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The Huntress

Twenty

Tynisa had been left to her own devices amid the strange bustle of Lowre Cean’s compound.

The old man himself seemed to drift between a dozen baffling pastimes, as though to actually commit wholly to any one occupation would be the death of him. Sometimes he was closeted with his little singers, the sight of which still made Tynisa’s flesh crawl. At other times he would go off travelling through the snows with one band of reprobates or another, abandoning his servants and guards and vanishing for days. Tynisa was given to understand that all those armed bands that visited his estate were not, after all, bandits, or not only bandits, but also war veterans whom Lowre Cean had either commanded or fought alongside. Why the old tactician took the whole thing so personally, and what the precise relationship of duty and obligation was, Tynisa was not sure. Nobody spoke about it.

At other times, Cean would retreat into his workroom, where he would whittle away at tiny figures of soldiers and peasants and nobles, all carved out of a wood that could be found nowhere within a hundred miles, and that he had shipped in by infrequent barge. He would cook sometimes, inventing new concoctions and feeding all comers. He would tend his kadith ponds, adding his own blends of herbs and grasses for the insect larvae to knit into their cocoons, or he would retreat to his library and read some dusty scroll of centuries-old poetry.

He did not practise with weapons, or take a bow down to the butts to shoot at targets, as many of his people did. He did not talk about the war. He did not even seem to directly give orders to his guards or servants. They just went about their business, using their own best judgement.

Amidst all of this, Tynisa was left to amuse herself and she found that, rather than this leading to frustration and despair, she was oddly liberated by it all. Certainly she was waiting for Salme Alain to call upon her, as she was sure he would. Certainly she still had her great purpose, of bringing word of Salma’s end to his mother, who did not seem to want to know. Still, until that part of her life interfered again, she was a free agent. The winter world seemed to have forgotten about her, and so had her own driving demons. Even the shadows grew infrequent, and sometimes whole days could go by without her glimpsing that hunched, accusing figure in grey robes, or her father’s flayed corpse.

One morning she awoke in a sudden panic, hearing voices outside. For long moments she could not understand why the very sound of them had abruptly recalled to her all the guilt and fear that she had been hiding from. Then at last she placed it: a Collegiate accent, clear as day.

Outside in the courtyard she saw a covered wagon drawn by a brown-shelled beetle, and sitting on the driver’s board was a Beetle-kinden, who was currently bawling at the top of her voice at some of Lowre’s retainers. She was a stranger, and yet Tynisa felt she knew the woman instantly. She had seen plenty of that type in Collegium: stocky, bluff, forceful women striding about the city streets or College halls. They were independent, resourceful and practical, constantly making and selling and disputing, and always being loud.

The sight of such a woman here, wrapped in two layers of woollen robes and a long cloak, was bewildering, and Tynisa approached her cautiously.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, but the woman was giving strident directions to someone about what to feed her beetle on, and so Tynisa had to repeat herself, even louder.

‘What is it?’ the woman snapped, obviously impatient with anything not immediately concerned with her current purpose.

‘I was wondering . . . what can you be doing here.’

The woman stared at her, and suddenly let out a bark of outsize laughter. ‘A voice from home, as I live and breathe!’ she declared. ‘A strange-looking Collegiate you make, too. I’d take you for a native, else. Sammi, come and look at this!’

From the round back of the wagon came an elderly Grasshopper-kinden with thinning grey hair and a frame