by Box Set
He shot his mother a look, pleading for her to save him from the dozens of children, but she only laughed.
“Yes, yes,” he said as tried in vain to extricate himself. “They’re in Thistle’s packsaddles. I tied her up in the barn—bring her here.” The children ran off. “Let the older ones get her. She bites!” he called after them.
They returned with his indignant donkey, but even she was helpless against the children’s enthusiasm. Otec went to the pack saddle and began passing out some of his carvings, along with several pretty rocks and petrified shells he’d found.
Gifts in hand, his younger siblings and cousins all started clamoring for stories. But his mother shooed them away to fetch water for his bath and do several other chores, including caring for Thistle.
Before his younger brothers could lead the donkey away, Otec removed the vellum on which Matka had drawn. Immediately he felt what she’d managed to capture—permanence and age and comfort.
“Matka drew that. Where did you get it?” his mother asked from over his shoulder.
Otec untacked the corners, rolled the vellum, and tucked it into his pocket. “She left it behind when Jore hit her. I’ll give it to her later.”
Alfhild nodded and turned back toward the clan house. Otec hesitated, then followed her, saying, “I saw Dobber’s bruises. His father—”
“His father won’t be happy until everyone he loves is as miserable as he is.” Alfhild frowned. “I did what you asked—offered to banish him, split up the children among the clanwomen willing to take them. Dobber’s mother begged me not to.” Otec’s mother gave him a sideways glance. “I know Dobber is your friend. I’m sorry.”
Otec didn’t want to admit he wasn’t that fond of Dobber but the other man didn’t have anyone else. He rubbed the back of his neck, eager to change the subject. “One of the lambs is sick, Mother.”
She sent a cousin of his to fetch Aunt Enrid and headed inside.
As soon as Otec entered the kitchen, his oldest sister hugged the breath right out of his shirtless body. He gaped at her enormous pregnant belly, which pressed up against him. “When did that happen?”
Storm obviously hadn’t gotten married while he was away, since she was still living with the family. She blushed the same way he did, the tips of her ears going pink before her neck turned red. “Never you mind.”
Otec cleared his throat. “Well, how is the wee one?” He didn’t ask who the father was. Knowing his sister, she probably wasn’t certain.
“Kicks as hard as Thistle,” Storm said with a smile. She clipped a few blankets around the fireplace and the beaten copper tub his other two sisters, Eira and Magnhild, had set up while his mother stoked the fire and set the iron trivet over the coals.
“It’s her bite you have to watch out for.” Otec rubbed his bruised shoulder. “Why haven’t you kicked the highmen out yet?”
“They’re not all so bad,” his mother answered.
“She’s being kind,” Storm told him under her breath. “They’re all intolerable.”
Mother shot Storm a look but didn’t reprimand her. “I like Matka—she’s a student of herbs.” His mother’s voice betrayed her excitement. “She has come to study our lore. Plans to write a book on healing.”
Otec told her how he had found Matka and how Jore had threatened and hit her, but Otec didn’t admit to his mother that he had been watching Matka.
His mother sighed. “I wish there was something I could do about it, but she’s not clannish. And with all the men gone, I can’t enforce any threats.”
Otec looked between his mother and Storm. “Is it really such a good idea to have five hundred foreigners in the Shyle?”
Storm ground the flour with more force than was necessary. “Aren’t we lucky?”
His mother shrugged. “Half of them are women.”
Otec looked out the open door, in the direction Holla had gone.
“Not yet,” his mother answered his unasked question.
Old aunt Enrid stepped into the house and wrapped her arm around Otec’s waist, giving him a sideways hug. “One of the lambs is sick?”
He kissed the top of her gray head. “Drenched the whole left side of my chest. He’s pretty weak.”
“I’ll get some peppermint and chamomile down him,” she said, lifting the trapdoor to go down to the cellar.
