Willow Witch

by Patty Jansen

  Johanna wasn’t sure if going to church was a quality that defined a good person, but she wasn’t going to argue.

  From her position she could see through the open door into the other half of the house. There was a single room, now empty in the middle where the table would normally go. In the corner stood a simple stove, where the girl was just putting a block of wood on the fire. The two little boys sat on the ground playing a game by the light from the flames. A smoky rush light burned on a shelf, giving off only a faint glow.

  The girl beckoned Johanna to come. The bandits had finished their meal and had taken out the flask again, talking and laughing.

  “Come,” she said to Nellie. Best to let Roald and Loesie sleep.

  Johanna and Loesie had to step over Roald’s outstretched legs to get to the door. Sylvan’s glare followed them all the way.

  The other room was possibly even darker than the barn. Apart from the open stove, there was little furniture. The bandits were using the only table and chairs these people possessed. There were a number of beds around the room’s perimeter. One of Lenie’s adolescent brothers lay in a bed, looking at the fire. The other sat playing a game with his two young brothers near the stove lit by the glow from the fire.

  In the far corner of the room was a small altar with whittled pieces of wood and oddly-shaped stones. A particularly knotty piece of wood looked like a round-waisted woman. Maybe a goddess of fertility. They would need one here.

  There was also a stone with a hole in the middle and a blackened tooth. Not human, not like any animal that lived on land. Johanna had sometimes seen teeth like these on fish, but this one was much bigger. Other items included a stick with a plume made from feathers, dangling on a string made from horsehair. Johanna was unfamiliar with the type of bird—it had feathers with light and dark blue spots. She touched the colourful feathers.

  “It’s for reading the wind,” Lenie said.

  “Wind magic?”

  She frowned. “We do not use that word. The church does not allow magic. Magic is the evil that the duke’s men wreak upon us.”

  “But the wind shows you what’s happening in another place?”

  The girl frowned at her. “You know this also?”

  “Yes, we do.” And we call it magic. “I don’t see things on the wind. I see things in wood.”

  Johanna put her hand on the figure of the wooden woman. It was pine, but she’d grown used to the fact that in these parts, all wood showed her things, not just willow. It showed her the family gathered around the altar. In the vision, Lenie lit a candle with a burning stick, a proper candle and not one of the horribly smoky rush lights. That candle must have been a real treasure.

  There was also another woman, holding the statue in her hands. She was older, with wisps of grey hair, and very pregnant.

  Lenie’s mother, who had died recently in childbed? Lenie and her four brothers were the only ones in the room. The mother would be here if she were alive.

  Johanna cringed inside.

  Lenie continued, “The wind tells us when people come or when rain comes. There is always wind here. Without reading of the wind, we could never survive.”

  They were barely surviving as it was. These people were so poor that she couldn’t imagine it. The land was poor, and the fields could never grow much with the battle against the sand. They even had to trade in their dignity by letting a bunch of rogue bandits use their only table.

  “Why don’t you move into the forest?” Johanna asked.

  “Oh no, that’s the duke’s land. We can’t go there.”

  “If you offer to work for the duke, wouldn’t he allow you to live on his land? You could work on his fields or—”

  “No, never. These rich people blame the sand curse on us. They say that wherever we go we bring it with us, because we belong to the Free Church. They use magic and call us mad. They would kill us if we went on their land.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “Many people have. Sometimes we are hungry and don’t have enough to eat, especially when winter comes. Sometimes the boys go into the forest to trap rabbits. Other times, people go into the forest to trade things, but they never come back. We’ve lost many precious possessions that villagers have taken to sell at the markets in return for food. Wherever we go, we always have to cross the duke’s land, and no one goes there and comes back.”

  Johanna imagined the strip of forest as she had seen it before coming into the village. It was just a forest, right? “What do you think happens to those people?” She shivered. There was no such thing as just a forest. Forests were full of evil.

  “We don’t know. Sometimes we see creatures amongst the trees.”

  “Creatures? Like the bears the bandits have?”

  “Them, and others. Sometimes they’re people, sometimes they’re . . . something else. Magical, evil. The duke is a bad magician.”

  She let a silence lapse. A chill crept over Johanna’s back. People in Saardam didn’t believe in magic because they never saw any, because there were no forests in Saarland.

  She asked, “What causes the drifting sand?”

  “It’s a punishment from the True God. Eventually, the sand will batter against the duke’s evil magic long enough to break through his defences. Then he will be drowned under huge mountains of sand. You must pray with us and maybe we can make it happen.”

  Johanna wasn’t going to tell the girl that her “Free Church” and the Church of the Triune sounded like very different institutions, or that the Church of the Triune in Saarland considered the ability of being able to see things in the wind or in wood as magic. Their “True God” was probably also not the same as the Triune.

  She said nothing about some of those “evil magicians” being right here in the house, in the group of bandits whom they treated as guests. Anyone who knew about magic could see it in Sylvan’s eyes.

