The Crow God's Girl

by Patrice Sarath

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Ow!” Kate pricked herself with the end of the spindle, and tears came to her eyes. She stopped to suck her finger, already tender from being previously abused.

  “Child, you’re holding it wrong,” Lady Beatra said. She picked up the spindle and began deftly spinning it. The wool obediently thinned into smooth thread, unlike Kate’s lumpy attempts.

  “Good thing I’m not Sleeping Beauty,” Kate muttered. Lady Beatra and the other ladies looked at her askance.

  Lady Beatra, Samar, Thani, and a few women from the village, Callia among them, sat in the ladies’ sitting room in the front of the house, with its windows looking out into the herb garden. A light rain fell, and the scents of late summer came in through the open windows, green and fecund. The smell of dirt and compost was thick on the tongue.

  “What’s Sleeping Beauty?” Eri asked. The little girl spun with the dexterity of one who had been trained from babyhood.

  “It’s a fairytale, a story. Want me to tell it?”

  They had been telling stories the whole afternoon. The women had been teaching Kate her housewifely duties, at least the ones that could be spoken of in Eri’s hearing. They had also been making plenty of sly jokes about sex, as far as she could tell–she didn’t always understand the innuendo but the laughter was unmistakable. Thani appeared to have thawed to her. The village women were all intensely interested in her.

  “Yes, please!” Eri loved her stories.

  “Once upon a time, there was a King and Queen...” Kate began. Since she couldn’t spin and talk at the same time, she picked up her crochet needle and went back to making lumpy squares.

  When she got to happily ever after, the women chuckled. Callia grinned, her deft fingers moving quickly even though her face was flushed with drink and broken veins.

  “Must have been quite a kiss to wake her from such a sleep,” she said, winking. “It depends on where it’s planted, I would say.”

  Kate tried to keep from blushing but failed. Callia noticed. “Ah, see the blushing girl! You understand what I’m talking about, do you not, girl?” And Lady Beatra sitting right there. Kate tried to concentrate, willing Callia to stop. The midwife, however, was unstoppable. “You best marry your two off, Lady Beatra, or yon maid will be big for her wedding night.” She lay a finger next to her nose.

  Kate knew what Callia was trying to do, to make her betrothal a done deal, but she wished the woman would just keep out of it. She risked a sidelong glance at Lady Beatra. Colar’s mother had a strained expression, although her hands kept moving. All the other women were looking at Lady Beatra as well; interesting, Kate thought, that Thani sneered and so did Samar. But the latter could have been because of the history between her and Callia.

  “Mama, will Kett and Colar have lots of babies when they’re married?” Eri asked.

  “With the blessing of the grass god’s daughter, they will,” Lady Beatra said, but her voice was carefully neutral. “Don’t you think so, Kett?”

  “I think so, ma’am,” Kate said, her voice equally careful. Now was not the time to declare her desire to be childless, or at least have as few as possible. Like one, maybe.

  “You are an only child, are you not?” said Samar in her dry voice. “Did your mother lose many babes before quickening?”

  “Samar!” the women cried, shocked.

  Unruffled, the housekeeper said, “Callia must know. Often the daughter bears children as her mother did.”

  Lady Beatra and her housekeeper exchanged long looks but Lady Beatra said only, “Samar is right. It is good to know.”

  “Um,” Kate said, her voice a little rough. “My mother had only me. She and my father married late by–by Aeritan standards. They were both thirty-five. And my mother waited a few more years before getting pregnant.”

  And after she did, she got pre-eclampsia, and had to be rushed to the hospital six weeks early, her blood pressure so high, the story went, that as the doctor began the emergency c-section, her mother’s blood shot straight up and spattered the lights in the operating room.

  And Kate would deliver her babies by the will of the grass god’s daughter and a drunken midwife.

  “Wait,” said Thani, maliciously. “Your mother and father did not lie together for years after they were wed?” Her eyes were bright, as if she were imagining the gossip she would bring to the servants’ quarters.

