On the square before the chapel, they’d piled firewood. With the crackle of burning fat, I watched the great bear carcass sink into the blaze.
Then I saw the flax-haired boy—Nolan. He should have been resting in the chapel’s bedchamber, but there he was, dragging his injured arm and arguing with people in front of the bonfire—
“No! The jackal carcasses have to be burned too!” Nolan shouted.
“You brat—” The man facing him was a stocky old hunter with graying sideburns. How did I know at a glance he was a hunter? Because the fur vest outside his coat and that fluffy red-fox shoulder cape all but screamed trophies.
The old hunter was talking to Nolan, but his eyes were fixed on the jackal bodies stacked on a plank cart.
“Cyril boy, what do you know? That dead bear can go— it’s already rotted. But these are eleven forest gray jackals, and pelts are fetching silver these days. How could we just burn them?”
“But—” Nolan tried to argue. The old hunter dismissed him with a flicker of impatience and lifted his chin toward the headman standing by.
“Headman, you decide. I have a buyer. I can move these eleven pelts to the city guild at seventy percent of market.”
“This…” The headman frowned. “By rights, the one who hunted them decides— I can’t just…”
“Then who hunted them?” the hunter growled. “Tell me who gets to call it.”
“I’d say Nolan first—” The headman thought a moment.
“Fine! Which one did you bring down? What trick did you use to wipe out a pack of beasts like these?” The hunter swung on Nolan at once, barking the questions.
“N-no, these gray jackals weren’t—” Nolan began, but the hunter had no interest in letting him speak. He pressed on, looking only to the headman.
“There you have it. Whoever disposes of them, it shouldn’t be on this kid’s say-so to throw money on a pyre. That’s good silver! Year’s end is coming— the baron’s men will collect tax. I hear they’re raising it this year. With this cash it’ll go easier for everyone…”
“This…” The words hit the headman’s soft spot. He hesitated, then looked to Nolan.
“Cyril, you heard him. Unless you can prove these gray jackals are your kill—”
“And if they’re not mine? Does that mean Hunter Emmo gets to decide?” Nolan shot back.
“Headman, he’s just a child. Why bargain with him?” Hunter Emmo brushed Nolan aside. “Gray-jackal pelts are hot. Not small money. Even if I’ve no right to dispose of them, they shouldn’t be burned.”
“They should—because the one who hunted them said so! She told me if we didn’t burn them, more attacks would come!” Nolan held his ground.
“Utter nonsense.” Emmo’s brows speared upward. “I’ve hunted more than twenty years and never heard such a thing. And anyway—who is this person who supposedly pulled you out of a jackal pack? Where did she even come from?”
“He does have a point,” the headman said, turning to Nolan. “Last night, when we patrolled the woods, all those jackal bodies shocked the men… Who killed them?”
“I—I know who…” Nolan ducked his head, stammering, unable to force the words out. I was enjoying his fluster—until he suddenly lifted his eyes and met Clytia’s gaze.
“Her… it was her! Clytia hunted those jackals. She has the right to decide!”
His voice rang out clear.
“Who?” Emmo followed Nolan’s eyes and saw Diya and Clytia—two slender girls—standing neither too near nor too far, watching.
I saw the curl of disdain on the hunter’s mouth. I knew exactly what he was thinking. By common sense, how could a minor girl do this? It was hard not to call Nolan a liar.
Emmo turned to the headman.
“Headman, the Cyril boy’s likely rattled his wits last night. Let him rest. Let the grown-ups decide here—”
“But whose quarry is it?” The headman still worried over the question of ownership. “Who killed those jackals? By rights, only Nolan saw it—”
“I said the boy is hysterical from fright. I’ve hunted twenty years. I’ve seen this. His head’s still fogged. Whatever he says he saw won’t hold. Might all be in his imagination. If you ask me, have Berli the Catechist look him over again.”
The headman weighed it and began to waver. Emmo pressed his advantage and started haggling over how to handle the carcasses.
Nolan clearly wanted to protest again, but the two of them waved him off with, “Adults are talking; children keep out of it.”
