As much as she wanted to go,
Fife still hesitated. Surprise and uncertainty momentarily wiped the grin from her face. She looked at the road, as if looking might assuage her concerns. It didn't. And why was she so worried? Raigryn would be fine. He had better be fine. If he managed to find trouble… Well, that was anger she would figure out if the need arose. For now, she smiled and trusted him to make it back.
Fife said goodbye with a simple grasp of his hand. Her eyes met his. In an unspoken language, she said more than the Silent Way. She said more than words or
Empathy. The hint of a smile curled her still lips and she affectionately patted his forearm.
Transitions were not Fife's strong suit; with no further ado, she assumed his place on the bench and offered Raigryn a curt nod.
Be safe.
***
The wagon lurched awkwardly in the thick ruts of the hard dried clay. The sorrel gelding pulling the wagon snorted and shook his head. The road from
Oban had steered inland toward a winding valley, through which a stream meandered. Stands of trees gradually gathered along the banks until eventually, between the bends and the woods, Oban was no longer visible on the hills behind them.
The way was quite nice until they turned off of the main path onto a smaller lane. What had previously been a well-packed track was now a difficult tangle of ruts. Deep scores raked through the hard, firm clay.
Fife was just as irritated by the poor quality of their path as the gelding. Sitting beside her, Masselin sat as straight and steady as a fence post. He turned toward her with a sympathetic smile when the cart jolted so hard the wares in the back clattered violently and Fife wildly clutched whatever handhold she could find.
"It's not much further now," he assured her.
Another lurch and the wagon hopped over from one rut into another. Fife popped up out of the seat with a surprised gasp, but her ass hit the beach with a thud and the click of her teeth.
Fife was no longer sad that Raigryn had gone to lunch with Romelia. His ass was probably comfortably seated in the dining room by now.
To his credit, Masselin had not lied. A little ways on, they rode out of the miserable ruts and towards a pair of small shacks.
Even if Masselin hadn't told her it was the tanner, the stench would have. Vats beside the smaller shack filled the air with a heavy odor that burned in her nose. Hides were stretched out in frames and drying in the thin spring sun.
A string of children were outside. Their activities might have been described as playing: scratching in the dirt with sticks and rocks, wrapping twine around a wooden spool, and swinging from the hitching post. They were eerily silent, and upon hearing the cart they immediately stopped to stare.
Their faces were thin and grimy. Not one of the five in sight wore shoes and their clothes were threadbare and stained. As the cart came closer, they huddled together under the leaning awning of the bigger shack. The figure of a teenage girl filled the open doorway behind them.
Masselin stopped the wagon and loosely looped the reins around a rail. Fife followed him, trying not to look at the squalor the girl and children lived in. She'd known this life. Being this close to it rattled something inside of her.
"Good day, miss. Is your pa around?" Her brother's voice was kind and polite. His smile was charming and friendly. Disarming people was his forté and he wielded that gift with gentleness.
The teen parted the crowd of staring children. She carried a baby on her hip that stared at them with its fist in its mouth, as silent as the others. It was the cleanest thing at the residence. Its big dark eyes stared into Fife's. She stared back.
The girl pointed. Masselin smiled and nodded respectfully.
"Thank you, miss."
The tanner's workshop was just as shabby as the shack he and his family lived in. Both were made of rough-hewn logs. The gaps between them were filled with earth and straw, even wadded up rags. The home's thatch roof was old, mildewy and rotting well beyond trimming and repairing. The shack's wooden shingles were patched with boards and straw and bark. It was a hodgepodge, and not in a good way.
Masselin walked unerring to the shack and rapped his knuckles on the aged wood doorframe. There was no door; an old blanket swayed in the breeze.
“Ulric? It’s Masselin.”
“Hmph.” Ulric’s gruff reply was hardly welcoming.
“The smith? Don’t dally at the door. Let’s do business.”
The air inside the shack was heavy and musky. The smells of hide and sweat and piss were cloying. The scent was thick enough to feel solid in her throat. Part of the general odor was that of the man bent over a hide, scraping it clean in swift, experienced movements. His arms were slick with perspiration and the fats from the skins.
“I brought the blades you ordered.”
“Same as last time?” He didn’t look up from his work.
“Same as last time.”
“Put ‘em there. Got another knife that needs sharpening. And an awl to put a new point on. Not like the one before, with that short taper. It’s supposed to be long and steady, like a locust. Go on, boy!”
The unpleasant Ulric’s voice rose suddenly, gruffly. Fife mistakenly took the words to be addressed at her or Massellin, but he looked up into the opposite corner of the shack. There was a sudden surge of fear from the darkness and a thin shadow darted around the workshop as Ulric barked on unnecessarily.
