A Gift of Dragons - Anne McCaffrey [9]
Despite the hour and the circumstances of their departure, Aramina felt a tremendous relief as they moved off. Two Turns ago she had been inexpressibly relieved not to have to plod at the pace of Nudge and Shove day after weary day. But now traveling was a far more palatable alternative to being part of Thella’s vindictive schemes.
“We are not holdless by choice, Aramina,” Barla had often abjured her daughter, “for your father held well under Lord Kale of Ruatha Hold. Oh,” and Barla would bow her head and press her hands to her mouth in anguish over terrible memories, “the perfidy, the treachery of that terrible, ruthless man! To murder all Ruatha blood in one pitiless hour!” Barla would gather herself then, lifting her head proudly. “Nor would your father serve Lord Fax of the High Reaches.” Barla was not an extravagant person in word or deed, retaining a quiet and unobtrusive dignity despite all the slights and pettiness that came the way of the holdless. Her acrimony was therefore the more memorable, and Aramina, as well as her surviving brother and sister, knew Fax as the villain, despoiler, and tyrant, possessed of no single redeeming virtue. “We had pride enough to leave when he made his unspeakable order . . .” Barla would often color and then pale when reciting this part of their exodus. “Your father had made this very wagon for us to attend Gathers.” Barla would sigh. “Attend Gathers as respected holders, not as wanderers, holdless and friendless. For other Lord Holders did not wish to antagonize Fax just then, and though your father had been so certain of a welcome elsewhere, there was none. But we are not like the others, children. We chose to retain our honor and would not submit to the incarnate evil of Fax.”
Although Barla would never be specific about that, of late Aramina was beginning to get glimmerings, now that she had become a woman. For Barla, despite the depredations of fourteen Turns of nomadic life and endless pregnancies as tokens of Dowell’s esteem, still retained a beautiful face and a slender figure. Aramina was old enough to realize that Barla was far more handsome than most holdless women and that, when they entered a new hold, Barla kept her lustrous hair hidden under a tattered head scarf and wore the many-layered garments of cold poverty.
Dowell had been a skilled wood joiner, holding a modest but profitable hold for Lord Kale in the forests of Ruatha. News of the treacherous massacre of the entire bloodline had reached the mountain fastness long after the event, when a contingent of Fax’s rough troops had thundered into the hold’s yard and informed the astounded Dowell of the change in Lord Holder. He had bowed his head—reluctantly but wisely—to that announcement and kept his resentment and horror masked, hoping that none of the troop realized that his wife, Barla, expecting her first child, also bore Ruathan blood in her veins.
If Dowell hoped that a meek acceptance and an isolated location would keep him from Fax’s notice, he erred. The leader of the troop had eyes in his head; if he couldn’t detect Barla’s bloodline at a glance, one look was enough to tell him that here was a woman of interest to Lord Fax. Nor had the man’s shrewd gleam escaped Dowell, and the woodcrafter had made contingency plans, which began with leaving the hold’s Gather wagon and two sturdy dray beasts in a blind valley on the Tillek side of the mountain. When half a Turn had passed with no further visitation, Dowell had begun to think his precautions foolish: that he had mistaken the man’s reaction to Barla’s beauty.
Then Lord Fax, followed by a score of his men, came galloping up the narrow trace to the woodland hold. His scowl had been frightening when he had seen Barla’s gravid state.
“Well, the pump will be primed and ready. She’ll whelp soon. Collect her in two