Tale of Gwyn (7 page)

“Four of them,” the unfamiliar voice said from behind her.

Gwyn crouched by the fire, stirring the pot. “Don't try to talk. I'll have food for you soon.”

“Hungry.”

“Are you warm enough?”

The eyelids fell and rose, assenting. Old Megg sat so still under the blankets that Gwyn wondered if she
could
move. There was a pot of honey on the shelf and she dribbled some of that over the thin gruel, stirring it in before offering Old Megg a spoonful.

“Feed myself,” the old woman protested, but Gwyn shook her head. Burl brought an armload of logs into the room. He put two onto the fire, then sat at the stool by the table, letting Gwyn do and say what she thought best.

By the time the bowl of gruel was emptied, some color had come back into Old Megg's cheeks. Gwyn took another bowl and went outside the door to scoop it full of fresh snow. This she melted by the fire. When it was liquid, she spooned that into Old Megg's mouth, ignoring protests that were becoming more vigorous. At last, the old woman pulled her arms impatiently free from the blankets and took the bowl from Gwyn, drinking the water down. “And that's enough coddling,” she declared.

Gwyn sat back.

“My ankle's twisted. That's why I'm sitting here.”

“What happened?”

“Four men came, thieves, to take the goats.”

Somehow, Gwyn wasn't surprised.

“I knew I couldn't fight them off, so I opened the gate. Shooed the creatures out.”

“Were they bearded?” Gwyn asked.

“They didn't like that, they didn't like that one little bit. They shoved me aside—and then set off chasing the goats.” Old Megg smiled then, remembering. “I don't think they'll have caught many.”

“You fell,” Gwyn said.

“Are many returned?”

“When was this?” Gwyn asked.

“I thought sure the ones with milk would come back, when it was time for milking. How many are in the pen, lad?”

“Four,” Burl told her, his voice unworried.

“I wouldn't close that gate, there's more. The others—” She turned to look at Gwyn again. “I don't know where they'll have got to.”

“Unless those men were total fools, there'll be some in their pot.”

“Tell your Da I'm sorry.”

“He'll know.”

“It was the night before last, unless my mind wandered. I could swallow down some cheese.”

Gwyn cut her off a chunk. Old Megg gnawed at it. “I didn't like to stand on the ankle. The cold has done me no good.”

“What do we do now?” Burl asked Gwyn. She cut them each a chunk of cheese while she thought.

“She can stay with the Weaver. Da will see to that.”

“We'll bring the goats down to the Inn,” he said.

“This house will need to be closed up.”

“I've my own blankets, and food to take,” Old Megg said. “That'll ease the pain of her hospitality. But I'll need your shoulder, lad.”

“Both our shoulders,” Gwyn said. “And then we'll return to see what's to be done here. Things'll be safe enough, I think, for a time.”

“Not bearded,” Old Megg said. “They weren't our people, they were soldiers. Their hair—”

Gwyn understood. The soldiers had shorter hair than the people or the Lords, cut into a round circle over their ears. Probably so it couldn't be pulled when they fought, she thought, although it might have been to prevent them from becoming vain. “Whose soldiers?” she asked.

“They wore shirts and wraps, not the uniforms. I don't know whose they were, Hildebrand's or Northgate's, or maybe even up from the south. It made no matter to me whose they were. They didn't speak—except to curse me,” Old Megg added, “and that was like music to my ears.”

“We'd best be going on, if you've got the strength,” Burl said.

“I've the strength, lad,” Old Megg sighed. “It's the bones for it I haven't got. All I ask is that I don't take a long time dying.”

By the time they arrived back at the village, the sun was high in the sky and Old Megg's breathing was ragged. She kept her eyes closed and didn't respond while the Weaver made up the bed in her spare room and complained. One of the daughters built up a fire while the other put away the food and clothing Gwyn had carried down, and the Weaver complained.

Cam sat by the kitchen fire, watching the activity, a lazy smile greeting his mother's more petulant observations.

“—why she couldn't go to the Inn as I'm no nurse, and my own living to get,” the Weaver muttered.

“We have guests,” Gwyn explained again.

