Catling's Bane (The Rose Shield Book 1) Page 4

  “Isn’t that the same as owning?” Piper asked.

  “If owning is akin to stewardship.” Bromel helped himself to another serving of meat and speared a wedge of cheese with his knife. “Your care of the kari is the reason for your prosperity. The reason we are here.”

  “Why are the clans uprising after all this time?” Wenna asked.

  “Your settlers in the Far Wolds build new walls,” Shafter explained. “They interfere with migrations and cut forests without need. They dam the rivers and drown the valleys. Many times, our elders warn that Ellegeans damage the land and sacrifice their future prosperity, but none wish to hear it.”

  “Mur-Vallis is no better,” Scuff said. “Don’t care to see or hear the trouble beneath their feet.” His eyes drooped with too much tipple, and Whitt suspected he’d be snoozing in the hammock with Daisy if not for the company.

  “You have rights within the settlements, don’t you?” Wenna sat on a flat-topped stump, her supper balanced on her knees, a frown on her face. “Can’t you protest? They’ve… we’ve broken our agreements.”

  “We might as easily entreat the moons,” Wister said, his smooth face peculiar now that Whitt had become accustomed to the scars. “We have no voice except in Tor, and there it is a whisper in the wind. Elsewhere, Ellegeans listen to words of violence. It’s how they order the world.”

  The bristles on Wenna’s back shot up. “Not all—”

  “No. Not all Ellegeans,” Bromel said, soothing Wenna’s pique. “We are friends, Wenna, and the peace between us is a gift, a sign of what is possible between our races. Yet, the truth is also that each year our lives lay at greater risk. If the justices of Mur-Vallis discovered us here, they’d hang us from the tiers. I’ll no longer bring a child across the divide.”

  His words explained Sim’s absence. Whitt thrust out a lip and wrinkled his brow, the grievance taking a personal turn. Did Bromel’s worries mean he’d never see Sim again?

  “Enough of this unkind news,” Bromel said and slid his emptied bowl to the table. “The time has arrived for music.”

  The tension melted, and Whitt sighed into the warm air. All three moons waxed gibbous, blushing Sogul a sliver shy of full, the night bright enough to dance by. Tum and Piper added wood to the summer hearth, and Wenna looked the other way when the tipple passed from lips to lips around the flames. Whitt had a nip that burned the back of his throat, and Rose shuddered from head to toe, mouth hanging open as if she was near to breathing fire.

  The Farlanders retrieved their instruments from their stowed gear. Bromel thumped a beat on a shallow drum, and Wister blew on a pipe spry as the Fangwold winds. In one hand, Shafter rattled a gourd of dried seeds, and in the other, he shook a clattering garland of bones. Tum rubbed two ridged sticks together, and best of all, Brid sang lilting Far Wolds songs. Whitt didn’t understand a word, but there was no mistaking the urge to dance.

  Mouser and Zadie hopped up first, grasping hands and skipping around the hearth like a two-headed fool. Wenna laughed and clapped, and Bruiser joined in the dancing with Rabbit, the twins jumping like startled hares. Scuff’s foot stamped the ground, and Wenna pressed him into taking a turn since Piper waited for Brid to finish her song.

  Beside Whitt, Rose knelt on the hard dirt, eyes so wide open he could see the longing in her bursting out. The beat got Whitt’s courage up, and he scrambled to his feet. Rose laughed and shook her head. He paused and then sprang into the dance.

  Not two songs later, Bromel and Shafter passed off their instruments and joined in the merriment. The music suffered, but the dancing improved with Brid and Shafter teaching the rhythmic steps and simple words. Piper danced beside Brid, the two of them making frog eyes and smiles. Copying Tum’s steps, Whitt pivoted on his left foot to find Rose doing the same at his side. He grabbed her hands, and they grinned through the dance as music and melody filled the night. Her eyes shone like lanterns, and for a fleeting moment, he thought he heard her sing.

  When Misanda’s blue light sidled into the trees, Scuff stretched as though he’d like nothing more than to snuggle in and snore. Whitt figured Wenna would force him to stay up to the last, but she shooed the children, except for Piper, to the hayloft.

