The Gathering, page 16
part #1 of The Hundred Series
And in the cages around the courtyard a dozen, perhaps more, women and girls were looking at her with pale, solemn faces. Another set of bad memories to add to the ones they already had.
A soft sound behind her. She whirled, sword up, and checked the move with an exercise of will that jarred her teeth in her skull.
Jesset, still dressed in the flowing desert clothes, was standing a few paces away, her mouth open, her skin paler than normal. She looked around her, mouth working silently.
“Mama wanted me to keep an eye on you,” Jesset said. “I don’t think it was needed.”
She looked back at Yvonne, shock fading from her face, replaced with something that looked like awe. Her eyes began to clear, lips curving upwards. “You have done what all of us have been wanting to do for a long time. A few people tried. The wulfkin just cut them down.”
“I despise bullies,” Yvonne said, lowering her sword. Now that the fight was done, the reaction was setting in. She was standing in a quarrel. A place that she had sworn never to go again. She wanted to move, to run, to escape, to scrub her skin until it was raw to get the stench away.
All around her were pale, silent, faces. Wulfkin victims. She could not run. She owed them that. She flicked her sword, sending the last spots of blood onto the ground, murmured a quick spell to clean it thoroughly, and then put it back in its place. It settled against her hip again, seeming to murmur in contentment. She knew it was not alive, but there were times, like now, when it seemed to be.
“Are there healers in town?” Yvonne asked.
“Yes. I will go and get them,” Jesset answered, and sped away in a swirl of colour. Yvonne went to the nearest cage and glared at the crude lock. She turned her head slightly, looking at the bits and pieces of wulfkin on the ground, and decided it would take too long to find the keys. She called more magic, another murmured spell, and yanked the door open, letting the girl out. Not much older than she had been, Yvonne saw, with the pain through her chest. And not quite as badly damaged.
There were others, though, that made her heart constrict and her throat close. Women who had been here for too long. A day was too long. But, from the scarring on their necks and shoulders, some had been here for months.
She took them out of the stables to the public garden, surrounded by the modest houses with their blank windows. This early in the year there were no flowers. But there was some grass on the ground, some benches for them to rest on, although many of them simply flopped down on the grass and did not want to move.
“We have nothing to give you,” one of the women said, tilting her head up. She had been beautiful once, with symmetrical features that were now distorted by a jagged scar across her face. She had been a fighter, Yvonne thought.
“No payment is needed. Nothing is needed.” Yvonne hesitated and then reached up, her fingers unsteady, and loosened the scarf that was always around her neck, taking it away so that they could see the scars that she bore. Years old, but they were still vivid.
Exposing the scars to the air, to the gaze of others, brought back the memories again. Of being helpless. Of pain. Of feeling there would never be an end to it.
There were a few gasps from the crowd around her, and the girls gathered closer.
“How did you survive?”
“Does it get better?”
Questions tumbled out of them, one after the other.
Yvonne tied the scarf back around her neck, tucking the ends under her shirt, her fingers still trembling, and thought carefully before she spoke
“Very few people survive a quarrel,” she told them. “That makes us lucky.”
It was something she had to tell herself often. In the beginning, she had needed to repeat that several times, every hour of every day. Now, she needed the reminder much less frequently.
She told them that. She told them about waking up in a cold sweat from time to time, but she also told them about the friends she had made. About the joys that could be found in simple, everyday things. About the fact that there was wonder and life to be found, even when it did not seem possible just now.
By the time she had finished speaking, Jesset was back, with a dozen or so healers, mostly male, gathered with her. The healers were all pale, and more than a few of them shaded green with nausea. Jesset had taken them to the stable courtyard first, with the carnage. From the glint in her eye, Jesset had enjoyed making them face the death in there.
She told Caroline where her mother was. Caroline had not been here long, it was clear. She had been a house slave in a grand lady’s house, she murmured, until a passing wulf saw her and brought her here. Not as long as some of the others, but too long, Yvonne thought.
Caroline was shaking with relief and pain and the terrible beginnings of hope, Yvonne thought. Alive and out of the horror of the quarrel. And with her mother to go to.
As soon as she mentioned the Sisters of the Stone Walls, she could sense attention from the others. It was a hard life, with the Sisters. But she suspected most of these women and girls would take a hard life for the one that they had left.
It was growing dark by the time the healers, and the town’s mayor, had arranged for accommodation for all the women. Brea had appeared at some point in the long afternoon and had, in her calm and understated manner, organised clothes for all of the girls, and bathing facilities to be made available.
Yvonne’s own skin itched at the mention of a bath. She could feel the stickiness under her clothes, and the scent of wulf was all around her, saturated into the fabric. Some of the women had been rubbing their skin, trying to get the dirt out, scrubbing their hands across their heads.
The sight of the crudely shaved heads sparked more memories, Yvonne unable to stop herself reaching up and tangling her fingers into the length of her own braid. Most of the victims here had been shaved as she had been, their hair growing back in odd tufts. More than one girl in a quarrel had hung herself from her own hair, or tried to strangle her attacker. The wulfkin took no chances. Yvonne could still remember the crawling, itching sensation of her too-short hair on her scalp, and the scrape of dirt across every part of her body. She needed a bath.
