Bitter Moon Saga Read online

  “Torrant!” He could tell she didn’t want to leave him alone. Good. That would keep her there.

  “That horse trader…,” he slurred. “Dangerous… looks at you like… candy….” He couldn’t hold a thought. Sweet Triane, Goddess of Joy, why couldn’t he hold a thought? “Stay here, Yarri… don’t leave…,” he mumbled. He watched dismally as the roughhewn walls and the plain chair by the bed and Yarri’s small face all turned an odd pewter color and lost their definite edges before going dark entirely.

  “Stay,” he whispered. “Oh Goddess, don’t leave.”

  Under Triane’s Moon

  YARRI NEVER had been good at following orders.

  She watched, frantic, as Torrant lost all coherence, dissolving in front of her eyes from her protector to a sick child, and didn’t wonder once what would happen to her if he died. Torrant wouldn’t die: she knew that. It was as sure as the sun would rise and the sky was blue and that his hot skin scorched her hand as she clenched it. Anye curled up in the space by his neck and made worried cat sounds as she licked his ear.

  But he was sick—sick and anxious and he said they couldn’t find a healer, and he needed somebody. Anybody. Oh, Torrant…. You’re the only person I know.

  It was that thought at the end that drove her out of their tiny room in the back corner of the inn and down into the common room.

  The horse trader looks at you like candy. She ran a hand through her hair, destroying Torrant’s careful work, and pulled her hood up and ventured into the hall. It was still smoky from the fire downstairs, and the rough boards that lined it were smoke stained as well, but it was swept and there was a carefully sewn and patched runner down the middle, and she suddenly had an idea of whom she could turn to.

  The servingwoman was still downstairs, and Yarri chose the space between the doorway and the fireplace by the kitchen to duck into, hugging the shadows to her chest like a shield.

  As the woman bustled out the doorway to the kitchen, she actually gasped to see Yarri there and almost tripped in her startlement. Yarri’s desperate eyes must have spoken volumes, though, because she didn’t say another word and moved down the hall to talk to the tousled-haired little boy Yarri hoped she saw.

  “We need a healer,” Yarri whispered baldly. “Not one schooled at the Dueance school.” She had heard of the Dueance school—it was one of two universities in the five lands, and it only accepted boys. Her brothers had taught her to read and to write, had showed her Moon’s impressive collection of books, but she knew that if she ever wanted to know everything, she’d have to go to Triannon.

  The servingwoman closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When Yarri was older, she’d realize that the woman was shoring up her backbone for rebellion. For this moment, Yarri simply thought the kind servingwoman was as worried about Torrant as she was. “Are you Triane’s children, then?” she asked breathily, obviously not wanting the words to echo against the air.

  “Torrant is,” Yarri answered, and then, when the woman looked at her sharply, wished she hadn’t.

  “Oueant’s tongue!” she swore at herself—something else she’d picked up from her brothers—and the servingwoman hid a smile. “Don’t tell,” she said miserably, looking down at her worn and battered boots. She had “borrowed” them from Orel—the child of soft-spoken Bren, who had lived quietly at Moon’s since her parents had ousted her out for carrying a child conceived during Triane’s Beltane feast. Orel was dead now, and they would never play jacks again. Bren would never serve them fresh bread with butter and sugar spread thickly on top to wreck their dinner. “Please,” Yarri whispered into the silence, bending down to stroke the cracked leather at the top. “Please don’t tell. We’re all we have.”

  The servingwoman nodded, her mouth quirking up. “Well, if the gods damn me, maybe Triane will give me a home,” she said after a moment. “Now go back to your room, little man, and don’t open until you hear my voice—my name is Stella. You go back and listen for Stella’s voice, you hear me?”

  Yarri looked up at her, the hood falling from her head, and smiled brilliantly, and the woman swore again. “By the whoring Goddess!” With hurried movements the woman hauled the hood back over her golden-flame hair and dropped to her haunches. “Girl, those men out there aren’t nice people, you hear me?”

  Yarri nodded soberly. “Torrant told me. He didn’t want me to leave the room.”

  The woman nodded. “Your… brother is a smart young man. Now go back to your room and stay there—I’ll be back.”

