The Wind-Witch

by Susan Dexter

  Druyans family had not kept sheep, Glasgerion being better country for cattle. She had only learned to manage the animals after Travic brought her to Splaine Garth. She had loved the beasts from the first, and not merely as the providers of the wool she spun and wove into her marvelous webs of cloth. She rejoiced at each new lamb as if ’twas the child she herself had never born, and mourned every death among her flock as if the sheep had been close kin. She would happily have delivered each and every lamb ih wther own capable big hands.

  Which of course did not befit the lady of Splaine Garth , as Enna was never unwilling to point out to her. It was farm hands work, to sit up all night waiting for a nervous ewe to decide to lamb. Pru’s work, in fact, and Lyn’s, and the girls could send for help if they needed it, which they should not.

  So Druyan would steal out to the fold in the small hours, when Enna was long safe abed and the ewes were most apt to begin their business. Increasingly she found Kellis there ahead of her, helping a wet wriggling creature to find its wayfree of its weary mother, drying the lamb with a bit of straw so it would not take a chill, being sure that it fed from its dam and that she accepted its attentions if the birth was a Hrst for the ewe and she might therefore be confused about what was taking place.

  He saved a set of twins that tried to come neck and neck into the world and stuck tight as a cork in a bottle, a hopeless tangle of legs and noses—Kellis sorted out the legs, then held one lamb back while he hauled the other out. Druyan was there, and marveled that the ewe was so calm under his hands through the difficulties—she had lost ewe and lambs, both, in a similar case the season past, when the sheep would not let herself be helped and had burst her heart struggling to deliver. Lambs that tried to come backward, arse-first, did not dismay the man, either—Kellis deftly turned them, then delivered them into the outer world, none the worse for the brief problem.

  The only sheep he lost, in fact, was one that eluded the dogs, left the flock, and stayed outalonea all night in a freezing downpour. Even Rook could not comb the marsh successfully in that sort of weather, and the tide was in, too—Kellis finally found the dead ewe at midmorning and carried her chilled lifeless lamb back stuffed under his clothing, while Rook trotted whining alongside. Enna swore the creature was dead, but they put it in a box of straw by the Fireside, and Kellis rubbed its tight-curled wooly sides with warm cloths till even Druyan would have given upjust then the littleorphan gave a twitch and a bleat, and they ended up raising it in the kitchen, on cow’s milk and gruel. It adopted Meddy as its mother, to her consternation, but at least that kept it with the flock when it went to grass. By summer’s end the gray lamb would be like any of the other sheep, no wise remarkable for its cruel introduction to life.

  Plowing time arrived, just after lambing, when the chill was off the soil and the rains fell softer if as frequently. Druyan dragged forth the heavy plowshare and studied it a long while, trying to decide what to do with it. She knew as much about plowing a field as Kellis did—which was virtually nothing. Well, true, she knew which fields to turn and which were due to lie fallow that year. She knew they always used at least two horses and sometimes oxen Splaine Garth’s soil was heavy, and quite wet even though they planted crops on the best-drained ridges to prevent the seed corns rotting in the ground.

  Kellis had a healthy respect for the plow’s iron-shod blade, which could do more harm to him than the reaper’s sickle had—but the main part of the implement was safe friendly wood, and when he saw that he could keep well away from the blade, he grew more enthusiastic about figuring methods for plowing up a field to receive the seed.

  They set their hands first to Enna’s vegetable plot, and hashed out the basic procedure on a manageable scale. Next day Kellis swallowed hard, crossed his fingers, and took the harnessed team out to the small barley field, to mangle the soil there as thoroughly as he could contrive. Druyan and the girls broadcast seed onto that field next day, and Dalkin raked it in, while Kellis began on the next. His furrows resembled the tideline on a beach—all waves and ripples but the work got done, and gentle rains set the seed sprouting almost instantly. There were gaps in the soft green cloak—places where the bouncing plow hadn’t really turned the soil and the seed was eaten by opportunistic birds before germinating. Travic would have had a fit and thrashed his plowman.

