Bitter Moon Saga

by Amy Lane

  A year ago, even less, and Yarri would have thought the worst of Evya—expected her to assume the worst, expected her to ignore Aln’s pain, expected her to do something that would show the same person who had led Stanny a less-than-merry courtship dance over the last four years or so. On this day, Evya surprised Yarri with her thoughtfulness.

  “Children,” she said to the suddenly sober mob behind her, “I think Uncle Aln’s having a sad moment. Can we all show him how much we love him?”

  Another person, perhaps, would have hated the babbling tide of young people who washed over Aln at that moment, the younger ones hugging and kissing and reaching out to flutter his back with little taps of comfort. But not Aln, and in a moment he was smiling through his tears and embracing the children he took such joy in.

  Yarri moved to Evya with a grateful smile. “That was brilliant—thank you!”

  Evya smiled back, shyly, pushing her straight, dark hair out of her sloe eyes. She’d known how much the family had disapproved of her. But since she’d stood by Stanny and the family’s decisions after Triannon, the close-knit, protective Moon clan had opened to her just as she’d opened to Stanny, and she was grateful for their support. “It’s good to see him smiling at them,” she said softly. “He hardly says boo to a mouse at home.”

  Aln had been staying with Evya since Stanny had left. She’d made noises to Yarri about letting him stay even when Stanny returned. It’s not like we have children yet, and the flat is just so big. And Stanny was going to be away a lot, until the situation in Clough was resolved. She hadn’t needed to say that last part, but Yarri had agreed with her at the time.

  “He’ll be here next rest day, you think?” Yarri asked now in the quiet as Aln got the children their snacks. It was practically their only conversation these days, and Evya’s level glance as she went to the cold box in the corner of the warehouse they had set up as a kitchen told Yarri that they needed to find a better conversation to have.

  “I think that even when he gets back, the priest is not going to stop hounding you,” Evya replied quietly and then laughed a little at Yarri’s surprise. “It’s not hard to know what the two of you were talking about. You won’t talk to anybody in the family about the priest, and Aln’s perhaps the only one who’s seen what the man can do with his sharp tongue, like you have.”

  Yarri shuddered and stood on tiptoe to get the cookie jar from the top of the cold box. Evya shooed her away—she was tall enough to look Stanny mostly in the eye, and her beloved’s little cousin was at least three hands short of doing the same.

  “Are you going to tell Lane?” Evya asked when she had given the ceramic jar to Yarri. “You can’t just keep pretending the priest doesn’t exist, or that the miller’s boy isn’t stalking you like a shadow stalks a hawk.”

  “I don’t want to worry him,” Yarri said in a small voice, feeling younger than Evya for the first time in their acquaintance. “Auntie Beth….” Yarri shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about that either. She swallowed and pulled the common-sense cloak of strength over her shoulders that she always wore, one only Torrant had ever been able to see beneath.

  “He needs to come home, that’s all. He needs to make them all see sense immediately, and he needs to come home.”

  Evya nodded and unexpectedly leaned in to kiss Yarri’s cheek. “Of course he does. And he will!”

  It was Aln’s turn to sleep in the cot room to oversee the children, along with two members of the general militia who were assigned the duty. Since Triannon, nobody was taking any chances with the children of Eiran, especially not the dispossessed ones with only the city itself to mind them.

  So Yarri’s good feeling lasted her, even as she made to leave the orphanage, and Evya had handed her the heavy leather bag of tools they had been using to make general repairs. “I know why you won’t say anything,” Evya said, “but I know that it’s getting dangerous—even for you. Remember—you’re Lane Moon’s daughter, by Oueant’s strong hand! Your cousin is the strongest, most hale man in the town, and your beloved and his friend are three-moons-blessed heroes. You take nothing from no one, much less a shite kisser who can’t manage his own fly without pissing on his feet!”

  Yarri smiled then, grateful beyond words to Evya, and Evya shooed her on her way.

