“Look away, gentlemen.”

  The two assistants had served well, checking over wounds and cleaning. Posy had screamed, sure, but the sheets were stripped by the cutter and the captain without disturbing her too bad. They quickly washed her top half, and the Lady washed her bottom. The girl’s sex bled heavy, and her stomach was wracked with contractions.

  “I’m going to go inside of you now, Posy. I need to check for injuries, and the baby. See if the passage is ready.” Leech wasn’t sure the woman heard her. Posy had passed out moments before, but her pulse was still strong and her breathing as steady as could be expected.

  The Lady felt the clots, the blood pooling. The way was narrow, seemingly closed nearly tight. She had hoped for better.

  “Is she opened up, physic?” the Captain kept his eyes turned, and the Lady sighed. “My daughter came on the road, was the only skilled hand.”

  “No, she’s not dilated. The child is behind a wall of blood, may be drowning.”

  “If’n you can give her a relaxer?” the thug tried to help, his voice soft and questioning.

  “It would kill her. In better condition, with more time I could do something, but we must make a way. For the child.” the Lady stopped, looking over Posy.

  Naset had loved Posy like the jewel of her life. The girl had been born early, the third and last child. Squab had come to the Lord Hill with three bastards and a barren womb, but the Lord had fallen for the stuttering baby charms of his adopted daughter as hard as her mother’s wit and skill. The hard man had doted on Posy before his death, purchasing a pony from the traders in Horsebridge so fine that a Barrow man would need to work a lifetime or steal for a tenyear to buy him. The little girl had been their companion in the new land, not like Naset’s twin boys Egg and Hatch.

  When Egg had caught the river fever the women had mourned together. Hatch had caught an alley bolt in a war between the Ghouls and some upstart gang going for the Hill’s position, and even if they had not spoken since Egg’s pyre the Lady had sent her lost friend her condolences.

  She won’t survive losing Posy. Either she’ll start a fight or kill herself. Maybe she’ll just fade. But she won’t survive. Give me this one Hsith, Snakecharmer, keeper of the two heads of life and death. Turn the left head away, give me the poison that heals, the fire that cleanses. For one of your daughters born in your land and her daughter born in this valley of thieves and cruel circumstance.

  Leech picked up the knife and hoped.

  #

  “Da, why do your hands look like that?” She always asked questions, and Martin loved her for it.

  “Remember when that boy Wren who liked ya fell from the stairs and broke his arm?” he scrubbed her back, making sure not to get her hair wet from the bath.

  “He does not like me. Said so hisself. And I will not marry him.”

  “Oh? Well, I will tell you that there are times when you cannot be sure of how your heart will go, Lil. May be you don’t marry him, but may be you’ll love him someday.”

  “That is not true!” Lil splashed her father, smiling at the old man as he looked aghast.

  “I say it’s true, but no one listens to me in this house.” he put away the coarse brush and pulled her up from the water. “Now, young Lady Lil, I must ask you get dried and dressed. We have to take you to your uncle Finch and aunt Lark, and I must be to business.”

  He left her to get dressed and packed his kit. It never got easier. Each time Martin had to leave he wished it would be the last. Perhaps Leech will hire me on, give me a place in her guard. Safety, keep Lil in a spot where she can be around women who can teach her lady things.

  He smiled as she came down, breeches and a clean shirt, a cap covering her red hair. She would soon be in dresses, and these times would be behind them.

  “You never told me why your hands are crooked, Da.” Lil put her hands to her sides then raised them, her way of saying now get to it. Her mother in her.

  “I hurt a bad man, hurt myself as I did it.” he ruffled her cap, and the little girl laughed and swatted at his hands.

  “I’m gonna hurt bad men too. Beat them and make them fear the Lady Lily o’ Winter!” she smiled at him, hanging off his arm and lifting herself up to kiss his bearded cheek.

  “Not if I can help it, little Lady. Will you climb your noble steed then?” Martin bent down, hearing his knees pop and feeling a twinge in his back.

  Lil grabbed her father’s cheeks, looking him in the eyes then blowing out her cheeks. “Da, I am too old for that. Let’s walk. It's not that far!”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  She’s already growing away. Please, Guardian, give me the strength to return and the wisdom to lead her right. They walked through the evening streets and men and women of the Barrow waved and smiled. Lil, always the entertainer, was a little queen, accepting the pats and kisses and a small sliver of shard candy as elegant as Martin’s manners training could carry her.

  He hoped she would be everything her mother had hoped. That brought the thoughts of her, and the old soldier wiped his brow as if the touch could burn away a memory. They came to their destination before he could fall into those thoughts, and Martin stood outside ready for the next step.

  “Hello, house! I have brought the Lady Lily to sup and sleep!” Martin announced, his booming voice causing a rush and clatter. Three children, the twins and the little one Finch called Young Martin, rushed out to greet their playmate.

