“Upstairs, resting.” Ismenia looked as if she needed to sleep from sundown to sundown herself. She glanced briefly at a sink where leafy vegetables awaited attention, but with a shrug took a seat
“Resting?” Keisyl looked sharply at his mother.
“We think so. Misaen make it so,” she added in fervent prayer.
“Eirys is with child?” Teiriol tried to catch up with the conversation.
Ismenia nodded. “We think so, which is why I want you both to bite your lips till they bleed if need be. Let Jeirran play the lead-ganger all he wants. This early on, if Eirys is worried or—well you know as well as I that if Jeirran loses his temper, she’ll be the first one he takes it out on.”
“If he’s mistreating her, why doesn’t she stand up to him?” demanded Keisyl. “She knows we’ll back her! If she gives me leave, I’ll beat the piss out of him willingly. Perhaps we should go to Sheltya ourselves if that cold bitch Aritane is cowing her.”
“Eirys is as likely to turn against Jeirran as she is to fly.” Despair tainted Ismenia’s voice for the first time. “She won’t hear a word against him. Bad-mouthing him just makes her cry, so keep your opinions to yourself. Maewelin grant it’s early days with the child making her so sensitive.”
“We can’t go on like this, Mama,” protested Keisyl.
“No, not forever.” Ismenia rubbed a water-wrinkled hand over her face. “Until the babe is born and that’s why I don’t want anything to risk Eirys letting slip, do you hear?”
“And when the babe is come?” Teiriol watched his mother closely.
“Then Eirys will have something to love above that glossy little cock,” replied Ismenia, a steely look in her faded eyes. “Since he’s not about to make a fond father, she might just see him for what he is. He’s too used to being the hand-fed kidling to take kindly to anyone usurping his place.”
“We could get her to repudiate him?” asked Teiriol hopefully.
“And what if her next choice is as bad?” Keisyl muttered. “She’s always had more hair than sense, has Eirys. Come to that, Theilyn could land us with someone just as useless.”
Ismenia looked at him sharply. “You thought well enough of him when they were courting, don’t deny it. We all did, not seeing fine clothes and fancier words was dressing up fools’ gold. Now, about Theilyn—that stuck-up sister Jeirran’s claimed back from Sheltya has taken her under her wing. Don’t tell her anything that you don’t want Jeirran to know, especially not the chance of a baby. Did you see her in the yard at all?”
Teiriol frowned. “Isn’t she up with Eirys?”
“No.” Ismenia rose wearily from her seat and poured water from a heavy ewer into the sink. “She’ll be trailing after Aritane or skirting around the ne’er-do-wells in the workshops.”
“Mother!” objected Keisyl.
“Don’t raise your voice to me, Keisy.” She lifted a warning finger. “If she’s so keen to be considered grown, she can behave herself or face the consequences.”
“But what if—” Teiriol hesitated, reddening.
“What if she comes in with her petticoats soiled and swearing she found the bracelet?” The pair of them gaped at their mother’s coarseness.
“Then we’ll get another birth to the soke, and if Misaen wields any justice it’ll be a girl.” Ismenia set her lips in a bloodless line. “And if no man after will overlook her dishonor for the sake of fathering his own children, it’ll serve Theilyn right. You two will be assured of the diggings for as long as there’s ore to be dug, won’t you?”
“That’s hardly just—” began Keisyl with some heat.
“I told you not to raise your voice to me,” snapped Ismenia. “It’s no harder a truth than all the others I’ve faced since your father died. I’ve kept this soke safe for my children thus far and I’m not about to give up now.”
Teiriol looked uncertainly from his bitter-tongued mother to his grim-faced brother. “I’ll go and see if I can find Theilyn.”
Ismenia turned to the sink with a snort and began sluicing through green leaves. Keisyl rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “So do you want these chopped or stripped?”
Teiriol left the scullery hurriedly rather than see Keisyl doing woman’s work and then wondered where under the sun he should go.
“Ho, Teir, come over here.” Jeirran called him to the far side of the fire.
Teiriol reluctantly crossed the room. “Good day to you.” He studied Jeirran’s companions. The two older men, one graying, one bald, each had mining calluses on their hands, the bald one missing two fingers on one of his. Both were looking at Jeirran as if he could offer them a fresh-faced bride with her own gold seams. The younger men shifted in their seats, glancing from the door to Jeirran, restlessly shuffling boots on the flagstones. One had been richly dressed but was now travel-stained and ragged. When he reached for a cup, the sleeve of his shirt pulled back to reveal flogging scars on his arm. The other was neat enough but had a sly cast to his muddy gray eyes. Both were more sandy-haired than blond, faces soft.
“Take a seat, Teir.” Jeirran shoved a stool with a foot and proffered a beaker of mead, pewter dull with countless fingermarks. “Listen to what Ikarel has to tell us.”
The sly-faced man shrugged. “I can’t say if it’s truth or not but I heard the same tale in two different villages. There’s wizardry afoot in the Great Forest. Some great mage has been rallying the Folk, using sorcery to defeat any who stand against him and claiming the wildwood for his own.”
Teiriol felt distaste curl his lip.
“False magic,” spat the man with the missing fingers.
“Eresken should be told.” Jeirran frowned. “Where is he?”
“Find Aritane, you’ll find him,” sniggered the youth with the whip scars. He subsided at Jeirran’s glare.
“I’ll go.” Teiriol hastily set aside his untouched cup.
“No, wait, I want—”
He ignored Jeirran’s indignant words, cutting them off short with a slam of the door. Circling the rekin, pushing past a gang of strangers half-heartedly urging two yapping dogs into a full-blown fight, he saw his quarry. “Aritane, a moment.”
Aritane turned haughtily. She unbent a little when she recognized Teiriol. “I didn’t realize you were due back. You are welcome.”
“And good day to you.” What right had she to welcome him to his own home? “Theilyn.” He made his sister a curt bow and was pleased to see uncertainty at war with defiance in her smoky blue eyes. He was less impressed to see her hair curling loosely around her shoulders and the way her cross-tied shawl accentuated the curves of her developing figure.
“And I am Eresken.” The man between the two women offered his hand. Teiriol took a firm grip on the smooth palm unmarred by toil or injury. He closed his fingers tight, eyes expressionless as he looked for the other man’s reaction.
“I am very pleased to meet you.” Eresken’s smile remained unchanged and after a moment Teiriol dropped both the stranger’s hand and his own gaze. “Mother needs your help in the scullery, Theilyn,” he said without preamble. “Whatever else is going on—” he shot Aritane a hostile glance— “you should not forget your duties or your responsibilities.”
Theilyn colored, lifting her chin arrogantly. Aritane forestalled her reply. “He’s right, my dear. I am keeping you from your work.” She favored the girl with a private smile. “Run along and we can tell Teiriol just why we have filled his home with strangers. He’ll see how a little sacrifice now will lead to so much greater reward in the future.”
Teiriol folded his arms a touch defensively and studied Eresken critically. Who was this man of obviously mixed blood, for all his local clothing? “Jeirran wants you. Someone’s brought news about wizards in the lowlands.”
Aritane frowned. “What has that to do with us?”
“Jeirran keeps himself fully apprised of anything that might affect his plans.” Eresken rested his hand briefly on hers. He smiled at Teiriol. “It is something, is it not, that a man has finally emerged to voice all our dissatisfactions and urge us to stand up to the lowlanders?”