The Book of Earth (32 page)

Out of this tranquil bird-sung dimness, a spot of color glowed. In the steadiest shaft of sunlight, a woman dressed in a warm riot of color sat reading at a stone table. Erde could not tell her shape or the shape of her garment, only that it seemed comprised of many layers, each one a different shade of red or orange or lavender or brown.

Hal stopped at the edge of the walkway, smoothing back his hair and beard, straightening his worn red jerkin. Silently, he waited.

The woman kept reading. One hand traced her careful progress through the text. The other toyed with an assortment of small stone tiles lying on the table. Finally she raised her head, without urgency, as if she’d heard a faint noise or wondered what time it was. She glanced their way but her eyes seemed to stare past them into the distance. For a moment, Erde thought the woman was blind.

Then her gaze focused, and she smiled. “Ah, Heinrich. There you are.”

The slight pressure of his hand bade Erde wait. Hal stepped into the court, crossed the mossy flagstones with measured strides, and dropped to one knee as if the woman sat on a golden throne instead of an old three-legged stool. She gave him her hand, and he held it reverently to his lips. Then he rose, leaned over, and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth.

Waiting in the shadows, Erde blushed. Hal’s familiarities with Raven now seemed merely playful by comparison. She’d seen the soldiers stealing lusty kisses from the pantry maids, but true earnest tenderness such as this ought to be kept private. It made her feel funny inside.

Hal leaned against the stone table, his arms to either side of the woman’s shoulders, and gazed down into her eyes. “Rose. I’ve missed you.”

Her voice was low and so resonant that Erde felt it sing through her own body like lute music. “Then you should find your way to us more often.”

“If only I could.”

The woman raised a reproving finger. “And you could even come when there isn’t something you want from us.”

Hal’s soft laugh honored this old debate between them, but refused the challenge. Erde recalled how ardently he’d spoken of her grandmother that first night by the campfire, of lovers separated by duty and distance. Was it always to be so for this loyal King’s Knight?

“Meanwhile,” said Hal, “there is something, and here it is.” He straightened away from Rose and gestured Erde into the light. She approached shyly. Seated, the woman appeared to be of trim, middling stature. Her curly auburn hair was shot with gray and, to Erde’s delight, cut short as a boy’s. She had thick brows over bright blue eyes and a strong jaw, a compelling face. Though she was not as old, perhaps closer to Hal’s age, something about her reminded Erde of Alla, something that made her want to kneel at the woman’s feet as Hal had done.

“Rose of Deep Moor,” Hal announced, “Erde von Alte.”

Erde noticed he’d left off her title for the first time and wondered why, not that such things mattered to her. When the woman stood, beads and little bells chimed faintly in her long, loose sleeves and in the deep folds of her skirt.

“And if that weren’t remarkable enough,” supplied Rose, “she comes with a dragon.”

“Yes.”

She smiled without looking at him. “How wonderful for you, Heinrich. After all these years.”

“Yes.”

Rose grasped Erde’s hands, looking her over. They were not quite matched in height. The commanding blue eyes gazed up at her and still Erde felt diminished by her presence.

“So this is the witch-child.” Rose turned to level that same deep stare on Hal. “And her Paladin.”

Hal snorted. “What? Me?”

Rose nodded.

“Oh, hardly, Rose. Not me.”

“Oh, yes, my dear. Did you think you’d escape Fra Guill so easily, simply by backing out of his view? I hate it when he’s right, don’t you?”

“Rose, I’m not exactly the ravening image of Dark Power he conjures up for his witch-child’s champion.”

Rose drew Erde left, then right, as if showing her off. “Nor is she his nightmare vision of a witch.”

He smiled. “But then, who is?”

Rose dipped her head. “Yet here she is, and here you are. Besides, I said her Paladin, not her Champion. But we’ll speak of that later. Meanwhile . . .”

“Rose, there’s no way Guillemo could have known.”

“Heinrich, Heinrich.”

“All right, so he got lucky.”

