Page 11 of Fate's Bane
The strangers from beyond-the-Fens returned as soon as the weather warmed enough to make easier travel. There were more this time, and they came on foul-tempered horses that were ill-suited to the wetlands. A young boy offered to lead them gently through the solid paths, to best avoid the luck-hound’s sink-spots, and the lead rider kicked out from his stirrup, catching the boy in the ear. The child yelped and ran wailing to his father.
Tension stifled the roundhouse that night. I poured the mead with Hadhnri, but Gunni was no longer a child, and so he sat at table with Aradoc-Father and the strangers. The lead rider sat between them. His purple-and-cream robes were threaded with gold, as fine a thing as the belt I wore. Gold rings glittered on his fingers, and a gold chain dangling from his neck held one of those cold, bloody, beautiful stones. It drew my eye to distraction; I almost overflowed his mead for staring at it, and he cursed at me in his tongue.
Hadhnri put a secret hand against my back when I retreated. Though we had exchanged love-locks thatSunstead past, we had been—tried to be—circumspect. She whispered, “Are you all right?”
I was shaking. I nodded, though, and we continued our duty.
The robed leader came with warriors, bearded men with eyes that roved and lips that sneered as they took in all of Clan Aradoc. I misliked their disdain and wondered that Pedhri Clan Aradoc accepted it beneath his own roof. He wasn’t oblivious, but he laughed too loudly at the robed leader’s comments and beckoned too often for food to fill the man’s plate. I let Hadhnri fill his cup instead.
Gunni jested with the soldier sitting on his other side, a man with a thick, dark beard and eyes the blue of a robin’s egg. Gunni had been trying to learn the language of those-beyond-the-Fens, and I could tell the warrior’s jests were at Gunni’s expense; Gunni’s pale brown cheeks were flushed red. I was relieved for his sake when the warrior twisted his hand to call me over with the mead.
I poured, nodded my head to him once, and made to step away.
The warrior grabbed me by my belt, that beautiful belt made by some craftsman from beyond-the-Fens, and he jerked me back to him, saying something in his own tongue. His compatriots laughed, and that told me enough. I pulled back, and he yanked me again, laughing as I began to panic.
I didn’t think. I was a ward of Pedhri Clan Aradoc, and he had taught me to fight. I slammed the jug down on his hand, then threw the mead into his face.
He leapt to his feet, roaring and grabbing at me, but Gunni stepped between us, one hand against the man’s chest, the other reaching toward the sword at his hip.
“These are my sisters,” Gunni growled, abandoning his attempts to speak the other man’s tongue. “You’ll not touch them without their permission.”
Whether the warrior understood or not, I didn’t know. He lowered his hand to his own blade and looked to his purple-robed leader. The warrior pointed to his neck, and I realized he was referring to my collar. Suddenly, it felt too tight around my neck, and my breath grew rapid. The leader scowled at Pedhri Clan Aradoc.
“Is this how guests are treated in your halls, Aradoc? Is there no comfort to be had from your slaves for men long upon the road?” He spoke our tongue with an odd accent, replacing some sounds with others. I misliked that, too, and the implication that I had done anything wrong. My face burned with a mixture of humiliation and fury.
“She is not a slave, Herald. She is my ward. Should your men need comfort, they’re welcome to ask any member of the clan they wish.”
The herald—I did not know what it meant, this title—spoke to his man, and the man pointed at me, leering and smug.
I turned to Aradoc-Father, whose eyebrow rose in a question. Fear clutched my shoulders, hunching me like a rabbit beneath the fox’s eye. He wanted to impress these men. He wanted their connection to the Queen-Beyond-the-Fens. I was only his ward, the child of his enemy. My desires, my dignity, were not worth the ruin of this alliance.
Pedhri Clan Aradoc stood. His presence dominated the herald, who still sat, and the warrior, who wiped his face and glared between me and our respective leaders. “I said he may ask, not that he may take.”
The herald’s frown deepened, but he cut his hand at the warrior. He turned back to his food, picked up a slice of the roasted lamb, dripping warm, and put it in his mouth with fastidious fingers. Without looking at Aradoc-Father, he spoke around the food: “I will see that my queen hears how you have treated the servants of the god.”
Aradoc-Father bowed his head courteously. “Take to her my apologies. You and your men will be compensated for your journey in other ways. You have seen the leatherwork we do, yes?”
The herald mumbled toward his plate, and Aradoc-Father turned to me—and Hadhnri, who I only now noticed had come up behind me—and nodded toward the door of the roundhouse. It was best for us to leave.
Outside, I breathed afresh, now the rabbit released from the snare. I crouched against the roundhouse wall,fear-shivering. Hadhnri wrapped herself around me, cooing so soft and so tender that she coaxed out the tears I’d been holding back. When the crying stopped, she wiped my face with her sleeve.
“I can’t believe Father wants us to make them gifts.”
“They can rut with the pigs if they wantcomfortso badly,” I muttered into my knees.
Hadhnri tilted my chin back up. “I would make something special for the man who touched you.” Her eyes gleamed in the starlight with unshed frustration. “Come with me?”
I understood. I took her hand, and she helped me up. We went to the workshop.
The next morning, we gave the herald and his party several gifts, including a handsome leather gorget traced with a wolf-knot, with the wolf at the center opening its jaws toward the wearer’s throat. I personally handed that to the man who had grabbed my belt, and he leered at me when I did. I was not wearing the belt today. I would never wear it again.
They took the gifts ungraciously and passed the next few days without incident, though the warriors did eye the slaves with cruelty. It made me even angrier to know that some of them were Clan Fein, but I could do nothing more than what I had.
What I did bore fruit the day before the herald andhis men were due to return to their Queen-Beyond-the-Fens.
I was in the roundhouse with others of the clan, tracing a design that I thought would go well on a pair of boots. Aradoc-Father was speaking with the herald on the dais. The herald—his title, I now knew, meant he was some speaker for the god-beyond-the-Fens—wore bright red over his cream robes today. He looked like a crested bloodbird, and his pinched face and close-set eyes only heightened the comparison. Normally, I would have preferred to be in the workshop, but as much as the herald’s presence made my skin crawl, I felt safer knowing Aradoc-Father was nearby.
A great commotion rose outside; everyone in the roundhouse startled, glancing curiously at the door. It sounded like a row. Normally, I would have shrugged it off; brawls were common in the training yard, and usually only in fun. Those that weren’t were brought to Pedhri Clan Aradoc for a weighing. With the foreign warriors here and their untrained manners, I worried. Hadhnri was out there with them, and Gunni too. The shouting grew louder, frantic.
