The Crow God's Girl

by Patrice Sarath

  The sound of voices from below stairs jolted them apart, and Kate’s heart pounded. They stayed still, barely breathing. The voices of the householders faded, and she let herself breathe. But the moment of intimacy, of comfort, had passed. Colar stood.

  “We need to go back,” he said. His voice was urgent. He took her by the hand. She got to her feet and he led her back to her bedroom. At the door he leaned close.

  “We can’t do this,” he whispered. “You have to be more careful, please Kate? It’s just different here. If we caused a scandal–”

  Terrick honor again. She swallowed her stubbornness. “Okay. I promise.”

  He loomed over her and kissed her, but in the dark his kiss missed and landed on her cheek. She didn’t say anything, pushed the door open and slipped back inside.

  Eri’s comforting breathing rose up from the big bed. Kate undressed and threw on the night gown and crawled in with the girl. She muffled her sobs in the rough, prickly pillow and when she had exhausted her grief she fell into a troubled sleep.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The day dawned bright and fair, a light wind sending the morning clouds scudding across a blue sky. The smells of Terrick, mud, sheep, sweat, hay, wafted through the great house, its windows thrown open to the day. Kate breathed deep, and the freshness of the air and the simpleness of the smells chased some of her sadness and anxiety away.

  Breakfast was less formal than dinner, and the family was used to gathering in the kitchens to grab vesh, bread, and meat and potatoes, the richness of the spices redolent in the close, warm kitchens. While everyone sat at a rustic table, the kitchen servants bustling around them and the great ovens blazing, Lord Terrick ate standing. He was dressed for the day in rich woolens and a thick vest over a linen shirt. Kate grudgingly admitted that he looked good for an older man. The boys were dressed like their father, Colar looking relaxed and roughhewn, somehow older than the boy she knew in North Salem. He needed to shave and his hair was long again, she noted, and then tried to keep her gaze away from him, still unsure about the previous night. Erinye was dressed like a miniature Lady Beatra in a placketed shirt and modest split skirts. Kate had done the little girl’s hair in two french braids and tucked them up in loops before covering her with a demure kerchief.

  She herself wore the same hand me downs, a split skirt dyed a sensible brown, and an overtunic in cream linen. Her clothes were worn and clean, yet a little stained, a little darned, showing their wear. But comfortable, Kate had hastened to assure Lady Beatra, not wanting to put her out. She wore her hiking boots over worn stockings. They were better than anything Aeritan had to offer, so she kept them, though she knew they got a second glance from the householders.

  Kate kept her focus on her flatbread and potatoes. She hoped Colar noticed how demure she was being. If this is how it’s to be, then this is it. He had to learn our ways; I can learn his. Then, stubbornly, but he had it easier.

  Because he wouldn’t have been sent away if he got it wrong.

  “Right,” Lord Terrick said. “Sons, come with me. My lady, I bid you a fair day.” He bowed to his wife. Lady Beatra bobbed her head back.

  “My lord, a fair day to you.”

  Obediently the boys followed their father, all of them snagging a last bite of bread or an apple before leaving. Kate kept her gaze down until she guessed they were all gone and then looked up. Lady Beatra regarded her with a considering look.

  Eri giggled. “Mama, you spoke to lord father as if he were a stranger lord.”

  Lady Beatra gave a rueful laugh. “I did, did I not?”

  It was a performance then, that formality between husband and wife. A teachable moment so the stranger girl could see how a lord and lady behaved. Had they talked about her and her foreignness? Were they determined to make sure she learned their ways? So she didn’t cause embarrassment to their son? Kate’s face flamed at the thought of them managing her.

  “Eri, my love,” Lady Beatra said. She still had her eyes on Kate, and she tore her bread into tiny pieces before she dropped it into her potato and lamb. “Can you fetch my books from my office, please? I must make an accounting with Torvan today.”

  “Yes, mama.” Eri slid off the bench and ran off.

  Lady Beatra dropped her breadcrumbs and dusted off her fingers. She reached out and took Kate’s hand. Her hand was rough and calloused, the knuckles large and red. She worked hard, did Lady Beatra, for all that she had lady in front of her name.

