Tanyth smiled at the earnest face peering at her from under night-tossed hair. “Sleep will help keep you from picking up her flux and there was nothing to do but wait.” She shrugged. “I had a pleasant nap right there myself, so no harm done, my dear.”
Rebecca glanced at Sadie. “How is she doing?”
Tanyth followed the glance with one of her own and added another half-shrug. “Seems like the fever is down a bit, but unless I miss my guess, she’s got another day before it burns through.”
Amber nodded. “Thank you for comin’ back, mum.” Her voice was low, and Rebecca nodded her wide-eyed confirmation.
“I’m glad they found me.” Tanyth looked back and forth between the two faces peering at her through the dim light. “But I don’t understand somethin’.”
The two glanced at each other before looking back at Tanyth. “What’s that, mum?” Rebecca asked.
“How could you not know this was the flux? And why didn’t you just give her the willow bark?”
Amber sighed. Rebecca looked a bit guilty.
Tanyth waited them out, poking the coals and pressing the pot of willow bark tea closer to the fire.
Finally Amber spoke. “I suspected it was the flux, but after Mother Alderton passed in the winter, we were scared that Sadie would follow her path. We knew you couldn’t have gone that far so when she started throwin’ up, William and Thomas volunteered to go after you.” Amber looked stricken. “Thank you for coming back.”
“But don’t you know willow bark tea?” Tanyth softened the query with a gentle smile. “Surely you’ve seen flux and used the tea before.”
Amber started to say something but stopped. Finally she managed to find the words. “We were afraid that it wasn’t the flux. Mother Alderton was our healer and she always took care of us. None of us had time to learn before the All-Mother called her home.”
A chilly finger scraped down Tanyth’s spine. She noticed that a sharper light edged out the watery color of predawn. She heard doors opening and closing in the huts of the village over a rising tide of bird song. She sighed again. “Well, my dears, we’ve got mornin’ upon us and I suspect hungry and scared people. We should get things moving. Then we can talk.”
Amber and Rebecca nodded and shot smiles of thanks in her direction as they scampered out the door. Tanyth heard their voices reassuring their neighbors and directing the morning’s activities. Sick or no, the men needed to get on with gathering the clay, the goats needed milking, and children needed to be fed and held. Tanyth knew there was some chance that the sickness would spread, but rested, healthy bodies had the best chance fighting off the poison. She set about filling a large pot with water and warming it on the growing fire. She opened the back door to let out the stale night air and was just beginning to think about breakfast for herself, when Sadie spoke to her.
“Thank you, mum. For coming back to save me.”
Tanyth crossed to the cot and looked down at her charge. “I hardly saved you, child. You weren’t in any real danger as near, as I can tell.” She smiled down at Sadie. “You might have felt like you were crossin’ over, but most people don’t die from a simple case of the flux.”
Sadie looked drawn and pinched about the eyes, very different from the smiling face she’d shown just the previous morning. “Mother Alderton did.”
Tanyth gave a little side-to-side shake of her head. “Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. Mighta been something that looked like flux but wasn’t. Too hard to tell now.” She focused on Sadie and gave her a little pat on the forearm where it rested on the covers. “But you are not Mother Alderton and you aren’t going to die.”
Sadie smiled weakly at the reassurance.
“So? How do you feel this morning? Need the pan?”
Sadie shook her head. “I feel empty just now, but my head hurts and I’m so weak.”
“I’m warmin’ the willow bark again. You’ll need another cup or two before the day’s out, I’m thinkin’, but you’ll be back on your feet tomorrow, I bet.”
Sadie made a grimace. “Gah, that’s horrible tasting stuff.” She smiled. “But it does help. Thank you for makin’ it.”
“I’m glad I had some left. It wouldn’t have been very much fun rummaging around in the dark looking for willow trees.” She said it with a grin. “But it does taste pretty bad. A dollop of honey and a few mint leaves help a lot but we were in a hurry last night.”
Sadie smiled. “Well, don’t tell the kids but there’s a bit of honey comb in that jar up there.” She nodded to an earthen jar on the mantle. “If they knew it was there, they’d be after it all the time.”
