I shake my head, come back to myself.
My pace has increased as my thoughts have galloped and as a result, I’ve made good time. Standing on the outskirts of Berhta’s Forge, I take a deep breath, calming myself against the unwonted press of people, and the news I must deliver. When I step over the boundary, I feel the earth shift a little beneath my feet as I enter someone else’s demesne.
***
There’s only one real road leading into Berhta’s Forge – as in a road intended as such, packed down hard and maintained – but many paths in and out, many smaller thoroughfares that wind through the forest and lead to other farms, the bigger orchards, bigger crop fields, the wood mill a little downstream, to the preferred swimming location and the other more secret ones, the spots where some still do their washing. To get to the main road that leads to the few other towns and villages buried in the Great Forest you’ve got half a day’s ride on our “proper” road.
No wall or fence around the village, it’s remarkably unfortified, relying mainly on its remoteness from anything and anyone; even groups of brigands either avoid it, can’t find it or simply think it not worth the bother of raiding. Sort of an insult but also a protection.
There’s a distinct lack of a castle or true grand manor, and no church, which means no place where holy treasures and relics might be found. The place is small, out of the way, so far from Lodellan as to be too inconvenient to worry about – and the folk hereabouts tend to worship older, greener gods even if they’re smart enough not to make a great showing of it. Every home has a green woman carved somewhere on its façade, no matter how small she might be.
Festivals cycle in with the seasons, with harvests and solstices, with the days when veils between worlds are thin and the dead might pass back and forth. All in all, the best sort of place for a witch to live; near those who are less than devoted to the church and whose home remains uncontaminated by god-hounds, even though they’re still afraid of us. Of me.
It’s a pretty village, I suppose – I can’t help but compareeverywhere to the grand city of my birth, no matter what happened there – and well laid out. Built by the banks of the River Ayda, there’s not much stone hereabouts, or not so easily acquired, so most houses are either of wattle and daub or wood, rough-hewn or polished, depending on the prosperity of the owner.
Thatched roofs are all overgrown with flowering vines that have wormed their way inside and are sometimes trained around a ceiling rose or hanging light, over a mantlepiece or a bedhead or canopy. The only building mostly of stone (by all accounts brought in on carts at great expense by a long-ago ancestor) is the home of Thaddeus Peppergill, the headman, alderman, mayor or whatever title he might fancy on whatever day. Not a bad stick, just a little jumped-up, a little promiscuous, but he does care in his own way for the seven hundred or so souls under his hand.
Roughly u-shaped with a market space in the centre around the well, and the first boundary is mostly shops – butcher, seamstress, cheese-monger, apothecary, general groceries. The blacksmith is one terminal, the inn marks the other. At the far end, the base of the u, are the bakery and millhouse – a joint venture between Anselm and his sister Sanne (as big as her brother, unmarried with no wish to become otherwise) with living quarters upstairs – right on the riverbank, with the water to keep the millstone turning day and night, and a mill pond that runs off the river, still and surprisingly deep.
Beside the inn is an expansive green for common grazing, for ballgames and chasey, for festival feasts and sacred burnings when it’s time for such things. Behind this is the firstrow of houses and holdings, somewhat higgledy-piggledy with yards and gardens of different sizes, but generally orderly. Nestled in here is the school that children attend until they’re twelve, when they go to apprenticeships or farm work or family businesses or some few away to study. Behind are more such houses, and more rows and more – the homes getting smaller and less impressive the further out one goes, but the barns and outbuildings growing proportionally larger.
Architecture’s not an outstanding feature, but it’s picturesque nonetheless. It is, now, a town. A village when I arrived, but Berhta’s Forge has grown. No one has yet thought to begin calling it “town”, and I don’t like to acknowledge it because I know that the larger the place becomes, the more people it will attract for various reasons – and the more dangerous it will become for me and my kind. There are shops with glass in their windows rather than simply a small circus of market stalls; there are specialist goods sought after by other towns and cities; more merchants visit by the year. Eventually, a church will be built, old ways will be stamped out or co-opted; Thad Peppergill will find himself set aside on feast days and solstices, no longer leading ceremonies. A god-hound will take his place, will harry folk to come to worship a jealous god, to obey without question, to allow no patience with difference in order to survive because god-hounds have never understood tolerance. Yes, the day will come when I must leave, but until then I’ll call this place a village.
I don’t use the main thoroughfare in; my path lets out at a far corner of the green and I’m thus able to avoid the smithy as I step into the small bustle of bodies going about theirbusiness, and make my way towards the bakery and mill. Part of me would prefer to do this task after my others; part of me would like to put it off as long as possible, but I’d not want grieving parents to think they’d been put last. As I push through the crowd, I feel the buzz as I’m recognised, as folk step aside to make way, murmuring greetings. The air feels heavier and the noise levels lower, eyes feel almost as a weight on me. When I was younger and didn’t know any better I used to let this upset and unsettle me, being noticed, being different. Now every part of me is carefully schooled: my expression remains pleasantly remote, or remotely pleasant, my posture is very straight, shoulders back, my gait smooth and even, almost a glide, my chin tilted up just enough to border on imperious. There’s a fine line between respect and fear, and it’s the work of a lifetime to maintain the balance.
At last I’m at the yellow door to the bakery, hand raised to knock; the sound of the waterwheel dipping and splashing into the river and the simultaneous rumbling of the grindstone inside the mill next door fill my ears loud as can be. Finally, I force myself to rap on the wood.
