The Tower of Ravens (11 page)

She was suspicious. “What… porridge?” The word stumbled on her tongue.

“Ye do no‘ ken porridge?” Lewen said unbelievingly. “It’s oats… hot, and with milk and honey. It’s good. If ye’ll come…”

He gestured out into the brightening morning. “I can make ye some, and happen some griddle-cakes too, and tea.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why? What ye want?”

Lewen was distressed. “Naught! I mean, I just… I thought ye might be hungry.”

“Me hungry, sure enough, but what ye care?”

“Ye’re our guest here… ye’re sore hurt… I wanted…”

“What?”

“Naught! Just to be kind.”

To his surprise and secret hurt, he saw contempt in her eyes. “True me hungry. Bring food here,” she commanded.

He drew back, his eyes hardening. “I am no‘ your servant,” he said. “I thought ye might be hungry so I offered ye some breakfast, but if ye want it, ye can come and get it yourself.” He turned on his heel and began to walk out, his back very straight. She said nothing, but he could feel her gaze burning into his back.

He was out of the stable and halfway through the barnyard when he heard her say imperiously, “Stop!”

He turned, still smouldering with anger. She stood in the doorway of the stable, dressed only in a long white nightgown and bare feet, her black hair a matted rat’s nest. She looked so young and vulnerable his anger melted away, but he held himself stiffly still, meeting her gaze. “Me very hungry,” she said forlornly, “but canna leave what mine.” She gestured behind her.

“Ye mean, the horse?”

“All what mine.”

“Ye’re afraid someone will steal your things?” Lewen did not know whether to feel anger or pity that she should be so filled with suspicion and distrust. He said more gently, “No-one will steal your things, or even touch them, I promise. Ye and your things are safe here. Ye must learn to trust us if we are to help ye.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why ye want help me?”

Again Lewen could not find the words to explain. He said stiffly, “Ye are our guest. Ye’ve broken our bread and tasted our salt. We may no‘ harm one who has partaken o’ our hospitality.”

She seemed to accept this, for she nodded, turned back into the stable and said, with one imperiously pointed finger, “Horse, stay. Me come back.”

Then she came out into the dew-frosted grass, her bare feet leaving dark streaks.

“Wait! Ye must be cold. Where are your clothes, your shoes? Happen ye’d best get dressed first.” He tugged at his own clothes and indicated his own stout boots.

She looked surprised, but shrugged and went back inside, coming back a few minutes later with the long black boots pulled on under her nightgown and the plaid wrapped negligently about her shoulders. Lewen felt a now familiar bemusement. No other girl of his acquaintance would be so nonchalant about being seen in her nightgown, or so careless of her appearance. His curiosity about her continued to grow.

“So why did ye tie yourself to the mare? Did ye just wish to ride her, to tame her? Or are ye fleeing from someone?”

The girl’s lips pressed together firmly and she did not answer.

“Did ye come down out o‘ the mountains? Where is your family?”

Still she would not answer. Lewen looked at her sideways, marveling at the stubbornness of her patrician profile, the line of brow and nose so straight, the mouth below so softly and deeply curved. It was a face of contradictions, and he did not know which part to believe, the cold severity of the upper, or the warm sensuality of the lower.

They came into the warmth of the kitchen and at once Ursa lifted her snout and moaned a greeting, lumbering to her feet. The girl froze. Suddenly a sharp silver dagger was in her hand and she had dropped into a killer’s crouch, her teeth bared. Ursa hardly noticed, so accustomed was she to gentleness and affection. She lumbered forward, lowering her head for a scratch behind the ears. Quick as a snake, the girl struck. Lewen was so taken aback his brain refused to respond. His muscles were well trained, however, and he lunged forward and caught her wrist, the sharp point of the dagger a scant inch away from Ursa’s shaggy breast. For a moment they struggled silently, barely moving, but exerting their strength against each other.

Then she submitted, allowing him to draw her away from the puzzled old bear, surrendering the knife into his hand as she rubbed at her bruised wrist.

“Ye strong,” she said with approval. “Ye hurt me.”

Lewen swallowed his instinctive apology. “Why did ye stab at poor auld Ursa like that?” he said.

She was regarding the enormous woolly bear with narrowed eyes. “Bear,” she said, gesturing with one hand.

“Aye, o‘ course she’s a bear, anyone can see that!”

