The Wisewoman (Waterspell 3)

by Deborah J. Lightfoot

  “What did you get us?” his lady asked as her lord handed the lumpy parcel down to Megella. “Is that a tent?”

  Verek, dismounting, shook his head.

  “It is nothing but a bolt of the coarsest homespun. Those children across the way are half starved, and their father was too proud to accept a gift of meat. He insisted I take the cloth in payment. And it occurred to me, Aunt,” Verek said, looking intently at Megella, “that I might in fact have a use for it.”

  By Drisha, he can pierce one to the marrow with those eyes, even in a moment of calm, Meg thought, drawing herself up to meet Verek’s dark gaze. The widgeon said he had a temper. When he’s roused to it, he could daunt wild boars with that look, I expect. But she would not be intimidated by her own great-nephew.

  “And what is your purpose in giving me this bolt, my lord?” Megella asked, more icily than she had intended.

  “The cloth will do admirably well, I believe, to protect the paint that adorns your singular wagon,” Verek said. His lips crooked in a wry smile. “I propose that it be cut into lengths sufficient to cover the pattern on the sides and the tailboard. We can peg the lengths into place in such a way that your wagon will not be damaged. Cover your colors now, Aunt, and when you unveil them in Ruain they will be as fresh and bold as they are now.”

  He’s seen them from a distance, Megella thought. Riding back from his hunt, he saw how my colors mark us out in a crowd. For those who would guard their privacy, this is no way to travel. A selfish old woman and a foolish one, I am.

  “Thank you, nephew of mine,” Meg said, sweetening her voice. “How thoughtful of you.” She turned to the wagon for a knife. “I will have this cloth cut to size before the shadows grow long.”

  Verek’s gaze softened. He looked relieved.

  Wheesht, Meg thought. He was expecting a fight from me. No, my lord, I do not fight when I cannot win.

  As Megella commenced ripping the cloth, Verek turned to Carin.

  “In the ravines east of here is much brushwood,” he said, “and I have fresh meat for our supper cached under a pile of it. What do you say to a short ride? Get on a horse, fìleen, and we’ll fetch in the wood together.”

  Megella saw Carin’s face light up. The girl untethered both cobs. She sprang nimbly onto the bare back of one, and leading the other, rode off with Verek.

  The couple spared no backward glance for Megella. They seemed to have instantly forgotten her.

  Of course they have, she thought. I am unlikely to see those two again before sunrise.

  Meg spent the last part of the afternoon wrapping the panels of her woodpecker wagon in nondescript homespun. She hauled another bucket of water from the pond, and mindful that this was a watering hole for livestock and wild game as well as miscellaneous humanity, she stirred in a purifying agent. Just as the sun dropped to the horizon and Meg’s stomach was contemplating a slice of cold ham, she spotted Carin and Verek returning.

  The girl rode behind her lover now, and Verek had not one, but two small antelope slung in front of him, over his horse’s withers. He was leading the two cobs, and both animals were burdened with as much brushwood, neatly cut and bundled, as the sturdy beasts could carry. Verek rode first to the family who had bought his earlier kill. Carin slid down, undid two hefty bundles of wood, and dropped them on the ground. The gift hardly made a dent in the load the cobs carried, but it was sufficient to fuel a cooking fire.

  When he had Carin remounted behind him, Verek brought everything else—both antelope and the rest of the wood—to Megella.

  “You’re back early,” Meg said, greeting the pair with a smile that was, she imagined, a bit sly. “I expected that your errand”—by that, she meant tryst—“would detain you longer. How did you manage all this in such short order?”

  “We were, um, resting in a shady spot,” Carin said, sliding off the horse and smiling contentedly, “when a great herd of antelope came down to the water to drink. It was an easy shot: we could have had four. But all that meat down in the ravine wouldn’t do anybody up here any good. Those people”—Carin jerked her head at the family across the pond who already had their fire going—“wouldn’t be wanting to eat their antelope raw. So we were careful not to scatter the herd, only cut wood instead, loaded it, and came on back. We can go again in the morning for, um, more meat.”

