A good argument. Too good.
She didn’t have a response.
“It shouldn’t take long,” Gryndal assured, most likely to preempt any objection. “Certainly not for one such as you.”
“I don’t see how I’m any better suited than any other Miralyith,” Arion said.
“You’re too modest. Were you not handpicked by the great Fenelyus to be Mawyndulë’s tutor? And didn’t she bestow upon you the honorific of Cenzlyor? Surely you possess talents that impressed her. Why else would she choose you over me? Here is your chance to utilize such skills.”
He’s maneuvering me out of the way.
What she didn’t know was how long Gryndal had been planning the move. The comment about Fenelyus choosing her over him was troubling. He hadn’t shown any interest in teaching the prince, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been harboring resentment. Arion had the nagging sense that she ought to resist the invitation, but Lothian was nodding with a smile in her direction. The decision had been made already, and her opinion no longer mattered.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gods Among Us
Although I still see the days of my youth as warm and sunny, I realize now that before the gods came, life on the dahl was a monotonous routine of drudgery. Afterward, nothing was the same.
—THE BOOK OF BRIN
“What are they doing now?” Moya asked Brin, who peered through the open door of the roundhouse. “Where are they?”
“Haven’t moved. Still in front of the lodge steps. They’re setting up a little camp, laying out beds for the night. I only count eight, though. One’s missing.”
They were all in Roan’s home. Although no smaller than Sarah’s roundhouse, it felt cramped, stuffed with all manner of things including: piles of antlers, string, branches, stones, boxes, tusks, bones, sticks, reeds, plants, and an abandoned beehive. Since returning, Persephone no longer felt comfortable imposing on Sarah’s hospitality. Her husband, Delwin, had appeared less than enthusiastic at the prospect of their one guest turning into five. It certainly didn’t help that one was a Dureyan, another a wolf, the third a mystic, the fourth an ex-slave from Alon Rhist, and that Persephone had been accused of murder. In contrast, Roan and Moya were delighted to have them. Roan even rushed out and enlisted Padera’s help to fix their meal. Roan hadn’t entertained before and was clueless about what to do. She wanted everything to be perfect.
“The missing one is probably up on the wall somewhere,” Malcolm said. “The Instarya are a militant group and always post a sentry.”
“The gods are making beds?” Moya asked.
“Yes,” Brin said, acting as everyone’s eyes and ears. “One’s setting up a fire. Two others are sharpening weapons.”
“So gods sleep?” Moya asked no one in particular.
“They aren’t gods,” Malcolm said. “Actually, they’re not much different from us. Some think the Fhrey, Dherg, and Rhunes are all related.”
“Like from the same clan?” Persephone asked.
“Originally, yes.”
Raithe, who was sitting on the floor beside Malcolm, Suri, Minna, and a goat’s skull, offered a sour chuckle. “We’re nothing alike.”
Malcolm smirked. “You’re worldlier than I thought. Met a number of each, have you?”
Raithe replied with a scowl and shifted the goat’s skull to clear a few more inches of room.
“I have,” Persephone said. “And although being from the same clan does seem to be a bit of a stretch, I can see the point. There are a lot of similarities.”
She sat in one of the net swings that dangled from the roundhouse’s main support beam. Hanging chairs, Roan called them. Roan had a habit of making unusual things, and her home, in addition to resembling an overstuffed squirrel’s nest, was a showcase of oddities.
The house had been built by Iver the Carver, who had been a part-time peddler. As a result, the place was always filled with a scattered assortment of trinkets. Having been Iver’s slave since birth, Roan had grown up as one more bit of scrap. Iver had died the previous winter, and Roan was still trying to figure out life as a free woman. Moya had moved in with her a few weeks after Iver’s death. Given Moya’s outgoing nature, everyone expected her to be a positive influence on the shy ex-slave, and Roan did seem a little better. But the improvement hadn’t extended to the house. Neither Roan nor Moya, it turned out, could be called tidy. The only thing not in abundance was floor space.
“How are we similar?” Raithe asked.
