by Dorothy Winsor
in Issue 72, January 2018
From the hilltop, my father focuses the spyglass on the fur clad man leading thirty mounted soldiers toward the town gates. When a stork-legged sentry steps forward to hail them and presumably ask their business, one of the men casually kicks the sentry in the head. The wind flattens the banner he carries. I recognize the colors as Riverton’s, which I’d last seen charging toward me on a battlefield.
“Well, well,” Da murmurs.
“No,” I groan. “We have to go home.”
As he lowers the glass, he staggers and closes his eyes.
I spring to his side, and there, on the ground, I see what I expect, the paw print of Silvit, the impossibly big wildcat who embodies the Forest. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen those prints more and more often. I know what they mean.
“You see that, Da? If we don’t go home, you know what will happen. You. Will. Die. Is that what you want?”
As usual, he ignores me. I shift uneasily. Over the months we’d been out of the Forest, I’d come to fear that was what he wanted, mostly because he was too stoning stubborn to accept what happened and move on with life. “Don’t do this, Da,” I whisper, rubbing at the spot under my ribs where I’d been wounded. “The war is over. The Forest won. No one is cutting trees. Going after Riverton men now will only make trouble.”
Da shoves the spyglass into the loop on his pack and, for a moment, I think he’s going to be sensible, but no, of course not. He hides his bow and pack behind a rock and starts toward the town, trailing me along behind him. Oh well. I should be used to it by now.
It’s a market day, and we stroll among the booths, stopping here and there for Da to snoop. I’ve never seen him in spy mode before, though I used to beg him to take me along when he went on missions for the Forest’s chieftain. I still hear echoes of my kid voice in my head: “Let me go with you, Da. Please!”
At a stand selling bread, a kitchen maid’s voice is sharp with excitement. “I need every loaf you have. Lord Abun is holding a feast for that man from Riverton, although from what I can see, Abun’s none too pleased about his arrival.” The maid snaps her fingers at the boy behind her, and he hands a basket to the stall’s proprietress.
To my surprise, Da’s eyes are on the boy, not the maid. I drift over to take a look at the goods on the table the boy is studying, which turn out to be whistles carved like animals. Da carved me a whistle shaped like a wildcat when I was about this boy’s age. Da’s face crinkles with unmistakable pain.
“What’s the Riverton man here for then?” The bread seller’s question draws Da’s attention, and he casually presses close to the maid with his back to her so it looks like he’s paying no attention.
“I couldn’t say,” the maid says, then lowers her voice and delivers a dungcart load of gossip. “Our steward’s from Riverton too, and he says this visitor is the oldest son of the lord there. He says Riverton’s lord holds it against Abun that he wouldn’t join in the Timber War. He says we’ll learn soon enough what a real lord is like.” The two women exchange ominous looks.
I slide up close to Da. “We should go,” I whisper. “When people learn what a ‘real’ lord is like, the lesson is always painful, and you don’t have the time.”
Slapping irritably at his ear, he turns back toward the gate, but his gaze catches on the boy.
“I reckon the steward knows this young lord,” the kitchen maid is saying, “because I saw them with their heads together. Now he’s parading around like he’s about to be made a lord himself.” The scorn in the maid’s voice says exactly what she thinks of the steward.
“Will the feast be good, mistress?” asks a cheery voice behind me. We all turn to see a man carrying a harp on his back and wearing the short coat and helmetlike leather cap of a minstrel.
“I reckon it will,” the maid answers, her eyes traveling up and down him. She flutters her eyelashes. “Will you be there?”
“I will indeed. Your Lord Abun wants music at this feast.” The minstrel bows, and both women watch as he walks away.
“Nice legs,” the maid says. The women look at one another and giggle. The boy rolls his eyes in a sentiment I endorse. Until this last year, I had no idea women talked that way because they never did it in front of me.
“A minstrel,” Da muses.
I can see it coming, and sure enough, Da starts after the minstrel with the nice legs, who turns out to be far, far too trusting.
As we present ourselves at the kitchen door, Da tugs at the bottom of the minstrel coat he’s now wearing. He’s taller than the minstrel, and it looks like he feels distinctly airy below the waist. The cap, on the other hand, is a bit too big, and it’s slid over his forehead to sit just above his eyebrows. It’s a good thing he can’t see my face because he looks ridiculous. But he’s not a man to let something like that stop him. He raises his fist and raps sharply.