He took a breath to berate her further, but the look on her face made him pause and reflect. “Did ye think her a wild bear, strayed into our kitchen searching for food? I suppose she could have been, but… canna ye see how tame she is, how gentle?” He gave a low growl of frustration, unable to express how troubled he was by her fierceness, yet knowing he was being unfair. Anyone raised in the mountains knew to fear woolly bears, known as much for their savagery as their stupidity.

If he had not been raised by his parents, if he was someone else, someone normal, and he had walked into a strange house and seen such an immense, long-toothed, sharp-clawed, strong-shouldered creature in the kitchen, would he not have reacted instinctively to defend himself? And this strange feral girl from the mountains had clearly not been raised with gentleness as he had been. She flinched instinctively when anyone came too near, she carried a knife under her nightgown, she was the nastiest fighter he had ever seen, more unprincipled than even the beggar-boys down near the ports. It was wrong of him to wish her something different, it was wrong to long for her to have the gentleness of his father, the sensitivity of his mother, the merry heart and sweet trustfulness of his sister. She was what she was, and he should not want her to be different just because she had a mouth that fascinated him.

She was watching him now with a calculating expression, as if reading and interpreting the play of expressions on his face, and he took a deep breath and brought his thoughts back under control.

“Ursa is my father’s familiar,” he said. When she clearly did not understand what he meant, he said rather vaguely, “His friend, his helpmate, his…” He did not want to say “pet,” but could not think how to explain. “Like your horse,” he said at last.

She moved her clear, intent gaze from his face to the bear’s. Ursa was patiently waiting to be petted and Lewen choked back a laugh and put his hand up to scratch behind her ears. She slitted her eyes and growled deeply in her throat with pleasure. He stroked her snout and she ambled back to her place by the fire. “She’s very auld now,” he said, almost as if wanting to excuse her docility.

After that he did not know what to say to her. His hands suddenly felt large and clumsy, and his face hot, and his tongue thick. He busied himself making breakfast, but even that felt wrong and difficult. He dropped the porridge pot, and slurped in too much milk and had to add more oats, which turned to glue, and then he forgot to add the salt and, when he hurried to remedy the omission, fumbled the opening of the canister and spilt in too much, and all the while his ears got hotter and hotter. She sat at the table in silence, watching him with interest, her arms wrapped round her knees, the nightgown slipping off one bare white shoulder as she did not know how to tie up the laces properly. By the time Lilanthe came in, the buds of her twiggy hair bursting into green overnight as if to signal the surge of spring that Lewen was feeling in his blood, her son was as red-cheeked and miserable as she had ever seen him. She tasted the porridge, cast him one whiplash glance but said nothing, swinging the pot off the fire and beginning to swiftly mix up some batter for griddle-cakes, all the while asking the girl gently how she had slept, and was she not cold in her nightgown still, and did she prefer honey or greengage jam? Lewen could only retire in grateful confusion.

Hand-in-hand with her father, Meriel came scampering in, bright-eyed with curiosity. Her chatter filled the silence so that Lewen was able to retreat to the table and busy himself eating and drinking. Meriel peppered the blue-eyed stranger with questions, not at all disconcerted by her reluctance to answer.

“Did ye sleep well? Were ye warm enough?”

“Aye.” The girl crammed a whole griddle-cake into her mouth.

“And ye really have a winged horse all o‘ your own? How did ye catch her?”

No answer.

“Can I have a ride o‘ her?”

“Nay,” she mumbled through her mouthful of crumbs.

“Oh, please? I’ve always wanted to have a winged horse o‘ my own. Please?”

“Nay.”

“Will she only let ye ride her? Are ye from Tireich? How did ye get here? Did ye fly over the mountains?”

No answer. Another two griddle-cakes disappeared.

“Mam says ye were sore hurt by tying yourself on so tight. Do your wrists still hurt?”

“Aye.”

“Why did ye do it?”

“So no‘ fall off.” Her voice expressed weary contempt. She wiped jam away from her mouth and reached for another griddle-cake.

Meriel was not abashed. “But if she’s your horse, surely she wouldna let ye fall? Thigearns do no‘ tie themselves on.”

“She no‘ my horse
then
. Is now.” She flashed the little girl a sharp warning glance.

“So have ye only just caught her? She’s no‘ really your horse then, is she?”

