While Beauty Slept Read Online Free Page B

healthy.
    “I thought . . . I thought you were dead,” I said.
    “I thought the same of you.” We stood staring at each other, two ghosts.
    “Mother,” I mumbled, “she said . . .”
    “She lives?” Father asked, surprised.
    I shook my head, and my voice trembled. “She is gone.”
    “Aye, it’s as I expected. I thought she might have passed on yesterday, but I couldn’t be sure.”
    How could he not know if his wife lived or died? “Were you not tending to her?” I asked.
    His face settled into the dark cast it took before I got a beating. “I did my best, missy. I watched my livestock die off, one by one, till I was left with but a few chickens and a horse. I buried my boys, four of them, while you lay abed!”
    It did not escape me that he spoke of the livestock before his children.
    “Should I have stayed in that house and risked dying myself?” he asked. “Who do you think left water and food at the door each morning? How dare you say I did not look to my family!”
    He might have helped us live. But I would not bow in gratitude for his feeble offerings.
    “I bedded down here in the straw,” he continued, “but now you’re better, you can get the house sorted. Just as well that I sleep in my own bed for a change.”
    “You forgot to ask after Nairn.”
    Father watched me, neither mournful nor hopeful. Simply waiting.
    “I think he will live.”
    “Good,” Father said. “He’s a strong one. I’ll need his help clearing the fields.”
    “He’s in no state to plow,” I said sharply. “He cannot even stand.”
    “He’ll be well soon enough. You can see to him until then. A few other farms lost animals, but none as bad as us, and those who were spared have sent meat and pies, enough to keep us from starvation. I’ll show you what I’ve got stocked away in the barn, and you can take on the cooking for this evening. Start by cleaning yourself; find something of your mother’s to wear.”
    She was not yet in her grave, and already he was urging me to rifle through her things. The anger I had kept tamped down for so many years swelled up, a river overflowing its banks.
    “I will set the house in order for my brother’s sake, not yours.”
    He stared, caught short by my defiance.
    “As soon as the funeral is held, I will leave for St. Elsip. Mother arranged a place at court for me.” The lie slipped so easily from my lips that I almost believed it the truth.
    “Court?” He came the closest I ever saw to laughing—his eyes widened and his mouth hung open. “They’ll slam the door in your face.”
    “I’ll find a better living there than here,” I said.
    To this he had no reply. I spent the rest of that endless day cleaning until my hands were raw and stinging, stopping only when my head spun with fatigue and I feared I would faint. Father wrapped Mother’s body in a sheet, grumbling about the cost of replacing it, and said she could lie in the barn until a funeral service could be arranged with the village priest. Before Father did his grim duty, I asked for a moment alone with her to pray. As he paced outside the door, I knelt alongside Mother and whispered what was in my heart: how much I loved her, my vow to do her proud. All the while my fingers crept along the hem of her underskirt, my nails cutting through the thread that held it together, until I felt the smooth metal disks slip into my hand. Five silver coins. All that my mother had to show for a lifetime of labor. I slid them into my shoe and rushed from the house before Father could see my red eyes and wet cheeks.
    During the following days, as my strength gradually returned, I saw Father only for meals. I ate more from determination than hunger, but I was heartened to see Nairn regain his usual vigor, and I sometimes set an extra portion aside for him to eat after Father had returned to the fields. I never saw my brother cry. As soon as he was able to walk, he spent most hours in the animal paddocks or helping