Ravenwood

by Lowell, Nathan

  They smiled and accepted the small gifts. “Happy new year, mum, and thank you.”

  All the activity caught up with her then. She closed her eyes for just a moment but inadvertently dropped off to sleep.

  At the top of the tree, she basked in the final rays of winter sunshine. The golden sun warmed her feathers, even as the village below sank into the spreading shadows of the tree line. She’d need food soon and regretted not feeding on the meat before the men had dragged it off and buried it. She cawed in frustration. It didn’t do any good for her hunger, but she let the others know she was still there. It was still her territory. The pair to the south answered her but it was more acknowledgement than challenge. With the snowy season just starting, they’d all need to conserve energy against the cold and the dark.

  The man with the bow came out of the woods across the wide path and trudged up the snowy track toward the village. She leaned forward with interest. The day was drawing to a close but sometimes he left rabbits. Maybe he’d leave another. The door to the house with rabbits opened and she became more excited, but it wasn’t the woman who fed her who came out. It was the woman who chased her from the corn. She sulked back onto the branch and crooned. She was hungry and would have to go find some rose hips or dig for the apples under the snow.

  She watched as the woman and man talked. They looked up at her tree, which startled her and she froze in place. It wasn’t good to be looked at, still it made her curious and she tilted her head left and right as the man reached into his bag and pulled out a rabbit. He handed the rabbit to the woman before continuing up the path, glancing up at the tree as he walked. The woman took the rabbit inside and she cawed her frustration.

  No rabbit.

  She launched from the tree and swooped down into the shadows of the village, heading for the bush with rose hips. They weren’t rabbit, but they filled her. Movement at the back door of the house with rabbits caught her attention and the reddish light shined out onto the snow for a moment. It was long enough for her to see the woman step out and lay the rabbit on the snow before quickly stepping back inside and closing the door.

  She flared upwards in a banking turn to grab a limb and look back. Nobody stirred. The shadows of evening crept across the wide path and into the trees on the other side. She cawed and stooped. The flesh warmed her as she feasted there in the snow.

  Tanyth’s strength returned quickly once she was warmed and fed. Within a few days she banished her nurses back to their own homes. Sadie left with a knowing smile and a cheeky wink. “Woodbox needs tendin’, eh, mum?”

  Tanyth gave her a shrug, a hug, and a sly grin of her own. “Takes a lot of wood to keep old bones warm in the winter, my dear.”

  Sadie giggled. “You be careful of splinters!”

  Tanyth blushed a little but shoo’ed her out.

  Around sunset, Frank showed up at her door with an armload of firewood, some venison chops and a jug of sweet cider. “Thought you might like somethin’ other than rabbit for dinner.”

  “Don’t stand on ceremony, man! Get in here.” She smiled at him.

  He dropped the firewood in the box and turned to her.

  They stood for a few moments and she saw his eyes tracing the bruises. She knew several shockingly purple splotches still marked her face, but at least the swelling had subsided and she could see out of both eyes again, even if one had a pretty serious shiner.

  Still, his examination made her self-conscious. “Mother, I must be a sight.”

  His eyes stopped their tracing and centered on her face. “You certainly are. One I’m glad to see.”

  She went to him and took the cider and meat from his hands, placing them on the table. “Then give me a hug. Gently.” She nuzzled up to his chest and put her arms around him. “I’m still a little sore.”

  He did and they stood there for a time. Finally he spoke. “I was so scared. We had no idea where you’d gone, but...” He paused. “You know, if you wanted to skip the Solstice prayer you could have just said so.”

  She pulled back and looked up at him confused.

  “You didn’t have to go running off to the woods with another man.” His eyes twinkled and his lips twitched with a barely controlled grin.

  It caught her by such surprise that she barked laughter into his chest and smacked him playfully on the shoulder. “You beast.”

  He hugged her gently once more, and she snuggled into him, smelling him and savoring his warmth for a few moments before pushing him away. “Ok, enough of that. I’m hungry.”

  She turned to the food. As the venison cooked, they pulled up their chairs side by side on the hearthstone and let the wind blow through the eaves while they were snug, warm, and together inside.

  Chapter 40

  New Beginnings

  By the new moon, they’d closed in the walls and with the extra shelter that afforded, they started keeping a fire burning in the hearth all the time to keep the chimney warmed. The extra heat permitted them to begin laying the firebrick for a real oven and by the end of the month of the Ice Moon, Sadie and Amber did much of their cooking at the inn.

  Tanyth watched it all with a certain fascination, but her time was taken up with tasks of her own and the days took on an easy pattern. She started the morning with breakfast–occasionally shared with Frank, much to the amusement of Sadie and Amber who seemed inordinately pleased with themselves on the issue. After breakfast, she helped Sadie and Amber with the daily bread making. She was an expert at flat, unleavened breads–camp bread that could be mixed and cooked over a campfire, but Sadie and Amber were talented bread makers and Tanyth admired their skill with flour and water, salt and yeast. They frequently worked together to set the dough for as many as a dozen loaves a day. The amount of flour they used was shocking to Tanyth when she first saw them working, but she soon realized that the two women provided much of the bread for the village. Watching Sadie and Amber wrestle with the dough made Tanyth realize why Sadie’s lifting of her cot seemed so easy for her. Both of them had developed tight bands of muscle from years of mixing and kneading the bread.

