The Wisewoman (Waterspell 3)

by Deborah J. Lightfoot

  Verek was speaking, gesturing to recapture her attention.

  “I had a vague idea, Aunt Megella,” he said, turning sarcastic, “of where the road might lead. I guessed that a northerly course might eventually bring us into the North. And look!” He pointed at the trees that greened the brows of the cliffs. “It has done so. Up there is Ruain—the land of my birth.”

  “And of mine,” Megella snapped. “You sometimes forget, I think, that I too am a native of Ruain. Not all of us, however, are born to ride.”

  “Megella, look at me,” Carin said. The girl sounded sweetly determined to intercede before the argument overheated. “Look how easy it is to stay on this fellow.”

  Carin had untied one of the bobtails and was riding the horse past the wagon at a plottering pace. “His back is so broad, it’s like sitting on a table.” She demonstrated by perching cross-legged on the beast.

  “That’s right, Aunt Meg,” Verek said, a little too brightly. He was off his horse now and untying the other bobtail. “One of the animals will carry you, the other will take your worldly goods, and we will lash the whole lot firmly into place. By the time I am done roping you down, you will be in no possible danger of falling off.”

  Resistance was pointless. The two of them had already gone to work, neatly bundling Meg’s clothes, shawls, and medical stores into her blankets, making soft packs that they then lashed over the backs of the two bobtails. In the midst of the packs on one animal, they left a wide space—exactly wide enough, Megella realized with a flash of resentment, to accommodate her hips if she perched sideways on the horse.

  When they were done with Meg’s things, they packed up selected items from the rest of their gear and supplies, including the tea pot and the tea, a hard cheese, many slices of sun-dried meat, and bags of flatbread.

  Carin tied it all up in strips of the nondescript homespun fabric that she cut from the sides of Megella’s wagon. For the first time in months, the beautifully painted green and-yellow designs of Meg’s “woodpecker wagon” were revealed.

  “Such a shame,” she muttered, mostly to herself since Carin and Verek paid her no mind. “My pretty wagon. All this way it’s come. And now it will sit, abandoned in the sand until it rots or a storm floats it out to sea.” Meg backed up a little as the incoming tide brought seawater to lap at her feet.

  When Verek had secured their camp gear to the backs of Megella’s two sturdy cobs, he turned to her.

  “Now, Aunt, let’s get you mounted. Climb up on the wagon seat one last time while I bring your horse.”

  Dubiously, Megella did as he said. And when Verek led the bobtail up beside the wagon, she saw what he intended. Though Theil’s strength was much restored after his night of rain-soaked recuperation, he would have been hard put to lift Megella’s bulk onto the horse. So he only steadied the animal with its shoulder pressed against the wagon, while she managed to wiggle her rump onto its broad back.

  As Carin had said, it was much like sitting on a tabletop, dangling her legs, feet together. Meg felt surprisingly secure, wedged sideward amongst her packed clothes and blankets.

  “Good! Excellent,” Verek exclaimed as he led the horse a few steps away from the wagon. “You look immovable, sitting up there on that big fellow’s back. But just to be sure …”

  Theil’s voice trailed off as he worked out a way of tying Meg into place, using several of her shawls that he and Carin knotted into a soft rope.

  Only when Megella was firmly anchored did she point out the flaw in the arrangement.

  “What will you do, nephew of mine, when we have left the wagon behind us? How will you manage to hoist me up in days to come? Or do you intend me to stay horsed throughout the remainder of our journey? Will my feet not touch solid ground again until we ride through the gates at the House of Verek?”

  Theil laughed. “An excellent idea, Aunt. I had not considered it, but certainly I will take your plan under advisement. It has merit.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the trail that switchbacked up to the top of the cliffs. “Let’s get you up there first. All will be well, once we have gained the high ground.”

  Megella was sure, however, that she would die of fright before that moment arrived. The climb was even worse than she’d expected. Verek, riding in front, led one of the cobs, with Megella’s bobtail ambling along in the middle of the string. Just behind her came Carin, astraddle the other cob and leading the second bobtail, the horse that carried Meg’s possessions.

