Unhappily Ever After

Chapter 17 - Home Making

We were in the long process of moving everyone to the castle. At first, there had been a lot of reluctance, a lot of loitering outside the gates, before the raiders started daring each other to be brave. Mort stepped across, and then everyone else had to or be shown up by a fifteen-year-old-kid.

I hefted a rock bigger than my head and began the trek up the stairs yet again. We were clearing the cellars because they were sheltered and spacious enough to house everyone. Somewhere above me, Kat and Vik and Lexi were talking. Somewhere closer, Tom and Dafydd were offering their raider friends ten grand for a few weeks' work.

A few steps ahead, Lee's stone slipped out his hands — missing his toes by a hair's breadth — and we were treated to several verses of swearing. Lee could be very creative with swearwords. And he was so good-natured about it that they never sounded unpleasant coming out of his mouth.

"When are we getting paid?" someone asked me, almost shyly. The closest faces turned to wait for an answer.

I tossed my rock onto a steadily growing pile, wiped my hands on my jeans and raised my voice loud enough for the whole courtyard to hear. "We're ransoming the Luna on Mayday, and then we'll all be disgustingly rich."

A few faces broke into hopeful smiles. The rest remained impassive or even twisted into doubt. I considered what Lee had said about the raiders believing it. Incentive — that's what I needed.

"And in the meantime, there'll be free bed and board here. Three meals a day. How's that sound?"

They were all so skinny that it couldn't possibly sound bad. I would buy the food. Hopefully I could find some volunteers to cook it, and it couldn't be too difficult to build firepits for cooking. The big room would work fine, if we could maybe patch up the roof.

I got a half-hearted cheer.

That's when I noticed my sister perched on a section of wall that did not look entirely stable. I didn't know when she had returned or how long she had been watching us, but she now looked closer to angry than furious, which had to be an improvement.

Eira glanced at me, frowned, and glanced away again. Her eyes settled on Lee. She hopped off the wall, landed lighter than a cat, walked towards him, caught his shirt and pulled him into a kiss.

I rolled my eyes skywards. Since Lee had clumsily asked for my permission to date her, I had decided that I liked him and, besides, I didn't give a shit about Eira's relationships along as she was happy. Maybe she was manipulating me into realising that. Maybe she was just trying to annoy me. Who cared? I had plenty of more interesting games to play than one-up with my little sister.

We finished clearing the cellars as the sun touched the horizon. Of course, no one went directly to sleep. Someone had found a keg of cheap beer. It tasted like goat piss, but it functioned just like expensive beer. Sitting with Mort and Lee and Eira, I drank until my smiles stopped waiting for approval and my laughs snuck out unbidden.

Vik and Lexi even brought Kat to join us. She sat beside me, never touching a drop of alcohol, and just listened. And the rogues noted her presence. None of them said a thing, or even looked at her for longer than a cursory glance, but the noise level went up and soon Ian's men started a raiding chant. I recognised the tune of it: I'd been whistling it earlier that day, and my mother had hummed it to make us fall asleep because her mother had hummed it to her.

I felt Kat's eyes on me, frowning and worrying, and suddenly I was grinning again. She must have thought we were savages. I should think that, too, really. I had been raised in polite company, far away from drunken singing and the rowdy contests of strength which took place in the courtyard above us. But I didn't think that. And when the song came to the chorus for the third time, I stared Kat in the eyes and joined in.