Maggie was so anxious to get away from the village that she left Colin and the pack horse far behind in the first half hour on the road. After a long frozen winter at Fort Iceworm, it was a joy to splatter over the muddy tracks and splash through the pools left by melted snow from the last storm a month earlier. She scarcely noticed the nip at her ears as her mare’s gallop created a wind for them. Her woolen cape tugging at her as it billowed out behind her back made her want to sing from exhilaration. The smell of the new, tender grasses, the smell of anything at all after a sub-zero winter of buried vegetation and frozen noses, was sweeter by far than any of the perfume worn by the ladies at Winnie’s wedding. Even under a dull gray sky, the colors of spring were dazzling after the stark blacks and endless expanses of everlasting white. Mostly there was green, of course, but there were also redbirds and bluebirds and an occasional brave blossom of yellow or purple.
Her neighbors, whom she did spare a glance as they leaped into drainage ditches to escape being mowed down as she sped past, were also colorful. After nine months of black and deep indigo and brown that they wore against the cold, it was good to see the dark coats finally exchanged for the women’s costumes of red and gold skirts, blue or yellow blouses, and white embroidered aprons and kerchiefs. Most of the men dressed more soberly even now, a plow being less kind to white aprons than a butter churn, but Maggie knew that soon on market days they would be slipping over their smocked homespun shirts, felted vests embroidered in the most outlandish scenes and hues their womenfolk could devise. The more fantastic the embroidery, the more fantastic the man, folk said, for what woman would ruin her eyes doing such work for a nincompoop?
It wasn’t until she had to wait for a flock of sheep to dawdle across the road that the minstrel, panting and red-faced, galloped up on his mud-flecked buckskin horse. Ching, being jounced unmercifully in the basket he occupied atop the pack horse, yowled filthy feline curses.
Colin struggled to contain his ire as he reached the witch and her sweating chestnut mare. “Your pardon, milady, but if you try to maintain this pace, you’ll kill your beast before we reach the next village.”
As the thorough tongue lashing she was receiving from her grandmother’s cat began to sink in, Maggie bit back the angry retort she’d meant for the minstrel, and instead nodded meekly, and gently urged her horse forward as the last sheep passed.
Encouraged by this apparent acceptance of his authority, Colin added generously, in the grand language he’d been schooled to use with the aristocracy, “We troubadours are well versed in the ways of the road. Pray let me be your guide, milady.”
“Oh, pray go soak your head,” Maggie replied, unable to control her temper this time. “There’s only this one bloody road south from here to the Troutroute River, according to Dad’s map. What’s there to know, anyway? Look,” she pointed to a red bag tied in the fork of a tree. “The path is even protected with medicine bundles. Probably as exciting as a walk around the barnyard.”
Colin didn’t know what to say. How could he tell this pushy female, who even though she wasn’t anywhere near being what he would call sweet and innocent, nonetheless seemed pretty naive, what the perils of the road were? Fresh from the Academy this spring, he truthfully hadn’t experienced a great many of them himself. He was sure there were some, however, as his fellow students from parts of Argonia more exotic and sophisticated than East Headpenney, where he’d been raised, had told absolutely harrowing tales. And the history the masters gave in Lyric Appreciation classes, he felt sure, was not born of the sort of conflict, be it magical or unmagical, that could be warded away merely by hanging a medicine bundle in a tree fork. But go tell that to Mistress Know-it-all.
So they jogged along in silence for a long while. The dull clop of the horses’ hooves and the occasional jangle of the strings on Colin’s instruments as he shifted weight in the saddle were the only sounds. They had quite passed all the farms that surrounded Fort Iceworm, and were negotiating the more rugged, unmaintained track that was the South Highway when Maggie, who had been sneaking an occasional guilty side-long glance at Colin’s tight-lipped face, cleared her throat.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?”
Colin’s expression thawed just a bit. “Can’t say as it is, really.”
