"Put it in there," River said motioning with her chin toward an empty pot on the floor.
Nettle slid the fish in the pot.
Talen still stood on the other side of the room brooding.
"What are you doing?" River asked him. "Go sit down."
"I"m not getting anywhere close to that," Talen said and pointed at Sugar.
"Her name is Sugar," River corrected. "And you are going to be the gracious host."
Just then, Legs appeared in the doorway of the back room holding the covered chamber pot.
River smiled. "Here"s the perfect chance. It looks like you have a little business in the back room that needs to be dealt with."
Talen looked at Legs and curled his nose in disgust. "A little business?" he asked in dismay. "No." He shook his head. "I will not."
"You will empty the chamber pot for him, and then you will empty it for Sugar."
"No," said Sugar. "Please." They"d already put this family in grave danger. She didn"t want them to do one thing more.
"You can"t go outside," said River. "That would be foolhardy. Besides, we wouldn"t have this problem except for Talen. So he can take responsibility for the messes he makes."
"I"m not doing it," said Talen. He looked at Nettle.
Nettle held up both hands. "This is your house, not mine."
Ke shifted his enormous frame in his seat to face Talen squarely. "You"re going to be the little chamber pot man," said Ke. "And you"re going to be happy about it."
The threat was obvious, but Talen didn"t move. Then Ke stood and took a threatening step.
"Fine," Talen said, irritated. "Tell him to put it down and step away."
Legs set the pot on the floor and backed away.
"Come," said Sugar, "we"ll go back down."
Legs began to feel his way over to Sugar. Only then did Talen brush past. He picked up the pot with great distaste and hurried outside.
"Please stay here," River said to Sugar. "Talen will be all right. You just sit down and enjoy your meal."
It felt so good to stand straight and see sunlight. Perhaps she could stay up here for just a little while.
"I can understand his reluctance," said Sugar.
"He"s not the only one that"s reluctant," said Nettle.
When Talen returned, they ate in relative silence, River asking Sugar questions that would make any normal guest feel comfortable. But these were not normal circ.u.mstances, and they only made the meal more strained.
Toward the end, River turned to Talen and said, "Because of last night, Ke and I now must find Sugar and Legs another place. So we"ll be hunting one up today. That means you"re going to stay here to finish the ch.o.r.es and to keep an eye out. Sugar and Legs are your charge until we return."
Talen just looked into his bowl.
"Look at me, Talen. Do you think Da and I are stupid people? I know Ke, of course, is suspect . . ." She grinned.
It was a good effort to break the tension, but Talen did not accept it. "Yes, given the facts, I do think you"re stupid. But then I know you"re not stupid, so that means you"re hiding some of the facts."
River glanced at Ke then back to Talen.
"And you"ve been hiding them for quite some time," said Talen.
"It wasn"t supposed to happen this way," she said. "Da knows these people. They"re good, Talen. And there"s more to this than you realize. So much more. But now"s not the time or place to explain. All you have to do is finish the ch.o.r.es and keep an eye out. I want you to give Sugar and Legs some time up here. And that means you"ll have to stay in the house. Because you won"t be able to warn her or cover her retreat if you"re outside."
"Then how do I do the ch.o.r.es?"
Both River and Ke looked at Nettle.
"Right," said Nettle. "I"ll be out in the fields."
"Oh, no you don"t," said Talen. "You"re not leaving me alone with these two."
"Ch.o.r.es have got to be done," said Ke. "It will look odd, a fine day like today and n.o.body working. Besides, a man shoulders his own burdens."
"Sure," said Talen. "And when these two eat me, I guess you"ll be the one cleaning up what"s left."
River said, "They present no more danger than me or Ke."
"Just the presence of them," Talen said, "is enough to put a noose around every one of our necks."
But River didn"t listen to him. She stroked Sugar"s hair and finished eating. Nettle finished and went out to the fields. Finally, River and Ke stood and announced they would be back. Talen asked where they were going.
"Out," Ke replied. Then the two of them exited the house.
