Jeanne G'Fellers - Sister Lost, Sister Found (18 page)

“What problems should we expect?”

“There can’t be any problems. Recca sent no shrouds or mourning sashes.”

A small cough brought Hestra’s raisers to her side. “She’s all right,” Jewel ran her finger over the infant’s downy scalp. “Just a bitter bit of dinner.” But she lingered near her daughter, watching her tiny chest rise and fall, her muscles twitch with a newborn’s dream.

“You won’t move from here, will you, love?” Kaelan pulled their bedroll close and placed Jewel in the furs, careful not to disturb the tiny hand wrapping her index finger. “Sleep.”

“You coming?”

“As soon as I help with the bedding.” Kaelan kissed the tops of two snow-white heads, stoked the fire, then assisted the teens in twisting out the last blanket. She assured them all was well then bid they do the morning chores and tend Sharillia’s children as quietly as possible.

“Jewel and Sharillia need the quiet and loud noises will make the baby nervous.” Promised a solid rest for mother and raiser, Kaelan sent the children to bed, settled beside Jewel, and welcomed a dreamless sleep.

Hestralandra woke twice during the night, each feeding two hours apart with the third discontented cry coming four hours later. Jewel nudged Kaelan at the baby’s first whimper. “You wanted me to wake you.”

“I know, I know.” Kaelan drew the pillow over her head. “Me and my big mouth.”

“It’ll be you and your sore shin if you don’t get up.” Jewel lifted Hestra from her basket. “Come on, Kae, I’m too tired to phase Sharillia alone.”

“Like I’ll be much help. My head is pounding.”

“She whines more than you do, my little Hestra.” Jewel pulled the blankets back and left Kaelan shivering on the fur. “Come on, Kae, it’s almost dawn.”

Kaelan tightened her mouth in brief annoyance before smiling compliance at her mate. “You win. I’ll be there as soon as I make a quick side stop.” She tugged on her boots and dashed to the privy, returning to find Hestra still screaming in Jewel’s arms. Rankil and Myrla were awake as well, stumbling about in search of something.

“What’s wrong?” Kaelan followed Jewel’s trembling finger to Sharillia’s bed. The Autlach was gone. Her children’s bed was just as vacant and the food stores were strewn about the cavern. Archell stumbled in from the livestock cavern. Blood drizzled from the back of his head, and his watering eyes showed the telltale signs of a mild concussion.

“The snow is high and howling in—Sweeping through the trees—Sharillia’s fled into the dark—Woman with a blackened heart—She’ll freeze her bitter soul.” There was no rhyming of fact so his singsong stopped and his face scrunched. “I heard a sound in the livestock cavern, went to investigate, and she hit me from behind. When I came to she had taken all the mounts and every spare blanket we had stored. Four sacks of black grain are missing and so is our final side of beast. The colt’s throat has been sliced and the milker is down with a knife in her side. Sharillia’s left us to starve.”

“Will she live?” Myrla stroked the milker’s head as Kaelan stitched the gash in its side. Jewel had drawn some milk and now stood nearby while Hestra fumbled to suckle through the bottle.

“She’ll survive. Sharillia managed to miss anything vital.” Kaelan finished dressing the wound and patted the animal’s side. “Wish she’d done the same with the colt. Such a good-looking animal. Straight legged and true backed. Shame we’ve been reduced to eating it. All right, Rankil, you and Archell help me get her up and walking.” With shouts and earnest tugging, the milker regained her footing. She looked around the cavern, snorted, then dug her nose into the hay manger.

“Think she knows her babe is gone?” asked Myrla.

“Doubt she cares one way or another.” Rankil brushed hay from the back of Myrla’s knee skirts.

“Rankil, get your hands back!” Kaelan’s stress level had peaked. “Go with Archell and start butchering that colt. Myrla, tend the fire and start breakfast. Some of us are hungry!”

“Yes, Kaelan.” Rankil followed her cousin through the family chamber to the adjacent cavern where they had hung the colt to bleed. “I didn’t mean a thing by it, Archie, honest,” she stammered as they separated the sweetmeats. “She had hay on her skirts. I’ve done it before and no one got mad. What’s wrong with it now?”

“Much.” Archell bundled the meats as Rankil began to skin the carcass. “Rankil dankle must be careful.”

