I stayed silent. Everything I thought I knew had been changed in a heartbeat. My father did that for us? All my memories are questionable right now. I don't know what to believe. It took a moment but her last words sunk in and I grasped at them to try to better understand. "The Sect?"
"Mmm, hmm. The Sect. A terrible thing. The Sect is a branch of the Church of the New Order, and very secretive. Few know of them and if they do know they keep their mouths shut for fear of their lives. The Sect, they do all the dirty work — God's work they call it, or some such nonsense. It was them that found us all — all of the druids. They searched us out. Tortured us and destroyed us. We couldn't hide from them. They called it the Purge. Called us demons. The spawns of Hell. They feared us and slaughtered us. The Sect was based right here in Jergen. Right here in Jergen of all places! In the cathedral. And they still have a hold here on the people. Everyone here knows to stay out of their way. The Church rules the people here, and they fear them.
"They are spreading throughout Belkin. The Archbishop has always sought to regain the control he lost after the Revolution. His Sect are many. They move throughout the counties and move against the Lord Protector and gain trust with the people. They are assassins first. Torturers second. All believe that they do God's work. They wear black shoes. I've observed them coming and going here in Jergen all the time. I hate them and fear them. They were the ones that hunted down the draoi." Nadine shuddered, a full body shudder, and she clasped her middle and held on to herself.
They sounded exactly like the men who had tried to kill me. I didn't know what to make of that and I thought about it for a little. Nadine seemed content and deep in her own memories and didn't notice how quiet I had become. I thought of the black shoes in my backpack. I had three pairs and I wondered how many more pairs were out there. How many more men did evil in their god's name?
"How do you know what happened to my father?" I asked to fill the silence. Now that I knew he hadn't abandoned us, a part of me now hoped he had survived somehow.
Nadine looked at me for a moment and her eyes still seemed wet. Whatever she had been remembering had woken a deep sadness in her. I didn't need my powers to see the pain in her eyes. The mention of my father seemed to make it worse for her and she wiped her eyes dry with hasty swipes of her hands. She reached out a trembling hand and scrabbled to grab mine and hold it tight. She placed her other hand on top and pulled me in a little closer. "You don't want to know, Will. You really don't so please don't ask me. You should know the Sect, they...they tortured people. After the coup attempt against the Lord Protector, your mother was the top of their list of people they wanted. All you need to know is your father died protecting where she took you that night. At least for a time."
"Why didn't he come with us?"
Nadine shook her head. "Your father was an officer in the Protector's Guard. He had an oath and duty to fulfil. It came before his family. Still, he made sure his family was safe and then returned to his post. Your mother was likely livid with him. But that was the man she married. He had changed over the years. Became more military, more focused on his duty. Promotion. Recognition. All the typical nonsense."
"I don't remember much from that night. Flames. A cellar. My mother's face. And then nothing."
Nadine looked at me closely and then sighed. "Will, you were eight years old. Likely your mom used her power to calm you. It can muddle the memories sometimes, especially when used on someone so young — you were only a wee lad. Ack, it was pandemonium those nights. An attempt had been made to assassinate the Protector only a few days before. The Guard and the Church combined to ferret out the sympathisers. Martial law was declared and it still hasn't been revoked, for Gaea's sake, even after all these years. Your mother was involved, but not the way you might imagine. She was drawn into something bigger. Something the Church had started." She let go of my hand and struggled to rise, her tea now finished. "But right now I'm tired. Let me sleep some and when I wake I'll explain what happened as best as I can. I wasn't part of it. I was safe here in Jergen. Your mother had moved me here. I was so angry at the time! I felt she had given up on me. Now I know. Now I know." She grew silent and a tear rolled down her cheek. "It was much later, when the druids fled, that I found out what had happened. Some came here. And it was here the last of us fell. She saved me from the Purge."
