Ascalla's Daughter Read online

  Ascalla’s Daughter

  by M. C. Elam

  A Fantasy Tale

  copyright © 2016 Margaret Elam

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  1 - The Raid

  2 - Melendarius

  3 - The Foundling

  4 - The Missing List

  5 - The Billy

  6 - The Queen’s Pearl

  7 - The Marriage

  8 - Betrayed

  9 - Spirit Brothers

  10 - Selene

  11 - Prayers for the Soul

  12 - The Lady of Baline

  13 - Home Ground

  14 - Memories

  15 - Glenny’s Journal

  16 - A False Alliance

  17 - The Slave Pens

  18 - Hawk’s Quest

  19 - The Kings Revelation

  20 - High Warrior Knight

  21 - Abducted

  22 - Witch Woman

  23 - Jem’s Tale

  24 - Obedience

  25 - Brendemore

  26 - Evan’s Sacrifice

  27 - Peter Brenan’s Son

  28 - Escape from Brendemore

  29 - Strategy

  30 - The Wee Man

  31 - Taking Nerdor

  32 - At The Arch

  33 - Heathgard

  34 - Exposed

  35 - The Plan

  36 - Brendemore Tower

  37 - Vanquished

  38 - Loose Ends

  39 Cottage in the Wood

  For those who urged me to complete Ascalla’s Daughter

  When the going got tough, you were there.

  1 - The Raid

  Chinera stood on the cottage stoop watching Matt cross the commons. “Halloo,” he called to the village men gathered in the still morning.

  “What's kept you, Matt? I’d warrant it be having a bit to do with yonder lass. Keep you deep in the fur, did she?”

  “Mind your tongue, Pa. Ma hears talk like that she'll clout you sure.”

  “Ah now, see how she be talking to her pa. She’s the tongue of a fishwife.”

  “Aye, and the ears of a cat,” Matt laughed. He glanced at her over his shoulder.

  “Matthias Whelan, don't think I can't see you whispering ideas in my pa's ear. Got enough notions on his own without you adding to them.”

  “Don’t fret, love. I be protecting your honor.”

  “Aw, to the fields with the both of you. Day’s half gone.”

  “Now that’s what I be saying. Day’s half gone and Matt’s just now shouldered a scythe.”

  She shook her head and shooed them with her apron. “Go on with the rascally pair of you.”

  Her father straightened despite his arthritic spine and puffed out his chest. “Rascally? Sassy talk from you wee missy.”

  A little pang touched her heart, and she bit her lip. “Aw Pa, simmer down. Was only a wee bit of teasing, I meant.”

  Matt leaned close and whispered something that made the old man laugh. He shifted the scythe that rested across one shoulder for a better grip and slowed his stride to match her father’s. A cloth sack fastened to his belt bounced against one thigh in time with the cadence of his step. It held a generous serving of fresh bread smeared with groundnut paste for his midday meal. They left the circle of cottages intent on the distant fields and gathering the last of the fall harvest.

  ***

  Baline bustled with more than the usual amount of activity that October morning. Besides the regular work, everyone scurried about preparing for the harvest festival. For the first time since Ceri’s birth, they had something to celebrate. The rich soil had exploded with crops that flourished. Mounds of winter squash and the finest wheat yield of recent years filled the storage sheds. Rows of cabbage, potatoes, beans and barley from Chinera’s home garden grew in abundance. She had dried the beans for soups and stews and set aside the barley to make beer. Pickled cabbage, though, was her favorite, and she took pains to see none of it spoiled. Three brand new barrels sat in the root cellar beneath the floor. Thinking about it made her mouth water almost as much as in the long months before Ceri’s birth when she had craved heaping mouthfuls of the tangy mixture. She hoped her craving had not marked Ceri the way her mother claimed it might.

  Matt bent double laughing when she told him about it. He had kept it up until she swatted him with her apron and stomped from the cottage. In his world, such things never happened. The sun rose and set because it was in the nature of the heavens that it should. Life came, flourished and waned with the seasons. Cabbage was cabbage, born in the soil, chopped and pickled, chewed and swallowed.

