Grudging (7 page)

 

CHAPTER 9

R
amiro rode beside Teresa as the sun reached midday. Only their third day on the hunt, and already the land had turned wet. The thorny cacti and saguaro had vanished, leaving flat, open meadows of thick, tall grasses. Gone was the road dust. Now the horses' hooves squished against the ground, leaving behind tiny pools in their prints and casting splatters. Though the sun shone every bit as fierce and no rain had fallen, the ground did not drink up the water but let it remain close to the surface.

Even the air felt wet as it entered Ramiro's lungs. It clung, damp and unpleasant on his skin. How did ­people live in a constant state of moistness?

Teresa's brown skin had gone gray, but she managed a smile. “I promise I will not overreact again and lose another horse. You can stop being my shepherd, cousin.”

“It is not the loss of a horse that worries me. You look like you need a rest.”

She shrugged, then winced when the motion disturbed her sling. “To keep suffering the rocking of this beast or to have to climb off it and eventually back up again—­which is the worse punishment? It's a philosopher's question. Is the misery you know better than the misery you anticipate? I'll stay where I am rather than have three of you boost me around like the useless lump I am.”

Misery was no understatement. Ramiro couldn't but admire the round woman for her determination. His own wound still ached and throbbed dully, but the ride must be a constant torture to her. She'd refused to slow their pace, though, claiming she, too, could do her part to save Colina Hermosa.

They'd off-­loaded the supplies from one of the packhorses, distributing them equally to all the steeds. Now Salvador rode the packhorse and had coaxed his stallion to accept Teresa. Valentía had the smoothest gait of all the
caballos de guerra
, but it made little difference. Teresa grew more drawn by the hour.

“Spare some of your worry for your brother.” Teresa nodded ahead, where Salvador led.

His brother sweated freely in his armor, a flush over his skin. Unlike Ramiro's wound, his was not healing cleanly. Alvito fussed over it with alcohol and said little, calling it an infection that the alcohol, the fever, and Salvador's own constitution would soon banish. Regardless, Salvador, like Teresa, would not turn back.

“Salvador wouldn't accept my concern,” Ramiro said with a forced smile. It did no good to show the worry he felt for his brother. Salvador would get better. “He has much more pride than you, cousin.”

Teresa chortled. “Perhaps my pride is just as deep, but it is overcome at having a handsome young man at my beck and call. So what is your decision? What type of beard shall you grow, cousin?”

Ramiro touched the rough stubble forming on his chin. “You'll have to wait and find out.”

“Oh ho. A tease. But I believe you will be just as hairy as the rest of these ruffians soon; and then how will I tell you apart? You should stay clean-­shaven and defy convention. A beard doesn't make a man, the man makes the beard. Why not dare all and go without?”

Ramiro grinned. “Next you will want to put me in a skirt though you don't favor them yourself.”

“Ah,” Alvito called. “A hit. I do believe our mascot has scored a hit.”

Sancha twitched an ear and did a bouncy sidestep, as if she agreed. Teresa patted her leg, encased in very manly trousers. “You see I have no trouble defying convention. Is my cousin less brave with the face he shows the world?”

“Tell us what look the witches would prefer?” Gomez called from the rear of their group. “Beard or no beard? It is them we need to impress. That is the direction our mascot should take, though a beard on a mascot will make us a laughingstock.”

“Then perhaps we will hold you down and shave you,” Salvador said with a suppressed smile. “Gomez can be our new mascot.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Ramiro said quickly.

“Listen to them,” Alvito said. “The brothers gang up on our poor bear. But what's a bear without hair? A goat? Nay, a pig. Pigs are hairless, are they not?”

“I've met many a man that was a pig.” Teresa snorted. “But none among present company unless it be disguised as a cat.”

Alvito gave a mock frown. “And a hit for the lady against my own self.”

Ramiro clapped Teresa on the back as he would any comrade, then froze in consternation. But she winked at him as if he'd caused no pain to her shoulder.