Tanyth looked surprised and reached for the jar. Inside she found a honey comb that had leaked several ounces of the golden sweetener into the bottom of the container. She retrieved Sadie’s mug, tossed the dregs from the previous night’s concoction into the side of the fire and poured a careful measure of honey into the bottom of the cup before adding a generous amount of willow bark tea. She stirred it gently to dissolve the honey in the warmed liquid and could smell the rich aroma of summer flowers wafting up in the moist cloud above the cup. She handed it to Sadie who took a tentative sip, grimaced, and then did her best to drink the cup down without stopping.
“Gah, that’s still horrible.” She handed the cup back to Tanyth. “But thank you. It helps.” She settled back into the bed and pulled the covers up around her shoulders with a small shiver. She mumbled something else that Tanyth couldn’t hear, and passed the boundary between waking and sleep without a ripple.
Tanyth rolled up her bedroll and re-tied it to the bottom of her pack. The smell of the honey had stirred the need for her own breakfast and she pulled the bread and cheese from the side pocket of her pack. It was only slightly misshapen from having been confined in the small space over night and she quickly toasted the bread over the coals, melting a bit of the cheese into it and savoring the warmly mingled flavors of toast and cheese. By the time she’d finished her meager meal, one of the other women was at the door. Tanyth recognized the face but couldn’t remember the name that went with it.
The young woman must have seen her trying to recall and smiled prettily. “I’m Megan, mum. Amber sent me to relieve you. She has tea ready at her cottage, if you’d like to join her.”
Tanyth smiled warmly. “A cup of tea would go nicely right now.” She picked up her wide hat and started for the door.
Megan stopped her with a quiet, “What do I do?”
Tanyth looked at her. She seemed distressed. “Do?”
Megan nodded. “Yes. What do I do for Sadie?”
Tanyth shook her head. “Nothing, my dear. Just sit with her and keep her company. She’s had some bark tea and should sleep for a couple of hours if left undisturbed. Make yourself comfy and see if she needs anything when she wakes. If anything else happens, just call me.”
Tanyth left the young woman standing in the middle of the hut and marveled again how women with children could seem so helpless in the face of common adversity.
She found Amber sitting outside in a sunny nook behind her cottage with a charming little teapot, a collection of delicate china cups, and the bulky form of her woodcutter husband looking vaguely uncomfortable with the delicate china clasped in his hand. He wore a sleeveless leather vest which left his arms free and showed his shoulders to good advantage as well.
Amber smiled a greeting and extended a hand to indicate the open stool beside their small table.
“How’s she doing?” Amber didn’t really appear worried about Sadie but offered the query as a conversational starter while she poured one of the blue flowered cups with a lovely tea of pale green. The scent of mint wafted moistly from the cup.
“Good morning, mum,” William offered with a grave smile of his own.
She suddenly decided she liked William, not because of the shape of his shoulders or the attractive curl in his hair, but simply because of the warm smile in his eyes. She had to admit to herself that the
rest didn’t hurt. She smiled at him. “Good morning, William. Not out cutting today?”
He shifted uneasily and looked into his cup. “Oh, I reckon I’ll be goin’ out soon as I’ve finished my tea.”
Tanyth turned to Amber. “She’s better. Had some more tea and she’s resting more or less comfortably at the moment.” She took the offered seat and sipped the tea. A cutting board with cheese, bread, and fruit was in the center of the table and Amber pushed it just a bit toward the older woman as if in offering.
In a tree on the far side of the clearing a squirrel chattered a few times at some transgressor unseen from the sunny breakfast table. The morning breeze felt soft against Tanyth’s cheek. She turned her face up to the sun, closed her eyes, and accepted the gift of warmth while she waited for the conversation to begin. By her reckoning they had a week before the Harvest Moon and the weather would start changing soon. .
“So, you’re probably wonderin’...” Amber began but her voice petered out.
“Yes,” Tanyth replied without opening her eyes or turning back to look at them.
