THREE SISTERS Chapter 12
"
Bacho is dead
?"
Yorun, the blonde one, nodded. The crowd that had gathered around us was surprisingly still. Everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts.
For years now, we had hidden on the Hill, fought to defend it, and spent countless hours watching and waiting for Bacho or his son to come. For my daughters and me, Bacho loomed even larger: he was responsible for the deaths of my wife and my son, and for blighting the lives of my three girls.
Vingoldas nudged my elbow.
- "I'll take them to see Mother Nadesti." he said. That was when I realized that I had been wool-gathering, lost in my memories. I shook my head, to clear it.
- "Yes. Alright ... I'll be along."
I walked off, toward my house. Then I remembered that it was full of Lowlanders. I turned away, toward the river. Yevna and Guenna followed me.
- "Are you alright, Papa?" asked my youngest.
- "Would you rather be alone?" said Yevna. The gap between her teeth never failed to affect me. It hit me hard, just then.
I opened my arms, and embraced my daughters. There was no space for words. Guenna sobbed, a little; Yevna only clutched me, fiercely.
After a time, we separated. Both of my girls examined me carefully, obviously concerned.
- "I'm fine." I said.
- "Are you?" asked Guenna.
- "I am. It's just ... strange. For ten years now, I've dreamed of revenge. What I would say to Bacho. What I would do. None of it ever seemed to be ... enough."
Yevna nodded, as if she understood.
"We had our revenge on Kestutis." I said. "But Bacho died without ever knowing that the attack on us failed. That his son is dead. I meant for him to find Kestutis, tied like an anchor beneath his own boat. It seemed so real to me - as if it had already happened."
"Now ... I don't know."
- "Veran! Veran!"
Prosquetel WhiteHair was yelling at me, waving his arm. Gerimir, the young Lowlander, was running towards us. He slowed down when he realized that I had seen him.
- "Veran - you have to come!" he shouted. "They're going to hang those men!"
We ran. The crowd was loud. Giedra, with her friends Rion and Eliv, were brandishing a rope. Vingoldas was talking to them, while trying to keep himself between the angry women and the three new men. Nameless and Hedyn seemed to be trying to help him.
The situation was not as bad as Gerimir had led me to believe - but it still had the potential to turn ugly.
I stopped just behind Giedra. I was about to grab her arm, but at the last moment I realized how unwise that might be. Instead, I tapped her lightly on the shoulder.
- "Giedra. Giedra!"
- "WHAT?" She turned on me, angrily.
- "Come over here." I suggested, with a jerk of my head.
- "You're not stopping us, Veran!"
- "Those men aren't going anywhere, Giedra. If they're guilty, I'll
help
you hang them."
- "
If
they're guilty?" Giedra was still upset, but I could tell that she wasn't going to take my head off, or draw a weapon on me.
- "Come over here. Bring your friends." I said. Then I called to Vingoldas. "Take them inside your house. Put Hedyn and Nameless to guard them."
Eliv glared at me; Rion came along more quietly. I led the three women away from the houses. Guenna and Yevna accompanied me. Gerimir made to follow, but I shook my head, and he let us go.
- "You aren't going to talk us out of this, Veran." said Giedra. "None of your tricks!"
- "That's not fair!" said Guenna. "When has he ever played you false?"
- "Tell me." I said. "Why are you so angry?"
It was Eliv who answered.
- "The dark one - SlumpShoulder. He was at Nareven."
- "When you were raped? He was one of the men who raped you?"
- "No. But he was there."
- "He might well have been raping someone else!" snapped Giedra.
- "I'll ask him." I said.
- "You're going to ask him if he raped anyone?"
I took a deep breath. "I'm going to ask him if he was there. I'll find out how much he'll tell me. And then I'll talk to the other two. You were going to hang all three, weren't you?"
- "They're Bacho's men!" said Giedra.
- "Yorun and the other one are still boys. I'm not sure they've done anything worthy of a hanging, yet." I said.
- "They would have! Eventually. If we hadn't stopped them."
- "Giedra, you can't hang someone for what they
might
do."
- "Birds of a feather, Veran!" she snapped.
My eldest daughter intervened.
- "Really, Giedra?" said Yevna. "After what we did, the other night ... you'd still question my father?"
The big blonde had no answer to that.
- "While we're at it ..." I said. "Why were you giving Vingoldas such a rough time? He's our chief."
Giedra snorted. "You're the chief, One-Eye."
I stepped closer, so that our faces were only inches apart.
- "The Hill belongs to Guen Nadesti." I said, softly. "And she and I both say that Vingoldas is the chief. You want to contest that?"
I swear, she thought about it for a moment.
- "Alright. We'll do it your way."
- "I trust him." said Rion, the axe woman. Eliv nodded, too.
- "Thank you. Both of you." I said.
With that vote of confidence, I went to see Vingoldas. He was guarding the door of his own house.
- "I'm sorry, Veran." he said. "I was trying to stop them."
- "Don't apologize." I said. "You
were
stopping them. Hedyn and Nameless were supporting you. All that was needed was an alternative - something other than a 'yes' or a 'no'."
- "You have an alternative in mind?"
- "Let's talk to them. Get Tanguiste over here, will you?" I couldn't think of anyone better at reading people.
Tanguiste and I had a quick conference. She agreed with my idea, wholeheartedly.
The three youths were cowering in Vingoldas' house, watched by Hedyn and Nameless. I thanked both of them, and then called Yorun, the blonde one.
I took him into Guen Nadesti's house. Tanguiste and Mother Nadesti were there.
- "I have a few questions for you." I said.