The Crow's Cry

Arran isn't allowed outside the castle walls because he is technically a prisoner of war. Of course, his being Soldor and Anlaida's half-sibling is going to make preserving that distinction rather difficult.
 
Arran isn't allowed outside the castle walls because he is technically a prisoner of war. Of course, his being Soldor and Anlaida's half-sibling is going to make preserving that distinction rather difficult.
Oh, of course! Thanks for clearing that up. :)
 
“That girl, when she turns up, will have to find other employment,” Olaine said, shoving a greasy pot toward a scullery maid. The maid grabbed at it with stained fingernails and swung it into a great tub of bubble water. Her brown curls jumped at the tub; she jammed them tightly between her ears and head.

Anlaida crossed her arms and wished that she had saved menu plans for another time. Allim had gone missing again, assumedly to see her man in the distant village, and Olaine stalked the kitchens like a madwoman. “As you think best, then. There are enough girls who would be eager for a position as your assistant—a miner’s daughter, perhaps. Their families could use the extra income.”

Olaine clanked a pot of pepper on the table. “Of course, lady. Philanthropy is always my first criterion in hiring. I’m Virtue the bride.” Scowling, she tromped to the opposite side of the kitchen for a pad of paper. “You want noodles, Lady? I’ve not fixed them this week.”

“Ah—perhaps not while we have guests,” Anlaida said. “Why not a roast?”

The cook brushed a crumb from her apron and nodded. The white apron, now perfectly crumbless, only boasted seven years of stains across its skirt.

“I’ll leave the rest in your hands, then.” Anlaida stepped carefully around the scullery tubs. “Would you like Allim sent to you when she is found?”

“Liefer not see the girl again,” Olaine said. “I’ll look to the hiring soon. Good day, Lady.”

“And to you, Olaine.” Anlaida stepped into the long stone passage that connected the kitchens to the rest of the castle. Solid stone, with a slate roof, it would not permit fire to run from the kitchens, with their leaping fires and wooden tables, into the family living quarters. Her feet echoed oddly as she stepped down its hundred-rod length.

Anlaida frankly regretted the business with Allim. She had liked the girl, foolish or not. It would be her duty to inform Allim about the termination of Allim’s employment, and she did not look to the prospect with eagerness. Foolish, she thought again, and stepped from the passage.

Gavon stood in the great room, waiting for someone. Muscles strained his leather jerkin, rough as his father’s. An apple rested in the curve of his strong hands, and Anlaida wondered where he had gotten it. “A good afternoon to you, cousin.”

He nodded grimly, eyes shifting toward the door.

“Waiting for your father?” Anlaida asked.

“Aye.” Gavon rolled the apple between his palms. “He wanted another ride across these hills before we leave on the morrow.”

“His concern is resolved, then?”

“It is resolved enough for now,” Gavon said.

Anlaida had scarcely been given an opportunity to speak with her cousin during his visit, so she pushed forward. “How is your mother?”

“Well,” he answered shortly. Gavon was the son of Kalon’s second wife, Fenla, who had nonetheless been the first to bear a son.

Anlaida liked the first wife, Darielle, and was not so fond of Fenla. But neither woman was rude, or a manipulator, and that was more than could be said for many women in their situation. “Indeed. And Marra?”

“My sister is well.”

Gavon, at the best of times, was no talker; and now, his straight features seemed to brook no unnecessary conversation.

“I am glad,” Anlaida said, and passed toward the door. What had her mother done with errant kitchen maids? How she longed to ask.
 
Soldor, Anlaida, and Arran bid farewell to Kalon’s party following breakfast the next morning; and, immediately afterward, Anlaida sent one messenger to Allim’s family, as well as to Jaron’s village, in hopes of finding the girl. Allim had, at this point, been missing for nearly twenty-four hours. Never before had she disappeared for so long. Anlaida had begun to question whether Allim might have eloped with her young man and simply decided not to return to the castle, though to leave without explanation seemed unlike her. Allim’s service had lasted for three years, and until the past month, Olaine had found no fault with her.

