The Crow God's Girl (4 page)

Oh come on.
He looked at his father. He was deadly serious. Colar threw up his hands. “Right. Fine.” He walked away, shaking his head in disgust. To hell with all of them. He’d go see Kate.

“She’s where?”

His mother gave him a level look. She sat with Torvan, the head householder, over the accounting, both of them working over the sums from the summer’s bounty of wool, cheese, and brandy.

“I sent her to the village with herbs for Callia. She rode the bay mare.”

Kate, off in Aeritan, by herself... his heart sank. How could his mother–how could she allow–

“What were you thinking?”

Old Torvan looked between mother and son, and pushed his chair back, taking his leave. Lady Beatra leaned forward, her eyes narrowed.

“Now you listen here, Colar. I spent all morning trying to soothe your darling’s heartache from whatever cow-brained thing you did. She needed fresh air, a chance to be useful, and some time by herself. Perhaps you could be less churlish about it and thank me for doing you a favor.”

“Mother, she doesn’t know anything about Aeritan!”

“She survived in a war camp last year, using her wits to rise to a respected place. Easy enough for her to have become dishonored and sunk to the depths, don’t you think? Perhaps you should give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“That’s different,” he said lamely.

“Yes,” she said, picking up her quill. “Terrick is much safer. Call back Torvan when you leave, will you? We still have a lot to do.”

Colar waited but as she seemed content to ignore him, he huffed out. He grunted at Torvan and the old man scowled at him and ducked back inside.

Of course she would be on horseback. He headed to the stables to get his own horse. His mother’s scolding came back to him and he sobered a moment. I wasn’t being cow-brained, he thought, but he felt a bit guilty. He had been hard on Kate last night, but he had wanted to impress on her that they had much less freedom here than they did in North Salem. If his parents could have seen what went on in the halls of the high school...

The sooner she got used to it, the better. And once they married, they could do what they liked, of course. Maybe this could convince her that they could marry sooner rather than later, as she wanted to.

In punishing him, his father had given him a sudden gift. He would find Kate in the village, and they could be together without the prying eyes of the householders on them. He even knew where they could be alone. It would be taking a risk, but not like last night’s, when at any moment they could be discovered by a householder.

Not long after, Colar was mounted and cantering down the road toward the village.

Callia was a wizened woman
, thick in the middle with faded brown eyes and gray hair that frizzed out around her kerchief. Her hands were rough and worn, her cheeks rosy, and her nose broad and red, blood vessels standing out around the nostrils. It was a drinker’s nose, and Kate smelled the spirits on Callia’s breath when she met the woman at her front door.

Kate stood on the uneven stone front step of the little house and handed over the herbs. “From Lady Beatra,” she said. “She told me you would need them for Andarin’s labor.”

“Ah, the good lady,” Callia said. Her voice was surprisingly sweet and musical. “You are the stranger girl who’s promised to the oldest son.”

If I don’t kill him first.
Kate smiled, and said, “That’s me. My name is Kate Mossland.”

Callia eyed her for a moment, her gaze assessing, probing. “Come child, sit. Take welcome in the small house of Callia.”

Kate knew she couldn’t say no. Callia had offered her guesting, even for an hour. It was the most sacred thing in Aeritan. The way the woman looked her over, though, was disconcerting. After a very short pause, she said, “I would be honored.” She glanced back at Allegra, but the mare was busy grazing.

Callia kept that intent gaze on her and then led Kate into her small house. Kate expected it to be dark inside, but the house was only a bit dim. Windows, their shutters open to let in light and air, were larger in the back of the house, and they looked over a garden.

“Oh!” Kate said. The garden was a higgedly-piggedly mishmash of plants and trees. Flowers and vegetables rioted together, and bees buzzed overall with drowsy resonance. The sunlight glowed on the green and the lavender and pink of the flowers, and a tree with white bark and yellow leaves, almost aspen-like but more delicate, quivered silently against a tumbledown stone wall.

Without realizing it she walked to the window and looked out. Callia came up behind her, and her smile was pure pleasure now, the smile of one who loved to see her work admired.

“It’s lovely,” Kate said.

““It’s the afterbirths. I take them. It’s my fee, you might say. They have bits of the spirits in them, and I bury them in the garden and how they do make my garden grow.”

The afterbirths... Kate’s sense of pleasure faded as she belatedly understood.
I will never understand this place, never in a lifetime
. Unperturbed, Callia gestured her to sit, and she sat at the thick wooden bench at the uneven table. She cast one more glance out the garden, and then looked around.

The kitchen was simple and comfortable. Kate thought of her mother’s high-tech kitchen with its gleaming appliances and hanging racks, the expensive butcher block table with the granite countertop. Callia had a fireplace with an iron hob, two hollowed out places for baking bread, a heavy crock with a crooked lid. A squat teakettle hissed on the fire. A small cupboard held her dishes.

Callia pulled out two big mugs and tossed i
n vesh leaves, and poured water
, the fragrance of the herbs suddenly sharpening Kate’s hunger. Her mouth watered. In her experience, vesh never tasted as good as it smelled, but she was eager for it at that moment. Callia pushed over the mug and she sipped, wincing as she burned her lips. She blew across the liquid, forcing herself to wait before she tried again. Callia gave an indulgent smile and rummaged for a small brown jug, unstoppered it and poured a dollop into her vesh. Kate could smell the spirits. The midwife drank and smacked her lips.

“Just the thing,” she said. “So the Terrick heir has found a wife. Kett Mosslin.”

“Just Kate,” Kate said.

Callia cast a professional eye over her and frowned. “Slight you are, but strong and in good health. I think the grass god’s daughter and I will have no trouble pulling babies from your womb.”

