by Jenny Moss
I gazed at the mountains, feeling a pull toward them. “How did they know she was a witch?”
Roe spoke this time. “She could see things before they happened.” Next to his restless brother, he seemed so still, except for one hand playing with something in his pocket.
“Is that all then?”
The boys looked at me askance.
“She seems a harmless witch to me,” I said, biting hard into the bread, tugging a piece loose. “Not a very powerful one.”
“Ha!” yelled out Ingen, startling the three of us. Then she looked off as if she’d said nothing.
“You shouldn’t say things about Kendra,” said Roe to me. “She can hear from miles and miles away.”
“I should like to meet her, I think.”
His mouth dropped open. “Is that where the knight’s taking you? To meet the witch?”
“Yes,” I said, glancing at Ingen.
“You’re not afraid?” he asked, taking something out of his pocket and squeezing it in his hand.
I shook my head.
Rowe spat on the ground. “She took that orphan boy Piers.”
“You know she didn’t,” said Roe. “The tall man in the gray cape took him.”
Rowe grinned. “It could have been him.”
I grabbed his arm. “What man?”
“How would I know his name?” he said, twisting out of my grip. “He was old, and from the castle.”
“Eldred?” I asked. “Was his name Eldred?”
“I think that was it,” said Roe, squinting at me.
Could Eldred have visited this small village? If it led to the pass into the mountains, to the witch Kendra, he could have been here. But this Piers, it must be another boy. Not my Piers. It was a common enough name.
The door shut behind me. Stillman stood there, with purpose in his eyes. “What stories are you boys telling now?”
I glanced at the open window. Had he and Tayte been listening? Maybe everyone in the village had. An uneasy quiet was in the air.
“About Piers,” said Rowe, looking up at his father. “How he was stolen.”
Stillman squatted down in front of his son. “You know he wasn’t stolen, Rowe. The queen’s adviser took him to give him a home.” He said it as if it was of no importance, but wouldn’t look me in the eye. “You know Eldred?” he asked.
He had heard.
“I know him,” I replied, looking at Ingen. She said nothing.
Stillman tousled Roe’s hair with a shaking hand. He was hesitant. I waited.
“You’re from…the queen’s castle?” he asked, his once open face now closed up tight.
I nodded, watching him, sensing his fear. News of the queen’s death had not yet reached this small village. Would it matter to them that she was dead?
I wondered if Stillman was afraid of the army. Malcolm and the others knew about the kidnappings; I guessed Stillman did as well. Perhaps he also thought the queen was behind the attacks. As if she could have devised such plans.
“Do you know Piers?” asked Roe, so serious.
“I knew a Piers, but he couldn’t be the same one.” I felt sure of this. Piers was no great friend to Eldred.
“Piers was conniving and quick,” said Stillman, sitting down in the dirt. Roe sat beside him and laid his head on his father’s knee. “But he had a hard life. Sad.”
I didn’t want to hear about this Piers’s sad life.
“I remember his mama calling him, Father,” said Roe. “And wherever he was, he would run to her. Isn’t that right?”
“She called when she was hungry,” said Rowe, digging at the hard earth with his toe.
“Rowe,” said Stillman, “you didn’t know her when she was young. Blythe was a sweet girl. She had pink chubby cheeks.” He reached down and pinched Roe’s face. Roe pushed his father’s hand away, smiling. “But she changed.”
Rowe tugged his father’s sleeve. “After Piers’s father was taken? Isn’t that right?”
Stillman glanced at the door. Rowe followed his eyes and nodded. Some unspoken thing had passed between them.
Another villager taken? I wondered when this man had gone missing. We had lived in selfish ignorance in the queen’s castle on the hill.
Again, I looked at Ingen. Sadness drifted across her eyes, but then it cleared. “All will be well,” she whispered to me.
“Blythe did change,” said Stillman. “As if her soul left her body early. Piers took care of her. He fed them, by stealing. He slipped inside people’s cottages and took bread, eggs, clothes for his mother.
