The clan meet by the sea

by PenguinofProse

Summary:

In which Kanthony exist in the Middle Stone Age, because of course they do.

Notes:

I'm probably aging myself with this one, but this definitely counted as a classic when I was a kid. Shout out to anyone else who was a fan, and please don't be offended that canon names don't work super well in this universe. I totally planned to do way more kids and YA classics in this series when I set out so maybe this is the first of many. Happy reading!

Content note for canon-compliant bereavements and canon-typical misogyny.

Kate is just a girl when she first meets Anthony of the Boar Clan.

 

She’s not a little girl any more, to be clear. She’s a girl of about that age to be just starting to look towards adulthood - and in fact that’s why her father has brought her here, to her first ever clan meet. She’s been learning to shoot for a few years now, too, and she’s getting quite good with her bow if she does say so herself.

 

The best and clearest sign that she’s not a little girl any more? Her father has given her a puppy, Newton, to bring up as her own hunting dog. He’ll grow up with her and be a young dog in his prime when she starts going out into the forest alone.

 

So - that’s why she meets Anthony of the Boar Clan, more or less. Her age isn’t a coincidence but the cause. Her father has brought her all the way from the Deep Forest to her first clan meet by the sea, because she’s of an age to come with him as his special eldest daughter while Edwina and Mary stay at home. And she meets Anthony, there, because the two of them are the only children their age at the meet - too old to play with little wooden aurochs in the sand, too young to join their parents at the meet proper.

 

Anthony is the one who starts it, in fact. He’s the one who gets their friendship off the ground. He walks up to her, while she’s playing with Newton on the edge of the sand-creche, and says just what she herself would say in his shoes.

 

“I wish I had a dog.” He tells her, grinning a not-so-little-boy’s grin.

 

“I wished and wished it for years, and now my father has given me Newton for my very own.”

 

“That’s lucky. Can I sit with you? My father says I have to make lots of friends from different clans, but you’re the only one with a dog.”

 

Kate pats the sand at her side. The boy sits, starts teasing Newton with the odd tickle behind the ears.

 

And then -

 

“I’m Anthony. Boar Clan. My father is our leader.” He says, puffing out his chest a little as if proud.

 

“I’m Kate. Lynx Clan.”

 

“I thought the Lynxes couldn’t come this year? I’m sure I heard my father say that they have a sickness in their camp.” He says, because he seems to be a boy who talks about his father a lot.

 

“They do, but I don’t live with them. My mother was a Lynx but my father is Forest Horse and we live with them. She died when I was tiny. His new mate is Red Deer Clan, but my sister is a Forest Horse too.”

 

“You must be related to half the Deep Forest.”

 

“It’s not that complicated.” She says, perhaps a little defensive. “Plenty of people have family in different clans or take a new mate later in life. It’s not weird. And in the Deep Forest all the clans are close friends.”

 

“My family’s not like that. My parents grew up together as Boars. They have eight children and I’m the eldest.”

 

“Eight?”

 

“It’s just as well there are so many of us, since I barely know anyone outside our clan. We trade with the Ravens a lot and I know a few of them, but you’re my first friend outside of that.”

 

She likes the sound of that, she decides easily.

 

She likes to be claimed as his friend so quickly. He seems like an interesting not-little-boy, even if he does talk about his father too much, even if he is confused by her family.

 

She nods a bit, tries to get Newton to sit still a while.

 

It’s not altogether successful.

 

And then -

 

“What’s it like in the Deep Forest? My father says that Deep Forest clans are better at magecraft and more connected with the forest.”

 

“I guess maybe that’s true. I don’t know anyone outside the Deep Forest even though I have family in different clans. What’s it like in the Open Forest?”

 

“I don’t know. I’ve never known any different - and this is my first clan meet.”

 

“Mine, too.”

 

“I can’t believe there are such tiny kids here. I wish my father had brought me from when I was really tiny so I’d know everything and everyone now.”

 

“I think the tiny kids mostly live closer. That one with the wooden axe is Whale Clan.” Kate points out.

 

Anthony looks unreasonably impressed at that. He looks really stunned that she can identify a tiny kid from Whale Clan.

 

He has a good impressed face. She might like to see it more often, she decides.

 

So -

 

“I’ve been teaching Newton to follow commands and do tricks. He can do clever things like a full-grown dog, not just play. D’you want to see?”

 

“Go on.”

 

“Here. I bet he’ll fetch this pine cone. Fetch, Newton. Fetch.”

 

He does.

 

Newton does fetch the pine cone - and sure enough, Anthony of the Boar Clan, whose much-mentioned father is leader of the Boar Clan, looks impressed as anything.

 

“I wish I had a dog. I’d teach him to do that.” He says.

 

“It’s ever so difficult. You have to be really good at training a dog to get them to do commands and tricks when they’re still a puppy.” She says, smug.

 

“If my father gets me a dog, maybe I’ll ask you for help?”

 

“I could help you.” She agrees, nodding. “That’s what friends do.”

 

…….

 

She spends a lot of time with her new friend Anthony over the next few days.

 

He introduces her to his father, on the second day. That’s obviously a big compliment, in his eyes, so she makes a point of introducing him to her father later that evening. 

 

Both their fathers say similar things, she notices. They both say how glad they are that their child has made a good friend. They both say warm things about friendship between clans, and Anthony’s father even says that the Boars could perhaps foster her for a while, when she’s older, if the two of them stay friends at clan meets in the meantime.

 

Kate already feels confident that they will.

 

…….

 

It’s on the final day of the clan meet that everything goes wrong - that Kate understands her confidence in her new friend was misplaced and understands, too, just how vastly different the different clans can be.

 

She and Anthony are just sitting on the edge of the sand creche, playing with Newton, when it happens.

 

“I realised something doesn’t make sense.” Anthony tells her. “I was talking to my father about you because he said we might foster you for a summer when you’re a bit older, and then he asked why you have a dog. And I realised I should have asked you sooner why you have a dog. It doesn’t make sense for a girl to have a dog. I think there must be something weird going on.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I just want to understand why you have a dog.” He says, in an odd, stiff sort of tone.

 

She frowns. “I have a dog for the same reason any other child has a dog. It’ll grow up with me and be a young dog in its prime just as I’m all grown up and ready to go out hunting.”

 

“So it’s a dog for hunting with?”

 

“Of course it’s a dog for hunting. He’ll help me track prey, and bring down anything I need help with, and he’ll fetch birds I shoot out of midair - and he’ll protect me while I’m out on hunting parties, as well. He’ll protect me from wolves.”

 

He scoffs. “A girl doesn’t need a dog to protect her. She has men and boys to do that. Everyone knows that’s how it works - the girls and women stay in camp, and the boys and men protect them and take care of them and go out to hunt.”

 

She frowns harder, now. “You think girls can’t learn to hunt?”

 

“Of course they can’t. Girls stay home. They make clothes for everyone, and they preserve meat for winter and cook for everyone. Sometimes they do magecraft. But they don’t go out hunting - that’s why girls shouldn’t have hunting dogs.”

 

“It’s not like that in my clan.”

 

“That’s weird.” He informs her plainly. “I think the Ravens are like that too - some of their girls hunt.” He gives an odd shiver. “It’s not natural. We Boars know better. Our women stay safe in camp. One of my sisters, Francesca, has never left our walls at all, not even to pick berries. My father says she’s going to have men fighting over her for a mate when she’s older.”

 

“How can you say that?” She asks, suddenly angry. “How can you be proud that she has been shut up at home with no chance to know the forest? How can you talk now about men fighting over her when she is older? Is that all your sisters are to you - pretty pieces for men to fight and trade over?”

 

“I don’t see why you’re upset. You’re the one who’s doing it wrong.” He argues. “No one will want you for a mate if you hunt like a boy. I’m only trying to be a good friend and warn you.”

 

She gets to her feet, hugs Newton determinedly in her arms. “You’re not. You’re not trying to be a good friend at all. You’re trying to upset me and tell me that the Deep Forest does it wrong.”

 

“What if something happens to you out hunting? What if you get hurt? If a wolf came at you, there’s no way a girl could defend herself from a wolf.” He says, rather than actually answering her point.

 

“I’ll have Newton to protect me, and I’m a good shot.” She argues.

 

“But - you’re a girl!” He protests, actually shouts it at her for the first time. “How can you be a good shot?”

 

“The same way as anyone else - I practise. Sometimes I can even get birds in midair.” She tells him, proud.

 

He doesn’t look impressed, this time. He’s shaking his head instead. “No. This is all wrong, Kate. This is wrong. You mustn’t hunt, and you shouldn’t have a dog. Girls have to stay in the camp. It’s not safe for them outside.”

 

“You’re being mean. You’re being horrible, and I don’t like it. I want to go and find my father. I think we’re going home soon.”

 

“Fine. Go home. See if I care.”

 

She turns on her tail and flees.

 

…….

 

That’s the last time she sees Anthony of the Boar Clan in four long years.

 

She doesn’t think about him in the meantime. She doesn’t. Or - if she does - she thinks of him only to drive her on to do better. Sometimes, when she’s out practising her shooting, she’ll think of him saying she shouldn’t hunt and she’ll practise more to defy him. Occasionally - just once in a while - she’ll remember his impressed face, and dream of a day many moons from now when he might be impressed at her shooting, rather than only telling her to stay in camp.

 

Mostly she doesn’t think about him at all, though. Truly - she doesn’t.

 

It’s another clan meet when she next sees him. Her father isn’t a clan leader - nor even close to it - so he doesn’t get taken along by the Forest Horse delegation to every clan meet. But he’s a loyal man and a good hunter, so he goes more often than some - and this time, too, he takes his eldest daughter along with him.

 

“You’ll be old enough to sit in on the meetings now.” He muses, as they set out on their way. They're heading to the shores of Lake Axehead, this time.

 

“Yes. I hope so. I’d like to learn more about the different clans.”

 

“I wonder whether your little friend will be there - what was his name? The Boar Clan leader’s boy?”

 

“Anthony. I expect he’s not so little now - and I don’t think we’re friends.”

 

“Yes - I remember. Anthony. Something about an argument on the last day of our last clan meet, wasn’t there? I expect he’ll have forgotten all about that by now. Certainly his father will have forgotten all about it. The way that man was talking about fostering you when you were older, I was half-convinced he’d picked you out as his son’s mate already.”

 

Kate stiffens. “I’m sure it’s not like that. The Boars would never take a woman who hunts as their leader’s mate.”

 

“Hmm - perhaps. They are set in their ways, aren’t they? Stubborn, like their clan creature. But I suppose we’re all set in our ways. We all like to have the rules and routines which make up our own clan.”

 

“Perhaps it’s best if I stick with the Deep Forest clans at this meet and stay close to you.” She concludes now.

 

Her father looks very unhappy with that, though. “No, Kate - you know that’s not the answer. It’s like you said earlier. You’re here to find out more about the different clans. I know you’re too old to be told to sit in the sand and make friends, these days, but that’s still more or less why you’re here - understand?”

 

“Yes, father. I’m here to make friends even though I’m too old to sit in the sand.”

 

“And don’t let Newton eat from anyone else’s bowl. There are some clans where that would be considered the height of rudeness.”

 

Kate nods, swallows, nods a bit more.

 

She’s somehow much more nervous about this than she was four summers ago.

 

…….

 

Sure enough, Anthony is there. Of course he is. His father is the leader of the Boar Clan - did you know? So he’s here, looking smug as anything by his father’s shoulder. Kate catches a glimpse of him within moments of their arrival.

 

The first thing she notices is that he’s certainly not a little boy any more.

 

He hasn’t quite grown into a man, not yet. His face is still a bit soft around the edges. He doesn’t have an adult man’s breadth across his chest and shoulders yet. But he has certainly shot up a lot taller, and started to put a bit of muscle on his arms and legs. Kate suddenly feels like a gawky overgrown child, when she sees him strutting about in a tunic to match his father’s.

 

She keeps Newton close, scratches behind his ears for luck - and then resolves to ignore Anthony of the Boar Clan.

 

She doesn’t even make eye contact with him, as the Forest Horse delegation crosses to their part of the camp. She keeps her head held high and her gaze straight ahead as she stays close to her father’s side.

 

She’s trying too hard, probably. In fact - Anthony won’t even realise it’s her. He won’t have thought of her, and he won’t recognise her, and it won’t matter to him at all that she’s here.

 

But she avoids his eye, anyway. Better safe than sorry.

 

…….

 

She manages to settle in and enjoy that first day, more or less. She likes to follow the adults to their meetings rather than playing like a child. She learns a lot about trade between the sea and the forest, and she’s determined to find it useful and interesting like her father told her to.

 

That night, she sits with her father and a few other Forest Horses on the shadier side of the fire. She’s not sure what she makes of all this sky, the twilight which seems to last forever at this time of year. She’s been Deep Forest all her life and it makes her uneasy to see so much blue all at once.

 

Suddenly, all at once, a tall young man is blocking out the light.

 

No - he’s not that tall. She’s almost the same height, probably. It’s only that he’s so very much taller than she remembers him and it’s making quite the impact.

 

“Kate?” He asks, as if struggling to place her. “Kate the Lynx who lives with the Forest Horses, isn’t it?”

 

“Anthony, son of the Boar Clan leader.” She greets him, doesn’t even pretend not to know who it is.

 

“Fancy seeing you here. I’ve not seen you at a clan meet in ages.”

 

“Perhaps I’ve been confining myself to camp, as you told me to.” She offers, sour. “I expect you’ve managed well enough without me in the last few summers. Found some other girl to order around, did you? Told some other girl she shouldn’t have a dog?”

 

“I’m not like that.” He protests. “It’s only that Boar Clan customs are important to me, since I’ll be leader one day. I do understand that other clans are not like ours.”

 

“It doesn’t seem like you do.”

 

“And is this Newton? He looks very grown up.” Anthony says, reaching out as if to tickle him behind the ears.

 

Newton growls. He just sits there, perfectly still, and growls the quietest, most menacing growl.

 

Anthony snatches his hand away again.

 

“I see you’ve made a proper hunting dog of him. He’s - he’s pretty fierce.” He says, perhaps a flicker of boyish vulnerability peeping through.

 

“He’s the softest dog in the clan.” She scoffs.

 

“Yes. Well. I - umm - well done. I should… I’ll go back to my father.”

 

“Yes. I expect that you will. I’ve been keeping well - thank you for asking.” She makes a point of telling him, dry. “And you?”

 

“Very well. Yes - I’m very well. Life’s good for the Boars at the moment. And - umm… thank you for coming. It’s good of you to make the long journey from the Deep Forest.” He says, as if being the Boar Clan leader’s eldest son gives him a right to speak on behalf of all the clans like that.

 

“By the spirit - we are blessed. The personal thanks of the son of the leader of some Open Forest clan which keeps its women behind walls. Truly - what a compliment.”

 

He nods, and frowns, and excuses himself - runs back to his father’s side, presumably.

 

Kate doesn’t watch him walk away. She doesn’t.

 

She doesn’t.

 

She does not.

 

…….

 

Kate does well at avoiding Anthony for all the rest of the clan meet. She spends her time with the other Deep Forest folks, for the most part, and when she does branch out and speak to someone from the Open Forest or Sea Clans, she tends to choose the women or the mages rather than young hunter men. It simply feels… safer, somehow. She’s less likely to have a stranger tell her that no one will ever want her for a mate, if she sticks to women and mages.