“Bringing her here to die. You have a stable too, unless I'm mistaken.”

“It's not warm enough for an old woman,” Gwyn repeated. “I'm sure Da will—”

“Of course he will and ought to, but you know as well as I do it won't repay us for the time lost at the loom.”

“I'll fetch down the extra food,” Gwyn said, trying to appease her. “You'll have use for some cheeses.”

“Osh aye, and if we're so generous, couldn't it have come sooner,” the Weaver answered. She was thinking, Gwyn knew, of old bitterness; of the time when her husband had sickened and she had been left with the three children to raise.

There was nothing Gwyn could say so she gave up trying. She looked up to meet Cam's eyes, smoky blue, flecked with yellow.

“It's a hard life my mother has,” he said. As always, his voice sounded as if it had laughter just barely held back behind it, however serious his words.

“And you, good-for-nothing”—the Weaver turned on him—“sitting by the fire spinning tales all day, telling us what a great man you would be, given a chance.” But her voice softened as she looked at her son, who went over to put an arm around her and ask her, “Would you have me desert my home, then? And my poor weak and helpless mother who cannot stand up for herself? In times like these?” The Weaver shoved him away, but her eyes watched him move back to the fire, and she didn't look displeased.

The Weaver put water on the fire to heat, for compresses to wrap around Old Megg's ankle. “—and she shouldn't have been walking on it all the way down here, if anyone had any sense—” Cam grinned at Gwyn behind his mother's back.

Gwyn wanted to close up Old Megg's house. Burl insisted on staying with her. “They'll have expected us back at the Inn by now,” she told him.

“You shouldn't go alone,” Burl said, his voice firm.

Gwyn felt her temper rising. It was, after all, her decision to make. She caught Cam's eye.

“Not me, Innkeeper's daughter.” Cam shook his head. “It's bitter cold.” She knew his real reason. He wouldn't go near the vineyard that once had been his father's holding, and he wouldn't stir to help the Innkeeper in any way.

“But the goats,” Gwyn said. They had to do something about securing the goats that were left and trying to recapture any that were wandering about.

“I'll see to them,” Burl told her, “and put the fire to bed. Let Cam walk you back home.”

“Oh no,” Cam said, stretching his feet toward the fire.

“I'll be all right,” Gwyn told Burl. “We're wasting time arguing,” she pointed out.

Burl was studying Cam.

“The Innkeeper doesn't like me keeping his daughter company,” Cam said easily, laughter rippling behind his words. Gwyn felt so sorry for him with his queer pride. . . . She turned around abruptly.

“I've the staff, which I know how to use. It's not far and I'd hear them coming. Da won't blame you,” she promised Burl.

“That's not what my concern is.”

“Then let's get going,” Gwyn said roughly. Without looking back, she left the house and turned south. No, she told Burl, she wouldn't wait for Wes, and no she wouldn't wait for him to get back with the goats. Her mother would be making everybody miserable with her worrying. Gwyn thought, for a moment, Burl would insist on coming with her. She drew herself up tall and told him to “See to those goats.” It was an order. Burl obeyed it.

It didn't take Gwyn long to walk off her crossness, but there was a confusion inside her that neither the white woods nor silent sky could soothe. What kind of men would attack an old woman? Or an old man, for that matter, she thought, remembering the day before, and slaughter a dog, too. And if, in these two days—

She thought she heard something . . . behind her? She turned to catch a glimpse, but the sound had ceased.

If, in these two days, she had heard of two different bands of men . . .

She heard it again. Stopped again and the sound stopped. Her heart beat loudly. Then she realized that it was only an echo of her own footsteps she heard and relaxed her grip on the staff.

The Innkeeper's goats didn't distress her as much, somehow, as that old couple's one goat, which gave them milk. Gwyn strode along, thinking. She would like to take them a goat to replace their lost nanny, but Da would never permit that. But if his herd was all wandering around loose, who would know about those that didn't return? She could take one goat for the old couple, and nobody would know. But that would be stealing from Da. Except that, in a sense, some of his wealth was hers, for dowry. So it wasn't really stealing from Da but from herself. No, she admitted, it wasn't stealing from Da, it was stealing from Tad, who would inherit. She didn't much mind taking from Tad, who managed to give so little. If she wanted to talk her father into it, she would have no trouble doing that, but it would take weeks and weeks, and the old couple would likely starve by then. It was the right thing to do, she thought, to give them a goat, just one goat out of the Inn's whole herd.

