Catling's Bane (The Rose Shield Book 1) Page 3

  With a grumble, Rose opened her marked eye. In his mind, it looked like a rose that the bugs got a taste of. One petal was half-chewed off, and the corner had a few speckled holes in the redness.

  She sat up and rubbed her face. Hay stuck in her brown hair like golden quills. He picked the straw from her sleepy head and blushed when her lips hinted at a smile. Though she counted a full year older than he, she wore his castoff trousers and a shirt that belonged to Piper before him. When she first came to the stead a season ago, Wenna had ripped up her dress to use as washrags.

  “Mouser, get up.” He peeled back the blanket until she squeaked. Only four winters, they couldn’t leave her alone in the loft. “I’ll get Wenna.”

  “I woke up.” Mouser scrambled out from under the blanket, her curly blond hair a squirrel’s nest of tangles. “Is Sim here?”

  “Just Brid and Tum.” Whitt plucked another snip of hay from Rose’s head. “Brid is Sim’s sister; she’s Piper’s age. Tum is her bigger brother.”

  “I like Sim best,” Mouser groused.

  Whitt preferred Sim too. Three summers older than he, Sim swore she could talk with tree spirits, and he believed her. Her ancestors had the gift long before the Ellegeans came. Whitt had seen Sim shake tree branches until the birds flew off in a fit of squawking, and it wasn’t even a windy day.

  “Is Wister here?” Mouser’s nose wrinkled up in a scowl.

  “Him, Bromel, and Shafter.” Whitt read the question in Rose’s eyes. “Wister is a mage. He has the same powers as Sim, except he’s a man, so they cut off his hair and his stones.” He swiped a painful gesture across his groin.

  Rose furrowed her brow, head at a tilt.

  “The Farlanders believe the world is alive,” Whitt explained. “Not just alive like growing but alive as part of everything else. Sim says all things have living light in them, and the rocks have as much reason to be here as we do. I can’t explain it the way she does. The clans think only women should work the world’s magic, so when Wister showed his power…”

  Mouser’s eyes widened. “Sim says when someone dies, they change into a bird.”

  “Not exactly.” Whitt sat back on his heels. “They’re necromanners or something. They put the person’s spirit in a bird. If the bird flies away, the spirit is free. If the bird stays, something is broken and needs mending.”

  A shudder rippled through Mouser’s body. “They hang dead people’s bones from trees.”

  When Rose turned to Whitt for confirmation, he shrugged. “That part is true. They believe the wind through the bones is a prayer for the dead.”

  “It’s disgusting,” Mouser said.

  “You’re just saying what Rabbit says.” Whitt frowned at her. “Everybody believes different things.”

  Rose studied him for a quiet moment while Mouser pouted, then she crawled to the ladder and started down.

  In the dirt yard, Scuff idled by the summer hearth with the three lean Farlanders. He handed wooden cups of tea spiked with tipple to Bromel and Shafter. With his power, Wister couldn’t drink, so he watched them with a frown cold enough to freeze fire. Tum had disappeared with Piper, most likely to water the wooly, thick-boned horses and finish up hog chores since Scuff was no use for the rest of the day. Rabbit and Bruiser were off tending the garden, and Brid was nowhere in sight, probably inside helping Wenna with cooking.

  The little moon, blue Misanda, rolled a quarter every seven days, marking a lunar week. As long as Whitt could remember, a week before the start of Harvest, the Farlanders came over the mountains for fur-trading. Schooling with Wenna took a rare leave, and Scuff roasted a pig and sparked the hearth with a fire to rival the moons. Instruments appeared as if by magic, and they sang southern songs. Anyone with a whim to move danced a wild wind around the flames.

  With the late start, he and Rose had morning chores sure to roll right into afternoon chores. Lessons might hold off, but chores never did. He grabbed her hand and dragged her to the outdoor hearth for warm slices of bread and fresh butter that Wenna had set out, not wanting any troublemakers, large or small, underfoot inside the stead. Zadie passed out hot eggs in the shells with Daisy in a sling and suckling on her breast.

