Frostflower and Thorn

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Thorn chuckled. “Looks like those were the nightmare-berries, all right. Hurry it up, you turd.”

  “Damn it, Thorn, these knots are tight.”

  “You’ve got a knife?”

  “I thought you wanted to save the rope to hang the dummy.”

  “We’ll splice it together.” Maldron’s women were safe, not likely to wake up out of their nightmares for a while; and Thorn was able to hold Frostflower up a little and take the strain from her armpits—but she still wanted the sorceress down as soon as possible. Besides, the gods alone knew how long Spendwell with his damn fear of everything from heights to his own heartbeat could stay up there.

  One end loosened. The body seemed to shudder before Thorn could adjust her grip. Carefully she eased Frost downwards, holding her now at a slant, one arm still round her knees, the other shifting to her hips.

  “Do I have to cut the other side, too?”

  “Yes, damn it, what did you think?” That they were going to give the sorceress ropeburns unstringing her like a bloody bead? Thorn braced her feet as wide as the damn skirt would allow and tightened her grip, trying not to think of how limp Frostflower seemed. Maldron’s warriors had more or less subsided, but an occasional groan, scream, or few seconds of panting showed they were only sinking a bit deeper. It was almost worth having had the nightmares herself, to know what those bitches were going through now.

  The body of the sorceress flopped forward across Thorn’s shoulder. At least she was not stiff—better limp than stiff! A small object hit the marsh weeds near them. “I dropped my knife,” the merchant called weakly.

  “You can find it when you get down.” Mercilessly, Thorn left him to make his own way off the gibbet, while she knelt and lowered Frostflower to the ground.

  The sorceress’ black robe had been wrapped and belted around her naked body with no undersmock. Thorn was able to work her hand beneath the cloth directly to Frostflower’s chest. Pressing her fingers to the skin above the sternum, she felt, at last, a heartbeat—weak and slow, but a heartbeat she knew was Frost’s and not the thud of Thorn’s own blood beating through her fingertips.

  “If she’s dead—” began Spendwell, halfway down the side ladder.

  “No, you damn idiot, she’s still alive!”

  “Then get her into the wagon.”

  Thorn scowled at him, then gathered up her friend. Her makeshift skirt ripped off as she stood. She kicked it away and left it for Spendwell to pick up and bring along. Bloody bastard, so damn nervous for his own guts, all he cared about was getting the sorceress out of sight.… No, she admitted sullenly to herself, the real reason she was angry at him this time was because for once he had seemed to have Frostflower’s welfare more at heart than she—get the sorceress inside and make her comfortable right away. Thorn should have thought of it first.

  By feel and memory she deposited Frostflower on the bed of cushions and blankets they had arranged in the wagon. She groped for one of Spendwell’s expensive candles, with its wide-lipped holder to keep wax from dripping on the merchandise. She lit it as quickly as she could, annoyed that her flint, iron, and punk were so small and hard to hold.

  She was not going to hurt Frost’s hands and wrists any more by working at the knots—she cut the cord. The sorceress moaned as it loosened, leaving grainy, blood-speckled impressions on her skin. Thorn swore softly as she unwound the cord from hands and legs before easing the sorceress out of her muddy, sweaty robe. Hearing Spendwell climb into the wagon behind her, she said, “Stay out of here, you turd.”

  “I’m exhausted, Thorn—I couldn’t get it up for you right now.” He dropped her skirt beside her and looked over her shoulder. “Gods!”

  Thorn had uncovered Frostflower’s belly, with the two long, blistering burn-welts across it. “You shouldn’t have sneaked a look,” said the warrior. “Where’s that damn water and salve? Warriors’ God! They padded her armpits.” Underneath the robe, wads of linen cloth had kept the rope from pressing as deeply as it might have into the flesh. Whether this had been meant as a strange kind of mercy or as a means to prolong death Thorn could not tell, but maybe it had cushioned the veins a little.

  Spendwell put the water, salve, and a pile of rags torn from his cheapest cloth within Thorn’s reach. She handed him Frostflower’s black robe. It had been torn top and bottom and mended carelessly—big, sloppy stitches just good enough for gibbet-bait. “Put it on your dummy,” she said, bending to take off Frostflower’s sandals.

