Willow Witch

by Patty Jansen

  The man looking over the glade turned around, and it was Sylvan. He proceeded to walk around the bottom of the hill, picking up sticks of wood as he went. He put these in a bag which he carried at his belt. The prick of magic hung in the air.

  Something Kylian had said came to her mind. We use magic at court.

  Clearly lots of people used magic for different things. It looked like Sylvan had set a magical ward to make sure that the prisoners didn’t escape. Something that made people feel fear or reluctance to leave.

  Nellie’s behaviour from last night now made sense. As someone without magic, Nellie was more affected by the spell.

  It also chilled Johanna to the core. Since the church forbade magic, no one in Saardam learned anything about it. She had always believed that magic happened by itself and you could read it, but not control it, but she was clearly wrong about that.

  It looked like you could imbue the wood with images that made a person scared. What if you could make a person feel anything simply by leaving a piece of wood in a room?

  Do you want to sell your business?

  Buy my stock?

  Marry my daughter?

  She shivered. If she was right, people needed to learn about this magic, not run away from it, because entire countries could be controlled by it.

  And then a thought: maybe entire countries were already controlled by it. Not Burovia, Gelre or Estland, where magic was more common, but Saarland.

  Well, that was a very disturbing thought.

  Johanna carefully wriggled out from under the blanket. Her muscles screamed protest from having sat in an uncomfortable position all night. Her bladder almost hurt from being too full.

  A couple of the other bandits were already up. One of the nameless ones was cooking something in a pot over the fire with another one waving a blanket to fan the fire. The wood was obviously wet, because it produced a lot of smoke.

  Johanna ducked behind the large tree. The bear lifted its head, but didn’t get up. It was watching her.

  Sylvan had disappeared around the corner of the hill, but Johanna held no illusions that he didn’t know that she was here. Johanna wavered between seeing what he was doing and relieving herself, and nature won. Wetting herself would be very uncomfortable.

  The trunk was wide enough for her to hide behind, but now the horses all stood watching her from the other side of the creek.

  “Hey,” Johanna whispered, and flapped her hand.

  The horses didn’t move.

  “Scat!”

  They just stared at her.

  To her annoyance, another bandit had come to the creek to wash his face.

  Well, it was not to be helped. Johanna pulled up her skirt but when she squatted to do her business, the man at the creek turned around. It was Ludo. His face split into a leery grin.

  And she was to spend another day on a horse with this creep, trying to avoid his groping hands?

  Sooner or later, something was going to break.

  She remembered what Nellie had said about him last night and shuddered. If doing that thing with Roald hurt her, she could only imagine how much it would hurt for a man twice his size.

  Ludo said something. She noticed his exceedingly hairy arms. She wondered if the rest of him—

  No, this was definitely not a good thing to be thinking about right now.

  “I’m married,” she said, making her tone as vicious as she could make it.

  Ludo laughed in a “like I care” manner, and went up the hill, hitching up his pants as he went.

  By the time Johanna came back to the camp, the others were awake and one of the bandits was handing out dirty bowls containing a lumpy grey substance that did not deserve the word “porridge”. He gave her a bowl.

  It didn’t look appetising, but it smelled of grain and her stomach probably wouldn’t mind, as long as it was warm and filling.

  As a bonus, too, Ludo sat on the other side of the fire and hadn’t made a grab for Nellie.

  There were no spoons, but it was so stiff that they could eat it with their fingers. Loesie did it with both hands, as if she hadn’t eaten for days. Nellie did this daintily, with a prim expression on her face and not looking at anyone. Her face was very pale. Nellie’s bonnet, normally pristine white, was grimy and dirty.

  “I want honey,” Roald said, poking at the contents of his bowl.

  “There is no honey,” Johanna said.

  “It doesn’t taste any good without honey.”

  “I know, but there is no honey.” She knew she shouldn’t let his stubbornness get to her, but a sudden wave of irritation made her grumpy.

  “I got honey from the farm.”

  “Yes, but it’s at the boat. We’re not at the boat. Come, eat up.”

  Some of the bandits had already eaten and were rolling up their mats. Johanna dug into the sticky substance with her fingers. It was warm, but stuck to the inside of her mouth like glue. She struggled to swallow the stuff.

  “I haven’t said it yet today,” Roald said.

  “Said what?” She looked to the side, her mouth full of grainy sticky porridge that she was trying to work into her stomach.

  “I love you.”

  It was the strangest thing someone had said to her while she was trying not to gag. His expression was so sincere that it made her choke up, which didn’t help her ability to swallow gluey porridge. She couldn’t speak, and brushed his hand with the fingers on her right hand, which weren’t sticky.

  Roald was so sincere, so innocent, she had to protect him from whatever the bandits had in store for them today. Most of all, she had to protect his identity.

  Sigvald stood with his hands at his hips, watching his men. He and Sylvan exchanged meaningful looks, but said nothing. Johanna wondered about Sylvan’s status. He seemed to be one of the youngest but was treated as one of the higher-ranking members of the group. She hadn’t seen him eat breakfast, or eat last night. He hadn’t taken part in sharing the liquor.

