Into the Green

by Charles de Lint

  "And maybe I won't!" Tow called after him.

  Owen trotted up the street until he had the fisherwoman in view once more, then held to the pace she kept.

  Find and follow the fisherwoman.

  Well, that was proving easy enough.

  See where she goes...

  Owen had a sinking feeling as he followed the woman across the market. Sure enough. She was heading for the Hill. Now how was he supposed to follow her up there? If the town guard caught him prowling about the Hill's hoity-toity streets, they'd take him for one of the Upright Man's urchins.

  Mind you, he thought, dressed as she was, Edrie's fisherwoman wouldn't be going very far either without being stopped.

  He got close to her as she paused on Bellsilver Lane, right there at the foot of the Hill, and relaxed when he saw the indecision on her face. Good. She realized she wasn't garbed for this place as well. But then she spied a serving girl. She gave the girl a considering look, then after waiting a moment, followed her up one of the back lanes that went up by the rear of the stately houses.

  Sighing, Owen followed.

  Was there ever a lad taken on at a hiring fair that got a stablehand's job such as his? He spent as much time gadding about the town on one errand or other as he did in the stables themselves. Not that the Pipe & Tabor did such a booming trade with those rich enough to keep horse, but still there was work enough to...

  He came to an abrupt halt and darted in behind some hawthorn bushes. Not a half dozen feet in front of him, while he was busy complaining away to himself, the fisherwoman had paused. A hoyer— one of those shaggy tan-and-grey dogs that had been brought to the Isles from the Continent since the end of the last war— had come out of a nearby yard to growl at her.

  Don't try to make friends, Owen thought. A hoyer will as soon bite your hand as lick it.

  But the fisherwoman showed no fear. She knelt on the grass verge of the lane and held her hand out to the dog. Hackles lifted about its neck, the dog approached her on stiff legs. Owen wanted to turn away— he hated the sight of blood— but he felt as though he was frozen in place.

  "You're a long way from home, aren't you?" the fisherwoman said.

  The hoyer gave a few short barks, but they didn't sound threatening. More... quizzical, Owen thought, beginning to feel confused himself. The beast's hackles were lowering and it began to wag its tail.

  "No," the woman said. "But I have kin there."

  Something odd happened whenever she spoke. Owen heard a buzzing in his ears— a low, humming undercurrent that echoed in unison with her words.

  The dog barked again.

  "Yes," the woman said. "I'm looking for kin here as well. Their blood sleeps, but they are still in great danger because of it."

  Again the hoyer barked.

  "I thought you might have seen them. Does he keep them in the house?"

  A low growl came in response.

  "I could. But where would you go? If you're seen with me, they'll merely bring you back and throw me in their gaol."

  A whine.

  "All right. I'll come back for all of you tonight."

  She acted, Owen thought, as though she was conversing with the dog. He imagined himself telling Edrie about this.

  Do I have news for you, mistress? Indeed, I do. Your fisherwoman's stark raving mad. For today's lark she went creeping about the back lanes of the Hill, talking to animals. Fair gave me the creeps, it did.

  Though what was eerier still, he realized, was that he could almost imagine that the hoyer was talking back. That they understood each other.

  He began to circle about the hawthorn bush he was hiding behind, so that the fisherwoman wouldn't see him when she turned to go back to the market.

  Careful now, he told himself. If she talks to animals, maybe she talks to bushes too.

  He had just got himself better hid when he heard the crunch of boots against the dirt surface of the lane. Looking out through a webwork of branches and leaves, he saw Aron Corser's two witch-finders approaching the woman and the dog.

  Witch-finders.

  The woman talking to the dog.

  Arn help him, he'd been shadowing a witch.

  Owen started to feel a little sick.

  18

  You're a long way from the harbor for a scaly-girl."

  So intent had Angharad been on her conversation with the hoyer that she hadn't noticed the approach of the two men. When she did look up to find them regarding her, her pulse quickened uncomfortably.