  Matt had found her weeding in the vegetable garden, caught her around the waist and kissed her breathless. “Now what be this silliness, Chinera? Will our babe sprout heads of cabbage where arms belong? Come, my girl. If it’s the sour cabbage you crave, eat hearty and fear not the ways of the world.”

  Of course, she didn’t believe her baby would sprout cabbage arms and legs. Such occurrences wore a more subtle cloak. Crooked teeth that jutted forward like those of the hare. She had seen that often enough. A tug on her skirt drew her gaze to Ceri. The child had perfect teeth, little pearls that grew straight and strong. She had dark curling hair and black eyes like Matt’s. Her skin, the color of sweet cream, came from Chinera, but the rosy glow across her cheeks and that perfect little rosebud mouth belonged to her alone.

  Ceri clutched a piece of sweet bread in one hand and looked up at her mother. “Good, Mama.” The sweet bread disappeared in one bite, and her cheeks plumped like a squirrel carrying nuts for winter.

  “Aye, it's good.” She brushed crumbs from Ceri’s mouth and hands. “Come inside, and let’s find your shoes.”

  Ceri stamped her foot and shook her head. “No shoes, Mama! No!”

  “Frost devils be about my little love. Time for shoes.” Chinera picked her up and started into the cottage.

  “No, no, debils!”

  “Ceri stop. What would Papa, think? His wee girl doesn’t like the brand new shoes he made for her.”

  Ceri grew quiet, “Papa, maked?”

  “Aye love, he did. They be deer hide just like Mama’s.”

  “See Mama shoes.”

  Chinera lowered her to the floor, pushed the cottage door closed and lifted her skirt. Ceri squatted and touched one of the uppers where it laced around her mother’s slender calf.

  “Pretty.”

  “Aye and yours be just like them.”

  Placated, Ceri presented each foot while Chinera helped her into the shoes and laced them around her legs. Mimicking her mother, she plucked-up the hem of her overdress to see. With one toe pointed left and the other right, she clumped around the cottage in exaggerated steps that reminded Chinera of a jester from a traveling show.

  “Ceri dance.”

  “Aye, love, Ceri be a fine dancer.” She glanced at the sideboard piled with candied fruit, sweet meats and spiced squares of cinnamon bread, all ready for the harvest celebration. Tomorrow night when she and Ceri lit the harvest fire, Chinera would pass a single candle to her daughter, the future Healing Woman of Baline.

  “Did you know, my little love, tomorrow be your naming day?”

  Unimpressed, Ceri toyed with the rawhide ties that secured her shoes. Chinera hugge
d her until she squirmed free. Beadwork on the toes of the shoes caught her eye, and she lifted one foot close to her face for a better view. Off balance, she toppled backward still clutching the foot, oblivious to her mother’s amusement.

  Born to the healing line, Ceri would have much to learn when Melendarius returned. His departure had coincided with the child’s birth and the failed crops. Chinera closed her eyes and tried to picture him brewing a morning drink or prattling to himself while he strode through the forest gathering herbs for healing teas, but his essence eluded her. A frown creased her brow and she sighed. Chores would keep her mind from worry. She added more kindling to the fire under a big kettle that held her portion of wash water.

  Chinera liked living in Baline. She and Matt did sacrifice a bit of privacy when they left the small cottage in the forest, but the safety and camaraderie of close neighbors made-up for it. The women, always full of gossip and witty stories, made fine company. If that gossip turned to her and Matt when she stepped out of earshot, well, what did it matter? They meant no harm. Pa had certainly found a bit of teasing to his liking this very morning. Still, sometimes she longed for the forest and the intimacy of the private world she and Matt shared when they first married. Ceri’s birth more than three years past brought that life to an abrupt halt.

