Her brother snapped erect in his chair all banter gone from his pale face, “We are running very short of options Sive. Do you know another way to save our people?”
All anger drained from her. She thought of the bright immortal beauty lost if a cure for the malaise was not found.
Mordant had been long gone from the Fey, traveling to distant realms, but doing what he had never revealed. Perhaps he had found answers in the places others had never returned from. Maybe he was indeed the salvation of their people.
Auberon nodded with a slight smile, “Then Mordant will be in this hall tomorrow ready to claim his delightful bride. Though how he could be willing to marry the queen of battle is beyond me.” He waved his hand. “All those ravens and swords.”
As always her mother’s words rose from the past. We all are slave to our responsibilities, dear heart.
“I fear we will all rue this day, brother, but for the good of our people I will do as you ask,” Sive responded.
Rather than suffer humiliation she spun on her heel, black robes circling around her, and strode back down the Hall. A ring of gossip followed in her wake, like a stone dropped into a still pond.
* * *
Young Mary grunted in pain as the contractions began again. This was her third birthing, but they had not gotten any easier. The midwife was whistling a little tune to herself as she laid her small bag of herbals on the window sill, unconcerned that the woman she served this day was the wife one of Stratford’s most prosperous and influential men. To Bess each woman was the same, and yet special. She had seen more joys and tragedies than any town citizen and was neither excited nor worried as to the possible ending of this one.
Her youngest granddaughter Joan was hovering by the door like a bird with scalded feet, casting glances between their patient and Bess. Flaxen hair bound up neatly under her cap, hands washed, and sleeves rolled up, Joan was ready to work. She’d been late, but at least she was here.
“Bring the stool here, child—near the light.” Bess tried to keep the edge of impatience from her voice. Joan scampered to position the low birthing stool to her grandmother’s satisfaction. Bess smiled with what she hoped with reassurance. “Now help Mary onto it. Time is near.”
In the midwife’s mind, men were all the same, and it was women that did the real work. She had laboured with Mary through two other births, smooth they had gone, and bonnie children both. Her inner sense told her that they would not last long in this harsh world. Calmness in a child was not natural, for the mortal realm was a difficult place to live. Babies needed strength, and pig-headed determination to survive it. Bess was proved correct, and both girls had let loose their weak hold on life within a few months of birth.
Joan helped their patient to sit as comfortably as possible on the stool, and as she'd taught took her place at the back, ready to provide support. Mary’s eyes fixed on Bess now, her young face opened up with pain, seeking some reassurance from the older woman that this would have a different ending to her last births.
Wishing she could at least lie, Bess sighed and picked out the necessary herbals. The labour had gone on much longer than it should, and there was hardly any sign of the baby’s head. Many women birthed easier after the first, but Mary determined to be the exception to the rule. The room stank of sweat and blood already, and Bess knew that there would have to be a baby soon, or both might die.
Mary grasped Joan’s hand, and moaned through gritted teeth, her face covered in a veil of sweat. No matter how high or mighty the woman, it all came down to this one animalistic moment when the body ruled over the mind. Bess laid her practiced hands on the swollen and twisting belly. Something more powerful than a baby was moving within. The title of witch in this time was a dangerous one, and Bess did not consider herself such. The old ways though had always called her, and she had always followed. The Art was a woman’s power, born of the creator goddess, and given to those who had need of it. Those old paths were less strict than the Christian one; they didn’t mind if she had to bend her head in a church now and then. It was later out in the woods and in her true heart that religion burned.
Bess avoided telling of any of the sights she sometimes granted. Many wise women had ended up hanging from the end of a dirty rope for their gift’s sake, and she determined to not to be one of them. In this age a loose tongue was often the last mistake—one like Bess would make. If any asked she was just a midwife; that was where it ended, plain and simple.
With a lurch Bess came back to herself when she touched the grunting Mary. The sudden flash of white light that she saw in that moment surrounding her patient made her gasp. Bess took a step back, hands tingling with the contact. Thankfully the pregnant woman, her eyes glazed with concentration, scarcely noticed, but little Joan gave her a worried look.
