Bitter Moon Saga Page 11

  The constable shook his head and led Bethen down the halls to the empty barracks. “They’re at death’s door, Bethen,” he said lowly, casting a surreptitious look at Roes as though to see if she was listening. She raised a sardonic eleven-year-old eyebrow at him to indicate she knew what he was saying and what it all meant, so he might as well get on with it. He sighed and turned back to Bethen. “All three of them are feverish and sick. We can’t move them to separate rooms or even separate beds—every time we try, they get all restless. They keep crying out for someone named ‘Torrant.’ Except Ellyot—he keeps asking for Yarri.”

  “‘Torrant’?” Bethen asked sharply, looking around the room for Lane. They had married nearly twenty years before and spread their children out by chance and not by choice. Lane would know what Bethen was thinking almost before it crossed her mind.

  “Do you know who that would be?” Donis asked, surprised.

  “We might,” Bethen said serenely. She lumbered over to the pallet of blankets that held the three sleepers, stopping first at Yarri, who lay between the two young men, coughing and weeping at the same time. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bottle of syrup her mother had taught her to make and deftly dumped it down the girl’s throat.

  “Torrant?” the girl murmured weakly.

  “Shh…,” murmured Bethen, stroking the girl’s hair back from her head. Gently, with a grim look at Donis, who was staying as far back as possible and holding a kerchief over his mouth, she rolled Yarri to her side so she was facing the boy who looked like Ellyot. Nestled in the crook of his shoulder was a calico cat, purring anxiously and kneading the place behind his ears with claws sheathed. Bethen raised her eyebrows at the cat and patted Yarri’s back to loosen the phlegm and to give the move a reason. “There, girl,” she whispered. “He’s right here.” And Yarri quieted in her arms.

  Lane walked in, his hands full of lockets and wedding necklaces, and met his wife’s eyes, his own swollen with grief. He looked down at Yarri and then cast a sideways, warning look at the constable. Bethen rolled her eyes in that direction and then nodded.

  “Donis,” she said brusquely, “you’ve been a help on this blustery night, but Lane and I will be here for a bit. I’d appreciate it if you looked in on Stanny and Cwyn, if that’s fine. No recruiting, now, Donis, just tell Stanny I’ll be a while.”

  The constable made as though to protest, and Bethen could see why. After all, these three strangers, no matter how young and inoffensive they looked, were the most excitement Eiran had experienced since the graduating class of Triannon had stayed at the Chestnut Inn before setting off to sea from the port. They’d gotten drunk the first day, stayed that way, and damned near burned down the Chestnut before the constable and his militia had thrown every last horse’s arse of them on board their schooner, and let the captain deal with them. But, excitement or no, Bethen was proud of a certain steel about her wide, freckled face, and she was pretty sure the constable thought it was too windy and too cold a night to get thrown out into it without ceremony.

  “Let me know when they’re better,” he said after a moment. “I’d like to talk to them.”

  “When they’re better,” she stated flatly, and then smiled with all the charm that had won her husband’s heart—against his will, as the town legend went—and turned her back on the constable in dismissal. The man cleared his throat and left.

  As soon as he was gone, Bethen gave the bottle of syrup to Roes and told her to dose the two young men, then stood and moved to a corner of the room where she and Lane could talk out of range of Roes’s sharp ears.

  “I KNOW,” Lane murmured. “If you look close, you can see the dye in his hair—it looks like it was put in tonight.”

  “But the girl….” Bethen hesitated.

  “Is Yarri.” His voice cracked. “He gathered the wedding necklaces as they fled—all of it for her.” He didn’t tell her that Moon’s was flecked with blood. “If he took a locket for himself, it’s in his own pocket.”

  “Why would he….”

  “Look at them, Bethie—they’ve been through hell—even the cat, bless them all. I don’t know if he’d remember me; the few times I was there he spent most of his time improving his horsemanship to impress Owen, and we all know that’s not where I spend my days. I don’t think he knows who to trust.” Lane tapped a long-ago memory, when he’d last seen Torrant and Ellyot—they’d been about nine, and Yarri had just been learning to walk. Torrant hadn’t left the infant’s side. Let’s go see Courtland, Torrant. He’s running now—my father says he’s the best horse he’s ever seen. And he looked up from watching Yarri’s every move with those sober, hazel eyes. No… Ellyot, Arel’s too busy to watch her—we have to take care of her. Ellyot had huffed off to the corral, and Torrant had been so busy waving toys to coax Yarri to walk toward them that he had hardly noticed.