  “Did you quarrel?”

  Tears flooded her eyes and Kate willed them back.

  “No ma’am,” she said. How can we quarrel when we are never allowed to be together?

  Lady Beatra nodded. “He was always a serious boy, my Colar.” She smiled and Kate returned it, sniffing back tears. Serious was the word for Colar. “He strives very hard to live up to his name, his family honor. All Terricks do.” For a moment her expression was wry. “Terricks show their love differently.”

  She and Lord Terrick had an arranged marriage. Did she love her husband? Kate didn’t dare ask. Lady Beatra gave her hand another squeeze. “I know how hard this must be for you, child. It’s early days yet. In time, Terrick will become your home.”

  Kate almost dissolved in tears, and she managed to keep them back just barely. Lady Beatra patted her hand and released it. Eri came staggering in with a hidebound account book. Kate quickly dabbed at her eyes.

  “Ah, thank you, love,” Lady Beatra said. “We have a long day of reckoning, Torvan and I. Oh.” She tsked. “And how could I have forgotten. Andarin is that close to childbed, and I meant to send herbs to the midwife for the birthing. I’ll have to send Samar or one of the householders and she’s so busy–”

  “I’ll do it.” Kate spoke so quickly she took herself aback.

  “I suppose you could,” Lady Beatra said, as if the possibility were a surprise. “And it would help, for Samar has so much to do.”

  “I would love to.” Be useful, be useful hammered itself in the beating of her heart, so that sometimes it echoed in her ears. Only this time eagerness pushed her as well. To be free, even for a half hour, from the oppressiveness of the Terrick honor, it was almost too much to hope. “Just tell me who the herbs are to go to and I’ll take care of it.”

  “It’s rather far,” Lady Beatra said, a little dubiously. “And you haven’t been there yet, though it’s not hard to find, it’s the first smallholding down the road.”

  “I’ll ride. And I’ll find it. Colar pointed it out to me from the window.” She could see the whitewashed village houses in her mind’s eye, tucked into a little valley between the hills.

  Lady Beatra pursed her lips, then made up her mind. “Of course. There’s no reason you shouldn’t. You should become used to your new home. Go get ready, dear, and come back down to the kitchen. I’ll have everything ready for you.”

  Kate remembered to curtsey, and flew up the stairs to change into her jeans. She hoped Lady Beatra wouldn’t mind that she wore her old clothes but she didn’t want to ride in her skirts. She dumped the dowdy skirt, put on the jeans and zipped them up over her linen bloomers. They slid up easily. She had lost a lot of weight in Terrick, from nerves and unhappiness. As diets go, she wouldn’t recommend it, but she had to admit, if she wanted a model thin body, this was very effective. Except that in Aeritan, big girls were considered pretty and desirable. That figures, she thought, tossing her split skirt onto the bed, and turning to head to the kitchen and then the stable.

  Instead, she stopped abruptly. “Oh!”

  Samar stood in the doorway. The Terrick housekeeper was a rail-thin woman with a starched kerchief that covered her hair so completely that not a single stray lock peeked out. Her eyebrows were gray, so Kate figured her hair was too, and her eyes were a washed-out blue.

  “Um,” Kate said. Had Lady Beatra sent Samar to find her?

  “Young fosterling,” the woman said. “Is this yours?”

  She let a pair of panties dangle from a long f
inger. Even if they hadn’t been a tiny bikini cut of red gingham with a dainty rose bow on the front that she had bought with her own money and then hidden from her mother, Kate would have known they were hers. No one had underwear here. Her face flamed.

  “Why do you have my underwear?”

  “I found them in the young master’s chambers.”

  Kate knew she went from red-faced to white in one second. No way. No. Way. She had never been in Colar’s room. Ever. So who was planting her underwear in her fiance’s bedroom? She didn’t try to protest. Samar watched her narrowly, her gray, lined face impassive.

  “I can’t believe that.” Kate’s voice went flat.

  One gray eyebrow arched delicately, and Samar tossed her the little scrap. “You best keep better track of your things,” she said, and turned and left her.

