Two Queens (Seven Heavens Book 1) (9 page)

He breathed. It sound like gale-force winds. He forced himself to slow down. Most of him wanted to run away. What was he supposed to do with that overgrown brute standing around? He felt like turning himself in—her dark-browed eyes still implored him.

Stop it, fool. The steady sound of wood being picked up and dropped revitalized him. He got his body back into control and bound his fears. He scraped against the tree as he turned to look. Not much had changed: the blacksmith now faced the hovel, leaning some poles up against it. She placed the bowl she was holding earlier back over the fire a dozen paces to the left of the house. They didn't appear to be talking: at any rate, he heard no words.

What next? He considered his gains and losses. The woman was not alone and, for argument's sake, he couldn't be sure the ring was with her. But he'd found their place. Somehow he felt that their poverty justified some of what he had gone through. He wouldn't have been able to bear it had she been living a noblewoman's carefree life, servants at beck and call.

She has to have the ring though. Where else would it be? The husband? No, she hid it when he and the boy joined them that evening. She would keep it on her person, he was sure. Enough to go on, at least.

What to do now? If only he had some skill at the bow: a couple arrows and he could take what was his, unimpeded. His stomach lurched at the thought of killing a human. As he had with his fears, as he had with his urge to surrender himself, he suppressed himself. It can't be that bad. People kill others and die every day. Maybe he could buy a bow, learn how to use it, and return.

What was he thinking? It would be easier to hire an assassin. But they were troublesome, and he didn't have a butler to make the worrisome arrangements for him. He remembered too well the fate of his great-uncle.

No, he was losing his nerve and trying to think of an excuse to wish away the two men. But they wouldn't be wished away. He could slip in and do it, he avoided thinking the words. They couldn't be around her all the time. And if so, she was half ready to sell anyways... Paris froze again. Where was her husband?

He broke out in a cold sweat. He imagined the herder stalking him, ready to break from cover behind him at any moment. His mind raced—where could he be? With the boy, or the girl? Where else? Horse-sheep beasts—they had some, where were they right now?

He weaved his way deeper into his clump of trees, trying to hide from all directions. His mind was little eased and his view completely destroyed. Only his ears informed him of what unfolded before him and that only above his pounding heart.

Memories unbidden came to Paris. Hiding in the school yard while the bullies paced about. Cowering in court behind a brazen exterior when his father first spoke with the Kyrian about him. He thought his father's stares were bad—but the King? Not the current one, he was a fool. The throne was a plaything to him. But the old King—everything you'd imagine for a proud grandfather (though the King was not one) pretty much summed it up. Except you were a poisonous snake he caught his heir playing with, not his relative.

That time had passed with use and the old King's death. This too shall pass, Paris told himself. Yet he sat there as if waiting for the world to pass. Too scared to move forward, too driven to leave.

Kerdae stood up. He looked at the few pieces of wood left from Brian's last load and turned away. He paced around the cabin, looking it over roofbeam to floorboards.

“What are you thinking?” Astra asked.

“Wondering how much to fix. Some pieces are still good, some have to go, but others” he leaned forward and rapped on a log “are hard to tell.” He lumbered over to the stack of wood already stripped from the cabin and in line for the fire. He sat against it.

“What would you do?” Astra asked. She looked out into the forest in the northwest direction then back at Kerdae.

“Whatever Devlin wants.”

“Perhaps it would be easier for you.” Kerdae looked over at her. “He grew up here. I know he'll pull that pole out there, and several like it. But the others... may take a while.”

“What are you saying, Ramona?”

“Feel free to speak your mind. It will help him decide.”

Kerdae brushed some bark off of his hands then clasped them again against his chest. A slight smile tugged at his face. “Makes sense. Worked with me. And what you said, now, that's caused a world of change.”

“Thank you, Kerdae,” Astra said. She had a felt blanket in her hand she had just pulled from a kardja saddle. She shook it out and lay it on the grass near the fire. “That was a fortunate day for my family.” She sat on the blanket, both feet tucked back to one side. “Even today we reap the blessings of being your friend.”

His smile broadened. “I'm glad you've come to Darach. I mean, not happy.” He tried again, “It's Enda. I thought the time had passed. When she was a baby you were there but as a little girl, she was all mine. Almost like a boy, like I thought a son would be. I could take care of her then.” He gestured with his hands and looked right and left but the words were slow in coming. “She's different, now. Like I can't reach her.”