Rose shook her head warningly. “You let your hatred blind you to the man’s real power. He’s a hound on a scent. If a pattern exists, he’ll sniff it out. It’s a true prophetic gift, tragically turned to evil ends.”

“You haven’t seen him in action. I have. He’s a lunatic, Rose.”

“Yes, and his madness springs from being unable to control what he sees so clearly.”

This exchange and the long dark glance that passed between them filled Erde with unaccountable dread. She missed the dragon’s comforting presence and hoped he’d finish with his hunting soon.

Hal sucked his teeth and turned aside abruptly. “Then we can’t stay here.” He paced away, then came back and drew Rose into his arms. “Forgive me. I’ve endangered you thoughtlessly.”

Rose smoothed the stained red leather hugging his chest. “Not thoughtlessly. A still-sleeping dragon and a dream-reader who’s lost her voice? Where else could you go for the sort of help you need?”

Erde waited for Rose to mention how she’d come by all this information, but she did not, and Hal seemed to require no explanation.

“Now, food and rest and a good hot bath for both of you. Of course you’ll stay, long enough to see what help we can actually provide.” Rose looked up and touched a finger to Hal’s jaw. “And long enough to remind this old woman what a man looks like.”

He hugged her to him, laughing. “Why, Rose, you’ll embarrass the young lady.”

T
he denizens of Deep Moor gathered for the evening meal in the communal dining area at one end of a huge kitchen. Brick ovens and grills and spits lined the opposite wall. Windows let in amber dusk light along both sides. Two rows of sturdy worktables dominated the center, and the smoke-darkened beams were a hanging forest of herbs and onions in braided lengths and garlic and dried peppers and delicate nets bulging with winter squashes and potatoes.

Erde had napped and then been introduced to the pleasures of a hot bath. She’d always hated bathing, except sometimes in the summer. Now she realized that the water had never been warm enough, or smelled so fragrant with herbs and the softening oils that Raven poured on so liberally. In some obscure way, it felt sinful. She spelled this out for Raven, primly, shyly, in the dew gathering on the red floor tiles, but Raven only laughed and tossed her a square of fine knitted wool to rub the oils into her skin. She came down to the kitchen feeling reborn, wearing a clean linen shirt from the household stores and one of Raven’s block-printed shifts with the divided skirts. Hal, who was lounging with his feet up on a table and a mug of ale in one hand, sat up in surprise.

“Milady, you look radiant!” He put down his ale and stood, handing her into a seat beside him with courtly formality while Erde blushed and stared at her feet.

Earth had still not returned from his hunt, so while Hal explained about the dragon and his unknown quest, and told the tale of her escape and their journey so far, Erde watched the dinner preparations. She wished Hal had not
been so intentionally uninformative about the circumstances at Deep Moor, about who these people were and why Rose knew what she knew. But she could not ask him now, so she settled in to be patient and to observe. It did not occur to her to try to make herself useful until Doritt plunked down a basket of apples and a knife on the table in front of her.

“Well, I’m sure this dragon’s Purpose isn’t to stay and eat up my herd. Here, slice these up. I’ll find a bowl to put them in.”

She sailed off to the far end of the kitchen. Erde stared at the gleaming red fruit. She had never sliced apples in her life, though her grandmother had taught her the proper way for a lady to section a small apple for eating. This knife was much too large for delicacy, but she gave it a game try. Doritt returned, watched her struggles for a moment, then grabbed a stool and drew it alongside.

“Tell you what: I’ll peel and quarter, then you just cut ’em up any old which way, all right?”

