hear Katya’s indulgent chuckle.
‘That sounds like Cora. Anything little, anything hurt can find a home with her. She is not one to hold a grudge. Look at how she took in Haftor and Marna. Everyone else said she owed her brother’s children nothing. Didn’t he leave her to manage the family holdings alone?’
‘My mother did not see it that way,’ Lars replied shortly. ‘They are her brother’s children and as entitled to the family lands as her own.’
Lars rose and walked rapidly to the next pin. He did not look to see if Katya followed him. Ki’s head was down, her hands busy when Katya shot a glare in her direction. Katya hastened to where Lars bent over the pin.
‘Sven’s holdings,’ Katya’s voice was abrupt, blunt, ‘will Ki keep them or sell them?’
Ki found her eyes glued to Lars’s red face. Glints of anger showed in his pale eyes.
‘She has never mentioned it to me, so we have never discussed it. There have been too many other painful topics to be considered. Lands and monies have never come up.’
‘It would be a substantial holding, would it not?’ Katya pressed. ‘If half your grandparents’ holdings came to Cora’s children to be divided three ways by her offspring – that’s a full sixth of the family’s holdings that would have been Sven’s, and are now in questionable hands. When Marna comes of age and into her holdings, she and Haftor together will control a full half of the original holding, while you and Rufus will hold two sixths …’
‘It is a family matter, for family to consider. Unlike Rufus, I foresee no problems with it. It would not be the first time the holdings were run by weighted votes.’ Lars’s voice was curt, a polite reminder to her that although he spoke to her he regarded the matter as private. He no longer pretended to work at the crystals.
Ki watched Katya’s chin come up at his tone. She shifted her hands to her hips. She towered over him as he crouched beside the pin and bucket. Her breasts rose as she took a deep breath. ‘A woman would want to know these things before she joined a family, so that she would know how her offspring would fare. She might consider it more advantageous to find a man willing to join with her own family, and she thus would retain her own inheritance rights.’
‘I agree,’ Lars replied evenly. ‘She would be a fool not to consider alternate moves. And alternate mates.’
He rose and shouldered past her to stride to the next pin. She remained standing on the dock, watching him work. Ki glanced swiftly at her face as she moved to her next pin. Katya seemed to be regretting her words.
Slowly Katya drifted after Lars to kneel beside him again. He rose even as she knelt, going quickly to the next pin. Undaunted, Katya followed him. Ki moved on reluctantly to her own next pin. Every pin was bringing them closer to the junction of the floating docks.
‘Did I tell you that I just came from taking a lamb to the Harpy Platform?’ Katya asked in a girlishly contrite voice. Lars moved silently to the next pin. She trailed after him. ‘Father asked after you first, as he always does. He was pleased to hear how well – how well you wear your manhood.’
‘Katya,’ Lars groaned warningly.
‘And he was full of news of his precious Harpies, as always,’ she went on hastily. ‘He hasn’t changed a bit. When he was with us, he always knew all the news: joinings, births, quarrels, deaths. Father was always talking of it, almost before it happened.’
Lars picked up his bucket, moved to the next pin. Ki tarried at her own pin, pretending to be having some difficulty with it. But Katya’s voice carried as clearly as ever.
‘There has been a tragedy!’ She offered it most pleadingly for his attention. Lars gave in, rocking back on his heels and turning martyred eyes up to her.
‘Not in our own aeries, I am relieved to tell you. It was in a lone aerie far to the south of here, a good week’s travel away, though only a few days for a Harpy on the wing. It was a renegade aerie, the Winged Ones there raising a brood alone. Father said they were a loning pair, caring little for keeping peace with other folk. Their attitude in this is not condoned by our own Harpies. Indeed, some of ours are saying they brought it upon themselves. For all that, they still have our sympathy and a promise of aid in their search for vengeance.’
‘Vengeance?’ Lars asked slowly. His voice was troubled.
The buzzing in Ki’s ears suddenly rose in volume. Premonition leaned cold on her.
‘A nest destroyed within days of hatching! Done by a Human, too, by all the signs. Someone scaled the cliff to torch the nest. The mother was heartlessly slaughtered, her body flung to the base of the cliff. The father was hideously burned in a vain attempt to save the eggs. He may never wing again. He is so scarred he has lost much of the movement necessary for normal flight. But he will live.’
Ki watched the cord slip from her lax fingers to vanish in the murky water. Her head whirled with sudden vertigo. She could not seem to get enough air into her lungs.
‘Of such stuff is nightmare made.’ Lar’s voice was haunted. ‘When did it happen? It must have been some months back, at the end of hatching season. Or was it a late brood and it happened but days ago?’
‘Father did not say.’ Katya seemed pleased at Lars’s response and interest. ‘I understand that the father was not found for some days, for he could not fly for help. He was near death when he was rescued. They say he is partially blinded, too. Our Harpies are sympathetic and have been taking food to him. But he was a militant and a renegade. They will not take up his revenge for him, though they speak of the deed angrily and listen for news of such a Human. One such as that makes me ashamed to be of the Human race.’
‘In that, you would not be alone,’ Lars replied. Katya carried the heavy bucket as they moved to the next pin. Ki, drawn by horror and fascination, picked up her own bucket to move down another pin, where she could pick up their voices.
‘Is it true, Father wished to know, what we are hearing? That Haftor seeks to win favor with Ki?’
Lars stabbed an angry look at Katya. ‘Are you taking up your father’s hobby so soon?’ he asked in a deadly voice.
Katya flushed. ‘It is not for myself I ask, Lars, but for my father. You know how he thirsts for news. He says he has heard it from others on that side. That Haftor will try to win Ki, and with her Sven’s lands. The family holding is large. It is natural that there would be much curiosity, and even alarm, to see the ruling share of the holding fall to new hands.’
A dull, aching anger rose in Ki. She felt herself a tally bar, a reckoning piece in this game of balancings they played. She, Ki, reduced to a measure of land to be controlled. But she did not move or speak. She set an orange crystal gently in her bucket, drew out fresh line for the pin.
‘I fail to see any reason for alarm, Katya. You sound like Rufus when you have so much suspicion in your voice. Haftor is cousin to me. We fear no treachery from him. Given some time, he might well prove a good leader for the holdings. But I doubt that it will come to pass. I am as close to Ki as any, and I can tell you that she has no soft feelings for Haftor, regardless of how he may see himself or what ambitions he may have. Haftor and I have had our differences, but he is a good man. When Haftor makes a joining, it will be to a woman he cares for, regardless of what she may or may not hold. Mark my words, and see if I am not right.’
‘There are even those who say …’ Katya hesitated, but the look in her eyes was more catlike than uncertain. ‘… those who say that Lars would profit more to take Ki to wife than if he took Katya.’
‘Lars!’ Ki called it twice as loudly as she needed to. ‘I’ve a full bucket. I’m going up to the hanging shed.’
She sent Katya a warm smile under cold eyes. Lars did not look at her or reply. Ki rose, heavy bucket dangling, and thumped up the floating dock to climb the steps to the bank above the marsh. She followed the beaten track between the banks of coarse, waving grass. The sun beat on her