Chapter 2
As she approached the village, the well-worn field paths became roads of hard-packed earth. Up ahead, she spotted two figures stumbling along, one struggling under the weight of the other.
She took several paces before she could identify them. Cormac was half supporting, half dragging Jory. She closed the gap and slipped Jory’s free arm over her shoulder.
“What happened?” she asked Cormac.
“Found him passed out on the road.”
Jory turned to face her then, and she caught a waft of his breath. It stank of whiskey, and she pulled away.
His eyes were wet with drink, with apology, with memories of what he once was.
Aoife didn’t know him well; he hadn’t been around when she was growing up.
Until recently he’d worked as the estate manager at Blackthorn Hall.
It was the seat of the Prefect of Briartha, a county of eighty settlements.
Its most recent inhabitant was Lord Halverton.
He’d been there a few years but rarely left the estate.
Jory had only returned to the village when Lord Halverton had fired him.
After that, he had moved in with his daughter and her husband.
They walked in silence for a minute. Aoife adjusted Jory’s arm to support him better as he stumbled. The height difference between her and Cormac was less than a blade of grass, making the task of dragging a man between them slightly easier.
Cormac was broader than she was, but still lean; hunger had pared him down.
His strength came from work at the tannery: shoulders thickened from lifting hides, lungs touched by the acrid fumes of bark and lime.
The raw patches on his hands came from scraping hides, the faint burn marks where caustic liquid had splashed.
Today he smelt of the tannery more than was usual in recent weeks.
His constant odour of ash bark and wet leather was now layered with the sharp sting of piss and undercut with the sour rot of hides left to soak in the vats.
“Does your da have a new commission?” she asked.
Cormac nodded. He didn’t bother to ask how she knew. “A lord from the next county wants kid leather gloves for his daughters,” he said. “He’s going to pay with a goat.”
A goat meant milk, and meat if things grew desperate.
“Da’s promised I can share the milk with you and your family,” he said. In a season when most kept what little they had, Cormac shared. Hunger had made people hard. Not him. Not with her.
If they survived this famine, it would be together, but she couldn’t imagine how. There would be more wailing this winter.
“Did you hear the banshee?” she asked him.
Cormac nodded
“It was loud,” Aoife said. “A hundred voices or more.”
“I noticed that, too. There must be something we can do to stop it. The empire has to be behind it. That many people dying at once?” He ran a hand through his hair. “It can’t be chance.”
Aoife was no fan of the Eldrossi empire, but Cormac seemed to look for reasons to fight them, though it would do none of them any good.
“Banshee foretell death. Once they’ve wailed, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.”
“You sound like my mam. She says they’re not a curse. They’re a kindness. No one’s passing should go unmarked.” He looked at her then, eyes uncertain. “But what if it’s our families they’re crying for?”
It wouldn’t be the first time.
She wanted to tell him it wasn’t. She wanted to promise safety, but the words wouldn’t come. “Then we face it when it comes.”
He exhaled, shoulders sinking, the tension easing. It was a sign of their long friendship, the way she could ground him when he was angry.
They reached Jory’s house. He lived in the same style of two-room, mud-walled cottage that comprised most of the village.
The thatched roof had seen better days. It had been patched with rushes in places, and the whitewashed walls were now flaking and damp-stained.
No one had the time or energy for repairs these days.
Aoife rapped on the door. No answer.
“I think my mam has a key,” Cormac said. Sliding Jory’s arm off his shoulder. “Can you hold him?”
She shifted to bear Jory better, taking the weight from Cormac. “Don’t take too long.” She called after him as he headed to his house a short way down the street.
Jory muttered under his breath, but as he didn’t appear to be addressing her, Aoife didn’t ask.
A moment later, Cormac reappeared on the street with Riona.
Aoife couldn’t remember a time when Riona hadn’t been there, supporting and guiding her, smoothing her and Cormac’s quarrels.
She had been Aoife’s mother’s closest friend, and though no one could ever take her place, Riona was the next best thing.
Cormac reached for Jory as Riona opened the door, and together they helped him inside and into a chair.
He looked up, recognising Riona. His mumbling became more coherent now.
“I’m sorry. So sorry. Maybe… maybe don’t tell Donal? Or my daughter?”
Aoife released Jory as he settled his weight in the chair.
A smudge of red on her finger alerted her that something was wrong.
She checked Jory over quickly, discovering a small trickle of blood running from Jory’s hand down his wrist. Aoife fetched a cloth from the sink, wetting it in a bowl of water. Riona came up beside her to help.