“Oh Kerdae,” she said.

“Aye,” Kerdae said. He plucked a wildflower from the grass in front of him. “She's like the flower. I—, these hands, they work in iron and stone and wood. Not flowers. Only thing they can do is...” He held up the flower. “Looks pretty, don't it? But it's already dying, just don't know it yet.” He crunched it in his hands. “One mistake and there she goes. I don't know how to do this. Will you help?”

“Yes, I will. It's scary having someone you're responsible for. Not a friend or a spouse, a child. But they're strong, Kerdae, especially Enda. She'll do fine.”

Astra continued. “She
is
a fine girl. Don't worry. If she's like me she's just sorting things out, thinking about everything and anything. But she has good roots. Of course I'll help. I want to help.” Their eyes connected and the blacksmith breathed out. His shoulders settled and he tossed the crumpled flower to the ground.

Suddenly he stood up. “Enough with the sitting. Where are they?”

Seven

“Didn't your mother say something about berries?” Enda asked Brian. They had the next load of poles bound to Kerry's skids and were walking along a deer path.

Brian felt his face go red. “Right.”

“Don't be silly, it's not as if you were Liam and forgot to pack your water.”

His face smiled but his eyes didn't. Enda stopped talking too. It seemed to take forever to return. Kerry was walking more slowly with the wood dragging along behind her. Enda walked next to Brian, either moving ahead in the wrong direction or keeping back with him and causing Kerry to lose her pace. Finally she pretended to admire some wildflowers to the side then followed along behind.

Brian felt cooped up. Why was it when it was just he and Kerry he felt his mind expand, sensing the wind whistling through the leaves, his toes scrunching within his mocassins to meld to the shape of the ground, a slight rolling bounce in his gait that coincided with the Khardja's easy footfalls? He saw everything: rabbits skittering under the brush, birds flying overhead. Once he even had seen a fox with a bright red pelt staring at him, so silent and still that he seemed but an imagination of the real thing.

Not now. He felt like he was back in Kerdae's kitchen. He stubbed his toe on a rock he'd stepped over a hundred times and couldn't be free of the thought that Enda walked back there, staring at him. Probably thought him foolish. She seemed vague in her comments about his story. He'd told it all wrong too, so many skips and backtracks.

They stopped at the bushes Ramona had shown him a few days ago. Then most of the wild raspberries had been hard and green. Today he could see more red, much more. Oh bother, that's more work.

Enda raced ahead to the berry shrubs while Brian gave Kerry her head, leaning the skid against a nearby tree for a quick re-harnessing later. Brian turned to follow her with the bucket but could only see her knees down.

She flung some hanging branches away from her face. “Surprise!” she said. Her mouth already had a few red stains.

Brian just looked at her, wondering. Were all girls this way? Maybe she's forgotten the story by now. That would be a relief. He grabbed at a bush near him and pulled it up. Little red bumps dotted its leafy arm, almost like a tomato vine.

Not many minutes passed before the initial delight of eating raspberries as fresh as fresh can be wore off. Brian set to picking at them for his bucket and Enda followed suit. She, however, dove under, using her shoulders to prop up each reaching branch, and milked the fruit off with both hands.

“See, all done. And more left over for a later day. No worry, no sweat,” she said.

Brian choked on a laugh.

“What's so funny?” she asked.

“No worry, no sweat. What's that supposed to mean?”

“I don't know. Besides the obvious, of course. Father used to say it, like when he taught me to tie my laces.”

“Oh.” And they were back to not talking.

Muffled steps sounded behind him. Paris froze. The long strides of one who climbs mountains daily voiced their staccato noises into the background hum of the forest. The steps caught up with him. No pause. Unyielding, unswerving, they headed directly to the cabin. He cowered in his seat, expecting the effort to make him smaller, darker, or less noticeable.

The steps paused, not ten paces from him. He dare not look up. They continued, encircling around him. He was trapped, pinned between the Stepper and the cabin where the blacksmith stood. The steps stopped again. A grunt and a few quick steps heralded the return of the staccato stomp back to his original path and on to the cabin, with a scraping, swishing sound added.