“No? Beastly I suppose, actually, from your point of view.” Having made herself an opening, she had very little idea how to proceed. Diplomacy, as had been frequently pointed out to her by loved ones who had occasion to know, was not Maggie’s long suit. “See here, minstrel, you really mustn’t be so bloody touchy about every little remark I make. A person makes a simple topographical observation and you get all huffy.” She noted with increasing exasperation that her humble apology wasn’t exactly producing instant rapport, but nevertheless plunged ahead. “I only meant that any fool should be able to find their way down a road that’s the only one there IS… don’t you think?” she ended in a voice rather smaller than the one she’d begun in.
Colin blew an angry breath out over clenched teeth. “And I only meant, milady, that I have perhaps had occasion to learn things about traveling that might prove instructive to a girl who’s never been off her father’s estate, that is, if she chose to listen instead of biting people’s heads off all the time.”
“Biting people’s heads off? Did I bite anyone’s head off? What do you think I am, an ogress, that I bite people’s heads off?”
“Please stop snapping so loudly, witch,” yawned Ching as he shifted to a more comfortable napping position in the basket. “Your dulcet tones are giving me a pain in the whiskers.”
Maggie’s shoulders drooped and finally she nodded. “ all right, maybe a little bite. But you met my Gran; and Dad, though he’s a nice sort of fellow for one of the ruling class, cares more about hunting than managing things, and has a head to match those boar trophies on the walls at the tavern sometimes. Winnie, when she was home, sort of kept things smoothed over and everyone peaceful. I’ll be the first to admit those tactics can be very effective but, toads, minstrel,” she looked directly into his eyes now, a plea for understanding, “sweetness and light just don’t get the hearth laid or the sheep sheared. Someone has to see to it that things get done. And one can’t forever be saying, Please, sir, I beg yer pardon, sir, would you kindly toss the slops out if it isn’t too much trouble and you’ve nothing better to do?” He still didn’t say anything. “It’s all right, you know, if you want to turn back north. There’s a little path that skirts round the village, so no one would know. I’ll really be fine.”
“I wouldn’t be so fine, though, if something should happen to you while I’m supposed to be with you, and your father found me elsewhere. I’ll accompany you, as arranged, milady.”
“At least stop calling me milady, then. My sister is the lady in the family, whatever your songs say to the contrary. I was born into what you might call the unauthorized distaff branch of the family. Dad didn’t marry my mother until I was two. Maggie Brown, apprentice witch, is my entire noble title. A simple Maggie will suffice.”
Colin grinned suddenly. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a long journey after all. He began to whistle softly and had gotten through four choruses before he caught Maggie’s baleful eye and realized he was humming the very song that had caused him to sprout feathers. He offered a sheepish smile. “I know you don’t like the words but it is a rather catchy tune, don’t you think?”
“Definitely not,” It was, though.
“Well, madam, I DO take requests.”
Maggie stopped herself just in time from requesting silence. Instead she asked, “Do you know of a place up ahead, oh guide, where we could stop to eat?”
“No, but hum a few bars and I’ll improvise.” He almost fell off his horse laughing at his own cleverness.
“Forget it,” Maggie groaned. “I just lost my appetite.”
Though Colin’s laughter could hardly have disturbed Ching, who was able to sleep through the numerous explosions resulting from G
ran’s arcane experiments, the cat nevertheless chose to open an eye and extend a black paw up the side of his basket. “I have not lost my appetite,” he informed Maggie, aborting the stretch as he recalled his precarious position. “One hardly expects, when traveling with a hearthcrafter, to grow lean in the process.”
“Too right, cat,” Maggie apologized, feeling irritably at the same time, that all the apologizing she was doing was getting to be a nasty habit, “Sorry if I was inconsiderate.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Colin replied, thinking she was addressing him, “Just having a bit of fun. There’s a little knoll ahead that ought to be fairly dry and not too muddy.”
They found the knoll and tied their horses to a tree at its base. Extracting a light lunch of cheese and dried apples, which Maggie reconstituted to fresh, and bread from the horses’ saddlebags, Maggie divided them between Colin and herself. She took out a packet of dried fish, expecting to find Ching at her heels, eager to devour it. Instead, she had to look all around the hill before she saw him, crouched at its base farthest from the road, switching his tail with concentration. “Chingachgook, here’s your lunch.”
