The Crow God's Girl by Patrice Sarath Read Free Book Online Page B

glanced over at the lieutenant. The man looked as if he had something to say, but had thought better of it.
    “What?” Colar asked.
    “Nothing,” Raymon said. “Your father is waiting.” He made to walk on, but Colar put his hand out to stop him.
    “What is it?”
    Raymon looked at him and shook his head. “She’s no good for you, Colar. She’s a strangeling, a fosterling. She should be your sister, not your betrothed. That’s how we do things.”
    “It’s not your place, lieutenant,” Colar said, his soft voice emphasizing his anger.
    At the use of his rank, Raymon stiffened. “Listen, boy,” he said, his face red. “You aren’t lord yet, so don’t think you can act high-handed with me. She’s not good for you. She’s not good for Terrick. There are those of us that see it, even if you are too blinded by lust right now. She rides about wearing those lewd clothes, showing no respect–your father knows it, and your mother knows it. You should know it too. Hard to see a Terrick acting like a fool, especially a young fool.”
    “You’ve had your say,” Colar said. “And if anything happens to her, anything at all, that keeps us from marrying, I know who to come to first.”
    “Fair enough,” Raymon said. “Your father is waiting, young sir.” He made a gesture toward the door. The crowd had thinned now. His father would be already on the dais with the other lords, scanning impatiently for his son, and Colar would end up sitting in the back, which would pain his father to no end. He gave Raymon a curt nod, and left him on the palazzo with the rest of the servants.
    Kate was right. There were factions. And Colar knew that while he could dismiss the householders, Raymon had his father’s ear. Raymon setting himself against Kate was a problem.
     
     

CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    “Ow!” Kate pricked herself with the end of the spindle, and tears came to her eyes. She stopped to suck her finger, already tender from being previously abused.
    “Child, you’re holding it wrong,” Lady Beatra said. She picked up the spindle and began deftly spinning it. The wool obediently thinned into smooth thread, unlike Kate’s lumpy attempts.
    “Good thing I’m not Sleeping Beauty,” Kate muttered. Lady Beatra and the other ladies looked at her askance.
    Lady Beatra, Samar, Thani, and a few women from the village, Callia among them, sat in the ladies’ sitting room in the front of the house, with its windows looking out into the herb garden. A light rain fell, and the scents of late summer came in through the open windows, green and fecund. The smell of dirt and compost was thick on the tongue.
    “What’s Sleeping Beauty?” Eri asked. The little girl spun with the dexterity of one who had been trained from babyhood.
    “It’s a fairytale, a story. Want me to tell it?”
    They had been telling stories the whole afternoon. The women had been teaching Kate her housewifely duties, at least the ones that could be spoken of in Eri’s hearing. They had also been making plenty of sly jokes about sex, as far as she could tell–she didn’t always understand the innuendo but the laughter was unmistakable. Thani appeared to have thawed to her. The village women were all intensely interested in her.
    “Yes, please!” Eri loved her stories.
    “Once upon a time, there was a King and Queen...” Kate began. Since she couldn’t spin and talk at the same time, she picked up her crochet needle and went back to making lumpy squares.
    When she got to happily ever after, the women chuckled. Callia grinned, her deft fingers moving quickly even though her face was flushed with drink and broken veins.
    “Must have been quite a kiss to wake her from such a sleep,” she said, winking. “It depends on where it’s planted, I would say.”
    Kate tried to keep from blushing but failed. Callia noticed. “Ah, see the blushing girl! You understand what I’m talking about, do you not, girl?” And Lady Beatra sitting right there.