Alvito tossed Teresa a waterskin. “But back to the topic at hand—­I'd venture a guess the witches prefer their men with glazed eyes and maggots eating their insides,” he said.

Teresa drank deeply and wiped her face with her sleeve, grimacing before handing the skin back. “Very likely, cat. Very likely.”

“Quiet,” Salvador called. “Look there.”

Ramiro guided Sancha to the edge of the grassy roadway to see around his brother. He squinted against the stark sunlight to make out dark smudges ahead. Across a cleared space, a village was built right alongside the road in a little hollow. What sort of ­people would live hard against the only track? ­People who didn't care for their own defense or ­people who felt very sure of it?

In no time, the structures resolved into low, rounded huts comprised of mud slathered over sticks. A cleared field of mud surrounded it on all sides, holding back the woods. The grass in the village had been worn away by many feet, packing the ground into sludge. Woven marsh grasses made up the roofs, a dubious shelter from the rain. The road ran straight through the center, splitting the group of houses in half, without a solid wall or a rickety fence for the barest protection. There was no sign of any shops or even a church to give the Lord's comfort to the poor souls who lived here.

The village appeared deserted, except for a small child in a torn smock and bare legs. The child raised a grimy finger. “
Ciudad
men.”

Salvador halted in the center of the cluster of huts as a dog started to bark. “What say you, Teresa? Do the witches live here?”

She shrugged, then winced again. “Santiago. I've got to stop doing that.” She glanced around, adjusting her sling. “It seems unlikely. We're not in the swamp yet, and they'd be too easy to find here. Too, that young one is male—­from all we know, no men live among the witches.”

As if they were called, figures emerged from the huts—­men with the sullen eyes and unsmiling faces of those who had lately been at their
siesta
. Their dark hair hung long and tangled. They leaned on tall cudgels of hard oak, their dark-­haired women and children keeping well behind them.

A short, bent man stood at the front of the growing crowd. He eyed their armor and weapons, then the dappled, gray coats of the
caballos de guerra
. “Soldiers of the
pelotón
—­
ciudad
men.” He spat. “Come to take from us yet again? What do you want, city men?”

“We're looking for witches,” Salvador said.

“Witches. You mean the
sirenas
?” The man grunted. “What do you know of
sirenas
? On your way, city men. Take your hunt elsewhere while you can.”

Ramiro tensed, touching the San Martin medallion at his throat. The men were small and battered with hard living, but there were over twenty of them, and all with strong clubs. He was glad they'd donned their full armor after the skirmish with the Northerners. Better the heat than bleeding flesh.

Salvador dismounted from his packhorse as calmly as if they were home in the citadel. No stranger could have detected he was sick. “We bring trade goods in exchange for information and assistance.” He strode to the loaded packhorse and threw open a bundle to reveal a stash of hand mirrors jumbled among cheap beads. A woman with strings of hair hanging in her face gasped. Salvador opened another bag with small iron knives strapped inside.

The man stepped closer. “For information about the
sirenas
? The
sirenas
are no allies of ours. We leave them alone, and they do the same for us.” He nodded and spat in his hand before holding it out. “Done. The two bags for your information.”

“Then the witches are not legend,” Ramiro said.

“Oh, they're very real, city man. One was here yesterday to trade. But if you go looking for them, you'll pray that they weren't.”

Salvador hesitated to take his hand. “Ominous words. We'll need a guide.”

The village man nodded. “My son. You won't get better than that.” He gestured to a wiry boy of about ten years. The boy wore leggings and no shirt, his brown hair a thick mop against brown skin.

This time Salvador took his hand. The man shook, then disengaged his grip and stepped for the packhorse, open greed on his face. Salvador intervened, putting himself between them. “Where can we find the witches?”

“Not in this village or any village. The
sirenas
live alone, except for their brats. They keep to the swamp. My son can take you to the nearest. The swamp is just as dangerous as the
sirenas.
Maybe more. It can kill you quicker. My son knows the ways of the swamp. Can you say the same, city man?”

