Bitter Moon Saga Read online

  Torrant had Yarri to care for; he could not afford to be crippled by grief. It wasn’t until after the third day of traveling, when he realized Yarri was chattering on about nothing for most of their walk, that he knew she felt the same about him. He didn’t disabuse her of that notion. It was comforting to have someone care for his welfare, even if she was only six. He hid his oozing wounds from her, the chills, the hot skin, the dizziness. They were so weary in the evenings that she simply seemed grateful for his warmth, and he told himself that it would pass… if he could make it one more step, it would pass… just one more step… just one more step… and soon he felt as though he could run forever, a brittle shell of his body like a paper wrapper, padding through their tormented journey on crinkling hope.

  When seven days had passed since the morning their lives had disappeared into smoke and butchery and all the familiar landmarks of their world had faded, Torrant at last decided to deviate from the road a bit and look for a place to stay. They made a game of it, saying what they would buy from the inn.

  “When we get to the inn, I will buy,” said Yarri, “a soft pillow, soap that doesn’t smell like girls, and a pretty dress.”

  Torrant looked at her, surprised. Yarri usually hated dresses; her mother had to practically sit on her to make her wear one. But her mother wasn’t here to do that anymore, he realized, stricken for the thousandth time that hour. He looked, but said nothing.

  “When we get to the inn, I will buy,” he said instead, “a soft pillow, soap that doesn’t smell like girls, a pretty dress, and a sword.”

  Yarri looked at him sideways. In spite of his many hours of swordplay and practice, Torrant didn’t like weapons. He preferred hand-to-hand wrestling, riding horses, a peasant’s staff. But she said nothing as well.

  “When we get to the inn, I will buy a soft pillow, soap that doesn’t smell like girls, a pretty dress, a sword, and… and a new pair of boots!” She said the last in exasperation. She was wearing what she had been that fatal afternoon—purloined hand-me-downs from one of the servant boys, and they did not fit well. Her blisters had burst days ago, and Torrant had bathed and dressed her feet in the remains of the same tattered shirt that was wrapped around his hands. Although she did not complain after that one tearful day, he knew her feet still ached.

  Torrant smiled at her—Goddess, she was tough. She was tough and wise and everything he did not expect from a six-year-old girl but had come to expect from Yarri just the same. He decided to give her a gift, even if it was only in play.

  “When we get to the inn, we will buy a soft pillow, soap that doesn’t smell like girls, a pretty dress, a sword, a new pair of boots, and a horse for Yarri to ride on.”

  “A horse….” Yarri looked at him. “Torrant, what happened to all of our horses?”

  Torrant blinked. It was a good question. The stables adjoined the barn, but there had been no horses there when he’d set fire to it. Had they been taken by the Consort’s men? The homestead had claimed a good five and twenty horses—a riding horse for each member of the family, including a fat pony named Kiss for Yarri and Torrant’s feisty, sturdy mare.

  “I don’t know, Yar… they weren’t in the stables when I went back. I assume they were rounded up and sold….” He watched as Yarri bit her lip, unhappy. It was a small loss, he knew, among their great one, but it stung nevertheless. “It could be worse. They’re valuable and trained. We know they’re still alive. Maybe Kiss will end up with another little girl who will feed him watermelon rind all summer, right?”

  Yarri brightened a little at that but then fell glumly silent. They trudged along for a bit in silence, and Torrant felt oddly hurt, as though his gift had been thrown back in his face.

  Then Yarri said, “Torrant, when we grow up, we’ll make them pay, won’t we? Daddy said you can’t be bad, because then you get smacked. We need to smack the people who did this. And smack them. And smack them. And smack them until their hearts hurt like ours. Right, Torrant? Can we do that?”

  Torrant breathed deeply, looked at her, and the purpose that had been driving him forward with such urgency took a new shape. At first his anger had just been for Yarri—if he could keep Yarri safe, he would have a reason to keep going. But now Yarri wanted revenge, and if he could wreak vengeance for Yarri, he would be able to rejoice.

  “All right, Yar,” he said, unhurriedly. “We’ll do that.”

  As the sun was lowering, they found themselves near the road, and after Torrant “listened” for a moment, he determined all was well, and they continued walking. After an hour’s worth of rushed darkness, with only Oueant of the three moons to guide them, they saw lights ahead and hastened to greet them. Moon had taken Torrant and Ellyot to this place once, two, or three summers before. It was the only foothill inn on the way toward the mountains, and he remembered it had been busy enough then. With a little luck, he could sneak Yarri into a room with a hot bath and bluff his way through the night.

  It was an unprepossessing, low, wooden structure that rambled and turned as it branched into hallways and then into rooms. There was an upstairs, and every so often he could see a chimney and a pipe leading from a well. There could be warm baths, Torrant thought, and he told Yarri as much, gently amused by how happy that made her. There would be food as well—they had eaten the last of the meat and bread two nights before, and the last of the windfall apples that morning. The only one who was not suffering from a chronically growling tummy was Anye, although she had brought them winter-fat mice faithfully in an attempt to share a barn cat’s autumn harvest. As they neared the welcoming, warm structure ahead of them, Torrant shuddered to think of how tempting those offerings might have been after a couple more days on the road, and then kept shivering. He had grown so used to the pain from his infected hands and the backs of his knees that he had almost forgotten he was sick. Now that he was so close to shelter for both of them, his body was washed with a weakness he had forgotten he had.

