“You killed it?!”
Garner shook his head as he began to unsaddle his horse. “No. I heard the row last night. Fighting, something fierce. I rode down soon as the dawn cleared, thinking maybe the militia had run into trouble. This is what I found. More than this, but I’m gonna take this to Stonesend. Maybe even Calcort.”
Grace drew Nutmeg to her side, unable to tear her gaze away from the gruesome pelt. Tolby frowned at them. Garner threw the saddle onto the fence post and then squatted by the skin. “See this?” he pointed to heavy scarring on each cheekbone. “Never seen that on a Bolger afore. There were two groups, and they fought. Don’t know why, Bolgers don’t fight among themselves, usually. Not like this. So we have our cider mill-raiding Bolgers and we have . . . these.” Garner stabbed a finger at the pelt. “Raver pack with Bolger hounds, or some such.”
“Keen eyes.” Tolby looked at Garner. “Any Raver sign?”
“Part of one of the forearms, I think. Hard to tell. Carapaced, like a beetle or something, Da. I’ve got it in the other bundle. Never seen a Raver before, but this doesn’t look like any wraith or haunt, like the tales.”
“Best you get Hosmer and take it to Stonesend, then. They’ll be needing to know. Don’t tarry there, son. I could need you back here.”
“I won’t. We’ll head out as soon as Hos has rested.”
Tolby pointed at the ground. “And get that thing put away afore your mother sees it. She doesn’t need the shock.”
“Aye, sir.”
He reached out and grabbed each girl by the ear, tugging them away from the wash stands. “You’ll not be telling your mother either.”
“N-no, sir,” Nutmeg got out, squirming away from the tight pinch on her earlobe. “We won’t.”
Silent, Grace let her sister talk for her while her thoughts flew away on the wind. Strange blood. Hunters beyond the ridge. She tried not to feel afraid.
Lily bustled about the dining table with fluffy omelettes and fresh biscuits. She raised an eyebrow as Nutmeg only took one flaky biscuit and picked apart her eggs before eating. She watched closely as Grace set to her breakfast, Rivergrace noticed through the fringes of her soft auburn hair, and Lily turned away, satisfied as she ate most of her eggs and applesauce without noticing that Grace swept half of it into the napkin on her lap. The thought of what Garner had unfurled outside made her sick to her stomach. Nutmeg traded glances with her over the table, before looking down at her plate and picking over the food listlessly.
Tolby came in and pitched into the breakfast with his usual vigor and Lily stood back, a little smile playing across her mouth, her eyes sparkling with fondness at her husband. Both girls stood up to slip away, but Tolby cleared his throat, and stared them back into their seats. He put both his work-worn hands on the table. “I’ve made a decision.”
Wiping her hands on her apron, Lily sat down. Decisions seldom came around the Farbranch household without both Tolby and Lily discussing it beforehand. She looked at him curiously.
“There’ll be no fair for us this year. Roads are too chancy, and we’ve Grace to think of, as well. I know it’ll disappoint you, but I think it be best.”
“And that’s that?” asked Lily faintly.
His mouth worked. “The boys will take the last of the goods to market and come home. We’ve missed a fair before.”
“Only when the river washed out the bridge.”
“And,” he added gently, “the year Keldan was late in arriving.”
She flushed a bit at that. “You think this best?”
He nodded. “I’m not out to spoil the fun, my love, you know that of me.”
“I do. I can’t say I’m happy about it, but we will abide. There’ll be another fair.”
“Two,” burst out Nutmeg. “Spring and Harvest.”
“We only go to Harvest,” Tolby reminded her. “When we have goods to sell and buy.”
Nutmeg’s mouth knotted up but she didn’t say anything else. Tolby rocked his chair back on two feet. “ ’Course,” he said to no one in particular, “when my daughters get a bit older, I can’t see the harm in a Spring fair. Just for fun, you know.”
Nutmeg leaped up and threw herself at her father, hugging him tightly. Then she yelled, “Chore time!” at Rivergrace, and Grace raced off after her, tugging her coat off the hooks by the back door.
Lily reached over and caught Tolby’s hand. “I don’t know why you’re not liking the Spring fair,” she said softly. “After all, that’s where I met you for the first time, and picked you out of a great city full of suitors.”
He grumbled as the back door banged shut. “And you think I’m wanting to take my girls there, so they can meet a husband someday, eh? Bah.” He pushed his chair out and walked off, grumbling, and Lily did not dare let out a soft laugh till he had stomped out of the house as well.
