Activity

here–just a little piece, but it was fun to write.

 

“Quin.” Hakan’s face appeared in the doorway of the tent. Quin looked up from the seam he was stitching, grateful for the chance to rest his eyes.

“What is it?” He refused to call Hakan ‘boss’, as all the other men did. Hakan had never mentioned it.

“How’d you like to go with on a business trip?”

“No.”

“Just like that? Before you know what it is?”

“I know enough of your business trips to answer without hearing it.”

“‘Folly to use the mouth before the ear.’”

Quin rolled his eyes at the proverb. “Okay. But make it quick; light isn’t as plentiful as it was a month ago.”

“That’s just it.” Hakan came farther into the tent. “You won’t be able to do this all winter, and we’ll be moving.”

“So?”

“So I’m sailing for Colondai and I want to take you with.”

Quin blinked. “How is that a business trip?”

“There are things to sell; Colondai buys them.”

“You mean you stole them and can’t sell them here?”

Hakan looked away. “Colondai’s price is the best.”

“Right.” Quin bent over his work again, stopping now and then to curl his hand into a ball, warming it enough so he could sew.

“Look, you can’t even sew well now; how will you sew when there’s snow on the ground.”

Snow. Quin glanced in the direction of the cook’s tent. He could hear Grace’s coughing from here.

He turned back and looked Hakan in the eyes. “What about Grace?”

“Get off that already!”

“You said you’d take care of us if we came with you. You told us we couldn’t live on our farm with just the two of us to run it; You said Moloch would be looking for us. well, how good of care have you taken of Grace?”

Hakan turned away and looked away toward the cooking tent. Quin pinched his needle so hard it pressed into his thumb.

“You might have left her in her house where it’s warm and she has the things she needs, instead of bringing her here to live like the animal you are.  Isn’t it enough that you broke up our family? Do you have to kill my sister too?”

Hakan clenched his fists but didn’t turn around. Quin stood up, bracing himself against the table. The coat he was mending slid to the floor unnoticed.

“She likes you, Hakan,” Quin went on, his voice low. She’d do anything for you. I can see it in her eyes. Every time you praise her for her cooking she works harder; this cold, this work—these men—they’re killing her. If you cared anything for her, you’d—”

Hakan whirled around, his face red with anger. “You just shut-up, you one-legged little fool.”

He strode across the tent and bent down until his face was almost touching Quin’s. “Don’t you think I see? Don’t you think I’d do something for her if I could?” His fist pounded the table so that Quin nearly lost his balance.

“What do you want me to do? The men call me ‘boss’. So what? I was this close to a mutiny when I took you in.” he snapped his fingers under Quin’s nose. “What do you think they’d do now if I took away their favorite cook?”

He straightened, but still looked Quin in the eyes, waiting for an answer. “I—” Quin looked at his lap.