In any case, no matter what the Doyenne had decreed, Emara would not leave her side.
Instead, she draped the canvas around her more securely and bent to strike sparks once again in what she knew was a futile effort.
If only she could manage it, the scent of warm stew might awaken hunger in the old woman’s belly...and that would be reward enough.
But, despite all her efforts, the fire would not come.
Sighing in defeat, Emara got up from her knees, the canvas still draped around her, but even with it, the incessant rain had begun to soak through.
She stepped back and was about to turn around when a shadow next to her spoke.
“Fire heeds few when it is truly needed,” said a woman’s voice.
Emara startled, then trying not to show how frightened she was, forced herself to speak calmly.
“Aye, that’d be true enough.”
The woman stepped closer and Emara nearly bolted like a startled horse.
She was beautiful and younger than her voice made her out to be. In its tone there was a sadness that belonged to someone with many more years than that youthful face.
A hooded cloak was pulled over her against the weather and she bore no weapon that Emara could see, but that was not the reason that the young Gitan woman was but a moment’s span of running wildly away.
The dark haired woman before her stood in the steady downpour and her clothing was perfectly dry.
It was if the rain simply passed around her, or through her.
“Ye be a...a spirit, m’lady?” Emara asked, her voice shaking no matter how much she wished it would not.
The hooded woman looked directly into Emara’s eyes, then those same eyes softened as a faint smile came to the woman’s lips.
“I am no ghost...no. Not even if I sometimes feel that I no longer belong in this world.”
She gestured toward the small pile of moss and leaves that Emara had gathered in the hopes it would serve for kindling, then said, “The fire needs more than that to eat if it is to win the battle with this night’s rain.
“Bring some stout, dry wood and I will do what I can to help you.”
Emara’s mouth was dry and she still was not sure if she could believe the woman as to whether she was a ghost or not.
But the chance that there might yet be warm stew for the old woman in her care won over her fear and she hurried to bring an armload of wood to the stranger still standing in the rain, yet dry as a high summer’s day.
The young Gitan let the wood fall at the other’s feet, then watched as the woman stooped down to the ground.
“Is it for cooking or for warming yourself?” she asked as she began to arrange the pieces of split log sections.
“I’d fancy a bit o’ warm stew, m’lady, and don’t mind sharin’ what little there is,” Emara replied.
There was no answer but Emara saw that the woman knew what she was about as she quickly stacked the wood in a cross hatched pattern that rose in a second layer.
“We’ll need more if you expect it to last a while,” she said as she worked.
Emara rushed away thinking that no proper lady knew how to lay a cook fire. It was a thing given to servants to do, yet somehow this woman seemed to know.
As it was she could not decide why she addressed the stranger as a noblewoman when she traveled alone, in the dark of night. There was no horse, no carriage.
But there was something about her that commanded respect. Something that spoke volumes more than all the shining accoutrements of soft, foolish nobles.
Emara gathered up a load of wood even heavier than the first, thinking that she would offer her flint and steel to the woman, even if there was no chance that a fire would take in that weather.
Especially since the moss and leaves Emara had carefully kept dry inside the wagon now lay useless as kindling, as soaked through as the ground all around them.
She turned to hurry back to the stranger and what she saw stopped her cold.
Bright orange and red flames danced upon the ground as the woman stood up from a fire now licking hungrily at the wood. The rain continued to fall, but the fire burned lively enough as Emara rushed over to begin placing more wood among that which already burned.
She looked up from the flames and took a startled step backward.
The fire gleamed back at her as a reflection in the stranger’s eyes. Only it was surely more vivid than it should have been. It was if the woman burned from within.
Before Emara could shriek for help, a quavering voice rang out from the shadows behind the two women.
“Girl! Bring the traveler to me at once.”
Emara clamped her jaws tightly together, biting back the scream that would avail nothing.
There was no one who could help. The rest of the clan gone ahead and here there was only their own wagon, and in it a very old, and increasingly frail, woman.
The stranger glanced in the direction of the Doyenne’s voice, breaking the spell of her gaze upon the young Gitan woman.
“Grand’mère says to bring ye, and so I shall,” said Emara, “But, please, do ‘er no harm, m’Lady. The years have nigh done ‘er in on their own. She doan’ need any helpin’ along.”
The hooded figure next to her nodded without replying, then the two of them turned their backs upon the flames burning bright to walk toward the wagon lying in darkness.
Emara stepped past the hooded woman, climbing lightly up a sort of stairwell made from old saddle stirrups that had been nailed to the wagon’s open endgate. The Doyenne navigated those steps with more and more difficulty, so much so that lately Emara was even obliged to bring and take away the old woman’s chamber pot.
She turned as she pulled aside the heavy canvas serving as a door at the wagon’s end, expecting that she would have to haul the stranger up the stirrups, but the woman moved like a cat, dancing from one to the other so quickly it was almost as if she weighed nothing at all.
She stood next to Emara and the young Gitan was forced to admit that the stranger had not so much as shaken the wagon as she mounted. As if she were, in truth, no more substantial than a shade risen to haunt those women foolish enough to find themselves alone and undefended.
