by John Brown
River led Legs to the back room. When she returned, she sawed off a sizeable piece of bread and gave Sugar a bowl of the broth.
The three boys came in shortly after that, taking off their muddy boots and setting them alongside the wall next to the door. When Talen saw Sugar, he stopped short.
“What is she doing up here?” he asked.
“It looks like she’s eating,” said Ke and shoved Talen along.
Talen gave her an angry glance, then he handed Nettle the fish.
Nettle walked over to River, eyeing Sugar the whole way, opened the creel he was carrying and pulled out an enormous catfish that had been cleaned, gutted, and skinned. “Here’s our afternoon soup.”
“Put it in there,” River said, motioning with her chin toward an empty pot on the floor.
Nettle slid the fish in the pot.
Talen still stood on the other side of the room, brooding.
“What are you doing?” River asked him. “Go sit down.”
“I’m not getting anywhere close to that,” Talen said and pointed at Sugar.
Just then Legs appeared in the doorway of the back room holding the covered chamber pot.
“Sugar,” River corrected. “And you are going to be the gracious host. In fact, it appears you have a little business in the back room that needs to be dealt with.”
“A little business?” asked Talen in amazement. He turned and saw Legs standing there. “No.” He shook his head. “I will not.”
“You will empty the chamber pot for him, and then you will empty it for Sugar.”
“No,” said Sugar. “Please.” They’d already put this family in grave danger. She didn’t want them to do one thing more.
“You can’t go outside,” said River. “That would be foolhardy. Besides, we wouldn’t have this problem except for Talen. So he can take responsibility for the messes he makes.”
“I’m not doing it,” said Talen. He looked at Nettle.
Nettle held up both hands. “This is your house, not mine.”
Ke shifted his enormous frame in his seat to face Talen squarely. “You’re going to be the little chamber pot man,” said Ke. “And you’re going to be happy about it.”
The threat was obvious, but Talen didn’t move. The tension built for a moment, but then Ke stood and took a step toward Talen.
“Fine,” said Talen. “Tell him to put it down and step out of the doorway.”
“Legs,” said Sugar. “Come. We’ll go back down.”
Legs set the pot on the floor, then felt his way to Sugar’s position. Only then did Talen brush past. He picked up the pot with great distaste and went outside.
“Please stay here,” River said to Sugar. “Talen will be all right. You just sit down and enjoy your meal.”
It felt so good to stand straight and see sunlight. Perhaps she could stay up here for just a little while.
“I can understand his reluctance,” said Sugar.
“He’s not the only one that’s reluctant,” said Nettle.
They ate in relative silence, River asking Sugar questions that would make any normal guest feel comfortable. But these were not normal circumstances, and they only made the meal more strained.
Toward the end, River turned to Talen and said, “Because of last night, Ke and I now must find Sugar and Legs another place. So we’ll be hunting one up today. That means you’re going to stay here to finish the chores and to keep an eye out. Sugar and Legs are your charge until we return.”
Talen just looked into his bowl.
“Look at me, Talen. Do you think Da and I are stupid people? I know Ke, of course, is suspect.” She grinned.
It was a good effort to break the tension, but Talen did not accept it. “Yes, given the facts, I do think you’re stupid. But then I know you’re not stupid, so that means you’re hiding some of the facts.”
River glanced at Ke, then back to Talen.
“And you’ve been hiding them for quite some time,” said Talen.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she said. “Da knows these people. They’re good, Talen. And there’s more to this than you realize. So much more. But now’s not the time or place to explain. All you have to do is finish the chores and keep an eye out. I want you to give Sugar and Legs some time up here. And that means you’ll have to stay in the house. Because you won’t be able to warn them or cover their retreat if you’re outside.”
“Then how do I do the chores?”
Both River and Ke looked at Nettle.
“Right,” said Nettle. “I’ll be out in the fields.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Talen. “You’re not leaving me alone with these two.”
“Chores have got to be done,” said Ke. “It will look odd, a fine day like today and nobody working. Besides, a man shoulders his own burdens.”
“Sure,” said Talen. “And when these two eat me, I guess you’ll be the one cleaning up what’s left.”
“Look at them, Talen,” River said. “They are not dangerous.”
“Just the presence of them,” Talen said, “is enough to put a noose around every one of our necks.”
While River had been there, Sugar, for the first time since the awful events, felt a lightening in her mood. There were some people that possessed such great quantities of openness and hope that it spilled over to others. River was one of these people.
Of course, when River closed the door behind her, Sugar and Legs were left with Talen.
He threw the bar on the door then turned to her. He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe his predicament, then he picked up his bow and withdrew two arrows from one of the three tall baskets that hung on the wall. Each basket held arrows that were ringed with a different color just below the fletching. She assumed the colors distinguished a different spine strength and weight, matched to the strength of the bow. He nocked one of the arrows marked with an ochre ring. The other he kept in the hand that held the bow. Both had gray goose feathers. Both were plain, but they had clearly been heated and straightened and would fly true to deliver the iron tips that shone with grease to keep the rust off.
