“C’mon, girl, we’d best be getting back,” Harl said, taking her arm.

“Harl Tanner!” Tender Harral called. “A moment of your time!”

Harl and Renna turned to see the Tender approaching with Cobie Fisher in tow. Cobie’s eyes were firmly on his feet.

“Oh, what now?” Harl muttered.

“Cobie told me what happened last night,” Tender Harral said.

“Oh, did he?” Harl said. “Did he tell you I caught him and my daughter in sinful embrace under my own wards?”

Harral nodded. “He did, and he has something to say now. Don’t you, Cobie?”

Cobie nodded, coming forward while still studying his boots. “I’m sorry for what I done. Din’t mean to shame no one, and I intend to make an honest woman of Renna, if you’ll allow it.”

“The Core I will!” Harl barked, and Cobie paled and took a step back.

“Now, Harl, wait just a minute,” Tender Harral said.

“No, you wait, Tender!” Harl said. “This boy disrespected me, my daughter, and the sanctity of my wards, and you want me to take him as a son, just like that? I’d sooner let Renna marry a wood demon.”

“Renna’s past the age where she ought to be married and raising young’uns of her own,” Harral said.

“That don’t mean I got to hand her to some drunken wastrel just cuz he bent her over a hay bale,” Harl said. He grabbed Renna and dragged her toward the cart. Renna looked longingly at Cobie as they rode off.

CHAPTER 14

A TRIP TO THE OUTHOUSE

333 AR SPRING

RENNA CAST A WISTFUL eye back up the road as the farm came into sight. “I know what yer thinkin’, girl,” Harl said. “Yer thinkin’ of bein’ like yer ingrate sister and runnin’ off t’be with that boy.”

Renna said nothing, but she felt her cheeks burn, and that was damning enough.

“Well, you think twice about it,” Harl said. “I won’t let you shame our family like Lainie did, runnin’ off with a man whose wife just died the night before. Whole town still talks of it, and they all cast a dark eye on old Harl for raising such a corespawned whore.

“Yer on your way to getting the same reputation,” Harl said. “Not this time, girlie. I’d rather scar the wards than go through that again. You even think about runnin’, and you’ll have yerself a trip to the outhouse, even if I have to go all the way to Southwatch to collect you.”

Renna glanced at the tiny, ramshackle structure in the yard, and her blood went cold. Her father had never put her in there, but he had done it to Ilain a few times, and to Beni once. She remembered their screams vividly.

Renna reclaimed Beni and Lucik’s small room, which she had once shared with her sister, moving in her few possessions and barring the door with a trembling hand.

As she lay back in the bed, she stroked Miss Scratch, her favorite cat, who was pregnant and soon to litter. As she did she thought of Cobie, of a house in Town Square and children of her own. The images warmed and comforted her, but she kept one eye on the door for a long time before drifting off to sleep.

For the next few days, Renna avoided her father whenever she could. It wasn’t difficult. Spring planting might have been done, but even so, they were two splitting chores once shared by six. Just feeding the animals and cleaning their stalls was half a morning’s work for Renna, and she still had to milk and shear and slaughter, ready meals thrice a day, mend clothing, make butter and cheese, tan skins, and an endless array of other tasks. She fell into the work almost gratefully for the protection it offered.

Each morning she bound her breasts, leaving her hair a tangle and her face smudged, and there was enough work to keep lewd thoughts from Harl’s mind. Just checking the wardposts around the fields took hours. Each had to be examined carefully to make sure the wards were clear and sharp and aligned properly to overlap their neighbors without gap. A simple bird dropping or a warp in the wood could weaken a ward sufficiently for a demon to pass through if it found the gap.

After that, the fields still needed weeding, and the ripest produce had to be harvested for the day’s meals, or for pickling and preserves. After all that, there was still always something around the farm that needed fixing, or sharpening.

The only time they really spent together was at meals, and they said little. Renna was careful not to bend close as she served and cleared. Harl never gave any sign he was looking at her differently, but he grew increasingly irritable as the days wore on.

“Creator, my back hurts,” he said one night at supper as he bent to fill another mug from the keg of Boggin’s Ale that Meada had sent back with them after the burning. Renna had lost count of how many he had filled that night.

Harl gasped in pain as he tried to straighten, and stumbled, sloshing his ale. Renna was there in an instant, steadying him and catching the mug before it spilled. Harl leaned heavily on her as she dragged him back to his chair.

Renna and Beni had often been called upon to knead the pain from Harl’s bad back, and she did it now without thinking, working her father’s tensed muscles with strong, skilled fingers.

“Atta girl,” her father groaned, closing his eyes and pressing against her hands. “You were always the good one, Ren. Not like yer sisters, with no loyalty to kith and kin. Dunno how you turned out all right, with those two deserters as an example.”

Renna finished her ministrations, but Harl grabbed her about the waist and pulled her close before she could pull out of reach. He looked up at her with tears in his eyes.

“You’ll never leave me, girl, will you?” he asked.

“No, Da,” Renna said. “Course not.” She squeezed him briefly, and then pulled quickly back, taking his mug to the keg and refilling it.

Renna awoke that night to a crash as something struck her door. She leapt from bed, pulling on her dress, but there was no other sound. She crept to the door and pressed her ear to the wood, hearing a low wheeze.

Carefully, she lifted the bar and opened the door a crack, seeing her father passed out on the floor, regurgitated ale staining the front of his nightshirt.

“Creator make me strong,” Renna begged as she soaked a rag to clean the vomit from him and the floor, then half carried, half dragged her father back to his room.

Harl wept as she heaved him into his bed, clinging to her desperately. “Can’t lose you, too,” he sobbed over and over. Renna sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, holding him as he cried, and then disengaged as he drifted off to sleep. She went quickly back to her room and barred the door again.

The next morning, Renna came back into the house after collecting eggs in the barn and found Harl popping the pins out of the hinges of her door.

“The door broke?” she asked, her heart clutching.

“Nope,” Harl grunted. “Need the wood to patch a hole in the barn wall. Don’t matter none, you don’t need it. Ent no marital relations going on in this room no more.” He hefted the door and carried it off to the barn, leaving Renna stunned.

She felt like a frightened animal for the rest of the day, and didn’t sleep at all that night, all her senses attuned toward the thick curtain hung over the doorway.

But nothing stirred the curtain that night, or the night that followed, or for a week after.