Anlaida spent the remainder of the morning mending a cloak of Soldor’s as well as considering exactly what items of clothing Arran would still require, particularly if Soldor married in the near future. Ten minutes to noon the first courier returned, reporting that Allim’s family had heard nothing of her. Anlaida left her mending, went to dinner, returned, and waited. Mid-afternoon brought the second courier, who informed Anlaida that neither Jaron nor anyone in his village had seen Allim that day. The young man’s concern being evident, the courier had seen no reason to question his sincerity.

Troubled, Anlaida questioned the other castle women about Allim’s whereabouts, but no one clearly recalled seeing her after the dinner cleanup had been finished the previous day. Anlaida asked Clentos to question the guardsmen, and to be alert for any news of Allim; but beyond that, she could do nothing.

She pulled Arran aside following supper and quietly explained the situation. He frowned deeply.

“And no one has seen her.”

“No one.”

“If tomorrow doesn’t tell where she has been,” Arran said gravely, “I would send out a party. You know the wild dogs come down from the Tablelands on occasion, especially as winter sets in. Usually they are a small enough threat, but if food is scarce—”

Anlaida shuddered.

She spent a wakeful night. The covers stuck to her legs; she kicked them back and thought of explanations. Allim might have taken a fall by the roadside and been found by someone. She might have eloped with a man other than Jaron. The white square of moon on her wall moved as the hours passed, and then it faded altogether. Anlaida threw her covers away and padded to the window, where stars watched. She looked at them, wished, and returned to bed. An hour before dawn, she found sleep at last; but then the sun rolled over the edge of the world, and night was over. She dressed and slipped out to find Clentos.

“No sign of Allim yet, Lady,” he told her, with a darkness on his bearded face. “It bodes nothing well.”

“Can you send a party after her?” Anlaida said, gripping her cloak.

“I can and will.” Clentos tugged his belt. “If she’s to be found, we will find her. I promise you that. She’s Dathar’s cousin, after all.”

Anlaida smiled, for the captain. “I thank you. May Wisdom build your paths today.”

“Ah—yes. At any rate—” Clentos excused himself quickly, muttering something about preferring to use paths already built. The Denna in him often proved uncomfortable with Axelarran means of expressing goodwill.

Anlaida turned toward the door again, her face quiet. Perhaps, in a few hours, she would have word. The uncertainty was throbbing at the base of her skull, although her reason suggested that this would prove like other times—Allim would return, bedraggled, sweaty, and apologizing, But, after this incident, Anlaida could accept no further apologies.
 
Her reason regardless, Anlaida waited uneasily for Clentos to return with word of Allim’s whereabouts. Morning brightened to afternoon and faded to evening. Still she heard nothing.

Soldor had blockaded himself in his study, offering a muttered explanation about “Easternrill mines” as he shut the door on her. Fretting to Arran about the cook’s missing aide proved no comfort at all. Anlaida slept deeply that night, but she dreamed about a gigantic Kalon crushing mine passages with his heel.

Morning brought rain, cold winter rain that pelted the courtyard into mud. Arran did not go out to the dogs, and Soldor begged hot cider in the kitchens. Anlaida wrapped herself in a woolen shawl (dreadfully out of fashion) and directed Ulma to polish the silver. Nollis aided her at the loom until Anlaida’s bones—for the sun had not risen that day—dictated dinner time.

Mid-afternoon brought a lone guardsman to the door with a message from Clentos.

Lady,

Allim found dead. Taking body to family—will tell more when I return.

Clentos, Captain


Her hands bit the paper. No one could mistake Clentos’s jagged hand.

Anlaida hated something, but she could not name it. They stood in the day-dark entryway, she and the young guardsman, with the heavy door closed. He shuffled before her, awkward in armor too large for him.

“This is from Clentos,” she said.

“Yes, Lady.” He bent his dark head in respect.

She looked at him. “I see. Thank you.” He left. She walked up the stairs to the library and found a book she disliked. She had poised her hands to make her first tear when Arran’s head intruded upon her solitude. He looked around the doorpost and saw her.

“Are sure you want to do that, Anlaida?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Oh.” He spent the next hour watching her shred the book into tiny pieces. She behaved appropriately in the end; she swept up the mess herself.

