Frostflower and Thorn

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  The tear rolled down from Frostflower’s brown eye. That was always the one that filled first, and it was on the side turned toward Thorn.

  “Damn my bloody, rotten mouth.” Thorn picked up the bowl and spoon. “I’m sorry, Frost. Forget I said anything. What do I know about it? Come on, let’s get a little of this mush into you while it’s still lukewarm.”

  The sorceress nodded and opened her mouth, but closed it almost immediately and pushed away the bowl and spoon. Her breasts—perhaps she would have noticed it sooner if she had not been tangled in regrets and explanations—

  “Frost, what is it? What the Hell—What’s wrong?”

  Wrong? Nothing was wrong—she thought nothing was wrong. Her breasts were tingling, and felt…“Thorn! Give me Starwind! Quickly!”

  Thorn almost dropped the bowl of porridge in reaching for the infant. Frostflower looked down and saw two small wet spots on her bodice. She touched one spot lightly, then opened the garment.

  She was shocked to feel Thorn’s arm quivering as the warrior handed her Starwind. Glancing up, she was even more shocked at Thorn’s face. The swordswoman looked as if she thought the end had come and her friend called for the babe to tell it good-bye. “No, no, Thorn! Nothing is wrong—my milk has come!”

  The swordswoman relaxed, grinned, and settled back to watch the feeding. “Well, I’ll be damned! But don’t think you’re going to get out of finishing your own blasted dinner this way.”

  Thorn put her hands behind her head and whistled very softly. Dowl sat up and put his front paws on the bed as he watched, head to one side and the sunlight coming through the window to mottle his coat with reddish-gold patches. Starwind sucked contentedly, drinking at last, no longer causing her skin the faint, unsatisfying dry soreness. “I had thought we must work as if from the beginning. I had thought these last days… Thorn, my breasts must have been filling all along, as if he were still sucking, all the while the rest of my body and my mind… Perhaps the very pain was stimulation?”

  “Unh.” Thorn cocked her head, unconsciously achieving exactly the same angle at which Dowl was holding his. Seeing the two of them watch her with the same expression, Frostflower chuckled.

  Thorn glanced down at the dog and saw the joke. “Damn mongrel,” she said, leaning forward and rubbing his head between the ears. “Well, tell the truth, I never really expected it to happen at all. Look, Frost, will you do one thing for me? Sometime, when you’re feeling up to it, will you just stick a seed in the ground and do whatever you used to do, and see what happens? All right?”

  The suggestion was impious, but clearly Thorn did not realize that. “It would be like questioning the wisdom of God, Thorn.”

  The swordswoman shrugged. “Well, I guess you know more about it than I do. Tell him I’m sorry if I insulted him, then, will you?”

  The sorceress nodded, let her head rest far back on the cushions, closed her eyes, and held Starwind a little more tightly. Soon she would shift him to her other breast…having him with her, feeding from her, growing even now, though imperceptibly, in her arms—it did not fill the emptiness of her loss; but…ah, God! it went so far to console her for it.

  CHAPTER 10

  This time Thorn went disguised as a male charcoal burner, in trousers unlaced around the legs and a dark gray tunic that hung straight to her calves and had slits up both sides—clumsier than warriors’ clothing, but not so clumsy as a skirt. Her voice was deep enough to pass for a man’s, and she did not intend to talk a lot anyway. Yarn cut about a thumb’s length off her hair, so that it barely covered her ears. The disguised swordswoman wore an old, chipped forest knife in plain sight and Stabber beneath her tunic, with the cloth bloused out above the belt to hide the outline of his handle. Slicer she carried rolled in a blanket in the middle of the long bag slung across her back; there was no way she could have worn him at her side without risking detection.

  Yarn cropped her daughter’s hair even shorter than Thorn’s. “When she returns, and our friends see her again, we will say it needed to be cut to reduce her fever,” sighed the woman, coiling the long black braids and wrapping them in linen. (Thorn’s shorn fringe had gone down the close-stool.) In a gray tunic almost as long as Thorn’s, with her face and hands smudged and dirty, Small Spider made a passable boy.