“The village was larger then, more of a town, but small enough we knew who it was. Most turned a blind eye, but others were…not so kind.”
“They beat him,” said Rowe, eyes flashing.
“With sticks.” Roe bit his lip.
I winced, almost feeling the blows on my own back. Not my little Piers.
“When Blythe died—” began Stillman.
“She got sick,” Rowe said. His brother’s eyes were large in his small freckled face.
“—Piers fled to the forest. Tayte tried to get him to live with us, but he wouldn’t. He came back from time to time.”
“Came back to steal,” said Rowe.
“He was so brave,” Roe said. “He wasn’t scared of anybody.”
“It couldn’t be the same boy,” I said, shaking my head. “The Piers I know is easily frightened. Small with gray eyes.”
“Our Piers had gray eyes,” said Rowe. “Just like his mother.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” I asked.
“He left with Eldred two summers ago,” said Stillman.
That was when Piers arrived at the castle.
“He said he was going to kill the regent,” Rowe said.
“Shh,” said Stillman, looking around. “Don’t say such things, Rowe.”
“He said it. He hated the regent.”
I felt an ache inside of me and folded my arms across my stomach.
Piers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I sat up, confused. Where was I?
Straw poked my bare legs and through my shift, making me think I was on my pallet in the castle, sleeping by the queen’s bed. But the earthy scent of animals and wild grass clung to the ice-cold wind blowing through the window—smells I was not accustomed to. I pulled my blanket up around me.
Ingen was beside me on the mat we shared. The twins and Sir Kenway slept on another mat on one side of us, and Tayte and Stillman slept on the other side.
Rowe turned over, his red hair bright in the moonlight. One closed hand rested by his mouth. So sweet he looked. I lightly touched his cheek, but then drew back, remembering another boy. I felt Piers strong in my heart.
“Audrey!” Sir Kenway cried out. “No!”
I could see him in the moonlight, closest to the wall. He tossed his head back and forth, moaning. I rolled the twins gently to the edge of their mat. Sir Kenway was hot to the touch. I glanced at Tayte, snoring on the other pallet, her hand flung across her husband’s stomach. She looked so peaceful after her long day’s work. I didn’t want to wake her.
Shivering, I immersed a rag in a bucket of cold water and dabbed Sir Kenway’s forehead. “Shhh. It is all right.”
He stilled my hand with a grip so fierce it hurt, but looked at me with unseeing eyes. “I let her die.”
He was out of his mind. “You did not.”
He asked for things. Can I have a cool drink? I dipped water from the pail and put the cup to his lips. He pushed it away, splashing it on himself, gasping at the water’s coldness. Can I have a roll, warm and fresh? I gave him all I had, stale bread, but he spit it out.
He thrashed about, throwing off his blanket. I put it back, dabbed his face, and waited. When he relaxed, I closed my eyes again. Over and over, we did this. Finally, he lay still and fell into a deep sleep. Exhausted, I did the same.
But darkness haunted my dreams. I kept waking, not able to remember my n
ightmares, but thinking of Piers.
In the morning, Tayte tended to Sir Kenway, applying the sweet-smelling ointment, giving him fresh bandages, feeding him a yarrow broth.
I sat watching him. His mouth was relaxed. His cheeks, pink again. He seemed past his pain. He wouldn’t be pleased to know he had slept on a straw pallet, nursed by a peasant woman. I wondered what he would say when he discovered it.
When Tayte’s back was turned, I pushed his hair off his forehead and ran my fingers lightly along his face. I traced his lips and then my own and shivered as if we’d kissed. Longing swept through me. I wanted him to wake and touch me as gently as I touched him. That desire was so sharp, and so unrequited, hot tears popped into my eyes. I wiped them away, feeling foolish at my emotion.
His eyes fluttered open. I blushed deeply, worried he’d sensed my feelings. He looked at me for a long moment and closed his eyes again. He was so dazed I doubted he was much aware of what was going on around him.
