A Glimmering Girl (2 page)

“I see.” Igraine followed the farmwife into the house and through the great room toward the staircase.

“Is it a fairy you have there, Margaret?” An old woman sitting by the fire squinted at Igraine. “Is it a fairy?”

Mrs. Thresher heaved a great sigh and changed course. “No, Mother. It’s not a fairy.” She picked up a shawl at the old woman’s feet.

“Get the salt!”

“Be good, dear, or you’ll have to go to your room.” Mrs. Thresher spread the shawl over the old lady’s shoulders and came back to Igraine. “My husband’s mother. She sees fairies everywhere. We all tread lightly, in fear of having salt or holy cakes thrown at us.”

Mrs. Thresher led the way to the first bedroom at the top of the stairs, and as Igraine crossed the threshold, the stench turned her stomach. She put down her bag and, ignoring the November cold, drew back the window curtain and opened the shutter to clear the air.

“Have boiled water brought up from the kitchen, and I want three candles burning at all times.”

“But the sun is up. Why… why so many?” Mrs. Thresher knocked the wood of the door frame and touched her forehead. “Is three a wyrding number?”

“I’d rather it were ten,” Igraine said, but only to shock the woman into accepting the expense of three. “It’s to burn away impure tempers in the air. Three will suffice.”

As soon as the steaming water arrived, Igraine infused it with rosemary and sage and wyrded it with a healing spell. Not that it would matter to poor Rozenwyn—Igraine knew the smell of coming death—but perhaps the baby could be saved.

“He’s wonderful.” With strength she should no longer possess, the dying girl grasped Igraine’s hand, nails gouging skin. Her face glowed with misplaced faith. “He won’t forsake me.”

“A prince among men, I’m sure.”

Igraine eased her hand free, instantly regretting her sarcasm. What good did mockery serve now? She wrung out a cloth soaking in the wyrded water and laid it over Rozenwyn’s forehead. Another birth pang robbed the poor thing of her beatific smile. She’d been in labor all day, and was no closer to giving birth.

“Anyway, he’s
my
prince.” Rozenwyn’s face drained of color, and she grimaced and turned, unable to settle until the contraction passed. Then she said, “You’ve never been in love then.”

“Love takes time,” Igraine said. “You don’t look old enough to have been in love.”

“You know nothing, wyrding woman. You’re in the keep, buying bread. It’s an ordinary day. You’re the same dull nothing of a person you’ve always been. Then you see him. He rides through the gate, his thighs clasped to his mount, hair flowing, and his smile lights up your heart. In the flash of a fish’s tail, everything changes. He’s marvelous in your eyes—and the simple joy of being caught in his gaze tells you you’re beautiful.”

Great gods. “It must be love then.”

“Besides, I’m eighteen,” Rozenwyn said. “Old enough. Older than you, I’ll warrant.”

Igraine was in fact twenty. And she did have an experience of men—one man—though the affair lacked any fish-tail flashes of transcendent love.

“Ach!” Rozenwyn’s body convulsed in another spasm. “Oh, why did he go away? I’m going to die, wyrding woman.”

“Not if you conserve your strength.” But Igraine didn’t believe herself, and she couldn’t make the words ring true.

“I’m going to die, and I’ll never see my Ross again.”

“There, there. Try to breathe through it.”

Rozenwyn’s pain proved too much for the potion Igraine had given her, but any more might stop the girl’s breathing.

The light from the window changed, dimming as the afternoon grew late. Igraine bent over the wyrded water and inhaled the soothing vapors, trying to shake off her exhaustion. It felt like days since she’d heard Mrs. Thresher’s frantic call. Had it only been this morning?

The three candles and three more were long ago used up. Igraine wanted more light, but asking for a fourth would put Mrs. Thresher into an apoplexy. She dug two beeswax candles out of her bag that she’d made for Kaelyn while on the island and lit them with a quick spell.

“Oh!” Rozenwyn’s eyes grew wide, and she crossed herself against the magic—then looked sheepish at being caught.

At the moment, Igraine wasn’t worried about mundane sensitivities. She fixed the candles into the wall sconces above the bed.