Persephone shrugged. “Well, we all sleep. I wouldn’t think a god would have a need for that.”
“So do rabbits.”
“Yeah, but rabbits don’t wear clothes, have language, or use tools.”
Moya nodded in agreement. She, too, was in a hanging chair and was using both hands to sip tea from one of Gifford’s beautifully crafted ceramic cups. His creations were delicate, perfect works of art that everyone treated with care. “What about Konniger, Brin? Any movement from the lodge?”
“Both doors still closed,” the girl replied with professional brevity.
“I’m going to have to go up there,” Persephone declared.
“Why?” Moya and Raithe said together, each with the same shocked tone.
“I have to tell Konniger what’s going on. He’s the chieftain and needs to know. Can’t imagine what he’s thinking with nine Fhrey on his doorstep.”
“Seven,” Brin corrected. “Seven Fhrey, one giant, and…I can’t tell what the other one is.”
“What is that ninth one?” Raithe asked Malcolm. “Do you know?”
“Goblin,” Padera said. The old farmer’s wife was deftly working the glowing coal bed in the fire pit. She was boiling water in a suspended skin sack and showing Roan how to bake bread wrapped in soaked leaves.
“Goblin?” Moya leaned over, dangling precariously in her swing and trying to look out the door Brin was holding open. “How can you see anything with those old, tired peepers of yours?”
Persephone had wondered the same thing. The old woman’s squinting eyes were so lost in the folds, creases, and wrinkles of her mushed-melon face that they all but vanished. When Padera spoke, one—and only one—would pop open with a powerful glare while the other squeezed tight as if she were taking aim.
At that moment, the old woman had her sight on Moya. “These old eyes can still thread a needle faster than you can explain why you’re hanging there and dangling your breasts in front of two men.”
Moya scowled and sat back in her swing.
“I don’t think you should go near the lodge,” Raithe told Persephone. “Before the Fhrey showed up, your chieftain was siding against you. Didn’t seem too happy afterward, either.”
“Konniger isn’t the problem,” Persephone said. “It’s Hegner who’s lying.”
“Maybe so,” Moya said. “But if Konniger wants to know what’s going on, he can come out and talk to the Fhrey himself.”
“This shouldn’t be about Konniger and what he should do or hasn’t done,” Persephone replied. “For the good of the dahl, the chieftain needs to know what is happening.”
Roan carried another Gifford cup of hot tea and handed it to Persephone.
“Thank you, Roan.”
Roan didn’t reply. She just nodded and made her way back through the debris to where Padera was working over the pit fire.
“I wish the Fhrey had accepted your invitation to stay in the lodge,” Moya said, grinning mischievously over her drink. “Can you imagine? Konniger having to move back into his family’s house? He hates them, you know. Tressa has been bragging all over the dahl about how wonderful it is to be out of that overcrowded pit. When she was safely in the lodge, Tressa called Autumn and her husband pigs and said she didn’t know how she managed to live there.”
“You really don’t like him, do you?” Persephone asked.
“What part of Konniger is making me marry The Stump don’t you understand?”
“ ’Bout time you m
arried someone and stopped tempting every man from here to the Blue Sea,” Padera said, slurring the words through toothless gums. “You know, wars have started over women like you.”
Moya scoffed. “You’re so full of crap, old woman.”
“Brin?” Padera called.
Brin tore her eyes away from the doorway. “Augusta of Melen, daughter of Chieftain Eisol, started the Battle of the Red River when she refused to marry Theo of Warric. When Theo’s father was killed in the fight, Theo vowed vengeance and summoned all of Clan Warric to his banner. This resulted in what became known as the Ten Year War, which claimed the lives of a thousand men and instigated a famine that lasted two years.”
“See,” Padera said. The old woman handed the dead chicken she’d brought with her to Roan. “Pluck it.”
“I’m sorry.” Persephone sat up, making her seat rock. “But I have to side with Moya on this one. Konniger is making her marry a man who tried to kill me.”
“Why is that?” Padera asked, once more peering out at her with one eye.