“Good choice in books,” was Arran’s only other comment, as he eyed the gutted cover lying on the floor. This particular volume had likely cost their father fifty silver pieces. Anlaida, however, did not care. The book discussed canals. Not even the Midlands had canals.

Clentos arrived two hours later. (By then Arran had stuffed the book cover into the appropriate container in the water closet.) Anlaida met the captain in the entryway.

Wet from rain, with sodden gray beard and water-beaded cloak, Clentos bent his head to her. “Lady,” he said.

“I—received your message,” Anlaida said. She picked at her skirt and then remembered that adults were not permitted such comforts.

Clentos sighed wearily, and Anlaida jumped. “I’ll fetch you—hot cider. Or milk. Or—”

He shook his head. “She was buried underneath a pile of rocks half a mile north of the castle, where the hills begin. Strangled, neck bruised. Probably she was dead before you knew she was missing.”

Anlaida stared at the door, then at Clentos. “A hurried burial?”

“I think so.” He brushed droplets from his face. “Man needed to leave quickly, or else he panicked. Hidden, but not well hidden. A wonder he didn’t slip back to do a better job.”

“Her family?”

Clentos only shook his head.

“Do you have any means of identifying the man who—”

“No,” Clentos said. He had interrupted.

She looked closely at the drenched, dripping six foot of him. “Eat supper. Sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”

He nodded his gratitude and pushed out the door into winter rains.
 
Anlaida sent twenty gold pieces to Allim’s family with the official condolences of the Baron, who had not known that Allim existed. Olaine hired a new aide, an expert in neither cookery nor disappearing. Clentos examined the village people and learned that Allim had enjoyed noodles.

“Buried in a hurry,” said Arran, one-handedly unwinding Anlaida’s woolen yarn.

“Clentos thinks that he panicked.”

“Or he’s not from this place at all.”

“A traveler, do you mean?” she said.

“Perhaps.” Arran frowned at the wall. When he frowned, he looked uncommonly like Uliath, although she had not the heart to say so. “Or one who held a grudge against her and lives at a distance. Jilted lover, perhaps.”

“Or an sluggard who didn’t care to dig a hole.” Anlaida cast several more stitches and stopped. “Clentos keeps questioning the village people. Says he was told that Jaron was the only man she ever saw. He lives a space away, but he spent that day in the mines, and hardly a minute of it alone. The poor man was so broken up over Allim’s death that he could hardly talk.”

Arran hunched his shoulders. “Feels like snow.”

“How can you tell?” Anlaida asked him, exasperated. “We’re on the third floor of a castle, who-knows-how-many feet off the ground.”

He shrugged, and the movement jerked the wool in his hands.

“Arran!” Anlaida’s knitting flew to the floor.

“Sorry.” He picked it up, awkwardly. Tolar had said that his arm should heal in several more weeks, but at present, it was worse than useless. Merely getting it into his shirt was a daily ordeal.

She grasped her needles again, and their clicking resumed. “Soldor still intends to marry. This spring, he told me.”

Arran unwound another length of yarn.

“Well?” She flashed her needles twice more, casting stitches, and then turned the piece.

“What do you mean?”

“Being the wonderful kind understanding dutiful little sister is not working.”

Arran nodded. “But being the plotting scheming difficult noodly little sister would.”

She sighed. “Allim had no enemies so far as I know.”

“No,” Arran said. “I wonder—”

Clentos, it appeared, was wondering over the same question. He laid his final report before Soldor and Anlaida the next night. “She did serve at the castle, Baron. So far as I can ascertain, she had no enemies. You, on the other hand—”

“Pointless,” Soldor interrupted, jabbing his empty quill at the table. “Murder a kitchen aide—leave no message to indicate the reason—explain how that directly threatens me. The truth is this, Clentos. We have no idea why she died—an insane killer, perhaps? But we know nothing. Nothing. We must remain alert, of course, but there’s little more any of us can do.”

Clentos continued, ignoring Soldor, whose pessimism no longer fazed him. “You, on the other hand, have an enemy. He attempted to bribe Arran into poisoning you; then he attempted to threaten Arran into poisoning you; and, when all else failed, he tried to kill Arran. If he—”

“Hadoth is dead,” Anlaida pointed out.