  Kate felt anger rise in her and when she spoke her voice was deliberate. “My mother and father used birth control, Thani. Where I come from, women don’t have to have baby after baby. We can choose when we want to have children.”

  The room plunged into utter silence. Kate looked from one to the other. Some of the women were shocked, but she noted the considering looks on the face of Lady Beatra and a few of the villagers.

  “Is this another story?” asked one, hope in her voice. Kate shook her head. She dredged up a bit of information from the sex ed books her mother had left on her desk when she was a kid. “They’re called condoms. I think they used to be made from sheep intestines. Men put them on their, um, penises.”

  She could feel her face burning. Callia cackled. “That’s a Brythern trick! No shy maid here, Lady Beatra. She’ll keep your son happy, no mistake.”

  She as good as told Colar’s mother that I’m not a virgin. Lovely. With a sinking heart, Kate turned toward Lady Beatra, who was looking extraordinarily uncomfortable. “I haven’t–I mean, I’m not–” She gave up. “Where I come from, women don’t have to have babies until they want to.”

  “Children come through the grass god’s daughter, whether a mother will or no,” Lady Beatra said. “You cannot say no to such a gift, child, not and have the favor of the woman’s god.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want children,” Kate said, desperate to explain. “I just want to be able to choose when I have them.”

  “It is not your choice to make, Kett.”

  The other women watched them. Even Callia fell silent.

  It used to be my choice and I lost that when I came to Aeritan. She didn’t say it out loud. She ducked her head so that no one could see her expression, but she knew that the grass god’s daughter heard her as clearly as if she had spoken the words.

  Way to go, Kate, pissing off the gods.

  “It’s best not to think of it,” Lady Beatra said with finality. “Look, the weather has cleared.”

  Outside, the rain continued to drip, but golden afternoon sunlight opened up in the sky, illuminating the rain-wet garden. Everything glowed. The fresh scents of the late-summer hayfields wafted in from the open window, and a bird began to sing.

  With the end of the rain, the brief leisure hour was over. The spinning party broke up as the village women gathered their things. Callia stood with great good humor, cackling her laugh.

  “You’re full of surprises, young fosterling,” she said, waving a finger at Kate. “No one will ever know what you’ll do next! Be queen of the world, if we’re not careful.”

  Samar looked pained; Thani, scornful. Some of the villagers laughed, and one said, “Come now, Callia, leave the girl be. Time for you to be coming home with us and not making any more mischief.”

  “You tell the grass god’s daughter, Kett Mosslin. You tell her you’ll have babies when you choose and not before. Hah!”

  She let herself be drawn away, and Kate stood and waited with Lady Beatra and Eri.

  “Well,” Lady Beatra said finally when the women had made their deep bows and left, and Samar and Thani went off to see about dinner. “You will soon be spinning as well as any girl your age, Kett.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Please take Eri and have her clean up before dinner, will you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Kate held out her hand to Eri and they went up the stairs, leaving Lady Beatra alone with her thoughts in the pretty little solarium.

  Kate led Allegra through the one street of the little village, accepting greetings from smallholde
rs and giving them the items that Lady Beatra and Samar had charged her with. It seemed she could not just go for a ride in Terrick but must have an errand to make it proper. Well, if she must, she must. And she really didn’t mind. It was a relief to get away from the oppressive house and its disapproving householders. After the last spinning session with Callia and the villagers, she imagined that she had garnered even more dislike. Thani especially made no bones about sneering at her. No doubt the soldiers and male householders had all heard that she knew how to have sex without getting pregnant.

  Just like being considered General Marthen’s woman, she thought, and the nervousness that roiled in her belly intensified.

  It was early evening, and the air had a crispness about it, hinting at autumn to come. The sun was lowering, the rays a lustrious gold against an almost purpling sky. Allegra’s hooves crunched along the well-trodden pathway with a steady, muffled cadence. At the last house, Kate handed over a packet of dyed thread from Samar to her daughter, a starched, stiff younger version of the housekeeper who nonetheless smiled at Kate.

