Outside, the traffic has thinned with villagers going home or to the inn for a midday meal. My tasks are all done, so I could begin the walk home and be returned by early afternoon. Or I can walk the path to Falda’s holding, to the pond and around it, then into the orchard to see what I can see.
At Falda’s cottage, I speak to her as she leans against the doorframe, one babe on her hip while two others play by the hearth. She doesn’t ask me in, nor do I request it. While she’s sympathetic about Ari’s loss, her tone tightens when she mentions the child hunting for mushrooms on her holding. Says she wasn’t even aware of her presence until the parents came knocking. Falda doesn’t strike me as the sort of person to do away with a child over stolen mushrooms or anything else. I thank her and assure her that I’ll steal nothing while looking at the orchard.
There are no prints in the dirt as I pass, not now, not of hers, or none that are recognisable – too many searchers have gone this way on too many heedless feet. On the far bank of the pond, there are very few mushrooms, only the old, withered.
In the shared orchard, I look at the apple trees, think how in early winter the villagers will gather here, pour cups of warm spiced cider onto the roots of the oldest trees as a gift to whatever old things might live in their trunks. Briefly I wonder if something went wrong with last year’s offering – I don’t attend, am not invited – and some discontented sprite decided to pluck their own offering. But it would have been a long time to wait, though, from ritual to revenge, especially when children cut through here all the time. Why would Aricome here after the mushrooming? And how’d she get to where I found the scrap of her cloak?
No trace of her footprints, but I follow those the searchers left, which lead me to the three-planked wooden fence around the gathered fruit trees. I think about young girls, myself at that age, the freedoms I stole. Ari would have walked the fence. Not just clambering over it, but balancing on the narrow top board, arms held out, cloak streaming behind like wings. She wore it even in spring because she adored it so. While I don’t doubt she was loved, she was the youngest child, the last at home. A child in a house where no one paid her much attention…
I scan the ground inside and outside of the fence to the right. Nothing. Then to the left. No footprints, no. But a red strand of wool caught on the fencepost, and a scattering of mushrooms on the ground outside the enclosure. Withered, several days old. Dropped as if when the one carrying them in the folds of her apron was snatched away – and up. I look at the trees outside the orchard, thick-limbed yews and oak and lindens – one linden in particular, spreading so far like a complex series of bridges. A child – limber and agile – might easily jump from the fence to the nearest branch, might walk among the trees for ages before having to touch the ground. Might not leave a trace for a long while or way.
***
No children play on the green as I pass by and I don’t have the energy to knock on doors, asking questions of those who may or may not have seen anything. Perhaps parents are being cautious, keeping their offspring inside. I’ve had my fill of human contact for the next while and so set off towards thebreak in the undergrowth where the path leads back to my cottage. I’m almost there when a voice breathlessly calls my name. I sigh and turn.
Lutetia Arnold is a woman both round and angular (at shoulder and hips), both motherly and spiky. She’s worn down by the worry of the only child still living in her home, Kian, a mostly grown son. The eldest two have families of their own and have been urging her for some time to evict their brother for the sake of her health. But she’s overly kind and doesn’t want Kian’s feelings hurt. Kian at least has gotten gainful employment at the sawmill.
‘Mistress Mehrab, I just heard you were here. I’m so sorry to—’
‘How can I help, Lutetia?’
‘My lad, two days ago he fell off a cart at the mill, been hobbling and moaning ever since.’
‘You should have called for me sooner,’ I say. Her husband Goscelin died a few years ago for he’d have no truck with a witch, insisting on tying a rune-carved amulet over the wound and going about his business without bandages or cleansing. I recall his death because I remember every unnecessary one.
The woman goes red. ‘That’s what I told him. He said I was over-reacting.’
‘Show me.’
Back across the green, across the market, between houses, two, three, four, five rows back, to a neat and plain cottage with wisteria growing over its front door. Inside, Lutetia leads me to a bedroom on the ground floor. The lad in question – over twenty – lies on a bed, feverish and pale against the bleached linen.
I throw back the sheets and look at the legs poking from the hem of his nightshirt. The right is twisted, red and swollen. I don’t feel especially like comforting the idiot. ‘Oh gods. I can tell just by looking that’s fractured, boy. You’re not being tough and strong, you’re being stupid. You won’t heal properly, you won’t be able to work, and your mother will see out her much-shortened life taking care of you.’
I could have been gentler but there are other things that need my attention. ‘Lutetia, give him a good measure of rum or whiskey, whatever’s the preference.’
While she bustles to the kitchen, I sit on the mattress beside Kian and place hands on him, letting my consciousness flow through the skin, into the flesh and muscles, the blood and to the bone, find the break, not clean, a hairline fracture down the femur. ‘I’ll not lie to you: this is going to hurt.’
He gets a little paler and knocks back the glass of very dark rum his mother produces, still giving me resentful glares. I make a cut on my palm for the red price, return both hands to his thigh, to where the fracture calls, and I mutter an incantation beneath my breath to help focus my power. Even with my eyes closed, I know he’s gritting his teeth because I can hear the grinding as he tries not to cry out. In under a minute, he gives in and bellows until he passes out. Then I’m free to finish knitting the bone together as surely as if I’m placing stitches on a tear, gentling the traumatised flesh and muscle around it.
When I finally open my eyes, I’m shaky, sweating. A glass of that same dark rum appears in front of me, and I throw it back, followed by a piece of apple loaf. It’s still a few minutesbefore I can get to my feet. ‘He’ll wake soon enough, sore, but able to walk and go back to work. In future, send for me.’
‘He didn’t want to bother—’
‘If he wants to die like his father, it’s his choice.’ I shrug, and while Lutetia was not the least bit grief-stricken over her husband, I think she’d miss this son for reasons best known to herself. She’s a decent person, keeps a kind eye on her neighbours, delivers bread and bottled fruits, leaves food at the doors of new mothers and those recently bereaved. ‘But for the love of all the gods, Lutetia, stop coddling him or he’ll never leave the tit.’
***
It’s a little later than I’d planned when my own cottage is at last in sight.
Before I go in, I check the trough in the courtyard. Its lid is on and the paddle’s damp from use. All the animals are chewing contentedly; eggs have been collected. The roses have been expertly trimmed, the clippings added to the compost heaps. I nod approvingly.
When I open the front door, the smell of baking bread and a hearty soup wafts out. Suddenly I’m so tired and so grateful that I could cry. I’d never have thought the delicate Lodellan lass with her dancing shoes could have cooked anything that smelled so mouth-wateringly good. Nor that I’d be so glad of her help and company.
8
‘Be careful,’ I say, trying to keep a sharp tone from my voice. Perhaps my mask dulls it; any road, the expression in her eyes doesn’t change, remains focused on what we’re doing.
I’ve never done this with help before. Never done it with a witness either, never tried to teach someone else to do this brand of magic. None of my other fosterlings have been here at the right time; they’ve only been with me in the cold months when the last of this work gets turned to kindling. I might have refused to explain it all to her, to this girl who’s trying her best – admittedly not something I’d thought to see – I might have kept it all a secret, working out in the barn on my own and bolting doors, spinning wards across them, but then what’s the likelihood of her not snooping around? Gods know I would – they tell us curiosity kills the cat, but a smart woman knows that knowledge is her best defence. She’s clever and questing. Oft-times, our more annoying quality is also our best, so I may grumble at her questioning, but I’m also pleased by it. I wonder if any of my teachers thought the same of me?
