Then she returned, and took up the thread of her duties.
By the second day the unease was less. By the third, the evil-eye talismans were gone.
But she wondered what the reaction of the villagers was going to be when they sought out the Weatherwitch on the morning of the fourth.
The depression surrounding the Weatherwitch"s unkempt little cottage was so heavy as to be nearly palpable to Talia, and to move through it was like groping through a dark cloud. The Weatherwitch sat in one cobwebbed, dark, cold corner, crooning to herself and rocking a bedraggled rag doll. She paid no heed at all to the three who stood before her. Tedric whispered that the villagers brought her food and cared for her cottage*that she was scarcely enough aware of her surroundings to know when a meal was placed before her. Kris shook his head in pity, feeling certain that there was little, if anything, that Talia could do for her.
Talia was half-attracted, half-repelled by that shadowed mind. If this encounter had taken place a year ago, she would have had no doubt but that she could have accomplished something, but now?
But having come, and having sensed this for herself, she could not turn away.
She half knelt, and half crouched, just within touching distance, on the dirty wooden floor beside the woman. She let go of her frail barriers with a physical shudder of apprehension, and let herself be drawn in.
Kris was more than a little afraid for her*knowing nothing, really, of how her Gift worked, he feared it would be only too easy for her to be trapped by the madwoman"s mind*and then what would he do? Talia remained in that half-kneeling stance for so long that Kris" own knees began to ache in sympathy. At length, her breathing began to resume a more normal pace and her eyes slowly opened. When she raised her head, Kris extended his hand to her and helped her to her feet again.
"Well?" Tedric asked, not very hopefully.
"The gypsy family who died of snow-sickness two months ago*the ones in the Domesday Book report; wasn"t there a child left living?" she asked, her eyes still a little glazed.
"A little boy, yes," Kris answered, as Tedric nodded.
"Who has him?"
"Ifor Smithwright; he wasn"t particularly pleased, but somebody had to take the mite in," Tedric said.
"Can you bring him here? Would this Smithwright have any objection if you found another home for the child?"
"He wouldn"t object*but here? Forgive me, but that sounds a bit mad."
"It is a bit mad," Talia said, slumping with weariness so that Kris couldn"t make out her expression in the shadows, "but it may take madness to cure the mad. Just ... bring him here, would you? We"ll see if my notion works."
Tedric looked rather doubtful, but rode off and returned less than an hour later with a warmly-wrapped toddler. The child was colicky and crying to himself.
"Now get her out of the house; I don"t care how," she told Tedric wearily, taking the baby from him and soothing it into quiet. "But make sure that she leaves that doll behind."
Tedric coaxed the Weatherwitch to follow him out with a bit of sweet, after persuading her to leave her "infant" behind in the cradle by the smokey fire. Talia slipped in when her back was turned. Seconds after that, a baby"s wail penetrated the walls of the cottage, and the madwoman started as if she"d been struck.
It was the most incredible transformation Kris had ever seen. The half-crazed, wild animal look left her eyes, and sense and intelligence flooded back in. In a few seconds, she made the transition from "thing" to human.
"J-Jethry?" she faltered.
The baby cried again, louder this time.
"Jethry!" she cried in answer, and ran through the door.
In the cradle was the child Tedric had brought, perhaps something under a year old, crying l.u.s.tily. She scooped the child up and held it to her breast, holding it as if it were her own soul given back to her, laughing and weeping at the same time.
No sooner did her hands touch the child, when the last, and perhaps strangest thing of all, happened. It stopped crying immediately, and began cooing back at the woman.
Talia was not even watching; just sagging against the lintel, rubbing her temples. The other two could only watch the transformation in bemus.e.m.e.nt.
At last the woman took her attention from the baby she held and focused on Talia. She moved toward her hesitantly, and halted when she was a few steps away.
"Herald," she said with absolute certainty, "you did this*you brought me my baby back. He was dead, but you found him again for me!"
Talia looked up at that, eyes like darker shadows on her face, and shook her head in denial. "Not I, my lady. If anyone brought him back, it was you. And it was you who showed me where to find him."
The woman reached out to touch Talia"s cheek. Kris made as if to interfere, but Talia motioned him away, signaling him that she was in no danger.
"You will reclaim what was yours," the Weatherwitch said tonelessly, her eyes focused on something none of them could see, "and no one will ever shake it from you again. You will find your heart"s desire, but not until you have seen the Havens. The Havens will call you, but duty and love will bar you from them. Love will challenge death to reclaim you. Your greatest joy will be preceded by your greatest sorrow, and your fulfillment will not be unshadowed by grief."
"*There is no joy that has not tasted first of grief," " Talia quoted softly, as if to herself, so softly that Kris could barely hear the words. The woman"s eyes refocused.