“Remember that whoever hired him is most likely still living, Lady.” Clentos set a hand on the hilt of his steel sword. “If the man hired someone else—or came himself—he may have thought that a servant would be less likely to refuse than Arran, who shares your blood. A kitchen servant would have direct access to your food, Baron. Say he promised money to Allim if she would use the poison—money enough to allow her to marry Jaron and live comfortably. But she refused, knowing his plans and perhaps his identity. At that point, he panicked, and—”

“Speculation,” Soldor said, tugging at his tunic.

Anlaida watched her brother. “Exactly how likely do you think it, Clentos?”

“At least as likely as it having been a random murder. Most likely more.” His deep-set eyes searched her face. “The Baron is right; it’s speculation. But I think it a probable explanation.”

“And doubling the guard would do little good,” Soldor murmured.

“I can at least examine the servants,” Anlaida said, “and discharge those that have not proven themselves trustworthy.”

“Perhaps.” Clentos straightened his broad shoulders. “For your sake, Baron, I certainly hope that this is all idle speculation. If not, I will at least have doubly alerted the men.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Soldor picked at the feather of his quill as Clentos bowed his head in respect and strode from the room. Anlaida saw the leather thong about his hand and thought of Allim and felt that Arran was right. Snow was coming.
 
“Being the wonderful kind understanding dutiful little sister is not working.”

Arran nodded. “But being the plotting scheming difficult noodly little sister would.”

Hee hee. :D ^like^

The plot is getting so exciting! I can't even guess what you have in mind... :D
 
Even buried beneath two layers of quilt, Arran felt the snow. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Ronag’s hands came to him, sparking a flint stone against the cold. The wood caught, glowing.

Ronag. Winter had taken Ronag’s wife and four children. For those with a good store of yams and a man to hunt, the cold months were tolerable; but for the young, the sick, and the aged, winter proved cruel. Particularly for those unlucky enough to wander away from their dugouts. If the snows did not take them, the wild dogs, starving on small game, would. Once he and Ronag had come found the skeleton of a child, nearly picked clean, though blood still marred the snow.

Reluctantly, he pushed up with his good arm and poked his legs from the bed, sliding them toward the cold stone floor. His toes curled. He dressed awkwardly, his casted arm dragging through his shirt sleeve, and shivered into the hall. Cold air blasted through the window, blowing through the thick curtains that Ulma had so painstakingly hung.

Defiant of the cold, he put his face into the window. Snow glinted in the courtyard below, and peaks of snow crested the castle wall. Beyond the wall, the entire world gleamed white beneath a pale sun.

Feet shuffled at the end of the hall, and then he felt Anlaida’s warm breath against his ear. “I love snow.”

He stepped to the side, giving Anlaida space to look through the window. The snow covered every dent in the land, smoothing the rocks where Allim had lain, and covering her grave.

“Do you remember when we took the sledge through the snow—when I was ten, I guess—without Father knowing? And everyone spent hours looking for us, and we came back while they were still out, and they found us drinking hot cider in the kitchen?”

“I seem to recall getting something else hot,” Arran said dryly. “Hot seat, if I remember correctly.”

“I don’t remember,” she said. “All I remember is the snow, up in our faces, and you nearly wrecked us. And the sky was like silver that night.”

It was the first night that Arran had noticed the stars. “I remember.”

“Do you want to go?”

“Go?” he said.

“Out on the sledge with me. It’s no fun alone, and Soldor never wants to.”

“Anlaida—I can’t. You know why.”

“Oh,” she muttered, staring intently at the snow. The wind blew a flurry of flakes from the rooftop above them, and she straightened. “I’ll ask Soldor, then.”

“No sense in that,” Arran said. “He’ll never agree.”

“He can hardly keep you on restriction forever,” she reasoned. “If he’s married in spring or summer, propriety demands that you attend the wedding. You’ll have to leave the courtyard for that—it will be in Salenna, of course, that being Linnerill’s home province, and—”

“So? He could put me under guard, or come up with an excuse. Something like ‘My scrawny little half-brother committed treason and I was extremely gracious by permitting him to keep his head’.”

