The Book of Swords

Back inside the cottage, the baby started crying. Jelin’s wife began to sob. “Make him go away, Jelin. Drive him off. And her with him. She’s nothing but trouble. Oh, Sweet Eda, mercy on me and my child! Drive him away! Kill him!”

Darda’s voice was rising to hysteria and Taura could see in Jelin’s eyes that he was listening to her. Maybe he would stab her. Her voice rose to shrill despite herself. “Mother? Will you let him kill both of us? With Papa’s own sword?”

“Taura, get inside. Your father is not himself.” Her mother’s voice shook. She had hugged Gef to her side. He was sob panting, his prelude to one of his total panics. Soon he would race in circles, sobbing and shrieking.

“Mother, please!” Taura begged.

Then her father seized her by the back of her neck and her shirt collar. He flung her into the cottage. She collided with Jelin then fell at his feet. He was off balance and flailing when Papa reached in, past the tip of his own sword, to seize Jelin’s wrist. Taura knew that clamping grip. She’d seen him haul big halibut up off the bottom, his hands seized tight on the line. In a moment it happened as she knew it would. Jelin gave a cry and the sword fell from his nerveless hand. It was right next to her. She seized the hilt and scrabbled back into the room.

“Papa, I’ve got it! I’ve got your sword for you.”

Papa said nothing. He had not released his grip on Jelin’s wrist. Jelin was shouting and cursing and fighting Papa’s one hand, as if by breaking that grip he could win. Her father’s lips were pulled back from his set teeth. His eyes were empty. Jelin put all his efforts into pulling away. But Papa jerked the smaller man toward him. His free hand went to Jelin’s throat. He caught him there, his big hand right under Jelin’s jaw. He squeezed, and then abruptly released Jelin’s wrist and put both hands on his neck. He lifted Jelin up on his toes and Papa’s eyes were very intent, his mouth flat as he throttled the man. He tilted his head to one side and regarded Jelin’s darkening face with intent interest.

“No!” shrieked Darda, but she did nothing but retreat into the corner clutching her child. Gef seized two handfuls of his own hair and wailed loudly as he shook his own head. Taura’s mother was the one who charged in. She seized one of Papa’s thick arms and tugged at it. She hung her weight from it as if she swung from a tree branch.

“Burk! No, no, let him go! Burk, don’t kill him! He was kind to us, he gave us shelter! Burk! Stop!”

But Papa did not stop. Jelin’s eyes were wide, his mouth open. He had been clutching at Papa’s hands but now his hands fell away to hang limply at his sides as Papa shook him. Taura looked down at the sword in her hands. She lifted it in a two-handed grip, unsure of what she was going to do. She was shaking and the sword was heavy. She braced her feet and squared her shoulders and steadied the blade just as Papa dropped a floppy Jelin to the floor. He looked at his wife still clinging to his arm. He snapped his arm straight, flinging her aside, and she flew backwards.

And onto the sword.

Taura dropped the blade as her mother crashed into it. It stuck, sank, then fell away as her mother tumbled down. Papa took two steps forward and backhanded Gef. The blow drove him to the floor. “Quiet!” he roared at his idiot son. And for a wonder, Gef obeyed. Gef drew his knees tight to his chest and clapped both hands over his bleeding mouth as he looked up in terror at his father. The command almost silenced Darda as well. Jelin’s wife had one hand clapped over her own mouth and with the other she held Cordel tight to her body, muffling his cries.

“Food!” Papa commanded. He moved toward the fire and held out his hands to the warmth. Jelin did not move. Taura’s mother sat up, moaning and clutching her ribs. Taura looked down at the sword on the floor.

“Food!” her father said again. He glared round at them all, and his eyes made no distinction between his own bleeding wife and Jelin’s cowering one. Neither spoke nor stirred and Gef, as always, was useless.

Taura found her tongue. “Papa, please, sit down. I’ll see what I can find for you,” she told him, and went to Darda’s larder. The raiders had not burned Jelin’s home but had looted any foodstuffs they could find. She doubted she would find much on the shelves. In a wooden box, Taura found half a loaf of bread. That was all. But as she pulled the box down to get the bread, she saw something hidden behind the box. A clean cloth wrapped several sides of dry fish and a big wedge of cheese. Her outrage rose as she pushed it aside to see a trove of potatoes in a bag, a pot of honey, and a pot of rendered lard. Dried apples at the very back of the shelf. A braid of garlic! Darda had hidden all that rich food and forced them to exist on thin soup!

“You were holding the good food back from us!” she accused Darda, speaking toward the cupboard in a low voice. She broke a piece from the cheese and crammed it into her mouth. Behind her, her father roared, “NOW! I want food now!”

As Taura glanced over her shoulder, her father bared his teeth at her. His eyes were narrowed and he made a threatening noise in his throat. Taura carried the bread, honey, and cheese to the table. He didn’t wait for her to set it out nicely, but snatched the loaf in both his dirty hands. She dropped the cheese and set down the honey.

She backed away from the table. She spared a sideways glance for Darda and spoke in a low voice. “Mother, they were cheating us. Jelin said there wasn’t enough to go around but Darda hid food from us!”

Darda’s voice shook with fear and defiance. “It was our food before all this happened! We didn’t owe it to you! It was food for my boy; he needs it to grow! Jelin and I weren’t eating it! It was food for Cordel!”

Her father appeared to hear none of this. He had lifted the loaf to his mouth and was worrying a tremendous bite from it. Around that mouthful he yelled, “Drink! Something to drink. I am thirsty!”