“What can we do for him?” Aoife asked.
“Not much,” Riona said, voice low. “He’s grieving the loss of his wife, his livelihood, everything he’s known.”
“It was my fault,” Jory piped up, “all my fault.”
“You were grieving,” Riona said firmly.
“I was late collecting the rents,” he muttered. “He was right to let me go.”
“He was heartless, that’s what he was,” Cormac said sternly.
“Cormac,” Riona cautioned him.
“It’s all right,” Jory told her. “Lord Halverton is strict, but fair,” he said, turning now to Cormac. “You know where you stand with him.”
“The man is a monster.”
“If you aren’t going to help, maybe you should wait outside.” Riona suggested.
Cormac sighed and left the room.
“It was my fault,” Jory muttered again.
Aoife dropped her voice low so as not to be overheard. “He’s angry. You can’t blame him.”
“Anger changes nothing,” Riona said as she took the pestle and mortar from the top shelf and passed them to Aoife.
“Then what will?” Aoife asked.
Riona reached out and touched her arm. “Be strong. All things pass, Aoife. This famine, this grief, even this empire. I’ve seen harder seasons ease.”
“How?” Aoife pressed. “How long did it last? How did you survive it?”
“There’s nothing good will come of knowing.”
“I’d still like to know.”
“That’s a story for another day.”
Aoife took a handful of herbs from her satchel and ground them into a paste. She looked at Jory as she worked. She could all too easily imagine her father going down the same path if things didn’t change soon.
Aoife returned to Jory and cleaned the wound. She pressed the herb paste against the cut and covered it with a clean bandage.
Riona passed Jory a cup of tea. “To help sober you up.”
Aoife finished smoothing the paste beneath the cloth, then rose and offered a few prayers to the Sheedar. She walked in a circle around the room, murmuring the words, a ritual meant to keep evil spirits out of the house and out of the wound. The remaining paste she divided between two bandages.
“Tell your daughter to change your dressing tomorrow morning.” Aoife said, pressing a bandage into Jory’s hand.
Cormac returned then, arms full of firewood. “Noticed you were running low.” He said as he laid it on the woodpile next to the hearth, which served as a fire for both heating and cooking.
Jory made a pitiful groan.
“Sorry, I…” Cormac looked between Jory and his mother, trying to figure out what was happening. “I can take it away if you don’t want it.”
Riona crouched beside Jory, placing a hand on his arm.
He looked up at her, eyes wet. “It’s too much,” he muttered, and Aoife understood. Feeling like a burden had driven him to drink in the first place. With everyone here, hovering and tending to him, it was more than he could bear. She gathered her things, took Cormac’s hand, and led him outside.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” Aoife shook her head. “I don’t think we’re what he needs.” He needed time to grieve his wife, to mourn the life and the purpose he had lost.
Aoife slung her satchel over her shoulder, and they walked together towards the village square.
“That’s only going to end one way,” Cormac said.
“How do you mean?”
“The way he’s going, next time someone finds him, it won’t be passed out on the street. It’ll be dead in a ditch.”
“You don’t know that.”
Cormac gave her the pitying look she hated, the one he gave her when she was acting naive. “We’ve seen it happen enough.”
“People can surprise you,” Aoife said. “I saw a lot helping my mother. She didn’t think Morgane would walk again after she broke her leg; look at her now. People can do extraordinary things under pressure or when given a reason to hope.”
“I don’t see a lot to be hopeful about, do you?”
He was right, of course. She had no response.
A bump in the road caused Aoife to stumble, her satchel bashing against her side. She smiled at what was inside. She dug in with both hands, pulling out three large, shiny apples.
“Here,” Aoife said. “Here’s your hope.”
He laughed, but didn’t move to take them. “You need them more than I do.”
“Go on,” she said.
He hesitated only a moment longer before nodding, trusting her judgement as he always did.
“Where did you get these?”
“Bonnie Mineor’s brother. She asked me to go see him in Dromdara this morning. His eldest is sick.”
“Were you able to help him?”
She gave him a hard look.
“Right, stupid question.”
“He promised food in exchange, and when I finished he took me out to their old apple tree, told me I could have any I could reach.”
“Let me guess, you couldn’t reach any of them.”
“Not standing on the ground, no. He’d picked it clean, used a ladder too. There were a few clusters clinging to the top branches.”
Cormac was already smiling.
“He did not expect me to climb up there and fetch them.”