Thief With No Shadow (7 page)

Melke knew that the foul substance on Hantje’s clothing and his skin, in his hair, wasn’t mud. “They defecated on him.” The words were harsh and sharp-edged in her mouth.

Liana put down the piece of shirt. “I’m sorry.”

The man would have laughed and said it served Hantje right, and she would have been able to lift her chin and stare coldly at him. Liana’s sympathy only brought more tears rushing to Melke’s eyes.

She averted her face and pressed a hand to her mouth. She wanted to hunch into herself and cry, to let the grief spill from her mouth as it spilled from her eyes.

“I think I can save him. If I do, will you get the necklace back?”

The question was quietly asked.

Melke turned to look at the girl, her hand still pressed to her mouth. Liana watched her. There was no censure on the girl’s face, nor any hope. Her fingers were clasped tightly, the knuckles white.

Melke lowered her hand. “Yes.”

Liana nodded. “Thank you,” she said, and turned back to Hantje.

“I’m sorry,” Melke’s voice was gruff. “I didn’t mean to harm you. I wanted only to save him—” Grief cracked the last word, closing her throat, making further apology impossible.

Liana turned her head. For a long moment they looked at each other, and then the girl nodded silently.

The candles flickered, casting shadows over Hantje’s damaged face. “I’ll see whether the water has boiled,” Liana said quietly. “We need to wash him.” She walked across the chamber and paused at the door. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The candles flickered again. Melke wiped her face roughly with the back of her hand and limped to the window. It was closed, but cool air leaked in through the cracked glass. She looked out at the deepening dusk. Candlelight and her own filthy face reflected in the windowpanes. The glass distorted her features. She didn’t recognize herself.
What have I become?

The answer was a terrible one: Wraith. Thief.

She drew the curtains closed and turned and looked at Hantje, swaying slightly in her exhaustion. “Why did you do it, Hantje?” she whispered. A draft stirred the heavy, faded fabric at her back. “Why?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

B
ASTIAN FETCHED WATER
from the well and filled the heavy pot Liana used for boiling sheets, grunting as he lifted it onto the cast-iron stove. He thrust a faggot of wood into the flames. Anger and resentment burned in his chest, as hot as the fire that devoured the dry sticks. He didn’t want Liana to touch the wraith, and he especially didn’t want her to see the filthy, disgusting creature naked. Breath hissed between his clenched teeth. He slammed the stove door shut.

While the water heated, he unhitched and rubbed down the hired horse and led it into Gaudon’s paddock. The grass was stubble, no nourishment for the animals. He turned away from fence, tight-lipped. Three generations ago, Vere had bred some of the best horses in the land. Now it was a ruin of a farm.

Gaudon, at least, wouldn’t starve. Or the roan while it was here. Every day for a week Gaudon had carried Liana to Arnaul’s farm, and every day for a week she had sat at the bedside of Arnaul’s infant son and battled the fever that sought to claim him. Arnaul paid his gratitude in hay. Two years ago now but still the hay came, and would until the old horse died.

There wasn’t enough for the sheep, though. And he’d never ask. Charity was unendurable.

Bastian hauled more water from the well to fill the horse trough. Each time the bucket fell, he tensed. The day would come when there was no splash of water, when the well was dry. And then Vere would truly be dead.

Soon.

The wraiths’ belongings huddled in the cart: two small knapsacks, the leather scarred and thin with age. They’d been hidden at the crossroads, bundled beneath a pile of twigs and leaves. Bastian’s lip curled as he hefted the bags in his hand. Pitiful. Then he raised his head and saw the farmhouse in the fading twilight. Pitiful.

His hand clenched around the leather straps. The wraith had stolen more than a necklace; she’d stolen their future.

He strode indoors and threw the wraiths’ bags into the bedchamber at the top of the servants’ stairs, making no attempt to see that they landed softly on the narrow bed. One of the battered knapsacks burst open as it hit the floor, scattering belongings. In the dim light he saw a comb, a roll of dark fabric, and a red sleeve with flowers embroidered on the cuff.

Bastian kicked the bag, spewing more items onto the floor. Several small stones rattled across the bare wooden floorboards. He crouched and reached for one of them. The stone was red, or perhaps brown. It was difficult to tell. He turned it between his fingers, smooth. It felt good in his hand.

The room became dark as the sun sank behind the hills. Bastian stood and thrust the stone into his pocket. He walked from the room. It wasn’t stealing. It was much less than she’d done. She deserved it. He felt no shame.

CHAPTER NINE

T
HE MAN,
B
ASTIAN,
scowled as he brought hot water into the sickroom. “Let her wash him,” he said curtly.

Liana made no sign that she heard. “I’ll need splints for his legs, Bastian, and bandages to bind them.”

His scowl became more ferocious. He turned on his heel and left the bedchamber.

Liana dipped a scrap of cloth in the steaming bowl of water.

“I’ll do that.” Melke reached to take the dripping rag.

“No.” The girl shook her head.

