If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1)

by Aimee Gross

  “Always hungry. And not just for food.” He handed Morie up and gestured to Wils and Annora to come, and me to get down in the bed so he could climb onto the seat and drive. “We’ll want to get out now and back to our own lands.”

  “Why?” I persisted. The apostate began to ring the chapel bell to mark the joining he had just officiated. I had to wait until the echoing clangs faded before adding, “What’s happening?”

  “Da thinks the soldiers have come to press men into service because there looks to be a war,” Wils answered. He and Annora climbed aboard and we set off.

  Da drove through narrow, packed streets. People were calling out, the crowd surged and eddied. Da looked more and more grim. Morie crept into Annora’s lap and held her hands over her ears. I knew the look, she’d be sniveling soon. She hates loud noise and crowds. Annora settled her chin on Morie’s head and crooned “Hush, shhhh.” Wils kept his arm tight round the two, and I sat opposite hugging my knees.

  Wils tried to get up on the bench seat beside Da when we slowed and stopped in the thronging, rushing people.

  “No!” Da said sharply. “Get down low, so it looks like only the girls are there. Put the sides down.”

  “I won’t!” I said. “They can’t take us! What are we hiding for?”

  Da didn’t turn round. “Do it now.”

  I did it, but grumbled to Wils, “I’m not a baby.”

  “Be glad if they think you are,” he hissed. He and I untied the heavy canvas rolled up above the wagon bed and drew down the panels that secured to cleats on the sides. Our wedding decorations were shredding and trailing away as the people pressed close to go by. I could still see through slits between the panels, few soldiers, mostly town folk shouting and pushing past us. I could make out snatches of what different people called to each other:

  “Bring my sword!”

  “They’ll give you a sword—”

  “—and all the dried meat you can pack in it—”

  “Aren’t there any more blankets? Bring them all!”

  The younger horse, Sollen, began tossing its head and tried to sidle in the traces, snorting. There was no turning round, or even turning off the main street. Annora handed a quivering Morie to Wils and jumped down to stand at the gelding’s head, whispering and touching her hand to its lips and cheek.

  I could tell Wils didn’t like it, her down there on the cobbles with frenzied folk pushing at her, but the horse stood still and, except for breathing fast, seemed to steady.

  “Can you lead him on, girl?” Da said, leaning forward to peer ahead.

  She stepped out with a hand on its neck, not the harness. Again and again, she drew the team forward. “Where do we want to end up?” she asked, calling over her shoulder. I could see now the tide of folk had shifted, most of them were going the same way as we were, burdened with packs and armfuls of goods.

  “We’ll have to go along with them,” Da said. He looked out the back of the wagon and saw Wils and me. Wils was up on one knee with Morie perched on the other with her face buried in his shirt. I knelt and swayed just behind the bench seat so I could see. “We’ll end up where the soldiers are driving us. I’ve seen the conscription before.”

  He had fought in a war years ago, I knew. Before he married Mum and had us. He still had a sword at home and other gear. “What will happen?” I asked Da. “Will they take us all?” I didn’t mean Morie and Annora of course—girls can’t go off and fight.

  “There’ll be soldiers in the town square, organizing this mess into ranks, I expect. The soldiers in charge are the ones I want to talk to.” He set his jaw and held tight to the reins while Annora led on.

  Wils patted Morie and did not take his eyes off of his new wife, drawing our team step-by-step through the throng. Every time someone pressed too near Annora, Morie would yelp “Not so hard!” into his shirt-front.

  “Give her to me, if you’re going to whack her.” I only had to ask once—he thrust her at me and put his head up by Da’s hip to watch out for Annora.

  “You’re choking me,” I told Morie, so she clung round my chest then, instead of my neck.

  “I want to go home now,” she whispered.

  When the street opened onto the square, we could see helmeted men with pikes herding town men into files, checking what stuff they had carried in. Shouting and swearing, they pushed them toward the far side of the square. Most of the women seen earlier in the streets were gone now, and I saw men of every age. Some of them surely too old to march?

