sorry.” He’d taken off his shirt and was standing before a shaving mirror, a tiny pair of scissors flashing in his hand. He wore nothing but his snug leather trousers. Her eyes narrowed in appreciation. The long muscles in his back flexed, begging to be stroked with the flat of her palm.
He whirled around and reached for a shirt. “Come in,” he said, pulling the shirt over his head. “I was just cleaning up. We’re throwing a party for Gunnar, to welcome him home. You’re invited.”
“I’m sure they’ll be delighted to have me,” she murmured absently, a little stunned by the sight of him. He cleaned up pretty. Combed, his hair fell in damp curls behind his ears. And the beard! He’d trimmed his terrible beard close to his jawline and shaved his neck. It didn’t look half bad now. She went to him, not so much walking as gliding on magnetic tracks, unable to stop. Her hand reached up and touched his strong jaw. The trim copper hairs there weren’t as scratchy as she’d imagined.
“I approve of this.”
He looked down at her with fast-darkening eyes, like the ocean falling under cloud and shadow. “Do you?”
Now that she had her hands on him, she found she didn’t particularly want to let go. She knew she was playing with fire—and she’d never been able to resist a fire. Her fingers traced his jaw to his chin, as if inspecting the quality of his shave. “If a man must wear a beard, he should at least keep it trim.”
Her fingers dropped from his chin to his high, standing collar. She touched the thick, stiff embroidery, red, green, and glimmering gold thread, reading it like Braille. His collar, cuffs, and yoke were covered in the same beautiful stitch-work. But she didn’t pay as much attention to that as to the strong pulse leaping in his neck between jaw and collar.
“Is there something I can help you with?” This close, his deep voice vibrated through her. Vibrated in good places. She glanced at his bed. He didn’t sleep in a cupboard, but in a big bed with sturdy, carved posts. He followed her glance there and back. Their eyes met. Electricity danced over her skin. The empty space between their bodies became charged with possibility, the tension between them exquisite, almost painful.
She remembered why she’d come in. “What does the knife represent? How does it protect the fountain?”
The moment broke. He stepped away, picked up a bright-red sash, and belted his narrow hips with it. “You believe me now?”
“Not necessarily. I need more information.”
“If you tell me what my grandmother said to you, I’ll tell you what the knife means.”
She wagged her finger at him. “I’ve already told you what I want in exchange for that information: Granny’s death certificate.”
“Are you coming to Gunnar’s party?”
“I don’t think so. I doubt anyone wants me there.”
He bit his lip, but didn’t deny it. He was too honest to disagree with her. She couldn’t help but smile. Instead, he said, “Would you like to see my reindeer before I go?”
Was that maybe like going to see his etchings? One could only hope.
No such luck.
They were really reindeer. He led her to a corral holding ten or so thick necked, knobby-kneed animals with spreading antlers covered in decaying felt. Their coats were thick and mottled white and brown. As a group, they turned their heads to watch her and Wat approach—alert, but unconcerned. They exhaled billowing clouds of steam. A little shed with a light glowing in its window stood at the far edge of the enclosure.
“They don’t look like at all like Rudolph.” Reindeer were supposed to be brown, with white butts and glowing red noses.
“Nonetheless, they are reindeer. In the Americas they’re called caribou. This herd descends from stock brought from the Old World, in my grandfather’s grandfather’s time.”
A lecture! She grinned up at him. He stopped speaking, looking puzzled by her grin, her sudden enthusiasm for reindeer. She didn’t know why she was happy, but she did like disconcerting him. He pointed beyond the corral. In the distance, she could see a much larger herd, nosing about in the snow. “These are our fail-safes.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“As you suspected, we can’t hunt enough to feed ourselves. We’d clear out the woods. Wild game is important, but the reindeer are our pantry.”
One of the reindeer walked up to them, soft-eyed and huffing. It swung its head over the fence, and Eva ducked to avoid getting her eye poked out with its antler. Wat kissed its nose and scratched its chin. It blinked at him, content.
“You slaughter them?”
“Rarely. We bleed them.”
“Furry feeders!”
Wat gave her an alarmed look.
“I didn’t mean to imply anything untoward.” She leaned back against the fence. “But of course, if you’re all consenting adults…”
He chose to ignore her. “We milk them, too. And ride them.”
“You ride these things? You’re kidding me.”
A woman came out of the shed, shooing a reindeer in front of her. In one hand, she held a gleaming steel pail. She smiled and waved at Wat. Eva recognized that smile. It was Maren, the peacekeeper, with her hood down. Maren was in her forties, Eva guessed, vampire prime. She wore her blonde hair twisted into a fat braid that hung over one shoulder. Festive silver bells and red string were woven through it.
“Word with you, Wat?” she called.
Wat excused himself and left Eva with the reindeer. She eyed it; it eyed her back, expectant, and she ventured to scratch it beneath the chin, as Wat had. It licked her hand, leaving her glove coated with brown slime. “Oh, man,” she muttered as she wiped her glove on its shoulder. “That is so gross.” She stepped away from the pen, scanning the landscape.