Erde observed carefully, admiring Doritt’s deft skill with the knife, and learned the preparation of apples for pie. Meanwhile, she counted: five, ten, twelve women drifting in and out of the kitchen, bringing fresh milk, washing vegetables, slicing bread, stirring the pots. A pair of lithe red-haired twins in their late teens did a lot of the heavy hauling. A chunky laughing woman was clearly the chief cook. Two elderly women wandered in rather vaguely. They were fussed over and treated with great deference by the others, but did not sit by idly. They went right to work slicing up whatever was set in front of them with concentration and efficiency. Erde heard Lily and Margit mentioned often, as one woman or another stepped in to do a task usually assigned to one of the absentees. She sensed in this a fond sort of ritual, as if the frequent naming of the missing women would keep them safer and bring them back sooner. She had also been waiting all afternoon to learn where the men and the servants were. Now she discovered there weren’t any. There were no young children either.

A community made up entirely of women, which wasn’t fortified or walled in any way, and wasn’t a nunnery. Erde had never heard of such a thing. And no help but themselves. In a way, it reminded her of Tor Alte while her
grandmother was alive. Of course, there were plenty of men at Tor Alte, but the women had felt easier about themselves under the baroness’ rule. And though they were not at all similar physically, Rose did have the baroness’ same sure authority.

Yet at dinner, she watched Raven tease Hal as she laid steaming platters on the table, flirting with him outrageously, and all the while Rose smiled benignly, nestled into the curve of his arm. Her grandmother would never have stood for that. Erde asked herself again how these women protected themselves. She surmised that there was a lot going on here she did not understand.

The long refectory-style table was as well-worn and shining as the floor. The food was fresh, plentiful, and delicious. There was clear springwater to drink and a pale, dry ale that made Erde feel refreshed rather than light-headed. The conversation was not quite boisterous, but it was lively and certainly informative.

“The honey is from our hives, of course,” Linden was explaining in the mild precise way that seemed to characterize her. “And the candles as well. Raven makes the most beautiful candles, don’t you think?”

Erde nodded. The many candles burning on the table were amazingly tall and thin, and even more astonishingly, they were pink, the blushed color of a wild rose. She thought to ask how one made a colored candle, and readied quill, ink, and the little pile of paper that Raven had supplied her with, rejects from the Deep Moor paper press. But Linden was busy being very serious about the bees and how sensitive they were to mistreatment or neglect. Erde wiped her quill and laid it aside.

Linden, whom she had seen at the spinning wheel earlier, was as pale and dry as the ale, but with its same hidden sweetness. Pale jaw-length hair, pale gray eyes, pale flawless skin, with flush-spots on her cheekbones so distinct they might have been painted there by a rather wobbly hand. Her color bloomed whenever she spoke, especially when she was speaking to Hal, as if the very act itself put her in mortal danger of exposure or embarrassment. It took Erde some time to learn that Linden was Deep Moor’s healer, for she would never boast of such a thing herself. But she had spent the late afternoon examining the she-goat and
now, as Raven and a slim older woman named Esther cleared the dishes to make room for the sweets, Rose asked for her report.

Linden placed both hands before her to grip the edge of the table and cleared her throat. “She is fully healed.”

“
Healed
,” repeated Rose, and Erde wondered how you could pack so much mystery and meaning into a single word.

“So I didn’t imagine all that blood and gore,” said Hal.

Linden focused carefully on the smooth plank in front of her. “There is clear evidence of serious injury, long tears and deep claw punctures. But this must have been at least three weeks ago, from the amount of healing already completed.”

“Last night,” said Hal. “It was just last night, was if not, my lady?”

Erde nodded.

“I don’t see how that’s . . .” began Linden.

“Well, it is. It happened.” With a grin, Hal leaned forward and replenished his mug of ale from an earthenware pitcher. “We have a magic goat.” He eyed Doritt mischievously. “I’ll bet you don’t have one.”

Linden frowned at the tabletop, shaking her head ever so slightly.

“What else occurred,” asked Rose, “between the attack and when you noticed her healed?”

Hal shrugged, then decided to stop pretending that he wasn’t taking this seriously. “We made camp, we ate, we slept. The goat slept very deeply.”

“All right. Yes.” Linden bobbed her head, staring at her thumbs. “Animals do often go into a kind of trance state when they’re badly injured. But that’s usually to ease their dying.”