  By the way Rose stared at the Farlanders, Whitt wondered if she’d ever laid eyes on one outside of Mur-Vallis hanging day. Scuff stood taller and wider than most Ellegeans, and yet the clansmen towered over him with shoulders half again as broad. Roped muscle sculpted their long limbs, and strangest of all, they had pale green spots the size of coppers over their shoulders and running down their arms. Maybe in other places too that he’d rather not know about. Except for Wister, every one of them wore their white hair streaming down their backs. They had slanted slit green eyes so clear they looked like ice, and aside from their thumbs, their hands had only three fingers.

  Though Wister’s furtive glances scared Whitt as much as they did Mouser, it was Bromel, with his leader-scars raked across his face, who evoked nightmares. He wore a leather jerkin, knee-high boots, and a short hooded cloak. In his grip, he carried a tall staff, the length of it etched with runes. Bromel caught sight of Rose, and his eyes thinned. A corner of his mouth twitched up as he squatted before her. “What’s this? A new one, Scuff. Mur-Vallis breeds them scrawnier each passing year.” His fist shot out and tapped Whitt on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet.

  “That’s Oddling, uh, Rose, mind you,” Scuff said. “Had her a season now.”

  Bromel peered into her eye as if he could see inside her head, and she stared back without a flinch for the strange designs scrawled into his forehead and cheeks. “More here in this eye than you know,” he said. “She has a little of the light in her. How’d the eye happen?”

  Whatever Bromel said, Whitt didn’t care for it. “She can’t talk.”

  “Ah, she can if she chooses to.” The Farlander clasped a giant hand on her arm, and she jerked back, eyes wide. Her whole body shook as he leaned toward her, lips by her ear. “You have magic in you, child.”

  When Bromel swung his gaze to Scuff, he released Rose’s arm and laughed loud enough to startle Daisy where she slept in a shady hammock. “You bonding this one too, Scuff? Ten years you might be an old man with only two good legs.”

  “Got my hands and prod busy enough,” Scuff muttered. “Whitt’s got his heart set on that one.”

  Whitt’s chin drew back, and he pursed his lips in an attempt to appear offended. The heat of a blush surged up his neck and beaded on his forehead. Rose smiled at him, something she rarely did without a touch of longing in her eyes.

  “Let those children get on with their chores,” Wenna yelled from the stead doorway. “And Scuff, if you aim to roast a pig for this crowd, there’s work to be done. Don’t think any of you are getting away with a day of drinking. We got wood in the back that needs splitting, and I won’t complain about a finished fence around the garden.” She disappeared inside.

  Scuff raised his cup with a chuckle and scratched his belly. “I got a pig to see to. Then what do you say to helping an old man build a fence?”

  Chapter Four

  Whitt spent the next hours minding Mouser while he and Rose gathered kindling in the forest behind the stead. Mouser tried to hide in an ancient oak that clung to the ground despite bugs and rot hollowing it from the inside out. The gap in the tree’s backside opened wide enough for the three of them to squeeze in as cozy as squirrels, and each week the mighty tree shed a heap more dead branches to feed the hearth.

  Once Whitt flushed her out, Mouser helped with the chore. They traipsed back and forth to the woodshed with arms full of scratchy sticks. Scuff and the clansmen watched from a half-finished fence, their task abandoned for tippled tea since Farlanders didn’t see much use for fences.

  After midday cheese and apples under the front tree, Wenna doled out more tasks, her wooden spoon wagging at Whitt, Rose, and Mouser. “You three slop the pigs, scrub all the buckets, douse the backhouse, and wash your stinky bodies and clothe
s in the brook.” Blocking the doorway, she winked and handed each of them a bucket of slop. “Then if you have a taste for pie, pick berries on the hillside until the bell calls you home.”

  Gathering kindling had been the day’s real chore, the rest meant to tick off the time and keep them out from under her feet. That suited Whitt fine. They dumped the slop into the troughs for the hogs to gobble up. He drew water from the well, and he and Rose scrubbed the buckets while Mouser flattened anthills in the dirt track. The murky water splashed down the backhouse hole, and the buckets made the trip up the hill.

  The trees thinned at the brook’s edge, the ground patched with feathered grass, clusters of shrubs, and thorny vines bearing black fruit. The shallow water sparkled and babbled over the stones littering the bottom. Mouser stripped off her clothes and waded in, squealing at the cold, while Rose knelt on the bank, gazing at the rippling surface.

  “What are you doing?” Whitt knelt beside her.

  Without a glance up, she pointed to the shade beneath her head. He leaned forward, his shadow melding with hers. There, in the absence of sunlight, whorls of luminescence glistened. She dipped her hand in and stirred.

