Gabriel's Ghost (52 page)

“She says before Wintertide.”

That was just two months away.

She stood suddenly, folded her hands and held them against her chest as if she could keep the hurt inside from escaping. The empty mugs and remnants of honey bread were still on the table. She cleared them away because she needed something, anything to do.

“I’m sure Tanta Bron just wanted to thank you for your friendship. To tell you how important it is to her. And to me, too. You and Mowrina have been very good friends, Tavis.” She stacked the mugs in the water basin.

Tavis came to stand beside her. He took her trembling hands in his own. “She asks that I be more than that now.”

“You’ll always be one of my dearest friends…”

“Bronya wants me to take you as my wife.”

“Wife?” She tensed, startled at the word. She knew it was common for a girl to marry around her sixteenth year; one of the village girls, still an infant when the Wintertide raid took place, wed last Summertide.

And Tavis was a bachelor who had a large, three room house and a prosperous smithing business. He was more than eligible. But she, Khamsin, a wife? The possibility never occurred to her.

Besides, marriage meant love. And she wasn’t in love with Tavis.

She stared at the bearded man. “Why would Tanta Bron want us to marry?”

“So that I can take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself!”

Nixa, curled on her hearth side pillow, slitted her eyes open at Khamsin’s exclamation.

Tavis glanced away from her and at first Khamsin thought she had hurt him by her declaration. But his gaze, she noted, touched on Bronya’s braided ribbons and cloth banners painted with cryptic runes that hung around the room. Then moved to the shelves lined with jars filled with herbs and powders. Things not found in a smithy.

“Tanta Bron has taught me much about healing work. She would want me to stay, to help the villagers. And for you to continue to tell me when the villagers needs help. Just as you’ve always done.”

“That’s not what she said to me, Kammi.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s Bronya’s wish to see us wed. For you to be a wife. Not a Healer.”

You must marry, child.
Bronya’s words were weak in her mind.
The runes, the runes tell
me this now.

The runes say I must marry Tavis?

Khamsin felt the old woman’s tiredness. Then a sigh.
That has not been clear. So much
isn’t clear anymore. But who else? There’s no one else in the village who accepts what you are.
That has been shown to me.

A torrent of conflicting emotions surged through Khamsin. She tamped them down quickly, lest her frail Tanta be hurt by her confusion. She had no desire to see Tanta Bron hurt. She knew all the old Healer had done for her, how she had risked her life just to raise her. She owed Tanta so much.

But to marry! And to someone not of her choosing. Even the girls in the village were permitted to choose.

But she had no choice. Even if she wanted to choose a husband, there were none in Cirrus who’d have her: Khamsin, child of the maelstrom, with Hill Raider’s blood in her veins.

None but Tavis the Smith.

She didn’t love Tavis. But she did like him. They’d been friends since she was little, though there was a nine-year difference in their ages.

She glanced at him, felt his concern flood over her like a moon tide. He was worried about her. She felt his devotion to Tanta Bron. And then, surprisingly, a flicker of desire for herself. That was unexpected and only added to her own confused state.

“Kammi?”

She brought her face up to meet his. The old woman’s wheezing was audible even over the moaning of the winds outside. Tanta Bron was dying. If marrying Tavis would bring her peace...

Khamsin raised her voice so that she was sure Bronya could hear her answer.

“I understand your offer and thank you,” she replied evenly to the man who, sixteen years before, had run to the Healer’s cave with the news of her impending birth. “And I would be honored to be your wife.”

Tavis smiled warmly, clasped her small hands in his large, callused ones. “You’re doing the right thing. You’ll see. We’ll be happy together. I promise you.”

The flames in the hearth fire behind him flickered as a sudden torrent of icy wind flowed down from the north. The bitter cold grazed Khamsin’s cheek and she shivered.

Tavis draped his arm over her shoulder. “Wind’s picking up again. Be a cold walk back. Perhaps a cup of tea before I leave?”

“Of course.” Khamsin stepped away from him and headed for the cupboard. Her hands shook slightly as she reached for the cups.

“If you’ll get the kettle?”

She put the cups on the wide wooden table. Steam rose in fragrant clouds as Tavis poured.