Paris huddled there for some moments more. “Hallo!” the man called out and the folk at the cabin replied.

“Some more timber, I see,” Kerdae said.

“Aye,” Devlin answered. He dragged the branch up next to the cabin and dropped it.

Kerdae grinned. “Smaller load than the lad's, I see.”

Devlin grinned back. “Two legs against six legs and you expect the same load? I was grazing the kardja. Where is he?”

Paris stopped listening. Grazing the kardja—those overgrown sheep. He slowly crept from tree to tree away from the cabin. A hundred paces into the forest—helped along by what he supposed was the herd's trampling from earlier this morning—he sighed. Next time he met with those people it would be on his terms, not theirs. They would be the ones cowering before him.

He wandered along, uphill for a while, then traversing the mountainside. He breathed heavily. Why go this far? There was grass along the way for the woolly oafs to eat. He wondered if he had missed a turn. It became intolerable: had he gone too far or not far enough?

An hour and a half later, after deciding for the ninth time that he must go back, he leaned against a tree trunk and breathed. The mountain air was brisk. After a few minutes he felt cold in the shade, his sweat tingling under his clothes. He moved into the direct sunlight. Paris closed his eyes.

The sun beat down on his back, his steel-plated armor heavy over his stifling cloak. He had tried girding his cloak up with his belt but cried out when his greaves burned against his shins.

“Up, lad. Again.” The old man stared at him, all gentleness scarred out of his craggy face. He struck the side of Paris's knee with his staff.

Gasping, Paris rose. What was he supposed to do? He had fought and lost against this barbarian six, no seven times. “I'm tired,” he had complained two matches ago, and that was when the staff first hit his knee. He shut his mouth and staggered forward.

The young man, a mute, advanced against him. His eyes laughed at Paris. Paris jabbed with his spear twice. He threw everything into his third jab, willing the slave to die.

It was not to be. The mute sidestepped the blow and wrenched his spear from his grasp. With a whirl over his head he brought his wooden-pointed spear crashing on Paris's collar bone. Something snapped. “Ahhh!” he cried out. It hurt worse than his already-battered rib cage. He fell down on his side, one foot trapped beneath the other. He whimpered.

“Again, again,” the old man said.

Paris started crying then breathed quickly to hide it. The mute walked over him and bent to help him to his feet. With a growl Paris grabbed his knife from his sheath and stabbed the mute. He stood there, unfeeling, the world a star's distance from him. Just the mute's grip on his arm and the cold steel in his right fist. The eyes looked at him blankly, no expression. Or was it surprise? Awe that the spoiled boy had finally done something? Disgust? Pity?

The old man, his uncle, clapped. Clap. Clap. Clap.

Paris cried. They had trained together the whole summer. The mute won, every time, with every weapon. Except now. He didn't even know his name.

Clap. Clap. Clomp. Paris started.

A kardja stood in front of him, its jaw moving in great circles as it chewed something. Something green and smelly. Its eyes were motionless, watching Paris. He didn't move either.

The kardja swallowed, a long great writhing that contorted the neck in little ripples from jaw to chest. Paris thought it more disgusting than the smell. Then the ripple moved back up and there it was, chewing again.

Gross. If I never see one of these again, it will be too soon. He pulled a small vial out of his pocket and opened it. “Would you like a drink on the side?” He made a face at the tongue lolling about. As if a lizard's tongue had replaced a rabbit's. He reached up and shook a few drops into the open mouth.

By mid afternoon they had torn away the rottenness, reset the walls, and restored the roof. The women began preparing the supper meal as the men split off into different tasks. Kerdae grabbed the hinges he had brought and started to work on the door. Brian carted away the rubbish and rotten timber. Devlin went to water the kardja.

An hour later the door was done and Kerry's work had moved the mess from the yard to a hidden spot a short walk away. Brian took her halter off and walked over to the stream. He knelt and drank, then just let his hands float in the cold water. Kerry slurped away next to him. Eventually her slurps slowed and she would raise her long neck to look at the forest around her in between swallows. Brian sat up, then got up. He brushed some wood chips from her back with his fingers. He leaned against her broad side, felt her heart beat. Reaching up he grabbed some of the thick wool at her neck and slid himself up onto her.