Ascalla's Daughter Read online

  “It’s myself not be so forgiving.” He struck his noggin a time or two with a calloused hand, blows that settled the bad eye toward the building while the steady one followed Marcus.

  “If you’ve gathered your wits, I’d have a word,” Marcus concentrated a gaze on the good eye. The look seemed to sober Horace, and he straightened with only a little wobble.

  “You’ve business with me, Knight Marcus?” He hiccoughed and managed to focus the errant eye in the same direction as the other.

  “I wonder if you’d oblige me by paying a visit to the good Father?”

  “Oh, nay. Anything but that. He’ll have me on my knees asking to be forgive the rest of the night. I’d rather take my chances facing me Annabelle. Got her a sharp tongue for sure, but I’ve reason to believe she’ll ease off afore the sun comes into the dale.” He started to turn back toward Levon’s but came up short with Marcus blocking his escape.

  “It’s not your immortal soul be in question, Horace. It be for a wee laddie found on the mountain. Froze in the snow he was. Mayhap if you’ve a mind, you’d come along and have a look at him. Be gratified if you can identify the tad.” Still reluctant, Horace gave him a blank stare, but his expression told Marcus for a much different reason. “Aye, I know the way it is with your own boys so fresh taken. But the lad’s meant for the good earth. Sad to have him put into the dark with no name for a marker.”

  The last thing Horace Runderly wanted to do was think about Baline and his boys. He knew that like as not if he and Annabelle hadn’t set out for her sister’s place on account of her being down sick and all, they’d both be long dead. Still, he couldn’t get past thinking that by being there he might have got a warning off to the boys. Just a warning, a simple wee thing like that and instead of stole away over the mountains, they’d both be here right now. He took a deep breath and let it out slow. Poor little bugger, if laying a name to a dead lad made a difference, maybe he’d be finding some comfort in it for him and Annabelle. He’d want it done for his boys, after all.

  “I be your man, Marcus. Only keep it mum do you mind. Annabelle’s had enough misery. You be knowing they taken our other boy in the first raid three year back. Losing these two’s set her near crazy.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, his head splitting fit to kill a sin eater, Horace Runderly looked at the frozen body of Timothy Daire. His perfect, ashen features, right down to a straight nose that ended in a little round bulb, looked like sculpted wax. Dark lashes rested on his bluish cheeks, and the little mouth, with a protruding bottom lip, seemed frozen in a permanent pout. Horace touched the little boy’s fingers. They weren’t frozen as solid as the rest of the body. The grayish tinge that crawled toward the knuckles signaled decay.

  “It’s wee Timmy Daire. His mam be Brinny Daire and his pa, Able. I heard they took Brinny, but have you found her sister? Chinera be of the healing line, a first-born healing woman of Baline. Had a wee lass. Comely as a bluebell that wee girl.”

  “Aye found Chinera Whelan just at the edge of the wood. Hacked with a long knife, she gave her blood to the Mother,” said Klea. “Her man Matthias Whelan died long side Able Daire and the other men.”

  Horace broke his gaze and turned toward Klea. “And the wee lass, is there naught of her? Ceri be her name.”

  Father Wryth leafed through several pages of the ledger until he found the Ws. One crooked finger moved down the list of names. “Here is Matthias Whelan. I find no mention of a marriage to Chinera, nor birth of a child.”

  “It be the census taker, Father. Reckon as how none’s come since they married up, but Chinera and Matthias called her Ceri. Sure of that much, I be. She’d learn the ways from her mam and the wise man. Healing women all. Brinny too, but not strong like Chinera. You’ll be marking the marriage and the birth now I spect.”

  “Aye,” Wryth agreed, “well in part at least.”

  Itchy to be away, Marcus stepped from foot to foot. “Horace, you done well by the boy this night. Mayhap we be getting you back to Annabelle.” He took the man by the arm, but Horace was not ready to go.

  “I be took with drink, Father. Tell me clear what you be meaning by in part.”

  “My son, understand me and take no offense. I’ve proof of the birth of Chinera, and I find Matthias Whelan listed among Baline’s citizenry, but without evidence to confirm they had a child,” he shrugged.

