If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1)

by Aimee Gross

  “I’d never seen Da in such a fury. He had every officer from the fort rousted and sent down to get the troops ready to travel. It was dark, deep night, and he rode down himself to organize breaking camp and loading all of it for dawn departure. By the gods, he had them moving! They were funneling onto the road east when he came to me in the morning. “You know what this means,” he said to me. “Keltane will come right over the top of our place on the way to the sea.” He looked haunted. I said you would surely be holed up in the cave by now, because I couldn’t stand to think otherwise. But he said you’d never be expecting the northwest route, why would you, when the military hadn’t even seen this knife before their face.”

  Here he passed a hand over his eyes, and Annora smoothed his hair. “We were safe. Judian had us snug and away from the route. We never saw but a few of the enemy.”

  She meant this to be soothing, but he gave me a fierce look and said, “Until you chose to adopt one.”

  “As you weren’t here to ask, I had to make a choice and live with it,” I said shortly. “Did you and Da set out for home then, when the troops moved out?”

  “I wanted to. I was packing. Da advised the fort commander to close the pass, and the old sot wanted Da’s help to do it. They were preparing their teams for the climb to the high ground—to loose the rocks that would make the road impassable. Then Keltane made their move, and in the space of a few hours, we were under siege and the few troops Keltane had on the border were enough to pin us within the fort.

  “Da had been through a siege in the South War. He directed the fort in conserving water and rationing food. I thought I’d go mad as weeks passed. That’s when I gathered the men I’ve brought. An old groom told me he heard tell of a tunnel or cave that came out in the valley, and I conscripted these four to search for it with me. The fort is a warren, and we scrabbled in every corner. The place is built on bedrock, as I said, so there was no thought of digging a way out. Down in the depths by the cisterns, we discovered the old tunnel. It appeared mostly natural, very steep and low-ceilinged in places, enlarged by pick and shovel in the worst spots. We cleared some of the rubble, brought what supplies we could cadge and our gear, and waited for full moon.

  “It was hard to tell Da I was going, but he understood. He gave me messages to carry to our troops in the east, and bade us good fortune. He said to tell you he would come when he could, that they had means to hold out for a long time. If as you say, we are already conquered, perhaps he’ll come soon.”

  “I’ve hoped for that,” I said. “For both of you to get home safe at last.”

  He didn’t seem able to stop once he had started his tale, and spoke on in a weary voice I hardly recognized. “We came here on foot through desolation, traveling mostly at night and sleeping in shifts during the day. I hope I never have to eat another dirt-crusted turnip dug out of an abandoned garden. The snows started as we closed on Leverton. Our troops had passed long before us, and we only saw signs of battle near the village road just before we turned north to home. When I saw the barn had been burned, I sent the men into the wood and skulked about trying to tell who was home. The rest, you know.”

  Annora stood. “Come, you must eat now, while I heat some wash water for you and get you clean clothes.” His smell was penetrating in closed quarters. “Judian, carry the mattress back up here, please, and arrange some pallets for the men downstairs—”

  “I need to question the soldier you’re keeping,” Wils interrupted.

  “He’ll be there tomorrow. He won’t forget any news overnight,” she said briskly. She put one hand on her hip and held out the other when he remained sitting, so with a rueful smile he rose.

  “Don’t boss me about in front of my men, or I’ll be made sport of from here forward. They’ve already given me grief enough about how hard I’ve driven them to get back to you.”

  I made ready to escort Gevarr out to the privy when we got below, but Wils said, “Let Perk take him.” The burliest of the four rose from his place by the fire, not eagerly.

  “I’ve been taking him all along. Surely your man is only just getting warm after living outside for weeks,” I said.

  “If I overpowered him, where would I go?” came Gevarr’s voice from behind the quilt.

  Wils’s men all looked at each other, then at Wils. “I thought you said he was kept muddled,” said Wils. “He sounds clear enough to me.”

  “That was at first, when he was the most ill and we were deciding what to do with him,” Annora said.

  “As opposed to now, when he’s better and can have the run of the place?” Wils said, voice rising.