“Brother… don’t be mad. Come eat—”
Inside the chapel, Diya sliced bread and sausage, set them out with plain water, and called to her brother.
“I’m not mad,” Nolan muttered, slumped on the bench with his arms folded.
“Come on, eat— or do I have to feed you?”
Diya’s tone sharpened. Her eyes flicked to his injured arm; realization dawned.
“Oh—maybe you really do need someone to feed you.” She waggled a slice of black bread by his mouth.
“No—quit it.”
Nolan took the bread, tried to break it and soak it in water, then discovered that with one good hand, he couldn’t manage.
“Look at you. Leave it to me.” Diya giggled, took the bread back, tore it into pieces, dropped them in a wooden bowl, and sprinkled in chopped sausage.
Clytia sat to one side with her own bowl, eating just as roughly. I watched Nolan’s awkwardness with interest.
“Alright, don’t sulk. Emmo’s puffed-up act isn’t new,” Diya said as she finally sat down.
“I said I’m not mad,” Nolan murmured, eyes lowered, watching the hard bread soften in the water.
“Then don’t argue with him—only makes you mad,” Diya puffed her cheeks. “Burn it, bury it, sell it—let them wrangle. It’s none of our business.”
“But I’m not mad because of him. It’s because—”
Muttering, Nolan lifted his eyes and looked at Clytia.
“You told me to burn those corpses— and I didn’t.”
Clytia blinked wide in confusion.
“Eh? Little Tia said that?” Diya looked over, curiosity bright. At some point her address had turned fond.
“Did I?” Clytia looked at Nolan and spoke softly. Of course she didn’t know—those words had been mine, tossed off at the time.
“You forgot?” Nolan stared, taken aback. “Last night—just the two of us— you told me, ‘We have to burn them, or more jackals will come.’”
From my vantage, his eyes practically shone with stubborn conviction. Was it too much earnestness? Meeting that gaze, Clytia glanced away.
“If you think I said it, then… then take it as said. Let’s leave it there.”
“What do you mean, ‘leave it there’?” I thought. Misunderstood or not, that kind of line only makes people bristle. “I don’t remember,” or even “I never said that,” would be cleaner.
Yes— in the original novel, Clytia’s twisted tongue offended many nobles in the Royal Capital. In the end she was left with fair-weather friends.
Nolan stared at her for a while, then turned his head aside.
“Come on… I picked that fight with Emmo because of what you said… and now I don’t even have a reason?”
Clytia dropped her eyes and stared at the wooden bowl without answering.
Crack!
A sharp sound broke the air. Diya clapped her hands, then sprang up.
“Enough! Are you two done eating? Hand me the bowls—these are the chapel’s!”
The blonde girl whisked away the bowls and washed them in the chapel basin with practiced ease. She knew this place well.
When she finished, Nolan and Clytia sat idle on the bench. Diya fetched a sand tray and a book from behind the lectern, took a thin stick from the desk, and began writing and sketching in the sand.
“What’s that?” Nolan asked.
“Berli gave me daily lessons.”
“Lessons? With that sand tray?”
“Mm… he said next week I can practice in a notebook.”
“Well… there’s still half a year. Work hard.”
“Brother, where are you going?” Diya looked up to see Nolan already at the chapel door.
“I… since Berli’s away, I’ll go home and check things.” He cradled his injured arm and turned out into the daylight.
Diya’s mouth opened as if to speak, then closed.
Clytia watched his back as he went. Then—snap—a tiny crack drew our eyes.
“Ah!”
Diya had gone blank for a moment. The little stick in her hand had snapped in two and rolled off the lectern.
She scrambled to pick it up. Rising, she still looked a touch abashed. Then she noticed Clytia, the only one still in the chapel.
“Little Tia… could you take the basket back for me? You remember the way home, right?”
Her voice trembled, I thought. But Clytia thought nothing, said nothing—only picked up the meal basket and turned to go, the way she used to obey the Nanny’s instructions without a murmur.