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  But suddenly there was a voice behind her. “You’re here to give drink, girl. Not insult my brother’s paying customers.”

  She turned around. Orin Sade. The tavern master’s burly kinsman.

  “They’re here for their drinks, then,” she answered him back. “And that would be all.”

  “Be tellin’ the man you’re sorry,” Sade ordered. “Then get to your work.”

  Some other evening she might have done what he said. The job was important to her. But she was just too angry to face those laughing eyes.

  “He’ll be dead before he gets a sorry from me,” she fumed. “And you can all fetch your own drinks or dry up like old beans.” She stomped to the door and out it, and her toes sank instantly into the mud. I’ll bet my brother has fine boots, she thought. With nary a thought for me in this world.

  “Tiarra—”

  She turned and saw Mikal standing there, looking at her so strangely. “I told you to go home,” she told him, turning away again down the soggy street.

  She hurried as quickly as she could, past the dingy houses and shops, wondering what she could tell Martica of why she was home so soon. Suddenly a dirty face peered at her from around a corner, and then she heard the boy’s excited whisper. “Hurry—hurry, now—it’s Miss Ti!”

  Three of them emerged from the little space between the two old houses. They were filthy street children, two boys and a girl, the oldest no more than twelve but far bigger than the others.

  “Go on, now!” Tiarra told them. “I haven’t gotten my pay. Lord knows when I’ll ever see that again. I’ve no food or nothing. Go on, now!”

  The littlest child began to cry, and Tiarra stopped. Every night on her way home, and every time she went out of her house, whether she was in a foul temper or not, the street children approached her. They knew she didn’t have much, but she would give them each a morsel of whatever she had.

  “Please, Miss Ti,” said the girl. “We’ve not had a bite at all today.”

  Tiarra looked up at the sky for a moment. She felt like screaming. There was no way she could hope to get much for herself, nor for these hungry little ones who were always underfoot. What it must be like to be Tahn Dorn living in luxury.

  “Thank you!” one of the children exclaimed.

  But Tiarra had already marched quickly ahead of them so they wouldn’t be able to see the tears in her eyes.

  3

  That night, Netta Trilett made her rounds to each of the children to hear them say their prayers. Temas, the dear little girl. Doogan and Rane, who were so active that no one could keep up. Briant and Tam, who could be so quiet it made her wonder what was going on inside their little heads. Duncan and Stuva, the brothers, who still often slept with their arms intertwined. And Vari, the oldest, who at fourteen fancied himself a man.

  She’d been a year now seeing them grow past the fear and want they’d known before. Tahn Dorn had been in her heart that long too. He’d been so good at helping them all adjust. Thankfully, he’d been here through their nightmares and tears. He was often more able to help them than she was, though he’d known even more of the torment than they. Yet he rarely spoke of it with anyone.

  When she’d given out her last good-night kiss, she went looking for the quiet young man she’d grown to love. Truly he had terrified her once. He’d whisked her out her window in the dead of night and stolen her away. But it was to save her life, just as he’d saved these children from the cruel future that was planned for them. He would always be priceless to her because of that. And because the love for them, or for any other little one in need, was still so clear in him.

  She saw him finally, outside by the pond, his long hair loose against his back. He was staring at the sky and sat so still he seemed almost a feature of the land around him. She knew he was deep in thought, or in prayer, and though she would have welcomed his arms again, she could not disturb the solitude he seemed to crave.

  “Give him room,” Father Anolle had told her once. “Give him all the time he needs.”

  She turned back to go to her own bed, praying as she went. His heart seems so heavy. Dear Lord, help him find his way.

  Far away in Alastair, Martica lay coughing in her little room, waiting for Tiarra. “What’ve you been doing out there?” the old woman asked when the girl finally came in. “You giving our bread to the street rabble again?”

  “They’re children, ma’am,” Tiarra pleaded her case. “Hungrier than we are.”

