Authors: Nathan Lowell
“Very pretty, mum. Very pretty, indeed.” The man’s voice came from the direction of the village and the leader stepped around the corner of the nearest hut. He clapped his gloved hands in mocking applause. “But do you really think your earthy mumbo jumbo will have any sway over us?”
He held his hands out in a practiced gesture and the three bully boys followed him out into the clearing at the end of the path.
Tanyth whirled at the sound of his voice and stood there praying that Amber had the sense to run. The world around her took on an unnatural clarity and somewhere inside her, the anger welled up. “There is nothing for you here.” She said it quietly but the words echoed in her and fairly crackled in the air around her.
“Ah, but there you’re wrong, Mother, for there surely is a garden to be plowed and seeds to be planted.” He leered with a suggestive roll of his hips and his men chuckled at his not so veiled threats.
“No.” The word snapped in the air, a blow to the heart, a stone in the path.
The leader laughed easily and motioned one of the thugs forward while he crossed his arms on his chest and lounged against the logs of the hut, as if it were the wall of his favorite tavern. “Don’t be foolish, mum. Surely, you don’t think one small woman can stop even one of my men?”
The anger and pain of losing her son. The anger and pain of having her husband beat and humiliate her for years before she escaped and dedicated her life to the road. The anger and pain inflicted by all the men who’d accosted her, badgered her, assaulted her on the road. All that anger and pain rose in her in that one moment.
She focused on the approaching bravo and spit at him. “No.”
He chuckled and, in what he might have thought was a subtle move, lunged for her, arms outstretched as if to sweep her up in a bear hug.
Tanyth stepped into the attack, pivoting her staff downward with the iron-bound heel grounded in the soil. The gnarled knot at the top speared the man in his chest with a meaty thump, his momentum doing the work and the force of his attack rebounding on him. He knocked himself backwards and landed flat on his back at her feet with a surprised grunt. His face turned red as he tried to pull air back into his bruised lungs.
“No.” She said it quietly, but still it echoed in the air even over the downed man’s wheezing grunts for breath.
The leader’s face mottled in his rage. “You bitch!” He motioned his remaining two companions forward. “Take her. I want her alive. For now.” His eyes fairly bulged in his head from his pent up anger and frustration. “Nobody makes a fool of me. Particularly not a feeble old lady with a stick!”
The two men drew swords and spread out to give each other room to swing. Their faces held murder and worse but Tanyth scowled at them. “No!” Once more, her voice carried to the forest and seemed to echo among the boles of the trees.
The two boyos glanced at each other and chuckled uneasily. They moved in smoothly and slowly, separating even more as they closed on the woman in their path.
“No.” She hissed the word with every fiber of her being.
“Come on, mum.” The one on her left spoke gently as if to a spooked horse. “You don’t wanna hurt us, and we sure don’t wanna hurt you. Why don’t you just put down the stick and we’ll all go talk to the boss nice and calm like, yeah?”
Tanyth glared. “No!” The word lashed out at the two men, even as they lunged forward together, clubbing at her with the flats of their swords. She dodged backwards and swung the foot of her staff in a short, vicious arc with a chopping upward motion.
The man on the left dodged what he believed was a blow to his face, but the iron caught him where his fingers wrapped his sword’s hilt. The blade flew from his hand as two of his fingers shattered and the reversing blow swung the knobbed end of the staff into his face, smashing his nose. He screamed in pain, and dropping to his knees beside the first man, cradled his injured hand to his chest while blood streamed down his face and onto his tunic. The sudden movements–and the sword spinning through the air–made the second attacker flinch backward, his attack halted by the unexpected response.
The leader growled at them. “For gods’ sakes, Mort, it’s one old woman! What are you–”
A sound like a humming bird snaked over Tanyth and a flash caught her eye even as the man’s voice chopped off in mid-sentence at the sound of a heavy wooden thunk.
Tanyth spared a glance at the leader and saw him staring at the shaft of an arrow sunk into the wood of the hut less than a hand’s breadth from his head. It still quivered from the force of its flight.
Behind her, Tanyth heard Thomas’s quiet voice. “No.”