  Slowly they ascended, the cob in front of Megella resembling a goat as it skipped nimbly up the trail. Meg’s steady, unexcitable mount kept its head down and its feet plodding, somehow finding room for its big hooves on what seemed to be an impossibly narrow trail.

  The path angled upward, carrying them to a dizzying height on the exposed rock face before penetrating a stand of small, gnarled trees. There the trail leveled off briefly, but only so that it could make a turn and send them zagging up even higher. Back and forth, they worked their way up.

  Meg tried shutting her eyes to block out the sight of the sea, so far below them now. But riding with her eyes closed made her feel giddily unbalanced as the horse under her took a deliberate step, then shifted its weight to gather itself for the next lurch upward. So she rode with a twisted neck, seated sideways but locking her gaze forward.

  Each time the trail zigged or zagged, Megella glimpsed the face of the rider ahead or behind. Verek’s was tight with concentration.

  In the switchbacks he called out encouragement: “Steady. You’re doing well, Aunt. Don’t look down. Everything all right, fìleen?”

  Carin answered, “Yes! Fine!” But Megella thought the girl looked a bit gray under her suntan.

  Finally they were up. The trail heaved them into a luxuriant woodland of cedar and spruce. Under the trees, the air was cool and damp. Megella could still smell the ocean far below, but mingled with its tang were the perfumes of wildflowers. The blooms, with bees bustling about amongst them, nodded in a narrow band atop the sea cliffs where the sunlight was brightest. Farther in under the trees, the light dimmed, favoring the ferns and mosses that carpeted the forest floor.

  “Oh!” Carin exclaimed. “It’s beautiful.”

  The girl slid off her horse to stand in the ferns and circle slowly, studying this highland that seemed a world apart from the seashore they had just left.

  Does she feel it? Meg wondered. Does she know that she has passed from the ordinary world into the last wysards’ stronghold?

  The trail that climbed from the remote beach to this even more secluded forest was a path that few could travel. Only those who belonged in Ruain, Megella felt certain, could make that climb without falling to their deaths.

  She made no move to dismount. But from her perch on the bobtail, Megella watched Theil swing out of his saddle and go to his knees in a patch of moss.

  Carin rushed to him as though she thought something might be amiss. But as the girl joined him, Theil threw back his head and almost whooped with laughter. Then he pulled Carin down into the moss with him and kissed her long and well.

  “By the powers!” he swore, coming up for breath. “It was in my mind, long ago, to ride to the ends of Ruain. And now I have done so. No part of my province juts farther east than this headland. Before us stretches the happy prospect of riding the entire length of Ruain to return to the ancestral seat of House Verek.”

  He got to his feet and drew Carin up. “Come, fìleen, and turn your face west. We are heading for home now, and I will be your escort on a grand tour of my lands. By Drisha, it is good to be back!”

  Megella looked down and discovered that her hands were shaking. Muscles made taut with terror during the climb were now relaxing; the tension was leaving her.

  But something else also threatened to leave: her sense of a world beyond.

  This is the magic of Ruain, she thought. This is what keeps the place a secret.

  The province was remote enough that travelers
seldom found a way in, or had any reason to try. Its long frontier, from the sea cliffs in the east to the wooded highlands far to the west, ran through an uninhabited wilderness. But any mortal who chanced upon that secret frontier fell quickly under its spell. They forgot where they came from. They forgot that there was anyplace else to come from.

  Growing in Megella’s mind was a strong impression that Ruain was everything: this land encompassed the whole world. If she did not know what was happening to her, she would readily accept the impression, take it as fact and never question it. Why question what was so obviously true? Nothing else existed, only this land.

  Conversely, those few who straggled out of the province forgot it the moment they were gone. No common traveler ever carried away a tale of Ruain. Beyond its own borders, the place had no existence.

  Merriam had warned Megella of what would happen when the two sisters packed up and left. “Be on your guard,” Merri had said. “Cleave to your memories. Wysards may come and go unaffected. Mortals succumb to the spell unfailingly. But we of the in between”—as Merri preferred to call those whom others named “wisewomen”—“we have the power to resist, if we set our minds to it.”