  They paused in a curve in the road for a moment while he took stock of their situation. He wasn’t stupid. A young boy and a little girl could be easy prey on the road, inn or no. Actually, he thought uncomfortably, especially at an inn. He looked at Yarri, at the careful braid he had maintained, every night as regular as clockwork, a soothing repetition from their previous life. And he thought of how vulnerable a young girl was on the road. He hesitated for a moment. Girls were easy prey, but then, so were boys, right? But girls more often, the voice niggled in his head. A haircut wouldn’t disguise the piquant, elfin features of her little face, the other part almost wailed. But, if it did, if it kept one predator from looking her way, wouldn’t that be worth it? Torrant swallowed and reached out his hands to touch her hair. It was the colors of the season, red, brown, and gold, straight like satin, but with a promise of curl as she grew older. It bleached almost yellow in the summer and turned the color of flame in the winter, and though Yarri was only six and deplored dresses and baths and sewing, she was and always had been inordinately vain about her hair.

  “Torrant?” she asked, “What….”

  He couldn’t say it. He felt the strands between his dry fingers, thought of the entire family celebrating her first haircut, lamenting the loss of her curls, rejoicing in her braid. Tal’s hair had been the color of hers when it was yellow in the sun, and Qir had been red like the flame. Both twins had gifted her with combs and ties of satin and wood—he had not a few in his pack that the twins had carved for their darling little sister. Hair grows back, he thought, almost angry. Hair grows back. Innocence doesn’t. And for a moment still, he couldn’t say it.

  Yarri said it for him. “It’s not safe for a girl in there, is it?”

  “It’s not safe for a little boy either,” he replied, his voice thick with unhappiness.

  “But it’s safer, isn’t it?”

  “Yar….”

  Her braid was down to her waist. Without warning, she pulled the belt knife from the sheath at his waist and hauled it through t
he lower half of the braid. The hair fell to the ground unevenly, in clumps, and Torrant almost wept at it.

  “There,” she said, her voice low and hoarse. “Now you have to trim it.”

  He nodded, not trusting his own gravelly voice, and pulled out the dagger he’d been sharpening as they traveled, the one with the keen edge. Quietly and ably, he cut her hair around her face until she looked like any other boy on the road. He couldn’t look at her as he put the blade back in its hidden sheath in his boot. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, and she threw herself into his arms. She won’t cry, he thought; she won’t cry, but Lord, how she hurts.

  When they had sat long enough, he scooped an unusually sedate Anye into his pack, and they ventured to the inn.

  A Sliver of Safety

  THE INN was dark and smoky, with plain wood tables and a brick fireplace. But the food tasted good and hearty, and there were enough travelers of good families that two boys on the road were merely included in the lot. Torrant had put the last of the clean bandages on his hand and washed himself and Yarri as clean as he could after Yarri’s impromptu haircut. They received no strange looks as they sat eating, but Torrant knew that he, at least, felt out of place. They ate their stew and brown bread as slowly as they could for being as hungry as they’d ever been in their lives, but their voracity didn’t escape the notice of the matronly woman serving them.

  “There ye go, lads,” she said, serving them up some extra stew and bread with a wink. Yarri took the new piece of bread and dipped it in stew and offered it to Anye, who was hiding in the satchel at her waist that held her clothes. The servingwoman simply raised her eyebrows and put one last piece of bread on Yarri’s plate. She was a little older than Torrant’s mother, with a round, plump face and lines at the corners of her eyes from smiling. Torrant remembered his only visit to the inn, the summer before, and mentally added another two coppers to what he was planning to leave on the table for the bread—and the kindness. “So. Traveling this time of year? Where ye headed?”

  “To where I can see whales,” Yarri said imprudently, and Torrant shot her a quelling glance and then almost groaned. Rolling his eyes like that made his head pound to an entirely new and painful beat.

  The servingwoman was appalled. “Eiran—this time of the year!” She looked at Torrant imploringly. “Tell me the young one’s daft, eh, boy?”

  Torrant looked away, not knowing what to say. It was not in his nature to lie, and not to someone who had been kind.

  “Hammer Pass will be a nightmare in less than a month—you two came in with the packs on your backs… what—” A shout of coarse laughter interrupted the woman. Torrant had a moment to wonder if his hands always sweat as badly as they did now, before thoughts of his pounding head and fiery throat vanished.

  “Was she as sweet on ’er back as she looked, hey?” A broad-shouldered, flat-nosed man was asking. His face was flushed and red, as though he spent a lot of time drinking, and his body was relaxed, his face to the fire, with the other four or five men in the corner turned toward him. He was a petty peasant-king, holding court in his favorite inn.

  “Now, I wouldna know that, now would I?” came the annoyed reply. “The guards did that. All I did was round up the horses before the place went up in smoke.”