Water was what there was, and Taura filled a mug with it and took it to him. Her mother had risen, staggered, then folded up to huddle by Gef. Her idiot brother was rocking back and forth. Instead of seeing to her own wound, her mother was trying to calm him. Taura took the cloth that had wrapped the loaf and went to her. “Let me see your wound,” she said as she crouched down beside her.

Her mother’s eyes flashed dark fire. “Get away from me!” she cried, and pushed Taura so she sprawled on the floor. But she did snatch up the cloth and hold it to her ribs. It reddened with blood, but only slightly. Taura guessed that the blade had sliced her but not deeply. She was still appalled.

“I’m sorry!” she said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you! I didn’t know what to do!”

“You did know. You just didn’t want to do it. As is ever your way!”

“Family first!” she cried out. “You and Papa always say that. Family first!”

“Does he look like he is thinking of his family?” her mother demanded. Taura looked over at her father. The cheese was almost gone. He had pushed a piece of bread into the pot of honey and was wiping it clean of sweetness. As she watched, he shoved it into his mouth. The discarded honeypot rolled to the edge of the table and fell to the floor with a crash.

Her mother levered herself to her feet, leaning on Gef’s shoulder. “Get up, boy,” she said quietly, tugging on him, and he rose. She took his hand and led him back to where Darda and Jelin’s son huddled. “Stay there,” she warned him, and he sank down on his haunches beside them. Clutching her side, she stood between them and her husband. Taura got slowly to her feet. She backed to the wall and looked from her father to her mother.

The fire crackled and Papa ate noisily, tearing at the bread with bared teeth. Rain and wind came in the open door. In the distance, people still shouted. Darda clutched her baby and sobbed into him and Gef made his babyish crooning in sympathy. Jelin was silent. Dead. Taura crept closer to the table. “Papa?” she said.

His eyes turned toward her then back to the bread. He tore off another mouthful.

“Family first, Papa? Isn’t that right? Shouldn’t we stay together, to fix our house and raise our boat?”

His gaze roved around the room and her hopes rose that he would speak. “More food.” That was his response. His eyes had a glitter in them she had never seen. As if they were shallow now, like puddles in the sun. Nothing behind them.

“There isn’t any,” she lied.

He narrowed his eyes at her and showed his teeth. Her breath caught in her throat. Papa crammed the last of the bread into his mouth. He stuffed the cheese in after it. He rocked from side to side in the chair as he chewed it then stood. She backed away from him. He picked up the mug, drank the last of the water and dropped it. “Papa?” Taura begged him.

He looked past her. He walked to the couple’s bed. He took Jelin’s extra shirt from its peg on the wall. He put it on. It was too small for him. Jelin’s wool cap fit him well. He peered around the cottage. Jelin’s winter cloak was on a hook beside the door. He took that, too. He swung it around his shoulders. Then he rounded to look at her accusingly.

“Please, Papa?” Could not he be who he had been, just for a time? Even if he cared nothing for them as the bastard had said, could not he be the man who always knew what they must do next to survive?

“More food?” He scratched his face, his blunt nails making a sound in his short beard. His gaze was flat.

That was all he said. He was thinking only of what he needed now. Nothing for what tomorrow might bring. Nothing for where he had been, what had happened to him, what had befallen the village. “You ate it all,” Taura lied quietly. She scarcely knew why she did so. Papa gave a grunt. He nudged at Jelin’s body and when he didn’t move, he stepped over it to stand in the open door. His head turned slowly from side to side. He took one step out the door and stopped.

His sword was still on the floor. Not far from it, the sheath lay as well. She heard her mother’s breathed prayer. “Sweet Eda, make him go away.”

He walked out into the night.

The other villagers would kill him. They would kill him and they would hate Taura forever because she hadn’t killed him. Because she’d let him kill Jelin. Darda would not be silent about that. She would tell everyone.

Taura looked over at her mother. She’d taken a heavy iron pan from the cooking shelf. She held it by the handle as if it were a weapon. Her eyes were flat as she stared at Taura. Yes. Even her mother would hate her.

Taura stooped to pick up the sword. It was still too heavy for her. The point of it dragged on the floor as she reached for the sheath. “Follow a Strong Man” the carved lettering told her.

She shook her head. She knew what she should do. She should close the door behind Papa and bar it. She should say she was sorry a hundred, a thousand times. She should bind Mother’s wound and help Darda compose her husband’s body. She should take Papa’s sword and stand in the door and guard them all. She was the last person they had who might stand between them and the Forged ones roaming the streets.

She knew what she should do.

But her mother was right about her.

Taura looked back at them all, then took Darda’s cloak from the hook. She put it on and pulled the thick wool hood up over her damp hair. She heaved the sword up so it rested on her shoulder like a shovel. She stooped and took up the fine sheath in her free hand.

“What are you doing?” her mother demanded in outrage.

Taura held out the sheath toward her. “Following a strong man,” she said.

She stepped out into the wind and rain. She kicked the door shut behind her. A moment longer she stood in the scant shelter of the eaves. She heard the bar slammed down into the supports on the door. Almost immediately, Darda began shrieking, anger and grief in furious words.

Taura stepped out into the night. Her father had not gone far. His hunched shoulders and stalking stride reminded her of a prowling bear as he moved through the rain toward his prey. A decision came to her. She pushed the empty sheath through her belt and gripped the sword’s hilt in both hands. She considered it. If she killed him, would her mother forgive her? Would Darda?