He stares, disbelieving. ‘So, you don’t think there’s anything wrong.’
‘I didn’t say that. Until there’s proper evidence of something worse than bad behaviour there’s nothing I can do. Keep an eye on her, send for me if there’s anything concrete.’ I touch his arm, find him shaking. ‘Give her some time, Anselm. Practise patience. Keep an eye on Gida, though, she seems brittle.’
However, as I’m walking away from him all I can think of is Ari in her red wool cloak. Her perfectly lovely, perfectly intact red cloak. No sign at all of the piece the size of my hand that was torn from it, that bore traces of blood. The scrap of fabric that sits in a bottom drawer in my workroom at home. Or the piece that wrapped the chunk of unidentifiedmeatthat was left on my doorstep.
***
There’s a group of children and a dog playing on the common, a little desultory this warm afternoon as they kick a ball around. As I approach, they stop moving, wait for me to speak. Five of them, three girls, two lads, maybe eleven to fourteen. Some on school recess, some snuck away from apprenticeships, I assume.
‘Do any of you know Tieve?’ I ask, and as one they shrug. I wonder at this. ‘Does that mean you don’t know her? Or she doesn’t want to be found. Or you don’t want her found?’
A long-legged boy with tousled black hair steps forward, the oldest of them perhaps, gives an aggressive little bounce as he stands in front of me. The dog – a dark grey lurcher of a thing with more than a little wolfhound in her blood – followshim closely, leans against his leg. His hand drops down to pat her head, and eyes close in contentment. I’m still taller and if he thinks I’m easy to intimidate, he’s got another thing coming. There’s something familiar in his features but I can’t place him. The others cluster behind him like chicks.
‘What do you want with her?’ His voice breaks between two notes, on a cusp as he is. I hide a smile.
‘I want to talk about her friend Ari.’ His expression shutters, as do the others’, and I know enough about people to understand I’ll get nothing from them, not today at any rate. Pushing will only make things worse. ‘If you see her, please pass my message along, that I would speak with her. At her convenience.’
The lad nods, still suspicious, but at least he mutters with more politeness, ‘Yes, Mistress Mehrab.’
And I give a sketchy curtsey, which makes them laugh, relieving the tension. I offer the dog my hand to sniff and she lets me pat her before I move off, murmuring, ‘Good girl.’ Most adults would insist, start yelling, and nothing’s more likely to make children obdurate than that. Most adults too. Best I can do is sow the seed.
Witchcraft isn’t just potions and powders and spells. It’s whispers and gentleness, giving folk a sense they’re free to share their secrets with you – a feeling of a door left ajar, open without obligation. It’s listening to what’s not being said as well as what is coming from someone’s lips and watching in case words do not match deeds. It’s knowing that every lie told will eventually reveal itself and the person who told it.
Not everyone understands this.
12
Pondering the mystery of the child who’s no longer missing and the issue in my home of Rhea and the summer husband; of the loss of connection to something I’ve made by the labour of my own hands, something that happens every year with a comforting regularity, upon which I’ve come to rely. I’m so distracted I don’t notice the direction I’ve taken through the village. Normally I make a point of going the long way around so I don’t pass the smithy, but my mistake becomes obvious when there’s the call of a voice I’ve not heard in a few years. It’s amazing how long you can avoid someone if you – and they – try hard.
‘Mehrab. What brings you to my door?’
‘A mistake. It’s always a mistake, Faolan.’ I don’t pick up my pace lest he think I’m fleeing, even though I want to bolt. I force myself to meet his gaze as he stands there by the forge, sweating and soot-marked, a great hammer in one hand, tongs in the other, gripping a ploughshare blade which he plunges into the wooden slack tub. I watch him through the steam rising from the surface of the water.
He hasn’t changed. How long’s it been since last I saw himthis close? Two years? Three? Mid-fifties, thick silver and black hair, a neat beard, muscles into the end of next week. Brown trews, leather apron. His skin light brown, ash smeared on his forehead and cheek, beads of sweat on his naked chest. The long, raised scar that runs from the top of his left collarbone across his chest and ends just above the tip of his right hip is still visible despite my best efforts.
My skin prickles as he stares at me. Finally, he nods towards the children still playing on the green. ‘Saw you talking to my son.’
Now the familiarity of the features makes sense. The bouncing on the balls of the feet, the low-level aggression. Insecurity. I think how Faolan’s wife had come to me when she couldn’t conceive… The boy’s partly my fault, then. Poor motherless lad.
‘Saw you talking with Anselm, too.’
‘I’m amazed you get any work done, spending so much time watching others.’
He grins and I concede, ‘He’s got some concerns for his daughter.’
Faolan nods.
‘Have you noticed anything? Has your son?’
‘Why would he tell his father anything?’ Dismissive, as if it’s just a light truth and not a hint at a deeper hurt. ‘Nor do I follow the comings and goings of children.’
‘Someone should around here…’ I turn, look at the group breaking apart, moving off to various homes. His hand against my elbow, a shock runs through me this time. He moves as quietly as ever.
‘I miss you, Mehrab.’
I can smell him, the sweat and the scent that’s particularly him, a sort of sweet pine; it conjures up memories that bring a blush to my cheek, a rush of blood to other parts, and for a few seconds I’m back there, long ago, grass beneath me and Faolan obscuring the sun and moon. It would be so easy to melt back into that feeling. Before… before…
‘You should have thought of that years ago when you decided to take a wife.’
