If Ceybold planned to hunt down and attack his wife, he hadn’t yet discovered her whereabouts in the camp. Bron opened his hand to reveal the prayer token. No argument, no matter how sound, was going to convince him it had been dropped by accident, that it belonged to someone other than Ceybold.
He rolled the coin between his knuckles, staring at Disaris’s slight form beneath the covers. Somewhere under those blankets, a makeshift satchel containing a comb, a hair bodkin, and a ratty skirt lay either tucked beneath her or clutched in her arms. Personal items of no value except maybe sentimental ones, but she’d arrived at Golius’s tent gripping that bag as if it contained aminotof gold and held onto it even now as she slept.
What happened to you in these past three years, Disa? He wondered. By the haggard look of her, nothing good and all of it hard. He’d let her sleep for now, rest through the night. In the morning he’d take her to Slaekum’s temple, double the size of their escort, and convey the dismal news that despite her certitude, Ceybold was still alive, and he—along with a pack of Daggermen—would come looking for her. It was simply a matter of time, of opportunity. And Bron would be waiting.
He rose to gutter the lantern, leaving the tent mostly dark except for the occasional slide of light along one of the tent’s walls as someone passed by outside, carrying their own lantern to light their path. He removed his boots and outer tunic, grateful for the cooling breeze that sneaked under the tent’s skirting. Disaris murmured something unintelligible when hesat down beside her and tucked the covers more closely around her shoulders.
There were guards outside to watch over them, and a camp of thousands around them to provide safety and support. Still, Bron didn’t let down his guard. The Daggermen were notorious for their kills, assassinations carried out in the middle of crowded streets, in assemblies, at prayer gatherings, in the very bedrooms of their victims. Disaris might not be any safer from them with Bron sitting next to her playing watchdog through the night, but it would make him feel better.
She murmured again, and this time he understood the words and the regret behind them. “Don’t hate me, Bron.” She said nothing else, though he listened for several moments.
Bron scrubbed his eyes with his palms and sighed. “All of this would be so much easier if I did, Disa,” he said too softly for her to hear.
The night waxed. The moon waned. The itzuli slept, and the Moon Raven kept watch.
During the year of Ipathin,when snow still blanketed the fields and houses, Yeoman Ban jin Silsu died alone in his sleep. The house he lived in since his birth was the largest in Panrin, and his greatest source of pride. A wealthy man with a taste for women and wine, he’d never married or sired children, which suited him just fine. There was no demanding wife to spend his money or abode, and no children to fight over an inheritance. And while he might not have died in the arms of a human lover, he’d loved nothing and no one more than his precious house.
That attachment spawned the rumor of Silsu House being haunted by its owner who refused to be separated from themistress he loved best. Still, the whispers of strange lights and ghostly sounds in the house didn’t deter the new owner from taking possession and moving in within a fortnight of jin Silsu’s death.
Most of Panrin had found one reason or another to be near Silsu House when Ban’s heir arrived. Streets needed clearing of snow, the verge trimmed in preparation for spring blooms, and fences repaired. All the shoveling, cutting, and hammering, combined with the chitchat centered on the small patch of street in front of Silsu House made for a cacophony of noise, one that died down when the first of eleven carts trundled down the muddy road and parked in front of the pair of high gates that hid most of the manor from street view.
The crowd gave up looking as if their presence in front was a coincidence and openly gawked at the procession of transport with its big draft horses snorting billows of steam from their nostrils as they halted at the gates.
Bron and Disa stood among the throng, as curious as those around them about the newcomer. Panrin was a small village, where the biggest news might be the birth of the season’s first lamb or the marriage of a tavern keeper’s youngest daughter to the cooper’s oldest son. Bron and his midwife mother moving to Panrin as refugees thanks to the ravages of the Daesin-Kefian war had been gossip fodder in the taverns and among the sewing circles for weeks. These newest arrivals guaranteed fuel for the rumor mongers at least until the arrival of the first spring moon.
