Shadowkill

5

“That is what waits, daughter.” Matja Allina leaned back into Shadith’s hands, closed her eyes a moment, sinking into the calm Shadith was feeding her.

Ingva was more angry than afraid. She ran her hands through her hair, caught up a china ornament, flung it against the wall, hissed through her teeth as it crashed to the rug, shouted curses she’d learned from the Brushies. “H’Ra! Nguntik! No!”

The Matja straightened. “Listen to me. I want you to think carefully, Ingvalirri. You have three choices. You can wed Mingas. No. Listen to me. You’ll have rights as a wife you don’t have as an unmarried girl and if you’re clever enough, you’ll learn to manage him. You are clever enough, you know. He’s full of spite and anger and he’s apt to take out his frustrations on you, but he’s stupid, stupider than the Artwa without any of the Artwa’s charm; you understand what that means.”

Quieter now, Ingva twisted her face into a grimace of distaste. “Gah!”

“You’d be comfortable, you’d have a place to be, plenty of food, clothes.”

“No.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. The thought of him…” Matja Allina sighed and let Shadith once more soothe away her tensions. “I can send you to foster with one of my mother’s brothers. They’ll take you, find a husband for you when the time comes for that. And I’ll see you have a proper dowry.”

“H’ra! No.” She snatched up another ornament, caught her mother’s eye and set it gently down. “My uncles are… No!”

Mina smiled. “They are, aren’t they. You’ll be safe there, but you’ll have to be what they want. Are you sure?”

“Amurra! yes.”

“You know what the third choice is, luv. Go Brushie. It’ll be a hard life and a brutal one. You’ve seen enough of it to understand that, I think. I’ll tell you this, Ingvalirri, if I hadn’t met your father at just the right time, I’d be out there myself.”

“Come with me now.” Ingva rushed to her mother, dropped to her knees, caught hold of Allina’s hands. “We can both go, take Yla with us. Just leave.”

“I can’t, luv. There’s Paji. This is his Kuyyot, I have to hold it for him. Yla? She’d be miserable out there, she’s not like you. And I’m too old to bend, daughter, I’d be a drag on you and the Brushies. And a danger. You’ll be neither.”

Ingva dropped her head, rested her cheek a moment against her mother’s hands. “I’ll come back and see you when he’s gone.”

“If you go, luv, don’t yearn for what you’ve left behind. That’s a chart for disaster. Believe me.”

“I don’t yearn for things.” Ingva gave her mother’s hand a last squeeze, got to her feet. “Only for people. Still,” she rubbed at her forehead, frowned at the wall without seeing it, “I’m going to need things. What can I take with me?”

“Well.” Matja Allina got to her feet, resettled the sleeping Paji. “Kizra, would you spend the next hour, please, with the convalescents? After that, do what you want for until an hour before supper, then I want to see you and Tinoopa in the Arring’s study.” She crossed to Ingva who was waiting by the door. “You’ll want horses and gear, Ingvalli. I’m going to give you your father’s Blacks. I can’t stand the thought of Mingas getting his hands on them. I’ll tell him they were killed in the Terror. Sugar and cloth, guns…” Her voice faded as she went out and up the stairs with her daughter.