The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

Mart said, “The others probably told you, wild folk come here to trade sometimes. We might recognize her at least.”

Finally, something solid. A line of information that didn’t end in I don’t know.

“Do you have a way to get a message to them? Let them know that something’s happened to one of their own?”

“No,” Mart said, shaking his head quickly. “They come here a few times a year. It’s unpredictable. We don’t know where they come from. Someplace upriver, that’s it.”

If they could even get a name to go with the body, Enid would feel they’d accomplished something. “Well. This is a start, at least. It’s more than we had before we got here. Yes, please come, we’ve got her at Bonavista—”

“Why there?” Neeve said.

“It was closest,” Enid said. “Juni never said that you were her sister. Are you really twins?”

Neeve folded in on herself and looked away, out the screen to the slope of hill and the distant water. Lost in thought, lost in herself. Enid almost prompted her again, but Mart explained.

“They don’t get along. Not since the old investigation.”

Juni would blame Neeve for breaking up their old household, Bridge House. Grudge like that would go on forever.

“Understood. But please come and look, if you can tell us anything. Also, we’ll need a pyre for her. I hear you’re the house that handles arrangements. That’s what I sent Kellan up here for.”

Mart nodded. “Yeah, we do. We can do that.”

“Thanks. We may have more questions later. The sooner you can come down, the better. We should probably take care of her tomorrow.”

Teeg added his thanks, and they turned to go.

“You’re not going to say anything else about Neeve?” Telman burst out.

Harsh glares from the others and a spike of tension answered him. The investigators stopped, looked back.

Enid said, “Anything we should say?”

“The medics always check on her. Every time they come through, they check. I just assumed, investigators—”

“Telman,” Mart hissed, and the other man looked away.

The folk of Last House would never welcome investigators, and this was why. Even twenty years later, they remembered. As Telman said, the medics still checked her implant, every time, to make sure she hadn’t tampered with it. They didn’t trust her. Did anyone? It was the reason Neeve lived here, at the edge of civilized territory, without a single banner on the wall.

Because no one else would take her.

Enid said, “Your implant’s still in place now, isn’t it?”

“I never tried anything like that again,” Neeve said softly, putting her hand over the spot on her left upper arm, squeezing idly. Covering the scar that would be under the sleeve, from where she cut herself.

No bannerless pregnancy had resulted from the sabotage. She’d been found out, reported by her own household. In the end, it was always hard to hide a bandaged arm in that distinctive spot. Her punishment had been straightforward: no banner for her, nor for whatever household she lived in, ever. She’d left her old home to come here, to a small, scrabbling household that never expected to earn a banner. She’d never made trouble again.

A sad story, some people would say. Olive would say it was a sad story, but she’d spent the past few months being emotional and weepy about any story that had anything to do with banners and babies. Enid was sympathetic to Neeve—one rash action, impacting the whole of her life like this. That was hard. But she had no sympathy for the idea that one person could take the fate of an entire community into her own hands. A place like the Estuary settlement couldn’t feed an extra, unexpected mouth like that.

“Then there’s no reason to say anything,” Enid said. “Well then, unless you’ve got anything else you’d like to talk about, we’ll be off. We’ll look for you down at Bonavista.”

They nodded dutifully, the silence drawing out, cut suddenly by the cries of gulls out on the water. Enid was pretty sure she wouldn’t be hearing from them again.

“Afternoon,” Teeg said, and left them on the porch. Likely to discuss whether the investigators really were going to let them alone—and if the old trouble really was securely in the past.

Back on the path along the river Teeg asked, “So, Juni and Neeve are sisters? Twins? Did we know that?”

“Must be written down somewhere, but no, I didn’t.” They’d studied the records. This included a list of every banner awarded to the region, every child born here. Juni and Neeve had been listed as p