Pattern Sense
Page 4
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By summer’s end, news of war reached the valley.
Melisande hid her feelings beneath a comfortable cloak of group concern. But war has the ears of wolves, and the Lords of Osprey on Sea soon heard of a knitter in the village of Ull with a remarkably deft hand. One dreary day, two soldiers arrived on fine mounts, knocked on Melisande’s door and respectfully commissioned her to make clothing to warm the king’s army in the coming months. She bowed her head, holding a hand over her heart to hide the scar.
With somber industry, the soldiers provided her with yarn in shades of forests in winter. As the shadows grew long and the days shorter, Melisande worked, her pattern sense quiescent but aware, touching her hands like moonlight breaking through swiftly moving clouds. Neat stacks of socks, gloves, sweaters, leggings, and blankets filled the corners of her cottage until the soldiers came to carry them off in carts filled with the villagers’ offerings—including young men fit for battle. Three times they came, their horses thumping up the path, breaking Melisande from the needles’ rhythm. Three times she provided them with wares, her fingers rough and sore and her heart knowing the fear of every wife and maid with a swordsman’s favor.
Until one day.
The trees had lost their leaves a full moon past. The garden had been harvested and stored in the root cellar. Wind whispered in the chimney top, drawing drafts mingled with the smell of two-day-old soup warming on the stove. Melisande worked a blanket of white and considered another long winter without the warmth of a man in her bed. Without thinking, she eyed a skein of sun-gold yarn tucked into a shelf in the open wool cabinet.
Hoofbeats startled her from the blur of a long-lost notion. Her fingers tingled as she looked up at the window, pale twilight fading from the sky. It had not been long since the soldiers last came and she had only a few things to give them.
After an odd time, a heavy hand fell upon the door.
Her throat dry, Melisande rose to answer it. A blast of cold air whirled snowflakes into her face.
“Millie?” the dark figure said, pushing back his hood.
A shock of blood raced in her veins. She had almost imagined this while recently casting an extra stitch onto a row with an odd count.
“May I come in?” Othin asked. She nodded and moved out of the way. The swordsman entered, closed the door and hung his cloak on the hook as if he had lived there all his life. His cheeks were windburned and his warrior’s trappings were dulled by trouble. His raven hair was bound on his back with a piece of blue yarn. “I took the liberty of caring for my horse. I found feed in the loft.”
Still speechless, Melisande nodded. The village groom, who quite loved the barley-brown scarf she had knit for him, had put feed in her lean-to stable for the soldiers’ horses. She gestured to the low stack of woolens in the corner, some of it unfinished. “I don’t have much done if that’s why you’re here.” A daft comment. “But there’s soup if you’re hungry.”
“I am that.” He pulled out a chair at the table and sat. She shuffled to the stove feeling as old and unkempt as her tattered gray knitting bag. “I didn’t come for woolens,” he added behind her.
Melisande stirred the soup. Truly, she had knit the dropped stitches in the constable’s daughter’s cloak with nothing but tears, her pattern sense buried in the earth like an onion plug. If she had known the swordsman would return, she would have buried it deeper.
“Millie,” he said quietly to the silence. “Forgive me.”
She set a bowl and spoon before him, and then a half-loaf of hard bread covered by a soft-knit cloth with black cats stitched in it. “I never asked you to stay,” she reminded him. All knitting had closure in a bound-off row. Had she not taken great care to close every seam, gusset and neckband to protect the soldiers from cold and harm? Pattern sense favored such things.
The swordsman stared into his soup. “She is the captain’s daughter,” he began. The cold draft on Melisande’s heart told her to whom he referred. “She told him I had gotten her with child.” He picked up the spoon and lifted a dripping bite to his mouth. “I never touched her. But had I not taken her to wife I’d have been released from my station to a life of dishonor.”
Melisande sat down and put her hands in her lap. The trouble with binding off too tightly, she mused, was that the ribbing would not give. Twice, her fingers tingling, she had unraveled the stitches above the bind to end it differently.
The swordsman continued: “When news arrived that armies from across the sea planned to plunder our shores on the eve of winter, our minds turned to provisions. A man in my company had a fine cloak he claimed to have bought in Ull.” He looked up, his gray gaze touching her softly. “I’d have known those stitches anywhere.”
