McKillip, Patricia A - Winter Rose

by Winter Rose(Lit)

  I swallowed what felt like a whole radish. "Who?" "Aleria Turl."

  I sucked in breath, just like an old gossip. "Aleria, she's a child! And plain as a summer squash."

  Perrin grinned. "She's not that young, and she's had her eye on Crispin since she was seven. Maybe that's why he's working so hard suddenly."

  "He'll take the money and run," our father grunted. Perrin shook his head.

  "I'll wager not. He's still here. If he were going to run, he'd have done it the moment she told him. And he can't argue it's not his-everyone knows Crispin was all she ever wanted. And everyone knows her. He'll stay." "He'll run," my father said briefly. "He's too lazy to run."

  "He'll not make his own wedding."

  "He will," Perrin insisted. "He won't leave the place he knows."

  Laurel looked at me; I shook my head. I knew both of them and neither of them at all, it seemed. That Crispin would father a child with a girl with eyes like gooseberries and a mouth like a paper cut seemed inconceivable to me; that she might possess secrets and mysteries that caused him to veer wildly off his chosen course of doing as little as possible was something no one would have bet on. But there it was.

  "A keg of your apple brandy to a cask of my beer," said Perrin, who grew hops, "that he'll stay to marry her." "When?" I asked Laurel. She was smiling a little, ruefully, at the bet, or at Aleria.

  "Summer's end," she said. "How long can she wait? And that's not all - I found another curse."

  "They're growing," our father said, slapping himself, as thick as gnats."

  "What is it?" Perrin asked, chewing celery noisily. 1 leaned my face on my hands, staring at Laurel, wondering at all the imminent, invisible dooms hurtling across generations at someone who had not even been born before he was cursed, if he had ever been born at all.

  "Leta remembered it," Laurel said. "She had drunk some port for the pain in her hip, and she cleaned out her attic, as Caryl Gett put it."

  Perrin chuckled. "Go on. What did she find up there?"

  "That Nial Lynn had cursed his son with his dying breath saying, `You are the last of us and you will die the last: As many as you have, your children will never be your own.' "

  We were silent; it seemed, oddly, more terrible than the other curses. Perrin broke the silence.

  "If that's true, then who is in the wood rebuilding Lynn Hall?"

  I turned to stare at him. But it was an idle question; he did not wait for an answer. He pushed himself up, sighing, and went to kiss Laurel.

  "Thank you," he said. "I must be up at dawn." "I know."

  "Will you miss me?" "Will you?"

  I got up at that point, and wandered across the grass. I heard our father call Beda to come and clear the cloth. I stood looking across the half-mown fields to where, I knew, Lynn Hall would be bathed in moonlight, broken and not yet healed, still open to light and rain and any­thing that moved.

  "Rois," Laurel called, and I turned reluctantly. A stray raindrop hit my mouth as I went in. A few more pattered on the steps, vanishing instantly on the warm stone. I looked up, but it was only a passing cloud, a reminder of what was to come.

  I took the soup to Leta Gett the next day, wanting to hear more of what she remembered of the curse and Nial Lynn. Who told you? I wanted to ask. Were you there? Who was there, that saw the murder and told of the curse? What did Nial Lynn do to his son that drove his son to murder? And that made Nial so hated that everyone looked the other way while the murderer fled? And if everyone was looking the other way, who was there to see what happened and to hear the curse?

  But Leta Gett was sound asleep. Her daughter, Caryl, took the soup and the wild lilies I brought for her. When I asked about the curse, she only shook her head and sighed.

  "It was a long winter, and too many people had too little to do besides spin tales. Nial Lynn was murdered, his son vanished, but no one was there to hear Nial's final opinion, if he said anything at all about the matter." Then she smiled. "It's all we're doing again: tale-spinning. Rois, will you make my mother a tea against the pain? She can't keep drinking port."