I led her to her bed and helped her settle. I reached to examine her again. I could see how the birch bark and green tea was helping. Her blood was thinning and it was easier on her heart. Her face had a little more colour. She moved a little less painfully. Instinctively I gave her heart a boost. The knowledge of how to help her heart muscle came from within and, before I could even begin to question how the work was done, her heart gained a new strength and I knew it had come from me. I could see the tension around her eyes lessen and this seemed to tip her over the edge of sleep and she was soon snoring surprisingly loudly.
I looked over at Dog and he licked his chops and cocked his head.
"She's louder than Daukyns," I said and Dog cocked his head the other way. "Come on. Let's tend to her garden. She needs all the help she can get."
Dog stood and walked over to the back door and stopped looking back at me with what appeared to be a 'what are you waiting for?' look.
"Coming."
When Nadine rose a few hours later I could see her health had improved. Colour flushed her cheeks and she moved much easier and with more energy. She met me in the garden and hugged me from behind. I turned and held her and she cried against my shoulder for a long while. I felt my bond with her grow then and, being far from embarrassed, I found myself comforting this poor woman. She had led a life isolated from the druids and had lacked the skills to make a difference. It was overwhelming for her and she cried and shook in my arms and all the while I held her firmly and whispered encouraging words to her. It was probably a strange scene for anyone who could have wandered by and seen us together. It is not every day you see a young man holding an elderly woman so lovingly. And I did feel love for her. A bond had formed between us over the few short hours we had known each other. I added this to the list of questions I had mounting in my head. All I truly knew at the moment was I held in my arms probably the only person who could hope to answer the questions of my past. They hammered at me and it was all I could do to bite my tongue and wait. Her distress — or relief, for I truly knew not which — held my tongue. Truthfully, though, at that moment I felt I could wait years.
Dog pushed up between us with his wet, cold nose, looking for attention and Nadine laughed and broke her embrace and grabbed fistfuls of Dogs fur and bent down and hugged him briefly. "This dog is a wonder, Will. Look at the intelligence in his eyes!"
I glared at Dog and could see the mischief in his eyes. He was loving the attention.
"Where did you find this beautiful creature?" asked Nadine.
"Actually, he found me," I replied and then, sensing the time was right, I quickly told her of my capture and rescue.
Nadine stood quietly for a moment looking from Dog to me. She crouched down and I was surprised to see she could move so much more freely now. I reached and examined her and I could see her joints were less swollen, her musculature strengthened. I was surprised and knew neither my tea nor my repairs to her heart could account for the improvements. The change in her was dramatic, to say the least.
"Hmmm, a familiar, perhaps?" she asked to herself. "Perhaps. Do you feel a bond with the animal?" I shook my head. "Do you communicate?"
I shook my head at first then thought a bit. "Well, not exactly. Dog seems to understand me, though. Right, Dog?"
Dog sneezed in response and looked up at me, tongue lolling and spit dripping. What an animal, I thought.
Nadine laughed. "Dog? You call him Dog? How unimaginative. But what he does is not normal. Dogs can't understand human speech. Some words they recognise and perhaps associate with actions and rewards. Hmmm. Ask him to do something specific."
; I thought for a moment. "Dog, please go get me that rag over there," and I pointed at a rag hanging over the edge of a wooden gardening tools crate. Dog looked at the rag and then back at me and then lay down on the dirt.
Nadine laughed. "Well, maybe not! Maybe Dog is just contrary."
"Ornery, too."
Dog growled and Nadine started laughing in earnest then.
"Well," she said. "Gaea sent him, that's for sure. Him and the wolves you spoke of. No doubt of that. You were fortunate, Will, very fortunate."
"Fortunate, how?"
"The Sect knows well how to capture a draoi. They mastered it over the years. They had knowledge of us no one should have known but they did and used it. They hung you from the tree with a rope that repels Gaea. They separated you from the Earth and from the Earth Mother and that separates you from your powers and your ability to ask Gaea for aid. But they underestimated you. For sure they did! They thought you nothing more than a Duilleog. But you are much more than that, Will. I would venture that you are almost a full Stoc in your abilities. A Craobh certainly. We'll test that soon."
