- I wonder if it's already over, how can we do that? - She asked. I imagined how my cold corpse, realizing its duty to the orphanage and personally to Mrs. Karislava, rises from oblivion, squeaking its bones and shaking its stiffened limbs, crawls to the window, waving a rag and, calmly, goes back to purgatory.
And she giggled. The herbalist tired smiled at me.
In the morning, under the windows, komoroks made a fire of juniper and pine branches, which are known to drive away evil spirits and evil. Aristarchus mournfully dragged the psalms, and the novices who were frightened and trembling with cold sang to him.
The raw branches did not want to get hot for a long time, but they did, and the black resinous smoke fell into the open sash. I dissolved the window wider, and turned the bucket of waste into a burning pile of buckets, "made by accident", as well as Aristarchus. Under his screams and squashed giggles of the students, the fire was smothered and extinguished.
In the evening, a fenced place outside the door, where food was left to us, was empty. Our tolerant teacher was no different. So we had to eat dinner with sour berries from Danina's supplies.
On the third day, Xena got better, the fever fell asleep a little and she was exhausted hot. We slept in turns on a hay bale all three days, and sighed lightly.
- I think we were lucky," said the weedy woman, wiping sweat from her forehead with a trembling hand, "and now Ksenyushka will get better. But I'm running out of tinctures and she needs them to keep her strength up.
- What should I do? - I'm the one who got caught up.
- I have a reserve at home, in the Wasteland, but I'm afraid to leave the patient for a long time, suddenly again, the fever?
- I'll go," I decided, and reached for the hood, "there's no one else anyway.
- Perhaps I should turn to the Mistress," Danina hesitated, "awoosh, they'll singled out who, for the potions.
- As long as they decide, let them gather, a week will pass," I shook my head, we can not take this risk. What if we need the potions today? Just how do we get past the gatekeeper? It's forbidden for novices to go to the village.
A grasshopper gave me a thoughtful look and a clever smile.
- I have a thought. Take off your shelter clothes, dearie, and get into my dress and boots.
I nodded understandably.
Half an hour later, I walked unhindered through the shelter gate and into the road. I wore a black herbalist dress, tall boots, and Danina's widow's handkerchief safely concealed my hair all the way up to my eyebrows, and a wide cape with a hood complete the image. I hunched down, lowered my head low, and shook my legs, imitating the woman's gait and hugging the willow basket tightly.
The gatekeeper at the exit only quacked annoyingly when he saw me, but he said nothing, not even a word, so that the edges of my cloak did not hurt him.
- Danina, what did the rot really bring to us? - He screamed in my back. I showed him a gesture that the pious novice should not know, and hurried to the village.
- Here's an old hag, what would you..." The gatekeeper spit on the ground.
* * *
From the orphanage to Heather Wasteland, about three miles away. As a child we repeatedly ran to the village, then for pandanky at the edge of the apple tree from the edge of houses, then in search of sour cloudberries. Having grown up, the children's raids on the village had to stop, the villagers had to pay the salaries of the orphanages, they were wary and could snitch on the mentors. And those pranks were not forgiven, they could have whipped a rod and planted on water with breadcrumbs. Or they could send them to the "dark" for seven days, so that others wouldn't have any trouble. And it's inconvenient for grown-up girls to walk around in search of rotten apples.
So we stopped running to the countryside.
But of course I didn't forget the road. When I walked away from the shelter at a sufficient distance, I straightened my back and looked around... The red loam froze in the freezing cold and it was easy to walk on it. After three days in a stuffy herbalist's quarters, the body rejoiced at the movement and the fresh air. Behind a stone staircase with three platforms, a gate was hanging, and behind the gate there was a mire with muddy, stunted aspens and pine trees. In the Lord's time, the trees near Riverstein had previously been uprooted, leaving a wide viewing lane half a leaf wide. Now the rugged northern forest was steadily approaching the shelter's enclosure. Behind the young pines stood a wall of huge triangular spruce trees, their foothills supported by mossy boulders, from under which the roots of the trees snaked out. To the north of Riverstein stretched lakes and swamps, overgrown with wild roses, cloudberries and star sedge, and in summer the smell of a rotten swamp pulled from there. Even farther, behind impassable swamps, there was a ridge of Northern mountain fragments along which the Boundary with the Black Earth ran.
