by Deborah Hale
“Maybe you should let me be the judge of what is and is not safe for me to know.” Newlyn’s eyes narrowed and the muscles of his face tightened as he stared at Rath. The man took a step nearer Maura, as if to establish his claim of longer acquaintance.
“He is right, Newlyn.” Maura reached for the farmer’s hand. “If it were only your safety at risk, I might give you the choice of how much you wanted to know. But there is Sorsha to think of, and the children, too. I cannot put them in danger.”
Her words puzzled Rath. She made it sound as if whoever had killed Langbard might be after her, when only a little while ago she’d insisted he had brought this calamity upon them.
That was the only explanation that made sense... wasn’t it?
“This does not make any sense,” said Sorsha, awhile later, as she bustled about her kitchen serving Maura and Rath a late supper.
They had both protested they were too upset to eat, but Sorsha had not heeded them. Her first instinct when confronted with any manner of trouble was to feed someone.
“Why would anyone want to do away with a peaceable old fellow like Langbard?” She paused in the middle of carving a loaf of bread into thick slabs. “I cannot believe it, yet. I keep expecting to look up and see him coming through the door looking for a bite to eat.”
Setting aside her knife, she lifted the corner of her apron and wiped away the fresh tears.
“I know how you feel.” Maura spoke in a bemused murmur. She could not seem to take it in, either. Though she had helped Rath and Newlyn bury Langbard not an hour ago, she could not keep from wondering when he would be joining them at the table.
Perhaps not wanting to upset her further, Sorsha quit sniffling and recovered her manner of brisk efficiency. In no time, she had a plate of bread on the table, together with a crock of fresh butter and heaping bowls of soup.
“Something else that does not make any sense is your going off so suddenly. Can you not at least stay here till the morning? It is not safe to be traveling in the dead of night.”
Despite his claim not to be hungry, Rath reached for a slice of bread. “It would be even less safe to stay here. For your sake as well as for ours, Mistress Swinley. Mark me, there will be Han swarming all over Langbard’s property by tomorrow.”
He glanced toward Newlyn. “Your husband might want to make himself scarce if they come to Hoghill asking questions.”
“Oh, my.” For the first time in all the years Maura had known her, Sorsha sounded thoroughly intimidated.
Rath took a second slice of bread, buttered it, then shoved it toward Maura. “You may not feel like it, but you must eat, just the same. To keep up your strength.”
Beneath his gruff words and offhand manner, Maura sensed an attitude of concern he did not find easy to express. Perhaps because it came so hard for him, it warmed her all the more.
He had put himself at risk so she could have time to share the passing ritual with Langbard. He appeared ready to honor his promise to escort her south, when he might have used Langbard’s death as excuse to back out. Might Langbard have been right about Rath Talward, after all?
Forcing herself to pick up her spoon, Maura made herself eat the soup, which tasted vaguely of all the smoke she had breathed during the past few hours. She tried to think of nothing beyond her next bite of food. If she let herself dwell on Langbard’s death or her parting from Sorsha, or the long, dangerous road that lay before her, she would curl up into a trembling ball of tears and never stir a step from Hoghill Farm!
While Maura and Rath ate in stunned silence, Sorsha and Newlyn withdrew to the other corner of the big kitchen and talked together in hushed, urgent tones. With all her heart, Maura hoped her coming here would not bring trouble on them.
A week ago, if anyone had told her she could be a dangerous person to know, she would have laughed in their faces. Now she wondered if she was being fair, imposing on Rath Talward’s unexpected sense of honor? For the moment, she had no choice.
“See there,” said Sorsha when Rath and Maura had finished eating. “You must have been hungrier than you thought. I do hate to see you go, but I will rest easier knowing you did not leave on an empty belly.”
Those words appeared to spark another thought. “What about clothes? You will only have what is on your backs.”