While River had been there, Sugar, for the first time since the awful events, felt a lightening in her mood. There were some people that possessed such great quant.i.ties of openness and hope that it spilled over to others. River was one of these people. Of course, when River closed the door behind her, Sugar and Legs were left with Talen.
He threw the bar on the door then turned to her. He shook his head as if he still couldn"t believe his predicament and picked up his bow. He withdrew two arrows from one of the three tall baskets that hung on the wall. Each basket held arrows with that were ringed with a different color just below the fletching. She a.s.sumed the colors distinguished a different spine strength and weight that would match the strength of the bow. He nocked one of the arrows marked with an ochre ring. The other he kept in the hand that held the bow. Both had gray goose feathers. Both were plain, but they had clearly been heated and straightened and would fly true to deliver the iron tips that shone with grease to keep the rust off. "Here"s the first thing we"re going to get straight," said Talen. "Me and my immortal parts are off limits. You see that smudge on the lintel of the doorway to the loft?"
Sugar turned to look where he pointed. A moment later the bow hummed and an arrow shaft sank into a dark coloration on the pale whitewashed lintel.
She turned back to him. He held two more of the ochre ringed arrows, one nocked just as before.
Legs sat at the table eating the last sc.r.a.ps of his food. He put down his spoon and held very still.
"I"ve been thinking all morning," Talen said. "I don"t know what game my father is playing, but I do know this: if you cross me, I won"t hesitate. In fact, by all rights, I should shoot you down now."
Sugar knew the look in his eyes. She knew he was considering it. Her father had taught her to never show fear in a fight. Never show pain. Never give an opponent any reason for courage unless you wanted to lure them into a trap. What kind of a fighter was Talen? Was he one that only respected force? Or was he one that was more interested in avoiding a fight?
"Why does my father harbor a hatchling?" he asked.
"I"m not a hatchling," she said.
"Whatever you call it."
"I practice no dark art," she said.
"No, you wouldn"t think it dark, would you?"
"I don"t know any lore," she said.
"But your parents do."
She had no response to that.
"Right," he said. "So what"s been done to my father? Or is some threat being hung over us?"
"Nothing has been done," she said. "There are no threats."
He was agitated. Angry. Scared. She could read it all in his face. And she would have the same reaction in his situation, was having the same reaction to what her mother had done.
"How do I know River and Ke aren"t already under the spell of some foul master?" he asked. "How do I know they"ll even return?"
He raised his bow as if to draw it. "Nettle said to wait and see. But I can"t see how that will help."
Sugar knew what was going through his mind. He thought she was sleth. And only a fool would play games with such a creature. Better safe than sorry, that"s what he was thinking.
She had to calm him down. Had to buy some time. Because she and Legs would not survive the afternoon with him in this state. "I will not lie to you," she said. "My mother did things that-"
She didn"t want to say it. Legs sat motionless as a heron at the table, his wild hair sticking up. She didn"t want for him to hear it this way, but that wasn"t the reason she"d stopped. She didn"t want to name Mother, didn"t want to pin that awful description on her. There were other explanations for what Sugar had seen her mother do. Maybe Sugar"s fears had distorted what had happened. Maybe Cotton had indeed been stolen and magicked by woodikin. Maybe the soul of one of the famished rode in the body of the stork they"d found. There were a dozen maybes.
But the easiest explanation would not go away. She had to face the truth. There was no salvation in lies. "I saw my mother charge an army. I saw her cleave a man"s head in two. I saw her move with a dark grace that horrified me." The words dropped from her mouth like heavy stones, but she pushed on. "And I saw the sleth signs on the dead body of my little brother. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I found out about this only a day before you."
Talen did not raise his bow, but he didn"t lower it either.
Sugar continued, "I am not a.s.sociated with any murder of sleth. I have nothing to do with any art, unless my mother has done something to me like she did to my brother. But I don"t know what that would be. I"m as confused as you are, Talen."
"You"re convincing," Talen said. "But that"s what you"d expect from a sleth."