  Megella was about to commend the pair on putting other people’s needs before their own. But just then a man from a neighboring wagon hesitantly approached, with his cap in his hand.

  Nervously the fellow eyed Verek’s sheathed sword and shouldered bow, though at that moment the wysard would have been hard-pressed to wield either. Verek had an antelope carcass in his arms.

  “’Evening, sir,” the fellow said. “Ma’am, miss,” he added, nodding to Meg and Carin before turning back to Verek. “I was wondering what you would take for a bundle of that wood. We’ve been here all day, living on bread and pond water, and my missus says she’d give her firstborn for a fire and a cup o’ hot tea tonight.”

  Verek looked slightly taken aback. He shook his head. “I do not want your children.”

  He paused, in obvious thought as he studied the man, then added, “But I will accept your labor. Take this game”—Verek handed over what he carried and gestured at the second antelope—“butcher it and bring me the haunches and loins. You may keep the rest. In exchange for the cut meat you deliver to me, I will give you the wood you require to roast what you retain of the carcasses.”

  “Why, thank you, sir!” the man exclaimed. “That’s mighty generous.” The fellow shouldered both antelope, and staggering a bit under their weight, returned to his own wagon as Verek stepped to the pond to wash the animals’ blood from his hands.

  Almost before the wysard had his horse unsaddled and groomed, or Carin had unloaded the cobs and given them good rubdowns, or Megella had a fire blazing, the man was back to trade cuts of meat for the promised wood. Meg sliced the antelope thin and handed her companions skewers of it to roast in the flames. In short order they had feasted and finished their tea, and now were lounging lazily around the fire.

  Megella studied her nephew. “You simply cannot help yourself, can you?” she asked.

  “Hmm?” Verek murmured sleepily.

  Meg gestured at their neighbors. Most of the makeshift camps that were ranged around the stock pond had small fires flickering now. Verek had supplied their meat-cutter friend with so much wood, the man had had an excess to trade. While his share of the antelope roasted at his home fire, the meat-cutter had gone around the pond, dropping off marrowbones and bunches of brushwood in exchange for whatever small payments he could get.

  “You are supposed to be only one ordinary traveler among many,” Megella said. “You go under an assumed name. You have had me cover my wagon so that it will not attract attention. But here you are, becoming known, taking care of these people, treating them as if they were yours. The wild antelope of the plains have become your private game herd. You go out to hunt, and upon your return your servants butcher the carcasses and deliver unto you the choicest cuts.” Meg shook her head, half admiringly and half in exasperation. “Even here in this low country, camped on the banks of a mud wallow, you cannot help being the lord of the manor.”

  Megella got no reply, only a gentle snoring that rose in the night. She fetched a blanket from her wagon and spread it over the lord and his lady as they lay curled together, sound asleep on the grass-covered ground.

  How equal is this match? Meg found herself wondering as she studied the pair. She had no doubt that Carin would continue to love her wysard even if he ceased to be magian and became merely mortal. But was Verek’s passion for Carin influenced—in ways he would not admit even to himself—by his yearning for the power that flowed through the girl? The power he could no longer command?

  Tah, thought Megella, realizing the pointlessness of these questions. What did it matter, why he loved her? If Carin was, for Verek, a magical creature—all wel
l and good. Many a marriage had been built on less.

  Still, Meg could not stop her thoughts from straying to the future. What awaits these two in Ruain? she wondered. Will the power of that place heal Verek? Or is Carin destined to rise from “apprentice” to become the new wysard of the North?

  Chapter 6

  Earth’s Blood

  Carin stretched out in the shade of the now-muted woodpecker wagon, pillowed her head on one of Megella’s spare blankets, and prepared to enjoy a rare indulgence: an afternoon nap. When had she last had the time to close her eyes in daylight like this? During the month she had lived in Ruain under Verek’s roof, while she sorted the books in his library and tried to sort out her feelings for the hot-tempered wizard, she had occasionally stolen up to her bedroom for a nap. But since leaving his house, embarking with Verek on the quest that had brought her full circle, back to these grasslands where her life in this world had begun, Carin had not found much time in which to relax.

