by Rick Shelley
"We've got plenty of good, cool water," Silvas added, gesturing more directly at the well. He detoured around Maga, careful not to get any closer. He went to the well and the benches. Halfway there, he stopped and looked back. Old Maga hesitated an instant more, then walked slowly toward Silvas. He went on to the well and lowered the bucket. He was cranking the handle to retrieve the bucket when Maga finally reached the shade.
"Sit and rest," Silvas urged. "Here, have a drink." There were several copper ladles hanging from pegs. He took one, filled it with water, and handed it to the old woman. She accepted the water without hesitation and drank it down, easily a half pint.
"More?" Silvas asked when she returned the empty ladle. Maga met his gaze for an instant before she nodded. Silvas refilled the ladle and gave it to her. Then he took another from a peg and had a sip of water himself.
Old Maga sat on the closest bench and nursed the second helping of water. Silvas sat on the other bench, facing her.
"Now, tell me about your sister's husband."
"My sister Enid be a lot younger'n me," Maga said. She lowered the ladle carefully and kept both hands on it, not wanting to waste a drop. "Her'n her man got a bunch of babes. They bin luckier'n most, six born an' all but one still alive. The eldest, he ain't but"-Maga had to stop and think-"ten year old. The lit'lest was born winter afore last. Now, Enid an' her man ha' always worked hard, like mos' folks here. But now…" Maga shook her head. Then she seemed to notice the ladle in her hands again, so she raised it to take another drink.
"But now?" Silvas prompted when she lowered the ladle. Her eyes had followed the water down to her lap.
"Now poor Berl ha' got some wastin' sickness. Brother Paul, he said 'tain't no leprosy, but it's eatin' poor Berl up from the insides like, an' Brother Paul, he ain't been able to help none. Berl be so sick now he cain't hardly do no work a-tall. E'en if he don' die, if he cain't work, him and Enid and all their babes'll starve, soon or late."
"Tell me more about the sickness," Silvas said. "When did it start? How does it go? What's it done to Berl?"
Maga looked up at Silvas for a moment, but lowered her head again before she replied.
"It come on winter afore last," Maga said, and then she nodded, confirming that to herself. "At the first he jist said he done felt weak all the time, and sometimes his head were hot to the touch. It warn't so bad then, jist an ailin' sort of thing that come an' go. Yer know, the way a body'll feel out of sorts now an' again." She looked up to see Silvas's nod. "A fever, we thought, and Brother Paul, he did make Berl's head cool now an' again, but the fever kep' comin' back, it did, an' after a spell it got worse each time. An' then Berl jist started to melt away like. His cheeks begun to sink in, an' his eyes. Now 'tain't much meat a-tall on his bones, he's wasted so far. Sometimes, like now, he's too weak to do much o' anythin', and we wonder is he gonna die. He cain't e'en git out o' bed some days, an' when he can, he needs a stick to walk on, jist to git to the fields and do what little he can. But he cain't go on much longer. 'Less he gets a real curin', he won' see the winter out, if he e'en sees the harvest."
"How is he today?" Silvas leaned forward a little.
"Enid tol' me he had a real bad patch in the night, so bad she 'mos' come to get me to fetch Brother Paul to shrive him. This mornin' Berl's proper weak he is. Couldn't hardly get up for his gruel."
"He's too sick to bring him to me here?" It was hardly a question.
"Be hard," Maga said. "An' he might not come e'en if he were stronger. Berl's got some strong fear 'bout sorcery and sech. E'en Brother Paul's godly fixin' makes him awful skittish."
"No matter," Silvas said. "I'll go to him."
"Yer'll cure him?" Maga asked.
"I'll try. I won't know if I can cure him until I look him over. But if I can, I will. That's why I travel from village to village, Maga. That is how I serve our Unseen Lord."
Old Maga glanced up at the sky and crossed herself, almost dropping the empty ladle in her haste. She stood and hung the ladle back on its peg.
"Enid and Berl, they lives right next to me." Maga wiped her hands on her dress. "We be off up that…" She stopped and looked around, confusion on her face. The arm she had started to raise dropped to her side. "I don' know which way from here." She shook her head. "It's up off from the castle side of the church. Anybody'll know. We be glad whene'er yer kin come and do fer poor Berl."
