The Wind-Witch

by Susan Dexter

  Ironically, it was a huge crop. They’d be putting sheaves in the winter sheepfold by the time they’d harvested half the last field, Druyan was certain. She relaxed a little once she reckoned she had enough barned to pay the barley tithe and keep seed for the next planting—but she couldn’t let her workers stop or slacken, not so long as the weather held. Each grain brought in was more to sell at market, or to fatten more animals upon. They had been blessed, but that blessing didn’t make them free to waste the bounty.

  After the first days, though, she did beg Enna not to send barley bannocks out for their midday meal. She saw barley, smelled it, and tasted it, even in her dreams. Eating it as well was too much to bear. Come midwinter she might relish the taste once more, but surely not before then. She passed her unwanted portions on to Kellis, who—since Enna refused to send him much of a breakfast other than a bowl of cold porridge—was actually happy to have it. Not that Druyan felt thieving murderers deserved viands fit for the duke’s own table, but she’d have to speak to Enna about feeding the man better—he was working doggedly all day and hardly deserved to be starved by way of reward.

  Kellis tried not to look at the grainfield as a whole, ever. If he did, it was a nightmare—barley, unending as the sky or the sea. If he cut a handful of it, it made no difference to the field. If he cut all day—and he felt a vast portion of his life had now been devoted to doing just that—it made not much more of a dent in the standing grain. One day blurred into another—nights, as well, since the field intruded on all his dreams, and he arose feeling he’d been working all night or that he had only imagined sleeping.

  He was past dreaming of escape. All that was real was the grain and the iron sickle he slashed at it with. He cut himself a dozen times a day, and the slashes bumed like fire, their edges puffed and turned black. That was his left hand, which held the stalks for the cutting. His right hand, which gripped the sickle, ached more cruelly, though there was no mark of hurt visible upon it. He had wrapped scraps of cloth about the wooden handle, others about his palms, but the added protection did little to shield him from the bane of the iron—not when he must grasp the tool for ten hours a day, from first light to last with little relief. He had heard that iron could eat into the very flesh of his folk, and he believed it—he just couldn’t do anything to prevent it.

  He reaped, ate, slept—and arose to do it all over again. Or thought he did. Perhaps he was dead and paying eternally for his crimes. Kellis brushed salt sweat out of his eyes, leaving dirt and chaff in its place. Probably he was dead. That made sense. The bright flash of light, when the sword hit him .. . then darkness, and when he woke, he was in the afterlife—exactly the sort of afterlife a man who had done the sorts of things he had done could expect.

  One thing puzzled him—the woman gave him water, from the jug kept in the shade at the unending tield’s edge. If he was dead, why did she bother doing him that kindness? Kellis looked at her through the dancing spots that filled his vision. She was damp with sweat, and had barley stalks in her hair. She moved with the same dogged weariness that he did. Was she dead, too? She seemed to care very much about the grain. Did the dead care about such things?

  Kellis had never seen a corpse that seemed to care about anything. And he had seen plenty of death.

  Just when they were at their weariest, most hopeless point, they began to see signs of an end to their labors. They passed the boundary stones that marked the halfway point of the long, narrow third iield. Dalkin began at once to fuss over whether there’d be a proper harvest supper to celebrate. Lyn teased him that they were so late at the barley, they’d have to go straight to digging turnips, with no time for any party. Druyan intervened with reassurance Enna had already begun soaking dried cherries so she could bake pies, and next day before he came to the field, Dalkin was to kill and pluck two chickens for her, so she could be about roasting them. There were less mouths than usual to feed, but they’d eat as fine a harvest supper as ever at Splaine Garth—and certainly a well-earned one.

  The edges of the wooly sky were beginning to show ragged patches of darker cloud, next morning. Them will be a storm tonight, Druyan thought, looking at it. No matter what I do about it. She exhorted her crew to work faster and have a whole day’s rest next day, not letting on that they’d not reap next day even if grain remained uncut.