“Come.” She took Maura’s hand. “I have a few things I can spare so you will have a change. Some of my clothes have gotten a bit too snug since the babies came. Slight as you are, they should fit you fine. A bit on the short side, but that’s no bad thing if you’re traveling. Less skirt to catch on thorns or drag in the dust.”
Maura rose and followed her friend out of the kitchen. Behind her, she heard Newlyn offering Rath whatever supplies they might need for the journey that they had not purchased in town that afternoon. Had it really been such a short a time ago?
Plucking a candle from a sconce by the doorway, Sorsha led her friend to her bed chamber off the small parlor.
Once they were out of earshot of the kitchen, she whispered, “Are you sure you want to go away with that man? If he’s Langbard’s nephew from Tarsh, then I’m the Oracle of Margyle!”
In spite of all her cares, those words brought a faint, fleeting smile to Maura’s lips. “No, he is not Ralf from Tarsh. But he is not quite as dangerous as he looks, either.”
“I do not like this.” Kneeling before the low trunk at the foot of her and Newlyn’s bed, Sorsha lifted the lid and began to pull out items of clothing. “Our quiet little bit of country has been in an uproar since that fellow showed up. Handsome as he is, I do not quite like his looks... if you know what I mean. I reckon if he lit out, laying down a nice smelly trail for a few miles, you could hide here with us until things settle down.”
If only Sorsha knew how much that plan appealed to her!
Maura made herself shake her head. “There is something important I have to do. Langbard trusted Rath and believed he could help me. I have to believe it, too.”
“Rath the Wolf?” cried Sorsha, forgetting the baby asleep in the cradle beside her parents’ bed. “Curse me for a fool! I should have known. I heard all about him in town. They say the garrison ambushed his gang of outlaws and did away with them all.”
“They did. I saw it.” Those sights had haunted Maura’s dreams ever since.
Sorsha laid a hand on her bosom as if to slow her hammering heart. “Most folks said they caught the Wolf, too, and killed him. But I had my doubts. Kezia Wintergreen said she heard from one of the soldiers that he vanished right before their eyes.”
Maura nodded. “I made him vanish. Cuddybird feathers.”
“That’s that, then.” Sorsha shut the trunk lid with a thump that made the baby cry out in her sleep. “You are not going anywhere with that creature, no matter what Langbard thought of him. Imagine what he might do to you out in the middle of nowhere, with nobody to come to your aid!”
Maura forgot that she had said much the same thing recently. She tried to forget the way Rath Talward had kissed her neck during their walk to Windleford. “If he wanted to do anything like that, he could have done it any night since we took him in.”
“He would not have dared with Langbard there to call.”
“The way Langbard sleeps? You must be joking!” The moment those words left Maura’s mouth, they turned to smite her heart. “I mean, the way he slept.”
She jammed her fist against her mouth to stifle a sob.
“There now, I know what you meant.” Sorsha wrapped an arm around Maura’s shoulders. “I was the same after my mother and father passed. For weeks I kept talking about them as if they were still around.”
After a moment she added, “When Ma died, I felt that bad, I kept on doing everything about the farm the way she always liked it done, even though I had a notion or two of my own that might have been better.”
Maura remembered. It had been she who’d first suggested Sorsha would not be dishonoring her mother’s memory by making a few
changes.
“Don’t you make that same mistake,” said Sorsha. “Don’t rush into something dangerous because you think Langbard would have wanted it. Especially not with that man. He is nothing but trouble; I can see it plain as plain.”
Part of Maura wanted so much to heed her friend, to use Sorsha’s objections and her own fears as an excuse to avoid an enormous task for which she felt so woefully unprepared. But there was so much more at stake than the smooth running of a provincial farm.
She fought to regain her composure. It would not do have Sorsha think she was too distraught from grief to know what she was doing. If her friend believed her life or virtue were in danger from Rath Talward, Sorsha might do something truly dangerous, like alerting the Hanish garrison.
“I might have said the same thing about Newlyn when you first met him. Come to think of it, I am almost certain I did.”
