The Conjurers

by David Waid

  Eamon charged the bird, but the wicked thing saw him coming and pecked at him, too, feathers puffed with rage. Unlike the little boy, however, Eamon didn’t flinch. He knew deadly danger, and this wasn’t it. Growling, he aimed a kick that found meat. With a flutter of wings, the rooster dodged the worst, hopping away. The thing paced and jerked its head in agitation, then, but stayed on the far side of the room.

  The boy’s neck had a red mark, but he seemed more frightened than hurt. He bawled and cried for his da. Getting him up into a seat where the rooster coud not reach him again, Eamon handed the little boy his finger bells, then straightened, spotting Caitlin in the mouth of the hallway to their room.

  Dark, crescent smudges underscored each eye. Entering, Caitlin weaved through the tables and chairs. She looked unsteady, but when Eamon rushed to her side, she shrugged his hand away. A listless clap of the bells caused Eamon to roll his eyes, but Caitlin leaned to the side to stare past him.

  “I’m alright,” she mumbled without looking away from the little boy.

  “You should sit,” said Eamon. “Do you want me to bring you food?”

  “No.”

  Caitlin approached the merchant’s son and sat beside him. Twisting sideways, she cupped a hand by his ear and whispered. The boy looked at her with a fragile smile. She wiped his cheeks dry with her sleeve and the two of them began a hushed conversation.

  At some point, he removed the finger bells and he and Caitlin took turns. Watching the concentration on her face, Eamon had a clear memory of Caitlin playing an old timpán drum. She’d aways been good with such things.

  “Where’s that drum of Duff’s that you play?” he asked.

  “I left it on the mountain.”

  A hollow clunk sounded behind Eamon. Branagh stood in the doorway and a wooden bucket lay on its side by her feet. Water sloshed across the floor, setting the old rushes in its path spinning and sliding. Her eyes met Eamon’s and her mouth, which had been hanging open, snapped shut. Spinning on her heel, the girl ran back outside.

  By the time Eamon got to the door, Branagh was gone. The innkeeper stood nearby taking a moment’s rest from chopping wood as his wife stacked the pieces in the dim light of day. Overhead, a ceiling of dark clouds covered the sky. To Eamon’s left, a set of small footprints in the trampled snow cut around the building’s corner. He tried to follow, but the alewife spoke.

  “Arra! What the Devil are ye doing outside with no coat?”

  Eamon was not so foolish that he would blurt the truth, yet once again lies failed him.

  “I’m walking for the air, Mum.”

  “Back inside, ye giddy goat, and not another word or yer grandmother’ll have yer skin — and mine in the bargain.” He wavered and the innkeeper growled. Back Eamon headed, retracing his steps, trying not to run, thinking about the door on the other side of the building.

  “Mind ye get the snow off yer shoes, before ye step in there.”

  He dusted his shoes while the innkeeper and his wife watched and shook their heads. At last he finished, stepping in calmly. As soon as the two were out of sight, he ran.

  The inn’s front door opened at the top of a rise. Perhaps ten feet below lay the clean-swept courtyard with its leaning sycamore and the gate in the hawthorne fence. Logs had been fashioned into steps and Eamon was surprised to see the trader and his son descending them.

  At the bottom stood three mules, held by Branagh’s brother. Two were saddled while the third carried bundles beneath an oilskin. The gate to the enclosure already stood open, but the road beyond was empty.

  “Oh-ho,” the merchant called out. “Yer sister is smart as a mackerel. On my troth, the girl has the heart of a trader in her an’ that’s as high a compliment as I’m known to pay.” Turning to his son, he said, “Show this young fellow what ye received for yer finger bells.” The child held up a string with a St. Christopher medal on it. One of the things salvaged from the church. “There’s a lesson in it for the boy,” the man continued. “And perhaps another for me. Either way, I’ll count it a blessin’ and be on my way.” Smiling, he hoisted his son into one of the saddles.

  There was no sign of Branagh. A trickle of cold, familiar fear crouched between Eamon’s shoulders. He waved farewell to the merchant and retreated quickly to the inn. As he closed the door, he heard the cuck-cuck of the hens, but Caitlin was gone. In their bedchamber, Eamon found Nairne, who was awake and rummaging through the bags brought off the mountain.