  It did not seem possible that they could work faster, but they could keep steadily at it. In some ways the last bit was easier, simply because it was the last bit. Sickles whispered through stalks, rasped on whetstones. Sheaves sprang up like mushrooms after a rain. The trees at field’s end came closer, ever so slowly as the day waned—by sunfall the reapers had finally reached them. There was no more uncut barley.

  Druyan pressed a hand to the small of her back and stretched to get a cramp out of her shoulders. Standing upright felt wrong, after so many days of continual stooping. The girls began dancing about, as Kellis handed the last sheaf to Dalkin, who bound it specially with a length of scarlet cord and perched it precariously upright atop the load, to ride in with all honor due the barley maid, spirit of the grain.

  We did it, Druyan thought, almost too stupid with weariness to take the achievement in. She shut her eyes.

  She heard a whisper in the stubble beside her and looked down with some alarm, expecting a snake, hoping she wasn’t blocking its escape, which was all the poor thing would be wanting. The flashing sickles must have terrified it.

  Kellis had collapsed onto his face in the pale-green stubble almost atop her feet, the sickle still clutched in his outflung hand. He lay motionless, save for the breeze riffling his barley-colored hair and the trickle of blood running from his cracked lips.

  The Prisoner’s Tale

  Unable to wake him, they finally contrived to wrestle the man over Valadan’s back—there wasn’t a bit of room to spare in the wagon—and fetched him back to the farmyard that way, with his head hanging down on one side and his feet Hopping on the other.

  Druyan couldn’t fathom what ailed the prisoner. She’d have suspected sunstrike, which could occur even in rainy Esdragon—but none of them had so much as seen the sun in a sevenday, thanks to weatherwork that still made her head ache. He displayed none of the symptoms. His skin wasn’t dry and flushed, he hadn’t been noticeably confused. He hadn’t complained of feeling ill. He might, by appearances, have simply fainted, but they’d thrown enough water on him—the river was conveniently near—to almost wash him clean, and he’d never even slightly stirred, much less revived. Duryan lifted one of his eyelids again and still saw only the white. Some sickness? That notion scared her. They might all take it, and she wasn’t much of a healer, even against common maladies. She felt his skin—warm, but she couldn’t tell whether that was fever or hard work. He was sweating, she thought, another sign that his trouble probably wasn’t sunstrike. His hair was still wet with river water and dripping down Valadan’s side to pock the dust.

  “Is he dead?” Enna asked hopefully, drawn out of the kitchen by the commotion for her first close sight of the enemy.

  “No. But that’s all I am sure of.” The makeshift bandage about his head had slipped, and Druyan pushed it farther back, into his hair. She ought to take it off—it was filthy and useless. The wound was ugly as ever, the bruised flesh surroimding it going yellow and green at the edges, the scab over the actual cut seeping bright fresh blood. Yet it seemed clean enough, despite the available dirt. No sign that it was festering, gone bad enough to render the man unconscious.

  “I wouldn’t look much farther for his trouble than that head clout,” Enna said professionally, following her thought “Split his skull, maybe. Someone caught him a good one,” she added proudly.

  Druyan was less certain. “He got this a fortnight ago. I didn’t think it was still bothering him.” She felt for the beat of his heart, pressing her fingers under the edge of his jaw till she located a pulse. His heartbeat was a touch rapid, but there was no faltering. That was good.

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nbsp; “Made him dizzy,” Dalkin volunteered brightly. “He bent over to pick up a sheaf and went right on his face. And then he was sick,” the boy added, with relish.

  Where was I? Druyan wondered. The man hadn’t complained—he’d just done whatever she’d ordered, without comment. But then, did you confess the truth to your enemy, your captor, if you were sick and all but helpless? She’d told him to work, he’d worked—it wasn’t as if they’d conferred on each other’s health, asked how the day was going; He’d managed not to fall on his face in front of her. For a while.

  “What’s the matter with his hands?” Pru asked suddenly. The girl had stepped near—now she retreated hastily, without the poke at him she’d intended.

