“Your father was in the right to throw them off,” Myrrima said. “We’ve had this talk about squatters before. It isn’t a kind thing to do, but it is needful.”
“But the Walkins had children in the camp,” Sage said. “Some of them were just babies. They shouldn’t have to starve just because . . . their parents make mistakes.”
“That’s the way of it,” Myrrima said. “When parents make mistakes, children often suffer.” She thought of Erin, and even of Sage. What would her children be called upon to bear because of her actions?
She dared not say it, but now she was reminded of how much she feared Aaath Ulber’s plan. He was going to take the whole family back into a war.
“The ship doesn’t really belong to Father,” Sage said. “It doesn’t belong to anyone. Father shouldn’t be able to just take it.”
“Aaath Ulber is a soldier at war,” Myrrima pointed out. “When a lord is in battle, he often finds that he may have to commandeer goods—food for his troops, shelter for his wounded, horses to draw wagons. He takes a little in order to help the many. That is what your father was doing with the ship. Owen Walkin knew that. He was a soldier, too. Baron Walkin broke his oath.”
Sage peered into the barrel. It was nearly full, and light reflecting from the water’s surface danced in her blue eyes.
Sage was aptly named, for even as a babe she had seemed to have a thoughtful look to her. “Father has changed,” Sage said. “I don’t know who he is anymore. He doesn’t think like we do, or else how could he do what he did to Sir Owen?”
“I suspect that you’re right,” Myrrima said. “Aaath Ulber’s people have been at war with the wyrmlings for thousands of years. In that war, his people lost everything—their lands, their friends, their freedom to roam. On Aaath Ulber’s world, he had a choice of only a few women that he could wed. He was expected to marry a woman from the warrior clans, a good breeder. In his world, he was expected to give up everything in the service of his people—even love.”
“I think that people who give up love,” Sage said, “must be a different kind of people. A person who would give up love for the war effort would give up anything else. I think he just expected Walkin to give up the ship. He didn’t think to ask for it, because in his world there would have been no need to ask.”
Myrrima studied her daughter, surprised at the depth of the girl’s insight. “I think you’re right. You should remember this. You and I both know your father, but we have yet to learn what kind of man Aaath Ulber really is.”
Rain still loved Draken; that much she felt sure of as she walked away from the Borenson camp, using a wad of grass as a poultice to stanch the wound to her arm. The cut wasn’t wide, but it was deep.
Yet the image of her father’s death hung over her, blinding in its intensity, so that as she plodded down the uneven trail, she often stumbled over rocks or tree roots.
Her thoughts were jangled, her nerves on edge.
There was a road of sorts here along the rim of the mesa—uneven and narrow. Teamsters sometimes used it in winter, Draken had told her. But there were no houses here, no other sign of life. Instead ragged bluffs of rock—sometimes iron red and sometimes ashen gray—rose all around in a jumble; in places the rock lay exposed for mile after weary mile. The soil was so shallow that little but rangit grass could grow in the open, and most of the shade could be found only beside the occasional stream.
I love Draken, she kept thinking, and she wanted to return to him. But she couldn’t bear standing in the presence of Aaath Ulber. His actions had driven a wedge between her and Draken, and Rain feared that she had lost him forever.
Just as importantly, she couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning her mother now. The Walkin clan was so poor. Rain was the oldest of seven children. Life would be hard enough here in the wilderness, but without her father, it would be much tougher now. Rain felt that she owed it to her mother to stay.
Which left her only one choice: She had to convince Draken to stay.
She found herself walking slowly. The Walkins soon became strung out, Rain’s mother leading the way, her back stiff and angry, her strides long and sure.
The mothers carried their infants, the fathers the toddlers, and every child above the age of five had to walk. But the little ones could not travel in haste, and could not go far. After a mile, they began to lag.
So Rain kept up the rear guard, making sure that they were safe. There were wild hunting cats up here on the bluff, she knew, cats large enough to take down a large rangit or run off with a child. She’d heard them not two nights ago snarling in the dark as she tried to sleep.
So she lagged behind. Her aunt Della soon came to walk at her side. Della was ten years Rain’s senior, and already had five children. Her tongue was as sharp as a dagger, and she felt compelled to honestly speak any cruel thought that came to mind.
“You’re not thinking of going back to Draken, are you?”
“No,” Rain said. The word was slow to come from her mouth.
“You can’t go back to him. It’s because of you that we’re in this mess.”
The notion seemed odd. “What do you mean?”
“If you hadn’t gotten caught by Warlord Grunswallen, Owen never would have had to kill to defend your honor.”
Rain felt determined to defend herself. “As I recall, I was churning butter in the basement when I got ‘caught.’ It wasn’t my fault. Someone—one of our neighbors—reported me.”
“But why?” Della demanded. “Obviously, you offended someone. They wanted to see you gone.”
Rain knew that wasn’t true. “I had no enemies, only faithless townsfolk who hoped to gain some advantage for themselves.”
“Or maybe someone just disliked the way that you always go around with your nose in the air, acting like you’re better than they are! Here I am, the pretty little lady—to the manor born.”
Della wasn’t the most pleasant woman to look upon. Nor was she ugly. But it was plain that she felt ugly inside. Her father had not had a title, though he was a respected cattleman.
“I’ve never done that,” Rain said. “I’ve never been a snob. Mother taught me to hold my head up high, to look others in the eye. That isn’t the same as being proud.”
Della opened her mouth, and then stopped, a sure sign that she had something truly devastating to say. “Going back to that boy would be a poor tribute to your father. He died to save your honor.”
That was the problem, Rain decided. He hadn’t died to save her honor. She’d seen the look in his eyes before the fight began. He was willing to kill Aaath Ulber—and Draken, and anyone else who got between him and his money.
“Father saved my honor,” Rain said candidly, “but took little thought for his own.”
“He was trying to feed his family,” Della said. “You’ll understand what he was going through someday, when you’ve spent enough nights awake worrying about how to feed your little ones.”
He could have tried to work it out, Rain thought. Della’s trying too hard to defend him. Suddenly she understood something. “You think it’s my fault that my father is dead?”
“He died to save your honor,” Della insisted. She stumbled over a root and caught herself, switched her babe to the other shoulder and patted its back, trying to soothe it to sleep. The babe was only nine weeks old. It was a colicky thing that spent most of the night crying. Now it raised its head, as if to let out a wail, but instead just lay back down to sleep.
I’d be colicky too if I had to drink Della’s sour milk, Rain thought.