"If you don't object, I'll come with you now," Silvas said, also rising. "The sooner I see to Berl, the sooner he'll get better. If you'll just give me a few minutes to take care of an errand here, I'll go straight on with you. Okay?" Maga nodded once as her hands started a nervous picking at the waist of her dress.
"Have more water if you like. We've no shortage here. I'll be back as quickly as I can." When Maga nodded again, Silvas went off toward the stable.
Bosc was just finishing with Bay, tightening the saddle girth, when Silvas walked in.
"We have a request," Silvas said.
Bay nodded. "An old woman. Someone witching her onions?"
"Her sister's husband has been suffering from a wasting disease for a year and a half." Silvas ignored Bay's sarcasm. "He took a serious turn for the worse during the night. The wife nearly sent to have the vicar administer last rites."
Bay could not miss the implication. "While we were dealing with intruders?"
"It wouldn't surprise me, but there's no way to be certain."
"You think perhaps the demons we faced were in Mecq long before we came?" Bay asked.
"For a year and a half?"
"Perhaps since the Eyler fell and the rains stopped falling," Bay said. "Water is life. The troubles of the Eyler must be a focus for all that goes on here."
"I hadn't thought of it quite that way," Silvas admitted. "Still, we need to know the who and the why. Perhaps we should have taken time yesterday to gaze upon the lands of the Duke of Blethye while we were up at Sir Eustace's seat."
"If so, then today will be better than tomorrow."
"And I have the dinner invitation from the Lady Eleanora for this evening," Silvas said. "But first there is the matter of this ailing farmer. I'll walk Old Maga home and tend to him. Then you and I can ride along part of the Eyler, get a closer feel for this river, and perhaps take a look at Blethye before supper."
Bay nodded and Silvas turned to Bosc.
"Go tell the lady Carillia that I'm going out and probably won't be back until evening, that she shouldn't wait supper for me. I'm to dine with Sir Eustace and his family."
"Aye, lord." Bosc bobbed his head quickly. "There's provision here for lunch." He pointed at the saddlebags on Bay.
"A good thought, Bosc. Thank you."
"It was the lady Carillia's orders," Bosc said. When Silvas nodded and smiled, the groom said, "Will there be anything else?"
"I don't think so. But how is your hand?"
Bosc displayed the hand that had been cut the night before. The hair was already starting to grow on the back of the hand, and only a thin scar showed where the gash had been.
"It doesn't hurt at all, my lord." Bosc turned the hand from side to side before he ran to carry Silvas's message to Carillia.
"I need a better feel for this river anyway," Silvas said. "It's time to start planning for the magic to give Mecq its water."
"Wouldn't it be more logical to put your attention to the greater threat first?" Bay asked.
"I promised Mecq water," Silvas replied. "The other, whatever it is, will happen in its own good time. We'll take precautions. But the water needs serious work as well."
"You can't allow yourself to become so carried away with curing warts and finding water that you lose sight of the rest," Bay warned. "If this is the challenge our Lord has prepared you for-"
"I'm not losing sight of anything," Silvas said, interrupting sharply. "And if these things are connected as we suspect they are, then I am acting on the one when I act on the other."
"If you're not careful, the Foe wi
ll sneak up from behind while you're tending to some minor ill." Bay snorted. "If you're going to walk this old woman home, I'll follow along so you can ride on from wherever she takes you."
– |Bay stayed well behind Silvas and Old Maga as they walked through Mecq, but the old woman kept looking back. When she first spotted the horse, Maga looked ready to bolt and run. Bay seemed to make her particularly nervous. Silvas paid little attention to that, though he did work a quick spell to ease her mind. Bay made her nervous. So did Silvas and the Glade. Silvas wondered if there was anything that didn't.
Once they got away from the smoke, Maga talked almost constantly.