The Heather Heath is situated to the south, down the hillside, on which the shelter building was once erected, in the valley. That's where I was going.
Danina's house was closer to the outskirts, it made me happy, yet I was wary of going through the village. I stepped over a shaky fence, a bald dog pushed a brown nose out of the doghouse, yawned lazily, and climbed back in. That's a guard, too.
On my doorstep, Danielle jumped out to meet me.
- Oh, Mother! - he was happy and tripped, confused.
- You... who are you? Why are you wearing my mother's clothes? What's wrong with her???
- Danila, don't shout! And don't be scared, I'm Vetriana, remember me? From the orphanage? Your mother sent me to get some medicine. Wait, this is where she wrote you everything...
I hurriedly slipped him parchment, secretly looking at the son of a herbalist while he frowned, reading the message. Unlike most of the villagers, the herbalist's son was trained to read and write.
I remembered Danila as a swirling and skinny kid with knee-drawn knees and frightened eyes, and now I was faced with a tall, serious guy who seemed too mature and harsh for his age.
- A girl with gray hair," he recognized me, "go inside, there's nothing to stand on, the neighbors' eyes blurring.
I walked obediently in the hay, taking off my handkerchief and smoothing out the hairs that had come out of the braids.
The house was clean, smelled like roots and dry grass. There was also food.
I swallowed my saliva, trying to keep Danila from hearing it, but he still did, or he just guessed. He silently put a glass of goat milk in front of me and a piece of pie stuffed with porridge and a small lake net. From the thick and sweet smell of the dough, the saliva filled my mouth apart from the will to the edges, and I swallowed it again convulsively, and then swallowed my teeth into the rouge, slightly burnt from the edge of the cake side, noisily grabbed the foam from the milk, and ashamed of his manners, painfully blushed.
Danila pretended not to notice. Delovito went through the bubbles with oak caps and bubbly vials, looked at them in the light, and put them in a willow basket.
Finishing the cake and looking into the empty mug with regret, I remembered my upbringing and started a small talk. More out of curiosity, though.
- Danina says you've decided to become a witch doctor?
- Mm-hmm.
- Do you like to treat people?
- Mm-hmm.
- Are you going to be a student?
- Mm-hmm.
- There's no herbalist in the Wastelands, so you have to go to Zagreb or Pyczyzhensk, right? Or to Starovest at all?
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah, you can't be so chatty, - I moved out.
Danila looked out from under the shaggy wheat eyebrows and got drunk.
- Why should I speak with my tongue, the time will come for me to go, I will. I hadn't thought about it yet.
- Not a strategist," I summed it up.
- Why are you calling me names? Suddenly the guy took a childish wound.
I was laughing. I sincerely tried to explain the meaning of the word "strategist" to Danila. The guy didn't seem to understand, but he believed that I didn't mea
n to hurt him. But just in case, he frowned again.
I sneaked a smile. It looks like the son of a herbalist just shy of me, so he frowned, trying to seem adult and harsh.
- Listen, Danila, have you heard about the missing kids?
The guy was a little tense, but he answered.
- It was," the guy nodded.
- And not bikes, do you think?
- I wouldn't know! - Suddenly he shouted evil, "Why did you get attached to me? Take your medicine and go to your castle! And don't come here!!!
I jumped up, the handkerchief fell from my knees, and I fidgetfully picked it up, almost falling, tangled in uncomfortable skirts.
- And what did I ask you to yell like a violet, you can't ask! Why do you have to yell? Why are you so nervous, anyway?
Danila turned his back, he was breathing.
- I'm sorry, - deafly, without turning around, he said, - I didn't mean to... yell. It's just that we really have children disappearing, in all the neighborhoods, not long at all... the old twelve spring, and the others are less...
- How many are missing?