  “It seems a damned shame to burn the barn,” said another voice. “The barn was nigh as sweet as the house, and damn, but no one could breed horses like Moon of Clough.”

  Torrant had known, from the first coarse words about Yarri’s mother, who the men had been talking about. He watched Yarri carefully as they spoke, noticed her stillness, then caught her eyes and held them until he knew her face wouldn’t crumple and that she would keep her peace.

  The servingwoman didn’t miss a thing. Stopped in midtirade about the dangers of two youngsters traveling in winter, she stepped into their desperate silence. “So, you two will need a horse then, eh?”

  Torrant looked at her gratefully and raised a shaking spoonful of stew to his mouth before he spoke. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll be needing a horse, and some food… and a sword.”

  The sword and the food were no problem. The big, coarse man holding court was the blacksmith; the servingwoman conducted the transaction, and he never saw their faces. More difficult was the sale of the horses.

  The horse trader had seen them talking, and he’d seen Torrant’s disgust and his anger, glaring out from behind the overlong, brown hair. When the woman went up to him after the dealing with the blacksmith to ask for a gelding, the man looked darkly at Torrant and named a price that made everybody in the room look twice.

  Torrant shook his head at the woman and swallowed the last of his stew nervelessly. They could never afford that. Yarri looked at him then with tears in her eyes. He could almost hear her thoughts. Couldn’t we at least save one of the horses? Can’t we at least have the comfort of a friend on this journey?

  Torrant nodded, mouthing the word “later” at her. She had been so tough, had asked so little. He would make this right; he swore it on his next breath.

  The horse trader would be leaving in two night’s time. That much they knew, so Torrant gave himself at least a night of rest while he silently weighed the loss of their money versus the time they would make up with a horse. They needed the rest. Torrant’s fever from his infected wounds would not go away. Some solid food had gone a long way to fix the shaky hands and the dizziness, but Torrant knew a night’s sleep—a good one, in a warm place, without fearing for night animals or soldiers or bandits coming upon them—might be the only way he could survive the rest of the journey. Yarri depended on him, and that meant he had to stay healthy, and the little black spots that kept coming between him and the world had to go.

  Torrant was conserving their money. They bathed last in the public tub, and the water was tepid and soapy, but after a week on the road it felt like heaven. Yarri went first, and Torrant carefully soaped her shorn hair, rinsing it in cold water and combing it softly around her small face until it dried.

  “I’ll look like a girl,” she said tentatively.

  “You’ll wear your hood,” he returned shortly. She didn’t complain. He debated, shortly but fiercely with himself, over where she should go while he bathed. He finally sent her behind a screen in the room and thanked the twin gods that she was still young enough not to give a copper for his nakedness. The bath felt good—but he could have lived without the shivering that plagued him as he got out and dressed.

  After they bathed and sorted through their packs, he paid the kind servingwoman to wash their soiled clothes. He was surprised, as he pulled coppers and silvers and gold pieces from hems of clothing and corners of each pack, at how much money they had been carrying across country as though it were so much cotton wool, and disheartened, as he counted it again, at how much would be devoured by the purchase of one overpriced horse.

  Yarri came to stand at his elbow. “Is it enough?” she asked, the hope in her voice painful to hear.

  “I’m not sure,” he breathed, trying to do the math in his head and failing. Moon had taught them all their math and letters, although Torrant had always been better at figures of speech than math figures. Now it seemed the coins in their shiny piles blurred together on the homespun cover, and an insistent pounding in his head kept distracting him from their numbers.

  Yarri took his hand to get his attention and stepped back in shock. “You’re sick!” she accused.

  “I’m fine,” he lied, and then gave in as Yarri hauled on his sore hand to get him to sit down. Her little hands fluttered around his face, and her gasp when they touched his forehead hurt his ears.

  “Merciful Dueant, Torrant—you’re really sick….”

  “I’m just tired, Yarrow root,” he reassured, blinking his eyes twice and again because she was blurring in front of them. “But my scrapes… they’re sore… could you sort of not… ouch!”

  He had rebound his hand in the last of the shirt after his bath, and Yarri rippe
d the bandage off without a please or a thank you, and now she was even more panicked. “Your hands are swollen… and the skin is getting dark…. Torrant, we need a healer….”

  “No healer!” Oh Goddess… the cost of a healer alone would drain them like an empty cup. And healers, he knew, gossiped; everyone knew healers gossiped. The only healer they could trust would have to be someone like Torrant, a child of Triane, the straying moon. Someone with a gift. “Triane’s children. Yar, we need someone with a gift, but they’re all like me… too afraid to show themselves….” That horse trader in the common room had eyed them as though he knew what they were.

  “I’ll go get the servingwoman,” Yarri said decisively, and that sent him into a panic.

  “Not without me….” Torrant had kept walking this whole past week, with terrible food and little rest, and he’d at least been able to function. But one good meal and the sight of a bed and his whole world went dizzy with bright fever, and he couldn’t seem to get a handle on the authority he’d used with Yarri her whole life. “You can’t leave the room without me,” he said sharply, sitting up and then collapsing on the bed with a whimper. With the way his head felt, it was a wonder his brains weren’t leaking out his ears.