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Authors: Sharon Shinn

Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (13 page)

BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)

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She perched on the rough, unpainted bench he indicated and looked around. She was definitely in the town stables, though the room she was in at the moment held no horses. It was a big work and storage area, with bags of grain piled on the floor, pitchforks leaning against the wall, tack and bridles hanging from hooks. Justin had disappeared through two wide, half-opened doors that must lead to the stalls where the horses were kept. Ellynor could smell the distinctive odor of hair and manure and hay, and catch the occasional whinny and snort. One of the horses must have stuck his nose over his stall door, asking to be fed, because she heard Justin’s voice, low and soothing. “Not now, boy. Your turn comes later.”

Hard on the heels of his voice came his person, striding through those same doors. He had a white cloth in one hand and a bucket in the other.

“I just pumped it, so it’s clean enough to drink,” he assured her, seeming to read the expression on her face. “But I couldn’t find a mug. Can you use your hands?”

She looked down at her palms with some doubt. The fingertips were bleeding from where she’d tried to claw at her attacker’s skin, and she had dirt on both hands from catching herself on the building so she wouldn’t fall. “If I scrub them first,” she said.

He set the bucket down next to her and settled on the other side of it. “Here,” he said, dipping his own hands in the water and bringing them up in a rough cup. “I just washed mine.”

She bent her head down and sipped, unconsciously bringing her own hands up to hold his steady. Water seeped through his fingers and onto hers, then dripped down to make small dots on her robe. She thought she could taste soap from his hasty cleaning, and, under that, maybe even the flavor of his skin.

She drank till the water was gone and she was almost licking Justin’s wet palm. She could still taste her attacker’s brutal kiss.

“More?” Justin said.

She nodded. He scooped up more water, held his hands out for her. Again she fancied she caught the residue of soap and skin. Her chin was dripping when she finally looked up and smiled at him, dragging her sleeve across her mouth.

“Thank you.”

He smiled back. “You still look like an urchin.”

She laughed. “Well, let me clean myself up.” She glanced around. “Is there a mirror in here?”

“In the stables?” He snorted. “No. I can wipe your face for you.”

“I think I’d rather do it myself, thank you very much!” But she was laughing again. “Just give me that cloth and I’ll do it blind.”

He handed her the white rag, and watched her as she dipped it in the bucket and passed it over her face. It came away soiled with traces of grime and a thin smear of blood. Where had that come from? She dabbed at her lips again, and again the cloth came away stained with red. She envisioned her mouth, puffy and torn, and her hair, no doubt an utter disaster.

“I must look awful,” she said, sighing. “Anyone who sees me is going to know something happened.”

“Were you going to try to keep it a secret?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I think I just wanted to tell the story so that I didn’t seem quite so helpless and stupid.”

“Well, you might not be stupid, but a lone woman on the streets can be pretty helpless,” he said. “I don’t think the Lestra should be sending her novices out alone.”

For a moment it occurred to her to wonder how he knew the Lestra’s title, and then she supposed that everyone did. From what she could tell, most people in Gillengaria worshipped the Pale Mother; surely they would all know the details of convent life.

“Usually we don’t go out by ourselves,” she said, wiping her cheek again. “I was running an errand, and I got lost. Normally we’re in groups, and the guards are with us.” She glanced up and gave him a rueful smile. “I was glad to be out alone,” she admitted. “My brothers would never have let me walk through the city by myself! They’re so cautious and protective. I thought, ‘Finally! A chance to be free of everyone’s attention!’ ” She grimaced. “And then this happened.”

“Seems like your brothers might be right. Somebody
should
be watching after you.”

The tone was provocative. She flashed him a quick look to find him grinning again. “Do
you
have sisters?” she asked pointedly. “And is that how you treat
them
?”

Another laugh, but this one a little bitter. “I have sisters,” he said in a curiously flat voice. “And, no, I don’t watch out for them.”

“Are they older or younger? How many?”

“Three. Older.”

“Are you close?”

He shook his head and did not answer. Ellynor decided it might be a touchy subject and she probably shouldn’t pry. After a final swipe at her face, she turned her attention to her hair, putting her hands up to the back of her head. She’d hoped she could just poke the pins in place, but the knot was too loose. With a sigh, she pulled the pins free, and the whole long mass came tumbling down. She swept it around over her right shoulder and combed her fingers through it to straighten the tangles.

Justin’s eyes were fixed on the
sebahta
pattern dyed into her hair. Similar to Rosurie’s except that hers featured a sickle, rose, and bird design to mark her as being of the Alowa family. The dye was a rusty blond against the jet-black of her hair.

