“Yes,” grunted the Prickster woman, “so we’ve heard. And just what was your mother, pray?”
“My mam?” I asked. “She…”
Had sung a thousand songs while washing dishes. Had woken me at night to watch stars falling. Had made us hot chocolate for sipping while the thunder gods drummed. Couldn’t sew a seam for damn, but could untangle any knot given her. Walked long hours on the shore, or under the leafy Valwode, which is now forbidden. Had sickened during the First Invasion and slowly faded through the Second. Said her last words in a whisper. Left her man a wreck and me in charge. Missed her every morning first thing as I woke.
“Was your mother Gentry?” the Prickster woman pressed.
“My mam?” I asked again, stupidly.
“Did she pass along her Gentry ways to the daughter of her blood?”
“She’s wasn’t a—”
“Where did you get the money for those cattle?”
“I told you, from—”
“Yes, your mother. And what a wealth she must have left you. Does her immortal Gentry magic flow through your veins?”
“What?”
“Your uncanny talent’s hidden in your surname. Faircloth.”
“That’s Da’s name, for his da was a tailor. Himself,” I indicated the treacherous snore-quaker on the cot, “was defty with a needle before the shakes got to his hands. Mam was an Oakhewn before she married him.”
The Prickster woman smiled, and my little kitchen grew chill and dim. I’d’ve laid another log on the hearth if I dared.
“Ah, yes. Now we come to it, Miss Faircloth. Your honored father. This evening in Firshaw’s Pub, he boasted to one and all that as he loves his soul, his only daughter, comely as a summer cloud, clever as a cone spider, has fingers so lively she can spin straw into gold. What say you to that, unnatural girl?”
“I can’t spin to save my life,” I blustered. “Not nettle-flax nor cotton thread nor silk!”
“You’re lying,” said the Prickster woman, and drew a needle from her bandolier.
I knew what it was for. Three drops of blood, no more no less, to be kept in a small glass vial. Later tested by the Archabbot’s wizards. If they found my blood tasted of honey, if it sparkled in the dark, if it cured the sick or lame, if it caused a maid to fly when the moon was full, or bewitched a man into loving only me, I’d be doomed and dead and damned.
Of course, I knew my blood would do none of these things, but I fought the needle anyway. My blood was mine, and it belonged to me, and I belonged here, and if they took me away to Winterbane, who would care for my cows?
“Bind and blind you!” I shouted. “I’m no Gentry-babe, no changeling! I was born in Feisty Wold! Right here in this kitchen—right there on that hearth! Ask the neighbors! Ask the midwife, who is the old midwife’s daughter. Me, I don’t know a spindle from a spearhead! Let me go! Hex your hearts, you blackguards!”
I think I bit one of them. I hope it was the woman. I tried to wake Da with screaming, but he snored on, bubbles popping at the crease of his lips. In the end, I called to my cows, “Annat! Manu! To the woods! To the wild! Let no mortal milk you, nor yoke you, nor lead you to the ax! To the woods! Be you Gentry beasts, to graze forever in the Valwode—so long as you be safe!”
In retrospect, I realize that this was the wrong thing to have shouted. I shouldn’t have shouted at all, in fact. I ought to have been docile and indulgent. I ought to’ve exposed Da as the only sot in town who could light a fire with his farts alone. I ought to’ve paid them off, or batted my eyelashes or begged, or something.
But I didn’t.
So it was that the Pricksters of Avillius III, Archabbot of all monasteries in Leressa, our Kingdom Without a King, collared me, caged me, and carted me off in chains to the Holy See at Winterbane.
Don’t think I’m the only victim in Feisty Wold. The Archabbot’s Pricksters are everywhere, in number and urgency ever increasing since the Gentry Invasions began twenty years ago. You can meet them any time, smaller teams combing our island villages, or strolling in force around the greater towns and cities across the water on Leressa proper.
They’ll haul an old gray gramamma all the way to the Holy See just for sitting in a rocker and singing while she knits. It might be a spell, after alclass="underline" a Gentry grass-trap that will open a hole in the ground for the unwary to fall through, or mayhap a Wispy luring like the one that bogged King Lorez on the swamp roads and drowned him dead. (Not that many grumbled over that. “Old Ironshod,” we called him, on account he liked to stomp on people’s throats.) You can guess how long Gramamma survives in His Grace the Archabbot’s forgetting hole, down in the darkness without food or warmth.
Not long ago, the Pricksters bagged a young schoolteacher at Seafall just because he kept both a cat and a dog as pets (this being unnatural). He tested mortal on all counts. Cold iron didn’t scorch him. His blood dried brown. Starved just like a real man when fed on naught but nectar. Did that prove anything? No. The Pricksters just got all muttery about changelings having better mortal glamours than their pureblood forebears; therefore harsher methods must be applied!
Out came the dunking stool, and there drowned a nice man. His poor dog and cat were driven off the cliff at Seafall and into the tides below.
I know we’re supposed to hate the Gentry for killing our king, for putting his daughter into a poisoned sleep for (they say) one hundred years, and enchanting his son to look like a bear. For the many thefts and murders that made up the First Gentry Invasion, we should despise them, ring our iron bells at dawn and at dusk to drive them out of range, never leave the house in summer but we primp ourselves in daisy chains, or wreaths of mistletoe in winter. For the horrors of the Second Invasion we should take right vengeance—for the wives and daughters and sisters who bore Gentry-babes as a result of passing through a fall of light, a strong wind, a field of wildflowers. For the appropriation of our wombs and the corruption of our children.
But some of us ask questions.
Why did the Gentry invade at all, when our people have always coexisted in a sort of scrap-now, make-up-later, meet-you-again-at-market-maybe, rival siblings’ harmony, occasionally intermarrying, mostly ignoring each other? All easy enough to do, what with that Veil between our worlds, the Gentry keeping mostly to the wild Valwode, us mortals to our mills and tilled earth and stone cities. Why did they invade, why so viciously, and why in our retaliation did we turn against ourselves?
Some of us ask these questions. I’m not saying I’m one of them. I’m no troublemaker, but I always listened, especially to Mam as she washed dishes, and later when she did nothing but stare out the window and whisper to herself.
The closer my cage on wheels came to Winterbane, the more these questions weighed on me.
Let them be as locks upon my lips. Let me say nothing that will bring me further harm. Let Da at home awake with the world’s worst headache but with memory enough to milk Annat and let Manu to pasture. Gods or ghosts or Gentry. Anyone who will listen. Hear my plea.
Avillius III had rosy cheeks and lively light blue eyes. His white hair had all but receded, but the baldness suited him, made him seem sleek and streamlined, like a finch about to take flight. He was slight, his skin only faintly lined. His robes were modest blue wool with no gold crusting, and he played with his miter as though it were a toy. A young lady in the undyed cotton shift of the Novitiate sat on a stool near his knee. Her hair drew my eye, a russet thorn bush just barely beaten into submission, curling like a tail over her shoulder.