A Turn of Light (37 page)

Jenn twisted around to find his long horse face in the wagon with her. “Go away,” she whispered, shooing him with her free hand. The other held back the hanging lamp threatening her head.

His nostrils flared. “Are you a thief?”

“No!” She hurriedly let go of the lamp, ducking to avoid its swing. “Go away.”

“Are you hiding?”

“I’m doing nothing wrong.” Well, she was, but poor manners should hardly matter to a creature as dangerous and unpredictable as Scourge. Who’d threatened Wyll, something she didn’t forget. “This is between me and Wyll.”

“Whom you plan to marry.” A deep chuckle in her ear. “You could do better. Anything breathing would be an improvement. A toad—”

Jenn blushed furiously and flung the lantern at him.

Scourge dodged out of sight, then his head reappeared and shoved so deeply into the wagon something else in a bag went “snap-grissh.” “You come out.” The breeze became a howl in her ear. Those terrible jaws snapped near her shoes. “Out now!”

Voices, from outside. “I can’t,” Jenn pleaded. “They’ll see me.” That most of Scourge protruded from the wagon might look normal; given any chance at all, Wainn’s pony would happily push his head and neck through an open kitchen window, not that Scourge was the sort, she was sure, to try for a loaf of bread cooling on a shelf. “I just want to hear Wyll’s answer to Father’s invitation,” she confessed.

His head disappeared again. Jenn was afraid to move.

A breeze tugged her hair. “Toad.”

The not-horse was insufferable. Hearing no more voices, Jenn eased her way to the back of the wagon. Maybe she could slip out—

“Why, hello.”

Or not. “Hello, Tir.”

With his mask in place, she couldn’t tell if he was angry or surprised to find her in the wagon. Maybe she could blame Scourge—claim he’d chased her inside.

“Man can’t find his head with his hands in the morning,” Tir said confusingly. Worse, he winked. “So, what’d Bannan send you after?” To her dismay, he gripped the back of the wagon, preparing to climb in, though there was hardly room for her alone.

Jenn hastily closed her hand on something and brought it up between them. “His—” She held a pair of pants. Could she blush any hotter? Worse, they weren’t homespun, like those everyone wore—including Bannan. These were black leather, soft and supple. She imagined how they’d look and discovered—oh, yes—her cheeks could flame. “I’d better go.”

Tir helped her down, his eyes searching her face. Once she was on her feet, he kept hold of her hand. “Heart’s Blood,” he muttered with a sudden fierce scowl. “How old are you, girl?”

“I’ll be nineteen this harvest.” Jenn clutched the pants, wishing she dared pull her hand free.

“Eighteen, then.” He showed no inclination to let go. She was amazed to see a tinge of color rise up his neck and pinken his ears. “Eighteen and promised to himself, over there. What was Bannan thinking? Not that he was, I’ll warrant. Not with his brains, at any rate.”

Somewhere in there, Tir probably made sense. Just not to her. Jenn tugged gently at her hand. “I shouldn’t keep him waiting.” She lifted the pants.

“I’ll take care of it.” Tir gave back her fingers and took the pants. “You get home. Your Wyll’s left to meet your father. He wasn’t interested in waiting till this afternoon, invitation or no, and—” grimly, “—you’ve some explaining to do.”

She ignored the last part. “He can’t have gone already,” she objected, dismayed. Afternoon was when everything would be ready, and Radd would have shaved—something Aunt Sybb would insist upon—and she and Peggs both would be home and settled upstairs—another insistence, but where they could listen. “He shouldn’t—”

“You’ve changed your mind?” Tir sounded relieved. “Not that I’ve anything against Wyll as such. Man’s seen his share of trouble and bears it better than most. But—” His voice trailed off as he looked at her. “You’re going to marry him.”

Jenn stared at him. “Of course. Why would I change my mind?”

“So last night meant nothing to you.”

She blinked. “What about last night?”

“Are you telling me you weren’t with Bannan?”

“Why would I go to the farm?”

“The farm.” Tir shook his head and, of all things, began to chuckle. “The farm? This is about the farm. Ancestors Witness, I should have guessed. So that’s where he spent the night.”

He was the most confusing person. Jenn frowned. “Where did you think he was?”

“I don’t tell you, young Jenn,” Tir countered, tossing the pants back in the wagon, “and you don’t have to tell me why you were in his wagon. Fair?”

She wasn’t entirely sure of the bargain, but nodded.

“Good. Now go home and keep your friend out of trouble.”

That, she intended to do.

Wagler Jupp was making his methodical way to the Uhthoffs by the time Jenn made it home. She couldn’t see Peggs. Or Wyll. Taking off her shoes, she tiptoed onto the porch and stopped by the open window.

A breeze, warm and familiar, caressed her cheek. “Come inside, Dearest Heart. I’ve nothing to say you cannot hear.”

Wyll might know all about Night’s Edge; he had a great deal to learn about her family. Starting with her father and aunt and their rules about who should be part of conversations. Jenn stayed right where she was.

Rose petals dropped on her.

“Nuisance,” she muttered, plucking them from her hair. She listened harder. No one was talking.

Why weren’t they talking?

“Jenn?”

She looked up at her father, who stood in the doorway, not yet shaven. He arched an eyebrow. “You may as well come in.”

