Page 38 of Tears of the Wolf
Brynn looked up, taking in the beams that crisscrossed the roof and the carved runes that decked the support pillars. Some of the tables and benches had symbols carved into them, but most were worn smooth with years of use.
It wasn’t a stone keep like Ungamot or Paega’s home, but she could feel the history here. The wood had been scuffed and stained by people long since dead. She could see where Cenric had recently replaced timbers, his own handwork side by side with that of his grandfather.
Brynn had to admit the longhouse was hardly what she was used to, but she felt a pluck of envy in her chest. This wasCenric’s ancestral home. His family had a legacy, a history with the land.
“How long has the family lived here?” Brynn asked, still studying the beams. “How old is this longhouse?”
“Must be over a hundred years,” Gaitha answered. “But Cenric would better be able to tell you. His grandfather expanded it into what it is now.”
The longhouse might be a hundred years old or more, but Brynn couldfeelthat this place had been lived in for longer than that.Kahad sunk down into the earth, rooting deep into the bedrock of the soil.
It was an accumulation of debris—rushes on the floor, scraps of food, and generations of people living over the same spot. Some places in Ungamot felt this way, but not even Paega’s keep was yet this old.
“This place has memory,” Brynn mused. The longhouse appeared ordered and reasonably clean, if well-used. “There have been people here for a very long time.”
“Is that your sorceress powers telling you that?” Gaitha smiled. At least she didn’t seem afraid of Brynn being a sorceress.
“Yes,” Brynn confirmed. “It’s…there’s power in the earth below us.”
Gaitha shook her head. “You’re a strange lot, you sorceresses. Never understood you.”
“Have you known many sorceresses, then?” Brynn looked over her head, noticing the twisting shapes of leaping animals carved into the uppermost beams.
“I knew a sorceress who owned a brothel,” Gaitha said. “Strange creature, she was. But she kept the men from hurting us too much and always patched us up if they did.” Gaitha shrugged. “Treated me better than other masters I’ve had.”
Brynn shot a surprised look at Gaitha. She managed to stop herself from blurting out the first words that came to mind, but her face must have given it away.
“Aye. I was a whore, once. It was another life.” She looked to where Edric was directing several other men with barrels of salted pork. “Now I only have to worry about satisfying one man.”
“But I have the lust of ten men, so be sure to pity her just a bit, aye?” Edric shouted over his shoulder.
Brynn’s face burned. Was this considered normal conversation in Ombra? Would Cenric expect her to banter like this at some point?
“Edric!” Gaitha scolded. “Don’t speak that way in front of the lady.”
“I speak that way in front of you,” Edric countered.
“And I’m not a lady,” Gaitha snapped back.
“You’re my wife and you’re a lady if I say you are!”
Brynn watched the exchange with consternation, not sure if she should intervene or not.
Gaitha rolled her eyes. “Right this way, lady. We’ll leave that animal to his business. I’ll show you to your room.”
Brynn followed her, stepping carefully around the cold hearth in the middle of the room.
Cenric might have recently repaired this place, and his grandfather might have built it, but the roots of the building were deeper than that. Brynn wouldn’t be surprised if wattle and daub huts had once stood in this same spot, or even tents made of animal skins. Envy returned, twisting in her chest.
Istovari sorceresses had no roots this deep, no place this old to them. They kept up their network of connections, a sisterhood of women spread across Hylden and beyond. They married their daughters to aldermen and wealthy thanes and gathered to make decisions. Many served in the households of thosewho could afford them. A few traveled from place to place like journeymen, taking coin for work where they could get it.
But they had no homeland. Not really.
Brynn’s mother had told her the goddess Eponine had given them a gift in depriving them of their own country. It meant they were free to belong anywhere, or nowhere, as they chose.
Brynn had tried to remember that as a child when they were shuffled from shire to shire after her father’s death. Selene had left Brynn and her sister behind, going to seek the help of the Istovari Mothers, but Winfric’s armies had been after the girls, forcing them from their home.
Aelfwynn had pragmatically decided to ally with Aelgar, recognizing him as king. Brynn’s sister, for all her brashness and defiance, had known Hylden would never accept a woman as ruler.
