The Book of Swords. Gardner Dozois
The king’s envoy walked slowly to the door. His hand was not on his sword hilt, but the crowd flowed back to make way for him. Taura was one of those who followed him. His horse was still tethered outside. The lid of one pannier was loosened. The man paused to secure it. He patted the horse’s neck, untethered her, mounted, and rode off into the darkness without a backward glance. He left the way he had come and the sound of his mount’s hooves faded slowly.
In the morning, the rain continued and the day dragged by. None of the kidnapped folk returned. The red-hulled ship was no longer anchored at the edge of the bay. Jelin began to assert his authority over her family. Her mother helped with the cooking, and Gef salvaged wood that could be used to rebuild or as firewood. When Taura came in from standing her watches, Jelin commanded her to tend his brat so his wife Darda could rest. Cordel was a spoiled, snotty two-year-old who toddled about knocking things over and shrieking when he was reprimanded. His clothing was constantly soiled and they expected Taura to rinse out his dirtied napkins and hang them on the line above the fireplace to dry. As if anything could dry on the chill, damp days that followed the raid. When Taura complained, her mother would hastily remind her that some folk were sheltering under salvaged sails or sleeping on the dirt floors of the fish-smoking shed. She spoke low at such times, as if fearful that Jelin would overhear her complaints and turn them out. She told Taura that she should be grateful to help the household that had taken her in.
Taura did not feel grateful at all. It grated on her to see her mother cooking and cleaning like a servant in a house that was not theirs. Even worse was to see how Gef followed Jelin about, as anxious to please as a hound puppy. It was not as if Jelin treated him well. He ordered the boy about, teased and mocked him, and Gef laughed nervously at the taunts. Jelin worked the boy as if he were a donkey, and they both came home from trying to raise Jelin’s fishing boat soaked and weary. Gef didn’t complain; rather he fawned on Jelin for his attention. He had never behaved so with their father; her father had always been distant and gruff with both his son and daughter. Perhaps their own father had not been affectionate, but, simple or not, it was wrong for Gef to forget him so soon. Likely their father wasn’t even dead yet. Taura seethed in silence.
But worse came the next night. Her mother had made a fish stew, more like a soup for she had stretched it to feed all of them. It was thin and grey, made from small fish caught from shore, and the starchy roots of the brown lily that grew on the cliffs and kelp and small shellfish from the beach. It tasted like low tide smelled. They had to eat in shifts, for there were not enough bowls. Taura and her mother ate last, with Taura given a small serving and her mother scraping out the kettle for her dinner. As Taura slowly spooned up the thin broth and small pieces of fish and root, Jelin sat down heavily across from her. “Things have to change,” he said abruptly, and her mother gaped silently.
Taura gave him a flat look. He was staring at her, not her mother.
“It’s plain to see that there’s not enough in this house to go around. Not food, not beds, not room. So. Either we have to find a way to create more of those things or we have to ask some people to move out.”
Her mother was silent, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. Taura gave her a sideways glance. Her eyes were anxious, her mouth pinched tight as a drawstring poke. She’d get no help there. Her father taken less than five days ago and her mother already abandoning her. She met Jelin’s gaze and she was proud her voice didn’t shake as she said, “You’re talking about me.”
He nodded once. “It’s plain to see that caring for little Cordel doesn’t suit you. Or him. You stand your watches for the village, but that doesn’t put more food in the house or more firewood on the stack. You step over a chore that plainly needs doing, and what we ask you to do, you do grudgingly. You spend most of each day sulking by the fire.”
A coldness was running through her as he recounted her faults. It made her ears ring. Her mother’s silence was condemnation. Her brother stood away from the table, looking down, shamed for her. Frightened perhaps. They both felt Jelin was justified. They’d both surrendered their family loyalty to Jelin at the moment that they gave him her father’s sword. He was talking on and on, suggesting that she could go with some of the people who were scavenging the beaches at low tide for tiny shellfish. Or that she might walk for four hours to Shearton, to see if she would find work there, something she could do for a few coins a day to bring some food into the house. She made no reply to any of his words nor did she let her face change expression.
When he finally stopped talking, she spoke. “I thought our room and board here were well paid for in advance. Did not you take my father’s sword in its fine leather sheath, tooled with the words of my family’s motto? ‘Follow a Strong Man,’ it says! That’s a fine sword Buckkeep made. My father bore it in his days in King Shrewd’s guard when he was young and hearty. Now you have the sword that was to be my inheritance!”
“Taura!” her mother gasped, but it was a remonstrance for her, not a heart-stricken realization of what she had given away.
“Ungrateful bitch!” Jelin’s wife gasped as he demanded, “Can you eat a sword, you stupid child? Can it keep the rain from your back or warm your feet when the snow falls?”
Taura had just opened her mouth to reply when they heard the scream. It was not distant. Someone pelted past the cottage, shrieking breathlessly. Taura was first to her feet, opening the door to peer out into the rainy night as Jelin and Darda shouted, “Close the door and bar it!” As if they had learned nothing from the folk who had been burned to death when the raiders had torched their cottages.
“They’re coming!” someone shouted. “They’re coming from the beach, out of the sea! They’re coming!”
Her brother came crowding behind her to slip under her arm and peer out. “They’re coming!” he said in foolish approval. A moment later, the whistles sounded. Two blasts, over and over again.
“El’s balls, close that damn door!” Jelin roared. The sword he had so decried a moment before was bared in his hands now. The sight of it and the fine sheath discarded on the floor raised Taura’s fury to white-hot. She pushed past her brother, seized the edge of the door, and slammed it shut in his face. An instant later, she wished she had thought to take her cloak with her, but it was too fine of a defiant exit to spoil by going back for it.
It was raining, not heavily but in penetrating small insistent drops. Other folk were emerging from their homes, to peer out into the night. Some few had seized their pathetic weapons, cudgels and fish-knives and gaff hooks. Tools of trades that were never intended for battle or defense were all they had. A long scream rose and fell in the night.
Most folk stayed within their doorways, but some few, the bold or the hopeless, ventured out. In a loose group they walked through the dark streets toward the whistle. One of the men carried a lantern. It showed Taura damaged homes, some burned to cinders and others skeletons of blackened beams. She saw a dead dog that had not been cleared from the street. Perhaps his owner was no longer alive. Some homes stood relatively intact, light leaking from shuttered windows. She hated the smell the rain woke from the burned homes. Items that the raiders had claimed then dropped were scorched and sodden in the street. The scream was not repeated and to Taura that seemed more frightening than if it had gone on.
The lantern bearer held it high and by its uncertain light Taura saw several figures coming toward them. One of the men in the group suddenly called out “Hatilde! You live!” He ran toward a woman. She made no reply to his greeting. Instead, she abruptly stopped and stared at the rubble of a home. Slowly Taura and the others approached them. The man stood beside Hatilde, a questioning look on his face. Her hair was lank, her wet clothes hung limp on her. He spoke gently to her. “They burned your cottage. I’m so sorry, Hatilde.”
Without a word, she turned from him. The house next to her rubble had survived the attack. She walked to it and tried the door, and then pounded on it. An elderly woman opened it slowly. “Hatilde! You survived!” she exclaimed. A tentative smile began to form on her face.
But the Forged woman said nothing. She pushed the old woman out of her way and entered the cottage. The old woman stumbled