The Wind-Witch

by Susan Dexter

  Next morning, Splaine Garth’s mistress went out to study her barley fields, to gauge them and try to guess what the next week’s worth of weather would hold—or could be made to hold.

  Splaine Garth enjoyed every advantage of weather come harvest season. It wasn’t a thing Druyan wanted generally known, but she was more than competent at weatherwitching. Holding off rain till a hay crop was ricked was no simple matter in Esdragon, where the sky opened up nine days out of ten. Timing a week of sun to coincide with the grain fields ripeness rose to the realm of fine art. The nearby sea tempered the air, the lofty mass of the Promontory mostly broke the force of stomis. Still, it took a lot of work to avoid disaster. Basic weather lore was learned in the nursery, in rhyme and riddle, but Druyan’s skills soared far beyond those. She did not merely observe and react she steered.

  Her grandmother Kessallia’s gifts had never been a topic of family discussions, and outsiders did not consider the duchess’ witch powers a safe choice of light conversation. All the same, adjusting the weather to local advantage was a time-honored custom in Esdragon, and there had always been plenty of crumbs of such knowledge for Druyan to nibble as she would. When she came to Splaine Garth she knew already that she could whistle up a wind—and knew equally well that she must not, for she found the force unleashed impossible to control. She clung to safer pursuits. She could disperse a raincloud, or chivvy it aside as a sheepdog might an unruly wether, so that its load of moisture enriched a river meadow rather than ruined a cutting of hay. Splaine Garth’s dark soil was quick to warm in the spring, and the fall frosts did not strike heavily enough to kill until the last fruits had been gleaned from the raspberry canes. It was more a matter of timing than of strength, a knowing of what to nudge and when to do it, to get the best result she could. A subtle art—Druyan was positive even Travic had not suspected it of her. She grew more adept at it as she came to know their particular bit of land more thoroughly, and Splaine Garth prospered by unremarkable stages—but it did prosper.

  Now their fortunes all depended upon her skills. She dared make no mistakes, this season. She needed perfect weather.

  Druyan bent an ear of barley, testing its weight. She plucked a kemel and chewed it, frowning in concentration. The grain must be ready, but not so ripe that it fell from the ear and was lost during the reaping. She looked from the green-gold field to the sky, which seemed farther overhead than usual, whitish bright. The air felt stagnant and oppressive, solid as earth.

  At this season, when such heavy weather shifted, ’twas to intervals of very fine weather. But between those lovely spells came fierce thunderstorms, sometimes accompanied by hail that could destroy a barley field in a quarter of an hour. The grainheads were heavy, ready for reaping. If they were beaten down and soaked, by hail or heavy rainfall, the seeds would begin to sprout, which was well enough if the barley was in the malting vats but a disaster while ’twas yet in the field. The present weather, unpleasant as it was, was better to have, better to hold. They needed to begin cutting at once. That very day would be ideal, the next day vital. Travic had expected to have the men home for the task. He’d said so, riding out.

  Well, Travic was already back, but Druyan had no expectation of seeing his farmhands in the next week. Dalkin had said that the duke’s army was swelling. He’d seen no groups departing for homes and cropland, though harvest loomed everywhere. He’d reported talk of heading farther downcoast, where towns were richer and even more at risk from the raiders.

  If the men didn’t come back—and she dared pin no hopes on such a chancy thing—then there was no one to do the harvesting. Well, there was herself, and the sheep girls, and Dalkin. But they couldn’t reap three fields in less than three weeks, Druyan judged. She remembered how much the men had cut in a day and knew for certain they could never match it. Enna wouldn’t be able to grip a sickle, possibly couldn’t even climb up to the wagon seat to drive the sheaves back to the threshing barn, however willing she was to try.

  Her little crew had been hard enough pressed just to bury their master. Druyan had set the three youngsters to digging a grave in the orchard’s relatively soft earth, while she and Enna washed Travic’s cold body and wrapped it in his best cloak, gray and scarlet-dyed wool from his own sheep and Druyan’s own loom. She had used the threshing sledge, with Valadan to draw it, to convey Travic to his resting place—and had found that three children could not be expected to dig much of a hole. Indeed, either of the farm dogs could have bettered them at the task, given the inclination.