  With his long plaits, tattoos and scar on his face, he looked creepy. His youth only accentuated the effect. He was too young to have a position of leadership in this group, so it had to have come from his other abilities.

  Some of the bandits had already finished with breakfast, and one of those brought the horses back across the creek. The animals were restless, grumbling and nibbling at each other, and probably sensed that they were about to leave. When breakfast was done, the men finished packing and the first ones climbed on their horses. Four remained with saddles and without packs, one each for Johanna, Roald, Nellie and Loesie, with their riders. As she had expected, Johanna was paired with Ludo again. Just her luck.

  The column set off through the forest at a plodding pace. They went around the course of the creek, past the ruins of the farm and the water mill. The giant wheel stood idle, with water cascading uselessly over the scoops. Some of them had been destroyed by fire.

  From there they went up the next hill. Johanna noticed a sigil cut into the bark of a tree. A sign of ownership or direction? She studied the various tattoos and signs on jerkins or packs, but couldn’t see the same sign anywhere. Was that a good thing?

  Ludo behaved better than he had the previous day, perhaps because Sigvald stayed close. Maybe he had an interest in delivering the prisoners unharmed.

  As the morning wore on, the mist lifted. Sunlight came through, casting brilliant rays of light through gaps in the foliage. Birds broke into unfamiliar songs, nothing like the sound of the larks, lapwings and sea birds that you would hear in the fields of Saarland. These birds sounded musical and melodious. Occasionally, Johanna would see a silhouette of a bird hopping about in the branches. Once she spotted a small bird on
the ground, scurrying in the leaves. It was brown with a vivid orange chest. Roald would know what type of bird it was.

  Around mid-morning, the lush beech trees made way for scrawny pines. The air had a curious smell here, and the ground underfoot became soft with springy moss, so that the horses’ hooves made almost no noise. In places the soil had been churned over. Pigs did that, she remembered.

  There were curious signs of previous human habitation: the occasional circle of wooden poles stood on the mossy ground, often surrounding a mossy mound. Mostly, the posts were badly decomposed and some had fallen into heaps, so whatever the posts were for, it had been a long time since people had lived in this area. There were no fields, no farms. The pines looked thin and emaciated. Their sparse foliage let through lots of light. Faint patches of mist still lingered near the ground, giving the forest an ethereal appearance.

  The air pricked with magic. Even though these were not willow trees, Johanna had no doubt that they would have stories to tell of death and failure, of ghosts and magic. With the massacre the tree had shown her yesterday, it made her feel cold.

  She shivered, despite the nice day.

  They stopped for the midday meal in a mossy clearing with another one of those mounds surrounded by tree stumps. The men sat down on the moss.

  Johanna’s backside was so sore that she remained standing while she ate the dry bread the bandits gave her. Nellie complained, but both Roald and Loesie were quiet, each struggling with their own pain and fears.

  Johanna eyed the mound. She took a chance and put her hand on a nearby tree, but all she saw was tranquil forest. Either her magic didn’t extend to pine trees, or the images had faded. In most cases, with wood that was part of buildings, images lasted a few weeks, but much longer if no one touched the wood or nothing happened.

  She leaned against the tree, studying the mound, noticing that no one, not even de dogs or bears, went inside the circle of posts.

  “They’re burial mounds,” Roald said behind her.

  “They must be very old.”

  “They are. It’s been a long time since people lived here. The hunter tribes came here to flee the Westfalian invasion, but the land was too poor to support farming. People moved on to the low country or the river towns. Many people died of the plague while they lived here and they’re all buried in the forest.”

  “I think their ghosts linger in this place.”

  “Ghosts are not real.”

  Johanna thought of the white horses she had seen last night. If they weren’t ghosts, then what were they? “I think ghosts and magic are real. This place has a lot of magic. You can feel it in the way that it’s so quiet here. The moss on the ground takes away all the sounds. Mist hangs between the trees like trails of magic. And then there are these burial mounds. Why did so many people die here while no one lives here now? Did they all just pack up and leave? Don’t you think this forest is spooky?”

  He frowned at her. Sometimes, when he spoke about all the things he knew, and when he was relaxed, it was easy to forget how awkward he was around people.

  “I think it’s spooky here,” Nellie said. “You can feel it. It’s as if the dead whisper in the back of your mind. I’ll be glad when we come to civilisation.”

  Johanna wasn’t sure if there was much civilisation out here.

  “She doesn’t like it here.” She nodded at Loesie, who sat on the ground eating her bread. She didn’t look at anyone else, and kept the chunk of bread close to her chest, as if afraid that someone would take it off her.

  “Do you feel the magic, Loesie?”

  “Ghghghghgh!”

  Johanna searched for the other person with magic, Sylvan, but couldn’t see him anywhere. Not with the young men, not with Sigvald, not with the horses. Sylvan’s big black horse wasn’t there either. When had he left?

  His absence didn’t seem to worry anyone. Sigvald was talking to the older man with the missing teeth and the younger bandits were sharing a joke of some sort.

  Guess it had to be all right, then

  “You’re more familiar with that area than any of us, Roald. Do you have any idea where we are?”