  Of all the bad luck. They were two of Corser's witchfinders— she recognized them immediately. The same two who had taken the boy, Jackin Toss, away from the Pipe & Tabor earlier that day. Now here they stood, swaggeringly tall and broad-shouldered, hands on the hilts of their swords, their attention all too plainly centered on her. How much had they seen? How much had they heard?

  She hid her sudden dismay behind a quick nervous smile and rose to her feet.

  "Looking for prawns, were you?" the other man asked.

  "Oh no, sir. I'm—"

  "In deep trouble, skulking about where you don't belong," the first man said. "Perhaps you'd like to explain to the guard what you're up to?"

  Beside Angharad, the hoyer bristled at the man's sharp tones. A low growl rumbled in its chest.

  Don't, she willed to the dog. You'll just make it worse.

  Unfortunately, for all the small gifts that her Summerblood gave her, speaking mind to mind was not one of them. As the hoyer took a stiff-legged step towards the men, she reached into her pocket for her bundle of rowan twigs. A face full of burning twigs probably wouldn't stop them, but it might be just enough for her to make her escape.

  "Back off, Magger," one of the men told it.

  As the hoyer hesitated, the man gave Angharad a suspicious look.

  "Curious," he said. "It's not like the hound to take so to a stranger, is it, Dagor?"

  "Not normal at all," Dagor agreed.

  "Makes a man wonder if there's more to this scaly-girl than she'd like us to believe."

  Dagor took a step closer, ignoring the hoyer's warning growl. "Doesn't have the fish reek about her, either, Hoth."

  Angharad gripped her rowan bundle more tightly. Ballan damn them, they weren't giving her much choice.

  "Might be she has some kind of... magic about her," Hoth said.

  Witch-finders. They had a kind of sorcerous talent as well, but it wasn't one granted by the Summerlord. They were Lithun's unwitting agents, gifted by the Winterlord with the ability to bend men's wills to their own. And to smell out witches.

  She might have stayed hidden from them if she'd been able to stay out of their way, but at such close proximity as this it was impossible for her to hide her Summerblood from them. They knew what she was, as surely as tinkerfolk recognized their own, no matter where they met. She could see it in the men's eyes. Now they were merely toying with her for their own amusement.

  "Talking to the hound, wasn't she?" Dagor said.

  Hoth nodded. "Sure sign of a witch— conversing with animals."

  "Turned old Magger against us, while here we are, doing his master's work for him."

  "Doesn't seem right," Hoth agreed.

  Angharad noted that Magger's threatening growls appeared to make no difference to them. With what she'd heard of the hoyer breed, she knew that the dog could take a man down more quickly than most men could unsheathe a sword. And since it was obvious that Magger was determined to protect her, the witch-finders were either a pair of fools or very good at the warrior's trade.

  Given their relaxed stances, the easy assurance with which they carried their every movement, Angharad feared it was the latter.

  "Best you call off the dog, witch," Dagor told her. "Master Corser won't be too pleased with us if we have to kill his prize hoyer, but he'll understand the why of it when we tell him the whole of the tale."

  "And then it's you he won't be pleased with," Hoth said.

  Dagor nodded. "You do
n't want to even consider what that will be like."

  "I've no magical alibi—"Angharad began.

  "Cram it sideways, witch," Hoth said, the mildness of his voice belying the intent of what he said.

  Dagor nodded. "Or we'll do it for you with the butt of a sword— after we kill the dog. Master Corser collects your kind, but he doesn't much care what shape they're in when we bring them to him."

  "There's only one part of you that he requires intact," Hoth said.

  Dagor smiled. "And I believe you know what part my brother means."

  Angharad shivered slightly, fingers trembling out of sight in her pockets. The knuckles of the hand holding the rowan twigs were white from the pressure she exerted on the bundle.