  They had done their best-and used stones, after, to make a proper caim over the barrow. Travic was decently buried—but the weaknesses of the workforce remaining to Splaine Garth were laid plain before the farm’s mistress. If they could scarcely bury one man, how could they harvest three fields?

  Druyan wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and squeezed her eyes tight shut. Were her hopes to be blighted the instant they took form? All her fine words to Enna came stinging back. There had to be a way. Go to the duke—her uncle, after all—and ask for her men back? Travic might have demanded that boon, but if she went to the duke, Druyan would only draw attention to a situation she desperately wanted overlooked. Was there no way out? Must she yield with the battle unfought? The gently waving barley offered no answers, and Druyan finally left it.

  Walking slowly homeward, her thoughts rebounding from futility to hopelessness and back again, Druyan hardly took note of her surroundings. But her gaze snagged on the shattered farmyard gate, which the raiders had battered down less than a week gone. There’d been no chance to repair it properly yet—the splintered boards had been jammed back into shape in the gap between the drystone walls and bound together with hanks of twine. They needed new boards sawn, and there was no one to do that, either, with the men gone and the saw needing two of them to wield it.

  Might be there was a plank or two, set aside to season in one of the outbuildings, Druyan thought. She ought to look. She and Dalkin could manage the repair between them, if she could but lay hands on a board.

  The raiders had come in the predawn darkness, and all Druyan had seen of the fighting had been a shadow-dance, mostly obscured by the shutters fastened tight over the kitchen windows. She’d heard more than she’d seen shouts, screams, and curses. By sunup there’d been little sign of the mayhem save for the gate—and all her attention then had been on Travic and the men, helping to pack provisions for them while they saddled horses and made ready to ride out. She’d had very little sleep, and a lot of details to keep atop of. No time to suggest that someone pause to nail the gate back together, or even note that it should be done. Well, she could take the task on now, and hope that by sympathetic magic the rest of the farm chores would bend to her hand, as well. She could find a board and master one piece of chaos.

  The board wasn’t in the shed, though there was a mark in the dirt where something very like it had recently lain. Druyan cudgeled her memory. What had anyone needed a plank for lately? She walked out of the shed still unable to come up with an answer. As she passed Valadan’s paddock—maybe there was a plank there she could borrow: He didn’t truly need to be fenced, and she often let him wander the barnyard at will—she finally spied the elusive board.

  It was jammed across the shoulder-high passage that led into their root cellar, built half under the barn. Now why on earth was that? The turnips weren’t dug yet, there was naught in there but cool, damp air. . .

  And the prisoners Travic had taken in the raid. He’d mentioned them, in the midst of hasty instructions for the farm and foolish—as it turned out—assurances of his swift return, had touched on the possibilities of ransoms being arranged. “We got four of them,” he’d said, proud. “The others ran like coneys.”

  Nigh a week ago, and Druyan couldn’t swear that anyone had fed the captives in that time. No, surely they had not, for Enna couldn’t have dealt with the plank alone. She’d have needed help. Druyan frowned and chewed at a fingernail. Travic ha
d been a practical man; perhaps he’d thrown some stale bread in after the men, a barrel of water, so no one would need to risk dealing with them till he got home. She might even remember him saying something about that. But fed or not, Druyan knew she ’d have been screaming to be let out by now—yet she couldn’t recall hearing a sound. Of course, the cellar’s walls were thick earth and stone, meant to keep out the summer’s heat and the winter’s frost. Sound wouldn’t carry far . . . She nibbled at her finger again.

  Four men, penned so, ought to be more than ready to come out. Maybe also ready to bargain for their liberty.

  Four men could harvest a lot of barley.

  Valadan snorted disapprovingly and pawed the earth of his paddock.

  “You’re right,” Druyan yielded, glancing at him. “I’ll tell Enna what I’m doing.”

  What she was doing. That she’d gone mad, Enna would say. Druyan steeled herself for another battle.