 

It’s not until the final day that she realises her behaviour has attracted notice.

 

“Are you not going to at least say goodbye to your Boar friend?” Her father asks, mild, as they are clearing their campsite on the final morning.

 

“My Boar friend?” She asks, makes a point of not catching on.

 

“Come on, Kate - I know you remember playing with Anthony last time we were here.”

 

“I was a child then.” She spits out, because it’s the truth.

 

“Mmm. Well - he’s certainly noticed that you’re growing into a young woman now. Did you not see the look he was giving you at the fire last night?”

 

She scoffs. “He’d never look at me as a young woman. He has made it quite clear that Boar Clan objects to women who hunt. I expect his father would never let him speak to me again if he saw me with my bow.”

 

“Be careful, daughter - you sound bitter.” Her father says, actually pulls her in for half a hug. “Go on - put that out of mind and say a civil goodbye to him. His people are camped only a little way away, in the direction of the mountains. Perhaps you and he don’t get along as easily as you did when you were children, but that’s no reason to cut off the friendship altogether. A person can never have too many friends. You don’t know what the future might hold.”

 

She hesitates a moment. She’s not a person naturally inclined to take advice. She’s too much like her clan creature, perhaps - solitary, self-sufficient, difficult to pin down. She doesn’t like to be told how to continue a friendship with a Boar who has insulted her.

 

And yet - this is her father. She loves him to the ends of the forest, or perhaps a good deal further. He has done nothing but support and encourage her - and get her a dog - since the day she was born.

 

So -

 

“If you think I should say goodbye, then I’ll go and say goodbye.” She agrees, with a tight, stubborn nod.

 

“Well done, Kate. I tell you - I think he’s a friend worth having, even if the Boars are set in their ways.”

 

Another nod. “I’ll leave my bow with you.”

 

“No - take it with you. I suggested you should say goodbye, not hide your true self out of deference to Boar Clan. A bit of a shock won’t hurt them. Perhaps if they see enough young women with bows wandering around they’ll get the idea, hmm?”

 

“Perhaps. Or perhaps they’ll laugh me out of their camp.”

 

“No one will laugh you out of anywhere when you have Newton with you. Go on - go now. You’ll be back before we finish daymeal.”

 

She nods one last time and sets out on her way.

 

…….

 

Her father had it correct - the Boars are camped very near indeed.

 

She finds them just a little way to the west, eating their daymeal and laughing loudly with each other. There’s such a lot of back-slapping and shouting that she can hardly make sense of it.

 

The party they have sent to the clan meet is entirely men, she notices. She can’t see a single woman amongst them. She can’t -

 

Oh - no. There’s one. There’s just one woman, dishing up daymeal from a cooking skin. An older woman, perhaps, but with fine features still.

 

In fact - she might perhaps look a little like Anthony, she thinks - an aunt or even his mother.

 

Kate hides in the undergrowth a moment, tries to decide what to do. Should she approach that woman and hope that she is indeed related to Anthony? Should she just walk into the circle of back-slapping and announce herself?

 

She’s beginning to fear that she’s out of her depth - out of her social depth, with no chance of making it in and out of here cleanly - when Newton lets out the softest little growl.

 

“What is it, boy?” She whispers to him.

 

He growls again, points off to the right.

 

Ah.

 

There’s Anthony himself, and for some reason he’s sitting a little away from the back-slapping, evidently attending to a boot.

 

She heads that way without hesitating a moment longer. She keeps to the trees, until she’s close, then steps out and announces herself.

 

“Anthony?” She tries, because that is his name.

 

He physically jumps. “Kate? What the -?” He shakes his head. “Why would you creep up on me like that?”

 

“I wasn’t trying to creep up on you. I just wanted to say goodbye and decided I’d rather not get to know all your friends.” She says, waves in the general direction of the back-slapping.

 

“You came to say goodbye?”

 

“That’s what I said. We’re leaving soon. We have a longer journey than you do.”

 

“Yes - so long that another half-day shouldn’t make any difference.” He argues.

 

“Either way, we’re leaving.” She reiterates, sharp. She doesn’t understand why he’s arguing about that.

 

“Well - thank you for saying goodbye.” He actually tells her.

 

She frowns, confused. “Thank you for letting me say goodbye.”

 

“Can I say goodbye to Newton, too, or will he eat me?” 

 

She actually laughs a grudging laugh at that. “You can say goodbye. He’s softer than he looks - I promise. And it was him who found you just now. I was standing around wondering if I’d have to walk right into your camp when I realised he’d seen you.”

 

Anthony nods, scratches Newton cautiously behind the ears. Newton allows him to do it, for a moment - and then seems to relax, actually leans a little closer as if in welcome.

 

And then -

 

“You could come right into camp after all if you want. We could spare some daymeal.” Anthony suggests.

 

“I don’t want. I don’t belong here.” She tells him, firm.

 

“You’d only be visiting for a little while - just long enough to empty your bowl. You could meet my mother.” He says, scowling harder than she’s ever seen him scowl before.

 

It’s all very odd. That’s what she decides. A person shouldn’t scowl like that when issuing an invitation or talking about their mother. It’s odd and grumpy and just plain unfriendly.

 

She shakes her head, hard. “No, thanks. I can’t stay. My father’s expecting me back again for daymeal. I just wanted to pop across to find you and say goodbye.”

 

“Yes. Great. Goodbye. And - good to see you. Perhaps we’ll see you again next time or the time after?” He asks - speaking on behalf of his precious father as well as himself, she presumes.

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“Or perhaps you’ll be fostered into the Open Forest one of these days. You never know. We might cross paths again.”

 

Ah.

 

No talk of her being fostered with the Boars themselves, now. She notices that really clearly. She notices that he doesn’t talk of her being fostered into his own clan, now that he knows she hunts and no one will ever want her for a mate.

 

All the same, she supposes this is the most civil conversation they’ve managed in four summers.

 

So -

 

“Perhaps. We’ll see. Safe journey home and my best regards to your father.” She tries.

 

“Thanks. You too. I haven’t seen your father much this clan meet. A shame - he’s a good man.”

 

“He is. And - yours, too.” She says, because she thinks it’s true. She thinks he’s more or less a good man, although he leads a clan which would keep its women in camp.

 

“Thanks. I’ll tell him you came by.”

 

“Great. Thank you. I… good luck with your boots.”

 

She turns and scurries into the undergrowth again as quickly as she can, then. She bolts for the trees like a lynx fleeing a bear.

 

Good luck with your boots?

 

What in the name of the World Spirit is wrong with her?

 

…….

 

She doesn’t see Anthony at the clan meet the next summer, because her father is not invited.

 

She doesn’t see him the summer following, either, because her father is dying.

 

It’s awful. It’s simply and utterly horrible. He has a horrid wasting sickness, and the Forest Horse Mage tries and tries to help him, but she can tell there’s nothing to be done.

 

When at last he dies, she’s not even surprised. In fact - she might be relieved. He had that sickness for such a long time. It’s perhaps better, she decides, that his souls are at peace now.

 

She keeps a straight face, all through the funeral rites. She cried and cried like anything, in the last moon or so of his life, but now he’s dead and they’re carrying out the body all she can feel is that awful, twisted sense of relief.

 

The death marks have scarcely set on his skin when the real trouble begins.

 

“Will you stay here now?” The Forest Horse leader asks Kate and Mary, as if it’s even a question.

 

“Of course we will.” Mary says. “We can’t possibly go back to my people - you know the Red Deer Clan would never take me back after I took an outsider for my mate.”

 

“Besides - Edwina is Forest Horse. She’s Forest Horse like our father.” Kate argues.

 

The Forest Horse leader only nods, and Kate feels a new horror settle into the pit of her stomach.

 

…….

 

She and Mary talk about it a little, in the next few days and weeks.

 

They could stay here, where they’re only mildly unwelcome, where the man they lost was a great and well-liked hunter, but his kinswomen are nothing in particular to anyone.

 

They can’t go back to the Red Deer with Mary. That’s simply not an option. Kate has never lived with the Lynxes, but that could be worth a try if living here turns really rotten, like a blackberry left too long on the bramble.

 

It’s the oddest and most horrible situation. All three of them are Deep Forest through and through. Kate feels the strongest sense of kinship with all the people and trees and the very earth around them. And yet their family is such a mix of different Deep Forest clans that they are suddenly finding that they belong nowhere.

 

She belongs here, and yet she doesn’t belong here, and she doesn’t know what to do about it.

 

…….

 

Two moons or so after her father’s death, an unsettling rumour comes to the Deep Forest.

 

It’s a Roe Deer trading party who bring it, as they slip down the Blackwater in their laden canoes. They heard it from the Salmon Clan, who had it from the Ravens, so it must be true.

 

The leader of the Boar Clan is dead - lost in a sudden accident - and his eldest son is the new Boar Clan leader.

 

Kate feels her gut lurch when she hears that. She feels it like a kick in the stomach. She hasn’t forgiven Anthony for what he said all those years ago, no, but she doesn’t want him to lose his father too. She doesn’t see the fairness in both of them suffering this horror.

 

The Roe Deer traders carry on, then. They speculate about how young the eldest son of the late Boar Clan leader must be. One thinks he can’t be more than seventeen summers, another thinks just sixteen, a third even younger than that. He’ll certainly be the youngest leader in the forest - that goes without saying - and there are rumours, too, that his huntsmen are rebelling against his rule. He might be in serious trouble, if he doesn’t make his mark on the Clan soon.

 

Kate tries not to feel too sorry for him, at that. She tries not to waste her breath on sympathy. Now she thinks of it, his situation can’t be all that awful. To have a dead father but become leader of a clan, and still have a mother and seven siblings living? That sounds glorious, compared with the life she’s currently living. It sounds a lot more pleasant than three Deep Forest women alone in the world, living with a clan who have half-forgotten that one of the three is one of their own.

 

In fact - it’s not fair. That’s what she decides, now. It’s not fair that she lost her mother and her father, that she’s now living with her half-sister’s people, that her father’s second mate is the closest she has left to a parent. It’s not fair, not at all, that Anthony has his siblings and his mother all the while.

 

That thought doesn’t make her feel less sick in her stomach, she finds. It doesn’t cure that feeling of being kicked in the gut. In fact - being angry and jealous only makes it worse, not better.

 

Somehow, she goes on feeling it all the same.

 

…….

 

She doesn’t go to the next clan meet, either, because she’s obviously not invited. Now that her father is dead, there’s no reason for the Forest Horse delegation to take an odd orphaned Lynx along with them.

 

They’re too much like their clan creature. That’s what Kate decides, as she watches them prepare to leave without her. They have the strongest herd instincts of any people she’s ever met. Now that her father is dead, she’s not truly part of the herd - it’s as simple as that.

 

She’s frustrated at the situation. She’d have liked to go to the clan meet this summer. She’d have liked to catch up on news, distract herself from her grief, and perhaps even keep an ear to the ground for any clan which might like to foster a lonely Lynx who’s decent with a bow.

 

Instead, she’ll stay here, and practise her hunting, and thank the stars above that at least she has Newton and Edwina and Mary.

 

She takes a small risk, as the party for the clan meet is leaving at last. She actually darts forward, seizes the arm of one of the more genuinely friendly of the Forest Horses - a man who would often hunt with her father, as recently as last spring.

 

“Please - Matthew - please can I ask you to take a message to the clan meet for me? Please - it’s important.”

 

“Whatever’s the matter, child?” He asks, as if she were a bothersome infant.

 

“Please can you find the leader of the Boar Clan - the new leader, a young man called Anthony - and please can you tell him that I send my condolences for his father’s death? Can you tell him that Kate of the Lynx Clan sends every sympathy for the loss of his father?”

 

“I’ll say it if I see him. We’re not friendly with Boar Clan.”

 

“I know we’re not.” She agrees. If there’s one thing she knows about clan relations, it is that. “But - please. It’s important.”

 

Matthew nods, and then shakes his head, and then keeps walking.

 

Kate has no idea whether her message will ever be passed on at all.

 

…….

 

The next few moons of her life are miserable to say the least.

 

She misses her father. She’s angry with herself for that rush of relief she felt upon his death. A better daughter wouldn’t have been relieved - not even at the end of his suffering. At least - she thinks that’s true.

 

She’s angry with Mary and with her father, too. They should have realised that the Forest Horse herd would view her and Mary as outsiders, once her father died - and that they’d even be a bit skittish around Edwina by association. They should have planned for this, or at least extracted promises from the leader and elders about their position.

 

The mage is still good to them, more or less, but that’s about as welcoming as it gets.

 

Kate spends a lot of time out alone with her bow, that year - or alone but for Newton’s easy company. She often leaves Edwina and Mary to themselves, back at camp, and busies herself with hunting. She's good at it, and she finds it distracting, and the Forest Horse folks she used to call her friends, more or less, do still look almost friendly with her when she fills the smoking racks with what she’s caught.

 

There’s one more event of note, as winter turns to spring. Quite suddenly, Edwina grows pretty. She blossoms into a proper young woman, all but overnight. It reminds Kate uncannily of the way Anthony of the Boar Clan suddenly seemed a young man, when she last saw him at that clan meet more than three summers ago now.

 

Ah well. Perhaps other people grow up suddenly handsome. Perhaps that’s how it is, for the sort of person who might easily find a mate or make friends or lead a clan.

 

Kate has a dog, and she’s good with a bow, and at least her sister and her late father’s mate love her.

 

She knows other people must have worse lives than that.

 

…….

 

The delegation who go to the clan meet the next summer come back with an unexpected companion.

 

It’s the first happy surprise Kate has known in years. They have a young Raven Clan hunter with them, who has been entrusted with an important message to Mary from the Raven leader herself.

 

Mary tells Kate all about it, that night, in order to ask her advice on it.

 

“I knew Agatha years ago - she came to the Red Deer for a while to learn magecraft. Then her father passed her on as mate to a man who was no good to her - but he led the Ravens for a while - and since he died, she leads them in her own right. The whole clan has supported her as leader ever since. They like her better than they ever liked him - that’s what I understand.”

 

“I think I know a little about that. She was already their leader when I was last at a clan meet.” Kate muses.

 

“Yes - your father told me that at the time. So here comes the most fascinating part. Agatha has heard about your father’s death, and I think she has understood that we are stretching our welcome here with the Forest Horses thin. She invites us to live with her, as her personal guests in the Raven Clan, for as long as we want.”

 

Kate blinks at her, stunned. “For as long as we want? We could live as the personal guests of the Raven leader forever?”

 

“That’s what she says.”

 

“Only - it couldn’t be forever. Of course - she won’t live forever. No one does.” Kate says, bitter, thinking of her father. “But at least we’d be welcome there for as long as she is leader. That has to be better than staying here.”

 

“That’s what I think. And I think… perhaps there’s more to it. She’s heard that Edwina has grown up into a beauty and wants to see more of the forest, she says. I think she hopes to make a match between Edwina and someone prominent in the Open Forest clans. But that might be in our favour. If Edwina finds a mate amongst the clan leaders, we’ll never be unwelcome again.”

 

They’ll never be unwelcome again for as long as she lives, Kate thinks, but doesn’t say. She can’t face any more thoughts of how flimsy a home and a life can be, of how much her circumstances depend on the health of her kin.