The door opens to reveal a soldier in the livery of the young lord from Riverton. My attention sharpens. If Abun’s guards have already been replaced by these foreigners, then events are galloping along.
“Lord Abun sent for a minstrel,” Da announces.
The guard gestures along the hallway to a door at the end. “The steward’s waiting for you.”
The boy from the market comes out of a doorway, holding a fat chicken leg wrapped in a napkin. A bruise is blooming on his right cheek, and Da stiffens. The boy offers the chicken to the guard who takes it, then knocks the boy aside to let us in. The boy scrambles up and scurries back through the doorway.
Da bares his teeth as he brushes past the guard, making the man starts backward. I follow him into a small chamber at the back of Lord Abun’s Hall. A short man with a permanent looking sneer taps his foot next to a wide doorway. The steward, I surmise. He looks relieved to see Da. “You’re the minstrel? I was afraid you weren’t coming.”
Da bows. “I was a last minute choice, sir.” When he straightens, he tugs at his coat again, and I snigger. He glances back as if he hears me, but says nothing.
Footsteps sound, and two opulently dressed men come through the wide doorway. I recognize the young lord from Riverton, whom we’d seen arriving, and conclude the other man must be the town’s Lord Abun. The Riverton lord looks smug, but Abun’s face is red and he’s breathing hard. Although they’re no more than an arm’s length away, both lords ignore Da, the steward, and me as if we are all invisible.
“I tell you, Thade,” Abun says, “you may be able to force me to say I’m stepping aside in your favor, but my people will never accept you. I’ll be back in control by next week.”
I glance at the Riverton lord, whose name is apparently Thade. He looks amused rather than frightened by Abun’s declaration. Thade doesn’t expect Abun to be alive next week, I think. He probably doesn’t expect Abun to be alive six hours after he announces he’s ceding rule to Thade.
“We’ll see how things are next week when next week comes.” Thade strides toward the entrance into the Hall, shoving Da, who has stumbled into his way.
Abun glares after Thade, opening and closing his fists. “Arrogant, pus-filled pimple on a pig’s privates,” he fumes under his breath. Evidently comforted by giving vent to his feelings, he draws a deep breath and follows his “guest” into the Hall, trying to dodge around Da but becoming tangled with him despite his efforts.
“Beg pardon, lord,” Da says.
Abun’s attention is focused so strongly on Thade that he seems to barely notice the encounter. I’m alarmed though. There’s a fresh scratch on the side of Da’s neck.
“Go in,” the steward orders Da. “Play until they tell you to stop. You can eat in the kitchen afterwards.”
“Thank you, sir.” As Da takes his harp from his back, he bumps the steward.
I frown. That one looked deliberate. I think about that for a moment before I creep into the Hall and lean against the wall to watch. My wound throbs, and I shift trying to ease the pain.
Tables filled with Abun’s courtiers and household run down either side of the Hall, while the two lords sit at a head table. The Hall is quieter than is usual at feasts. Abun’s people murmur uneasily to one another, watching him and Thade from under lowered lids.
Careful, Da, I silently urge. The serving girls are the only women. Abun’s men are planning for trouble and want their wives and daughters out of the way.
But Da’s face tells me he’s planning for trouble too. I grimace, but then I notice he’s more focused and awake than I’ve seen him in a while, the way he gets when he’s doing something that matters to him. Huh. Maybe this sidetrip is good for him.
He steps into the center of the room, all eyes turning his way. He bows to the head table, gives a final tug to his short coat, and lifts the minstrel’s harp into his arms. From the corner of my eye, I glimpse the bruised kitchen boy edging into the room to listen. Da looks straight at him. For a moment, Da stills. Then he passes his hand gently over the strings, sending a ripple of sweet sound running through the room.
The song he’s picked freezes me where I stand. It’s nothing special, just a tale of spring in the Forest, and new, green life, of hope and beauty and longing. The thing is, he played it the evening before we left for the Battle of Long Hill. That night, I woke to the sound of my parents arguing.
“I beg you to leave him behind,” my mother said. “Sixteen is too young.”
