Page 38 of Agor

A courting present?

That couldn’t be true.

“You are mistaken,” I hissed under my breath, stuffing the bow into my pocket.

After common sense finally prevailed and Artyom, along with three other men, hauled the boar off to be butchered, I returned to my wagon and closed the door behind me.

Only then did I venture to take another look at the bow I’d picked from the boar’s tusk.

The emerald green ribbon was trimmed with fresh-water pearls and stitched with gold thread. If it indeed was a present, it was the most expensive and definitely the prettiest present I’d ever received.

People didn’t gift me pretty things. Whatever presents I’d ever received had been practical, useful things like food, weapons, or tools. This ribbon had no purpose other than to sparkle in my hair.

I laid it against my braid on my shoulder, admiring the glimmer of pearls and gold against the shimmering green silk. It smelled like mint, and I pressed it to my nose, inhaling the scent that brought back memories of the spacious house with the teapot under a colorful cozy, a plate of delicious meat pies, and the orcs’ High Chief wrapped in chains like the most wonderful present himself.

TWO DAYS LATER, TWOhuge bags sat on my porch. I almost fell over them when leaving my wagon for my morning exercise.

“Shit.” I grabbed the door frame for balance.

Were they another present?

Or could this possibly be a trap?

Carefully, I crouched next to the bags, then pulled at the tie to open one. A puff of white powder rose from the opening, stirring some almost forgotten memories.

“Flour,” I exhaled in awe.

For the first time in years, there’d be the scent of baked bread in the settlement again. And I believed I knew exactly whom to thank for it.

But why would Agor take it upon himself to feed the settlement like that?

I didn’t recall complaining to him about our struggles. I certainly never asked him for help. Though, I did mention once that I had no food to spare.

Whatever I said or didn’t say, however, it wouldn’t take much to figure out that without our fields and gardens, with no cattle, and with all the hunting grounds controlled by orcs, the humans didn’t exactly roll around in an overabundance of meat and flour.

Agor didn’t need to be particularly perceptive to realize that we were starving.

The question was, why did he care?

PRESENTS CONTINUEDto arrive about every other day. Over the following week, we received more venison, jars of wild honey, and even two live goats for milk. I figured with a few hours of travel between the orcs’ keep and our settlement, Agor would need at least a day to rest and to source another present between his deliveries.

Some people still treated the gifts with suspicion. Kazimir claimed that the food must be poisoned and the goats were cursed. When Faeena, Martha, and other women baked cranberry scones with honey, the mouth-watering scent drifted from wagon to wagon, having all of us drooling nearby while we waited for the scones to get ready.

Kazimir was one of the very few who refused to eat any. Sulking from the shadows, he threatened with doom and painful death to all of us who ate the delicious scones that day.

One morning, when another present was supposed to arrive, I woke up early on purpose. The presents seemed to be intended for me, even if I ended up giving most of them away, and I wondered if Faeena was right and these were indeed courting presents.

Why else would Agor care about feeding people who had brutally attacked and almost killed him? And other than Agor, there was no one else in the wetlands who’d give us food, either poisoned or not. No one cared whether we lived or died.

I glanced at the precious silk ribbon hanging over the mirror in my washing area in the corner. I loved looking at it but hadn’t dared wear it yet, afraid there’d be questions I couldn’t answer.

What if the orcs’ High Chief was really courting me?

Where would it all lead?

This was an entirely new area for me. I’d had my share of men, but other than Gleb, none of them had officially courted me. And even Gleb never left bloodied boars at my door.

What was Agor’s plan?

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