If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1) (10 page)

CHAPTER 14

I had been insulated from some of the realities of the sickroom, for Annora tended Virda. Because of my gender, it fell to me to attend to the soldier’s needs, as food and drink were followed in due time with the requirement to eliminate. I helped him stand to the piss pot, but took small solace that he was able to walk with help to the washhouse by the time more compelling needs arose. I was not going to wipe his ass. I suppose I made a poor nurse. He made a poorer convalescent, though, unsteady on his rag-wrapped feet and putting most all his considerable weight on me while complaining of being unable to tend to himself.

“Be your age,” I snapped. “How do you think I like it?”

Curiously, he laughed, but made no more complaints that trip. I had not been thinking to entertain the man.

Wild-blown snow piled up to the window sills, and more fell daily. The winds packed full the spot by the trough where the soldier had lain, he’d have been entombed there if Morie hadn’t found him. I had to dig it out to allow Dink to blow down and melt the trough ice for drinking. My fire site would no longer do. What boards overhung it were now too burdened with snow—I did not want to be underneath tending our fire when all collapsed. I brought wood inside and we began to use the hearth for more than setting pots upon. It felt more like home, then.

The soldier began to ask questions.

“Keep him more muddled,” I told Annora.

She sighed, floured to her elbows kneading bread. “He’s gaining strength. And if I keep increasing the dose, he won’t be able to aid you at all in getting him about.”

“He aids me little enough.” Yet, I did not have to drag him, and doubted I could. I compromised by stringing up a quilt to block his alcove, and forbade any traffic through the rear door besides the two of us on the way to the privy. Virda was beginning to get up and about a little, and Morie and Annora could help her outside at need, using the front door. I strung another rope, this time from the front porch to the washhouse, to guide them in blowing snow.

Morie had been sufficiently glowered at by me whenever she peeked out of the bedroom, such that our invalid had not seen her since regaining his senses. I suspected he had wits enough to count voices, though, of those unseen. Morie’s high voice carried, and he must have heard Virda coughing; was of course familiar with Annora and me, his attendant.

“Where’s your da?” he asked, catching me off guard when I settled him on his pallet after a trip outdoors. I didn’t answer right off. I should have been more careful when we first brought him in, and tried to isolate him more while I stomped around upstairs in Da’s heavy boots to make him believe he was not alone here with a boy and a passel of females.
I’m a wood-wit,
I thought.

“We got separated when we fled.”

“And Annora’s husband?”

I didn’t like him calling her by name. He was too familiar by half. “The same.”

He did not ask when I expected them back, and I fretted about how I should play my hand. Act as if they should walk in any moment, stomping snow from their boots? Then when (if!) they didn’t, he would know what he wanted without asking: he was gaining strength alone with women and children who were no match for him.

I took my obsidian shard to Annora, and asked her to wrap a bone haft with tough leather and affix it so I might use it as a weapon. She marveled at it, and I found when she finished with it and handed it back that she had balanced it well, and drawn runes on the leather with a fire-heated hasp. “For stealth and protection. This is a powerful gift. You cannot doubt you are magic-touched if the spirit-folk would give you such a thing as this!”

“Is the stone magic?”

“Things from so deep under the earth are old magic, time out of mind. The kavsprit strive to keep such in their realm, and do not lightly send them up into the world above. They honor you.”

“Maybe they meant to honor Virda, she was giving them their due quite regular before she took ill.”

“No.”

I kept it on me at all times, once she made me a sheath so as to keep it in my boot without slicing my leg open. Da’s sword was too ungainly to carry constantly, but I kept it near to hand. Out of Gevarr’s sight. I found as Annora continued to call him by name, I fell into the habit also. I resolved to ask him questions, since he could talk well enough to complain. He spoke Mercedish well, and seldom made any comment in Keltanese.

Annora had set him a chair so his feet could be soaked in a pan of tepid water as he sat behind his quilt barrier. I brought another chair and set it to face him. He looked up from his bleak regard of his swollen toes, and raised his brows at me, inviting me to speak, it seemed.

“How many came through the northwest pass with you?”

He considered me for a moment. “How old are you?”

“I am asking you now. Answer me true and I’ll think of answering your questions later.”

“Twelve? Not yet thirteen, certainly no older, I think.”

“
I think
you’re starting to look fit enough to be put out on the road. Storm’s brewing again.” I kept my voice even, and did not blink.

His face split with an infuriating grin. “A battalion, does that make you happy?”

How many men were in a battalion? It sounded like a great many. “How is it you came to be left here?”

“We raided your place as we marched for the deep water harbour on the coast. I heard talk among the officers of making this a headquarters, else you’d see more damage. Your da was wise to build a stone house. Anyway, they decided it was too far from the main road, and we went on. When we met resistance on the way to the village, I was wounded. I could not march when my squad moved on. I made my way back here over a couple of days, seeking shelter.”