  They both rolled their newly-sewn charcoal-burners’ clothes in ashes and walked over them several times before putting them on, and they rubbed the dog with mud and soot—not that it helped disguise him much, but there were plenty of mongrels around that looked pretty much like Dowl anyway. They went by the names of Cleansmoke and Ash. There was not a Hell of a lot they could do about the mutt’s name, but they tried dropping the “D” and calling him Owl, and he seemed to respond pretty well.

  Small Spider cried a little when her hair was cut, but otherwise she seemed to love it all. Thorn shrugged and told her, “Don’t act like a damn nervous or I’ll get a stick and thrash your muscles loose from your stupid bones.” She herself would have no trouble imitating a charcoal burner’s weariness with life and work. She was sick of traveling around in disguise. Gods and demons! Was this going to be her life from now on? Better turn sorceress and grow moss in the mountains than keep hopping around from one disguise to another until she no longer much cared whether or not anyone recognized her and trussed her up to cart back to Maldron.

  Their story was that their old donkey had broken a leg in the forest and had to be killed and left for the wolves. That gave them an excuse to hunt through towns and farms, supposedly looking for a new donkey. It also gave them an excuse for being charcoal burners with no charcoal to sell. Since they needed a reasonably strong donkey and could not afford—either actually (Brightweave’s purse could not stand too many extra expenses) or as poor burners—to pay a fair price for one, they also had an excuse for not buying the animals they were offered.

  They got through Three Bridges fairly well; it was a large enough town that a pair of strange burners drew only a few glances, and their occasional haggling for a donkey they could not afford earned nothing more than an exasperated shrug from the would-be seller. But at Arun’s Farm they encountered a stableman who was ready to sell a good animal for a silver and a half, because it had been his dead grandson’s pet and he did not want the reminder. “You won’t find a donkey cheaper that still has any work left in it,” he remarked; and even Thorn could see the beast was worth at least three silvers. When Arun’s stableman went down to a single silver, Thorn had to tell him she would try to borrow the money in Nedgebottom and return with it. “If you can’t get one silver together without borrowing from the Nedgebottom skinners,” he said, “you’ll have to leave them your son as security, burner.”

  “Maybe I’ll put a donkey hide on the young rascal and get some work out of him for once,” said Thorn. “Come on, Ash.”

  The swordswoman had not planned on going to Nedgebottom, since she guessed that even when he had Maldron’s safe-passage token, Spendwell would be a little too fastidious to go into that town. Nevertheless, after the experience at Arun’s Farm, they went. If someone told the stableman they had taken the turn for White Orchard instead of Nedgebottom, he would be more likely to wonder and remember them clearly than if they headed for Nedgebottom and simply never came back to Arun’s Farm.

  Once out of sight of the farm, they could perhaps have doubled back; but in the long run it would take less time and likely be safer to go on into the unsavory town than to roam around after dark in its neighborhood. As down-on-their-luck charcoal burners, they could hardly rent a room in one of the town’s two respectable inns—folk would remember. They found a cramped alcove with a torn curtain in a stinking greasetrap called Bottom of the Flask. Thorn had slept soundly in even worse places; and had she been alone she would have felt safer here, in this disguise, than she had felt anywhere else for half a hen’s-hatching. But with Small Spider to take care of, she sat up against the wall the whole bloody night, her hand on the pommel of her
sword, listening to the young girl’s snores. Gods, was Thorn only nine or ten years older than Spider? She felt old as Bloodrust that night.

  She felt even older next morning. After a quick check around Nedgebottom, as long as they were there anyway, they headed on for White Orchard. Spider kept whistling the same damn tunes—if it wasn’t “The Lovers in the Stable,” it was “Silverpalm’s Lament” or something that sounded like “The Drunken Thatcher.” Thorn was too tired to fight off gloomy thoughts of hiding out in Nedgebottom or the woods with Frostflower and the grub and Dowl—what the Hell would they eat, if Frost refused meat and could no longer grow vegetables?—or trying to herd them all in disguise to the mountains on foot. The eastern mountains were a few days closer than the northern, and the mountains were lousy with sorcerous retreats all the way around, weren’t they?

