The Third Witch

by Rebecca Reisert

  “Drink some water,” I command, to take his mind off his troubles. He crawls to the brook and drinks two handfuls.

  He crawls back. “I’m cold. Can I sit close to you?”

  I can think of no reason not to let him, so he snuggles up next to me like a puppy. If he were a puppy, I would put my arms around him, but since he is human, I do not.

  “Where are we going?” he asks.

  “To a castle.”

  “Are you a princess?” he asks in an awed tone.

  I laugh at this. “Lad, we go to the castle to find work.”

  He gets very still.

  After a while I ask him, “What’s wrong?”

  He snuggles closer. “I do not think I will like to work in a castle.”

  “A strong boy like you! Are you lazy? Or are—”

  “No!” He sits up, but he looks away. “I do not like being among folk. I am not clever. Folk mock me.”

  I can well believe this to be true. In our village we have a lad called Tom Halfwit. The other boys follow him and mock him and pelt him with stones and dirt clods and bits of dung, treating him as rudely as they treat me.

  Nonetheless, I cannot turn back now. And although I do not know why, I cannot abandon this boy on the road. He could never take care of himself. I wrap an end of my wolfskin around his shivering shoulders.

  “How will Momma find us in the castle?” he asks. “Momma has never been to a castle. How will she know where to look?”

  It is growing very cold now. I decide to risk a bit of fire. While I find two good oak sticks, I direct the lad to gather up branches and bits of kindling. I let him keep the wolfskin tucked around him. I am used to being cold.

  “Bring as many holly branches as you can,” I tell him. Holly burns well, even if the branches are green, and its embers last a long time. It will give us warmth without a lot of flame.

  With my dagger I scoop out a tiny bowl in one stick, just wide enough to hug the end of the other stick. Then I twirl the long stick back and forth till its spark hops out onto the tinder, and I can puff softly on the kindling to coax it into a small flame.

  “How will Momma find us?” he asks again as we warm our cold, stiff fingers at the wee flame.

  I cannot think of an answer to that, so I say, “I will go back and leave her a letter where she will be sure to find it.”

  “What is a letter?”

  “ ’Tis a bit of writing that tells a body something.”

  He looks at me scornfully. “Momma cannot read writing.”

  I consider that for a moment, and then I say, “I will leave her a letter with pictures instead of writing. She can read that.”

  He frowns. “What kind of pictures?”

  “I will draw a castle, and I will draw a lass and a wee lad walking to it.”

  He thinks this over and then nods. “ ’Tis a right good notion.”

  “You wait by the fire,” I tell him. “Snuggle close to stay warm. I must borrow the wolf pelt for a spell.” He obediently wriggles out from under it, and I pull it close about me and slip away.

  I figure I will fool him. I will go a few paces into the wood, and then I will return and tell him I left the letter of pictures. But after I walk a little way, I become curious about the woman. Could she be where we left her?

  I doubt my ability to find my way back to where we left the woman, but there is an almost full moon, and my years of roaming the forest have given me a talent for discovering a path. I decidenot to think but to follow my hunches. Still I take careful note so I can find the boy and the fire again.

  I travel for a long while. Finally I come upon a fallen tree that looks like one I leaped over a few paces from the clearing. I fall to my hands and knees, crouching behind it, listening. All seems quiet. I crawl forward . . . a few creepings and then freeze, like a wary deer. I still see nothing. A few more creepings and I am at the edge of the clearing. Even in the darkness I can see the ground has been much trampled. I drop belly-flat on the ground. I fumble in my girdle for my broken dagger. I wait a long while, but no living creature stirs. I stand up, and something stiff, cold, and heavy brushes against my face. Startled, I jump back and cast a glance at it.

  A heavy dark form hangs from a limb high in a tree. At first I think it is the carcass of a butchered deer.

  Then I realize what hangs from the tree is the gutted body of the boy’s momma.

  DAWN is already bleaching the sky when I reach the boy again. He is asleep, shivering, curled in a tight ball next to an almost extinguished fire. Fresh tears have left tracks on his face. I am glad that he did not see the cowardly way I ran from the body of his mother, fearful that sprites or bogies might come chasing me and hang me up next to her. I did not even think to search her for gleanings.

  Again I shake the boy awake.

  “Come,” I say.

  “Did you leave the letter with the pictures for Momma to find?”

  “I left the letter,” I lie. “Now ’tis time to go to the castle.”

  N I N E

  THE CASTLE HUNCHES like a sick beast on the crest of its hill, brooding over the river in front of it and the sea to its back. Its stones are dark, black as the wood of a burned-down house, black as cinders, black as rotting teeth.

  At the gates stands a group of ragged lads, shifting about nervously, punching and shoving each other. I have seen that sort of horseplay among some of the lads of my village. Their jabs are mean-spirited, but when challenged, they bare their teeth in a predator’s grin and whine, “ ’Tis but a joke.”

  When we are about twenty paces from the gates, the small witch’s boy grabs my hand.