She felt a sudden unreasonable pang. Now he would know she was a Lirren girl; now he would know his life could be forfeit if he so much as talked with her for twenty minutes. All the novices at the convent knew her heritage, of course, but Ellynor had not thought to mention it to this young man. This Justin. Not that she would ever see him again, not that it mattered whether or not he knew who she was, not that she had expected him to come courting until he found out she was off-limits for any suitor except those sanctioned by her family. It was just that—despite the real terrors of the day—she had rather enjoyed sitting here talking to him, bridling at his scolds, laughing at his observations. She had rather liked him, and now he would recoil and walk away.

But he didn’t. “Your hair—that’s so beautiful,” he said. “What have you done to it?
Why
did you do that?”

So he didn’t recognize a
sebahta
pattern when he saw one. Beginning the braid with swift, sure fingers, Ellynor remembered that Astira hadn’t recognized it, either. No, nor had any of the other girls from the convent. It seemed Lirren customs were not so well known here across the mountains. Justin still had no idea who she was.

Her spirits rose. Ridiculous though that was.

“It’s just—a kind of decoration,” she said, stumbling over the false words. To deny the
sebahta
like this! And to feel so delighted as she did so! “Do you like it?”

“Yes. It’s striking. But you should wear your hair down all the time, so more people can see it.”

“Oh—it would be in my way. I wear it down on social occasions sometimes.” Weddings. Feast days. When she was safe among her family members.

Maybe it was her imagination, but it seemed like Justin was visibly restraining himself from reaching out to touch the patterned black silk of her hair. “It’s so beautiful,” he said again.

She laughed. “Hard to take care of, though! When I travel, it’s almost impossible to keep it clean.”

“Do you travel much? How often do novices leave the convent?”

Not often enough,
she thought. “Actually, I think this is only the fifth or sixth time I’ve left the convent since I’ve been there. The girls who’ve been there longer leave more often— come in to Neft, sometimes, or go to some of the other nearby towns to proselytize.”

“How long have you been at the convent?”

“A little over a year.”

His eyebrows rose, and she wondered what he was thinking. But what he said was, “And why did you want to join the Daughters?”

It was hard to know how to answer that, so for the moment she concentrated on her hair. Finishing the braid, she looped it in a knot on the back of her head and fixed the pins in place. She gave him a quick sideways glance and saw him watching her. Waiting with some patience for her answer.

Oh, what did it matter? She would never see him again, so she might as well be truthful. To a point. “My cousin wanted to join, but she didn’t want to come by herself,” she answered. “And I liked the idea of leaving home, at least for a little while.”

“Getting away from those protective brothers,” he said.

“You have no idea how protective! So I thought it might be—an adventure of a sort. Something different. Exciting, maybe.”

“I don’t know that much about it,” he said, “but it would seem to me that if you were going to live at the Lumanen Convent, you’d have a bad time of it if you weren’t completely devoted to the Pale Mother.”

She gave him a swift, unhappy smile. “Yes. You’re right. For some reason, I hadn’t thought it through like that.”

He raised his eyebrows again. “And you’re finding that you don’t love the Silver Lady quite as much as you should?”

“Oh, I rather like her,” Ellynor said, which made him laugh. “I do! She’s so beautiful and mysterious. And I like the rituals that honor her. But I find some of the—there’s a kind of—I’m not quite as devout as some of the other girls.”

“They’re fanatics,” he said bluntly.

“Yes. And while there are a lot of novices who are—oh, they’re silly girls who joined up on a lark, or to please their families, and who aren’t so passionate about the goddess—the Lestra and the senior Daughters are all very stern and dedicated. They’re a little—sometimes they frighten me a little.”

“Do you have to stay?” he asked.

She had never allowed herself to really face that question and it made her uneasy to contemplate it now. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I wouldn’t want to leave my cousin there all alone, of course, and
she
has become one of the fanatics.”

“Would your family let you come home?”

“Oh yes. I think they expect that I will be here another year or two at most and then return to them.”

“So you think it’s the Lestra who might not allow you to leave.”

How quickly he had put his finger on it, saying aloud the thing she did not like to think. “Since I have been there, I have not seen any girls go home,” Ellynor said carefully. “Perhaps none of them wanted to, but—” She shrugged. “It’s strange. I would have thought, in a group that large,
someone
would have gotten homesick, or been called to her family to nurse her ailing mother, or decided the convent life was not for her. But none of that has happened since I’ve been there.”

“In a year.”

“Right.”

His face wore a look of heavy skepticism, but he did not make any of the comments that were obviously circling in his mind. Ellynor gave her head a little shake and practiced a smile.

“But I don’t mean to sound so sinister! It would probably be a simple thing to leave if I decided I wanted to.”

“Very simple,” he agreed. “You’re out now. No one knows where you are. Just don’t go back. I’d help you hide if anyone started a search.”

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