If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1) (12 page)

When I met her in the kitchen, I handed her Gevarr’s blade.

CHAPTER 17

A good thing nothing pursued us to the hay field, since there was no way to rush. Wieser bounded beside us; Gevarr swore we needed her senses more than he needed guarding. He even offered to be tied again, so I yielded and left him in the kitchen, with Virda and Morie in their bed chamber with the door locked. Wieser made many detours to plow her nose into small animal runs along the meadow edge. Likely she would bring us a brace of rabbits for the stew pot, so I did nothing to discourage her. Morie carried fond thoughts of the dancing rabbits from this meadow, but if she encountered the meat already butchered and in the gravy she might not recall the twilight magic of months ago.

Gargle tried to ride standing on the sled, but couldn’t keep his balance, so gave up, cawing as he mounted to the sky above us.

We found the remaining haystacks trampled about with horse and deer prints, snow dug away from the bases so the fodder could be reached.
I should try to take a deer
, I thought. It not being good to live too long on rabbit—not enough fat. I would have a job field dressing a decent-sized deer, though, and getting it back to the house by myself. If I brought the shovel and buried what I couldn’t carry, perhaps. Or built a cairn for the rest of the meat, since the ground was frozen and other predators would find meat buried only in snow. A hunt would take some planning …

Piling armfuls of hay on our sled became a game, as we slipped and slid even in our snow frames. We couldn’t use the poles with loaded arms, and often joined the hay when we tried to throw it onto the sled. I had fed the ropes underneath the planking before we started, and when the pile looked like it would feed Dink for several days, we spread the canvas overtop and secured it.

Gargle had some purchase to steady his ride, then, and settled in with feet gripping the rope for the return journey. “That rabbit is not for you. Leave it be, and get fed at home,” I told him. Wieser had brought one to us while we loaded, and set off on the hunt again. The wind ruffled the rabbit’s fur where it laid, tied next to Gargle’s perch. “Watch him while I pull,” I said to Annora. “He keeps sneaking looks at our supper.”

We traveled no faster going back, though the loaded sled pulled almost like the un-laden, or fair at best. Between my puffing breath and wool-wrapped head, for a wonder I heard the sound in the trees south of the meadow.

The clang of metal-on-metal carries remarkable well.

I halted and wheeled, with a finger to where my lips lay under my scarf. Annora stopped at once and voiced no question. I pointed to the north side of the sled and crouched there with her.

“Did you hear? It sounded like swordplay in the trees there. I want Wieser back from hunting, so I can take her along to check. You stay here out of sight.”

“The sled is sure to stand out if anyone’s looking this way.”

“There’s nowhere to hide it quickly. You have your knife?” She nodded as a sharp clank came again on the frigid air. Wieser came to my side, panting, and whined softly by my ear. “I know,” I said. “We have to go see who’s there.”

The powdery snow did not crunch as I made my way to the edge of the trees. I had to abandon the snow frames there, and crawl forward to peer through the fir boughs and bare larch limbs. I hoped I could find the right place; no more sounds came as Wieser and I approached.

I saw three men under the lower branches of a bare tree, hunched over trying to light a fire with flint and striker. A sword stood hilt-uppermost, jammed in the snow beside them. A fourth man foundered up, arms full of tinder and small fuel. They did not wear uniforms of either Merced or Keltane, but seemed to have blankets and rags drawn about them rather than cloaks.

Were they renegades? I could hear that they spoke, it seemed sharply, to one another, but could make out no words. I would get Annora back to the house and ask Gevarr what he made of it, I decided. I backed out of my position, and had just pushed up to stand when a cold hand covered my mouth and strong arm gripped me from behind.

I wrenched around, shoving with my left arm and digging through layers of wool with my right for the knife at my waist. Wieser launched herself at the man, setting her jaws on the arm he had slung around me. He cursed, and I over-balanced as he released me, pulling my knife free as I fell backwards. I looked up at him as he wrestled with Wieser, and the face I saw, I knew.

It was Wils.

“Wieser stop!” She loosed her hold on his arm and I struggled to my feet. He was breathing too hard to speak, it seemed. I flung my arms round him, then as quickly pushed him away. “Gods, you stink! Is Da with you?”

“See—” he panted, “how good—you smell after—blast all, Judian, you’re tall! What’s this hulking great dog? No, Da’s still at the border fort, as far as I know. Can we get my men in out of the weather? I’ve been down scouting the house. I reckoned you’d be up at the caves, and thought the chimney smoke was Keltanese troops. They burned the barn?”