  It would have felt like whining to complain because Yarri knew all the reasons why she couldn’t make waves, but the heavy bag felt good in her hands, and for once the helpless, stomach-shredding anxiety of meeting up with Carl Mildew or Priest Eamon left her alone as she walked out of the side door and into the westering sun of the summer evening.

  Of course, the good feeling lasted just long enough for her to cross the main street of Eiran in front of the warehouse. As she walked between two close-set business buildings to get to the second level road—the one she lived on with her uncle and his family—her stride was firm and sure. She was looking forward to getting home and making dinner, since Aunt Bethen had been too tired lately to cook. Starren and Cwyn had asked her, discreetly, if she could step in since their own days were busy and they were all tired of cold sandwiches, and she had. Everyone praised her cooking—but as Aunt Bethen grew more and more tired, they found themselves missing burnt rice and flavorless stews as well.

  But still, she was happy to get home this evening. In fact, she was humming to herself—one of the songs Torrant had written for her. The bag swung over her shoulder made a satisfying thunk against her thigh in time to the music in her head, and her stride was confident and purposeful. Right up until she heard footsteps echoing behind her and could tell by the sound in the alleyway that she was not alone.

  The footsteps hurried, trying to be stealthy, and Yarri continued as though she hadn’t heard a thing. When she could smell the flour dust and hear the rustle of clothing behind her, she whirled around, swinging the weighted leather bag at the miller’s son’s head.

  It made an impact like an unholy cathedral bell being beaten with a corpse, and the young man fell to the ground, howling. Yarri stood her ground, clutching the strap of the bag in her hands tightly, ready to swing it again.

  “You hit me, you silly bitch!” the boy whined, and Yarri swung her dainty little foot back and landed a solid kick in his thigh for good measure.

  “You don’t sneak up on women in alleyways, you stupid moo!” she growled. “If you don’t mean harm when you do it, you deserve to get clocked just for being dumber than a bag of hammers!”

  With a grunt the boy shoved himself to his feet, smiling evilly through crooked teeth when Yarri backed up to let him. Then he realized she was testing the arc on the bag to see what her weapon’s range was, and the nasty smiled disappeared.

  “The priest says if you’re unmarried, you’re fair game,” he snarled, and she laughed fierce joy in his face.

  “I’m spoken for. You know it. The whole town knows it. And even the priest wouldn’t say ‘fair game.’ I’m only ‘fair game’ if you can catch me unawares, Carl.”

  She let the bag’s swing slacken and moved closer, threatening him with her scant height. “And I promise you, sweet thing, that if you ever catch me unawares and do to me what you’ve been dreaming of since your first wilding failed because your thing shriveled in your pants and died, if I don’t make you pay, my family will tear you apart. I’ve kept no secrets from them. If they find my body, bloody and broken like that poor woman on the way to the orphanage with her baby shrieking in the basket beside her, you won’t be able to hide behind your father’s lies this time. It’ll be my uncle and my cousins and my beloved and his brothers of the heart, and if it needs to be, the thrice-blessed Queen of Otham. There won’t be enough pieces of you left to flush down the river. You may as well take your chances with my tool bag here, right?”

  She picked up the bag’s swing, feeling the strain in her muscles because it was truly heavy, but taking satisfaction from the way Carl backed up anyway.

  The tool bag had been heavy on her shoulders, but no
w, watching the boy’s pale face blanch almost green and spittle track down the sides of his mouth as he backed away, she’d gladly carry the damned thing every day for the rest of her life if it would give her this much power over what frightened her.

  Suddenly the boy’s expression changed to one of triumph, and he started howling in pain again, as though she’d just hit him and even harder than the first time.

  “Oww! Yarri! I was only asking you for help! Owww! Priest Eamon, help me!”

  “Yarrow Moon, shame on you!” the priest thundered. Or he tried to. In fact, he tried frequently and valiantly to imbue his voice with authority. The sad fact was, although he was Torrant’s age, he had none of the qualities that made people want to follow her beloved to the pit of the star’s dark just to cushion his fall when he hit the bottom.