  “I do not want to go there,” he says, and his voice shakes from fear.

  I do not know whether he, too, has seen that sort of vicious horseplay in his own village—doubtless as the butt of it—and fears it, or whether he simply fears all packs of human beings. I do not tell him that I, too, do not want to go there. Would it be so awful after all if we turned back now? Nettle and Mad Helga would take this boy in as they have taken in other lost creatures, and he could help aroundthe hut, doing the chores and such that I did at his age. There is still time for me to turn away and forget this scheme. No one, in truth, could expect a lone lass to fight the greatest warrior in the land. No one but me sees any need for revenge at all . . . yet no one but me has seen what I have seen. What I saw seven years ago was evil, evil in a form as pure as truth. Even if I lacked my own motive for revenge, it would be the greatest sin in creation for me to allow that evil to continue to wander about the world. I have made myself an arrow, and His heart is my home. I have made my life a dagger, and His death is my sheath.

  “Don’t be silly,” I tell the boy. I clutch his hand a little tighter. “There are two of us. They will not hurt us.”

  “I do not want to go there,” he says, twisting my hand.

  I stop and study the group on the drawbridge. I see there are no other girls. This could be a problem. Perplexed, I scratch my head, trying to think what to do. The feel of my stubbly hair against my fingers gives me an idea.

  “Stay here,” I command the boy. I take a few steps away and squat behind a rock. With my dagger I slash at my skirt, just above the knee. I tear off a length of it and then step out and put my hands on the boy’s shoulders.

  “I am a lad,” I say. His hand gropes for mine, but he just nods, as if he is not surprised.

  I draw myself up like a great lord and walk with firm steps to the gates, since I know from experience that lads who form packs are more likely to hurt the weak than the strong, to torment the lowly rather than the high. Inside I am afraid, but on the outside I take pride in my calm, confident stride.

  Almost immediately one of the lads sees us. He elbows his neighbor. They begin to jeer at us.

  “Ragpickers!” one cries.

  “Stablegrunts!” cries another.

  The whole company joins in the cries, sounding like crows and flinging jeers like small pebbles. The
boy beside me trembles, but Istand firm, although my heart flops and flips like a trout on the banks of a stream. Even in my fear I note that their insults lack imagination. When the tallest lad starts toward me, I hold out Fangmore like a magic staff.

  “Stop!” I cry in my most terrible voice.

  The lad stops. None of them has a stick.

  To take their minds off the attack, I swiftly ask, “Why do you gather here?”

  For several moments, no one answers. I wait. I know that if I wait long enough, one of the pack, overcome by the temptation to show off his superior knowledge, will answer.

  Sure enough, one of the larger lads finally says, “The lord has sent a messenger ahead to those who work in the castle to say that his people arrive today to prepare the castle for his arrival, perhaps as soon as the end of the week.”

  It is a sign! Chance has bestowed upon me a good omen. Blessed be Mad Helga! It had not occurred to me that He might be at another of His castles. He could have stayed at His other castles for years and years, never coming north, but now the day I arrive, His arrival is announced. Surely this is a sign that my revenge is favored by Heaven if He and I arrive almost at the same time. I straighten my shoulders.

  I show, however, no outward sign of joy at this news. I make my voice as scornful as possible. “Are you so schooled to worship this great lord that you gather at His gates just to cheer the arrival of His servants?”

  “No,” says another lad, eager to show off his knowledge. “But they will be hiring lads to work in the kitchens and stables and such, and we hope—”

  “Here they come!” another lad shouts. He points down the road.

  I turn around. I see the dust of approaching wagons. I drag the witch’s boy with me to join the crowd at the gates. Another favorable sign! Just when I need a way into the castle, help appears. I mouth a thank-you to the sky.

  The huge oaken castle gates nudge open. The filthiest man I have ever seen steps out. He is an ox of a man with a face that is too flat, as if his mother had set a cauldron upon his baby face until it smashed his nose and forehead smack into the planes of his skull. He also stinks more than anyone I have ever encountered. Several of the lads reel back from his stench. Even at the far edge of the group I catch a whiff of his reek, a compound of sweat, onions, leeks, garlic, sour wine, bad teeth, unwashed linen, and other things too nasty to mention.

  “Get out of the road,” he bellows. His voice, too, is like an ox’s. “Ye sorry collection of droppings from the divil’s dark hole, ye balls of snot from Satan’s snout, clear the way for your betters.”

  One of the lads gives a shout and points down the road. Out of a whirlwind of dust, a line of carts appears. We step to the side of the road as they clatter across the drawbridge and into the castle yard. The carts are heaped perilously high with barrels and butts of wine, great baskets and bales, crates and mountains of folded linen bound with twine. It is a long time since I have seen so many things gathered together in one place. Then the gates creak shut again. There is a long period in which nothing happens. I grow hungry, but I do not dare take out any food because I know it will be snatched away by one of the ragged waiting lads.

