Read Online Moongather by Jo Clayton - Free Book Online Page A

hand on the reins and sent him toward the village. With every step she was more pleased than before with her choice. A smooth rolling gate. The saddle and halter well-crafted. Made to the measure of the small-hipped Kapperim, the saddle with its high front ledge and trapezoidal back fit her well enough. The stirrups were a little long, but that could be easily fixed. Saddlebags, lumpy now with the dead raider’s possessions, big enough to hold her own supplies. Ten days , she thought. Only ten days to Moongather. Ten days to get across the mountains and back to Oras .
    By the village wall, she slipped from the macai’s back, stripped off the saddle and used the pad to scrub his skin clean of all sweat.
    She was pulling at the saddle’s belly band when she heard slow steps behind her. “Set the things down by me,” she called, then grunted and jabbed her knee into the macai’s side. The beast whooshed and honked, then sucked in its stomach. She pulled the strap taut and tucked it home. When she turned, she saw a girl crouching beside a heap of gear, a ragged girl with a sullen stubborn face, big hands spread out over the waterskin on the top of the heap, fierce determination in her scowl. Her skin was several shades darker than most fishers’, though her eyes were a greenish-brown, much like the Intii’s. Her hair was long and dirty, very dark, almost black. Mixed blood , Serroi thought with a touch of sympathy. She could remember all too well how closed societies treated those among them who were different. “What is it?” Serroi asked quietly, not wanting to frighten her more than she was already, a fear that was glazing those green eyes.
    The girl’s tongue traveled over dry lips. She rose slowly to her feet. About twelve, still flat-chested as a boy, she was nearly a head taller than Serroi. “The Intii sent these things and says it would be best to hurry.” She stumbled over the words, her voice hoarse and uncertain.
    â€œYes. I know.” Serroi took the saddlebags and shook out the Kappra’s rubbish, not bothering to see what was there. She took the bundles of food and the utensils provided by the Intii’s wife and stuffed them hastily into the bags, slapped the bags over the macai’s back, then reached for the blanket roll that the girl was holding out to her, her hands shaking badly. “Take me with you, meie,” she said rapidly. She let go of the bundle, pressed fisted hands against her chest. “I want to go to the Biserica, meie. Please?”
    Serroi stared at her. Her first impulse was to refuse; she was in enough trouble without this added complication. Maiden bless, can’t I be excused this? I’d never get out of the village with her. And what do I do with her once we’re over the mountains, send her south alone? “I’m riding into a lot of trouble, child,” she said. “I can’t take you with me. You could be killed or worse.”
    â€œKilled?” The word was low and intense. “Worse?” She shook the coarse hair out of her eyes. “Nothing could be worse than staying here. You have to take me, you have to.”
    Serroi turned her back on her, started tying saddle thongs around the blanketroll. Over her shoulder she said, “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
    â€œI don’t care, meie.” She bent and picked up the waterskin, moving a little awkwardly, her thin body coltish, uncertain as a young macai. “Listen. My mother was raped by a Kappra and left for dead. Kappra!” She stretched her mouth into a snarl, then shook her head impatiently. “Better if she’d died. Or me. I eat the scraps after the posser and the oadats. Each time the Kapperim raid, the fishers who are killed—their families take it out on me. Meie, I’m a woman almost and there’s no one here to protect me, not even the Intii, though my mother was his own