“Resistance from Mercedian troops?”

“Would have had to be, wouldn’t they?”

“How many?”

Again the flash of white teeth. “Not enough.”

“Enough to take you out of it.”

He acknowledged this with a slight inclination of his head my direction.

“Were the men you met in uniform?” For Behring and his men had been, while the farmers and shopkeepers from Bale Harbour, and Da and Wils, would not have been.

This question surprised him, it seemed, and he took a moment before answering, “Yes.”

“Are there other wounded around here that you know of? Did you lead others back our way?”

“Frozen and buried in snow, if so. But I made my way here without seeing anyone.” He paused. “They’ll think me dead. I was unconscious on the battlefield for … I’m not sure how long. All was quiet there when I woke and staggered away. They won’t be looking for me, Judian.”

I didn’t like him calling me by name, either. Annora needed to learn to still her tongue while she cared for him. “How will you find them when I set you loose?”

“I’ll go to the sea. There will be no need for me to bring any of them back here. They will have taken the harbour. You are conquered and don’t know it yet.”

“You don’t know that.”

He shrugged, then winced at the pull it caused on his neck wound. “I’ve been ten years a soldier. You get a sense of the way of things. Your troops were caught out by the west border build up, and left the flank unprotected. A mistake.”

“And you used foreign mages to delay the closing of the northwest route, or else your invasion plan would never have worked.” Then I bit my tongue and drew blood, because the idea was for me to get information from him without revealing what I knew.
Here, let me demonstrate my lack of experience with men’s doings
.

His craggy features might have been carved of wood, so still did they become. I could read nothing there.

How old was he? If a soldier for ten years, perhaps ten years older than Wils, then? He looked older than twenty-eight to me. He bore signs of hard use. Ill use.

“Your tunic has the signs of rank torn away,” I said, for I had noted it when I packed the uniform in the trunk upstairs.

“Demotion.”

“Who put those scars on your back? And why?”
Are you a worse threat than just an enemy soldier, a criminal, too?

“She said you were shrewd.”

She says far and away too much.
“Why were you whipped?”

“I disobeyed an order. I was disciplined.” I waited for him to say more, unmoving. Finally, “This was before we marched on Merced, by some months. Your sharp eyes must see the marks are healed.”

“That doesn’t tell me what you did to get them.”

“I refused to throw my men away on a useless gesture, and thus appease the vanity of a petty lord advisor to the king. In the end, they were just as dead, and I was no longer anything but another foot soldier in the ranks. Sent here to be wounded and kept in a farmer’s kitchen like an old tom cat, past use in catching mice.” He seemed to have said more than he planned, and grunted. “That’s my side of it, others might tell another.”

Annora then appeared around the corner of the quilt to collect his foot bath, which had to be unpleasantly chilly by now. He likely could not feel it, for the throbbing of his feet. Coming out of frostbite is painful, I’d been taught. I helped him out of the chair after she patted his feet dry and re-wrapped them, and the two of us settled him on his pallet together. He was careful not to lean too heavily on her, I saw.

When she let the quilt fall back into place as she withdrew, his gaze lingered after her. “Your brother is a lucky man, to have such as her waiting his return.”

I sighed. Wils couldn’t have found a plain bride? I certainly would look for such if ever I thought to marry. “No one waits for you?” I asked.

He snorted. “No woman has concerned herself with my comings and goings for as long as I can recall. No. No one waits.”

I turned to go. His voice stopped me. “In fact, I’ve no reason to want to leave here at all.”

His remark knocked my breath back down my throat, and I had to take a moment before I could say, “It’s not a matter of what you want.” I pushed the quilt barrier aside and went looking for Annora.

CHAPTER 15

Likely a good thing Annora was not immediately to hand, with my blood fair roaring in my ears. Not enough that we had an invalid enemy soldier installed in our kitchen, she had to nurse him so tenderly that now he was smitten and didn’t want to part from her. Because I had seen that look before, the way Gevarr watched her move. I had seen Wils look at her the same way—and wouldn’t my brother be delighted to come home to this hearthside scene? How he would thank me! I felt like kicking the hearth, but remembered in time how much more that hurts with a cold foot.

Annora wasn’t in the house, so I set Wieser to guard Gevarr and sought her outside. Wrapped in her cloak, she stood swinging the axe to chop ice from the trough for Dink. “Do you think we should fix him some shelter?” she asked when she saw me. Then she looked at my face closer. “What is it?”

“Gevarr sees no reason to leave us. I think you have been altogether too kind to him
considering he’s our enemy
!” I choked out. “I think you’d better knock him out with one of your concoctions so I can load him on Dink and take him off somewhere to figure his own way home.”

“I take it you don’t think he’s going to murder us all, then?”

“Only some of us. You’re likely to be safe.”