  And the woman whirled around in a rustle of homespun skirts, leaving Yarri to trot back to the bedsitter. When she got there, she took one of the two wooden chairs that sat at the foot of the bed and jammed it under the door latch. The horse trader looks at you… like candy….

  Torrant was curled up into a ball on the bed, shivering so hard his teeth chattered. Yarri grabbed the corners of the heavy, woven blanket he was on and rolled them up around him, talking to him softly, wanting him to come back.

  “We’re going to get a pony, right, Torrant?” she asked, smoothing her hands through his hair. “You promised.” She stroked a little hand across his forehead, and, oh gods, his skin was so hot!

  “A pony for Yarri…,” he murmured, and an almost-smile relaxed the chattering of his teeth. “A pony for Yarri… and a dress… a bath for Yarri… and a home…. Yarri needs a home…. I’ll get a home for us, Yar…. I’ll get us a home….”

  “It’s good, Torrant,” she whispered. “You are my home. Wherever you are, you are my home now, right?”

  “I’ll sing for you, Yarri,” he said, and suddenly they were warm and safe again, in the barn under a blanket, and he was singing the ocean song in a cracked, bleeding voice.

  Yarri held his hand and sang with him, in a voice no louder than a heartbeat, and prayed. She’d prayed to Oueant the honorable and Dueant the merciful on the night her family died, and they’d let her down. While singing children’s songs with the young man who was not her brother, watching his life steam out of his body with every blazing breath, Yarri prayed to the deity of the gifted, the wanderers, the outcasts and exiles, the women, the magic-makers, the midwives, the forbidden lovers, and the sensually free. Yarri prayed to Goddess Triane, and thought maybe, she listened.

  She fell asleep singing the counting song that Tal and Qir had taught both her and Torrant so they could remember their numbers. Torrant sang the letters song in counterpoint, as they’d been taught, and his painful song never wavered.

  A mean voice woke her up from a fitful doze and she found she was resting her chin on Torrant’s chest. He was still hot, and his breath was starting to rattle a little, but Stella had just replied to the mean voice, and Yarri was suddenly worried.

  “I saw that boy… the little one…. C’mon, Stella—he’s a pretty thing. I just want to talk to him, that’s all.”

  “It’s never just talk, you bastard,” Stella hissed. “Now put that knife away and go back to the common room. I’m back here to change the sheets because some rotter lost his dinner.”

  “Just talk…,” the man whined, and Stella made a sound, a terrified sound, and all Yarri could think was that Stella was their only chance, their only link to a healer for Torrant, and that the horse trader must not hurt her.

  The wooden chair folded up neatly, and she folded it before she opened the door silently and spotted the stained leggings of the horse trader. He didn’t look at her as she crept out of the room, grabbed the chair with two hands, then used all her running force to slam it into the horse trader’s legs.

  He screamed and collapsed with Yarri on top of him, the chair clattering to the floor next to them as the servingwoman scrambled out of the way. The horse trader rolled over and grabbed her, then rolled over again, his heavy body pressing against her tiny one, his beer-rotten breath bathing her face.

  “There you are, pretty little boy.” He reached down, fumbling at her clothes, and Yarri forgot about secrecy, forgot that Torrant was
sick, forgot about helping the servingwoman and opened her mouth and screamed as she had not screamed in her entire life.

  Torrant crashed through the opened door behind them, Anye a blur at his ankles. He had his dagger in his hand and was shouting her name through a throat that couldn’t make a sound. He took one bleary-eyed look at Yarri, writhing under the horse trader’s body, and fell on top of them both, using his body to push his belt knife through the man’s ribs at the back and into his heart.

  Yarri watched the horse trader’s eyes widen, and blood poured from his mouth onto her. She opened her mouth to scream again, but Torrant was mumbling her name and trying to pull himself up. His arms gave way under his body as his face struck the floor with a smack.

  If Stella hadn’t been there, their lives might have ended in the chaos that would have followed.

  “Gods and Goddess,” she swore, rushing over to pull Yarri up.

  Yarri looked at the blood on her shirt and trembled, not sure if she should rip the shirt off, scream, or vomit. Stella took both her shoulders in her hands and shook her to get her attention. “Listen to me… boy. You go back into your room and change….”

