WATERSPELL Book 1: The Warlock
Page 5
“Daydream in your own time,” the swordsman snapped. “Don’t waste mine.”
“Wh—? Oh.” Carin shifted uncomfortably. “I was just trying to imagine the wisewoman’s neighbors burning her in her bed.” She shook her head. “No, I can’t see it. Everyone in the village went to the wisewoman when they had a fever or their animals got sick. She set bones … midwifed babies … never turned anyone away. She was stern, but kind—and one of the few people in town who cared anything about me. When she sent me away, she said it was for my own good. I didn’t ask her why.”
“You were not hesitant to strike out on your own?”
Carin shrugged. “I was miserable in the village with the wright’s family. They weren’t the cruelest people around, they didn’t beat me every day, but … I didn’t fit there. I didn’t belong.” She looked down, remembering. “When the wisewoman told me to go, I never stopped to think about it. I just saddled the dun and headed north.”
Most of what you just told him sounds like complete nonsense, you know, Carin thought with an inward sigh. As a child, she’d come bobbing up in a pond like a fisher’s float? Five years later, she would walk across half a continent, with no destination in mind except for the ill-defined territory known as “the North”—all on the say-so of a witchy old woman? The swordsman couldn’t possibly believe her. She should have kept her mouth shut.
His face wore a noncommittal quality that was beginning to alarm her with its remoteness. But in his gleaming eyes, Carin saw a hint of turmoil. Had something in her story troubled him?
After a long silence, and with the air of someone who had reached a much-debated decision, the man scooped his goblet from the tabletop. He drained it of the ruby liquor. Using the goblet’s stem as a pointer then, he indicated the books that were piled on the low table and the floor under it.
“Let us see how well you learned your letters as the wright’s daughter taught you from the Drishanna. Read to me the titles of the books that lie before you.”
“What? I mean … yes, all right … sir.”
Carin scooted to the edge of her seat and picked up the nearest volume. She ran her hand over the carved leather binding, and with her fingertips she traced the letters of the book’s title, stamped in gold. It appeared to be an alchemist’s handbook: On the Potential of Transmutation. Other volumes on the table dealt with fire and water, soil and sky, rituals of healing, rites to mark the summer and winter solstices, and the habits of frogs and toads.
She read off their titles one by one, placing each volume beside her on the bench so as not to repeat a title. She went through some dozen volumes before the swordsman stopped her.
“Enough. I am satisfied that the task is not beyond you. You will order the books in this library, by title, with the first volume to be placed on the uppermost shelf there”—he pointed with the goblet’s stem to the wall at Carin’s left—“and the final volume to go in the hindmost corner there.” He tipped his head back, indicating the depths of the library behind him. The afternoon sunlight that streamed in through the conservatory-style windows did not pierce the shadows behind the benches where they sat. But his gesture implied more shelves looming in the back.
“Complete the task to my satisfaction,” the man said, “and I will give you leave to resume your journey, ill-advised though it is. Nothing stirs in winter in the northern forests. The bears drowse in their dens under the snow. The birds flee. Even the wasteland dogs desert the snowy places when the winds begin to blow. They gather in mobs along my northernmost borders. Nothing you seek can await you in that empire of ice—unless you seek death.” He shot her a quizzical look. “If that is the purpose of your journey, I won’t hinder it. Only do the work I have set for you, and you may go.”
Sweet mother of mercy, Carin swore again, but silently. She gaped as she looked around the room. The enormity of the task! This library held thousands upon thousands of volumes. Those crammed into its endless shelves were as disarrayed as those on the table and floor. To arrange them as the swordsman commanded would mean removing all from their places, sorting and re-sorting, climbing a ladder thousands of times to reshelve the volumes properly.
Taming the chaos would take her not only all of the winter ahead, but very possibly the springs, summers, falls, and winters of years to come. How could she do it?
How can you refuse? asked the part of her that warmed at the very thought. To not only have a roof over her head again, but to live with these books, to immerse herself in them, to riffle their gilt-edged pages and smell their wood-dust dryness—to lounge by a fire on the hearth as winter sunlight spilled through the windows, offering enough light to read by—
She would steal every chance to read the volumes, as many as she could, when the swordsman wasn’t watching. In seeming to do his bidding, she’d pore over the texts in his library, absorbing everything they could tell her.
She might even get the chance to read the “puzzle-book,” as Myra called the volume that mystified the swordsman. Quick as the thought entered Carin’s mind, her eyes sought the Looking-Glass book where it lay on the bench near her captor’s disfigured left hand.
But then Carin gave a start and jerked her head up. She’d caught a distant echo, like the whisper of a voice or perhaps only the impression of one—only a memory, possibly. But it gripped her like a compulsion. It repeated, as it always did: North, girl. And the force of it nearly drew her to her feet to resume her journey without a moment’s further delay.
Carin reached for a book from among those she had piled beside her. She hefted it, as if to test the volume’s weight, as if to gauge its ability to anchor her. And she found that the book almost—almost—counterbalanced the compulsion. For the first time in months, Carin felt able to resist the urge to tramp onward, or at least to put it off. Just for now, just for a while, she could deceive this man. She could feign acceptance, do the work demanded of her, and live with these books … until the urge to push ahead succeeded in driving her from them.
