from the resemblance, gave a howl of dismay and scampered off toward the canteen.
She stumbled as they dropped her, nearly going to her knees, but in an instant she was on her feet again. She tugged at her blouse, for they had dragged her sleeves down her arms to expose her shoulders and part of her bosom. Covered again, she took two swift strides forward. ‘Let him go!’ she commanded the two young ruffians who held me, and her voice was low and threatening through her clenched white teeth.
‘But … your iron collar!’ Only the one boy objected. He gaped at her, dismayed and offended, as if she had broken the rules of a game. The other released my arm and fled, howling like a kicked dog, although I am almost certain nothing had been done to him. She made no reply to the boy’s protest. Her fingers began to weave, and the protesting boy did not wait for her to complete the charm. He knew as well as I did that a plains charm had a limited range. He thrust me at her so suddenly that I dropped into the dust at her feet, and then he raced full tilt after his friend. Carky had already disappeared, scrabbling to his feet and darting around the corner of a building. As Raven got to his feet, she helped me to mine. Then she turned to him, and as if she were wishing him good day, said, ‘Black paint over bronze. Not iron. My father would never put iron on any of us. He does not even bring his iron into our home.’
Raven backed slowly away from us. His face was flushed with fury, and his black eyes gleamed with it. I knew exactly when he thought he was beyond the range of her magic. He stopped there, and cursed her with the foulest names I’d ever heard, names I did not know the meaning of, only that they were vile. He finished with, ‘Your father shamed himself when he dipped his rod in your mother. Better he had done it with a donkey, and produced a true mule. That’s what you are, hinny. A mule. A cross-breed. A freak. You can do your dirty little magic on us, but one day one of us will ride you bloody. You’ll see.’
He grew braver as he spoke, and perhaps he thought my gaping mouth indicated shock at his words. Then the scout, who had walked up behind Raven in utter silence, seized the boy. In one fluid motion, he spun Raven around and backhanded him across the face. The scout held nothing back from that blow, did not temper it at all for the sake of it being a boy he hit instead of a man. I heard the crack as Raven went down, and knew he had mouthed his last foul words until his jaw healed. As if the sound were a charm to bring witnesses, men left the shaded porches of the barracks and canteen to gather in the street. Darda was there, pulling his father Vev along by the hand. My father was suddenly there, striding up angrily, spots of colour on his cheeks.
It seemed that everyone spoke at once. The girl ran to her father. He put his arms around her shoulders, and bending his head, spoke quietly to her. ‘We’ll be leaving now, Sil. Right away.’
‘But … I never got to go to the market! Papa, it wasn’t my fault!’
Vev had knelt by Raven. He turned and shouted angrily, ‘Damn it all, he’s broke my boy’s jaw! He’s broken it!’
Other men were flowing out of the canteen now, blinking in the daylight like a pack of nocturnal animals stirred to alarm. Their faces were not kindly as they looked at the scout and then the boy writhing on the ground.
My father demanded, ‘Nevare, why are you involved in this? Where is Parth?’
Parth, his moustache still wet with beer, was behind my father, a latecomer to the scene. I suspected he had stayed to down the last of his mug, and perhaps Vev’s, too, when the man had abruptly left the table. Parth shouted, loudest of all, ‘Praise to the good god! There’s the boy. Nevare, come here at once! I’ve been looking all over for you. You know better than to run off and hide from old Parth. That’s not a funny trick to play in a rough town like this.’
My father’s voice, pitched for command, would have carried through a battlefield. Yet he did not shout. It was the way he said, ‘Praise whoever you like, Parth, but I’m not deceived. Your time in my employ is finished. Take your saddle off my horse.’
‘But sir, it were the boy! He run off, almost as soon as you went inside …’
Parth’s voice trailed away. My father was no longer listening to him. No one was. The commander of the outpost had come down the steps of his headquarters and was striding down the street toward us, his aide speaking quietly and rapidly as he trotted alongside the older, taller man. The aide pushed ahead of his chief, clearing a way through the gawkers until the commander reached the front of the crowd. The commander, to his credit, did not look or sound the least bit excited as he halted and demanded, ‘What is going on here?’
Everyone fell silent, save for Vev, who howled, ‘He hit my boy, he busted his jaw, sir! That scout done it! Just walked up on my lad and hit him!’
‘Scout Halloran. Would you care to explain yourself?’
Halloran’s face had gone carefully blank. Something in me felt shamed at the change in the man’s demeanour, although I did not understand it in a way I could put words to. The scout said carefully, ‘Sir, he insulted and threatened my daughter.’
The commander scowled. ‘That was all?’ he asked, and awaited clarification. The silence grew long. I squirmed, confused. Insulting a girl was a serious thing. Even I knew that. Finally, I did my duty. My father had always told me it was a man’s duty to speak the truth. I cleared my throat and spoke up plainly.
‘They grabbed her arms, sir, and tried to pull her into the alley. Then Raven called her a hinny, after she threw him off, and said he would ride her bloody.’ I repeated only the words I had understood, not knowing that the adult context of them escaped me. To my childish interpretation, he had called the girl a mule. I knew I would have received a whipping if I called my sisters any such animal name. Plainly, the boy had been rude and been punished for it. I spoke my piece loud and clear, and then added, more to my father than to the commander, ‘I was trying to protect her. You told me that it’s always wrong to hit a girl. They nearly tore off her blouse.’
A silence followed my words. Even Vev stopped his caterwauling, and Raven muffled his groans. I looked round at all the eyes focused on me. My father’s face confused me. Pride warred with embarrassment. Then the scout spoke. His voice was tight. ‘I’d say that’s a fair summation of what my daughter was threatened with. I acted accordingly. Does any father here blame me?’
No one spoke against him, but if he had hoped for support, no one gave that, either. The commander observed coldly, ‘All this could have been avoided if you’d had the good sense to leave her at home, Halloran.’
That statement seemed to give Vev permission to be angry again. He leapt up from where he had been cradling Raven, wringing a yelp from the boy as he jostled him in passing. He advanced on the scout, hands hanging loose at his side, his knees slightly bent and all knew that at the slightest provocation, he would fling himself on the man. ‘It’s all your fault!’ he growled at him. ‘All your fault, bringing that girl to town and letting her loose to wander, tempting these lads.’ Then, his voice rising to a shout, ‘You ruined my boy! That jaw don’t heal right, he’ll never go for a soldier! And then what’s left for him, I want to know? The good god decreed he’d be a soldier; the sons of soldiers is always soldiers. But you, you’ve ruined him, for the sake of that half-breed hinny!’ The man’s fists shook at the end of his arms, as if a mad puppeteer were tugging at his strings. I feared that at any second they would come to blows. By common accord, men were moving back, forming a ring. The scout glanced once, sideways, at the commander. Then he gently set his daughter behind him. I looked about wildly, seeking shelter for myself, but my father was on the opposite side of the circle and not even looking at me. He stared at the commander, his face stiff, waiting, I knew, for him to give the orders that would bring these men to heel.
He