 

She leaps into the future, instead. “We have to do it, Mary. We have to say yes. It’s such an opportunity - chances like this don’t come twice. We’re moving to the Raven Clan.”

 

“Yes. We are. I suppose we should tell that young hunter that we’ll set out back to camp with him tomorrow.”

 

…….

 

The young hunter is called John, it turns out, and Kate counts him her first Raven friend. He’s impressed with her dog and her bow, and he’s a cheerful enough companion as the four of them set out through the forest to their new lives.

 

It does feel odd, leaving the Forest Horses behind. It feels strangest of all to leave her father’s bones. But Kate has never been more confident in any decision in her life. This move will be for the best - there’s no doubt about it.

 

She only hopes that her father’s spirits can forgive them for leaving him behind.

 

…….

 

Kate likes the Ravens at once.

 

They take after the best of their clan creature, these people - canny, perhaps even cunning, but not unkind. There’s none of the odd herd instincts she found so trying amongst the Forest Horses, towards the end.

 

She likes Agatha most of all. She’s never met such a fierce and wise woman in all her life.

 

Edwina is happy to be with the Raven Clan, too. She tells Kate several times over that she’d be glad to take a mate in some Open Forest clan, to stay in the area all the rest of her life. She feels like they have landed on their feet and might be able to put their father’s death behind them once and for all - that’s what she says.

 

Kate is aware that Mary is less happy. She knows this is a very long way away from home, for a Red Deer woman who has never left the Deep Forest before now. But she knows, too, that Mary would do anything for Edwina, so on balance, this should suit the three of them very well indeed.

 

Kate settles in. She gets to know the Raven hunters, above all. That John who first brought them back here becomes her good friend, and there’s a Thomas who’s friendly with her, as well. He likes to ask for stories of her life in the Deep Forest and her travels to the clan meets and so on.

 

John mostly just asks her for shooting tips, and she likes that better - but she’d rather have two friends than one.

 

…….

 

She has been living with the Ravens a little over two moons when she first stumbles into a Boar Clan hunting party.

 

She’s surprised it took that long, honestly. The two clans are near neighbours. It’s the time of year when the weather is just beginning to turn, when the prey is growing a fraction scarcer. So she thought that it might happen sooner rather than later.

 

Evidently today is the day. It’s John who spots them, just crossing the Widewater by a crossing point which the Raven party themselves had planned to use. It’s a common place to cross paths with their neighbours - that’s what he whispers to Kate.

 

“Why are we whispering? I thought the Ravens were friendly with the Boars.” She counters.

 

“We are. Or - we mostly are. They’re different from us - set in their ways. We’re on respectful terms but I don’t know that I’d say we’re friendly with them.”

 

“If we’re on respectful terms then we should greet them respectfully. They’ll realise we’re here sooner or later, and we don’t want to look like we were hiding in the willows.” She argues.

 

And then?

 

Then she gets on with taking her own advice.

 

She simply steps out of the undergrowth, towards the crossing point, her hands held high in greeting.

 

“Good wishes to you and all your clan.” She calls out softly, when she thinks they will be able to hear her without spooking every deer in the forest.

 

“Kate?”

 

Huh.

 

That’s Anthony, at the back of the group, now stepping forward around his clan-mates’ shoulders.

 

Evidently he’s the sort of leader who leads from the back. She didn’t know that about him, and yet she’s not surprised. He has his flaws, yes, but he’s not a leader who’d leave anyone behind.

 

His face looks wrong, she decides, as she takes a good, long look at him. She hasn’t seen him in ages, but all the same, she’s convinced his face looks wrong. His jaw is harder, his eyes colder. She remembers him as a boy with a very expressive face - amused or impressed or some other passing emotion - but now she has the uncanny impression that he is wearing a mage’s mask.

 

He’s certainly grown up a fair bit, too. She wouldn’t dream of calling him boyish around the edges, not any more. He is very definitely a man.

 

He’s pressing on, now, although she hasn’t spoken. “What are you doing here? You’re a very long way from home. Are you being fostered in the Open Forest? Or perhaps - perhaps you’ve taken a mate nearby?”

 

“Funny - I remember distinctly you telling me that I’d never find a mate.” She counters. “I’m living with the Ravens, for now at least. Their leader is an old friend of Mary and has offered to introduce Edwina to some Open Forest friends.”

 

Anthony frowns - that is, he frowns even harder than he was already constantly frowning. “When we heard of a noteworthy young woman from the Deep Forest come to seek a mate, we didn’t know it was your sister.”

 

Kate doesn’t know what to say to that. She ought to be glad of her sister’s renown, perhaps - that is the way to get her settled with a man of some status - but she doesn’t like to think of Boar Clan talking about her as if she were an object for discussion and observation and rumour.

 

Yet again, Anthony speaks while she is silent. “What of your father? Has he come to the Open Forest with you too? I’d like to give him my best regards.”

 

“He’s dead.”

 

Now, suddenly, his face does register some expression - namely, utter horror.

 

“Kate - I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I would never have asked after him so lightly if I knew. I’m so sorry.”

 

“As I am sorry for the loss of yours.”

 

“Yes. Thank you. That’s kind.”

 

Silence falls.

 

The two of them stand there, by a crossing of the Widewater, in perfect silence - while their respective hunting parties stare at them in confusion, no doubt.

 

Kate clears her throat, tries to put a stop to the odd interaction. “We didn’t mean to interrupt your hunt. We only wanted to greet you as friends and neighbours when we saw you.”

 

“Yes. It’s always good to speak as friends and neighbours.” Anthony agrees. “It’s too long since we shared company with the Raven Clan. In my father’s time, we would all come together for a feast every other moon or so.”

 

“I remember that.” Thomas actually says now, stepping up to join the conversation. “When I was younger, we had feasts with the Boar Clan quite often.”

 

“We should do it again. I must send a message to Agatha and invite you all.” Anthony decides.

 

Thomas goes one better. “Why not come back to camp with us today? Your party could eat with us and make plans with Agatha for a feast at the Boar Clan camp another time.”

 

“I could never refuse an invitation like that.” Anthony says, still unsmiling. “Come on, then - if you’re sure there’s enough food at your camp for more hungry mouths.”

 

“You’re not a large hunting party. I’m sure Agatha will welcome you.” John adds.

 

Kate can’t imagine anything more awkward than walking back into camp with Anthony of the Boar Clan at her heels, but she holds her tongue. She’s a guest of the Ravens, too. She can hardly afford to complain about any other guests they might invite.

 

Anthony seems to take this as his cue to introduce the rest of his hunting party. He has one of his brothers with him - Benedict, who is the next eldest and featured in many of his boyhood stories - then he has two young Boar Clan huntsmen called Ambrose and Corning.

 

Kate’s not sure what she makes of them being called huntsmen when other clans have hunters, but it’s not her place to say anything, of course.

 

She doesn’t like minding her place. She could swear she minded her place less often, when her father was still alive.

 

She introduces her companions, next, and then the two groups turn to head back to the Raven Clan camp together. The conversation is slow to start, at first. Anthony asks a few stiff questions about her move from the Deep Forest. The rest of the Boar Clan party are silent.

 

But then, at last, Thomas begins to tell a hunting story, and the Boar huntsmen follow his lead - and Kate finds herself with nothing much to do besides putting one foot in front of the other and wondering what happened to Anthony’s face.

 

…….

 

She’s no closer to solving the mystery of Anthony’s stony expression by the time they arrive at camp. She supposes grief is the most obvious explanation - she does understand that - but she has rarely seen anyone so changed, even by that.

 

She might ask him about it, she thinks. He has been quite civil today. If he happens to sit near her while they’re all eating, she might ask how he is getting along with the loss of his father, whether there is anything else which is troubling him. After all - she and he were friends of a sort, once upon a time, before she understood his nature and thought better of it. She could show a bit of polite concern for an old friend - a former friend - even if there’s no particular friendship between them now.

 

That’s what she thinks, until the moment he asks her to introduce him to her sister.

 

“My sister?” She asks, frowning.

 

“Yes. I thought I should meet her. I’ve heard that she’s a young woman worth knowing - half the forest must be talking about her good looks and sweet nature.”

 

In other words - he’s interested.

 

She swallows hard, tries to make some coherent reply. “I don’t think she’d suit you. She wants a love match with a man who’ll respect her, not a Boar Clan leader who would shut his mate behind the camp walls.”

 

“All the same, I’d like to meet her.”

 

“I’m telling you - she’s not for you.”

 

“She’s there, sitting next to Thomas, isn’t she? That’s her? You look alike.” He says now.

 

Damn him. Damn him for being a fraction too clever.

 

He’s gone. He’s already striding over there, evidently intending to ask Thomas to introduce them instead of Kate.

 

She frowns, hard, and wonders about kicking the nearest doorpost.

 

No. That wouldn’t help. And besides - Edwina knows better than to fall for such a rude, stubborn man. Edwina will see through him. Edwina is in no danger from Anthony of the Boar Clan.

 

Kate thinks that perhaps she might spend the rest of the evening with Newton, rather than human company.

 

She’s just wondering if she might abandon the fireside when she realises she has a new companion standing at her shoulder.

 

“Don’t let it bother you. He doesn’t mean anything by it.” He says, as if that’s any way to begin a conversation.

 

“I beg your pardon? Benedict, isn’t it?”

 

“Mmm. Please - don’t let my brother upset you with his attention to your sister.”

 

“I’m not upset.” Kate says, and hopes desperately that it’s the truth.

 

“He has to take an interest in her - or look like he’s taking an interest in her. He doesn’t have much choice. The huntsmen are pushing him to take a mate, and we’ve all heard about your sister. They tried to twist his arm and send him over here a moon or more ago, but he refused.”

 

“His huntsmen want him to choose my sister for a mate? How do a few Boar Clan hunters have any sway over who their leader takes for his mate?”

 

Benedict laughs a hollow laugh. “Not just some huntsmen, but The Huntsmen. You have elders here to advise your leader, don’t you? Well - we have The Huntsmen. We have a pack of young men with strong arms and fragile confidence - Ambrose and Corning and all their friends. Anthony spends more time trying to remind them that he's in charge than he does getting anything done.”

 

“I didn’t know it was like that. I tell you - the more I hear about Boar Clan, the more I think it sounds wretched.”

 

Another hollow laugh. “You might be onto something. There are good parts - we’re more tightly bound together than most clans. We look after our own. Stubbornly loyal. We have a strong sense of duty. No one is ever left out in the cold. But believe me - as Anthony’s brother, I wish The Huntsmen would leave him to make his own decisions.”

 

“Mmm.”

 

She feels a stab of sympathy at that, she finds. He’s lost his father. Now he’s trying to lead a clan, while a pack of young fools with more muscle than sense try to egg him on and make his choices for him.

 

As if sensing that she has softened slightly, Benedict presses on. “So that’s why he’s talking to your sister. Ambrose will probably arrange an accident for him if he doesn’t. His lot all think that Anthony needs to find a mate as soon as possible and that Edwina sounds like a good choice. They want the clan to have the status of their leader mating with the woman of the moment.”

 

Kate nods, and wonders why a near-stranger is telling her this.

 

He keeps going. “The funny thing is - Anthony was more interested in the idea, at first. When we first heard that an interesting Deep Forest woman had moved to live with the Ravens, he was determined to find out more about her. Wanted to know if she was called Kate and was a Lynx who grew up with the Forest Horses, in fact. Funny, that, isn’t it? And then he lost interest in the conversation as soon as he found out she definitely didn’t go by Kate.”

 

She scoffs. “You’re surely not suggesting he would be more interested if it were me?”

 

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m stating that my brother likes you, Kate of the Lynx Clan.”

 

“He barely knows me - and what he does know, he doesn’t like.”

 

“You’re the only woman outside the clan he’s ever known at all. Believe me, he likes you better than he likes much else - especially since we lost our father. I wish you’d seen his face when we had that message from the Forest Horses about your sympathies at the clan meet last summer. I’ve never seen his look change quite like that - like a man who strikes fire in a snowstorm.”

 

“You’re wrong.” Kate insists, frowning hard. “You’re completely wrong. We were friends for a little while, as children, but your brother has no time for me as a woman. He thinks that I’m unwomanly, in fact - he told me to my face I’d never find a mate.”

 

“Funny. I expected you to insist that you had no interest in him. Anyway - I don’t mean to start trouble. If anything, I mean to stop trouble. Please believe me when I say that he’s not overly interested in your sister - he’s just throwing Ambrose a bone to take home to The Huntsmen. And please - please, I beg you - go and say at least a sentence or two to my brother before we leave. Go and tell him how the hunting has been, or say that he’d better put in some effort when you all come to our feast, or - or anything, honestly. Just speak to him for a moment at least.”

 

“I don’t know what to make of you, Benedict. We met today and now you’re trying to give me advice and ask favours as if we were old friends.”

 

“Yes. I feel like we are. I was nine summers old when I first heard that Kate of the Lynx Clan must be the most interesting girl in the forest. I feel like I know you very well indeed.” Benedict says, dry.

 

“Hmm.”

 

“Go on, Kate. Don’t mind him going after your sister, and do tell him what your best catch this year has been.”

 

“I’ll think about it.” She concedes, in the end.

 

“Good. Thank you. You’ll be glad you did - just you wait and see.”

 

…….

 

The Boar Clan visitors decide to stay the night, in the end, rather than pitching camp on their way back home.

 

Kate doesn’t know how to feel about that. She wishes Anthony would just leave, honestly. She might feel less a tangle of sympathy and fascination if he would simply get out of her home.

 

But she doesn’t say that, of course. She just nods politely at him from the far side of the fire, while he speaks with Edwina all evening. And then, when everyone goes to their shelters to sleep, she simply sits outside with Newton, and watches the embers, and wonders at what an odd day it has been.

 

She doesn’t believe a word Benedict said, she decides. He was probably just up to mischief. Boar Clan men are not known for having straightforward and respectful conversations with women as friends, are they? So he was probably trying to embarrass her, somehow or another. That’s probably the truth behind his unexpected message.

 

She’s just scratching Newton behind the ears when she hears him give a low growl.

 

“Anthony?” She asks. She knows it is him, somehow - for all her protests to his brother that they barely know each other.

 

“Kate. Hello.”

 

He sits down next to her. He sits at her side without being asked, and she doesn’t know what to make of it. She doesn’t know whether it’s more friendly or presumptuous, whether she’s glad to see him or feels that he’s in her space.

 

“Can’t sleep?” She asks, because at least that is easy to ask.

 

“No. I don’t sleep well since… my father. You? Are you the same?” He asks.

 

She nods. He and she are not the same, of course. He’s the leader of his clan and she’s a wandering nobody.

 

But here and now, in this at least, they can pretend to be the same.

 

She gathers her courage, tries to say something useful to him for a change. “How are you finding… everything else? Leadership and The Huntsmen and all of it? I’m glad to see you sometimes get out hunting at least. That must be good for you.”

 

“Mmm. I like being out in the forest. And… The Huntsmen are simply part of it, aren’t they? My father managed them like it was nothing. I guess… I’m still learning. At least - I hope I am. I hope it gets easier.”

 

“It doesn’t look like it can get much harder.” She says, dry, thinking of his broken face.

 

He actually laughs a hollow laugh at that. She wasn’t expecting one, but it seems like not a terrible sign.

 

“What about you?” He asks now. “How are you getting on without your father?”

 

“As well as anyone ever does.”

 

Hmm.