  But Travic would have had a plowman to thrash. His widow was just grateful to have the plowing accomplished at all. Crooked rows did not distress Druyan—they’d bear barley alike with the straight furrows. Two mares foaled . Cows calved. The sows farrowed. They put in the kitchen garden, once the weather was trustworthy. Fall-hatched chicks began to lay, and one or two elderly black-and-white henswent to grace the stewpot, their productive days over. The grass greened up, even faster than the barley fields. Blossoms burst open upon the apple trees and along the hedgerows, berry brambles and wild roses both. And Kellis, fetching water so Enna could wash up the dinner crockery, glanced down into the pail, went white as milk, and spilled water all over the threshold and halfway across the room.

  Enna screeched and clouted him with her broom. Kellis scrambled out of her way by reflex and raced dripping to the barn, where Druyan was saddling Valadan for an afternoon ride, taking advantage of a gap in her chores and the clear skies that had followed the morning rain,—thinking placidly that after that she’d gather pie-plant stalks and do a bit of baking.

  “Lady—” Kellis slammed to a painful halt against the stall partition. Druyan looked at him from across Valadan’s back, startled out of her thoughts. Valadan snorted and swung his hindquarters a little, putting his mmp between his mistress, the stall door, and whatever trouble was apparently lurking on the other side. Dust the impact had shaken loose sifted down from beams overhead, gold when it entered sunbeams.

  “What’s the matter?” Druyan asked, trying not to sound anxious. She could hear Enna’s voice now, pitched high in anger but not nearby. Or was that anger? Had she tried to lift a heavy kettle off the fire and bumed herself? “Is it Enna?” She let go of the girth, ready to run.

  Kellis stopped her, fighting for his breath. He still had the bucket in his hand, and it caught Druyan in the ribs when he reached out, before soaking her with the last of its contents. “Raiders,” Kellis gasped out. “At the gate.”

  “What?” Druyan shoved past him, unstoppable. Kellis tried to go after her, tripped over the dropped bucket as he turned, and sprawled onto his knees. Valadan, bolting out of his stall in pursuit of his mistress, leapt nimbly over him.

  Druyan pelted across the barnyard, scattering chickens. She halted uncertainly. Everything appeared peaceful save for Enna, who was headed toward her, still brandishing her broom—and the chickens, already settling again, gone back to scratching for food as if the commotion was of no interest. Valadan skidded to a stop behind her.

  “Where is he?” Enna demanded.

  Druyan looked around, turning full circle. She could see the gate, closed across the lane that wandered toward aroad that was scarcely more than a lane itself. There was no one near it, and nowhere a man could conceal himself, even behind the drystone wall. No sign anyone had tried. Valadan held his head high, nostrils and ears and eyesaall working, evidently fruitlessly.

  “He can just scrub the whole danm floor, since he’s soaked it! Where is he?”

  Kellis came out of the barn, with straw plastered to his wet clothes, straight into Enna’s path.

  “Get back to the kitchen, you! Playing games—”

  “Wait,” Druyan said, frowning, trying not to be distracted. She didn’t game. “Kellis, there’s nobody there. Not so much as a bootprint in the mud. What exactly did you see?”

  “The inside of a cider barrel,” Enna suggested darkly.

  It sounded plausible enough, except Kellis didn’t look tipsy—he looked terrified, scared half out of his wits. He stood staring at the gate, but Druyan was sure he wasn’t seeing it. His eyes were dark as his brows—the pupils had spread, despite the br
ight sun he stood in, and covered all the lighter gray rims.

  “Kellis?”

  He staggered blindly past her, heading for the horse trough, and reaching it, dropped to his-knees beside it. He took a grip on the edge of the trough, with either hand, started to lean over it. Kellis hesitated, shaking, lifted his head, and looked back pleadingly at Druyan.

  “You have to understand—I don’t choose to see things in the water. I never did. The bottom of the bucket would have been plenty for me—”

  “But you did see something? Something else?” Druyan asked, suspecting understanding about to dawn. “In the bucket?”

