Keep on the Borderlands

Blot asked fearfully. Eddis looked up at M’Baddah, who kneltnext to her and met the child’s eyes.

“I do not think he is so badly hurt. Eddis tells you thisonly so you will not cry or look afraid when you see the bandages. He is your friend?”

Blot didn’t seem too sure about “friend.”

“’E lets me have one of ’is blankets when it’s cold out, andsometimes ’e helps me with the heavy pots and the wood and stuff.”

“That is a friend,” M’Baddah said gently. “Because he caresfor you. Come. We will take you to your friend.” He held out a hand.

Blot searched his face, sniffed quietly, and suddenly held out one of hers. Eddis bit back reservations of her own and released the child, who went quietly with her lieutenant. The swordswoman glanced at Jerdren, held up a hand when he would have trailed along, and went after the two.

The wounded man lay a little apart from the others. Someone beyond him moaned nonstop, though all the men here had been tended to. At first, Eddis thought he looked no worse than his companions. His leg had been splinted with a long stick of firewood. There was a spreading bruise on his forehead and a ragged, oozing cut that crossed his right hand. His face was tight with pain. M’Baddah spoke first to the robber and then softly against the child’s earbefore he gave her a gentle shove forward. The man made a clear effort to focus on her, and even managed something of a smile.

“There’s my windflower. How’s my little one?” he said.

Blot went to her knees beside him, eyes searching anxiously before she buried her face in his shoulder and burst into frantic tears.

“Don’t die! What’s Blot without ye?”

The man brought up a hand to pat her shoulder awkwardly. It had been bound by a loop of rope to his ankle, effectively immobilizing him, though Eddis doubted he could have moved, anyway. Pain-tightened eyes met hers, then moved to the child. He does care for her, Eddis thought. More than his brother, at least, and I’ll wager he wants my assurance we’ll take her with us.

She nodded, saw the look of relief on his face as he turned his full attention to the girl.

“Why, you’ll be fine, child. It looks to me like my littlewindflower will have a chance to live somewhere clean and safe, just like we always wanted.”

“Don’t want that! Not without you!” The hands tightened on his arm. Hewinced, but when Eddis would have moved to loosen the child’s grip, he met hereyes and shook his head. The eyes shifted. Eddis followed the man’s gaze andbriefly closed her own. The bandit’s pale breeches were soaked with blood. Sheglanced at M’Baddah, shook his head again. The man didn’t have much longer,then, and he knew it, but he was still doing his best for the poor little wretch. The swordswoman stepped back a pace and nodded. The bandit smiled his thanks at her, then gave his full attention to Blot.

“No, please don’t cry. Remember what I told you, last winter?Remember our bargain? That you’d do your best to not anger my brother, and thenI’d find a way to get us free of here, and we wouldn’t be bandits anymore, youand me. I’d buy us a little house and some land, and horses, and a goat, andchickens. And we’d have a garden, and you’d have a place to sleep out of thewind and the cold, and you’d have warm water for washing, and real shoes, andclean clothes, and enough to eat. Remember?”

Silence. The child choked on her sobs and nodded.

“Well, I guess I won’t be there after all, but you will.That’s what I want for you, what I’ve always wanted, you know that, don’t you?So I want you to promise me that you’ll go with…?” He looked up at Eddis,glanced at M’Baddah.

Eddis nodded, gave him the names he was clearly seeking. He coughed rackingly, patted the child’s shoulder again as she drew back to eye himin sudden fright. “Go with Eddis and M’Baddah. They will care for you. They’llsee you have the clean clothes, and a warm place to live, and enough to eat. I swear that to you, my small wildflower.”

Silence, except for the child’s soft weeping.

“Now I want you to go, and remember that I’m smiling at younow. Just like this. Remember that, because then I will always be smiling when you think of me.”

The child didn’t want to go, but somehow, M’Baddah persuadedher, speaking quietly against her ear, words only she could hear. Eddis knelt at the bandit’s side as the two slowly walked away, M’Baddah still talking to thegrubby little girl.

“We’ll take care of her. I promise you that. Somehow, we’llkeep her safe.”

“Bless you-thank you,” the man said, his voice suddenly veryweak. He coughed again, and this time frothy blood spilled over his chin. “Haven’t long, I-know. Never approved, m’brother keeping such an innocent withus. Back north and then here. Whatever her lineage, she’s better’n that.Deserves better. Not… just a drudge to evil men. Tell her that, for me. Ifshe ever doubts.”

“I will. I swear it,” Eddis said. She looked about for Mead,but the bandit coughed again, drew a sharp, pained breath, let it out on a long, faint sigh, and was quietly gone. Eddis looked down at his shell, closed his eyes with gentle fingers.

“May that one good deed survive you and keep you safe in theafterlife, for the child’s sake,” she murmured, got to her feet, and walkedaway.

It was still long hours until daybreak. Jerdren was portioning out watches and fire duty when Eddis beckoned him to one side.

“We’re burying the captain’s brother,” she told him.

He frowned. “We’re… we’re what? Eddis, I thought we’dagreed everyone goes back to the Keep! What if the castellan decides to give us a bonus by body count?”

“Then we’re one short, that’s all. If you’d seen that childbreaking her heart over the man, just now…”

“She’s a child. They get over things,” he said. “We agreed onthis. I don’t see why you’re so hot to change things.”

“It’s no great matter,” Eddis said flatly. “You’ve got thecaptain, we’ll have whatever loot they’ve got up here. I don’t want that poorchild to see her only friend thrown over the back of a horse and hauled into the Keep.”

“Poor child, is it?” Jerdren grumbled. “And friend,was it? True friend would’ve set her loose in some town or village-”

“Where she’d be ever after known as the raiders’ bastard,”Eddis broke in angrily, her voice low, so the child couldn’t possibly overhearher. “You don’t just take a child like this and hand her over to villagers orturn her loose in some town. There’ll always be someone who knows where she camefrom, or at least what she looked like when they got her, and they’d gossip, andyou can imagine the kinds of things they’d say, can’t you?

“No,” he replied blankly.

Blorys came up beside him. He’d clearly heard most of theargument.

“Sure you can, Brother,” he said. “Remember that dark, skinnylad back home? One who hung himself? People like our aunt threw it at him for years that his mother had been a tavern girl and no one knew who his father was.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s different, Blor!”

The younger man shook his head. “No, it’s not. And I agreewith Eddis, anyway. Whatever that man did or was, the child deserves proper memories of a man she cared enough to cry over. And rites to remember him by. She’ll have ’em. You don’t like it, Jers, you can take any share his bodymight’ve earned us out of my portion.” His gaze moved across the camp, settledon M’Baddah and his young charge. “Though he might have washed her, once in herlife.”

“No,” Eddis said. “Maybe he did her a kindness. If she’stwelve years or more… you can wager none of the men here looked at heras a camp woman.”

“Gods,” Blorys whispered and closed his eyes.

Eddis walked away.

Jerdren’s bewildered voice followed her. “What? Leaving a kidall filthy-that’s a kindness?”

A full day and a half later, nearly sundown, the company andits captives wound their slow way up the Keep road. Eddis walked ahead, leaving M’Baddah, Mead, and Jerdren to bring up the rear, the armsmen holding drawnswords, while Mead had several painful spells ready to invoke if any of the raiders decided to try escape. It