 

Maybe he’s not the only one who has closed up like a razor clam, around here - all sharp and hidden and frightening.

 

He doesn’t push it, though. He says something else. “I’m sorry I didn’t know. We hadn’t heard about him, out in the Open Forest.”

 

“No. I expect not. Your father was a leader - people talked when he died. When mine died, all that happened was the Forest Horses forgot that they were our kin.”

 

“I’m sorry.” He says again.

 

She hums, nods, reaches for Newton’s ears as usual.

 

They sit in silence for a moment. She doesn’t hate it, honestly. In fact - she likes it better than the two of them falling over their words, insulting each other and arguing for no good reason. She does like it better than that.

 

When Anthony speaks again, it sounds sudden, and perhaps laboured.

 

“Come on, then - there’s something I’ve been wondering for - what? - eight summers now. If you could shoot a bird in flight when we were kids, what can you shoot now? Where can you go from there as a little girl?” He asks - asks it determinedly, somehow, the warm words quite at odds with his tone.

 

“I can get pretty much anything right through the eye these days.” She tells him.

 

She sees perhaps a flicker of his impressed face at that - just the faintest, most distant flicker.

 

She presses on. “And maybe I wasn’t being entirely honest when we were kids. I was just starting to get birds in flight at that age. I’ve got better at that since then.”

 

“Maybe I’ll see you in action one day. In my father’s time he’d hold feasts and joint hunting parties all the time. Maybe I could follow his lead and I’d get to see you shoot along the way. Might be worth watching for, if you’re so good.”

 

She laughs. “I don’t think I’m that good. Come on - surely you can shoot too?”

 

He shrugs. “A bit. We don’t shoot as much as we work together to corner big game and then go in with spears and axes. We like heavy weapons and a less subtle approach.”

 

“Mmm. Boar.” She says, lips twitching.

 

He laughs at that - a proper, full laugh. “We are that, aren’t we? We’re well named. Subtle as a boar blundering through a forest. I tell you what, though - we get the job done.”

 

“Your Huntsmen seem… ruthless.” She says, tries not to shiver as she says it.

 

“Yes. They’re not bad men, once you get to know them and earn their respect. I’m already doing better with them than I was in the beginning. And my brothers have seen me right. Benedict has been… he’s been everything.”

 

“He seems like a good brother.” She hedges, tries not to think of that odd conversation this afternoon.

 

“I’m sorry you don’t have a brother.”

 

“What - because a woman needs a man to protect her?” She argues hotly.

 

“No. Because everyone needs a shoulder to lean on once in a while, and it doesn’t seem like you have one.” He tells her plainly.

 

She doesn’t know what to do with that. She doesn’t know what to say, how to answer, whether to continue an oddly personal conversation with a person who was perhaps once - briefly - her childhood friend.

 

She flees. She just stands up, and says goodnight, and leaves him sitting there by the fireside.

 

She doesn’t know what else to do - and it’s not as if there’s anyone she could ask.

 

…….

 

The Boar Clan hunting party go on their way first thing the following morning.

 

Kate stands and watches and waves with the Ravens. She doesn’t say a particular and personal goodbye to anyone. No one even makes eye contact with her as they’re leaving, not really.

 

Anthony doesn’t wave at her. He doesn’t raise his hand, doesn’t particularly acknowledge her at all.

 

They always seem to make a mess of goodbyes, somehow. That’s what she’s beginning to learn.

 

……..

 

The next full moon sees a visitor to the Raven camp - Colin, another of Anthony’s brothers, and he’s carrying a message that the Ravens are invited to join the Boars for a feast followed by a hunting party.

 

It’s an oddly specific message. The Boar leader wants it to be known that everyone who hunts with the Ravens is invited, including women, since it’s the custom for women sometimes to hunt amongst the Ravens although they don’t with the Boars, and including any visitors or those fostered to the clan. Colin repeats three times over that the women really are welcome, as if he finds it inconceivably strange that his brother might want to invite women on a hunt.

 

Kate doesn’t shout about it. She doesn’t make a fuss. She’s a visitor amongst the Ravens, with no real home to call her own, and she hates being an argumentative and independent sort who feels permanently beholden to others.

 

So she stands there, and she nods and smiles while Agatha says that the Ravens will be delighted to take up the invitation, and that Colin should take everyone’s greetings and gratitude back to his brother.

 

Kate would rather send him a barbed joke, honestly. She’d rather make him a bit uncomfortable but also try to provoke a smile.

 

But it’s not her place to send anything, of course, so she lets it go.

 

…….

 

To spend a day and a night as a guest of the Boar Clan is a very odd experience indeed.

 

She’s one of only two women in the party, for one thing. Although the message made it so strangely and specifically clear that women were welcome, Kate and Agatha are the only two who go. And obviously no one would dare to treat Agatha as any less than she is - not even The Huntsmen - so it is Kate who bears the barb of every ill-placed joke. Even before the day is half-gone, she’s sick and tired of hearing young Boars tease her nastily - and still more tired of watching Anthony do nothing about it.

 

So -

 

“Hey - Lynx girl - watch you don’t take your eye out with your own arrows.” That Huntsman called Ambrose says, and then laughs at his own poor humour.

 

“A person would have to be impressively clumsy to take their eye out with their own arrows. Tell me - is it something you’ve ever done, Ambrose?” She retorts.

 

“Look, boys - the Lynx has claws.”

 

“Here - Lynx girl - this damn dog of yours is scaring all the birds. He’s going to -”

 

That was another one of them - Harris, perhaps - and he has thankfully stopped talking, now. He’s abandoned his sentence half-way, because Kate has just shot two geese in midair.

 

There was perhaps a bit more to it than that. It’s a routine she and Newton have well-honed. He finds a flock, sends them flying towards her, and she shoots a couple as they go.

 

Evidently it’s a routine which even Boars with their tasteless jokes find at least a little impressive.

 

So she looks for Anthony. Obviously she looks for Anthony. She wants to see what he makes of it - wants to see him looking impressed, ideally - but she finds that he’s talking to his brother and making no sign of having noticed her shooting at all.

 

And then, of course - of course - The Huntsmen start up again.

 

“You could have told us your damn dog was going to do that, Lynx girl.” Possibly-Harris snarks at her.

 

“Oh - I’m sorry - I thought this was a hunting party. So I brought my hunting dog, and we did some hunting. Is there a problem?” She asks, sharp.

 

“Lynx girl has claws.” Ambrose says again, even though no one laughed the last time, to be clear.

 

And then -

 

“She’s called Kate.” Anthony calls from the rear of the group, without breaking stride. “Her name is Kate and she’s a guest. If you have a problem with her, get hunting and bring home a better prize. Beat her at her own game - don’t be rude to a friend of our near neighbours.”

 

The Huntsmen subside, at that, into grumbles and quiet, muted laughter.

 

Kate marches up to Anthony and has it out with him, of course. “I don’t need you to fight my battles, Boar boy. Or - not like that. I don’t need you to pretend you don’t hear them for half a day and then step in to fight my battles when it suits you.”

 

“I’m only thinking as a leader should. I can’t be fighting my own men over every tiny thing. But they need to know there’s a line. They need to know when to stop and yield to my orders.”

 

“Ah - so this is about you. You fought my battle for your sake - because you won’t have them disrespecting you by being rude to your guest. I should have known.”

 

“It’s not as if I like the way they speak to you -”

 

“But it’s normal. It’s what Boar boys do. If I don’t like it, I should stay in camp.”

 

“I didn’t say that. I didn’t say any of that.” Anthony protests. “I meant it when I said you’re a guest. They should beat you at your own game if they want to make a point of beating you, not do it with rude words.”

 

She doesn’t know what to think. She can’t make sense of it - can’t decide whether he was defending her for his own sake or hers, whether she wants his help or feels patronised beyond belief. She can’t make sense of anything, when Anthony of the Boar Clan is near, and she hates it.

 

His shoulders have filled out since she saw him at that most recent clan meet. His shoulders have filled out very well indeed. She’s acutely aware of that, today, as she stands toe to toe with him and hiss-whispers at him for defending her to his men.

 

Suddenly, all at once, Benedict has a hand on her shoulder - and one on his brother’s, too.

 

“Let it go, you two. Your fight is not with each other. Go on - enjoy the day, bring home some game. I’m sure you’ll be glad to see each other later this evening when you’ve stretched your wings.”

 

“Not likely.” Anthony grumbles, as he turns to go.

 

“What was that? What did you just say to me?” Kate half-spits at him as he goes.

 

“I said it’s not likely that you’ll be glad to see me. You never are. Most ungrateful woman in the forest.” Anthony actually tells her, plain as daylight.

 

Then he turns, and pats Ambrose on the shoulder, and steers that damn Huntsman into the trees.

 

…….

 

She and Anthony have a lovely conversation that night, as it happens, when the rest of the Boar Clan camp is long since asleep.

 

Kate’s beginning to wonder whether there’s a pattern, now. She thinks she has understood that they sometimes get along and sometimes don’t. She thinks she has her head wrapped around that much. And this is the second time they’ve done better together under cover of darkness, but she doesn’t know whether it’s the night or the privacy or something entirely different which makes it happen.

 

Either way, she likes it. She likes to just sit and chat with an old friend.

 

“I can’t believe how many geese you brought back today. I’ve never seen a person shoot that many in a day before now. That’s an entire camp worth of snares, not one woman with a bow.” He says, wonder in his tone, while he stirs the embers of the fire.

 

She laughs. “What can I say? It’s what I do. Not as impressive as that stag you brought back, though.”

 

He scoffs. “That was a group effort. I can’t say I brought that down personally. They let me finish it - they always do, since I’m the leader - but I’d call that one Ambrose’s kill.”

 

“He’s one of the most powerful of your Huntsmen?”

 

“I guess so. I wouldn’t put it in those terms. Whoever’s fighting or hunting form is better is the one who holds the power. It’s all about the current strength of a man’s arm, not his experience or judgement.”

 

“Surely that’s just a recipe for young hotheads running a clan?”

 

“That’s why I’m here to keep them in line.” He says, dry, keeps poking at the fire.

 

“The fire’s fine, Anthony.” She snaps at him. “Stop fiddling with it. Sit down. Have a drink. Play with the dog.”

 

“Hmm. He is a good dog. Every time I see him, I’m jealous.” He admits, actually throws her a grin. “What’s the secret, huh, Newton? How does Kate have you so well trained?”

 

“Do you even have a dog?” She asks, rather than answering his question.

 

He laughs. “I’m the Boar Clan leader. I have a dozen or more dogs. But also - I don’t have a dog of my own. I don’t have one like Newton to follow me everywhere and fetch a pine cone if I throw it.”

 

“He doesn’t only fetch pine cones. He can handle fetching a stick, too.” She says, dry.

 

He laughs even louder at that.

 

She sits there and wonders at it a moment. For a man who looks like he’s carved of stone, by day, he laughs as loud as anything at night.

 

There’s definitely a pattern, somewhere, and she only wishes she could see it.

 

She strokes at Newton’s ears a while. Anthony joins in, too, and she enjoys the occasional brush of his hand more than she really should.

 

And then -

 

“Do you want anything?” He asks, sudden.

 

“What?”

 

“Can I get you anything? A drink? Some more food? I invited you to a feast but I barely saw you touch anything earlier.”

 

“Ambrose and his thugs aren’t great for my appetite.”

 

“I know. I’m sorry about that. I…” He trails off, frowns, reaches again for Newton’s ears. “I hope you don’t mind putting up with them just for the day to come and visit like this. It’s good that you met my mum and my sisters.”

 

She doesn’t bother pointing out that she’d never get to meet them if she didn’t come here, since they’re not allowed to leave. She doesn’t think it would be helpful - not now, not while he’s in a chatty mood, not while their hands are sometimes meeting between her dog’s ears.

 

Instead -

 

“I like them. Am I allowed to like Eloise the best of all?” She asks.

 

He laughs. “I knew you’d say that.”

 

“Mmm.”

 

“Can I get you anything? I’m going to sit up a bit longer. We could have a drink while we’re here?” He suggests once more.

 

“Go on. A drink - thanks. But I should get some sleep before the morning. I’ll need to shoot me a few more geese on the way home otherwise the Ravens will think I’ve lost my touch.”

 

He laughs and actually throws her a smile before he stands up in search of that drink.

 

It’s just as well he leaves her for a moment or two, then, while he’s filling a pair of birch-bark cups.

 

It’s just as well he leaves her to recover from the force of that smile.

 

…….

 

It goes like that as autumn turns to winter and then winter to spring - all feasts and shared hunting parties when the weather permits. The Ravens and Boars have long been respectful neighbours, but it seems that they have decided to be true friends, now - friends as they were in the time of that late Boar leader, perhaps, or perhaps even closer than that.

 

Kate doesn’t know which she prefers - when the Boars visit the Ravens, or when the Ravens visit the Boars. Whenever the Boars are in the Raven camp, she watches Anthony speak to Edwina and wonders. But whenever the Ravens are the visitors, she wanders through the forest with their hunting party feeling uncomfortable as anything with the bow and dog her neighbours think she shouldn’t have. She hates spending her time with those Huntsmen, hates more than anything the way she and Anthony fight over his sporadic attempts to defend her from their teasing.

 

It’s perhaps a little better than it was at first. She has earned a bit of grudging respect by being so good with her bow. But all the same, it’s not comfortable.

 

Nothing in her life is comfortable. That’s the conclusion she’s forced to reach. She doesn’t have a home. She doesn’t have people. She doesn’t like a hunting party and a feast with either Boars or Ravens as the hosts.

 

She likes perhaps a dozen human beings in all the world, on a good day - and one of them only really speaks to her by a fire at middle-night.

 

…….

 

When the Boars host a hunt and feast in late spring, Anthony has an unexpected suggestion. 

 

He thinks that the Ravens and the Boars should walk together to the coast for the clan meet, this summer, and he requests specifically that the Deep Forest visitors should join the Ravens and the walking party. He has decided it will be the perfect show of unity and clan cooperation to set the right tone for the clan meet.

 

No one disagrees with him, as such. It’s not that anyone actually argues against him. Agatha even says out loud that it’s a good idea and she’ll be delighted to join with her friends and neighbours.

 

But there are a few whispers, a few wonderings. A few people definitely think that his suggestion is an odd one.

 

Kate makes a point of thinking nothing at all about it, as it happens. She’d drive herself mad if she allowed herself to think about everything Anthony of the Boar Clan might ever say or do. So this is just another example of a thing she does not think about. It’s just another thing which washes over her, like the tides over a net stretched softly in the shallows.

 

The Boar Clan leader and his odder suggestions are neither here nor there.

 

…….

 

Kate largely keeps to herself, on the journey to the clan meet. She spends a fair bit of time with Mary and Edwina, because they’ve never been to a clan meet before, and they’re nervous about what to expect. She speaks to Anthony’s mother Violet, too, because she knows that the older woman rarely leaves camp and has few friends outside her family. She speaks to Benedict and Colin, just enough to be polite, and to Thomas and John about as much as she ever does.

 

Beyond that, she speaks almost entirely to Newton. He’s easier to get along with than anyone else in the party.

 

“Good boy. I know. I know you’re bored. Here, now - fetch.”

