The street was busy though the sky was barely light. Wagons were unloading at the Storesmaster’s and water buckets were being filled. She tried not to think that the Deacons had already buried Nia Skane, in darkness, and were probably, even now, mortaring the stone that would seal her in forever. No one seemed to remember it, the town was far too busy with its morning chores.
By noon she had finished her work in the sculler, hoed the charp bed where weeds seemed to spring overnight, and packed Shanner’s noon meal to take to him in the forgeshop. She paused outside the doorway to the shop, for she could hear Shanner and the Kubalese apprentice arguing loudly. She heard the bellows huffing and saw the firelight flare up and saw the shadows of the two facing each other as the Kubalese mocked sarcastically, “What do I care what they say in the street! What do I care what the old women prattle—Kubalese in the Inn woman’s bed!” He laughed harshly.
“Well I care, you son of Urdd! I care for my mother’s name!” Shanner, usually in charge of a situation, was far from collected now.
The Kubalese’s voice was as cold as winter. “Like it or not, what have you to say about it? It’s none of your affair and none of your sister’s, either. If she doesn’t stop that nasty tongue, she’s going to get more than she bargained for.”
“She speaks less pointedly than the gossips on the street, Kubal!”
If it were a Cloffi man their mother was friendly with, people wouldn’t talk so. But a Kubalese. Though the men of the town found Kearb-Mattus pleasant enough to drink with, laughing around the longtables at the Inn. And the Kubalese was handsome, Zephy had to admit. He seemed more alive than Cloffi men, somehow, so that women often turned to stare after him. But there was a violence about him, too, something underneath the charm that made Zephy uneasy.
“The girl upsets your mother, boy. She thinks to mind grown-up business.” Then he laughed, seemed jovial suddenly—changeable as a junfish, he was. “Needs some ardent boy in her bed, that’d change her view of the world.” Zephy’s face went hot at his rude talk. “She’s not such a bad looking child, fix her up a bit. They’re right good before they’ve had other hands on ’em—shy and goosey as a wild doe on the mountain. And those dark eyes—too bold for a Cloffi man, I’d wager. Eyes like her mother,” the Kubalese said and roared with laughter.
Zephy dropped Shanner’s dinner basket by the door and fled.
The first time she had been teased about the Kubalese and Mama, she had gone into the sculler in tears, with terrible thoughts about Mama. And she had found Mama waiting, her brown eyes dark with fury, so Zephy knew she had heard the baiting.
Comely, her mother was, and slim, and she could look beautiful. But when she scowled, a storm seemed to crack around her. She had stood blocking the door between sculler and kitchen, her brown hair escaping from its bun and her hands floury from making bread. Zephy had stared back at her, dreadfully ashamed of the gossip—and ashamed of Mama.
“So you believe what they say in the street.”
Zephy couldn’t answer, could not look at her.
“Did you ever think they could be wrong! Did you ever think it could be lies!” There was a long pause, uncomfortable for Zephy. “It’s time you thought, Zephyr Eskar.” Then, seeing Zephy’s chagrin, Mama had taken her in her arms as if she were small again, pushing back her hair as she used to do.
The last time Zephy had heard remarks in the street, she had stormed in through the heavy front doors of the longroom only to face Kearb-Mattus, standing in the shadows, and she had not been able to keep her temper, and flown at him in a rage, screaming childishly, “No one wants you here. Leave my mother alone!”
The Kubalese had stared down at her, his dark eyes expressionless. Then he had caught her by the shoulder so hard that afterward it was bruised. He held her away, his words soft and menacing. “Whatever I do, pretty child, whatever I intend to do, it’s none of your affair. Understand me?” The threat in those soft words had chilled Zephy so she hung rigid, gaping at him, a black loathing and fear sweeping her. Wanting to hit him and afraid to and unable to pull away.
“Now come on, pretty little thing”—he had brought his face close to hers, his black beard like a bristling hedge—”Come on, pretty little child—Ha! Temper like a river cat!” He had roared with laughter, spit collecting on his lips.
When at last he let her go, she had whirled away from him and up the stairs to the loft, where she had burst into tears of helpless fury. Her tears were seldom of hurt, but rather of rage at something she was powerless to change.
Mama said once of Kearb-Mattus, “All the children in Burgdeeth follow him. How can you say he’s cruel when they all like him so. The children wouldn’t—”
“Sweets, Mama! You know his pockets are full of cicaba candy and raisins. He gives them sweets for their attention. Besides, it isn’t all the children! Nia Skane won’t have anything to do with him.”
“You’re not being fair, Nia is . . .” Mama had stared at Zephy, then finished lamely, “Well, most of the children like Kearb-Mattus.”
“Nia is what?”
“She . . .” Mama had faltered. Zephy had looked at her evenly. “She . . . oh, Zephy, Nia’s different, she’s a child that . . . she’s just different.”
“Different because she doesn’t run with the other girls her age and do all the stupid things they do? Different because she doesn’t giggle all the time? Different, Mama? Different like me and Meatha?”
And now . . . now Nia Skane was dead.
THREE
Thorn glanced at the yellow ball of sun halfway up the sky. The day was beginning to grow warm. He had been skinning out two wolves; they hung red and naked from the eaves as he began to stretch their thick-furred hides across the hut wall. Behind him the mountain glinted. His stomach rumbled with hunger. He could smell the noon meal cooking; soon enough there would be fried goatmeat and mawzee cakes—his mother fed him up good when he’d been on the pastures all night.
When he finished stretching the hides, he began to strip the meat from the carcasses—they were no longer animals now, writhing in the pain of dying so that he gritted his teeth and felt their agony. He had killed them as quickly as he could. Now, with the skins off, he had taught himself to think of them only as hanks of meat. He stripped off the meat in long pieces, sliced it thin, and laid it across the drying rack. It would be salted and cured and mixed with fireberries and otter-herb to make the squares of mountain-meat that would bide the winter nights when he or his father stood watch in the pastures, would bide them all, perhaps, if the winter should be harsh, or if there should be need of food taken hurriedly, without cook fires. He turned to shift the drying rack and saw his father standing silently at the corner of the house examining the hides.
“You got that big dog-wolf!” Oak Dar said, fingering the wide black stripe that decorated the larger hide.