Hayden turned away from the window to face him. “I did. They are fine indeed. I’ve only had a chance to browse through one of them so far.” He waved his hand as if to brush off the topic. “That is unimportant. What have you discovered?”
Dradus rubbed his palms together. “It is as the servant said. Old Varn’s mistress didn’t disappear. She simply moved to the Borders. Folks from three of the nearby towns said a red-haired witch named Niamh traded with them at market day. The older ones remember her carrying a baby, always swaddled, that she let no one touch or see.”
“Varn’s daughter.”
“I’m almost sure of it.”
Hayden scowled. “You need to be absolutely certain, Dradus. I want the girl found and brought back here. If she’s Varn’s offspring, then I will have rightful access to those shipping lanes.”
Dradus hesitated in delivering his next bit of news. “My scouts think they’ve found the home where the witch lives. A hovel away from the main road and even the cattle path. The villagers say two women live there, but both are old.”
“Sounds like the wrong hovel then.”
The mage shook his head. “Not necessarily. Niamh possessed strong magic and could manipulate illusion. She might have magicked the girl to look like a crone. It’s said one of them always wore gloves and refused to touch anything offered to her in the market.”
Hayden closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was more conjecture in Dradus’s story than real information, but he couldn’t afford to take any chances and lose a scent. For almost thirty years, Niamh had managed to avoid capture by both Dradus and his father. That she hadn’t already slipped through his fingers surprised him. “Any of your scouts mages like you?”
“Only one and no match for a witch of Niamh’s skill.” Dradus executed a small bow. “With your permission, I can ride there with a small troop and bring the girl back to you if she proves to be Varn’s.”
Hayden arched a skeptical eyebrow. “It takes a troop of soldiers and a mage-adept to bring in an old woman and a girl?”
Dradus’s features smoothed into an expressionless mask. “Think of it more as a powerful witch and her trained apprentice, Sire.”
The mage had a point. “Fine. Take as many soldiers as you deem necessary. I want her captured and brought to me.”
“Sire, rumor has it she may be cursed or diseased.”
Hayden shrugged. “I don’t care if she’s half eaten with leprosy. I need only prove she’s Varn’s daughter and my betrothed and those shipping lanes are mine.”
Dradus bowed low and backed out of the room, leaving Hayden alone with his thoughts once more. A dying nursemaid who had sought to unburden her soul in hopes of redemption had been an unexpected boon for him. Varn’s daughter and his dead aunt’s child. He wondered briefly whom she might resemble then shrugged the thought away. It mattered little. She was a child of Berberi and Castagher, and the means by which Hayden intended to extract just due from his neighbor.
CHAPTER THREE
The ancient fir that stood sentinel over Niamh’s grave had borne silent witness to a few of the spring and autumnal rituals the witch performed when she lived. Imogen thought it fitting the tree watch over her mother’s body where it lay buried beneath black earth and a mound of stones.
Niamh had died a week earlier, and the daffodils she so admired spread across the forest floor in a vast white and yellow tapestry. Imogen set a spray of the flowers atop the grave and bowed her head.
“It’s very quiet now, Mother. I miss you.”
As if in answer, a zephyr wind smelling of rye and apple blossoms blew across her shoulders, fluttering the tendrils of dark hair that had escaped her plait. A fanciful indulgence it might be, but she liked to think Niamh’s spirit lingered where her body rested, if only to greet Imogen when she visited the grave each day.
Some might think it strange that she came each afternoon to sit by the grave and talk to a pile of rocks, but Imogen didn’t care. Niamh had been her only companion her entire life, the one person who shared conversation with her. Her grief was still too fresh to give that up now, even if Niamh never replied.
Imogen fished in her apron pocket and pulled out the journal her mother had given her the night of her death. She kept it with her these days, reading it, as promised, during spare moments between chores and in the evening just before bed. The journal revealed a Niamh Imogen had never known or imagined.
The ground beneath her was dry and sun-warmed as she sat down cross-legged next to the grave and removed her gloves. Imogen liked to read here best, with the spirit of her mother close by and her memories revealing themselves in a flowing scrawl of faded ink.
Recipes for elixirs occupied the pages alongside lists of spells and commentary on the politics of the Berberi court. The spells and recipes were familiar. After hours of lessons and singing repetitious songs with ingredients and chants as lyrics, she knew them by heart.
But it was her mother’s observations of the vagaries of the aristocrats that captured Imogen’s interest. Astute, observant Niamh; she’d been less than impressed with the shenanigans perpetrated by spoiled, entitled nobility.
Imogen had gone wide-eyed at the discovery that Niamh had once been the pampered mistress of King Varn, and she blushed as she read those entries. Niamh waxed poetic and graphically about Varn’s physical prowess.
He is a fine man, the king. Strong shoulders and hair like the sun at Solstice. I see the women of court eye him. He’s a prized stallion and not just for his wealth and power. If they only knew the man was hung as well as the biggest stud in the royal stables.
“Honestly, Mother, was it necessary to write it down?” Imogen had muttered to herself and quickly skimmed the pages containing Niamh’s descriptions of bed play. Her sharp, no-nonsense words echoed in Imogen’s mind.
“The coupling between a man and a woman is as natural as it gets, Imogen. There’s no shame to it, nor should it be whispered of furtively in the dark. That way lies ignorance and stupidity.” She had blithely ignored Imogen’s red face and proceeded to tell her in detail the mating rituals of man and woman.