  ***

  All Chinera knew about childbirth was that a man’s seed once planted begot the prize, a red and wiggly babe. Matt’s birthing knowledge came from the beasts he tended, and when she cried out he merely stood by patting her hand and whispering that the whole thing would be over soon. Two days later, weak and pale, her strength ebbing with each new contraction, she begged him to fetch her mother. Matt had looked at her; afraid to speak or even touch her hand for fear another of the horrid contractions that made her writhe in misery might return.

  She remembered the sound of the horse’s hooves pounding against the raw earth as he set along the trail to Baline. That thundering crash echoed in her head timed with each wave of swirling agony. Brilliant jabs of pain like molten daggers coursed up her thighs, pierced her womb and settled along her spine. Alone and too weak to cry out she drifted in and out of consciousness.

  ***

  “Chinera, open your eyes child.” The dusty sounding voice pierced her consciousness. Someone stood beside the bed. A once tall man now bent by age stroked her hand.

  “Teacher.” Her lips formed the word though no sound issued from her parched throat.

  “Aye, child.” His presence filled the room. Ancient in years, his strength fed her with simple touches, and in the heat of that long day, something so much greater than relief coursed through her. Melendarius, the wise man of Baline, knelt beside her. Everything she knew about tending injuries and healing with herbs she had learned from him.

  “Melendarius, will I die?”

  “Nay, my innocent.”

  Strong hands clasped her fragile fingers, and strength flowed from him in an opalescent light that washed her in its embrace. He bathed her face with lavender water and whispered words that soothed her fear. His voice turned melodic in the steamy afternoon. It drew away her pain and let his life essence mingle with hers until she understood that death had no place here. He chanted in an ancient tongue until she sang with him in half tones, half whispers. Her lips moved with his in careful repetition until she knew the phrase as well as he. She recognized the old tongue, the language of the shadow people.

  Anutaya paen debir. Anutaya paen debir.

  She had floated away on that song, floated high overhead where the roof timbers paled and the thatch parted. She saw the deep blue of the sky, watched it turn purple then black. Her soul welcomed a million, piquant flecks of starlight. She watched Melendarius lean over her body and lift her blood spotted shift. The tip of his beard brushed her belly. She remembered that it tickled. His old hands had touched here and there, shifting the expanse of her swollen belly, until she felt the bulge turn.

  “Push, Chinera. She’ll come easy now little one.”

  ***

  Buried in memory Chinera jumped when Ceri tugged at her skirt.

  “Dolly Mama.”

  An apron tied around its waist hung askew. Without it, the doll was a shapeless mass of rags. Chinera knelt and retied the apron. “There now,” she patted Ceri’s bottom. “Dolly be good as new.”

  A glance at the kettle revealed progress. Whitish bubbles coated the bottom. She stirred the fire to make it burn higher and glanced around the room for a chore to pass the time until the water was hot. Her eyes fastened on a heaping bowl of peas that needed shelling. She sat beside the table, took the bowl onto her lap and began breaking open the pods. One thumb ran along the inside of the shell and dislodged each firm, pea. The satisfying plop they made falling into the bowl occupied her until the kettle bubbled up and spat water onto the fire. She set the peas aside, stood and eyed Ceri at play with her doll.

  “Stay away from Mama now wee girl. I’ve the water to get off the fire.” Ceri mumbled something unintelligible and scooted toward the far wall.

  A pothook leaned against the hearth. Chinera lifted it and used the curved end to pull the hinged bar that supported the kettle toward her. The hinge needed greasing, and the screech of black iron against black iron made her teeth ache. She folded two pieces of toweling into makeshift potholders and wrapped them around the kettle handle. Careful not to spill water over the side, she lifted the kettle off the bar and set it in the center of the table away from Ceri’s curious fingers.

  The makeshift potholders did little to protect her hands from the hot handle. A nearly empty jar of aloe sat on the pantry shelf, and she scooped a tiny bit into her palm. The ointment eased the sting but reminded her again of Melendarius. Aloe ointment was his favorite cure-all for healing tender skin, and he had taught her to make it.

