“Neither I nor my family has ever wronged Ira, that I’m aware of.”
“Of course not,” Tiny said mildly. “But the village where Ira is from was ruled by terrible people. We’ve all come from such places. Ira simply wants us all to be able to live here in peace. He’s a good leader.”
Alys was quiet for several moments, trying to comprehend Tiny’s explanation. “So all of you here—the wood people—are from villages that turned you out for one reason or another?”
Tiny nodded. “Turned out or they left for fear of punishment. Some couldn’t pay their dues, others were accused of crimes—it’s different for us all.”
“What of your family?”
Tiny smiled impishly. “Guess.”
“I couldn’t,” Alys said, shaking her head. “Your mother has been so kind to me, and you are a darling.”
Tiny laughed. “It’s me, though. We lived in a place called Pilings when I was born. I was very, very small—never grew much after. The folk were feared of me for a curse. The pigs took ill, and they blamed me.”
“Blamed you? When you were a baby?”
Tiny nodded and held out her arms. “Don’t I look like a changeling?”
“No!”
The girl shrugged and looked away into the forest.“Mam and Papa wouldn’t have the talk. Papa had heard of Ira and his little village, and they welcomed us. It’s been a good home. All I’ve ever known.”
The truth of this little knot of people in the wood became stranger and stranger the more Alys learned.
“So you owe fealty to no overlord?”
“Oh, I’m certain we owe it, we just don’t pay it.” Tiny stood, and Layla hopped up on her shoulder. “Ira says we own these woods, and I believe him. Come, milady, and I’ll take you to your man. I’m certain you’re wanting to see him, and Linny’s just come down from her tree.”
Piers felt as if every muscle in his body had been stretched beyond its limit and then snapped back. His head pounded and his left hand felt as though it was smoldering. He opened his eyes and saw thatch above him, rolled his head to the left to look at his hand and saw that it was contained in a sort of package that looked like wide, flat leaves, glistening wet and heavy. His arm was angled up on a crude bolster.
He couldn’t feel his first two fingers at all.
He didn’t know where he was—in some sort of a hut, obviously. He vaguely remembered Alys coming back for him, with strange men, but he did not recall walking to a village, or having his wounds tended to. Where was she now? Where washe,and what had his caregiver done to him? Why couldn’t he feel his fingers? Had the bite Layla’d given him festered? His heart pounded. He couldn’t tend a dairy properly with one hand, couldn’t milk.
Piers heard his own whimper as he tried to bring his right hand across his body, frantic to remove the organic bandages.
“Still there, me friend,” a rough voice said, startling Piers. “Although for how long, I know not.”
The old man sat on a stool not two paces from where Piers lay on the floor of the hut. Piers had not noticed him, blending into the dark skins that made up the walls as if he too were comprised of old, tanned leather. The man worried a small object in one palm.
“Where am I?” Piers asked hoarsely.
“My village. Linny’s tending you best she can, but the bites were old, sealed over, trapping the poison inside.” His deep set eyes seemed to bore into Piers’s. “The monkey?”
Piers nodded. “Where’s Alys? The woman who was with me?”
The old man shrugged. “You meanLadyAlys, do you not?”
“Where is she?”
“What are you doing with the likes of her, friend? She told me you were a dairy farmer, and though I was not obliged to believe her, your hands tell a clearer truth than any of her kind would recognize—the calluses, the scars. It was me own life’s work, many years ago. Does she have aught to accuse you of? What is your worth to her?”
“I don’t owe you any explanation.Where is she?”
“I beg to disagree, friend. Were it not for my Linny, you’d likely be dead right now. I am showing you a great deal more hospitality than most would a stranger, so aye, you do owe me a bit, and I’d collect. Why are the pair of you together in the thickness of my wood?”
“We’re only passing through. On our way to London,” was all Piers would say. He didn’t care what this Linny had done for him, he wanted Alys, and he wanted her now.