  “Not for long, child, if you keep up! Send them away next time. They’ve got to learn there are other people in this city to beg after.”

  Tiarra looked past her, the sad thoughts pressing at her heavily. “I’m always surprised that you don’t want to help them.”

  “It’s not my obligation,” the old woman snapped. “I’m not their Creator nor their kin.”

  “You took me in. And it must have been hard when I was just a baby.”

  “That was for the love of your mother, God rest her.”

  “But the little ones of Alastair’s streets lack a mother and father just as I did then,” Tiarra protested.

  “Well, let the church or someone with means help them. I’m not averse to that.” Martica drew a deep breath and began to cough again.

  Tears blurred Tiarra’s sight for a moment. Martica was dying. They never spoke of it, but she knew. The cough was always deeper, its hold growing tighter with every passing day. The old woman could be unpleasant indeed, but it was better to have her than to be all alone.

  “Why are you home?” the woman demanded. “Why aren’t you working?”

  Tiarra sighed. “Vale’s brother was there to manage it all.”

  “Think, child!” Martica scolded. “You should have stayed anyway. Perhaps you’ll meet a man well taken by the looks of you, and get you a husband and provider.”

  “You said once that my mother would have hoped better for me than a tavern drinker.”

  Martica looked up at her in surprise. “True, child,” she said. “But remember that your father was no noble. You can’t be thinking too high.”

  “And what of my brother, ma’am?”

  Martica scowled. “What of him? The sorry sort!”

  “They say he is with the Triletts now,” Tiarra told her. “And courting one of their own.”

  Martica’s coughing started again, suddenly almost choking her. “Such a world!” she sputtered.

  “Perhaps they who respect him at Onath don’t understand how my mother died, Martica. But just let him come someday to Alastair! Then I will kill him myself!”

  Martica shook her head in dismay. “Listen to me, child!” she scolded. “That is not the job of a lady!”

  “But I am not a lady, ma’am. You just said I should not be thinking of myself highly.”

  “Tiarra, child—”

  “It’s not fair, Martica! I should be a lady. But I sit with my feet caked in mud and without a hope for anything good.

  Yet he could marry a lady, ma’am! And live such a good life! Do you think he ever has a care for me in it?”

  “Hush, child!” Martica scolded.

  But Tiarra only stood and ran out. Surely my brother knows about me, she was thinking. Martica has told me he was old enough. And surely our father’s kinsman who took him from this city would have known, too, that Tahn Dorn had a sister. Why has he never come seeking me?

  4

  Beneath the cloudy predawn sky, Tahn lay sleeping, his black boots just a few feet from the cold waters of the pond. The wind whisked over him, tossing his long black hair. And the sound in his dream absorbed him completely. A baby crying. Again. He went running down the dirty street toward the sound, searching. But the cry stopped as abruptly as it had started, and he rolled awake with the tension still upon him.

  Why, Lord? he prayed. Why is this happening? He felt like that little child again, afraid of something unknown. “God, I need to understand. Help me.”

  He sat up and looked around him. It would be morning soon. The blustery wind had blown in a promise of rain. Clouds now covered the stars he’d watched when he first lay down here last night. It had been good to sleep beneath the heavens again. Good to not let the fine home soften him too much.

  But the strange dream had followed him from his bed in the guardhouse to the cool grass. He watched the wind toss the willows on the other side of the water and was glad he’d waked. He’d have been stirred by a soaking if he’d been much longer. He stood, knowing the morning and the rain would be breaking loose together.

  He turned and looked at the big house up the hill. Lady Netta would be waking soon. And her generous-hearted father. They would expect him again at breakfast. It was a puzzle to him still, how completely he was accepted here and how completely he’d grown to love them. These children were all safe now, adopted by the noble Trilett patriarch. But somewhere still he could hear that baby crying, longing for someone to answer some unknown need.