“I cannot tell you months of news standing here. Those are your men yonder? Get them and we’ll bring the sled in. Annora will be wondering what’s become of me, she’s over there—”

“You brought her out in the field?”

Moments home and already complaining.

“You get to see her that much sooner,” I started, but he was already setting off where I had pointed. “Tell her it’s you, with the beard and all, she may get her knife out when she sees you coming!”

As I was delayed by collecting my snow frames at the edge of the wood, by the time I got to the sled I found the two intertwined and laughing. “Shush, there may still be renegades out here. Can you get your men and come on?”

I sat on the hay to put my snow frames back on, and found Gargle looking over my shoulder. “I can’t think what use you were in this. Ah, and I see you’ve opened our rabbit while you were waiting, too. Though it wouldn’t have fed so many men, I know.” Gargle croaked as if to say, “well, of course not, so I kept it from going to waste” and hopped back into position on top of the load, ready to be saved the effort of flying home. “Crows know best,” I said to Wieser, mocking him. “Or think they do.” I gave Gargle what I hoped was a repressive look, and went to take up my tow rope.

When he returned from the woods with his men, Wils directed two of them to pull the sled, so I walked behind with the rest. I had been trying to raise the subject of Gevarr without success at getting a word in, besides it being hard to wade through the snow and talk. When we came within sight of the house, I grabbed Wils’s arm. “Let me go ahead. Annora, tell Wils about our—” What was he? Not a guest, an enemy but it seemed not our enemy? “—eh, whatever he is. I’ll make sure he doesn’t think we’re hostages.”

She turned to Wils and I went on. Gevarr met me at the door with the poker in one hand and a piece of firewood in the other. Why had I not thought to hide the fireplace tools?

“Give me that.” I put my hand out for the poker. “My brother’s home, and has some of his men with him.”

“His
men
? Who went with him when your
family
fled and you all got separated?” Gevarr said, holding the poker behind his head out of reach.

I stomped a foot. “Are you going to make a stand and crack my head open with all of them outside? Give me the poker, and no, I haven’t told you everything. You are outnumbered now, and not fit, besides. Give it to me.”

He did so, and dropped his club, too. “I wonder what I did in life to warrant this punishment of being bossed about by a boy and a bunch of women?” He glared my way.

“Just go lie down and act like you can’t get up on your own. Wils is going to have plenty to say in my ear about you being here, I’m certain. I’ll go tell Virda and Morie they’re coming.”

“You’ll find them in the cellar,” Gevarr said. In answer to my swinging back to face him, he continued, “I saw a man hanging about outside. I was cursing sending both animals with you, leaving me no way to warn you about him, and persuaded the two to hide in the cellar, in case there was trouble.”

It was going to be a relief to hand all this to Wils. See if he could get this bunch of wood-wits to stay organized and do what he said. I’d just watch. I shook my head, and let Virda and Morie up out of the cellar. Once I shuttled them back to the bedroom, I draped my cloak over the back of Da’s chair. Then I squared my shoulders and waited to face Wils when he came in through the back door.

CHAPTER 18

Wils cast a dark look at the quilt-hung corner, and shed his blankets and rags. He took Annora by the hand, told the men who filed in after him to shout if the soldier moved, and said to me, “Upstairs.”

He began as soon as I shut the door on the three of us. “After you went to all that trouble to avoid the enemy, why did you bring one in to sit by the fire?”

I told him my side of the story from his wedding until he attacked me in the wood, and finished with “… and if you think you could have done better, here’s your chance, because I’m done. If they all do what
you
tell them, it may be because you have four other men that I did not have, just think of that when you’re in charge.”

We glowered at each other until Annora said, “Wils, you know he’s done a fine job in spite of our … being a lot to manage. And you’ll be wanting to question Ge—the soldier and see if he has information you can pass on.” She won a grudging nod. “Tell us what’s befallen you since you left us. Unless you want me to see to your men first? They must be hungry.” I suspected so, they all looked drawn and pale, Wils maybe most of all. He shook his head, though.

He drew her down to sit with him on the bare frame of the bed she shared with Morie before we were refugees. We had since carried the ticking to the bedchamber below. Annora still had on his trousers, with the knife tucked in the belt of her blouse and her fair hair straying from the coiled plait at her neck. He smiled at her and cupped her chin in his grimy hand.

“How I’ve longed to look at you,” he said, voice as soft as his gaze. I’d have left them alone, but there was no chance of me missing what he had to say about what had happened to him. So, I sat on the floor and drew my knees up.

