"Galvin? Galvin, is it? Oh, we've been flirting with Lord Pendaran's men, have we?"
Nola tried to ignore the question, though she felt her face go warm. "The important thing is that you don't trust Kirwyn. I believe he may have been planning you ill long before I came into the situation."
Brinna got to her feet, which probably would have been easier to do if she hadn't been clutching the basket to her chest with such obvious distrust, as though Nola might yet make a grab for it. The thing must have been heavy: Once she settled it on her arm, Nola saw how low she held her elbow. "No doubt," Brinna said. "I don't intend to give him the chance."
She had already passed Nola and was almost to the door before Nola called after her, "What do you mean?"
Brinna raised her arm with the basket. "He has the house and the shop with everything in it. After all I've been through, he can't very well begrudge me this..." She tossed her head so that her golden hair caught in the sunlight, and she walked out of the barn.
"Good luck," Nola told her, but she was already gone.
She gave Mother and me a job when no one else would, Nola reminded herself.
Though now she wondered if the plan had been to let one of them get blamed for the murder.
She gave us food when we left. There could have been no possible advantage to Brinna in that.
Still, she had a long way to travel and she already felt weary. She leaned heavily on her walking stick as she made her way out of the barn.
Brinna was by the millpond, talking to a man who was coming from the mill with a sack of flour over his shoulder. She was pointing beyond the mill to where the river continued on its way south. Nola saw Brinna hand the man something, probably a coin, and the man, nodding, led her to where his small rowboat was tied.
He rearranged the sacks chat were already in the boat, then helped Brinna in. The boat rocked and she sat down hastily. The man laughed and said something, probably co reassure her. People were always solicitous of the beautiful, Nola had come to see. The man pushed off from shore, the boat scraping noisily against the stones at the water's edge, riding low in che water because of the extra weight.
It would be nice, Nola thought, if she, too, had a ride to where she was going. But since she didn't, she'd better start walking.
She estimated that with her sore ankle, the journey would take her a day and a half.
And what could her mother have gotten up to in all this time?
Before Nola had a chance to turn onto the path, a voice sounding no farther than a handspan from her ear shouted, "Brinna!"
Nola shrank back from Kirwyn, though he didn't seem to recognize her - nor even to notice her.
"Brinna!" He had paused on the path itself, but now he cut through the grass, heading for the water's edge. Brinna and the man who was rowing both turned to face him. "Brinna, you faithless creature! You get back here!"
The man hesitated, but Brinna said something to him, and he kept rowing.
"Brinna!" Kirwyn bellowed. "I know you have my money!"
When they still didn't head back for shore, Kirwyn picked up a stone from the shore and flung it. In his fury, he threw it so hard it went way over the heads of the boaters. He picked up another stone, and that fell short, thudding against the side of the boat.
"Hey!" called the boat's owner. "Enough of that!"
Other people, seeing the commotion from the street, called out, too: some in reproach, some in encouragement.
Kirwyn threw another stone, which hit Brinna on the arm.
They were still close enough to shore that Nola could see che pain and surprise on her face as she rubbed her arm. And the fear.
"Enough of that, you!" the boat's owner shouted.
At the same time another voice called, "Kirwyn!"
And there was Galvin, running down che path toward them.
Nola, who had never expected she would see him again, ducked her head.
But of course he didn't recognize her. He couldn't have: He'd never seen her face before. He ran to intercept Kirwyn, who was picking up another scone.
Kirwyn's aim was thrown off when Galvin grabbed hold of his arm. "She killed my father," Kirwyn protested. "She stole his money."
He would have to do better than that, Nola thought, considering the previous story he had told.
"Leave off," Galvin warned. And, to the man in the boat he said, "You, come back."
Brinna leaned forward to tell the man something that made him hesitate.
Kirwyn picked up another scone.
Galvin caught hold of his wrist. "Put it down now, or I'll seriously consider cutting your hand off," he said, chough he hadn't yet unsheathed his sword.
Kirwyn let the stone drop.