 

She throws a pine cone, hopes to distract the poor creature from the crushing tedium of walking through the forest at the speed of the slowest person. That might be Violet, she thinks, on this occasion. She doesn’t see why the Boars don’t have litters, honestly, if they will keep their women in camp but then expect to take a late leader’s mate to a clan meet.

 

Newton fetches the pine cone, because of course he does. So Kate throws it again, allows herself to wander a little off to the side of the group while she plays with him as she walks.

 

Suddenly, all at once, there’s a familiar voice at her shoulder.

 

“Can I take a turn? Would he fetch it if I threw it, do you think?” Anthony asks, for all the world as if a casual conversation about her dog’s antics is the sort of thing they share in the mid-afternoon all the time.

 

“It’d depend how he feels about you today.”

 

“And how does he feel about me today, would you say?”

 

“How should I know? He’s a dog.”

 

“Come on - I know you know his feelings better than that.”

 

It’s an odd conversation, she decides, even by their usual standards. She prefers it when they’re arguing, or even when he’s calling her unmatable. At least then she knows where she stands.

 

She has the sense that this isn’t entirely a conversation about Newton, and she doesn’t know what to do with that.

 

So -

 

“Here. Try it.” She says, putting the pine cone into Anthony’s hand, brushing his fingers too softly as she goes.

 

“Thanks. Here, Newton - fetch.”

 

Newton runs off in the general direction of the pine cone, at least. He doesn’t return it to Anthony at once, but he does more or less play the game.

 

Then Anthony speaks, and Kate begins to suspect that playing with her dog was an excuse.

 

“Did I hear that you’re bored? I’m sorry we’re not a fast-moving party. If you want to slip off and shoot a few geese in flight I’ll cover for you.” He offers, and she can’t tell whether he’s joking.

 

“I didn’t say I was bored. I said Newton was.” She argues. She can’t afford to be accused of rudeness, not when she has no home to call her own.

 

“Ah - of course. Silly me. Newton was bored.”

 

Right on cue, Newton pads listlessly back towards them, a pine cone in his jaws.

 

“Are you looking forward to the clan meet?” Anthony asks now, as if that follows. “I always think the coast is the best setting for a clan meet - and it should be an interesting one. I hear there’s been some trouble between the clans out to sea.”

 

She wonders how honest to be. She walks along, and frowns at her bored dog, and wonders how honest to be with Anthony, leader of the Boar Clan - that man who was once upon a time her only Open Forest friend.

 

It’s worth a try, she decides. It’s worth saying what’s on her mind. What’s the worst that can happen? He’s nothing to her - or he ought to be nothing to her - so it surely doesn’t matter if she sends him running with her words.

 

“I’m not looking forward to it at all. I used to get so excited about this, those couple of times I went as a kid. But I don’t get excited about much except hunting and Edwina’s happiness since we lost my father. And now… I don’t really have a clan of my own. I don’t have a place. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I might as well sit in the sand and play with the little children.” She admits, once and for all.

 

He elbows her at that - hard, a physical embodiment of one of their arguments, perhaps. “You’re talking nonsense, Kate. Of course you have a place here. You’re part of this Open Forest alliance. All your childhood you were a Lynx amongst Forest Horses, and that suited you fine. Well - this is no different. Now you’re a Lynx amongst Ravens and Boars. You’ll stick close to Agatha at the meetings, won’t you? You’re one of her best hunters. She respects you. She’ll want to have you with her.”

 

“I guess so.” Kate hedges - and wonders if it’s true. She wonders if he means it, if he really sees her role that way, and then beyond that she wonders if it’s actually factual and correct.

 

“If there’s anything you want in on which Agatha isn’t attending, let me know. I’ll find someone who’d want you in their party. I know I’m surrounded by The Huntsmen every minute but I have other friends who could use a hunter with something to say for herself in their party.”

 

“Of course you do. You have friends everywhere. I bet you know all the other clan leaders personally. Have you considered being more subtle about your status?” She teases roundly.

 

He actually laughs at that. “You’ll be grateful if you ever need a favour. I know a lot of useful people these days. I’ve come a long way since we were eleven summers old and playing in the sand with no other friends between us.”

 

She scoffs a little, goes on walking, tosses that pine cone for Newton to fetch.

 

And then -

 

“Thanks.” She says, short, perhaps a little reluctant. She’s not at all sure whether she’s thanking him for the vote of confidence or the offer of introductions, but all the same, she supposes she does perhaps owe him at least a word of gratitude.

 

“Any time.”

 

Silence falls.

 

They walk side by side for a few moments. Kate tries to think of some witty retort - of something sharp to put him in his place, or at least something which might impress him - and comes up absolutely blank.

 

Anthony clears his throat loudly and speaks once more. “I should get back to my men. Ambrose will have started some sort of trouble by now.”

 

“If only you had a few thugs around the place to keep him in line.”

 

He laughs a hollow laugh. “Yes. Something like that. I’ll see you when we make camp.”

 

“You’ll see me by the fire at middle-night, you mean.”

 

He doesn’t correct her. He doesn’t deny it.

 

He nods a short nod, his eyes hard and his jaw tight - and then he goes back to do his duty.

 

…….

 

He makes good on his promise to introduce her to his well-placed friends as early as the following evening, when they arrive at the clan meet. He seems determined to rush into the fray and greet anyone and everyone, in fact.

 

They’ve barely begun to pitch camp when he marches a perfect stranger right up to Kate’s toes.

 

“I was hoping to introduce you two. Kate, this is James - his father is the leader of Swan Clan, and he was fostered with the Ravens for a while when we were boys. James, this is Kate - Lynx Clan, currently living with the Ravens.”

 

“You must be the Deep Forest woman we’ve heard about.” This James says at once. “You know - that one. The Raven leader hopes to find you an Open Forest mate?”

 

Kate laughs. “That’s not me. That’s my sister, Edwina. I’m not really the sort to look for a mate - too devoted to my hunting, and too solitary like my clan creature, I guess.”

 

She watches Anthony scowl a guilty scowl, at that, and she’s grateful for it. It’s a scowl which brings her a certain satisfaction.

 

James, however, seems oblivious to the scowl. “I see how it is - not here to seek a mate, just to get stuck into the clan meet? Anthony tells me you might want a way into the Far North trade alliance discussion.”

 

“I might.” Kate hedges.

 

She doesn’t, as it happens. She has no reason to be particularly interested in snow and mountain trade business. But she’s oddly flattered that Anthony has been pulling strings with his friends in high places not just to show off his connections but actually to smooth a path for her.

 

She didn’t know he had it in him, honestly.

 

In fact -

 

“It’s not like you to think of it, Anthony. Don’t women stay at home and mind the camp? I’m surprised you think I deserve a way in to observe a trade alliance meeting.”

 

“Clan cooperation is important to you. You’ve grown up between half the forest.” He argues.

 

“That’s not my point. You heard me. You heard exactly what I said. You’ve always thought that women should stay home and sew up your jerkin, not involve themselves in trade alliances.”

 

“You can’t possibly believe I still think that.” He argues hotly. 

 

“It’s the Boar way. I don’t see any of your sisters joining us at this clan meet.”

 

“Fine - it’s the Boar way. But I realised years ago that other clans have other ways. I’m not going to defend our way when the ways of other clans are perfectly valid too.”

 

“But you still think it’s wrong. You think that women should be left at home. Your sisters -”

 

“Ahm - perhaps we needn’t dispute this here.” James suggests, sudden, frowning hard. “I think - ahm - you know. I just - I’ll be going, perhaps. But you’re welcome to join my party whenever you want entry to any matter for the mountain clans, Kate. Ahm - always a pleasure to meet a friend of an old friend.”

 

James turns, and goes, and leaves silence in his wake.

 

And then -

 

“You’re the third shelter on the left. Your mother had me helping to pitch camp while you were off with your friends in high places.” Kate grumbles softly.

 

Anthony frowns even harder than his usual frown, at that. “I didn’t -”

 

“I know. But… there it is. And - thank you for the introduction.”

 

She flees before she can do something really unacceptable, like ask to sit with him at nightmeal.

 

…….

 

She enjoys the clan meet more than she expected to, in the end.

 

She goes to quite a lot of interesting discussions, even says a few words herself at one or two. She spends most of her daytimes with Agatha, but she catches up with a few Deep Forest folks who at least remember her name, too, and Anthony does make odd passing introductions to an inordinate number of his important friends.

 

Honestly - he seems to know the sons of every clan leader in the forest, and seems determined to introduce her to more than half of them. He’s evidently taking this campaign to get her entry to every session of the clan meet really seriously. She doesn’t know quite how he made the leap from her strong will and upbringing across clans to thinking she actually had useful opinions about whaling practices on the Seal Islands, but she’s oddly flattered all the same.

 

She spends every middle-night with Anthony, of course - not with his friends, not with their clans, but just the two of them sitting by the embers of the fire.

 

Or - the two of them and Newton. That is always their way.

 

She gets to know him better as a person, in those nights. That’s how she’d put it. They’ve passed the point of being near-strangers who were once, briefly, friends. They’re thoroughly established as neighbours, now - people who know each other quite well, can cooperate more often than not, but do rub each other up the wrong way rather often, too.

 

So she learns all sorts of little bits and pieces about him, in those few middle-nights. She learns that he can’t stomach seafood, but he forces himself to eat it in order to be polite at occasions like these. She learns that he’s closest with Benedict and Daphne, of his siblings - and perhaps Gregory, too - and that he feels permanently guilty for not being so close with the others.

 

Huh. What a fool. As if anyone could be perfectly close with seven siblings at once.

 

She wonders what he learns about her, in turn. She’s not conscious of giving away anything personal. But they talk so much in those few days that she must tell him more than she realises, somehow or another.

 

There’s something magical about middle-night in midsummer. She’s heard people say that before and not really believed it. But this time - this midsummer - as she sits at this camp with this man, somehow she begins to believe that it’s the truth.

 

…….

 

Kate is in a good mood, on the last night of the clan meet, by the time Anthony sits at her side and hands her a birch-bark beaker.

 

That’s her mistake, of course. She should have realised by now that optimism is only ever punished by disaster. But it’s middle-night in midsummer, and the sky is all pretty with everlasting twilight, and the only man she has ever wanted to impress is leaning close to her side.

 

He has looked impressed with her twice already today, in fact. She had something sensible to say about different attitudes to magecraft throughout the forest, earlier, and he actually looked impressed even though Corning was standing with him at the time. And then later - not so long ago - a few of his friends amongst the leaders’ sons of other clans popped by to say goodbye, and somehow that James egged her into telling a few hunting stories, and Anthony pulled his impressed face at the one where she shot a bolting hind in the eye for a bet.

 

Yes. Well. She keeps count of his impressed faces. What of it?

 

So that’s how she comes to be in high spirits, as she sits with him tonight.

 

“I’ve enjoyed this clan meet.” She tells him, toasting him with her cup. “I like your friends outside of Boar Clan better than I like The Huntsmen. Although - Corning is growing on me. He’s not so much a bully as the rest.”

 

“Mmm. He’s not so bad. Each of them is fair company, on their own - it’s when they’re all together and urge each other on that they’re unbearable.” He says darkly.

 

“You’re doing well with them, though. You have them in line much more now than they were last summer.”

 

“Thanks.” He smiles slightly. “I’ll call that a resounding success.”

 

“It’s probably the best compliment I’ll ever pay you.”

 

He laughs at that, knocks his cup into hers. “Come on, then - you’ve had a good time? You’ve remembered how to enjoy yourself a little?”

 

“Yes. I’m almost sorry to be going home.”

 

His face suddenly clouds.

 

Honestly - it does. She has made a study of this man’s face, over the years, so she knows her subject matter when she says that his face abruptly changes for the worse.

 

“Anthony?” She asks.

 

“About that - about going home.” He swallows audibly. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. Could you please just hold your temper until I’ve explained everything?”

 

“Hold my temper?” She asks, because that doesn’t seem like a great beginning.

 

“Please, just - trust me? I just need to explain something to you.”

 

“Anthony -”

 

“I’m inviting your sister to stay with Boar Clan.” He says, all in a rush - and then winces.

 

“What?”

 

“I’ll be asking her in the morning. I wanted to tell you first. I’m inviting her to stay for the rest of the summer - and then into next year, if she decides she wants to stay. She’d be invited just as a visitor, to begin with - but with a view to staying on as my mate if she decides we could be a match. And you and Mary are invited while she’s thinking about it or as long as you want if she stays - obviously you are. So all three of you are invited as welcome guests for the rest of the summer at least.” He concludes, wincing harder than ever.

 

“You want Edwina for your mate.” She repeats back to him, stunned.

 

“I… yes. I suppose so. I -” He swallows loudly. “I hope I can be honest with you. So - honestly - my hands are tied. The Huntsmen are pushing me and pushing me to take a mate. There aren’t that many young women seeking mates between clans in the Open Forest at the moment. I hoped that I’d come to this clan meet and suddenly see a better solution but… I haven’t. Your sister is a good prospect. I - I like her. The Huntsmen have her as their first choice for me, too. It just makes sense.”

 

“You like her, but you don’t love her. She wants a love match, and you’re choosing her out of convenience.”

 

“Yes. I’ll be honest with her about that.” He says, and his face looks all wrong.

 

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you want from me.” She protests, crushes her beaker lightly in her restless fingers. “Do you want me to say I approve? I can’t. I can’t approve of this at all, and you know it. You don’t love her. You shut your women up behind walls. She’d never have the future I want for her.”

 

“I know. I know that. But… I’m running out of time and out of options.”

 

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” She repeats once more, helpless.

 

“Say you’ll come with her while she makes up her mind?” He asks, raw. “At least say that? Say you’ll stay with us for the rest of this summer? I know she would never make a decision without your approval and I think… you should be there.”

 

“That’s one of the reasons you like her - because you want a mate who cares about the approval of the family elders. Outside of Boar Clan, Edwina is about as timidly dutiful as a woman can be.” She half-spits at him.

 

“That’s not why I like her.” He argues hotly.

 

“No? Enlighten me. Tell me what personal affection you feel for her. Tell me that you’ve even noticed her, besides the fact that Ambrose and his thugs like the look of her.”

 

“She’s kind. Calm, dutiful - but not too timid. She’s hard as flint at her core. She’s endured loss with strength and dignity, just like you and Mary. She’s a good homemaker - I concede that I’ve noticed that. She’d do well with the Boars. She makes good salmon cakes. She’s a beauty - obviously she’s a beauty - but she… she seems a good mate, too.”

 

“She makes good salmon cakes.” Kate echoes, dull.

 

“She does. I’m not wrong.”

 

“Don’t you dare trap my sister in a clan full of those damn Huntsmen for the simple fact that she makes good salmon cakes.”

 

“Kate -”

 

“I hate this.” She informs him, because it’s the truth. “I hate it. And the worst part is - I know I can do nothing about it. We have no real home. We came to the Open Forest so Edwina could seek a high-status mate. So if the leader of the damn Boar Clan is offering, obviously we have to say yes.” She crumples her beaker, once and for all, with a firm squeeze of her fist. “We have to say yes, but I’ll never forgive you for it.”

 

“I was hoping you’d understand.”

 

“Oh - I understand. I comprehend perfectly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Your Huntsmen are monsters, and rather than take them in hand, you’re taking the easy solution. It makes perfect sense. I understand it, but I’m still furious.”

 

She leaves without waiting to hear what he has to say in response to that.

 

She stands up and leaves him there, all alone by the embers of the fire.

