The Returning Read Online Free Page A

the earth like drums, and the cart rattled and shook.
    â€œ. . . this is something like!” Even Father’s big, booming voice could not quite carry over the din of their going. “Fast enough for you?”
    Laughing, Graceful hung on, to the cart, to her headscarf. Their way was taking them past Attling’s holding. Graceful had watched for it before they came to the curve in the road, was watching still so that her chin propped on her shoulder. There he was on the terraces, Cam Attling, her betrothed.
    â€œGar,” said Father. “They don’t do as well for themselves as they would have people think.”
    Graceful gazed at Cam, his dark hair lifting in the wind. A . . . a . . . a black flag , she thought.
    Kayforl proper was a ridge, the village dotted along its spine and the Highway running at its feet. Where the Highway met the village road, at the intersection called Castle Cross, Father pulled upon the reins. “Whoa, my beauty.”
    There was sudden quiet, then the noise of the day made itself heard: wind in the trees and grass; a mattock cutting into soil, tunk, tunk, tunk . Graceful pulled her scarf straight.
    The thick, dark forest that covered Hollen Hill thinned as it reached the creek flats. Graceful was looking at a blanket hung from a bough to make a shelter; a fire, with steam rising from a pot; a man, a woman, and two–three children. Uplanders, and just that bit too distant to see clearly, though Graceful looked and looked.
    So this was why Father had driven a circuit right through the village, and back again along the Highway. Abruptly the woman got up from the fire and gathered the children into the blanket-tent; only the man remained crouching by the fire. He did not look at them, not up at all, but gazed at the flames, seeming altogether absorbed. As with the woods near Fenister Fort Farm, the undergrowth had been cleared, and low boughs trimmed off, except the one that held up the tent.
    â€œFather? Is this our land too?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    Graceful thought of Attling’s Oldest watching her and Father. She squirmed on her seat. “Why must you check it?”
    â€œBe still, my maid.” Father stopped his staring and drew the reins tight. “And what do they do there?” He wasn’t asking Graceful. To Agerst he said, “Come up!”
    As they drove home, Graceful watched Fenister Fort Hill sort itself clear from the other hillocks of the valley; the roofs sort themselves clear from the hill; the buildings stand tall beneath them.
    Isla waited for them at the foot of the drive.
    â€œIt’s the Coverlasts, Master,” said Isla. “Mistress sent me to let you know.”
    â€œKnow what?”
    â€œThey’re here, the whole clan, and do want words with you.”
    Father went ahead, leaving Graceful to walk up the drive with Isla. “For I do not know what I shall find going on up there. The Mistress is all right, Isla, you are sure of that?”
    â€œAye, Master. She’s sat them about the yard and was giving them tea when I came down.”
    Isla, friend and servant and nursemaid, hurried Graceful along, seeming hardly to want to walk with her. “He shouldn’t,” she said. “I say it of one who’s been that good to me, but he shouldn’t.”
    Graceful did not understand.
    The yard was empty. Graceful pointed to the house. “Isla?”
    Isla stood where she was, pushing the dust of the yard into piles with the toe of her shoe. “I’ve my work to do, pardon me, Miss Graceful.”
    Graceful folded her arms across her chest. “Gar.” She used Da’s swearword.
    Inside, where a step led up from the stone flags of the kitchen to the wood of the passage, Graceful slipped off her shoes and padded along the boards. The hall doors were closed. Graceful stepped closer, right up to them, and listened.
    â€œI don’t know about the war changing things.”