“Here’s the first thing we’re going to get straight,” said Talen. “Me and my immortal parts are off-limits. You see that smudge on the lintel of the doorway to the loft?”
Sugar turned to look where he pointed. But before she had fully turned her head, she heard the bow hum. The second shaft flew almost as the first hit a dark coloration on the pale whitewashed lintel.
She turned back to him. He held another two more of the ochre-ringed arrows, one nocked just as before.
Legs sat at the table eating the last scraps of his food. He put down his spoon and held very still.
“I’ve been thinking all morning,” Talen said. “I don’t know what game my father is playing, but I do know this: you cross me, I won’t hesitate. In fact, by all rights, I should shoot you down now.”
Sugar knew the look in his eyes. She knew he was considering it. Her father had taught her to never show fear in a fight. Never show pain. Never give an opponent any reason for courage unless you wanted to lure them into a trap. What kind of a fighter was Talen? Was he one that only respected force? Or was he one that was more interested in avoiding a fight?
“Why does my father harbor a hatchling?” he asked.
“I’m not a hatchling,” she said.
“Whatever you call it.”
“I practice no dark art,” she said.
“No, you wouldn’t think it dark, would you?”
“I don’t know any lore,” she said.
“But your parents do.”
She had no response to that.
“Right,” he said. “So what’s been done to my father? Or is some threat being hung over us?”
“Nothing has been done,” she said. “There are no threats.”
He was agitated. Angry. Scared. She could read it all in his face. And she would have the same reaction in his situation, was ha
ving the same reaction to what her mother had done.
“How do I know River and Ke aren’t already under the spell of some foul master?” he asked. “How do I know they’ll even return?”
He raised his bow to the verge of drawing it. “Nettle said to wait. But I can’t see how that will help.”
He was serious: he did want to slay her. He truly believed she was Sleth, and prevarication would only confirm that assessment. She and Legs would not survive the afternoon with him in this state. That much was clear. “I will not lie to you,” she said. “My mother did things that-”
She didn’t want to say it. Legs sat as motionless as a heron at the table, his wild hair sticking up. She didn’t want for him to hear it this way. But that wasn’t the reason she’d stopped. She didn’t want to name Mother aloud. There were other explanations for what she’d seen. Maybe what she saw her mother do had been distorted by her fears. Maybe Cotton had indeed been stolen and magicked by woodikin. Maybe a dark soul rode in the body of the stork they’d found. There were a dozen maybes.
But the easiest explanation would not go away. She had to face the truth. There was no salvation in lies. “I saw my mother charge an army. I saw her cleave a man’s head in two. I saw her move with a dark grace that horrified me. And I saw the Sleth signs on the dead body of my little brother.”
The words dropped from her lips like heavy stones.
“I know you have no reason to believe me,” she said. “But I found out about this only a day before you.”
He had not raised his bow, but he hadn’t lowered it either.
“I am not associated with any murder of Sleth. I have nothing to do with any art, unless my mother has done something to me like she did to my brother. But I don’t know what that would be. I’m as confused as you are, Talen.
“Think on this as well,” she added. “If we were so wicked, wouldn’t we have risen from the cellar early this morning and worked our mischief on you when you were all asleep?”
“I didn’t sleep,” he said.
“Even so,” she said. “If that’s what we were, it would have been the perfect time, would it not?”
He said nothing, but she could see the wheels of his mind turning, see him weighing her, weighing the situation.
At last, he said, “That’s the line,” and pointed at the edge of the table where Legs sat. “Come across, and my arrows fly.”
She exhaled and realized she’d been holding her breath. But his decision didn’t mean they were safe. She needed to have another plan to neutralize that bow. He might be quick with it. But a bow was a hard weapon to wield in close spaces. A knife was much better in this situation.
She turned so the knife sheathed at her waist was hidden from his view. She ran one hand through her hair and with the other she removed the loop that held the knife in the sheath. She and Legs were going to get out of here. Her mother had told her to take Legs and ride. She should have disobeyed her mother before and fought. But now she’d make up for that. She’d take Legs and stow him in a safe place. And then what? How could she, of all people, rescue Mother?
But that wasn’t important right now. Right now she had to figure out how to deal with this boy. And what if hunters came? It would not do to have them find him sitting there guarding her and Legs. That was not how you treated a visitor. She began to clean up the breakfast dishes. Began to tidy and let her mind work. The first thing she noticed was that he’d placed himself in the wrong part of the house.
“You cannot look out of the windows from where you’re sitting.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “You can’t watch for hunters from that side of the room.”
“You look out the windows and watch for hunters. I’m watching you.”
She nodded in acquiescence. That meant she wouldn’t retreat to the cellar. She didn’t want to do that anyway. If Talen should change his mind, she didn’t want to be caught like a fish in a barrel.
Legs stepped toward Sugar with his hands out. When he found her, he felt for her hand. “Should I go down?” he asked.
It would probably be best. That way she wouldn’t have to worry about him should the situation change. But she didn’t want him to sit down there alone thinking about what she’d just revealed. He needed to know she was strong. That things would be all right. At least that’s what she told herself.
