Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

“Perhaps this isn’t the best place to keep them,” Thakur answered.

“Maybe.” Ratha looked away. “I keep a watch on that bunch of seamares on the jetty where your odd little friend stays. You know, you may be right about the way she manages them. Hers are doing better than ours.” Her ears flicked back. “She may just have better stock.”

“I don’t think that makes much difference.” Thakur chose his words carefully, not wanting Ratha to go back on her promise to leave Newt’s seamares alone. “She doesn’t so much manage the creatures as live with them. If we had patience, we could do the same.”

Ratha’s tail tip gave an annoyed twitch, then she yawned and stretched herself. “Dear herding teacher, you speak the truth even when you don’t mean to,” she said. “What you really meant is, if I had patience. And I don’t, do I?”

Thakur decided not to make things more awkward by agreeing that patience was not one of her strengths. Instead he said,“I know that soon new cubs will be coming and you have to be sure there is food for the mothers.” He paused. “This is one way.” He indicated the penned seamares below with a downward jerk of his head.

“It will do for this season, but I’m not sure about the next,” Ratha said moodily. “You know, Thakur, I keep thinking about that outcast. Where could she have come from? How can she do what she does if she is one of the witless Un-Named?”

Thakur said quietly,“Remember that not all those outside the clan lack the light in their eyes or the need to give themselves worth.”

He could see that he had stirred some old memories. Her eyes went opaque for a few instants, as if she were turning inward. Their green became murky, turbid, reminding Thakur of the colors in Newt’s. Perhaps the lame female’s gaze was turned permanently inward, causing the cloudiness in her eyes.

“Ratha,” he began, “I need to ask you something. You told me once that you had a litter by Bonechewer. I didn’t ask you anything more about it, but now I must. Did any of those cubs live? Were any given names?”

Her upper lip quivered, jerked back, baring a fang. He saw a shiver pass along her sides.“I don’t know,” she said tonelessly. “He said… he said… ”

Suddenly she whirled, almost pouncing on Thakur, her eyes bright with pain.“Why are you making me remember this? Wasn’t it you who said let dead things be buried?”

“Are they dead, Ratha?”

She answered distantly,“I don’t know. I fought with Bonechewer. He struck back. I told him he could keep the empty-eyed cubs he sired on me. Thistle-chaser got in the way….”

Her voice grew faint as she began speaking not to him but to herself. Thakur’s ears swiveled forward, straining to hear her better. “Who?” he asked.

Ratha was still off in the past.“It wasn’t a real name,” she said softly. “Not like the names we give ourselves in the clan. But I needed something to call her by. I hoped that she was something more than just a little beast wearing the skin of our kind.” Her belly heaved as she tried to swallow her grief. “She was always jumping at thistles and getting thorns in her nose. She would never learn. Bonechewer didn’t like it when I called her a thistle-chaser, but he never liked what I called him either.”

“So that was her name? Thistle-chaser?”

“What does it matter?” Ratha’s fangs flashed again in anger as she spoke. “Names are for those who know what names mean. My cubs didn’t and never will.” She was trembling now.

Thakur rubbed his cheek against her.“I’m sorry, Ratha. I didn’t know how much it would hurt you to remember. Leave it behind.”

“I didn’t claw Bonechewer because he lied to me,” she said. “He just didn’t tell me the truth. And in the fight… she got in the way….”

Thakur put more firmness into his voice.“Leave it behind, clan leader. You have other things to think of now. ”

She gave a weak grin.“Such as lazy lumps in the mud and other people’s cubs, I suppose. All right, herding teacher, you don’t have to look so worried. I’m all right now. ”

Thakur caught himself. He had been thinking hard, but not about Ratha as she stood here before him now. His mind was on the story she had told him. When she realized the truth about her cubs, she must have turned on Bonechewer in a savage, bitter fight.

And the words she had said repeated themselves in his own mind:“She got in the way.” Then what had happened? Was the cub struck or bitten, perhaps more severely than Ratha intended? Enough to cripple and stunt the young body?

Ratha was staring at him with an odd look on her face.“I can also put footprints together into a trail, Thakur. You are thinking that odd outcast who lives with the seamares might be my cub. Well, that’s impossible, because she’s clearly a cub born in the last birthing season. If Thistle… if my daughter had lived, she would be several seasons old by now.”

The herding teacher knew better than to try arguing. Ratha had a stubborn set to her jaw and a tang to her smell that told him she had made her decision, reasonable or not, and would not be budged.

This bothered him a little. When Ratha was this obstinate, she usually had a good reason. But this felt more as if she were fighting because she was afraid, because she feared the outcast might be the daughter she had abused and abandoned.

He suppressed his impulse to ask her more questions and turned away, leaving her staring out over the beach. He had gotten what he came for. Not only did he know more about Ratha’s split from Bonechewer, but he now knew the name of the female cub. Though, as Ratha said, it wasn’t a real name, perhaps it had been used enough so that the cub might remember what the word sounded like, if not its meaning.

He said the name softly to himself when he was far enough away to be beyond Ratha’s hearing. Thistle-chaser.

Ratha tried to bury the feelings that Thakur had raised by indulging in something she had wanted to do ever since the section of wall had fallen into the river and transformed itself into a raft. The following day she turned over the seamare-watching duties to other herders and went off by herself with Ratharee on her shoulder.

Again she gathered sticks, bark, and brush. The task was easier this time, for she didn’t need to use thorn-wood. Ratharee was eager to show her skills once again, and soon the two were well launched on their project.

At the end of the day, Ratha hid her materials and the beginnings of her raft and returned to her clan-leader duties. But things seemed well enough settled that she could afford some time to herself, and she took advantage of the lull.

The following afternoon, Ratha crouched with her head bent over Ratharee’s back as the treeling wove the sticks and brush together with twisted bark cord. The raft was half-finished when she caught the scent of seamare mixed with that of the clan’s herding teacher.

She stood up as Thakur came forward with Aree on his back. Half-embarrassed, half-proud, she showed him what she and Ratharee had made. She couldn’t help a backward flick of her ears and hoped he wasn’t going to question her again about her lost cubs.

He said nothing about them. Instead, he circled the half-built raft, eying it judiciously.

“You might try adding some bundles of dry reeds near the water,” he suggested, and offered to go collect them. Ratha, suspecting that the offer was an apology of sorts for upsetting her, readily agreed, and after that the two spent all the time they could spare at the task. Sometimes, Ratha noticed, Thakur didn’t come, or he would arrive late from an unexpected direction, reeking of seamare. Not wanting to ask or answer any questions, she made him work downwind of her until finally the raft was finished.