Was it another vision from the Old Ones, Bess wondered, or something else?
Shaking off the feeling, and once more laying her hands on the straining woman, she tried to look beyond. Whatever she had seen before did not happen again, but something had changed in the womb. She moved between Mary’s legs. The baby was coming and coming fast too. She could already see head and shoulders emerging from a haze of blood. Mary grunted, a primitive powerful sound, and her whole body spasmed. The midwife cleared the baby’s nose and shifted the shoulders to allow easier passage for the little one. Poor Joan’s fingers were almost crushed as the burgess’s wife bawled her pain into the world and gave another life to it. The little boy slipped free into Bess’ twisted old hands.
She turned him over, and with a thundering heart realized he had the thick rubbery coating of a caul over his face. She removed it and stuffed it into her pocket.
The midwife found with shock that a tear was wetting the corner of her eye, but she wrapped the baby up, and delivered him to his mother who had slumped back against Joan. Like all mothers, the sudden lack of pain and the success of the moment made her smile joyous.
“Not done yet, my dear,” Bess murmured, but already Mary’s body was telling her that.
While she moaned and delivered the afterbirth, Bess comforted herself that Mary had not seen the caul. In previous years, it would have been a sign of good luck, but in less tolerant times many called it a devils mark. She would save Mary the knowing of that.
After mother and child settled in their broad bed, the healthy little boy suckling, and the worried father reassured, old Bess sent Joan back to her mother’s house. They had planned to walk the hedgerows together and find more herbs, but Bess feigned being tired. Joan, the sweet girl, wanted then to see her back to her little hut, and that’s when Bess reached the end of her short tether.
“I said I want to rest,” she snapped, feeling the caul weighing her pocket, “Now get back to your mother before I tan that foolish hide of yours.”
Joan’s bottom lip slipped out, but she obeyed. And with her leaving Bess was free to go where she needed to go, back to Arden wood.
It was a long walk, and Joan would have willingly accompanied her, but she would not have understood—not at all. The things her grandmother needed to do were horrifying to young Christian raised Joan.
It was near sunset when Bess reached the woods. The old midwife watched the sun drag itself beyond the stand of trees and smiled. Once she had been young here, had picked wildflowers, and made love in the tall grasses by the streams. Today was special indeed to remind her of that time.
Beneath a knurled oak, the similarly knurled midwife bent, and scooped out a hole in the brown earth. Carefully she laid the caul there and covered it back over.
It had been many years since her own mother had delivered her with a similar gift, in a field not far from here. A caul was a mark, a sign that this child was something rare and precious to the Great Goddess. Perhaps when she herself was born, it had been to deliver this boy today—she could not tell.
In her heart she conjured the image of the goddess as it had come to her first, a dark-haired maid with stars in her eyes a
nd a smile on her lips. “Mother of All, take back your own, and guard this child,” she prayed.
For a moment Bess knelt there, listening, hoping against hope that there might come a sign after so long a time; perhaps a crack of lightning, or an unusual flock of birds, anything that might signal she had the goddess’ attention. Only the lonely breeze among last autumn’s leaves carried with it the faint scent of life and hope. Bess smiled a little.
Perhaps that was the only sign the Old Ones could give, and certainly it was more than she had felt since childhood. It was not so very wrong of her to want to believe that someone heard her. Levering herself up from the ground, Bess began the long journey back to town, her heart a little lighter.
* * *
From the glittering Hall of Auberon, Sive went down. Her home was smaller, and more to her own liking anyhow. This Evening Realm was where her brother sent those dispossessed and unfortunate whom he no longer wished to set eyes on. Sive was never formerly exiled to this lonely corner of the Fey, but she had found it pleasant, and populated by those malcontents whom she had the most affinity for.