“Stand with me,” she said, “and smell the morning coming in through the windows. We’ll visit the potatoes soon enough.”
The shutters by the dining table looked out over the farm. She pulled them completely open then walked to the the back of the house and opened the shutters on the window there so she had a view of the river.
After a few moments Legs began to hum one of the songs he’d often sang to entertain the men and women of Plum village in the evenings as they sat drinking their ale. It was the one about a stupid boy trying to outsmart a gang of crows. She smiled. Perhaps it was she who needed him.
Legs sang another few songs, then he stopped, and Sugar could see he was thinking. A few minutes later he began again. A half an hour must have passed that way, Legs humming or singing, stopping to think, singing again, all while Sugar tidied up, first breakfast, then the floor, always keeping an eye on the windows. And across from them, Talen sat with his bow at the ready.
Sugar ran through a number of scenarios. She knew if Talen changed he mind and decided to use his bow, that she would pick up a chair as a shield and charge him. He’d only get off one shot that way. It would pierce her body or it wouldn’t. And if it didn’t, then she’d be in close with her knife. However, that wouldn’t solve any issues should hunters show up. They needed to seem friends, and that would never happen with him holding the bow.
She finished the floor, cleaned the ashes from the hearth and put them in the tin ash bucket, then took a good long look out the window. Nettle worked in the distance.
Talen spoke. “What kind of a name is Legs anyway? It’s not like he’s tall for his age. I can’t imagine he’s quick either.”
“No, Zu,” said Legs. “It’s rather hard to be speedy when you can’t see where you’re going.”
Talen looked surprised that Legs had talked. Sugar herself was a bit surprised, but she knew the tone in his voice. He’d made up his mind about something. This was him wanting to make a point.
“Legs,” said Sugar in warning.
“So that means it would be a bit difficult for me to catch and eat you.”
Talen raised his eyebrows. “What’s he going on about?”
“I’m just pointing out the obvious,” said Legs. “And you can talk to me directly if you want. I’m not deaf.”
Talen stood. “Maybe I don’t like the way your eyes slide around.”
“Sorry, Zu,” said Legs. His eyes had been sliding and he closed his lids. “I know all the stories about Sleth. I’ve sung all the songs. I’ve been thinking about them. And you’d expect if my mother had the powers she’s accused of, she would have given me my sight. Why wouldn’t she have done that?”
“What do I know about your mother’s Slethy ways? Ask her yourself when they put you in the tower.”
“It’s because she’s not,” said Legs.
Sugar wished she had Legs’s confidence. But she didn’t want him to provoke Talen further. “Legs,” she said. “We didn’t answer his question.” She turned to Talen. “It’s his nickname. He was born legs first.”
Sugar didn’t tell him that the midwife had said when Legs’s feet first appeared, he’d pulled them back from the cool air in the room and refused to come out. The first time she’d heard that as a girl, she’d laughed and laughed. She had made her mother tell it again and again. The memory of that happy time seemed so far away, so unreal, as if it weren’t true at all, but only a story.
“I think I want to go down now,” said Legs.
“Yes,” she said. “I think that’s a good idea.” And who knew what he’d say next? Lords forbid, but he’d probably try to tweak Talen with
some comment about him taking care of Legs’s business earlier.
Legs walked to her, hand in front feeling the way. She took his hand and led him to the cellar door.
When the door was up, Legs turned to her. “I don’t care,” he said under his breath. And she knew he meant he didn’t care even if Mother were Sleth.
“Neither do I,” she agreed, but that was a lie. She did care.
Legs descended the stairs into the darkness with the potatoes. She found leaving the cellar door open put her on edge. Not everyone had such a cellar built into the floor. Many were outside the kitchen. She could see how having it in the kitchen would be handy, and it was not in the way, but she was not used to working so close to such a hole, so she shut the door.
She turned back to the window and knew she couldn’t stand there doing nothing while Talen watched her. “You can hardly make a lunch over there,” she said. “I will make us something to go with that fish. Can you tell me if your sister keeps any savory?”
Talen hesitated. She expected him to say something about poisoning the food, but he didn’t. He pointed at a cupboard. “It’s in there.”
“Thank you,” said Sugar and began washing and cutting vegetables.
When she finished with the vegetables, she found what she needed to make flat cakes. She had her hands in the flour when she glanced out the back window and saw half a dozen Mokaddians wearing leather cuirasses and helms crouching at the top of the riverbank.
Her heart jumped.
A handful of them broke off and approached the house, crouching low as they walked.
These were not Fir-Noy. At least they did not wear the Fir-Noy colors. She couldn’t tell from this distance, but it appeared their wrist tattoos were those of the Shoka. But it didn’t matter-Shoka or Fir-Noy, they were still Mokaddians, still sneaking up on the house.
She drew back from the window so they wouldn’t see her.
From her angle of view she saw the first man run up to the house and take his position at the corner.
She couldn’t catch her breath. The moment she’d been dreading had come and found her making flat cakes. All her mother and father had suffered to give them a chance to escape would now go to waste.
