Chance by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page B

it, and rockers.
    Snow after snow fell. The Wirral stood shrouded, white and cold.
    â€œAny tidings?” Chance asked of a tree one day.
    A small, cross face looked out at him. “We have said we will tell you, Chance Lord’s Man.”
    He believed them in this, for he considered that they might be inclined toward kindness since the affair of the fen. For a time.
    â€œBut someday—” the Denizen grumbled.
    â€œI will pay,” Chance finished impatiently. The small woodsman scowled at him.
    â€œThink not, fool, that you can pull from one of us a thorn. We take care of our own.”
    â€œJust tell me quickly when she comes.”
    As it chanced, he saw her himself and needed no telling. Barefoot in the deep snow she came, in the pale winter’s daylight, slowly walking, gowned in black, carrying the baby in her arms. So as not to be seen from the fortress, he let her come well within the shelter of the trees before he met her.
    â€œChance!” she gasped, then burst out at once with her trouble. “He has said I must leave the little one here in the Wirral!”
    â€œI know. So it would have been done to me if your kind lady mother had not taken me to the keep.” Easily, as if he had done nothing in his life but handle children, he reached out and took the babe. “Now the little lady of Wirralmark comes to me.”
    â€œBut Chance—oh, I am filled with hope, but how will you care for her? How will you feed her?”
    â€œI will find a woman to nurse her. I will cherish her, my lady.”
    Halimeda’s eyes filled, and she touched one of his weathered hands.
    â€œHow is Roddarc?” he asked her gruffly.
    â€œMuch the same.” She sounded more weary than bitter, but then her eyes widened with fright. “He will learn that you have sheltered the babe, he will punish you for it!”
    â€œHe will learn,” Chance agreed, “but I think he will not trouble me. There has to be shame in him, or he would have killed the child outright.”
    The infant in his arms stirred and began to wail.
    â€œGo back quickly, Lady, before you freeze,” Chance urged. “Only tell me, what is this pretty one’s name?”
    â€œI have called her Sorrow.”
    â€œShe is worthy of better than that, Halimeda!”
    The lady hesitated only for a moment. “Call her Iantha,” she said softly, and she touched the babe’s petalsoft cheek, kissed her on the forehead, glanced once at Chance and turned away, running.
    Iantha. The name meant “Violet.”
    Chance carried her to his lodge, and the babe howled loud with hunger.
    He satisfied her with a sugar-teat and the rocking of the cradle until after dark. Then he carried her to the village huts that huddled beneath the fortress wall. But he had misjudged, thinking his fellow commoners would be as brave as he. Not a woman of them would take the infant to nurse, or a man permit it, for fear of the lord’s wrath.
    By the end of the next day Chance knew that Iantha was starving. She could not hold down the milk of cows or goats, or even that of mares. Her wailing grew weaker, mewling and piteous.
    Frantic, Chance bundled the baby warmly and began to stride through Wirral toward the distant demesne of a neighboring lord. He would be a renegade to Roddarc thenceforth. He had thought it would be a while yet before that happened; Iantha was upsetting his half-formed plans. But he could not let Halimeda’s daughter die.…
    â€œWe will feed her, Chance Love-Child!” a voice piped from the beech tree at his elbow.
    Chance stopped short, but he looked doubtfully at the twiggy female Denizen who had spoken. Great-breasted she might be for her size, but the whole of her was no more than half the length of the infant, and maybe a quarter the mass.
    â€œHow?” he demanded, and the woodswoman gave him a dark smile. She was greenish gray as well as brown, with hair that hung in