And so they lived, more or less as they expected to, for a handful of years.
Chapter Fifteen
733 AE, Planting Month
“I MUST HAVE BEEN addled,” Tolby muttered, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.
“We’ve promised them for years, and we can’t hold them back any longer, dear.” Lily touched her head to his shoulder as they picked their way along village streets, bustling with activity and feeling far too crowded for Tolby.
“They’re too young, both of them.”
“Not for beginning. They need to see the world, and who might be waiting for them, that’s what the Spring fair is all about. Nutmeg is certainly ready,” and Lily eyed her bosomy daughter walking along the lane in front of them, her skirts swirling with the rhythmic movement of her hips, her glossy hair tied back with a ribbon. “As for Grace, well, I don’t know. Sometimes Grace still seems the child we pulled from the Silverwing and others . . . other times I think she is older than all of us.”
Rivergrace moved alongside Nutmeg, her tall slender form bent as she leaned on her sister’s shoulder, a dark, hooded robe hiding her youth and her body, her walk imitating the hesitant and crippled movement of a many-years-aged woman. Beneath the robes and hood, a wrapper headband held back her glossy chestnut hair and conveniently hid her ears as well, the fabric gaily beaded and spangled in a festive way. The brands had faded and moved to mid-forearm as she’d grown, but they’d never healed entirely, never gone away. She stood head and shoulders taller than Nutmeg now and seemed likely to get taller still, in the way of the Vaelinars. A light breeze whirled about them, swirling Nutmeg’s long skirts and teasing at her hair, and the sun had chosen this day to shine brightly. Their daughters’ talk and chatter drifted back to Tolby and Lily and, as usual, Grace seemed content to let Nutmeg do most of the babbling. Her head turned back and forth though, absorbing in the sights of all those gathering for a Spring fair. It hurt him to see her guised, and yet they had all agreed that it would be best.
“Next year would have been better,” Tolby stated.
“I think it’s high time they met someone besides the Barrel boys,” said Lily firmly.
“And what be wrong with the Barrels?”
“They’re good honest people, and nothing is wrong,” Lily answered, increasing her steps to keep the girls from getting so far ahead of them. “But I like a man with book learning, and the Barrels are as homegrown as they can get. There’s more to the world, Tolby Farbranch, than grass and roots.”
“I’ve got book learning.”
“Of course you do. That’s what I mean. They deserve a man as good as their father.”
Tolby’s rough cheeks reddened at that, and he looked as if he wanted to say another word, but then wisely took out his pipe and clamped his teeth shut on the stem. Lily hooked her arm through his and patted his hand, concealing a slight smile. As they moved down the paved walkways, a fine and brisk breeze snapped the many banners out and brought a waft of toback on the air, fine Dweller toback. He lifted his chin to it. She patted his arm, saying, “I want to visit the dress shop. Have a smoke and visit with the lads, why don’t you?”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Mind? And have you fussing about while I’m trying to look at weaves and cuts and patterns and mayhap try on a few hats?” Lily nudged him. “Go on.”
“I suppose it’s possible. The lads are horse-trading, looking for a new horse for Hosmer.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I’ll give a whistle later.” Tolby winked at her, his eyebrow canting rakishly.
She blushed. He’d often called for her that way when they first began courting. “I’ll be waiting, then.” She kicked aside the hem of her skirt, with a few swift strides to take the girls in hand, and walk briskly up the street toward her goal. He watched them go for a few moments, noting even Nutmeg now stood taller than Lily. How time flew and yet . . . and yet . . . the young girl he’d first loved followed Lily about like a shadow, never tarnishing, only adding to the fine woman she’d become. Smiling, he ducked into the toback parlor.
It smelled faintly of cherry-and-apple scented smoke, and a bit of rum, and he took up a rocking chair near the open door, settling comfortably into it. After patting a few pockets, he found his pouch and began to pack his pipe, listening to the talk about rain and some fungus on the grain crops unless they got a lot of sun soon, and the fine pelts from the cold winter trapping. More talk of Raver sightings to the far far northwest, and grumblings about the trade road taxes which, someone else pointed out quickly, helped maintain the local militias filled the air much as the smoke. He knew the Tanners, and Crofts, and Sweetbrooks, and the Barrels, but not all who sat within, most of them Dwellers, but a few Kernans also, and a tall fellow in the corner all wrapped in a gray cloak, his battered boots shoved out in front of him as though he’d gone to sleep in his easy chair. Tolby sat back after lighting his pipe, easy talk floating about him like the soft blue-gray clouds of smoke.
