Read Online Many Roads Home by Ann Somerville - Free Book Online Page B

we’re told. Like children.”
    “Women aren’t very quiet where I come from. They even rule. We’ve had some fine duces in Sardelsa.”
    “Duces?”
    “A female duc. That’s what we call the ruler of the duchy.”
    “Can’t imagine that being allowed here. Not that we have a ruler, but any time someone’s laying down the law, you can bet it’s a man. ” She spat the word like the worst curse in her language. “And now I’m supposed to go to Grekil, be all quiet and sweet and let someone bid for me. Hah. Why bother? They’ll find out the truth when they marry me.”
    “Will that mean you have to leave the village?”
    “Wish it did.” She poked gloomily at the ground with a bit of straw. “No, Father will ask too much for a removal. That’s when someone wants to take a wife away from their home. He’s rich enough that he can buy wives for my brothers to come here, but no one will be able to afford to take me away.”
    Yveni frowned. “We don’t pay for people to be married in Sardelsa. Everyone gives the couple gifts and money to help them make a new life, but the parents don’t get anything.”
    “It’s the other way around here. Sardelsa sounds like a wonderful place. Why are you leaving?”
    Damn. He kept forgetting how much he had to hide. “Um, well, my father wanted to build a trading business with his cousins in Horches.”
    “And you don’t have family in Sardelsa?”
    “My mother died when I was seven. My father’s best friends, who are Uemirien, helped raise me while he was working. That’s where I learned your language.”
    “So you’re all alone in the world now? You’re like one of my orphan calves, then.”
    “A bit.”
    “And you’re still going to Horches? Do you want to work as a trader? What would you do if you didn’t?”
    For someone who couldn’t even bother to be polite to him a couple of hours ago, she had a lot of questions. “I thought about being a sailor until I was shipwrecked. Not so thrilled by that idea now.”
    She nodded emphatically. “The sea’s a dangerous place. Every couple of years, we lose one of our people to her. But she gives us food and many other things we use, so you could say it’s a fair price. I’m just glad my family aren’t fisherfolk. So you’re going to be a trader all your life?”
    “I hope I can make my fortune and go home one day. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
    “Suppose not, with your father dying and all that. You finished?”
    He nodded, so she gathered up the cloths the pasties had been wrapped in and stuffed them into the little basket her mother had brought over. “Things will be quieter now for me. All the females have birthed, so it’s just the weaklings and orphans to care for. Still as much shit for you to clean up,” she added with a malicious little smirk.
    “I don’t mind. Your family’s doing me a favour, and I want to earn it.”
    “You’re strange, Gaelin.”
    “I suppose I am. Better get back to work now.”
    The afternoon was as hard as the morning, only longer, but he really didn’t mind. It helped when Raina found him a pair of gloves so he didn’t tear up his hands shifting hay bales around.
    By the time one of the children at the house brought out mugs of tea and tasty little cakes for the two of them at the barn, Yveni thought he’d done as much as he could for one day, and thankfully, Raina agreed. “You’ll sleep in the barn, same as me.”
    Yveni was horrified. “You’re not allowed to sleep in the house?”
    She shoved at his shoulder. “Don’t be daft. It’s because the youngsters need to be fed twice in the night. Little and often or they die.” Her face grew sad. “They’re so fragile just now. Of course, they grow up into those great smelly beasts.”
    “You don’t mind them being killed when they grow up?”
    “No, because they’ve had a good life by then. That’s all anyone wants, isn’t it? A good life before a quick death?”
    “I suppose so. I want