  With the moons so bright, even the barn held a soft nighttime glow. The twins whispered and giggled in their corner. Whitt, Rose, and Mouser burrowed into their own hay nest and tucked the blanket up under their chins. Mouser prattled on about dancing and fell asleep mid-word, warm as pie between them.

  Whitt drifted over the day, certain the Farlanders had stuffed three whole days into one. “Rose?” He glanced at her as she stared at the rafters. “I don’t mind your eye. I think you have pretty eyes.”

  She rolled to her side and gazed at him over Mouser’s blond curls.

  “When we get older,” he said, “I’ll bond with you like Scuff said. If you want to.”

  Rose smiled, her nose wrinkling.

  “Do you think maybe you might want to?” he asked, his heart fluttering.

  She nodded and then rolled back to stare at the rafters again.

  “My name is Catling.”

  Chapter Five

  The tiers of Mur-Vallis rose in the distance like petals on a steel flower. Three years had passed since Catling’s departure, and her return twisted her belly in knots. She touched the copper ring in her ear. Would she cross Keela’s path in the crowd? What would she say? Would she speak at all? Dreams of reunion toyed with her heart, sweet and tender imaginings, but fringed with fear. Would Keela try to buy her back from the home she loved?

  Scuff flicked the reins and grimaced at his foot, the swollen thing an ugly shade of plum since he’d dropped a log on it. As they did every year, the Farlanders had come to trade and feast before Summertide’s Brightest Night, and Scuff had swallowed more tipple than wise. Now, Piper minded the pigs since Scuff still couldn’t trust the twins to wear their heads facing forward. That left Catling and Whitt headed for the market on hanging day.

  They carted twenty-odd piglings in the wagon’s bed, including four yearling breeders from Abbett’s farm, a half day's walk to the east. Catling and Whitt had a fenced pen to erect, water to haul from the Blackwater, and the jenny to tend. After chores, Scuff promised them a couple bells to roam. Catling would use the time to collect her coppers and buy sweets.

  The wagon wheeled in early, capturing a prime spot at the market’s back edge with plenty of room for piglings and a fine view of the hangings. Catling helped Whitt and Scuff cobble together the fence with bits of string and wire. Then Whitt climbed into the wagon bed and handed down the squealing piglings. Catling laughed and wrestled the wriggling creatures into the pen where they rooted through a bucket of peelings, mealy apples, and other slop Zadie had loaded that morning.

  The Blackwater lay on the tiers’ far side. Scuff flipped them each a clipped copper and sent them trekking to fetch water, a chore requiring half the morning. The sun warmed the first day of Summertide, and a crisp breeze blew away the stench leaking from the warrens. By the time they returned with their sloshing buckets, Scuff had the mule unharnessed and was selling piglings with a grin. He shooed them off as the first hangings began.

  “Let’s stay.” Whitt’s eyes pooled with excitement.

  Catling peered up at the first tier and the influencers in their shades of blue. High Ward Algar stood aside, dressed in his customary black with his hands clasped behind him, gold medallion sparkling in the sun. The same boy, only a few years older than she, shuffled at his elbow, the pallor of his face impossible to miss, even at a distance.

  A light giggle tickled Catling’s chest at the perfect day. Happiness painted a smile on every face, and laughter skipped through the air. The high ward’s laws served the tier and protected Ellegeance. A grand man and loved by all, he bowed to the cheering crowd.

  The boy in his shadow stared at his own polished boots as if forbidding them to run.

  Catling’s hand rose to hide her good eye. She
squinted, concentrating, and the threads of influence glimmered into view as subtle as smoke, just as she remembered them. They wavered and gelled, fell apart and reformed. Everywhere she focused influence wove through the smiling crowd. Without thinking, she severed the threads embracing her.

  “No, Whitt. Let’s go,” she whispered, her hand dropping to her side. “It’s the influence. The hangings are… wicked. The influence makes us happy, but it’s evil.”

  His eyebrows pinched. Then he blurted out a laugh as if she’d shared one of Bruiser’s rude jokes. Whatever tickled him made him hold his sides and gasp. But it wasn’t amusing at all, and his merriment grated like sand in her shoes. On the tier, two guards brought forward a wiry Farlander, and the justice read the charges. The man nodded and smiled as the soldiers cinched the noose around his neck and lashed bags of copper coins to his wrists.