  And Yarri had heard what he’d muttered at her when she passed and the condescending prayers behind her back as she walked down the road. Oh, he pretended for the town’s sake to be sympathetic to her. He talked mournfully of how sad it was that she had lost her family to the misguided Goddess worshippers at her family’s holding, and no amount of gainsaying him—on anybody’s part—would make him change that story. But she knew him for what he was. There was no disguising the monstrous black fly under the fine silk robes he tended to wear.

  She heartily wished the priest safe passage back to Clough, but even Yarri knew her beloved couldn’t afford to have the one man in Rath’s government who knew that Torrant Shadow was not really Ellyot Moon there in the city as Torrant was practicing his deadly masquerade.

  She’d been there the night Lane had called the town elders in to conference about the real danger—to all of them, yes, but especially to Aylan and Torrant—the priest posed.

  It had been Auntie Bethen who had arrived at the decision of letting this one stay in the town’s environs.

  This one, Auntie Beth? Yarri had asked reluctantly. She already regretted taking part in running the last one out of town. He may have preached loudly against the handfasting traditions, but that one, at least, had cared about the little population he saw as his to care for. He had even done his stint in the orphanage—a thing Priest Eamon, at least, avoided like the plague. Ah gods, it felt as though she would forever be throwing rocks out of trees and hitting the wrong wanker on the head.

  This one is the only one that’ll matter, darling. Bethen had been giving reasons to all the town elders, but she had been speaking directly to Yarri. This one knows you’re betrothed to Torrant Shadow. He’s heard the boy described, right down to the Goddess streak in his hair, and if he goes to Clough and sees a boy matching that description walking around as Ellyot Moon, he’ll know enough to get our boy hung over the gates. No, sweetheart. Short of assassination, this is the best way.

  What about assassination, mum? Cwyn had not been invited to this meeting, but everybody knew that keeping the boy out of anything—including the pants of anyone he set his cap for—was a venture with high odds of failure.

  The rest of the town council caught its breath at the audacity of the suggestion, but the Moon clan knew better. Their loved ones had been killing to keep people safe since Torrant, Yarri, and Aldam had first stumbled down the hill.

  It had been Lane who voiced the reason they couldn’t. No—if this one dies, Rath’ll just send another, and that one will know about Ellyot Moon. The whole town would have to lie, and that’s one hell of a secret to keep, now isn’t it?

  And so Yarri had heard the priest’s veiled comments, the slurs on her family, the snide comments about her beloved and how he’d most likely just spread her legs and run for the hills like any Goddess slut. She’d swallowed them with as much grace as she could spare, because anything she said in self-defense was another weapon the man could have to destroy Torrant, and with him, all of Eiran’s hopes. And, of course, her reason for following one breath with another.

  “An offense to the gods!” she scoffed in response to the priest’s admonition. “Do the gods say I can’t defend myself against a prick busting through its fly?” She kept the bag in its swinging arc as she spoke. Torrant wouldn’t thank her for getting hurt because she was too worried about him to defend herself.

  “I’m sure you misunderstood…,” the priest began.

  “It’s hard to misunderstand a coward sneaking up behind you in an alley, priest.” She hawked phlegm from the back of her throat and spat at the man’s feet, because she was angry, and she was scared, and she was tired of feeling helpless in the face of these spit-sneaking men and their gods-given right to anything they thought was weaker than they were. “Just like it’s hard to misunderstand when you call me a ‘whoring bitch’ under your breath, and it’s hard to misunderstand when you tell me that the man who saved me from murdering evil stink when he was not more than a child ran away like a coward. You can say it, and your shite-brained followers can repeat it, but I know what I know, and I will not let your lies change my heart.”

  Faugh, but it felt good to tell them these things! What good was strength when you had to hide it from the people who needed their faces hammered the most?