  When the sun is within a hand’s span of the horizon, the gates push open again. A bevy of grown-ups in fine, unpatched clothes stand there. A round-gutted man in a fancy linen robe the color of a wooded loch steps forward. He carries a polished staff in his hand. He holds himself as stiff as if the staff were up his backside. It makes me want to laugh.

  “I am Seyton the Steward. I seek a few able-bodied lads to help with the work inside the castle. With me are Master Stableman, Master Cook—” and he names a handful of other masters of the castle.

  The lads start leaping with eagerness, showing off their strength and energy.

  “Choose me!” they cry. “I will serve you well.”

  “Stand still!” thunders Seyton the Steward.

  Abashed, the lads stop moving.

  Seyton the Steward moves among us. He flicks his staff at three of the lads, three of the biggest. They swell with pride and follow him into the castle yard.

  Seyton the Steward does not so much as glance at me or the boy with me.

  Master Stableman chooses next, and then Master Smith. As Masters Bottler, Huntsman, Chandler, Tailor, and Poulterer select assistants, our numbers dwindle, but no one has even let his eyes rest on me. I edge forward.

  This is my chance to get into the castle. To get three pieces of His heart. If I do not get in as a worker, then I do not know how else I can get past that foul-tempered porter. Desperation starts to rise in me like a Noah tide.

  Master Cook is the last to choose. He is a tall man whose sinews seem a little too tightly strung. Both his skin and hair are shiny as if he rubs them with goose grease.

  “I need some pretty lads to aid me in the kitchen.” His voice is soft and sticky, like milkpod fluff dipped in honey.

  He takes longer than the others to examine each lad. Where the others just looked at the lads to select their assistants, Master Cook has to examine each candidate with his hands. He runs his greaseshiny fingers up and down the arms of each lad he examines. “To see if you are strong enough to lift a haunch of venison or set up the dining trestles,” he says. He makes each lad open his mouth. “I’ll have none but sweet breath blow across my sweet victuals,” he says.

  He lifts each lad’s hands and studies them, front and back. He rubs his thumb across each palm. “Soft hands make soft doughs.” I make my face a mask, smooth as a nun’s wimple, as I stand there, hating him.

  He comes over to me. I do not want him to touch me, but I will myself to stand still. If this is the way into the castle, then I will take it.He fondles my arms, my hands. I do not let myself think of his touch. This is a dream. Master Cook touches my skin, but he does not touch me. I am not my skin. I turn my thoughts to my enemy, the lord of the castle. I am an arrow, and His heart is my home.

  Master Cook makes me open my mouth to test my breath. I am a dagger, and His death is my end.

  Then he strokes my cheek with his pointer finger. “Pretty lad,” he says. “With cheeks as round as a girl’s.”

  He smells of almonds and spice. Up close I see that his mouth is too large with lips as soft as sausages.

  “I vow,” says the sticky voice, “you are the prettiest of all the lads here.”

  And in spite of myself, I jerk back from his fingers.

  T E N

  HIS FACE HARDENS and his breath escapes in a puff. He turns to the witch’s small boy beside me.

  Suddenly I cannot bear the thought of Master Cook touching that little boy either.

  But before I can say or do anything, the smallest of the remaining lads speaks up.

  “Great sir,” he says, “that one is a mooncalf.” He points to my companion.“Great sir, you do not want a lackwit in a fine kitchen like yours.”

  Master Cook swells up like an opened peacock tail.

  “ ’Tis true,” he says. “My kitchen is a fine kitchen. Perhaps I do not choose to ape the cooking of Paris like some I can name. Perhaps I do not choose to baa like a sheep and learn my cooking from cookery books like those Frenchmen who call themselves cooks. For all that, my food is finer than theirs. My cookery is more worthy than theirs of being written down in books.”

  Without touching the lad who spoke up, he snaps his fingers at him, and turns to go back inside.

  No more masters wait by the gates. As I watch my last chance walk away, desperation goads me.

  “Sir Cook,” I cry out. I am ready to grovel in the dust of the road. I would eat rat droppings. I will do anything to get inside the castle gates.

  He hesitates. I sense he cannot decide which would be the greater act of pride, to continue walking or to turn and watch me beg.

  “I am sure your recipes are worthy of being written down, Sir Cook,” I call out. “But for a busy man like you, I am sure, Sir Cook, that you have no time to write them down with all the
work you must do.” His back is still to me. “Sir Cook, I can write.”

  Wonder ripples through the handful of waiting lads. Master Cook turns around to stare. Had I pulled up my tunic to reveal goat legs sprouting from my hips I could have occasioned no greater amazement. “I can write down your recipes for you. I can put your cooking in a book that will dazzle folk for centuries hence. I can write about your cooking so fair and sweet that those false cooks in Paris would turn as green as new peas with envy.”

  He hesitates. “How can I know you can write?”

  With Fangmore I draw a letter in the dirt of the road. “There’s an A.” I draw another letter. “That’s B.”

  “Let me see you write a word. Write”—he thinks for a moment—“write frumenty.”