“Not now, dammit,” he hissed. “I’m trying to hear what he’s saying.”
“What who’s saying?”
“Whoever’s in there, of course.”
Maggie started down the hill. “It’s not polite to eavesdrop.”
“Well, he sounds very upset about something and I only wanted to know what,” Ching said, sitting up and giving her his best innocent-wide-eyed-kitten look, which was somewhat spoiled by his coloring, white chin and nose with eyes and ears a black, furry bandit’s mask.
“What is it, Maggie?” Colin called through a bite of apple as he trotted down the hill to join them.
“Ching hears something in there. Look, there’s a little doorway!” A semi-circular piece of sod quaked and cracked away from the rest of the knoll.
“Yes, and it’s opening,” Ching hissed, crouched and whisker twitching once more.
The wet-faced, red-eyed gnome who emerged was indignant. “Can’t a fellow even mourn the fate of his best friend without you nosy mortals hollering on his rooftop?”
“I wonder what those taste like,” Ching mused.
Maggie shoved him back. “Behave yourself, cat.”
“We’re sorry to intrude on your grief, sir,” Colin said, removing his cap and leaning over a bit so the diminutive person would not have to look up so far to him. “It’s obvious you’re in some sort of trouble. We extend our condolences, and would do what we may to alleviate your pain and atone for our rudeness.” It was always extremely unwise to be anything but courtly to Little Folk: leprechauns, gnomes, brownies, and the like. Every reference Colin had ever heard made to them advised caution and courtesy even beyond that ordinarily extended to human nobles, for the Little Folk were strange and touchy and alien. Being so very small, they had never, like merfolk, witches, faeries, or even ogres, intermarried with people of larger dimensions, and they remained shy and reclusive. Although this gnome was the first Colin had ever seen firsthand, close up, he had known a boy in East Headpenney, an unfortunate orphan whose parents had unwittingly destroyed the underground home of a gnome family.
“Ah, waly, waly, waly,” cried the little man as he sat down on a toadstool, wringing his red pointed cap in his hands, “Alas, poor rabbit!”
Judging by his behavior, it seemed as though he had decided to take them into his confidence. Colin ventured a question. “Rabbit is the name of your friend, then?”
“Rabbit he’s named, as rabbit he is!” nodded the gnome, sniffing and digging in the pockets of his green knickers. “He comes to my house to bowl with me every quarter moon and every half, without fail. When he didn’t come as usual, I went looking for him.”
“And you couldn’t find him?” Maggie asked sympathetically.
The gnome took out a coin-sized handkerchief, blew his nose hard, and glared at her. “I f-found him, all right. Caught in one of your horrid iron traps, his back leg nearly sundered, a-perishing of pain and fright.”
Even Ching looked shocked and as compassionate as it was possible for him to look.
“I’ve tried all I know to free him,” the gnome said. “But the power over iron is beyond my skill, and I’ve not the brute strength to spring it.”
“You’d better show us where it is then,” Colin said, “before whoever set that trap comes to check it.”
If it hadn’t been for Ching’s hunting ability, they might have lost the gnome’s track as he ran through the green meadow and into the woods beyond. Not far from a deer path faintly etched through the undergrowth, the rabbit lay panting out his life, his soft white fur speckled red on both sides of a cruel trap that bit his leg like the disembodied dentures of an ogre.
When Colin had released the trap, he started to pick the rabbit up, but Maggie stopped him. “His life is too fragile within him for movement, minstrel. I’ve helped my Gran with a couple of cases like this, not on rabbits, of course, but I know that glassy-eyed look. Best thing to do would be to splint the leg and give him something for the pain first, then let him rest a bit.” She took off her kerchief and offered it to the gnome. “Spread this on him, sir, to keep him warm. I’ll see if I can find an ice poppy to ease his pain, though it will be hard to locate them without the flowers.”
“Failing that,” said Colin, pleased to have an alternative to doing exactly as the witch directed, “perhaps I ought to go fetch MY medicine.”