  By afternoon the swordswoman was almost dozing on her feet, and her thoughts had become repetitive nightmares. She was as groggy as if she had wine in her muscles, and she was ready to peel Spider for whistling. Maybe she should have told the damn merchant to wait somewhere for news of her. She had had a pretty shrewd suspicion, even before Spendwell left the weavers, that she would need a way to get Frostflower and the brat back up to the mountains. But she had feared that if she told him, instead of waiting for her he might travel away as far and fast as he could.

  They finally had another kiss from the gods when they reached White Orchard. Small Spider glimpsed Spendwell through an open tavern door. The bastard was eating beef slices in carrot sauce and drinking red wine from a glass horn.

  A pair of dirty, impoverished charcoal burners could hardly go in and sit down at the same table with a prosperous merchant taking his dinner in one of the town’s most expensive taverns. Thorn and Spider walked on to the wagon-field and sat on the grass outside, chewing stale bread, cheese, and peaches from the cheaper foodsellers, keeping watch on the wagon-field gate.

  When Spendwell came sauntering back after dinner, Thorn approached him and said, “Extra donkey to sell, merchant?”

  He gave her a quick glance and wrinkled his nose very slightly. “I’m sorry, brother, not one I can spare.”

  She grunted and looked around. The wagon-field guards were busy with their dice, and nobody else except Spider was within forty strides. She sidled nearer and muttered, “Spendwell, you bloody liar, you had seven of the stupid animals last time I counted.”

  He took a closer look and stared, but kept his wits. After glancing around and seeing the weaver girl in her boy’s tunic waiting several paces away with Dowl, he turned back to Thorn and said, “I do have one that’s getting old, brother. I might be able to sell it at a price you could pay.”

  One of the guards was a gray-haired old spearwoman with a face like a dried apricot. The other was a lazy-looking young bitch with a scar over her nose. Maybe an early case of battleshock had left her content to rust her life away as daytime guard at the wagon-field gate of a quiet town like White Orchard.

  “Don’t remember your face, burner,” said the old guard as Thorn followed Spendwell through the gate.

  “Need a donkey. None around my usual towns,” muttered Thorn.

  The younger guard laughed. “Better not let that smutty charcoal burner near your cloth, merchant.”

  Laughing at their rotten joke, the bitches went back to their game—Fives after Twos. Thorn followed Spendwell to the donkey pen in the middle of the field. Here and there another merchant was fussing around with his wagon; but the field was half empty, and the noises of the animals in the pen would help cover their conversation.

  “That one, with his left ear laid back,” said Spendwell in a fairly loud voice. Pointing at an unusually glassy-eyed beast, he added, barely loud enough for Thorn to hear, “Where’s the baby?”

  “Snug with the sorceress.”

  “I didn’t see—that isn’t the sorceress with you?”

  “That’s the weaver’s brat.… What do you call that donkeyskin stuffed with flab, merchant?”

  “Dillseed. Carries more for his age than any other donkey I’ve ever had.… But she’s safe?”

  “For the time being.”

  “Thank the gods!”

  “Quiet, Spendwell. You’re getting loud.… Thirty-four kips.”

  “I thought you wanted a donkey, burner! This time next year, Dillseed will still be worth a silver and a half.”

  Yes, the damn donkey probably had a better chance than any of them to still be around next year. “Looks like it’d bite my fingers off.”

  “Any donkey will try to bite if you mistreat him.… We can’t talk here.”

  “Shrewd merchant.” They certainly could not talk here much longer. A pen of donkeys stank even worse than a warriors’ barracks after fighting practice in the winter. “Thirty-six coppers, then.… Any woods near the road south of town?”

  “South? Why not north?”

  “Why not south?”

  Keeping up a surface haggle that Thorn hoped would convince any casual listener, they arranged to meet in Glandron Forest to the south of White Orchard. Small Spider would watch for the merchant and whistle him into the woods with “The Lovers in the Stable.” To make it sound as if money changed hands—Thorn insisted on keeping Brightweave’s funds in her own possession—they clicked coins in the shadow of Spendwell’s wagon, and so ended the mock purchase of the donkey.

  “If that’s an old animal, I’m a dairy wench,” remarked the gray-haired guard at the gate.