 

…….

 

Kate doesn’t speak to Anthony the next day.

 

Her sister does. Her sister speaks to him, and agrees to a long visit with the Boar Clan with a view to seeing whether they might suit as mates, and then passes that information on to Kate and Mary in turn.

 

So it is that they don’t go home from the clan meet. Or - they don’t have a home, of course, not really. But rather than returning with the Ravens to the place which has become home, the three of them set out back to the Boar Clan camp.

 

Kate can feel her heart thudding dully in her ears as they walk - with shock, with exhaustion, since she’s scarcely slept all week.

 

There’s nothing else to do, though. There’s nothing to be done but to keep striding on into the trees.

 

…….

 

They arrive at the Boar Clan camp to clear signs that they are to be highly honoured guests.

 

Kate and Edwina are to share a shelter with Anthony’s sisters, and Mary is to share with Violet. They have the most comfortable homes the Clan can provide them with, at least until the end of the summer.

 

Anthony’s sisters are fair company, as it happens. Kate knows them a little from all those feasts she has recently been invited to. She’d say she’s closest with Eloise, out of all of them, so she’s glad to be sharing a shelter with her now. That will make this whole experience less wretched, she hopes.

 

Or - a tiny bit less wretched, at least.

 

She keeps herself busy, for the first half-day or so after she arrives. She sets up her bed and her few meagre personal possessions. Violet shows her where she can find scraps for Newton.

 

Towards evening, Kate sets out in search of water - not because she couldn’t use the buckets waiting already inside the camp for the women to cook with, but because she’s not much one for using a bucket some other soul has fetched. Kate of the Lynx Clan fetches her own damn bucket - that’s the way she has always been.

 

She feels better at once for taking a short journey out into the trees. She knows The Huntsmen will judge her for it, if they notice her going out of camp without good reason, but it settles her souls to be out in the forest, even such a short distance away as the nearest good stream.

 

She’s just walking back towards the camp again when she sees Anthony coming towards her.

 

“I went for water.” She tells him, although he didn’t ask.

 

He nods. “There are buckets by the -”

 

“I know.”

 

He nods again, silent.

 

“I wanted to fetch my own.” She says, in case that will help.

 

“Yes. I expect you did. And - how are you settling in? Is there anything else I can get for you?” He asks, all in a strange, sudden rush.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

Another silent nod.

 

“Your sisters have a good shelter.” She tries now.

 

“Yes. Apparently I’m the clan leader around here or something.”

 

She doesn’t laugh at that. She can’t - simply can’t.

 

She manages a strained smile - one which looks more like a grimace, she fears - and swaps her pointless water bucket from hand to hand.

 

Only four days ago, she was sitting with this man by the fireside at the clan meet, keeping count of his impressed faces, thinking that perhaps they were friends again - thinking that they had finally, finally settled into a more straightforward sort of friendship again, so many summers after they first met and hit it off, then it so swiftly went sour.

 

Now he wants her sister for a mate, even though he just barely likes her sister, and she’s fetching water to try not to lose her mind.

 

He clears his throat, and it sounds too loud in the quiet forest.

 

“Please ask if you need anything, Kate. I want you to settle in.” He says, frowning hard as flint. “I hope… I hope you’ll be comfortable here.”

 

“I won’t be.” She informs him, because it’s simply the truth.

 

Then she lifts her bucket a fraction higher and goes on walking.

 

…….

 

That first week with the Boars is wretched.

 

It’s simply awful. It’s the worst she has felt since those weeks she spent watching her father die. She has no home, suddenly feels almost like she has no family. She’s abruptly closer with Eloise than with Edwina, somehow - more inclined to seek Eloise’s company - and she doesn’t understand why.

 

Meanwhile, The Huntsmen are monsters. They laugh at her every time she knocks an arrow. They tease Newton even though he’s twice the dog any of the Boar Clan dogs are. They try to spook her prey, so that she’ll miss her shots.

 

And then, back at camp, everyone coos endlessly over Edwina.

 

Kate barely stays upright, honestly. She barely keeps from curling up by the stream and sobbing her heart out. She stays in more than she’d like, but goes out more than the Boars would like. She eats less than usual, and still more than any of those perfectly sedate women around her. She even thinks less than usual, somehow - all the grief and strangeness of the situation seems to have filled her head with duck down.

 

Oh - and Anthony ignores her. There’s that, too. From the moment they have that awkward conversation by the stream, he goes on to ignore her, perfectly and absolutely.

 

Only Newton and Eloise make it bearable. Only them. Kate can scarcely even add Mary and Edwina to that list, now - she feels a horrible distance sprung up between her and them.

 

She’s a Lynx. She’s a solitary, self-sufficient hunter in a herd of mismatched prey.

 

It’s only a matter of time before she sinks her teeth into someone, at this rate.

…….

 

It’s Benedict who comes closest to feeling the snap of her jaw, in the end - and she’s aware that he’s the last person who deserves it. Of all the Boar men, he must be the least hateful.

 

And yet he’s the one who approaches her at the wrong moment, so he’s the one who feels the full force of her temper. He simply walks up to her, while she’s sorting through the mending pile for something to sew, and starts one of the odder conversations of her recent life.

 

“My brother sent me to check if you have everything you need.” He tells her, all stiff and awkward.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean? He’s worried I’m running low on sewing thread? Won’t be able to do my duty and sew up a tear in Ambrose's leggings?”

 

“No. I think he meant… more generally. Do you have everything you need while you’re staying with us? He’s worried about whether you need anything.”

 

What she needs is a home, a life of her own, and Anthony of the Boar Clan’s impressed face, but she doesn’t suppose it would help to mention that.

 

So -

 

“I’m fine.” She says, curt.

 

“Are you sure? He’s really determined to make sure you have what you need. He says you can take arrows from the -”

 

“I make my own arrows.” She snaps.

 

Benedict nods, silent.

 

And then, because he’s a largely decent person, he tries again. “You can just say if there’s anything we can do, Kate. Anthony honestly does mean to make you welcome, and he’s worried that Edwina thinks you’re not settling, so -”

 

“I’m fine.” She repeats, louder this time. “I’m fine, and this conversation is over.”

 

“Kate -”

 

“Just leave me be.” She half-yells at him, there by the mending pile, a torn cape in her hand.

 

Then she actually throws the cape at him as she turns and runs.

 

…….

 

She has been with the Boars perhaps a moon or so when she truly cracks - when she cracks once and for all, yes, but also in an unexpected way.

 

She wakes up one morning and offers to take Eloise hunting.

 

“Hunting?” Eloise asks, stunned, as well she might.

 

“Why not? You always say how jealous you are that I’ve lived out and about in the forest. The weather is good for it today. We could take a few arrows and teach you how to shoot a tree at least. Then perhaps we can move on to prey which is old and slow or already hurt.”

 

“You really mean it? You’d take me out into the forest and teach me to use your bow?”

 

“I mean it.” Kate says, steady, confident. It’s the first thing she has been confident about in quite some time.

 

Eloise is already on her feet. She’s already pulling on her boots, already heading for the door of the shelter.

 

“Should we tell someone that we’re going?” Eloise asks, as if leaving the camp without permission is the strangest part of all this.

 

“I don’t usually tell anyone when I’m going out. I suppose… you are Anthony’s sister. Perhaps we’ll leave a message with Mary in case your brother wonders where we’ve gone.”

 

Eloise nods, her eyes already on the camp gate.

 

Good. This is the best idea Kate has had in moons.

 

…….

 

They have a moderately successful time, that day.

 

Eloise quickly gets good enough to shoot a tree reliably from a fair distance. Hitting a moving target is harder, of course - but they agree to come back and work on that part another day. So by the time they wander back towards camp, Kate is feeling better than she has since she came to live with this clan.

 

Then she sees the Boar Clan leader standing by the camp gate with a face like thunder.

 

“You go on in.” Kate tells Eloise, quiet. “Let me deal with your brother.”

 

“Kate -”

 

“I mean it. I can handle him. You go and enjoy your evening. And - thanks. Thanks for coming out with me today.”

 

“No - thank you.”

 

Eloise squeezes her arm, then scampers past her brother to head inside.

 

Anthony watches her go. He stands there, watches until Eloise is out of sight and safely within camp.

 

Then he turns his wrath on Kate.

 

“What do you think you’re doing?” He half-spits the question at her.

 

“I think I’m teaching Eloise to shoot.” She says, carefully light, because it’s the truth.

 

“Don’t take that tone with me. Don’t play that game. How dare you? How dare you take my sister out without my permission and teach her - teach her that?”

 

“I think she’s past the age of needing your permission to do anything, Anthony. If her brother wasn't the most overprotective clan leader in the forest she’d probably have taken a mate by now. You know as well as I do that she’s a grown woman who knows her own mind.”

 

“That’s not the point.”

 

“Aha - so the permission is not the point? It’s the little adventure in the woods which troubles you? Perhaps the idea of her learning how to shoot?”

 

“I can’t believe -”

 

“You need to let her out, Anthony. You need to let her get on and do things like this.”

 

“It’s not your place to tell me that.”

 

“I mean it - you must give her a little more freedom, or one of these days she’ll take a lot more than you can imagine. She’s far more free-spirited than any of the other Boar women. She’s going mad playing by their rules. You need to give her the space to spread her wings before she does something you’ll both regret. In fact - wings. Why not foster her to the Raven Clan for a while? She’d still be nearby, but she could learn to be herself there.”

 

“How dare you tell me how to raise my sister?” He asks, steps right up to her, toe to toe.

 

She scoffs. “Someone should, and I don’t see anyone else around here giving you useful advice.”

 

He doesn’t say anything, to that. He stands there, frowning harder than ever - frowning right into her eyes.

 

She gathers her courage and presses on. “That’s your problem, Anthony - The Huntsmen are poison, and you try so hard to rule over them and keep them in line - and you’re trying so hard to protect your family, too - but then there’s no one left to tell you plainly when you’re wrong. And - to be clear - you are wrong. You’re wrong about keeping Eloise shut up with the Boars.”

 

He’s still silent. He’s standing there, all flint-faced and unmoving, while she shouts at him about how to raise his sister.

 

It’s one of the more unpleasant fights of her life.

 

In fact - she’s pushed him too far. She can see that, now. Now she’s finished that speech, and run out of words, she can see that she overstepped the mark. What was she thinking? This man holds her family’s entire future. She can’t be shouting at him for raising his family according to the traditions of his clan. He’s a powerful man, and powerful men make choices she doesn’t like, and she’ll get nowhere by fighting it every damn time he -

 

“Hunt with me tomorrow?” He asks, sudden.

 

“What?”

 

“Will you come out hunting with me tomorrow? And - bring Newton, obviously?”

 

“What?”

 

“You heard me. I think we should go hunting. I haven’t seen you since you came to stay.”

 

“I’ve been here. I’ve been sitting inside camp like a good Boar woman should, more often than not, so you can’t say you haven’t had the opportunity to see me.” She argues hotly.

 

“I thought you weren’t speaking to me.”

 

“I don’t have a lot of choice, since you singling out my sister might give me a place to live.” She admits, grudging.

 

He frowns. “What will you do if she does stay here with me? Will you stay with her?”

 

“I don’t know. I expect Mary will stay. As for me… I think maybe I’d go back to the Deep Forest. I might just travel alone as a Lynx for a while, or maybe teach other Deep Forest girls how to shoot.” She admits, honest.

 

Huh.

 

Funny how that happened.

 

Just a few moments ago, she’s sure this was a heated argument, but somehow now it’s a raw conversation about how empty and featureless her future looks.

 

He doesn’t say anything to her sudden flash of honesty, not as such. He only frowns a little harder and reissues that invitation.

 

“Come out hunting with me tomorrow? Please? We won’t take any of The Huntsmen, if that helps - just me and my brothers?”

 

“The Huntsmen don’t frighten me.” She says, and it’s perhaps a lie. “I don’t see why you’re asking me to hunt with you. Isn’t the fireside at middle-night more our routine?”

 

“I wasn’t sure if we still did that.” He tells her, his face harder than ever.

 

“We do whatever you damn well want. You’ve got my family’s future in the palm of your hand.”

 

“I don’t want it to be like that.” He argues at once. “Why is it that however often I tell you I don’t want it to be like that - I don’t want you trapped here, things like that - you always believe the worst of me?”

 

“Because you say it, but the world - your world - is still like this. It’s still the way it has always been. Ambrose is still baiting my dog. Corning still can’t decide whether to congratulate me or curse me when he watches me shoot. And you - you, yourself - are still standing here waiting to lose your temper at me when I come in from a day in the forest with your sister.”

 

He nods, frowns, nods a bit more.

 

And then -

 

“I’ll be at the fireside at middle-night. Join me if you can - if you want. I -” He swallows loudly. “I’ll wait up for you.”

 

“Anthony -”

 

“And - sorry. I’m sorry about… this. I see now how it looked. I - I was losing my mind and I lost my temper with it. She’s never been away for a day before now. You’re new to this part of the forest. I thought… I thought perhaps something had happened to you both.”

 

She nods, silent, tries to take that in.

 

“I’m sorry.” He says once more. His face is more frown than face, at this point. It reminds her perhaps a little of what she thought when she first saw him last summer - that it looks all wrong.

 

She nods a bit longer, wonders what to say. He fidgets with his hands, while his face remains fixed in that frown.

 

“I hope I’ll see you at middle-night.” He says once more.

 

“Perhaps. Yes. I… I hope so.” She manages, as if that makes sense. “Are you… are you coming back into camp now?”

 

“Ahm - no. Not just now. I - water.” He says, starts striding off towards the stream.

 

“They have buckets already by the cooking area for that.” She calls after him, dry.

 

She hears a hollow laugh - a laugh which doesn’t sound right, either - and then he’s gone.

 

…….

 

She does go to sit by the embers of the fire at middle-night, and it’s not the same.

 

It’s not easy, not comfortable. There’s no laughter. He never looks impressed.

 

But it’s better than nothing, at least. It’s better than the crushing bored loneliness of the last half-moon. He hands her a cup of tart lingonberry juice, and asks what she makes of the hunting around here, and she does her best to make conversation.

 

“It’s good for birds - good for a Lynx who likes her bow to practise shooting. I’m not sure why your men are all so obsessed with their axes.” She tries.

 

He nods. “If we hunt tomorrow you could show me the good spots for geese. I don’t use a bow as often as you do, but I like to shoot from time to time for a change.”

 

“Yes. Geese tomorrow. Good idea.” She says, nods a determined nod of her own in turn.

 

And then -

 

“Do you think Eloise has a talent for it?” He actually asks.

 

She snorts. “No idea. It’s too soon to say.”

 

He nods. “I might ask her about the Ravens in the morning.”

 

“I think that’s a really good idea.”

 

Another nod.

 

“I know that can’t have been easy for you, Anthony. I think -”

 

“Don’t.” He warns her, short. “Here - another drink?”

 

She holds her cup out in polite silence.

 

Evidently polite silence is more their style than easy laughter, these days.

 

…….

 

They do hunt together quite often, in the aftermath of that conversation. Four days later, he even instructs her and Ambrose to join him on a hunt, just the three of them.

 

It’s clearly a deliberate move. He spends the entire day arranging opportunities for her to show off Newton and her shooting. He makes terribly stunted conversation about hunting anecdotes, invites the two of them to join in far more often than they have anything to say.