  He sighed as the dream took his thoughts again. It was always the same. Always the wail of an infant and that same dark street. But whose is the baby, Lord? What does it mean? He remembered well the flames of the far worse dreams he’d once had. At least it was only this dream haunting him now.

  He looked up at the swirling clouds, trying to piece together the recurring images. That old woman in his dream always stepped from a house different from the rest. It stood out starkly on the gloomy street because it was painted as though some artist had used its walls to practice on. And he suddenly thought he knew the place. So long ago that perhaps he really had run past it with tears coursing down his tiny cheeks. It seemed so real to him. As real as his memory of the unknown woman’s soft hand.

  Maybe the haunting dream wasn’t just a dream.

  Tahn felt strangely weak. He reached out to the nearest tree and steadied himself against it, not comprehending why such a distant memory could nearly choke the breath from him. Might he truly have known a mother once, before the burning pain consumed him?

  Raindrops met his shoulders, but he stood still for a moment. He’d been looking for the woman with the kind hand, whoever she was. Just before his first clear memories, of the angry crowd and the doomed man they’d surrounded. Tahn closed his eyes for a moment, seeing the big man’s feet dangling in midair. The crowd had left the man hanging and turned its wrath on him.

  He shook his head. A horrible new life had begun for him that day. But he had no way of knowing the kind of life that had ended.

  “Who is the woman, Lord?” he questioned. “Is it her baby?” Seventeen years wasn’t so awfully long ago, yet somehow he had little hope that either the woman or the baby could be alive.

  The rain continued gently. He sighed and walked toward the shelter of his room. There was nothing he could do about the dream. Not until he could get himself back to that horrible town and try to find someone able to answer his questions.

  Pink light was spreading across the eastern sky. The whole estate would be stirring soon, and those blessed children would be filling the place with the music of their voices.

  “Tahn!”

  He whirled around at the sudden call. It was Vari, the oldest, who was already bigger than Tahn and still growing.

  The spry youth came trotting across the yard toward him, completely heedless of the wet weather.

  “Tahn,” he began with a look feigning pain, “I’ve been thinking it such a long time since I’ve seen Leah—”

  “Only a month.”

  “Which is sore long,” the youth persisted. “Surely you know. I’ve been thinking it a good time to take a horse and go for a visit. Maybe I could be of help to her father in the harvest. I might learn a thing or two while I’m at it.”

  It wasn’t easy for Tahn to switch his mind to other things just yet, but he smiled at his friend. “You still aim to be a farmer, then?”

  “With Leah for my wife someday. And a whole troop of children surrounding us,” Vari said with conviction. “You know nothing will change my mind.”

  Tahn nodded. Vari was grown already in his own mind. And he’d been like that all the time Tahn had known him. “Are you wanting to leave this morning, then? Rain and all?”

  “As soon as I can, at least.”

  “Are you taking any of the little ones?”

  “Not this time. The lessons here are valuable to them at the moment.”

  “And you’d not have your attention divided from your fair miss?”

  Vari smiled. “That too.”

  “Just keep yourself proper with her,” Tahn told him as he started again toward the guardhouse. “Remember your youth. Don’t stay over a week, and make sure you have Benn’s approval.”

  Vari just stood and watched him for a moment, surprised by his quick answer. “Is something bothering you this morning, Tahn?”

  He turned and shook his head. “We’re God blessed, and you know it, Vari. I’m fine.”

  “The baby dream again, wasn’t it?”

  Tahn stopped and sighed. Vari read him well at such things. “There’s no cause for it to bother me so,” he said and started to turn away again.

  “I think you’re plain nervous, Tahn. That’s why this is in your head all the time. I think you’re looking for the life you deserve, and you ought to go right on and ask for Netta’s hand. Could be she’s the one to have the baby one day, and you’re scared. But this is honey compared to what we’ve had! We’re blessed, just like you said. You know she loves you! And you know Benn is just waiting. He’d sooner give up his name than turn you down, for all he thinks of you.”