Nutmeg stood on one foot and then the other, watching her mother browse slowly through lengths of fabric as she ran her hands carefully over them, noting the warp and weft and dye as well as the thread count and content and all the many things that went into the yard goods. Although she appreciated such things normally, she had other things on her mind, Grace could tell, and she lagged back behind both as she could feel Nutmeg’s patience simmering. Grateful she could finally stand tall and straighten her back, she found a corner where she was not likely to be seen, dark robes gathered about her. Underneath, Lily had let her dress for the festival and she gazed wistfully for a moment at the soft greens and blues of her skirt. Nutmeg cleared her throat and shot her a look. She wondered what bee buzzed in her sister’s bonnet now. Grace glanced out the shop window. The town bustled with people and activities, with swap fairs and dancing, music, horse meets, all sorts of fascinating things. The wonder of it tiptoed through her being. Folk she had to look up to, instead of down at, slender folk, sturdy folk, folk with skin the color of soot, and gold, and tanned like old leather. Even a Bolger strode by without a word or stare, though she shrank back farther into the corner at that. Garner and Hosmer told her Bolgers were like any people, some good, some bad. They fought among themselves, tribal wars, and just as many were good folk as raiders, leastwise near the cities. She hardly knew what to make of it, the scene more colorful than the Autumn fair she’d been to, once. The window looked out on a world Rivergrace could barely imagine. Then she lowered her eyes quickly, lest someone passing by on the street could look into her face and see her most un-Dweller-like eyes.
Impatiently, Nutmeg shoved a bolt back onto its rack and then whirled about to tug on her mother’s sleeve. “May we go get a fruit drink?”
“Why, of course. Don’t wander too far though, all right, and . . .” Lily looked over at Grace briefly. “Mind your manners.”
The corner of Grace’s mouth twitched slightly. Mind Grace, she meant. Mind that no one notices the Stranger blood in her or calls her elven. Mind that she walked hunched over and shuffling, her pretty clothes smothered. She stifled a sigh as Lily dropped a few coins in Nutmeg’s hand, and her sister swept by her like a wind in full storm fury, swirling Grace out of the shop in her wake.
Breathlessly, Nutmeg commanded, “Stay close and keep quiet!” as she pulled them both into an alley and ducked down the back street. She found a crack between mud-and-stone walls, and headed in sideways, still in firm control of Grace’s arm. “This way.” Wriggling carefully, she made her way between shops, then found a door in an unlikely spot, cracked it open, and crept in. In a storeroom full of barrels, kegs, crates, and bales smelling of toback, both went to their knees in the shadows till Nutmeg found the corner she wanted, and motioned Grace to look.
Through a spidery-thin crack, she could see the interior of the smoking parlor, its faint aroma wafting up her nose as she pressed her face to the wood. Nutmeg lay on her stomach so she could peer out the crack beneath Grace as they spied on the mysterious world of her father and his friends.
Tolby exchanged a few opinions about the breeding of sheep and goats and pigs, mildly expressed, but taken as authority. Yet he merely smiled and clamped his teeth tighter about his pipe stem when Croft, a hunched-over and rather unpleasant and seedy-looking fellow, asked for his recipe to making decent cider, and the room lapsed into momentary silence after Tolby’s irritated grunt.
Honeyfoot, in the corner, pink-faced and gray-browed, his thin, snow-white hair in a frazzle about his head, made a cracking noise in his jaws, then grunted mildly before venturing a thought. “How about a tale or two? I’ve had enough of farm and ranch talk.” He sat, not with pipe in hand, but a sack of candies which he popped into his mouth one at a time, sucking on their sweetness and crunching now and then with a contented smile on his round face.
“Grousing ’bout them tolls reminds me of the time Bregan Oxfort took on the Dark Ferryman at the River Nylara.” Tanned and wiry, the miller Sweetbrook rolled a toback leaf on his leg, making a zigar for himself, with strong hands and arms that had turned many a mill rock when the river ran low. There’d always been Sweetbrooks at the mill and he was known as the young Sweetbrook and would be until his father passed. Then he would be old Sweetbrook and his son the younger. If he had a first name of his own, Tolby had never heard it. His dark hair was plaited back and clipped tightly at the nape of his neck, but his vest shone of gold-threaded cloth, and his trousers were piped in gold as well, showing his worth.