The remaining attacker looked over Tanyth’s shoulder and lowered his sword, arms outstretched in a gesture of surrender as he slowly backed away.
Tanyth glanced over her shoulder to see Thomas standing in the path, bow drawn to his ear, wicked edges of a hunting broadhead gleaming in the afternoon sun. She turned back to face the attackers. “No.” She said it quietly this time but the word was final, inevitable as the rumble of thunder that follows lightning’s flash.
The leader’s face had drained of color as he realize how close to death he stood. He turned to glare at them. “Mort, Reg! Get up. Let’s get out of here.” He growled the words even as he backed around the corner of the hut, putting the heavy protection of the wood between the bowman and himself.
The two injured men scrambled backwards, eventually getting to their feet and backing away, the uninjured one nervously covering their retreat and obviously anxious to move out.
They disappeared around the corner of the hut. In a moment, the sounds of horses trotting away came from the direction of the Pike. Only when the echoes had died away into the distance, the quiet susurration of wind in the trees filling the air, did Tanyth relax her vigilant stance and ground her staff in the moist soil once more. She heard Thomas’s light step and turned to thank him with a smile.
“Are you alright, mum? They didn’t get to you did they?”
“I’m fine, Thomas. Thank you.” In spite of her protestations to the contrary, her voice quavered a little and she had to lean on the staff more heavily than she might have preferred, just to hold herself up.
“D’ya think they’ll be back, mum?”
She considered it for a moment. “I hope not, Thomas. I hope they’ll keep riding and look for some easier pickings.” She looked at him. “And they’ll have to heal a bit before they take on too much. Hard to swing a sword with broken fingers.”
Thomas grinned and reached down into the weeds at the edge of the track. He pulled up the man’s dropped sword. “Harder still when you don’t have it, mum.”
She smiled. “There’s that as well.”
They stood and listened for another moment. Deep in the forest the cawing of a raven echoed and Tanyth gave silent thanks to the All-Mother for her protection before heading for her hut. She felt the need for a cup of tea and perhaps a short sit down.
"Mum?" Thomas’s voice stopped her.
She stopped and turned back to him, leaning heavily on the staff to keep herself upright.
"That was pretty fancy staff work, mum." He crossed to the hut and retrieved his arrow. "You bash people a lot on the road?" A smile made the question part jest, but dark eyes underscored his seriousness.
Tanyth sighed and looked at her feet. "Too often." She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Too many men think a woman alone is helpless. Too many see it as their right to teach her the error of her ways. When I left my husband, I made a promise to myself that he’d be the last man to ever beat me." She felt weak and slightly sick.
Thomas didn’t flinch from her gaze. "And was he, mum?"
She snorted a laugh and shook her head. "No, but he was the last one who got away with it." She grinned fiercely at him, pulled the staff up, and twirled it once before planting the iron-shod foot back in the sod. "I’ve carried this staff, or one like it, for twenty winters. I’ve learned a thing or two about usin’ it along the way."
Thomas nodded slowly and Tanyth felt like he weighed her words in a way that betrayed his depth. He nodded respectfully and offered an honest smile. "In the King’s Own, they taught us that no farmer with a stick was unarmed. They grow up with a hoe in their hands."
Tanyth offered a smile of her own. "And every woman in Korlay grows up with a broom in hers." She cast an appraising look at her staff. "This one’s just lacking the bristles."
Thomas snorted a laugh of his own at that, but he wasn’t done. "Mum? Those boyos coulda killed you."
"They’re not the first, Thomas."
He looked startled. "Others have tried to kill you, mum?"
She shrugged. "Some men don’t take kindly to bein’ told no." She sighed and regarded him levelly. "I’ve been wanderin’ the byways for almost half my life, Thomas. I’m careful. I look where I’m goin’. I don’t take risks." She took a deep breath before going on. "That only gets ya so far. After that, it comes down to who’s got the strongest will and the fastest hands." She nodded to his bow. "Or the keenest eye."
Thomas’s eyes wrinkled a bit at the corners as he smiled. "I’m glad you were with us today, mum. Thank you."
She ducked her head in response. "I’m glad I could help, Thomas."
