The Hedgewitch Queen by Lilith Saintcrow

Author:Lilith Saintcrow [Saintcrow, Lilith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Epic, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780316187787
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2011-12-01T17:12:35+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Two days later I was allowed—with Risaine at my elbow, to bolster me—to see the bandit village.

I knew then why Tristan had argued so hard against it. For what I found in that village scored me deeply.

“See that?” Risaine said, ruffling a child’s hair. The girl played solemnly with a threadbare doll, her hollow-cheeked face devoured by her eyes. “Just barely escaped the plague, arrived a week ago with four other children led by a boy not past his twelfth year. Their village was ransacked by armed thugs looking to eke more of the harvest from the peasantry. Oh, and that man? His family, killed by d’Orlaans’s bullies half a year ago. That woman? Cannot stand to have a man touch her.” Risaine clicked her tongue sharply. “Not after the Guard at Rouenne finished with her six months ago. A wonder she’s alive.”

I absorbed this as I leaned on the older woman’s arm. Most of the “bandits” were thin, desperate-looking men with fierce faces and peasants’ weapons. The women seemed hard, but their gazes were nervous as hungry birds. In the lee of a rude hut one woman—wide-hipped and red-faced, with cornsilk hair braided about her head as the peasants of Sainte-Ecy did—sobbed as another held her, murmuring soothing nonsense words.

“What of her?” I asked quietly.

“Her daughter was killed by tax farmers last week, and she still cannot believe it. The tax men are the law.” Risaine drew me away. “Do you see this, Vianne? This is what the King brought us to.”

The King bears the blame for this? “How so?” I found myself gazing upon a collection of ragged children taking a lesson from a rail-thin woman dressed in a dark priestess’s cloak, her hair cropped close to mark her as one of Kimyan’s elect. She was training them in arithmetic, counting on her fingers, a teaching-rhyme I remembered from my own nursery-school days. One bloat-bellied boy had a bandage wrapped about his left hand; he cradled it as his dark eyes followed the priestess’s chanting. “Gods.” My stomach churned. “Tell me.”

“You did not know, of course.” Risaine stopped at a fire in front of a low-thatched shelter. I gratefully lowered myself to the rude bench she indicated. Broken sunlight came through the branches far above, dappling the entire village. At the very periphery, a thin blur swirled through the air—protections and camouflage, laid with skill and care. “I did not know either, when I came here. We live noble lives indeed, secure in our knowledge of Court sorcery, secure in our right to take what we see fit, whenever the mood strikes us. The very gods gifted us with Arquitaine, and tis only right we do as we see fit.”

I almost drew breath to protest, thought better of it when I saw her expression shift. Her mouth turned down, her sharp face softening. The breeze fingered white curls, lovingly. “Then I was blown here by an ill wind.” She lowered herself next to me with a sigh. “These people fed us, clothed and sheltered us.

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