  “No… no more… you have our….”

  “I’ll get your clothes…. Just take those off and put them in the laundry bag on the door, you hear me?” Yarri nodded, her teeth chattering, and clamped her mouth shut to keep any other fractured words inside. “Now, in a minute someone’s going to knock on your door, right? He’ll knock twice, slow… right? Now say it after me.”

  “Kn-n-n-ock tw-w-wice sl-sl-sl-ow.”

  Stella looked like she was fighting back on a roiled stomach, but she took control of the situation again. “His name is Aldam. He’s not too sharp, but I think he can help.”

  “Aldam… that’s not a….”

  “Shh….” Stella looked over her shoulder, but the common room was so rowdy by this time of night that even Yarri’s screaming hadn’t been heard in the back. “Not everybody advertises like this one’s mother.” She nodded at Torrant, who was still trying to stand. “Now go, ‘boy.’ Your brother and I have things to attend.”

  Yarri shut the door behind her and stripped off her bloodied clothing. Then she dipped a cloth in the clean basin by the bed and used it to wash off the blood that had spattered through her shirt. She could still feel the sting at her waist, from where the horse trader’s fingers had been fighting with the drawstrings of her breeches, and when she heard the knock at the door, she was scrubbing that sting, and scrubbing and scrubbing until it was red and raw. The knock pulled her to herself. She took the blanket from the bed and wrapped up in it, then answered the door slowly, with trembling hands.

  The young man who was standing patiently waiting for her was not threatening at all. He had fuzzy, blond hair that haloed over his head and dreamy, unfocused blue eyes in a round, soft face. There was a hat on his head worked in wonderful, tiny stitches, and small figures of cats and dogs and horses paraded across the brim in stolid wool.

  “I’m Aldam,” he said with a slow smile. “Stella said you needed me?”

  “Yes.” But still she stood there, a tiny child clutching her blanket to her shoulders. They regarded each other in the hall, until Aldam blinked and reached into the bag at his side. A startled “mrowr” came from the bag, and Yarri almost cried with relief.

  “Anye,” she whimpered, clutching the little cat to her chest. “Come in, Aldam.” She opened the door and closed it after him. “Oh, Anye….” And with Anye there to help her, she could finally cry like the little girl she was. Aldam sat on the ravaged bed and picked her up in the same boneless, easy way she’d picked up Anye and patted her back placidly as she wept.

  Triane’s Pretty Horses

  TORRANT NEEDED to get up and help Stella hide the body. He knew that. He used the knowledge to shore up shaking muscles and bones that had suddenly turned to jelly, to still the thundering of his heart in his ears. He couldn’t be sick right now, he couldn’t. He lay there for another moment, his body flooding with the urgency of the situation, and suddenly his vision grew crisp and chilly and the aches in his body drifted far away. Stella hauled him by the armpits until he got up under his own power.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hand on the wall and shaking his head. “I’m sorry. You were so kind…. I’ve caused you trouble….” Oh Goddess, was he getting weepy? The humiliation of weeping in front of this stranger was too much. His eyes focused with that peculiar coldness again. He stood up straighter and narrowed his eyes and said clearly, “Where can I haul this useless piece of horse shite?”

  Stella leaned against the wall, laughing a little hysterically. “Gods, boy! You and your… brother, the two of you’ve got more toughness than I’ve seen in most of my years. The woods—there’s a trash heap on the north side of the inn where the animals scavenge to get fat. We’ll put him there and hope he’s gone before the snows come.”

  Torrant nodded and bent down to roll the man over before pulling the grimy, blood-spattered cloak up over his body and wrapping it tight to contain the blood. When he saw who he had actually killed, he gave a sick little laugh. “Maybe now he’ll give us a break on the horses,” he said dryly, and Stella laughed some more. Together they bent, Torrant at the head and the servingwoman at the man’s feet, and hefted up the corpse of the second man Torrant had killed in the last week.

