Ascalla's Daughter Page 7

  “Evangeline,” said Klea. “Name be pretty, like a flower.”

  “Aye that it is. Her Majesty said as how it meant messenger of the good news. Young prince said since none knew her name, he’d call our girl Evangeline.” She took a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to Marcus. “Majesty said seeing you can read a bit that she’d write it for you. Underlined a part of it.”

  Marcus took the paper. “Names got a word inside it. That be what Her Majesty underlined. Angel smack in the middle.”

  “Aye, angel. Majesty said as how you found a healing angel and did it bide well with ye, She’d be beholden if ye let Prince Hawk give her the name.”

  “Humph, what think ye Gram?”

  “Suits her well enough. Think ye might want to hear the rest?”

  “Aye.”

  “By and by Majesty called the lad to sit on her lap. I got me another look at that knee. Nary a red spot even. Her Majesty, she got a look too. She knows, sure as anything.”

  “I expect that be so,” said Marcus.

  “Knows what?” asked Klea.

  Grams sparse toothed mouth broke into a broad smile, and she elbowed Marcus in the ribs. “Think ye the boy’s playing tricks.”

  Klea blinked looking from one to the other. “A-right then,” he said. “A wee healer, she be.” He watched Evangeline cuddle the rag doll. Before long her good thumb slipped inside her mouth and content, she dozed. “If she be near to Prince Hawk, sure enough King Ian’s bound on seeing her.”

  Marcus nodded. “Reckon you be right lad.” He stretched his long legs toward the fire. “Too many knowing I found her on the high trail, Klea. Spect I got to tell him the truth.”

  “Aye, Captain. None questions true words.”

  ***

  The fire burned low and Marcus rose to tend it. He poked at the embers to make them surge and set a new peat block in place. It caught a spark and flamed.

  “Mind me pipe, Gram?” Klea asked.

  “Nay, lad, the smell of a full pipe be pleasant if the baca is sweet.”

  He took a large bowled pipe from inside the travel pouch that hung at his waist, tamped it full of tobacco then plucked a loose straw from Gram’s broom and stuck one end into the fire. He set the burning end just above the tobacco and drew gently until it caught.

  “Mind you’re settled now,” said Gram. She pushed away from the table and went to open the door a crack. A shaft like infusion of cold air washed into the room. She sat down again beside Marcus. Klea’s expression changed to one of puzzled observation. He started to question them, but Gram shook her head and pressed a finger against her lips. Except for an occasional crackle from the hearth, silence took the room. Klea wondered about the open door. The heat from the fire battled cold air from outside and with each passing minute came closer to losing. He saw Granny Stone shiver and draw her shawl closer. The wee lass snuggled deeper into the covers, a crown of ebon curls spilled across the pillow. Smoke curled from the bowl of his pipe, rose toward the ceiling and vanished among the rafters. He grew more uncomfortable. Chill bumps patterned his arms, and thoughts of the warm tavern kitchen occupied his mind. Perhaps he’d take leave of them and head home. Talk had stopped. If Marcus meant to tell him more, he doubted it would be tonight. He’d made a quick thrift of it despite the significance of the lasses ability. Rumors abounded about natural healers. Sure as daylight followed night, the lass had a touch. He stifled a yawn. His bed called and thoughts of the dark haired wench he’d shared it with the night before roused him. Best be on his way. He started to rise, but Marcus put a hand on his arm, and he felt a colder blast of air cascade into the room.

  ***

  The door creaked and the crack widened. She crossed the threshold. Slow tentative steps, one paw and then another, until she stopped just behind Klea. Here was a new scent. She recognized the other two, but while familiar, the new one had a muskier smell. Another male, she knew, and nervous now that he saw her. Her black tipped muzzle mere inches from him quivered. The musk smell deepened, and she sensed fear. She passed behind him and on to the next, the one from the mountain. He and the old woman loved the pup, and so she let them live. The new one turned his head. She felt his eyes bore into her. Agitated, the fur along her spine rippled. It looked silver in the firelight. Her white undercoat and the long coarse topcoat tipped in black glistened. The rich black of her muzzle evened out to pale gray around her eyes. The brow mounds above each eye and her ears looked as though someone had dusted them with charcoal.

  Marcus extended his closed fist toward the white wolf. She focused her attention in his direction extended her head until her nose touched him. Klea relaxed, but the sigh that escaped him raised her guard and she whipped around growling.

  “Make no move, laddie,” Marcus told him.

  Klea’s chest rose and fell, every shallow breath witness to the extreme fear raging in his head.

  “She knows you’re scairt, Klea. Smells it oozing from you like sweat. When she quiets, put your hand out same as you saw me do. If she touches her muzzle to you, hold steady. Like as not she’ll test your measure and take to you or not.”

  If she didn’t take to him, he wondered, what then? He heard her suck wind and release another wet, guttural snarl. He didn’t know how long he sat petrified; her breath so close he felt her heat, smelled her heavy animal scent. When she quieted, he extended his hand, the fingers curled in toward the palm. She kept her distance at first, but he saw her nostrils flex. Wary, she approached rounding her body until she faced him dead on.

