Frostflower and Thorn

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  He, too, was avoiding her eyes. Even Burningloaf distrusted her mismatched eyes. Thorn had not been afraid of them. At first she had, but not later.

  The sorceress lay down, still holding to the baker’s hands. “There are warriors?”

  “If there are, they haven’t gotten to Gammer’s Oak yet.”

  “She will escape? Do you think she will escape without meeting them?”

  “That swordswoman can damn well look out for herself.”

  He twisted his hands from her clutch, then stroked her forehead with his dry, dusty palm. “Don’t worry, Frostflower. They won’t find you here.”

  He left her. Shuddering, she closed her eyes and tried to relax. Was the bed still a little warm beneath her shoulders, where Thorn had sat polishing her weapons? A swordswoman who took such care of her sword and knife, who would not sell the gems from their handles even when her tunic was fraying and her trousers laced with old hempstring, and when she needed money for a physician…or an aborter…

  Dowl came and rested his head on the mattress near Frostflower’s waist. She began to stroke him, slowly and gently. Thorn had kicked Dowl, too. Yes, but never hard enough to injure him.

  Burningloaf, her old friend, her grandmother’s friend, avoided looking at her eyes, would not call her “sorceress,” did not wish her to practice the most harmless skill beneath his roof. Thorn would call her “sorceress”—after a day, it had no longer seemed an insult from the warrior’s mouth, but a title of common respect, like “merchant” or “friend.” Thorn used to look into her eyes. Thorn had not feared her, had even threatened her…

  And might—oh, God!—might have killed her. Might have killed Inmara.… Yes, if I had truly been sure she would not hurt the farmer-priestess, why would I have directed the lightning so near her? Why not near Maldron? God, ah, God, is it true? I have lied…it is so hard, here in the middle Tanglelands, outside our retreats, to balance the vow of Truth with that of Prudence, and I have failed. I have lied! Not in speech, but in silence.

  But if I had continued silent, if I had not tried to comfort her—too soon—she would still be brooding over the tortures she expects, the tortures the farmers have taught her to expect. But she would still be here with me.

  That is why I wanted to keep her with me, then—for the pride of calling a swordswoman my friend. To be another Mockingbird, another sorceron who traveled with a warrior as friend and not as suspicious, reluctant, fearful hireling.

  Dowl put his front paws up on the bed and whined, staring at Frostflower with his round, whiteless eyes. Dowl did not turn away from her gaze. The dog’s consciousness had no room for doubts and motives, only for hope and acceptance. She stroked his ears. Eagerly, he clambered onto the bed, pawing her shoulders, licking her hands and cheeks, trying to play.

  She got her arms around his neck, laid her face in his shaggy hair, and wept unthinkingly.

  “Here,” said Burningloaf. She had not heard him return. She glanced up to see him standing at the room’s one, small table. Quickly she looked away again, to spare him her eyes.

  “I must leave,” she said.

  “They won’t look here, Frostflower.”

  “No—you are kind, but I cannot stay and endanger you.”

  “I tell you, so long as you keep your dog and that baby quiet, they won’t even think to search my house. Gods, the whole town knows I’m no lover of your people.”

  “I will stay…only a little longer. Only to let Starwind sleep a little longer.”

  “Safer to have you stay, than maybe get seen leaving here. Look, I’m not going to slop around outside in the drizzle for your cup of mud, but a brought you a bowl of floor-dirt I swept up. I don’t know what you’re going to do with it, and I don’t want to know, but I hope you have the mess cleared up by the time your stew’s cooked.”

  “Thank you. You are very kind.”

  After he had descended, she pulled up the rope ladder and closed the trapdoor. Then she went to the table and examined the floor-dust: flour, dried mud, gnurr, and a few dead insects in the bottom of the small, brown-glazed bowl. She smiled. How little he understood of sorcering.

  She could not use the floor-dirt, but she could use water instead of earth. She emptied the bowl neatly on the corner of the table, wiped it clean with part of her skirt, and filled it with water from the pitcherful Burningloaf had given them when they came here earlier this evening. Thorn had carried the pitcher up in one hand as she climbed the wood ladder which could be raised from below.