Sorsha puffed up, like a mother hen defending her brood. “That’s not the same thing at all and well you know it, Maura Woodbury!”
“Oh, isn’t it? He was a pretty dangerous-looking character, then, as I recall, and wanted by the Han.”
The look that came over her friend’s face told Maura her words were having the desired effect.
“You saw the good in him, though,” she reminded Sorsha, “and so did Langbard.”
“Have you fallen in love with this Wolf fellow, then?”
“No!” She had no business fancying any man if she was to be the bride of the Waiting King. That notion still left Maura feeling lightheaded and far out of her depth. “But I do need someone like him to help me on my way.”
“I hope you are right about him,” Sorsha grumbled. “I still wish you did not have to go so soon. You will come back, won’t you, once you have done this thing you need to do?”
“Perhaps. I cannot say.” If she failed, she might be able to return to Windleford, one day.
But she must not fail. She must find and waken the Waiting King so he could drive out the Han and restore the old throne of Embria. Then men like Newlyn would no longer need to fear discovery and boys like the dear little ones who slept in the next room would never be rounded up and sent to the horror of the Blood Moon mines.
“If you must, I suppose you must.” Sorsha sighed. “Get word to me, if you can, now and then. For I will be thinking of you and wishing you well, asking for the Giver’s favor on you.”
“And I you!” Maura caught her friend in a swift, fierce embrace. “Now I must not tarry any longer.”
For one thing, it could put her dear friends in danger, and for another she might lose this brief spark of resolve.
“Take these, then.” Sorsha deposited a pair of laced leather boots in Maura’s lap. “Mother had them made for walking to market, but she hardly got to wear them. They are too narrow for me.”
While Sorsha packed the other clothes into a bundle, Maura removed her shoes and replaced them with the walking boots.
She had almost finished tying the laces when Newlyn appeared at the bedroom door. “Ralf says you must come at once. He wants to be well away before it gets light.”
With a swiftness that caused Maura both dismay and a contrary sense of relief, Rath Talward hustled her through her teary farewell to the Swinleys.
The lights of Hoghill Farm still flickered invitingly in the distance when Maura roused from her rueful reflections to notice which way they were headed. She glanced up into the night sky, toward a cluster of stars known as Menya’s Slipper.
“Where are you taking me? This is north. We are supposed to be going to Prum?”
Suddenly all Sorsha’s warnings and her own former misgivings reared up to haunt her.
“No,” said Rath. “We are supposed to be going to Tarsh. That is what the people in the village think. If the Swinleys are questioned, I want them to be able to say they last saw us heading north. It is probably safe to turn south now, though.”
“There was no need to waste time going out of our way.” From the hood of the fleece-lined cloak Sorsha had given her, Maura inhaled the comforting scent of her friend. “Even if we had told Sorsha and Newlyn where we’re going, they would never breathe a word to anyone else.”
“They would not mean to perhaps.” Rath gradually changed course until they were headed southward, skirting Hoghill. “But the Han are no fools. They are good at asking ten different questions whose answers will only tally if a body is telling the truth.”
“Indeed?” She knew so little about the Han, except how to avoid them. It occurred to Maura that such ignorance might prove a grave handicap to her in the days and weeks to come.
“This way,” said Rath, “your friends can lie or tell the truth, which ever they like, and the Han will still believe we are going north. For a while at least.”
Something in his tone made Maura pull her cloak even tighter. But it did nothing to relieve the chill that crept into her heart.
Chapter Eight
“WHAT NOW?” MAURA’S voice betrayed her exhaustion.
An hour’s walk had brought them to the banks of the River Windle, a few miles downstream from the village. Rath was not certain how much longer darkness would remain their ally. With all that had happened, this one night already felt many hours longer than usual.
“What do you mean, what now?”