She was also exhausted. She was barely standing by the time all the girls had been found places to rest, and clothes. One more missing child found. Viola would want her daughter back, Yvonne knew. Unlike her own family.
But her work was not done. Not yet. There were too many children missing, and a mastermind to hunt. Tomorrow. She would start tomorrow.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
She did not remember the walk back to Brea’s house, mother and daughter on either side of her. They did not touch her, and did not speak to her. Perhaps they understood more deeply than she did how much she needed the quiet.
Brea showed her to the house’s bathing room and left her there with a glass of wine and a dish piled high with food.
She came out of the bathing room sometime later, dressed in the ornate robes that had been left for her, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her clothes had been cleansed, but the memory of the blood was too fresh and she could not bear to put them on just yet. The robes had a high neck, and Brea had left a scarf for her as well, so her scars were covered.
She came into the courtyard to find Thort settled, cross-legged, on the ground, whittling something with his knife, with shavings gathering in a pile around him. Brea, Jesset and Rebecca were settled on the chairs. The air was full of the sweet scent of the plants in the garden, many of them evening flowering, releasing something beautiful into the night air. There was also a large pile of boxes setting a somewhat jarring note into the peaceful domestic scene.
“Your hair is so long,” Rebecca commented, unguarded.
Yvonne lifted a hand self-consciously. Her hair was most of the way down her back now, kept above her waist by regular trims. It had taken years to grow after the wulfkin had forcibly shaved her head.
“It is beautiful,” Jesset said. “Why do you keep it tied up in a plait all the time?”
“Jesset,” Brea scolded. “Long hair is beautiful, but it is hardly practical day-to-day to have it flowing about,” the goblin lady said with a flick of her own, loose, hair. “Hunar, please sit and take your ease. Our meal is almost ready. There is no meat in it,” she added.
Yvonne felt her mouth curving into an unexpected smile as she sat down.
“Thank you.”
“And these are all for you,” Brea added, almost casually, waving her hand towards the boxes, “from the people of Kelton.”
“Cowards. All of them,” Thort added, not looking up from whatever it was he was carving. Yvonne was glad he kept his eyes down. His tone was savage, the knife biting hard on his next pass. “And these gifts are penance for their cowardice.”
Yvonne was familiar with penance. She looked at the boxes and thought of the terrified girls, wounded and bleeding, and the many dead wulfkin in the courtyard, and wondered if there was enough penance in the world to make up for all of that.
Still, she had to be a realist.
“May I look at them tomorrow?” she asked, suddenly weary. A pleasant dinner, with no meat in it, and a night’s sleep was badly needed.
“Of course. Although there have been more arriving.”
“We’ve stopped answering the gates,” Jesset said, “I’ve put a sign up.”
“Everything will still be there tomorrow,” Brea added, lips twitching. “No one wants to steal from someone who can fire lightning from her hands.”
Yvonne gave a hollow laugh.
“I had no idea the Hunar were so powerful,” Rebecca said, eyes wide again.
“Not all of them are,” Brea said. She tipped her head to Yvonne. “This one is exceptional in more ways than one.”
By some trick of the light, Yvonne met Brea’s eyes in the fading day. Whatever the goblin saw made her lower her eyes hastily and bow her head, a gesture of contrition and respect that was rare indeed among the Karoan’shae.
Without looking up, Thort freed one hand from his carving and reached up, curling his fingers through his wife’s where they had rested on her knee, holding her for a moment before letting go and returning to his carving. Some kind of animal, Yvonne thought. Not a wulf, though.
~
The next morning she was awake, and up, it seemed before anyone else. The sun had barely crept above the horizon. She performed another cleansing spell on her clothes, wanting every possible trace of wulf out of the fabric, and bound her hair in its usual single plait before going down to the courtyard, wanting to move but not to disturb the whole house. All the windows that faced onto the courtyard were shuttered, so she was not overlooked, and had the illusion of privacy.
The first rays of sun were catching the pile of boxes in the courtyard. Gifts. From townspeople who had not intervened as a quarrel was set up in their midst, and girls taken into it. She remembered the terrified faces from the day before, the scars and the bleeding. Gifts would not cancel out those memories. Not for her, not for the girls.
But, gifts might feed her family, even as the townspeople had taken the rescued girls into their homes, clothed and fed them. If the town had offered her coins, she would have taken them. Her skin would have felt sticky, her stomach uneasy, but she would have taken the coins. Her family needed to eat. Joel and Mariah both needed new clothes. So did she, for that matter. And Lothar, after years of loyal service, was growing a little too old for the journeys she needed to make. She did not want to think of that, another crack in her heart waiting in her near future as she left him behind for the first time.
She put her hand on the first box, seeking distraction, still reluctant to open it. She knew that she would open it, that she would look inside. And she would either keep whatever it was, or sell it. Somewhere else, though. She was not ill-mannered enough to sell gifts in the town where they had been given.
“You made an impression, I see, mristrian.”
