They Came to Buy My Sister, So I Went in Her Place as a Boy novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: The Oath
My uncle laughed.
It was a soft, fond laugh, and he patted my cheek a second time as if I were a child who had made a joke.
"Of course you will, little one," he said, loud enough for the yard.
"We shall all say what we must, when we must."
He turned and went up to the women's side with Amaia on his arm to give her the present in the cloth.
It was a shawl.
I watched him tie it round her shoulders.
He ate at the Bear's table that night.
I want that written down, because I have never understood it.
Aitor sat at the head of his own long board with sixty people along it.
My uncle sat at his right hand, and the cook brought the mutton to both.
The Bear passed him the bread.
He asked after the flock.
He listened to every word of my uncle's weeping account of the winter.
He said nothing that was not courteous.
I stood against the wall with a jug, as the women did.
I saw how white his knuckles were on the knife.
At the second bell, Pantxo mounted his mule at the gate and rode down the pass with a great show of farewells.
He turned in the saddle to bless us all.
He was smiling.
I stood in the yard with my hand on the cold wall until I could no longer hear the hooves.
Then I went up the stone stairs, and I did not knock.
The room was dark but for the fire.
Aitor stood at the window with his back to me.
Gotzon sat by the hearth with the little ledger on his knee, and he rose when I came in and bowed his head to me, a thing no one had ever done.
"Sit," I said to him.
"Please."
He sat.
"You sat at his table," I said to Aitor.
"Yes," he said.
"You passed him bread," I said.
"I did," he said.
"I wanted to put the knife in his eye."
"I know," said the Bear.
"I watched you want it, across the whole room.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of They Came to Buy My Sister, So I Went in Her Place as a Boy are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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