“Thank you, sir.” Carin flashed the swordsman one of her rare smiles. “I accept your offer. I would much rather sort out your beautiful books than cook and clean for the wright. I’ll be glad to get started—right away, if you want me to.”
He eyed her narrowly, clearly doubting her sincerity. Had she overplayed the role of grateful servant?
But the swordsman did not challenge her. He set his empty goblet on the table before him, picked up the puzzle-book, and strode to the door. With his free hand on the latch, he paused and half turned back to her, as if undecided whether to leave or to continue the interview. Carin had launched into her task already, stacking books in new piles on the floor, marshaling them by the first letters in each title.
“Myra will call you to supper,” he said finally. Opening the door, he turned to go but stopped when Carin addressed him.
“Sir, excuse me.” She straightened from her work and smoothed the shift that Myra had provided to replace her travel-stained rags. “You’re giving me food and clothes and a place to stay, and the best job I’ve ever had, and I don’t even know your name. Won’t you tell me what I should call you?”
He gave her a measuring look. “What you ‘should’ call me? Have you formed the habit of calling me things you oughtn’t?”
Several names shot through Carin’s thoughts—devil, fiend, and prince of darkness among them—but she shook her head. “No, sir. I don’t call you anything. Well,” she amended, “in my mind I call you ‘the swordsman.’”
He raised an eyebrow, and Carin felt the color rise again in her cheeks.
“In your mind,” he said, “you call me worse than that, I’ll wager.” He fixed her with another of his unreadable looks, then answered her question. “Mine is the name of the House of Verek, who are lords by blood-right of the lands called Ruain. Address me then, as custom dictates and rank demands, by the name and title which are my due.”
With that, he stepped into the hallway and was gone.
Carin turned to the crammed shelves and skimmed the titles of book after book until one fat volume caught her eye: The Lands and Realms of Ladrehdin. Pulled from the shelf, it opened to pages of maps—a treasure like gold to a traveler. Would one show her the realms of the North?
She retired to the desk with her prize. “Ruain,” Verek had called his lands, but there was no map so named. Page after page was labeled simply “The Interior.” Near the back of the book was a map inscribed “The Wildes,” but nothing to say whether that referred to the north’s old forests. In any case, it was useless—only an outline with no particulars drawn in.
One large map was a detailed drawing of the southern grasslands. A small “x” among several marked the village where the wheelwright and his family lived. An irregular blue blob represented the body of water where Carin had been found as a child.
Minor landmarks she had passed in her journey northward—settlements, streams, and the welcome stretches of broken country—might provide clues by which to trace her travels. It was hard to be sure, because she’d mostly avoided people and she didn’t know the names of many of the settlements beyond the wright’s village. Painstakingly matching memory to the details on the map, however, Carin guessed at her route cross-country and was astonished to see how far she’d traveled in twenty weeks. The unrelenting compulsion had pushed her onward, over the dip and swell of the plains, through the long summer and into the dregs of autumn, half killing her with hunger and exhaustion. But she had never paused, not until Lord Verek of Ruain forced her off her path at swordpoint.
Maybe, Carin found herself thinking, I kept going only because I had no reason to stop. Now, she had a reason. If she stayed here, she might learn things to her advantage—not least, the story of the puzzle-book and why its language was known to her and not to Verek.
An unfamiliar feeling crept over Carin. For a moment, she experienced freedom, as if a hand had slackened its grip on her. But immediately the old urge—the impulse that had kept her moving day after day—reasserted itself and even interjected a counterargument:
You’re dreaming about that book, it said, its tone dismissive. Didn’t you notice how his lordship guards it? It barely left his hand. How do you propose to get it away from him? Poison his supper when Myra’s back is turned? What poison could harm him? Myra claimed her “good master”—apothecary, herbalist, and alchemist—could mix a potion to cure any ailment.
Carin shook her head to clear the jumble of conflicting thoughts. Dutifully she placed The Lands and Realms of Ladrehdin in its proper pile on the floor, atop Lucet’s Guide to Distillation and a slim volume with a one-word title, Ladra. Then she selected another book to examine: a collection of training exercises for archers. Maybe she could make a bow and arrows and teach herself to shoot as accurately as she could cast her sling. Where she was going, skill with the bow could be useful.
Settling with the book, Carin was soon lost in the volume’s well-illustrated pages. She didn’t look up; she forgot even to listen for the swordsman’s possible return. She read until the sunlight through the windows dimmed to twilight and she could no longer make out the words. Just as Carin slipped a sheet of Lord Verek’s writing paper between the pages to mark her place, Myra bustled into the room to call her to supper.
Carin paused in the library’s doorway to look back at the multitude of books. Once gone from this place, she’d never again enter a library the equal of the swordsman’s. And she would lose any chance, however slim it might be, to read the Looking-Glass book.
She studied the bench where Verek had sat, the book at his mutilated hand, its secrets closed to him but accessible to her. What was in that book? Why was it in her language? What could it tell her?