“Mine.”

“But, I mean, flying horses canna be tamed so easily. Thigearns must ride their flying horses for a year and a day. Ye only stayed on one day and one night. That canna count.”

“She mine!”

“How come ye talk so funny?”

The stranger gritted her jaw and stared at the little girl furiously.

“Meriel,” Lilanthe said warningly.

“But she does talk funny.”

“No‘ everyone grows up learning to speak our language,” Lilanthe said quietly. She served another platter of hot griddle-cakes, then turned to the girl. “I must admit to curiosity also. We do no’ even ken your name. What may we call ye?”

The girl shrugged, frowning. “Lassie?” she said hesitatingly.

“But lassie is no‘ a name, it’s… it’s what ye are, like Lewen here is a lad. Or was, I should say,” Lilanthe said, amending her sentence at a furious glance from her son. “We canna just call ye ’lassie‘. Do ye no’ have a name? What did your family call ye?”

The girl’s face closed up and she looked away, saying nothing.

“Ye have no family?”

She shrugged. “Family like this?” An expansive gesture took in the warmly lit room, with its bright copper pans, bunches of dried herbs hanging from a rack, its collection of childish drawings tacked to the mantelpiece, the immense woolly bear snoozing by the fire. She uttered a bitter laugh. “Nay, no family like this.”

“But your parents? Your mother? Your father?”

“Father dead.”

“Your mother?”

The girl laughed harshly again. “Mother no‘ want me. No good.” She paused for a moment and then said, in a rush, as if she could no longer dam up the words. “They kill me if I go back.”

They were all appalled.

“Kill ye?” Lewen cried. “Why?”

“But, my lass, surely no‘?” Niall said. “A bonny lass like ye?”

“Me no good. No‘ strong enough, no’ fast enough. Have no horns.”

“No horns?” Niall and Lilanthe exchanged swift glances.

The girl closed her mouth firmly and would not speak.

“A satyricorn?” Niall said. “But…”

“It would explain the dirty fighting,” Lilanthe said dryly.

Lewen felt his heart sinking. The satyricorns were wild and fierce faeries indeed. Although the First-Horn of the largest known herd had signed the Pact of Peace, so that the satyricorns were theoretically vassals and allies of Lachlan MacCuinn, many of the smaller, more remote herds continued to raid farms and villages just as they always had, killing indiscriminately and stealing food, weapons and young men.

“But I have seen satyricorns,” Niall said. “The Rìgh has an infantry troop o‘ Horned Ones that serve him. They have hooves and a tail as well as horns, and yellow eyes. She is naught like them at all.”

“No horns, no hooves, and only one set o‘ dugs,” she said sadly.

There was a shocked silence. Despite himself, Lewen’s eyes were drawn to the womanly swell of her thin cotton nightgown. He forced himself to look away. His father was regarding his plate, trying hard not to smile, Meriel’s mouth was hanging open in amazement, and Lilanthe looked disconcerted, embarrassed and amused all at the same time.

“Happen she was a foundling child,” Lewen stumbled to fill the silence. “Lost on the mountain or something.”

She gave a satiric snort. “Horned Ones no‘ save lost lassie. Eat it if hungry enough. A lost laddie, they’d save. Some use for a lost laddie, at least when grown.” And she looked him up and down with such a knowing expression in her eyes that Lewen felt the blood surge up his body and into his face. He did not know where to look or what to say. Neither did his parents.

Luckily Meriel took the comment at face value, crying out, “They’d
eat
a lost bairn? Do ye mean, they’d actually
eat
it?”

“If hungry enough,” she said indifferently.

“Urrgghh!”

The girl looked at her speculatively. “Me ate goblin once. Rather eat nice, plump babe than foul, stinking goblin, wouldna ye?”

“Urrgghh, no! I wouldna want to eat either.”

“Ye would if hungry enough.”

“Nay, I would no‘!”

“Bet-ye would. If it meant ye’d get to live another day. Anyone would.”

“I’d rather die!”

“Proof ye’ve never really been hungry,” the girl said, and helped herself to another griddle-cake. They all hurried to pass her more butter and jam, and Lilanthe poured her another cup of fresh goat’s milk, so full it almost brimmed over. The girl ate and drank greedily, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

There was a long silence as they watched her eat, each busy with their own thoughts.