by Andre Norton
I rose, head still bowed, then I slowly tipped my chin up and met her eyes.
They were bright green, like wet emeralds, the only thing about her that did not hint of her great age. Unblinking and intense, they made me feel as if I were drowning in them—oh so pleasantly drowning. Her eyes spoke of intelligence and humor, experience, understanding, and now flashed with curiosity and concern. She looked past me and to Alysen.
“Nanoo Shellaya,” I addressed her. “We are here to seek counsel with Nanoo Gafna.”
Nanoo Shellaya ruled the fen, though I know she considered herself more a guardian or custodian than queen of the witches. Nanoo Gafna once told me Shellaya had begun her rule more than one hundred years ago. The Nanoo were the same race as Alysen and I, but the woods enriched them and blessed them with a longer life.
Other Nanoo joined us, all with tanned tree-bark faces, though none so deeply lined as Shellaya’s. They were a tall people, long-limbed and for the most part thin. Though predominantly women lived in the fen, I saw a few men among them, all dressed in earth brown clothes, some with green sashes. They easily blended with their surroundings. No children showed themselves in the clearing, but I spied two small faces peering out a window.
“Nanoo Gafna has not returned from her visit in the Village Nar, Wisteria. A visit longer than she has ever taken before.” The concern was heavy in Shellaya’s thin voice. “But your presence here tells me she is not in the village.”
In unison, Alysen and I dropped to our knees. I heard the girl gasp behind me.
“They got her, Eri. The demon-of-a-man got Nanoo Gafna.”
Again the images from the slaughtered village struck me, and in my head I heard the bellow of the cow demanding milking and the irritating sound of swarming flies. I smelled the blood that was everywhere.
The foot …
The tattered garment that had been Lady Ewaren’s dress.
“That demon-of-a-man Lord Purvis killed Nanoo Gafna, too.” Alysen let out a sob.
I didn’t try to stop the tears that cascaded down my cheeks. I had yet another friend to mourn.
17
As Nanoo Shellaya shuffled forward, the standing water rippled outward to touch my legs. She stood in front of me, her birdlike hands on my shoulders, and I poured out the story of the Village Nar.
I was no longer the docent of Bastien, no longer the hunter he had taught, no longer the proud, determined woman who had left the Village Nar a week ago and managed to single-handedly slay a pair of large curl-horns. I was just a drained young woman who’d lost absolutely everything and had thoroughly given in to her despair. I’d forced myself to function before, watching over Alysen. But now she was safe, and the magic of this ancient place cocooned me like I was a babe.
I don’t know how long I stayed on my knees, the water seeping up my leggings and into my tunic, the mud sucking at me as if I were a tree trying to take root. Eventually, however, the tears stopped. My stomach ached from crying, and despite the eternal wetness of this place, my chest and throat were achingly dry.
Nanoo Shellaya tugged me to my feet and guided me inside her cottage. Someone retrieved my satchels from Crust, and I dressed in warm, dry clothes and sat on a crude bench in front of a low table. Shellaya sat opposite me. Behind her, Alysen sat cross-legged on a braided rug, an oval wood bowl balanced on her knees, and she sifted her fingers through the seed beads that filled it.
I’d been in Nanoo Gafna’s cottage before, but only hers. Nanoo Shellaya’s was much larger. I was amazed that there were three rooms inside the base of this tree. We sat in what passed for her kitchen. Strings of wooden beads hung in the doorways of the other rooms—through one I saw a long, thin bed. The other room was cloaked in shadows, but the scents that spilled out hinted that it was Shellaya’s conjuring room.
She pressed a mug of tea into my hands. The mug was tall and wide, ceramic glazed to a high polish and painted with yellow and orange flowers; it was not something made here. I held my nose over the brew and inhaled. The aroma was pleasing and unknown to me.
I took a sip and held the liquid on my tongue. Flowers of some sort, blended with spices. Wholly wonderful. I took a long swallow and eased back on the bench.
“Nanoo Shellaya, I am so very sorry I—”
“Never apologize for grief, Wisteria.” Her voice sounded stronger in the cottage. “Grief is not a sign of weakness, but rather a measure of valor. It shows you have ties to the world and that you cared deeply for the people lost to you.”
