The Wisewoman (Waterspell 3)

by Deborah J. Lightfoot

  “The last time I journeyed to Glimmerdon, my lord, I saw whole families out in the fields, hurrying, before summer was too far advanced, to replant what the weed had stripped bare.”

  Megella saw Verek give Carin’s hand a squeeze. Then he let her go, and with a deep sigh, leaned back in his chair.

  “You give me much reason to hope, Shen, that the worst is past,” Theil said. “If the fields can be reseeded quickly, then we may expect a bountiful harvest this fall. And surely no household will be short of firewood this winter. The trees the weed killed will blaze on every hearth when the north winds blow.”

  Verek pushed back from the table and stood. “My thanks to you for a fine supper and even better tidings. Now we should rest. It grows late.”

  It took a good half hour to get everyone settled. Shen first insisted that his lord and lady should have his bed for the night, and certainly it was big enough for two. The steward slept in a chamber adjoining the back of the cabin, and his bed-frame, like the rest of his furniture, was custom-made to fit his lumberjack build.

  Carin tactfully declined his offer, however, and led a smiling Verek away to the barn, where the pair would bed down on blankets in the straw … far enough from the cabin to have all the privacy they required.

  Shen then installed Megella in his room. Moving surprisingly nimbly for a man his size, he made up his bed with fresh linens. Then he hauled in all the baggage the travelers had packed along, so that Megella need want for none of her things.

  Finally, bidding her good-night, Shen scooped up his wolfish mongrel and retired with the dog to his porch, shutting the door behind him and leaving Meg the full run of his cabin.

  Before disrobing for sleep, Meg searched the bags for the recipe book she had given Carin. She found it packed with the tea, and nodded her approval that the girl had stowed it handily despite the haste with which she and Verek, down on the beach, had transferred their gear from the wagon to the horses’ backs.

  By candlelight Meg thumbed through the book, seeking a vaguely remembered antidote to one of her favorite concoctions, the forget-for-now powder. She rarely, if ever, had had need of such a counter-charm: the powder’s effects wore off fairly quickly without intervention.

  But perhaps the antidote, administered as the primary rather than the counter charm, would help her fight off the tendency toward forgetfulness that she had experienced since returning to Ruain. Her first slip—nearly losing her memories of Flynn’s death—had jolted Meg. She must do everything possible to hold her mind intact, to retain what she knew, to keep what was hers.

  Memory, Megella thought. What a strange faculty it is. At times, so unreliable. But also, sometimes, so inescapable. The memories we wish to hold close may drift away, while those we would prefer to forget remain tenaciously sharp in the mind.

  Meg’s ruminations led her to wonder—not for the first time—how much Carin recalled of the events in the Easthaven harbor. The happenings of that night seemed to have had a deleterious effect on the girl’s memory—as strong magic was wont to do. Carin had never mentioned the miraculous healing of the scar on her forearm. But Megella, of course, had noticed the disfigurement’s erasure, for it had been she, the wisewoman of Granger, who had salved the injury when the girl suffered it, years ago in the household of the wheelwright.

  Ah—there it was. Meg had found what she sought: her sister Merriam’s sweet tea for counteracting the forget-for-now powder. A surprisingly simple recipe, too.

  Megella dug through the stores she had squirreled away during her stay in Easthaven. Yes, she had every ingredient.

  While the tea brewed, she undressed and had as much of a wash as one bucket of water would permit. Then, cupping her tea, she climbed into Shen’s bed—literally climbed, the frame was so tall. Meg propped against pillows, sipped her tea, and did not permit herself to sleep until she had run through every significant memory she could call to mind.

  Her memories fell naturally into eras—girlhood first, of course: Growing up with her sister, hardly sparing a thought for Ruain’s ruling family, the House of Verek, until the lord of the manor set his cap for Merriam. Then seeing Merri’s great love for Legary … and watching the wysard throw it all away in a wicked attempt to breed a powerful heir.

  Megella remembered sneaking away with Merri, deserting not only Legary but Ruain and the North. Slowly and haphazardly they’d journeyed southward, settling finally on the plains … Merriam accepted in her new home; Megella cold-shouldered in Granger.