  Meg set her mind. Many years ago, she and Merriam had paused just as they crossed out of Ruain. Their crossing had been far westward from these sea cliffs, along a stretch of border they had been able to drive to in a light, donkey-drawn cart. Deliberately then, methodically, they had fought the spell, fought to retain their memories of Lord Legary’s realm. Throughout their southward journey, the sisters had talked of what they remembered, firmly fixing their recollections.

  They had continued the exercise every time they met thereafter, when Meg had settled into her role as the wisewoman of Granger and Merri was tending to the people of neighboring Winfield. It was in the course of their long and detailed reminiscences that Megella learned much about the history and traditions of Ruain’s wysards. Merriam, Lord Legary’s then-estranged wife, had confided everything she knew about the House of Verek.

  Now Megella was back in Ruain, and the magic of this place was attempting to siphon away her memories of all the years she had spent outside its borders.

  “No,” she whispered, so softly that neither Theil nor Carin would hear. “You cannot take them. They are mine. I need them.”

  Tenaciously Meg held on to the life that she had lived. Some of her memories were of obvious value. She refused to give up all that she had learned about herbs and remedies and healing the sick. She clung to her memories of Granger, a village that had never esteemed her until it lost her. More fondly, she recalled her time in Easthaven, picturing the faces of the people who had made her welcome.

  Above all, she held on to Merriam.

  “Stay with me, Merri,” she whispered. “You must stay.”

  “Megella?” a woman’s voice questioned. “Are you all right? Do you need to get down?”

  Merriam’s face was so clearly fixed in Meg’s mind’s eye, for a moment Megella thought it was her sister who spoke. But then she focused her gaze and found Carin standing beside the bobtail, looking up at her, and looking worried.

  Meg rubbed her neck to ease the crick in it. “Thank you, widgeon, but no. I’m just remembering. I am remembering what it felt like to leave Ruain so long ago, in the company of my dear sister. And I am endeavoring to forget no detail of my return journey.”

  She looked for Verek and discovered him remounted, reining around to face her.

  “It behooves me to forget nothing,” Meg said to him, “though this land strives to bewitch away my memories of all that has transpired. You, Theil, feel no loss, I am certain.”

  “None,” Verek said. “I am eased, not lessened.”

  Megella turned back to Carin. “But what of you, duckling? Has anything been taken from you? Do you sense that some part of you is slipping away?”

  Carin shook her head. “No, not at all.” The girl looked up at Verek and smiled. “Really, it’s just the opposite. I feel like I have everything now. I have a place—a home. This is where I belong.”

  Yes, widgeon, Megella thought. From the time of your first appearance in Granger—your materialization in a place you had no business to be—I knew you were destined for this north country. But am I right to think, Carin, that your journey has not yet ended?

  As the girl boosted herself onto her horse, her shirt gapped open briefly, and Meg glimpsed the crystal dolphyn that Carin again wore round her neck, on the cord that replaced the string she had burned away.

  The other alien invaders—the strangleweed and the bleeding disease—were vanquished, so Carin had confidently stated on the morning after the lightning storm. “The cure’s in the water,” the girl had said, without elaboration.

  But what of Carin herself, the traveler from the world called Earth? She, too, was alien. Neither Carin nor the crystal she wore was native to Ladrehdin.

  The girl rode up and fell in beside Verek. Through here, the forest was so open they could ride two abreast. Carin led the second cob; Theil, the second bobtail. As they headed into the late afternoon sun, Meg’s stalwart mount ambled after them with no urging from her.

  Now that her horse was no longer lurching its way up a nearly vertical cliffside, Meg was quite comfortable sitting on its broad back, wedged among her packs. She was lashed down as securely as the bundles, in no danger of toppling off—even if she fell to napping.

  And after all, Megella the wisewoman had spent many a night dozing in a hard chair or balanced on a stool, keeping watch over a patient. Slumbering while sitting was second nature to her. She pulled her shawls up to shade her face, and in seconds she was dead to the world.

  * * *

  Voices woke her. Meg opened her eyes to darkness. For a moment, her surroundings were a mystery. Then she remembered, with a twofold feeling of relief: relief at being in Verek’s lands, while also recalling how she got here.