“What changes hay on the skirts?”

“The hay doesn’t change, Rankil roo, the touch does,” he said, smiling in his wisest manner.

Rankil turned to face him. “You’re not making sense. Was I out of line?”

“With the start of today, Sharillia’s vicious display, yes.” Archell began hacking manageable sections from the skinned areas. “Jewel knows you meant good, Myrla does, too.” He paused in his slicing to speak. “Think, Rankil roo, you like Myrla. Myrla does you. Give it time. Get too rushed in Kaelan’s mind,” Archell grasped her wrist, “and things will never be good, never be fine.”

Rankil took in the seriousness of his expression. “You think?”

“Don’t touch your girl until the moment is right, ask Kaelan first so that you might.” The Autlach chuckled at his cousin’s hopeless sigh. “Poor Rankil dankle. She finds this so hard.”

“Myrla makes me think of things I know I shouldn’t.” Rankil stretched the hide across a large rock and stood in thoughtful silence, a half-smile revealing her ideas. “Ever have those kind of thoughts?”

Archell raised his thick brows. “Sharillia was pretty to me until she showed how she could really be.”

Rankil could see how he found the woman attractive. She wasn’t much older than he was. “What changed your mind?”

“She insulted my kin.” He butchered one of the colt’s rear legs and laid it to the side. “My Rankil and Myrla again and again.”

“She got back what she gave.”

Archell’s look turned long, and he scrunched his face. “Then she took her children into certain death and left us to starve.” He said. “I believe I’ve lost interest.”

“Cold and heartless is not your type, eh?” Rankil helped remove the last of the usable meat. She broke the heavier bones into workable portions and piled the remaining carcass for disposal while Archell built a small, smokeless fire for drying the hide and another for drying meat. “I’ll take the sweetmeats to Myrla.”

“Sure I shouldn’t?” he suggested, envisioning Kaelan’s anger if they were found unsupervised.

“Nah, I hear Hestra bawling. Jewel is there.” Rankil scooped up her soggy sling and returned to the family chamber.

“Nassie sweets are far from my favorite,” commented Jewel when she relieved Rankil of her bundle. “But it’s food.” Then she smiled at the way Rankil glanced at Myrla. “The storm let up so Kaelan went to track Sharillia. You may sit with Myrla if you choose.” Jewel winked. “Just don’t brush off any hay.”

Rankil blushed, rinsed her hands in the washbasin, and shook them dry as she approached Myrla. “I think I should apologize.”

“For what?” Myrla set aside her handloom and motioned Rankil to share her mat. “Kaelan was upset, and you were a convenient outlet.”

“Just the same,” Rankil took up the loom to examine Myrla’s delicate work. “What are you making?”

“A gown for Hestra. As small as she is, it shouldn’t take long.”

“You could almost fit her into a footling.” Rankil smiled in such a contagious manner, Myrla returned the grin then giggled.

“Yours or Kaelan’s perhaps.” She ventured a look at Jewel’s turned back then slid her hand into Rankil’s. “Were you truthfully just brushing hay from my skirts?” she whispered.

“Of course!” Rankil caressed her slim palm. “I shouldn’t think of you otherwise.”

“No?” Myrla squeezed the slim hand wrapping her own. “I somehow doubt you could stick to that promise. I couldn’t.”

“Never said I couldn’t, only that I shouldn’t.” Rankil grinned at Myrla’s flustered stare. “Surely, I didn’t shock you.” Rankil pushed Myrla’s gaping mouth shut, then slid her hand to her upper arm, where it lingered on her shoulder. “I wish we were older.”

“This is becoming difficult for me as well,” she replied. “But you have to understand Serpent customs. Kaelan and Jewel recognizing us as a couple is a major doing. I didn’t have the nerve to ask permission for long skirts.” She leaned into the touch, then shrugging and breaking her handhold, retook her weaving. “I must be content to have you near me. It’s more than most our age get.”

“I’m still accustomed to how I was raised,” said Rankil. “It’s hard for me to think in other terms.” She fingered Myrla’s collar, sniffed acceptance, then turned her attentions to Myrla’s face. Her round features were slimming into the high cheeks and sharp chin common to the Taelach, her deep-set eyes framed by a curling set of lashes that, had they been Autlach black, would have appeared incredibly long. But as it was, and as Rankil preferred, the white lashes accentuated the mischievous twinkle Myrla was capable of. Those eyes turned to Rankil now, creasing to match the smile turning Myrla’s lips.

