Blood Moon (2 page)

There had been a time when the lowest
scullery maid in her father’s castle had worn more comely gowns
that the one she now held, when nothing had touched her own skin
save the finest of silks and satins. She had learned in the time
since to be grateful only to cover herself.

However thankful the poor were for her
services in healing their sick, they had little to give. Beyond
that, she could not bring herself to accept more than what it took
to survive. The work she did in healing others was a form of
penitence for the evil she did when seized by the madness. She knew
that it was her only hope of salvation for her soul.

Not surprisingly, she saw that the gown
was ripped into tatters. It had been repaired many times, until it
was a crisscross of stitches, but only a part of the repairs were
from the normal wear and tear one could expect in so old an article
of clothing. Her first act upon assuming her other form was to rend
the clothes from her back. She had learned only to wear loose
clothing, the more restrictive the gown, the less usable afterward.
As if being trapped in clothing was sufficient to send her into a
mad frenzy in and of itself, anything that could not be discarded
with relative ease was shredded to ribbons by either razor sharp
teeth, or claws, or perhaps both.

Sighing, she moved to the bundle that
lay near the back of the cave, untied it, and unrolled her ‘second
best’ shift and gown. She could repair the other later. The moon
had begun to wane. She was reasonably certain she was safe from her
curse for a few weeks. Right now, she needed to dress herself and
move on. She had made it a practice to move as far away from an
area as possible after she’d killed.

Bundling her belongings, she wrapped
her worn cloak tightly about her shoulders, pulled her hood close
around her face and left the cave. To her relief, she discovered
her boots within a few yards of the cave. One had somehow landed
upright when she’d ‘lost’ it. It was filled with snow. She upended
it, struck the sole to loosen the ice crystals. When she’d emptied
it, she brushed the snow from one stocking, stood on one leg and
tugged the boot on, then repeated the process with her other
foot.

Her feet felt like blocks of
ice.

If she were still human, frozen feet
would mean more than discomfort.

But she had ceased to be human years
ago.

* * * *

Aslyn had not traveled more than a mile
when the distant wails of a distraught mother reached her. She
froze, lifting her head to listen, turning slowly until she could
distinguish the direction.

Her heart seemed to drop to her frozen
feet and freeze itself into a hard, suffocating knot.

She hesitated. It would be wiser, she
knew, to run the other way. Some instinct told her that she had
more to do with the woman’s grief than she ever wanted to know,
that her evil deeds would catch up to her, at last, if she didn’t
flee while she had the chance.

She found that she couldn’t.

She could not know that she was
responsible. If she fled, without offering her services as a
healer, then she would most assuredly be guilty.

Hurrying toward the sound now with a
sense of urgency, she came upon a small rise. When she’d struggled
up it and reached the summit, she saw that she was looking down
upon a narrow road. Debris littered the rutted track behind a cart
that lay drunkenly upon its side. An ox, struggling to right
itself, added its own mournful bellows in counterpoint to the
woman’s wails. The woman, Aslyn saw, was sitting on a bank of snow
nearby, a child clutched to her breast, rocking back and
forth.

Relief flooded Aslyn. It was an
accident then, not some horror of her own making.

She stumbled as she hurried down the
slope, nearly falling flat, but managed to catch herself. “Madam,”
she called a little breathlessly as she neared the woman. “What has
befallen? Is the child ill?”

The wails ceased as abruptly as if
they’d been choked from the woman by a tight fist. Her head whipped
around, stark terror in her eyes. It faded slowly as she focused
upon Aslyn. “She’s dying. She’s wounded unto death. My poor babe.
My sweet angel.”

Aslyn reached the woman, grasped her
shoulder. “Let me see her. I’m a healer. Perhaps I can
help.”

The woman sniffed, studied her
suspiciously. “You are young to be a healer. You are scarcely more
than a child yourself.”

Aslyn’s lips tightened. “Nevertheless,
I know my craft. I have been practicing for several years now,
learned the secrets of the herbs when I was but a child in truth.
What have you to lose by allowing me to see to the child’s
hurts?”