  “Where is Caitlin?” he said.

  “Och! Ye scared me half to death.”

  “We need to leave.”

  “What’s this? Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I feel it in my bones.”

  “I know better than to disregard yer bones when they’ve a mind t’ talk. Help me pack these bags and bring them to the horses.”

  “I have to find Caitlin.”

  “Go, then. I’ll follow.”

  Back in common room, Eamon tried to steady his breathing. Calm. Calm. Somewhere the fingerbells chimed. Their ring was so quiet he might almost have imagined it. He listened for the sound to repeat and a moment later it did.

  The second floor.

  He ran to an archway beyond which rose the steps, thin and steep. Taking them two at a time, Eamon came to a landing where the air was unexpectedly cold. Three doors stood there, two closed, another wide open. As he walked toward the open door, Caitlin came into view, staring back at him. She knelt on the floor with her dress pooled about her, back and neck straight as a candle. The shutters had been thrown open and the red-combed rooster lay on the floor beside her, its neck twisted and loose as a string. A wound had blossomed on the dead bird’s breast and a tiny saucer of its blood sat on the floor by Caitlin’s knee.

  “What have you done?” Eamon said.

  “The dead like to lick the blood with their pointy tongues.”

  “You’ve killed the alewife’s bird!”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “I think so.” She twisted a long strand of hair in her fingers. “Eamon, Mother says people are coming to kill us.”

  From the hall came a gasp. Nairne stood at the top of the steps, one hand against the wall.

  “By the white steed,” she said. “’T is the very thin’ I feared.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Yer sister brushed too near death as the power woke. Now she is Hekat, a bone conjurer and medium to spirits. She will have friends of a different faction now.”

  30. Voyage of the Beornsdæd

  The Channel Sea

  Lady Tummia would not have sailors for a shield once Teresa’s feet touched Irish soil. Then, if the witch tried to restrain her, Teresa would use what she’d learned in the orchard to burn the woman. She nurtured and tended that thought like a plant, night and day as their ship cut across the Channel Sea.

  Yet she knew the Maleficarum were ruthless. Tummia would have some plan, Teresa was sure of it, and the woman would never allow her a moment of freedom. Before they ever went ashore, something would happen. Teresa would be carried to land unconscious from a blow to the head, or dosed to a stupor with one of the witch’s herbs.

  If they came for her when she was awake, Teresa promised herself she’d burn the ship to the waterline. Lady Tummia seemed to intuit this. She and her servant gave Teresa wide space. In fact, soon after bringing her aboard the Beornsdæd she was left alone. No one stood guard on her door. Of course, they had no need to watch her closely; the limitless sea was Teresa’s perfect, incorruptible gaoler and they were headed exactly where the witch wanted to go. The ship’s nine crewmembers were engaged above so she had the area below deck to explore by herself.

  There wasn’t much to see in her cabin. Four feet separated the door and a slender platform bed built into one side of the ship’s curving bow. Attached to the foot of the bed was a wooden locker stretching from floor to low ceiling. Inside it, slat shelves created a long space with hooks and
several shorter ones to hold blankets.

  The door to the cabin opposite hers opened easily and she discovered it was the same as her own in every respect. A narrow gangway cut a clear path back to the hatch and the stairs she’d taken to come down here. She walked it back between the bunks and chests of the crew’s open sleeping quarters, past a single hanging lamp, until she stood leaning against the weatherworn steps.

  From on deck, Teresa heard the shouts of sailors, the rumble of their stamping feet. In the square of morning sky visible to her, she saw lines of rigging and the ship’s single great sail, gulls flying high above it. Cold, clean ocean air touched her upturned face.

  In the darkness beyond the steps, Teresa found the ship’s kitchen — the galley, she remembered her father calling it. And on the other side of that, a makeshift workroom stacked with replacement wood: planks and spars. At the very rear of the ship, a thin set of steps rose to a doorway she guessed would open in the sterncastle where the captain and Lady Tummia had their rooms.