  Spendwell had strapped the waterskin beneath the belly of one of his donkeys so that the water would not be ice cold when Thorn needed it. Remembering how the sorceress had washed her off after getting the grub out of her, Thorn wiped her own fingers thoroughly with the tepid water before wetting a new rag to begin on Frostflower. She swore again, not so softly, when she rolled her over and found the line of livid three-cornered incisions in the small of her back.

  The wounds on Frostflower’s torso cleaned and rubbed with salve, Thorn covered her partially with a smooth blanket, wiped her face clean and salved her lips, cuts, and insect bites, then tackled her hands. The swelling and blotching had already gone down of itself, with the blood flowing more freely again. After a little more rubbing of palms, wrists, and back surfaces, Thorn gingerly began working the bandages off Frostflower’s fingers, one by one. The sight of the first fingertip made her stomach churn with rage. She would not dare touch the nails yet…maybe swish the fingertips gently through a bowl of warm water and prop Frostflower’s hands on a cushion to dry before rebandaging. “Here,” she told Spendwell, thrusting the bandage casing back to him. “Start getting ‘em on the dummy’s hands.”

  “It isn’t going to look right. They’ll see they’re stuffed gloves as soon as they look.” Spendwell had not stuck around to watch the hanging. He and Thorn had hoped Frostflower’s hands would be mittened or so corded around as to leave little flesh visible. Thorn shrugged. It could not be helped, and the dummy had been a stupid idea anyway—who the Hellbog thought it up?—but the more time before the substitution was discovered, the more chance they would have.

  “Splash ‘em with a little wine.” That should make the kidskin look blotchy, a little like blood-staled flesh. “Now. Before you get the damn bandages on the fingers. And cord them up tight.” That should make the stuffed gloves bulge as if bloated.

  “It still won’t work, Thorn.”

  “Damn you, merchant, just do it and let me alone a blasted moment!”

  Every fingernail beneath its bandage was caked with dry blood; carefully as Thorn worked off the cloth sheaths, a couple of nails started to bleed again. But…Hellbog, they must have been washed before the damn farmers’ bandages were put on—washing them again could wait a while longer. Thorn wound a clean rag mittenlike around each hand and slipped Frost’s arms beneath the blanket.

  Then she turned to Spendwell, who had the dummy robed and its fingers bandaged and was trussing the cord around its legs, glancing nervously at its glove hands. “All right, it’s about the right size,” he said, “and all right, the hood covers its head and the hem hangs down far enough—” The soles of Frostflower’s sandals showed and that was all you could see of the feet. “—but the hands, Thorn, the hands!”

  “They look fine to me.”

  “In this light—maybe. But in the morning…”

  “All right, let me think.” Damn silly dummy, what the Hellstink was the bloody use fussing around with it? “Get me some flour. And a little dirt.”

  With flour, mud, and spit, after a few attempts she made an imitation of bird shit and dribbled it onto the dummy’s hands. In the candlelight it looked fairly convincing, enough for her to reassure Spendwell that Maldron’s women were not likely to haul the body down for too close a look. They splashed some of the fake bird droppings elsewhere on the robe. If the warriors noticed at all, and if they did not look too closely, they would thank the birds for a good joke; and meanwhile it made Spendwell a little calmer.
Thorn did not remind him that the first time one of the fathermilkers whacked the dummy, even if it had fooled them up until then, all this work would be so much donkey shit.

  The merchant had done a good job of splicing the ropes. They carried the dummy out and this time Thorn climbed the gibbet, letting Spendwell stay on the ground. Maldron’s bitches were hardly groaning at all by now, sweating deep in their well-deserved nightmares. On the way back to the wagon, Thorn chuckled. The smudge-pots would not burn much longer without being fed. Those two cows would wake up in the morning too itchy with bug bites to think about Frostflower for a while.

  Spendwell unhobbled the donkeys while Thorn climbed back into the wagon. The merchant had insisted on pinching out the candle before they left to hang the dummy; Spendwell listened to too many stories about merchants’ goods turning into ashes because someone left a lighted candle or lamp inside the wagon and a donkey stamped and jolted it off its stand. Thorn kindled the light again, her fire-striking equipment not quite so hard to get hold of this time.