Stillman and the twins were out in the field with the other villagers, plowing. Getting ready for the winter harvest. Ingen had gone with them.
“The only thing the fields give us anymore is rye,” said Tayte. “And that was a poor crop this year.”
She was cautious with me. Last night, after our meal of rabbit stew, Stillman whispered to her as she washed the bowls in a large barrel. I saw him mouth the word castle. It frightened her, I could tell. He held her hands, trying to calm her.
Did they think we meant them harm?
Stillman seemed to trust Eldred, though. He hadn’t been concerned about Eldred taking Piers.
Piers had never mentioned it was Eldred who’d brought him to the castle. The first time I’d noticed him was when he was a kitchen boy. Not long after, he became Fyren’s personal servant.
He had played me for a fool. Had he befriended me and not the other way around? Had he been watching me, just like Eldred? The thought made my stomach turn.
But I was the one, not Piers, who’d escaped. I had left him there. If Piers was in with Eldred, then he might be dead. My eyes burned. I shook my head, frustrated by these emotions making me so vulnerable I was beginning not to recognize myself.
Tayte grabbed an old bucket hanging on a nail by the door. “I’ll be back. I need water.”
I reached for it. “I’ll go.” I wanted to be outside.
She hesitated, glancing at my silk dress.
“Where is the well?” I asked her.
She pointed with her head. “Down the road.” She grabbed a small pouch of dried herbs from a table by the door. “Here.”
The herbs smelled sweet.
“Give that to Erce. There’s a shaft by the well.”
“Erce?” I asked, suddenly alert. “Like the village?”
“That was the village’s old name, yes. It was named after her by those who are from the north. The mountain people place a strong hope in Erce.”
“Erce…is a woman?” I asked.
“No, my lady.” Tayte pushed her bushy red hair out of her eyes. “Why, she’s the mother of the Earth.”
“The mother of the Earth,” I repeated. It is what Elene had said.
“We give Erce gifts, so that she’ll give back to us,” she explained, looking at me as if she expected some acknowledgment.
I nodded. So, this must be the old religion. And with a shock, I realized this was who Ingen referred to. I thought back on what she said, but I could not remember what she had rambled on about. I had been so tired that night.
I doubted this Erce existed. If she did, why was the land no longer fertile? Had Eldred sent us on a fool’s errand?
I looked at the herbs. “What shaft?” I would do as Tayte asked of me.
“By the well, my lady. As I said.”
I felt her eyes on me as I left.
I raised my skirt out of the muck in the path, amused by the muddied silk. What would Lord Leofwine think of me dirtying up his gift of a dress?
I passed thatched-roof cottages and muddy pigpens. Most of the villagers would not look me in the eye. They were working—sweeping dirt floors, hacking at the soil in their gardens, grinding grain in wooden bowls. All women and children.
The well was in an open square, surrounded by a small tavern and a few huts. Some of the buildings lay in ruin. Perhaps they were once shops and this plaza had bustled with people clinking coins in their hands. The only movement now was the flapping of a wooden door in the wind.
The shaft by the well was circular and about six feet deep. Peering in, I could see rocks, a comb, red and blue bird feathers, spoons, animal bones, and one shoe on the bottom. I threw in the herbs. No rumble from the Earth. No lightning in the sky. I sat on a bench. The mountains rose behind me. Before me stretched the valley, resting under a deep blue sky, unbroken by clouds. The air felt crisp and cool.
I counted about twenty men and boys in the crop fields or herding the sheep. Not many, compared to the number of women and cottages. I could easily pick out the twins. Their red hair stood out. As did Ingen’s long blond hair. The three of them ran around Stillman as he and another man pulled at the oxen in front of the plow. I wondered if the boys were any help to their father at all.
He needed their help. The army had been here, too.
I pushed those thoughts away.
A sweet boy helped me carry the heavy bucket of water back to Tayte. A simple kindness, but one I was not used to.
