“I accept.” Tanyth said the two words quickly without any preamble of greeting.
William smiled. “I’m glad, mum. Amber will be pleased as well.” He didn’t stop walking and Tanyth fell into step beside him.
“Do you really think somethin’ has happened to Frank and the team?” She asked. “Just between us?”
He blew out a sigh. “I can’t help but worry that it has. He’s never been this late, but so many simple things could have delayed him by ten days. Innocent things. Problems with a wheel. A horse with colic. Even a delay with the factor purchasin’ the clay.” He shook his head. “I hate to borrow trouble, mum, but we’re gettin’ to the point where it’s more likely that somethin’ unfortunate has happened.” He returned her sideways glance with a shrug. “Short of sendin’ somebody to find him, all we can do is wait it out.”
“Thank you, William. I appreciate your honesty.” She raised a hand in farewell and turned her steps back to the hut.
She pondered the implications of the overdue wagon, even as she focused on the immediate issues facing the morning. She’d used the last of her willow bark for Sadie and needed to go through her pack to inventory what she had left. She’d planned to get heavier winter clothing in Kleesport but that schedule was already delayed. She could be in Kleesport in ten days and the next village in three but it would be nearly a month round trip to the larger city on foot and the better part of a week to the village, assuming she could get what she needed there to begin with. She sighed and unceremoniously emptied her pack onto the smoothed surface of the bed roll and began sorting supplies from clothing and tools.
By the time the sun had fully cleared the treetops, she’d sorted out the meager pile and made a mental list of the things she’d need. Her boots would need re-oiling to keep them waterproof and supple, but the leather was still solid and the stitching sound enough for the coming season. She needed some warmer outer wear and a couple of sets of the longer pants to go under her normal walking around pairs. The pants themselves were baggy and styled after the many pocketed pants worn by tinkers to hold tools and bric-a-brac. A few evenings with some suitable fabric and she could line them against the wind and weather. Her lifestyle had kept her lean, almost bony, with hard muscles in narrow bands on her legs and belly. Adding another layer of fabric inside the pants would be no great difficulty. Age had still spread her hips—she grinned ruefully at that—and gravity had worked its inevitable course on her torso, but the bandeau she normally wrapped around her chest kept her cargo from shifting and helped disguise her while on the road by compressing her breasts against her rib cage. Considering the unpleasant chafing of the dangling alternatives, she found the binding to be more comfortable.
She checked her belt knife and pocketed a few items—a roll of bandage, a bit of aloe stalk, and a steel and flint. Small and lightweight, they could make a difference if need arose.
She took one last survey of her food stocks, she sucked air through her teeth, grabbed her staff and planted her hat on her head. The day was wasting and she needed to find some willow bark and fresh burdock, perhaps locate some stands of cattail and wild rose as well. The sun had burned the dew from the grass by the time she made her way across the compound toward Amber’s hut. She met young Riley along the way. He fell into step with her.
“Ma sent me to see if’n you were alright, mum.” He grinned up at her. “Are ya?”
“I am quite alright, Riley. Thank you for askin’. Do you know how Sadie is this mornin’? Is she ready to go gatherin’?”
He wriggled in what might have been a shrug, might have been a shake, and might have been just his excitement at the thought of gathering. “She seemed alright to me, mum, but you can ask her your own self. She’s with ma.”
Tanyth couldn’t help but be amused by him and they strode in silence across the still damp grass.
At the hut, Riley opened the door and ushered her into the snug confines of Amber’s hearth where she found a much improved Sadie and a rather flushed looking Amber tidying up the hearth and table while Riley’s sister sat under the table apparently playing house with a bedraggled corn-husk doll.
The women looked up as Tanyth entered and both smiled a warm greeting. Amber spoke first. “Good morning, mum.”
“Good morning, Amber. Hello, Sadie. Are you feeling better today?”
“Right as rain, mum. Thank you. Amber says you’re going to take us gathering this morning?”