"Poor Berl ha' had a rough life of it, that's God's own truth. When he was a lad, he was one of the boys what helped dam th' Eyler, an' what had to tear it down again when the cursed duke came in wi' his army. Seems all the good lads as was there ha' had rough lifes. More'n a proper share has already gone to their Maker, an' those as ain't, why they all seems to have trouble aplenty." Maga shook her head. She didn't look at Silvas, hardly looked around at all, except when she glanced back to see that Bay was still following. Maga paid no attention to the few villagers they passed either. Her gaze seemed directed mainly at the path just in front of her feet.
"Mayhap we ain't s'posed to be here no more. The river runs 'most dry ever' year. T'ain't rain enow to grow a weed proper. The dirt up an' blows away whene'er they's a good wind. Don' know how we e'er 'fended anyone so bad as to git all this back." She stopped walking then, so abruptly that Silvas went on two steps before he could stop.
"They say yer promised to fix the water fer us afore yer leave. Is that fer true?"
"It is," Silvas said. "Before I leave Mecq, you'll see the Eyler run as it should." He had assumed, without devoting much thought to it, that the solution would be to increase the flow of the river. He hadn't even considered alternatives like wells. But he took a moment to muse over what he had just said and then nodded. It would have to be the river, one way or another.
Old Maga started walking again. "Bin so long without, we'll need time to recollect what-all to do with water aplenty," she said. "It be a blessing fer true."
A couple of minutes later, Maga stopped again and pointed at a cottage. "This be my sister's cot." It was virtually identical to the rest of the cottages in Mecq, built of rough timbers chinked with a mud-like cement, roofed with old thatch. Maga went to the doorway, looked in, then gestured for Silvas to follow her inside.
"My sister and her babes be in the fields," Maga said.
Silvas had to duck to get through the doorway. It was scarcely high enough for Maga. The smells inside were overpowering-the common odors of a peasant cottage, of people crowded too closely for too long with too little in the way of cleaning or washing. It had taken years of practice for Silvas to disguise the way those conditions affected him, and even many of the lords of the land lived with as little attention to cleanliness. Auroreus had maintained an Old Roman attitude toward hygiene, and Silvas had lived under his rule for too many years to lose the habit himself.
And Silvas could detect the smell of fever over the rest in this cottage. He glanced around the single room. Berl was on a pallet at the back. He was so thin that he scarcely disturbed the outline of the rough-woven blanket that covered him. The man was motionless and silent.
"Berl?" Maga said, so tentatively that she must have worried that he was already dead. Silvas moved past her. He could feel the spark of life, but Berl was clearly at the last extremity.
"I'll take care of him now," Silvas said softly. He moved Maga aside gently. She moved farther away on her own, backing hesitantly closer to the door. Silvas knelt next to the pallet and pulled the blanket off Berl, which loosed an extra dose of noxious odors. Berl didn't move, didn't react at all. His chest scarcely lifted with each shallow, widely separated breath. His face was drawn and thin, marked by dark splotches.
The sickness isn't natural, Silvas noted at once. It was brought on by magic. He started chanting a series of spells to sustain the man, to simply keep him alive through the longer work it would take to cure him. The effort brought sweat to Silvas's forehead.
I recognize the stink of this work, Silvas realized soon after he started prying into the magical web that was draining life from the farmer. Recognition might have come even sooner if he hadn't been so busy making sure that Berl wouldn't die. Silvas stood and took a single step back from Berl's pallet after a quarter hour of intense conjuring. Berl was out of immediate danger, but Silvas hadn't yet begun the real work of curing him.
"This is the work of a minor adept of the Blue Rose." Silvas spoke aloud but to himself.
"The Blue Rose?" Maga asked. Silvas turned. He had forgotten that she was in the cottage with him.
"You know about the Blue Rose?" Silvas asked.
"They's heretics?" she ventured.
"That's what Brother Paul would call them," Silvas agreed. "Myself, I'd just call them evil."
"Aye." Old Maga nodded solemnly. "Anyone who'd do that to a man be evil as Satan himself." She crossed herself. "Can yer still help poor Berl?"
Silvas nodded absently. "I'll help him." His mind really wasn't in the conversation any longer. There were too many thoughts screaming for his attention.