“He’s honorable and good,” Rozenwyn said. “My Ross will marry—unh…” Another birth pang took hold, and Rozenwyn grunted and panted through it.

Igraine kept mostly to Kaelyn’s cave and the roads and byways to and from Igdrasil. She’d been to the castle keep only the one time, but she wasn’t a hermit. From time to time a local inhabitant came to the cave seeking the wyrding woman, and occasionally she’d gone with Kaelyn on a call. In five years on the mainland, Igraine had never seen Sir Ross.

The baron’s son had left Tintagos to go on a crusade with a lord from Winchester. That was about six months ago. Poor Rozenwyn must know her lover might never come back—to her or to anyone.

“Turn away from fear, Rozenwyn. Let go of dark thoughts. Open yourself to the energy which flows through all things.”

Rozenwyn’s eyes widened again, as if really seeing Igraine for the first time. “You’re the wyrding woman.”

Igraine sighed. She again rinsed out the cloth and pressed it against the girl’s temples.

“Let this drive away all morbid spirits.” She said the words only to comfort. There was magic in the wyrded water but no miracle. She rubbed Rozenwyn’s wrists and ankles with soothing oil of spearmint. “Think of your child.”

Rozenwyn.
Shining rose
. At the moment, it seemed a cruel joke of a name. Sweat-streaked, dull brown hair coming out of its braid lay matted against Rozenwyn’s sickly forehead and cheeks. She’d cried and vomited to dehydration, leaving her eyes swollen and red and tearless.

“He’s so good and brave and handsome,” Rozenwyn said.

“They’re all good and brave and handsome.” The baby had moved well down, the crown of the head now visible. For the first time, Igraine had hope both mother and child might come through.

“Some say the scar below his eye is ugly. I think it makes him look dangerous and…” The corners of Rozenwyn’s mouth turned up slightly, and the furrow between her brows softened.

“He must be something.”

“It isn’t lust. I love him.” Rozenwyn grunted, and her scowl returned. “He’ll come for me. He’ll marry me and claim his son.”

“Not if there is no son to claim,” Igraine said, more harshly than she’d intended. “Let’s get you to your knees. Take the pressure off your back.”

“Aaiiieee!”

“Breathe.” Igraine moved the girl’s braid to the side and wiped the sweat from the back of her neck. “It won’t be long now.”

Rozenwyn faded again and collapsed, rolling over onto her back. Her shift had run askance over her writhing stomach, and the sheets were a noxious mess of sweat and blood and other bodily fluids. “My son will be baron one day. He’ll be a great man.”

“Where is she?” A commotion erupted from somewhere else in the house, and a brutish male voice boomed up from below. “Let me see my daughter!” Heavy boots sounded on the stairs then outside the thin bedroom door.

“Don’t… don’t tell!” Rozenwyn lurched forward, her eyes blazing. She scrambled to pull up the bedcover but dropped it, she was so weak. Her eyes rolled, unfocused, and she reached for Igraine but clutched air. “He doesn’t know who…”

Sir Yestin pushed in to the room with Mrs. Thresher on his heels.

“Oh!” Rozenwyn cried out—and fainted.

Behind the knight and the farmwife, two monks followed. One Igraine knew, but at the sight of the other she took an instinctive step backward. Brother Marrek of Tintagos priory was a gentle spirit with an honest faith, but the stranger beside him bore a malicious scowl that chilled her bones.

“What is
she
doing here?” Sir Yestin said. He glanced from Igraine to the monks. He grimaced in embarrassment more than anger.

“I… I didn’t know what else to do, Sir Yestin.” Mrs. Thresher moved to Rozenwyn’s side. “Your daughter took such a bad turn. I thought—”

“Get out!” The knight growled at Igraine. “I’ll have no witch near my grandson.”

“Sir Yestin, with respect,” Mrs. Thresher said, “Rozenwyn is so very weak. She might die. The wyrding—”

“Prior Quinn of Sarumos will attend to it.”

Sarumos.
Said with more reverence than seemly in a knight of Dumnos.

The unfamiliar priest fixed on Igraine, his loathing plain, but as their eyes met something happened. Quinn’s expression froze, then softened. His lips parted, but he uttered no words. All as Rozenwyn had described, in the flash of a fish’s tail.