"If you say so. I know nothing of this. Except, hold on, I'll be right back." I left Nadine outside and went back inside and rummaged through my pack and retrieved some items. I grabbed Daukyns' journal and the pages from the manuscript, the black boots, and the two red gems. I brought them back outside to find Nadine whispering to Dog. She stood when I came back outside and I stopped for a moment to look back and forth between them. Nadine looked like she had been caught doing something and Dog just stared back at me and I could sense laughter coming from him. I shook my head and moved over to her and handed her the items. "Don't encourage him!" I said. Nadine pouted and laughed.
"He and I were just having a word with one another. What are these?" and she turned them over in her hands.
"Dear Gaea!" she gasped as she stared at the black boots and the gems. "These are the boots from the Sect! You kept them?"
I nodded.
"These are not natural. Do you sense that?" When I shook my head she continued. "No, perhaps you don't. I certainly don't but I had always assumed a draoi would. These boots are never found outside the Sect. During the Purge, we only managed to get our hands on one pair and here you have three pairs. Amazing, Will. You are amazing."
I had no response to that. I watched as she held up one of the gems in the palm of her hand.
"This is new," she said and held it up to the light. "Did you sense anything about it?"
"That? No."
"Did you try?"
"Try how?"
"With your sight. The same power you used to examine me. Try it on the gem." She held the gem out.
I opened my senses to it and a pain struck my head. I cried out and released my sight. "Ow! That hurt!"
"Hmmm. What happened? Tell me."
"It — I dunno, I can't explain it."
"Try."
I thought a moment and when I didn't answer right away she asked me to do it again but with less force.
"What do you mean less force?" I asked.
"Don't try so hard. Like pouring water out of a pitcher, but slowly instead of all at once. I think that's what you are doing wrong."
I tried what she suggested. I opened my sight in a way I thought of as being less and turned it to the gem. I felt a pressure against my head and I lightened my senses a little more. "Hold on, it's working." I lessened it even more until I was barely using the power. This was a new use for me and I reminded myself to work with this later. I looked at the gem until I could get a sense of what was happening. After a time, I could finally understand my power was being reflected off the stone right back at me. The gem was like a mirror for my power. With my senses, it seemed more liquid than solid. I told Nadine and she nodded.
"I see. It is like a lodestone but for draoi powers. This is how they found us. How they protected themselves from us. No wonder we failed at staying hidden and staying safe. Oh, dear. So much lost."
I looked at Dog and he looked sad. I could see this revelation was not good news for Nadine. "The Reeve in Jaipers has another one of these stones. He found it on the assassin that killed Bill Burstone."
Nadine nodded. "I suspect they all carry one. Well, most of them, since you only found one on that pair in the woods." Nadine tossed the boots on the ground and held on to the gem. "Gaea's power comes from life. This is one of the first things about her power you need to understand. People call her Mother Earth sometimes, but she is not the mother of the earth we walk on. She is the mother of the life that walks and grows on the earth. A gem, or a rock, has no life. It is not of her. This gem is not of Gaea. Can you ken that?"
I didn't, not really, but I nodded. She squinted her eyes at me and looked at Dog for a moment. "He doesn't does he, Dog?"
Dog pounced on a beetle, crunched it once, and swallowed it whole.
Nadine sighed and placed the gem next to the other one beside the boots. "Never mind. Later. We'll talk more about this later. Just accept what I say as truth, for now, Will, and trust me."
"I will," I said. She didn't need to ask. Dog made a strange noise.
"So what's this book? A journal?"
I nodded and took the journal from her and opened it to Daukyns' notes and handed it back to her. "My friend, Daukyns, the Wordsmith in Jaipers, this was his journal. When he died it came to me. Read here in the back. He wrote something to me." I pointed out the passage and let her read it.
Nadine read the page and then looked up at me and nodded. "The Wordsmiths worked for the Word and, without knowing it, helped spread the message of the draoi. The Word seeks harmony with nature. It is the word of Gaea that we spread. Daukyns would have known a little of the draoi. He would have seen our work over the years. He had a sense of it, it seems, with you. Recognised what you might have been. He seemed a good man. And a good friend, Will. I'm sorry he passed."