Wils began his story. “We went west out of Bale Harbour, marching with all the men you saw. The marshal Da was seeking traveled ahead of us, delegating conscription teams and troops to gather supplies. Da and I went from officer to officer, pointing out that a mounted man could never be caught up by pursuers on foot. After days of this, finally one of the procurers found Da a mount—a leggy grey stallion, a fine horse. I hope he has him still. For me, they found a plow horse that shook my teeth loose trying to keep pace with Da. Our new speed brought us closer to the marshal, but always we heard:“Yesterday noon the last of them left,” or “If only you’d been here when they were delayed by rain, day before last.” The procurers were like locusts, stripping orchards and mills, and the folk began to flee for the coast, fearing what worse was coming from the west. So, the tide of refugees began to impede us. They had misadventures at the ferries, and had to be rescued from the current. They broke axles from overloading, they slid off the road trying to travel in foul weather. Da and I tried to help as we could, and persuade them to leave all the stuff they had packed so carefully … their own safety had to be all, in these times.

“Like your Fieldmaster Behring, no one seemed to know if the Keltanese were attacking, or if war only threatened and we sought to turn it aside. Messengers came and went, but who could say if their information was true? Or fresh? Da and I waylaid any couriers we saw, but which had news we could act on with any confidence? There was no way to know. Some folk argued the winter was too close for an actual invasion, others saw the uncanny autumn lingering as a sign the enemy was too powerful to resist, and advocated surrender. We kept seeking the marshal. Da thought he would know, if anyone did, what was truly happening.”

Wils paused a moment, and in the silence I heard a spoon tapped on the rim of a pot and chairs scrape. Savory smells wafted up to us, as well.

“Virda has a nose for hungry men,” Annora smiled. “Because she has all those sons. She’ll see to feeding them below. Do you want something now?”

I did, but Wils shook his head and continued. “We chased that blasted marshal all the way to the border. There, we found he established a massive encampment on our side of the pass, and ran him to ground at the fort that overlooks the trade road. Immense place, built up out of the very bedrock. He seized on Da to lead a negotiating party. They planned to invite the Keltanese over the pass to the fort, Hasseron, it’s called, and threaten to close the road and void all transit treaties if the troops on their side of the mountains were not dispersed. Scouts said they outnumbered us three to one. Those who made it back.

“Da chose the rest of his party but forbade me to come. The other soldiers had thought of me as Da’s adjutant or assistant, few of them knew me for his son until then. I remained at the fort, and had the worst two days of my life, fretting over him. I nearly brushed the coat off his grey stallion. The party took heavier mounts over the pass.

“Late the second night, he and two of the twelve he had left with came tearing up on blown horses, calling for the gates to be opened to them. We turned away their pursuers from the ramparts, before our troops on the valley floor even had time to muster. Da marched straight to the hall and seized hold of the marshal by the tunic-front, shouting it was a ruse, to send the army to the harbour, that Keltane would attack from the northwest route. It was all lies that so many enemy waited over the border at the pass. A show of camps and troops spread thin, with fires and tents multiplied by some magic to fool us. The summer raids along the border, all events were designed to suggest the threat lay in the west.

“I’d never seen Da in such a fury. He had every officer from the fort rousted and sent down to get the troops ready to travel. It was dark, deep night, and he rode down himself to organize breaking camp and loading all of it for dawn departure. By the gods, he had them moving! They were funneling onto the road east when he came to me in the morning. “You know what this means,” he said to me. “Keltane will come right over the top of our place on the way to the sea.” He looked haunted. I said you would surely be holed up in the cave by now, because I couldn’t stand to think otherwise. But he said you’d never be expecting the northwest route, why would you, when the military hadn’t even seen this knife before their face.”

Here he passed a hand over his eyes, and Annora smoothed his hair. “We were safe. Judian had us snug and away from the route. We never saw but a few of the enemy.”

She meant this to be soothing, but he gave me a fierce look and said, “Until you chose to adopt one.”

“As you weren’t here to ask, I had to make a choice and live with it,” I said shortly. “Did you and Da set out for home then, when the troops moved out?”

“I wanted to. I was packing. Da advised the fort commander to close the pass, and the old sot wanted Da’s help to do it. They were preparing their teams for the climb to the high ground—to loose the rocks that would make the road impassable. Then Keltane made their move, and in the space of a few hours, we were under siege and the few troops Keltane had on the border were enough to pin us within the fort.

“Da had been through a siege in the South War. He directed the fort in conserving water and rationing food. I thought I’d go mad as weeks passed. That’s when I gathered the men I’ve brought. An old groom told me he heard tell of a tunnel or cave that came out in the valley, and I conscripted these four to search for it with me. The fort is a warren, and we scrabbled in every corner. The place is built on bedrock, as I said, so there was no thought of digging a way out. Down in the depths by the cisterns, we discovered the old tunnel. It appeared mostly natural, very steep and low-ceilinged in places, enlarged by pick and shovel in the worst spots. We cleared some of the rubble, brought what supplies we could cadge and our gear, and waited for full moon.

