Blood Moon (7 page)

Aslyn felt her uneasiness return. “How
so?”

The woman shrugged. “Don’t it seem to
you that they’d not be at all cautious if they was hungry enough to
be huntin’ us?”

“Maybe they’ve just been lucky--so far.
Or the soldiers unlucky.”

“Maybe. But folks’r sayin’
it’s like they
know
the king’s sent men to track them down. They ain’t sprung none
of the traps set for them. An’ once it’s daylight, they just up and
vanish.”

Aslyn shivered. “Perhaps their leader
is a wily old fellow?”

“And maybe he ain’t no wolf
a’tall.”

Chapter Five

Aslyn had no desire to be drawn any
deeper into this particular conversation. Instead of prompting the
woman to elaborate, therefore, she changed the subject
abruptly.

“I
am
starving. Could I interest you in
sharing my stew?”

The woman looked a little taken aback
but shook her head. “I’d best be gettin’ back. If you’re agreeable,
I’ll have me man bring you one of our geese for your
trouble.”

Aslyn held up her hand. “No food,” she
said firmly.

The woman’s lips tightened. “We don’t
take no charity.”

That settled that. Aslyn had been on
the point of explaining that she was a penitent and usually took
nothing at all, but she could see the woman would take that badly.
“Certainly not! I do need a bit of patch work done on the roof,
though. Or he could bring some wood for the fire.”

The woman glanced up then
nodded.

John, having drained the bowl, had
fallen asleep with his head propped on his hands. The woman shook
him awake and carefully bundled him up.

“Keep him inside at least a few
days—preferably a week. I’m sure you’ve chores inside the house he
could help you with?”

The woman nodded. “Me man won’t like
it, but I’ll handle him.”

“And feed him all the soup he can hold.
Use fowl, if you can, to make the broth. That’ll be better than red
meat. Bring him back to see me if he begins to have trouble
breathing or seems to be coughing more than you’d
expect.”

Again the woman nodded, gathered the
child up, and departed.

Aslyn stood in the doorway watching as
the woman scurried down the street. Seven years old and the woman
could carry him about as if he was no more than a toddler. With any
luck he’d make it through the cold, but she had her doubts the
child would see many more winters.

The thought brought the urge
to cry. She thrust it away angrily and closed the door. Pity would
not help the child, and she had nothing else to give him ...
nothing to give any of the hundreds of Johnnys she’d seen in her
travels. If she’d been the wealthiest person in the world, she
could not save them all, nor even a fraction of them. One person
could not. She’d done the best—the
only
thing she could for
him.

In any case, she had problems enough of
her own. Instead of eating, she paced the cottage, round and round,
but she could not outrun her anxieties and finally forced herself
to sit and eat. She wanted, desperately, to leave Krackensled, but,
from what she could see, that was no longer an option—if it had
ever been. The soldiers would be patrolling the area. She would
almost certainly be stopped and questioned if she tried to leave,
and, unfortunately, the lies she’d told to cover herself precluded
any that would allow her passage.

She deeply regretted, now, that she had
told them she was on pilgrimage. If only she’d thought of some
other tale, something that would have left relatives somewhere that
she could claim to be going to visit, or who needed her!

It was pointless to kick herself over
it now. She would know better another time … if there was another
time.

But, if what she suspected was
true…

She pushed the thought from her mind.
Perhaps, she thought hopefully, they would grow tired of waiting
long before the moon became full again and move on.

Or perhaps imaginations were
running wild because there had been such an unusual number of
attacks and it truly
was
nothing more than a roving pack of wolves? If that
were the case, then the soldiers were bound to trap and kill the
wolves before long.

Surely it could have nothing to do with
her … malady. Surely it could not!

But, in the end, did it matter? She was
trapped here. If she stayed, the soldiers might well be hunting her
when next the moon was full.

* * * *

It was nearing dusk almost a week after
her arrival in Krackensled when Aslyn left the cottage with her
cook pot, intent upon cleaning it and filling it at the well. The
perpetual rabbit stew had given out at long last. Aslyn could not
confess to being sorry to see the last of it. Toward the end it had
born little resemblance to that first pot of rabbit stew, for Aslyn
had tossed whatever she caught, or gathered, or was ‘paid’ into it
each day—another rabbit a farmer had brought, a few mushrooms, a
handful of withered greens—but she found she no longer had much
fondness for rabbit stew.

The thunder of hooves brought her out
of her abstraction. She looked up to see a group of soldiers
approaching from the opposite end of town and checked for a
fraction of a second before it occurred to her that whirling around
and returning to the house would be the best way to attract
attention to herself. She continued on her way after that brief
hesitation, her head down, as if she was carefully watching where
she set her feet, but she stole a quick glance or two in their
direction.

She didn’t know whether to be relieved
or sorry when they halted at the well and began dipping water for
their horses.

She slowed her steps, wondering if they
might finish up and leave before she reached them, casting quick,
surreptitious glances to the right and left in search of an
alternative. Another quick glance told her she’d already passed the
only crossing between her and the men. She would not be able to
pretend she’d had another destination in mind. Finally, in
desperation, she turned and walked up to a cottage. She rapped on
the oak panel door, hoping the cottage was occupied and that
someone would open the door.

To her relief, she heard the shuffle of
footsteps inside.

“Who’s there?” a gravelly voice called
from within.

Aslyn bit her lip. It hadn’t occurred
to her that the occupant might not open the door. If she had to
yell through it, she might just as well forget about any
possibility of escaping the soldiers’ notice. She leaned close to
the door. “I’m looking for Jim and Enid McCraney. Do you know
them?”