“And dear Dazon,” I whispered.
“Your horse.”
I nodded and drank some more.
“Finish that, Wisteria. All of it.”
I did as she instructed, watching as she took the mug and shuffled from her bench to a fireplace, where a cauldron heated. The flames warmly lit the room and seemed to present no threat to the tree or the cottage’s furnishings—practically everything in this place was wood. She used a birch ladle to refill the mug, then she returned to me.
“Look to the surface, Wisteria, and let your soul settle just a bit.”
Surface? I stared at the tea, seeing my reflection and instantly frowning. Not one to worry about my appearance, I was nonetheless taken aback by it. My hair, though a short cap, was tangled and dusted with small burrs and strings of wildflower pollen. Dirt streaked my face. I shook my head and looked away. As I did so, I caught something out of the corner of my eye—another reflection. I returned my gaze to the tea.
Nanoo Gafna stared back at me. Or at least I thought she did.
“My sister lives,” Nanoo Shellaya said. “I would have felt her death. I suspected something amiss, else she would have returned to the fen last week. But Gafna is a wanderer, and so when I searched and felt her spirit, I wrongly suspected she was wandering … perhaps in search of ever-sweeter milk.” She smiled at that, her green eyes twinkling. “The juice of the cow has ever been my sister’s greatest temptation.”
I continued to stare at the miniature reflection, my hands wrapped around the mug, and now Nanoo Shellaya’s wrapped around my fingers. She leaned over the table and the top of our heads touched. The image in the tea shifted slightly, pulling back so we could see where Nanoo Gafna was.
Gafna sat in a straight-backed chair, a lantern on a stool nearby casting shadows across her lined face. Her clothes were tattered, and there were scratches and bruises on her arms.
“By the Green Ones!” I hushed. I saw that her left hand was mangled, the fingers broken as Lady Ewaren’s had been.
Alysen joined us at my outburst, but she could not get close enough to see what we found so interesting in the mug.
“She suffers,” Nanoo Shellaya said. The merry light faded from the old woman’s eyes.
“Because of me, Nanoo Shellaya. The men who hold her, and who beat her, came to the Village Nar looking for me. Had I been there instead of hunting and ranging so far, only I would have suffered. Everyone else would be all right.”
The image shifted again, pulling back so Nanoo Gafna was so tiny we could no longer make out her features. She was against one wall of a large room that was filled with long tables and benches, the lantern by her the only light. It was a place of fellowship, a dining hall, perhaps. Nanoo Shellaya’s hands pressed hard against mine, and in response ripples filled the surface of the tea. A heartbeat later I saw the exterior of a long house. A thick wisp of smoke trailed up from its chimney. Another heartbeat and I saw the edge of a village, a river coursing by its eastern edge, a lone hill rising to the west.
Then the image was gone and Nanoo Shellaya leaned back and curled her bird fingers around the edge of the table.
“You do not know, Wisteria, that your presence in the village would have changed things.”
“They wanted me,” I told her plainly. I explained about the death of the Emperor and my father, Alysen jumping in to announce that the Empress was after me to end the magic in my line, a potential threat to her.
“And why
would they think you such a threat, eh, Wisteria? One woman, a huntress and a farmer from a simple village? What threat could you be?”
“No threat if I am dead,” I answered quickly.
“A threat indeed, then. You are a powerful woman. But you are a threat they created by their failure.”
“And by their success,” I added. “They succeeded in killing everyone and destroying everything I held dear.”
“Save Gafna.” Nanoo Shellaya tugged the mug away from me and held it close, looking straight down and mumbling words I could not understand.
Alysen watched her closely, with more reserve than I’d ever seen her show. Her mouth moved, too, and I realized she knew what Shellaya was saying.
“So they hold Nanoo Gafna, thinking she will tell them where to find me.” I was furious this Lord Purvis would hold my old friend, furious she’d been beaten. “They still may hold her, the murderers.”
“Demon-of-a-man,” Alysen hissed.