The door’s opened so quickly I almost topple in. Gida takes one look at my face and bursts into tears, falling forward. I half-carry her back inside, into the large bright kitchen where all the baking takes place, and coax her onto one of the high stools around the long table. I can smell yeast and sugar and the scent of warm bread. The light is so strong that it seems to wash Gida out completely; for a moment she’s a blank white oval. I’m bending towards her as she weeps, trying to calm her, when I’m plucked upwards by an elbow, my joints straining.
Anselm drops me as I shout, and bawls: ‘What did you do to her?’
‘Nothing! I’m here at your request!’ And the fact I spent my evening throwing up more than once from the aftereffects of the nightshade only to be met with this welcome does nothing for my temper. Taking a deep breath, I remind myself they’ve lost a child.
Gida gasps out, ‘I saw her face and I just knew…’
I move away from them towards the sinks and the big window behind that looks out over the river, stare at the smooth flow of water while the sobbing slows, while Anselm croons to his wife. There’s a kettle on the stovetop that feels hot enough to be recently boiled and, in a cupboard, I find a ceramic teapot and mugs, old enough for the glaze to have crackled. Retrieving chamomile leaves from my satchel, I make tea, don’t let it steep too long, then hand mugs to Gida and Anselm. ‘Drink.’
They both obey. The baker, with a hangdog look, apologises. I take one of the tall stools and indicate that he should sit beside his wife.
‘The day you came to me, I searched and found no sign until late in the afternoon, and that was just a scrap of her cloak. Last night I scried for her presence, across the forest.’ I still looked ill this morning, pale, eyes bloodshot, so the physical cost of the experience remains writ on me. ‘I’m sorry, but there was no trace.’
‘What are you saying?’ Anselm begins to rise from his seat – I cannot tell if he is immediately trying to be threatening or it’s simply a function of his size. Nevertheless, I lose my temper.
‘Ah, gods-shit, man. Sit down. I swear I’ll set a pox upon you! I’ve tried to help! I didn’t lose your child for you – that’s your own sin to bear!’
Anselm deflates, sinking down, seeming to become half his actual size. It was cruel, but I won’t be blamed for what’s not my fault, and my voice is calmer when I speak. ‘I’m sorry. You know I’d find her if I could. If she were still alive. There’s no more I can do.’ I hesitate. ‘There’s… there was blood on the scrap of cloak – perhaps a wolf, or bear, recently risen from hibernation and starving. You’d best warn others just in case, make sure children aren’t left alone, that they’re home before dark.’
From my pocket I pull the embroidered handkerchief that Gida gave me, return it to her. Watch her fingers pluck at it, until she says, ‘Do you have the piece of her cloak still? Can I have that?’
‘It was consumed in the scrying.’ A lie – the last scrap is secreted in a drawer in my workroom. It might be useful yet for something or other, filled as it is with a grandmother’s love and loss, the child’s joy in it, and her death. Besides, if I give it to her, she’ll spend her years mourning over it in a way she won’t with that pretty square of cambric. Best she not have anything to waste her tears on; they have other children and grandchildren who need her attention and I’ve seen more than one parent neglect those who remain for mourning the memory of the lost.
Anselm tries to offer payment as I leave; I tell him no. Not because of a failure but because it simply wouldn’t be right. Outside, I steady myself in the bracing air, trying to shake off the grief welling in the rooms behind me.
7
I drop the pattern in to Edric the Cordwainer, who looks pleased to see me; perhaps business has been slow. He supplements his income by the manufacture of bags and belts, saddles and bridles, straps and aprons; any purpose or shape to which leather can be bent. The shop is small, an outpost of the felt-makers’ building, really. (Felt is one of the items produced in Berhta’s Forge that goes out into the world in bulk, commanding high prices, turned into protective vests and tunics for soldiers, horse blankets, hats, boot lining, jackets to ward off winter, and padding for any number of things). I choose a buttery tan leather – I’d not thought to ask Rhea what she’d prefer, but since I’m paying for them, she’ll like it or lump it – ask for the soles to be thick and the lining of sheepskin. I tell him they’re for a young cousin because he knows my feet aren’t that small, and I pay the price he asks even though it makes my eyes water as it doesn’t pay to insult the man who makes your footwear when winter’s as cruel as it is in these parts.
At the seamstress’s shop, I exchange pleasantries with Mistress Godiva, and a little gossip: Rosina Tolkas’s daughter ispregnant, and Rosina demanded payment from the boy’s father in the form of one of the cottages the family owns. Godiva says he gave in less out of shame and more from a desire to no longer be yelled at. Good for Rosina, I say, and Godiva agrees. Edberg Zimmer, his wife gone to her well-deserved rest, has been trying to talk one of twelve village widows into marrying him (one at a time, not all at once, moving on after each rejection); alas for his plans none of them are foolish enough to accept his proposal. Why would they inconvenience themselves? I ask and Godiva agrees. And Ceryth Danby’s got her ninth child on the way and doesn’t know what’s causing it. Someone should tell her, I say, and Godiva agrees. When I ask about Ari’s disappearance, she can offer no more than I already know, but she murmurs,Poor Gida, and I agree. When I leave, it’s with two lengths of cotton – a sunflower yellow and an azure blue – and only the vaguest idea of how to turn them into dresses. I get them cheaper in return for a love potion (for her husband’s flagging libido) and a tea to help her sleep.