The man in che boat still hadn't made up his mind whether to come back to shore. "In the name of Lord Pendaran - ," Galvin called to him, but his forward momentum brought him onto that part of the bank that was both inclined and covered by stones. One foot slid so that he had to catch his balance, and this brought him just beyond Kirwyn, and slightly lower.
And Kirwyn had quite obviously had enough of being bested by Brinna and Galvin. While Galvin was distracted by boat and footing, Kirwyn took advantage of being temporarily higher and jabbed his elbow, catching Galvin on the side of his head.
As Galvin staggered, Kirwyn hooked his leg around Galvin's and the next moment Galvin was on the ground with Kirwyn astride his back.
"Stop!" Nola cried. There were several onlookers close enough to help, but none of them stepped forward, though one of them did say - mildly, considering the circumstances - "Hey, now." Nola hobbled painfully toward the two struggling men, her makeshift cane sliding off the slippery stones, jarring her aching ankle.
Kirwyn snatched up another of the river stones and brought it down on Galvin's head. Once. Twice. Just as he had done when bringing the hammer down on Innis.
But Galvin was quicker than Innis had been, and he was fighting back: The blows were only glancing.
Still, Kirwyn was on top, and it was only a matter of time before he got in a good hit that would crack Galvin's skull open.
Nola raised her walking stick and brought it down hard across the small of Kirwyn's back.
With a yelped curse, he rolled ofF Galvin and glared at Nola. Then he looked at the stone in his hand. Then he glared at Nola again.
Still nothing from the onlookers. In fact, a few of them backed away.
Kirwyn surged co his feet.
Nola remembered all the blood that had seemed co fill the water basin when she had watched Kirwyn smash in Innis's skull. That was what he was about to do to her - she was sure of it. He was going to kill her while Galvin was just now sitting up, obviously not quite able co gee his eyes to focus yet, coo groggy to intervene. If he even noticed her danger.
But Kirwyn didn't go after her. He looked at the scone he'd been striking Galvin with, then he looked once more at Brinna in the boat. The man she was with had started toward the shore in response co che authority in Galvin's voice, but had stopped rowing when Kirwyn had attacked Galvin. Now the man hurriedly resumed rowing - away once again.
Kirwyn flung che stone with all his might at Brinna.
It hit her on the side of her head.
From the shore, it looked as though she tried to stand up, possibly in a confused attempt to get away. The man who had been rowing dropped his oars and lunged for her, to get her to sit back down.
Too lace.
The boat tipped, and Brinna, the man, and all those sacks of flour went into the water. The man bobbed up to the surface. The way he floundered and scrambled to clutch on to the capsized boat gave testimony to the fact that he was not a swimmer. There was no sign of Brinna.
Galvin finally staggered to his feet.
"Go!" a voice yelled, and it was Sergeant Halig, who - a moment later - caught hold of Kirwyn and twisted his arms behind his back. "Go," he repeated to Galvin. "I can't swim."
"She deserved it," Kirwyn said.
Nola looked at him in horror, but he had lost all hope of getting away with what he had done and offered no more pretenses.
Galvin ran out into the water as Halig deftly tied Kirwyn's hands behind his back. Two of the onlookers at last were stirred to action, and they, too, headed for the water.
"She deserved it," Kirwyn repeated.
"Oh, shut up," Nola told him.
One of the two onlookers who'd jumped into the millpond caught hold of the shirt of the floundering boatman and dragged him to shore, while Galvin and the other man dived repeatedly beneath the surface. And still there was no sign of Brinna.
"Lots of water weeds," the rescuer said from between chattering teeth as someone put a blanket around his shoulders. "And the water's damn murky." The words were quickly passed through the ever-growing crowd.
"She deserved it," Kirwyn said again, this time only daring a mutter.
Halig smacked him on the back of the head.
Others joined the two men out in the water. It seemed forever, hue, eventually, all together, they came swimming back, dragging something behind them.
Nola had hoped that somehow Brinna had gotten away, that she'd succeeded in swimming underwater - never mind that her waterlogged skirts would surely have dragged her down. Nola had refused to let her mind settle on that detail. She had pictured Brinna making it to the edge of the pond and hiding in the reeds, ready to make her escape.