  Many years had passed thereafter, the tedium of Meg’s existence relieved only by occasional visits with her sister. Then Merriam’s death had left only Megella to continue the fruitless lookout for a suitably gifted wysard’s apprentice …

  Fruitless, that is, until a strange child with sea-green eyes bobbed up, without explanation, in the Granger millpond.

  After that, events began to cluster thickly in Meg’s mind, running together. Propped up in bed with her eyes shut, Megella got a headache trying to remember everything in its proper order. Images flitted past, a confusing jumble of experiences, some her own but many belonging to others.

  Had she really met a creature called a woodsprite? No, that was Carin. Carin and Verek had known the sprite and had told Meg of it.

  Carin had left the creature for dead in a place far from here. How, then, was the woodsprite responsible for the strangleweed invasion? Something about arrow shafts crafted from Penfield maple … was this a memory or a conjecture?

  One especially vivid memory filled Megella’s mind: the young family who had died of the bleeding disease. She remembered their pain, their fear, the catastrophic hemorrhaging. She remembered her hands covered with their blood. Was it her fault? Was she the one who had infected the south with the bleeding disease?

  No, that was Verek. Verek of the province Ruain, and Carin of the world called Earth, had brought the disease with them from that other place. But things were set right now. The rain had washed away the pestilence. Carin had made the storm—

  No, that could not be right. The girl had braved the storm, and its torrents of rain had cleansed the world. Those in the hard-hit South would never know what force of nature had saved them.

  Feeling increasingly achy and dull, Megella sank back in bed. When she fell asleep, her dreams were fragments of memories, of the things she had known, the stories she’d heard, every thought she had ever entertained. In the light of a new dawn she awoke groggy, muddled, and thoroughly sorry for dosing herself with forget-for-now antidote.

  * * *

  They spent the morning sorting their supplies, trading items with Shen, giving him quantities of dried foodstuffs in exchange for fresh. The steward could procure ample fresh meat and other edibles from the woods around him, but he fancied the salted and preserved foods that Verek’s party had been living on for so long.

  “They make a change for me,” he explained. “And this winter they will fill out my meals if I am snowed in.”

  Shen also fancied the two bobtails. He went at the subject obliquely, remarking several times on the horses’ strength and how they would ease his labors.

  “That pair of beasts could pull a rooted stump,” he said. “When I had to take down all that weed-killed cedar, it nearly killed me hauling them logs to Glimmerdon. If I’d had such brutes as these, they would have made short work of that job, I tell you, sir.”

  Verek pretended not to catch Shen’s drift. For hours he let the man go on hinting, more and more obviously, until Shen seemed to give up. The steward sighed morosely and spent the late afternoon grooming the two bobtails until they gleamed under the summer sun. On her way to the well to draw water, Megella heard him talking to the horses.

  “Oh, you’re beauties, you are,” Shen mumbled as he gently combed one animal’s forelock. “I’ve never seen your equals. Your master knows your worth, I am sure, and would never leave you here with me.” He sighed again, and the two horses, as if in sympathy, blew softly through their
nostrils.

  Shen was so tall he could drape his arms over the brutes’ necks. Seeing them standing quietly together, no one could doubt that the great beasts belonged with this gentle giant of a man.

  Megella, at the well, was casting glances Shen’s way and giving little attention to the bucket she drew up. But just as she leaned over the well-curb to reach one-handed for the bucket, a shaft of sunlight slanted in through the trees and glinted off the water, straight into Meg’s eyes.

  Startled, she stood blinking and squinting, seeing nothing at first but a blinding brightness. Crisply, however, a woman’s voice came out of the brightness, and then a form Meg recognized.

  Myra—Verek’s longtime housekeeper—was speaking to her from the brimming water-bucket.

  “There you are at last, my friend!” Myra exclaimed. “How I did worry when the months passed and still there was no sign of my good friend, Megella the Wise. We must speak quickly—the sun moves on, and this chance with it. Please tell me: Have you seen aught of the lass named Carin, the girl you sent north to find my Lord Verek?”

  “Wheesht— Yes,” Meg replied, so surprised to find the magic astir in daylight rather than under the moon that she could hardly shape words. “Carin is with me at Shen’s cabin.”