“I wish I knew,” Persephone said. “I wouldn’t say we’re friendly, but I’m not aware of any ill will between us. I hadn’t had any trouble with any of them until yesterday.”
Roan, who stood next to Padera, struggled to yank feathers from the dead chicken, which she held by its feet. The old woman sighed. She took the dead bird and submerged it in the skin of water, which by then was boiling. She jiggled it vigorously up and down, waited a few seconds, pulled it out, and then submerged it again. The old woman did this several times, then plucked out a tail feather and smiled. “There,” she said, handing the chicken back. “Try it now.”
Roan pulled the first feather, and it slipped free without effort. “You’re a genius.”
Padera grinned, or more accurately her eternal toothless frown stretched wider. “You’re the genius. I’m just old. When you’ve raised six children, a husband, and dozens of cows, pigs, sheep, and who knows how many chickens, you learn a few things. Just remember, there’s always a better way.”
Roan nodded with fierce conviction, her eyes serious and focused as if Padera had charged her with a crucial task. “There’s always a better way. There’s always a better way…”
“Well, if you have to go, I’ll go with you,” Raithe told Persephone.
The big man stretched out his legs, which extended across a third of the room.
“Thank you, but I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. If I bring you into the lodge, it might start a fight.” She took a sip of tea.
“You can’t go up there alone.”
“Wasn’t planning on it. I’ll bring Delwin and maybe someone else I trust, like one of the farmers.”
“What are they going to do if he decides you’re guilty and wants to execute you right there in the lodge? You might need someone who can fight.”
“Maybe that’s how things are done in Dureya, but there’s a process here. Our Keeper of Ways will insist.”
“Your Keeper is a big man, is he?”
“A frail old woman, actually. But our chieftain respects our traditions and will listen to her. No one is executed without a public hearing.”
“Uh-huh, sure. I’ll be outside just in case. If you have trouble, yell.”
Flattered by Raithe’s concern, Persephone took a quick sip of tea to hide a self-conscious smile.
“So, Brin”—Moya leaned over the edge of her suspended netting—“what happened? To the woman who started the war?”
Brin took a second to think, and her eyes shifted in focus. “After Theo of Warric successfully besieged Dahl Melen, he burned it and killed everyone she ever knew and a good deal of livestock. Then Augusta of Melen killed herself.”
“Oh,” Moya said with a suddenly sour look.
“Raithe, Malcolm,” Padera barked. “Fetch us some water. Take those empty gourds by the door.”
Without a word, the two men got to their feet. Raithe bent low. The ceiling was too high for most to touch, but Raithe was tall and there were plenty of plants, gourds, and fish hanging from the rafters to bang his head on. They grabbed the containers and headed out.
“You sent Raithe to fetch water?” Persephone and Brin asked in concert the moment the two had left.
“Was just sitting there,” Padera replied.
“But…but…the man saved us…and he’s killed a god!” Brin declared, crawling back toward the fire and rising to her knees in protest.
“Then he ought to be able to handle carrying some water, don’t you think?” The old woman fixed her with a one-eyed stare and a misleading toothless frown that Persephone knew to be a smile.
“I can’t believe how fortunate it was, running into him in the woods,” Moya said to Persephone. The young woman clutched the teacup to her breast. A wicked smile crossed her lips. “He’s handsome.”
“You’re spoken for,” Brin reminded her.
“Shut up, will ya?” Moya scowled, huffed, and slammed her head backward on the netting, making a thrum sound. “The Stump can go hang himself. Got any spare rope, Roan?”
Roan paused in her chicken plucking. “Of course I do. I always keep—”
Moya sighed. “Roan, I’m not serious.”
“Oh…sorry.”
“Don’t need to apologize, Roan.”
“Sorry.”
Moya sighed again. “Never mind.”
