Amber cleared her throat delicately and all eyes turned to her. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
William cocked his head. “Really?”
She nodded. “It was an interesting idea, but you’ve seen the brickworks outside Kleesport.”
William shrugged. “Yes. Of course. That’s what gave me the idea.”
She looked at him seriously. “And do you want to live beside that?”
Frank shifted his weight uncomfortably and even Thomas looked anyplace but at Amber and William.
Finally, William sighed and answered, “No.”
She shrugged. “So, we don’t build a kiln. We keep shipping the clay to Kleesport. It’s a steady work and gets us a bit of coin to spend with the merchants there for what we can’t make ourselves, but this inn…” She shrugged. “Might make more sense for where we are.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, before William grinned. “And you’d be the innkeeper?”
She sighed and her shoulders slumped. “If that’s what it takes.” She hesitated. “But what do we call it?”
Sadie shrugged. “We can just name it after the village. That’s what everybody else does.”
Frank twisted his mouth into a wry grin. “So, what do we name the town?”
They all turned to Tanyth. She looked startled. “What? You want me to name it?”
Frank grinned. “You’re doing pretty well so far.”
They were all smiling at her, encouraging her. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes to think. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the faint sigh of wind through the eaves. “Ravenwood.” The word was out of her mouth before she thought.
Frank pounced on the name. “Ravenwood! I like it.”
She looked at them with something akin to shock. “I’m sorry. It was just the first thing that came to mind.”
William nodded and a considering look covered Amber’s face. Sadie clapped her hands together in delight and sprang to her feet. “It’s perfect. We’ll name the town Ravenwood and then the inn can be Ravenwood Inn!” She fairly bounced on her toes in excitement.
William watched her with some amusement. “Well, I guess we now live in Ravenwood.” He looked at Tanyth. “At least it’s not Mapleton.”
Amber laughed. “That really bothered you, didn’t it?”
He nodded, a rueful grimace on his face.
Frank chuckled but offered Tanyth a sympathetic explanation. “When you’ve grown up in the shadow of his father, the name carries extra freight.”
Thomas groaned at the pun and tossed a bit of bread at the older man.
The nearly full moon painted an oblong of silver on the floor through the open doorway and William eyed the glow. He heaved himself up off the floor and handed his wife up as well. “Let’s go figure out where we’ll build your inn.”
They all clambered out of the house. William with Amber on his arm led the procession which soon picked up a few more adults, a handful of interested children, and at least two drowsy chickens. They spent an hour in pleasant contemplation by the light of the moon and discovered that they had more than enough room for a relatively large structure that would neither block the track to the barn nor require them to demolish any of the houses.
Tanyth watched the proceedings from the front of her hut and watched the sky for ravens.
12
A Cheeky Bird
Tanyth found morning long before the sun did. She woke suddenly, her heart in her throat, sure that somebody was in the hut with her. Her hand slipped to the hilt of her belt knife where it rested inside her bedroll. Habits formed from sleeping wild hadn’t been broken by sleeping under a roof for a few nights. Her eyes raked the shadows. There wasn’t anyone there. The faint glow from the banked coals in the fireplace gave sufficient light for her to make out every corner of the hut well enough to know nobody hid in the shadows. She took two deep breaths and tried to convince herself that it was too early to rise, but failed to calm the pounding in her chest.
After a few moments of lying with her eyes closed and her pulse racing, she gave up and crawled out of her bedroll. Her stockings offered her feet some protection from the cold floor until she stepped on the hearthstone, which still carried a little warmth from the banked fire. She plucked a pair of smaller pieces from the woodbox and proceeded to stoke up a fresh blaze. While it worked up some heat, she returned to her bedroll and dug out her outer clothing, slipping on her warm tunic but leaving her pants off until she had enough warm water for tea and to clean herself a bit. She sighed as she realized that she really needed to take time to wash out some small clothes, at least. She returned to the hearth and added another stick to the growing blaze there, pushing the tea kettle closer and considering her dwindling stock of tea and oatmeal. The routine of fire and warmth soothed her jangled nerves and she slipped into the simple routine of morning.
After dealing with the mundane matters of hygiene and breakfast, she slipped out into the dawn. In spite of having been up for over an hour, the sky was still nearly dark—only the translucent scale of morning to brighten the east and wash the dimmest of the stars out of half the sky. The morning air had the cleanest bite of the day and she took several lungs full, letting each one out slowly before taking the next. It wasn’t cold enough to see her breath, but she could tell the day was not far off.
She stood there, listening. She wasn’t sure what she was listening for, or perhaps listening to. The trees in the surrounding forest whispered among themselves in the last of the night’s breeze. The breeze faded and they hushed as if they’d been talking about her when she’d entered the room. She smiled at the idea, as if she were important enough for the very trees to talk about.