She sipped her tea immediately, trying to quell the sudden chill. But Tavis raised his cup first and touched it to hers.

“To my future wife.”

A large pine not far from Bronya’s cave trembled, then split in half. Cleaved as if by lightning, in winter.

CHAPTER 2

The bonding ceremony took place in the large main room of the smith’s white-shingled house. Only Mowrina, Tavis’ older sister, attended. The young village Captain glanced uneasily at the girl standing before him, amulets dangling from her waist, her skirt embroidered with strange curling symbols. He kept the ceremony brief. Donning his heavy cape and muffler, he nodded only the barest congratulations to the bride and groom. He scurried out into the light drifting of snowflakes that had been falling steadily since the early morning.

Rina, her dark hair as curly and unruly as her brother’s, shook her head in disapproval as the Captain quickly departed. She accepted her own cloak from Tavis.

“Aric is waiting for his supper. You know how Lissa, Cavell and the baby get when I’m not there.” She planted a light kiss on her brother’s cheek then took Khamsin’s small hands in her own.

“Don’t let the village nosy-bodies disturb you. They can say what they like. But Tav chose you, so that’s good enough for me.”

Khamsin returned the older woman’s warm smile. “I feel blessed to have you both.”

“You have all of us, really. We’re family now. Aric and I will have you both over for dinner as soon as First Thaw begins. Myself, I’ll be glad when Wintertide’s over. Too many memories creep up this time of year.”

This will be another one, Khamsin knew as the heavy oak door shut behind Rina’s retreating figure. First the Wintertide raid. Then, when she was six, the poisoned harvest. She was ten when the floods from the fast melting snows claimed the lives of four Covemen and two villagers. Twelve when another early thaw brought South Land Hill Raiders into the village at Wintertide. But the toll that year was been less. The villagers took to making weapons as well as fishing nets and Tavis’ smithy had forged swords.

Then in the Wintertide between her sixteenth and seventeenth year, Tanta Bron died. And Khamsin, the child of the mistral winds, became the wife of Tavis the Smith.

Tavis made love to her carefully that first night. Khamsin, who thought she knew much of all there was to know about life, found she knew very little about men.

For all the water-sprites and elementals she could conjure, the forest animals she could converse with and herbals she could blend into magical potions, she knew nothing of the basic human condition. It was several weeks before she comfortably accepted the sweating nakedness of her husband surrounding her own body and invading it. She learned to view his physical intrusions with a detached curiosity. Though she was pleased that she was able to provide him with something he viewed as pleasurable.

He was a good man and a good husband, she told herself. Grudgingly, he even permitted her to grow and mix the healing herbs that Bronya had dispensed in the Village. Someone, he agreed, had to do that, until another Healer could be found.

He was less than comfortable with the few items Khamsin had brought into his house from Bronya’s cave. He insisted they be kept in a special cupboard with a lock. He forged the key with his own hand and destroyed the mold afterward. For safety’s sake, he said.

Khamsin waited until he was busy at the forge one morning, then lined the cupboard’s shelves with scented flax soaked in magic oils. She placed Bronya’s Book and the tools of her craft inside. Its small cabinets, of which there were three, held the more powerful herbs and roots. A long drawer held the warding stones and the cloth stenciled with rune signs.

Khamsin’s own cradle carved with protective wardings sat by the hearth. But after a year of marriage, it remained empty.

Tavis’s sister now carried her fourth. Khamsin knocked on Rina’s back door, a newly quilted blanket folded over her arm. Six year old Lissa answered, her rag doll tucked under one arm.

“Tanta Kammi! Mama! Mama! Tanta Kammi’s here!”

Rina rose awkwardly from the bench at the kitchen table, smoothing her apron over her swollen belly as Khamsin stepped inside. The sweet aroma of spice cakes baking wafted in the air.

“Mama’s teaching me to bake,” Lissa announced. “So I can help after the new baby comes.”

Khamsin ruffled Lissa’s reddish curls. “I’m sure you’re a big help already.” She handed Rina the brightly patterned quilt. “I thought you might need a new one.”

“Oh, it’s lovely, Kammi. And yes, we do, especially after the two boys.”

Rina glanced down at her daughter. “Isn’t it time for Dolly’s nap?”