  Until he figured out what had given his vision that glacial clarity, he couldn’t put his finger on the force that got him down the hall, out the back door, and across the field-sized distance to the trash heap. He might have said it was blind exhaustion or the deadened nerves of the soon-to-be-departed, but he would remember everything so clearly. He would recall the excruciating weight of the corpse threatening to slip out of his fingers at any time and the wrenching pains in his shoulders as he refused to let that happen. He would have a crystalline recollection of how Dueant had already gone dark and Oueant was barely peeping over the horizon, while Triane was as close to the earth as he had ever seen the Goddess moon, and how the stars were so bright they cleaved through his eyeballs like glass splinters.

  As soon as he released the man’s weight, his own weakness came crashing down on him like a torrent of smith’s hammers, and Stella had to support some of his weight, as much as he tried to walk on his own. He would particularly remember her anguished and tart voice saying “It’s a good thing you’re burning like a furnace, boy, because otherwise I’d bloody well freeze my skirts off!” But he couldn’t remember what he answered.

  When the two of them crashed back into the room, the only clear thought in his cloudy brain was whether Yarri would be there to say good-bye to him as he died. And then he saw the stranger, holding Yarri, and his body took on a fighting crouch he would have said he didn’t have in him.

  “Easy, boy,” Stella said, soothingly. “He’s my nephew, and he’s a good boy, and he’s got a little of Triane’s gift for you, so you just take it easy.”

  Yarri looked up from the shelter of the sweet-faced young man’s arms and said, “He’s nice. He brought Anye back.”

  Torrant smiled and said, “Good—you’ve got someone to take care of you then,” and he collapsed onto the floor in a heap.

  When he came to, he was on the bed again, and Yarri was smoothing water onto his face with a wet cloth.

  “What’re you wearing, Yar?” he slurred, looking at the pretty green shirt with the little ruffles at the sleeves. It was almost winter thick, with an extra-wide tie at the throat, and he was glad because it looked warm.

  “It belongs to Stella’s niece,” Yarri told him. “Aldam said I could keep it.”

  Aldam—the young man who’d brought the cat. “You’re very sick,” the young man said seriously. “I can’t imagine how you’ve managed to live so long.”

  Yarri made a miserable sound, and Torrant glared at him through sandy eyes. “I’m fine,” he said shortly. “You’re making too much of it.” Aldam looked puzzled until Stel
la smacked him upside the head and nodded at a frightened Yarri. Aldam nodded and tried to smile reassuringly.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Aldam said, his voice still calm. “Here.” He bent over, his face blurring and large in front of Torrant’s stressed vision. Torrant flinched and then Aldam flinched and laughed a little, like a child. “Don’t worry,” he said, close enough for Torrant to smell his breath—it smelled like mint and toast. “I’m going to kiss you like a lover—but I don’t love you. I don’t even know you. I just want to take the sickness away, that’s all. Touch is how I keep the animals well.” He nodded toward Anye, who was curled back up in her spot by Torrant’s ear.

  Torrant nodded and closed his eyes because it felt like his brain was bulging out of them. Right, whatever the boy wanted to do, Torrant would let him. Yarri was fine, there was kindness here, and he could live with whatever happened to him, good or bad, if Yarri was surrounded by kindness.

  He would only remember the kiss as a touching of lips and nothing more. When he woke up again, there was sun coming through the little porthole cut into the top of the room, and Yarri was curled up next to him in his arms, as they’d slept since the first night under the stars. His fever was gone, along with his headache and the fire in his throat, and he felt as limp and as clean as a newly bleached shirt. In the dawn of the morning, tears of weakness—grateful tears—came, and he thanked Triane for their good fortune.

  He was weak, though—too weak to leave during that first day, even though he tried to insist upon it.

  “We’ve caused you trouble,” he told Stella lowly when she came in to check on him and feed him soup. Yarri was sleeping next to him, and he kept quiet so as not to wake her up. “I’m sorry—we’ll leave tonight.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Stella told him sharply. “I didn’t go to all that trouble to have you leave this one”—she nodded at Yarri—“alone on Hammer Pass because you were too weak to keep going. That man….” She shuddered. “He was… notorious… for his appetites. When Aldam was a child….” She looked away, her face working to keep composure. “We hid him, after that first time, but he was never the same.”