“Don’t stand there like an imbecile. Fetch ‘em for the smith. And pick up your feet, boy. Quit shiffling.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Fife saw Masselin stiffen. She glanced sidelong at him and quickly assessed what was unfolding in front of her. He was no stranger to this. He didn't like it. Beyond those two apparent facts, she could infer the rest.
She hadn’t seen the boy at all. Moreover, there hadn’t been a flicker of emotion from him until Ulric had looked up. Fife watched him hurry to a box of loose knives and tools, searching quickly as the tanner continued to berate him.
“Not that one, the oak-handled awl. Oak, damn it. Yes. Now give that to the man and fetch his new apron. And the rest."
The boy moved quickly and deftly in the tight space. He shortly returned to hand Masselin a stiff, new leather apron. Atop it was a pair of heavy gloves that looked well worn and two large bundles of leather strips.
"Thank you, Leifric," he said quietly with a small smile.
Fife's heart wrenched in her chest. She could feel his agony. A furious swirl of frustration wrapped around him like fog on a lake. Piercing that gloom, however, was a glorious beam of warmth – a ray of sunlight cutting through clouds. Masselin was a walking, breathing font of
Charity. He reached out a hand and placed it on Leifric's shoulder. The boy raised his head and met his sympathetic gaze.
It felt like a flash of lightning across her senses. The sudden surge of wild, young Empathy was so loud in her head that Fife gasped. She stared for a moment, stupefied. Masselin's smile twitched and turned downward into a confused frown.
Empathy. Ulric's son was an
Empath. He was drawing on–
Without thinking, her hand flashed forward and she seized him by the wrist. His eyes whipped toward hers and he gave a small gasp. The drawing ceased.
His fair hair was unwashed and unevenly shorn, sticking out wildly in every direction. His skin was pallid, dirty, and bruised, but his eyes were clear and vivid, the color of the sky on a perfect spring day. They were the eyes of someone far older than the scrawny child that stood between her and Masselin, and they were meeting hers. He knew that she knew what he had done, a truth apparent in the widening of his gaze and the skitter of
Misery,
Disgust, and
Joy in the aura around him – panic and fear.
"Leave the man alone, for fuck's sake. Be off now, boy." Ulric scowled over his shoulder and the trio disengaged. Leifric exited quickly.
Masselin recovered sluggishly. He frowned deeply and rubbed his temples. Ulric managed to scowl further.
"I, um… I can have these, uh– I'll return these in three days' time." He struggled to compose his thoughts.
"See that you do." Ulric turned back to his work.
"Good day, Ulric." Masselin nodded politely, but there was no kindness in his voice.
***
Not wanting to alarm Raigryn, Fife tried very hard to keep her very strong feelings pent up behind adamant mental walls. She wanted to ease him into it – to be half as composed as he could be. It went great... right up to the moment she saw him. Then it wasn't so easy.
Fife made small talk (or, rather, let the small talk go on around her) for as long as she could bear it. Her eyes periodically caught Raigryn's, but he was either totally oblivious or played along well. As usual, Fife couldn’t tell. That was a good sign, right? Some old Raigryn behavior.
Then, rather abruptly, she took a momentary lull in the conversation to excuse Raigryn and herself and made haste to the garden.
The cool air was a much-needed ahock to her senses. The warm midday breeze had died down and it was still, serene. The lights of the city were lit as twilight edged toward darkness and the stars twinkled in the clear sky overhead. Fife walked silently in front of Raigryn through the trellis, which would be beautiful soon but for now was barren, and turned to face him in the benched alcove beyond.
I met an Empath, she signed without any other introduction.
Great work. So much for easing him into it. Fife grimaced.
A boy. The son of the man Masselin went to see. Tanner. Ulric. Ahe apelled the words ahe disnt have.
Masselin has Charity – all the time, everything he says. Yeah? He was kind. The boy took it. I don't think his father knows. I stopped him.
She turned slightly away from him when she finished and tucked her hands under her arms to warm them against the chill – and to stop herself from rambling on. Her gaze searched the growing darkness and she sighed.
Was this how Raigryn had felt? He had been much better at hiding his thoughts at the time than she had been at perceiving them. Empathy didn't read minds; it only gave suggestions. It was a magic derived from lived experience, and the more emotions she felt the more she recognized them in others. Knowing what she knew about him now, the reflection made her chest ache.
It was a very odd feeling: grief and joy writhing together behind her ribs like tadpoles in shallow water.