“But your brother said—”

“Seeing the injuries will help me to heal him.”

Melke bit her lip, looking at Liana. She was very young. “If you wash his face and...to the waist, I’ll do the rest,” she offered.

The girl flushed. She glanced up at Melke. Her eyes were shy. “Thank you.”

They cleaned away blood and soot and salamander scat. Beneath those things were ugly bruises and weeping burns. Hantje whimpered in his throat as they worked, his skin flinching from their touch.

Liana laid a fresh sheet over him when they were finished. “Bastian can help me set the bones,” she said. “It will require strength. Shall I look at your feet?”

For a moment Melke stood speechless. Didn’t Liana understand that pain was her punishment? It was what she’d earned. What she deserved. “No, thank you. It’s not necessary.” The words came with difficulty.

“But, I can—” Liana closed her mouth as Bastian returned.

Melke stepped away from the bed. His hostility tainted the air in the chamber. She tasted it on her tongue, bitter.

She stood silently in the shadows, watching as Bastian and Liana set Hantje’s legs. It was clear they were brother and sister, yet the differences were more apparent than the similarities. He was older, much older. His face and throat and forearms were tanned brown by the sun, in contrast to his sister’s pale golden skin. The grim set of his jaw, the lines of weariness at mouth and eyes, the coarse stubble, gave his face an intimidating toughness. A mercenary, she’d thought when she’d first seen him. She still thought it. Take away the weariness and stubble and grimness and his face would still be daunting. It was the strength of brow and nose and jaw, the jut of cheekbones. Liana was also blessed with balance and cleanness of feature, but her beauty was appealing; Bastian’s was threatening.

His largeness, too, contrasted utterly with his sister. His hands were twice the size of hers. She was soft where he was hard, small where he was large, pale to his dark. Her eyes were a lighter green than his, almost hazel. In the candlelight her hair was silver-white. His was a dark golden-brown, the color of honey, cut uncompromisingly short.

The pain of bone-setting almost roused Hantje from his stupor. He uttered a soft whimper, a sound that made the hairs prick upright on Melke’s arms. She stepped forward.

The hound raised its lip at her, showing strong incisors.

Melke halted. She knotted her fingers together and watched as Liana frowned with concentration, her eyes narrowed almost shut. The girl’s hands rested lightly on Hantje’s leg. “A little more,” she said.

Bastian pulled again, slowly.

Hantje made a gasping, sobbing sound. Distress twisted his face. Melke clenched her fingers together more tightly.

“More,” the girl said, her eyes squeezing shut. There was an edge of pain in her voice, as if she felt Hantje’s agony. “Almost...yes, that’s it. There.”

In the shadows and light of the candles Melke thought that Hantje’s face smoothed momentarily free of pain. She stepped back and leaned against the wall and watched as Bastian and Liana splinted the leg. It was a struggle to stand upright.

When the second leg was set, Bastian stepped away from the bed and turned towards her. “Your room is upstairs from the kitchen,” he said flat-voiced, his eyes looking past her shoulder.

Melke raised her chin. She wasn’t going to be chased from her brother’s sickbed.

When she didn’t move, Bastian’s gaze shifted to her face. His mouth tightened.

She braced herself for a display of anger, but he turned his back on her and bent his head to speak to Liana. His words were too low to hear. Liana’s weren’t: “I’ll be fine, Bastian. Don’t worry.”

There was black hatred in his glance as he left the bedchamber. He didn’t speak to her.

The candles seemed to burn more brightly with Bastian gone, the shadows to draw back into the corners of the room. Melke pushed away from the wall and walked to the bed, lurching slightly, limping.

Hantje lay silent and still. Clean, his face was swollen and bruised past recognition. Only his hair was familiar, long and black. The length marked him as not of Bresse.

“He has a fever,” Liana said.

Melke touched Hantje’s brow with cautious fingers. The skin burned. She glanced at the girl.

“An infection.”

“Which is more dangerous than the injuries?”

“Yes.”

“How will you heal him?” She saw no salves or powders, no dried herbs and pastes of crushed plants.

“I have a...a gift.”

A gift to heal. Melke had heard of such magic, rare and precious. She suddenly understood the pain in the girl’s voice while Hantje’s legs had been set. Hope swelled in her chest. Liana’s magic would save Hantje more certainly than an apothecary’s salves and pastes and powders.

“You need not stay,” the girl said. “There is nothing more you can do.”

Melke nodded. She opened her mouth and then closed it again.
Never let them see a weakness
,Mam had said, over and over. She swallowed and said hoarsely, “He’s afraid of the dark.”

“I shall remember.”

Melke reached out to lay her hand on Hantje’s cheek, but fear of hurting him curled her fingers into her palm. She turned away from the bed without touching him and halted at the sight of the open doorway and the dark corridor beyond. Fear lurched beneath her breastbone. She swallowed. “May I have a candle?”

“Of course.” Liana picked up one of the branching candlesticks and held it out to her. Their fingers touched, but the girl made no sign of distaste.