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They reached the manse a little before noon.  It was built in a nook below the ridgeline, surrounded by trees above and beside it that reached down the slope to border the meadow where several horses and a cow grazed.  Of the buildings there was the manse itself, a barn, what looked like a woodshed and an elevated pigeon loft.  The buildings were surrounded by a low stone wall with a couple of gates in it and inside that boundary Tarrascotti could see chickens and geese going about their business.  It looked every inch a solid farmyard, but as far he could see there was no actual farmland.

They were expected.  It was a warrior priestess of Navira Sharptooth who met them at the gate, an older woman with greying hair and an athletic body.  “You’re late,” she commented, humour in her voice, “two weeks late.”

“We would have been here sooner,” replied Katinka, “but our husband tried to get himself killed by a rabid bear just before we met him.”

“So your message said,” the older woman acknowledged.  She looked Tarrascotti over, “He looks quite well for someone a bear tried to kill.  You three must be good for him.”

“We like to think so.”  Sofia was swinging herself down from her horse, “You must be Silvana.”

“I am,” the older woman opened the gate.  “House Mistress Lucretia and Nella left two weeks ago to go to their new postings, so I’m afraid the house probably isn’t up to your standards.  I admit I plan to show you around and leave almost straight away.  I’m supposed to overwinter at Penoa but the stars have been bright and cold these last few nights – I think winter’s no more than a week off so I need to make the most of these few days.”

She let them into the farm enclosure and led them to the barn, talking the whole time – not from garrulousness but to convey necessary information as efficiently as possible.  She covered stabling, the remounts in the field, the cow and the poultry, animal fodder and the carrier pigeons in the loft.  Tarrascotti noted that his wives seemed to be taking the information in effortlessly.  Apparently they all knew exactly what sort of establishment they’d come to.

Silvana surprised them all by adding onto her comments about pigeon breeding, “That reminds me, Katinka, your old pack sisters sent you a message thanking you for your recommendation and said the arrangement seemed to be working out well for this winter.”

“Recommendation?”  That was Ellabetta but Tarrascotti and Sofia were looking at her curiously too.

“My pack sisters wanted a man to den up with them for the winter,” explained Katinka, “and I suggested Tarrascotti’s friend, Luca, the wolf priest.  He’s smart, thinks as he ought to about what’s important, is good in a crisis, isn’t bad looking and I think he will make strong, healthy babies.  He’s not attached and he needs to overwinter somewhere.”

“That description almost makes me wish I was going to overwinter with your pack sisters,” commented Silvana, “but at Penoa I can see my son and his family.”

“I thought Luca was going over the pass to Belhedi,” commented Tarrascotti.  “He said something about a cave system there being important.”

“No-one can get through the low pass,” commented Silvana, “there’s been a landslide.  The king’s men have been working on it for almost a month but it won’t be open again until next autumn.”

Tarrascotti did some sums in his head.  “Given when he left the village, if he got anywhere near the low pass before he found out it was closed, then he hasn’t had time to get over the high pass.  I don’t know how your pack sisters persuaded him to stay with them, my dear,” he told Katinka, “but if winter is only a week away, they may have saved his life.  The high ranges in winter is no place to be alone on foot.”

“My pack sisters can be very persuasive when they want to be,” Katinka tossed a smile at him, “and the wolf priest isn’t stupid – the time might have been what decided him to accept.”  Her eyes widened as the penny dropped.  “Wolf priest, wolf cubs” and she giggled.  “There were a lot of wolf cubs in my dream.”

I wrote this from ysabetwordsmith's sixth prompt

She was standing in a field of short flowers and grass.  The flowers grew on mounded plants that barely passed her ankle, golden-centred ruffles of white and red combined.  Bees flew from flower to flower in a pattern that seemed to go with a tune she could hear in the back of her ear.  Sometimes the flower stalks moved to the bee so as to keep the rhythm.  The bees were important, but she didn’t remember why.

“You haven’t forgotten why bees are important,” said a whisper through the music, “you haven’t been told that yet.”

