Three: If a Starling in Reprisal

“You’re going to just let this go.” Maran’s youngest son was standing with his back arched against the door and his ankles meekly crossed. There was a quiet disbelief to his voice that struck Maran more deeply than rage could have. Still, he would not let it show.

“What would you have me do?” It was a double-edged question. So much of the problem was Lectro’s failure to act, and he would make the boy squirm beneath the tension of it. Lectro plowed ahead, not permitting himself to be undone.



“Dismiss them. Both of them. Honorably, if you will. Make something up.” Lectro was leaning forward and whispering pointedly, as if these solutions were obvious. Maran lay his hands upon the desk, one over the other.

“You realize that the girl may choose to identify her attackers someday. If I discharge your brothers now, it would be an admission of their guilt, and worse—It would prove that I knew.” Lectro knitted his brow, folding and unfolding Maran’s logic.

“This can’t happen again,” he whispered.



“You’re right. It can’t.” Lectro pushed his hair back from his face. It occurred to Maran that this was the sole child that he allowed to openly probe his decisions. It was not because he was the cleverest, the strongest, the most assertive or the most ethical. Indeed, Lectro was none of those things. But in him was a grace that could not be taught. Maran, who had only ever thought himself capable of producing soldiers and parasites, even amongst his daughters, had somehow managed to produce a lord. Lectro was Maran’s last son but he ought to have been his first. This was a man who would go on to do great things. Lectro crumpled into the chair opposite Maran.



“What happens when she makes her accusation?” he asked. Maran shrugged. As long as he planted his head in the sand now, he would not need to find shelter when the gulls began circling.

“She is mistaken, deranged by her ordeal. I daresay no one would take the claim seriously. This family is stronger than the mutterings of a lunatic dairymaid,” he said. Lectro swallowed hard. He eased in closer to his father.

“I meant, my lord,” His son’s voice quivered as he spoke, though his focus held steady. “What recourse will you have when your sons retalliate against her?”


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“Goodwife Gomohov?" Ynav bowed his head in greeting to the woman who answered the door. She appeared weary and disinterested but clutched the rail so tightly that her knuckles blanched. He supposed that she had every right to distrust a strange man on her doorstep.

“Begging your pardon lordship, but may I ask who's calling?” Ynav laughed nervously.

“Of course! Forgive me. And it's--” Here, Ynav paused, deciding at the last instant that this woman would be more at ease with him if she believed him a commoner. “Ynav, actually. Ynav Tooks. May I come in? I just have a few questions.” Goodwife Gomohov gave Ynav a quick once-over followed by a resigned sigh. Stepping aside, she granted him passage into her home.

The cottage was silent. There was a smell clotting the air like over-boiled cabbage and something else that Ynav could not place. An empty bassinet was overturned at the foot of the staircase. Beside it was a puddle of melted fat, probably from a taper. Ynav's view through the scullery door revealed slithers of a similarly neglectful nature-- The upright foot of a table or stool, a few scattered utensils, some dark powdery substance. Ynav wondered for the first time what he was doing here. It felt as though he had wandered into a stranger’s funeral.



“I already told the baron's men everything I know. My girl went stony after it happened and whoever did it was long gone by the time I got here.” Goodwife Gomohov banged her foot sharply against the hay-strewn floor, startling Ynav. He watched in dumb confusion as she repeated the gesture just before a field mouse the color of dust scuttled from the space between her heels and into a crevice. Ynav winced at the scene of mousy carnage that he had only just missed.



“And your boy?” he asked. For an instant, Goodwife Gomohov looked up from her inspection of the floor, equal parts distracted and stricken. She clamped her hand over her elbow and kneaded her skin through the sleeve.

“You mean you don't know? Did Baron Corin send you?” Ynav swallowed and shook his head.

“I come on behalf of the earl but no, no one sent me.” Goodwife Gomohov made a reproachful noise with her tongue.

“What is it that you're looking to do here?”



“Only to help.” Ynav raised his hands as he in a gesture of harmlessness. She remained unconvinced. “I have a talent for solving puzzles,” he said.

“Puzzles?” She gave him a look of incomprehension.

“Yes. What you have here is a crime without a known perpetrator. Finding the man responsible is a matter of making logical connections and piecing them together. May I ask where it happened?” Goodwife Gomohov wrung her hands. He thought, perhaps, that she believed him to be a casual spectator to her personal misery. She would not be incorrect to think so. Ynav was beginning to feel ashamed for his lack of shame at being here. He began to reassure himself that his involvement would be to their mutual benefit. Still there was a part of him wanted to leave and pretend that he had never set foot that house. Upstairs, a baby began to cry.

“I found Jemec by the hearth over there, and Keda in the scullery there,” Goodwife Gomohov made broad gestures toward the spaces adjacent and behind Ynav.