Persephone loved Moya for her forthright, honest, speak-her-mind openness. She didn’t know anyone who was braver or more helpful. But secretly Persephone wondered if Konniger, Tressa, and Padera were right about Moya taking a husband. Not that she should be forced to marry The Stump, but Moya, looking the way she did and refusing every proposal, had started fights among suitors. The gods had blessed her with beauty beyond mortal bounds, just as they had given mankind fire. Both gifts had the ability to leave destruction in their wake, but no one was foolish enough to swing a torch at every tree. Moya, on the other hand, was an uncontrollable flirt and oblivious to the devastation she caused.
Brin resumed her vigil at the door, her eyes intent on something. “Raithe and Malcolm are at the well.”
“The Fhrey doing anything?” Moya sat up.
“A couple looked over, but they’re still just sitting there.”
“Keep an eye out,” Moya told her, then turned back to Persephone. Drumming her fingernails on the cup, she asked, “So what were you doing out in the forest? You never did say.”
Persephone looked embarrassed.
“You weren’t really secretly meeting Raithe, were you?” Moya sat up, her brows rising. “You weren’t, you know…what The Stump said?”
“No!”
Moya frowned and settled back in disappointment. “What, then?”
Persephone sighed. “I went to talk to a tree.”
Moya, Roan, Brin, and Padera looked at one another.
“Come again?” Moya said.
Persephone nodded toward the mystic, who sat cross-legged on the floor between a stack of flat stones and a battered basket stuffed with dusty pinecones. With Minna’s head on her lap, Suri appeared oblivious to everything around her, playing intently with her string again, a spider-like pattern forming between her fingers.
“Suri came to me a while ago saying she saw signs of a terrible catastrophe, something worse than any famine. I didn’t think much of it at the time.”
“But then the Fhrey burned Dureya and Nadak,” Moya said.
Persephone nodded. “Suri told me the old tree could help. Would answer questions and is the oldest tree in the forest. And she is, too, huge and ancient.”
“How’s Magda doing, anyway?” Padera asked. The old woman was fanning the fire beneath the water sack.
“You know about the oak?” Persephone asked.
The old woman nodded. “Melvin and I, we first…um. We were married under her leaves. Beautiful spring day. Songbirds filled her branches and sang to us. A good sign.”
“Probably a sapling back then, eh, P
adera?” Moya grinned.
“Hard to tell,” the old woman replied. “Sun hadn’t been born yet.”
They all laughed, except for Roan, who paused in her plucking to study the old woman with new interest.
Raithe and Malcolm returned, carrying an array of gourd jugs hanging from a pole.
“Into the large skin over there.” Padera pointed.
“So you actually spoke to this tree?” Moya asked.
“I asked questions,” Persephone clarified. “Suri told me what the oak said.”
Roan, who was making a little pile of wet feathers at her feet, stopped plucking. She stared at Suri. “You understand the language of trees?”
Suri nodded without looking up from the web between her fingers, tongue sticking out as she worked the string thoughtfully.
“And what did it say?” Moya asked.
“A bunch of gibberish, really,” Persephone replied.
“Not gibberish.” Suri spoke for the first time. “You asked Magda for answers; she gave them. Problem solved.”
“But none of it made any sense,” Persephone said.
Suri shrugged. “Not Magda’s fault you can’t understand. She kept it simple for you. And she was right, but she always is.”
“She was right?” Persephone asked, confused.
Suri nodded.
“What exactly did she say?” Padera asked.
Persephone shrugged. “Something about…” She looked at the mystic. “Suri, do you remember?”
“Welcome the gods. Heal the injured. Follow the wolf,” Suri recited without looking up. “Can’t get much simpler than that.”
Persephone spilled some of her tea. “That’s right! For the love of Mari! Welcome the gods!”
Everyone looked toward the roundhouse’s open doorway, where the evening sun cast a patch of light across Roan’s floor mat. For Persephone, the light looked a little more golden, a little more magical than it had a moment before.
“I just got a chill,” Moya said.
Padera looked at her. “More clothes might help. Oh, wait, I forgot who I was talking to. How about we try this instead. Less jawing and more work will warm you up. Get off that swing and cut up a bowl full of potatoes and set them in the sack to boil.” Then the old woman turned to Suri. “You staying for the meal?”
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