The blacksmith. He had traded the cloak Melisande made him to a soldier in return for more time to make swords. She had run out of black wool and used the soldiers’ gray along the trim, thinking it outstanding.
“On my wedding day,” Othin said, tearing off a chunk of bread, “I decided I would leave her and take to the road as a mercenary. My feelings must have shown in my response to the cloak. She branded me a blackguard and cast me from the house.”
Melisande had had one less sock after pilfering the soldiers’ yarn to finish the blacksmith’s cloak. Humming, she had settled for a mismatched pair. They would be hidden inside of boots. Well, most of the time.
“You don’t look like a mercenary,” she observed.
He set his spoon into the bowl. “I’m not. When she did not grow with child, her father forced the truth from her. She intended to snare me after the wedding and hope no one took note of the days.”
Melisande rose to take the swordsman’s bowl. On their second visit, the soldiers had asked, while nervously looking around at anything but her, if she might knit a pocket in the crotches of their leggings that they might take care of their business more easily. She did apologize for not having thought of that.
“I got lucky,” Othin said with a dry smile, for he did not believe in luck. He rose, moved to the fire and placed a piece of birch on the flames. “Your wood pile is sound.” He looked over his shoulder. “Did the mice return?”
Ignoring the question, Melisande went to his side. “Why have you come here, Othin?”
The name had never fit him so well as now, as he knelt there gazing with seasoned wisdom into the fire. He said, “The old men claimed never to have seen the likes of the storm that came. ‘Tis now believed the raiders’ entire fleet went down.”
“Then there’ll be no war?”
He shrugged. “Nothing we can’t handle, if anything.”
On the last new moon, it had occurred to Melisande, while casting on the stitches of a sailor’s cap, that storms at sea could be terrible this time of year. She had placed aside her fair colors for shades of fate and strife. After all, the sun could not shine all of the time.
The swordsman rose and stepped close to her, causing her to flush in the warmth of his presence, much finer than fine yarn. “My captain released me from my vows to his daughter and bade me to go home until things settle. So I came here.” He held out his hands. “If you’ll have me.”
Melisande placed her hands in his. “Well, the eaves could use some attention.” She smiled.
She had not heard a mouse since humming to a kitchener stitch, of course. But as the swordsman took her into his arms, she remembered that pattern sense worked best through a gentle hand.
Thank You
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Wizards, Woods and Gods, Second Edition
The Otherworld takes shape in this collection of twelve stories told on a rich tapestry of swords, sorcery, romance, dreams, visions and verse. Ancient gardens, lost temples, cosmic alignments, immortal predators, assassins, shapeshifters, warriors and maidens will transport you to realm
s where the rules are different, nothing is as it seems and the heart keeps the balance of ages.
The Second Edition of Wizards, Woods and Gods, originally published by Wild Child Publishing, now includes the novella “Water Dark,” a tale of desire and deception told on a fairy-tale landscape of arcane texts, witchcraft and disasters at the hands of the powerful. This edition also includes “Pattern Sense.”
"F.T. McKinstry has a gift for unique stories."
Find out more: Wizards, Woods and Gods
Outpost
A race of immortal warriors who live by the sword.
A gate between the worlds.
Warriors, royals, seers and warlocks living in uneasy peace on one side of the Veil.
Until now.
“Pattern Sense” was the original inspiration for Outpost, Book One in The Fylking, high fantasy woven with Norse mythology, swords and sorcery.
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"One of the best independently published fantasy novels of the past year." Self-Publishing Review
Find out more: Outpost
About the Author
F.T. McKinstry grew up studying music and reading books. An old-school fantasy geek, she acquired a deep love for fantasy, science fiction and the esoteric, of which she was an avid reader. With a background in computer electronics and software development, she wrote and illustrated technical documentation for many years, during which time she created fantasy worlds. She is inspired by plant and animal lore, Northern European legend and mythology, fairy tales, mythical creatures, music, medieval warfare and shamanism. She also enjoys oil painting, gardening, yoga, hanging out with her cats and fishes, and being in the woods.
Other Titles by F.T. McKinstry
The Fylking
Outpost
The Chronicles of Ealiron
The Hunter’s Rede
The Gray Isles
Crowharrow
Ascarion
Short Stories
Wizards, Woods and Gods
The Eye of Odin
Earth Blood
The Om Tree
Pattern Sense
Connect with F.T. McKinstry
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