  “He’s not running anytime soon when he still needs aid to the privy.” I put on my cloak. “I’ll take Wieser if that makes you feel better. Come at a run if she barks.”

  “Mmm,” Wils said around a mouthful of barley gruel. “By all means, take the hell-hound with you. Gods but hot food is good.” Annora grinned at me over her shoulder, having just put the bowl in his hands.

  Morie had been allowed out of the bedroom when Virda came out to feed Wils’s men, but she was shy of them and I hadn’t heard her voice while we had been upstairs. Now she saw Wils, however, she recovered the power of speech. She took up position on his lap and gabbled at him while he nodded and spooned in his supper. I slipped behind the quilt with a cloak for Gevarr over my arm.

  “You’d be wise to seem feeble,” I told him, as I helped him stand and put his arm round my shoulders.

  “As compared to you?”

  I jabbed him in the ribs with my shoulder, making him grunt. “Do you think you will like living in the cellar tied to a pole? Wils has reason to be wary of Keltanese in any condition.”

  Gevarr was docile enough on the way to and from; and did not meet the many eyes that followed his every shuffling step. I gave him his bowl of barley when he was propped back on his pallet.

  “Will he interrogate me tonight or tomorrow?” he asked as I turned to go.

  “In the morning, likely.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I’d do, if I were him.”

  I planned to sit in on that session. I made myself busy getting bedding, and what might pass for it, together for the men. Our store of blankets and quilts was thin, what with some of it still up in the caves and one larger one hanging in the kitchen corner. Morie fell asleep and was carried in to bed. Virda next went to lie down, tired from cooking for the group. She wasn’t well yet, I reminded myself sternly. I’d have to see to it she didn’t feel compelled to take care of these men as if they were her sons.

  How were we going to feed them all, anyway? Gevarr already made a dent in our stores. Five more men? How did armies get fed? By stealing food, it seemed, but that couldn’t go on once an army stopped marching. There was only so much food to go around in any one place.

  I was musing like this while I spread a rug by the hearth. Perk got up to help me, perhaps grateful that I saved him a trip outside. He had dark-tanned skin like folk from the far south, and a barrel chest. I liked his wide, easy smile. He had a tendency to squint—as if he was always looking into the sun. He seemed delighted to have come along home with Wils, shown by his eagerness to be useful.

  Perk claimed the first place I made, and the next man stepped up to help and introduced himself as Cobbel. He was tall, ginger-haired and abundantly freckled. He was made, to my eyes, out of knee bones, knuckles and elbows, with a beaky nose. He looked to me like the sort of thin man who could eat tremendous amounts of food. He settled into the second space with a tug at his forelock.

  The last two were sharing mugs of brewed herbs and quiet words with Wils, who sat in Da’s chair with Annora leaning her hip on the oaken arm. Both men had wide foreheads and flat noses, and the resemblance made me think they must be related, although one was fair and the other sallow. The fair one noticed my regard and jerked a thumb at his chest. “Beckta,” he said, and then pointed at the other man. “He’s Miskin. I don’t want to say I’m glad your barn
was gutted, but Wils had told us to expect to be sleeping in the hayloft. I’m not that sorry to be by a fire and within four walls.”

  “Are you brothers?”

  “Cousins. We served the fort’s horsemaster, until your brother recruited us for courier work.”

  This remark caused Wils’s gaze to sharpen; he made a snap of a nod toward the alcove and Beckta looked chastised. “Can I help you with our beds now?”

  Once they were all set up, I banked the fire for the night. I told Wieser to guard Gevarr, but Miskin carried a chair to the back door. He drew his smelly blanket around his shoulders and said, “Wils told me to take first watch.”

  I looked about for Wils but found he and Annora were missing. “Leave ’em be,” said Miskin with a grin. “They managed to get away upstairs without calling too much attention to themselves.”

  “Aye,” came Perk’s voice from the dim light by the hearth. “He’s waited long enough. And we’ve had miles to hear about how long he’s waited, too.”

  Another man laughed, must have been Beckta, because Cobbel’s voice said, “He never talked … unseemly.”

