Authors: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
The door slammed as she backed into the table and gropingly found her chair, sinking into it as she once more gasped for breath between sneezes. As she held her head in her hands in the enclosure of the kitchen, the sneezing slowly subsided.
Red looked alarmed. “Poor lass. Perhaps you’ve simply caught your death of cold. Minstrel Colin made up a song, you know, about your tryin’ to save that daft drownin’ dragon.”
“He—gasp—he did?”
“Aye.” He rose and touched her shoulder as he crossed the room in one stride. “You just let me show you how to build a roarin’ fire in the hearth here. Cook wasn’t expectin’ us up and stirrin’ so early today, y’know, after our little commiseration last night.” He pulled a door in the wall beside the fireplace open and began throwing logs into the hearth’s open maw. “She doesn’t reckon with me constitution. M’ family’s descended from the owd frost giants, did you know that? Hell, I can drink like that all night and march forty leagues the next day.”
Maggie was paying no attention to Roari’s bragging, for as he lit the tinder to the kindling her sneezing once more erupted. “It’s ahhhhh—it’s—ahhh—it’s CHOO! It’s the logs!” Although what she said was fairly unintelligible, her frantic gestures and the commencement of her sneezing just as he lit the fire finally made sense to Lord Rowan, who was not a stupid man. He doused the fire with the pot of water in which Cook had been soaking wine cups. The fine pottery tinkled in the hiss of the dying flames. He swore as he both cut and burned his fingers pulling the embers apart, and found the rinse pail, dousing the embers again till they were completely dead. When the fire was out, he threw the sticks of kindling and logs back into the bin from which they’d come, and slammed the door.
Again Maggie’s wheezing and sneezing began to abate, and she breathed normally again.
“I never saw t’ like of that.” His Lordship sat down again and stared at her curiously. “The good rowan logs, is’t? From my own trees?” He was still shaking his head when comprehension came crashing down on top of it. “Wait a bit—that trick you did with the wine jug—and your owd granny turning folk into frogs and t’ like. I heard Amberwine say she was a witch—you’re witchfolk yourself, aren’t you, girl?”
Maggie nodded, speech still being difficult.
“It’s a wonder then, dearie, that you’re sitting there to nod at me.”
She looked quizzical.
“Didn’t your granny or that aunt of yours tell you anything? Rowan trees are dead poison to witches.”
Maggie shrugged and said in a voice half her usual volume, “I suppose they never thought of it. That kind of tree doesn’t grow at home, and I’ve never left there before.”
“For one of your kind, it should have been a standard warning,” he said, his booming voice still harsh enough to make her shrink from its noise. “Should have told you that along with telling you to wrap your cloak tight and stay indoors on rainy nights. I don’t know why the reaction didn’t kill you, but if it had my enemies would have said I murdered you from spite over Amberwine.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Maggie replied with some of her old assurance.
“Wouldn’t have been unheard of,” said Cook, coming in from the courtyard. “’Course YOU wouldn’t, m’Lord, but there’s them…”
His glower persuaded her to continue at a more subdued level.
“Anyhow, just fancy poor Miss Maggie being a witch and your rowan trees making her ill!” She heaved a deep, put-upon sigh. “I suppose that means a cold breakfast and no herb tea for you, with no fire.”
The positive aspects of witchcraft were displayed by Maggie who, having recovered her strength, produced ham and ginger omelet, and two loaves of bread, one for Rowan and the other for herself and Colin, who came in while preparations were in progress. Rowan’s omelet consisted of a ham and two thirds of the morning’s eggs. The other third was more than enough for Maggie and Colin and the servants. Thus they breakfasted comfortably enough to please even Cook, although the older woman did voice the opinion that somehow such fare lacked the taste of food made the conventional way, with elbow grease and a fire of the usual kind. Both minstrel and host assured her that such views constituted nothing but traditionalist propaganda.
With a napkin-ruffling sigh, Lord Rowan pushed himself away from the table, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Now then, minstrel, m’lad, you have the horses?”