  Putting down the pitcher, Frostflower brought out her pouch of seeds. Was it such a harmless thing as a seed-pouch that had given rise to stories of—what was it Thorn had called it—a box of blighting herbs? She shook out a number of seeds onto the table, selected a dried bean and dropped it into the bowl of water, then returned the other seeds to their brown linen bag.

  She was moving slowly, hesitant to make the trial. What would be left to her if she had indeed broken one of her vows? What in all the world?

  The infant. The child Thorn did not want. Frostflower returned to Starwind, rocked the kneading-trough cradle on the pillows that supported it, gazed down at the sleeping child. She let her thoughts wander. Yes, she would take Starwind back to Windslope Retreat, raise him in one of the cottages…perhaps the little cottage beneath the three pines, where Hopelost had lived her last years. If she could no longer train him in sorcering, there would still be much she could teach him: all the small daily things every child must learn, all the additional cautions a sorceron must know, and the love of the one God, so simple. Thorn! Will you in twenty-five years meet a strong young sorcerer and guess him to be your son? When the thought of such a meeting caused Frostflower to smile, she knew she was calm enough to stop delaying the test.

  She rose and went back to the table. The bean waited, dunnish white, beneath water which quivered slightly from the vibrations of her feet on the floorboards. Taking a deep breath, she put one forefinger down through the water. Good; she touched the bean at once, despite the water’s refraction of light and the new ripples made by her hand. It was not an omen—only farmers’ folk believed in omens—but it argued well for her steadiness and concentration.

  She brought her hand back to the water’s surface, resting her palm on the edge of the bowl, her fingertips just covered by the liquid. She fixed her gaze on the candle flame and breathed with conscious rhythm. Vegetable things were harder than animal: they had no heartbeat of their own on which to concentrate. But they had a dormant life. The sorceress projected her consciousness into the plant that lay curled in embryo beneath the dun-white seed skin and layers of nourishment. She waited until the feel of cool moisture seemed to spread over her whole body, then forced her own heartbeat into the seed.

  She breathed faster now, as quickly as she could breathe and still expand her lungs to their fullest. There was a giddiness in her head…she should not need to force her mind, it should flow more easily than this. She should not tremble—she was splashing the water a little—but she thought she had hold of the plant’s own time…she hoped that the swelling she felt was the shell loosening, soaking in water, distending the plant fibers. It was harder than it should be, for she had begun in nervousness; but she would not stop.…

  Tendrils touched her palm! She felt them…she was sure it was not mere movement of the water. No, these could only be the new green shoots, tender, yet strong in their growth and persistence. But she would not glance down, not yet. She spread her fingers wider; the tendrils found their way between, into the air. She felt them wave and straighten again, felt small moist folds of membrane uncurl on the tops of her fingers.

  Then, at last, she looked down to see the new plant, grown from a dry seed in a few moments, already half-covering her hand.

  “Dowl!” Laughing in relief, she slipped her left hand beneath the bowl, lifted it, knelt, and set it on the floor, her right hand remaining the whole time partly in the water, between new roots and new leaves. “Do
wl!”

  The dog trotted over and sniffed eagerly at the new plant. Still laughing, stroking Dowl’s neck, she lifted the plant from the bowl. He ate it quickly, nuzzling her hand, sucking up the roots from beneath her loosely-held fingers, licking her palm when sprouts and roots were devoured, finally lapping the water left in the bowl.

  She had not broken a vow. She had not lost her powers.

  But she had lost her warrior, and with nine days’ journey remaining to Windslope. That thought sobered her as she sat once more beside the sleeping infant.