  She returned to the hatch and emerged into the sunlight. At the front of the ship was perched the forecastle with a door in it and steps leading to a roof platform with a crenellated rail. The sterncastle was much larger. Its door stood open to the deck and Teresa saw a short corridor down which the cabins lay.

  An old sailor sitting on a keg glanced sidelong at her, knotting a rope with crooked brown fingers. Others looked down from where they stood in the ratlines, tending the sail. She ignored them and stepped to the portside rail, watching the wake of the Beornsdæd dwindle.

  Later, when she returned to her cabin, Teresa pulled blankets from the platform onto the floor, making her bed so the door couldn’t be opened without waking her. In that night’s fitful slumber, she dreamt of the witch and Mina, her servant-familiar. The bandaged burn wounds throbbed on her cheek, neck and arm, but that wasn’t all that made sleep elusive. The ship rolled with the waves, its timbers creaked and at least some of the crew were always afoot. Her eyes, therefore, would no sooner shut than they opened again, fixed on the door because she’d heard something. She waited in the dark for the latch to quietly lift, but nothing happened and in the morning, she threw her blankets on the bed so the lady could never guess her precautions.

  The rich food of the Hansa wagon had apparently followed Lady Tummia onto the Beornsdæd. Plates of venison, quail eggs, or rich aspics were brought by a sailor at each meal and offered to Teresa, but she rejected them. Instead, she stole hardtack biscuits from the galley, soaking them in brine so they’d become soft enough to chew. And she drank only from the ship’s scuttlebutt, a barrel of fresh water lashed to a bulkhead outside the galley.

  Time crawled aboard the cog. For the most part, Teresa stayed below, avoiding any contact. Two days passed. Now when she ventured forth, the English shoreline could be seen to starboard. The sailors went about their business, but none would say a word. When she spoke to them, they darted fearful glances right and left, bobbed their heads and walked away as fast as they could.

  Soon, she thought. Soon this will end. If she remembered her maps correctly, they would round a great head of land and Ireland would lie somewhere to the north and west. When that happened, the final days of the journey would begin to play out.

  It was on the fourth morning that the Beornsdæd made its fateful northward turn, the wind drove into its sail and the vessel’s speed increased. Anxiety settled like a weight around Teresa’s shoulders. Whatever evil the lady planned would happen soon, no doubt, but Teresa had no idea how long she must wait before she could attempt escape. She haunted the ship’s rail hoping to spot land, but saw nothing. At noon, returning to her cabin and cold to the bone, she ran into a wiry, bearded seaman when no one else was near.

  “Please,” she said. “I need to ask y—”

  “Nein. Ich spreche nicht.” A look of panic came into his eyes and he tried to get past, but she held her arm up and spoke to him in German.

  “For God’s mercy, tell me how many days to Dublin?”

  Just for a moment he paused, clearly surprised she could speak his tongue. Then he pushed past her and backed off. “Nein, nein,” he said. Yet before he swung away the man held two weathered fingers close to his chest and winked.

  Two days.

  As soon as the ship anchored, an opportunity would present itself or she would jump in the ocean and swim for shore. She might die of the cold, but it would be better than whatever Lady Tummia had in mind.

  Later, she returned to her watch and thought she spotted land, but as the ship progressed, Teresa realized the black smudge on the horizon was not Ireland, but rather a distant gathering of clouds. The Beornsdæd did not alter course, however, but continued on, bow lashing up and down, throwing white feathers of spray to either side while the sea grew more turbulent.

  In the evening when she went for water, some of the men had assembled by the galley, drinking a ration of beer the captain shared out. Teresa lifted the big iron dipper hung on the scuttlebutt’s side, filled it with water and brought the thing to her mouth. As she did, her gaze met that of the bearded sailor she’d exchanged words with earlier. He moved his head an inch to the left. She froze with the dipper by her lips, water sloshing over its sides. The others laughed and talked to each other, but their laughter seemed forced. The fact that they weren’t looking at her suddenly seemed more like they wouldn’t look at her.