  To call off the hoyer was to admit to what she was. But she didn't see that she had any other choice. The witch-finders couldn't be so calm unless they were capable of killing Magger. She didn't want to be responsible for the poor creature's death. But to just give herself up to them...

  She started to take her hand from her pocket, calling up the witch-fire from the rowan as she did.

  A new voice stopped her before she had the bundle free and ignited.

  "Are you having some trouble with these men, miss?"

  Neither she nor the witch-finders, not even the hoyer, had heard the stranger approach. One moment they were alone in their confrontation, the next he was standing nearby, a tall man with handsome features and dark grey eyes. Not a lord nor merchant from the Hill, but not a commoner either. Angharad couldn't place him at all. There was a sense of hidden power about him, but it had neither the taste of Lithun's touch nor the green.

  "This doesn't concern you, Lammond," Hoth said.

  Angharad was surprised at the uneasiness that now touched the witch-finder's voice.

  "Let me decide what concerns me or not," the stranger said. He turned to Angharad. "Are they bothering you?"

  Keep it simple, she told herself, for there's far more at play here than meets the eye.

  She nodded in response to his question. "I was just looking at the lords' houses, sir," she said. "I stopped to pat the dog— I... I had a dog at home— and then these men began their bullying..."

  "That's not surprising with the brothers Staiyon."

  "I've just never seen houses so fine," Angharad said, putting a proper touch of wonder to her voice.

  The stranger nodded, then turned his attention to the Staiyons. "She's under my protection now— understood?"

  "Corser won't like—" Dagor began.

  "Ask me, do I care?"

  Hoth held up his hands in a placating manner. "This round belongs to you, Lammond, but it doesn't end here."

  "I have the time," the stranger said, "if you care to finish it now."

  Hoth shook his head. "I don't think so." He gave his brother a sharp look, then turned his gaze to Angharad. "Think you're rescued, do you? You'll be wishing you came with us before this is through."

  He turned his back on them and set off down the lane. Dagor hesitated for a long moment, then turned as well to follow his brother. The stranger waited until they were well away before finally turning to Angharad.

  "Lammond d'es Teillion, miss," he said. "At your service."

  Angharad returned his short bow with an awkward curtsy. "Ann Netter, sir. Thank you ever so much for helping me just now. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come along. They were saying the most awful things."

  Easy, she told herself. Don't lay it on too thick.

  She regarded Lammond from under lowered eyelashes, trying to read him. What was the source of enmity between him and the witch-finders? Had she finally found herself an ally-

  Think you're rescued, do you ? the witch-finder had said.

  — or had she merely stepped from an obvious danger into a more subtle one?

  The short time she'd already spent in Cathal had left her thoughts so knotted up that she wasn't ready to trust anyone.

  "The Hill's not the place to go strolling," Lammond said. "Not unless you're one of them."

  He said that final word with distaste.

  "Oh, I see that now, sir," Angharad said.

  "Call me Lammond— I'm no lord."

  "If you please, Lammond, sir."

  He shook his head, but didn't correct her a second time.

  "I never meant to cause any trouble," Angharad went on.

  "I never thought you did. Do you have a place to stay in town?"

  "I've a room at the Badnough Inn."

  "Let me walk you there," Lammond said.

  "Oh, thank you."

  Angharad had to hide a smile at the look of exasperation that came into her rescuer's features. Good, she thought. I'll play up the ingenue, if that's what it takes to keep a distance between us.

  She bent down and ruffled Magger's fur. "I'll be back," she breathed in his ear, then stood up.

  "Goodbye, pup," she said aloud.

  Lammond shook his head. "Pup! Did you know that on the Continent they train those hounds for the battlefield?"

  "Mor!" Angharad said. A fisherfolk's exclamation. "Have you been to the Continent, sir? I mean, Lammond. That is..."

  She called up a blush and cast her gaze down at her feet.

  "Come," he said. He took her arm and led her back down the Hill. "I'll tell you what it's like in those lands across the Grey Sea."

  19

  Tom Naghatty couldn't get the witch to leave his head.