  “Look, Catling.” Whitt pointed at the tier and waved at the man. “They’re hanging a Farlander.”

  “No, Whitt.” She turned her back to the tier. “I won’t watch it.”

  When he didn’t budge, she covered her eye. Teeth clenched, she began unraveling the threads of influence surrounding him. His face changed, smile fading as he wrinkled his brow.

  Catling shook her head, her own emotions once again brightening, swayed by the influencers’ power. The more she freed Whitt of the unnatural joy, the more it revisited her, easing her distress and tugging a giggle from her chest. Her chin drew back in dismay—she could only shield one of them at a time.

  In a panic, she broke the threads of influence binding her.

  His heart again stolen, Whitt laughed as the clansman stepped from the tier’s edge. The man’s neck snapped with an audible crack, and the crowd surged forward, tearing the bags of coins from the corpse’s wrists.

  Tears welled in Catling’s eyes as she grabbed Whitt’s hand and dragged him into the tier’s shadow. Sheltered from the influencer’s vision, the sensations faded. He gaped at her, his face twisting and hands shaking. “What happened?”

  She folded her arms around him. “I don’t know.”

  “They hung a Farlander,” he said. “Why?”

  A woman with painted eyelids and oiled hair leaned toward them. “Why? Because he’s a Farlander and this is Mur-Vallis. If the high ward catches them, he hangs them.”

  “Let’s go.” Catling pulled Whitt deeper into the warrens.

  Dusty sunlight faded as the alleys rambled beneath the first tier, gloom bleeding from every crook and cranny. In Mur-Vallis, the rains scrubbed the upper tiers and washed all the filth down the gutters into the warrens. Catling used to dig beneath the drains for trinkets and coins swept down with the trash.

  As she headed toward the dryer, darker interior, she grimaced at the fetid stench and slick dampness clinging to the ramshackle walls. She had scarcely noticed it while living in the squalid place; now it forced her to breathe through her mouth.

  Towing Whitt, she reached one of the immense pylons supporting the tier. The surface was smooth and cool beneath her fingertips. During Winterchill, it would feel warm and heat the warrens from the inside out. Tubes of fading luminescence snaked across the tier’s underside, dingy light leaching the color from the labyrinth world.

  “We shouldn’t go deeper,” she informed him as she took a bearing. “It’s safer near the warrens’ edges. This way.” She led him around several corners and slipped her hand into a crack between two stones in a poorly built wall. When she withdrew her fingertips, she held a whole copper between them. A smile creased her face as she flashed it before his eyes and dropped it in her pocket.

  Through the next bell, she collected her treasure of coins, those her peers hadn’t pilfered during her absence. Her pocket jingled like a high ward’s purse. She and Whitt emerged from the warrens by the Blackwater docks, and she bought two lucky cakes at the riverside market.

  Side by side, they lounged on the grassy bank, eating their sweets. A pair of waterdragons rolled in the bright river, and Catling stroked the delicate carving in her pocket. Nearer the docks, a Cull Tarr preacher praised the virtues of the almighty Founders and railed against the tiers’ rulers, her sermon rising above the hubbub of market day.

  “You have no voice,” the woman proclaimed to a handful of riverfolk and hanging-day shoppers. “Who decides what life you’ll endure? Who relegates you to live beneath the soles of their feet? They do.” She flipped a palm at the tiers, dark hair falling down her back as she lifted her chin. “The wards close the tiers to you. Why? Because it suits them that you are poor, and so you will remain. It suits them that you are unworthy, and so you will remain. How convenient that your will is of no account, your dreams illusions, for they and only they rule. What gives them the right? Do you give them the right?” The woman whirled, scarlet skirt flaring, the bangles on her waist clicking together like gold coins.

  A few men and women on the dock muttered their approval.

  “You are all divine in the Founders’ eyes,” she continued. “When they descended from the stars and drove the cities into the soil, there were no warrens, no wards. They conquered this planet for you. Gifted you the Book of Protocols to guide you down their righteous path. Why shouldn’t you rise up and reclaim your divinity among those who believe themselves divine?”

  “Because the justices will hang us,” a young man stated, his words evoking a swell of laughter. He leaned on one of the dock’s timber pilings, arms folded across his chest. Black curls fell over his eyes, and scruffy stubble shaded his chin.