Across the endless green rolling hills of the World Beyond the Veil she ran faster than a roe deer, her feet given wings by her Art. She was a bird, or perhaps a wind-tossed flower, but she still could not escape the growing disquiet within her. At last she reached the tumbling grey clouds that shielded all that her brother did not want to see from view. She pushed the mist aside and entered.
The mortal world had day and night, the Fey had the Sunrise and the Evening. The Mother of All permitted no darkness here, only two types of soft light, and mists to divide them. It had its own rhythms and nature.
Whereas before Sive stood in the golden light of morning, here things were the more muted tones of dusk. Trees caressed by the half-moon murmured together, and the soft scent of the eventime flowers replaced the splendour of the rose that filled the other side of the mist. She breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. Roses gave her a headache, anyway. Wrapping purple-cloaked mists about her so they spilled from her shoulders and sighed into her ears, Sive walked alone to the hill that was home. Like all dwellings of the Fey it was a hill, part of the earth itself set aside for them.
A series of wide and deep steps were cut into the turf, and her feet found them with an easy familiarity. Once underground the chamber opened up, but how the huge curving ceiling beggared a mortal builder’s imagination. Thick, still living branches of half-buried Fey tree clasped the earth up like a gentle hand, an impossible and yet glorious thing. The mortal world’s restraints meant nothing here; in the Fey Art ruled and imagining a creation was half the work. Sive’s aunt had made this home with a sudden burst of inspiration, and it welcomed all her kin—even those most ungrateful ones.
A sharp caw of alarm made Sive spin about, in time to catch Macha’s clawed feet on her arm. The giant raven squawked in indignation, and shuffled sideways on the Fey’s shoulder, with her feathers ruffled, beak half open. A gentle query brushed the edge of Sive’s mind, filled with her friend’s distress.
“Ah Macha,” Sive crooned, “It is done now.” She stroked down the bird’s chest, noticing how many of the once night black feathers were dull, almost grey in colour. Macha was suffering the fate of many Fey, and it might still claim the battle raven as it had others. The thought alone made Sive tremble. The sickness was spreading like wildfire, and none knew how to stop it—nor even what caused it. Their prayers to the Mother of All had bought nothing, and if she had forsaken them, then the end was indeed close. Finding a cure for the malaise had been the reason Mordant dared the Between, and though he had said nothing of finding one, he now had the power that could help. Yet in his eyes she had seen more darkness and loss than that held in any victim of the malaise. He had come back from the Between stronger than Sive herself, and maybe even Auberon. At the back of her mind, Sive considered the possibility that her brother was actually afraid of Mordant.
“As well he should be,” she whispered. Macha let out a plaintive croak, sensing her mistress’ mood. “Yes, yes, I am heartily sick of losing too, Macha,” Sive closed her eyes for a moment.
“Maybe I can brighten your day, dear cousin,” the sweet dulcet tones to her right made even the stalwart Fey jump almost out of her skin. She should have known better.
“Puck,” Sive snapped, while Macha leapt into the air, feathers rattling, and flew off to rest on a high-backed chair, “I have told you to stop doing that!” Her cousin loved to appear without warning and shake her up—just for the fun of it.
His smile was easy. “Might as well ask a snake not to bite—it’s simply my nature, cousin.” He had chosen his usual Fey form, a slight silvered haired man-child. He was now sitting cross-legged on the table, dimpled cheek resting in his hands, for all the world like an innocent—too many had made that mistake. Sive was well used to Puck’s ways and was only thankful he had this time deigned to wear clothes. Sive had been at court to see the incident that had bought about his latest banishment. Needless to say, her brother did not find the very amorously endowed Puck amusing, even when hanging upside down from his rafters. And even more so, when the lady Moira, whom Auberon had been courting for some time, found the said Puck momentarily interesting. Then Sive’s cousin was so used to being exiled that by now it was no punishment at all. Like Sive, Puck loved the Evening Realm best of all, which was lucky in many ways.
“Besides,” he slipped off the table, and wriggled his arm against hers until they were as snuggly linked as twins, “If you are nice to me today, beautiful Sive, I may warn you about our Aunt.”