  Kellis had seen the hand, coming toward his face. Only at the last instant—when one steel edge caught a glimmer of light—had he realized that there was a sword in that punishing fist.

  He had expected the blow, the moment he heard the shouts that told him his luck had run out, that they had been discovered when he had sworn to the captain that they would be undetected. It had been certain to happen sooner or later—he was blindly guessing when he claimed to be foreseeing, and not much caring about the outcome. It was inevitable, too, that he’d pay a price for falsehood and betrayal. He might not understand what was screamed at him, not every word, but he knew enough of the Eral tongue to get the sense of it. The attack was a failure, but there was just time to deal with the scout who’d sworn foreknowledge that it would succeed. . .

  He expected to be struck, but not with cold iron. The blade’s edge flashed like lightning, right in front of his eyes. Kellis heard no thunderclap—there was only darkness.

  “Enna, there’s no other choice! Those fields have to be reaped before the next rain, else we’re ruined. We won’t be able to salvage enough to pay the tithe, much less for seed and flour and market.”

  “Lady, you’re grief-crazed.” Enna’s brow creased. Tears came to her eyes. “To trust those men—”

  “To use them, Enna.” Druyan noticed Enna did not dispute their inability to harvest the barley alone.

  “They’ll use you! What’s to stop them getting on with what they came here for, the minute you let them out?” By her tone, she should have been wringing her hands, but so far Enna had resisted self-torture.

  “For one thing, they don’t have weapons. And I will carry Travic’s hunting bow. I can’t hit a deer at forest’s edge the way Travic could, but they won’t know that, and I’ll take care to stay within range I can hit from.” Druyan frowned, feeling the plan somehow inadequate even before Enna challenged it. “There’s Valadan, too. He’s better than a squad of the duke’s troops; they’ll never challenge him. I’ll stay mounted, I’ll carry the bow, and I’ll watch them every minute. All they’ve got to do is reap, the girls can throw the sheaves onto the wain, and we can handle the threshing ourselves, once the grain’s in the barn.” That was sounding better, a scheme that could succeed. Or was at least no madder than all the rest of it.

  Enna was wringing her hands, after all. “Lady, please don’t do this! Don’t let them out, with the men gone—”

  “If I don’t, we’ll lose the harvest.” All the weatherwitching in the world wouldn’t hold rain off more than a week. Esdragon would never bend to her will so long. And if she had truly thought the farmhands likely to return ere then, she’d never have bothered with the prisoners. She knew what a risk it was. “I’ve got to take them food, anyway. I won’t starve them to death, even if they are thieves.”

  “Their kind killed your husband,” Enna persisted, while Druyan shoved stale bread and half a ball of cheese into a carrysack. “There’s no difference between one of them and another.”

  “Then they owe me a blood debt,” Druyan retorted. “They can work it off cutting my grain. Otherwise we’ll have to feed them forever,” she added, appealing to Enna’s frugality. “This way we get a crop in and get rid of them.”

  Enna trailed her to the door, clutching the kitchen broom—which had a stout ash handle—as if ’twere a weapon.

  “What are you doing?” Druyan asked, eyeing the broom.

  “You aren’t going alone, my lady.”

  “Enna.” Druyan smiled, and shook her head. “If they see just the two of us, and you ready to defend me with a broom, they’ll know it’s only women here. If I go alone, they’ll see I’m not afraid, and wondering why I don’t need to worry will keep them in line.”

  “Lady—” Enna’s nostrils flared.

  “They’ve been in a dark cellar for days, Enna, maybe with no food.” Druyan tugged at the drawstring that closed the sack. “That will have tamed them.”

  “Or driven them mad,” Enna pointed out.

  “Then they’d be screaming, and we’d hear. I’ll take one of the dogs, will that content you?”

  Druyan whistled for Rook as she marched across the yard—despite her Otherworldly blue eyes, Meddy was too trusting to offer any sure protection. Even the sheep got the upper hand of her sometimes. Rook’s nature was more suspicious, and she had a fine deep growl. The black and tan dog arrived at Druyan’s heel and sat patiently while her mistress faced the root cellar door and gathered her nerve.