- Nine... already nine.
I was terrified. Wow! Nine children have gone missing from a little village without a trace!
I walked around the guy who bent over like a heavy load and looked him in the eye.
- Do you know where they are? What happened to them?
- No! He shouted out again. He was breathing like a dog again, calming down, no.
- Danila, - I called, - if you can help... you say so yourself, boys, not long...
He kicked me so hard I could barely hold my legs.
- I told you, I don't know!!! I don't know anything!!! And I can't help it! Now go away! Get out of here!
I slowly covered my hair with a handkerchief, tied my ends.
- You know," I stretched it out thoughtfully, looking at Danila's back, who turned his back on me, "your mother said that you don't sleep at night, even asked her to make you an invigorating tincture," the guy's back strained even more, "perhaps I understand what's happening to you. I try to stay awake at night, too. It's been three months now. It's hard... a lot. And it's scary.
- I don't know what you're talking about - it's dry, without turning around.
I sighed, I gave up, I picked up the basket.
- Thank you for the pie, Danila. I'll tell your mother you're all right. She's worried about you. And... and if you want to talk... there's an abandoned chapel outside the spruce tree shelter, I go there sometimes... to think.
Danila snorted a snort. I was still standing, but before I knew it, I was out of the door.
This time the dog didn't even stick his nose out of the doghouse.
After stomping behind the wicket door, I thoughtfully wandered along the palisade. What the son of the herbalist knows more than he's saying is obvious. But not to torture him, really. And I don't have the size to force a grown boy out of something he doesn't want to say. But what is he afraid of, why won't he say anything? He's obviously worried, nervous and talking about missing kids with a frank pity, but he doesn't want to tell me any more. He doesn't trust me? Maybe so, why trust him, we've seen each other a couple of times and then as a child.
I smiled, remembering how embarrassed Danina was when her boy saw me for the first time, pulled out his eyes, and directly poked at me with his finger.
- And why does this girl have hair like our old grandmother? White-white??? What is she, an old lady girl?
Danina started saying something to him, and then I pulled up my nose and ran away so I wouldn't cry. As I got older, I got used to this reaction to my appearance, and I stopped paying attention to it, and when I was a kid, I remember being very upset, crying or angry. My hair is long, and strangely gray. It's white as a harrier. I don't know if they were like that from birth or if they sat down because of some event. I went to the orphanage at the age of five with such hair, and all that was before my childhood memory, alas, has not kept.
Having dug out of my memories, I hesitatingly stomped on the thorny bushes of wild rosehip and decided to go to the local pub, to buy for Xenia some delicacy. Harchevnya in the Wasteland was one and very shabby, however, like everyone else in this village. It was located on the first, or rather the semi-basement floor of a long, squat building. On the second floor, the owner made small and damp rooms for travelers. There was also a shop with goods, where you could buy various little things on the road and simple snow.
In addition to the novices' activities, they were very active in needlework and sewing, which were then sent to the city for sale. The money went for the benefit of the orphanage, but in the spring, a practical Ksenia accompanied the cart and a few medieval men for tied mittens remained in her pocket. And now it was very convenient.
I pushed the handkerchief all the way to my eyes and put the basket in front of me. It smelled of horse manure and bread, and in the melted clay mud there were ruffled untidy chickens, looking for worms and crumbs. A blue rooster with a plucked tail and a red, hanging sideways, crest, looked at me badly, outragedly slammed his wings and hid behind the wheel of the covered canvas of the cart. I moved carefully towards the pub, bypassing the swarming birds and raising the hem. Mud and dung were disgustingly smacking under the soles of my boots.
It was better at least clean in the pub itself. In a small room it was twilight, grey overcast light barely penetrated through muddy glasses, and for kerosene and candles it was still early, the day in the yard. I shyly asked the frowned woman for a hot knockdown, bought a sweet bun for Xenia, paid for the honey and sat down on the bench.
