Close Kin (13 page)

"Shut up,
Willow," ordered the elf man, and the subject was closed. "Seylin, my
name is Thorn, and I lead this camp. You can stay if you want to hunt for your
share and if you remember what I said about the girl."

Seylin nodded silently. He followed
the two men through the woods, trying to sort out his feelings.

They arrived at the winter camp. A
hovel of sorts had been constructed by walling up a cave with boards, and a
dilapidated shed stood nearby. Seylin lowered the stag to the ground and eased
his
pack from his shoulders, marveling at
the poverty and filth. Elves, he
reminded himself, didn't build
anything, and their lives were full of
beauty
and ease. So far, he hadn't seen any beauty in this life, and he
suspected
that ease didn't play much part in it, either.

Thorn and Willow dragged the heavy
body to a nearby tree and
tied it up by the
front feet. Willow opened the crude door and spoke
to someone inside. A minute later, an elf girl
wandered out. She had lovely green eyes, the dirtiest hair Seylin had ever
seen, and a miser
able expression on her face.

"Not a
deer!" she groaned. "And such a big one!"

The elf that Seylin had first met
walked up behind her. "Don't you want to eat this winter, Irina?" he
asked.

"It's all very well for you,
Rowan," she grumbled. "He doesn't make you butcher them."

Elves normally
slaughtered with a spell that took care of every
thing in typically beautiful fashion. The whole deer
disappeared in a
golden cloud and
reappeared as neat parts. Irina took a large metal butcher knife and began to
gut the deer into a tub. She was soon bloody to the elbows.

Thorn grinned.
"You know the rule, puppy," he told her.

"Yeah," Willow chimed in,
patting her cheek, "the ugly people
have
to butcher. That means you." She swatted his hand away from
her
face -- since she was holding the knife, a dangerous move for them both. Seylin
expected someone to laugh at Willow's joke, but no one did. He had, in fact,
been stating their butchering rule, just the way Thorn had made it up.

"Well, come
on," Thorn told the men, heading for the door of
the
hovel, but Seylin shook his head.

"I'll stay
and help," he answered, pulling his elf knife from his
belt.
The men were puzzled at the offer. Irina was puzzled, too.

"Why is he helping, Thorn?"
she demanded, peeling back the bloody deer hide. "He's not ugly. He looks
better than any of you."

Thorn paused,
staring thoughtfully at Irina, and then shot Seylin
a
suspicious glance. Why, indeed, should he stay out in the cold? The blond elf
drew the obvious conclusion.

"It doesn't matter why," he
growled, "because I think he's smart enough to keep that good looking face
of his out of trouble. It wouldn't look nearly so nice with two or three teeth
missing."

Seylin's stomach
was beginning to tie itself into knots. He
couldn't
believe he'd been searching for this. The pages may have teased him when he was
a boy, but no one had ever made such a crude threat.

"I've been
after that one," said Rowan thoughtfully, studying the
carcass.
"He was a smart old beast."

Seylin felt ashamed. "I'm not a
very good hunter," he admitted. "I had to use a calling spell."

"I
know," said Rowan. "I watched you. You're an awful
hunter,"
he added matter-of-factly.

"I don't care what he is,"
remarked Thorn to the group. "He's brought home food, and that's more than
some people around here
have done lately.
Seylin, stop stabbing at it. Butchering's not for men.
You don't know
what you're doing, and Irina has enough help."

Another woman had stepped up silently
to join them, carving
off strips of the haunch.
Seylin didn't notice her arrival until she was
kneeling almost at his
feet. The busy woman had her back to him
and didn't seem
interested in introductions. Her long hair was
black, so it didn't show dirt as
badly as her companion's.

"Come on," said Thorn
impatiently, and the men went into the warmth of the cave while the women
worked in the cold.

Beyond the
plank door was a big, messy room floored with dirt,
half
house and half cave. Along the back wall were four low tents, the only thing in
the room that made sense. Elves always slept in tents, inside or outside.

There was a
fireplace at the boarded front of the cave, with thick
logs
blazing in it. Seylin could look at the flames because his eyes
weren't normal elf eyes, but he didn't understand
how the other
elves could bear it. Everything he had ever read about
elves men
tioned their hatred of fire and
metal; they associated both things with
goblins. Yet here, in a real elf camp, he saw a fire crackling merrily
on
a normal human hearth with a metal pot heating above it.

Seylin braced
himself for the expected barrage of questions, but
no
one even bothered to speak to him. Thorn and Willow began
scraping the bits of flesh off a deer hide, and
Rowan sat down with a
hunk of fat to grease his ancient boots. The
perplexed newcomer occupied himself with pitching his own tent at the end of
the row and settling his belongings into their places.

When he turned around, the women were
back inside, preparing the morning meal. Irina was patting out dough with still
bloody
hands and frying it up on a griddle.
The black haired woman had
her back to him again, stirring the stewpot.

"Who is
she?" he asked, joining the men. Thorn glanced up
from
his deer hide.

"That's the ugly woman," he
replied. "Ugly woman! Show the nice man why we call you that."