  “He would have done this for Yarri,” Lane said at last, the memory ebbing. “He helped his mother birth her, and I don’t think they’ve been far from each other since. He wouldn’t have wanted to be parted from her.”

  Bethen nodded. “Well, then, we’ll let him keep his secret ’til he’s ready to tell us,” she said brusquely. At a sudden thought, she gave a half smile. “Does he know his father delivered Stanny?” she asked, bemused.

  Lane looked surprised, because he had almost forgotten. Myrla Shadow had been as big with Torrant as Bethie was now with their fourth, but she’d come to her husband’s aid just as surely as Bethie had come to his. “I don’t know,” he said, remembering their first visit to his brother’s hold, and Bethie’s stubborn insistence that they keep their promise to come even though they hadn’t known how far along she was when they’d planned the trip. Torrant’s father, Torrian, had been a goddess-send then. When Stanny had come out blue and still, and any other midwife would have turned away in grief, he had earned Lane and Bethie’s eternal gratitude by rubbing life into the still limbs and blowing a starting breath into the little chest. Owen Moon had been as proud of Stanny as he had been of Tal and Qir and the tiny Ellyot.

  “Torrian and Myrla helped with all the children,” Lane said, his voice rasping. “And after Torrian died, Myrla kept on—she delivered Yarri….”

  His voice threatened to break, and Bethen put her hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry, beloved,” she murmured. “I’m sorry about your family. I’m so sorry.”

  Lane kept his jaw stoic, but his wife ignored the red eyes—for his sake, he was sure. “Owen made provisions for the boy, and if he hadn’t, I would have. When he’s better, we’ll talk to him.”

  “Let’s get them better, first, shall we?”

  “Please,” he said beseechingly, and looked again at the little girl with the piquant features and fragile hold on life. She was his brother’s last memory.

  She hugged her husband then, turning her body sideways so her belly didn’t get in the way, and he laughed a little, as he always did when she was this big with child, but hugged her back. They stood that way, unembarrassed in front of their daughter, until Bethen had to shift to ease her back, and a rack of coughing from the pallet called her attention.

  “Did you give them that syrup, Roes?” she asked briskly and went to do what she did best.

  TORRANT HEARD Yarri laughing first. It wasn’t her usual laughter. It was subdued, and it sounded like she had been sick, but it still warmed his heart to hear it. He couldn’t remember why, but it seemed like too long since he’d heard Yarri laugh.

  He shifted a little in his bedding and groaned. Ellyot, what’d we do yesterday? I’m all sore, he thought, and as though summoning his brother’s name in his head was a talisman, he suddenly remembered.

  He was Ellyot. He had to tell Yarri that, until they knew she was safe, he was Ellyot.

  “I never played with dolls at home!” Yarri was saying with enthusiasm. “But I like this one. You made it? All by yourself?”

  “Oh yes—you’re too young to make one, but when you’re ten, I�
�ll show you how, like my mama showed me, and you can make one for the new baby.” The new voice was young and officious—bossy in the way only a preadolescent girl could be, and Torrant smiled. Yarri was not the queen bee here. Good. She would grow up to be a better person without all that spoiling. Then he remembered why she wouldn’t be spoiled anymore: it slapped him in the face with its coldness, and it was all he could do not to weep into his pillow. Oh Goddess… they were alive. Now what?

  Suddenly, a little body whumped against the side of the bed and tumbled over the back of his legs and over his torso, landing faceup, startling Anye the cat, who had been camped out on his stomach. Anye yowled and then skittered off to the fireplace, leaving Torrant to wonder what hit him. When he got his bearings, he saw a little face that appeared to be all dimples, teeth, and big brown eyes. “Ellit,” he squealed. “Ellit, Ellit… Ellit, git up!”

  “Sure,” Torrant rasped, aware that his body felt thick and hollow, and his skin felt fragile, but none of that was enough to prevent a smile back at those dimples. “No problem. Gitting up.”