  She was not even going to say anything about the sand not being their friend, and if anyone was going to drown in it, the people in this village would be the first to go.

  When you were this poor, there were no easy options.

  She sat with Lenie on her knees in front of the altar.

  Nellie had taken off her bonnet, and to be honest, it was so dirty she looked much better without it.

  Lenie started the prayer in a low voice.

  “True God, hear our prayers. We pray for our forefathers and all those who have been taken from us. We pray for our granpa and granma and our ma and our little sister who never took any steps with her little feet. We pray for Jan because his wife is sick, and for Seb, who is still missing two of his sheep. We pray that they may be found. We pray that the harvest might be good this year and that we have enough to eat through winter. We pray for the visitors and their safety, that they will make it safely through the duke’s land. We pray that the day will come that magic is defeated and our land will be free of the sand curse.” She fell silent and no one said anything for a while.

  Then she turned to Johanna. “What do you pray?”

  The question hit Johanna in her heart. She started in a low voice. “I pray for my country where many people were killed by fire and fire demons. I pray that whatever evil destroyed Saardam has been defeated. I pray that there are people braver than us who fought the invasion. I pray that my father has survived. . . .” She had to stop speaking because her voice would no longer cooperate. Then she steeled herself. “I pray for my husband who needs all the help he can get to—” She almost said reign the country but remembered that no one was to know who they were. “—to help put the country back in order. I pray that I will have the strength to help him.”

  “I didn’t know you were married,” Lenie said.

  “He’s asle
ep in the other room.”

  “The young man with the beard?” Lenie frowned. “I thought he was . . .”

  “He was what?”

  “He’s not really normal, is he?”

  “Normal enough.” Seriously, she was getting annoyed with people pointing out the obvious. “He is awkward around people.” And that, when she came to think of it, was a very good description of what ailed Roald. He didn’t like people and didn’t know how to talk to people except when he was talking about things he knew. He didn’t like crowds, didn’t like standing out or speaking in public. Didn’t like being the centre of attention. He couldn’t tell emotions from a person’s face. He didn’t know “appropriate”. When someone forced him to do things he hated or felt insecure doing, he behaved strangely.

  It was now Nellie’s turn for her prayers. In a soft voice, she said, “Like Johanna I pray for my country and the people in Saardam. I pray that they have the strength to recover and I pray that we will soon be with them again. I pray for my family, my father and mother and for my little brothers. . . .” Her voice wavered with emotion. “I pray for our Reverend Romulus, that he may have survived the cowardly attack and continues to help the common people of Saardam.” Her eyes met Johanna’s. Tears glittered in them. “I pray for our royal family, and that they will have the strength and support to once again make Saardam a peaceful place again.”

  “Please, Nellie,” Johanna whispered. The royal family wasn’t doing any such thing at the moment. The fact that she was now part of that family pressed heavily on her conscience. They should go back to what was left of Saardam as soon as possible. They had been planning to return the moment they were captured but, due to that misfortune, were still moving further and further away from the place where they should be.

  The room blurred with the haze of tears.

  Lenie, of course, didn’t know what had happened in Saardam so Johanna told her as much as she knew, leaving out the parts about the royal family and Roald’s identity. The four boys were listening, and while the younger ones wouldn’t understand much, the older ones might.

  Lenie turned her head as if to listen for something outside. “You better go back to the barn. My pa has gone to help one of the neighbours. He won’t be happy if he sees me talking to you.”

  The reasons for parents to say things like that baffled Johanna endlessly, but she was too tired to argue. Too tired, in fact, for pretty much anything.

  ‎

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  BACK IN the other room, the bandits were singing and laughing like stupid oafs. They were telling jokes, most of them red-cheeked and bright-eyed from the liquor.

  All except Sylvan, who sat at the corner of the table, meeting Johanna’s eyes when she came back into the barn.

  Lenie followed them to collect the plates, bowls and spoons. Johanna spotted her talking to Ludo. She smiled at him.

  Johanna wanted to scream, Don’t give that creep ideas, but there was little she could do.

  Lenie left the room again, and came back to collect more plates. She smiled across the table at Ludo.

  Johanna cringed and hoped the girl’s father would come in soon. She was too innocent and too young to know what he wanted. If the bandits groped the daughter of their host, she didn’t know how things would end. She was too tired to pack up and leave again. Too tired to face a duke with evil magic.

  The barn door opened, and the farmer Otto came in. He spotted his daughter talking to Sigvald and jerked his head to the other room.

  Lenie scurried back into the family’s room.

  Johanna had trouble keeping her eyes open. Her position, leaning against the warmth of Roald’s body, became comfortable and familiar.

  Loesie had rolled onto her back, her arm stretched out over her head. Her hand twitched occasionally.

  Otto spoke with Sigvald and then Ludo. They seemed to be negotiating, probably the price for their meal and stay. Johanna was too tired to listen. She leaned on one elbow in the heather twigs. The ground was surprisingly soft.