The
black haired woman turned around, and Seylin had
trouble avoiding
a gasp. Her cheeks were covered by twisted masses
of scar tissue. The
smooth, perfect skin abruptly became silvery, pink, and white, in mottled,
tangled bands across the sides of her face. The scar tissue tugged up one
corner of her lip so that she
always
appeared to be smiling, but the dark blue eyes that she raised
to his
face were the saddest he had ever seen.

"It's unbelievable, isn't it?"
commented the elf man, enjoying Seylin's shocked expression. "Ugly woman!
Get that ghastly thing out of my sight."

Seylin watched her turn away again,
her head bowed and her shoulders slumped. Goblin deformity was a deformity of
strength,
but this was unnatural and
brutal. Why had this woman been disfig
ured?
Why hadn't she been treated and healed? Seylin couldn't recall
a single
instance of the deliberate maiming of an elf.

"Food's
ready," said Irina, and the men stood up. Thorn glanced
down inquiringly at Seylin, but he was too upset to eat.
He just
shook his head.

Thorn walked
forward to take the first bowl and a piece of bread
from Irina. But when Rowan stepped forward to take the
next bowl,
Thorn blocked
the way. He set down his own food and took the
bowl
himself, weighing it critically and putting part of it back into the pot. Then
he took a piece of bread and laid it on the bowl.

"Puppy!"
he said. "Here's your share."

"Oh," said the blond girl,
surprised. "Thanks, Thorn," and she reached up to take the bowl. The
scarred woman stared in astonish
ment at
this and looked up at Rowan. He gave her a shrug in return,
as if to
say, Why would I care?

The scarred woman
spooned Rowan's bowl and then scraped
the pot to spoon Willow's, but Thorn took the bowl as
Willow
reached for it and faced the youngster
sternly.

"When's
the last time you've brought home food?" he wanted to
know.
"You need to go hungry for a few nights, Willow. When I was your age, I
brought home my share."

"There's not
much out there," muttered the youth. "It's not like I don't
look."

"Rowan and I
do all right," challenged the man. "We keep the
lot of you fed." The boy just scowled in answer,
staring at his boots.

"You still don't know what you're
doing," commented Rowan
from his seat
on the floor, where he was rapidly devouring his stew. "Come with me on my
next night, Willow. I'll help you find some
thing."

Thorn handed
over the stew, eyeing the young elf critically.
"See
that you bring something home next time," he ordered. Then he picked up
his bowl and bread. He tore the bread in half and frowned at it.

"Ugly
woman!" he said. "Come get your food."

The scarred woman stood up, her eyes
on the strip of bread he
held out. Her face
was wary and her whole body tense. She reached
out for the bread, but at
the last second, he dropped it. Then he stepped on it as he walked back to his
place.

Seylin glanced around in outrage,
expecting someone to say something, but they were all busy with their food. What
had happened was no business of theirs. He watched with distaste as the
woman picked up her bread and quickly dusted it off
She knelt
down next to the hearth again, eating it hurriedly, like an
animal
who has found a scrap that may be
stolen at any second. He realized
then that she had no bowl of stew. She
began to scrape the remains
out of the
cooking pot, trying to make as little sound with the spoon
as possible.
Seylin watched her moodily. He could tell there wasn't much left.

"Doesn't
she have a name?" he asked. Thorn followed his gaze to
the woman at the hearth. When she realized they were
talking about
her, she dropped the spoon into the
pot with a clatter and froze, her eyes on the ground.

"The ugly
woman, you mean?" asked Thorn casually. "Oh, yes,
she has a name. A grand name, in fact, passed down
from her father. Sable, his name was. We don't use that name now, out of
respect for
him. He wasn't the useless trash that she is. You'd never
believe it, but that thing was engaged to me. I hunted for her when I was six
teen, Willow," he said, shaking a finger at
the young elf "You could
take a
lesson. I brought home two shares at sixteen, her share as well
as my own. For years I took care of her, did
everything for her, and
then our marriage moon came. She'd never turned
down a meal, notice. She hasn't turned down one since. But she told me on our
wedding night that she wouldn't marry me. And
then" -- he
pointed at the scarred cheeks -- "that's what she
did to her face."

Seylin gasped, wincing.
"She did that to herself? Why?"

"Because
she's a coward," snapped Thorn. "Because she wanted to stay a child.
She took the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and she destroyed it just to
spite me. She killed my wife. I'm a widower,
with a dead wife. But she eats more than most dead wives
do. How I
hate to see my good food disappear
into that ugly face!"

Irina sat before
Thorn on the floor, finishing her supper, her back
turned
to him, and her whole attention on the remaining food she
had. His gray eyes bright with malice, Thorn
reached out and
tugged on a lock of her dirty hair.

"But puppy here's no coward, are
you?" he said. "Six months
from
now is your marriage moon. That's when pretty elf girls find a
husband, but I don't know about clumsy puppies.
What do you
think, puppy? Will there be a husband out there for
you?"

Irina shrugged, not particularly
interested. Husbands weren't
something she
knew much about, and she still had a little bread left.
But Seylin saw
Thorn watching his dead wife over Irina's shoulder,
and he saw the scarred woman raise her blue eyes to stare at Thorn. The
look
that passed between them was pure, poisonous hatred. Thorn glared at her in
malicious triumph, still tugging on the girl's hair.