Guise was standing in one of the doorways. She had not heard his arrival, as usual. He moved as quietly as a wulf. He was more casually dressed than she was used to seeing him, having left off his tailored coat, and his hair was not quite as straight and sleek as she was used to seeing it. He must have borrowed one of Thort’s shirts. The one he was wearing did not have an arrow hole in it.
“I see you’re better,” she commented. She still had her hand on the top box of the pile.
“Much better, thank you. And I thank you, and Rebecca, for your care of me.” He made a shallow bow. Finely calculated. Acknowledging her service, as an equal. It was a high honour. The Karoan’shae bowed to very few. “I do not think I would have made it here on my own.”
Yvonne felt her mouth turn up in an unexpected smile.
“I’m sure you would have managed,” she said.
“I owe you more than I can repay,” he said. The sincerity of it took her by surprise, far more than the bow. She shook her head slightly, not meeting his eyes, words tangling in her mouth, and then felt her lips curve again.
“Perhaps you could assist me with ideas. I’ve just realised that I’m going to need a means of transporting all these items back to the house,” she said, voice light. “And I believe that there are more at the gate.”
“Easily done,” he answered, waving a hand in a familiar gesture. A small matter, for him and his resources. An impossible task, with her tiny hoard of coins. This was not Hunar business. She could not commandeer a barge, or afford to pay the fare. Depending what was in the boxes, course.
She moved to pick the first box up and then stopped. Presents were rare, and treasured, events for Joel and Mariah. She measured the extent of the boxes here and smiled again, thinking that, perhaps, they would enjoy opening these far more than she ever would. And the pile at the gate outside. And they would know, after a lifetime spent with her, that they could not keep everything.
“I will make arrangements for transport,” Guise promised her, and disappeared back into the house. She half-opened her mouth to call him back. She had not meant for him to take that on, not really. She closed her lips firmly together. If he thought her aid was worth the cost of transporting the boxes, she was not going to argue.
With the issue of the boxes resolved, she made her way out of the house with a lighter step, heading towards the stables. Lothar would have been well cared for, she knew, but she wanted to stroke his nose and tangle her fingers in his mane. Just for a moment. There would not be many more mornings like this, out on the road.
He and a group of other horses were grazing in a small field inside the boundary walls of the property. Not just any horses. Apart from her horse, and the one that Rebecca had ridden, the rest were all goblin-bred horses. Beautiful, and tricky.
Jesset came out of the stables, pitchfork in hand, and wished her a brisk, cheerful good morning. Yvonne hesitated, wondering if she should offer to help with mucking out, then Lothar made a low sound, recognising her. He was capable of making a much louder sound if he did not get his head scratched, so she waved to Jesset and went on to the field, receiving a hard shove of his nose in her chest by way of greeting.
At length, he had been petted enough and she was calmer. Jesset had finished her tasks, and Yvonne’s stomach was informing her that breakfast would be an excellent idea. Despite the generous feast from the night before.
She made her way back up to the house, on the path she had taken to get there, which took her close to the house’s kitchens. It was a huge house, but she had not seen any signs of servants or hired help. Unusual for members of the Karoan’shae, but not unheard of.
The kitchen door was open, the double doors propped wide to let the heat of the kitchen out into the rest of house. At the kitchen table, Brea, Thort, and Guise were settled in conversation. And not any idle conversation, either. Yvonne knew business dealings when she saw them. She lifted a brow, then took a deliberate, noisy, step forward to let them know that she was there.
They had all known she was there, of course. Goblin hearing was far more acute than hers. Brea looked across and smiled a greeting. As she moved, Yvonne could see there was a map on the table between them. Definitely not an idle conversation. They might be friends, but Brea and Thort were heavily involved in whatever business Guise carried on.
“I am sorry to disturb you,” Yvonne said.
“Nonsense,” Brea said, rising to her feet. “Would you like some tea?”
“That would be welcome.”
“We were just trying to plot the reports of disappearing children,” Thort told her, nodding to the map. Curious, Yvonne looked more closely. It was beautifully detailed, the clear lines of the map overlaid with what she took to be finer paper, on which they had marked various crosses and question marks.
A closer look and her breath caught. It was not paper, but magic. Goblin magic. So finely detailed and complex that her mind could not take it all in at once. The magic was layered. The basic map. The crosses and question marks on another layer.
“This is extraordinary,” she said.
“Thank you,” Guise said, with no false modesty. She met his eyes across the table, startled. She had known he was powerful, but had not expected this.
She took a mug of tea from Brea and settled at the table, following the marks with her eyes.
“I think you have more information than I do,” she told them. “Although there have been no reports of missing children around Hogsmarthen.”
“The Sisters would see to it,” Thort commented, mouth lifting for a moment.
And they had not known about the disappearance in Fir Tree Crossing, Yvonne thought. Not until men with horses had tried to abduct a nine-year-old girl from her bedroom. And Caroline had ended up firstly at a grand house and then stolen into a quarrel, not wherever the wagon loads of children had been taken. Those taking wagon loads had wanted strong youngsters, not pretty, delicate ones like Caroline.
“It’s always possible that the mastermind is simply gathering in goods,” she speculated, glad that she had nothing but tea in her stomach as it curdled.