  “Cast your eyes on the floor, Klea, afore she takes your stare as a challenge,” said Marcus.

  The wolf padded close enough to touch her muzzle to his hand, pushed at it, sniffed, and pushed at it again. Another step and the muzzle came under his hand.

  “Pet her, lad. Slow at first then rub her ears. She likes that.”

  “She’ll take my hand off,” his said his voice a mere croak.

  “Nay, if she wanted a piece of you, she’d go at your throat not your hand. She’s gauged your metal. Give her your trust.”

  He rested his hand on her head and let her nuzzle him before he touched her ears. They felt fleshy, not the way he expected, and downy soft. She laid her head across his knee, pleasure evident in those wide amber eyes. The little girl made a small sound in her sleep, and the wolf’s ears perked. She cocked her head sideways, padded across the room and lay down beside the little girl. Evangeline stirred. One hand crept from beneath the covers. She buried her fingers in the white wolf’s fur and went back to sleep.

  5 - The Billy

  The winter sky over Ascalla tuned somber in the face of an advancing storm. Wind raged over the mountains and rolled across the flatlands gathering momentum; it stroked the barren rooftops of burned out cottages in Baline and whistled through the pines along the edge of Curling Wood. Voluminous clouds built at the front and tumbled over the terrain gathering moisture until they bulged and spit short bursts of sleet. The wind ripped across the high plain grasses and lashed them into a swaying sea of motion. The tall blades whipped back and forth until their heavy seed-tips crumbled. The blowing gusts changed tactics when the storm swooped through the valley. It ducked into the hollows where it scoured the ground feasting upon deadwood and hurling branches against the earth with relentless fury. Dried leaves rose and spun amid billows of dust and forest debris. Birds caught in the assault, abandoned the sky and took shelter in dense brush. Ground squirrels skittered for their tunnels, rolled into tight little bundles and coiled their feathery tails around their tiny bodies. Rabbits sought sanctuary below ground as well. Wolf and deer, coyote and lynx, bear and elk fled side by side, awed by a danger far more threatening than the blood lust of predator and prey.

  In Falmora, the snow started just past midnight. It began with a few scattered flakes that drifted like dancing maidens born on a gentle current, the precursor of the fast approaching storm. The wind’s increased momentum would soon abolish that g
entle frolic and send them spinning in mad abandon. At daybreak, when Granny Stone raised an eyelid and peered across the room toward the pallet where Evangeline slept beside the white wolf, little more than a light powder covered the ground. Marcus, perched on a narrow bench near the door, worked his foot past the tight ankle of his boot.

  “Snowing a might, Gram,” he said. A change in breath sounds had told him she was awake even though she faced the opposite way.

  “Aye, smelled it coming.”

  “So you said last eve.” He stood up and reached for his cloak. “I be gone to the barracks training recruits near on two days.”

  She nodded. “Yon wolf’s past her time for leaving.”

  Marcus went to the door and clicked his tongue, but the wolf moved closer to the little girl. “Ah, so you’ve no fondness for storms, a girl.” She looked down the length of her nose at him and then curled one paw over it. “She’s no going, Gram. Least not without someone carries her.”

  “She’ll find her way. Give it no bother.”

  “Well’s froze over, but I cracked through and pumped you a fresh bucket of water. Strung a rope to the goat shed. Mind you watch your step. Wind’s whipping up.” He extended one arm and then another into a thick woolen coat and belted it around the waist.

  “Aye, we be in for a big one.” Already healthy blasts rattled the shutters and seeped through cracks in the plank door.

  “Want I should stir the fire before I go? Just take a minute or two.”

  “Nay, lad, I can tend it well enough. Get you gone and safe to the barracks before it gets any worse.” She waved a hand toward the door. “Get that woolen muffler Melendarius brought the other day. Cast a bit of warm into it he did. It’ll keep your ears from going all black skinned from frost devils.”

  “Aw, Gram. Wool’s warm true but comes by its heat natural enough without the likes of Melendarius.” He didn’t know why she always set so much store with that old man waving his stick.

  “Humph!”

  Now he’d set her in a snit. He reached for the muffler, settled it on his head and wrapped it around his ears.

  “A-right then. My ears be heated straight through.” He waited for her to say her goodbyes. When she didn’t answer he sighed and turned toward the door. “Well then, best I be off.”

  “Boy?” She turned toward him and raised-up on one elbow. “Stay safe.”

  Boy, after all these years she still called him boy. His eyes went moist and shiny, and he thumped a fist over his heart. “Aye, Gram.”

  ***

  The door closed behind him, and she got up to lower the crossbar. The cold floor stung the soles of her bare feet, and she stepped gingerly toward the bed, reached beneath it, and came out with a pair of worn shoes, her woolen stockings rolled-up inside one of them. She sat down on a stool by the table and crossed one leg over the other. The stocking fit a bit tight. She worked it over her toes, pulled it up, gathered it around two fingers and twisted it into a knot just below her knee. She repeated the process with a bit more difficulty on the other leg. That hip stung like a black toothed devil lived inside the joint. She caught her breath until the fiery jabs eased. With one hand on each knee for leverage, she stood and slipped a foot into each shoe.

