Jem smiled a little. The blacksmith had put special care into the lock and into the forging of that gate and had told them that it would withstand a small group of soldiers. “Go right ahead and try.”
“Jem! Ree!” Garrad’s came from behind them, with the short breath that meant he’d been running.
Ree turned to see the old man hurrying toward them, his walking stick, the one Jem had carved for him two years back, thumping into the ground with every step. He really didn’t need the stick most of the time, but the cold made the ground slippery, and Garrad was all too aware of what falls could do at his age. When they’d met him, he’d been rendered helpless by one such fall. “What’s going on out here?”
Ree had been looking at the blond and thought he noticed a startled jump at their names, but it was nothing to the way Blondie’s face seemed to melt out of its harsh lines and his voice softened at the sight of Garrad. “Father?”
Garrad rocked on his feet, and Ree raced to steady him while Jem kept on giving the blond man his coldest glare.
“Lenar?” Garrad waved Ree off—with the walking stick, so Ree had to jump out of the way—and scurried to the gate. “Gods be praised, it
Ree helped Jem with the gate, lifting the heavy bar while Jem hauled it open. The blond man, Lenar, gave them a disdainful look, and the other two men got closer to the blond and started to draw their swords when they saw Ree. But they looked at Lenar before they drew them out all the way.
Lenar didn’t even see them look. He jumped off his horse and hugged Garrad so hard he lifted the old man off his feet. If Garrad’s eyes were a bit too bright, well, Ree didn’t have to say he’d seen it. Not that Garrad would ever admit to it, anyhow.
Jem caught the horse’s reins while Ree closed the gate behind the other two men. Having his back to them made his skin itch and his fur try to rise, but if this was Garrad’s son, then this farm was his. It wasn’t up to Ree to be inhospitable to Lenar or his guards.
“Not so close now, you’ll break something,” Garrad protested, and he disguised his wavering voice with a cough. “Now come on inside and tell me what’s brought you back home and all that happened to you all these years.”
Lenar sounded grim when he said, “Not so fast, Father. What are you doing with a hobgoblin and some other brat here? Who are they?”
Ree got the gate barred and turned in time to see Lenar posed just as Jem had been shortly before, trading glares with Garrad.
Garrad grinned grimly, as though this were a game he was used to. “Boys, you get them horses looked after, you hear? The rest of you come on inside out of the cold, and then we’ll talk.”
Taking all the gear off the horses and stacking it neatly near the barn door took a while, and rubbing the horses down and getting them fed and watered took longer. Jem didn’t say anything, and Ree couldn’t think of anything to say. They’d never talked about it, but Ree had always figured Garrad assumed his son had died. He’d never expected anyone to come back, and Jem made a kind of a replacement.
He wondered where the son’s return left them. Oh, Jem looked enough like Garrad to really be his grandson, but they didn’t know, and Ree wasn’t anything anyone would want. He was useful, maybe, but that was all. A tame pet,
And little Amelie was just another one of their group of waifs that Garrad looked after and tolerated. She’d lightened up some since Ree had brought her here, but men scared her, and a harsh word from anyone except Garrad got her tearing up and clutching at her skirts as though someone were going to do something horrible to her any time. Ree had only ever seen her smile around the Damn Young Cats—they were too big now to be Damn Kittens, although he suspected next spring there’d be more Damn Kittens to make Garrad grumble. Were all of them surplus now that Garrad’s lost heir was back?
As if thinking about them was a cue, Ree felt a brush of air, then a solid thump on his shoulder. He winced and bit down on a yelp when claws dug in. The Young Damn Cats never could remember that his fur wasn’t as thick as theirs.
The horse he was brushing down didn’t seem to care that it now shared its stall with a hobgoblin and a cat, or that the cat was complaining to Ree in a thoroughly put out tone. “Yes, yes,” Ree said, hurriedly. “Your mama doesn’t catch enough rabbits, and mice are boring. That doesn’t mean you have to complain so much.”
The Damn Young Cat added Ree’s indifference to the list of complaints, and Ree paused long enough to pluck it from his shoulder and set it on the floor of the barn. It was the gray and white one he’d rescued from a tree last summer. Of all the Damn Young Cats, this one was the one that got into the most trouble and had to be rescued most often.
Jem came into the stall, grinning. “Damn cats,” he said. “Anyone would think you enjoyed having them climb all over you.”
Ree finished with the horse and gave the animal a friendly pat before he left the stall. “Yeah, I know. Portable tree for damn cats, that’s me.”
Jem was worried, for all he tried to hide it, and Ree didn’t think he was hiding things any better. “We’d better go protect Amelie.”
Jem caught Ree’s hand for a moment in his now larger, calloused hand. “Don’t worry, Ree. Whatever happens, we’ve always got each other. And when have we ever needed anyone else?”
It seemed to Ree the house was colder inside than it was out in the snow, what with Lenar’s two companions— guards, actually, since he was an officer and he’d been given a title and enough Imperial gold to buy an estate anywhere he liked—watching Ree as if they expected him to try to eat someone, and Lenar glaring at Jem, Ree, and Amelie.
Ree didn’t understand why the Damn Cats made it worse, but they did, and Lenar practically accused Garrad of having gone soft in the head, letting those damn cats have the run of the house. To which Garrad—who complained about the cats all the time—had responded that the cats were homey and friendly and got rid of vermin a treat.
Even the fact that Jem was doing the cooking, quietly getting smoked meat from the cellar to supplement what had been planned as a simple meal of bread and vegetable soup, seemed to set Lenar off. It appeared that cooking was woman’s work, and Garrad should have hired a wench from the village and not have this boy do such things. To which Garrad had boomed that Jem cooked better than any wench he’d ever met. It was true, but hardly a point to argue over. Stubborn and loud sure did run in that family.
“C’mon, Amelie. Let’s get beds made up for our guests,” Ree said. Poor kid had been sitting in the corner clutching a Damn Cat and was white and terrified. She ran to him, putting a sweaty hand in his and sniffling back tears. Might as well get her away from what would be a huge fight.
Garrad’s lips were set and thin, and he had the full stubborn on him. Without the beard, Lenar would have been just like him only younger, and Jem was as bad as both of them together, cutting into the smoked meat and glaring at Lenar as if he wished he were hacking into the soldier.
Amelie clutched Ree’s hand until they were out in the main room, and she needed both hands to climb up the ladder to the loft. Her room was up there, tucked in under the eaves, but Ree figured he’d make up the other bed in the room he shared with Jem anyway. Amelie would feel safer downstairs with Lenar and his guards in the house.
He pulled out quilts and sheets and blankets from the chests in the bedrooms, enough to make up three beds, and tossed them up to Amelie, then climbed up after her. “What do you think, Mama ’Melie? Should we give them straw beds or make them sleep on the floor?”
She brightened a little, showing the prettiness her mother had tried to protect when she’d shoved her in the cellar to escape the raid of the soldiers. At six she should have been too young to be in danger, but they’d learned no one was too young. “They should have proper beds, Ree.” Amelie wagged a finger at him. “It wouldn’t be right to make them sleep cold.”
He grinned and winked. “ ’Sides, if we make them nice, comfy beds, they’ll sleep all night, and they’ll only wake you up when they curse about having to go to the outhouse.”
She covered her mouth with her hands, almost as if she were scared to smile. “Don’t we have a spare