Thomas knuckled his brow in salute and slotted the arrow back into his quiver. "I best go see how they’re doing up the hill."
She gave a small wave and turned toward her hut. As she walked, the tension she’d carried in her torso began to ease and the knots in her belly began to uncoil. With that easing came a familiar sensation in her nethers and she grimaced with a bitter snicker as she picked up her pace. She clambered down the stairs into her cottage, latching the door behind her and pulling at the belt of her baggy trousers as she crossed to the cot where she’d earlier arranged her supplies. She slipped the strap of her gleaning bag off her shoulder and tossed it onto the bedroll so she could deal with the first rush of her monthly courses.
“Blood calls to blood, eh, Mother?” she muttered to herself.
Long practice saw the task dealt with readily and she was soon stirring up the coals left from her morning fire. It seemed an age since she slipped out to do some gathering in the early morning. There was still bread and cheese and she nibbled a bit of each as the water warmed over the coals. Outside she heard people beginning to move about as the families who’d sheltered at the quarry came back down to the village.
The strength leeched out of her legs and she took her small pot to the table to let it steep while she settled onto the rough chair. She folded her arms on the surface and lay her forehead across them, fighting the urge to sleep but losing as the aftermath of the fight washed out of her, leaving her drained and emptier than she could ever remember being.
The blackness washed over her for a moment and her eyes
opened on an odd scene. Below her four men in matching livery rode
hard down the packed surface of the Pike. She was looking down at
them from above and periodically one or the other would look behind
them as if to see what might be chasing them. Soon they were obliged
to rein in their lathered mounts and let them walk. They sat
stiffly in their saddles and if they spoke, she couldn’t hear
anything over the rushing of the wind in her ears. The one with
red lining his coat seemed to be arguing but the three men
shook their heads until he gave up. Wheeling his tired horse, he
spurred his mount south. The three remaining rode slowly after
him.
It was a most amusing view and she looked about her with
interest, now that the men were riding out of sight. She raised her
eyes to the horizon and saw the earth spinning below her and felt the
wind lift her suddenly skyward. She cawed in delight.
Tanyth’s eyes flew open, the cawing of a crow still echoing in her ears. Not a crow. A raven. She knew it as certainly as she sat at the table in her hut, but a sudden doubt battered at her mind. She threw herself out of the chair and clawed the door open to look outside at the normal looking afternoon beyond.
Amber approached and started to raise a hand in greeting, but something in Tanyth’s face stopped her smile half-formed and the hand made it no higher than her waist, before falling back to her side and the younger woman increased her stride to cross the intervening space more quickly. At the door she crouched down to peer in. “Mum? What is it? Are you alright?”
Tanyth blinked herself back from the edge of madness and with a shuddering breath offered a smile in return. “Yes. Yes, my dear. Of course. I had an odd dream. It set me off for a moment, that’s all.” Tanyth didn’t know what to say. She felt disoriented and groggy.
Amber nodded, offering a tentative smile before glancing nervously down at the road. “Now if William would just come home. I’d feel much better.”
Tanyth looked in that direction as well but her mind was on the view from above. “He’ll be along, my dear. They’d have no way of knowing that he was one of ours and he’s probably off the road gathering wood.”
The younger woman shrugged in half-hearted agreement. “It’s one thing to know. but another to let go of the worryin’.” She smiled at the older woman apologetically.
Tanyth nodded her head in sympathy
Amber sighed and straightened. "Well, I just wanted to thank you, mum. You let us know if there’s anything you need, alright?"
Tanyth smiled up at the young woman. "Of course, my dear. Right now, I think I want a cup of tea."
Amber grinned and gave a little wave before turning back toward her own hut.
Tanyth left the door open for the light and returned to the teapot on the table to fortify herself with a hot cup of tea before she looked into finding something for lunch.
Chapter 11
Foundations
The crunch of wheels on the road drew Tanyth from her hut just before sundown. She stepped out in time to see Amber fly down the path and launch herself into William’s arms. The ox stopped when William did and seemed placidly unaware of the sobbing woman. William did his best to try to figure out what was going on, and Tanyth could see him looking about for clues as he tried to calm his wife enough to speak around the sobs.