“What about tomorrow?”
Andras did meet her eye then, and she knew he was thinking the same as she. They had to get rid of the obluda first. “That’s too soon, Tunde. Mistress Imre and Gitta have tasks to attend. We’ll come back another day soon. Do you want to ride home on my shoulders?”
“No, I want to walk.”
He took her hand to lead her back to the castle. “Our thanks for today, Mistress Imre,” he told Zigana in that cool, uninflected voice.
She bowed, sad that the brief camaraderie they discovered was gone. “My lord. My lady,” she said softly.
Tunde shook off her father’s hand and skipped ahead, pivoting to wave. “Goodbye, Ziga!” she called out before sprinting off, blithely ignoring Andras’s command to slow down.
Zigana watched them leave, sorry to see them go. She had a niece, one who might never know her aunt as more than the horse shrimper who resembled her mother. Andras said they were family. He was wrong. The aristocratic Frantiseks would never be family with the peasant Imres. The class divide was too wide and too deep to cross, an ocean itself with no floor. And while she refused to dwell on it, she both feared and craved the sound of her birth name spilling from the lips of a man more dangerous to her than the obluda.
She draped the reins over Gitta’s neck and clicked to her. “Come on, sweet lass. Let’s hitch you to the cart. It’s time to go home.”
* * *
The council meetingthat evening was a contentious one, with a great deal of shouting and outlandish suggestions for how to capture and kill the obluda. No one questioned Zigana’s water-sight and the images it gave her of Solyom’s death, or her accounting of seeing the obluda itself. When one of the council members asked if anyone had suffered nightmares of drowning or watching a loved one drown, every person in the council hall raised their hand. The silence afterwards was deafening.
“Why aren’t the horses affected?” one villager asked. “You said Gitta challenged it, but it was you who was lured until you touched Gitta.”
Trapped beneath the crowd’s scrutiny, Zigana chose her words carefully. “I can only guess, and I may be wrong, but I think the dirge the obluda sings is pitched specifically to lure in certain prey. It may not just be humans. It could be other creatures as well, just not horses. The sadness is how it affects people.”
Another villager spoke up. “It might not be able to lure a horse in, but if Ziga’s description is true, then it could still tear one apart with those teeth and claws. Something like that will be hard to kill in the water.”
“Then we bring it ashore,” another person said.
“With what bait? One of us? Good luck with getting a volunteer.”
The arguing started up again before a woman shouted above the noise. “What if we just covered our ears to block out the song? Hats, candle wax. Those would work.”
Zigana stood this time. “I don’t think it’s that easy,” she said. “The song isn’t just heard; it’s felt. Down to your soul. You could stuff your ears with an entire blanket, and you will stillhearthe song.”
The prime councilman rang the hand bell next to him. “Council will meet with Lord Frantisek this evening, before sundown, to discuss how to rid ourselves of this obluda. Until then, no one should be out after dark. Bar your doors, and if you live close to the beach, ask a neighbor farther away if they’ll take you in for the night. We don’t want another death like Solyom’s, and we need time to figure out how to kill the creature.” He closed the meeting and the crowd dispersed outside, clustering into small groups to discuss what to do.
Odon and Frishi made their escape with Zigana, taking a circuitous route through a narrow alley instead of the main path to reach their cottage and avoid being mobbed with more questions about Zigana’s experience. Frishi set water to boiling for tea while Odon left to check on the horses. When he returned, the three gathered around the table with their cups.
“Who in the village has had a recent tragedy besides Solyom?” he asked.
Frishi’s answer came swiftly. “Aliz’s husband Tabor lost his foot when he was chopping wood. He won’t be walking without help.”
“Folkus and Onri.” Zigana stared into her cup. “Their baby died three months ago. Onri is coping as best she can. Folkus though is leaning hard on the spirit barrel.”
“That’s three people we can think of in less time than it takes for me to put on my breeches,” Odon said. “Ancilar is fertile hunting ground for the obluda.”
“And that isn’t counting the effect of the obluda’s dirge. Even if you aren’t sorrowing over something, it makes you feel that way.” Zigana shivered at the memory of her own dark thoughts, brought on by the dirge. “It isn’t just sadness,” she said. “It’s shame. It also uses shame.”
Odon grunted. “Then we’re worse off than we thought.”
Frishi rose to refill their cups, and her hand shook as she poured. “Are we far enough away from the beach?”
Hoping to soothe her mother without lying to her, Zigana patted her hand. “I think so. You can still feel it a little, and don’t be surprised if a nightmare plagues you, but I don’t believe its power extends this far from the water.” She prayed she was right.
* * *
They might have been spared,but others were not. Zigana listened to Gitta and Voreg whinny in the barn and accompanied Odon twice to their stalls in a futile attempt to calm them down. On the second visit, when Gitta slammed her back hooves into her newly repaired stall door, Odon decided to sleep in the barn loft. “Maybe that will ease them,” he said. “Stay with your mother and keep watch.”
Neither woman suffered nightmares but only because neither one slept. They drank pots of tea and made several trips to the barn, much to Odon’s disapproval. When morning came, they were exhausted and the horses short-tempered.
