20 years later, Arable.

The stench of acrid blood reached Hjordis before she ever saw the woman.

She turned form the washing through, rubbed sweat from her eyes and squinted. There the stranger stood at the village gate: a colossal woman, broader across the shoulders than her Mads, or most road men Hjordis had ever seen stopping through Arable, a dead buck slung across her back as if it weighed no more than a sack of wool. 

The buck’s antlers caught the gatepost as she ducked  through. She didn’t break her tall stride. 

Hjordis wrinkled her nose. Strangers in Arable were usually trouble. They always had been. The last one through had brought a chest fever that killed lady Gorma’s youngest  daughter and was never quite the same, and this one had blood on her threadbare boots and a wild look about her that made saying no seem like a poor wager. 

The village held its breath. Maidens congregated near cottages, stealing glances through lowered lashes. Mothers halted their preparations for Shiin’s Day, babes lining to bare chests as they gaped at the newcomer’s fleshy arms and equally broad hips. The white festival gowns meant for tomorrow’s fruition rites fluttered like surrender flags in the breeze.

The stranger dropped her kill at the temple steps with a grunt. The buck hit white stone and the blood spread slow and dark, and Hjordis mind supplied annoyed: that’ll take some scrubbin’. By her, most like.

“Greetings fine folk of Arable!” The stranger bellowed, her voice carrying a lilting accent Hjordis had never heard before and couldn’t place. She swept a bow that nearly toppled her. “I come bearing gifts most delicious and dead. Might I trouble your illustrious leader for a word?”

The white-clad maidens retreaded behind their mothers. Nobody was stepping forward. They were, in fact, stepping back, leaving Hjordis visible in ways she had long learned to use and longer learned to resent. 

She looked down at her dress. Scarlet, as it always was, as it had been since she was sixteen and the village midwife had made her quiet pronouncement and old Tomsun had nodded solemnly and that had been that. 

And there she stood nearest the temple steps, red skirt, dark waves of hair fanning out against a so not very remarkable face, and the stranger was looking directly at her, nodding encouragingly. 

Hjordis stepped forward, chin raised. 

"'Tis Priest Tomsun who leads us," she said. "He's restin' and preparin' for the rites. Not to be disturbed."

The woman’s wide set gaze settled on her, unhurried. It took in the dress, the half-finished preparations, perhaps even registering the indignation currently coloring Hjordis’s cheeks a matching red.

“Well then, my petite friend, perhaps you could be so kind and point me towards the house of Oskar Helmbane?” She grinned wider, “I've come to present my most sincere condolences to his brood.”

The name of her father landed in her chest the way it always did. Her heart skipped a beat, then hammered hard.

The square went a shade quieter. Eyes pressed into her back, patient and waiting. 

“I’m his daughter, Hjordis Helmbane,” she said.

The woman’s eyebrows disappeared into her wild fringe. "Fascinating. Quite the compact package." Her grin showed teeth too clean and even for a common huntress. "A Helmbane in miniature, one might say."

Someone snickered from behind her right shoulder. Hjordis stood unfazed, about to open her mouth when small Iliidia barreled out from between the women's skirts and planting herself at the stranger's kneecaps with the fearlessness the Nine gives to children who haven't learned better yet.

“Missus, can we touch the deer?"

The woman turned, grinning. "Well now, brave little sprite. Come on then. Mind the antlers; sharper than they look."

Half a dozen children descended on the buck's flank at once. Hjordis moved closer without being asked; she generally did, where children and strangers were concerned.

"It's still warm!" Iliidia marveled.

"Aye," Hjordis said, stepping closer to keep the proceedings in check. “Don't be botherin' our guest, ye wee imps."

"No bother at all," the stranger assured her. "Children say the most profound truths, don't they?"

On cue, Therese's boy piped up, "Are ye a lad or lass? Yer stronger than Mads, but talk like me mam."

"Where I come from, things run topsy-turvy," the stranger looked down, pleasantly grinning. "Mothers wear trousers. Fathers prance about in dresses."

“Fathers?”The boy's brow knotted, squinting up at her. "But there's only one father. Tomsun."

An awkward silence fell over the group. The stranger’s eyes went wide, jumped around confused. The children who was still petting the dead buck, stopped and looked up. Before the stranger could respond, a voice running an octave lower cut through the air.

"And just what are ye tellin' our young'uns."

Mads was crossing the square with a lazy gait, pitchfork in hand, boots glossy with dung and mud where he’d been tending the horses. His wide shoulders had an unusual stern set to them, that meant he’d heard Tomsun’s name. There was soil on his chiseled forearms, up to the elbows, dark against his olive skin, and sweat had dried in his raven hair and left it standing in odd angles. 

He was only nineteen and yet he head the lines around his eyes and the stubble of a man twice his age. Eyes, large, perceptive, catching light in a special shade of blue that meant he was god-touched, or ‘considered by the gods’ if one was being realistic, or if Hjordis was being honest, made him a handsome lad. Hjordis had known that face for fifteen years, knew it better than her own. Wasn’t many mirrors in Arable, but was plenty of opportunity to admire Mads exclusive male form. 

“She’s bringin’ meat for the feast, or so she claims,” Hjordis told him, grinning. “Venison.”

“Aye, I could smell it a mile off.” Mads drove the pitchfork into the earth, tilted his chin up, “Reet convenient timing, that.” He leaned over the fork toward the stranger, thick brows raised unimpressed, “Got a name huntress, or should we call ye trouble?” 