His mother set a chair for Otec outside and went about attacking his hair and beard with a pair of sheep shears. Then he took his bath in the copper tub, which was so small his knees were pressed against his chest.
His mother found him some of his father’s old pants and took them in at the waist—they weren’t in much better shape than the ones Otec was wearing, but at least his ankles didn’t show.
One of his aunts gave him a hug and set about herding as many of his younger family members into the tub as she could find while it was set up.
While Storm let out the hem of one of his father’s old shirts, Otec sat at the table, the sound of his mother’s knife slicing through a potato as familiar to him as the sound of his own breathing.
His aunt started taking down the blankets—apparently she’d deemed the water dirtier than the children. A pair of his older cousins carried the tub out, and someone called, “May I come in?”
Otec shot looks of surprise at his family; visitors never asked to come in. But no one else seemed to notice.
“Yes,” his mother answered.
He was even more surprised when Matka stepped inside the room. She didn’t look furious or full of pity or calculating like the last couple times he’d seen her. Instead, she looked relieved. He couldn’t figure her out.
His gaze wandered over her pants, which showed off her thin but strong-looking legs. Maybe women should wear pants more often. At the thought, Otec felt the tips of his ears turn pink.
Without preamble, Matka sat down opposite him, beside his mother. Otec had the impression this wasn’t the first time she’d sat at this table.
“Do you not own a shirt?” Matka asked.
His neck flared red. So he wouldn’t have to look at her, he took a slice of soft sheep cheese and laid it over some of his mother’s thick-sliced bread.
His sister held up the shirt she was sewing. “Working on it,” she shot back with a glare at Matka.
“Do you always answer for him?” Matka said. The two women locked gazes, but Storm looked away first, mumbling something about the highwoman being high and mighty.
Matka responded in clipped Svass, then took a deep breath. “I have been granted permission from my fellow highmen to go into the mountains in search of a very rare plant that is sacred to my people.”
“How could a highwoman know the plants of the Shyle Mountains?” Storm growled.
Matka turned to her with an unreadable expression. “I have ways.”
Alfhild gave Storm a warning look and then said, “Otec knows the mountains better than anyone else in the village.”
Feeling Matka’s eyes on him, Otec stared at the grain in the table. He knew if he did speak, something ridiculous would come out of his mouth, so he kept it shut.
“Specifically,” Matka went on, holding a piece of rolled vellum in front of his nose, “a flower that grows in the waterfalls beneath the glacier. I need to find it before the snows come.”
Still not looking at her, Otec opened the small roll of vellum to see a hand-drawn, delicate flower—it looked like some kind of lily.
“There are three petals and three sepals,” Matka said eagerly, her charcoal-stained finger pointing out each feature as she spoke. “The center of each petal is ringed with yellow and burgundy. Have you seen it?”
Otec sat back, considering. She was waiting for him to speak, and this time no one else could respond for him. He cleared his throat. “There is something like that, but I couldn’t say whether it is this exact flower.”
She snatched the vellum back and tucked it into a pocket in her tunic. “I must see it for myself. You will t
ake me.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s not even in bloom.”
Matka waved his words away like a buzzing fly. “I can tell by the foliage.”
Otec took a deep breath, shocked to discover he wanted to say yes—that he wanted he wanted to know this woman who saw the world in such infinitesimal detail. “No,” he said, hating the word even as it formed in his mouth. But he couldn’t leave his family when there were Raiders prowling on the clan lands’ doorstep.
His sister bit off her thread and then smirked as she handed him the shirt. He stood to put it on and caught Matka staring at his stomach just before he pulled the shirt over his head.
“I can pay you for your services, of course,” she declared.
That made Otec pause. His dream was to own land at the base of the mountains. Perhaps have a family of his own. With the wages he collected from his parents, he would be in this thirties before he could purchase the land, in his forties before he’d built up a decent-sized flock. “How much?”
Matka made a dismissive gesture. “Surely a few coppers would cover it.”