  Horace put on an insulted face. One eye roamed over the priest while the other glared straight toward the ceiling. “I be your evidence.” He took a step closer to Wryth and pushed his belly against the priest knocking him a few steps backward. “You be saying my word’s no good?”

  Wryth turned away. “ ‘Tis no affront I meant to you, Horace. The law prohibits the child’s recognition without physical proof of her existence.” Hastily he dipped a quill in the inkpot and entered the marriage between Matthias and Chinera. “See here, my good man, I have entered the marriage based on your word.” He hoped that would satisfy Horace.

  “What means this word, prohibit?” Horace, his anger still apparent, spat the question at the priest.

  “It means stop. Ascallan law stops me.” He turned to Marcus. “Did you find a girl child in the village?

  “No sign of her in the village,” he said and heard Klea take a louder than usual breath. Time to get the three of them out of here before talk settled more on the lass. “You’ve a name now for the boy, Father. Timothy Daire, aye?” Marcus shifted his weight from foot to foot. The sooner he got Horace away, the better. Horace didn’t fathom a bit that what he said might lead straight to the lass. On the other account, Klea’s eyes bore into him, not asking but confused by his silence when sure as not she be the wee girl Horace asked after. He supposed an explanation might be due. Just not now, with the Father looking on and already raising that cleric’s eye at mention of a wise man. Horace must still feel the drink, going like a bloody magpie about healers. Wasn’t so much that he named Chinera Whelan’s kin as healers. Many a healer turned a fine hand helping folks what ailed. But wise man didn’t mean scholar, leastways not in Ascalla. He’d caught Wryth’s raised brow soon as Horace said what he said. Best get shed of the place before another slip tied the wee lassie up in the mix. He nudged Horace toward the door. Trouble be, Horace was not quite finished.

  “You be closing up your damnable book and hiding behind a law then, I take it,” said Horace. “I be calling that a bad law, and you,” He took a ragged breath, and his innards gave a mighty heave threatening to spill what was left of a night’s drink all over the stone floor. “I be a man of few words, some of them foul, but I’ll not be knowing any rank enough to name you.” His crazy eye shifted and he tried to focus on Marcus. “Best get me out a here before I break a few laws got to do with giving a man of the cloth a good what for. I best get back to Annabelle. She sleeps poor these days, seeing as how we give three sons up for dead or captured.”

  ***

  They left Horace at Levon’s Tavern; fairly certain he had no intention beyond finding his bed. Marcus started for home, and Klea fell in beside him shattering any notion he might have harbored that the matter of Ceri Whelan ended under the apse. Propriety held firm enough that Klea didn’t come right out and ask him what he thought about whether or not the lassie was Ceri Whelan. He ambled along skipping an extra step in every ten to accommodate Marcus’s long stride and chatted amiably about his mother’s plan for enlarging the taproom come spring when the weather warmed.

  “Course, she means to set my hand to the labor of it, me what never built more than a shed.”

  Marcus mumbled a nondescript reply and kept walking. He’d halfway hoped to leave Klea at Levon’s along with Horace. While he considered all of the knights a close lot, none came closer to being a brother than Klea, but tonight he didn’t much want deep talk. His long bones made a fuss clean into the marrow. Tonight he wanted a good sleep by the fire. Some of Gram’s peppermint salve rubbed into his joints and he’d be frisky as a new lam
b come morning. He gave Klea a sidelong glance, no doubt about the questions abloom in those eyes. Marcus sighed. If possible, he’d measure his words. Aye, if possible, but that was the trouble with brothers, blood or not. They read reluctance clear as day

  The temperature fell with the rising moon, and the muddy roadway froze into stiff-edged ruts. Good for the smithy’s business, Marcus thought. Deep furrows like these chewed pieces of metal from the wheel rounds. Enough pieces chinked away revealed too much wood, and willy-nilly the cart be needin’ a whole new wheel. He picked his way around the deepest of them and mulled over how best to tell Klea that, yes, he did think the lassie was Ceri Whelan. Making that revelation was the easy part. The real effort centered on why he chose to keep mum.

  Klea ran out of things to say, and they walked along in companionable silence. Candlelight winked at them from the windows of the merchant shops they passed. The Grand Emporium lit the south end of the street. Through the wide windows, they could see Avery Buckley setting merchandise to rights after a day’s trade. He spied them through the glass and waved. Marcus hoped he wouldn’t motion them inside, but like as not Avery’s belly growled for dinner.