“Yes, m’Lord.” A sober Rowan, Colin felt, was entitled to formal address, although “Red” was good enough for a drunken one.
“And the provisions?”
“As much as we’ll need. We can travel light on that account, m’Lord, due to Mistress Brown’s—er—skills.”
“Very good. Weapons?”
“Weapons, m’Lord?”
“Weapons.” Rowan nodded encouragingly. Colin cast a quizzical glance at Maggie, who shrugged.
“No weapons, m’Lord. Our mission being—uh—in the nature of a family disturbance, you might say—”
“Laddy, there is NOTHING,” Lord Rowan jabbed a sausagelike finger emphatically into the table top, “
Nothing
more dangerous than a family disturbance! Were I not so sweet-tempered in my cups, had you not known so many good drinking songs, and had my in-law here not been sae bonny, you might well have found out from me
how
dangerous. You won’t be so lucky as to charm the gypsy camp in similar fashion, I’m thinkin’.”
He leaped up and stalked into the dining hall and back before Maggie and Colin had time to do more than exchange bewildered shrugs. When he returned he clasped in his great paw a broadsword whose enormity was minimized only by his own. He whacked and whooshed experimentally at the air around him, then ceremoniously presented the sword to Colin, who found it awkward to keep aloft.
“I don’t see how he can carry that,” Maggie said.
“Right!” barked Rowan, springing off again to return with the scabbard, which he plopped on the table. He sat again, drawing his chair up to the table once more, beaming like an excited child. “It’s my second best family sword, y’know. Figure if you’re off to find
my
wife you may as well have
my
sword to help you wade your way through her admirers. We Rowans are a warrior clan, really, descended from a rowdy bunch of fellows called frost giants from someplace past the Sea of Glass. Since we’ve been in Argonia there’ve been so bloody many heroes on both sides it’s difficult to say who’s bravest, but it’s generally agreed that my sword, Owd Gut-Buster, belongin’ formerly to that famous berserker, Rowan the Rampager, is the best. This one,” he glowed with pride as he reached across the table to finger the sword as it lay in front of Colin, “is the legendary Obtruncator. Owner was not only a fella of great bravery, but possessed the most marvelous restraint and foresight of all the Rowans before him.”
“What was his name?” Colin asked.
“Rowan the Reckless.” He placed the sword in the scabbard. “I’m considered somethin’ of a sissy by the chroniclers of my family, I would suppose, but most of the heroes, you must understand, served as one-man fronts in some king’s war. I’m the first to be considered for nomination to the throne itself. Bumple came here to pledge himself to me before the fact. When you’ve gone I’m going to have to ride over there and make amends, I guess. Can’t just go discarding peoples’ allegiances if you’re going to be in politics.”
“You’ll make a splendid king, I’m sure.” Maggie said it politely, but was surprised to find she felt considerable conviction behind her statement.
“Damn right, I would,” agreed Rowan. “Doesn’t look too well, actually, though, Bumple says, what with her potential royal highness not exactly givin’ me what you might call her vote of confidence.” A few minutes passed in silence, then His Lordship banged the table as he got to his feet. “Well, lad, I’d best show you how to use this second-best family sword, eh?”
“Thank you, m’Lord, I’m sure, but really—”
“Oh, yes, and Maggie darlin’, you’d best have this along.” He tossed her a sheathed dagger. “All the gypsies carry at least one, and you oughtn’t to be unprotected.” The hilt was notably unencrusted with gems, but was made of a beautiful purple-colored wood, and appeared quite sharp enough to slice anything requiring slicing. Maggie devoutly hoped she could confine its use to game meat and fresh fruit.