As the day passed, Sir Kenway improved. He began to sit up, then to move around the cottage, finally settling on my stump outside for most of the afternoon, in deep thought. I sat in the dirt and chewed a piece of straw, feeling like a villager.
“Last night,” he asked, “you nursed me?”
“Yes.”
“And this morning, too?”
“I…yes.” My cheeks grew hot when I remembered my thoughts about him, my fingers caressing his face. I should not have been so intimate with him. Did he know?
He looked at me closely. “Are you well?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Yes.”
His brow furrowed as if he was trying to find a memory. “Did you—?”
“What?” I asked quickly.
He smiled a little. “Nothing.”
I turned my head and put my eyes to the heavens. Why was I so awkward with him?
“I remember talking,” he said, finally, “but not what I said. Last night.”
“You—you called out for Queen Audrey.”
At her name, his face fell. “Yes.”
I looked at the ground. Again, I felt a tightness in my own chest at his pain. “I know how you loved her,” I mumbled. I felt sad and lost and didn’t know if it was because I worried over him or rather that I mourned her myself.
“I didn’t protect her,” he said. He was so pale. Not better after all.
“All of us could say the same,” I said, wanting to put my hand upon his arm. “I slept beside her.”
He gave me a look that silenced me. He thought me glad of her death. But I didn’t like to think I wanted my freedom so much that I’d wish her dead. But hadn’t I? I remembered my joy at our escape from the castle. Would I give my freedom back for her life? I pressed my lips together to keep them from trembling. I thought I would not make that trade and that filled me with sadness.
“You were not told to protect her, Shadow.”
“What?” I didn’t say that Eldred had told me to do just that. “Why must we dwell on this?”
“I didn’t love her as you think I did,” he said suddenly.
Our eyes caught. “Yes…you did.”
“Not the way you imagined,” he said, his eyes not leaving mine.
A hope stirred in me. “No?”
He said nothing, but shook his head a little. I wondered if it could be true. The way he looked at me now, with such gentleness, I thought perhaps it might be. There seemed to be something in his look, more than just the desire I saw that night in his father’s castle. I smiled at him, and he
returned it and did not look away.
But then, as fate would have it, Ingen came out and sat between us. “We have much to do,” she said.
A look of irritation crossed Kenway’s face. Then to my surprise, he laughed. I caught his eye and laughed with him.
At supper, he didn’t complain about the smells in the cottage. He didn’t turn up his nose at the black bread and thin stew. Instead, he thanked Tayte and Stillman for helping us. When I raised my eyebrows in surprise, he noticed, but didn’t say anything to me.
In one way, he was the same.
“Shadow,” he said later, as we sat on the stump looking at the stars. “We leave on the morrow.” Always duty first.
We were to meet the witch.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tayte thrust her finger in his face. “You’re not well enough, Sir Kenway.” He was under her care, she told him. He’d not spoil her good work by collapsing in his saddle on the difficult trek into the mountains. “You can’t go yet, sir. Not yet!”
One look at her red, puffed-out face made Sir Kenway back down. We would stay another day.
The boys each took me by a hand and led me to the river. It was wide and low, filled with cold water from underground springs. Ingen had followed us in her quiet, bemused way. She was there, watching, but detached. I wondered at her thoughts. Sometimes an eerie feeling came over me when she looked at me. It was as if she knew my mind.
She was mostly by my side.
The four of us picked flowers growing on the bank. Made stick houses. Played war games, hiding behind trees and throwing stones at one another. I did not like that game, but Ingen and the boys did.
I slid off my silk hose and put my dusty feet into the green water. “Ahh,” I said, laughing. “It is cold.” I left them there, letting them turn numb.
“It’ll freeze your feet off,” Roe said, sitting beside me. “You’ll be walking on stumps.”
I smiled at him. “Will you help me hobble around on my ankles?”
He nodded shyly, his hand back in his pocket.