  Kellis nodded, like a puppet clumsily wielded. He was still trembling, unable to control his hands even while he held onto the trough. “The water swirled, and there were men with torches, at your gate. It was night. They had swords, spears. I could see the torchlight shining on the edges of the weapons.” He glanced sidelong at the trough, bracing himself.

  “Will you see more, if you look again?”

  He looked as if he was choking and had to master that before he could answer. A long shudder wracked him. “I will try. There might be no vision—I’m far out of practice with calling them.”

  “Try,” Druyan ordered, glancing uneasily about at the empty yard, the innocent gate. Night, he’d said. Well, it wasn’t night, not for some hours. But it would come. Already the sun drifted onward from the zenith, and there was no staying its course.

  Kellis nodded jerkily and bent over the trough. Druyan joined him. She watched his breathing slow, steady. His eyes went out of focus again, and sweat started out in tiny drops all across his forehead, like a dew. Very softly, beneath a whisper, he began to sing, leaning down over the water. With no idea how the business of visions worked, Druyan looked into the trough, as well, wondering whether she would see what Kellis saw, or must only trust his witness.

  Actually, Kellis had quite forgotten that his visions could afflict him unbidden, that in fact they’d begun that way, when he was yet a half-grown boy. Such visions had twice the reality of the waking world, but he had forgotten that, too, and it had astonished himithat he could walk out of the barn into daylight rather than darkness lit by torches and flashing metal weapons, hearing no screams, no shouts, no destruction. He tried to take hold of himself, steady his breathing at least, because he knew very well that prophets appearing to be lunatics were not listened to all that carefully. The vision was true, or it would not have come at him like that. He could trust it—and luckily it was not subject to any sort of qualifying interpretation at all. . .

  His lips were cracked as old leather, as he began to sing up the vision again. He had tried desperately to forget how to call on his skill and had very nearly succeeded—but in the end, even having his head split open by a blow from cold iron had not been enough.

  There was a fine film of dust lying atop the water, giving it the solid appearance of polished stone. A tiny breeze riffled the surface—no, that was Kellis, trembling, making the trough rock just perceptibly. The motion subsided. The singing took on a more insistent note. Druyan could see her own face darkly reflected, saw Kellis’ alongside it, much distorted by the angle she viewed it from. She tried to look deeper, past the mirroring effect. She thought she could see the caulked greenish planks of the trough’s bottom, but there was nothing else in the water.

  Apparently there was nothing for Kellis, either. All at once he ceased his singing—in what seemed to be midword—and sank back on his heels, his head and shouldeis slumping forward till he nearly cracked his chin on the trough. His right hand groped toward his forehead, he pressed three fingers against the red line of the scar, as if to assuage pain.

  Druyan gripped his shoulder. “Kellis? Are you all right? What did you see?” Something she had not?

  “Water,” he answered dejectedly, his voice thin. “And I ought to scrub that trough out for you—I wouldn’t want to drink out of it; the horses can’t be much better pleased—” He lifted his head, blinking as if he came out of some dark place. “Lady, I told you before, I am not much use at foreseeing. I don’t pretend any pride about it. I see when I don’t want to, but I can look and not see, I can see and not know when I see. I can, for that matter, see and not know where I’m seeing. But it was your gate—I saw the new board.”

  She’d had him mend the gate properly, just the week past. The fresh unweathered board stood out like a blaze on a dark horse at night.

  “And I never see much ahead, or much behind,” he faltered on. “It was night, and the raiders were there. They weren’t there last night, so what I saw must have been this night.” He looked at her, begged her belief with those open, innocent eyes.

  “If we believed you, you addled thief!” Enna broke in coldly. “Lady, go have your ride. I’ll deal with this wretch. Honest work will chase these fancies out of his head, and there’s plenty of that to be done round here.”

  Druyan looked at Kellis. He dropped his eyes and got stiffly to his feet, saying nothing. He’d added mud to the straw bedecking him. Had he lied? But if he had, to what possible purpose?

  “They’ve never come so early,” she said uncertainly.

  “The winter was mild.” A mere observation, nothing coloring it.