  As her gaze skimmed across the seamen, Teresa spotted Mina standing in the gloom beyond. The two locked eyes and Teresa’s heart seemed to stop. She swallowed the dryness in her mouth, straightened her shoulders. Holding the dipper up at arm’s length, she tipped its contents onto the floor in a thin, pattering stream. Then the men did look — at her and at Mina. With a sharp twitch of her head, the lady’s servant turned and took the stairs for the deck.

  Moments later, Teresa was collapsing into her improvised bed on the cabin floor. Her heart still pounded, but she laughed into her blanket with giddy relief. She needed sleep badly, yet Ignacio’s charm was cold against her chest and sleep would not come.

  She took off the pendant so she could hold it in front of her eyes, tracing her fingers along its curving lines. Clutching it tight in her fist, she said a prayer for her brother’s soul. Soon they would reach Ireland. She had no idea what purpose she might serve there, but a purpose would be revealed, of that she had no doubt. Just thinking about Ignacio made it feel as though he were near and she fell asleep, pendant in hand.

  When she woke, it was to the ship’s long drop in the trough of some wave and its ponderous roll at the top of another. Nestled in the bow, she heard the crash of waves and footsteps from the crew near the forecastle. She opened the door, but no light shone from the lamp in the crew’s quarters. Madonna! She couldn’t even see her own hands as the Beornsdæd lurched again.

  The entire space below deck had been abandoned, yet something clanged to the ground far away in the dark. Even over the angry sea, she heard it and thought of Tummia and Mina. It could easily have been a pot thrown loose in the galley. Per Dio! she could barely keep from falling herself.

  And yet intuition whispered something else. Sitting just inside her door, Teresa thought it might be that Tummia had sent her silent, twitching servant to the berth deck through those stairs in the sterncastle. Teresa’s room, jammed into the ship’s bow suddenly seemed an animal pen, and the gangway its single slender exit. If Mina did come for her—.

  No more thinking. She had to move. Slipping out the door, Teresa left the gangway as soon as possible, stepping among the sailors’ bunks. With every step, she braced against the ship’s movement. The Beornsdæd pitched and yawed and Teresa prayed the weather would drown the noise of her stumbling. The hatch would be battened down against the water and that left just one way out. Even though she couldn’t see, Teresa turned her face to the aft steps.

  She was gripped with a certainty — yes, now it was certainty in her mind: Tummia’s servant was here in the dark. Teresa reached the ha
tch steps and the edge of the galley just at the moment she imagined Mina would discover she’d gone, clawing through the empty cabin in mounting rage. But that’s not where Mina was.

  An arm slipped around Teresa’s neck from behind and tightened, choking off her air. Teresa went wild, thrashing, Mina’s harsh breath in her ear. She tried to scream, but couldn’t make a sound. The vessel tipped forward into a wave and Teresa flew into the galley counter with all of Mina’s weight against her. When the bow rose with the next great swell, Teresa thrust her legs against the low wall, sending the two of them careening backwards. Mina couldn’t stop, she lost her footing, tripped and Teresa landed on top. The woman’s breath whooshed from her lungs. Teresa snapped her head back as hard as she could, connecting with something.

  That forearm loosened and Teresa rolled off, hacking, coughing. She tried to run, but fell as the ship heaved again. In the pitch black, she scrambled up, ran blindly for the galley, hip jamming against the counter. She yelped, but terror kept her going.

  Stumbling, limping, Teresa followed the counter to the galley’s other side. She lurched into the workroom, almost tripped over the spars there, but panic surged, propelling her toward the aft stairs.

  She couldn’t see the steps, but ran into them, barking knees and shins. Without a thought for the pain, she ascended, shoving through the door at the top, slamming it closed behind her. Teresa stood now in the short corridor she’d seen before, with the captain’s cabin on one side. Tummia’s on the other. She groped for the door at the other end and flung it open.

  Wild winds blew stinging rain in her face. Glancing behind, she saw that the door which led below deck now yawned open on darkness, swinging with the movements of the ship. A rush of terror clutched her gut and she leapt outside, whipping this second door shut, throwing her weight against it.