“Still having thoughts you shouldn’t?”

“Wouldn’t admit to it if I was.” Rankil moved closer, head lowered to line with Myrla’s mouth. “May I kiss you?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Myrla turned her pink cheek upward. “Quick, before Jewel notices.”

Rankil surprised Myrla with a kiss to the mouth, closed lipped, but full of longing, then pulled back with a ridiculous grin on her face. She chuckled at Myrla’s tiny gasp and landed a second kiss on her cheek. “That’s how it should be.” Rankil’s eyes brightened with enthusiasm. “Don’t you think?”

“What we think doesn’t matter if Kaelan finds you being fresh.” Myrla scooted back a little, delighted though a little perplexed by Rankil’s behavior. “And you are being fresh.”

“Oh, good grief.” Rankil stiffened with dismay. “I wasn’t trying to be fresh.”

Kaelan’s voice rose from the livestock cavern.

“Rankil! Archell! Come lend me a hand!” Kaelan stumbled into the family chamber, Olitti draped over one shoulder. “Sharillia left a trail Blind Grandmother could’ve followed. The other children are in the hay, near froze like their sister.” They placed Olitti near Hestra’s basket and drew a blanket over her. “Make some broth out of those bones, Myrla. The children need the warmth, and it will be a good stew base for tonight.”

“But Sharillia took most of the fixings.”

“I recovered some of them while I was tracking.” Olitti was left to Jewel’s loving attention, and Kaelan followed Rankil to the livestock cavern. “I found the heartless bitch. She dropped things one by one as the way became difficult.” Kaelan scooped up the larger of the toddler boys and smoothed back his snow-caked hair. “She left the children where they fell from their mounts.”

“She what?” Rankil gasped when she touched the brittle child in her arms. He responded to her touch, shoving his thumb to his bluish lips and pulling to her shoulder.

“I’m cold.”

“He’s always partial to you,” said Kaelan as they brought the boys to the fireside. “Let’s go help Archell carry in the supplies.” When Kaelan returned to the livestock cavern, she pulled the youths close, sharing her distressed expression. “To answer your question, Rankil. I followed Sharillia’s tracks until they met up with four more sets. That’s where I found the supplies.”

“Four more sets?” cried Archell.

“Shhh.” Kaelan pulled him closer. “I have no desire to frighten the gentlewomen any further. They have their hands full as is. Sharillia was near the supplies, dead, decapitated in some maniac display. Whoever did it wasn’t out for robbery, they were out for revenge.”

“How could you tell?” said Rankil, believing Sharillia deserving of the fate.

Kaelan’s face drew with disgust. “Among other things, they cut out the woman’s tongue.”

“Her tongue?” Rankil set down the sack resting on her shoulder. “That’s Raskhallak’s punishment for infidelity.”

“Precisely,” replied Kaelan. “And he hung her remains from a tree.”

“How do you know it was a man?” queried Archell. “Taelach bandits could have hatched that plan.”

“The damage was from a serrated Autlach blade,” countered Kaelan. “And the executioner took the time to carve his name in her chest before leaving.” She took a kindling twig and scratched the Autlach script into the cavern’s dusty floor, the letters standing out against the stone, gray and damning to their survival. Kaelan traced them again and drew a line under them. “Need I say more?”

“You’ve said plenty.” Rankil hefted one of the sacks onto her shoulder and headed to the family chamber, resisting her overwhelming urge to hover near Myrla.

“Grab a sack, Archie,” Kaelan followed Rankil’s lead. “And put on a comforting face. We have to make the children feel safe and wanted.”

“Oh, Archell loves the babies.” Archell gathered two bags. “He’d die protecting them.” He stepped on the name carved into the dust, distorting the letters until they were beyond reading.

Kindness warms more than any fire.

—Granny Terry

Tension and cramped quarters began to take its toll on Kaelan’s family. No one slept enough. No one ate enough. Even tiny Hestra sensed the uneasiness, becoming restless at all hours. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” complained Jewel after a cycle of the infant’s fussiness. “Every time one of us drifts off, there she goes. The fire chips are running low, too. How are we going to keep warm when they’re gone?”