Pagan Siege (Tribes of Britain Book 5) by Sam Taw (10 best novels of all time TXT) 📕

of unease gnawing away at my insides. Leaving the congenial atmosphere of the training grounds, I took a burning torch and walked back across the trickling waters of the tributary into the western gate. The compound was so still and quiet, it was almost eerie. Not a bleat came from my goats, tucked away in Kewri’s shelter as I passed them. Their demonic eyes glowed as some kind of phantasm when I shoved the torch closer to do a quick head count, but not one made a sound. I supposed that they knew the fate of their kin after the homesteaders had made off with them.

I knew that Vina was back when I heard the crackles and logs falling from my fire. “By the gods, girl. Where have you been all this time?” I said it long before I was through the door. The wall of heat inside was intolerable. What on earth possessed her to light a fire? I stuck the torch into a hole in the ground and looked about for my apprentice. I expected her to be penitent and eager to explain. Instead, I found her lounging like a Ruvane across my bed, dressed in my finest tunic. It was tight about the middle and far too short for her, revealing more thigh than was decent. I could hardly contain my anger. My huffing and blowing should have given her the impetus to jump up and rectify this gross invasion of my hospitality. Even fixing her with a potent scowl did nothing to provoke a reaction.

“Get your cheeky arse out of my clothes and off my bed. If you expect to gain my favour, you’ll wash my tunic this instant and make amends for your impudence.” I practically screamed it at her, my wrath bubbling inside along with the build-up of nervous bile in my gut. A quick glance about my work table told me that she’d not brought back a single herb, nor bark shavings and the place was still a mess.

It took all my strength to stop myself from grabbing up my besom and whacking her from here to the Underworld. “Did you hear me, girl. Move yourself!” I stomped towards the broom and shot her a glare that told her I meant business.

She swung her legs down to the floor and shrugged as she stood up, but I could tell from her eyes that I’d rattled her. She noticed my shock at the lack of herbs. “It was too hot to gather anything today. I’ll try again in the morning.” She made no attempt to remove my best tunic as she wandered over to her own bunk and slumped inelegantly onto her furs.

“You’ll do no such thing. Those chores won’t do themselves.” As soon as I’d said it, I knew that there was a possibility that I wouldn’t live long enough to see those chores completed. Neither was it an option to trust the girl with my horse, and what few belongings I had left, to wait for me at the edge of the forest as Ren had suggested. “How are you expected to learn if you won’t do as I ask?”

“You haven’t taught me anything yet. What am I to learn by slicing off a bit of willow bark every now and then?”

“You offered to go out foraging. Where have you been all day?” She shrugged in the same infuriating manner that Kewri had in response to my questions. These young people were determined to vex me. “Change back into your old gear and come out to the west training grounds where I can keep an eye on you. The Chief and another warrior will fight soon.” I so wanted to cuff her about the back of the head, but I stayed my hand. If she was plotting her escape back to Duro lands, I didn’t want Vina to tell Fane that we’d abused her in any way.

“I’m not going.” She yawned, rolled onto her back and turned her face away from me.

“You’ll do as you’re told, Vina or find another healer to train you.” I thought the threat would be enough to shock her into line but I was wrong.

She buried her face in her furs until her words were muffled and feint. “Send me back to my wretched family if you will. I didn’t ask to come.”

I opened my mouth to scream at her, but something stopped me. She called them her wretched family. Was she no longer pining for their company? Did her jaunt out alone take her to the borderlands to meet up with scouts from her own tribe? She had been cooperating and almost helpful in the previous few days, I wondered what had occurred to make her glower return with a vengeance.

Despite sweating from the heat of the fire, I tarried a while, thinking. Scooping up scattered dried herbs and seeds back into their respective pots, I gave the girl’s plight some thought. If she felt that her own tribe had abandoned her, and our people despised the ground on which she walked, I could see why she would be so melancholic. Our young spat at her feet wherever she walked about camp; an insult the Duros reserved for their enemies. Reining in my temper, I moved to her bunk and sat on the edge. She jerked her feet away, as though my touch was more deadly than a black ague. “What ails you, Vina? I can be less severe if you’ll help me to understand.”

She shifted about restlessly, taking a deep breath and releasing it while she contemplated my words. I waited, hoping that she would not take long to confide her troubles. I needed to be back with my nephew, before it was too late.

She sighed, tutted, and did all manner of annoying gestures. Still, I waited.

“It’s just… oh, never mind. You wouldn’t understand, and even if you did, you’d care even less.”

I was about to question her reasoning, but then I hadn’t really given