"Did I say something? Did I see something?" she asked, confusion evident in her eyes. "Was it the answer you were looking for?"
"It was answer enough," Talia replied with a smile. "But haven"t you more important things to think of?"
"My Jethry, my little love!" she exclaimed, holding the child closely, her eyes bright with tears. "There"s so much I have to do*to make it up to you. Oh, Herald, how can I ever thank you enough?"
"By loving and caring for Jethry as much as you do now; and not worrying what others may say about it," Talia told her, motioning to the other two to leave, and following them quickly.
"Bright Havens!" Tedric exclaimed, a little uneasily, when they were out of earshot of the cottage. "That was like old tales of witchcraft and curse-lifting! What kind of strange magic did you work back there?"
"To tell you the truth, I"m not very sure myself," Talia said, rubbing tired eyes with the back of her hand. "When I touched her this morning, I seemed to see a kind of*cord? tie?*something like that, anyway. It was binding her to something, and I seemed to see that page in the report about the gypsies. I know outlanders aren"t terribly welcome here, so I took a chance that the survivor wouldn"t find a new home very easily. You confirmed what I guessed, Tedric. And it just seemed to me that what she needed was a second chance to make everything right. Am I making sense?"
"More sense than I hoped for. It"s hardly possible that he could be*hers? Is it?" Kris said hesitantly.
"Kris, I"m no priest! How on earth can I answer that? All I can tell you is what I saw and felt. The little one is about the same age as hers would have been and they certainly seem to recognize each other, if only as two lost ones needing love. I won"t hazard a guess after that."
"This is a terribly callous thing to ask, I know," Tedric said, looking a good bit less anxious now that the "magic" was explained away as rational common sense. "But*she won"t lose her powers now that her mind is back, will she?"
"Set your fears at rest; I think you and the people of Berrybay can count on their Weatherwitch yet," Talia replied. "Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that such Gifts rarely lie back down to rest once you"ve roused them. Look at what she said to me!"
"*Love will challenge death to reclaim you,"" Kris quoted. "Strange*and rather ambiguous, it seems to me."
"Prophecy has a habit of being ambiguous," Tedric said wryly. "It"s fortunate that she"s able to be more exact when it comes to giving us weather-warnings. Come now; you and Rolan are tired and hungry, Talia, both of you. You deserve a good meal, and a good night"s rest before you take the road again."
"And prophecy to the contrary, my heart"s desire at the moment is one of your venison pies followed by a convivial quiet evening and a good sleep in your featherbed, and I hardly think I need to seek out the Havens to find that!" Talia laughed tiredly, linking arms with Tedric and Kris, while Rolan followed behind.
Well, she had weathered this one. Now all she had to do was continue to survive.
Eleven.
"Well, little bird," Kris said lazily. "It"s almost Midsummer. You"re halfway done. Evaluation, please."
Talia picked idly at the gra.s.s beside her. "Is this serious, or facetious?"
"Quite serious."
The sun approached zenith, and a warm spot created when the white-gold rays found a gap in the leaves of the tree overhead was planted just on Talia"s right shoulder blade. Insects droned in the long gra.s.s; occasionally a bird called, sleepily. They were at the Station at the bottom of their Sector where they had first entered, back last autumn. Today or the next day a courier-Herald would make a rendezvous with them, bringing them the latest laws and news; until then, their time was their own. They had been spending it in unaccustomed leisure.
She thought, long and hard, while Kris chewed on a gra.s.s stem, lying on his back in the shade, eyes narrowed to slits.
"It"s been horrid," she said finally, lying back and pillowing her head on her arm. "I wish this past nine months had never happened. It"s been awful, especially when we first get into a town, and they"ve heard about me, but ..."
"Hmm?" he prompted when the silence had gone on too long.
"But ... what if this ... my Gift going rogue ... had happened at Court? It would have been worse."
"You would have been able to get help there," he pointed out, "better than you"ve gotten from me."
"Only after I"d wrecked something. G.o.ds, I hate to think*letting loose that storm in a packed Court..." she shuddered. "At least I"ve got projection under control consciously now, rather than instinctively. Even if my shields aren"t completely back."
"Still having shield problems?"
"You know so, you"ve seen me in crowds. There are times when I hate you for keeping me out here, but then I realize that I can"t go back until I have my shields back. And we can"t let anyone know about this mess until it"s fixed; not even Heralds."
"So you figured that out for yourself."
"It didn"t take much; if people knew that the rumors were at least partially true, they"d believe the rest of it. I"ve watched you playing protector for me every time we meet another Herald. And there"s something else. I can"t go back until I figure something out."
"What?"