  Finch came in his rolling lurch. Good leg forward, peg stomping down. The boy had a father’s gut, though it suited him as a butcher. The kids were plentiful, and Lark was still out gathering wash for the nightly soak.

  “Martin.” Finch said, extending a hand. “Yew! Willow! Get the girl to supper, have Yarrow serve. I need to speak to Uncle for a while, keep yourselves away.”

  The twins ran, holding hands of their quarry and singing children’s songs to carry them into the home. Martin was unsure for the first time in a long time, and took in the face of his eldest son. A face like his own save the lack of beard and the scars on his face.

  “You need to give Lily a better life, you old fool. She can wait here as much as you like, but how long til you don’t come back for her?”

  “A butcher? Lecturing me? Remind me, how would you keep this house without having the luck of Tyn to find a woman foolish enough to stay with you after?” Martin stood tall, shaking himself out of a resting stance. He wasn’t going to fight the man before him.

  “Ya, ‘strue. You had a good woman, we called her Ma. She loved you for all your shit, and you left her. Left us to go to war.” the eyes were his mother’s, but the look Martin knew well enough from times looking in a mirror.

  “I wanted to make a life for you, and your brothers. Make a title and a name. You were old enough to help her but you left as well.”

  “I wanted to be you, Da. I wanted to be a man of action. They took me on as a butcher. Then they took my leg and sent me home, and when I got home Ma was sick and the boys were caught up in the gangs and I hated you for it.”

  “For you making a man’s decision? You can’t lay that on me, boy. Not here, not now and you know it.” Martin started towards the door. “Let me see the children, and we can discuss this when I return.”

  “What if, Da? Are we going to leave this as a fight for another day? Are you that much of a coward that you — ” the boy was startled as his father grabbed him, pushing him against the side of his home. “Stop!”

  Martin let his son loose, looking down at his hands. “I’m no coward, Finch. Don’t you think I know all you say is true? I’m trying, making a safe place to keep Lil and a wage with time home. It ent ideal, but better than a tenement garden to play in.”

  “You said the same when her ma died. You left your daughter with the croaking cough to go fight down at the docks, didn’t come back for a week. A week! She could have died, you hardhead.”

  “Did she?”

  “Nah, but it was close. Fever, she couldn’t keep anything down. It has been five years and we have never,” Finch stabbed his stumpy fingers into his father’s chest, “ever heard one kind word for it.”

  “Ya, well, thank you for my daughter’s life. I guess I will not be enjoying supper with my grandchildren then?” Martin said, pulling away and walking off.

  “Da, don’t go. Come on… ” Finch hobbled as he could but Martin began marching, and the butcher stopped to return home.

  He climbed the stairs and opened the door, seeing Lil at the window.

  “I know you’re my brother, ya know. He slipped one time.” the little girl fidgeted in place, looking to her toes.

  “You’re a smart gal, did you know? Keep quiet round the others, they’re not as quick as us.” Finch smiled, putting his hand under her chin and pulling up a chair. “Do you know why you’re called Lily o’ Winter?”

  “Da said Ma chose it, but she got sick after havin me.”

  “Well, I know why. It’s an old story. Once, an old man loved a beautiful woman. She lived by the river. She would wash clothes there — ”

  “Like Lark?” Lil asked, sitting down and hugging her knees to hear the tale.

  “Just like Lark. She had bright hair the color of new copper, and the old man would walk by the river and tell her stories and give her gifts. And during the winter, when the ice covered the water, he broke it open to get her water for washing and built her a fire.”

  “They stayed in for the winter, him helping her and her falling in love. When Spring came she knew she had a baby, and she grew in summer and got big as the moon in Fall.”

  “Lark doesn’t get that big. Maybe as big as Fat Pigeon, but not as big as the whole moon!” Lil looked to Finch with the incredulity only granted to the very learned and children. “Don’t lie in your stories.”

  “Fine. She grew heavy with the baby. Then Winter came. It was cold, so cold the river froze solid, and then a storm came and the snow fell.” Finch made the noises of wind, pulling off the little girl’s cap and playing with her hair as if it were being torn by the violent storm.

  “The Mother never freezes solid. Da told me that! And we go down and there’s only maybe a little ice.” Lil grumbled, pushing Finch’s hands away.

  “This is a story from another place. The old man tried to help, and couldn’t do anything. The woman bled, and bled, and he couldn’t find the baby. So he ran into the snow, to the river, and begged the goddess of the river to give herself to his beloved and let the baby be born.

  “He returned, and the baby was born but its mother had died. The old man, covered in blood, ran to the river to pound on it. As if he could harm a god. And where the mother’s blood fell sprang up the lilies of winter, that bloom in the cold of that place, pushing through warm through the snow and ice and pretty as any redheaded woman.”

  Lil smiled with tears in her eyes. “That is a good story, Finch.”

  “See? Sometimes stories help us to tell the truth. Now come in and wash, the kids have supper waiting.”