Sold for Endless Rue - Hardcover

MADELEINE E. ROBINS is the author of the New York Times Notable Book The Stone War and other novels. Her short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and various anthologies, including Lace and Blade. A graduate of Clarion, she is a founding member of Book View Cafe, where she blogs regularly. Robins, who is an excellent decorator of cakes, lives in San Francisco with her husband, their younger daughter, and a very energetic dog.

Chapter One
 
SALERNO, KINGDOM OF SICILY
ANNO DOMINI 1204
 
 
The world was all sound: the crack of brush underfoot, her own harsh panting, the whip of the branches as she pushed her way through them, and behind her somewhere a man’s guttural cursing. The girl tasted salty blood from a cut below her eye. There would be more blood if Urbo caught her. That thought gave her a burst of strength as she climbed the rocky hill, pushing aside the brush. Then, at the crest, she stopped, stunned. She had never imagined the vista below her. Houses spilled down steeply to a city, thence to a broad bay. She had never seen the ocean before; had she not seen the white curl of waves breaking on the rocks at the harbor’s edge, she would not have believed the flat plane of gray to be water. Above, the leaden sky, bleak and still, frayed to mist where it met the water.
Then at the farthest horizon the clouds broke and a shaft of light like a finger touched the sea and made it gold-lined silver. The girl forgot that she was under sentence of death and stood, heedless of runlets of blood on her ankles and feet where thorns had torn at them. Her fisted hands uncurled and her breath quieted.
Then there was a rattle of dirt and pebbles from behind her, and not far behind. The moment was gone. The girl began to clamber down the rocks as fast as she dared, making for what might be a path. If she could reach a cottage, people, someone, might help her. If she could find a church she could beg for sanctuary. If she could reach the sea, she could throw herself in and drown.
The path she found was only a beating-down of scrub grass that threaded among the rocks and wind-shaped trees. Some of the rocks were large enough for a scrawny child to hide behind; others were small enough to cut her feet and send her skidding and sliding down the hill. She barely looked ahead, concentrating on keeping her feet until she reached a boulder that nestled in the curve of the hill. Rounding it, she crouched down and peered back up the way she had come. Despite the cuts on her feet and legs, she saw no blood on the path. Perhaps she had left no trail, but her panting and the drumming of her heart felt loud enough to call any pursuer down upon her. She looked farther, drew back, looked again, weak with terror. Up near the crest of the bluff where she had first broken out of the brush, a man was crouched against the gray sky: Urbo.
Of course. He had promised to deal with her himself if ever she dared run from him. If he caught her there was no chance she could fight him: she was eleven years old, half-starved, nearly at her strength’s end. She would have to hide. She turned, began to run and slide, keeping behind the trees and rocks where she could. Twice she almost fell. She came down a steep path in a rush and very nearly slammed into a wall.
The wall was made of white stones, half-again as tall as the girl herself. She could just see the roof of the house within. Crying out, she ran the wall’s length, turned the corner, and ran again, looking for a gate or doorway, hoping someone would hear her and come out, even to chase her away. The gate she found at last, but it was barred against entry, and all within seemed ghostly quiet. She turned and ran on.
Next was a stone cottage; a pair of short-nosed brindle dogs was tied to the gate, and they bayed and snapped at her, drowning out her calls. She went on, expecting at any moment to see Urbo behind her, rounding the corner. There was one more cottage ahead, then a stand of cypress trees. She said a prayer to Saint Margaret as she ran. Here there were no dogs and no gate to speak of. The wall was low enough that she could see into the garden by the door. The first house she had passed looked prosperous but empty. The second, well-tended and well-guarded. This one was small, shabby but neat. The girl went to the door.
A woman’s voice called out before she could speak, a voice thick, full of rales. “Carolina? Is that you?”
The girl looked in the door and spoke as loud as she dared. “Help me. Please. I beg you in the name of Christ and all his saints, please please—”
“Who? What?” Although the day was overcast it was a moment before the girl’s eyes adjusted to the dim light in the cottage. Past the firepit, where only a few coals glowed, there was a wooden bedstead tucked against the wall, its covers thrown everywhere. From it a woman spoke.
“Who is that?” The old-woman voice again, but the woman was young.
