Once again Foxbrush did not understand. So when the little girl grabbed hold of his foot in both her hands and pulled, he resisted for a moment. Then, grimacing, he allowed her to straighten his leg and reapply the poultice. Surely a child that small couldn’t mean him any real harm, no matter how dirty her face.
He sat in a stone room in the main square of the Eldest’s House, his back to the wall. He could not remember the last time he’d sat on the floor. Certainly never a dirt floor like this! But there was little to no furniture in the house, merely skin rugs and a few rickety chairs that looked at least as uncomfortable as the floor, if not more so. Therefore he sat where he was, surrounded by children.
The girl tending him was called Cattail—Kitten by her father. She took her meticulous time over her duties with all the gravity to be found in a child of seven or eight. Meanwhile, a baby boy stood behind her, sucking his fingers and grinning wetly every time Foxbrush glanced his way.
Children were not Foxbrush’s area of expertise. He hadn’t much liked children even when he was counted among their number. And these children were stranger than any he’d known back then, like small adults with round, solemn faces and eyes that had already seen their share of death.
They were, truth be told, a bit frightening.
Redman sat by the central fire, helping his oldest daughter finish preparing a meal. He ground spices beneath a stone while Lark spread slices of onions and gingerroot and tiny smoked fishes over a cooking stone. They sizzled, and the air was soon full of a strange but pleasant mixture of aromas.
Foxbrush’s stomach growled. A mournful wave washed over him at the sound, bringing the too-near memories of his wedding day, uncelebrated, and his wedding feast, untasted. How long had it been now since he’d eaten? Hundreds of years? Or, as he seemed to have fallen back in time, perhaps he’d never eaten at all?
His brain halted. Until he had some food in his belly and possibly a night’s sleep, he wouldn’t try to pursue that mental path any further.
A drum beat somewhere out in the night. Deep, rumbling booms carried up from below the hill. And suddenly the room erupted with even more children than Foxbrush had realized lurked in the shadows. Two more little girls, skinny and scrambling and ginger haired, shouting, “Ma! Mama!” ran from the room, and Cattail let go of Foxbrush’s heel and nearly knocked her little brother over in her eagerness to follow her sisters. Even Lark left her onions on the fire, grabbed up young Wolfsbane, and bore him out of the room, shouting as loudly as any of her sisters.
“My wife returns,” said Redman, using a stone knife to stir the onions and fish before they burned. “She is Eldest here and she is wise. Years ago when the rivers vanished, all the South Land was thrown into turmoil. But Eldest Sight-of-Day united five of the thirteen tribes, and others since have come under her mark. Suffering invasion as we do, still we have prospered by the Eldest’s leading. The Silent Lady herself trained Sight-of-Day for this role. You know of the Silent Lady in your time?”
Foxbrush nodded, awed to his core. The Silent Lady was the most famous heroine in all Southlander history or legend. “I . . . I thought the Silent Lady died when she fought the Wolf Lord,” he said. Then he added thoughtfully, “Or . . . or hasn’t she met him yet?”
“Oh, she met him,” Redman said, his mustache twitching with a possible smile. But he offered no other explanation.
Soon after, heralded by her eager swarm of young ones, the Eldest herself entered the room, and Foxbrush pulled himself awkwardly to his feet and bowed.
Eldest Sight-of-Day was not a woman of great stature or presence. She was scarcely taller than her oldest daughter, who was tucked affectionately under her arm. Unlike her husband and her children, she was dark as a Southlander, darker even than the women of Foxbrush’s day, with a rich sheen to her hair despite the silver threading the black. She wore long skin robes, and decorative bangles covered her bare arms up to her elbows. No crown marked her status, but a stone necklace, a crude starflower chipped into its surface and decorated with white, uncut gems, lay heavily across her collarbone. Her face was lovely, if lined.
“My children tell me we have a guest,” she said, speaking in her own language so that Foxbrush did not understand. Her eyes swiftly found Foxbrush where he bowed and squinted in his corner. “A guest from foreign parts.”
“Foreign indeed,” Redman said, stepping forward and saluting his wife with a kiss. “But his story can wait until you have rested.” He peered earnestly at her face in the firelight. “You are tired. Was the journey so hard?”
“No, no,” she protested. “The road to Greenwell is easy, with few tributes to pay along the way. But . . .” Here she sighed and shook her head. “Let me sit for a moment.”