“You had no right!” Pell bellowed after her when he realized she was leaving. “Those clothes belonged to me!”
She didn’t look back.
“You can’t take a man’s rightful possessions! What is mine is mine, and I will take it back!”
Cold clutched at her heart. He meant Gillam. His son. Her son. Her most precious of all things precious. That was why he had come back, she suddenly knew. Not for her or the cottage. To take Gillam.
“Let’s run!” she suggested, as she seized her boy’s hand and set off at a trot with Gillam jogging beside her.
From the rafters, the tom watched the man below him. The intruder kicked his wet clothes again, cursed some more, and then began to rummage through the sparse contents of the shelves. The cat watched him; there was no meat there, but he found a turnip and ate it. While he chewed, he took the lids off several other containers, grumbling all the while, and then abandoned his search for easy food. The cat could have told him there was nothing in the cupboard worth eating. All it was good for was attracting meaty little mice, which the cat had no intention of sharing.
Hilia was right. The big male human was going to be a problem. He took up too much of the bed, he smelled as if he might try to claim the territory, and he’d caused the cat to miss out on a nice eggy bit of cake this morning. And he’d made the boy wail, and the cat detested that awful sound. And he’d driven the woman away before she had built up the fire for the day. The cottage was rapidly cooling.
He glared down at the man.
The man paused in his turnip chewing and looked up into the rafters. He had that stubborn look that people got when they knew that a cat was thinking about them but they didn’t want to accept it. “Cat? You up there? I’m going to kill you, you little bastard!”
When he dragged a stool over and began to climb up on it, the cat stood, stretched, and then strolled along the beam until he reached the eaves. From there it was easy to push his way out through the storm-worn thatch. With a quick twist of his body he was up on the roof. He climbed quickly to the peak and sat down. He caught a glimpse of Rosemary and Gillam just as they turned and took the path that would take them down to the beach. He wondered if they would come back. The big human male was making an obvious claim to the territory. The female might be wise to take her kit and move on. He knew the ways of rogue males. He might very well kill the kit in the hopes of taking her as his mate again.
He didn’t like that idea. The female brought home food and shared it. She kept the shelter warm, and she was comfortable to sleep with. He doubted that the male human would provide any of that for him. So. How to be rid of him? He settled on the roof, folding his paws neatly under his chest and tucking his tail around him. He stared out to the horizon and pondered. How did one kill game that size?
Rosemary had to take the long way home. The tide was in, and that meant she had to follow the meandering path on top of the sea cliffs rather than cut across the bared beach. She paused for a moment to stare across the wide blue bay. On the opposite tooth of the land, she could just see the hazy buildings of Dorytown. Meddalee’s home. She wished Pell would just go back there. Let him chase his pretty girl with the fancy clothes and rich father. Just let him go away.
The wind blew harshly, pushing against her. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Come on, Gillam. Let’s get home and get warm.”
“Too tired. Too cold.” He sat down on the beaten earth of the path. His nose and cheeks were bright red, as were the tips of his ears. What had become of spring? And would she have warmer clothes for him before winter returned? He was growing so fast. She refused to think that far ahead. With a sigh she stooped down, hoisted him to her hip, and fashioned her shawl into a sling to take some of his weight. He’d already eaten more than half the smoked fish that Serran had given them for doing the wash. Rosemary had eaten some of it and concealed the rest in her bag for later. Damned if she would share it with Pell! But she might give the cat a bite or two.
Something in her had hardened. She was weary and Gillam was heavy, but heavier still were the words that Serran and Tarsha Wells had loaded onto her. “You should run, girl,” Serran had said bluntly after Rosemary had admitted that Pell had come back to the house and spent the night there. “Run while you can. Today. Don’t wait until he gets another child on you. Everyone knows what a charmer that man is. He’ll talk you into his bed, plant a baby in your belly, and then be off again. Don’t let him. Don’t even go back there.”
“But everything I own is there, and not much of it is portable! And the cottage rightfully belongs to Gillam, not him.”
“The cottage will still be there when he is a man grown and he can come back to claim it then.” Tarsha was emphatic. “Run, girl.”
“I can’t. I won’t! Should I run off and leave the cow? The chickens? Everything I’ve worked so hard to build up in the last three years? Just take Gillam and set off into the world without a coin to my name?”
Tarsha had been visiting Serran when Rosemary arrived. They’d all been washing together, for Serran had decided her house needed a spring cleaning that included laundering all the bedding. It had been a companionable time, with Gillam playing with little Marsh and the women all chatting together. It would have been fun if the topic hadn’t been her personal danger.
“Better a live beggar than . . . well, than anything else you might become.” Serran’s words were ominous.
“What are you saying?” Rosemary demanded.
“I know why Pell has come back here,” Tarsha had said suddenly.
Both women had turned to stare at her. Serran shook her head as if to warn her against indiscretion. Tarsha had looked down at her hands and spoken anyway. “I heard it from my cousin. It started a couple of months ago, with little things. A push in the market, calling her a bitch after a squabble in a tavern. But about a month ago, Pell put hands on Meddalee and not in a kind way. He’d pushed her before and once he knocked her down right in the market. But this was his hands on her throat. Her father saw the marks and he threatened to kill Pell. But he came, all tears and apologies, and knelt outside her father’s house and begged pardon. So she took him back. But then he actually hit her, a week ago. Loosened a tooth, and that was it. Her father’s servants put Pell out of the house and told him never to come back, that he no longer worked for her father or had permission to see Meddalee. Said Pell had no prospects and no right to touch his daughter. I heard Pell lingered for a time, hoping he could make it up, but when he couldn’t and he ran out of coin, he came home.” Tarsha looked up from her washing and said bluntly, “You should leave him, Rosemary. Take Gillam and go. If he hit one woman, he’ll hit another.”
Shame flushed her face. She’d never admitted to anyone that Pell had struck her. She wouldn’t admit it now. “I’ve got nowhere to go,” she said bluntly. Both women looked away from her. Times were hard. No one could afford to take in a woman and her child, while risking the displeasure of Pell and his family. It wasn’t fair of her to ask it, and so she didn’t. “The cottage belongs to Gillam. He has a right to live there. And I can take care of myself.” She said it, but no one really believed it. And when Tarsha hugged her good-bye, she slipped a coin into her hand, a small silver one.
“Just go!” she whispered. “Run. Don’t you have cousins in Forge? Go there.”
Rosemary had nodded grimly and then started the long walk home. Home. Was it really her home anymore? Could she run off to Forge? Her father’s sister had settled there; she barely remembered the woman. She had cousins there, yes, cousins she’d never met. No. There was no easy sanctuary. But it was her problem, not her friends’. It was up to her to solve it for herself.
She saw the smoke from her chimney long before she could see her house. And when she stood looking down on it, her heart nearly broke. She’d put so much into it, and Gillam was so heavy as he slept in the sling. She tried to imagine running away, taking him off down the long road to somewhere. Buckkeep Town? She could