Something hit her between her shoulder blades, a blunt shock. Her reaction was a combination of instinct and training. She leapt to one side, rolled behind a high snowdrift, and regained her feet in a defensive crouch, her body now oriented toward the source of the attack. Only then did she consider the wound on her back. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bleeding. In fact, it wasn’t a wound at all. What the hell had just hit her?
A kid—or a midget assassin—ran out of nowhere, crying, “Sorry!”
Another midget assassin with braids peeking out from her hood appeared from the other direction, yelling something in their Ikea-esque language. Neither was older than ten. Bright-haired and rosy-cheeked, they looked like Hansel and Gretel. As they converged on her, the unrepentant one, the girl, switched to English.
“You were so funny. It was like—” And then she launched into an enthusiastic replay of Eva’s evasive maneuvers, complete with sound effects, like “Arrrr!” and “Eeeee!”
Eva frowned. She was sure she hadn’t made any noise.
She turned to the repentant one, the boy, who was a little taller and calmer, with a long, serious face. “What did you fire at me?”
“A snowball. I wasn’t aiming at you. You just got in the way. Sorry.”
“A snowball? That’s it?” The little shits must have serious throwing arms.
He shrugged. “The snow is kind of icy today.”
Unrepentant chimed in. “Which is why you have to dodge!” She darted back and forth, dodging invisible missiles, shrieking.
“Is she always like that?” Eva asked the boy
.
He nodded. “Sorry.” He gave a philosophical shrug. “She’ll tire out. Sooner or later.”
“Is she your sister?”
“Nah. We’re just friends. Who are you?”
Ah, the child didn’t know who she was, or why she was there. That was why he wasn’t running in the opposite direction. “My name is Eva. I’m visiting Wat.”
“Wat’s my teacher.”
The girl picked up on this exchange and began hopping around chanting, “Wat! Wat! Give him swat!”
“Your teacher?”
“Not just my teacher. He teaches all the kids.”
This was unexpected. “Teaches them what?”
“How to read and do math and stuff. You know, a teacher.”
Okay, so I’m slow. “I didn’t know he was a teacher. I’m doing different business with him.”
“You gonna buy our jerky?’
“No.” She smiled, a little sad. “Not jerky.”
She saw the slight widening of his eyes, the tensing of his shoulders. The kid had figured out who she was. He’d been trained not to show fear, but he was afraid. His friend picked up on this change in mood and came to stand next to him, which meant she was brave and loyal and not quite the spaz she appeared to be.
“It’s okay,” she said to both of them. “I don’t bite.”
“I thought a Hand would be bigger,” Unrepentant said at last. “Why do we have to move? Ma doesn’t want to move. She’s crying all the time.”
“That’s what I’m talking to Wat about.”
“Wat doesn’t want to move, either.”
“What about you two? Do you ever think about what it would be like to live in the city? There’s lots to do. Fast cars. Trains. Lights everywhere. Movies and stores full of toys, TV, and video games.”
“I’ve been to the city,” Repentant said. “I got sick because it smelled so bad. And my ears hurt.” He flapped his mittens in front of his face—indicating what? Frenzy? Blindness? His own confusion?
“We like the woods,” Unrepentant added.
“But sometimes you must get bored.” Kids couldn’t live on sticks and trees alone. Godawful snow all winter long, and in the summer, the bugs must be terrible.
“No,” said Repentant, his expression puzzled, as if the idea had never crossed his mind. “There’s…the woods.”
The girl clarified, bouncing as she spoke. “We swim and build forts and practice tracking and stalking and bird calls and climb trees and find plants and climb trees and look for arrowheads and chase fish and tease the ravens. And we hunt.”
As she spoke, Repentant’s eyes began to fill with tears, as if he’d never do any of these things again, all because the Wicked Witch of the West had come to town.
Wat and Maren rescued her in just the nick of time.
“Are you kids bothering Miss Sosa?” Maren said.
“No, not at all,” Eva assured her.
“This is my boy, Thom, and his friend, Katta.” Maren offered the boy child the pail, her voice very gentle. She could tell he was upset. “Here, Thom, drink up while it’s warm—but remember your manners.” Dutifully, the boy handed Katta the pail first. She took a long drink of the warm milk, her face wreathed in steam, and then passed the bucket back to him.
“We give most of the reindeer milk to the children,” Wat said, resuming his tour-guide mode.
“Wat!” Katta, sporting a white mustache, tugged on the hem of his parka. “I finished the whole book. I read every word. No skipping.”
Wat’s face softened. He smiled at the child, a warm look Eva hadn’t seen on his face before. “Excellent work. I’ll look forward to your report.”
Katta’s face fell. “Report?”
Maren and Wat exchanged a brief, grim glance that made Eva squirm. Would Katta ever write that report? Would Wat ever read it? Keep calm and carry on. Thom finished off the milk and handed the bucket back to Maren, who said her goodbyes and herded off the children.
“I didn’t know you were a teacher.” Eva said.
He started to answer, but then his lips twitched, and he looked pained, as if he was trying to repress some strong emotion. She stiffened, afraid he was going to start crying or something. He turned away—and started laughing. He laughed so hard he had to bend over and rest his hands on his knees.