  I promised I would. It gave me a reason to go back into the wood, to look for camomile and lady's-slipper. I would bring back water from the secret well, I told my­self, knowing that I would go there, not for Leta Gett's sake, but for the sake of memory. I would drink the sweet water and watch the light....

  I crossed the green and heard the flock outside the apothecary's door: ancient men and women sunning themselves on his benches while they waited for his potions. In the light their hair looked silver and white-gold, their skin softly flowing like velvet, or melting beeswax. The gnarled bones in their hands resembled the roots of trees. They sat close to one another, arguing intensely in their bird voices, not listening, just wanting to remember. They paused briefly, their eyes, smoky with age, putting a name to me, a place. And then, as I entered the apoth­ecary's open door, they began to speak again. I stopped in the shadows to listen.

  " ... will die at the year, the hour and the moment I die, and so will all your heirs."

  " ... will hate as I have hated, and die as I have died, and your sons, and their sons . . . " .

  “ ... never speak your own name again, and no one will know you when you die, and even your gravestone will stand silent. . . "

  "'None of your name will raise this house again, nor ill the fields grow for any of your name, for I bequeath all to the wood and that is my final will.'"

  I felt hollow suddenly, as if I heard the dying man's voice among their voices. The apothecary, filling a cobalt jar, said lightly, "They've been like this for days; it's just something to do. Telling stories of the dead, to remind them that they are still alive. Did you want something, Rois? "

  I shook my head, swallowing. "Just to hear them. Just an answer."

  He paused, then corked his cobalt. "It's my guess Nial Lynn broke his neck falling down drunk, and his son was never even there. Will that do?"

  I bequeath all to the wood ...

  He has his grandfather's face ...

  I straightened, pushing myself away from the wall. "It will do," I said, "until the next."

  He smiled, though I could not. "Send Mat Gris in here, will you? And I could use more mandrake, if you spot it."

  "Yes," I said, remembering. "I know where it grows." And that's where he found me early next morning: beside the wild raspberries and beneath the silver elm, digging up mandrake root in the shadow of Lynn Hall.

  Three

  Again I could not see his face; it seemed blurred with light. Then I realized that he stood with his back to the rising sun, and though light spilled everywhere around him, his face was in shadow. He squatted down beside me to see what I was pulling out of his land, and I could see him clearly.

  His face, like everyone's, was burned brown by the sun; his hair, streaked with all shades of gold, fell loosely across his brow. His lashes were ivory. He regarded me curiously out of heavy-lidded eyes; their green, washed with light, seemed barely discernible, an unnamed color that existed only in that moment. His hands, reaching for what I held, were big, lean, muscular; hauling stones, up­rooting trees for half the summer, had laid muscle like smooth stones under his skin. He looked older than Perrin, or maybe only his expressions were older.

  "I've seen you," he said, "in the village." His voice was light, calm; his eyes said nothing more. He looked down at what he held. "Mandrake."

  "It's for the apothecary," I said. I still crouched in the elm roots, staring at him. He seemed human enough; he met my stare and matched it, expressing nothing but mild curiosity, until I added impulsively, "They say you're cursed."

  "Oh." He looked away then, smiling a little. "So I've heard."

  "Well, which is it?" "Which what?" "Which curse? Which is true?"

  He stood up then, studying the mandrake root in his hand. He did not answer my question. "What's this good for?"

  "Sleep," I said. "Love." I rose, too, aware of the soft bracken under my f
eet, the cool, crumbled earth beneath, the scents our movements stirred into the air. "It's dan­gerous," I added. "I don't use it; the apothecary knows how. "

  "Is this what you do?" he asked. "Find things for the apothecary?"

  "I find things," I said. "Herbs for cooking and for soothing oils, flowers to dry, roots and berries that may be useful, or may not be. I don't find things for anyone;

  I take what catches my eye, and then give them away or use them."

  "Are you a witch?"

  The question made my breath catch, it was so unexpected. Then I laughed. "No, of course not. I just love these woods."

