find Sugar and Legs another place. So we’ll be hunting one up today. That means you’re going to stay here to finish the chores and to keep an eye out. Sugar and Legs are your charge until we return.”
Talen just looked into his bowl.
“Look at me, Talen. Do you think Da and I are stupid people? I know Ke, of course, is suspect.” She grinned.
It was a good effort to break the tension, but Talen did not accept it. “Yes, given the facts, I do think you’re stupid. But then I know you’re not stupid, so that means you’re hiding some of the facts.”
River glanced at Ke, then back to Talen.
“And you’ve been hiding them for quite some time,” said Talen.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she said. “Da knows these people. They’re good, Talen. And there’s more to this than you realize. So much more. But now’s not the time or place to explain. All you have to do is finish the chores and keep an eye out. I want you to give Sugar and Legs some time up here. And that means you’ll have to stay in the house. Because you won’t be able to warn them or cover their retreat if you’re outside.”
“Then how do I do the chores?”
Both River and Ke looked at Nettle.
“Right,” said Nettle. “I’ll be out in the fields.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Talen. “You’re not leaving me alone with these two.”
“Chores have got to be done,” said Ke. “It will look odd, a fine day like today and nobody working. Besides, a man shoulders his own burdens.”
“Sure,” said Talen. “And when these two eat me, I guess you’ll be the one cleaning up what’s left.”
“Look at them, Talen,” River said. “They are not dangerous.”
“Just the presence of them,” Talen said, “is enough to put a noose around every one of our necks.”
While River had been there, Sugar, for the first time since the awful events, felt a lightening in her mood. There were some people that possessed such great quantities of openness and hope that it spilled over to others. River was one of these people.
Of course, when River closed the door behind her, Sugar and Legs were left with Talen.
He threw the bar on the door then turned to her. He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe his predicament, then he picked up his bow and withdrew two arrows from one of the three tall baskets that hung on the wall. Each basket held arrows that were ringed with a different color just below the fletching. She assumed the colors distinguished a different spine strength and weight, matched to the strength of the bow. He nocked one of the arrows marked with an ochre ring. The other he kept in the hand that held the bow. Both had gray goose feathers. Both were plain, but they had clearly been heated and straightened and would fly true to deliver the iron tips that shone with grease to keep the rust off.
“Here’s the first thing we’re going to get straight,” said Talen. “Me and my immortal parts are off-limits. You see that smudge on the lintel of the doorway to the loft?”
Sugar turned to look where he pointed. But before she had fully turned her head, she heard the bow hum. The second shaft flew almost as the first hit a dark coloration on the pale whitewashed lintel.
She turned back to him. He held another two more of the ochre-ringed arrows, one nocked just as before.
Legs sat at the table eating the last scraps of his food. He put down his spoon and held very still.
“I’ve been thinking all morning,” Talen said. “I don’t know what game my father is playing, but I do know this: you cross me, I won’t hesitate. In fact, by all rights, I should shoot you down now.”
Sugar knew the look in his eyes. She knew he was considering it. Her father had taught her to never show fear in a fight. Never show pain. Never give an opponent any reason for courage unless you wanted to lure them into a trap. What kind of a fighter was Talen? Was he one that only respected force? Or was he one that was more interested in avoiding a fight?
“Why does my father harbor a hatchling?” he asked.
“I’m not a hatchling,” she said.
“Whatever you call it.”
“I practice no dark art,” she said.
“No, you wouldn’t think it dark, would you?”
“I don’t know any lore,” she said.
“But your