"Think on this," she said. "If we were so wicked, wouldn"t we have risen from the cellar early this morning and worked our mischief on you when you were all asleep?"
"I didn"t sleep," he said.
"Even so," she said. "If we were sleth, it would have been the perfect time, don"t you agree?"
He said nothing, but she could see the wheels of his mind turning, see him weighing her, weighing the situation.
At last, he shook his head in frustration, then pointed at the edge of the table where Legs sat. "That"s the line," he said. "Cross it, and my arrows fly."
She exhaled and realized she"d been holding her breath. But his decision didn"t mean they were safe. He could change his mind at any moment and sink an arrow into each of them. She needed to have another plan to neutralize that bow, but couldn"t see what she might use. Then she brushed the knife at her waist. A bow was a hard weapon to wield in close s.p.a.ces. A knife, on the other hand, was perfect.
She turned so the knife sheathed at her waist was hidden from his view. Then she ran one hand through her hair and with the other she discretely removed the loop that held the knife in the sheath.
She and Legs were going to get out here. Her mother had told her to take Legs and ride. She should have disobeyed her mother before and fought, but now she"d make up for that. She"d take Legs and stow him in a safe place. And then what? Go find Mother?
It was a ridiculous thought. And unimportant at this moment. Right now she had to figure out how to deal with this boy. She began to clean up the breakfast dishes. Began to tidy things so her mind could work.
When she was calm, the first thing she noticed was that he"d placed himself in the wrong part of the house. "You cannot look out of the windows from where you"re sitting," she said.
He shrugged.
She said, "You can"t watch for hunters from that side of the room."
"You look out the windows and watch for hunters. I"m watching you."
She nodded in acquiescence. But if hunters did come, it would not do to have them find him sitting there, guarding her and Legs. You didn"t guard a visitor. Any hunter with a brain would see something was odd.
Legs stepped toward Sugar with his hands out. When he found her, he asked, "Should I go down?"
It would probably be best. That way she wouldn"t have to worry about him should the situation change. But she didn"t want him to sit down there alone thinking about what she"d just revealed. He needed to know she was strong. That things would be all right.
"Stand with me," she said, "and smell the morning coming in through the windows. We"ll visit the potatoes soon enough."
The shutters by the dining table looked out over the farm. She pulled them completely open then walked to the back of the house and opened the shutters on the window there so she had a clear view of the river. She scanned the woods and farm; n.o.body but Nettle was there.
Talen said, "Why did you take my pants?"
"I didn"t take your pants."
"You wore them the first night here. Why?"
"Your sister gave them to me. She wanted to use our clothing to create a false trail should anyone with dogs come across our tracks."
Talen nodded and fell silent.
After a few moments Legs began to hum one of the songs he"d often sang to entertain the men and women of Plum village in the evenings as they sat drinking their ale. It was the one about a stupid boy trying to outsmart a gang of crows. She smiled. Perhaps it was she who needed him.
Legs sang another few songs, then he stopped, and Sugar could see his was thinking. A few minutes later he began again. A half-an-hour must have pa.s.sed that way, Legs humming or singing, stopping to think, singing again. Sugar tidied up breakfast, then the floor, all the time watching the windows. And the whole time, Talen sat on the other side of the room with his bow at the ready.
Sugar ran through a number of scenarios. She knew if Talen changed his mind and decided to use his bow, then she would pick up a chair as a shield and charge him. He"d only get off one shot that way. It would pierce her body or it wouldn"t. And if it didn"t, then she"d be in close with her knife. However, that wouldn"t solve any issues should hunters show up. They needed to seem friends, and that would never happen with him holding the bow.
She finished the floor, cleaned the ashes from the hearth and put them in the tin ash bucket, then took a good long look out the window. Nettle worked in the distance.
Talen spoke. "What kind of a name is Legs anyway? It"s not like he"s tall for his age. I can"t imagine he"s quick either."
"No, Zu," said Legs. "It"s rather hard to be speedy when you can"t see where you"re going. And do you know what that means?"
"What?" Talen asked suspiciously.