  Tahn shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not? You think it’s too soon? We’ve been here a year.”

  Tahn ignored the questions. “It’s not her baby, Vari. And the street I see is nowhere around here. It’s much more dismal than this place.”

  “You still dream it a lot?”

  “Almost every night. But it’s a memory, and I’m not sure how to manage it.”

  Vari’s brow furrowed with immediate concern. “A memory? You mean before Samis?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never figured the past would have to matter,” the boy admitted. “I know about you, that there’s questions if we was to ask ’em. But maybe it’s better not to, don’t you think?

  Maybe it’s better to enjoy what we got and let everything else go.”

  Tahn nodded just slightly. Vari’s words were sensible enough. But Tahn knew that he spoke them out of worry more than anything else. “How do you let a dream go?” he asked him. “It doesn’t let me go.”

  Vari had no answer, and Tahn turned his face to meet the gentle rain with a prayer in his heart. Lord, why does this hold my mind night after night? You want me to go back there, don’t you? To Alastair, to find out what the dream can’t tell me.

  It was an unsettling thought. There was no other place Tahn could dread so much. He glanced at Vari. “I think the street was called Vermeel,” he said. “But I’m sure the place has changed since I was there.”

  “You mean Alastair?” Vari caught his breath and put his hand carefully on his friend’s shoulder.

  Tahn didn’t answer the question. “We seem a couple of fools, just standing here in the rain.”

  “I like rain,” Vari said quietly.

  “You like everything,” Tahn replied. “The world suits your dreams and you always dream happy.”

  The young man frowned at such words. “It wasn’t always that way. We’ve both changed.”

  “Thank God for it.” Tahn looked over toward the big house. “What a world he’s given us! Now we live like princes. When we were but—”

  “No,” the youth stopped him abruptly. “We were done wrong, Tahn! You were done wrong! And it wasn’t your fault. So don’t be thinking anymore about what we don’t deserve. You’ve got a right to be happy the same as any Trilett or anybody else. And you’re just as good as anyone else too.”

  “Are you going to let me get out of this rain?” Tahn asked, feeling strangely solemn. It was hard to believe what God had done, taking up a band of orphans and giving them a home like this. And himself a man of blood. In truth, he didn’t feel deserving. Of Netta’s attention, or of anything else.

  Together they walked to the guardhouse, to Tahn’s generous room at the side of it. Bennamin Trilett had it built on especially for him, and he still felt a little strange every time he entered. He pulled off his soiled shirt and let it drop across the back of his chair. “I need to return to Alastair before long, Vari.”

  The youth was looking at him in question, his eyes drawn to the scars on Tahn’s back as Tahn reached for a clean shirt from a peg on the wall.

  “Are you sure?” Vari asked him. “I don’t like the sound of it. You’ve always hated Alastair. And with plenty good reason.”

  “But there’s something about it all that I have to know,” he explained. “There must be somebody in that town who can tell me what I was too young to remember.”

  “Do you mean you think you had family, maybe? A baby brother or sister?”

  Tahn sat down. “I need to find out. Samis never told me anything. But you know it wouldn’t have mattered to him.”

  Vari shook his head. “I thought he snatched up street kids who were left alone. Like me.”

  “He did pay a sum once to take Lorne from his poor family.”

  “But he wouldn’t have bought you burnt as bad as you were, do you think?” As soon as he said the words, Vari’s face changed, as though he feared the question was a painful one.

  “I don’t expect so,” Tahn answered him steadily. “There’s no telling for certain. I never knew why he took me in that shape at all. Maybe there is someone there who could tell me.”

  “But Samis was plain evil. That might be something we’re better not to know.”

  “Maybe.” He was quiet for just a moment and then looked up at Vari. “What do you think the people of Alastair would do about me coming back to ask about that day? I’d like to know who it was they hanged, and what he was to me.”