  This drew a hoot from Miskin. “It was more what he didn’t say. Go to sleep.”

  A sound idea, I decided, and turned to go to my own bed. At least there would be no more talk of kissless brides, because I knew Gevarr was listening, too, from behind his barrier.

  CHAPTER 19

  When I went in to Gevarr on waking, he told me the dawn watch had already seen him to the washhouse. “I’m being readied for my interview, it seems.”

  Wils left him in the corner while we made short work of the smithy’s eggs and some griddle cakes Annora and Virda served to appreciative appetites. Morie was indulged with extra honey on hers, and I felt a twinge for Gevarr when I carried him in another bowl of barley gruel. He accepted it with no ill-humor. I supposed Wils was putting him in his place.

  When the breakfast dishes were cleared away, Perk and Cobbel brought Gevarr to the table and seated him facing Wils. The women were banished to the bedroom. Wils’s men took places on his side of the table. I refused to be sent to the other room and planted myself at the end of the table nearest the cellar. Gevarr folded his reddened, swollen hands on the scrubbed wood and waited.

  It will never be known how Wils meant to start his questioning, because Wieser at that moment sprang up barking with her hair standing up along her spine. Gargle began a frenzied pecking at the front window, and continued window-to-window around the house.

  Men flew instantly to every curtain, peering out cautiously to avoid being seen in return. I opened the cellar, and Wils appeared carrying Morie, leading the others.

  “Three enemy, leading a pack mule up from the road. No weapons drawn,” reported Cobbel from the front window. I brought Gevarr to the cellar steps, and turned to yank down his quilt barrier. Blast all, pallets lay about everywhere in plain view.

  Wils tossed cloth down to Annora below, saying, “Gag him.”

  “Not necessary,” Gevarr said as he started down.

  Wils gave a savage shake of his head. “You gag him, Miskin.”

  The other men were gathered for their descent when three loud bangs echoed from the front door. At least they weren’t kicking it in. Yet.

  Who should answer? The others disappeared down the steps and Wils closed the trapdoor on Perk, who remained on the steep, twisting stairs just below the floor. Wils and I looked at each other as the bangs came again. I pointed at myself and Wieser, and Wils nodded and stepped back into the corner so he couldn’t be seen from the front door. I saw the gleam of a long knife in his hand as I turned to go answer the knocking.

  Wieser growled loud as I shouted through the wood, “Who’s there? What do you want?”

  “Open the door, boy. By order of the King.”

  I opened it just wide enough for Wieser to put her head through, snarling. Foam dripped from her jaws. Two of them took a step back, but the third was the one in charge.

  “We’re here to take food for the guard.” He put his arm to the door, but Wieser shoved against the edge with her shoulders, straining to get at him.

  “Wait and I’ll bring it. I can’t hold her.” I shut the door before he could speak, and Wieser launched herself at it, clawing and howling. Next she leapt at the window as a soldier tried to peer through it; his oath as he jumped back was one I hoped Morie didn’t hear. I snagged several cabbages and a small sack of meal and shoved all in a cloth bag.

  “This is all I can spare,” I said, as I contrived to shove the bag out while making a show of barely holding Wieser within.

  “Are you alone up here, boy?”

  “No, I have the dog.” The pitch of her barking increased to the point I could hardly shout over it.

  “And what does the beast eat?” he inquired, looking into the bag without much enthusiasm. I felt the same way about cabbages, that’s why he was getting them.

  “She catches her own, of late.”

  He handed the bag to one of the others to carry to the mule. Which, I saw with relief, was not our Dink. I sent a wish for Dink to make himself scarce, and hoped whatever magic I had was working.

  “We need hay for our horses, as well.”

  “Our hay was burned with our barn.” No, it won’t do to antagonize. “There’s a few haystacks in the field east. You’re welcome to what you can get there.”

  “Bring it down to the village livery,” he called over Wieser’s tireless assault.

  “I can’t. The sled was in the barn,” I called in response.

