skirt swished, a brusque rustle that bespoke surprise as she passed the pine trestle, crossed the braid rug, then scuffed over the slab at the entry and lifted the latch. The squeak of the door-panel’s crooked hinge was followed by speech, enlivened by recognition.
The listener’s ear ignored Kerelie’s greeting in favour of tracking her tone: she was annoyed, even felt imposed upon, which tagged the fellow as invader. But perfunctory courtesy obliged her to invite the unpleasant caller inside.
As her platitude brought his unctuous acceptance, frustration spiked the rampant dislike she smothered behind genteel manners.
Shameless, the eavesdropper poised in the stairwell chose not to retreat. Since the secretive vantage provided him with a covert view of the kitchen, he settled down in cat quiet as the pushy visitor shoved into the cottage. The man’s fruity voice and deliberate gait foretold the portly build that shortly emerged into view.
Pinkly shaved over his pouched chin, he claimed the only padded chair from the trestle, and buckled the rug in his grunted effort to haul the seat onto the slate apron before the hearth. There, he settled, oblivious, or else uncaring, that his planted bulk blocked the heat that kept the rest of the croft cottage cozy. His clothes and tweed jacket bespoke country origins, a surface impression spoiled by the gleam of a tailored silk collar and gold rims on his oyster-shell buttons. He provided a gift. His fussy, scrubbed hand bestowed the package on Kerelie as though grateful acceptance was his rightful due.
Which presumption made the unseen witness bristle. Restraint kept him still, while Kerelie took the man’s bundle of charity with clipped distaste. She unwrapped a glass phial of cough syrup, then a string-tied packet that faintly wafted the astringent fragrance of cailcallow.
The silent lurker understood herbals: somewhere, he had been well taught to know their virtues by their subtle essence. These dried, crumbled leaves had been cut under daylight in early summer, when rain and hot sun spurred fast growth, and diffused the medicinal efficacy. More, the plants had not been sung to, or touched by gratitude when they were gathered.
Unlike the stringently potent root-stock his own hand had collected last night, under influence of the autumn moon.
‘…must have heard about Efflin’s condition,’ Kerelie was saying. Her thick fingers, most reverent with anything cloth, refolded the packet and knotted the string.
The little pause floundered.
Her caller shifted, then cleared his throat. ‘I’d not heard your brother took sick, not precisely. Yesterday’s rumour said the apothecary refused to accept Tarens’s coin. You did send to Kelsing to fetch these same remedies?’ A suggestively weighted interval ensued. When Kerelie said nothing, the visitor added, ‘If Efflin’s down with a cough, surely you’ll need better help than a pennyweight parcel of herbals.’
The words kept the pretence of polite conversation. To the sensitive listener, such windy noise could be plumbed for the strains of true nuance: this predator had been stalking the family’s rough straits, poised for his moment to spring.
‘We have managed,’ said Kerelie, bitten to a snap.
From the stairway, the vagabond shared her contempt. The pervasive, bracing reek filled the kitchen: of stronger medicinals already provided for the ailing brother’s recovery.
‘Efflin’s sniffle’s improved,’ Kerelie dismissed. ‘The winter wheat’s being planted, besides. That’s hard work aplenty to fill our day.’ Her tart inflection meant anyone else underfoot clearly wasted her time.
‘You’d begrudge me a stirrup-cup?’ the caller pressed, although he had travelled from town, sleek under the comfort of carriage rugs. ‘Saffie always boasted your late uncle’s spirits took the bite off a brisk day.’
Cornered again, Kerelie sighed. ‘We sold off the whiskey. As you’ve been aware. Or didn’t I hear the complaint that your man lost the lot to the justiciar’s house steward?’
The stiff quiet deepened, coloured by her regret, that the corn still also had gone to raise cash, which was why the family had not made the mash this year to ease their stark hardship. The lurker had noted Efflin’s delirious rant, bemoaning the loss of the revenue.
‘If you’re chilled,’ declared Kerelie at freezing length, ‘I can offer you unsweetened rose-hip tea.’
The caller deferred with a smile that belied the miserly flint in his eyes. ‘Your company might warm a man well enough. That’s if you’d consider unbending for an hour’s playful enjoyment.’
‘Is this a courtship?’ Kerelie banged down the pan just unhooked to boil water and glared fit to singe her oppressor. ‘If so, then shame on you! My affection cannot be bought by a miserable bottle of cough syrup!’
A kindly man should have been taken aback. This one stood up, his shark’s smile all teeth. Surly confidence carried him across the room like a blast of cold air. That frisson of chill brushed the furtive watcher. His rapt quiet turned poised, where he crouched on the stair.
‘Must you stall until poverty leaves you as sour as a worm-eaten fruit?’ The caller stepped close and crowded himself against the reluctant young woman’s side. His covetous touch fingered the decorative garlands embroidered on her full sleeve. ‘How long will you defer the inevitable, Kerelie, and face that you must accept marriage? Soonest is best for the sake of your family. Why suffer a lean winter when your choice can spare your two brothers from beggary?’ Thick gold, his ring glinted, as he slid his eager palms up her arms to embrace her.
Kerelie’s adroit counter-strike elbowed the water pail. ‘Oh dear!’ As her splashed suitor jumped backwards, she blotted her soaked cuff on her apron and surveyed the puddle that flooded her hem-line and seeped into her scuffed leather shoes. ‘I’ll just step out and put on a dry skirt. Do me the courtesy while you wait? Shout outside for Tarens to draw a fresh bucket. If you insist upon staying for tea, he’ll certainly want to join us.’
Yet the caller refused to cede his advantage. ‘Why this belated concern for propriety?’ His expensive, waxed boots defeated her ploy: he advanced without scathe through the water, and captured her wrist. ‘Your older brother’s now head of your household. If his well-being’s improved, as you claim, and if he doesn’t favour a match, then why has your family’s upright westlands decency left you on your own to receive me?’
But she was not alone. The lurker on the stairway uncoiled and moved, his timing impeccable.
Tarens sighted the flashy carriage from the far side of the field, where he muscled the ploughshare down the next furrow to till the last acre left fallow. He paused only to knot the reins of the ox. If the beast broke its harness and wandered at large, he would deal with that nuisance later.
‘Grismard! You dung-feeding maggot!’ The opportunist had tried worming in once already, before Uncle’s corpse had grown cold. Swearing fit to scale a bagged viper, Tarens charged over the welter of newly turned clods, hampered painfully by his puffed ankle.
‘If that creeping slug’s laid hands on my sister, I’ll wring his greasy neck!’ Unless Efflin managed to totter erect first and gut the man’s paunch with the poker.
Tarens gasped another breathless obscenity. Lamed, he could not vault the fence. Forced to take the long way around through the gate, he sprinted at a hopping limp to the cottage, scrambled up the stone steps, and bashed open the door.
Inside, tubby