“What’s so funny?”
“You,” he wheezed. “When that snowball hit you, you jumped ten feet in the air, like a cat with its tail on fire. I swear I’ve never seen anything so funny. Your face—” Once again, he dissolved into chuckles.
She gave him a long, level look. “It’s called combat response.”
He straightened and wiped his eyes. “Maybe that’s what folks call it in L.A. Out here we call it hilarious.” Once again, he burst into laughter.
How many moods could a man go through in one night? “Wat, are you okay?”
Abruptly, he sobered. “No, I’m not. We’ve got to get this business done. For both our sakes.”
“I’m right there with you.”
They ambled back to his house, talking on the way. She remembered how loud her boots had sounded in the snow her first night, how mysterious he’d been in his silence. Now, in her Pocahontas mocs, she could walk as quietly as him, and he didn’t seem mysterious at all anymore. Weird, but not mysterious. The sky glowed red with the party bonfire she wasn’t going to see. The sound of a fiddle drifted on the breeze, only to be drowned by the sound of laughter.
“You’ve seen us hunt; you’ve seen the grounds. You know we don’t waste anything or leave a mess. We’ve got the jerky trade for our cash, and the reindeer to make sure we never take too much game or have any need to go to human territory to hunt or to hit their livestock. We’re quiet and clean and keep to ourselves. Recommend that we be left alone. There’s no point in driving us from our homes. Adad can’t really care that we’re just getting by up here, all by ourselves. Halverson and all his crew are dead. “
“Except Gunnar.”
“Gunnar will swear fealty to her, if that’s what it takes. We’ll give her a cut of everything we earn. Hell, she can have all our cash. She won’t even know we exist otherwise. All we want to do is fall off the radar again.”
“I’ve only seen you and your brother hunt, but I’ll take your word you’re running a clean operation. And I will tell her that. But I’m just her Hand. I enforce her orders—I can’t contradict them. Remember, even if we lay aside the whole animal-eating issue, Alya has to avenge the assassination attempt. She lost face that night.”
“She slaughtered their whole party singlehandedly. That wasn’t enough?”
“No. It wasn’t.” In matters of honor between princes, there could never be enough blood. And as the only female prince, Alya could never show any weakness. Weakness among princes was like chum to sharks.
Wat turned to her, his eyes piercing. “If my case is hopeless, why are you here?”
“I stayed because I want to convince you that moving to the Twin Cities doesn’t have to be the end of the world. I want to arrange support for your people during the transition. We can help find them housing and jobs. Show them the way. This doesn’t have to be hard.”
He grimaced. “No one is going to leave willingly. I’ve told you that.”
“Martyrdom is boring, Wat. It’s pointless. You’ll all be dead and no one will care. Why not focus on a new life?”
“There can be no new life for us if Brunnrheim falls.”
“That sounds like prophecy.”
“This place is sacred. It’s the birthplace of our future and the home of our souls. Without Brunnrheim, without the Spring to bless us, without the Grove to worship in, we’re nothing. We’re worse than dead.”
“It’s a nice place, but buildings and fountains don’t matter that much in the long run. Lives matter. With lives, you can rebuild.”
“What if the place itself is alive? What if it needs protection?”
“I get the feeling you don’t
want to be saved.” She was tired of his maudlin excuses. “I don’t like dealing with lost causes.”
They climbed the steps on the house’s wide front porch. Wat paused, removed his mittens, and caressed the doorframe, dragging his big, rawboned hand outward over the lichen-dusted rocks that formed the wall. “My great-great-grandfather built this house. My father was born in this house, and I was, too, in the bedroom I sleep in now.”
He showed her a wooden disk set into the wall, mortared among the stones, and then another, and another, and another. Each one had a different mark on it, some sort of rune. “Behind each of these circles is a small chamber. Each chamber holds the ashes of one of my ancestors. My father is here, and Hetta, whom you’ve met. They all guard the house. They want to be near us.”
Great. The dead have a vote, too. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and tried to collect her thoughts. “I need you to understand this. Alya doesn’t care where you’re keeping your ancestors or what you do with your reindeer. As the defeated party, it’s on you to compromise. What are you willing to give up? What can I assure you of in turn?”
Wat just shook his head.
“What about Katta and Thom? They could adjust to my world. They could thrive.”
“You’ve been thinking about our children?”
“I’ve formulated a number of contingency plans for this situation. One is saving and relocating the children, if necessary.”
“Splitting up families. Farming out orphans.” He sneered. “Tell me about your other ‘contingency plans.’”
She held up her hand. “I like you. I like this place. I want to resolve this peaceably, but there is a limit to my patience. It’s time for you to make some concessions. Start thinking.”
Wat turned away and stomped across the porch to stare into the distance.
“Enjoy the party.” She slammed the door behind her.
Chapter Seven
Eva retreated to her room and built a fire. Sometimes she really hated her job. Being a Hand was the sort of promotion she’d halfway hoped she’d never get. But when Alya offered something, you accepted.