  “Are you saying that your heart is beyond redemption, my child?” the priest asked, and although his voice was sad, his eyes were looking at Carl as though he expected the puling ninny to do something about this out-of-control woman and her magic bag of hammers.

  Yarri swung the bag backward hard enough to catch Carl in the chest, and when she heard his breathless “Ulf!” she bared her teeth like a cat intent on shredding mice.

  “No, priest, I’m saying you are. Now the two of you can leave this alleyway two ways. You can leave it now, on your own, or you can leave it later when you wake up to haul your carcasses off to lick your wounds. Make your choice soon, Eamon, because I’m itching to get one of you good!”

  Carl was moving again, she could feel it, and she could feel the strain in her swinging arm. Before her muscles could tremble and betray her, she clocked him good upside the head, gaining strength from the sound he made as he hit the dirt beside her.

  “It’s proof of how godless your people are that you’d even think of defying me!” Eamon snarled, and Yarri tilted her head back and laughed. It was an ugly sound, but then she was in the throes of an ugly, killing mood.

  “Don’t look at me, priest—it was your people who took compassion out of the moons!”

  Eamon closed in, and the bag swung up over her head and down, hitting the arm he’d extended toward her with a satisfying crunch. The priest howled but stayed erect, his other hand coming out with a knife.

  The first thing he did with the knife was cut the handle of the bag as it swung, sending the hammers sailing out of the alley to land with a thump in middle of the road in front of Yarri’s home.

  “You’re going to kill me, priest?” She was not as afraid as she should have been. He closed in on her, and she leaped sideways over Carl’s inert body. Eamon tripped on him, and her laugh made his face twist.

  “You forget,” she baited, moving steadily toward the other end of the alley. To the orphanage. To witnesses. To safety. “I’ve lived in this town for twelve years. My beloved was the town healer before he was of wilding age. My uncle is one of the town elders. You kill me, and you won’t live long enough to gloat to your king. You’ll just die, and the last sound you’ll hear will be the jeers of the people who love me.”

  “The consort won’t let them live that long!” the priest hissed. “And you’ve needed killing your whole life. The gods are on our side!”

  And then his eyes widened, the knife dropped out of his hand, and he fell to his knees. Yarri jumped out of the way, and he fell face forward, gurgling blood, with the hilt of Cwyn’s favorite dagger protruding from his back.

  Cwyn was standing at the end of the alleyway—the one closest to home.

  “Did he just say the gods are on his side?” he asked casually, sauntering into the shade of the alley as though the priest wasn’t thrashing at his feet. His dimp
les were flashing with the force of his fierce grin, and his tousled, cowlicked brown hair was more wild than usual, but he certainly didn’t look like a fifteen-year-old murderer by any stretch of the imagination.

  “I have no idea,” Yarri panted, looking in disgust at the dying priest. Without warning, she swung her foot back and kicked him in the head. It hurt her foot, so she moved to his ribs. “What I do know”—kick—“is that we weren’t going to kill”—kick—“this piece of shite”—kick—“because now they’ll send us another one!” Kick, kick, kick, kick!

  “Cwyn!” she sobbed as her cousin pulled her back from the groaning man. “Stop!”

  “No, you stop!” he growled, shoving her against the wall and speaking tensely while staring into her eyes. She cursed the day he’d passed her up in height—about three years before—and then, because her hands were pinned, she sniffled into her shoulder.

  “Are you better now?” he asked, and she nodded, sniffling and shuddering again. “Good, cousin, because you’re right—the man needed killing, but we need to think on this. I have an idea that might keep another priest out of Eiran, but I’m going to need your help. Are you with me?”

  Yarri took another deep, quivering breath and nodded her head, ashamed of falling apart in front of her younger cousin. She’d spent her whole life telling him to stop being such a butterfly, and here she couldn’t even concentrate on bailing them both out of murder! The priest gave another gurgling moan, and they both turned toward him in disgust.

  “Ugh….” Yarri made a face. “Cousin—could you do something about that?”