  “At Shen’s!” Myra exclaimed. “Oh my! What joy you give me. I feared the lass was lost forever. But you must take care with her. She has an enemy who seeks her tirelessly. Be warned, Megella: That youth I told you of—Lanse, his name—is scouring the countryside for her and renewing his unholy oaths to slay her.”

  “Where is Lanse now?” Megella asked.

  “Near!” came the reply. But before Myra could elaborate, the sun dipped a fraction closer to the horizon, the ray went askew, and the woman’s image winked out.

  “Wait!” Meg cried.

  She tilted the bucket, trying to recapture the sunbeam. But the link had broken.

  Megella abandoned the well then and went searching for Verek, turning over in her mind what she would say when she found him:

  “Nephew of mine, I regret to inform you that the young man you ordered to murder your lover may be closer to completing his task than he has ever been before.”

  Chapter 18

  Unification

  Carin couldn’t help grinning as she glanced over her shoulder at Megella. The wisewoman was again perched—wedged, actually—on the back of the big horse she had named “Bob,” but now she wasn’t napping away the miles. Walking close beside Meg, with his hand resting on the point of the horse’s hip, Shen was keeping her company.

  “You’re going to lose the bobtails, you know,” Carin said, turning to Verek, who rode at her side. “Shen loves those horses. I think he may be sweet on your aunt, too. What will you do if he asks her to come live with him in the forest?”

  “Give them my blessing, of course,” Verek said, smiling. “Shen’s a good man. And after all the years my aunt has spent alone, if she decides that he is the man for her, then I can only applaud her choice.”

  He tilted his head. “I know what it is like to be lonely,” Verek added, glancing at Carin. “As do you, fìleen. It is better to be in love, is it not?”

  “Oh yes!” Carin exclaimed, riding close and reaching for him. “Infinitely better.”

  Her prediction about the horses came true as soon as they reached Glimmerdon. There, Verek purchased a two-wheeled spring-cart to replace Megella’s abandoned wagon. The cart would not hold nearly as much as the wagon had, but here in the eastern reaches of Ruain they did not need to carry the supplies and equipment required for a long journey through a semi-wilderness. The road westward from here, back to Verek’s manor house, would lead them most nights to a comfortable inn, although there would be stretches, Verek said, when they would sleep under the stars—a pleasant prospect on these warm summer nights.

  Only one of Megella’s cobs would be required to pull her new cart, leaving the other spirited little horse for Carin to continue riding. When they had unloaded both bobtails and shifted Meg, along with her clothes and remedies, to her cart, they had no more need of the two big horses. Verek then made a gift of the beasts to Shen.

  “Such fine animals!” the man exclaimed, apparently taken quite by surprise. “Are you certain, my lord? Would you not want to put them to better use elsewhere on your lands? In these eastern reaches, I am far removed from the wider concerns and busier enterprises of your realm.”

  “Which is all the more reason you shall have them,” Verek replied. “I do not get out this way as often as I should. Although now that I have a water-sylph for a bride,” he added, glancing at Carin, “I may find it necessary to come east to the coast more regularly. My lady will demand a swim in the salt water, I think, from time to time.”

  Shen roared with laughter. “Which is precisely why I never married, my lord,” he said, wiping his eyes. “The ladies do make demands.”

  “But surely it is our place—and our privilege—to gratify them,” Verek replied, catching Carin’s eye and winking.

  “Of course, sir, of course,” Shen said, sounding a bit chastened. Carin glanced at the man and saw him lock gazes with Megella. What passed between the two of them, she could not tell.

  To everyone’s surprise, when Shen turned for home with his new horses, the two cobs seemed determined to go with them. They had evidently formed an attachment to their big brethren.

  Only when Carin hit upon the idea of distracting the cobs with buckets of sweet feed could Shen slip away unnoticed with the plodding bobtails. Even then, when the cobs finished their treat and looked up to find the pair gone, they proved hard to control, tossing their heads and skittering aside as if seeking their lost companions.

  Finally the cobs settled enough to resume their journey. Carin offered to trail behind Megella, to keep an eye on the belongings that were piled in the woman’s cart to precarious and wobbly heights. Several items seemed in danger of tumbling off and being lost.