The woman ducked under the canvas that Emara held aside then she, too, slipped within.
The rain pattered down steadily outside like hundreds of tiny paws tapping upon the oiled canvas overhead. In places, it found its way inside to drip down into any number of varied and sundry recipients.
And those had been Emara’s foremost preoccupation until she had seized upon the notion of a warm fire and a warm meal to go with it.
Most of the cups and small bowls were once again to the point of brimming over, but Emara saw only the Doyenne.
The frail, old woman, growing weaker by the day had struggled to her feet as the stranger had entered the covered wagon.
Illuminated by a fluttering oil lamp light, Emara was stunned to see the Doyenne bending at the waist, ducking her head down.
Emara pushed past the hooded stranger. Phantom or not, her fear was gone as she rushed forward to try to catch the old woman who looked as though she was about to fall over.
“Grand’mère!” she said as she put a hand out to the old woman’s forearm, desperate to keep the Doyenne from tipping over entirely.
“Git yer hands off me, girlie,” the old woman snapped as she stood up while slapping at Emara’s outstretched hand. Her eyes were rheumy but her back was straighter than it had been in a very long time.
“I’ll bow to whom it pleases me and it h’aint pleased me in a long time ‘til now,” the old woman said.
Bow? Emara thought.
The stranger pushed her hood back at last, then dipped her own head to the old woman, saying, “I do not know why I should deserve such a thing from you, dear woman. But, I thank you just the same.”
The Doyenne nodded, then slumped, the sudden strength she had found appearing to wane just as quickly as it had come.
/> Emara stepped close and the old woman sighed as she held to the younger woman’s arm then took a creaking step backward to the rocking chair that had become her daily resting place for the last several weeks.
“I have my reasons. Aye, that I do. E’en if some of ‘em h’aint yet come to pass,” said the old woman.
“But, I’ve faith. It’s all in the portents and you there with them...you and yer heart of fire.”
The stranger looked up sharply at the old woman, then said, “I’m sorry. But, what did you just say?”
The old woman remained silent for a moment, then said, “Fetch our guest a stool, Emara. Mebbe she doan’ feel it like we do, but still, a chance to rest one’s weary bones while we chew the fat a bit longer is surely welcome enough.”
The young Gitan squeezed by the old woman on her rocking chair and rummaged among the affairs stocked in the back of the wagon. There, she found a three legged stool and brought it to the stranger in their midst.
“I thank you,” the woman said to Emara, then sat down. “I thank you both.”
“‘Course you do,” the Doyenne replied, “And afore I’m done, you’ll thank me and curse me in the same breath. But there hain’t nuthin’ for it. The way of it is there before us both and choice has blown away in the storm this night.”
Emara was used to the old woman acting strangely at times. Especially when she was about her divining for local folk once their caravan of covered wagons had arrived somewhere new and word had spread that a Gitan soothsayer was in the environs.
But, now, with this strange woman appearing from nowhere in a terrible downpour, there was no reason for playing the mysterious and eerie reader of the future. The woman had no visible purse, nor was she dressed in the manner of a rich merchant woman.
Only I took her for a noble, didn’t I? Emara thought. Her attitude toward the stranger was nothing less than instinctual and it appeared that she had had the same effect upon the old woman.
“Again, I will say that I don’t understand why you are speaking to me this way,” the woman said as she sat down upon the stool, “But, I can’t help but wonder what you have to say next.”
Her words were for the old woman before her and the Doyenne did not disappoint.
“Emara...the blue case, dear. Time’s come for a tellin’, and if ever I felt there was more to see, I cain’t remember it.”
The young Gitan turned back the way she had come with the stool. This time, though, there was no need to rummage. The blue case was there where it always was, looking used and tired, while its twin sat next to it, bright red and shining as if it had not ridden in the back of the wagon year after year alongside the blue.
Emara would have liked to hide it under other never used things. To bury it deep so that she would not have to look at it every time the Doyenne demanded that she bring the blue case. Something about it turned the young woman’s stomach and while she had never even seen the thing opened, the feeling it gave her was one of lonesome, hollow words. The kind of thing that might be heard whispering from between the dry lips of the dead.
Gooseflesh rose upon her arms and she took the blue case up by its threadbare sides and made her way back to the Doyenne.
“That’s a good girl,” the old woman said to her.
Emara set the case down between the seated stranger and the Doyenne, then, perhaps emboldened by the visitor’s presence, opened it herself.
Within nestled a small, jet black kettle. A cauldron of sorts. It was swaddled in woolen castoffs, bits of rags dyed in bright colors, and among them were tiny phials of powders and drops, themselves just as colorful as their packaging.
The old woman nodded at the young Gitan, then said, “The rain water will do just fine, dear.”
Emara hefted the small pot then did her best not to spill too much of the overflowing cups and bowls posed almost everywhere in the wagon. The rain fell steadily outside, but when she had finished, she knew it would take a while before things would need emptying out again.
And, oddly enough, and despite its relatively modest size, the cauldron held every bit of the rainwater she poured into it even though she was sure it would fill with her work only half done.