“If you’re up to it. Gatherin’ willow bark isn’t very difficult nor does it require much skill more than bein’ able to pick out the willows from the poplars and oaks.” She smiled, aware as soon as she said it that the two city bred women may well not be able to tell an oak from a poplar, an ash from a hickory. She sighed inwardly and hoped she was wrong. “All we need is something to cut the willow with.”
Sadie held up a small saw. “Will this do?”
“Perfectly. We can save time by grabbing a limb rather than cutting the bits off out there and bringing them home.” Tanyth was pleased by the young woman’s initiative.
Amber finished her immediate tasks and looked around brightly. “I think we’re ready, mum. Where are we goin’?”
Tanyth chewed her lip a moment in thought.
“Willows like wet feet. Is there a place where there’s ground that’s always damp?”
Sadie nodded. “Yes, mum, just up the path to the quarry. There’s a patch that’s always muddy. They had to put in logs to keep the path from turnin’ into a muck hole.”
“That sounds like a good place to start.” Tanyth looked about at the smiling faces. “Shall we go?”
Amber dropped off her younger daughter to play with Megan’s three while they were gathering and the four of them headed up the path toward the clay quarry. The rough road was easier going than forcing a path into the forest proper. Tanyth kept her eyes moving, looking for side paths and game trails. Deer would use this path if they could, she knew. Smaller game as well and it might be useful to have a brace of rabbits for her own stewpot.
As they walked through the woods, Tanyth explained what they were looking for. “Any kind of willow will do. Black willow, white, even weeping willows and catkins.”
“Catkins?” Riley’s squeaky voice sounded amazed. “Catkins are willows?”
Tanyth nodded and smiled down at the boy’s upturned face. “Indeed they are. A kind of willow and the bark is as good as any other.” Privately she thought it might be better because the small withes of catkin yielded a good amount of the pale inner bark and left a strong, straight, and pliable stick that was useful in a variety of ways.
They walked perhaps a quarter mile along the track before it started dipping down to a swale. A bit of corduroy work on the track kept their feet from getting mucky and a stand of white willows grew on a hummock just south of the road. The pale hairs that gave the willow its name still coated the leaves and several strong trunks grew in a clump.
Tanyth pointed out a likely limb with the foot of her staff. “That branch that’s growing into the grove? Prune it off close to the trunk and we’ll take that. It’ll make the stand healthier.”
Sadie picked her way across the muddy ground but Riley bulled through the muck, apparently delighting in the squelchy sounds beneath his feet. Tanyth could feel Amber cringe at the damage he might be doing to his footwear but she soon relaxed as his enthusiastic enjoyment infected them all.
Before she applied her saw to the tree Sadie turned to Tanyth. “Do you wanna say a prayer first, mum? Invoke the spirits of the forests or somethin’?”
“We’re doing the work of the All-Mother here, Sadie. I’m pretty sure she knows we’re taking what we need and using what we take. Pruning that limb out of the inside of the stand will leave them better than when we found.”
Sadie looked up at the trees around her. “Still, mum? If you wouldn’t mind?” Sadie stood waiting and even Amber looked on expectantly.
Tanyth shrugged and turned to the n
orth, raising her arms dramatically. She felt a little foolish but if Sadie wanted a prayer, she intended it to be a good one.. “Guardian of the North, know we work to make the Earth we share more fruitful.” She pivoted smoothly to her right to face the east. “Guardian of the East, the air will move more freely between the trunks as we remove this branch that blocks your passage.” She pivoted to the south, not feeling so foolish any more. A growing warmth expanded in her belly. “Guardian of the South, by taking this branch we honor the spirit of the willow to harvest the healing medicines provided by the All-Mother in this growing thing.” She turned to the west and finished the circuit. “Guardian of the West, may the healing power of water flow more easily through these trees as we remove this branch for our use.” Tanyth faced the north once more and, lowering her arms, planted the foot of her staff on the ground. “So mote it be.” As if in answer a raven cawed loudly from the top of a spruce on the ridge above, startling them all a little. She could see the black bird outlined against the sky as it perched somewhat precariously on the fir tree.