  He frowned at her. “I told you yesterday, we’re close to Duke Lothar’s land.”

  Not that she knew where that was. “Do you think they’re taking us to the duke?”

  “Duke Lothar does not let anyone on his land unless they’re invited.”

  “That means yes?” Did that mean they were invited or they were about to run into an ambush?

  “Surely the duke will realise his mistake and let us pass?” Nellie said.

  “What is he supposed to mistake us for?” Having heard Roald’s story about the royal family of Gelre, she hardly thought anyone would mistake the group for innocent travellers. She became increasingly sure that the duke was the boss of these bandits and had sent them with a reason.

  A mild commotion behind them signalled Sylvan returning with three dead rabbits tied up by the back legs. His horse’s flanks were moving fast and covered in sweat.

  Sigvald made a sharp remark, to which Sylvan retorted with a toss of his head. Sigvald replied something about You can be responsible for the trouble.

  Sylvan said under his breath, “Coward.”

  Sigvald leapt and pulled him by the leg of his trousers. Sylvan hadn’t expected that and fell from the saddle on top of his attacker.

  With shouts of protest, a couple of other bandits sprang forward and pulled the pair apart.

  There was no time for this, one man said.

  Another said that they’d all agreed on something.

  A third said he had enough of the nonsense and wanted to go back. Back where, he didn’t say or Johanna couldn’t make out.

  The men were all shouting at each other, filling the quiet forest with angry voices. Roald covered his ears with his hands, rocking from side to side. Johanna knelt next to him—ouch, her backside—and tried to calm him down. He was humming to himself.

  Johanna had to do something, or he would start banging his head against a tree trunk, so she started singing the words of a children’s nursery rhyme, the only song she could remember.

  He lowered his hands and listened to her. His face relaxed.

  The argument between the bandits dissolved with the men talking to each other in small groups, with angry glances across the clearing. With Sigvald snapping harsh words at the prisoners that seemed to be about Roald, and sounded like an insult, but Johanna didn’t catch the meaning. Perhaps it was better that she didn’t.

  The men climbed back on their horses and left the clearing split up into two distinct groups: those who agreed with Sigvald and those who wanted to go with Sylvan. Ludo rode with Sigvald, and so did the old bandit who rode with Loesie and the shy young man who shared his horse with Nellie, but Roald’s bandit had changed camps.

  This worried Johanna a lot. Sylvan and his group rode too far to the side for her to speak to Roald. The horse also moved too much for her to tell if he was rocking from side to side. The bandit would have told him to sit still. Roald was good at following orders, but he was going to be stressed. Not much disturbance was needed for him to throw a screaming fit. He’d been fragile enough at their last stop.

  Whenever the two groups came close enough, he didn’t make eye contact. Not a good sign, she thought. Maybe he thought the men were angry with him instead of each other. Maybe he didn’t understand anger.

  Each time Sylvan and his group rode further away, she was afraid that they would split up and go their own way. That fear clamped its cold fingers around her heart. They could not afford to lose Roald.

  The vegetation now consisted of mainly pine trees, most of them twisted and knotted, with few healthy branches.
Soon, the cover of trees stopped altogether to make way for a field of low shrubbery with the occasional straggly tree.

  From the top of the horse, Johanna could see over many hills of it, dark green vegetation dotted with grazing sheep.

  Was this the thing they called heather? Her mother used to speak of it a lot, because apparently there were big fields of it in northern Estland. Apparently at the end of summer, it bloomed purple. It was the beginning of summer now, still spring, really, so the hills were a dull dark green.

  The group followed a track up one hill down the other side. It was more like a sheep track than a proper road, and it was narrow, so the horses walked in single file, Sigvald’s group first and then Sylvan’s group quite a way behind. Johanna couldn’t even see Roald anymore, even though she risked Ludo’s attention a few times by looking over her shoulder.

  She listened, but heard nothing except the clop, clop, clop of the horses behind them, and the whistle of the wind, especially when they came to the hilltops.

  The ground in the valleys was often wet, with scrawny black-and-white-trunked birch trees. Sometimes there was a little creek or pond; sometimes there was only tall grass. If one of the horses wanted a drink, its hooves churned up the soil, leaving deep tracks in the mossy ground.

  After they had traversed a few such hills, the forest disappeared from sight.

  The ground became increasingly barren, often with exposed patches of white sand on the surface between the shrubs. Sometimes the sand lay in little soft-looking mounds, with animal tracks across its surface; sometimes rainwater had etched deep ruts in the ground, and the jagged walls of earth would show sand of different colours, mostly white, light grey or rust.

  Although the travelling party disturbed a few flocks of sheep, they saw no people. Once they passed an abandoned hut, its roof covered in dead heather plants which, apparently, the people had dug, with adhering soil and all, out of the surrounding hillsides. Next to it was a field where the churned soil was still visible, coated in a layer of loose sand. A soft, wind-blown hill of sand lay on the lee side of a timber structure that looked like a well. Sand had also heaped on the lee side of the farmhouse, and threatened to enter the structure’s open door.