  “Stop it here, under the inn sign. Wils, you’re with me. Judian, you, too.” He vaulted down, and Annora climbed up to take Morie from me, so I could go. “Don’t let them take the wagon!” Da called over his shoulder to her.

  “And how would she stop them?” Wils snapped, but he put out a hand to help me down and we set off after Da.

  Men got out of his way. He’s like a big old bear, heavy built. Men just moved aside until he came to the man he wanted. This one was a taller soldier in a tan tunic, where the others wore green. He had silver braid on his shoulders and other soldiers surrounded him, vying for his glance to ask him questions.

  “Yah, Coulier,” said Da, for that was this man’s rank, “What is this you’re organizing? What orders?”

  The Coulier snapped his head round, to tell Da to go where he was wanted, I think, but then saw his face.

  “Blast me if it isn’t Fenn Lebannen!” he shouted, his voice hoarse from all his other shouting so far today, maybe. “Have you come to help me wet-nurse this lot of whelps?”

  “Not I. I came to town to see my son married, and went from chapel into your war-drive. What’s the word, Dub?”

  “War is upon us. Troops massing on the western border, readying an assault. We’re to gather as many as we can equip and march out to meet them. It looks to be huge.” Dub ignored the soldiers hurrying up to him, leaving them shifting foot-to-foot as they waited.

  “But by the gods, why would Keltane want to attack us now? It’s madness to start a war with winter coming on. In a month, the passes will be snowed-in and their army will be cut off from supplies and reinforcements.”

  “What I hear is their king is god-touched and says to his advisors that the gods told him it’s his destiny to march on us.”

  “Bah, the gods told him he needs a decent harbour, more like,” said Da. “But why now, in the name of sweet reason?”

  Dub shrugged. “Help us sort it out. Bring your boys, there, and come see the troop marshal. You outrank him.”

  “I did.”

  To the men pressing around us, Dub announced, “Here’s Paladin Fenn Lebannen, come to set us all on the right path. Make way!”

  Da, the paladin in the old war? That I never knew. Wils and I made to go with him, but he put up a hand. “Let me see my younger boy back to the bride and my little daughter. Wils and I will come with you then.” Dub waved assent and turned to the other soldiers jostling him. We set off, following Da as he cut across the square filled with shoving, stamping men. I could scarcely keep pace with Da, and turned to Wils beside me.

  “I’m not getting left behind as if I was a girl and no use!”

  “Shut up, can’t you? I need you to get Annora home. She’s never even been to our place.” Wils pushed me toward the wagon.

  “Why do you get to go with Da?”

  “Who’s older? Don’t you think I’d rather go eat my wedding feast?”

  “You do that, then, and I’ll go with him and be a soldier.”

  “You must be thinking they’d want you!”

  Da forged ahead through men gradually filing into columns. We found Annora standing on the wagon bench, Morie clutching at her skirts, and the team digging in their hooves while two great hulking soldiers swore and dragged at their harness. It was all too apparent they would have taken our wagon if they could have, and left Morie and Annora standing on the grass by the square without anything but the clothes they wore.

  “Leave go of it.” Whe
n Da sounded like that, no one would cross him. They let the harness go.

  “We have supplies to load,” the first one started.

  “We need the rig. She won’t get out,” put in the other, pointing angrily at Annora.

  “And these horses are rooted here,” said his fellow with a rude oath.

  “Da won’t like you to swear,” Morie scolded him, clearly sure with Da’s return, our side was winning.

  “He’s Paladin Fenn Lebannen,” I said. “Are you going to tell him to give over his wagon?”

  Both of them stammered and flushed, and got away quick. Da smiled at me but said, “Don’t toss that around too free. I’m not paladin now, that’s past.”

  “Didn’t it work, though?”

  “I’m thinking Annora wouldn’t have let the horses set a step forward. It’s so isn’t it, girl?”

  Annora nodded. “Still, I’m that glad to see you back.” She reached for Wils, who helped her down and held her to him.

  “Da and I are setting off with the soldiers, love. You and Judian and Morie are to go home now. Look for us as soon as we get things sorted.”