  Likely she’d lose it if she thought longer about the business. She was not half so bold as she’d forced herself to be before Enna. I will not let them out now, Druyan thought, to hearten herself. Nothing so final. Only make the ojfer and judge their reaction. She set hands to the plank, dragged it mostly aside, and tugged at the door. It always stuck—but it didn’t get opened often enough to merit being rehung. It moved, finally, till it bumped the plank. The opening was narrow, too narrow to allow much out save speech. The pitchfork she’d fetched from the barn would prevent any of the prisoners trying to escape. She hoped.

  Show no weakness. That was vital. The illusion of strength was her secret to preservation. Druyan swallowed hard, shifted sweaty palms on the fork’s handle. The door way was black as a slice of night, the day’s light only lapping a short way over the packed earth of the threshold. There’d been no reaction to her unsealing of the impromptu prison.

  Enna had feared the men would come rushing out at her. But nothing within the cellar stirred, and Druyan trusted Rook’s vigilant presence to keep matters under control. She licked her dry lips.

  “You in there!” she called sternly, keeping back from the door. “You trespassed, and you stole! My husband is dead because of your thievery, and you owe me the blood debt for his life. I will allow you to settle that debt and depart for your own homes. What say you? Will you work for your freedom?”

  Only a silence for her answer. Rook whined and lowered her ears a touch.

  Kellis thought for a horrible distorted moment that he had only one eye. That terror distracted him at first from the person half framed in the bright doorway—he did not take in her words at first, or truly recognize that ’twas a woman who spoke them, till his fingers had determined that his right eye was only swollen shut by the blow that had split his world apart into darkness and fire. At least he hoped only swollen shut—he could feel clotted crusted blood, but the region about his eye htut considerably less than the matted edge of his hairline, where he thought the blow had landed.

  Cold iron. Kellis whimpered, low in the back of his throat. He had the stench of it still in his nostrils, mingled with the scent of his own blood. He was lucky to be alive after being struck so, but not certain he was entirely grateful . . . He began to make out words, through the roaring in his ears.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d heard voices, lying there in the dark, sick and dizzy, not sure whether he was dead or alive. But the words weren’t Eral words, and it was the first time there had been light, as well . . . he struggled to his knees, trying to listen
.

  “I have a crop of barley standing in the field, ready for reaping,” Druyan continued. “Help my people bring in the harvest, and I will let you go free when the last sheaf is in the barn. You have my word on it.”

  No response. Druyan frowned and took a hesitant step forward. Why didn’t they answer? Were they dead? Surely they hadn’t starved? Even if the unrelieved darkness had driven them mad, they should have managed to make some son of answer. She signaled Rook to rise, and they went forward together.

  Her first thought was that the little cellar did not smell nearly so foul as she’d expected. Oh, it stank, but not with half the odor you’d anticipate when several people had been forced to remain in a confined space for several days without benefit of latrines or washwater or even fresh air. Druyan could still make out the aroma of damp earth, under the other less pleasant odors.

  She could see more of the cellar’s interior, too, as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom within. There was the mound of loose earth at the back, and the stacks of old baskets they used to confine the turnips and the carrots. Had she brought a lantem she’d have seen them plain—but she really shouldn’t have been able to make them out at all. There was a faint squarish glow at the back end of the cellar, adding its illumination to the bit of light that spilled around her and Rook, through the door.

  Someone had pushed out one of the stones of the wall and made a gap big enough to wriggle through. The root cellar was empty.

  Druyan sagged, the tension going out of her. They were gone, must have been gone most of the while, maybe that first night. They’d escaped before anyone even remembered them. No wonder they hadn’t been screaming to be fed, to be let out . . .

  “Lady?”

  Startled by the croaking word, Druyan leapt back. Her left shoulder caught the door jamb, her head bumped the lintel, and she cried out, bruised and held fast. She thought she’d faint; she couldn’t tell against the cellar’s darkness whether the fest of the world was dimming, too. Rook began to bark thunderously.