“Mother Alderton was our healer.” Amber said. “The All-Mother called her home late last winter and we’ve been muddling along ever since. We’re all pretty rugged. The outdoor work and all, I guess.”
Tanyth noticed that William stared into his mug of tea without drinking it. In the light of morning he looked very young for all his broad shoulders and muscled arms. She looked carefully at Amber. “You never made willow bark tea?”
Amber looked startled. “Not from bits of bark!” She looked embarrassed by her outburst. “At home we’d pop around to the apothecary and pick up some willow bark tea whenever we needed it.” She shrugged. “Mother Alderton made some for us when we needed it, and none of us have had the time what with the kids and the houses and all.” Her voice petered out under the older woman’s scrutiny.
“‘At home’? What did you mean ‘at home’? Where are you from?” Tanyth’s voice was soft but insistent.
William spoke for the first time. “Kleesport, mum. We came out here as a group from Kleesport. There was something over two dozen of us to begin with. Some left. Some are still here.” His face turned to look at what must be the graveyard. Tanyth made out some whitewashed stones set in the ground. “Mother Alderton said she came to keep an eye on us.”
Tanyth’s eyes swept back and forth between the two of them and then around the yards and tidy huts. The odd chicken scratched here and there and a pair of goats grazed on the weedy side hill. The garden plots seemed too small to support two dozen adults. “Why did she think you needed keepin’ an eye on, then?”
“She thought we were too soft and citified to make it out here on our own.” His voice was low, and he didn’t look up from his tea cup.
Amber wouldn’t meet her gaze either. “Were you?”
He gave a half shrug. “Some were. Mostly those left. A few were called home, like Mother Alderton. We’re down to 18 adults now and the kids.” He blew out a long breath. “Honestly, mum, I thought we’d have more of a going concern by now.”
Amber added a morose, “We haven’t even named the place yet. We can’t seem to agree.”
“So why do you stay at it? It’s only a few days into Kleesport, isn’t it?”
“Ten days on foot, mum. Two weeks by wagon.” William sounded very dejected.
“It takes you two weeks to get a wagon load of clay into town? How many times a year can you do that?”
He gave another half shrug. “Only have the one wagon and team that can make the trip. Ole Bester and the cart is good for the woodcuttin’ and all, but Frank Crane takes the cargo rig into Kleesport and back six times a year or so. We got one more load for this season. He was due back on Sickle Moon or thereabouts.”
Amber added. “The new moon was just the other night so he’s not too late. He’ll be back.”
William didn’t look convinced to Tanyth, but she held her tongue. She sipped her cooling tea and thought about what they’d said. “You all came from town? None of you are farm folk? Nobody used to livin’ on the land?”
William nodded. “Mother Alderton called us her poor little rich kids. My father owns a shipping line, but there’s no room for me in it.” His voice dripped bitterness onto the table.
Amber grimaced. “Daughters of goldsmiths don’t get to play with gold. They’re supposed to be pretty and snare good husbands.”
“All of you are what? Runaways?”
“Not runaways, exactly. Just misfits, I guess you’d say. Most of us have families that we could go back to. Thomas doesn’t. The knowing grins would be difficult to deal with, but it could be done.”
“Your father would never accept me as his daughter, Will.” Amber said this quietly without looking at him.
“Probably fair, because yours wouldn’t accept me as a son, either.” He gave her a grin that carried real humor and warmth. He turned to Tanyth. “Neither of our families thinks our choice of partner is suitable.”
She smiled back. “I gathered.” She looked back and forth between them. “So you all packed up and came out here to quarry clay?”
William snickered. “We thought of it as ’setting out to make our fortunes.’” He gave a sideways shrug. “Might work yet, if we don’t all die or get disgusted and pack it in.”
Amber sat up straighter on her stool. “Well, those that have packed it in are the singles and the impatient, for the most part. I know you and I aren’t ready to give up yet, and neither are Sadie and Thomas or Megan and David.”
“Clay’s hard work and shipping it so far as a raw material is harder still, I wager.” Tanyth offered the suggestion.