Wolf cubs, all of an age but not the one litter, rolled across the grass in a mock fight and tug-of-war.  A breeze raced across their small bodies, ruffling their fur as if someone were tickling them, and then twisted itself around her head with a laugh that she half recognized before racing off across the field to-

Katinka woke with a start.  It was still night, mid watch, but she was wide awake now in the aftermath of a god dream.  Some priestesses had them often.  Not Katinka.  From what she remembered of the few she’d had, this one had been unusually light hearted.

Tarrascotti had the watch and she was vaguely disappointed to find Sofia, her Keviran co-wife, awake and sitting beside him.  His third wife, Ellabetta, was still asleep in her bedroll.  If she envied the other two anything, it was their ability to sit with their husband and immediately feel domestic.  She hadn’t the knack of it herself and he always seemed more reserved with her, as if he were afraid she might bite.

She could, of course.  Sharptooth’s warrior priestesses would use teeth to rend flesh if combat were needed and they had no other weapons.

“Can’t sleep?”  Sofia smiled at her from the other side of the fire.

“Or did something wake you?”  Their drui husband respected her wildcraft skills, his own were good enough to make her wonder how often the old man had lived rough, and now he was scanning their surrounds and testing the warding he’d put round their camp.

“I had a dream,” she confessed, “that’s all.  A happy dream.  With bees, flowers, wolf cubs and one of Sharptooth’s dream forms.”

“Bees,” said Sofia, leaning forward in interest, “are one of Kevira’s dream forms.  If they’re feeding from flowers that’s a sign she’s pleased.  Wolf cubs don’t mean anything I know of.  Have you done something the rest of us should know about?”

“I don’t think so.”

This is written to ysabetwordsmith's first prompt.  It follows on from Unexpected Rewards.

Tarascotti’s wives were taking him to a Trideian manse for the winter.  They were travelling by horseback which he found an agreeable luxury, he could rarely afford a horse’s upkeep and would rather keep the coin aside for the lean times anyway.  Priestesses, it seemed, had more resources than wandering drui for hire.  Katinka was leading the way several horse lengths ahead on a brown mare, while Ellabetta was bringing up the rear on a much heavier black gelding.  Sofia rode companionably beside him on a sorrel mare while he was astride a darker chestnut gelding.

He was still getting used to being married.  The whole idea of three wives and his presence at the wedding not being necessary still seemed extremely strange to him, but they had certainly nursed him back to health after his near fatal encounter with the bear.  Ellabetta had replaced almost all his clothes, the bear having destroyed nearly everything, and he was rather pleased with her efforts.  As for spousal relations, well, none of the girls were shy and they didn’t seem to get jealous of each other but Tarrascotti wasn’t used to sustained, interested female company.

They were coming out of the woods into the farmland around the river, the fume from the waterfall just visible at the bottom of the cliff, when Katinka held up her hand signalling a stop.  When she rode back to them, Ellabetta having come up from behind, they could see she was worried.

“Willow song,” she spat out in her delightful accent, “and we came this way to avoid Grandfather Willow in the valley above the falls.  It doesn’t look like somewhere under a blackheart’s influence, but it’s definitely willow song.”

“Let me see if I can hear what it’s saying,” Tarrascotti offered, climbing down from his horse and walking forward to the edge of the trees.  The dip of the river valley lay before him, mainly farmland with the river marked by autumn yellow willow trees.  He cast his spell on himself, then listened to the web of wind, root and leaf and finally began to speak what he could hear.  “Milking cows stay in your fields and eat your grass; farmer cut here and here for your fence wood and some will grow into a tree in place; basket weaver, take you branches from here and let the light into the tree; wise woman, these are the best trees for the bark you need put aside for winter; and sweet, brown-skinned boys fishing for your dinner, don’t let the old pike pull you in!”

“It’s a whiteheart,” Katinka took a deep breath in, “I’ve never seen one before.”

This story comes after a sequence of stories that I wrote in the 30 days of flash fiction about a goblet being exchanged for a princess.  This occurs to one of the goblet couriers some time later.

Tarrascotti woke up, which was surprising given how much of his last memory was made up of rabid bear.  He felt sore all over, which was probably not surprising given how much of his last memory was made up of rabid bear.  He was in a bed, which was a good sign, and he wasn’t chained down, which was an even better sign.