  “Please, you can’t mean you’re going to war? Today? Not today.”

  Da looked across the square. “Today’s the day to find out what’s been set in motion. And why.”

  “You picked a bad day to get married,” I said to Wils, still smarting about being left behind.

  “Come aside, Judian, and let them say good bye.” Da led me around the back of the wagon. “When you can do so unobserved, you gather supplies at home. Water, food, arrows, knives. Take my sword, you know where it is. All this you take to three separate caves up in the mountain, close in and further up as well. Enough you can take Morie and Annora there and last a week and more. Pack it safe from animals and other foragers. Do you understand what I’m telling you to do?”

  “When will you be coming back? How far away is this marshal they want you to see? Won’t you and Wils be back tomorrow?”

  “There’s no telling at present. We could be gone a week, a month, longer still. I need to know you can keep safe at home if war comes our way.” He sighed. “This makes no sense on the face of it. I want you to have a secure place to go to ground if soldiers come to the mountain. Do you know where to prepare places out of the way?”

  I nodded. “I know good caves to use.”

  “I know you’ll take it seriously. Don’t let anyone know—the village folk—no one. If it comes to that, and you want to take Virda up as well, I leave it to you.”

  Laid on me, deciding to let soldiers murder Virda or not? This was too much to hear at once. “Am I to let Annora know?” I said this quietly, pretending to look at the backboard of the wagon for damage. I couldn’t meet his eye just then, I felt too tight in the throat.

  Da bent to look with me. “I leave that to you as well. She has her wits close by her, but may be that wrought up over Wils being off to war on their wedding day—maybe you’ll tell her when you’ve done.”

  Morie had just figured out that Da and Wils were leaving and set up a screeching wail. Da made sure I had no more to ask before he went round to her, though. I could not help but feel proud—and burdened.

  Morie cried all the way out the streets to the edge of town. “I want Da!” over and over, even Annora could not soothe her. Which was just silly to expect, I knew, since Morie saw her for the first time only hours ago. But I had to drive the team, so Annora held her as she hiccoughed and sniveled. Annora did not cry. It tore at me to see her, with the ribbons trailing out of her hair, looking back down the road with dry eyes. The soldiers would march west we had learned; we set off home on the village road north. I planned my cave havens as the miles rolled past.

  CHAPTER 2

  Virda had the wedding meal set in back under the willows when we drew up to the barn. She bustled over wiping her hands on her apron, smiling until she counted heads. “Whatever—” was all she managed to say before Morie scrambled down onto her, sobbing all over again. I hopped down and helped Annora onto the ground.

  “You tell her,” I said, “while I see to the horses.”

  By the time I put all the gear away and watered and fed the team, I felt a little less like my head was stuffed with fluff. I carried Annora’s packet of things over to where the women were seated at the long table. Annora sat at the head, with Wils’s empty place beside her. Virda cradled Morie on her lap, feeding her bits from her own plate, like when she was a baby.

  I sat on the other side and took some sausage and bread. I looked close at what was laid out, thinking what would keep in a mountain cave. Would it be best to start packing tonight?

  “Poor lamb, and on your wedding day!” Virda sighed. Good, someone else can be poor lamb now.

  “Will you help me learn what needs doing here? I’ve never been at such a big place,” Annora said softly.

  “Of course, dear. There’s lots to do to make ready for winter. But, they’ll be back before then, of course they will,” she said quickly, as Annora’s eyes shifted to look off the way we’d come.

  A couple of Virda’s sons, on dry land for a change, came up to play their feddles for the dancing that wasn’t to be. They plucked the strings and twisted the knobs to tune them to each other. We lit the fire Virda laid, and warmed ourselves while they played sea-songs under the trees. The stars glowed and a fox came sniffing by the edge of the grass. “No chickens for you,” I heard Annora say to it, but the fox just sat and let its tongue loll out to one side.