Until yesterday, Carin’s purpose had been plain: do as the wisewoman said and go north. Verek had asked about the woman hexing her, and Carin had denied it. But maybe she had been bewitched—or enthralled by the hope of a new life in a far country. Now, for the first time, she questioned her goal. Where is this journey taking me?
Chapter 4
Questions
On her second morning under Verek’s roof, Carin got up before daylight. She had a quick wash in the room with the glowing walls and threw on her old shirt and patched leggings, which Myra had miraculously scrubbed clean. The housekeeper had neatly repaired the damage done by Carin’s stumble in the rocks—almost as neatly as Verek had mended her gashed knee. The woman had also found time yesterday to make up Carin’s bed with fresh linens, and to prepare an excellent supper of roast capon and spinach tart.
Now in the predawn, Carin found the indefatigable Myra already at work in the kitchen, clearing the remains of two breakfasts. Early though the hour was, Verek had taken his morning meal and left the manor. He would be gone all day, Myra said, and Lanse the stableboy with him. They were inspecting Verek’s holdings to the east, the productive farms and dairylands that supplied the nobleman’s wealth and stocked Myra’s kitchen.
The housekeeper’s description of fertile and populated lands nearby contrasted markedly with the lifeless woods where Carin had fallen afoul of the owner. When the housekeeper paused for breath, Carin broached the subject.
“Myra, you must know everything that’s worth knowing,” she said, to butter up the woman for the prying that she meant to do. “Can you tell me what’s wrong with your master’s woodland? I mean, it’s so …” She needed a moment to come up with the word: “Bleak. I walked through those woods for about an hour before Lord Verek caught me. And you know I never had a clue, that that land was his private property,” Carin added, ever alert for a chance to assert her innocence.
“You’re not to blame, dearie,” Myra said, shaking her head. She did not look up from the dishes she was washing. “I know you meant no harm.”
“And even if I had—meant harm, I mean,” Carin said, “I don’t know that I could have done anything to damage those woods, short of setting fire to the trees. It’s an unnatural place, it’s so deathly quiet. I didn’t hear a bird sing, or a cricket chirp, or even a mouse in the leaves. I didn’t see a squirrel. I never scared up a rabbit. After awhile, it just felt strange—like I was the only thing that had been alive in there for ages.
“When I heard Lord Verek riding toward me,” she added, “it was like hearing a ghost. Like I’d stumbled into woods that were haunted, and the phantom horseman was coming for me.” Carin shivered despite the warmth of the fire on the kitchen’s huge hearth. She considered telling Myra all that had happened—Verek nearly trampling her, then pinning her at swordpoint and threatening to strike her head from her shoulders. But Myra obviously thought the world of her “good master.” She probably wouldn’t hear a word against him.
“So what I’m wondering, Myra,” Carin went on, getting back to her question, “is why the woods are so deserted and depressing. You were telling me about all the good land that Lord Verek owns. It sounds like whatever is wrong with the woods hasn’t spread to the farms. What is it? Some kind of disease? Is there a sickness in the woods?”
Myra nodded. “Aye. ’Tis a sickness of the soul.”
Tears came to the woman’s eyes. She dug into the pockets of her housedress for a kerchief and noisily blew her nose.
“’Tis a sorrowful tale, dearie,” the housekeeper said, snuffling. “Once, those woods were alive with birdsongs and the chirpings of small creatures. The creeks babbled like children at play. There was a lake of the clearest blue water, with white water-lilies and all manner of fish and frogs. The flowers bloomed from early spring ’til frost, and the woods gloried in their colors and sc
ents. ’Twas the loveliest place in the world.
“Every day of good weather, my mistress—the master’s lady wife—would go walking in the woods. ’Twas her greatest pleasure, to stroll about and pluck the freshest blooms and bring them in a basket to brighten the rooms of this house.”
“The master’s wife?” There’s a surprise, Carin thought, her breath catching a little. “He’s married?”
“He was, dearie. And he loved the lady with all his heart. But now he is alone. ’Tis the saddest tale.” Myra dabbed at her eyes. “There came a day—a black day it was—when my mistress went strolling as it pleased her to do, through the woods to the lake. At her side, with his little hand in hers, was the lady’s and my master’s own sweet child. Oh my! You never saw a child more beautiful than the son of my lord and his lady. Never was a babe more adored. They doted on the boy. Many a time I heard them speak together of what a fine day it would be when the child came of age and claimed his birthright. So proud of him, so full of hopes and plans they were.”
“What happened? Where’s the boy now?” Carin prodded as Myra paused to snuffle into her kerchief.
“Oh, my. Dead! The child is dead, and his mother with him.”
At this, Myra burst into a fit of tears. The crying jag lasted so long that Carin despaired of learning any details of the tragedy. After a time, however, the housekeeper’s sobs subsided and she resumed her story.
“’Twas a terrible thing. It sorely affects me even now to think on it, these many years later. As the shadows grew long and the sun went to its bed, and my mistress and the child did not come home, my lord went into the woods to seek them. ’Twas in the blue lake he found them, dearie, found his lady and the sweet child. They were tangled in the water-lilies. Drowned! The master’s wife and his only child. It sore affects me, even now.”