A sickening chill passed through Igraine, and she had to pull away from the prior’s gaze as if it had physical hold of her. She snatched up her bag of potions and herbs, as it was clear she wouldn’t be allowed to do any more for Rozenwyn.

She wanted to get out of the room, away from that man, but she paused and offered a silent prayer.
Igdrasil, ease Rozenwyn’s way. Let the high gods accept her soul into heaven. And may Prior Quinn do no harm here.

Quinn’s tenor voice cut through the pungent air like an exquisite dagger. “You do mean to say London, Sir Yestin.” His tone well conveyed a conviction of superiority over the Dumnos knight—over them all.

London? Oh, yes. The name for Sarumos preferred by a certain faction of knights and bishops, those who pressed King Henry to nullify the sovereignty of the northern and western kingdoms and consolidate all under the English crown. And, not incidentally, to give greater power to the monasteries, just as Queen Elfryth had done in the time of King Jowan.

If only Dumnos still had a true king! Jowan had been a champion of the wyrd. But after his son Galen died without issue, England’s influence over Dumnos had grown. With that influence, enmity for the wyrd had crept westward.

Sir Yestin seemed ready to take offense at the priest’s manner—and then to think better of it. “London,” he said with an uneasy laugh. “Still not used to the name.”

Igraine tried one last time. With her hand on the doorframe, she glanced back over her shoulder. “Sir Yestin, your daughter will likely die, but I believe I can save the child.”

“They’ll both likely die, witch.” Prior Quinn recovered his cold superiority. “The child is in extremis. He must be baptized immediately when born.”

Brother Marrek stepped between them. “Igraine, I’ll walk you down.” He nudged her over the threshold and closed the door behind them.

“Marrek, tell them,” Igraine said. “You know I can help.”

The monk took her elbow and guided her to the stairs, giving no answer until they reached the ground floor. The chair before the fire in the great room was empty. Old Mrs. Thresher must have been sent to her room.

“This is my fault,” he said. “Prior Quinn would have left for Sarumos—for London—hours ago if I’d kept my mouth shut.”

“What did you say?”

“Since he arrived, he’s hounded me about Tintagos, people who might have influence with the baron.” Marrek worked his rosary through his fingers. “Somehow I have no will to refuse the answers. He asked if the baron supports unification with England.
That
I didn’t answer.” Marrek shrugged his shoulders. “But only because I know nothing of politics.”

“I wouldn’t know either,” Igraine said. At least she wouldn’t know the politics of Lord Tintagos or of his son.

But a true Dumnosian would keep the country intact—allied with England, not her subject—though it seemed less and less possible. Though the Conqueror had died a generation ago, the power and presence of House Normandum had grown. Henry was the second of William’s sons to hold the throne, and
his
son, William Aethelos, would inherit the crown when the time came. Norman rule was stable in the east and had seeped into the western lands.

Resistance was folly.

“I had just introduced him to Sir Yestin when Mrs. Thresher came with the news about Rozenwyn. She said you were here at the farmhouse, and Prior Quinn became exceedingly agitated.”

“But I’ve never seen the man before today.”

“Not you in particular. Mrs. Thresher said
a wyrding woman
. That’s what set him off. He insisted on accompanying Sir Yestin, and here we are. I don’t like that man, Igraine. Even if he is a man of God. There’s something… dark inside him.”

Marrek was Igraine’s age. She’d known him since she first came to live with Kaelyn. He was a sweet soul, had always seen the best in people, and he turned away from Igraine now as if sick at heart.

“What is it, Marrek? Tell me.”

“Prior Quinn said… Oh, Igraine, those London orders are greedy. They want… everything. They want…”

“They want Dumnos to become an English vassal, I know,” Igraine said. “To people like us, what does it matter who rules?”

“Not that—well, yes. That,” said the monk. “But more than Dumnos. They want dominion over the spiritual realm…
all
the spiritual realm. They mean to wipe out the wyrd forever.”

Igraine gasped. She was friendly with the clergy of Dumnos. She’d traded techniques with their healers and shown them how to avoid fairy circles and troop trails. Prior Quinn was a different sort altogether. Political. Willful. Dangerous.