  “Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” The little boy scrambled over the bed to his feet and tore out of Torrant’s line of vision. “Ellit! Ellit! Ellit wake up!”

  “What are you saying, Cwyn?” said the young woman’s voice. “Gods, could you calm down?”

  Suddenly, Yarri’s voice cried, “Tor… oh, Aldam, wait… he’s up.” Torrant felt bad because the glee that had started out in his name had gotten all knotted up as she’d realized he was calling himself Ellyot for now. Aldam must have awakened first, he thought dizzily. How could Yarri and Aldam have woken up before him when he was the one who had carried them into the barracks in the first place?

  “Your gift,” Aldam said, appearing over him suddenly. He was in a bunk bed, he realized, and Aldam was sitting on the side of it, holding him up and propping him with pillows. Suddenly he spoke loudly, as though hailing someone. “Bethen, here. He’s awake.” He looked at Torrant and lowered his voice. “The only thing keeping you going was your”—his eyes darted—“your gift. You were getting sick as the cat, but you couldn’t feel it… as soon as he slipped away….”

  “You almost died,” Yarri accused, clambering up on the bed next to him without ceremony. “You can’t do that anymore, T… Ellyot.” She glared at him, her piquant little angel’s face both mutinous and pale. Torrant lifted his hand to her wan little cheek and felt better about things. He smiled into her big brown eyes and sighing, relaxed a little for the first time since he’d awakened in the almost familiar barracks room.

  “You’re better,” he murmured. “And you, Aldam. I’m so….” He was going to cry. “I’m glad,” he finished stoically, making his face grim and grown-up. He had to meet Yarri’s uncle and aunt, although he seemed to recall that Lane Moon had been by the Moon holding a long time ago. However, since the little boy had called him Ellyot, he was hoping to maintain the fiction that he was Ellyot for just a little longer. Long enough to get better, to find a place working in Eiran so he could be by Yarri, could watch her grow up….

  “You’re looking too grim for someone who’s just woken up,” said a pleasant voice. Aldam looked up and smiled, one of those heart-deep smiles that had made it seem as though the sun was always shining on their journey, and Torrant closed his eyes in relief. Whoever this was, Aldam liked her, and that meant that maybe, just maybe, Yarri was safe.

  Torrant didn’t know how to answer, so he was grateful when the little maniac with the dimples returned, running full force with a plump, pretty girl flying at his heels.

  “Keeeewwwiiiiiiinn!” she wailed, grabbing the toddler by the middle and hauling him squealing away from the bed. “I’m sorry he’s bothering you, cousin Ellyot,” she said with a note of exasperation. “You’ve been sick a long time, and Cwyn’s getting sick of the barracks. He’s got toys at home.”

  “How long have I been asleep?” he asked, thinking that was as good an opening as any. Behind him was a window, and he found he was trying to crane his neck to see if the seasons had changed while he was gone.

  “A little less than a week,” said the woman’s voice, and suddenly she was sitting next to him in a swirl of cinnamon and roses and a halo of fuzzy, graying, reddish-brown hair. “And you scared us thoroughly too. It’s a good thing your friend here can heal, and that he was nowhere near as ill as you were when you dragged him down that mountain.”

  “Aldam… healed me?” Torrant asked cautiously, shooting a dark look at Aldam. That had been dangerous.

  “We don’t pay much mind to the differences between the gods’s and the Goddess’s here,” the woman said carefully. Torrant looked at her, his eyes saying everything he wouldn’t, and the woman wiped his sweaty hair back from his face with a cool washcloth. “You wouldn’t know me. I’m Lane Moon’s wife, Bethen. Owen was planning to bring you all over the mountains to see us.”

  Torrant let out a little sigh of relief but was still not up to clearing the initial deception. Besides, he thought, feeling wretched, the girl called him “cousin Ellyot”—and he didn’t want to hurt them anymore than they had already been hurt, not now. Not when the death of their family was so raw, and he and Yarri were all they thought they had left.

  “We couldn’t have made it through the mountains without Aldam,” Torrant said, when his brain was too full with everything else to stay silent.

