“Oh, show her to me. Let me hold her. Here.” Torgon reached out her arms.
Carefully, Mogri unwrapped the baby.
“She’s strong. You’ve done well by her, Mogri.
“I plan to call her Jofa when her naming day arrives.”
Torgon caressed the baby. “Oh, look at you, you little darling. How beautiful you are.”
“I wish she seemed as beautiful when the owls are out,” Mogri said and sat down. “She still doesn’t know the night from day and leaves me feeling very weary.”
“Well, you sit and rest and I shall hold her.” Torgon cuddled the baby close. “You can meanwhile tell me how everything goes at home.”
“I’m leaving the fields to learn the loom with Mam.”
“You? The loom? Mogri, you’ve always loathed the loom.”
“Aye, but with a babe, what can I do? It’s indoor work, it’s warm and dry and won’t require I carry her on my back all day.”
“Ah.”
Mogri reached over to stroke the baby’s temple gently. “If only Tadem could have lived. I look at her and think, what will become of us? What world is this I’ve brought her to? No father. No brothers or sisters.” She looked over at Torgon. “I was going to take her life from her when she came from the womb. I’d made up my mind it was the best solution … but when I saw her, I hadn’t the heart to do it … yet I fear that letting her live will be the greater cruelty.”
“Well, she won’t grow up alone.”
“How so?”
“There will be another growing with her. I wasn’t going to tell you this, not yet, but if it gives your heart some peace …”
Mogri’s brow furrowed.
“Ansel made good his word with me. He said that night he’d bed me for a child and so it seems he has. She’ll have a cousin before the spring comes back again.”
Mogri’s eyes went wide. “Torgon, is it true?”
“Aye. I’ve been troubled by my stomach for many weeks and this had made me suspect as much. Now the faces of the moon have come and gone three times and I’ve still given forth no monthly blood.”
“Oh, holy Dwr.” Mogri searched her sister’s face. “I want to think this is good news, but is it, Torgon?”
Torgon shook her head. “I don’t know … what it means and what will happen, I’m hesitant to think.”
“And where might you be coming from?” He stepped out suddenly from behind the tree, as Torgon worked her way down through the forest.
It was Galen, eldest of Ansel’s brothers.
“What brings you here?” Torgon asked. “This is holy ground and not for common passage.”
“I spoke first, anaka benna, so mine’s the stronger question. Where have you been that finds you skulking back along such a tangled forest path?”
“Be gone with you, Galen. Go on.” Torgon moved to push past him.
With unexpected speed he drew his sword and barred the way. “Do not speak so dismissively with me. Do you forget that I am holy too? Pause, divine one, and honour me with conversation.”
Torgon glared at him.
“Or perhaps should I mention to you first how easily I find this blade will run a worker through? It’s sharp. Feel it, if you doubt my word. And there are too many of the worker kind. Did we not wonder at last council how we’d manage to feed them all? Especially babies. The worker kind keep breeding. But my sword is quick with babes. Perhaps you wish that I should show you how.”
“Among my kind, we learn that only cowards hurt those weaker than themselves. It is not the work of noble men.”
Turning the blade of the sword flat, Galen reached out to place the tip of it under Torgon’s chin. He gently raised it making Torgon raise her head as well so that he could study her face. “Aye,” he said, “Ansel was right in his taste for you. You have a comely aspect. But I like not your eyes. They are too pale. They give a spirit look to you.”
Torgon said nothing.
“He spoke well of your breasts too.” Turning the sword deftly again, Galen jabbed the point against her abdomen. With one quick flick, he brought it up and rent the white cloth of her shirt. The sword tip nicked her skin causing crimson beads of blood to rise. “Show me your breasts, that I might judge the matter for myself.”
Torgon did not move.
Galen jabbed the point of the sword against her skin again. “Show me.”
“Be gone. Go back among the dogs, who are your kind.”
Galen poked the sword against her chest enough to force her into stepping back. “You’re naught but tits and cunt of worker kind, the sort a warrior pays but pennies for. Naught but a trifle my father chose to placate Ansel’s rutting.”
“Base men are always victims of their lust. It doesn’t matter how your father made the choice. In the act, Dwr’s will was done.”
“You think far too highly of yourself.”
“No. It’s just I think too low of you. Now move your sword and go your way.”
“No, holy benna, I would have us talk.”
Torgon regarded him.
“I would, for one thing, have us speak about my brother, whose bones lay midst the ashes of his funeral pyre. There’s been no golden summer’s day for him.”
“What’s done is done. The elders sat in council and made their judgement. You know that well, for you were there, so nothing more remains for saying.”
“There was no honour in my brother’s death. You know that well, anaka benna. Even you were so ashamed of what you did, you ran.”
“I took retreat that I might seek Dwr’s counsel on how to heal the evil that your brother wrought.”
“So, holy one who talks with gods, what counsel did you get? More ways to use a warrior’s knife?”
“You’ve all sent your souls before you into darkness and care not to call them back again. For this, Dwr says the end is come for holy born.”
His face reddened. “Woman! What is the matter with you? Were you born lacking all forms of common sense? This sword sits within a minute of your life and we are deep here in the forest where none would know who’d done the deed, yet still you preach at me. Put you so little value on your life? Show me rightful respect or I will simply run you through.”
“I know you will. For Dwr told me that as well.”
He looked astonished.
She smiled. “But not today. The time’s not right to kill me now. For if you do, you will kill your brother’s unborn child as well.”