She sighed, “What is it now?”
“I might have mentioned something interesting I saw today in the human realm...”
“Puck,” Sive could feel herself snapping, “The mortal realm is out of bounds—most of all to you.”
He had at least the sense to look abashed. “It was only a little visit.”
“And yet you managed to upset Brigit with it!”
“I’ll admit it did seem to get her in a tizzy.” Puck dropped to all fours, and let his front half turn into a pig, and his rear into that of a donkey. His voice remained unchanged though. “She can’t tell her ass from her elbow.” Looking over one shoulder he caught sight of his furry grey tail, and in mock shock ran off squealing into the corner.
Sive rolled her eyes—it was not one of his better jokes. Leaving Macha as Puck’s only disparaging audience, she took the next flight of stairs down to her aunt’s rooms.
Thick waves of smoke stung her eyes, and it was only by using a touch of her Art that she was able to breathe at all. Trailing her hand along the mossy wall, she finally found her Aunt Brigit huddled over her hearth—indeed that wasn't unusual, but the smoke and the fact that she did not turn made Sive worry.
Brigit had, since her banishment here, allowed her Fey form to age as any mortal might. It was a very bad sign, and one that in any other might have heralded the desire to slip the immortal bonds, and pass into nothingness, but not in Brigit’s case. If anything the ancient Fey had only become more determined, more aggressive.
Her wrinkled cheeks and limp hair were a message to her nephew Auberon that she had not forgotten, even if he had, Anu’s prophecy; one day Sive would lead the Fey. Brigit might well have claimed the crown, but instead she’d chosen to support Auberon, while Sive learnt some of the diplomacy needed to rule. It was a decision she had long since learnt to regret. Auberon showed no signs of stepping aside for the sister he regarded as definitely inferior.
“Aunt?” Sive moved closer, intrigued by what might have caught Brigit’s attention. The older Fey was bent so close to the spluttering flames of the fire that her limp hair was in danger of igniting, but even so there was still no reply.
“Aunt?” Sive ventured a hand on Brigit’s shoulder, feeling with shock the taunt thinness of the flesh beneath.
With a gasp Brigit tore herself from the fire. Spinning about she almost collided with her niece. �
�Sive,” she said, obviously becoming aware of her presence for the first time, “Never interrupt a Seeing. I almost had it that time.”
Puck was right. Though glazed and distant, Brigit’s eyes remained sharp and blue. When her hands plucked at Sive’s sleeve, she could feel a faint tremble in them. Fey for all their immortality still needed sustenance and refreshment. Putting off telling her aunt the news, Sive instead moved to the nearby larder, and softened a handful of bread with some liquid honeydew. She gave it to her aunt with a somewhat stern look and watched as she ate it. “Now,” she said as the other finished her last mouthful, “What is it?”
“Something is in the air, “Brigit nodded sagely, and wiped the crumbs away fastidiously, “Something is happening—but not in the Fey—in the mortal world.”
Sive chided herself for being away so long. Who knew how long the older Fey had gone without food or water? Puck as her only guardian was not reliable, prone to going off to find his own amusement. Her cousin had a kind enough heart, but unfortunately very little brain to go with it.
The fire had spluttered and died while they talked, for which Sive was grateful. Brigit however had turned once more to the flames and picking up a scorched stick she tried to poke them back to life.
Sive dusted off a nearby stool, and sat down next to her aunt with a sigh, “Why don’t you use your Art to get it going?”
“Never listen do you, Sive?” the older Fey glared at her, “How can you expect to rule if you do not know all the Arts of the Fey?”
“That’s not necessary, Aunt, because I don’t want to rule.”
“Well, you should,” Brigit grumbled, stabbing the fire. She gave her niece a piercing look and continued on as if Sive had all along asked for a lesson. “Now you should know, you need a pure flame for a Seeing. Listen to me! How will you understand the future when I am gone?”
She decided to ignore the concealed threat in that. “No one cares about the future anymore—they are all too happy living in the now.”
Chasing the Bard Page 2