In a flash, I was out from under my covers and in their doorway, startling them both so they sat up in bed. “The Forest is under attack. Grasslanders are hacking it to bits. I have to go. Da, please let me go with you.”
A long moment passed. Then Da laid his hand over my mother’s. “He’s right. It would be wrong to keep him from making his own choice about this.”
So we went. I remember the battle’s start and running forward in the first mad charge. And then…I never can remember what happened then. The next thing I knew, Da was leaving the Forest, holding tight to me, the way I’d held onto him as a kid after a nightmare. But Forest blood won’t let a person be gone forever. Grasslanders think they own land, but we know we are part of the land that gave us birth, part of the whole made up of the trees, the animals, the very soil. Silvit comes after you if you leave. You return or you die. Da knows that. Why can’t he go home?
Now the grief and guilt and wishful note in Da’s voice hold me spellbound, and I’m not the only one who’s moved because when it’s done, a man on my left says, “Ahh,” and wipes his eyes. Everyone breaks into applause.
“Sing us another,” Abun calls from the head table. “A happier one this time.”
Da sings a second song and then a third. I see the shadows flickering over his face, but he’s steady on his feet. When Abun finally lets him go, the kitchen boy is lingering near the service table outside the Hall. The boy’s gaze catches on me, the way children’s gazes sometimes do. He squints but then focuses on Da.
“Good day, lad,” Da says.
The boy nods cautiously, glancing at Da’s hands and staying out of reach.
“I see none of your Lord Abun’s guards,” Da says. “Where are they?”
The boy scowls. “That Thade’s soldiers surprised them. We thought they were guests, or they never would’ve taken our men so. And then they locked them up.”
“Abun has dungeons?” Da asks.
“No. They’re in the old buttery out behind the Hall. I can hear them pounding on the door, but would you believe it, the steward took the key. I think he’s in league with Thade. They come from the same place, you know.”
Da rubs his jaw and contemplates the kid. I can almost hear his thoughts. Would it be wrong to let this boy be part of whatever he’s planning? I think of the guilt I heard in Da’s voice in the Hall and understand something I should have understood months ago. I slip up next to Da and whisper in his ear. “I wasn’t a child, Da, and you couldn’t keep me safe forever. I’m at peace with my decision. Why can’t you be?”
When Da speaks, his voice is raspy. “Lad, would you like to help your Lord Abun turn the tables on Thade and his men?”
The boy’s eyebrows shoot up. “How?”
“Where are Thade’s guards?”
“At all the doors and outside the front of the Hall. They made everyone who went inside leave their weapons.”
“Then the first thing we need to do is rid ourselves of Thade’s guards.” Da fishes in the pocket of the minstrel’s coat and pulls out four purses that do not belong to him.
I blink, and then remember his stumbles into Abun, Thade, the steward, and the door guard, and have to laugh. Oh, Da. You think I don’t see what you did? What a bad example you are.
Da pours coins into the boy’s hands. “Thade’s men need to try some Southland wine,” he says. “In fact, they need to drink as much of it as you can buy.”
The boy’s eyes grow huge. “I can buy a skin for each of them with that.” With a gleeful snort, he closes his hands around the coins and races down the hall, past the door guard, and out into the yard.
Da watches him go, then enters the kitchen with me right behind him.
“Sit you down, good minstrel,” the cook says, turning from the fire. “Get him meat and drink,” she orders a maid, whom I recognize as the one we’d seen buying bread.
It’s a good thing I’m never hungry any more. Instead, I have this pain in my side. I need to go home. A warm body presses against my legs, and I stroke a furry head, comforting us both.
The girl frowns at Da. “You’re not the minstrel I saw in the market.” The cook turns to look.
“He decided not to come and sent me instead,” Da says.
I grin at the brazen lie. “Oh, Da, what would Ma say?” In a flash of insight, my grin fades because as surely as if he’d replied, I know this is the question Da has asked himself for months. What will my mother say to him if he goes home? And this brave, fierce man I love is afraid because he doesn’t know the answer.
The maid edges nearer to the cook and whispers, but I’m close enough to hear. “This one has a nice bottom. Had you noticed? That coat shows it off just lovely.”
I blink. Who knew? Da tugs the coat a little lower.
The maid fetches Da a plate of lamb. Just as he’s finishing, the steward comes in. “The feast is going well, if I do say so myself.” He makes it sound as if the quality of the feast is entirely his doing.