The Blue Rose Cult. It had been a long time since Silvas had last needed to undo any of their handiwork, and there had never been anything this thorough. But their hand was obvious in Berl's illness. Another connection came to Silvas quickly. They're likely behind the problems with the river as well. The chain of thought continued to forge new links. Members of the Blue Rose called themselves Christians, but theirs was a religion of violence and terror, centered on the image of God as the Punisher, not the Redeemer. The White Brotherhood and the orthodox Roman Church called them heretics and worse.
If the Blue Rose is behind the water problems, then one of the gods must have put himself behind their cult. Maybe more than one, Silvas reminded himself. For a moment the implications of that pushed aside his concern for the sick man. It was a vital piece of the puzzle he had been working at since coming to Mecq, since he had sensed the evil at the edge of the valley.
And where does it go from here? Silvas wondered. He looked down at Berl again. He remained unconscious, but perhaps his breathing was a little stronger than before. It was time to get on with the work of healing.
If I cure him of the Blue Rose curse, they may discover my presence here too soon. There was a slight chance that they didn't know who he was yet, what power he carried, what Power he represented. But his interference with Blue Rose magic might draw retribution quickly, possibly an attack more perilous than demons in the night. But there was no real question in Silvas's mind, no hesitation.
When I cure him. The wizard kneeled next to the pallet again and put his hands on Berl's chest and forehead. He went straight into the series of spells that would both cure the man and protect him from any return of the "curse" that had followed him for much of his life.
"Here I am," Silvas said very softly. He knew that his work would speak much louder to those who could hear it.
The work of curing Berl took more than a quick incantation. That was why Silvas had woven a sustaining spell first. But Silvas moved quickly into the flow of the longer work. He felt a change coming over him, an acceptance-even an eagerness. At the moment he had no doubt at all that the great challenge that had loomed over him all of his life was about to appear.
The sun was directly overhead when Berl dragged in a sudden deep breath and opened his eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"He'll need two or three days, and plenty of feeding, to get him back on his feet," Silvas told Old Maga out in front of the cottage. "He's bound to feel weak for a bit." Maga just bobbed her head, eyes wide, too astounded at the sudden improvement in Berl's condition to speak.
"I know things are rough, so maybe this will help." Silvas reached into the purse on his belt and pulled out a silver coin. "You ought to be able to get
several good meals for Berl and his family from Master Ian for this."
Maga looked at the coin for a moment before she extended her hand. The hand shook. Maga seemed torn between staring at the coin and at Silvas. "I ain't ne'er seen one o' them," she added.
"It's got the king's head on it." Once more Silvas found himself questioning the wisdom of one of his whims. There was a chance no one in the village, except perhaps Master Ian, had ever seen silver money. Copper pennies would be rare enough, and silver coinage was new in England. "Remember, Berl needs plenty of food, as much as he can eat, for the next few days. That's the only way he'll be fit enough to work the harvest."
"I'll see to't," Maga said. "Lor' bless yer."
When Silvas turned to leave, Bay was staring at him. The horse didn't speak, but he didn't have to. The wizard could imagine the comments Bay had in mind. You can't resist getting involved, can you? If they were alone, Bay might go on for quite a while about Silvas's gesture.
It wouldn't do to have my first magic here go wrong, Silvas thought, rationalizing his gift. If he died because he didn't eat enough, they'd never know it wasn't my fault.
Silvas mounted Bay and turned him toward the river. As they started away, Old Maga called out, "Lor' bless yer," again, and Silvas felt his face redden.
Mostly to take his thoughts away from Old Maga, Silvas mulled over the question of Blue Rose involvement in Mecq's troubles. The Blue Rose had been around for generations, but surfaced only rarely. The White Brotherhood was harsh in its punishment of Blue Rose heretics. There had been an invasion of one district in Burgundy when several villages went over to the Blue Rose thirty years before. The Church had declared a crusade.
"Old Maga's brother-in-law suffered from a most uncommon ailment," Silvas said after they were clear of the cottages. "His illness was the work of a minor adept of the Blue Rose. I could never mistake that work."
Bay stopped walking and turned his head to look back at Silvas. They were too close to the village for Bay to risk speaking, but the look spoke well enough for the moment. Then Bay started toward the river again, moving a little faster.