 

But honestly? It’s honestly not too bad. It’s not a total failure. Ambrose even calls her morning’s work a fair set of shots at one point, which is the first pleasant thing the man has ever said to her.

 

She asks him determinedly about the origins of his favourite axehead, in turn, and earns herself a very long story about trading with the Sea Eagle Clan.

 

At this rate, the two of them will be the best of friends by next midsummer.

 

…….

 

She’d say that she and Anthony perhaps manage something like an uneasy truce, for the next moon or so - neither enmity nor the comfortable friendship she was beginning to think they might share.

 

They do sit together at middle-night quite often, but they never have that much to say. He makes deliberate introductions between her and all The Huntsmen, and she finds that it does encourage them to accept her and treat her more decently.

 

She still has to stomach the sight of Anthony and Edwina cautiously getting to know one another. They sit together for nightmeal, quite often, and every time she sees them together she has to remind herself firmly that it’s for the best.

 

It is. It’s better that her sister finds a good match and the whole family has a home. It’s better that she thinks of sense and security, first and foremost, and that she doesn’t think too hard about Anthony’s impressed face or Edwina wanting to fall in love.

 

She hasn’t seen his impressed face since the clan meet, for what it’s worth.

 

She thinks that’s a shame. It’s by far the most handsome of his faces.

 

…….

 

The summer is just beginning to pass away when the unbelievable happens.

 

Kate is eating her daymeal, at the time. She’s sitting in the middle of camp, sharing daymeal with Edwina and Eloise, listening to Eloise burble excitedly about going to the Ravens next spring. She’s thinking that perhaps she’ll spend the morning doing some of the mending in the shared women’s sewing pile, just to be a good neighbour, and then once she’s made a point of playing the game she might take her bow out for the afternoon.

 

She’s just cleaning her bowl and wondering if she’s allowed seconds when a shadow looms over her.

 

“Morning, ladies. It’s a good day for a hunt.”

 

That’s Ambrose, his axe at his belt, his hips thrust into her eyeline for no discernible reason.

 

Her sister handles his arrival the most gracefully. Of course she does.

 

“Good morning, Ambrose. Are you planning to hunt, then?”

 

“Yes. I’m here for your sister. What do you say?”

 

“What?”

 

“Are you in? I’m heading out with Colin and Harris. We figured we could use your bow arm - and your dog.”

 

“He is a good dog.” Kate muses, and wonders what is happening to the world.

 

Ambrose nods. “Better trained than any of our Clan dogs - but don’t tell Anthony I said that. Come on, then. We should get going.”

 

Kate doesn’t remember agreeing to the idea, of course. But all the same, she’s not a fool. She’s not going to reject a peace gesture when it’s offered to her.

 

She stands up, says her goodbyes, walks away from the fireside.

 

“I just need to grab my bow.”

 

“Sure. Bring plenty of arrows. We might need them. Colin fancies goose for nightmeal, he said.”

 

“Great - goose. I can do that.”

 

Ambrose even smiles, at that - or at least grins a wolfish grin. “I knew it. Good to have you in the party, Lynx Girl.”

 

“Thanks for asking me.”

 

“Any time. You know what - if Anthony does keep your sister here as his mate, you should hang around too. We might not mind if you called yourself a Huntsman, even.”

 

Of course.

 

She couldn’t possibly be herself. She has to wear their label. But she does understand it as a warm welcome from a man who knows nothing whatsoever about welcoming a woman with a bow.

 

In fact -

 

“I’d keep being Lynx Girl, I think. That’s my name now, right?” She asks, brows raised.

 

“Sure thing, Lynx Girl. Come on - get that bow. We’ll see you at the gate.”

 

She nods, dashes off to get her bow. She’s not normally one to do what The Huntsmen order, but on this occasion it does seem wise. 

 

She’s not even worried that it’s a trap, if Colin is involved.

 

That’s a cynical thought, of course, but it bears thinking. She’s not a total fool. So she’s confident that this is a good thing, this morning, even if it’s also a rather odd turn of events.

 

She grabs her bow and sets out for the gate. She has a skein or two of geese to take care of.

 

…….

 

Anthony’s face looks better, when she sees him by the fire that night. 

 

It’s the oddest thing, but she could swear it’s true. He’s grinning a soft grin, a bit of warmth actually reaching his eyes for a change.

 

And then -

 

“You wouldn’t believe it - I’ve had the strangest day.” He tells her.

 

“I bet mine was stranger.” She says, because it’s true.

 

“No - I win this one.” He insists. “I guess they were both strange for the same reason, but it looked strangest from where I was sitting. At least you witnessed the strangeness while it was unfolding so you had some context. But me? I’m here at the fire when my mother starts dishing out nightmeal, and I’m about to take one of the first bowls, and Ambrose says to me, clear as anything, save that one for Lynx Girl - she earned it.”

 

Kate bursts out laughing at that. “He actually said that?”

 

“Every word. So then the whole story comes out - you’d been out on a goose quest all day, and you’d shot three in one flurry at one point, and he’s decided that you get the first pick at nightmeal.”

 

“I did wonder what was going on when Colin served me a bowl before I saw any of the other women eating. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to go the other way - I’m supposed to serve a bowl to the clan leader’s brother.”

 

“Not any more. You’re one of The Huntsmen now.”

 

“No - I’m still Lynx Girl. We discussed it.”

 

It’s Anthony’s turn to let out a sudden laugh, at that - and to throw her a warm look as he goes.

 

She clears her throat. “Thank you. I know it’s going this way because you put all that effort into getting The Huntsmen to show me some respect. You didn’t want your clan to be like that, not any more - and so you made it happen.” She muses.

 

He scoffs. “I didn’t do enough. I’ve felt like I’m not doing enough every day since I met you, I’m pretty sure. Besides - your bow arm did most of it. Ambrose is a thug, but he’s not a fool. He knows he’s better off calling you a friend than an enemy.”

 

“All the same - thank you. I feel more comfortable here than I was expecting.” That’s not saying much, but it’s better than nothing.

 

In fact -

 

“That’s not saying much.” Anthony grumbles, as she should have known he would.

 

She hums a little - neither agreeing nor disagreeing - then takes a sip from her drink.

 

He speaks up again, now. “I’ve been thinking - we should make the most of the last good weather before the summer ends. We could take a few more hunting parties out this week, fill the smoking racks - and stretch our legs before the weather turns. You won’t like being stuck in camp when we get the first heavy snow a couple of moons from now.”

 

“You’re right. We should fill our stores and enjoy the good weather while it lasts.” She agrees, rather than telling him that she’s not supposed to be here by the time the first heavy snow hits.

 

It’s true, though. She’s not. He’s supposed to have convinced her sister to stay as his mate, by then, and Kate is supposed to wander lost and lonely through the Deep Forest.

 

“What - do you agree with me now, sometimes?” He asks, dry.

 

She laughs. “Only when you’re speaking sense.”

 

“Great. I’m going to make the most of it while I’m onto a good thing. Come out with me tomorrow? Just the two of us? We can just take bows and move quickly - no Huntsmen or axes in sight. It’ll be just the sort of hunt you like.”

 

“You’re still speaking sense. Go on, then.” She agrees, grinning.

 

He laughs. “Perfect. I’ll see you at dawn? We can head out before the camp is awake and make a whole day of it.”

 

“I like the sound of that.” It sounds a bit like a fireside at middle-night, she thinks, only lasting all the entire day.

 

“Here - do you want another drink?”

 

“Thanks. That’s good.” She says, waves at him to stop pouring. “Come on, then - what were you up to all that time I was bonding with The Huntsmen? Were you sat at home doing my mending while I was out with my bow?”

 

“I took Eloise out towards the Widewater to walk with Agatha a while and get to know her before next spring.”

 

“You did? That’s good. How is she? How are the Ravens? Tell me everything.” She bids him, leaning forward around her cup.

 

He laughs, shakes his head - and then throws her the most brilliant smile.

 

It knocks her back a moment, she finds. It forces her to reassess the world. All these years, she has thought that his impressed face is her favourite of his faces. She’s rather stunned to find that he has another face she likes even more.

 

She doesn’t know how she’d characterise it. A good-news-about-his-sister smile? A catching-up-with-a-friend smile? She’s not at all sure.

 

Perhaps it’s just the face he wears by a fireside at middle-night, when her luck is really, really good.

 

…….

 

They set out the following morning, bright and early, with full quivers on their shoulders and broad smiles on their faces.

 

Honestly - Kate has never seen Anthony in such a transparently good mood, or at least not as an adult. He looks more like the carefree boy she first knew, around his eyes - and it’s only that those eyes are set in the body of a rather distracting grown man. The other men in camp are beginning to wear sleeves, at this time of year, but for some reason Anthony has left his arms bare to her gaze, today.

 

She doesn’t mention that. Of course she doesn’t. She only says briefly that it’s good to see him looking relaxed for a change, and then swiftly moves on to a conversation about where they might hunt.

 

He matches her tone, and chooses a path, and they press on in that direction, ambling slowly, chatting softly.

 

“Here - do you see those tracks on the left?” She asks, at one point.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then why are we still walking this way?”

 

“Because that’s a big stag, and you wanted a fast-moving, light hunt for birds and small game.”

 

“No - you wanted that. Or - you decided for me that I wanted it.” She argues.

 

“Was I wrong?”

 

“You weren’t wrong.” She concedes, grinning.

 

He smirks at her in victory and goes on walking.

 

The morning passes enjoyably like that - conversation and light teasing, mild weather and bare arms. At one point they find a pair of wood pigeons and Kate shoots both. A little later they find another pair, much the same, and Anthony shoots neither.

 

They both laugh quite loudly at that. He’s not a bad shot - not at all - but he promised he’d match her, and he didn’t, and the situation is honestly quite funny.

 

That’s when he makes her promise to give him a shooting lesson, if they find a decent skein of geese later in the day. That’s the moment which seals their fate, in a way - that moment, or any one of the lifetime of moments before it - but it’s that moment Kate will look back on, in all the summers ahead of her.

 

She doesn’t know it at the time, of course. At the time he requests that shooting lesson because he’s just missed two shots, she only laughs and agrees and pats him condescendingly on the shoulder.

 

He throws her a grin, and they move on through the forest.

 

…….

 

It’s mid-afternoon when they find the geese.

 

“Newton’s seen something - a good skein, I think.” Kate whispers.

 

“How can you tell that? Does he talk to you?” Anthony asks, incredulous. “How can you tell from just this that he’s found a skein of geese?”

 

“It’s all in the ears. You’d know if you had a dog of your own.” She tells him smugly. “Now come on - less talking, more shooting. Get yourself set up. We’ll send Newton in to get them off the ground when you’re ready.”

 

“You promised me a lesson.” He reminds her.

 

She nods. “But you’re going to have to draw your own bowstring first, Anthony. I’m sure you can manage that.” She teases.

 

He grins, knocks an arrow, draws his bow.

 

“You’re going to want your quiver placed better than that so you can draw a couple more before they’re out of range.” She argues.

 

“I didn’t even get the first one, last time. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

 

She laughs softly, as she thinks he knew she would.

 

He’s standing more or less ready, now. He has an arrow knocked and his eyes in the general direction of their prey. But she can see quite a few imperfections in his pose, she thinks - his elbow’s all wrong, and his neck is tilted awkwardly.

 

“Relax.” She tells him simply. “Let your head look naturally where you want to shoot.”

 

He tries. He looks a bit better, honestly. His neck isn’t quite so bad as before.

 

She admits defeat and steps up close to him at last. 

 

“Here. Elbow.” She adjusts it with her hand, brings it up, keeps her palm cupped beneath it to hold him there. “And then - neck.” With her other hand, she tilts his head a little, tries for a more natural angle.

 

So that’s the story of how she comes to be standing in the middle of the forest with her hands all over a man who wants her sister.

 

Only - he doesn’t seem to want her sister, in this moment. He’s leaning his neck into her hand. She can feel his breath in short, shallow gasps as he fidgets a little and sinks into her touch.

 

That’s when his eyelids flutter closed, and she wonders whether the world might be ending.

 

She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t. He’s so close, and he’s making himself comfortable in her space, and his eyes are closed as if he wants nothing more than to curl up against her all day.

 

Or - there’s a voice inside of her which whispers that it might be even worse. He might even be hoping for a kiss.

 

She swallows hard. She tries to ground herself, tries to string some sense together. But all she can feel is his arm in one hand, his neck against the other, his shallow breaths ghosting over her skin.

 

She’s going to kiss him, and they’ll never be able to turn back.

 

It’s Newton who breaks the moment. Newton lets out a little yap, runs off to push the geese into flight. Anthony blinks his eyes open, and Kate steps back, and an arrow flies in the general direction of the rising geese.

 

It clips one on the wing but does no real damage, and Anthony bursts out laughing at once.

 

Kate is already there, though. She’s knocking an arrow, taking down one, then following up with a second.

 

She can’t quite make a third before they’re out of range. She’s been a little distracted - and they had a head start.

 

In fact -

 

“I’m not normally this bad. You distracted me.” Anthony tells her without heat.

 

She doesn’t know what to make of that. She doesn’t know what to do with his honest admission that he was distracted by her, then, too.

 

She sends Newton off to fetch her kills and waits for Anthony to tell her what’s even happening here. She thinks that must be the best way to play it. He’s the one who is pursuing her sister, so he must be the one to decide whether it means anything, if he closes his eyes in her arms.

 

“Kate - I -”

 

His breath is still running short. Or perhaps his breath is running short again, she thinks. He does sound more breathy than he did when he was laughing just now.

 

“Anthony?”

 

“Kate. Don’t move.” He says, and now he’s definitely breathless.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“There’s a bee. On your neck - a bee. Don’t move.”

 

Huh.

 

He’s panting, now. He’s actively panting, gasping for breath - not the same breathy gasps as being in her arms. He seems to be panicked, but she can’t understand that. She can’t understand why he’d be losing his mind over a bee on her neck.

 

“I’m fine. It’s just a bee.” She reaches up to brush it off.

 

“Don’t.” He hisses, and grabs at her wrist.

 

It’s too late. The bee has stung her anyway. She feels it, winces a little, but doesn’t think much of it.

 

Anthony, meanwhile, is falling apart before her very eyes.

 

He looks horrified. His gaze is wide and glazed with panic. His breath is coming in loud, laboured gasps. He’s physically shaking - she can feel that in his hand around her wrist.

 

And then -

 

“Kate? Kate - can you breathe? Are you with me?”

 

“I’m fine.” She repeats. “It’s only a bee. I feel fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

 

He doesn’t visibly respond to that. He simply goes on gazing and gasping and shaking.

 

She takes his hand, guides it to her chest. “I’m fine, see? I’m breathing just fine.”

 

He nods, but he’s still falling apart.

 

She takes a hand to his chest, now, tries to coax him to match his breathing to her own. “Just breathe with me, Anthony. Just breathe. See how I’m fine? I’m breathing, and you just need to breathe with me.”

 

He nods, his eyes perhaps focussing a little more clearly.

 

“That’s it. That’s good. Just breathe with me.” She tells him.

 

“You - that bee -”

 

“Didn’t hurt me. It didn’t hurt me, and I’m fine, and you just need to breathe with me.”

 

He nods again, and now he’s definitely doing better.

 

“That’s good. That’s better, Anthony. Breathe. That’s it.”