  “It’s harder to see in the day,” he said, his hand joining hers in the wet shade. The light retracted and then gathered around their fingers. “Do you think it’s in everything like Sim says?”

  Rose shrugged.

  “I think it is.” He scooped a handful of bright water. “Scuff says the Cull Tarr think it’s evil, but Farlanders and Ellegeans drink it with no harm done. Do you know why the Farlanders have scars?”

  Rose shook her head.

  “They cut their skin to let the magic in.” He swirled the luminescence, wishing Rose could talk. She kept her secrets locked up in a silence he couldn’t crack. “Bromel said it’s in your eye.”

  Her wet fingers dabbed the rose mark circling her eye, and she sighed.

  “I caught a fish! Look!” Mouser waded toward them, cupped hands leaking water.

  Whitt jumped up and Rose laughed. He peered into Mouser’s hands and spotted the minnow, no larger than his fingernail. When the water drained through Mouser’s fingers, she squatted and set her fish free.

  Stripped to their bare skin, Whitt and Rose joined Mouser in a minnow hunt. They dunked their clothes and used them to scrub their bodies. With their shirts and trousers splayed on a shrub to dry, they picked berries, wary of the prickly vines. Then the bell on the stoop clanged, summoning everyone from chores.

  In sun-warmed clothes, they wandered down the hillside with a bucket of black sweetberries for Brightest Night pie. The spitted pig sizzled on the summer hearth, skin blackened with grease dripping into the scarlet coals. Whitt’s mouth watered at the scent. His hunger roved the plank table set with bowls of fresh greens and bread, pickled beans, spicy jam, and butter. Rose swayed at the sight as if she came near to fainting.

  Bromel and Shafter still drank the tipple but without adding tea to water it down. Shafter had twisted his white hair into a tight braid, revealing the crescent scars along his hairline and slits cut into his tapered ears. The hilts of four curved knives decked his leather belt.

  The clansmen seemed to tolerate the tipple better than Scuff who grinned, all red-nosed and sparkly-eyed. Tum and Piper had joined in the drinking but had the sense to keep their wits, though Piper couldn’t help frog-ogling at Brid. Whitt guessed the white-haired girl was more likely to wallop his moon-eyed brother than kiss him.

  Wenna asked Shafter to carve the pig and then stood in the dirt yard beside the plank table like a high wardess in a seventh-tier hall. Zadie smiled beside her with Daisy asleep in her arms, the two women about to ask the horde of them to supper. It was a grand sight.

  Then a squeal let loose, snapping all eyes toward the sheds. A couple of hogs got the best of Rabbit and Bruiser and pushed through the gate before they closed it. Bruiser took off after the runaways, leaving Rabbit to guard the gate, a hopeless bidding since the pigs weighed five times more than she. Rabbit let out an oath as clear as day that would have earned her a swat if two more pigs hadn’t charged past her. They ran for Wenna’s table with the redhead yelling and hot on their curly tails.

  Whitt figured someone should help, but all of them stood rooted to the ground with mouths hanging open, wide enough to catch flies. Then Piper scooped up Mouser before the pigs trampled her, and Wenna grabbed one end of the plank, barking orders like the world was about to end. Rose jumped and clutched the other side, Whitt a heartbeat behind. They heaved up the plank just as a hog barreled into the back of Rose’s legs. She went down over the muddy porker with a yelp, hanging onto the plank for the life of her. All the bowls and baskets tumbled too, burying her in Wenna’s fancy supper.

  The pigs took one glimpse of Wenna’s snarl and ran off toward the vegetable garden with Rabbit and Bruiser making a similar escape. Nobody moved, including Rose whose skinny body kept an assortment of dishes from shattering on the ground. Whitt figured they all waited to see whether Wenna would holler or cry. She squinted down at Rose as her eyes welled with tears. Then she doubled over and laughed.

  Shafter snorted and cut into the roasted pig with a blade big enough to saw down a tree. While Wenna wept with laughter, the rest of them picked up anything that hadn’t fallen in the dirt. Tum unsheathed his knife to cut away the sandy parts of the bread. Even Wister crooked a smile as he hauled up a bucket of well water to rinse the cold vegetables. The only spoiled dish was the jam upside down on Rose’s chest and dribbling over her sides like she was a gutted pigling.