The humorous thought gave rise to an idea that was more serious. Twice in two days she’d prayed to the guardians and the All-Mother for protections and boons—first giving thanks for the willow bark but later asking for help in what might have been a dire time. Something in her made her walk to the clearing behind her hut and thank each of the guardians in turn for their assistance in her time of trial. She closed her circle with a simple thank you to the All-Mother and the All-Father. She felt better once she’d finished. She stood there for a few minutes savoring the quiet calm and taking strength from the fertile earth beneath her feet.
She stood there long enough that she heard Thomas slip out of his hut and head off up the track toward the quarry, no doubt heading out for a day’s hunting. She heard Frank and William chatting softly as they met on the path to the barn, each heading up to care for the animals entrusted to them. In spite of the chaos and danger of the day before, she felt at peace. She’d been on the road long enough to know that nobody was really safe with the wild things loose in the world, but a little judicious planning and attention to detail could help.
She sauntered around to the front of the hut and crossed the dewy grass to examine the scratchings on the ground and the sticks they’d placed to mark the corners of the new inn. As the morning sun clawed through the trees, she smiled at the placements and squinted her eyes a bit to try to envision the building as it might appear. If they were right in their estimates, the building might well appear—at least in frame—within a relatively few weeks. Frank and William had both agreed that foundation, framing, and roof were entirely feasible before the snow closed in for the winter.
She paced off the length and smiled when she came to where Amber had drawn the outlines of her new kitchen by scraping the dirt with a branch in the near dark. It wobbled a bit but it was a good sized area. It would provide them with plenty of room to start with and offered space behind for growth. Tanyth smiled. Amber may have been opposed to being the innkeeper at first, but as she warmed to the idea, her natural talents proved the obviousness of the solution.
She heard the jingling of harness and the pounding of hooves coming along the Pike from the south. The sun was barely into the trees, still throwing ribbons of light between the trunks and lighting th
e sky with a morning display. A messenger wearing the uniform of the King’s Own pounded along and sped past the village without looking in. Tanyth had watched the pattern of messengers on the Pike long enough to know that in a day or so, another of the King’s Own would come riding the other direction.
She admired the layout of what would become the new inn for a few more moments and then walked back to her hut and the chores that awaited. Her mind caught up the logistical problem of how and where to resupply her dwindling store of tea and oatmeal. While there was tea in the village, it wasn’t the same, and oatmeal was all but unheard of among them. There was also the problem of winter clothing. She’d planned on shifting her wardrobe when she got to Kleesport, swapping her lighter sweaters and jacket for something a bit more substantial for the coming winter in the northlands. With time on her hands and some suitable fabrics, she could certainly fashion her own. She made a mental note to ask Amber about it. She’d know how to make the arrangements.
William and Bester came down the track from the barn, heading out for their day’s labor. He smiled to see her standing in the morning light and raised a hand in greeting. When he got nearer he spoke, his voice carrying over the crunching of the oxcart’s wheels. “G’mornin’, mum. You’re up early.”
She smiled. “Good morning, yourself, William. I couldn’t sleep so got up and had my breakfast.” She fell in beside him. “How are you? Now that you’ve had a night to sleep on it, what do you think of this?” She swept a hand to indicate the scratchings on the ground.
He gave a slow nod. “I’m fine, mum. And I think this is really a very good idea.” His eyes swept the area as he walked along. “Amber does, too, now that she’s had a chance to think about it.” A glowing smile spread across his face. “She’ll be wonderful as the innkeeper.”
Tanyth nodded. “I think so, too.”
They were almost at the Pike and Tanyth stepped off onto the verge to let Bester and the cart pass out onto the packed road. “Have a good day, William. Blessed be.” She raised her hand in a wave.
William smiled. “Thank you, mum. You, too. Try not to have any more excitement today, ok?”
She laughed in response. “I’ll do my best.”
William steered Bester northward and was soon lost to view.
Tanyth turned to retrace her steps. The chilly morning was giving way to the sun’s warmth but she thought another cup of tea would taste good. A flash of movement drew her attention and she looked up to see the raven settling onto the ridgepole of her roof once more. The bird fluffed its feathers and then sleeked them back, seeming to ignore her presence below. It rolled its head as if settling skull to spine and then shifted its head from left to right as if showing off the heavy bill in profile, first on one side and then on the other. Tanyth realized, with a bit of a shock, that it was actually looking at her, first one eye, then the other. The liquid gold of the bird’s eye seemed to almost glow against the black feathers and some trick of the morning had a bolt of sunlight shining almost horizontally through the trees and reflecting off the glossy blackness.
Tanyth’s immediate sense of surprise subsided and she spoke to the bird without really thinking about it. “Well, aren’t you a cheeky thing.”
The raven gave a soft caw as if answering.
Tanyth tried to decide if her odd dream from the previous day had been real and contemplated the idea that she’d been actually looking through the eyes of a raven—perhaps this raven—as it soared above the Pike, wings easily out-pacing hooves. The whole idea was fantastic, yet there seemed no other explanation. She could have been dreaming it, wishful thinking driving the images in her exhausted brain into patterns of desire—and after all, isn’t that what dreams are?
“But why a raven?” She murmured.
The bird opened its bill and gave a series of short cackling sounds, not exactly a bird laugh, but certainly not the full throated caw one expected to hear.
