Roses (18 page)

“I assume yur are the Hill woman I am considering today?”

“Yes ’em, I be Isole—”

“And Beauty.”

Owaine gestured to the silvery woman hiding in a corner and the matchmaker turned.

“My, my, I’d heard the rumors, but I’d never seen it with my own eyes.”

Beauty nodded a welcome to him and placed her left hand to her chest.

“Sit down,” said Isole quickly. “Try some salt bread, it be my specialty.”

The family sat at the table and made the sign of the gods before they began digging into the food.

“What’re the matches like this season?” asked Owaine.

The matchmaker crammed in great mouthfuls of beef. “It be good. There’re more than usual.”

“Have some more pie,” said Isole, loading a second colossal helping onto his plate.

“Oh, I thank yur, woman.”

Beauty picked and pushed her food about her plate.

“Be that a crumble I spot for dessert?” asked the matchmaker after a loud belch. He had somehow managed to devour most of the food laid before him.

Isole nodded and hurriedly filled up his mug of ale. “And a trifle and sugared custard.”

The matchmaker licked his slack lips and Owaine looked worried. This meal had cost him sticks, and though they were making more than ever before, he did not wish to needlessly waste them.

Beauty declined a dessert.

“This be superb,” announced the matchmaker after his third helping of crumble. “Do yur have more sugared custard?”

“Of course!” said Isole.

The meal finally came to an end, and Isole swept away the mountain of plates and bowls. Beauty was sure that she would have to clean them later.

“I wonder . . .” muttered Isole, coming to sit nervously back at the table.

The matchmaker raised an eyebrow.

“Yur wonder?” he asked.

Owaine prayed that his daughter would not be disgraced by her question.

“Yes ’em, I wonder if yur . . .”

“Yur wonder if I can find yur a match? Well, Isole, yur cooking has swayed me, and I happen to have the right Hill man. He be a widower in a village northwest called Dousal, would yur take him?”

Isole gasped and Owaine smiled in amazed relief.

“He has two children, but they be young and well behaved,” added the matchmaker.

But Isole seemed barely to hear him; she looked absolutely delighted.

“I’ll take him,” she cried, her cheeks flushed.

“Would yur wish for me to arrange a meet?”

“No, I’ll take him!” She clapped her hands.

“I’m happy to settle it then. And for yur other daughter, I’ve many matches to choose.”

Beauty jumped and Isole’s smile fell from her face.

“For Beauty?” asked Owaine.

“Yes ’em. A young, pretty Hill woman is easy to match but a beautiful one is easier. Begging yur pardon, Isole, what be yur young sister’s name?”

Owaine and Isole both turned to look at Beauty, and they no longer saw a peculiar, frightening child, but a radiant, graceful woman. Her violet eyes were like two jewels placed in a pearly soft face. Her long white hair hung in a shimmering sheet to her waist, and though her baggy, poorly made clothes tried, they could not conceal her fine figure.

“No, yur don’t understand,” said Isole. “She be strange.”

“Some men are collectors,” replied the matchmaker. “She be a prize.”

Owaine saw Beauty’s deep shudder and he said, “There be no matches for Beauty.” He had wanted both his daughters to be treated equally, but if Beauty did not wish it, he would not make her marry.

She looked at him gratefully.

“Ah,
Beauty
,” said the matchmaker. “That be a fitting name.”

“I said there be no matches for her. Yur found my Isole happiness and I thank yur kindly for it, but none needed for Beauty.”

“Yur sure? She be such a fine match . . .”

“I said none.”

The matchmaker stared into Beauty’s amethyst eyes. “So be it,” he said.

He left that evening, agreeing to arrange the marriage of Isole and the widower from Dousal, but he also spread the tale of Beauty throughout the hills. And all the Hilland villages and all the nearest towns had soon heard of a beautiful silver woman that lived in Imwane.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

The Woman with Amethyst Eyes

I
sole’s marriage happened quickly. Though she would never admit it, Isole knew that she was old and she wished to have the greatest chance of conceiving a child. She and her match, Manwelly, were wed on the last day of summer in the temple in Dousal, and Owaine forked out enough sticks to ensure that his daughter had the wedding of her dreams. She must have been the only Hilland bride to ever wear so many ribbons in her hair.

Manwelly was a tall, weak-looking man with two weak-looking children that had a tendency to hang off his arms. Upon setting eyes on him, Isole resolved to fill him out with pies, and after they were married she promptly began working to her goal. She moved out of the cottage and over to the village of Dousal despite many tears wept on Duna and Hally’s shoulders. But if Imwane thought that they would not see Isole again, they were sorely mistaken.

She stayed away for the first winter, resolving to run her own family, but come springtime, she began creeping back to Imwane. Over the hills she would walk briskly with the weak-looking children trailing behind her. Manwelly was not a bad husband, but he was not a good husband, either. He was prone to ailments, and if it was not his stomach giving him trouble, then his back was out of joint or his head was full of cold. Whatever it was, he said he could not work, and often Isole would be forced to ask her father for sticks. Of course, Owaine could not refuse his daughter.

“Everyone speaks of that horse of Beauty’s,” she said one day. “Papa, why don’t yur sell it? Yur’d get a bundle.”

“Champ isn’t mine to sell.”

“But—”

“If you want more sticks from me then yur better hush up!”

Isole pursed her lips and did not mention it again.