  He smiled too. "Yes. So do I. You know my name; I don't know yours."

  "Rois Melior. My father has that farm just east of your land."

  "Ah, yes." He looked down at the root he held. "Don't you have a sister-?"

  "Laurel."

  "Laurel Melior." He said her name softly to the man­drake root; I heard the letters lilt and glide as if he spoke an unfamiliar language. Then he put the root into my hand. He glanced toward a sound; again his eyes caught light, and I thought, surprised by what I already knew: Light does not always reveal, light can conceal. "What is your father's name?" he asked.

  "Mathu."

  "Perhaps I will come and visit. It would be neigh­borly. "

  "Yes," I said instantly. "My father loves company. But I warn you, we are all very curious about you. Es­pecially me."

  He looked at me, smiling the little, pleasant smile that said nothing. "Why you?"

  "Because you live in these woods."

  His expression did not change. I saw you, I wanted to cry then, shaping out of light beside the secret well; you are not human, you are wood; you are the hidden underground river; you are nothing we know to name.

  "Not yet," he said. "But soon." "Soon?"

  "I barely have a roof on my house to live here." He turned his head again toward voices - a shout, a laugh; his workers were arriving.

  "Here comes your house," I said, and his face opened then.

  "I hope so," he said with feeling. "At least one room, a door, a fireplace, and a roof over it all that won't leak icicles above my head all winter."

  "You don't act like a man cursed," I said baldly; he shrugged the curse away, more interested in his roof. "That's in the past," he said a little shortly, and I added, apologetic,

  "Tell me if you want me not to dig on your land." "Oh, no," he said quickly, and found my eyes again. "If you love these woods, you will do no harm. Come as you want, take what you like. Perhaps you can give me advice when I begin to clear the gardens."

  I nodded. He lifted a hand in farewell, and went to meet his workers; I heard him whistle to a mockingbird, and the bird's mocking answer.

  "I spoke to him," I told Laurel breathlessly, later, as I piled roots and myrtle leaves and wild orchids on the table. She fingered the mandrake root curiously. "Who?"

  "Corbet Lynn." "Is this him?"

  "What?" She looked up, then dodged the orchid I threw at her. She was laughing.

  "They look so strange, these roots ... like little shrunken images. Did you ask him about the curse or were you polite?"

  "Of course I asked him. And of course he did not answer." I moved around the table restively, frowning, seeing him as he wanted us to see him, then, confused, remembering what I knew he was. "I was rude. He wouldn't be likely to tell some stranger how his father died, or what compelled him to return here."

  "No," Laurel said thoughtfully. "You're right." "But maybe with enough of our father's brandy in him, he'll tell us something."

  She gathered the orchids. "You're very curious about him."

  "And who isn't?"

  "What does he look like?"

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Words wanted to come out of me, words I had never used for any man. His hair, I wanted to say. Those eyes. That warm skin. His hands. I could not speak. But I told her; she stared at me, wide-eyed, and breathed, "Rois, you're blushing."

  I felt the heat in my face then; I looked away quickly, wondering at myself. "It's hot," I said shortly. Laurel, tactful as always, studied the orchids as if they might sud­denly take wing. But a little smile came and went on her lips. I leaned against the table, suddenly helpless in the heat, confused as much as ever.

  "It's nothing," I said finally. "I'm not used to strang­ers. Around here, there's so little new to look at."

  Her brows went up, and then together. She said softly to the orchids, "I hope he is a kind man."

  "I don't know. I didn't ask for kindness. Just to wan­der in his wood."

  She lifted her eyes then, smiling again, but still with the faint, worried frown between her brows. "Did he mind?"

  "No. He loves the wood too, he said. He said I could go where I wanted. .." The frown was fading; I added, "He seems to want, above all, a roof over his head. He means to stay through winter. He means to stay."

  I heard her loose a breath." Good," she said briskly. "Then we can get to know him better."