  “His hands?” The last place she’d expect to see trouble that would make a man swoon and not wake was his hands, unless they clutched a wine bottle. Druyan looked, saw what Pru had noticed, and felt a sick twisting in her stomach.

  The frayed strips of rag wrapped about Kellis’ palms were sinking into the flesh. His fingers were puffed like black sausages, cooked to bursting. The color wasn’t dirt the skin itself was darkened, almost seemed burned. The right hand was the worst, but his left hand was bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts, and it was swollen, as well, if less severely.

  His hands hadn’t looked like that, in the barley field.

  Enna, whose own hands swelled and altered color with the weather, if less dramatically, looked stricken with instinctive sympathy. That lasted a wide-eyed instant—then she mumbled something about marsh fever making bodies swell, and that they ought to get him off the place before the malady started to spread.

  “I can treat marsh fever,” Druyan said uncertainly.

  “But, Lady—”

  “I promised him he’d be free when the harvest was in, Enna,” Druyan answered harshly. “I didn’t intend that to mean he’d be thrown out on the road, free to die just the other side of our gate!” Something was nagging at her—the iron moon—crescents of the sickles, which had to be kept sharp by hand, with a whetstone, because you dared not wreak a charm of keen-edge on any implement made of cold iron. She had heard work charms for virtually any situation—some performed truly, like her weather charms, while others did not seem to—but there were no convenient little magicks worked upon iron. None. Cold iron spoiled magic. It was a firmly held belief that wizard-folk could not abide even the touch of the metal, that it could function as a protection against bewitching and bespelling, even a bit as small as an old horseshoe nail. She touched the prisoner’s right palm gingerly.

  Why had he bound his hands with rags? The discolored skin was callused, he was well used to work. The sliding cloth was more apt to produce blisters than prevent them—unless he had been trying to keep from touching the woodcased iron haft of the sickle.

  Which he had not been able to manage, in the end. To reap grain, he’d been forced to grip the sickle firmly all day, every day, for the best part of a week.

  The wind was rising. White castles of cloud were sweeping in from the tmseen sea. Their flat bottoms were dark with rain, black as Kellis’ hands. Druyan felt every hair on her head lift at the root and knew there would be lightning, too, white fire out of the heavens. Beside her, Valadan stamped fretfully, bothered more by the weather than his burden.

  “Dalkin, get the wagon over to the sheepfold and get that barley under cover! Unhitch and shove the wagon right in—I’ll come help you in a minute. Pru, I know you’re tired, but go make sure Meddy has the flock in a sheltered spot—above the tideline. Enna, I think we’1l need to eat indoors. Lyn can help.” Druyan jerked her head at the building sky and knew she need offer no more explanation. They were all bred to Esdragon’s climate.

  The entire population of Splaine Garth scattered, but Enna was close to her kitchen and could afford to linger a moment more. “What are you doing about that?” She inclined her head at the unconscious man draped over the horse.

  Druyan frowned and thought again of faint suspicions. “Put him in the barn, for now,” she decided.

  “What if he’s sick?” Enna jabbed a finger, careful not actually to touch him. “What if it’s plague?”

  “The horses won’t catch plague.” Druyan took hold of Valadan’s bridle. There was a small box stall, where they put the weanling colts till they got over wanting their mothers. It was very secure, nearly as secure as the root cellar.

  Enna fluttered after her like a sparrow. “But you could, Lady! Leave him—”

  “Where?” Druyan asked, exasperated. “Out in the marsh? It’s going to storm, Enna. I can’t just throw him out into it—I can’t even see how we’d get him off this place, short of dragging him!”

  “My lord wouldn’t like this—”

  Probably not, Druyan agreed dismally, glancing sidelong at Valadan. But even assuming that Travic would have had the stomach to knife the man, so as to bury him and be done with it, she didn’t herself. And she had to make the choices for Splaine Garth now. She urged the stallion to walk faster, till Enna fell behind and had to give up.

