The Bone Queen Read Online Free PDF

survive. Taran looked sideways at Cadvan, and said, as if confessing something shameful, that he had asked Indira to live with his family.
    “She is good with her hands, and a famous cook,” he said. “So it would benefit both of us.”
    Cadvan met his eyes. “It’s a kindness, too.”
    “Nay, I could do with the help in the house,” he said. “The baby is walking now, and getting into all sorts of trouble…”
    Cadvan smiled, and clasped Taran’s shoulder briefly before moving off. All the furniture in Taran’s main room had been shifted out of the front door to make space for the funeral meal, but despite this, the house was so crowded that exiting was difficult. On his way out, Cadvan glimpsed Hal, curled up at the top of the stairway, her dark head propped on her knees, broodingly watching the throng. She looked up and by chance met his eye: the desolation he saw in her face made Cadvan’s breath rush out of him. She flinched, and Cadvan was abashed that he had unwittingly caught her in such private feeling. To cover his embarrassment, he gave her a brief, formal nod, and after a pause, she nodded back, her expression veiled.
    Cadvan paid his respects at every burial, although he didn’t know most of the dead and stood among the mourners as the stranger that he was. It seemed as if the burials would never stop, although in truth they were all over in a few days. Once the wakes and blessings were done, the village began to return to its normal rhythm.
    There was a meeting among the gang leaders, who constituted the informal council that ran the mine. The miners had found no trace of firedamp, and they concluded that they had hit an unlucky pocket of gas. After much discussion, they decided to close the tunnel where the explosion had happened, and to follow another seam. The main problem they now faced was a much-reduced workforce. The only reason the toll hadn’t been higher was because mining occurred in two shifts, morning and afternoon, to allow the miners some daylight hours in which to cultivate the gardens which produced most of their food.
    After some impassioned argument – the rights to a mine were jealously guarded – the council decided to send news to Akmil and Shodarin, nearby mining settlements where some of them had relatives or associates, that there was room for five new teams. Jouan produced the highest quality coal in the region, the hard, black anthracite that was most sought by smiths, and that would attract interest. There would soon be newcomers in Jouan.
    It seemed to Cadvan that routine asserted itself with astonishing rapidity. Once the mine was working again, it was as if nothing had changed. Only the twenty-three raw graves in the cemetery remained to tell of the catastrophe; and by summer even they were gentled by new grass.
    The accident marked a sharp change in the villagers’ attitude towards Cadvan: although he would always be regarded as a stranger, it was as if the village had breathed out and accepted him. It was nothing very obvious, but it made him realize, not without an inner sneer at his weakness, how much he had missed being part of a community. People who had previously given him the barest nod in passing now greeted him by name; when he went to the local tavern, his entrance no longer caused a brief silence. Sometimes the miners would invite him to drink with them, and he accepted out of courtesy, although he preferred to drink alone.
    The Jouains were too polite to question him directly, but after the revelation of his powers, Cadvan became the object of lively curiosity. He was for a time the major topic of discussion in the hamlet, an interest only made sharper by his deep reserve. They judged that he could be no more than twenty years of age (in truth he was nearer thirty, but their work burned youth from the Jouains early, and men of Cadvan’s age already looked old). Despite his youth, he carried the gravity of a much older man. He seldom smiled, and almost