Nanoo Shellaya did not raise her gaze from the tea. “You are mistaken, Wisteria. They do not keep my sister Gafna in their lair for that reason. She is Nanoo, and if this Lord Purvis has any sense about him, he knows he cannot break her.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“They keep my sister, perhaps not because she will tell them where to find you, but because you will come for her, Wisteria. She could very well be the lure, and you are the fish they hope to catch.”
Shellaya got up and returned to the cauldron, dumped the tea in it, and stirred. “Will you stay the night, Wisteria.” She did not pose it as a question. Again ladling warm tea into the mug, she brought it to the table and handed it to me. “Drink all of it. You’ll need your strength.” She added to this small biscuits and honey. Then she exited the cottage, leaving Alysen and me alone.
Alysen waited a few minutes before sitting where Nanoo Shellaya had been. “Eri…”
I stared into the tea, seeing nothing but my pitiful reflection this time. I took a long swallow and reached for one of the biscuits, pouring a little honey over it before taking a bite. It was good and sweet and filling. I closed my eyes and savored it.
“Eri—”
“I hear you.”
“Eri…” She took a deep breath and paused.
“What, Alysen?”
“You’re going after Nanoo Gafna, aren’t you?”
“I have no choice.” I chewed the biscuit, and Alysen left me alone until I’d finished. Then she took a biscuit and poured honey over it. She started nibbling at it. “Alysen, Nanoo Gafna is a friend, and an innocent. She was merely a visitor in the village when—”
“The Nanoo are never merely anything, Eri.” She worked on the biscuit and regarded me, once more striking me as older than her years. Perhaps because she was god-sired, she looked at things through older eyes.
“It doesn’t matter what they are, Alysen. Gafna is my friend, and I’ll not have her share the fate of Lady Ewaren and the others.”
“What makes you think they won’t kill her when they’ve caught you?”
I didn’t answer her for a few minutes, fixing my stare on the flames that curled around the cauldron.
“Well, Eri?”
“What makes you think they’ll catch me?”
“What makes you think they won’t?” She took another biscuit and went outside.
I finished my tea and biscuit, then stretched out in front of the fire. Nanoo Shellaya was right. I would need my strength, and I would need to be well rested. I suspected this would be the last long sleep I would have in some time.
The sky was lightening when I left the cottage, but the moon remained, a pale silver-white sliver that reminded me of the necklace Nanoo Gafna always wore. I had not seen it on her in the image in the tea.
I saddled Crust and put one satchel on his back. I’d left the other in Nanoo Shellaya’s cottage, setting the ivory ribbons on the table for Alysen. I ran my fingers through my short hair—clean now and free of burrs. The ribbons were a frivolity I would never use, and Alysen seemed to favor fancy things.
I noticed that the pony had been saddled, and I turned back to Nanoo Shellaya’s home and saw Alysen in the doorway.
“You’re not coming with me, Alysen. I know you’re fond of Nanoo Gafna and that you’re more powerful in the wyse than I am, but—”
“I’m not going,” Alysen said. There was a pout to her lips, and so I knew I’d hurt her feelings.
“The Nanoo here will take good care of you.”
“I don’t need to be taken care of, Eri. I can well manage for myself. As you said, I am more powerful in the wyse than you.” She put her shoulders back, emphasizing that proud point. “Perhaps I should go so that I can take care of you.” She smiled slightly, then the pout returned. “But, no, I’m not going.” She slipped inside the house, where the shadows swallowed her.
“But I am.”
I hadn’t heard her, so silently she’d moved through the fen and gotten on the fell pony. Nanoo Shellaya seemed too tall for the pony, but she was so slight that she didn’t present much of a burden. She was dressed in a long brown robe, nearly the color of her skin, with a cloak slightly darker. A backpack that looked like a spiderweb, or rather one that had been artfully woven from dried vines, was hooked to the saddle. It was too small to contain more than an extra robe and a small amount of food.
“Nanoo Shellaya, you can’t—”
“No one tells me what I cannot do, Wisteria of Nar.”