  He spat out an oath of his own. “Then I’ll send some men back up to fetch it. How much hay is left there?”

  I made him repeat his question, claiming I couldn’t hear over Wieser’s racket, then shouted, “Not much since the deer have been at it,” with my hands cupped to my mouth.

  “Useless folk—achh, a pax on them all!” He wheeled away and waved the other two back to the mule. Wieser continued to sound crazed; gobs of foam flecked the floor and wall. May they give us up as too much trouble for too little return, I thought, and leaned my forehead on the door and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Wils stood close, looking at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Glad you two are on our side,” he said, and went to let the others up from the cellar.

  When next we attempted to begin with Gevarr, I did not have to make my own way to the table. Wils pulled out a chair for me. Again, the first question had not been asked when Wieser gave her yipping cry. I tried to explain to Wils that this had a different meaning to the last alarm, but he insisted on repeating the drill. I saw Gevarr trying to keep from laughing aloud as he was shuttled to the cellar for the second time.

  “It’ll likely be Ticker,” I told Wils, reminding him that Annora would be expected to go check the mother and baby in the village.

  “Cannot Virda go in her stead?”

  He looked so uneasy, I felt for him. I remembered Virda needing to rest after fixing a simple meal the day before, though. I proposed Annora and I go and take along Wieser and Gargle to guard us, since Wieser need not be left at home to look to Gevarr.

  “The smith’s family will likely give us food, which we need more than ever now.”

  He gave his consent as Ticker mounted the front steps. The boy was beaming. His mum felt stronger every day and the baby proved an easy feeder. He was only too happy to have Gargle atop the back of the sleigh watching for soldiers, when he learned we had been visited. He must have just missed the trio on his way to us. Wieser made us crowded in the sleigh, but did provide some extra warmth with her wooly coat. She seemed to enjoy the wind in her face as much as Gargle did, and worked her nose the whole ride.

  Annora went in to check that all was in order with mother and infant. The younger boys fussed over Wieser, and fed her bits of cheese that I would have liked to have eaten myself, but she rated a treat for her performance of the morning. I pocketed a couple of bits for Gargle, who deserved reward, as well.

&
nbsp; Either the food-collectors had not visited the smithy, or they had been given short shrift if they had, because their larder lacked nothing that I could see. As soon as Annora declared the pair fit, Donah Estegg began directing Ticker to load the sleigh for us. We were gifted with more eggs and milk, plus a haunch of venison that bespoke a better-favored hunting excursion than the one that had first brought the boy and his mother to us. A box of salted fish and a keg of nails completed our load. I couldn’t thank them enough, and prayed we wouldn’t run across the three soldiers on our way home in the sleigh.

  When we swung around to the high road, the miller’s wife waved us into her yard. She and her broad-backed daughter hefted a sack of flour into the back of the sleigh. She clasped Annora’s hand, and laid a finger over her lips. “We have no wagon to get goods to the harbour, so better this goes with you.”

  The village was still unnaturally quiet. I reflected that it would not be long before the soldiers suspected folk of holding out on them, and began to bring more men along so they could search out our villagers’ stores and take what they found.

  “Ticker, when you get back home, you and Tarn would be wise to hide your supplies, in several places. Well hidden. Then can you go about town and advise others to do the same, but keep it very secret?”

  “Like spies?” he asked, shifty-eyed.

  “Much like. The soldiers who came to our place looking to take food and hay, are sure to make the rounds to you, as well. Better they find empty shelves and apparent want than leave your family really without means. Soldiers are always hungry, my da says. They won’t care if they leave enough for you.”

  “But you must be careful,” Annora put in.

  Ticker nodded and clucked to his horse. Wieser and Gargle both seemed more interested in what was in the back of the sleigh under the canvas than in smelling the air on the way back. Even if they were distracted from their guard duty, we in any case met no one on our road home.

  Ticker helped unload and asked good questions about potential hiding places. Rafters? Under the floor planks in the forge? I shared my methods of keeping out mice and vermin. He seemed eager to get about his task. As I had been, preparing the caves, I thought. Didn’t that seem longer ago than it was!