Hunter's Woman (7 page)

The woman turned red as a beet, glanced quickly at the child sitting on the bed and then down at the floor.  “We do our best.”

“I’m not accusing you or condemning you.  I’m only trying to tell you that … you’ll not raise that boy if something isn’t done.  If he’s too weak to fight off a cold, he’ll have no chance at all if he gets something more serious.”

The woman looked like she was going to cry for several moments, but fought it back.  “Is there anything, you think, that I could do?”

Glancing at the stew pot, Aslyn saw that it was boiling.  Taking one of the wooden bowls she’d found in the cottage, she filled it and took it to the table, then summoned Hoan and bade him eat it.  “This will help your feelings a bit, I think.”

She waited only long enough to see that he dug in with enthusiasm and then returned to the fire where the boy’s mother waited.   “You said he’s the youngest, the weakest.  Perhaps he’s simply having trouble fending for himself?”

The woman looked taken aback.  “I dole out the food meself.”

“Then make sure you give him a bit more, especially meat.”

She nodded, but looked a little doubtful.  “There’s not much meat to be had now, with it winter and all.  And the soldiers are camped out here now.  They’re bound to hunt the woods around here out if they stay the winter.”

A frisson of uneasiness went through Aslyn.  “They’ll not be here long, surely?”

The woman shrugged.  “From what I’ve heard, they’ve no plans to move any time soon.  They’re tracking tolks, and the last several attacks were near here.”

The blood rushed from Aslyn’s face so rapidly that a wave of nausea followed it. 

The woman gripped her arms.  “Ye best sit down if yer thinkin’ about faintin’.”

Aslyn stared at her uncomprehendingly for several moments.  “No.  I just felt a little dizzy for a moment.  I should probably eat.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed.  “It had nothing to do with what I just told you?”

Aslyn forced a half-hearted chuckle.  “Whatever made you think that?  No.  I’ll admit it’s a scary thought … the possibility of the tolks being near here.  But, it’s just that I didn’t take the time to eat before I left this morning.  I expect it was the smell of the food more than anything else.”

The woman didn’t look convinced.  “Not that I’d blame ye, mind ye.  The tolks aside, I’m more than a bit uneasy about having soldiers camped on our doorstep meself.  There’s almost always trouble when the soldiers have too much time on their hands.”

“Too true.  But mayhap they’ll kill off the tolks fairly quickly and be on their way.”

The woman glanced over at her son and lowered her voice.  “There’s somethin’ right queer about these tolks, from what I hear tell of it.  Ye’d think they was starvin’ or they wouldn’t be preyin’ on folks, but they’re real cautious for all that, and wily.  The soldiers’ve been trackin’ ‘em for months now, an’ still ain’t managed to catch up with them.  Now, don’t that sound more’n a little strange to you?”

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 tolk a’tall.”

Chapter Six

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. 

Hoan, 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 Hoannys 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 tolks?  If that were the case, then the soldiers were bound to trap and kill the tolks 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 tribit 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 tribit stew, for Aslyn had tossed whatever she caught, or gathered, or was ‘paid’ into it each day—another tribit a farmer had brought, a few mushrooms, a handful of withered greens—but she found she no longer had much fondness for tribit 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 kirkins. 

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 Jomares 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 Jomares was faring 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 grog’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 kirkins 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 grog.

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 the meat tends to be stringy.”

“What?” Aslyn asked blankly.

“Grog.”

“Grog?”

“I did hear the old woman mention her grog, 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.