Page 37 of Saint
The slap of the leads was followed by the jolt of the wheels before I’d even sat, and the cart pulled off the cobblestones onto the dirt road that curved like anSinto the hills. Beyond the top of one in the distance, I could see two soft, trailing wisps of smoke. We were headed in their direction.
I hooked one arm into the wooden slat beside me as we rocked from side to side, feeling the chill of Saint’s gaze before I finally looked at him.
“What?” His cold eyes bored into mine, which I was beginning to mark as a rare thing.
I swallowed. “You didn’t have to hurt him like that.”
“Oh, darling.” It was Emilia who answered, her back still to us. “Yes, he did.”
Darling.
The word reeked of my mother’s voice, making my mouth twist to one side.
I’d been no stranger to ruthlessness. I’d seen it many different ways, and it was usually at Holland’s order. But things in the Unnamed Sea were done behind closed doors and in shadows. And my mother’s hands were never dirty with them.
I’d been young when I began to understand what she was. I was ten years old when my father sat me down in the solarium for a cup of tea and told me what I needed to know about my mother—that she would always choose the trade. Over me. Over him. Over everything. That trust was something that only he and I would have. If I’d listened to him,reallylistened, I thought, he might still be here.
He hadn’t said the words with any kind of malice or resentment. There wasn’t even a hint of sadness. But he’d wanted me to know. It wasn’t until a few years later that I began to understand what he meant.
We came over the last hill before the sun touched the horizon, but the warm light changed the land into sweeps of violet and blue. The chimney smoke drew closer until I followed one of their trails to a small stone house set atop one of the bluffs. Once the clouds cleared and the orange light deepened, I could see what lay beyond it—miles and miles of golden hills rippling beneath the sea wind.
Rye.
I sat up, studying the ridge that overlooked the road. More than one crofter had appeared, watching us from their perches, and a few lifted hands into the air as we passed.
The croft was a well-kept one. Beyond the house, four large barns were erected in a semicircle. One of their doors was pulled open, where I could see a heavy cart of rye stalks disappearing. The cottages that dotted the hillside looked like a constellation of stars. A croft this large likely had a harvest big enough to support at least two or three dozen people to plant and pick and thrush.
The rye was the reason the traders of the Unnamed Sea had first begun to sail in the Narrows. As our cities grew, so did our need for grain. When our own crofters ran out of fertile land, we came looking for more.
Saint’s business with the croft seemed to have more to do with the bottles of drink than the sacks of grain they were made from. I had to admit, it was smart. Crofters weren’t permitted to sell their crop to anyone without a license, and that had always been the traders from the Unnamed Sea. But there were no clear rules on the sale and transport of the rye drink that filled the taverns in the Narrows. They were outside of the law, but just barely.
Perrie clicked his tongue, pulling back on the leads, and the cart came to a slow stop at the foot of a zigzagging stretch of steps carved into the earth. They led up to the stone house, now drenched in fire-gold sunlight.
Saint stood, waiting for me to jump down before he followed.
“A nice harvest coming in,” Emilia said, climbing thesteps first and looking out to the barns at our left. “Should be in the barrels in another month. Maybe two.”
“And the ones that are already resting?”
“Three or four. They’re coming along nicely. I’ll take you out to see once you’ve eaten and the color comes back into your cheeks.” She smirked.
She reached out, touching his elbow in a gesture that was familiar. Close. Saint seemed to exist with an invisible space around him, but in an instant, this woman reached through it.
Perrie lifted the latch on the door and it swung wide, releasing the thick smell of baked bread and roasting potatoes into the chilled air around us. My mouth watered, making me instinctively swallow. I hadn’t eaten anything that smelled this good since I’d left home.
There was that word again.Home.
Saint pushed into the doorway behind him, and Emilia waited at the door, stepping aside for me to enter. But that studying look was still in her eyes, as if she were trying to puzzle something out.
“Thanks,” I said, ducking inside.
A long wooden table was set in the center of the space, a kitchen on one end and a row of three tidy cots on the other. Everything from pots to tools to shelves stacked with jars lined the walls and every inch of floor was taken by chairs, needlework baskets and stacked wood before the hearth.
Candles burned in every corner of the rectangular room and lanterns were hung from the rafters overhead, washing the beams that lined the ceiling of the house in light. The lastof the sun was still streaming through the windows, but it would be gone in minutes.
A young woman stood over a steaming pot bubbling on a wood stove in the kitchen, stirring with one hand on her hip. When she spotted me, she looked surprised. “Hi there.”
“Hello.” I bit down hard after the word left my mouth. It sounded too formal, and my accent was becoming more noticeable to my own ears.