  Heavenly, she thought as she shut her eyes.

  She woke, after an indeterminate interval, to discover Verek stretched beside her, leaning on his elbow, watching her. She smiled at him.

  He tried to smile back. In their first weeks and months of living and traveling together, Verek had been unrelentingly grim. Back then, Carin could have counted on the fingers of one hand the times she had seen the wizard’s face express amusement. And on all those occasions, it seemed, he had been laughing at some mistake of hers, some idiocy she’d committed. But once, during their stay with Master Welwyn, Verek’s lips had quirked in a way that expressed pleasure, desire, excitement—the way he often smiled at Carin these days.

  But as Verek gazed at her now, his smile seemed forced, and his eyes were worried.

  Carin sat up, and so did he.

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded. “You haven’t looked this serious since we parted company on the mountain. Is somebody sick? Is it the bleeding disease?” Had Megella found what she was looking for?

  The wisewoman had walked from wagon to wagon that morning, checking on their fellow travelers, dispensing a dose of cough medicine here and a purgative there, tending to the minor ailments of the neighboring campers but finding no contagion.

  “They have all heard the rumors, of course,” Meg had reported. “But it’s just as Theil discovered when he questioned them yesterday. No one here has a bleeding disease, nor do any of them admit to having seen the sickness in any town through which they have passed.”

  The blockade remained in place, however, and the nervous campers at the stock pond would not allow newcomers into their near ranks. Two wagons that arrived in late morning were forced to stop well away from the water. Taking pity on the late arrivals, Megella had fetched their waterskins to fill at the pond and haul horseback to the two dry camps. The wisewoman, Carin noticed, had established herself as the community’s caregiver as quickly as Verek had become its chief provider.

  Theil answered Carin’s repeated “Is somebody sick?” with a quick shake of his head.

  “No, fìleen. I have seen no evidence of disease. What troubles me is something else entirely. I fear that what I am about to tell you will anger you. Or worse—far worse—it will make you doubt me.” He sighed. His dark eyes were grave.

  “Doubt you? I doubt it,” Carin said, rather nonsensically. But then, she wasn’t yet fully awake.

  “I have something to give you,” Verek continued slowly. “I should have shown it to you when we were together in your old home … in that place beyond the void. But I was afraid to let you read it then. I feared that its contents would entice you to stay in that world. The thought of losing you in that strange, faraway place … no, I could not bear it.”

  Verek had been cradling Carin’s hands in his. Now he released her, and digging deep in his pocket, he pulled out an envelope. It was long and thin, made of plain white paper, crumpled from its time in Verek’s trousers pocket but kept clean and dry by a clear outer covering.

  As Carin took the envelope, some deep recess in her mind supplied a name for the protective covering. It was a plastic bag.

  Funny how I remember almost nothing of that world, Carin thought, but I can still recognize a plastic bag. She’d gone for years without seeing one, for Ladrehdin had no plastic.

  She held up the envelope questioningly. “Where was it?”

  “In the bedchamber that was yours in childhood,” Verek muttered. “One end of it was wedged into a mirror, between the frame and the glass. I knew at a glance that it was meant for you. Though I cannot read the language of your world, I believed I recognized your name as it is written in that language.”

  He was right. A neat hand had penned the letters of Carin’s name, giving them the shape they took on Earth: Karen.

  “I almost burned the thing,” Verek murmured. “A message addressed to you could mean only one thing: that you had people in that world who cared for you. Your absence from that place had not gone unnoticed or unregretted. Undoubtedly your people had searched for you. They may be searching for you still.”

  He drew a deep breath and let it sigh out. “In all the months that I lived in your former home on that world you call ‘Earth,’ you know I saw no one. I have told you how I explored in every direction, but met no other person there.