“I…” I found myself at an utter loss for words. The leader of the Nanoo intended to join me, intended to leave her people in Mardel’s Fen and travel south to find Gafna. I should be honored by her presence, but in truth I did not want to be burdened by it … for that’s what it would be. She was ancient by the standards of man, and Gafna once told me she’d not seen Shellaya—nor the others of advanced age—leave the fen in decades.
I should be honored she wanted to come with me. But I did not want to trade watching over a child for watching out for a very old woman.
“These men—Lord Purvis and his men—are murderers, Nanoo Shellaya. They are dangerous and—”
“You need not worry for my safety, Wisteria of Nar. I can well look after myself. And if by chance I should come to harm … well, I have spent enough years on this earth that it will not miss me overmuch if I leave it. Nanoo Rane will watch over the fen.”
I opened my mouth to offer another protest, but realized it was futile. I had exchanged watching out for a willful child for watching out for a willful aged witch. My shoulders sagged and I shook my head.
“You need me, Wisteria of Nar.” Nanoo Shellaya made a clucking sound and flicked the reins, and the fell pony complied and started walking. “But I’ll not tarry for you. Best hurry.”
The other Nanoo waved to her, some of them leaning out the doors and windows of their tree-homes, others standing in the center of the community. The one named Nanoo Rane followed the pony for several yards, until Shellaya passed beyond the veil of the dead black willow.
“You heard Nanoo Shellaya, Eri. Best hurry.” This came from Alysen, who’d returned to the cottage doorway. She waved and offered me a faint smile.
I got on Crust and gently kneed her. I did not return Alysen’s gestures.
18
We didn’t speak until we left the fen.
I imagined she thought about Nanoo Gafna. I thought about Gafna, too—and about Lady Ewaren, all the people of the Village Nar, my father, Dazon … But more than all of those whom I’d lost, I thought about Lord Purvis. My hands tightened on the reins, so tight my knuckles turned white and my fingers tingled with an uncomfortable numbness.
I could not see a future for myself, perhaps because my mind was flooded with grief and thoughts of vengeance. Little more than a week ago I’d had a future mapped out. I knew Lady Ewaren intended for me to eventually take her place as House Lady of the Village Nar. Lady Ewaren was not of far advanced years, but she had no children of her own, and she’d
told the village elders that I was to follow her. I knew all the village operations, and I knew how to fight, though my skills had not saved the village. I’d been studying the young people of Nar, deciding whom to teach my skills of hunting and defense. I would have my own docents.
That future was lost to me. And now all I could see were broken bodies. All I could taste was the bloodoath I’d made.
Shellaya interrupted my dark musings.
“My sister Gafna talked often of you, Wisteria of Nar.” We were on a merchant trail, one to the east of the fen and Nar. We’d decided not to pass through the village of the dead and so took a slightly longer way south. “My sister Gafna said kind things only … though she mentioned on more than one occasion that she thought you should spend more time in the garden than on the hunt.”
I didn’t reply, knowing full well that the Nanoo did not approve of hunting, and I did not want to get in an argument about eating habits. Shellaya had not asked me any questions, and I’d earlier told her everything I felt necessary. My words were unnecessary at the moment. Hers, however, I listened to intently. I learned more about her with each utterance.
I rode even with her so she would not have to raise her thin voice. She talked about the fen and the planting season, herbs used for healing, her voice getting stronger rather than weaker from her discourse. An hour or so later she spoke again about Gafna.
“My sister said you are strong in the wyse, Wisteria of Nar, and that you are slow to use it.” She paused and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head so that it shadowed all of her face and her bird-nest hair.
I looked ahead on the road and saw three horses and riders. There were no wagons, and the horses were pale and tall with long, braided manes and tails, meaning it unlikely their riders were merchants—and certainly not common villagers. A minor noble and his retainers, I decided, when I noticed that the man in the lead had a sword hanging from his belt.
The Nanoo are distinctive with their heavily lined dark skin, musical voices, and unusual mannerisms. And I suspected Nanoo Shellaya didn’t want to draw attention to herself, so she rolled her shoulders so that her sleeves fell down past her fingertips. She nudged the pony to travel on the far-western edge of the road.