“YOUR medicine?” she asked. He was gratified to see how surprised she looked.
“You witches aren’t the only ones prepared for this sort of thing, you know. All minstrels are supposed to keep with them while traveling no less than two ounces of strong apple brandy in case of emergency.”
“I didn’t see him whipping any of that out while he was flying around in the rafters,” remarked Ching, licking a paw.
“Waly, waly, waly, waly,” sobbed the gnome, who had wrapped the kerchief close around the rabbit’s torso and had taken his friend’s head on his lap and was rocking back and forth, stroking the long, soft ears.
“Waly, waly, to be sure,” said Colin, sprinting back down the deer path, “Be back in a flash.”
Maggie turned back to the gnome, hunkering down, as Colin had, to face him on a civil level where she would not be talking down to him. “Is there a nearby creek, Master Gnome? Ice poppies like the banks of creeks, and we ought to have water to cleanse the wound.”
“Through yon trees, maid. But hasten, do. His life force dwindles…”
Maggie picked up a wad of the hems of her cape and skirt in one hand and used the other to push away the wet willow wands that slapped at her face and clothing. Willows in such profusion made her uneasy with their sharp-tongued leaves and the way they had of making the path ahead or anything behind them hard to see. She was glad it was not later in the day, for Gran had told her that there were willows which actually uprooted themselves to follow travelers who stayed on the road past twilight. Of course, Gran had never said the trees did anything but follow. Still—
She shivered. “Travel must not agree with me, cat. I’m jumpy as grease on a griddle. I have the oddest feeling we’re being watched.” When no teasing reply came from the cat, she looked around for him. He was crouched at her heels, fur glistening with dew from the grass and bristling, head turned to the left, ears ever so slightly rotating backwards and forwards, whiskers working. “Very reassuring, cat,” said Maggie.
“You’re the one with the big brown eyes, Witchy,” growled the cat. “Find the damn pool and the damn posies, and cure the damn bunny, and let’s get out of here.” His fur had continued to rise while he talked, and he now appeared twice his normal size. “I’ve been in dog kennels I liked better.”
“I know what you mean. I keep feeling there’s something besides the gnome and the rabbit at our backs.”
“Then move,” said Ching.
“All r
ight, all right, only everything’s so gray I can’t really see very much either.” She parted the branches of two willows which had originally grown on either side of the path, but whose drooping branches now completely obscured it. Slogging through the wet grass and soggy branches, they were both damp and cold by the time they came to the banks of the stream.
There was a different feeling there by the stream than there had been in the willows. Something about the place, some unidentifiable quality, poured over Maggie, so that, emerging from the trees to the grassy banks that held the blue waters, she took one soft step at a time until she stood absolutely still beside the gentle flow. It was the chilling, active blue of the killing crevasses of the great glacier that was its mother, but beautiful too. Around it, all about them, the air was mist-muffled and quiet, though there was the tinkle of the water, and once the song of a bird reached them, distinct and perfect. But here the sky did not seem dismal gray as before, but shone with the pearly translucent silver-pink of the inside of a seashell. The leaves, rustling without sound, glimmered in green pale, dark, and pale again like a jeweled gown winking in the light as its owner danced.
“There’s enchantment here,” said Ching quietly. Though he himself was more or less impervious to most spells, he had defluffed and come out of his crouch to stand, ears up and tail waving a gentle J behind him, at Maggie’s side.
“Yes,” she said.
“It’s across the stream, watching, in those trees.”
Maggie let her eyes drift to the area he indicated. The cat’s vision was not as precise as her own, but his sixth sense was far better developed.
Had it been a brighter day, she would, of course, have seen the unicorn immediately. As it was, his fog gray coat and opalescent horn blended so perfectly with the atmosphere in the woods that at first she mistook him for a bit of afternoon sky glowing through the boughs and branches. Only the amethyst eyes betrayed his presence, regarding her curiously across the icy blue water.
“He wants to know,” Ching told her, “if you are a virgin maiden.”
Song of Sorcery Page 3