  “It’s a pretty color,” Kate said, a little awkwardly. Samar oversaw all the dyework at the House. Even the thread that Kate spun, now as good as any Eri turned out, was added to the vats. She had become quite proud of her skill.

  “My mother is a skilled dyer,” the woman said. “Thank you, miss.”

  “You’re welcome. Do you need me to carry anything back to the House?” she added hopefully.

  “Oh no, miss. You don’t need to be carrying errands for the villagers.”

  Kate almost said she didn’t mind, but held her tongue. Oh, she was learning, though it had come hard. She had her place, and part of her problems with the householders was that she hadn’t kept to it right off the bat. She wanted to get it right with the smallholders. So she just smiled and said, “Have a good afternoon.”

  The woman bobbed a curtsey and Kate nodded back, and with the niceties done, she mounted Allegra from the ground, adjusting her split skirts to fall gracefully on either side of the saddle.

  Callia was out on her stoop, sweeping the threshold, when Kate rode by, and she stopped to give greetings to the midwife.

  “Don’t dismount, girl, stay where you are,” the little woman said. She came over to talk to her, and held the mare’s rein. Allegra snorted at the indignity. “A fine lady like you, you should keep your place.”

  “Being a fine lady is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Kate said, her voice low. She and Callia had become friends and what she dared not say to anyone else, she could say to her.

  “Ah, girl, don’t talk like that. You must act the part, else they will not have you. Haven’t I taught you anything?”

  One thing Kate had learned was that Callia was not quite the drunk she had come across at first. Sure, she liked a nip or two or five, but Kate had a sneaking suspicion that Callia used the spirits to let her say what she wanted.

  She lifted her shoulders. “It’s harder than it looks, to play the fine lady.”

  Callia gave her a stern look. “Would you have me believe that you are just a smallholder from common villagers yourself?”

  “Well...” True, her parents were a lawyer and company division executive vice president. They were hardly smallholders. Then again, it wasn’t that different. When Lady Sarita was in North Salem, she acted the great lady she was, and everyone thought it was normal because she was rich.

  “I thought so,” Callia said.

  “Okay. I’ll try.”

  Callia tsked. “By the by, I have a gift for you and your young lord.”

  “Oh?” Kate heard the dubious note in her voice. What was Callia planning? The midwife gave her an arch smile and put a finger next to her red nose.

  “You’ll see. When you see him next, he will be delighted.”

  It would be something totally embarrassing. Callia would give it to her in front of Lady Beatra, and Kate would have to explain that she had nothing to do with it.

  “You know, you don’t have to give me anything.”

  “Now my young lady, you don’t worry your head about it. Callia will make sure that all will be well. Ride on! Ride on!”

  She curtseyed, and Kate gathered the reins, and gave Allegra her heel. Whatever Callia was up to, it was out of her hands. She just hoped it wasn’t one of the midwife’s completely inappropriate ideas.

  After a sedate canter up the avenue toward the House, Kate pulled Allegra up so that she could cool the mare off before she was put away. She could only imagine what the householders would say if she brought the mare in soaking wet after a hard gallop, not that she ever would, since it was bad for a horse. Anyway, a demure Aeritan lady only rode her horse at a gentle trot at best. It was infuriating to always be looked at askance, no matter what she did. I’m wearing their clothes. I’m wearing the kerchief. What more do they want?

  Allegra snorted and jumped sideways. Kate barely moved in the saddle, and tsked in annoyance. “What was that about?” she scolded. Movement caught her eye, or a faint rustle, but when she turned to look, it was just the wind in the ladies’ bower. They were near the turnoff toward the grotto, and she smiled, remembering. It had been weeks since she and Colar had gone swimming.

  She missed him so much. When he gets back, I won’t complain about how we have to keep our distance ever again.

  Kate clicked to Allegra to move her along when she pulled up suddenly and turned around again, frowning. A shiver of concern touched her spine. Yes, there was the wind through the tangle of dried grasses, but there was something else. She peered closely, squinting at the backlit weeds. They waved in the slight breeze, quivering in the crisp air. Kate pushed Allegra forward a step. She told herself she was just going to see what could be there, but it was probably nothing.