From the foamy, honey, smelling of ginger and pepper knocked down on the soul was easy and joyful, I even thought about how to get a bigger vial, and buy a drink for a friend and a homemade man. Really, then I remembered that my pocket was empty and it caught on fire. Okay, I figured the bun was good, too. Xenya will be happy.
The door slammed, letting in new visitors.
I sighed a sorrowful sigh and sneaked a couple at the table. I did not look at the man, his companions were too bright. I've never seen such beauties in my life. Velvet, peach skin, huge dark, slightly stretched to the temples eyes, shiny black wave of uncovered hair. Expensive, dark blue, with silver embroidery and stones at the throat, the dress emphasized its amazing beauty and how the infusion sat on a sharpened figure. The cloak, entirely padded with silver fox fur, the girl carelessly threw it on the bench.
The aristocrats. That's right, they came from the capital itself. I wonder what they needed in the middle of nowhere.
- What a wretched thing to do! - I heard a muffled one.
I shuddered, a little spill on a wooden table.
What is she talking about me?? No, well, I'm not pretty and my cloak is dirty, in dark spots, and my boots are in dung, but "squalor"??? There were tears in my eyes, I was freezing desperately, and I lowered my head even lower.
- Alliana, come on, - a man's voice sounded deaf and a little hoarse as a cold - we're not here to discuss your hatred of people.
- Hatred? Ha! - The one Alliana called, with her head thrown back and laughed, - all I feel for these little human creatures is but contempt and disgust!
Wow! I fell asleep outragedly. No, I've seen different gryptoes, of course, but they say everyone in Starovera is like that.
- Look at this one," said the girl, not shying or even thinking of speaking more quietly, "pathetic, wretched creature. No beauty, no power... total uselessness. It's not even tasty!
I choked to death. Maybe they're not about me. I looked around the empty hall with hope. No one but me. Even the hostess went somewhere. She ran to get some salted meat, some expensive guests to dine.
- No one prevented you from staying behind the Devil, the man said even more, - I didn't call with me - and I need to find out what's going on...
- Ah! - Beauty's head spiked, - I don't believe in these stupid stories?! Nonsense and stupid! Two essences in one, impossible...
- But
the source wakes up. I can feel it. The Oracle is not wrong about that.
The girl exhaled as if in pain.
- And yet... I don't understand! I don't like it here, you know that! It's terrible, everything's just terrible! And these disgusting people... filthy, insignificant and stupid creatures! The inferior race! And they... they stink!
I listened to them without looking at the clay mug. I think the knockout is bitter.
- Alliana, be quiet. You're interfering with my thinking.
I strained my hearing as hard as I could by taking an interest. What are they talking about?
- But I don't like it here," Alliana said capriciously, I heard her well, and I...
- Shut up. - the voice sounded with no emotion at all, but I inexplicably got scared. It seems that this beautiful woman, too, because she shut up abruptly. But she looked outraged. The man had a hoarse laugh.
- It's an interesting illusion," he said.
The girl threw her hair away coquettishly.
- Do you like it, dear?
- I don't.
- Oh, you...bastard!
I covered myself with a mug to giggle. And I sneaked a look at a couple of them. What's that?
A wave of fear covered my head, I was freezing desperately! Because an angry beauty had my eyes sparkling with hair, my fangs lengthened and moved forward a little, so I could clearly see them sticking out from under my upper lip, and my dark eyes became bright red!
O holy Mother and holy elders!!! Who's that?? A ghoul!!!!
A man suddenly turned his head sharply and stared at me. I stuck my nose in a mug, everything floated in front of my eyes, but I knew clearly that he was looking at me! And I was scared!
- She saw you. - deafly, he said.
- It's impossible," the girl answered.
Now I knew they were both looking at me. A man and this... with fangs! My heart was compressed with horror.
- It's impossible! - The fang woman confidently repeated, she is a man, no trace of the Force.
- Shut up!
The man almost growled, and I was struck by a wave of ice. And then I felt... something strange. It was as if a light feather had touched me on my neck and that feather was so gently but persistently walked along my neck, then my cheek, tickled my forehead and began to sink, sink into my head!
The Wind of the North Page 4