When she turned back, everyone stared at her. She had a hard time deciding who looked the most astonished. They all regarded her with round, staring eyes and a slack-jawed wonder. Riley recovered first.
“Whoosh, mum, when you does a prayer, you don’t mess about, do ya.”
His innocent exclamation broke the spell and the women laughed at his piping pronouncement. Tanyth’s laughter joined the rest, all of them sounding just a bit brittle. Tanyth’s body still vibrated from her effort and she felt a bit flushed and more winded than simply saying a few words might account for. The warmth in her belly flowed through her and a sense of well-being accompanied it.
On the hummock a few feet away, Sadie placed the blade of the saw against the edge of the tree and with a few swift strokes took the limb. It was only an inch or so at the base but long and spindly from working between the trunks of the other trees. With Riley’s help, she extricated the awkward shape out of the copse and together they dragged it back to the road. The base of the branch was woody and dense but the length of the branch showed a good progression with many branchings and tips of first year growth that promised a fat layer of inner bark. Tanyth nodded and smiled. “Yes, this will do nicely.”
“How many more do we need, mum?” Sadie was about to head back to the hummock.
“Just the one. It’ll serve our purposes for teaching you how to do it and probably give enough bark for the village for the whole winter.” Tanyth eyed it once more, measuring and gauging with her eye. “Yes, I think this will be more than enough.” She looked back at the small grove and then cast a glance at the spruce where the raven still perched. “One more thing to do here and we can head back. Riley? Can you get a handful of that sticky mud?” She used her staff to point to a place in the ground where their feet had exposed a rather black looking slurry of mucky ground.
Riley looked at her as if she were mad and then looked at his mother for permission.
Amber nodded and shrugged.
With a very boyish grin and great enthusiasm he scooped up a double handful, digging his fingers into the soft, cold soil and holding up this clod of muck as if it were a golden prize.
Tanyth nodded approvingly. “Very good! Now plaster that on the cut on the tree, if you would? Make a nice covering for where we cut her.”
He had trouble figuring out how to apply the mud at first but eventually went with a “slap it on and pat it down” approach. He had to stretch up to reach the cut and mucky water rolled back down his arm. He laughed as the chilly, messy liquid tickled his skin. Eventually he had it covered to his satisfaction and stepped back to admire his handiwork.
“Will that help, mum?” Amber asked.
Tanyth shrugged. “Some. Better than nothin’. It’ll keep the tree from losing too much sap until the winter stops the roots and it should protect the exposed wood from vermin that might like to feed on it. I don’t expect it will last through the first good storm, but in a few days, the tree itself will begin healing over. In the meantime, she has a little protection.”
Sadie and Amber exchanged a glance as if to say, “We must remember this.” Amber lifted the lightweight branch and handed it to Riley. He balanced it and was careful to carry it so that it didn’t drag on the ground as his solid little legs began the short walk back to the village.
Amber smiled a mother’s smile and the two younger women fell in behind the boy, leaving Tanyth to walk behind.
7
Second Thoughts
After helping them scrape the bark from the willow limb, Tanyth showed them how to spread it on a clean cloth in a sheltered area to dry. She charged Riley with stirring and turning the long scraps of bark periodically. With the first task completed, Tanyth left them to return to her hut. The morning had not been without its share of surprises, but the odd feelings coursing through her during the prayer had taken her by surprise.
She sighed and continued on to her cottage for a cup of tea. She could have had a cup with Amber and Sadie, but decided she wanted to be alone for a time to think about what had happened in the woods. That something had happened was beyond her doubt, but what the something might have been was still open to interpretation. She hoped to examine it, in private, to see if she could make sense of her feelings.