  Kate crushed the panty in her fist. She had to wash it when she first arrived in Terrick; she remembered washing it. It was her only pair. And then, she was given clothes to wear, including the strange pair of bloomers. And she must have forgotten the panties. At least, she thought, it hadn’t been the bra. That she was able to wash and dry overnight before the fire, and since she couldn’t quite manage the stays that she was given along with the bloomers, she stuck with the bra. So she had lost track of the panties and someone had taken them and planted them in Colar’s bedroom.

  With an eye on the door, she hastily stuck the panties under the lumpy mattress, pulling the ticking back into place.

  So who had it in for her? she thought, as she left the room and closed the door behind her, with a backward, considering, glance.

  The better question might be, who didn’t?

  Lady Beatra gave her a slightly astonished look when Kate reappeared wearing jeans and a stained tunic.

  “It’s a nice day for a ride,” she said, a little defiantly. “I thought I would take my horse.”

  “Yes, of course, dear. So those trousers are what everyone wears? They seem very sturdy, although not, perhaps–”

  “I didn’t want to ruin my skirt,” Kate said.

  “Oh dear, that old thing–” Lady Beatra stopped abruptly. “Kett, we need to get you new clothes.”

  “Oh, please, don’t put yourself out,” Kate said in a rush. “Clothes don’t really matter to me, not really. It’s all right.”

  Lady Beatra regarded her again with that clear, seeing gaze, as if she were coming to a conclusion. She nodded. “Well,” she said. “Here are the herbs. She handed over a small satchel to Kate. It smelled pungent and grassy, like vesh herbs only more–herbal, Kate thought. “Callia’s house is the blue on the left, third house off the road. If you have any trouble finding her, you can ask.”

  “I won’t have any problems,” Kate assured her. She bobbed an awkward curtsey and Lady Beatra hid a little smile.

  One of these days I’ll learn how to do it, Kate thought.

  In the stables her heart eased. This was where she belonged. She breathed deep, taking in the scents of horses, manure, hay and oats, of leather tack and sharp-smelling liniment. She had no trouble finding Allegra and Hotshot’s saddles. The compact English saddles were easy to spot amidst the big Aeritan saddles that were a cross between a Western stock saddle and a high-cantled medieval war saddle. She pulled down Allegra’s saddle and pad and grabbed the mare’s bridle from the rows hanging on the other side of the tack room.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Kate spun. One of the grooms stood there, glaring at her. She didn’t remember him. She had met most of the householders, but it had been such a blur. He was older, stocky, gruff.

  “I’m on an errand for Lady Beatra.”

  “Oh, an errand,” he said. “How fine for you. Thinking you can come in and take whatever you want from the barn.”

  “I’m not taking whatever I want. The mare belongs to me. I’m taking her out for a ride. She needs the work.”

  “And what does a slip of a girl know about how to work a horse?”

  “I know how to work a horse.” She said it with quiet confidence. He looked at her as if he didn’t know what to make of her.

  “Saw you when you came back with the lord’s son,” he said finally, grudgingly. “You brought that mare in just fine.”

  “She’s a handful but if you don’t baby her she settles down.”

  He snorted. “Most folks get in trouble thinking a horse needs to be coddled. Talked to.” He sneered the last as if it were the ultimate folly. Kate snorted too.

  “You should have seen her last owner.” She shook her head as if that explained it all.

  “Well,” he said. “No one will say old Drabian don’t know a good ’un when he sees one. The mare is too light-boned to be of much use. The lord says he might keep her bred, try to get some good out of her that way.”

  Kate kept a tight rein on her anger. So Lord Terrick thought he could breed Allegra without discussing it with her?

  “I see,” she said shortly. “Well, I’d rather keep my horse from getting barn sour.”

  Drabian was no fool, as he said. He stared at her, and then laughed. “Don’t knock heads with the lord, girl. He’s your foster father, and what you own, he owns, same as if you were one of his get.” He jerked his head at Allegra’s loose box. “Get you gone on your errand.”

  From the moment Kate mounted, rising easily from the ground in a single smooth movement, she felt a weight lift off her chest. She gathered the reins and gave Allegra her heel, and the horse moved off in a quick walk, her ears flickering as she kept her attention on everything around her. The air was crisp and clear, the sun warm. It was a perfect day for a ride. Once she dropped off the herbs, she didn’t have to hurry back. She could take her time, maybe ride around a bit, explore.