  At midmorning, while the bread rested in its first proof, they’d adjourn to Tanyth’s hut to work on herbs. In spite of the difficulties in the fall, Tanyth had harvested considerable amounts of bark, leaf, plant, root, and berry. Over the course of winter’s coldest weeks, she taught them how to make tinctures, teas, and tisanes to preserve and extract the various medicinal components. In the week leading up to the Cradle Moon, she taught them how to make balms and ointments, letting them practice with beeswax and oil to find the consistency they needed and showed them how to make the little tins of balm that she’d given for Solstice gifts.

  In the afternoons, after feeding children and menfolk, they’d return to bread making, setting a second proof of individual loaves while they tended to sewing, knitting, or mending. Children didn’t stop growing in winter so there was always somebody who needed something and often Charlotte and Bethany would join them to ply needle and thread, hook and yarn, while the bread rose and baked.

  Evenings gave more variety. Some nights Tanyth spent with Amber or Sadie, often both families at once. She even guested with Charlotte and Jakey a few times. The bluff and often blustery quarryman turned out to have wicked, dry wit when away from his crew and closeted in the privacy of his own hearth. Through it all, Frank stood by her, lending his gentle humor and strong arm when she needed it. Holding her quietly in the night when the nightmares came.

  The cycle of the year ratcheted onward, and work on the inn progressed under the raven’s golden eye. Two or three times a week, Thomas took an extra hare and dropped it at the foot of her tree behind the village. As the weather turned warmer and the trees began to quicken, the raven took to walking along the inn’s roof and seeming to comment–sometimes loudly–on the progress of the work.

  By Cradle Moon, the inn was done except for a sign to hang in front. New grasses pressed up through browned mats of old growth and snow
remained only in the deepest shadows of the forest. On the night of the full moon, the village decided to throw a party. It was too early for a real equinox celebration but with the completion of major construction, and the re-opening of the quarry at hand, a party was inevitable.

  As the afternoon’s labor wore down, they congregated around the fireplace in the common room at the inn and, for the first time, Tanyth entered through the main door. Squared off logs formed steps at the front of the building and a pair of barn-hinged doors hung in the extra wide opening at the front.

  Jakey and Ethan had installed a spit in the main hearth in the common room and a trio of winter turkeys turned slowly over the coals by the time Tanyth arrived. William and Thomas tended the spit and she could hear Sadie, Amber, and Charlotte in the kitchen. The place smelled divine with the scents of roasting fowl and baking bread melding with woodsmoke and fresh cut wood.

  “Mother Fairport! Come sit by the fire!” William patted the seat on one of the new chairs.

  She nodded her thanks and joined the two men in front of the hearth. She felt like she’d no sooner gotten seated when her friends and neighbors started filling the room. Frank came out of the kitchen with an cross-legged contraption and set it next to the fire. Thomas’s eyes lit up at the sight as Frank disappeared back into the kitchen. He soon returned with a heavy cask, a spigot already set in the head. He placed it gently on the cradle and proceeded to fill and distribute mugs of a sweet, honey mead–drawing each one carefully and handing them around the room to the adults. Thomas added some mead to the sauce he was brushing onto the turkeys and the drippings flaring in the fire took on a new and delicious aroma.

  As the sun finally set and the moon rose over the trees, they opened the doors to toast the moon and the gleaming light seemed to shine straight in, adding a strand of silver to the gold of the hearth. Within an hour, they’d set the table and food started coming out of the kitchen. Amber, Sadie, Megan, and Bethany all brought out baskets of bread, huge bowls of baked beans, and even a large bowl of roasted groundnuts. There were smaller bowls of pickles and even several pots of apple sauce flavored with mint.

  William and Jakey put on padded gloves, lifted the heavy spit off the brackets in the fireplace, and slid the three large birds onto separate platters on the table. With that, the feast stood ready and they all gathered round the table to revel in the food, the company, and the knowledge that the back of winter was broken. Tanyth sat apart a bit from the celebrations, although she certainly ate heartily.

  Frank noticed and leaned in so he could speak to her softly. “Are you alright?”

  She looked over at the concern in his face and patted his arm. “Yes, dear man. I’m fine. This is a marvelous accomplishment. I’m just feeling a bit tired.” She smiled encouragingly at him.

  He frowned at her under lowered brows. “You’re sure?”

  She paused and looked at the faces around the table. “Yes. I’m sure. It’s just...” She paused and turned back to look him in the eye. “It’s just that my time here is coming to an end, I think.”

  She could see the cloud descend across his face and he sighed. “I wondered.” He looked at where her hand rested on his forearm and he reached with his free hand to pat it. He looked back at her. “Can I get you anything? Cup of tea? More mead?”

  She nodded. “Thank you. A cup of tea would be lovely.”