Though they no longer lived together, Isole still hated Beauty. Having heard rumors of a silver woman, villagers at Dousal would hassle her with questions of her mysterious sister. She tried to spread lies about an evil, violet-eyed creature, but they preferred the circulating whispers of a gods-sent being, brought to save them from something, though they knew not what. It had begun with the matchmaker’s gossip and grown into a thriving rumor. The Hillanders saw Beauty galloping about the hills astride a great bay stallion and they made the sign of the gods to her as she passed.

Without Isole around, Beauty ran the cottage in Imwane. She was no great cook, but she had learned a little from Isole’s lessons and she and Owaine managed well. Beauty decided to keep her bedroll in the attic though there was now an unoccupied sleeping closet downstairs. She could not imagine closing her eyes to any sight other than the yellow thatch above her with the tang of maize in the air. She swept and scrubbed the cottage to the best of her ability, fitting the chores around her work with the horses, and if it was not exactly
as pristine as they were accustomed to, they thought it good enough to be free of Isole.

“Ain’t yur husband gonna be wondering where you are?” Owaine asked her wearily after she had arrived yet again on their doorstep.

“Manwelly’s ill.”

Beauty patted the heads of the weak-looking children who were playing on the floor and went back to preparing dinner.

“Yur ain’t doing that right—yur shouldn’t knead the dough so. Let me do it.”

“I can manage fine.”

Isole settled back in her seat, her lips bared in a snarl.

“Shouldn’t yur both be working?”

“Beauty and me trained as many horses as we can travel to town with next moon-cycle. Don’t need to break no more.”

“Yur be making bundles of sticks then?”

“Yes ’em, I suppose we will.”

“I been meaning to ask if yur could spare me some for the children, see.”

Owaine sighed.

A few days later, Beauty and Owaine were exercising the horses in the next valley. Beauty was riding a gray gelding in smooth circles, teaching him to arch his neck as he cantered and pick up his dainty feet.

“What d’yur think?” called Owaine.

“Perfect!” she yelled back. “He has better strides than the bay mare. He is a dream to ride.”

Champ was watching nearby as always. Someone had once suggested that he be trained as a carthorse to work in the fields. His
huge build would lend itself to the job, there was no denying it, but the suggestion had been quickly hushed up by others. Beauty and her stallion had become something of a charm in the Hillands and the superstitious Hill folk did not disturb their charms.

“Shall we work the black stallion next?” called Owaine.

“I will be over.”

As Beauty was dismounting the gray gelding and petting and untacking him, Hally approached. He greeted his cousin warmly with his usual backslapping, but then he pulled him into a tight hug.

“What be the meaning of this?” laughed Owaine.

“Yur’ve brought much to Imwane since yur been back, Cousin, make no mistake!”

Hally waved a folded piece of paper in front of him as Beauty approached.

“What be that, then?”

“This be from a horse dealer in the Forest Villages. They wants to have first pickings of yur herd this autumn. News of yur quality steeds has traveled far!”

“They be more Beauty’s than mine, Cousin.”

Hally was grinning so much that he barely heard what Owaine said.

“Yur must travel first to the Forest Villages and let this man pick from yur herd, then sell the rest at town. This be an honor for us, Owaine, a true honor.”

He passed the message to Owaine, who opened it and read for himself.

“Look here, Beauty! This man says he’s already bought some of our horses from other sellers and they be the best he’s ever seen!”

Owaine showed her the dots and lines on the page and she nodded vaguely, for she had never learned to read and never told him that she could not.

“I wonders how many he’ll buy?” said Hally, looking over the various horses they kept grazing in pens.

“I thank yur for this news, Cousin.”

Hally nodded and he went back to overseeing the men working in the fields.

“We must prepare for a longer journey,” said Beauty once he was gone. “We will need to shut up the cottage, and perhaps we should start out sooner, while the weather is good?”

She looked to the drizzly, teal sky.

“Beauty, I’m not sure that yur should accompany me.”

“But I must. Why would I not?”

“I brought yur to the Hillands for safety. I feel the Forest Villages are too far and unsafe.”

Beauty frowned. “We would only travel to the outskirts of them,” she insisted. “If this dealer is so keen to have our horses then he can surely meet us halfway?”

“I’m worried. We hear no news in these hills, but Pervorocco’s a dangerous place.”

This was true and Beauty knew it. The Hillands were cut off from all news of the cities, but everyone was aware of the Magic Cleansing that was still raging; the Hill folk just did not believe that it concerned them.

“I am not so sure that
you
should be making the journey, though. You are not a young Hill man.”

“Yur charming,” Owaine laughed. “But yur must listen to me in this, Beauty. I want nothing but yur safety, you knows that.”

“I must stay if you wish it.”

“Come now,” said Owaine, patting her shoulder. “Don’t be that way.”

“I suppose I shall keep the cottage nice while you are gone.”

“Don’t be sad, child. There be nothing yur miss out on and yur knows I’m right.”

She did, but she jutted out her chin all the same.

“I will train more horses while you are away. It will not make a difference that you are not here.”

“I knows it. Yur the one that trains them all these days. Don’t worry, I knows it.”

“I will miss you,” she added quietly.

“I’ll miss yur too, child.”

Owaine patted her shoulder again and they went back to work, trying not to think of it anymore.

Over the next few days they began preparing for Owaine’s departure, gathering supplies and plotting a suitable route. Hally spread news among Imwane of the great honor Owaine and Beauty had brought and the villagers turned up at the cottage often to congratulate Owaine and nod shyly at Beauty. They wished him luck and said that they would pray for high sales in the temple.