  The road to the little village, though unpaved, was well kept, mounded in the middle to let water run off. Thick grasses with a small scattering of tiny white flowers lined the road, giving off a clean scent. On the other side of the ditch were sturdy stone walls keeping back the pastures. Terrick’s cattle were small and russet-brown, some pied, some solid, and they gleamed with late summer health under a bountiful sun.

  Kate turned her face to the sun, accepting its warmth. The big house held onto the cold, and some days she didn’t get outside at all but stayed at Lady Beatra’s side, learning all that housekeeping entailed. That reminded her of the panties, so unexpectedly dangling from Samar’s hand. She shivered, despite the summer’s warmth. She knew the householders didn’t like her. That was clear from the whispers that followed her whenever she was by herself in the halls of Terrick. Or, even worse, when the conversation stopped whenever she appeared. The men at arms didn’t care for her either, and that was unnerving, for they were all hard men and their stares made her uncomfortable. They reminded her of being in the war camp when she first arrived through the portal, a frightened prisoner at the mercy of soldiers. Even though General Marthen had placed her under his protection, danger was never distant.

  Now she was under Lord Terrick’s protection, as foster daughter. They can’t hurt me, she told herself, but still their disdain and distrust made her uneasy. It was another thing she needed to talk to Colar about, but she had a sinking feeling that he wouldn’t really understand.

  It was because he was Terrick; he couldn’t fathom that his House would turn on her. But she knew with every glance and whisper, every hard look, that the householders and soldiers didn’t think of her as Terrick at all.

  What would have happened if someone other than Samar had found the panties? If Torvan had? He would have brought them straight to Lord Terrick and Lady Beatra. If they were so strict about keeping her and Colar apart, what would they have said to that?

  Now she was borrowing trouble, she told herself. The Terricks were on her side, after all. She had restored Colar to them after they thought he was lost forever on the other side of the gordath that separated the worlds. They wouldn’t turn their backs on her, and if it turned out the household
ers had it in for her, well, maybe it was time someone told the lord and lady what their servants were up to.

  Colar dipped the tin dipper into the bucket of cold well water and drank deep, then dumped the rest of the water over his head. He, his brothers and their father had spent the morning with the armsmen at swordwork. He was rusty. Long months in North Salem had left him unprepared for the long, slogging work of wielding a heavy sword, and he would ache tomorrow. Not all the lacrosse or pickup basketball in the world had kept him in shape for this. With chagrin he saw that Aevin had gotten both very good and very fast. His little brother had been a kid when he left. Now, he was beginning to get his growth and his strength. Aevin was no fool. He saw that he was almost as good as his brother. Colar could see it in his eyes when they sparred. If he wasn’t careful, Aevin would overtake him. No. I’ll make sure he doesn’t. He’s getting cocky enough as it is.

  “Move it,” Aevin said, and jostled him. “Don’t hog it all.”

  With an easy move, Colar turned and dumped the bucket over his brother’s head, then let it fall back into the courtyard well at the end of the rope.

  “Hey!” Aevin dashed the water from his eyes.

  Colar smiled.

  Aevin went for him, fists swinging. Colar was laughing even as he fended him off. Aevin had no technique.

  “What’s the matter, brat? Thought you wanted the water.”

  Yare was shouting with excitement as the brothers went at it. Colar was more defending himself but Aevin never let up, and it was starting to get annoying. He’s serious, Colar thought. What was Aevin’s problem? It was just a joke. He was distracted by the thought and Aevin got in a lucky punch against his cheek. Colar’s head snapped back and he saw stars.

  His vision cleared almost instantly and he stopped laughing. Anger welled up from some place dark. When he spoke he hardly recognized his own voice. “Asshole,” he said.

  Aevin’s eyes went wide at his brother’s transformation. Colar grabbed him by the front of his shirt with one hand and was about to throw him to the ground, when he was pulled back by the scruff of the neck. At the same time, Raymon, his father’s captain, grabbed Aevin and hauled him back.