I scowled, I hoped discreetly.They had naught to do with it.
A power blossomed within me, greater than Mairi’s knowledge. This calm I exuded came from some wellspring of my own. If I put Mairi’s knowledge and my gifts both together, what couldn’t I achieve?
The priests would have said I lacked humility. Humility was greatly losing its appeal.
The servant returned with a cup of the onion brew, which the lad took, scrunching his nose at the smell.
“My throat does itch still,” he said, voice as rough as if he’d not spoken for years.
“The illness is not gone from ye,” I told him. “’Twill most like last out the week. But ye panicked, and feared ye would not breathe. That does no one any good.”
He nodded and drank the onion brew, making a foul face as he did.
To his mother I said, “For a dry cough such as this, I recommend anise and parsley seeds brewed with violet seeds and wine. Give it to him once every day until he is well.”
Mistress Douglas nodded, and said to the servant girl, “Heed ye well.”
“If ye have summat to prop his head up while he sleeps, that will likely do him some good, too,” I continued. “And do not hesitate to send for me if you need help preparing the brew, or if his condition should worsen. You may find me with Thomas Shepherd if you have need.”
I thought of the gossiping beldames, and of Eamon’s constant chastisement, how he had called me a huir. But if Mistress Douglas was to dismiss and look down on me for my choice of bedfellow after all the good I had just done, well, then humans really were the worthless hypocrites they seemed.
She did not, only putting a hand to her breast, while she murmured prayers to all the saints. “’Tis a miracle. Ye have saved him.”
“So I hope.” For the boy had taken a turn for the better but was not yet out of the woods.
But pride kindled in my breast as she told me, “You truly are Mairi Grieve’s daughter and prentice,” and gazed at me with wonder.
Not her daughter. Never hers. Never human.
Yet, somehow, in the truest way I could imagine, I had become Mairi’s heir.
And who else’s? That was what I needed to know.
Sixteen
’Twas closing in on June,the air warm, and the flowers all in bloom. My blood waked to the joy of midsummer, to the new growth blossoming all around the village, even while my thoughts churned with curiosity and puzzlement: Did Mairi Grieve serve as midwife to the Faery Queen? Was I, as the wolf implied, the queen’s secret heir?
Perhaps I gave too much credence to gossip and mockery. And why did I care? I was happy in the shepherd’s home. Yet the questions inside me would not rest.
I must away to Carterhaugh, to see what answers I could find.
I made my way down the path to the well, and the purple pennyroyal flowers seemed to mock me, reminding me how I had failed Glenna Baker. For even as Mairi Grieve’s true heir, I had not been able to help her much at all.
Unless, of course, she needed help with the birth. For my not-mother Mairi had taught me well.
A heaviness settled in my breast, a grief not lessened for the months since Mairi’s demise. I glanced down at the well, staring at the clear surface of the water. “Will ye show me the truth?” I asked aloud. “Was Mairi Grieve the Faery Queen’s midwife?” I dared not ask the rest.
Was the wolf right to call me his queen?
The well only showed my own reflection.ThatI knew was a lie.
I waited, but no visions came, until at last in irritation I spun away from the well, picked up my basket, and turned to go home.
“There walks a lass with great purpose,” came a voice from somewhere, pulling me from my thoughts.
I recognized that voice. It wrapped around me like a serpent entwining around its prey, tongue sliding into my ear.
Amadan.