  "The curses," I said slowly, "deal so much with hate. There seems nothing about him to hate. He just seems like one of us. Come home. But from some strange, dis­tant place."

  "Some strange past . . ." She was, I realized then, every bit as curious as I. As who wouldn't be, in that place where the little that happened loomed so large we were still talking about it down the generations.

  I did not see him again in the wood then, though I could have; I could have looked for rosehips in the tan­gled gardens, or burdock seeds. But I could not pretend, under those strange eyes, about what I had truly come to find. I could have watched him secretly; I was afraid those eyes would find me. How could I hide anywhere in his wood?

  So I roamed the wild wood, far from the sound of axes and hammers and voices, and waited for him to come to us.

  He did finally, in civilized fashion, riding down the road after supper one evening on his buttermilk mare, carrying a handful of roses that had not been stifled by vines in the old garden for Laurel and me, and a bottle of fine port from the inn for my father. He had not ac­counted for Perrin, but he gave him a handshake and a friendly smile, and sat with us on the stone porch, as we always did, watching the day slowly bloom into night.

  That's how it always seemed to me: not the fading of a withered flower, but the opening of some dark, rich blossom, with unexpected hues and heady scents. I sat to one side of Laurel on the steps; Perrin sat between her and our father on the long bench. Corbet dropped onto the steps, near my father, his body turned a little, as mine was, so that he could see both us and the fading colors in the sky. In the twilight, his pale hair and loose white shirt were vaguely visible. The rest of us were hardly clearer. Our father was a scent of pipe smoke, a burly shape; Laurel was a wing of white, now and then, when she lifted her hand to brush away an insect, and the light cloth of her sleeve glided on air. Perrin was a voice, a faint scent of hay and sweat, for he had come as usual straight from the fields. I don't know what I was: a voice, a pair of eyes, watching that pale head turned toward me, toward Laurel, toward our father, toward the night.

  Then our father called Beda, and she brought us fat beeswax candles, and cups and my father's brandy. Fire streaked the dark; moths flew toward the flames, dancing around them, compelled and doomed, until fire touched them and they dropped like autumn leaves.

  Light and shadow slid randomly over our faces as we talked: now revealing one eye and concealing the other, now stroking clear a straight jawline, now hiding a smile or a little anxious frown. As the brandy passed, questions came more easily.

  "So you are to be married," Corbet said, looking from Laurel to Perrin. His head turned; shadow masked his eyes, but his smile remained. "Next spring?"

  "It does seem long," Laurel said, answering the ques­tion in his voice. "But Perrin and I have known each other all our lives, and there's no reason for haste. I want to savor the expectation."

  "With every stitch in every fine sheet," I teas
ed. "Yes, and lace on every garment. Also, Perrin has been building a cottage for us behind his parents' house, so we'll have a place of our own."

  "You live with them?" Corbet asked Perrin. "They're getting on," Perrin said easily. "My father still milks -he loves his cows. But I take care of the fields and even some of the milking; his hands are getting stiff. My mother cooks; my older sister does everything else for them. So you see, there's not much privacy."

  "I see."

  "And the house will go to my sister, if she doesn't marry, though most of the farm will go to me. I'd as soon have a place of our own. I'll build onto it, as we have children. But building takes its time-you know that."

  "Yes." Corbet swallowed apple brandy. "This is wonderful."

  "It's my grandfather's secret, the making of it," our father said, and Laurel swiftly caught up the thread. "Did they know each other? Your father and Corbet's grandfather?"

  My father was silent a moment, his brows knit, either trying to remember or straining to be tactful. Corbet said lightly, "Everyone knows everyone, here."

  "I think," our father said finally, "they did not get along."

  We all laughed. Corbet, his head bowed so that his hair shone and his face slipped into shadow, said ruefully, "What a reputation the man had. Even his dog hated him, I've heard."

  We were all silent then, questions trembling along the weave of fire and night between us: Why was he so hated? Why did his son kill him? What was the curse? How did your father die? Who are you?