“It was hard to tell Da I was going, but he understood. He gave me messages to carry to our troops in the east, and bade us good fortune. He said to tell you he would come when he could, that they had means to hold out for a long time. If as you say, we are already conquered, perhaps he’ll come soon.”

“I’ve hoped for that,” I said. “For both of you to get home safe at last.”

He didn’t seem able to stop once he had started his tale, and spoke on in a weary voice I hardly recognized. “We came here on foot through desolation, traveling mostly at night and sleeping in shifts during the day. I hope I never have to eat another dirt-crusted turnip dug out of an abandoned garden. The snows started as we closed on Leverton. Our troops had passed long before us, and we only saw signs of battle near the village road just before we turned north to home. When I saw the barn had been burned, I sent the men into the wood and skulked about trying to tell who was home. The rest, you know.”

Annora stood. “Come, you must eat now, while I heat some wash water for you and get you clean clothes.” His smell
was
penetrating in closed quarters. “Judian, carry the mattress back up here, please, and arrange some pallets for the men downstairs—”

“I need to question the soldier you’re keeping,” Wils interrupted.

“He’ll be there tomorrow. He won’t forget any news overnight,” she said briskly. She put one hand on her hip and held out the other when he remained sitting, so with a rueful smile he rose.

“Don’t boss me about in front of my men, or I’ll be made sport of from here forward. They’ve already given me grief enough about how hard I’ve driven them to get back to you.”

I made ready to escort Gevarr out to the privy when we got below, but Wils said, “Let Perk take him.” The burliest of the four rose from his place by the fire, not eagerly.

“I’ve been taking him all along. Surely your man is only just getting warm after living outside for weeks,” I said.

“If I overpowered him, where would I go?” came Gevarr’s voice from behind the quilt.

Wils’s men all looked at each other, then at Wils. “I thought you said he was kept muddled,” said Wils. “He sounds clear enough to me.”

“That was at first, when he was the most ill and we were deciding what to do with him,” Annora said.

“As opposed to now, when he’s better and can have the run of the place?” Wils said, voice rising.

“He’s not running anytime soon when he still needs aid to the privy.” I put on my cloak. “I’ll take Wieser if that makes you feel better. Come at a run if she barks.”

“Mmm,” Wils said around a mouthful of barley gruel. “By all means, take the hell-hound with you. Gods but hot food is good.” Annora grinned at me over her shoulder, having just put the bowl in his hands.

Morie had been allowed out of the bedroom when Virda came out to feed Wils’s men, but she was shy of them and I hadn’t heard her voice while we had been upstairs. Now she saw Wils, however, she recovered the power of speech. She took up position on his lap and gabbled at him while he nodded and spooned in his supper. I slipped behind the quilt with a cloak for Gevarr over my arm.

“You’d be wise to seem feeble,” I told him, as I helped him stand and put his arm round my shoulders.

“As compared to you?”

I jabbed him in the ribs with my shoulder, making him grunt. “Do you think you will like living in the cellar tied to a pole? Wils has reason to be wary of Keltanese in any condition.”

Gevarr was docile enough on the way to and from; and did not meet the many eyes that followed his every shuffling step. I gave him his bowl of barley when he was propped back on his pallet.

“Will he interrogate me tonight or tomorrow?” he asked as I turned to go.

“In the morning, likely.”

He nodded. “That’s what I’d do, if I were him.”

I planned to sit in on that session. I made myself busy getting bedding, and what might pass for it, together for the men. Our store of blankets and quilts was thin, what with some of it still up in the caves and one larger one hanging in the kitchen corner. Morie fell asleep and was carried in to bed. Virda next went to lie down, tired from cooking for the group. She wasn’t well yet, I reminded myself sternly. I’d have to see to it she didn’t feel compelled to take care of these men as if they were her sons.

How were we going to feed them all, anyway? Gevarr already made a dent in our stores. Five more men? How did armies get fed? By stealing food, it seemed, but that couldn’t go on once an army stopped marching. There was only so much food to go around in any one place.

I was musing like this while I spread a rug by the hearth. Perk got up to help me, perhaps grateful that I saved him a trip outside. He had dark-tanned skin like folk from the far south, and a barrel chest. I liked his wide, easy smile. He had a tendency to squint—as if he was always looking into the sun. He seemed delighted to have come along home with Wils, shown by his eagerness to be useful.