This time, he met her gaze and didn’t look away. “Are you trying to insult me?” Angry, he started away.
Otec was at the door when she called, “Three silvers.”
He paused and glanced back at her. “When?”
“Tomorrow.” She was studying her fingernails as if it didn’t matter whether or not he agreed. But the way her hands trembled told him it did matter. It mattered very much.
He sighed. Why were people always playing games? Why not just say what she wanted? “I can’t,” he said. “My family might need me.”
“Oh, go,” his mother said as she stood up to dump the potatoes in the cookpot. “Whatever’s happening with the Raiders won’t be over in four days. And we’re safe here.”
“Your brother will allow you to go, will he?” Otec said darkly.
He felt Matka’s gaze on him as she replied, “It was his idea.”
Otec stared at the floor in front of Matka’s feet and realized he’d already been left behind. The Raiders were weeks away, and he would return long before anything could happen.
“I’ll take you, but not your brother,” he told Matka. “In four days, one of us would end up dead.”
Matka hesitated. “He’s staying behind.”
Otec gave a curt nod and stepped into the sunshine, determined to find one wild-haired sister.
Chapter 3
Otec crossed the meadow of close-cropped, dying grass dotted with haystacks. The air smelled of hay and the spice of decaying leaves. The days were growing short, so it would be night soon. He climbed over a fence and then wandered up a steep hill, scattering a herd of shaggy cattle.
He was just starting to grow nervous when he spotted Holla sitting by a little brook. She had her chin on her hands as she watched several snails inch across the surface of a white boulder in front of her.
“Why am I different?” she asked once he had climbed down to sit beside her.
Otec rubbed the back of his neck. “Everyone’s different, Holla. Sometimes those differences are just more visible.”
“Why does Jore hate me?”
“Because he’s ignorant.”
She wiped her nose. “A few weeks ago, someone called me ugly.” Otec tensed, not sure what to say. Her perceptive eyes seemed to peer inside him. “Everyone says I look like you, but no one seems to mind that you’re not pretty.”
It was true. He wasn’t considered handsome, but it had never really bothered him. “They mind that I’m awkward and shy,” he said. Holla shot him a puzzled look, so he added, “Men are supposed to be strong.”
That seemed to puzzle her further. “But you are strong.”
Throwing his hands in the air, Otec gave up trying to explain something that didn’t make sense anyway. “Just stay away from people who hurt you.”
Holla nodded in agreement. “And if you can’t, then kick them in the shins.” She grinned and let out a wild laugh. “Lok taught me that.”
Otec tried not to chuckle and ended up snorting instead. His sister laughed harder, obviously pleased with herself. He tugged on one of her braids, glad she could still smile.
He saw a block of wood and his fingers began to itch, so he snatched it up and sat on the cool grass. His knife peeled back the layers of wood one curl at a time. The uneven block quickly became an amorphous shape. Then the form began to appear, emerging from the wood as if by magic.
He took a deep breath, hesitant to tell Holla something that would upset her. “Matka wants me to take her into the mountains.”
Holla frowned and prodded the wandering the snails back into alignment. “You just got back.”
With the smell of the fresh-cut wood strong in his nostrils, Otec used the tip of his knife to form the beaver’s beady eyes, the clawed fingers, the sharp, rodent-like teeth. Steadily, Otec added chips to the delicate whorls piled around him.
“I’m better in the mountains, Holla. I don’t like it when people look at me. I can’t talk around them.”
Holla picked up a slender stick and started snapping it into even segments. “You talk to me.”
He carved while he waited for her to sort out her thoughts. Holla wrapped the broken segments, held together by the bark, around her finger. “You don’t mind when I look at you,” she said.
Instead of answering, Otec changed the subject. “Maybe Dobber could come over for dinner.”
Her nose wrinkled. “He smells funny.”