  This is Aeritan and you are weaponless.

  It was as if someone had spoken aloud and her heart jumped. She backed the mare and turned her on her haunches, setting her into a gallop. To hell with bringing the mare in cool. She needed to tell someone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Maksin’s soldiers in the courtyard all turned to stare at her as she came in at a gallop and pulled the mare to a halt. She dismounted hastily, her split skirts getting caught up for an embarrassing moment, revealing an awful amount of stocking before she could get untangled. The young stableboy Stelpin came running up and she handed him Allegra’s reins.

  “Where’s Maksin?” Kate cried out, gasping. The crowd of men parted and the grizzled old guard stumped through. He did not look happy at being summoned.

  “What is it!” he said, his tone sharp.

  “There’s something out there. On the road, near the turnoff down by the river. I heard, I mean I saw–I’m not sure. But it spooked the mare, and I just think–” She trailed off. He was not believing her, not for an instant. She should have gone to Lady Beatra first.

  He gave his men a droll look, his arms folded across his barrel chest. “I don’t understand you, strangeling girl. In your country, are such things threats?”

  Some of the men laughed. Heart sinking, she said, “Look, I didn’t actually see anything. But I know something was out there. I could tell.”

  “Girl,” he said. “You should stay indoors with the rest of the women, if you are afraid of the wind.”

  Stay indoors. As if any women stayed indoors, she wanted to say. They were too busy running households, taking care of livestock, tending fields, raising children, washing, cooking, running Aeritan. No one worked harder than a woman, and their hands and faces and worn out bodies showed it. She could say all that and Maksin would just stare harder and play dumb.

  “Maksin, maybe–” began one of the soldiers, dubiously. Maksin turned and gave the man a hard look, and the man shut up, but he didn’t look happy about it.

  “There’s something out there,” she said flatly. “I’ll let Lady Beatra know, and she can decide.” She turned on her heel and walked toward the House, anger boiling in her. Fool. Stup
id, prejudiced fool. She pushed away a niggling doubt–Was he right? She hadn’t seen anything, she just had that one warning that sounded as if it came from within her but was not of her–and went to find Lady Beatra.

  She was at the top of the stairs when Lady Beatra called her name. “There you are, child. Have you found Yare?”

  “Ma’am? No, I–wait. Yare is missing?” Not again, she thought. The boy was a master at going AWOL, only to turn up later with an air of innocence and some excuse.

  Lady Beatra sighed. In the weeks since her husband had been away, she had begun to look harassed and strained. “That child. I don’t know what we are going to do with him.”

  “I’ll help look. But ma’am–” she stopped.

  “Yes, dear?”

  If she told Lady Beatra she heard something on the road or maybe saw something, she would have as much success as she had with Maksin, except for one difference. Her riding days would be over. She would be stuck inside safe and sound, a prisoner. Lady Beatra wouldn’t even have to make it a rule; she just wouldn’t have any errands for Kate, or would need her help elsewhere that day.

  “Kate?”

  Kate managed to smile, even as her stomach churned. “Sorry, ma’am. It’s nothing. I’ll go off to look for Yare. He might be in the stables.”

  Lady Beatra gave her a tired smile. “Thank you, Kate. You are so good and useful.”

  Good and useful. Kate winced. Lady Beatra didn’t seem to notice and Kate continued back down the stairs. She stumbled on the third step where the stone, worn by time and the footfall of many Terricks and their householders, was an ill fit for her hiking boots. Her stomach dropped as she caught her toe, grabbing for the carved railing to keep from pitching headfirst to the flagstones below.

  A derisive snort made her look down. At the foot of the stairs was old Torvan.

  “Be a shame if you broke your neck, strangeling. You should be more careful.”

  And you should be less of a jerk, she wanted to say but didn’t, knowing that it would only make things worse. He would carry tales to Lady Beatra, who had too much on her plate already.