  Frostflower’s head was turned toward the sound and light. Her eyes were open, blue and brown, bloodshot but calm. No, not calm—hopeless. Not hopeless, either…expressionless. Gods and demons! Had they cracked her mind?

  The warrior knelt, holding the candlestick in her left hand, and laid her right palm gently on the sorceress’ forehead. A vague puzzlement came into Frostflower’s face. “Thorn?” she whispered.

  “Yes. Thorn.” Feeling an ache in her own jaw, the swordswoman put the candlestick on its stand and patted Frostflower’s face with a dampened cloth. Puzzlement was emotion, and recognition was a sign of sanity. “You’re safe now, Frost. They’re not going to hurt you any more.”

  “Douse the light, Thorn!” called Spendwell, shaking the wagon as he climbed to the seat. “I’m not driving with a burning candle inside.”

  At the sound of his voice Frostflower suddenly shuddered and a look of fear crossed her face. Of course—Spendwell was the bastard who had pricked her. “He’s helping us,” said Thorn. “He’s on our side this time, Frost. He’s not going to hurt you again.”

  The sorceress sighed and closed her eyes. Thorn pinched out the candle flame and climbed back through the wagon to the driver’s seat. “Slow and easy,” she muttered to Spendwell. “And stay out of her sight and hearing until I tell you otherwise.”

  He chucked to the animals and they began moving stupidly down the road, leaving gibbet, marsh bugs, and Maldron’s bitches behind. For several moments Spendwell guided his beasts in silence. Then he said, “I’ve done a lot more to save her tonight than I did to hurt her. And if Maldron catches us…”

  “If Maldron catches us, he’ll take back his safe-passage token. Then you can tell him I forced you and he’ll probably let you off with two or three lashes.”

  “You did force me, warrior.”

  “Cheer up, merchant. Maybe by the time you leave us, she’ll be able to look at you.” Spendwell was not such a bad companion, after all. With a little bullying, he made a fairly reliable helper; he kept a good supply of sweet salve for cuts and burns; and that had been a pretty damn clever idea of his to warm the skin of water by strapping it beneath the donkey.

  Thorn reached out and gave Spendwell’s knee a friendly squeeze. She felt full of guts and ready to slice Maldron down with his whole damn barracksful of fighting bitches. The Warriors’ God was on her side again, and Frostflower was going to be all right.

  * * * *

  There was no reason she should not be all right. Her mind was still good—she had emotion and recognition in there, and spirits should come back with health. The padding beneath her armpits had kept the blood from stagnating too badly, and it was flowing again in her arms and hands. The burns on her belly, the cuts on her back, were ugly but not dangerous; Thorn had undergone worse in getting treated for battle injuries. With careful bandaging, her fingernails should heal and tighten smoothly. When the swordswoman, judging the shock had worn off sufficiently, began to feed her, Frostflower obediently swallowed a cupful of wine and almost a bowlful of breadsops in milk; and she kept it all down.

  The signs should have been good, but something was wrong. More and more often Thorn left the seat beside Spendwell and crawled back to feel Frostflower’s face and, if she seemed to be awake, try to get some response out of her. Quit pestering the poor bitch, the warrior kept repeating to herself. Wouldn’t you want a little undisturbed rest? You’re like a damn brat poking a sick bird to death. There’s nothing wrong with Frost that wouldn’t be wrong with anyone who’d gone through what she’s gone through.

  Nevertheless, about midnight Thorn made Spendwell stop the wagon completely. “We have to keep going,” he protested. “If I fall asleep now, I won’t wake up until daylight.”

  “I’ll wake you up.” The swordswoman crawled into the wagon. She had not lit the candle since they left the gibbet, not even to mix the breadsops and milk—warriors could always get around in the dark—but she lit it now.

  Frostflower did not open her eyes at the light. She did not open them until Thorn felt her cheeks. The whites of her eyes were beginning to clear, and there was little pain in her gaze—too little, considering her wounds—but there was too damn much…patience.

  “It is you,” the sorceress whispered. Her lips were dry and cracking again. Thorn rubbed more salve on them.

  “How are you feeling, Frost?”