  “That’s not true,” Aldam contradicted without heat. “And no one should believe it.” Suddenly Torrant’s mouth was being filled with a broth, and he didn’t have to say anything. He was grateful, but Aldam wasn’t through yet. “And do you know what that pounding is?”

  Torrant shook his head, but even through the chaos of the family around him, through the muzziness of his head, he could hear it. It sounded like blood pounding in the ears of a giant, like the liquid heartbeat of the world.

  “That’s the sea,” Aldam murmured reverently. “You need to see it—it’s like the mountains, only in water.”

  From Aldam, this made sense, but the idea of mountains of water was too immense to contemplate. When Yarri climbed up into his arms wearing a boy’s trousers and a girl’s ruffled, yellow shirt, he clutched her to his chest and was grateful for the distraction. Bethen kept feeding, and spoonful after spoonful of broth followed, along with Yarri’s grateful, almost cheery voice, telling him about her new cousins, Stanny and Roes and little Cwyn who liked to jump on her when she was asleep, and how Bethen was going to have another baby soon and Yarri would never be the only girl again.

  The broth went away long enough for Torrant to mumble, “Yes, but I bet these girls wear dresses, Yarri,” before he swallowed the last mouthful and fell into a deep, healing sleep.

  LANE HAD been kept from the sickroom for most of the week. Refugees had been coming over the hill in droves since the stormy night Yarri and her protectors had arrived, and as one of the town council, he’d been emptying out an old warehouse to hold them and drumming up either work and housing or passage for them on one of the outgoing ships. However, he did manage to check in on the sickroom while Torrant was sleeping, and Bethen put the children in Aldam’s surprisingly capable hands and went outside to talk.

  “He was awake? Good.” Lane had been more than worried, especially as Aldam’s disjointed account (and yet so simply put—Aldam’s biggest mystery was how he could lie just by leaving out big chunks of time) had unfolded. A false map left for refugees? Snowcats that mysteriously left the three of them alone? The boy had killed a boar single-handedly?

  And yet… Lane had pulled the true map from Torrant’s pocket, and it was beautiful, and, according to the surprising number of refugees who had followed them down the mountain, it was extremely accurate. Also, according to the refugees, there was an exact copy of the same map engraved and finished on the floor of the last switchback cave. No one knew where it had come from, but suddenly there were travelers over the Anvil when there was snow, where there had been none before. The thought of all of
the innocent souls lost to that first scratching on a cave floor was enough to make Lane weep.

  And yet Yarri hadn’t left Torrant’s side since she’d awakened. More than once she had laid her head on his chest, saying his heartbeat made her sleep, just like a mother’s heartbeat would soothe a fussy newborn.

  And yet Torrant had been the one to haul Yarri and Aldam to the barracks. The guardsman had not changed his story about that, not once, in spite of all evidence pointing to the fact that Torrant had been nearly too ill to breathe, even as he’d carried the little girl in his arms.

  So many questions, and neither Yarri nor Aldam were talking, and to make matters more complicated, the refugees coming down the hill were saying that the Goddess’s own folk had turned against the Moons. This rumor had been what earned the Moons and their guests their own portion of the barracks, because the first time Yarri had heard it, barely out of her own bed to relieve herself, she had gotten into a fight with a boy almost twice her size trying to make him take it back.

  To no one’s surprise but the startled boy’s, she had been winning the fight too.

  “Did he say anything?” Lane asked his wife, hoping for answers, hoping for some clearance so he could take Yarri, Torrant, and Aldam to his home. (How could they not take in Aldam? How could anybody with a heart and a mind and sense of wonder turn Aldam away?)

  “He asked to make sure Yarri was safe, and he said Aldam was the one who got them down the mountain.” Bethen laughed a little and put her hand at the small of her back. “Aldam said it was a lie, and I stuffed soup in the boy’s mouth before he had to answer. He almost got angry that Aldam healed him.”

  She frowned, pursing her lips fiercely and shaking her head. “I think it’s worse in Clough than anybody has known. Whatever happened at your brother’s farm, Owen was getting ready to leave so he wouldn’t get arrested or have his lands taken away. Those boys are afraid to show who they are. Aldam waited until Roes was asleep before he tried his healing bit. I saw him do it. It put him back another three days of healing himself.”