  He returned shortly with mugs and a teapot and the two of them sat together and enjoyed their own company while the party roared on around them.

  Two hours into the feast, Jakey rose and rapped the table with the pommel of his knife. When everybody calmed down he picked up his mug and turned to the crowd.

  “I got some things to say.” He grinned at the returning catcalls and waited for them to die down. “First...” he turned to Tanyth at the end of the table. “Thank you, Mother Fairport, for a great idea. I think this will make a big difference.” He waved his hand to indicate the building. The assembled company cheered and clapped and pounded the table. “Second…” He paused and looked around at the quarrymen. “You lot have work in the morning. We’ll be openin’ up the quarry again to get our first shipment of the season out. So, don’t drink too much tonight and I’ll see your worthless carcasses on the trail at sun-up.” They all laughed. When they stopped laughing, he held his mug up in an honest toast. “Third, to Kurt. We was a good man. We’ll miss him.”

  They all stood and raised whatever mug or cup they had. “To Kurt.” They drank deeply and somberly regained their seats.

  Charlotte turned to her husband and with a bit of a slur whispered loudly. “You sure know how to end a party, honey.”

  The assembly burst into laughter once more but in the space of half an hour, they’d cleared the tables and ferried the dishes to the sink in the kitchen for clean-up. In a half hour more, many hands had helped to clean, dry, and stack them in the kitchen, ready for the morning.

  With the clean-up done, Tanyth tightened her wrap about her and warmed herself once more in front of the fire in the great room. William stood there, banking the hot coals and adding a few odd knots to the pile to keep the fire warm. He smiled at her as she came out of the kitchen and crossed to the fireplace. “Thank you, mum.”

  “For what, William?”

  He smiled down at her. “For believing in us.” He cast his eyes around the room. “We’d have been trying to make a kiln or some such if not for this.” He took a deep breath of the wood-scented air and smiled at her once more. “This is a better choice.”

  She smiled and patted him on the arm. “You would have made it without me, I’m sure.”

  William shook his head. “I don’t know, mum. Maybe we would and maybe we wouldn’t, but the point is you made this happen as much as any of us.”

  She gave a small, embarrassed shrug and cast her eyes down. She saw the coloration then, for the first time. The hearthstone was a different color from the rest of the fireplace. She stared at it as her mind worked to make sense of what she was seeing. She cast her eyes back and forth across the stone and spotted a small, perfectly shaped star on the stone. “This is–” She couldn’t finish.

  William’s eyes gleamed in the faint light from the coals. “Yes, mum. This is the hearthstone from the workroom. We all thought it deserved to be here.”

  “But it’s stained.” She knew it sounded inane, but couldn’t stop herself.

  “No, mum.” William smiled back at her. “It’s been blessed.”

  Tanyth stood in mute shock until Frank came out of the kitchen and offered his arm to her. “Shall we go?”

  With one last wondering look at William and a glance at the small black stain on the stone, she nodded and looked up a Frank, taking his arm. “Yes, please.”

  The rest of the villagers went their separate ways while Frank walked Tanyth home by the light of the moon. The air was far from warm, but the smell of spring was on the breeze. The quickening life fairly thrummed the night air.

  Frank glanced down at her. “Looks like the inn is a big success.”

  “Looks like. We’ll see if people start staying here. It’s a little early to say, but it certainly came out nice.”

  He looked away from her, ostensibly at their path. “So, you’re planning on going north?”

  “Yes. I need to find out about the raven visions, if I can. Right now Mother Pinecrest is the only clue I have.” She rested her head on his shoulder as they walked.

  “You’re welcome to stay here, you know.” He swallowed. “The village would welcome having you stay.”

  She looked up at him.

  He looked back at her. “I’d like it if you stayed.”

  She sighed and looked down. “I can’t stay, Frank. I need to find out what’s happening to me.”

  He echoed her sigh. “Yeah. I figgered.” They walked the last few feet in silence. He held the door open for her and handed her over the threshold.

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned back to him
in surprise. “You’re not staying?”

  He leaned over and looked in. “Are you sure you want me to?”

  She saw the hurt in his eyes, even as she read the understanding behind it. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  He looked down at the ground and shrugged. “Well, you’ll be leavin’ soon...” He cleared his throat. “I just thought maybe you’d wanna...” He paused and looked up at her. “Stop.”

  She reached up her hand for his and smiled gently. “We have some time left, Frank. We don’t really ever know how much, do we?” She grinned mischievously. “’Cept folks our age don’t have a lot of it to squander by letting it slip by unmarked.”

  He smiled, took her hand, and let her draw him into the house.

  About the Author

  Nathan Lowell has been fiddling about with stories for over forty years. Podcasting his Golden Age of the Solar Clipper stories catapulted him onto the world stage in 2007.

  He hasn’t stepped off it yet.

  Also by Nathan Lowell

  Quarter Share

  Half Share

  Full Share

  Double Share

  Captain’s Share

  Owner’s Share

  South Coast

  Watch for further adventures of Tanyth Fairport coming in early 2012.

  Learn more at:

  http://www.nathanlowell.com

  http://www.lammaswood.com