Lissa nodded sagely. “Oh, yes, mama! I’d almost forgotten.”

As the child disappeared through curtained doorway, Rina touched Khamsin lightly on the arm. “You can tell me, can’t you? Like Bronya used to?”

Of all the villagers, only Rina knew that Khamsin could do more than dispense herb teas and minor blessings. Even Tavis didn’t know. But then, Khamsin had always been closer to Mowrina.

“Yes, of course. I brought the stones.” She pulled the amulets from her pouch, cast them three times on the tabletop. A boy child. Another little brother for Lissa.

Rina sighed loudly, but was smiling. “Well, Aric will be pleased, but I’m not sure about Lissa.”

“Not sure about what, mama?” asked a small voice from the doorway.

“Not sure if I remember where I put that basket we made for Tanta Kammi.”

“Granna put it in the dining room. So Taric and Cavell couldn’t get it.” Lissa ducked back through the curtains.

“Aric’s mother’s been a wonderful help with the boys.” Rina held the curtain back and motioned Khamsin into the front of the house.

Khamsin could hear the older woman’s soft voice coming from one of the back bedrooms. “How long will she stay with you?”

“Until after the baby’s born. But she has to be back in Dram before the snows start.”

“If you need help after that, just ask.”

“I’ll help, too, Mama!”

“Of course.” Rina smiled as Lissa reached for a basket of ripe vegetables on the table. “We’ve had a plentiful summer. You know how Tav likes these. Besides, you brought us those beautiful apples last time.”

“I grow the fruit and you raise the vegetables. And the children,” Khamsin added as Taric toddled in from the front porch and held his chubby arms up towards his mother.

“And you and Tav?”

“When the Gods say it’s my time to have children, I’m sure I will.”

But the Gods had told her very little since her marriage to Tavis, though she’d dutifully kept up with her supplications, even the basic divinations, while her husband worked at his forge. Without them, she had no way of knowing what blessing were needed by the harvest and crops, what weather awaited the Covemen.

Khamsin walked slowly back through the village, Rina’s basket on her arm. She smiled absently at the village children who darted out of her way, then stopped and stared at her with curious eyes.

Weather and harvest blessings weren’t her problem. No, it was in her personal life that the Gods gave her very little guidance at all.

She watched the children scurry off after a brightly decorated cart jostling on its way out of the village. It was the Tinker’s cart; its pace just quick enough to be out of the reach of the children’s hands. They lunged and jumped, laughing as they tried to grab some bright piece of cloth or string of braided belts from the merchandise piled in the back.

In the same way, Khamsin felt much of what she needed to know about her life now evaded her, in spite of all the divinations that Bronya had taught her. Answers dangled just out of her reach, with something or someone preventing her from gaining the knowledge.

But what could be so powerful as to interfere with the workings of the Deities themselves?

The sky darkened as a large, black cloud crossed in front of the sun. In spite of the intense heat of the late summer’s day, Khamsin shivered, and was still shivering when the cloud cleared.

She had just passed the sail maker’s shop when a figure loomed out in front of her.

“Aye, Lady. A kindly word, if I may.” The old man’s voice was slurred, and he smelled as strongly of fish as he did of rum.

Khamsin stepped back, clutching the basket to her chest. She knew all of the Covemen and many of the traveling merchants. This man was unfamiliar and his long, dark cloak concealed whatever profession his manner of clothing might have revealed.

“You’re seeking someone, sir?” Her voice was steadier than her rapidly beating heart.

His laugh was low and cruel. “That I am, Lady. That I am.”

“If you’re a sailor, then Donal inside is the one to help you.” She nodded to the sail maker’s closed door. “The Captain’s not yet returned…”

“I seek no man.” A scarred hand darted out from beneath the folds of his cloak, missed her arm by inches as she twisted away. “Just a pretty girl for a good time.”

“Sir !I…”

“Khamsin?”

She turned and almost stumbled into Aric’s arms as he exited through the sail maker’s door. A coil of rope was draped over one shoulder and he placed himself between Khamsin and the old man.

“Khamsin?” he asked again, but when he turned the old man was already scurrying away. “Did the old drunk harm you?”