Her eyes flashed. “You think he’s in love with me? No. He’s adrift, without a life to go back to that he wants any longer. It’s only natural he would look at us all and want to stay where family cares for one another.”

“You’ve
known
he doesn’t want to leave? And when did you plan to say something to me about it?” I sputtered.

“I didn’t really think you’d be like this about it. I thought you could use his help around here when he’s well enough.”

“Gods’ mercy! He’s not a stray pup! He’s double my weight, and age, too. And you think you can bid him do this and that, and he’ll be docile as a—as a—”

“Judian, take a breath! I don’t object to his staying on, but if you do, well, he can’t stay if you don’t trust him.”

“Trust him? Why by gods’ teeth would I trust him?”

“He’d have to earn your trust, of course,” she said with maddening serenity.

“Are you still on your “I hope someone’s doing the same for Wils somewhere” buggy ride? Because I keep reminding you—he’s not Wils by any stretch. He’s made a ten year career out of killing people!”

“If you’re going to condemn him just for being a soldier, I remind you your da was one, too.”

“Da fought for our side! Gevarr’s part of the invasion! I can’t see how you think this could ever be wise, letting him stay.”

“I haven’t said I advocate letting him stay. I just don’t object to it out of hand. He can’t leave yet, in any case. He’s weeks from being able to walk. There’s time to discuss it and decide. Just let’s go in out of the cold, can’t we?”

That at least
was
a reasonable thought. I had come out without any heavy clothes, and could not feel my hands. Annora’s teeth were chattering. Wieser began to bark as I turned to head to the house, and it was no easy feat to get through the snow and up the back steps in only seconds, but I did it with Annora on my heels.

Gevarr had managed to stand with the aid of my walking stick, and pulled open the back door when I arrived on the stoop. Wieser ceased barking when she saw we had responded to her alarm, and sat. “That’s the kind of warning that does some good,” I told her. She swept the floor with her tail.

“I’m the cause of some new trouble, I hear,” Gevarr said.

“Actually, you’ve been nothing but trouble from the first,” I said. I pointed back to his alcove, and took the stick from him.

“I heard you fighting.” He looked only at Annora. I took his elbow to steer him back to the pallet.

“I’ll tell you anything you need to know about it,” I said. “In fact, I’ll be doing all your care from now on. Move.”

He did so, but gods knew I could not have made him if he set his mind against me. It was going to require some careful thought on my part, how to proceed.

It would be a good time for Da and Wils to come home.

Annora settled Morie and Virda, who, according to our drill, had barricaded themselves in the bedroom when Wieser sounded off. At least
that
had happened as I directed.

I set Wieser on duty again, and went into the bedroom. Annora, Virda and Morie were sitting on the bed in a row, looking toward the door as I entered. I was just preparing to lay out my misgivings about our patient when Wieser yipped.

“Can the man not just stay where he’s set?” I came out of the bedroom, but a knock at the front door told me Wieser’s different bark was “Company’s come” not “Soldier on the move.” She clicked across the stone floor and met me at the front window. Ticker, the smith’s son who had brought us the fox litter, stood on our porch.

“What’s the trouble?” I said when I opened the door to him, for certainly he would not have waded through the snow to us unless compelled by urgent need.

“My mum,” he said, ashen pale. “The baby’s coming, but it’s taking too long, it won’t come down, she says. I couldn’t find the midwife at home.” Indeed not, since she was recuperating in our bedroom. “So, I came up to see if the lady here would come. She knows lore, Mum thinks.”

Annora came out to us, saying “Of course, we must help her.” I hadn’t noticed the woman was carrying when they had brought the dead vixen and her litter to us. How long ago was that? Must have been middle days for her term then. And, no wonder she so strongly desired to ward off the ill-luck of killing a mother animal.

“Do you know birthing? Or can I take Virda down?” I was thinking fast, who to leave and who to take, and what to do about Gevarr if we had to be gone.

“I don’t think Virda’s recovered enough to be out. She can stay here with Morie and you and I will go.”

She was thinking fast, too, and did not mention Gevarr. “Gather what you need,” I told her, and, leaving Ticker standing at the door, went to Gevarr’s alcove with a length of rope.

“I’m going to hobble you, now.”

“Am I not hobbled enough already? What’s happened?”

“Put your hands out.” I bound his wrists, in front of him, though, so he could lie on the pallet. His fingers were swollen enough that I did not believe he could pick out the knots. His ankles likewise, I tied so that he could lie but not maneuver to stand. I set Wieser on guard. “If you need a trip to the privy, you’ll have to wait until I get back and take you—or not and you’ll deal with cleaning up later. Don’t ask the others for help.”

“Where are you off to?”

“Woman’s … work, gone ill in the village. I can’t let Annora go alone.”

“No, better you go with her. I won’t make trouble.”