  “Piper,” Scuff ordered. “Get your rope and help those hollow-headed twins catch those pigs before they eat through the garden.” Wenna’s eyes snapped up in alarm. Zadie thrust Daisy into Brid’s arms and took off at a gallop. Whitt gave Rose a sorry shrug and darted off to the garden to watch Piper ring a pig.

  A looped rope and fistful of tethers in his hands, Piper sprinted for the garden. He tossed Whitt the tethers for towing the porkers back to the shed. Everyone but Wenna and Rose hurried along for the show, and a smile of excitement split Whitt’s face. His brother could throw a stiff rope without thinking and land a ringer six out of ten times. Piper promised to teach him, and with a year or two of practice, Whitt knew he’d be just as good.

  Rabbit and Bruiser chased two squealers through the garden, the animals darting away whenever a twin tapped them. Zadie had one cornered and shouted for a leader. The fourth grunted by the peels and scraps, happy with the rotten, bug-infested spoils. The trampled garden looked worse than it was, but Whitt guessed Scuff regretted the half-built fence.

  As he fed some slack through his knot, Piper picked his target. Nabbing a hog wasn’t as easy as roping a stump. Lips pressed between his teeth, he held the loop with a short length of rope and twirled his wrist over his head. When the weight swung forward, he let go. The loop dropped over the pig’s snout, and he yanked, tightening the slack. The pig would have dragged him off if Scuff weren’t there to grab on.

  By the time the hogs were back in the pen, Whitt’s belly growled like a crag bear. He turned the corner to find the plank table reset, most of the food salvaged, and a platter piled with roasted pig. Wenna brushed her hands together, no worse for her ordeal, and Rose stopped Whitt in his tracks. She’d got herself out of the blood-red jam into one of Scuff’s white-colored shirts. It fit her like a dress, all cinched at her skinny waist with a length of string and the sleeves rolled up above her wrists. Even with the rose eye, she looked like a queen.

  “A sprite in our midst,” Bromel said.

  Rose smiled, and Whitt didn’t see a speck of the old sadness in her eyes.

  ***

  Bromel raised his wooden bowl in Wenna’s direction before anyone dared take a first bite. The Farlanders had strange ideas about honoring spirits. The Cull Tarr preachers swore the clans’ beliefs were evil and said the Founders demanded obedience and liberty to sup at the afterlife table. To Whitt, all the scrambled up notions were be
yond his comprehension, and he sighed with relief the day Scuff told him Ellegeans didn’t believe in squat. Life was plenty easier that way.

  The Farlanders bowed their heads as Bromel spoke, “This day, Farlanders and Ellegeans come together in peace to share the bounty that sustains us. In gratefulness, we accept into our bodies the soul of the land which feeds us and the living light flowing through our veins.”

  No sooner had he spoken the last word than the feeding began. Whitt sat under the apple tree beside Rose and listened to the clansmen talk with Scuff about trapping and pigs, omens of harsh cold come Winterchill, Cull Tarr preachers, and growing conflicts between Ellegean settlers and the clans in the Far Wolds. Other than pigs and weather, to Whitt, it made almost no sense at all.

  “Our ancestors fled south when the Founders drove the tier cities into the lowlands,” Bromel said. “Now, we are pushed farther east and west as Ellegeans build settlements and claim the land as theirs. How can one claim something he didn’t craft with his own hands? How can they point to the soil beneath our homes, the fields and forests, and say they own them when no one can own the land? Ellegeans think they can own the sun, moons, and stars.”

  “We own this land.” Piper waved at the pig farm.

  “You borrow it,” Bromel said. “It was here long before you and will be here long after.”

  “But we have a paper,” Piper said with a glance toward Scuff. “That means it’s ours, doesn’t it?”

  “Who gave it to you?” Bromel asked. “And was it theirs to give?”

  Whitt pursed his lips, a reply nowhere in his head. He wasn’t sure Scuff or Wenna knew the answer either.

  “We respect the land,” Wenna said to Piper. Scuff nodded and sipped his tipple. He usually let Wenna do the deep thinking and seemed content or wise enough to nod at her opinions.

  Bromel’s big hand clasped Piper’s shoulder. “You honor the kari, the natural spirits of this place, and in doing so, your labors bring fruitfulness, which one day Scuff will pass on to you and you to your children.”