“Appropriateness requires—”

“Soldor could care less about what most Midlanders think of his behavior,” Arran said. “And there’s little love wasted between most Northlanders and the People, so he’ll have the only approval that he is concerned about.”

Anlaida stepped back. “I’m tired of riding by myself, as well, and he refuses to let me visit any of our sisters. I have a few gold pieces left in my purse. He'll listen.”

Arran turned his face back to the window, but his ears followed her every step down the hall. So long as Soldor did not blame him for Anlaida’s entreaty, perhaps she might do some good. A cold wind blasted through the curtains, and he drew back. He could wait in the warmth of his bedchamber. Winter was no longer the friend he had once known.
 
“Anlaida—”

“Soldor, you have to be reasonable. I just said that—”

Soldor bent at the desk in his study, poring over a book of accounts. His fingers, stained with ink, were clenched on a quill. “That he’ll be expected to attend the wedding you are so eager for. I know.”

Anlaida flushed. “It remains a—legitimate question. Because—”

“It makes the most sense for him to remain here,” Soldor said. “He’s no more eager for my marriage than you are, and people will probably not ask questions. “ He drew the pen across a number.

Anlaida grabbed at the arms of her chair, gripping them with white fingertips. “Common courtesies demand that—”

“Yes?” Soldor scratched at another entry.

“Unquestionably you—”

“Me,” he agreed amiably, scanning another column.

“Soldor!” she snapped.

“Better find Arran a horsehair cloak somewhere. He’ll need it for the ride.”

Anlaida blinked.

Her brother made a note in the margin. “So long as he remains within sight of you, or someone else I designate, matters should be acceptable.”

“Soldor—”

“What now?” he sighed. “I thought you meant to take the sledge out. Of course, if talking suits….”

She saw his smirk then. Grabbing up a book and knocking him gently on the head, she hurried from the room.

Arran answered her first knock, poking his face from behind his thick oaken door.

“Soldor agreed, as long as you’re with someone he approves of.”

“And he approves of you?”

Two brothers to torment her. Perhaps Arran was safer left with the barbarians. “No, but I scare him, so he gave in. You’ll need a horsehair cloak—”

“Lohar might lend me one,” he said, widening the door.

“Then I’ll see that Inorr readies the sledge.” She led him along the hall and down stairs until they came to the front door. Wrapping her cloak more closely about herself, Anlaida heaved the great front door open and stepped into a powdery snow that nearly topped her high boots. Arran plunged after her, bootless and coatless, his face still, his eyes never still.

He trudged off to find Lohar, while she shuffled to the far end of the stables, where the sledge was stored. Young Inorr, attentive for once, aided her in belting a team to it. Then, clutching the bridle of one horse with a stable-begrimed hand, he guided them in tugging the sledge out into the snow.

Anlaida laughed with glee as she scrambled into the sledge, long skirt bunched into one hand. She tugged several horsehide robes across her lap and gathered the reins into her hands. The two horses, a bay and a brown, stamped their feet, nostrils flaring.

Arran stumped around the corner of the stables, bundled in a bulky horsehair cloak and a pair of boots that outmatched his feet by several sizes. He raised his dark head. Seeing the sledge, his face lifted, and he scuffed along more hurriedly.

She pulled aside the horsehide robe so that he could sit down beside her. Awkwardly, he tugged several robes across his own lap. “You remember how to drive?”

“I’ve driven the sledge every winter since you left,” she said. “Even Retaine let me drive her, and you recall how skittish she can be.”

He grimaced his agreement, and she flicked the reins against the horses’ backs. Lurching, grinding their hoofs in the snow, they started forward.

“Do you remember the team?” she asked him.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think that—Father—had purchased them yet.”

“The bay is Nona; the brown is Lista. Nona is the steadier, but Lista’s sire was Uncle’s favorite horse, and she’s the costlier of the two. Soldor means to breed her with Nightmare come spring.”

He nodded. A guard opened the gate, and they surged into a snow-quilted village. Drifts swept against the sides of each cottage, and every sharp corner was soft.

A voice cried out in greeting: Torla, the round-cheeked small wife of Javedon Bear’s-arm, waving and calling from her doorposts. “A morning to you!”

“And to you!” returned Anlaida, laughing.
 
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