  “I am grateful you escaped from the marshlands.” The sorceress closed her eyes once more.

  Had the poor little innocent guessed how Burningloaf betrayed them both? Probably not, and now was no time to tell her, to blow out her faith in an old family friend. “Hellbog, it’ll take more than a few stinking marshes to keep me down. Look, can I get you anything? Another cup of wine?”

  The sorceress lay without replying. For a moment Thorn half-feared she had stopped breathing. She bent forward and felt Frostflower’s chest for the heartbeat. Frostflower did not move at her touch, but she opened her eyes again and gazed up Thorn’s arm to her face.

  “How about it, Frost? You have to say this for the blasted merchant, he only gets the best. Another cup of wine?”

  “Thorn. You made me promise, once, that if I found you…hanging… I would speed your death.”

  Thorn shivered. The night was getting cold. She put a second blanket over the sorceress. “That was if you found me with my guts full of stones or dropping out. Not if I got hung up whole.”

  The sorceress made a movement beneath her coverings, as if trying to lift her arm, but gave up in weakness. “Hold my hand. Only a moment.”

  Gingerly, Thorn pushed away the blankets and took her friend’s hand.

  “Hold it tighter.”

  “I don’t want to hurt your fingers.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Hold tighter.”

  Thorn squeezed as hard as she dared, holding Frostflower’s hand below the knuckles. After a few moments Frostflower sighed and closed her eyes. “Thank you, Thorn.”

  The warrior lowered the sorceress’ arm again to her side and tucked the blankets around her once more. She could not hear Frostflower’s breathing; she could only see her chest moving slightly. Thorn pinched out the candle flame and returned to Spendwell. He was snoring. She poked him in the ribs—hard—and he awoke with a grunt.

  “Turn around.”

  “Unh?”

  “Turn around. We’re heading back south.”

  “Thorn, are you crazy? We can’t—She’s dead? You want to hang her up again?”

  “Damn your guts, keep your voice down. She isn’t dead yet and even if she were that’s the last thing I’d do to her. We’re taking her to Frog-in-the-Millstone.”

  “What? I thought you wanted to get her back up to her retreat?”

  “That’s ten days away, maybe seven or eight if you smear acid on your damn donkeys’ rumps. It’s too long. Besides, I’ve never been there—Windslant or Windhaven or whatever the hellbog they call it. I know wher
e her friends are in Frog-in-the-Millstone.”

  “Doesn’t she have any friends in Gammer’s Oak?”

  “She thought she had, and if I see the motherpricker again I’ll probably cut out his rotten bladder. Now turn around and we can be there before daybreak.”

  Spendwell turned around with no more argument. Thorn knew he had never much liked the original plan of getting Frostflower all the way to her retreat in the mountains. Once they had her safely hidden in the weavers’ house, Thorn could send him on his way south, looking innocent as a peapod.

  It was a big gamble, but the swordswoman was gambling now whatever she did. She was reasonably sure she could trust the weavers, while eight or ten days—assuming they got all the way to the mountains without trouble—was just too damn long to wait before getting someone else’s opinion, some older friends’ help.

  * * * *

  They sat around the table: Thorn, Spendwell, Yarn, and Brightweave. Small Spider, the girl, was sitting beside Frostflower down in the grain cellar, where six days ago the sorceress had gotten the brat out of Thorn’s belly.

  The swordswoman remembered that Brightweave had a crooked nose and a scar on his lip where a spindle had caught him in a freak accident thirty years ago; and that, although she was ten or twelve years younger than her husband, Yarn had graying hair. No one could have told it by this light, which was one tiny flame on a wick in a bull’s horn half full of oil, set in the middle of the table. They were making sure nobody outside saw the light through the windows. They might as well not have had any light at all. They talked in murmurs.

  “You’re sure she’s lost her powers?” It was the third or fourth time Thorn had said this; but she still could not quite believe the ability to grow a grub like that, and to grab a bolt of lightning in the air, could just vanish after one pricking. Gods, it had not even been Frostflower’s fault!

  “It’s never happened that a sorceron kept any power afterwards,” Brightweave repeated wearily. “The final blasting, and that is the end of it for them.”

  “Hellstink, Frost didn’t even get in her final blast.”