Kate gave a slight intake of breath. That’s right. No pill, no birth control–sex here meant babies right away.

And the only person who would attend her birth was a drunken midwife. Joy.

“Do you deliver all the babies in Terrick?” she asked hopefully. Maybe there was someone else.

Callia cackled and closed one eye. “There hasn’t been a baby in Terrick that I haven’t delivered in more than five and twenty years. My dam was the midwife before me. If I had a daughter she’d be the midwife after me, but I had none.”

“Oh.” Oh well. Better start teaching people about handwashing. She sipped. Her vesh had cooled down some.

“I delivered all the children of Lady Beatra that is, even the three wee ones who never drew breath, aye and the one that almost took the lady with him. I delivered even Alfanye, the eldest girl, though she too died when she was but five summers, and nursed her through the fever that took her in the end. I will deliver your children too, Kett Moslin of Terrick, I give you my word.”

Three wee ones. Lady Beatra had lost three babies in childbirth and almost died herself. Colar had not told her that. Didn’t they matter? Or was it the custom not to speak of babies that didn’t live? Dammit Colar, she thought crossly. I need to talk to you. With some bitterness she thought of how she had been there for him when he needed to understand something. Now he expected her to just pick things up by – by osmosis.

Callia looked at her with slyness.

“I’ve heard things about you, Kett Mosslin.”

“You can just call me Kett.”

“The householders, they come to the village on market days and on lord days, and they talk.”

“What do they say?”

Callia giggled, and leaned forward. “Oh, you know how householders are. Gossips. Some say you are fast, because you wear trousers and ride astride. Some whisper villainy about you, that you are not fit for the lord’s son. Others, now, these are the ones I believe, say you are a good girl, and you only want guidance.”

Kate tried to push away her panic. She thought about her underwear, dangling on the end of Samar’s long bony finger. Was Samar Team Kate? When she spoke she tried to keep her voice calm.

“These householders, I don’t really know them very well yet. But who–who might be against me? Maybe I can change their mind.”

She knew she had gotten off on the wrong foot with the household staff by trying to be egalitarian and friendly. Big mistake. In her attempt to present herself as unlordlike, she had overstepped an invisible barrier. Thanks again, Colar, for the help, she thought, but she knew it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know. He grew up with these people who looked on him as the heir to a throne. Sure, the householders were indulgent and easy with the children, scolding Yare and Eri, teasing Aevin, and then also doting upon them. And they considered Colar’s return to Terrick a great blessing and a joy.

Callia snorted. “Torvan? I think not. He was born with his mind shut, I think. Those who work for him, they are full of tales. Samar now, she and I have never liked one another, not since we were girls and dangling after the same lads, worthless though they were then and thrice worthless now. Samar.” She nodded and drank another gulp, savoring her spiked vesh. “I don’t know about Samar.”

That makes two of us.
“Well,” Kate said. “I don’t want to make enemies. I just want to get along.”

Callia snorted again and Kate blushed and took another sip of vesh.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, child. You already have made enemies. Not all of them, not yet, but they are not forgiving to a strangeling, especially one they say wants to steal the heir.”

Callia was serious.

Kate felt a surge of anger borne on a wave of panic. She kept her voice level. “Guess it doesn’t matter that I brought their heir home.”

“No, Kett Mosslin. It does not. I will tell you this, child, that if you wish to be Lady Kett someday, you best make sure of your young lord before your enemies divide you.” She shook her head at Kate’s expression. “Believe me, they are well able to do so.”

Her stomach lurched. She was walking a tightrope and the slightest misstep would bring disaster.

The sound of hoofbeats made them both look up and a second later they heard boots on the walkway and a tap
on
the door. Callia drank the rest of her vesh and stood up. Kate followed.

“Your betrothed has come for you,” the midwife said. “But you will come to visit me again, child.”

It was not quite a request, not quite an order. Kate nodded uncertainly. Maybe she could be too busy to come back to see Callia. Callia gave her a strange smile, as if she understood what Kate was thinking. “You have enemies, child. Do you not see you need friends?”

Colar ducked inside the little house and gave Callia a friendly bow.

“Holder Callia, my greetings.”

The midwife gave him a delighted smile and reached out and grasped his hands, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Young Terrick! Welcome to my house, I give you guesting forever and always. And here she is, your wayward beloved.”

Kate gave him a little wave. “Hey.”

He gave her a smile, the same half one that she first remembered seeing in the war camp, only a year and a lifetime ago.

“Mother said you were here. Are you ready to go home?”

You have no idea
. “Sure. Callia was nice to sit and chat with me.” She turned. “Thank you. For the advice and the vesh.”

“You promise me, you will return,” Callia ordered.

“I will. I’ll come to see you.” And now she had no choice, Kate could see the upside. Sorry Lady Beatra, I promised the midwife. She could find out more about what she needed to know, about who were her enemies and who were her allies.

In Callia’s front garden, she gathered Allegra’s reins, checked the girth and looked back at the house. Callia had already gone in, the house shut up tight. Only smoke from the chimney revealed a sign of life. Kate stuck her foot in the stirrup and mounted, and Allegra tossed her head, eager to be off. Colar held the gate for her, and they walked down the dirt street side by side, Colar greeting smallholders who gave him a bob and a grin, and who gave Kate an unnerving stare.

“You’d think they had never seen anyone wearing jeans before,” she muttered lightly. He just shook his head.

“You shouldn’t have worn them. You want to fit in, not stand out.”

“You mean you want me to fit in.”

“Don’t be stupid. I wouldn’t have tried to wear my old clothes in North Salem.”

“Don’t call me stupid.”
And don’t be right.

“Fine.”