As she carried it back to the old woman, the hair at the base of Emara’s skull stood up. There was magic already at work here. The old woman had done nothing but the air felt charged, as if lightning burgeoned overhead even if Emara had heard no thunder in the storm.
She set the cauldron down beside the old woman, then fished in the case for the stand that it would be set upon. Simple enough, it was made of three batons of darkly inscribed wood held together only at the middle by a band of thick leather.
Emara spread them open and set it upon the wagon’s wooden floor, then set the cauldron upon the simple tripod stand.
“I see what this is,” the strange woman in their midst said, “I’ve heard about this when I was growing up. Only I must tell you that I have no coin for which to pay a fortune telling.”
Her eyes were wide and dark and even Emara could read the disappointment there. She had never known anyone who could resist the dark pull of knowing what would happen to them before it happened. On the other hand, those who could not pay the price that the old woman set them before each reading were turned away with the same lines of disappointment upon their brows.
“I’m sorry,” finished the stranger and looked as though she was about to get to her feet.
“Stay where you are,” the Doyenne said and her words were hard and firm, “‘Tis true payment be due, but I’m the one who sets it, not you, and I’ll soon have no more use for anyone’s coin, unless it be the shiny pieces my folk lay upon my eyes.”
Emara frowned. She did not like when the old woman spoke of her dying.
“Shush now, Grand’mère. Doan’ talk like that,” she whispered, knowing full well that the old woman did not countenance anyone to speak while she was about her divination.
This time, though, the old woman let it pass.
“Not coin...no,” said the old woman as she continued, “But I’ll make ye a bargain, I will. I tell ye what there is to tell and in return, ye must listen to all of it, for there is a first half tied to the second half, and once ye’ve heard it, ye cain’t un-hear it. No matter how hard ye fight against it, yer’ll never forget. But if ye promise to listen to the whole, yer’ll have a chance at remembering for the undying man what he himself forgot.”
The stranger’s eyes went wide and the color ran out of her face.
“What do you know of him?” she said, then just as quickly, “Can you help him?”
The old woman nodded in her knowing way as she gestured to Emara.
“Nay, ‘tis not fer me to help him. That’d be fer you and you only.”
Emara held the blue case up to the old woman who then rummaged among the phials and bottles, choosing two among them.
Then she paused, lifting her milky gaze up to look at the woman seated across from her.
“‘Tis agreed, or no?” the old woman asked.
The stranger did not hesitate as she said, “It is. However, I think you underestimate just how far I can go to fight against whatever comes in my way.”
“Aye,” the Doyenne replied, “Perhaps, or perhaps not. Only don’t forget that I warned ye just the same and that even flames will not burn out what you are about to hear.”
Emara realized she was standing stiffly at attention, convinced that she was about to see something marvelous and different than all the other divinations at which she had assisted.
The Doyenne sprinkled some of each phial’s powder into the dark water of the cauldron, then she waited as the rainwater slowly swirled within.
Emara could not help herself from leaning forward, trying to see over the old woman’s shoulder, unwilling to admit to herself that she, too, would have liked to learn the art of foretelling the future...or unwilling to admit the growing resignation that the old woman would never teach her anything at al
l.
But, instead of something marvelous, what happened was no different than any other divination.
The old woman peered into the water for a long moment, then lifted her chin and spoke in a quavering voice that had lost its peasant accent, sounding for all the world like a noble, or someone lettered since their youngest days.
It was what the Doyenne always did when she told the future.
And, as always, her words were strange and made no sense to the Gitan woman, although whatever they might have meant was not lost on the stranger before them.
Her eyes grew wider and wider as the old woman spoke. Emara could see her fists clenching tight enough that the woman’s knuckles turned white.
Then the old woman’s telling was over and the stranger stood up without a word.
She turned around, then pulled her hood back up over her head before lifting the canvas flap that served as a doorway to the interior of the covered wagon. She paused for a moment, her back turned to them, then dropped out of sight as the canvas flap fell back down into place.
Emara was about to say that she thought the woman not only strange but terribly impolite when she saw that the stool where she had been sitting was smoldering with thin spirals of smoke rising from the wood.
“The kettle, girlie,” the old woman snapped as Emara swept up the cauldron filled with rainwater and dumped its contents over the smoking stool.
The burgeoning fire was snuffed out and the rainwater mixed with the fortune teller’s powders puffed in strangely colored steam that smelled of sulfur and other foul things.
Emara looked back at the old woman, her own eyes doubtless just as wide as the stranger’s had been only moments earlier and said, “She be a demon, Grand’mère?”
“Demon or saint, ye mean to ask,” was the old woman’s reply.
“As fer that, ‘tis not fer me t’say and she herself h’aint yet decided.
“Now stop yer gawkin’ girl, and bring yer dear old Grannie a bit o’ stew.”
Emara nodded then grinned wide as she rushed out to the fire that had calmed somewhat under the rain that still drizzled down. She did not think there would be, but she noted there was no sign of the stranger as she set the cast iron pot of yesterday’s stew straight down among the brightest coals, using a long iron rod that had its end bent in a hook like that of an undersized shepherd’s crook.
The Marechal Chronicles: Volume IV, The Chase: A Dark Fantasy Tale Page 5