We stared at each other and then I said, “Go on.”
Rowena leaned into me. “He seems kind. I think you notice that, and I think you notice his face.”
I resented her easy understanding of me and replied, “And do you notice his face?”
“Not in the way you do.”
The next day, Thane returned with three companions astride three fine mounts, all finer than our old dam. Two were boys, one a fair-haired boy of Thane’s age, also handsome, though he had a sardonic look about him. He was introduced as Wynne, though we knew him as the son of the overseer, the man who managed the lord’s land and sharecroppers for him. The other was a hefty boy with round features. He told us his name was Kent, but we also already knew him, the magistrate’s boy. The fourth addition was a girl named Ilsit, a winter or two older than the rest of us with a face that could have been pretty if she had not been so condescending. Her forehead was a tad too large and her mouth too wide, but those things would not have been as noticeable had she not frowned downat us from her horse. We had no real knowledge of her yet because her father was the keep’s steward and we had only spied her on tenth-day services. She lived with Thane in the keep.
“We all want to see the forest,” Thane said after introductions were made and all were dismounted.
“I’m not taking my dress off in front of them,” I muttered.
“Hush, Robbie,” my sister said, smiling up at Ilsit. Louder she announced, “The river runs not a quarter hour’s walk inside the trees!”
“I did not realize that mad old woman lived so close to the pagan land,” Ilsit said, dismounting and shaking out her well-made skirts.
“Do you mean Magda Geist?” I asked.
The girl scowled at me. “Yes, the old hag. Soon Sheridan will not need her crude services anymore. My father says Thane’s father has been sent word from the High Conclave. Perpatane worries that we have no physician. They are sending a Perpatanian man who trained at Eccleston. He will be paid for by Perpatane. A gift to Sheridan.”
I had a thought that Magda’s little farm would surely suffer with no coin coming in. As she had likely saved my mother’s life delivering me and Rowena, a swell of vague loyalty rose in my breast. I said, “And yet she was likely at the bedside of all of our births. A shame she should be displaced by a godsdamn foreigner.”
Thane flinched, and I recalled his mother had died from giving birth to him.
I cursed inwardly. Already I was wrong-footed with the lord’s son. I noticed Wynne and Kent glance at me with admiration for my language.
“I see why they box you so often,” Ilsit commented, as if she was bored.
“My father says one of you miller girls is a model daughter,” said Wynne, eyes on me. “And the other is an errant spark from a smithy’s hammer, ready to singe whatever or wherever she falls.”
“You must come see the glowing moss,” Rowena said, ever thepeacemaker. She reached for a surprised Ilsit’s hand, and the two of them led the rest of us into the trees.
After I had readThe Life of Unafront to back ten or more times, I had decided, in my heart, that I would rather spend an eternity serving demons than a lifetime worshipping Rodwin and admitting that I was a lesser being simply for having been born a girl. I loved Nyossa. Deep down, I felt Mother Earth did reside there, and I said my prayers to her trees and her lizards and foxes. I knelt at the berry bushes and kissed the petals of flowers and asked for her to bless me and give me something to live for other than marriage to a Sheridan boy. For I did like the idea of romance, especially after reading of Una’s love of Teller, her Helmsman prince, but not with a man who thought it was his life’s mission to correct and condemn me.
As we entered the forest, I felt a vulnerability. I had discovered Nyossa with my twin, who, while scared of how the Tintarian gods could influence us, did not see them as evil and was particularly fascinated by Una’s writings of Sister Sea. When I had voiced my feelings of devotion to Mother Earth, she grew concerned for me but never cast any judgment.
I should not have worried. The magic and gleam of Nyossa enchanted Thane and his companions, even the churlish Ilsit. The four of them marveled at the moss and the blue moths, lit with a similar sheen, that whipped past our ears. The hiss of the lizards, the buzz of the bees, the sweet smell of the vines, and the intensely entangled trees with the thin paths between them, which were only traversable on foot, distracted them from any qualms or judgment.
When we reached the river, Wynne said, “Well, I was told you could swim in this. But at our age, we’re not supposed to be naked with girls.”
Rowena blushed, and Ilsit rolled her eyes.
“I am not afraid if you are not afraid,” I challenged the boy.
He and Kent looked at me again in admiration.
Thane, a look of concern on his face, said, “The boys can keep their breeks on and the girls their shifts. That seems alright.”
Kent agreed that was acceptable.
Wynne, his eyes on me still, said, “Thane, you are accursed by a need to be a gentleman. Perhaps we should let the girls have a say.”
For a moment, no one said anything.
Then I began to undo the laces of my dress. My fingers shook, and I could not understand what I did. I had the curvier figure of us three girls, the most to expose. Though I felt all five pairs of eyes on me, I went on.
“Turn around,” Thane burst out to the other boys and did so himself.