“Auntie, I beg you, don’t rise if you’re ill—but please, I need a place to hide. A man is chasing me. He’s sworn he’ll kill me. Please, I’m afraid.” Face to face with another human being she could think of no better persuasion than her fear. But this woman was very sick; the cottage stank of illness. “Auntie, you’re sick. I don’t want to bring trouble to you. Is there a priest who would give me sanctuary? Anyone? He will kill me.”
“But you’re only a child.” The woman’s voice was a little stronger now. “Not from Salerno, either. Who would hurt you?” She sank back into the pillows again, breathing hard. She was pale as thin new milk and her dark hair was plastered against her head with sweat. “Carolina!” she called again. Then, “No, she hasn’t the sense to keep a secret. Here, girl.” She hunched her body toward the bed’s edge. “You swear that you’re not running from the law, your father, or the church?”
The child nodded mutely.
“Well, if you fear your pursuer more than you fear my fever, hide here.” She raised up the sheets and made a place for the girl on her far side, by the wall. The girl did not hesitate. Dying from a fever or flux seemed a kinder death than what Urbo had promised her. As carefully as she could, the girl climbed over the sick woman and burrowed down among the damp, rank sheets. The woman pulled the covers over the girl’s head and lay back, coughing. “Lie still,” she said at last. “You should be safe here, for a time.”
The girl lay still. The woman’s body gave off heat like a bake-oven through her shift. It was the first time the girl had lain in a bed of any sort for over a year, and for a moment she imagined herself at home, cuddled beside her mother after a terrible dream. Despite the heat in the bed she began to shiver.
“Shhh,” the woman murmured. “When my daughter comes, say nothing. Lie still.”
The girl did her best. “Aunt, may I pray for you?” she asked. “For whom should I ask a blessing?”
The woman coughed again. The cough was deep and liquid and released a cloud of foul air. “I will be grateful for your prayers if you can say them silently. My name is Sofia. Now hush. Perhaps we both may sleep.” Sofia rocked onto her hip to face the door, and the girl curled as close to her as she could, thinking a string of Aves for her savior until the prayers lulled her into a doze.
Voices wakened her. There was a child, younger than herself, calling, “Mama! Mama!” Sofia stirred in her sleep, stiffened as she felt the girl tucked against her back, then raised herself up on one elbow.
“Carolina, where have you been?”
“Playing at the fountain, Mama. I met a man.”
A man. The girl longed to look, but knew she dared not.
“Did you?” Sofia’s voice was weak but calm. She coughed again. “Who, little one?”
Another voice, and the scuff of boots on the hard-packed earth floor. “A traveler, sister.”
The girl’s heart clutched: she thought surely the room must ring with her fear. It was Urbo, speaking with expansive geniality.
Sofia lifted herself higher, perhaps to mask the way the girl had started behind her. “What do you want, brother? You see I’m not well. My daughter should know better than to bring a stranger home when I’m in this state.”
“He’s lost his little girl, Mama,” the child said.
“I have, sister. A girl of about ten years, red hair, brown eyes. She’s likely to be filthy after the chase she’s led me.” He sounded reasonable. Had the girl not known otherwise she would have trusted him herself. “Ran off to spare herself a hiding.”
“Why would you think to find her here?” Sofia coughed again. Pressed against her, the girl could feel Sofia, propped upon her elbow, tremble with effort. “You see that the only child here is my own, brother. I can’t ask you to—“
“She has been here, though, hasn’t she? Did you send her on?” Urbo wheedled, the voice he used before he raised his fist. He was still across the room: he feared sickness. “She might have slipped in while you were sleeping.”
Sofia dropped back onto the bed, breathing rapidly. Her heart beat fast against the girl’s cheek. Please let her not die, the girl prayed, and pressed herself again her, making herself as small as she could.
“Brother, if you wish to look in this house you’re welcome to do it, but then go; I have no strength for talking.” Sofia coughed again. “Carolina!”
There was a bump and a shift in the bed as the little girl came to sit beside her mother. Under the sheets the girl could not tell if Urbo was looking about, was deciding to leave, or had left already.
Then a new voice. A man’s, deeper than Urbo’s, demanding to know what a stranger was doing in his house. The girl could see nothing but knew Urbo must be gauging the newcomer, judging how much of an opponent he would be. If he thought the man not worth fighting, he would become more dangerous, as if he meant to throw his opponent’s weakness in his face. She had seen him do it. She tensed in her hiding place.
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