T
he rock Claire used as a milking stool every morning was cold under her bottom. Her thin summer dress couldn't keep the chill away. The cool early breeze in front of the cottage would turn steamy soon enough. Instead of focusing on the task of sending the goat milk zinging into the pail at her feet, she yawned and let her mind wander, leaning her cheek against Dolly's warm flank.

Why was the magic so finicky, so hard to control? She'd practiced with the Song for as long as she could remember, but it never got any easier. Not like it did for her mother. If only she could use it on something real instead of theoretical practice.

Dolly used her distraction to bring forward a hoof. Claire jumped to grab at the bucket—­too late. The goat kicked over the pail and spilled the milk into the grass, then turned to give her an impish grin as only a goat could.

Several feet away on a wooden stool, her mother shook her head and kept right on sending streams of liquid into her pail. She was slender and straight, tall as any man. Her hands were rough from work, an odd contrast to the delicate curves of her face. “If you paid attention, that wouldn't happen.” Tessa—­the goat her mother milked—­winked one amber eye in Claire's direction.

“Spiteful things,” Claire huffed. She righted the pail and shook milk from her bare foot. “If I sang to them, they'd stand still for me.”

“No.” Her mother kept right on with her chore.

“But why not? Wasn't the Song given to us to use—­for a reason?”

Her mother paused long enough to nod toward the swamp pool at the edge of their homestead. “The frogs have long legs for jumping, but you don't see them jumping for fun. The Song is not for frivolous exercises.”

Claire pursed her lips. She hated when her mother used this argument. She could never think of a way to counter it.

“Everything in nature is given for a purpose,” her mother said. “The wolf doesn't kill for sport. The blackbird doesn't fly for show. We don't use magic except to defend.”

“The mosquito doesn't sting to cause itchiness,” Claire said. “Wouldn't forcing the goats to stand still for their milking be useful? Humans are smarter than animals. It's what makes us better.”

Her mother scowled. “Humans.”

“We're humans, too, Mother.”

“We of the Song will never settle among humans again. We might be human, but that doesn't make us one of them. Men manipulate. Men control. One and all, they deserve death. Men.” Her mother almost spat the word, then she clicked her tongue in disgust. “I cannot even talk about them without losing composure. It's why I've only lived once among humans and never will again.”

Alternating between pats and pulls, Claire coaxed Dolly back in place to finish her job. Her mother had lived in a village for two years in order to fulfill her duty and produce a daughter. The Women of the Song lived apart, even from each other, having little in common, except for the Song and the obligation to carry on their kind.

Her mother would never speak of those two years—­the lost years, she called them. Claire could learn nothing of her forgotten father. Not even the features she saw in the mirror gave her any clue to his identity. She looked exactly like a miniature version of her mother, from her blue eyes to the curve of her chin, right down to the wide spacing between her toes.

“But I can never improve the Song if I don't practice more.”

Her mother sent Tessa off and waited for Jorga to take her place for milking. Her mother's eyes turned inward. “Perhaps improving is not a good thing. The Song is evil. The Song manipulates just as a man. It robs a living thing of its free will and hands it to another. My mother did not think so, and that is why I have such skill. But it was bought at a painful price. A price I will not have my daughter pay.”

Claire growled low in her throat, so her mother wouldn't hear. Yet another thing her mother wouldn't speak about. Whatever her grandmother had included in her mother's training had not been pleasant.

Her grandmother had believed in using the Song at every opportunity and had trained her daughter at it hard. Once grown, her mother had left home and never looked back. Grandmother had visited once, so long ago that Claire could not even remember her, back when she couldn't yet walk. They had argued, and the matriarch of their family had never revisited from her home at the southern end of the swamp. Claire didn't want to be trained so obsessively, but a happy medium would be nicer than practically no training.

“When you are grown, then you will make your own choices,” her mother said. “Until then, you follow my word. The Song is not for games. I speak thus because I love you.”