Chuckling, Otec handed her the finished carving. Her eyes lit up and she carefully tucked the beaver into her pocket. Then she turned away, squinting at the darkening sky. “Oh! Mother says I have to be home before the sun goes down.” Abandoning her snails, Holla ran away without looking back.
* * *
Before dawn the next morning, Otec stepped outside, his breath a cloud in front of him. In the distance, he could see Matka waiting for him at the other side of the village, wearing the winter gear he’d sent to her, and carrying the bedroll on her back. In addition, she had slung a large satchel over one shoulder. He was surprised to also see two swords across her back. Unlike an axe and shield, swords took a great deal of training. Plus they were prohibitively expensive, which meant she probably knew how to use them.
Otec hurried toward her, only taking a dozen or so steps before the door to the clan house burst open. Holla hurtled out, still wearing only her thin underdress, her long blond hair streaming behind her. “You didn’t say goodbye!” She came to a stop just before him, her face red. Otec held out his arms to her, but she hesitated, obviously hurt that he would leave again so soon.
“I’ll be back before you know it. I promise.”
Holla tipped her head to the side. “Sometimes you have to lose a sheep in order to save the herd. That’s what Father always says.” It was a saying the Shyle often used when faced with two impossible choices. She wrinkled her nose. “Does that have something to do with why you’re leaving?”
Otec nodded. Holla stepped forward, touched her warm hands into his cold cheeks, and looked into his eyes. “You’re scared,” she whispered.
He tried to laugh it off. “I’ve been in the mountains all my life. They don’t frighten me.”
She didn’t smile as she stared past him. “Matka is scared too.” He turned to glance at the highwoman, who was watching them from a distance. “She has bad dreams,” Holla added.
“How do you know?”
Holla didn’t respond, but her eyes darted up and Otec saw the same strange owl from yesterday. Perched on the barn, it seemed to watch Matka with its eerie yellow eyes.
Otec let out a long breath. “I’ll look out for Matka, all right?”
“I know. Clanmen always look after the womenfolk,” Holla said in a deep voice, trying to imitate their father, then laughed at her own joke.
Otec leaned down and kissed his sister’s forehead, then sent her inside. He crossed the village, heading for
Matka without looking at her. She fell in beside him, effortlessly matching his longer strides. He eyed her feet. “Go back to my mother and ask her to get you some warmer boots. Those are too thin.”
Matka lifted her chin. “These boots are made by some of the finest cobblers in the world. They keep my steps silent, yet I don’t feel the rocks.”
They’d drawn even with the tangle of tents at the outskirts of the village. Otec stopped. “They’re not warm enough. I’ll wait here.” No need for another teary farewell.
Muttering under her breath, Matka spun around and headed back. A moment later, Jore slipped into view, the bruise around his eye an ugly purple. Otec tensed, not sure why the highman had waited for him.
“I’m truly sorry about your sister,” Jore said in a low voice.
Of all the scenarios Otec could have envisioned, this wasn’t one of them.
Jore turned and took a step away, but then paused and said over his shoulder, “Remember this moment, clanman.”
Otec narrowed his gaze. “Why?”
Jore’s eyes swept across the sleepy village, his expression sad. “Just remember.” Then he slipped out of sight.
Frowning, Otec pivoted with the intent of going after Jore to ask what he meant, but Matka jogged up behind him and said, “Let’s go.”
He glanced at the well-used but serviceable boots on her feet. He thought they might be his younger brother’s.
“Which way?” Matka asked.
Otec pointed midway up the taller mountain that flanked the pass to the clan lands. They had taken no more than a few steps out of the village when a shadow passed overhead. He glanced up to see the enormous owl fly overhead and quickly move out of sight. Otec shuddered, his skin feeling itchy.
Chapter 4
Otec was keenly aware of Matka walking beside him. The way she moved with purpose. The way her gaze lingered on her surroundings, as if she had to absorb every detail before she could look away. But she didn’t seem aware of him at all, which bothered him. And it bothered him that it bothered him.