Maura sank to the ground. “I mean, how are we supposed to get across the river? It is too wide, cold and fast to swim at this time of year. Perhaps we can find somewhere to hide until later in the day, then slip into Windleford and cross the bridge.”
“Are you daft?” Rath’s arms were beginning to ache from the exertion of digging Langbard’s grave. His offer to escort Maura Woodbury to Prum seemed more like a fool’s errand with every passing moment. “Prance right through Windleford in broad daylight while the Han are looking high and low for us?”
“I still have some hundredflower.” Maura spoke in a sharp, antagonistic tone. “We pranced right through Windleford, yesterday, without attracting a single Hanish glance. Besides, is that not the last place they are apt to look for us—right under their noses?”
The gruff retort he had ready to unleash upon her burst into grudging laughter. “I will say this for you, wench, you have plenty of gall! You would make a fine outlaw.”
“I suppose that is your idea of flattery?”
Rath felt it again, the rasp of their very different natures against one another, striking sparks. Was it just his fancy—or did his pulse beat stronger, his senses all grow more alert?
“Take it as you will,” he quipped, then he grew serious again. “I will not trust my life to a scattering of flower petals and a few mumbled words of nonsense. Even if that spell of yours did keep the Han from noticing us, there are still those cursed hounds. Or one of the village folk might point us out.”
“You have a better idea, I suppose?”
His mouth stretched into a wide grin of anticipation. “We wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“Indeed?” Maura sounded dubious. “And what might that be?”
“You will see.” Rath scrambled down the bank. Though he had not slept in almost a day, his weariness had mysteriously abated, as had the ache in his arms.
He groped around the loose dirt of the shoreline, trying to hold back his mounting alarm.
Where was it? He cursed under his breath.
“Well?” Maura’s question wafted down to taunt him.
“I cannot make out anything down here.” This was the right spot, wasn’t it? “Can you strike a light?”
“Are you not afraid someone might see it?”
“I am more afraid they will see us,” Rath snapped, “if we do not get across the river before the sun rises.”
He heard her muttering quietly to herself. No doubt she was fumbling through the pony’s packs looking for flint, all the while questioning his judgment, his morals, his trustworthiness and anything else she could think of.
He glanced up to see a strange, soft green
glow descending toward him. The eeriness of it made him jump back and trip over a stick of driftwood, landing hard on his backside.
The light began to dance, then. Rath could make out Maura’s face behind it.
“Do not worry,” she called softly. “It’s just a bit of greenfire. It should shed enough light for you to find what you are looking for, but it is hard for others to see from a distance.”
“Sounds useful.” Rath grunted as he picked himself up and reached for the slender stick with the glowing tip.
“It is.” Maura handed him the twig. “It does not last very long, though, so be quick.”
That did not surprise Rath. From what he had seen, this vitcraft was fickle stuff with very definite limitations. Handy enough in a pinch, but laughably feeble compared to the dread power of Hanish mortcraft. Much as he feared the latter, he respected its power.
“Aha!” In the queer green light, Rath found what he was seeking.
He pushed back a screen of long grass that hung down from the bank, and high reeds that grew at the water’s edge. Then, taking the light stick between his teeth, he used both hands to tug the small, crudely made raft out of its hiding place.
“Ah!” The muted sound of Maura’s astonished understanding contained a hint of admiration.
A ridiculous sense of satisfaction swelled within Rath. He tried to subdue it by issuing her a brisk order.
“What did you say?” she asked.
Removing the stick from his mouth, Rath tried again. “Unpack the pony. We must lash the packs to the raft.”
In the fading gleam of greenfire, with the ebbing power of the strength spell, Rath hauled the crude frame of lashed logs to the edge of the water. He had just given it a final heave when Maura appeared beside him, struggling under the weight of one of the packs.
Recalling everything that had happened to her that day, something deep in his gut gave a sharp twist. At the same time a grudging sense of respect flickered within him. In spite of everything she’d endured, the lass was still on her feet, still bearing her part.