Reluctantly, the woman loosened her
grip on the infant. Aslyn whipped her cloak from her shoulders,
folded it and laid it upon the snow, then took the baby and laid it
carefully on her cloak. “What happened?” she asked as she checked
the child’s injuries, noting with a great deal of concern that,
while the child still breathed, its heartbeat was faint.

A sob tore from the woman’s throat. “A
beast attacked us. It was not good day … still too dark to see
clearly. I scarcely caught a glimpse of it, but I think it was a
wolf.”

Fear clutched Aslyn’s heart. She felt
the blood drain from her face in a dizzying rush. “A wolf, you say?
The child’s not been bitten. I can see no signs.”

The woman shook her head. “Nay! It
attacked the ox. The poor thing was terrorized and bolted, crashing
the cart. I tried to shield the baby, but she was ripped from my
arms when we struck the boulder and flew from the cart.”

Aslyn nodded, checking the child’s head
carefully with her fingers. A knot the size of a goose egg had
risen on the baby’s forehead, but she could not detect any other
injuries to the head. She carefully rolled the baby onto its side
and ran her fingertips along its spine, checking each tiny
vertebra. They seemed intact. She could not detect any notable
breaks, at any rate. Until, or unless, the baby awoke, she could
not be sure the child had not injured her spine or neck.

She sat back and glanced around. She
hated to expose the child to the elements, even to check her
injuries, but she saw no hope for it. There was no shelter. She
looked at the woman, who seemed more in possession of herself now.
“Gather close and spread your cloak so as to block the wind as much
as possible. I must undress the baby to examine her and I don’t
want her to catch a chill.”

The girl child woke as Aslyn unwrapped
its swaddling and removed its gown. The child’s mother made an
abortive movement to gather it into her arms once more, but Aslyn
forestalled her. “No. It will cause her no harm to cry. She should
not be moved again, however, until I have determined if she has
broken any bones. The crying is a good sign. Such strong, lusty
wails could mean she is not so badly injured as you
thought.”

It could also mean she was in terrible
pain, but Aslyn didn’t voice those thoughts aloud. She closed her
mind to that anxiety and concentrated on the task at hand. Bruising
had already begun to develop. She counted a half a dozen that
looked fresh enough to be the results of the crash. Except for the
knot on the baby’s head, however, none seemed swollen, nor could
she detect any other areas that had swollen, indicating deeper
injury. The child’s frantic wriggling seemed to belie the
possibility of broken bones.

Aslyn dressed the child once more and
carefully wrapped her. She smiled faintly as she handed the wailing
child to its mother. “I do not believe she has sustained lasting
hurt. You must watch her closely throughout the day, however.” She
removed her pouch and carefully spread it upon the cloak, examining
the herbs in the tiny bundles inside and selecting small portions
of several. These she bundled together in a small scrap of cloth.
“If she appears dazed or confused, sleepy when she should not be—in
any way not her usual self, powder these herbs, take one fourth of
them and feed them to her in a cup of tea or warmed milk. I do not
believe you will need it, but it is better to be safe than
sorry.”

The woman nodded and took the pouch.
“This is for…?”

“Swelling. If her brain has been
bruised, it could swell and … cause her to be very ill. These herbs
are known to reduce swelling and should help. But do not give her
anything at all unless she seems strange to you. It is not a good
idea to give medicine where it is not needed.”

A look of fear flickered through the
woman’s eyes, but she nodded jerkily that she’d
understood.

Aslyn rose a little stiffly, shook her
cloak out, and donned it once more, carefully pulling her hood over
her head, as much to hide the red hair she despised as to ward off
the wind.

The child’s wails had quieted to a
snuffling whimper as her mother put her to her breast to pacify
her. “What do I owe you?”

Aslyn glanced down at the woman.
“Nothing.”

The woman shook her head, a look of
obstinacy hardening her features. “We are poor, but we are not
beggars. My man will insist upon paying you for your services when
he returns.”