They brought her up on shore right near where Nola had sat when her leg had begun shaking from the strain of so much walking and standing. Even if Brinna hadn't been underwater for so long, Nola would have known she was dead by the way her beautiful blue eyes scared up unblinking at the sun. Galvin sat down cross-legged beside her, his own eyes closed, his head bowed.
One of the others extended his arm, holding out Brinna's marketing basket, from which water still streamed. He indicated by lowering and raising it several times that ic was heavy. "She was still holding on to this," he said. "It weighted her down to the bottom."
"That's mine," Kirwyn said.
Someone asked, "Was she dead already from the blow to her head before she went into the water, or wouldn't she let go, and then she drowned?"
Different people had different opinions and were open about sharing them.
"That's mine," Kirwyn repeated. "She stole it from me."
Galvin jumped to his feet, snatched the basket out of the man's hand, and flung it at Kirwyn, scattering coins all about the grass. Then, without a word, he stalked away, heading back toward the center of town.
Abashed, the people on the grass silently gathered up the fallen money and replaced it in the basket, then handed the basket to Halig. "Much pleasure may it give you in your remaining time," Halig told Kirwyn, and gave him a shove in the direction Galvin had gone.
Nola stood up, requiring much help both from her walking stick and from the woman next to her. As the townsfolk resumed their speculations, Nola started walking, too, but in the opposite direction.
Chapter Sixteen
IT ENDED UP taking Nola five days to get back to Saint Erim Turi.
By midafternoon of that first day, she was able to cake only nine steps at a time - counting them off, always starting and ending with her uninjured left foot: Only four more, only three - before she'd allow herself to rest, leaning on her good left leg and her stick, breathing raggedly, her ankle swollen to twice its size, burning and throbbing. She finally understood those stories of an animal biting off its own injured foot. And shed gotten only as far as the outlying farms of Haymarket.
She was considering whether it would be better to abandon the stick and crawl on the road when a farmer working the adjoining field called out to her. "You look like you need some help."
By chance the firmer and his family needed help, coo. The man's wife had just had a baby, to go along with what seemed to be about seventeen other small children, who ran in and out of the house, chasing one another, climbing on things, poking each other, until somebody ended up squealing or crying - although once all of them were put to bed, it turned out there were only five of them. Still exhausted from her labor, the farmer's wife needed someone to keep the children from inflicting permanent damage on themselves, one another, or the house.
Nola planned to start again the next morning, after a blessed night's rest. But, "If you could help around the house - ," the farmer's wife said, then, gazing down at Nola's foot, she assured her, "mostly sitting-down work - my husband and I could take you almost all the way to Saint Erim Turi in four days' time, when we take the baby to show my parents."
Four days, Nola thought. Leave her mother untended for four more days? But what could she do? Unless she was lucky enough to get someone else to offer her a ride, at the rate she was going these people would pass her by on the road four days from now. And she'd probably be permanently crippled by then. She could only hope that her mother would stay safe. She hoped that Galvin was safe also. She would picture the look on his face by the millpond, when he knew he had lost Brinna forever, and she knew her face tended to the same expression for losing him.
So she helped with the cooking and the mending of clothes and the settling of squabbles among the children, and four days later - with grateful hugs and tears of good-bye - the farmer and his family dropped Nola off on the outskirts of Saint Erim Turi, with a full stomach, an ankle that had finally begun to heal, and a proper walking stick that the husband had fashioned for her.
But Nola also had a growing dread, now that the end was in sight, of what shed find in Saint Erim Turi in genera], and at che Witch's Stew tavern in particular.
She paused before the first cluster of houses, just a heartbeat's hesitation before stepping under che huge oak tree chat sprawled its branches like a canopy over the road. It must have rained here, she thought, noticing how wet the ground beneath the tree was, and in that pausing she missed being hit directly on the head by something falling from overhead. Instead, it fell ac her feet and burst open: a pig's bladder filled with water.
"You miserable wretches!" she yelled at the four laughing, squealing children who hid in the branches above her. Two of them leaped down and took off into the surrounding bushes. The other two were old enough to know better.