"Thank you, Nadine. You and he would have gotten along famously, I think," I took the book from her and opened it to the back and pulled out the manuscript pages and handed them to her. Nadine gasped when she saw what was written on the pages.
"Impossible!" she said and, after a moment, she looked up to me. "These should not be! These are copied from the Draoi Manuscript! The sacred book of the Draoi! The Aretha Tacuinum Sanitatis! The books are hidden. Only the senior draoi know where they lay!"
"The Aretha tacinum?"
"Tacuinum Sanitatis! The Tree! Oh, for Gaea's sake. I can see you have so much to learn. Perhaps it is Gaea's will you are here at this point in time. You have so much to learn! That was my one strength you know."
"Strength?"
"The lore. Because I lacked the gift from Gaea I poured myself into the knowledge. It was how I helped. I had a small amount of power. Enough to barely tend the plants. It was your mother," Nadine looked at me with joy in her eyes. "She recognised that I had a gift for understanding the manuscript and teaching others. I taught the young Duilleogs and even helped the Craobhs. I know the book better than anyone." She shook the pages in her hand and held them up for me to see. "These pages are fakes. Well, copies, more accurately. Someone copied these. But not perfectly. See?" She pointed at a letter written on the page. "This is not precise. There should be a swirl at the end of this line here. See?"
I saw where she pointed and just nodded and smiled. "If you say so."
"Oh, you!" she said and swatted me with the pages. "Trust me. It's wrong but close. Very close. All the words are correct but the accuracy is off. Copies. I would know! But this shouldn't be."
"Why not?"
"Because the books were closely held and protected by the owners. All were accounted for! For one to be copied so painstakingly means that one was borrowed or stolen for a long period of time. Months if it is just these pages. Years for the entire book!" She shuffled through the pages and held them up close to her eyes. She strained to read the pages. I reached and corrected her vision without a thought and shared her startled look wh
en we both realised what I had just done.
Nadine collapsed under her legs and sat there looking up at me blinking.
"Dear Gaea! What are you?"
I just shook my head and sat beside her and took one of her hands in mine.
* * *
A little while later we sat comfortably inside her home. I stood at one of her windows and watched as the sun rapidly disappearing behind the city skyline to the West turned the ocean to the east dark and brooding. I shuddered and closed my eyes for a moment. I was feeling a bit tossed like jetsam on the ocean. Or was it flotsam? I sighed as the sound of the waves crashing on the cliff below soothed my dark thoughts and I turned back to Nadine to enjoy one of my tea mixtures that I found soothed the soul. I had prepared a small meal for us and Nadine was pressed up against her table on a raised stool smacking her lips in satisfaction. Apparently I was a very good cook. Nadine had insisted on telling me so after almost every bite. Dog had devoured the last of the dried meats I had and was busy trying to make me understand he was soon to perish from hunger. I was thus far successfully ignoring the plaintive look he kept focused on my face. It was almost comical.
Nadine had been reading the journal and the pages throughout our meal and seemed to be enjoying her improved vision. She kept looking around and holding the pages at varying lengths from her eyes and chortling. I was starting to find it a little unsettling and, when she noticed my discomfort, she berated me and told me to wait until I was old as her.
We talked for an hour about the draoi manuscript. She explained it contained all the lore the druids knew about their powers and strengths. "It would also expose our weaknesses. I wonder..." she said and drew quiet for a time. She seemed pleased when I first used the word our to express the draoi. She said it meant I had accepted who and what I was. It also earned me another blow to the upper arm.
She was confident I was a Craobh. But, she added, I would remain one until I knew the lore the manuscript contained. I told her she could teach me and she cried for a little while. At first I thought I had upset her and when I expressed my sorrow she smacked me again in anger. Apparently she also cried when she was happy and my words were quick to remove her happiness. Or so she said with so many words.
Leaf and Branch (New Druids Series Vol 1 & 2) Page 47