  The wisewoman, however, would not hear of it.

  “Widgeon,” Meg said firmly, “your place is at Theil Verek’s side. Ride ahead with him.”

  Theil, for his part, seemed more alert than usual. Although he should feel perfectly secure riding through his own lands, Carin noticed him scanning the woods on either side of the road, as though he looked out for something, or someone, in particular.

  But when she asked him about it, he said, “I am simply enjoying the view, fìleen. I want to impress upon my memory each of Ruain’s trees, fields, and rivers, all its hills and hollows, its cliffs and its valleys, and every face we see. It seems an age since I last traveled the length of this land.” Verek set a brisk pace, moving them westward as quickly as the cart-duty cob could manage.

  As the days passed and they rode through towns big and small, Carin marveled at how little fuss the citizens made over their newly returned lord and master.

  In some locales, Verek was not even recognized. Other places, the men snatched off their caps as soon as he was spotted coming along the road, and nodded to him in respectful salutation. The women bobbed curtsies and tried not to stare at Carin.

  “I am so relieved,” she murmured as they walked their horses through one bustling and prosperous-looking burg, “that I’m not having to get dressed and primped for a feast every night. I was half afraid every town in Ruain would throw a banquet in your honor.”

  “In your honor, you mean,” Verek rejoined. “The people, in the main, are used to me. I have ridden this road more than once over the years. But this is the first time I have been seen with a ruddy-haired fìleen from afar. You may be sure the people would be delighted to throw you a banquet and toast your health.”

  Theil glanced at Carin and smiled, but quickly snapped his attention back to the doors and windows of the houses they were passing.

  He’s definitely looking for someone, Carin thought. Who’s he want? An old lover?

  She remembered him joking about smelling like a brothel after his perfumed
bath in Easthaven. The thought of him scanning the housefronts, seeking glimpses of the women he might once have visited here, sparked an emotion in Carin that she could not immediately identify.

  Then she realized it was jealousy. She was tasting a smidgen of possessiveness, seasoned with a dash of disappointment.

  For pity’s sake, she rebuked herself. You’re imagining it. After everything you and he have been through together, you think he would cast you aside for a trull?—to use an ugly term that Lanse had once applied to Carin herself.

  Lanse.

  Now there was a name she had not thought of in a while: Lanse the stableboy, or so he had been at their first meeting.

  But Carin had soon realized he was more to Lord Verek than just a good hand with the horses. Theil had taught him archery and swordsmanship, and had once said to Master Welwyn that Lanse was “as valued of me as my own right hand.” During their wintertime trek into far-western Ladrehdin, Lanse had become a skillful deer driver, handling the tough Trosdans that pulled their sled through the snow-choked mountains.

  It was toward the end of that trek when Carin had learned of Lanse’s other identity. He was her appointed executioner. He took his orders straight from Verek.

  “Kill the girl. Take care that she does not kill you first,” Theil had cautioned Lanse, warning him that Carin might prove to be a formidable sorceress. Lanse was under orders to not let Carin get the drop on him. “Slay her at once,” Verek had said.

  It didn’t much matter that Lord Verek had come to regret his words, or that he had wanted to rescind the order. He had not seen or spoken to Lanse since issuing his commands, and he’d had no way to get a message to the boy. Until relatively recently, in fact, the two had not even walked in the same world. Lanse had been prowling the countryside here, while Verek had been stranded in Carin’s Earthly home.

  With thoughts of Lanse turning in Carin’s mind, she too began scrutinizing her surroundings, not simply taking in the beauty of Verek’s province, as she had done for the pure pleasure of it since climbing the sea cliffs. His lands were full of surprises: Wooded tracts gave way to stone-fenced meadows dotted with wildflowers. Secluded lakeshores teemed with grayleg geese and their downy goslings. In the distance, open stretches of sun-drenched fields climbed up hillsides mottled with greens, golds, and reds. Towering against the sky, at the greatest distances Carin could make out, blue mountains rose in jagged ranks, their peaks capped with snow that was untouched by the summer warmth on the lower slopes.