Trinny laughed nervously and her arm lifted— the old stupid habit—reaching to sweep longer thicker hair that wasn’t there. Found only the braided weight at her nape. “I’d answer to trouble gladly— have done, most of my life. Answers to a great many things, trouble does. Rather devoted, in that respect.” 

She moved between the dead buck and Mads, one hand still clasping her neck, the other extended. 

“The name’s Trinny for short. Merely passing through. Your fine baile happens to be the most promising thing on a very long time. Shiin’s day feast at the morrow and I must say, I rather spend it with the living than dragging my dead friend a mile further.”

Hjordis glared, folded her arm. She sure had a mouth on her. Probably plenty of corrupting stories from the Kingdom to share. Could be entertainment, could be disaster. Either way, she was Mads’s problem.

Mads shook her hand. Once and firm, assessing the stranger while keeping that careless swagger. “When Tomsun rests, I handle strangers. Ye seem hale enough. Stay if ye make yerself useful.”

But then Hjordis noticed how Trinny’s eyes moved over Mads form with considerable more expression than she’d used on her. Her worn shirt had once been the fancy type, thrill arms, torn lace at the collar, the types city dandy’s used to wear. 

Tomsun had told stories before the war, of Cora when trade were good, when gold flowed in abundance, how young men pranced about in royal attire although they were not, wigs, powder, gilded petticoats and heels. Cautionary tales how they drank and feasted in abundance like everyday was Shiin’s day, like there were no tomorrow. Never prayed to Goria or Shiin or anyone the sacred nine. Just vine and mindless procreation, veneer and no soul beneath. 

Trinny was wearing a shirt form that time, twice as old as Hjordis. She had a grin on her face that made her think of the before, of godless times.

As it were, Trinny’s ancient shirt had been damp from the road; it clung in ways over an ample chest that were a completely different story than the Arable women’s modest linens. Mads gaze caught for a half-second before he looked away.

That half-second was enough. Hjordis saw, clenched her fists.

"I can be plenty useful lad,” Trinny winked. "Got skills that’d make ye blush redder than yer pumpkin patch."

“Mind yer tongue Stranger. That kind o’talk dinnae belong here.” Mads pitched his voice away from the children without shifting his eyes from Trinny. “This is Goria’s village, not a roadside tavern.” He glanced back at the older women, listening in the whole time. “Dora. Show our guest where to dress her kill.”

Old Dora bustled up behind him and steered Trinny toward the white slate church behind them, where the children were still prodding and giggling at the dead buck. 

Mads watched until they cleared the square, then took Hjordis by the elbow and walked her into the shadow of the Tallahand sister’s workshop. 

He glanced around again, checking all was clear. Then he turned around and grinned.

It was a different face entirely. Younger. The indifferent swagger fell away like a coat he’d borrowed. 

“Well?” He rolled his shoulders back. ”How’d I do? The pitchfork in the dirt. Reet authoritative, aye”

Hjordis hummed, balanced on her heel in the dry grass and looked up at him without expression. 

“Ye were ogling her kittens.”

His grin faltered.

“Miles away, Mads.” She tilted her head slightly. “And I could’ve handled her fine on me own.”

“Aye,” he winked, rubbed away snot from his strong nose with the back of his hand. “But when Tomsun rest, I handle the strangers,” he straightened up, affecting dignity, hands splayed across his chest. “Says so in the Apprentice rulebook.” 

“Oh, so there’s a rulebook then?” Hjordis leaned forward with mock interest.

“There’s a rulebook.”

She opened her mouth to argue some more.

“Dinnae bother.” He was almost smiling now. The sharpness that lived in those blue eyes had surfaced full, wrong as ever against his sun-dark face— the look she’d never quite found a name for.

He glanced toward the temple steps, at the creature’s blood already browning at the stone. “I dinnae trust her Jordie. Not her timing, not her story. My gut’s tellin’ me she ain’t here for the feast.”

Hjordis said nothing. Her gut her told her the same thing. 

“Keep an eye on her,” Mads stepped closer, breath tickling the side of her thick dark locks. “See what’s in her pack if ye can.”

“I ain’t yer spy.” Hjordis stepped back. 

“Just a favor. For the folk.”

She looked at him. The soil on his hairy arms. The way he was trying to be serious and mostly managing it. Hjordis stood there, lips pouting, arms crossed over the red embroidered bodice.

“I’ll keep and eye,” she said. “One condition. Ye heed what I asked before?” 

Mads had heard it. Last Shiin’s day, the one before that. His almost-smile went out completely. His deep olive skin turned gray as ash.

“Jordie….” he chuckled nervously, fingers coming to fiddle at the fine threaded acorns on his blue vest. Hjordis pressed on, been here before too.

“Shiin’s moon is already at the morrow.” She kept her voice level, the same voice she used for her mother’s bad days. “Ma says even the barren might find favor during the red moon. Tomsun keeps sayin’ the magic is as strong as it gets on Shiin’s day.”

“Tomsun also kens ye had yer chances.”

“’Tis true, but not with you Mads.” She bored her dark Helmbane eyes into his blue. Mads looked away, a muscle working in his jaw. He was nineteen already and had live his entire life in a village of woman and Hjordis was not above knowing that, and not above taking advantage of it.

“The Nine willnae bend for mortals’ whims,” he said to the weathered eaves of the shop.

“Ye still haven’t said no.”

He said nothing for a long moment. Then he said, “I’ll look into Trinny myself. Ye keep out of trouble. Stubborn Helmbane lass,” and walked back towards the south field with the pitchfork over his shoulder and his neck red to the collar. 

Hjordis smiled. 

He hadn’t said no. That was something.