Aslyn glanced around the
area.

“He ran after the beast. He will be
back soon, likely with the dead beast. We have no money,” she
added. “But I can at least offer you something to chase away the
chill. For the rest, we can haggle on something at a later
time.”

“That I will gladly accept,” Aslyn
said, smiling. “But I offered no charity. The babe was not in need
of my attention. I did nothing but look at her. What do you call
her?”

Pulling the babe from her breast, the
woman held the child up and bounced her slightly, smiling. A look
of uncertainty crossed her features, whether because her tit had
been so rudely taken, or because she didn’t care for the sense of
falling, it was difficult to tell. “She is called Bess. Aren’t you,
my beauty?”

Bess offered her mother a wavering
smile. Her mother’s smile widened to a grin.

She tucked the child close to her
again, settling her in a sling of fabric tied cross wise around her
neck and over one shoulder. When she was certain the baby was
secure, she smiled at Aslyn. “I am Enid. Come ‘round to this side
of the cart. Perhaps it’ll block a bit of the wind and I can get a
fire started.”

Aslyn wanted to be on her way. However,
she could not dash off into the wilderness without arousing
unwanted suspicions. She subdued her sense of urgency to depart,
therefore, went to gather some sticks, and helped Enid to build a
small fire. Relief had loosened the woman’s tongue. Or, perhaps,
she was merely starved for company. She chattered animatedly as she
set up a small tripod over the fire and set a tin packed with snow
over it to boil for tea. As she moved to the cart and dug out a
couple of earthen mugs and a jar that contained, Aslyn supposed,
the promised tea, she explained to Aslyn that she and her husband
had been on their way into the small, nearby town of Krackensled in
hopes of finding shelter there for the winter. They had a tiny
farm, but, naturally, could do little with it in winter time.
Ordinarily, they would merely have settled themselves in for the
winter and waited for spring thaw, but there were rumors going
about that had made them uneasy enough they’d decided to seek
safety in town.

Aslyn’s brows rose. “Rumors of what
sort? I confess I’ve not heard much news of late, but … our land
has not been invaded?”

The woman crossed herself. “Don’t even
say such. It tempts the fates. Nay. Wolves. Not more than a month
ago a stranger passed through and told us there’d been attacks, and
not only upon livestock. And then, only a few days ago, our nearest
neighbor came huffing up to our door at dawn, white as death, and
babbling about some great beast trying to tear his door down and
set upon him and his family. I decided right then that that was
enough for me, but Jim—that’s my husband—he wasn’t so easy to
convince. I suppose he’s convinced now, though,” she finished,
looking pleased about the matter as she handed Aslyn a cup of the
tea she’d brewed.

Aslyn took it and glanced at their
wrecked cart. “I would think so.”

“Where are you off to then?”

Caught off guard, Aslyn stared at the
woman blankly a moment.

“You said you’d not heard the rumors.”
She paused, frowning, and then looked around as if she’d only just
then realized that Aslyn was alone. “And traveling alone? That
seems a bit strange, even for a healer.”

Aslyn stared into her tea, trying to
quiet her pounding pulse. “I’m on pilgrimage. I travel with others
as I can. Only this morning, I parted company with the group I’d
been traveling with, for they were headed west and I
north.”

The woman nodded, apparently satisfied.
“You should come with us. It isn’t at all safe to travel alone just
now. And lone travelers this far north are like to be viewed with
suspicion…. Not so likely when you’re a woman, but still…. We could
introduce you around. I know for a certainty they’ve no healer in
Krackensled. The old woman, Gershin, died nigh six months ago. We
heard of it the last time we were there.”

Aslyn looked at her, torn. In truth,
she would have far preferred to part company with the woman
altogether, but she was weary from her travels and needed to find a
place to stay for a while. She would have to move on before the
moon completed another cycle, but the chance to rest awhile, and
the comfort of a cottage were too great to resist. “You don’t know
me. I couldn’t ask it of you,” she said a little
hesitantly.