The cook and the maid exchange a sour glance.
“I, for one, will be glad to have Thade running things,” the steward goes on. “Abun has no ambition, but this town will be powerful once Thade carries out his plans.”
The kitchen boy runs into the room, and the steward spins to grab his arm. “Where have you been?” He brings the back of his hand hard across the boy’s face, catching him atop his existing bruise.
“Leave him alone!” the cook cries.
The steward scowls at her. “He needs discipline. You all do.”
Da has half risen, but slowly lowers himself to the bench. I’ve seen the look on his face before. If I were the steward, I’d be hiding behind one of Thade’s men–the biggest one.
The boy dabs at the blood welling from the corner of his mouth, but says nothing, only looking past the steward at Da and giving a tiny nod. Da winks at him, and the boy smiles. To my surprise, Da smiles back. He looks happy. Something lightens inside my chest.
A guffaw comes from the hallway, and then the sound of the guard bellowing a song about a maiden and a goat. Frowning, the steward releases the boy’s arm and strides out into the hallway.
Da rises, slings his harp on his back, and starts out of the kitchen. By the boy’s side, he stops. “Good man.” He pats the boy’s thin shoulder. “Take care now, son. I’m counting on you to live a long and happy life.” The boy ducks his head and grins. Da and I go out into the back hallway.
“How could you be so irresponsible?” the steward is demanding of the guard, whose flushed-face grin never changes. “I intend to report you to Thade as soon as he’s out of the Hall.”
He reaches for the wine skin in the guard’s hand, but the guard pushes him and he stumbles against Da, who is quick but not too quick for me to see him plant Thade’s, Abun’s, and the guard’s empty purses on the steward.
All I could do was laugh. If this was what he did on his spy trips, no wonder he wouldn’t take me.
Da trots out to the buttery, pulls the dagger from his boot, works it into the lock, and has the door open before the men inside have time to ask what’s happening. He steps back as a burly man with an air of authority comes barreling out.
“You and your men are needed,” Da says. “Thade’s guards are drunk, and he’s in the Hall by himself, ripe for the picking. Now’s your moment. Seize it and give Abun his town back.”
Other soldiers crowd up behind the big man. “Do you want us to hold him, sergeant?” one asks, frowning at Da.
The sergeant regards Da with narrow eyes. “Not yet.” He looks back at his men. “We’ll go to the armory and get what weapons we can. Be careful. Thade’s guards may be drunk, but they’re still there.”
“You’ll want to arrest the steward too,” Da calls after him. “He’s been spying for Thade, and besides that, I think he’s been thieving. You should search him at once.”
The sergeant waves over his shoulder and runs off with his men.
The minstrel is gone from the spot behind a public privy where Da tied and gagged him, but Da folds his coat neatly on a nearby rock wall and sets the harp and cap on top of it. He fishes his tunic out of the bushes, pulls it on, and smoothes it down long with a satisfied sigh.
Out of the town, we climb the hill where Da retrieves his weapons and pack. Then he stands, looking toward the Forest, looking away.
“Da,” I say.
Frowning, he turns toward me, eyes screwed up against the sun. I wonder what he sees or hears.
“I’ve been worried about you, you know–keeping an eye on you, maybe clinging to you like you’ve been clinging to me. But my dying is done, and Ma will be looking for you. There are things I didn’t have time to learn, but I know for sure you’re a man worth loving, and she loves you. Besides I hear you have a nice bottom.”
He blinks and rubs his eyes. I step close enough to brush a ghost’s kiss on his stubbly cheek, making him jump.
“Let me go, Da. It’s just for a while.”
Slowly, he starts toward home. A few feet to his left, the grass ripples and parts as if a large animal pads through it. After a dozen yards, he begins to sing. I know that song. It’s one of Ma’s favorites. I watch until I can’t see him any more, and as I watch, the air begins to vibrate around me, as if it is purring. I feel myself slipping away, the pain in my side fading, a smell like newly uncurled leaves rising to meet me.
©January 2018, Dorothy Winsor
Dorothy Winsor writes middle grade and young adult fantasy novels, including Deep as a Tomb (2016) and a forthcoming novel from Inspired Quill Press, due in Septemeber.