Second thoughts about her decision to stay swirled in her mind. Twenty years of being on the road had trained her to solitude and the constant hubbub of being around people was beginning to tell on her already. They were very nice people, and the children were a delight that she’d almost forgotten, but she could only take them in small doses. She felt prickly and needed to find some quiet for a time. She worked hard to convince herself that it would be alright and that being around people—even as few people as there were in the village—would become commonplace, even enjoyable.
“In a pig’s eye.” She muttered to herself again. It was a long standing habit, this talking to herself, and not one she approved of.
She stomped around the corner of her hut, headed for the door when she saw the six horse team and lorry wagon making the turn into the hamlet from the Pike. An older man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and homespun shirt under a leather vest coaxed the team along and Tanyth shaded her eyes with her hand to get a better look as he drove the team up the path. The village erupted around her.
A pack of children seemed to spring up from the ground and the women folk in the hamlet all appeared to come out at once. Tanyth saw Amber and Sadie running down the lane toward the team, but they slowed their approach before they spooked the horses. Sadie beamed but Amber looked concerned even as the man who must be Frank raised a hand in salute.
Sadie stopped beside the track but Amber continued on to walk beside the lorry and speak with Frank. Tanyth couldn’t make out the words but she saw Frank shake his head several times and point to the back of the wagon. Amber nodded in response and finally smiled. Frank never stopped the team but let it plod its way along the track to the barn. Women and children fell in alongside or followed along behind. Eventually the assembly disappeared behind the huts and Tanyth stood alone once more.
She turned to her hut and was startled by the large raven sitting on the ridgepole of the house, apparently staring down at her. It mantled its wings and cawed hoarsely at her once before turning and launching itself toward the wood behind her cabin.
Tanyth felt a thin shiver but waved a hand in the air as if to dispel smoke or a bothersome fly. “Don’t be foolish, old woman. It’s a raven.” She was irked with herself for being startled, and entered the hut. She crossed to the hearth and prodded it roughly to life, fanning the coals with her hat, and tossing a few handfuls of dried catnip onto the embers, followed by a few sticks of dry wood. In moments, the fire crackled cheerfully. She filled her small kettle from the bucket and set it to warm by the fire and tried not to think about the raven.
She did step out of the hut once, just to get a bit of air, and felt silly being relieved
that the large bird hadn’t returned to the roof. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She shook her head at her own unease but her doubts about staying in the village returned. “Maybe you are going crazy, you old fool.” She went back into the hut and made sure the door was closed firmly behind her.
She wanted her tea, and perhaps she’d finish the bit of hard cheese for lunch. She vowed to take her snares into the forest and see if the All-Mother would grant her a rabbit or two for the morrow. She felt crabby and hated the feeling but the sense of longing to be back on the road was almost palpable.
In the end, she brewed a pot of chamomile instead of her favored black tea and let the soothing aroma and gentle tea comfort her while she sat cross legged on her bedroll and nursed herself through a case of the crabbies. It was almost under control when she heard somebody approach the door then a soft knock. She thought about pretending she wasn’t there, but realized that they’d probably just open the door and see her sitting on the bed anyway.
“Who is it?” She worked hard to keep her voice neutral and calm.
“Sadie, mum. I’ve brought you some fresh bread and cheese.”
Regret for her uncharitable feelings washed over her as she realized that she was the one being unreasonable. “Come in, Sadie. It’s open.”
Sadie slipped the latch and walked down the two steps carrying a rough basket of split twigs even as Tanyth stood up from the cot. “Oh, I’m sorry, mum! Were you resting?” Sadie looked quite contrite.
Tanyth found a genuine smile somewhere and shook her head, holding up the cup of tea. “Just having a little tea and a think, my dear.”
Sadie looked relieved and crossed to the table, placing her basket upon it. “I set an extra loaf to bake this mornin’ before we left and there’s a nice piece of cheese for you, mum.” She smiled at Tanyth. “Thank you for your help this mornin’. It really is somethin’ we should have done for ourselves. If we’d thought about it at all, we certainly could have.”
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