7
Colin groaned with pain as he half slid and half fell off his horse and onto the ground, where he lay like a freshly landed trout. A long night filled with too much wine and not enough sleep had been followed by the unsoothing clang and banging of Gut-Buster and Obtruncator as Rowan attempted to teach him the rudiments and a few of the finer points of swordplay. At least, as far Colin could tell it was all rudimentary, and though he felt the point often, he didn’t find it particularly fine. This got his day off to an inauspicious start. Maggie’s insistence that they leave immediately because she had been unable to use her aunt’s gift to locate Amberwine from within the castle had not been a welcome development. It had become even less agreeable when the decision was made by Maggie and Rowan that in order to keep to a minimum the effect of the rowan trees upon her, Maggie was to ride Rowan’s swiftest steed at maximum speed out the west gate of the castle and across the moors. Colin was to trot behind with a packhorse and a fresh mount to replace the lathered one that would carry the heavily veiled Maggie away from her nemesis. That was all very well for Maggie, but Colin hardly felt up to walking on tiptoe very quietly, much less trotting.
Neither had his sacrifice of his own best interests in order to preserve hers met with deep appreciation and profound gratitude. Maggie was turning the mirror over in her hands, staring at it moodily when he rode up, and she continued to be quiet and uncommunicative, nodding or shaking her head or answering in the shortest possible fashion when he addressed her, if she answered at all.
Now that he was finally allowed to rest his throbbing head and aching limbs, he was prodded out of his misery by Maggie who said, “If you don’t want any of this, I’ll give the rest to Ching.” He looked up. She was seated on her bedroll, toasting her toes before one of her fuel-less campfires, eating a wing of the roast pheasant that turned on the spit, dripping juices into the flames with a sizzling pop that even sounded delicious.
After feasting on the rest of the bird, two potatoes with fresh herbed butter, and half a loaf of hot bread, Colin thought he might survive after all.
With surprise, he saw that Maggie had spread his cloak across her knees and was reweaving one of the assortment of rips and tears and holes that were its only adornments.
“Thank you,” he said. “But you don’t have to do that.”
“I like sewing,” she replied without lifting her eyes. “It calms me.”
“Well, if it’s calming you want, listen to this!” In spite of his afflictions, new verses for the song about Amberwine and the gypsy had been worming their way in and out of his aching brain all day long. He fetched his guitar down from the horse and sang:
“Go saddle me my good gray steed
The brown is not so speedy
And I’ll go racin’ ’crost the moor
To overtake my lady.
“When he saw the man who wronged him so
His anger it did kindle,
But thinkin’ on his lady’s love
His wrath did slowly dwindle.
“How could you leave your house and land
And all the wealth I gave ye?
How could you leave your own true love
To ride with Gypsy Davey?
“Oh, what care I for house and land
Or all the wealth you gave me.
I’m goin’ now, my own true love,
To ride with Gypsy Davey.”
“Then I’ll put those other two verses I sang earlier towards the end. What d’ya think?” Colin asked, looking up expectantly. Maggie was staring off into space again, ignoring her needlework. When she saw him watching her, she quickly brushed her face with the back of her hand and leaned down to bite her sewing thread in two.“Well?” Colin asked again.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What do you think?”
“Oh—the song. Very good, Colin. You really do have a talent.” It was the longest sentence she’d said all day. He was about to ask her if she’d like to discuss what was troubling her or if perhaps he was mistaken and she was merely practicing to enter a religious order under a vow of silence, when she added another comment. He grinned with relief and with the realization that for a change he was actually glad to hear her say something. “But how do you know Winnie’s side of the conversation?”
“A combination of research and poetic license. Ludy, the serving maid, was listening at the door when Rowan told Cook what happened on his ride.”
“I think he showed remarkable restraint for someone with his background, don’t you?” She rewove one of the few places on the cloak that had remained intact.
“Well, he came off all right in the song, I suppose…”
“He’d make a handsome king,” she said.
By returning his guitar to its sack Colin was able to conceal his frown. Rowan had been decent enough to him, but Maggie was acting, now that he thought about it, a lot the way she had after meeting the unicorn. While Rowan’s horns were of another variety, they apparently troubled him enough to cause him to pay a lot of unsettling attention to ordinary brown-haired girls like his susceptible sister-in-law. It would have pleased Colin a lot better if the bereaved, deserted husband had just gone on bereaving and left his own traveling companion out of it.