  Where was he? He seldom traveled further than Falmora, and even when he did, he returned in a few weeks full of stories, his pockets bursting with sweet treats for the children. News about King Ian and the general state of Ascalla he saved for the adults. Others seldom came to the village, and they hungered for any tidbit he might share.

  Baline sat just outside Curling Wood Forest, so named because of the meandering path of tree growth between Pine Water Creek on one side and the Blue Mountains that edged Ascalla’s eastern border. Falmora lay miles and miles west of here. In the last few years, not even a census taker passed their way. A result of the blight and their remote location, she supposed. Consequently, no one had recorded her marriage to Matt or Ceri’s birth for the Falmora Ledger. But Melendarius was not a census taker or a tax collector. He belonged here.

  A light tap at the door signaled Franny’s arrival. She and a group of children waited outside. On washday, the girl acted as nanny for the young ones. Chinera straightened Ceri’s overdress, kissed her on the forehead and watched her toddle away with the dolly tucked under her arm.

  ***

  The big washtub in the center of the commons was almost full when Chinera poured the contents of her kettle in with the rest. Clouds of steam billowed from the tub and engulfed her in a fog of moist air that gathered in the folds of her skirt and clung to her hair. She held her breath and stepped away to catch the cool morning air. She had brushed and plaited her hair that day and secured the braid in a coil around her head with sturdy pins that Matt had carved from ebon wood, but as well as they worked, a few tendrils of hair slipped free and curled in chaotic disorder around her face. She reached into her pocket for her day cap. Once settled in place, she stuffed the misbehaving locks beneath the edge and hurried back to the cottage. She had gathered and tied up their laundry earlier, and a large bundle lay near the stoop. She scooped it into her arms and started back.

  The women worked in turns, washing, rinsing and wringing so as not to mix the items and have to sort them later. When Chinera’s turn came, it was late morning. She added bed linens, first. They needed little hard scrubbing. A good douse in hot soapy water would kill any c
rawling creatures hiding among the folds and rid the sheets of body sweat and odor. She twirled them through the steamy water with a wooden paddle until all that remained was soap smell. She scooped a sheet from the soapy water, twisted it around the paddle and dropped it into a rinse tub.

  Next came clothing items. They took a little longer, but the work of washing them was not so heavy. The lye soap made her hands burn a bit, but an hour later, she finished and carried away a bundle of clean laundry. She hung the biggest pieces across Forsythia bushes that grew beside the front stoop and spread the rest over the railing that edged the small porch. Laundry draped more than half the cottage railings. With the sun straight overhead, and such a warm day, everything would dry before dark.

  The children would be clamoring for midday snacks by now, and it was Chinera’s turn to provide them. She ducked into the cottage for a pan of gingerbread and a pitcher of milk before seeking Franny. When she reached the grassy area beside the girl's cottage, the children stood in a circle playing drop-the-hanky. It was Ceri’s turn, and from the look of her poppy-red cheeks, she had owned the “IT” role for some time. Ceri caught sight of her, dropped the hanky and came hurtling full speed across the grass. Her little face alight with joy, she clutched Chinera around the legs.

  “Ceri It. Ceri It.”

  Chinera knelt beside her, the gingerbread balanced in one hand while milk sloshed over the lip of the pitcher that she held in the other. “So I see, and for awhile, too, you wee tyrant.” Franny rescued the gingerbread and pitcher from her outstretched arms, and she surrendered to an onslaught of wet kisses and hugs that resulted in a tickling match between mother and daughter. The scene delighted the rest of the children who soon joined the game. They piled one atop the other amid gleeful squeals until, with decided effort; Chinera managed an escape from the heap of sweaty little bodies. She and Franny watched until thoughts of food replaced maniacal tickling contests. Franny’s order to sit convinced them that compliance was the only way gingerbread would come out of the pan and into their mouths. She produced a few tin cups and poured them half-full of milk. They seated the children in twos so that each pair shared a single cup. Mouths bulging with gingerbread, they took turns drinking.