  He lay in his nest of refuse in the alleyway where Angharad had left him, face turned to the alley's dead-end wall, but he was blind to its stonework. Instead, he saw only her. She sat there behind his eyes, endlessly stirring his memories; her features so heartstoppingly reminiscent of another face, from another time, a time lost long ago; that damnable kind look in her eyes, the sweet tone of her voice...

  "Damn the woman."

  He rolled over to look out the mouth of the alleyway where the townfolk bustled about their business in the marketplace. He sat up slowly. For the first time in months he was aware of how he smelled— a foul combination of rank body odors, stale beer and Dath knew what else. He looked down at the grime under his nails, the dirt worked into the pores of his skin, the rags that passed for clothing.

  He worked hard to forget. The times he wasn't drunk, or sleeping off a drunk, he was acquiring the wherewithal to get drunk. It was a simple, mindless existence that he had developed to a methodical perfection. It didn't require the interference of a witch to undo with a few kind words. That kindness woke memories best left where they belonged— with his missing eye and the full use of his leg.

  The witch wanted him to feel again, but feeling encompassed remembering, and remembering only hurt. What use was the gift of the green if all it brought was pain?

  "Damn her."

  He stumbled to his feet, gaze blurring. It took him a moment of leaning against the wall, a time of shallow breathing while he waited for the sick feeling in his gut to subside, before he felt well enough to shuffle down to the mouth of the alleyway. A hand thrust into his pocket told him that he had enough coin for one flagon of ale.

  One flagon.

  It wasn't enough, but it would have to do until he could beg the price of a proper forgetting.

  About to step from the alleyway, he paused.

  There she was again.

  The memories churned inside him, raw and bleeding. And Dath help her, but wasn't she in the company of d'es Teillion himself?

  Someone should warn her, he thought. He could do it. All it would take was for him to call out to her over the crowd. But that would bring d'es Teillion's attention to him. He couldn't face those dark grey eyes. Not again. He could remember all too clearly having that tall lean frame, with its perfect posture, bent over him, the long narrow sword held negligently in one hand, the sword tip toying with the rags on his chest while d'es Teillion said,

  "Tell me a story..."

  Memories.

  That was what they all want
ed of him.

  Memories.

  Warning that damnable woman would do the same thing. In her gratitude, wouldn't she redouble her efforts to help him? And wouldn't that just make him remember all the more?

  But he didn't want to remember. All he wanted to do was to forget.

  So he watched the two figures, her trim form set side by side with his more predatory height, the pair of them strolling the market like old friends, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm. He watched until the crowd swallowed them from his sight.

  Then he went to drown his memories in that flagon of ale.

  One flagon.

  It wouldn't be enough.

  It was never enough.

  20

  Edrie listened to Owen's stumbling account of what he had seen, her concern growing proportionately as the story unfolded.

  "What house was it that she stopped at?" she asked when he was done.

  "The witch-finders spoke of Master Corser— and there was the hoyer, wasn't there?— so it must have been his house."

  Of course, Edrie thought. The hoyer. Who else in Cathal had one of those vicious hounds? And where else would a Summerborn go to help her kin but to the lair of the creature who collected her people?

  "You said she spoke to the hoyer?" Edrie asked.

  Owen nodded. "It was—" He shaped the Sign of Horns with a quick nervous action of his fingers. "It was like she wasn't talking to it, ma'am, but with it. Like they understood each other, if you know what I mean."

  "With it," Edrie repeated softly. Her voice was distant, her gaze distant.

  "Is she a witch, ma'am?"

  Edrie blinked. "A witch? I don't think so. No more than Jackin's a witch."

  There. That wasn't a complete lie, was it? Let Owen make of it what he would.

  Her stablehand nodded slowly. "But then why did the witch-finders want her?"

  "Who knows? She's pretty, isn't she?"

  Owen grinned. "Very."

  "No doubt they were trying to scare some favors from her."