“May I?” he asked. Her face was still fraught with uncertainty, but she nodded nonetheless. Ynav slipped by her and entered the hearth room. The straw leading into the room had been turned by trampling feet in the interim but there remained large chunks of it clustered by blood. “May I ask what happened to you son here?”

“A man came in, cut our boy’s tongue out and beat him,” she said. Ynav winced, pausing over a scuffed tile. Goodwife Gomohov did not miss it. “Are you sure you're up for this?” He chose to ignore the question, knowing the response to be unfavorable.



“Can you think of anyone who might have wished your son harm? Or your daughter? Or both?”

“It's certain I can't. They was always sweet children. Good children. There's no one in this quarter that can say a poor word about them.”

“What about you? Or your husband? Forgive me but I need to understand why someone would do something like this.” Goodwife Gomohov shook her head.

“Best I could tell, he must have wanted my daughter and Jemec was in the way.”

“May I speak with her?”

“Who? Keda? Absolutely not. I can't do with you distressing her with questions.”

“I know the delicacy but--”



A girl shuffled in from behind the curtain, startling them both. She gathered her skirts at her sides and curtseyed clumsily. The sight of her caused Ynav's throat to constrict. She was so young.

“You ought not be out of bed right now, Keda.” Goodwife Gomohov seemed to soften with the girl in the room. Keda clung onto the curtain, maintaining her distance. “Did you hear? Go on.” Keda began to creep forward. Her eyes went wide as though Ynav were the more fascinating creature in the room. “Keda?” She reached out for Ynav's hand, and closed his fingers around a small, cold object. He tried to jerk his hand away at the feel of it, but Keda clasped his fingers shut. It is funny the way the mind works to assure a man of the implausible. Ynav knew what she had given him but he dared not look.



With her one hand still clasping his fist, Keda gestured with the other for him to lean closer. Ynav bowed to match her height, and she placed her hand on the back on his neck, pulling him in such that their cheeks were brushing. The gesture stunned him. It was the sort of disregard for protocol that could only be the product of a child's artless candor. The severity of the crime washed over him then. This girl was a stranger but she could have been his sister, could have been his niece.

“Master Tooks is a gentleman, not a swing, Keda.” Goodwife Gomohov went ignored while Ynav pondered the girl's stare just long enough to determine that she was very much in control of her faculties. If she was not speaking, it was because she had made up her mind not to.

“Might you tell me anything about the man who hurt you?” He was whispering but he supposed that he need not have. Keda dropped down from the tips of her toes, looking sullen. She shook her head and backed away. Ynav suspected that he would get no more from her but still he pressed. “Mistress Gomohov?” Keda was staring straight at him but did not appear to have heard.

Ynav opened his hand despite the mysterious knowledge that churned in his gut. A silver button embossed with the body of a tiger was resting on his palm. It was his brother Lectro's missing button, the one that he had scrambled in the dirt seeking for the better part of the morning. He stared at it for what seemed like forever, waiting for the trick. He told himself that he was missing some vital piece of information at worst or was simply mistaken at best. Lectro could be unpleasant, but he certainly was not this. Ynav recalled the feel of Nadda’s blood-soaked shirt. No one asked you to carve it out...

It had never occurred to Ynav to ask how his father had heard about what happened here only a day after the event, but now he knew. These were his brothers. His father's men. Perhaps this was intentional. Perhaps this was calculated. What could these people possibly have done to call down the wrath of Lord Sholde?



“If I bring these men before the Assembly, will you testify? Mistress Gomohov?” He was nearly shouting. Keda swept back the curtain and disappeared from the room, just as ephemerally as she had entered.

“Did she tell who did it?” Goodwife Gomohov asked. Ynav slipped the button into his pocket. Nadda’s shirt had been so acrid with that boy’s blood that Ynav could taste it. He placed a hand over his mouth and fought back the urge to wretch. “You okay, Master Tooks?” Ynav shook his head.



“Forgive me if I don't say just yet. Good day to you, madam.” He let himself out.

The second his feet hit the dirt, Ynav took off running. The silver button jostled in his pocket, weighing heavy on his trouser leg. Ynav passed through the market, under the aqueduct and over the wheat-sown downs. He had not felt such a blind panic since he was a boy, frightened that his father would find out who accidentally shot his parakeet.



Ynav pushed farther until he reached the docks, never pausing to catch his breath. Farther, he wanted to go farther but the river barred his way. Ynav leaned against the tide wall. He dug the button out of his pocket and held it above his head, taken with an impulse to pitch the thing into the water.



His two brothers had committed an atrocity, and here was the proof. He would have believed it of Nadda who returned from H'aim so angry and shaken that he often grabbed the nearest object to be used as a weapon whenever he heard the scrape of metal. But Lectro? If Ynav imparted what he suspected, he would bring dishonor upon his house. His father would cast him out. And what becomes of a goat herder's daughter who implicates the sons of Lord Sholde? Ynav raised the button higher. All that he needed was to let go.