Lambkill’s steely gaze shifted to Kestrel. He seemed riveted by the way she touched Sunchaser, by the lightness of her fingers, as though he understood the intimacy it conveyed. Madness entered his eyes. It filled him like a flood of foul water pouring into clear. His withered mouth puckered threateningly. Kestrel scarcely glanced at him. She finished cleaning Sunchaser’s wounds and dropped her sponge into the boiling bag. Folding her shaking hands in her lap, she clenched them tightly, keeping them away from her atlatl, and dared to look her husband full in the face. Lambkill’s eyes blazed with malice.
“No one can protect you, Kestrel! Do you hear me?” he shouted. In a whining whisper, he continued, “I gave you everything, and you turned against me! You grew as cold as ice!”
“You beat the warmth out of me, Lambkill.”
“The beatings were for your own good. I had to teach you how to behave like a proper wife!”
Kestrel felt so numb that she stopped shaking. She focused on Sunchaser, remembering his gentleness. Sick, dead, tens of tens of tens of cycles from now in the Land of the Dead, the memories of his warm body against hers would comfort
her. She placed her fingertips on his wrist, letting the steady rhythm of his heart brace her.
Lambkill shouted, “You’re a bitch in heat! Everybody knows you’ll spread yourself to the first man to walk past! First you commit incest with your cousin, then you seduce a Dreamer! For the sake of Above-Old-Man! Is no one beyond your witchery?”
At the word, Horseweed tensed as if he’d been slapped. A glint sharpened in Oxbalm’s eyes, and Dizzy Seal stepped back uneasily.
Sumac threw her sponge into the boiling bag, gave Lambkill a scornful look and reached over to put a cold hand on Kestrel’s arm. “Now, tell us the truth, Kestrel. Did you commit incest?”
Kestrel peered into those keen old eyes, a woman’s eyes, filled with more knowledge about clan matters than Kestrel would ever have, and she knew she would be treated fairly. “I don’t know, Sumac. According to the Bear-Looks-Back Clan, yes, I did.” Gasps of outrage went up, and several of the men cursed Kestrel openly. She took a deep breath and waited for the clamor to subside. “But my lover claimed to be from your clan, since his mother was. Because he was my father’s brother’s son, he didn’t call me his cousin.”
The hand on Kestrel’s arm tightened until it hurt. Sumac nodded. “What was his mother’s name?”
“Wind Shadow.”
A cry of shock rose from across the fire, and Kestrel turned with her heart in her throat. She couldn’t make out the woman’s face until she shouldered her way into the light. It was the old hag who had been following Kestrel earlier, the one named Yucca Thorn. The woman’s mouth trembled. “Wind Shadow was my granddaughter! She was stolen from my daughter when barely ten summers old! We never knew what happened to her …” Yucca Thorn swallowed down her wrinkled throat. “Is she still alive? Where is she?”
“No,” Kestrel said. “I’m sorry. She died when Iceplant, her son, was very young. She was killed in a raid. But she
never forgot you. She told Iceplant stories about all of you—” her voice constricted “—every night until her death. My clan expected Iceplant to claim kinship through his father. But he never did. He always considered himself related to you. He … he wanted to bring me here, to live with you, so our children could be born and raised in the ways of the Otter Clan.”
“Then you weren’t his cousin!” Yucca Thorn declared flatly and fixed Lambkill with a glare of disgust. “Your wife didn’t commit incest!” She turned back to Kestrel. “Where’s the baby you’re supposed to have with you? Is she the child we found tonight? That baby would be my great-great-grandchild!”
Kestrel lowered her eyes and gazed at Sunchaser’s bruised face. “My baby died. The journey was so difficult, so long… finding food was very hard. She died right after she was born.”
Old Yucca Thorn seemed to deflate. Her bony shoulders sagged forward and the wrinkled lids over her faded brown eyes blinked. “Blessed Spirits … I was hoping … at least you’re safe.” Yucca Thorn lifted her ancient face to peer sternly at Kestrel. “If you’re willing, young woman, I’ll adopt you into this clan, as part of my family. My great-grandson loved you. That’s enough proof of your character for me. I’d like the chance to know you myself.”
LambkiH’s eyes darted through the murmuring crowd. People studied Kestrel intently. They noticed that everything seemed to enrage Lambkill. First her touching of Sunchaser, then the argument about tracing kinship. Lambkill set his jaw, and his eyes traveled over her, surveying every spot of dirt on her dress, every scar on her face, with loathing.