After dumping his pack on the table, Bannan sorted the immediately useful from the rest. A strong thin rope. A bar of hard soap. Flint and steel. The half sausage and heel of bread, part of last night’s supper from Gallie Emms, he put aside, full, thanks to Wainn’s pie. Aside also went the rolled leather pouch containing his last few leaves of Vorkoun black tea, and the metal cup and bowl he’d used since entering the guard.

He started with the rope, stringing it from the porch to the not-oak tree east of the house. He tested the tautness with a finger before tossing his bedroll over it. Not that he’d be doing laundry any time soon, but the line was ready.

Next, Bannan tackled the windows and doors. The shutters on the front windows were secured by a wooden bar shimmed in place, easily hammered free. With the shutters removed, daylight and fresh air poured through the openings to fill the main room. He’d have to order the small glass panes, which meant measuring the opening. Later. Instead, Bannan took his ax to what remained of the front door’s seized wooden hinges. He leaned the door against the wall, then did the same to the back door. More air, more light.

As for the hinges, the smith, Davi, should be able to make metal ones. Or he could order some from Endshere.

He’d have to watch his coin, Bannan reminded himself. Maybe he could trade labor for the hinges.

Inside, he freed a wide plank from the ruined bed and, starting at one corner of the main room, used it to push debris out the back door. What he couldn’t push, he carried, tossing it all into a pile. The work was heavy and filthy, raising so much dust he tied a wet handkerchief over his face so he could breathe.

After the first pass removed the worst of it from the floor, Bannan tossed his makeshift shovel and broom up into the loft, pulling himself after. To his relief, its floor was solid, though strewn with droppings, old nests, and a neat pile of tiny bones that gave him pause. He swept everything out the open window at one end, then glanced outside.

From here, he could see over the hedge to the north and past the wide fields that flowed gracefully along the river. Beyond the fields, a wild forest nestled against the Bone Hills. Beyond those . . .

Beyond was a broad gap in the scarred north wall of the valley. The river split around the Bone Hills, he’d been told, with its greater flow leaving Marrowdell in an unnavigable cataract. And was that not mist, rising within the opening?

The morning sun teased a rainbow from the mist, drew shadows along the eastmost side of the gap, and burnished the west with light. About to turn away, Bannan glimpsed a shadow that didn’t belong. “What . . .” He rocked back on his heels, one hand holding the window frame, the other his broom, and puzzled at what he saw until, abruptly, it made sense.

Stone. The sides of the great gap weren’t cliffs; there’d been something there once, something built. Its stones were rounded now and broken, their edges blurred beneath shrubs, but the underlying structure was unmistakable once recognized. Sections of overhanging rock became the remnants of floor or roof. Openings stared back at him, hollow and dark, too square and level to be the work of water or ice or wind. “Ruins,” Bannan said softly. “But of what?”

And why here?

Whatever it had been was immense. He must ask Kydd. Perhaps, after the harvest, there’d be time before the snow to climb into those openings and hunt for traces of the builders or inhabitants, to take the Tinkers Road and explore the unseen end of the valley, time to . . .

“Ah, Marrowdell,” he chuckled as he rose to his feet, gripping his broom. “You’re determined to keep me busy, aren’t you?”

To everything, and every mystery, its season, Bannan assured himself, feeling the vast inner content of a man with a wealth of time.

He went downstairs and surveyed the waiting mess. Having only the old bucket and pot, he should wait for Tir and the wagon, for all the supplies he’d purchased in hope of this future.

But he couldn’t.

Something drove him, as if he didn’t just clean a room, but cleansed himself. The sweat stinging his eyes had nothing of death or the threat of it; the blisters rising on his palms came from no weapon. He grew exhilarated beyond all measure; the water from his own well might have been the finest ale.

His inexhaustible well. Bannan drew bucket after bucket, tossing water on the floor, going back for more. When his makeshift broom struggled to move what quickly became mud, he returned to his plank and scraped it to the door and out.

When the worst of it was gone, he rinsed his sweat-drenched and filthy shirt and hung it on the line. Time to tackle the fireplace.

Using his ax, he pulled what proved to be an old nest from the chimney. The twigs and down stayed in a reassuring clump and, when no movement of the damper brought more down, he squirmed beneath to look. Seeing daylight, he finished sweeping the opening clean, then started a small fire, holding his breath.

The tinder caught with a playful crackle. Bannan fed it splinters he’d saved from the bedstead until he had a tidy little fire. Rushing outside, he watched anxiously for the first faint curl of smoke and heat rising from the chimney. Once sure it was safe, he added more wood, hung the water-filled pot on the pothook, and swung it over the flames.

While the water heated, Bannan went out back and set fire to the pile of debris from the house.

He paused as long as it took to brew a cup of strong tea, taking it and the sausage on his slanted porch for his lunch. Birds sang to him. A bee droned by. Apples shone in the trees. His back and shoulders burned, his hands were raw, and had he ever been happier?

So before he ate the sausage, Bannan Larmensu framed his heart with his fingers. “Hearts of our Ancestors,” he said solemnly, “I am Beholden for this food, for it will give me strength to improve myself in your eyes. I am Beholden for this work, for it has given purpose to my life. I am Beholden for the chance to keep Lila and her family safe by my absence. However far we are apart,” he finished in a husky whisper, “Keep Us Close.”