  Annora and Virda cleared up the food, and I showed Annora the washhouse. Morie showed her Murr the yellow kitten, and Annora made over it to Morie’s satisfaction. I checked all the stock and shut up the henhouse. We said farewells to Virda and her sons, as they set off down the slope carrying a lantern. We three went inside then, and I realized I had no idea where to put Annora. She would have been supposed to share a bed with Wils, but she could hardly sleep in the loft room I shared with him. Da’s room? It seemed too strange for her to sleep in his bed. But maybe that had been the plan, for Wils and Annora to have the room behind the stairs, which had been Mum and Da’s. No one thought to tell me. I stood at a loss, but Morie took Annora’s hand and led her to the top of the stairs.

  “You can sleep in my bed,” she chattered. “There hasn’t been enough girls here until now.”

  “Thank you, Morie. Is that all right, Judian?”

  I hadn’t thought to be asked. “That should be fine.”

  “What about you? Do you sleep upstairs as well?”

  “I’ll stay down here by the fire for now.”

  She looked as if she had something else to say, but Morie was tugging on her hand.

  “I’ll wake you in the morning when it’s time to start the chores,” I said.

  “Good night then, Judian.”

  “Yes,” I said. If I should have said something else, I didn’t know what.

  ###

  Once the girls had shut their door, I went to the big oak chair Da sat in every night by the fire. I felt very small sitting there. I poked the fire a bit, and then rested my chin on my pulled-up knees. If I gathered some food and packed it by the back door, I could take it up to the cave I had picked out, first thing tomorrow. Virda planned to come help Annora, and I could tell them I must go up to check fence, or whatever made sense as a reason for heading up the track with a loaded pack.

  I was deep into my plans, and starting to drowse in the fire’s glow, too, when I heard a thud at the door. I leaped to my feet, snatching for the poker when it came again, a single low blow on the outside of the door.

  “Who’s there?” I managed to say as deep as my voice would go.

  No answer from the outside, but Annora’s voice quietly from the top of the stairs, “Judian? What is it?”

  “Shh.” I crossed to the window that looked out on the porch. Another thump made me jerk back my hand from the curtain, but I stretched it out again to draw the corner of the curtain aside. In the moon
light, on the stones crouched the biggest black dog I had ever seen. I’d have thought it was a bear if it hadn’t had a long flag of a tail. As I watched, it lurched forward and butted its huge blocky head against the door. Annora sucked in her breath behind me, having crept to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Do you have a dog?” I asked faintly.

  “No. Is that a dog making that noise?”

  “Mmm.” I wanted to sit down.

  “Are you going to let her in?” Annora walked to the window beside me, and twitched the curtain aside.

  “Are you going to tell me you’re sure it won’t eat us all?”

  “She wants to come in, it’s cold out.” Thump, and the beast began wagging madly, too.

  “Have you seen it before? I’ve never seen it, it’s huge. Annora, wait—”

  She drew back the bolt and swung the door wide. The bear-dog sat back and waited, a mass of matted black hair hanging from its broad chest. It had feet the size of horse hooves.

  “Come on, then.” Annora stood aside. The dog rose, and walked in straight to the rug by the hearth, where it circled and lay down with a deep sigh.

  “In the morning, we’ll clean her up. She smells a bit now.” Annora wrinkled her nose, then smiled at me. “Animals turn up quite often where I am.”

  “If it eats Morie’s kitten I’m not going to be the one to tell her.”

  Annora smiled again, as if this was the least likely thing she had ever heard, and went off up the stairs, lifting her nightshift in both fists. I watched her for a moment, her long plait swinging as she walked.

  “You’ll tell me if you’re expecting anything else?” I said, as I crossed over to Da’s chair. The dog opened one eye as I sat down. I showed it the poker I still gripped, and it sighed again and closed its dark eye.

  “Fine,” I said. “Just stay right there and don’t do anything but sleep.” I echoed its sigh. “That’s what I wish I could do.”

  But presently, I did sleep, though I kept the poker across my lap.

  CHAPTER 3

  I woke to Morie jabbing me in the shoulder, saying, “You should see our dog. She likes me.” I tried to turn my head to her, but my neck felt like it had a wire strung through one side. I looked back the other way to find the dog regarding me placidly an inch away from my nose. “Gaah!”