  How much safer had she really been with Thorn? Had the swordswoman not gone into battle rage, Maldron might have been content to purify the sorceress and let her go on her way. No, that was not just. Starwind’s crying had brought the worst of the trouble. Yes, but if Thorn had not been impatient and gone deeper into Beldrise Forest instead of waiting nearby while the baby was fed…ah, but if I had not been equally impatient and followed, or if I had not been blamably curious and slipped close to see the forbidden rites of the farmer-priests…

  Frostflower was weary of soul-searching and useless regrets. Thorn’s presence at her side had warded off three possible attacks by farmers’ folk, who would always suspect a lone sorceron carrying a child. But that had been earlier. Now they would be hunted. If pursued, Thorn would have to fight; and even to witness bloodshed could threaten a sorceron’s power. They might in any case be slightly safer apart, now that they had been marked as together.

  Burningloaf tapped on the floor six times with a long stick. Frostflower opened the trapdoor and let down the rope ladder. It was slightly more difficult for him to climb than was the wooden ladder he kept below; but the wooden one was heavier for him to haul into place. He ascended, carrying the end of the cord by which, after reaching the top, he would pull up the basket of food.

  “You see,” she said, “I have left no trace of sorcering.”

  He peered around the small room. “Good. Don’t tell me what you did. Or why you suddenly had to do it.”

  “I will not. But I am truly grateful, old friend.” For his thought, at least—for his overcoming his repugnance.

  “Well, at least you look happier now.” Having left the food on the table, he turned back to the trapdoor. “I suppose you people have to get it out of your minds sometimes, like the rest of us have to have a nightmare now and then.”

  “We rarely suffer nightmares,” said Frostflower. “I will leave your house tonight, after I have eaten.”

  He stopped and glanced back. “I thought I told you you’ll be better off staying.”

  She felt a little of her old, irrational mischief. “Suppose this sorcering fit you have described should come upon me again under your roof?”

  “Then I’ll sweep the floor again for you.”

  “I must leave eventually. Better for me to leave now, than wait for the search to come to Gammer’s Oak and beyond.”

  “You can go when the search dies down.”

  “I would rather try to outrun it.”

  Burningloaf looked down at the trapdoor, then up again towards her. “Stop worrying about the search. Four years ago I hid my niece and her worthless husband—the one they caught a year later in Three Bridges and gutted for stealing a pig. The warriors never even asked to look up here.”

  “The search may be more thorough for a sorceress with a child. We endanger you, old friend.”

  “I’ll take the chance.” He was avoiding her eyes again. “Safer for all of us if you stay here.”

  She rose and crossed the floor to him. “Old friend, what is the true reason you do not wish me to leave your house?”

  “You’re safer here.”

  “But you are not.” She touched her right hand to his chest, over his heart.

  The old man’s glance flickered up to her face, then back down to her clean, black-sleeved hand resting on his stained yellow apron. “I didn’t want to say this, Frostflower. But if you were caught and…questioned, you’d tell them about hiding with me.”

  She withdrew her hand, nodded, and turned away.

  “Eat your food while it’s hot.” Burningloaf descended the rope ladder. Again she pulled it up and closed the door after him. She began to unpack the basket. Below, she heard faint thumping sounds, but paid little attention. They were not warriors. Warriors would have come with shouting.

  She had begun her meal when the baker signaled again. More surprised than alarmed, she rose to open the door and lower the rope ladder. This time he did not use it. Instead, he propped his long wooden ladder against the opening, climbed up, untied the ends of the rope ladder, and let it fall to the floor below.

  “Do you fear so much,” she said, “that I will tell them you helped me?”

  He did not look in her direction. “They can make anyone answer their questions, Frostflower. And you people don’t lie.”

  He climbed down hastily. Sighing, she closed the trapdoor and returned to the table. Scarcely had she eaten three bites, when she heard a new sound, a hammering immediately below the trapdoor. As she watched, a small point appeared through the wood.

  Burningloaf was driving nails into the bottom of the trapdoor. Why? He must be pounding in hooks: the heavy, angled hooks smiths made to support half a cow or the equivalent weight hanging from the ceiling. A baker could hang baskets of dried fruit, smoked meats, strings of garlic and onions—anything that a baker might use or an ordinary householder want close at hand. It would make excellent camouflage for a trapdoor. It might also make the trapdoor much too heavy for a small sorceress to lift from above.