The latch clicked and the door opened
inward a sliver. “What’s yer business with them?”

Aslyn stared at the old woman, taken
aback. “I wanted to check to see how Jim was fairing since his
accident.”

The old woman looked her up and down.
“Enid’d not take kindly to yer interest in ‘er man,” she said
bluntly and slammed the door.

Aslyn was left staring at the vibrating
panel while color climbed into her cheeks, chasing the cold away.
“Thank you,” she mumbled. “Would you mind very much if I cut across
your yard to the next road over?”

“Me dog’ll take a chunk outta yer arse
if he gits a whiff of ye.”

It took Aslyn a couple of moments to
recover from that forthright statement. Finally, deciding, just in
case anyone could overhear her end of the conversation, that she
should at least pretend she’d had a pleasant conversation with the
old termagant, Aslyn forced a smile. “Thank you very much. I’ll be
sure to tell them.”

She had not heard the horses leave.
There was nothing for it, she was going to have to turn back toward
home and pretend she’d only gone up the street to see the hateful
old woman who’d slammed the door in her face and threatened her
with her dog.

As she turned to walk back to the road,
however, she discovered Kale was propped against a tree at the edge
of the road, not two yards from her. She jumped in surprise, nearly
dropping her pot.

A slow smile curled his lips. “I take
it she didn’t have any to spare.”

Aslyn blinked at him. “I beg your
pardon?”

He nodded toward the pot she held
clutched in her hands.

Aslyn looked down at the pot, stared at
it for several long, long moments trying to think of what she might
say that wouldn’t sound like a lie. Finally, she decided she might
as well go along with his assumption since she could think of
nothing else. “No. I thought it worth a try,” she said, trying to
command her complexion to cease fluctuating in pulsing red and
white. She would almost have preferred to tell him the truth than
to have to claim to have been begging.

He stood away from the tree and walked
toward her, his eyes gleaming in a way Aslyn didn’t quite like.
Taking the pot from her limp hands, he tucked one of her hands in
the crook of his arm and guided her toward the road. “It was just
as well, I expect.”

Aslyn, still too stunned to think very
clearly, merely nodded. It occurred to her quite suddenly to wonder
where he was taking her and she glanced quickly around. She didn’t
know whether to be relieved, chagrined, or unnerved when she saw he
was leading her toward the well.

“I’ve not tried it myself, but I’ve
been told it tends to be stringy.”

“What?” Aslyn asked blankly.

“Dog.”

“Dog?”

“I did hear the old woman mention her
dog, didn’t I?”

Aslyn glanced quickly at his face and
then away, feeling blood flood her cheeks in a crimson tide. “You
heard…,” she said faintly. She realized quite suddenly that he was
teasing her, and, despite the fact that she had absolutely no
desire to have Kale, of all men, flirting with her, she began to
see the humor of the situation. She bit back a chuckle, threw him a
tentative smile, but it froze on her face as she saw Lord Algar
bearing down upon them.

She made an abortive attempt to snatch
her hand from Kale’s arm, but he caught it, holding her hand firmly
in place.

“Lady Aslyn!” Lord Algar said warmly,
though his smile was slightly forced, and the look in his eyes as
he glanced between her and Kale was anything but warm. “As charming
and as beautiful as ever, I see.”

It took an effort to refrain from
glancing down self consciously at the horrid gown she was wearing.
It was obvious from his speech and manners that he was accustomed
to courtly flirtations. Perhaps he thought her ignorant enough to
find his flamboyant compliments flattering, but, in point of fact,
they had the opposite effect. It was as if he was taunting her and
thought her too stupid to realize it. “Mistress Aslyn,” she
corrected him stiffly.

He fell into step beside her, taking
her free hand and tucking it into the crook of his arm. Aslyn gaped
at him, tried unsuccessfully to pull away. She glanced at Kale, but
he was staring at the road ahead of them, his expression
stony.

“Out for an evening stroll, are
we?”

“In point of fact, no,” Kale said
succinctly.

“No?”

Amusement gleamed in Kale’s eyes
briefly as he looked down at her. It vanished when he transferred
his gaze to Algar. “Mistress Aslyn was leery of approaching the
well with so many soldiers milling about.”

Aslyn glanced at him sharply, flushing
when she realized she had not fooled him even for a moment. How
embarrassing to think she’d gone through such an elaborate charade,
and all for nothing!

Lord Algar’s brows rose. “Ever the
gallant, eh, Kale? Rescuing damsels in distress.”

Kale slid a glance in his direction.
“You may count upon it, Algar.”

Seeing that they were so intent upon
challenge and counter challenge that she might just as well not
exist save for being the ‘bone’ the two were snarling over, Aslyn
snatched her hands free, turned and seized her pot from Kale’s
other hand. “Thank you. Both of you. If you’ll excuse me
now….”

She didn’t wait for a response from
either man, or look at them again. For all that, she was acutely
conscious of the fact that they took up positions on either side of
her, leaning against the stone walls of the well, both men at great
pains to appear oblivious to each other, each not so subtly
continuing to issue challenge to the other. It grated on her
nerves, but she did her best to focus upon scrubbing the cook pot.
When she’d finished, she filled it once more.

Any thoughts she’d nurtured that she
might slip away unhindered vanished immediately, however. Kale,
who’d taken it upon himself to haul the buckets of water up as
needed, filled the pot, wrested it from her grasp and held out his
arm. While Aslyn was busy ignoring the hint, Lord Algar possessed
himself of a hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.
Surprised, Aslyn turned to glare at him, trying to pull her hand
free, whereupon Kale took her free hand, tucked it in the crook of
his arm, and gave her a tug.