No sooner had she accepted the invitation than the door of the nearest cabin opened, and another woman came out, followed by a man, and after them, a tumble of children and two skinny, rough-coated dogs, all wildly excited not by the appearance of another person but by her horse.
“They know better than to get within kicking distance,” Duck said, although it wasn’t clear if she was referring to the children or the dogs or both.
“Hello,” the second woman said in English, pushing the children away. “I’m Elizabet.” Isobel realized she was staring, and stammered out a greeting. Elizabet was pale-skinned, with hair paler blond than any Isobel had ever seen, the man with her a square, burly knot with the same pale skin and paler hair. “This is Karl,” Elizabet said, and he nodded once. “Halla.”
As though a signal had been given, three more people emerged from the other building, walking over to join them.
“This is Margot, my sister”—Elizabet brought the other woman over with a familial arm around her waist—“and her husband Four Wolves, and his brother, Catches in Teeth.”
Isobel had caught up with her surprise enough to greet them politely. The brothers shared Duck’s round face and prominent cheekbones, and wore attire similar to Karl’s: long cloth pants and low boots under sleeveless tunics that showed off muscular arms. The women all wore long-sleeved shifts, the deerskin decorated with red and blue beads at the shoulder and hem, unadorned moccasins on their feet.
“This is Isobel,” Duck said. “She joins us for breakfast.”
As simple as that, as though it were perfectly ordinary for a stranger, a woman to ride up. Or perhaps, because it was so isolated, they welcomed any visitor without question?
After the wardings vouched for them, at least.
“I will stable your horse?” Karl asked, and Isobel offered him the reins without hesitation: they had welcomed her in hospitality, and it would give insult if she doubted it. Karl led the mare off to the stable, the pack of children and dogs following at his heels. He walked with a slight limp, she noticed, barely visible, favoring his right knee as though he had taken a blow there, hard enough to linger.
“Come,” Elizabet said, and in a matter of moments, the women had set up a long plank table, with roughhewn chairs beside it, while the children settled with their plates on the ground, rough-and-tumble like puppies. Duck’s husband, a silent shadow of a man Duck referred to only as “my man,” joined them, bringing bowls of what smelled like maple porridge and warm meat that made Isobel’s stomach rumble rudely.
He laughed at her, although he made no noise and his smile showed no teeth, and shoveled a larger portion onto her plate.
She could almost hear Gabriel’s voice in the back of her ear, advising her: hospitality, and then the devil’s business.
The food was excellent—far better than anything she or Gabriel had managed, but Isobel found herself distracted by her companions. Not the four natives—although their hair and skin were darker, they reminded her of Iktan, the old bartender in Flood. It was the whites who distracted her: Elizabet and Margot’s skin was the faded white of oft-washed linens, and their eyes were the pale blue of sageflowers. Karl’s were only a shade deeper blue, his eyebrows bleached nearly white by the sun.
Elizabet noticed her staring, but when Isobel blushed, ducking her head, the woman only laughed, not unkindly. “When I first saw Four Wolves,” she told Isabel with a wink, “I thought he was covered in mud, and tried to scrape it off.” She placed one hand on her husband’s arm, a smile turned up at him. “It’s a wonder he kept us.”
He snorted but patted her hand with his own, still eating.
“You’re curious,” Elizabet went on. “How we came to be here, such an oddling group.”
Isobel would not have asked but would not deny her curiosity, either.
Margot had a deeper voice than her sister, and spoke so quietly Isobel had to strain to hear her. “Our parents came to the American country, thinking to give us a better chance, but it . . . did not suit.” Her shoulders lifted in a faint shrug, although there was a bitter wistfulness about her that said she did care, still, very much. “And then one day Elizabet spoke with a gospel sharp who rode through our town, and he told of us a place across the river, a wild land, god’s land, where we could have purpose. To save the savages.” Her laugh carried that same bitter wistfulness.
“But the gospel sharp’s mission was . . . well.” Elizabet shrugged as well, hers a loose movement of one shoulder, and Isobel caught a glimpse of faint red scarring along her neck, like the burn from a rope. “There was strife. Four Wolves brought us here, and here we stay.”