  She had not expected such treatment from the friend of her grandmother and mother. She wondered at herself for accepting his actions with so much calm. Perhaps Thorn’s angry leavetaking had hardened her somehow…or made so large a hole in her emotions that only a little edge remained for Burningloaf to crumble. She ate slowly and leisurely, listening to his work, trying to guess by the sounds what kind of heavy supplies he was hanging from his new hooks.

  Probably he did not mean to betray her to Maldron. She hoped he did not, for both their sakes. A farmer-priest might grant such a betrayer full pardon, or punish him as severely as if he had not delivered up the one betrayed.

  Probably, also, Burningloaf did not mean to starve her. He had left her a large crock of vegetable stew, a large jug of wine, a full loaf of bread, and almost half a small cheese, besides a full skin of goat’s milk for Starwind and a large dish of table scraps for Dowl. More than enough for supper and breakfast, but not so much as to suggest he did not intend to bring up more tomorrow. Had he meant to starve her, surely he would have brought either less food this evening, or more.

  Almost certainly, then, his only motive was fear for himself. He planned to keep her safely, but he would not allow her to leave until he himself judged it safe. For a time she wondered, why not? Why not trust him? Whom could she find between here and the mountains more worthy her confidence? They could remain here quietly, Starwind and Dowl and herself; and no doubt they would be at least as safe here as anywhere else between Nedgebottom and Windslope. She could abandon all fears and worries, all efforts and anxieties, to Burningloaf—yes, that would repay him sufficiently for mistrusting her—while she waited tranquilly, powerlessly, for the search to die down, or for the warriors to search this upper room. She would have several days, perhaps a hen’s-hatching or longer, to rest, with no responsibility save keeping Starwind and Dowl quiet. She would have ample time to let the infant’s sucking arouse milk in her breasts, ample time to heal the wound Thorn had given her.

  She had known the warrior scarcely three days. Thorn should not have been able to hurt her so.

  Perhaps it was fear of Thorn’s memory festering rather than healing if she sat idle above Burningloaf’s oven; or perhaps it was annoyance that the baker, who had known her family since his own childhood, should mistrust her—but Frostflower soon realized she could not remain here. Had he contented himself with argument, she might have
yielded at last; but to shut her in—musing on this, Frostflower found she was close to indignation. After years of practice, she was able to discard that emotion. (Why, then, was it so difficult to discard the earlier pain?)

  She finished her meal, eating enough to fill but not bloat her. Starwind woke and began to fuss. She changed his breechcloth, leaving the soiled rag in the chamberpot, and then allowed him fully as long as he wished at her breasts, while she found comfort in the pain his sucking caused her dry niples. At last she fed him leisurely, burped him, and hummed him back to sleep with the Dreamwine lullaby.

  By now Burningloaf’s noises below had long ceased. Frostflower drank a few swallows of goat’s milk and considered how best to escape.

  The room was about six paces at its longest. It had no regular window; but there was a small ventilation grate, high under the eaves so that rain seldom blew in. The grate was carved directly out of the long hardwood planks that formed the wall. The fancy fretwork covered an area large enough for Frostflower to crawl through. The only other way out was the trapdoor.

  Unless she waited for another thunderstorm, which might come before morning or not for several days, she would have to manipulate the time of inanimate materials—the hardest skill of all time manipulation. Nevertheless, she had done it before. Had she not developed the two standard powers almost as fully as possible in a sorceron only twenty-seven years of age, she would not have been permitted to journey in the outer Tanglelands.

  Whatever way she chose, she would need a rope or ladder. She could always tear and knot her blankets. She would need to find the best way, also, for bringing Starwind and Dowl safely to the ground. She wished to destroy as little as possible. A lightning bolt guided through the wall would leave Burningloaf with the need to make extensive repairs; it might, besides, cause a fire; and it would of course terrify the infant and the dog. As for the grate, it had been beautifully carved, in a pattern of stylized pumpkin vines, and she thought it would be a pity not to allow it to rot very slowly in its own time. That left her the trapdoor.