"Not just the *how" of my Gift, but the *why" and the *when." It"s obsessing me, because those rumors about manipulation come so close to the truth. I have used my Gift to evaluate Councilors, and I have acted on that information. When does it start becoming manipulation?"
"I don"t know ..."
"Now I"m more than half afraid to use the Gift."
"Oh, h.e.l.l!" He flopped over onto his side, hair blowing into his eyes. "Now that bothers me. h.e.l.lfire, none of this would have happened to you if I"d just kept my mouth shut."
"And it might well have happened at a worse time*"
"And might not have." Those blue eyes bored into hers. "What"s gone wrong is as much my fault as yours."
She had no answer for him.
"Well, the situation went wrong, but I think we"re turning it around," he said at last.
"I hope so. I think so."
"Well, you"re handling everything else fine."
There was an uneasiness under his words; she was sensitive enough now to tell that it had something to do with her, personally, not her as a Herald.
Oh, G.o.ds. She did her best to hide her dismay. She had done her level best to keep their relationship on a friend/lover basis, and not let her Gift manipulate him into infatuation, or worse. Most of the time she thought she"d succeeded*but then came the times like these, the times when he looked at her with a shadowed expression. She knew, now, that she didn"t want anything more from him, for as her need of him grew less, her feelings had mellowed into something very like what she shared with Skif.
But what of him?
"I wonder what Dirk"s up to," he said, out of the blue. "He"s Sector-riding this term, too."
"If he has any sense, being glad he"s not having to eat your cooking." She threw a handful of gra.s.s at him; he grinned back. "Tell me something, why do you keep calling me *little bird"?"
"Good question; it"s Dirk"s name for you. You remind him of a woodlark."
"What"s a woodlark?" she asked curiously. "I"ve never seen one. "
"You normally don"t see them; you only hear them. Woodlarks are very shy, and you have to know exactly what you"re looking for when you"re trying to spot one. They"re very small, brown, and blend almost perfectly with the bushes. For all that they"re not very striking, they"re remarkably pretty in their own quiet way. But he wasn"t thinking about that when he named you; woodlarks have the most beautiful voices in the forest."
"Oh," she said, surprised by the compliment, and not knowing quite how to respond.
"I can even tell you when he started using it. It was just after you"d fainted, and he"d picked you up to carry you to your room. *Bright Havens," said he, *she weighs no more than a little bird." Then the night of the celebration, when we all sang together, I caught him staring at you when you were watching the dancers, and muttering under his breath**A woodlark. She"s a shy little woodlark!" Then he saw me watching him, and glared for a minute, and said, *Well, she is!" Not wanting to get my eyes blackened, I agreed. I would have agreed anyway; I always do when he"s right."
"You two," she said, "are crazy."
"No milady, we"re Heralds. It"s close, but not quite to the point of actual craziness."
"That makes me crazy, too."
"You said it," he pointed out. "I didn"t."
Before she could think of a suitable reply, they heard a hail from the path that led to their Station and scrambled to their feet. It was their courier*and their courier was Skif.
"Welladay!" he said, dismounting as they approached him. "You two certainly look hale and healthy! Very much so, for a pair who were supposed to have come near perishing in that Midwinter blizzard. Dirk was d.a.m.ned worried when I talked to him."
"If you"re going to be seeing him sometime soon, or can find a Bard to pa.s.s the message, you can tell him that we"re both fine, and the worst we suffered was the loss of Talia"s harpcase," Kris said with a laugh.
"If? Bright Havens, I haven"t got any choice! I"ve been flat ordered to find him when I"m done with briefing you, on pain of unspecified torture. You"d have thought from the way he was acting that neither of you had the mother-wit to save yourselves from a wetting, much less a blizzard."
Kris gave Talia another odd, sidelong glance.
"You"d best bring your Companion and whatever you"ve brought for us on up to the Waystation," she said. "It"s going to take you a while to pa.s.s everything to us, and to make sure we"ve got it right."
"A while, O modest Talia? With you, I"ve got no fear that it"ll take long," Skif grinned. "I know quite well that you can memorize faster than I can, and Kris was my Fa.r.s.eeing teacher, so I know he"s just as quick. I"ll turn Cymry loose and let her kick her heels up a little; I can lead the pack mule afoot."
"We"ll take her tack for you," Kris offered. "No use in you carrying it when we"re unburdened."
Skif accepted the offer gladly, and they strolled up the path toward the Station together; Kris with the saddle and blanket balanced over one shoulder, Talia with the rest of the tack, Skif with the saddlebags.
"I"ve brought you two quite a load," he told them as they approached the station, "Both material and news. Hope you"re ready."
"More than ready," Talia told him. "I"m getting pretty tired of telling the same old tales."