She chuckled—at herself as much as the antics of the bird—and resumed her steps toward the house. When she got closer, the bird flicked its tail, leaving a squirt of white droppings streaked across the roof as it jumped into the air and flapped heavily southward across the open land of the village and disappeared into the forest beyond.
Tanyth’s lips quirked into a sideways grin. “Cheeky thing!”
From the forest, near where the bird had disappeared, she heard a raven’s croaking caw.
She stopped with her hand on the latch and looked over her shoulder, momentarily overcome by the memories of veiled comments from some of her teachers. Comments about the birds of the air and the fish in the stream. Comments that hinted that magic had been loose in the world before and that it might be returning—or perhaps had never left.
She shook herself to try to toss off the incongruous ideas but they’d just swirled in her mind—leaves lifted by a zephyr, stirred around and redeposited in new patterns but not blown away. She sighed in exasperation at her own silliness and wondered if perhaps the change that was beginning to sweep her body was giving her odd things to think about to distract her from the deeper changes.
The raven cawed again as Tanyth slipped into the hut. Shaking her head, she poked up the fire and re-filled her kettle from the bucket. It would be a few minutes before the water was hot enough for tea and the early waking caught up with her suddenly. The comfort of her bedroll called her and she stretched out on top of it to rest her eyes while the water came to a boil. Sleep drew her downward as soon as she stretched out and she was barely aware of hearing the raven call a third time as the black waves of sleep swept over her.
A man lay flat on the ground behind the bole of a heavy oak. He faced away from her, head up and peering over the root at something in the clearing beyond. She was surprised to see he wore the same clothing as one of the boyos they’d run off the day before. Lying on the ground and facing away, she couldn’t see his face but her view shifted, swinging left and right in a pattern that looked familiar but which she couldn’t quite place. Her attention was drawn upwards along the man’s line of sight. She could see him peering into a clearing with a collection of huts and with a pang of alarm she recognized them, even from the unusual angle.
She cawed once more in alarm. The man rolled his head around to look at her. She recognized the face as the man who’d been knocked down and winded during the scuffle. He picked up a small twig and threw it at her. It fell short and bounced off several small branches. Still, take no chances, and with a final caw, she spread her wings and dropped off the limb to glide between the loosely spaced trees, putting distance between her and the watching man.
Tanyth woke with a pounding in her chest.
13
Skunk in the Woodpile
“A dream. Just a dream. You’re a paranoid old woman.”
Tanyth kept telling herself that, but it didn’t do anything for the pounding in her head.
She made herself not tear the door open. She fought the urge to hare across the intervening space and confront the man—if he were actually there. She stirred her tea and took a sip, burning her tongue on the near boiling liquid. She set the cup down on the table and drew a deep breath. She didn’t dare close her eyes to concentrate, but she squinted them and blew the breath out.
“Focus, old fool. Focus.”
First, was the village in danger again? She needed to find out if the bravos had come back to worry them. The day was still young and she knew Frank was about.
Second, were these dreams? Visions sent by the All-Mother to help guide and protect her? Or was she just going mad?
As she sat there at the small table in the half light of early morning, she wasn’t sure which of the two things alarmed her more—that they might be being watched by people who wished them harm, or that she may be going mad. Age did strange things to people sometimes and she’d seen plenty of examples over the many winters she sought out all the old herbalists and healers she could find. She sighed, considering that the price of wisdom
sometimes appeared to be too dear.
With her fear controlled, if not conquered, she needed action. She sipped the cooling tea, unwilling to waste the precious leaves by walking off with the cup half full. She stood from the table and slipped into her warm tunic. Her hat went on her head and she took staff in hand.
She slipped the latch on the back door of her hut and slipped out, closing it carefully behind her. She wondered if there were somebody on that side of the village as well—watching from the other direction—but she forced herself not to look at the tree line. With one step after another, focusing on the ground and not her steps, she sauntered as naturally as possible around the outside perimeter of huts until she was able to make a bee line for the barn. She found Frank rolling a barrow of muck out of the barn and onto the pile.
He smiled to see her. “Morning, mum. You’re up early.”
“Too early, and I think we may have a problem.”
He parked the barrow and dusted his hands together, looking at her intently. “What kind of problem, mum?”
“I think one of the men that was here yesterday has come back. I thought I saw somebody peeking out of the trees opposite my cottage.”
He looked startled. “Are you certain, mum?”
She shook her head. “No, actually, I’m not.” She smiled apologetically. “It might have merely been a trick of the light.”
“Was it just the one?”
She shrugged. “I only saw the one, but who knows if the others were there as well and I just didn’t see them.”
He pursed his lips in thought and then fetched the hay fork from its hook by the stalls. “Let’s go see if you saw what you saw, shall we, mum?”
Together they slipped out of the barn and worked their way down the tree line on the south side of the village’s clearing. Tanyth hadn’t been on this side before and spotted several patches of yarrow and wild carrot growing in the understory where the forest tried to reclaim the clearing.
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