9 Dove #3
“Oh. Did we forget something? Um, good sir?” He looked about ready to keel over, pruny face reddening the closer he got.
“Don’t you ‘sir’ me, missy!” he huffed, shaking one already-quite-shaky fist. “I just hafta say—you have some nerve waltzing in here! If I didn’t need the coin so bad, I’da refused you service.”
Maerryl slid between us, blocking his path to me. The old man stopped short a few paces away, eyeing her and the dagger she casually spun between two fingers.
Hip cocked, she calmly said, “I’ll need you to keep that distance, grandfather. And let’s take a breath.”
He barked a laugh. “What are you, her guard dog? The Wistrallos think us poor folk are going to, what, attack ’em? Rob ’em? Goddess…” He rolled his eyes, harrumphing.
I poked my head around Maerryl’s leather-clad body, taking a step closer to him. “Well, if you’re not, whatever do you want?”
“I’m going to say my piece! It’s one thing sending your servants and maids and such to our village for supplies at times. They’re good people, we don’t mind ’em.” He drew in another gulping breath and pointed one gnarled finger at me. “But you—you and your family are not welcome here.”
“Whyever not?” I asked.
He gulped again, red turning to puce as his irritation swelled. “You know damned well why not!”
Maerryl glanced back, and we exchanged a glance. She seemed as clueless as me. I shrugged.
“No. No, I don’t. Did we forget to pay you for an order or some such thing? If so, I’m very sorry. Not that I think this is quite the way for you to handle a grievance as a businessman, but I’d be happy to take care of it now—”
“Stop acting a fool.”
I bristled. No one called a lady a fool! At least not to her face. This conversation was getting to be quite intolerable.
“The bandits that attacked the nearby hamlet to the west four months ago. Killed near everyone except the kids who got away. Any of this ringing a bell, lady?”
Trying to mask my impatience for the sake of politeness, I said, “Vaguely? I remember Father mentioning something of the sort. He didn’t say people were killed. Some animals stolen and homes burned.”
“Aye,” the old man said, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes for a moment.
“Every home burned. Fire nearly caught to the Willowisp Woods too. It was a close thing. At least the young ’uns made it out.
Ran into the woods, all the way here, the older kids carrying the babies and toddlers. Nine of ’em. The only survivors.”
What?? How awful. He glared again, and the dislike in his eyes struck me like a slap.
“We took some of ’em in. The priory eventually took in a few of the older ones to train as acolytes.
The Queen sent soldiers to track down the bandits, at least, but that was the extent of the Crown’s help.
We came to you—your family. Asked for a donation, coin to help us care for the little ones.
Even just some food shared on a schedule or supplies for the babes.
Nine extra mouths in our small village is no easy thing. ”
His face hardened somehow even more. He said, “We were turned away. Refused. Given a fancy basket with a few loaves of bread, a wheel of cheese, and a note that read We’re sorry for your loss in stupid flowery script.
Some of us tried again a few times, for the sake of the young ’uns, but it was always the same. Refused at the door. No help. Nothing.”
This—this can’t be true. Would Mother and Father really have turned them away? Refused to help orphans and poor villagers?
But even as I thought it, I knew the truth.
Yes, yes they would. Even when our family was in its prime, years back, my parents disliked giving money away to the less fortunate.
They’d do it for the fashionable charity galas, of course, when society expectations demanded it.
But if it wasn’t for Choia dragging me to help out a few times at the Talon soup kitchen where she volunteered, I likely wouldn’t have interacted at length with any in the lower classes for my entire life.
Or had any sense of the hard realities that some folks faced.
But that was in the city. How had this been happening here, so near to us?
A vague memory floated up of Choia mentioning something months ago of orphans in the village, of a poor harvest and hungry mouths.
Thinking back, I was fairly sure I’d brushed her off at the time, absorbed with something else.
Sticking shame trickling down my back, I met the old man’s resentful face. I burned, anger and frustration building every second at the thought of my parents’ coldheartedness. And at myself.
“You fancy folk live in that huge mansion, coin coming out of your ears, and you didn’t spare anything to help us.
To help children.” He took another rasping breath.
“And I just wanted one of us at least to say to your face—I think you’re horrible.
Garbage people. May the goddess punish you as you deserve for your selfishness. ”
And with that, he harrumphed one final time, spat in the dirt at my feet, and hobbled back into the store, leaving me staring after him.