  “‘Carin’s people are gone from this place,’ I assured myself. ‘But they did not forget their girl. They left her this message.’” Verek tapped the envelope in Carin’s hand.

  “I wanted to destroy it,” he said, “to sever any final tie that you might have to the people of that world. But I could not burn your name, fìleen. Names have power. Instead, I carried the message with me while I waited for you to come. I felt that it might pull us together, that keeping your name close might speed you to me.”

  Verek was speaking in a rush now, not giving Carin time to absorb everything he was saying. His words swirled through her thoughts.

  “Then came the day when I heard your teasing voice and I saw your beautiful face, and you took my hand and said to me, ‘Let’s go home.’ And soon, very soon thereafter I went with you—and so eagerly! I was so indescribably happy to have you back and to hear you embrace my world as your own.”

  Verek closed his eyes, as if remembering. “‘But if my Carin reads this message,’ I thought as I hid the thing away, ‘will it stir her memories? Will she recollect her people and believe that her rightful place is there on Earth?’ I was desperately afraid that you would reject your life with me, that you would go searching for the one who had written you this message.”

  He opened his eyes and locked gazes with her. “And so I deceived you, fìleen, and I stole your property from you.”

  Verek leaned back as though distancing himself from his actions, or perhaps from the reaction he was anticipating from Carin. Reaching with his forefinger, he tapped the envelope a second time.

  “Read this now, and tell me if I have been right to be afraid. Here is water”—Verek gestured at the pond and shot Carin an anguished look. “I have seen that you need only that to make your magic. I expect you can go back to your world today, if that is what you wish to do.”

  Carin’s head was spinning. And Verek—the anchor she had long relied on when events left her dizzy—was looking as shaky as she felt.

  She leaned over and kissed him, lingeringly. When they finally parted, she brushed back a strand of his hair that had fallen into his eyes, the same way she had caressed him when she went to fetch him home from Earth.

  Her touch seemed to reassure Verek. Some of the tension left his face.

  That place—Earth—is more real to him than it is to me, Carin realized, studying him. He had lived there for months, hunting and fishing, exploring the land all around, and probably going through every drawer and closet in the house. He knew everything that house could tell him about its former inhabitants. He’d looked at their pictures hanging on the walls, he’d eaten off their dishes, slept in their beds, even worn some of their
clothes.

  He came to know those people, Carin thought. They’re not complete strangers to him the way they are to me. Because they are real to him, he thinks they must be—or will become—real to me.

  She scooted around and leaned back against Verek, settling herself comfortably in the hollow of his shoulder. His arms went round her, holding her close.

  “All right, my lord,” Carin said, crisply businesslike now. “Let’s see what this message says.”

  She pulled open the plastic, withdrew the envelope, and carefully broke its seal. Several folded sheets of paper fell out, along with a photograph.

  Carin studied the picture. It showed a little girl—herself, to judge by the child’s long auburn hair and the stubborn set of her jaw. The girl stared alertly from the picture, the look in her green eyes serious, intense, even a little fierce, as though the youngster would not shy from a fight, if she thought she had grounds for it.

  With the child were two adults. The girl and the woman had the same hair and eyes, and their features shared a similar symmetry. The oval shape of the child’s face, however, was like the man’s. Each grown-up held the little one by the hand, and each of the three figures wore a chunky necklace of what appeared to be wooden beads almost as large as walnuts.

  “You asked me once, my lord, who were mother and father to me,” Carin murmured. She handed Verek the picture. “Here they are. Maybe the letter will tell us more.”

  Carin unfolded the sheets and read the message aloud, easily translating the foreign language into the common tongue of Ladrehdin that she shared with Verek.

  My child of the sea—where are you? Where did you go? Will you ever read this? I tell myself that you will. You’ll come home someday and find this letter. And you’ll wonder where we are. You’ll ask the same thing we’ve been asking every minute of every day: Where did you go?