  True. At the time, it had seemed a blessing. Now it might be something entirely less fortunate. There’d been fewer than the usual number of winter storms, and it had been some while since the last one. But that did not answer all her questions.

  “Why would they come here? What do we have?”

  Kellis looked slowly about the tidy farmyard, seeing with other, more desperate eyes. “Food. It takes many days to voyage across the Great Sea, even with the winds favorable. Even the Eral grow weary of salt-dried fish and damp journeybread.”

  “Towns are better to plunder.” Thankfully, there weren’t any such very near, only tiny local villages, two or three families choosing a common dwelling spot. Towns hugged the rivermouths for the transport both coastlong and inland that the waters offered, and were easy prey to shipborn raiders. That had kept Splaine Garth safe, save for that one raid the autumn previous.

  “Each ship and its men answer to one captain,” Kellis explained, dashing her hopes. “That captain may join with others to sack a town, but he’s on his own when it comes to getting his men fed. This place is rich enough.”

  It made sense, if you wanted it to. “Kellis, are you sure of what you saw?”

  He looked long at her. At Enna. At the quite unremarkable farm buildings that had been his home all winter. At the mended gate, especially. “Yes, Lady,” Kellis said, not hesitant any longer.

  “Then we haven’t much time,” Druyan decided. “The tide is against them now, they can’t have landed yet. But they can get in just about sunfall, which will probably suit them. They seem to like to come in the night.” She had heard Travic say so. “I will move the horses and the cows out onto the moors. Kellis, I want you and Dalkin to drive the sows and the piglets down to the marsh. The far side, as much away from the river as you can get. Then find Lyn and Pru, and tell them to move the sheep as high up the headland as they can in an hour. After that they’re to hurry back here—I don’t want them alone out there.” For all she knew, the raiders were slavers, too. “They’d better bring the dogs. Enna, chase the chickens into the root cellar.”

  “What, so these raiders of his don’t need to catch the fowl for themselves?” She waved the broom in the direction of Kellis, who was heading for the pigpen at a trot. “You don’t believe that mischief?”

  “He has no reason to lie, Enna.”

  “None you know of! Unless he’s maybe just crazed. Lady, don’t listen to him! Who knows what deviltry he’s up to?”

  Druyan turned and walked away, having no answer to make. What was she to do? What had Travic done, when the lookout he’d posted on the headland had spotted black ships off their coast? She remembered no specifics, but the broad outline was easy. He’d gathered all the men together
, armed them, defended the farm.

  But she had no men, and a farm was not a castle, with great thick walls to slow an invader’s progress. Most of their fences barely kept the cows out of the crops. Hiding what the raiders would be most apt to snatch was a fair beginning, but perhaps they ought all to take to the marsh. The salt grass wasn’t so high as it would be by summer’s end, but there were places where the ground itself would hide them, coves and twists of boggy ground no invaders unfamiliar with the place could easily penetrate. . .

  And what if the thwarted hungry raiders burned what they couldn’t take? If they put the house and the barns to the torch, there’d be nothing of Splaine Garth to hold, year-and-a-day notwithstanding.

  Valadan was standing at the gate, still saddled, head high and nostrils flared, on watch for early signs of trouble. Druyan swung into the saddle. No idle ride now, but a swift tour to see what she might contrive to do before night and disaster fell upon them. She made for the top of the headland first, to scry the broadest reach of sea she could.

  Defending Splaine Garth

  Druyan saw nothing untoward. But Valadan did not seem calm and unperturbed beneath her, despite the emptiness of the sparkling sea. The calm was temporary. In due time there would come a shipload of raiders.

  Druyan studied the beach they would sail by, the river mouth and the lay of the land that would guide them straight to the heart of her farmland. The little ridge of higher, well-drained ground that ran along one side of the river and made such a handy path for them, a sure way to skirt the quaggy marsh, gave them away. One end was by the river, just where the water began to go shallow and a boat of any size had to anchor or risk grounding. The other end turned into the lane and finished at Splaine Garth’s gate. The whole length was very obviously traveled, impossible to disguise. They were farmers, not castellans. They’d never thought they’d have to hide themselves. . .