“We’ve got a factor in Kleesport who buys it. We give it to him wholesale and he brokers it out to those who need it for brickwork and whatnot.” William shrugged. “We didn’t run away, ya see? We still have connections there. Just scratchin’ in the dirt like this is disheartenin’ for some.”
It was Tanyth’s turn for a half shrug. “Anything worth havin’ is worth workin’ for.” She paused. “Where’s Mother Alderton’s hut? Maybe there’s stuff there I can show you how to use before I get on the road again.”
Amber sighed. “Well, we were hoping you’d be able to spend a bit of time with us.”
William looked at her with a hopeful gleam in his eye. “You’d be able to help us a lot, mum, if you could see your way to spend even a few days. We’d be able to send you on in the clay wagon when Frank takes it to Kleesport again. He’ll be going back out again almost as soon as he gets back. A couple days rest for the horses and we’ll load the barrels of clay for the ride into town. Save you walkin’.”
“Walkin’s no mind to me, William, and I’d be a day closer by now if I hadn’t come back.” She felt a little mean to be reminding them. “I need to be in Lammas Wood before the Axe Moon.”
William’s eyes widened. “That’s a long way to go. How were you planning to get there by then?”
“Passage from Kleesport to Northport on a ship. Should only take a couple of weeks by sea, but I need to be there before the days get too short.”
Tanyth could see William running the numbers in his head. “Yes, but that’s still not goin’ to make it. It’ll take longer than that to make it to Kleesport, mum.”
“Well, not if I walked today, lad. It’s just gone to the Harvest Moon and I can be in Kleesport in ten days. I’ll be a few days late by taking the ship, assuming I can get passage, but the weather shouldn’t be too bad and I’ll be in Northport before the season gets too far advanced.”
He nodded his agreement. “I can see that, mum. And every day you stay here is a day later.”
Amber and William glanced at each other and Amber sighed. “Well, let me show you Mother Alderton’s cottage, Tanyth. Anything you can do to help would be appreciated.”
They all drained their cups and stood.
William gave his wife a hug and nodded politely to Tanyth. “I’ve gotta get Bester m
ovin’ or he’ll think we’re goin’ soft.” He walked off toward the barn.
Amber bustled about putting the cups and pot on a tray and Tanyth helped her take the precious china indoors.
“That’s a lovely service, Amber. Was it a gift?”
Amber smiled. “From William when we moved out here. He said I should have something to remind me of the finer things.”
“How thoughtful!”
“How pessimistic, but how right he was. There are days when the crud and the mud and the bugs all make me a little crazy.”
Tanyth grinned. “I understand completely. Twenty winters I’ve been on the road. Some days, it’s glorious. Others, it’s somethin’ considerably less.”
Amber stashed the tea service solidly on the hearth and led Tanyth out the front door and around the edge of the hamlet to a small hut, no different from any of the others. Tanyth noted that with some minor variations they might all have been stamped from the same mold. Simple post and beam construction with a rather pronounced peak to the roof. The roof was planked like the side of a boat and the walls were chinked logs, probably cleared from this very lot to make room for the hamlet. Like all the others, this one had a low door with steps down to a tidy room. A very businesslike hearth held pride of place on the east end and a matching door led out the far side of the hut, giving access on both sides of the building. Even though there were no windows, the doors on both sides gave day light during summer and the low buildings were protected from winter’s cold by the earthwork.
As the two women entered the hut, a flock of children pelted by outside. Tanyth watched them run past the open door.
“One of those is yours?” She asked. “The ringleader? Riley was it?”
Amber smiled proudly. “Yes, Riley and his sister, Gillian. This will be his ninth winter. Gillian’s seventh.”
“You had them before you came out here?”
Amber nodded. “We’re crazy but we’re not that crazy.” She smiled cheerfully. “William and I eloped almost ten winters ago. We tried to make it on our own in town.” She shook her head and shrugged. “It was impossible. Everybody knew our families and that they didn’t approve of us. The children came and we needed more for them than we could do for them in town.”
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