It was strange hearing Lehr lecture someone else besides her or Jes. She could see that Storne felt that quiet voice cut through his skin, too.
Lehr stepped back and let Storne up. The miller’s son brushed off his clothes and, with a wary look at Jes, turned to leave.
“Aren’t you forgetting Lukeeth? If you leave him here he might never find his way out of the forest,” Lehr said.
Storne hefted the other boy across his shoulders without a word, and started up the hill.
“You take care of your friends, I remember that,” said Lehr softly. “But the question is, would they have taken care of you? Olbeck left you to us.”
Storne spun around, almost overbalancing. “At least they can keep their tongues from wagging too freely. Unlike some I know.”
“You idiots were going to get yourselves killed,” said Lehr explosively, as if it was something he’d kept bottled for too long. “Swimming at night is a fool’s game—and there are things in the river—”
“Things.” Storne spat on the ground. “So you went whining to your father who ran to tell mine. Let me tell you something, Traveler’s brat. You don’t know half what you think you do. You’d better just stay out of my way.”
Jes put his hand on Lehr’s shoulder, but no one said anything until Storne was at the top of the ridge.
“Is that why you aren’t friends anymore?” asked Rinnie. “You told Papa they were going to go swimming in the river at night?”
Lehr shrugged. “That was the excuse. But Storne’s friends didn’t like that he ran around with a Traveler’s brat. He would have dropped me sooner or later.”
“Storne traded you for Olbeck?” she said, knowing how much it hurt him. She knew exactly how much it hurt; there were girls in town who wouldn’t talk to her because Mother was a Traveler. “He is stupider than I thought.”
“They are dangerous in a pack,” said Jes. “If Rinnie had been alone…”
Lehr gave a jerky nod. “When Papa gets back, I’ll talk to him about this. He’ll know what to do to see that they don’t hurt anyone.” He reached up to pat Jes’s hand, which was still on his shoulder. “Let’s go home,” he said.
Jes released his hold and picked up the fishing rods that lay scattered about on the ground where Lehr had dropped them. “Fishing’s still good,” he said.
Rinnie looked at him, but the air of danger that had surrounded him was gone, and he looked and sounded as he always did except for a certain lingering crispness to his voice.
Lehr touched his reddened cheekbone tenderly. “I suppose they’ll not bother us anymore. Mother will be safe enough with Gura.” He took a close look at Rinnie. “You look pale.”
Rinnie smiled at him and tried to look less pale. “I’m fine. Ma’s counting on a fish for dinner. You always bring one back; she won’t have anything else ready.”
So they went down to the creek and fished.
Seraph heaved a sigh of relief. The harness collar that fit Skew had been neglected, but the leather was only very dry, not cracked. If it had cracked they’d have had to wait until Tier got back with Frost before starting the plowing.
She oiled the collar carefully until the leather was butter-supple under her fingers. Then she turned her attention to the harness. She untied the leather strings that kept it together and oiled each piece as she went, carefully organizing the straps on the freshly swept floor of the tack room so she could put the harness back together when she finished. Broken down, the harness looked like random scraps of leather.
The first time she and Tier had taken it apart and oiled it, she thought they’d never get it back together correctly. Even Tier had been all but stumped. A grin pulled at the corners of her mouth when she remembered the look on his face when she’d called him in for help. Maybe if he had been the one who’d taken it apart he’d have stood a better chance. They’d finally taken Skew out and put the harness back together on him one strap at a time.
From his loose box in the stable, Skew snorted at her. He was frustrated that one of his people was near enough to see, but not near enough to give him the attention that was his due.
“Do you remember the look on the steward’s face that first year when he came and saw the furrows we’d plowed?” Not the current steward, but his uncle, who had been a kind man. “No two lines anywhere near straight. None of us had ever plowed a field before.”
The steward had come by the next morning and worked side by side with Tier for the whole day. He’d made a point of stopping by now and again throughout the season to lend a hand and dispense a bit of advice.
Skew wickered a soft entreaty at her, so Seraph set down the cropper and wiped her hands off on her skirts before rubbing Skew’s face. The dark oil would clean off of her skirts better than it came off of Skew’s white patches.
“How the old steward hated seeing you in that plow harness,” she told the old gelding. “He offered to buy you from us, did you know? Offered two horses trained for farm work because he thought it disgraceful that a gentleman of your breeding should pull a plow. Tier said that a good soldier hates war, and you were a good soldier so farming would be all right with you.”
She rubbed the ridge just in front of Skew’s ear and smiled when he tilted his head sideways and closed his eye in pleasure. “You didn’t mind the plow anymore than you minded pulling my wagon, did you?” She smiled again. “Tier says the best warhorse is one who’ll do what he’s asked.”
Skew rubbed his head against her, knocking her back a step.
“So what do you think?” Seraph asked softly. “Am I seeing problems that don’t exist? How much of a threat is one misguided priest? If I tell my children what they are, it’ll change them forever.”
“I should have told them a long time ago,” she whispered. “Tier told me to. But they deserved a chance at… innocence.”
She closed her eyes and rested her face against the old horse’s neck, breathing in the sweat-straw scent of his skin. “I think it’s time, though, old friend.”
She stepped away. “They need to know what they are. I have no right to keep it from them, and the priest is a good excuse.” She nodded her head briskly. “Thank you. Your advice is always correct.”
She finished the harness, inspected the plow and found no significant damage from its winter in the barn, then returned to the cabin and started shaping her risen dough for loaves, putting some aside for fry bread as an after-dinner treat. She’d just taken the loaf of bread out to cool when Jes, Lehr, and Rinnie came in the door with three fat trout, cleaned and ready to cook.
Seraph took a good long look at the bruise on Lehr’s face, the rips in Rinnie’s clothing and the place where her hair had been hacked short. Only then did she take the fish Lehr held out to her.
“Jes and I’ll set up the smoker and we’ll smoke these two,” Lehr said hastily and retreated outside with his brother.
With hard-won forbearance, Seraph set the trout on a baking tile, salted it, and filled the body cavity with onions and herbs. After wrapping it tightly in leaves, she used the peel to set the tile on the coals of the fire below the oven. She put the tool where it belonged, dusted off her hands, and turned to her daughter.
“Now,” she said. “Just what happened today?”
Rinnie took a washing rag and began to clean the table. “We ran into a little trouble with Storne and his friends—Olbeck, the steward’s son, and Lukeeth. I got caught up in some thorns and I had to cut my hair to get untangled. But Jes showed up and the other boys took off.
“Mother,” Rinnie said, staring unnecessarily hard at the surface she was cleaning. “There was something odd about Jes. I mean, he didn’t do anything and Olbeck took off like a startled foolhen. Has Jes ever hurt anyone?”
Seraph took off her apron and rubbed her cheeks, hot from the work with the ovens. It was indeed time for a few truths, she thought, but not right now.