 

“Thanks. Breathing.”

 

“You’re really good at it.” She tries teasing.

 

He lets out a shaky laugh, and it seems to cut through some of his panic.

 

“I promise I’m fine.” She adds now.

 

“Yes. I can see that. I - you’re fine.”

 

He actually hugs her, at that. He simply falls forward, his head onto her shoulder, and wraps his arms right around her.

 

She hugs him back. It’s an odd situation, but a Lynx Girl only gets so many chances to take Anthony of the Boar Clan into her arms. So she holds onto him, as close as she dares without restricting his panicked breaths.

 

He does sound much less panicked now, though. He’s doing much better than he was.

 

“You’re fine.” He repeats once more, squeezing her tight as if to reassure himself that she’s in one piece.

 

“Never better.” She admits, allows herself to soften in his arms a moment.

 

“Mmm.”

 

He stands there for longer than he should.

 

That’s what strikes her. It’s too long to be a passing hug of relief between friends. She never realised, when she agreed to give him a few tips for his shooting, that one thing would lead to another and they’d end up here, like this.

 

She’s the one who pulls back first. She knows she must. She knows she’ll never survive it, if she stands in his arms all afternoon and then he takes her sister for his mate anyway.

 

His face looks wrong, by the time she has pulled away. He’s wearing his Boar Clan leader mask for the first time since they left the camp at dawn.

 

“Anthony?” She asks softly.

 

“Sorry. I’m not good with bees.” He mutters, as if that’s an adequate explanation for the last few moments of their lives.

 

“You seem pretty terrified of them.” She argues instead. “I don’t see how you can survive as a hunter in the Open Forest scared of bees. Forget my sister - you should take a mate from an island or ice clan and move to her people.”

 

“Is that what you want me to do?” He asks, all suddenly solemn, when she thinks she was trying to tease.

 

“No. I - of course not.”

 

“I’m not terrified of all bees.” He tells her now. “Just those who might kill someone I care about before my eyes. I’m fine so long as they’re on a flower at arm’s length.”

 

She frowns at him, tries to make sense of that one.

 

“My father was killed by a bee.” He tells her now, voice all thick and sticky. “He was stung and suddenly collapsed right in front of me, out hunting together, just the two of us.”

 

He died on a day exactly like this one, in other words.

 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I never knew how he died.” She offers, reaches out to squeeze softly at his arm.

 

He nods. “What about yours?”

 

“A long wasting sickness.”

 

“I’m so sorry.” He echoes, and covers her hand with his own.

 

They stand there a moment. His eyes are wide open, this time. He’s not leaning into her space, and his eyelids aren’t fluttering for a kiss - but all the same, it’s a moment which has a closeness all of its own, she thinks.

 

That’s what gives her the courage to ask it.

 

“Someone you care about?” She tries, hears her voice coming out tense and too high. “You said that, just now - you said I’m someone you care about.”

 

He scoffs, suddenly drops his eyes down away from hers. “Come on, Kate. That can’t be news to you. You must know I care about you. We were friends - really good friends, when we were very young. And I thought we were friends again this summer, before I twisted your arm into living in a camp you detest with people you can’t stand.”

 

“You think that is what it was about? When I was upset, after the clan meet - you think it was about the camp? You think this is all about the Boars?”

 

He blinks at her. “It is, right? That’s why you’re angry with me? It’s about the camp - about you living somewhere you can’t stand?”

 

“You think it’s about that?” She half-yells at him.

 

And then?

 

Then she kisses him full on the lips.

 

He kisses her back. He kisses her back eagerly, even, with his hands clutching at her waist and his lips hungry against hers. He’s pressing close to her, his chest and hips flush against hers, and he’s moaning a slight moan as they kiss.

 

And - honestly - in that moment, so much about her life makes sense.

 

This is Anthony, leader of the Boar Clan, and she’s been obsessed with him for as long as she’s known him. He’s her favourite person in all the forest, as well as the thorn in her side. And somehow - by some helpful quirk of fate - he’s even interested in kissing her, too.

 

She’s the one who pulls back first, just as she was the first to step back from that hug just now. She thinks that they had better discuss what’s happening here. So she steps back, takes a good long look at his face.

 

He’s wearing a new face, in this moment. It’s an expression she hasn’t ever seen him wear before. It’s a lot like his impressed face, in some ways, but with a generous twist of the face he wears by the fireside at middle-night thrown in.

 

She clears her throat.

 

“We…”

 

No.

 

That’s all she’s got.

 

He nods, that look still lighting up his face. “We did. I - I think I get it now. I hope I do.”

 

“Great.”

 

“I have to go. There’s someone I need to speak to. I’ll see you later, yes? I - we should talk. But there’s something I need to do. Newton will get you home safe.”

 

“Anthony -”

 

He kisses her once more - a short, forceful kiss on the lips - and then he sets out running into the trees.

 

She watches after him in a state of some confusion.

 

She can’t make sense of it. That’s what she decides. He seemed interested in kissing her - and in talking later - but now he’s running off without her. She’s tempted to try to follow, but he got a head start when she was dazed - and anyway, he runs faster than her. She can admit that to herself with her pride just about intact.

 

She doesn’t know what’s going on.

 

Who does he need to speak to? What does he need to do?

 

Why couldn’t he explain himself before he left?

 

Or - perhaps that parting kiss was supposed to be an explanation. Perhaps that’s all the explanation she’s getting. He’s not always great at letting people in, is he? It’s perhaps not a surprise that he’s not explaining himself with words now.

 

She calls Newton back to her, ties those geese to carry home, and sets out through the trees.

 

She has never understood Anthony of the Boar Clan as well as she might like - and at least now he’s incomprehensible and kissing her.

 

…….

 

There’s no sign of him when she arrives back at camp.

 

She delivers her catch to the cooking area and then wonders what to do with the rest of her day. She’s feeling all restless - still overexcited about the kiss, but also wondering what’s going on with Anthony - so she doesn’t think there’s much point trying to take anything from the bottomless mending pile.

 

She’s just heading out of camp to make a spurious water run when she bumps into Benedict by the gate.

 

“Benedict - just the person. Do you know where your brother is?”

 

“I have three brothers. Somehow I think I know which one you’re talking about.”

 

“You know exactly which one I’m talking about. Where’s Anthony?”

 

“He’s up at the crag with the Mage. They’re not to be disturbed, he said. I think he has something on his mind.”

 

“And - erm -” She trails off, tries again. “Do you think he has something good on his mind? Did he seem worried?”

 

“Who knows, with Anthony? I can never tell. He seemed thoughtful.”

 

She nods, swallows hard. That’s not a great sign, is it?

 

“Is something wrong?” He asks. “Did you two have one of your fights again? I’m telling you - you’re basically his favourite person he’s ever met, so you don’t need to worry about it so much every time you hit a bump. You’re both just stubborn people with short tempers.”

 

She laughs. “You’re not wrong. I… I wouldn’t say we had a fight. I was just hoping to see him to clear something up.”

 

“If I see him before you do, I’ll tell him you asked after him.”

 

“Thanks. Really - thank you. You’ve been a good friend to me while I’ve been staying here.”

 

“You’re saying that like you’re about to leave.” He says, eyes wide with visible horror.

 

“No. I don’t think so. I hope not.”

 

She really hopes not, in fact.

 

Only - she might not have much choice. If Anthony decides to press on and pursue her sister after that, she would definitely have to leave at once. There’s no hope that she could survive here in a situation like that.

 

No.

 

It won’t happen. She can trust him. She can trust in that odd goodbye he said, too - the hurried parting kiss, the promise to talk later. She can trust that he’s a man of his word.

 

It’s only that he said so few words that she hasn’t a clue what exactly he’s promised her.

 

…….

 

He spends all the rest of that day on the crag with the Mage, and half of the next one, too.

 

Kate can’t help but wonder what they’re discussing. She presumes it’s linked to that hunting trip they took together - linked to his eyes fluttering closed, to a bee on her neck, to the kiss which followed after - but she doesn’t see what it could be. The timing can’t just be a coincidence, but the situation makes no sense to her.

 

She has never been the most patient woman in the forest, but this threatens to test her to her limit.

 

……..

 

Anthony marches unannounced into her shelter, perhaps half way through that afternoon, and demands her immediate attention.

 

“Kate? I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk - somewhere private. Can we take a walk?”

 

“What is this, Anthony? What’s going on? You - after that, you disappear for a day - and now you want to take a walk?”

 

“I’ll explain everything, I promise. I just - please? Please trust me and come with me to talk?”

 

She nods, gets to her feet, follows him out of her shelter and towards the edge of camp.

 

In fact -

 

“Do you see the irony? You’re now begging me to leave the camp, when the first fight we ever had was over you thinking that women should stay inside the camp?”

 

He laughs a tight little laugh. “Thank you for teaching me the error of my ways.”

 

“You’re welcome. You know I strive to point out all your mistakes.” She counters, bright.

 

He laughs a better laugh at that, actually throws her something of a smile.

 

They’re outside the camp, now. He sets off towards the stream, as if instinctively. It’s perhaps not her favourite place in the world, but she follows his lead readily enough.

 

As they walk, she starts asking questions.

 

“So I hear you’ve spent a lot of time with the Mage lately?”

 

“Yes. I wanted to think something over. I needed to have him read the signs and I needed to know whether I’d missed any options. But I wasn’t getting far and then… I realised that, above all, I just need to ask you. You’d never forgive me if I tried to make a decision about this without including you as I’m thinking about it.”

 

“Anthony - could you just tell me what you’re talking about?” She asks, tight, excitement and nerves warring in her chest.

 

“Sure. Sorry. Here - have a seat.”

 

They sit side by side, on a bank overlooking the stream, and both stare ahead at the water together.

 

Or - he stares ahead. She mostly does, but she must admit she steals the odd glance sideways at his face along the way. She does like to get a good look at his face, after all.

 

Then he takes her hand. She thinks that must be a fairly hopeful sign, all things considered.

 

“Anthony?”

 

“Kate. So - here it is. I - I can’t give you up, Kate. I can’t. I only hope you feel even halfway like that. I’d been so determined to believe that you didn’t care - that made it easier. That made going after your sister easier. But now - after yesterday - I’m hoping that… that maybe there’s something between us from where you’re sitting, too?”

 

She nods, throat tight, and squeezes at his hand.

 

“Great. Perfect.” His face softens a little, and he presses on. “I’ve been trying to decide what we do about it. I haven’t got very far. The way I see it, we have two main options. We could try going to the Lynxes together and see if they’d take us both in. Or - we could just run away together. We could just do it, Kate. We could just live in the forest - Open Forest or Deep Forest, whichever you want - and we could be happy together, just the two of us.”

 

She blinks at him, stunned. “You’re surely not suggesting you’d give up the Clan? That you’d step down as leader? That role - your duty, your father’s legacy - it’s everything to you.”

 

“Not everything - not since you came to the Open Forest. I’d do it if I had to. I’d do anything to be with you.” He tells her, his voice full of conviction and his grip tight on her hand.

 

“I - I don’t know what to say.” She manages. “And I don’t see why you’re not suggesting the simplest option. Can’t I just stay here with you? Do you think The Huntsmen would really object that strongly?”

 

“No - not at all. You have their respect these days. They’d accept you well enough. But - I couldn’t ask that of you, Kate. You hate it here. I’ve heard how you speak about Boar Clan. I’ve seen your eyes go dull these last few moons.”

 

“And again, Anthony - it’s not about the camp. I’d put up with far worse to make a life with you, if you’re offering. It was never living here which upset me so much as believing you’d spend the rest of your days with my sister.”

 

“Oh. I see. I think - I’m getting that, slowly.” He offers, dry. “So - can we talk about that, then? Can we talk about you staying here with me? I’m sorry - I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what words to use. You always said you weren’t the sort to take a mate.”

 

“Because you told me I wasn’t.” She argues. “You said that when we were only children.”

 

“I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry about it, still, to this day. And - I really hope I was wrong.”

 

She laughs a short, dry laugh. “I hope so, too. And… I think I was wrong to cling to it. But I was so scared. It’s so frightening to welcome in feelings like these when I’ve known loss. You must feel that, too?”

 

He nods urgently. “Yes. Every morning I wake up and think that perhaps today will be the day I’ll declare myself to you without fear - and somehow it never is.”

 

She smiles at that. She knows the feeling.

 

“Or perhaps - perhaps today is.” He says now. “Would you do it? Would you stay?”

 

“Anthony -”

 

“Would you stay here and be my mate? Would you be happy enough to stay here with me forever?”

 

She nods, shuffles closer to his side. “I meant it when I said I’d stay for you. I… that would make me so happy, Anthony. Yes please. Yes please to a lifetime with you.”

 

He’s throwing his arms around her, now. He seems to be weeping, too - weeping against the crown of her head. She’s never known him tearful before now, and she wonders whether perhaps these are the very tears he never allowed himself to shed as a boy who suddenly became leader before he was quite a man.

 

She’s feeling something similar. She can feel her own tears brimming, too - the tears she couldn't shed as they carried out her father, perhaps.

 

They cling to each other for a long time. They keep weeping together, as well - the sort of soft, comforting tears which happen when weeping is a shared pursuit, not a lonely one.

 

And then, as her tears are beginning to dry, she presses a firm kiss to his neck.

 

He laughs a sudden, breathy laugh and pulls back to look her in the eye.

 

“I really love you. I hope that’s clear.” He says, grinning lightly and damply all the while.

 

She laughs. “I’m getting that. I love you, too.”

 

“We’re going to be happy. I mean it. We’re going to see to it that you can feel at home here. And if you decide it’s not working, you’re going to tell me, and we’re going to run off into the forest, just the two of us.”

 

“We’ll be happy. Honestly - I feel pretty confident about that.”

 

“Mary and Edwina are welcome to stay if they want. Your kin will always have a home with me and mine - always, no matter what. Or I can introduce Edwina to every leader’s son in the Open Forest if she prefers. I hear a rumour I know a few.” He says, lips twitching.

 

“Mmm. Thank you. Let’s ask her what she wants when our news has sunk in.” She suggests.

 

He beams at her. “Will that ever happen, do you think? Will I ever get used to feeling this happy?”

 

“I don’t know. I’m wondering the same.”

 

“Come here.”

 

He kisses her, then. She’s laughing against his lips, kissing him back, raking her hand through his hair. He’s matching her, in his way, with his hands at her waist and his lips eager against hers.

 

It’s becoming quite a heated kiss when Kate hears a low growl.

 

She’s all for kissing anyway. She knows it’s Newton. She knows he loves Anthony, too, even if he hides it well. So she thinks they’re all good to keep kissing the afternoon away.

 

But Anthony thinks differently. He’s leaning back, as if startled by the noise.

 

“It’s only Newton.” She offers, soft.

 

“Can’t you train him not to growl when we kiss? I hear you’ve trained him to do everything else under the sun.”

 

“He means it fondly. It’s like how I argue with you as a sign of respect and love. He growls at you because you’re his favourite person to growl at.”

 

Anthony laughs. “I’m his favourite person to growl at and you argue with me out of love. Understood. I’ll bear it in mind.”

 

“Please do. You have the rest of your life to get used to it.”

 

“The rest of my life with you. I like the sound of that.”

Notes:

Thanks for reading! This has been a tribute to "Wolf Brother" with a heart full of love for the original!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 8 of Penguin Classics Library