“What really happened? I don’t believe it, any of it, not for a second.” Sarah wrung her hands as if strangling an invisible chicken.
“What are you talking about?” Persephone asked. “Sarah, what’s wrong?”
Sarah, whose braided hair framed a kind but troubled face, glanced nervously at Raithe and Malcolm. She took hold of Persephone’s hands. “Hegner has accused you of murdering Sackett and Adler.”
“What?” Persephone’s voice registered somewhere between a yell and a scream. “Hegner? Hegner is here! I thought he had run off.”
“He said you tried to kill him, too,” Sarah said. With another glance at Raithe and Malcolm she added, “And that you had help.”
Persephone seemed too dumbfounded to speak. She stared at each of them in shock.
“Why in the name of the Grand Mother of All couldn’t you have killed The Stump, too?” the woman working the spinning wheel asked.
Long, black hair wreathed a face of high cheeks, a sensual mouth, and a delicate nose, all of which paled in comparison with her eyes—big, dark, deep, and intense. To look into them was to peer over the edge of a sheer drop. The woman wore a simple, thin dress, but draped over her curves, it came alive. Dureyan women were valued for strong backs rather than their looks, and even the most beautiful of them never looked this way. In legends, women like her would either lure men into disaster or raise them to fame. The dilemma for the would-be hero was determining which.
“Konniger is making me marry that cretin,” she announced, and scowled.
“Moya, please!” Sarah snapped.
Outside the open doorway, people gathered. They spoke quietly to one another and pointed to the group inside Sarah’s roundhouse.
Persephone finally regained her composure. “I didn’t kill anyone. Hegner attacked me! All three of them did.”
“That’s not the story he’s telling.”
“What possible reason would I have to—? I need to get this cleared up.” Persephone turned and walked out.
Raithe followed the others out even though he was as uncomfortable in crowds as he had been in the forest. Too many people were like too many trees. In Dureya, villages consisted of only a few families. But here, nearly two hundred people now gathered in front of the steps and more were spilling out of roundhouses.
All of them had the same rosy-cheeked, well-fed faces. Faces without pockmarks or the deep lines cut by blistering winds. Also missing were the scars, broken teeth, and severed fingers that a life of warfare bestowed. And not one carried a weapon. Instead, they held hollow gourds, chisels, and mallets. One fellow carried a basket of eggs.
Raithe expected Persephone to confront those just outside Sarah’s house, but instead she pushed through them and marched down the broad pathway past the well and on up the steps of the lodge. At the top, she stopped, pivoted, and faced the people of the dahl.
She waited for a moment while the crowd gathered. Then in a loud voice she said, “Yesterday, Sackett, Adler, and Hegner tried to kill me in the forest.” She paused, probably for the full weight of the statement to settle in. “They chased me up a cascade, and Sackett and Adler both died when they slipped and fell on rocks. I don’t know why they attacked me. They didn’t—”
“That’s not how Hegner tells it.” A stocky man stepped through the lodge’s doorway behind Persephone. He wore the silver torc of leadership.
Raithe’s first thought was that the man’s beard was short for a leader, and he disliked the chieftain’s eyes. They didn’t seem even, the left one being slightly higher than the right. The only visible scar was a recent one, still pink and healing—hardly the mark of an experienced warrior. Walon, Dureya’s chieftain, had a beard down to his chest, few teeth, and a face like beaten copper. That was the mark of experience, the sign of a survivor. The Rhen chieftain did have one thing no one in Dureya had. He carried an ax.
At the sight of it, Raithe pushed to the foot of the steps. This wasn’t his clan, and this man wasn’t his chieftain. Raithe didn’t have a stake, other than a promised meal, in whatever dispute was about to start, but he had come to like Persephone. Undecided only a day before, he knew if there was a fight he’d back her.
Persephone turned to face her chieftain. “Then Hegner’s a liar, Konniger.”
“Is he? If Sackett, Adler, and Hegner sought to kill you, why aren’t you dead?” Konniger folded his arms and glared. “Do you expect anyone to believe two experienced hunters slipped and fell? Are you saying you had nothing to do with their deaths?”
Persephone opened her mouth to speak.
“Hegner!” Konniger called to the darkened interior of the lodge. “You were there—you’re the one she’s accusing—tell everyone what you witnessed.”
The one-handed man appeared from the shadows and stepped onto the porch. “We were out hunting and found her on the cascades with those two fellas there.” He pointed with his good hand at Raithe and Malcolm.
Eyes shifted toward them, and those closest inched away, which was fine by Raithe.
“We thought Persephone needed help. Him being Dureyan and all. Could have been in trouble. She must not have seen us yet because she kissed the big one.”
A woman sporting a circlet of flowers over braided hair also emerged from the lodge. She stood to the side and slightly behind Konniger. Hearing Hegner’s words, she began shaking her head while looking at Persephone. “Reglan isn’t dead a month and you’re already carrying on with another man. Or were you seeing this lover before our chieftain died? Were you stealing away into the forest while your husband was out avenging your son?”
“You lousy, lying cul!” Moya burst out, and pushed forward. She might have reached the steps if Sarah and a few others hadn’t caught her.
“Watch your mouth,” Konniger snapped.
“Outbursts like that are why we ordered your marriage,” said the woman with the circlet, whom Raithe concluded was the Second Chair, Konniger’s wife. “You’re a wild animal, Moya. Hegner will beat some respect into you.”
Moya thrashed but was held back.
“Go on, Hegner,” Konniger said.
“Yeah, well, like I was saying, they were kissing, but we still wanted to check things out. She certainly looked willing, had her arms around him and stuff, but you never know. He might have been forcing himself on her. We climbed the cascade, and when Persephone saw us, she told them we couldn’t be allowed back to the dahl. She said it would ruin everything if people found out. That’s when these two attacked. The big one has a sword, two in fact. And we didn’t stand a chance. He killed Sackett and Adler. Woulda killed me, too, if I hadn’t run.”
“Why are you saying these things?” Persephone asked Hegner. She didn’t seem angry. If anything she sounded hurt, but most of all her tone and the shake of her head expressed bewilderment. “You know none of that is true.”
The crowd had expanded out beyond the well and the stone god. Most of Clan Rhen filled the broad pathway leading from the lodge steps to the front gate, where they stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the crushed gravel. A few kids were out near the closest roundhouses, standing up on roughly cut benches near fire pits to try to see over the heads of their parents. The crowd murmured as people talked among themselves.