The ceiling had been whitewashed.  The room was day lit.  He turned his head to the left and saw a window with tied-back curtains.  He turned his head the other way and saw a woman dressed in black who was sitting in a chair and sewing something white.

“You’re awake,” she sounded pleased and put aside her sewing.  “Would you like a drink of water?”

“Yes, please,” he agreed, realising that he was thirsty.  “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“Oh yes.”  She had stood and walked to his bedside to pour a cup of water from a jug on the bedside table.  She was thirtyish, muscular, with brown hair in a bun and her black clothes were revealed as a three-quarter length, sleeveless jerkin split for riding over shirt, trousers and boots.  Wear on the jerkin above her hips showed where a sword belt sat.  “It seems you don’t get to leave us so easily.”

He raised himself to drink and she supported him with a firm, capable hand while the other held the cup for him.  When he’d finished drinking he said, “You’re a warrior-priestess of the Silent Bride.”

“Yes.”  She smiled.  “I’m glad to see that being crushed by a bear hasn’t addled your wits.  My name’s Ellabetta.  Now you need to rest quietly while I go get the others.”  She put the cup down, helped him to ease himself comfortably flat again and strode out the doorway.

Her youth, less than half his age, and her vigour made him feel very old.  Sitting up had been an effort.  Clothes would be nice but he couldn’t see any.  He didn’t want to deal with priestesses while naked and in bed.

Ellabetta wasn’t gone long enough for him think he might be able to get out of bed on his own.  She returned in only a few minutes, one of a triumvirate of Trideian priestesses.  The blonde in the Sharptooth’s green with archery guards sat on the end of the bed.  Ellabetta resumed her chair and took up her sewing again.  The redhead in Keviran brown with a smudge of flour on one cheek marched over to the bedside, picked up his wrist and took his pulse before leaning over to test his temperature with her cheek.

“No trace of fever anymore,” the Keviran priestess said cheerfully, “So now we just have to build up your strength again.”

“How long have I been out for?”  Tarrascotti sounded the way he felt, weak as a kitten.  “What happened with the bear?”  That seemed a safe way to put it.

“It fell on you, of course.”  That was the blonde, smoky-voiced and accented, on the end of his bed.  “Fortunately, you weren’t bitten, just clawed and crushed.  You would have died before we got here if that wolf-priest, Luca, hadn’t gotten the bear off you as quickly as he did.  We must have missed the action by what, a quarter of an hour?”  Her look appealed to the other two for confirmation.

“That seems about right,” agreed the Keviran.  “You got infections in some of the scratches from its claws, but you weren’t bitten so you didn’t get rabies.  You were unconscious longer than I would have expected with us looking after you though.”

“I remember trying to blast it with everything I had left, after it spun me around by the backpack,” Tarrascotti said slowly, “after all, if you’re about to be killed by a bear then having enough energy left to keep your heart beating isn’t an issue.”

“That would explain why it didn’t have a head left above the lower jaw,” commented Ellabetta as she clipped off her thread.

“I’m surprised I’m still alive,” Tarrascotti went on wonderingly, “and I don’t understand why you three ladies are looking after me.”  There’ll be a catch somewhere, he thought to himself, and I’m too tired and sore to figure it out before they tell me.

“Ellabetta’s already introduced herself,” the Keviran told him, smiling...fondly at him, “I’m Sofia and this,” she gestured at the blonde, “Is Katinka.  We’re your wives.”

That got him up, well half sitting, and damn the bedcovers.  “I think I’d remember being married!”  Three wives, all young enough to be his daughters!  No-one had three wives, it was riduc-

“I’m sure you would,” said Sofia calmly, “if you’d been at the ceremony.”

“The High Priestesses decided that you deserved an additional reward for your care of the Chasrubdel,” Katinka put in from the end of the bed, “Continuation of your bloodline and someone to take care of you.  I must say,” she added with some asperity, “that if you’re going to make a habit of rescuing remote villages from rabid bears then you’ll need to let us get into overwatch positions first!”