  “Shen!” Theil called from somewhere just ahead. “You old mucker. How have you been keeping?”

  “Blatherskite!” growled a man’s gruff voice. “I swear to Drisha I have not been in my cups tonight, but still I am seeing visions.”

  “Look again, old man,” Verek said. “I’m as real as that ax you’re jacking over your head. Put it down before you hurt yourself and come shake the hand of your liege lord.”

  “Drisha’s own!” swore the voice in the night. “My lord, I ain’t seen you out this way in—how long has it been? Eight years or more, I’m thinking.”

  “My neglect of these eastern reaches is unpardonable,” Verek said. “But I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me, Shen, when I tell you that you are the first man of Ruain to welcome my new bride into this land.”

  “Your bride!” exclaimed the one called Shen. “My stars,” he added, tempering his language as he realized that a gentlewoman was present. “And what a beauty she is. I am shamed that I can offer you nothing finer, my lady, than homebrew and venison. But please come into my poor shack and treat it as your own. All that I have is yours.”

  Megella’s horse had stopped trudging. It stood under her without twitching a muscle; she could barely detect the animal’s slow, deep breaths, but she felt the heat radiating from the bobtail’s massive body. Lashed to the horse’s sweaty back and wrapped up in her layers of shawls, she was altogether too warm.

  “Somebody get me off this animal,” Meg snapped, struggling to throw back her wraps. She flung aside the shawl that covered her eyes and found herself looking into the startled face of a man who was about her own age.

  Shen, she surmised. He had a craggy, clean-shaven face, long gray hair that fell loose over the shoulders of his dark shirt, and eyes that looked almost colorless in the light of the lantern he held.

  She thought at first that the man was a giant. As high off the ground as Megella was, perched atop her tall, blocky horse, the man’s eyes were on a level with hers. But then she realized he was standing on the porch of a ramshackle cabin b
uilt of unpeeled logs. Meg’s horse—evidently the creature was brighter than it looked—had stepped directly up to the porch and now stood patiently waiting for someone to take the load off its back.

  “Madam, I beg your pardon,” Shen said as he recovered himself. “I did not realize— Please, allow me.” He reached for her, but Meg waved him off.

  “First I must be untied,” she said, tugging at the nearest knot. “Lord Verek has trussed me up like a Mydrismas goose.”

  “Here,” Theil said, coming to help. “Let me.”

  In short order the two men had Meg unbound. Then Shen reached for her again and lifted her effortlessly onto the porch to stand beside him. He handled her as if she weighed no more than Carin did.

  It has been a long time, Megella thought, since any man has made me feel like a feather in his hands.

  Shen might not be a giant in the storybook sense, but he stood head and shoulders taller than Verek. When he swung her off the horse, Meg had felt the muscles ripple in his arms, and the hands that now steadied her on the porch were as hard as iron tongs.

  “Great-Aunt Meg,” Verek said, smiling, “I would like you to meet Shen, the steward of Ruain’s eastern forests. Shen, this is Madam Megella, whose sister Merriam was my grandmother.”

  “Your grand—!” Shen began, then bit off his exclamation. Gallantly he raised Meg’s hand to his lips and kissed it lightly. Then he ushered her and Carin through his cabin’s wide front door.

  “Please come in, ladies. I was about to have my supper. Your presence at my table tonight is a great honor.”

  The steward’s cabin was a rustic affair, its low-ceilinged central room dominated by a huge fireplace and a table of rough-hewn lumber. Its chairs, also homemade, were of dressed, unvarnished wood. The room smelled manly, of wood-smoke and tobacco, hides, and dogs. An alarmingly large and wolfish mongrel rose from its bed in the corner and came trotting to Megella, its tongue lolling out and its tail wagging leisurely, as though she were an old friend but not a particularly exciting one. From the wall above the dog’s bed, a mounted stag head with a great rack of antlers looked down. Its gaze seemed directed at a massive, cushionless armchair that had such a high back and long armrests, it was clearly made to fit the drawn-out frame of the cabin’s owner.