“I wouldn’t want to move into a house haunted by ghosts,” eleven-year-old Disa declared beside Bron, her arms akimbo as if she readied herself to argue with any such ghost that might suddenly appear at the gate to motion them in.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he replied, watching as several men leapt down from their places on the wagon beds and began unloading crates and chests. One produced a key and unlockedthe gates to allow them entry, and Bron stifled laughter as all Panrin strained their necks for a better look.
The arrival of an enclosed carriage pulled by a pair of sleek bay horses, with a driver dressed in fancy livery, inspired a collective gasp of awe from the spectators. The carriage halted next to the wagon in front of the gate. Its wheels barely rolled to a stop before the carriage door opened, and a tall, slim man dressed in a nobleman’s finery stepped out. In Bron’s opinion, his garb was more pleasant to look at than his face. The man’s frowning countenance soured even more as he raked the watching crowd with a disdainful gaze before turning away to speak to his driver.
“My eitan said he’s Yeoman Ban’s brother.” Disa’s expression held an equal amount of contempt. “He looks a lot meaner than Yeoman Ban.”
Bron agreed but didn’t comment, his attention focused more on the second person to exit the carriage—a boy of similar age to him. He bore a resemblance to the man, mostly in the faint sneer that lifted one side of his upper lip. His dark hair was bound in a queue at his nape, and his clothing, while not as ornate, was of good cut and quality. Even his boots had been polished to a high sheen.
“Ooh, he’s handsome.” Disaris nearly exhaled the compliment, and Bron turned to stare at her, surprised. He’d never heard her comment on anyone’s appearance in such glowing terms except him. Something knotted inside him, and he scowled, wondering at the strange sensation. “He’s just another boy,” he said, hearing the sharpness of his reply. “In nicer clothes than the rest of us.”
Disaris stared at him, puzzlement in the slow-blink stare she gave him. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” He cleared his throat, gesturing at the two newcomers. “This is boring. Do you want to do some sling-throwing?”
Not even an interesting newcomer could sway Disaris from her second-favorite hobby, especially when she shared it with Bron. She clapped her hands together before grabbing one of his. “Yes!” She almost yanked him off his feet as they cleaved through the crowd.
They spent the afternoon slinging stones at makeshift targets, and Bron thought nothing more of the new occupants at Silsu House until dinner that night. His mother brought it up as she poured them both cups of tea sweetened with honey.
“I heard you and Disaris were among the mob gawking at the new tenants moving into Silsu House.” A thundercloud settled across her usually mild-mannered brow. “When did you become a busybody, Bron?”
A relentless tide of embarrassment rose up Bron’s body until his face and ears caught fire, and he lowered his eyes to his cup. “I’m sorry, Amman. I was curious.”
She sighed. “Curiosity isn’t a failing, son. How you satisfy it can be. You know what it’s like to be on the sharp side of a bunch of wagging tongues who have nothing better to do than eavesdrop at open windows and doors so they can weave half-truths out of conversations only partially heard and mostly misunderstood. Don’t be like those people, and don’t encourage Disaris to be like them. If you want to know about someone, ask them.”
He nodded, squirming under the dual weights of his mother’s disappointment and forgiveness. “I will, Amman.” He raised his hand in a promissory gesture. “I swear.”
Fate must have heard Hazarin’s admonishments and Bron’s vow, for it satisfied that troublesome curiosity two days afterthe heirs of Silsus House had arrived. Bron wished he’d left well enough alone.
The village schoolmaster ran his classroom more rigidly than a Daesin general commanding a battalion of troops, even if this particular regiment numbered only sixteen in total, with more than half girls, and all of them under the age of sixteen. No one felt much like learning that day as the icy wind, blowing a mournful dirge outside, slipped through the chinks and spaces between the building’s boards and window sashes, slid under the doorframes, and brutalized the feeble fire struggling to stay alive in the corner hearth. Bron gripped his stylus in a shaking hand and scratched his lesson assignment into a wax tablet made brittle by the cold.
Every student around him shivered like he did, hunched in their layered winter clothes and blowing on frozen fingers with steamy breath every few moments between stylus scratches. He glanced at Disaris, mostly hidden by a heavy cap and two scarves that covered her entire face except her eyes. She caught his gaze and raised a gloved hand to wave at him.