  “If you die in righteousness,” she avowed, “you will sit at the Founders’ table, and rule gloriously in the afterworld.”

  Catling raised her eyebrows at Whitt. The skeptical twist to his lips mirrored hers. “Let’s buy more sweets,” she whispered. At his nod, they clambered up the riverbank and wandered into the market. Catling found a woman selling broken brittle, the toss-aways and failures of the tiers’ confectioners. She pulled a handful of clipped coppers from her pocket and purchased a small paper sack for them to share.

  “Catling?”

  The voice sent shivers up her spine. She stuffed the remaining coins into her pocket and turned. Keela posed before her, hands on her hips, a curious smile on her face. She wore a servant’s smock and leather shoes. A basket of soaps and polishing oils dangled from the crook of her elbow. “Scuff gave you coppers?” She stroked the long braid hanging over her shoulder.

  Catling nodded, any attempt at words tangled in her throat.

  “I missed you.” Keela stepped closer and shifted her gaze to Whitt. “You must be one of Scuff’s.”

  “Whitt,” he said.

  “Well, Whitt, I’m Catling’s mother. I live on the second tier, but I’ll be moving up soon.”

  “We sell piglings,” Whitt said.

  “Scuff must be selling scores of piglings to give my little girl all those coppers.” Keela stared at Catling’s pocket, a smile affixed to her face. “He’s feeding you well, I see. You’ve grown.”

  “We should go help Scuff,” Whitt said. Catling nodded as she stepped backward. Any fantasies of melting into her mother’s loving and regretful embrace vanished as dread prickled the back of her neck.

  “But we haven’t visited,” Keela said, eyes wide with hurt. “I’ve had my heart set on you for three years.”

  “You could head back to the wagon with us,” Whitt suggested. “Scuff told us to get our sweets and come right back.”

  Keela laughed and bent forward, her face almost nose to nose with his. “My, what an obedient child. I only want to visit with my girl. Right over there.” She pointed with her chin to the shadows beneath the tier. Reaching around Whitt, she clutched Catling’s wrist. With a hard tug, she yanked her forward. “We’ll sit in the shade and chat.”

  Her heart thumping like Bromel’s drum, Catling complied. It’s what she’d always done with Keela, how she’d avoided her mother’s wrath. Wait out the attention and then escape. Whitt shuffled beside h
er, face bent with worry.

  “It’s all right, Whitt,” Catling said with an uncertain smile.

  The moment she spoke, Keela spun. Rage contorted her face, jaw hard and eyes on fire. “You talk? You dare to talk?” Her grip on Catling’s wrist tightened. “How long did that take? I suppose you were chattering like a silly wardess the moment I showed you my back.”

  “Let her go,” Whitt said, the pitch of his voice rising. “Scuff will be angry.”

  “She’s my girl,” Keela growled at him.

  “I’m Scuff’s girl.” Catling shook her head. “You sold me to Scuff.”

  “I needed…” Keela let go of her wrist and planted her fists on her hips. “Fine. Go.”

  A swell of relief washed through Catling as Whitt grabbed her hand and they turned to hurry away.

  “First, give me the coins you stole from me,” Keela said, loud enough to pivot a few heads.

  Catling froze. Her hold tightened on Whitt’s hand. Trembling fingers rose to her mouth to stifle a cry, and she twisted to face her accuser. The treasure in her pocket, the coppers she had collected and hidden and cherished, Keela demanded them, would steal them.

  “What kind of girl filches from her mother,” Keela snarled as she approached. “All that time. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to keep you fed? And all the while, you stole from me.”

  “I didn’t steal them,” Catling said. “I found them.”

  “Found them?” Keela laughed, sharing her disbelief with the curious group of spectators who gathered to gawp. “Found them? A pocketful of coins?”

  “I found them below the drains and after the hangings,” Catling explained. “Sometimes in the markets or the warrens. I saved them.”

  “You stole them from me,” Keela said. “Give them here, and I’ll forgive you. Refuse me, and I’ll call for justice.”

  “No,” Catling cried. The possibility that her mother would have her hung drove a spike through her heart. “No, I didn’t steal them.”