  They clopped into the darkness of the barn. Valadan halted before his stall. It was not habit—the empty loose box was next to his, and with the weanlings now pastured, a few flakes of hay were now kept there. Druyan spread the fodder into a more or less bed-size pile, retreiving an egg one of the hens had left there. Not so bad a bed, once she threw a bit of sacking on top. She slept on straw herself, in summer.

  What if he dies? she wondered suddenly, thinking of the trouble of burying him.

  Yet not much more diiiticult than juggling the man from Valadan’s back to the makeshift bed. She came around Valadan’s off side, because Kellis’ feet were on that side, then reconsidered. Probably she could not pull him down without dropping him, so at least she shouldn’t drag him off to land on his head. He outweighed her, she wouldn’t be able to hold him. How was she to manage?

  The stallion pawed the dirt restlessly—then all at once folded his knees and lowered his forequarters delicately, until he knelt by his mistress and the mound of cloth-covered hay.

  “Oh! That is better,” Druyan said. She got a firm grip on Kellis’ belt, gave a tug, and eased him onto the sacking with nary a bump, as Valadan nimbly arose.

  She did not expect the motion to revive the man—not when many deliberate attempts had done nothing—but he moaned as his face slid over Valadan’s shoulder, low in his throat, like a sick dog. Druyan felt a pang of relief. That was that, then. He’d come out of the faint, eat and then sleep, and be on his way come the morning, soon to be no more than an incident among other incidents.

  She filled a pail with water and put it where he would be able to reach it, then, as an afterthought, used a little to bathe his face—and his hands, which were beyond comprehension, inexplicable. She pulled the rags away—they were cutting into the swollen flesh, and there was no use leaving them in place. His eyelids twitched when she began working, and he whimpered that starved-dog whine, but he must have decided coming awake was not presently a good idea—after a moment he was still once more.

  When she went out, Druyan dropped the crossbar into place, to hold the door from the outside. True, the man was free to go when he chose—but not to wander off into the building storm.

  The rain didn’t formally arrive till after they’d feasted themselves half sick, made skeletons of two fat pullets and memories of three dried-cherry pies. They drank ale, danced raggedy dances before the wide kitchen hearth, and sang ancient harvest songs to the barley maid. It was a dismal shadow of other harvest celebrations, yet a brighter time than any Druyan had anticipated. For all the missing faces—those apt to return and those fated never to—they’d done it. The weather had held long enough. There was more back-breaking work ahead, threshing, but not that night. She would not need to cut another stalk of barley for a whole year. It was a moment to savor.

  Thunder jarred the ground under her feet as Druyan dashed across the yard, head ducked out of the wind and the fat drops i
t was slinging. Safe in the doorway, she halted, letting the cool wind brush her hot face before she pulled the portal closed after her. Rain or no, it was refreshing, a delicious feeling after the long run of stifling days and ovenish nights. The storm was fiercely welcome. Enna was abed, almost pain-free thanks to ale and cider, and her mistress felt free to roam her own farm, to enjoy the cool wind and get her feet wet if she chose.

  She’d just been to the orchard—the wool-wrapped ball had tumbled from the tree fork and was nowhere to be found. The basket had blown away from the little clump of barley plants, and she had found it only when it bumped h er ankles, like a friendly cat.

  After the rush of the wind, the barn’s stillness was striking—the thunder was muffled by the roof and the haymow overhead. Druyan could hear horses munching hay , the milch cow stamping at a fly. Chickens fussed sleepily from their roosts among the roof beams above

  . Druyan lit the lantem that hung by the door and walked with it to the box stalls. Mostly she saw the bay and chestnut rumps of drowsy horses, but Valadan left his hay and came to gaze and blow a soft greeting at her. She fed him an early apple, letting his lips brush her palm, knowing her fingers safe from teeth if not from tickling.

  He has waked.

  Druyan peered through the bars into the next box, while Valadan licked her now-empty palm, his whiskers teasing her skin again. She could see the man lying much as she’d left him on the bed of hay. “Are you sure?” she whispered. “I brought some food—”