The difficulty would be in having a day to make the journey there and back, when nobody would notice that she was gone. It would take a day to clean out Old Megg's house. If Rose were the one to come with her, and Rose stayed the day with Wes's family in the village, then Gwyn would have her day.

The idea unrolled itself in Gwyn's mind, and her spirits lifted. If Gwyn could manage to take the old couple a goat, then she wasn't entirely helpless and they weren't merely victims, and a good could be done, somehow, to counteract the evil that had fallen upon them. Evil would be done, that was the nature of the world; that was bearable if good could also be done.

D
AY AFTER DAY WENT BY,
however, before Gwyn could get away from the Inn. Da's anger and unease at the robbery was fueled by the men who came to the barroom in the evening. The men drank little but talked much, as word spread, and rumors of attacks on isolated holdings and along the King's Way spread. The men, speaking in low voices so as not to be heard by the two Lords in the rooms next door, spoke of dangers and wondered how they would protect their families and their holdings. As she served the tables, Gwyn heard their anger and unhappiness. These were bands of soldiers, rumors said, and the Lords did not care to rule them. The Lords must know of it, some men said. Others argued that the Lords didn't know and ought to be told, but there was no way to approach the Lords in their castles. Over and again Gwyn heard the same words uttered, that the people would be better off without the Lords, who rode the people just as they rode their horses. The Bailiff came for tithe money, at spring and fall, and he cared nothing for anything but that. The Steward sat in the Doling Room, and if you questioned him there he would refuse you food. Soldiers there were, but the soldiers weren't there to protect the people. When soldiers were quartered in the village they appeared unannounced, at the Lord's orders, for the Lord's purposes. The soldiers had nothing to do with the people, except to eat up scant stores of food and speak rudely to the women. Aye, men agreed, what little these bad times left to the people, the Lords took for themselves.

Gwyn's mother worked furiously during that time, keeping Gwyn hard at it, washing sheets and hanging them by the fire to dry, baking bread and the apple pastry of which she was so proud. The two horses in the stable must be walked around the Inn yard, lest they suffer from lack of exercise. More snow fell, keeping them locked inside the Inn while the air outside filled with falling flakes. Da asked Gwyn to show Tad how to use a staff to defend himself, so she spent hours with her unwilling brother in the Inn yard, trying to get him to hold the weapon properly, showing him how to ward off blows, while a pale face watched them out of the guests' rooms. The guests ate and drank, slept and washed, but what they did during the short winter days Gwyn didn't know; except that the Lordling peered out of the bedroom window at whatever activity took place in the yard.

At last a warm day came, and Gwyn asked Da for permission to close up old Megg's hut and bring down whatever goats had wandered back. He would have said yes, she thought, but then Blithe appeared with her husband, Guy, who left her at the Inn for a day's visit while he took a broken plow to the Blacksmith's. So Gwyn had to stay nearby and try to talk to Blithe, who sat hunched on a stool by the fire, resisting all of their mother's efforts to draw her out. “It's as if,” Gwyn's mother said to Gwyn, watching Blithe walk away in the afternoon, drooping on Guy's arm, “she's the only woman ever to lose a child. She's stubborn in her grief, your sister.”

“That's her way, Mother,” Gwyn pointed out. Whatever Blithe wanted, she wanted absolutely and immediately. There was no budging Blithe. First she did not want to marry, and no man could come courting her, whatever her parents advised. Then Guy asked for her and she wanted to marry him right away. Nothing would stand in her way, not the bad weather nor the silver coin it would cost. So they went into Hildebrand's City and were married by the priest there, instead of waiting until the Spring Fair when the priest would come out to perform marriages for all who asked, at no cost. Now it was this child—nothing but the one child, dead now over a year, would ease her heart. Until that child was returned to her, she would grieve. “I don't know how Guy is so patient with her,” Gwyn said.