And all of it hers.
She stopped at the stream at the foot of the hill, the place that traditionally marked the spot where the Ghost's power ended. She couldn't help but stop; she was exhausted and exhilarated, and her legs wouldn't hold her anymore. She sank down beside the stream and splashed cold water in her face, feeling as if she would laugh, cry, or both in the next instant.
The money in a makeshift pouch cut from the tail of her shift weighed heavily at her belt, and lightly in her heart.
Freedom. That was what the Ghost had given her-and from its final words, she knew that the spirit had been well aware of the gift it had granted.
Go and don't look back. . . .
It had given her freedom, but only if she chose to grasp it-if she did go, and didn't look back, leaving everything behind. Her mother, Jib, the tavern . . .
Could she do that? It had taken a certain kind of courage to dare the Ghost, but it would take another, colder kind of emotion to abandon everything and everyone she'd always known. No matter what they had done to her, could she leave them for the unknown?
Her elation faded, leaving the weariness. She picked herself up and started for home, at a slower pace, sure only of her uncertainty.
Go-or stay? Each step asked the same question. And none of the echoes brought back an answer. The road was empty this time of the morning, with no one sharing it but her and the occasional squirrel. A cool, damp breeze brought the scent of fresh earth, and growing things from the forest on either hand. It was a shame to reach the edge of the village, and see where the hand of man had fallen heavily.
The inn, with its worn wooden siding and faded sign, seemed shabby and much, much smaller than it had been when she left yesterday. Dust from the road coated everything, and there wasn't even a bench outside for a weary traveler to sit on, nor a pump for watering himself and his beast. These were courtesies, yes, but they cost nothing and their absence bespoke a certain niggardliness of hospitality. She found herself eyeing her home with disfavor, if not dislike, and approached it with reluctance.
Prompted by a caution she didn't understand, she left the road and came up to the inn from the side, where she wouldn't be seen from the open door. She walked softly, making no noise, when she heard the vague mumble of voices from inside the common room through the still-shuttered windows.
She paused just outside the open door and still hidden from view, as the voices drifted out through the cracks in the shutters.
". . . her bed wasn't slept in," Stara said, and Rune wondered why she had never noticed the nasal, petulant whine in her mother's voice before. "But the fiddle's gone. I think she ran away, Jeoff. She didn't have the guts to admit she couldn't take the dare, and she ran away." Stara sounded both aggrieved and triumphant, as if she felt Rune had done this purely to make her mother miserable, and as if she felt she had been vindicated in some way.
Maybe she's been telling tales to Jeoff herself, the way I figured.
"Oh aye, that I'm sure of," Kaylan drawled with righteous self-importance. "Young Jon said she been a-flirtin' wi' him day agone, and she took it badly when he gave her the pass."
So that was how he explained it, she thought, seething with sudden anger despite her weariness. But how did he explain his swollen tongue and bruised crotch? That I hit him when he wouldn't lay with me?
"Anyways, she's been causin' trouble down to village, insultin' the girls and mockin' the boys. Think she got too big fer her hat and couldn't take it t' have her bluff called." Kaylan yawned hugely. "I think ye're well rid of her, Mistress Stara. Could be it was nobbut spring, but could be the girl's gone bad."
"I don't know-" Jeoff said uncertainly. "We need the help, and there's no denying it. If we can find her and get her back, maybe we ought to. A good hiding-"
I'd turn the stick on you, first! she thought angrily.
"Well, as to that," Kaylan said readily. "Me da's got a cousin down Reedben way with too many kids and too little land-happen that he could send ye the twins to help out. Likely ye're goin' to want the extra help, what with summer comin' on. Boy and girl, and 'bout twelve. Old 'nough to work, young 'nough not to cause no trouble."
"If they were willing to come for what Rune got," Jeoff said with eagerness and reluctance mixed. "Room, board and two suits 'f clothes in the year . . . haven't got much to spare, not even t' take a new wife, unless things get better."
Rune looked down at the bag of silver coins at her belt, hearing a note in Jeoff's voice she'd never noticed before. A note of complaint, and a tight-fisted whine similar to the one in Stara's voice. And as if she had been gifted with the Sight of things to come, she knew what would happen if she went into that doorway.
No one would ever believe that she had dared Skull Hill and its deadly Ghost, not even with this double-handful of coins to prove it. They'd think she'd found it, or-more likely-that she had stolen it. Jeoff would doubtless take it away from her, and possibly lock her in her room if suspicion ran high enough against her, at least until she could prove that she'd stolen nothing.
Then when no one complained of robbery, they would let her go, but she'd bet they still wouldn't return her hard-earned reward to her. They'd figure she had found a cache of coins along the Old Road, dug it up in the ruins in the Skull Hill Pass, or had found a newly dead victim of the Ghost and had robbed the dead.
And with that as justification, and because she was "just a child," Stara and Jeoff would take it all "to keep it safe for her."
That would surely be the last she would see of it, for Stara would see to it that it was "properly disposed of." She would probably spend a long night closeted with Jeoff, and when it was over, the money would be in his coffers. She'd promise it all to him as her "dower," if he agreed to marry her; and since there wasn't a girl in the village who could boast a double handful of silver as her dower, he'd probably agree like a lightning strike. Stara would tell herself, no doubt, that since this ensured Rune a home and a father, it was in her "best interest." Never mind that Rune would be no better off than before-still an unpaid drudge and still without the means to become a Guild Bard.
Jeoff would hide the money away wherever it was he kept the profits of the inn. Rune would never get her lessons, her second instrument. She would always be, at best, the local tavern-musician. She would still lack the respect of the locals, although Jeoff as her stepfather would provide some protection from the kind of things Jon had tried. She'd live and die here, never seeing anything but this little village and whoever happened to be passing through.
If she was very lucky, Jib might marry her. In fact, Jeoff would probably encourage that idea. It would mean that he would not have to part with any of the Ghost's silver for Rune's dower-assuming she could induce any of the local boys to the wedding altar-and he would then have Jib as an unpaid drudge forever, as well as Rune and her mother. He would do well all the way around.
She would still have the reputation of the tavern wench's bastard. She would still have trouble from the local girls and their mothers, if not the local boys. And there might come a time when beer or temper overcame someone's good sense-and she still might find herself fighting off a would-be rapist. There would be plenty of opportunities over the next few years for just that kind of "accident." And the boy could always pledge she'd lied or led him on, and who would the Sire's magistrate believe? Not Rune.