  The farmer’s four sons sat against the wall, watching the bandits. When had they been allowed to come in and what were they doing here?

  Johanna dozed off, but next thing she noticed was Ludo leaving the room for the family’s living quarters. The door shut behind him.

  In one moment, Johanna was wide awake.

  Lenie was in that room, Ludo had just gone in. Lenie’s brothers were in the barn, and Otto was still talking to Sigvald. Was this what she thought it was?

  She let her hand hover over the wood at her back, the planks whose other side formed the wall in the living room, but then she looped her arms around her drawn-up knees as tight as she could. She didn’t want to know and didn’t need to see.

  A wave of hot anger took hold of her.

  That filthy swine of a father of hers still talked to Sigvald, as if selling his daughter to bandits was the most normal thing in the world. Did he even know what this meant to her? She would never get married, never be wanted by a man, never be worth anything.

  It seemed like Johanna watched the door forever. She listened to the roaring of blood in her ears. Her backside got sore from sitting in the cramped position. She put one hand on Roald’s shoulder and felt the steady rise and fall of his body with his breaths. A few days ago, she had felt sorry for “sacrificing” herself for the kingdom, but she had been so self-absorbed that she couldn’t even see how rich she was. Her “sacrifice” would be another girl’s dream.

  Finally the door opened and Ludo came out. He had the nerve to grin at his comrades.

  While he took his place at the table, another bandit went in.

  Otto continued talking to Sigvald. The four boys sat and watched, their faces pale and gaunt.

  They knew what was going on. They didn’t like it.

  The second man was back fairly quickly and then, fortunately, the four brothers went back into the room.

  Their father stayed a little longer, after receiving a handful of coins from Sigvald. Going out the door, his eyes met Johanna’s. She gave him the vilest stare she could muster. These people called themselves honest and religious? The same church as the Church of the Triune? No way.

  The door shut.

  Johanna let her shoulders slump.

  Then again, it was easy for her to judge. If her family was as poor and desperate as these people, they might have done the same.

  Even women of ill repute are people. She thought of Helena in Saardam, and her infectious laugh and endless source of gossip. To be honest, she preferred Helena to some of the “proper” nobles.

  The boys removed the table and benches again and the bandits rolled out their mats. The farmer took the oil light into the other room. When he shut the door behind him, the barn became shrouded in darkness.

  Soon, heavy breathing indicated that the bandits were asleep. One of the men started snoring, and then another. A horse made a snorting noise outside and a sheep bleated. One of the dogs grumbled in response.

  Johanna fell asleep briefly, but she dreamed of climbing up a steep hill of drifting sand. With each step she took, more sand would cascade down from the top. It reached to her ankles, and then her knees, and then her thighs and her waist. She jerked awake, her heart thudding like crazy. Something heavy and warm lay over her: Roald’s arm had fallen across her legs.

  Johanna pushed the arm and hot blanket off her and lay staring at the darkness where the ceiling would be if she could see it.

  The sighs of the wind over the roof made soft whispering sounds. They were like voices just out of hearing, voices that whispered warnings or spells, but could only be understood by people who had wind magic. Clearly the villagers could hear and see things in the wind, b
ut all its secrets were kept from her.

  The more she learned about magic, the more she realised that she knew nothing at all and that her own ability was paltry and insignificant. Maybe the people of the village were right in not considering the ability to see things on the wind and in wood proper magic. No one could do anything with the ability, except leave objects in places and retrieve them later to “read” them. It wasn’t an active skill.

  These people had experience with far more magic than she had seen in her lifetime.

  Sylvan used kinds of magic she had never even known existed.

  She remembered the ghost horses in the forest, the images of the murdered farmer and his family, the wrecked water mill. Wherever these men went, they killed and raped and pilfered as they pleased. It was a wonder that the four of them were still alive, a wonder that the men hadn’t ripped the clothes off any of them.

  That left only one option: their leader wanted them unscathed. She knew almost for certain that this leader was the duke who had tried to murder his half-brother the baron. She wasn’t sure whether wanting the group alive was a good or bad thing. Did she really want to be confronted with the man who may have ordered the burning of Saardam? Who had sown death and destruction all the way down the river, just so that he could—what exactly? Was the whole thing about a feud between two half-brothers? She found that hard to believe.

  She didn’t know anymore. She was not too sure if she wanted to know. The duke might be the necromancer.

  Had King Nicholaos really been so stupid as to approach a dark magician to try and bring Celine back from the dead?

  Was the reason that the bandits had not tried to find out their names that they already knew? The necromancer might want to exact revenge on the last remaining survivor of the Carmine house.

  And since Johanna was certain that there would not yet be an heir, the house that had brought peace to Saardam would die, and war would break out all over again. The Saardam nobles would fight. They had the money to put together an army. In fact, the king had been talking about that even before the burning.