  The Emporium sold everything from lengths of homespun that Avery took on consignment or in trade, to imported gems and simple furniture. He did a fair trade in healing herbs with some of the townies, but people like Granny Stone passed up his bottles of dried roots, seeds, and leaves in favor of foraging their own. Despite a few naysayers, when it came to his supply of herbs, rumor had it that Avery stowed more coin under his bed than the king’s banker kept in the vault. Folks liked walking through the Emporium, and if curiosity brought them in, Avery knew they’d make a common sense purchase before they found their way out. Marcus had taken a turn through the place a time or two just to see the assortment of oddities. He had to admit that whenever he did, he bought a little something, horehound candy once and a copper pot for Gram another time. They passed the last window where a lady’s gown, died a dark rose and edged with creamy lace, decorated the space.

  “Might fine, I’d say for country folk. A thing fit enough for Queen Elandra,” Klea said.

  “Oh, aye, save the queen’s got a whole slew of ladies what makes her finery. I spect Avery thought a bit of fancy might bring folks in for a look.” Marcus told him.

  He set his jaw. Nothing came easy this night, least of all, what he wanted to tell Klea. Might just as well get to it. Klea had slowed the pace, his eyes fastened on a saddle trimmed with embossed silver in a floral design. He started across the street for a better look.

  Marcus stopped, turned and eyeballed him. “Klea?” His voice sounded crisp-tongued, like a command and not the way he meant it to sound at all.

  “Captain?” Klea stood sharp.

  “Klea, I’ve nary a doubt the wee lassie be Ceri Whelan. Can you keep it to yourself, lad?” There, he had spit it out like a wad of chew, short and straight to the point. He set one huge hand on Klea’s shoulder.

  “Aye. No fear there.”

  “Come along, then. You deserve a bit of explaining. Gram’ll fetch you a chunk of apple cake while I be telling you the reason I ask for your silence on the matter.”

  “Captain?”

  “Aye?”

  “Think the trimmings on that saddle be too fine for the likes of a man like me?”

  ***

  Granny Stone gathered a sizeable bundle of cloth scraps and covered it over with a less worn piece. She twisted and squeezed, shaping it with each turn until it felt firm and looked round. Once satisfied with the shape, she ringed it twice with a length of rawhide and tied a double knot. A few more shreds tied into the piece made arms. Minutes later two legs emerged where nothing existed prior to her ministering. A little girl sat on the floor watching through big round eyes. Her thumb, smeared with some bitter concoction of ground herbs, the worst tasting thing in the pantry, stole toward her mouth, but a whiff of the smelly mixture reminded her that Gram forbade thumb sucking, at least until the giant came home, dried her tears, and washed it clean.

  “Eh, none of that now. You’ll be making your teeth stand straight out of your mouth, if you don’t give up on that thumb. Besides, I made you a wee dolly” Gram made three small slits in a piece of flowered silk she’d picked from the waste in the queen’s sewing room. The rag head protruded from one of the slits and a single arm through each of the other two. She had found it just yesterday and thought to make the doll as soon as they got home from tending Her Majesty. Then she thought better of it and took it straight back today. Would not do to be found with a piece of silk, and none to know she took it save herself no matter that it be a scrap. Wasn’t but one course and that to ask might she have it. She smiled to herself. Course Her Majesty said she might take what she wanted from the clippings in that basket. Take the whole of it did she want them. And so she had come home with the whole caboodle tucked under one arm, leading the child along with the other. She had just finished the doll when the cottage door flew wide.

  “Now here be my two best ladies,” said Marcus. He ducked his head to avoid the top of the door jam and pushed into the room. The little girl’s face split in a wide smile that revealed two rows of pearly baby teeth. She stood and ran to Marcus, the errant thumb stuck up for inspection. “Ooh what’s amiss? Trouble with your wee digit?”

  “Gram,” she shuddered a bit. “Gram maked it ugly. Taste bad,” and then she gave that innocent, wide-eyed smile that so captured his heart. “Martus fix.”

