Epiny put Kara to kneading bread dough and entrusted Sem with a knife to cut up potatoes for the evening repast. While they were thus busy, we hastily loaded the wagon with the children’s things, some clothing for Amzil, and a supply of food. Epiny kept adding things. A cooking pot and a kettle. Cups and plates. When she started to take their few toys and books from the shelves, I stopped her. “We’re going to have to travel light.”
“For a child, these are essentials,” she said, but sighed and put some of the items back. We carried them out to the cart and loaded them. Over all, I tossed a blanket, and could only pray that no one would give it a second glance.
Epiny left me with the children while she hurried off to “visit” one of her whistle brigade who lived close to the edge of Gettys. In a town like Gettys, she knew the news of Amzil’s hanging would have flown far and wide. To Agna, she would confide that she wished Amzil’s children to be as far from the gallows as possible when their mother met her fate tomorrow. Epiny would ask if she would take them in for the night.
While she was off doing that, I was left in charge of the children, including Solina. The baby was supposed to take another nap while Epiny was gone. Instead, she woke the moment the door closed and began to cry lustily. I was pathetically grateful when a gingerly check of her napkin revealed that it was still clean and dry. I picked the babe up, put her on my shoulder and walked about the room as I had seen Epiny do. The three children had gathered to witness my incompetence. Solina’s wails only grew louder.
“You’re supposed to bounce her a little while you walk,” Sem offered helpfully.
“No!” Kara said disdainfully. “That’s what women do. He’s supposed to sit in the rocker and rocker her and sing her a song.”
As neither the walking nor the bouncing had helped, this seemed a good idea. Once I was seated with Solina, they all gathered round me so closely that I feared I would rock on small toes. “Rock her!” Sem commanded me impatiently.
“And sing her a nursery song,” Kara added imperiously. Obviously they had gauged Epiny’s attitude toward me and based their own upon it. And so I laboriously rocked and sang the nursery songs that I knew. Dia made so bold as to climb up on my lap and join the baby. When I had worked through my nursery songs, and Solina had quieted but not fallen asleep, Kara asked me thoughtfully, “Do you know any counting songs?”
“Oh, one or two,” I admitted, and her theory proved correct, for before we had counted backward from the ten little lambs for the second time, the baby was sleeping. It was tricky to get Dia off my lap and then stand without waking Solina, and trickier still to put her back in her little bed without waking her. I shooed the other children out of the room. Sem and Dia had readily scampered off down the hall, but Kara waited for me. As I shut the door of the room, she reached up in the dimness and took my hand. She looked up at me, her small face pale in the darkened corridor.
“You’re him, aren’t you? The man that gave us food that winter.”
“Kara, I—”
“I know it’s you, so don’t lie. You sang the same songs before. Don’t you remember? And I heard the Lieutenant call you Nevare. And Mum said you would come back someday. Maybe.” She didn’t give me a chance to confirm or deny her words. She took a sharp breath. “And my mother’s in trouble, isn’t she? That’s why she hasn’t come home.”
“She’s in a little bit of trouble. But we think that it will be sorted out soon and—”
“Because there’s a plan.” She interrupted me. “If my mother is ever in trouble, there’s a plan. She made it and she told it to me.” Her head came up and she added gravely, “I’m in charge of it. I have to remember it.”
She kept my hand in a small firm grip and led me to the little room that they all shared. She knelt beside the bedstead to pull up the loosened floorboard. The “plan” proved to be a small sack of coins hidden there. In with the coins was a simple silver ring with a rose engraved on it. “I’m to give this bag to the missus and ask her to keep taking care of us. She’s to have it all, except the ring. She has to keep that safe in case Sem ever wants to grow up and marry a girl, so he’ll have a ring to give her. It was our grandma’s.”
“That’s a good plan,” I told her. “But I hope we won’t need it. I’m going to try to get your mother out of trouble. Then we’ll come for you. If the missus can arrange it, you and Dia and Sem will be in a house at the edge of town. Your mum and I will come there, load you in the cart, and go. But you can’t tell Sem or Dia about the plan yet. You have to keep it secret and remember it, and help them to be good until I come for you tonight. Can you do that?”