I nodded, and set about putting on my heaviest winter gear. Tinker had brought their sleigh at least, so we would ride down to the village, but we would need everything we had to combat the cold. I brought along the sword and a lantern, thinking we may not return by dark. Morie chattered about a baby and wanted to come down and see it. Annora packed her herbs and some other mysterious things into a bag, under constant narration from Virda. It was a relief to shut the door and step into the freshening wind.

Ticker bundled us into the sleigh and set off, with a constant refrain of, “It’s my fault, it’s the ill-luck from the fox. Mum has to be alright, oh, we have to hurry,” in time to the muffled hoof beats of the stocky cob which pulled us along. I noted rags wrapped about the harness bells to silence them, and questioned him.

“It’s so the soldiers can’t hear. Ranks of them came through on the way to the harbour, but Mum thinks some may yet be about on patrol. They’d take the sleigh, they took so many wagons and such. Mum didn’t want to send me out, she waited overlong, but then she said I just had to go. We have to hurry!” He clucked to the horse, already trotting, and traveling as fast as was safe coming down the steep road on runners. I heard wing beats overhead, and Gargle settled on the back of the sleigh.

“Bad omen!” cried Ticker, lifting his whip to strike the bird.

I caught his wrist. “No, no omen. This crow has been living with us for months, sort of a watch dog.”

“But I saw you had a dog.”

“Yes, but I had to leave her for Virda and Morie. This crow will sound off if soldiers are about.”

“You can train a crow to do that? We need one, too,” Ticker decided, glancing aside at Gargle. The bird, for its part, seemed to relish the rush of cold air in its face without the work of flying. I suspected laziness.

“Ticker, how long has your mum been laboring?” Annora asked, voice hard to hear through the scarf she held to her face. “Is the baby early, or is it time?”

“Two days,” he said miserably. “It only took short hours overnight for my two younger brothers. I woke up and they were born already. I think it’s about  her time, midwinter or so.”

Annora did not ask more, but met my eyes with worry in her own. Ticker took up his “we have to hurry” chorus again, while I wished I was on some other errand. Such as one I knew anything about.

Ticker unloaded us at the side door to the forge, and took the sleigh around back to hide it. Not a soul stirred in the village, and no candles glowed in the windows that faced the road. Annora and I went in and through to the living quarters attached to the smithy’s shop, and I called out, “Hullo, the house! We’ve come to help you.”

The miller’s wife, red-faced with wisps of gray hair escaping from her linen cap, reached out the door to pull us in. “Where’s Midwife Virda? What’s this?”

“I’ve attended my share of births. Virda is too ill herself to come tonight,” Annora said as she unwound her scarf.

“You’ll need all your skill with this one. Come with me,” she said, and left me standing just inside what proved to be the keeping room, while she took Annora’s bag and led her to the door opposite.

Ticker’s two younger brothers sat on a bench facing the hearth, eyes dark with fear. The older brother paced to and fro behind the bench without pause. There was a sister or two, as well, I remembered, but they would likely be aiding their mother. It was warm with a bright fire in the grate, so I began to take off my heavy clothes.

Ticker came in, stamping snow off his boots. “Has it come?” he asked immediately. All the heads shook in response.

“She’s not crying out any more,” the oldest boy said. He looked a couple of years older than me. I wondered if her silence was a good sign, or ill. I had never been to a birth, and avoided listening if ever Mum talked of any with Virda within my hearing. I gathered there were hazards for both mother and babe, and that some births were easier while others were made difficult by any number of problems. Virda once said what war was to men folk, birthing was for women. I did remember that, sitting there, and then wished I hadn’t.

We were comfortable by the hearth, until the daughter Gefretta, one of those who used to come up to trail about after Wils, came bustling in. She threw open the window and swung wide the door to the shop. She then took up the knife from the block—“To cut the pain,” she said—and hurried back toward the bedroom. One of the boys stood to close the window, and she snapped, “It’s to open the way for the baby!”

I did not see how this would help, since the baby would not come through window or door, but I had no experience in birth chambers and was not going to contradict. Instead, I handed my cloak and scarf and other gear around, so we didn’t freeze while waiting.

Annora came out to boil water and rummage in her herb bag, brows drawn down and lips pursed. She stirred herbs into the kettle, and lifted it by the bail with her hands wrapped in a fold of her skirt.

“How goes it?” I asked quietly.

“The baby’s turned sidelying, and her waters are gone. I must unclench her womb enough to shift the baby, if I can. Her strength is … challenged, working so long.” She looked at all the anxious faces. “Feed them something. It’s long since they have eaten, I gather.”

All said they were not hungry, but when I set Ticker and his elder brother, Tarn, to cooking porridge, the smaller ones found the butter and even a few dried apples to add in. Just as we settled close to the fire with our bowls, we heard their mother begin to groan and strain in the other room.