  Marcus leaned low and picked her up. Her small fist disappeared in his hand, all save the ailing thumb, which received careful scrutiny. “Nary much amiss here, weeun.” Gram caught his eye and he gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Maybe a wee wash be all that’s needed.” He ladled a scoop of water from a bucket in the corner. “Now then, lass, stick your thumb in and give it a good rub. See as how that works.”

  Ceri dipped her thumb, rubbed it with the other hand, and tasted it. She screwed her face into a scowl and looked at Marcus. “Ugly, vera ugly, Martus.”

  “Try her again, lass. Might take a time or two.”

  And it did. Three times exactly before she pronounced the thumb good again. Her small arms came tight around his neck. She planted a loud kiss on his cheek. Somewhere in the middle of the hug, she spied Klea over his shoulder and stiffened.

  “Now what be wrong with you,” said Marcus. He held her a little away from him and she pointed. “Don’t be telling me Gram’s give you two ugly fingers?”

  She shook her head. “Who that man be?”

  Marcus set her on her feet. “That be Klea. Friend to Gram and me.”

  Klea moved into the firelight so she could get a better look at him.

  “My friend too?”

  “Aye, little one,” said Klea.

  “Think you can spare a bit of apple cake for this scoundrel what followed me home?”

  Gram smiled. She liked the look of big men with purpose. Serious faced on the outside but wee lads on the in. “I spect so,” she said.

  They gathered around the table where she cut large slices of apple cake and topped them with clotted cream. She watched Klea eye the bowl and added a dollop more. Her reward his grateful smile. He settled into a chair and began eating the cake away from the center where the cream rested. Once the cake disappeared, the cream vanished in a single gulp. Ceri’s interest focused more on her new dolly. She curled up on a sleeping pallet near the fire and crooned a singsong lullaby to it.

  “Did ye teach her that, Gram?” Marcus asked.

  “Nay, lad. She started singing it today when we tended Her Majesty. Young Hawk banged his knee and come nursing a scrape. I be set on tending Her Majesty, and the lassie took up a cloth and went to cleaning the dirt from his knee. He whimpered a bit. I spect it did hurt a might. That’s when she commenced her song. Her Majesty took note of it, and I made haste to stop her, but Her Majesty said as how I should let them be. Well, she finished up with Prince Hawk’s knee, and it did lo
ok a might better, not so red nor bloody. The prince, he’d quit his tears by then, gave her the sweetest wee kiss you ever saw.”

  “Ah, little prince be a good sort. Wandered down to the stable a time or two. Likes the horses, he does,” said Klea.

  “Likes our wee girl, too. Asked Her Majesty to have her come again and play at blocks with him.” Gram cut Klea another chunk of cake and heaped on more clotted cream. Her Majesty said as how she thought that be a fine idea and then had a look at his banged knee. Almost no wound at all.”

  “Think you the lass…”

  “Aye,” said Gram. “I fibbed on her then and said she be orphaned when her folks took sick with the influenza. The wee prince come asking her name. One fib breeds another, don’t you know, and so I made another. I said as how we didn’t know and how you’d found her near to where they died.”

  “Think you, Her Majesty believed that?” Klea asked.

  “Her Majesty’s got a sharp wit about her. She knows a fib when she hears one. But she gave me a look and a nod and let the story take.” Gram smiled revealing a missing front tooth. “There’s a bit more,” she said.

  “Best tell it all, Gram,” said Marcus.

  “Prince Hawk’s got him a picture book. Her Majesty reads the stories in that book to him every day. Knows them mostly by heart. Got one story in that book about a wee lass found in the forest by faeries what raised her up a dream maker called Evangeline.”

  “Dream maker,” said Marcus. “What that be, Gram?”

  “Got me bits and pieces of the story sometimes when Her Majesty be readin’ it but not the whole of it, mind.”

  Marcus nodded. “Tell what you know.”

  “Well, faeries be partial to dreams—all kinds. Wee Evangeline being mortal and all they bid her give sweet dreams to those as deserved them.”

  “What of them what didn’t?” Klea asked through a mouthful of apple cake. “Did ye hear that part of the tale?”

  “Oh, aye, but nary more. Them what stank of evil be plagued by the dreadfuls.”