  “Not old. Cantankerous,” replied Thorn. “Come on, you four-legged turd.” She had so much trouble with the beast that the town warrior ought to be convinced Spendwell had sold it cheaply because of its evil temper. All the same, the old bitch had a sharp memory for niggling details, and that worried Thorn.

  Once she got Dillseed out to Small Spider, the girl managed to coax him along more easily. They found a weedy clearing in the woods south of town, between the road and the river, and waited. Thorn had told neither the merchant nor Spider the real reason she wanted to wait south of town. If they waited north, on the way back to Frog-in-the-Millstone, Spendwell might think again about rejoining them. They stood in the shadow of the gibbet; simply meeting them here could be dangerous. Even though Thorn had kept the money, the merchant might consider losing a donkey a reasonable price for heading south to safety. He was not so likely to try avoiding them if, in order to do so, he would have to head back north into Maldron’s neighborhood.

  It was almost evening before Small Spider glimpsed the cloth merchant’s wagon and started whistling. Nobody else was around; Thorn had spent most of the afternoon checking on that. The gods still seemed to be on their side. Nevertheless, she did not quite believe Spendwell intended to join them until his wagon was actually turning off the road.

  Small Spider met him near the edge of the woods and guided him back to the clearing. “Take back your son of a bastard donkey,” Thorn told him when he arrived. She jerked her thumb at Dillseed, who was disgustedly trying to chew his tether loose from a tree on the bank of the river.

  “Gods! Were you trying to drown him, Thorn?”

  “I wasn’t about to lead the bloody animal back and forth every time it acted as if it wanted a drink.” Thorn noticed that Spendwell had a wine flask on the seat beside him. Well, at least his tongue was not slurring yet. She herself had not felt so greatly tempted for years to sit down and drink a few mouthfuls of wine.

  “So you did it! You’re quite a warrior, Thorn.”

  “Unh.” She enjoyed his admiration, but she was not going to encourage it and get bogged down in flattery. “So you thought Small Spider was Frostflower, eh?”

  “I am about the same size,” said the girl eagerly. “And my hair is almost as black. That was how we got the idea to hide her in my bed.”

  “And you don’t look a Hell of a lot like Small Spider, either, in that disguise,” said Thorn.

  Beneath the dirt on her face, the girl turned pink. “I’ll go untie Dillseed.
”

  As Spider ran toward the donkey, Thorn turned back to Spendwell. “You should have known I wouldn’t let the sorceress outside without a patch over one eye.”

  “I should have known she wouldn’t be strong enough to travel yet.”

  “Don’t bet on that. She’s already got both dugs full of milk for the brat.” Thorn had not yet told Spendwell outright that she wanted him and his wagon to smuggle Frostflower back to the mountains. How much he had guessed, she was not sure; but she might as well learn right away whether he would come willingly or whether she would have to drag him. “She’ll be strong enough to ride by the time we get back to Frog-in-the-Millstone.”

  Spendwell nodded and tied his reins to the stay-post on the driver’s seat. “I thought she might need me again. I didn’t think you found me just to tell me you were all safe.”

  “Maybe there’s hope for you after all, merchant.” Thorn would not mention her doubts of him—the bugger needed encouragement. “We aren’t safe yet, but we should be better off with you than without.”

  “You will be. As safe in my wagon as if you were already in the mountains. I’ve been making plans, Thorn.” He jumped down from the wagon and approached her. He walked pretty steadily, but she could smell the wine on his breath.

  “You and your Southvines white have been making plans.”

  “Na. Southvines purple. You should try some tonight.”

  She no longer much wanted it. “You damn bastard, you think I haven’t been making plans?”

  “I thought you might like help.” Was he boasting again…or begging? “Why do you think I waited around here? Why do you think it was so easy to find me?”

  “Easy, you bastard?” Thorn thought of the curious stares here and there in Three Bridges, of the stinking stableman at Arun’s Farm trying to give them his donkey, of her sleepless night guarding Small Spider in Nedgebottom. Well, maybe Spendwell really had waited, tried to keep himself available. Probably he would not have traveled much faster at his normal trading pace; but this was not a normal situation—and if he had wanted to disinvolve himself, he could have been in Nearmidnorth by now. “Tell me one thing, Spendwell,” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Did you wait around to help me, or the sorceress?”