  The storm came fast now. She felt it in her joints and half limped across the room to the pantry. Inside a small crock filled with a grainy kind of salve that smelled of mint, a few bottles of different colored elixirs, and some dried herbs tied round with thin strips of reed, sat neatly arranged on a wooden shelf. The herbs and a variety of other concoctions comprised Granny Stone’s pharmacy. She reached into the stone crock and dipped out a generous blob of mint salve, raised her skirts, and rubbed it over her hip and down her thigh. It felt cold at first but then warmed when the nerves took hold. In a minute or two most of the ache disappeared.

  She lifted a poker that rested near the hearth. A quick stir brought new life from the remnants of last night’s fire, and she stacked a pyramid of fresh peat blocks above the glowing embers. She dipped enough water from the bucket Marcus left by the hearth into the cooking kettle to make porridge for wee Evan. They had started calling the little girl Evan a few days after young Prince Hawk set his heart on naming her Evangeline after the lass in his faerie book. A pretty-enough name but a mighty mouthful for common day-to-day talk. So, Marcus said as how wee Evan sounded right to him.

  Gram added two fistfuls of oats and a pinch of salt to the kettle and gave the mixture a swish with a long handled, wooden spoon. Wee Evan liked porridge best with butter stirred in and topped off with honey. The remnants of the butter crock might do this morning. Mayhap she’d show wee Evan how to churn a fresh batch. Little she be but plenty big enough to wield the dasher. She took the honey jar from the pantry and set it on the table. The wolf stirred and raised its head.

  “Aye, so you’ve a taste for honey. Mind you keep your nose out of yonder jar. I’ll not be feeding the likes of you honey with little enough to spare as it is.” A soft whine followed her stern declaration. The wolf didn’t rise or move toward the table, but her expressive eyes glanced from Gram to the honey and back, every look punctuated by short whimpers.

  “A-right you beggar.” She lifted a cloth from a bowl on the pantry shelf and reached inside. The leftover biscuits from last night’s supper felt hard as rocks. She’d saved them to crumble into tonight’s stew, but that woebegone look worked on her weak spot. She crumbled two of the biscuits onto a tin plate, drizzled honey over them, and set the plate on the floor. The wolf thumped her tail, rose wagging her way to the plate. She began licking the treat slowly as though she relished each taste and wanted to make it last.

  “Got your way didn’t you, you huge fiend.” She stroked the wolf’s silver fur. “Pretty critter, you be. Frost be a good name, like Marcus says. Me boy be a clever one for picking names.” The wolf leaned against her thigh taking in the sound of her voice and then went back to lapping the honey. “Melendarius, though, he say name be Chinera.” The wolf cocked her big head to the side. “Spect, that be it then. Told Marcus so. Wee girl can’t get her tongue round it just yet, but soon enough, soon enough.”

  Despite the rising wind, Gram heard persistent bleats coming from the shed that housed the goats. Ever since Marcus came home with Evan, she had milked twice a day bent on keeping them lactating as long as possible for the lasses sake. Marcus had an eye peeled for a third breeder that they hoped to buy before these two stopped producing. The bleats grew louder, and now Billy chimed in as well. Egged them on he did, cantankerous little cuss. Time she saw to them before Evan woke and the porridge scorched. She retrieved a clean pail from the pantry. Her shawl hung on a peg near the door. She tied it over her head and slipped into a worn cloak.

  ***

  Cold air took her breath the minute she stepped onto the stoop. Blue as beezuz cold, she thought. Blue as beezus for sure, just like her mam called it when she weren’t but a tad of a girl, younger even than wee Evan. And such a wind. Why a wind like that would drive straight through a body no matter how they layered-up. She thought of Marcus and felt glad she had made a fuss over the muffler. She licked her lips and regretted it. The spittle froze on contact and the tender flesh of both lips, stuck fast. Before she thought, she tried to open her mouth and felt skin lift away from flesh. She cupped a hand over her mouth and held it there until body heat melted the frozen spit. They’d be frightful sore she knew and thought of Marcus again. How did he fair, his poor lip heaved clean in two and always a-drizzle? Soon as she finished with the goats, she’d mix a good batch of hog fat and aloe. Ward off some of the sting anyway. If the storm cleared out later in the day, mayhap she’d bundle wee Evan up good and proper and head past the barracks on their way to tend Her Majesty. Drop him off a pot of salve. Like as not though by the looks of the sky, the storm would see they got no further than the cottage stoop.

  Her Majesty had said as how she might take rooms in the palace for the winter months, but the idea seemed too gr
and, and she knew she would miss her boy. Never should have said a word to him about it. Every day he asked did she change her mind. Said as how there be beds aplenty in the barracks for laying his head at night. Now with wee Evan sharing the space, the cottage felt more like home than ever, especially since Melendarius had happened in checking on the girl. Old she be. Truth enough in that, but the child needed raising and her boy a proper home. By the time the mint salve got to work and she sipped a cup of poppy tea, she’d be ripe enough to dance a jig.

  The goats bleated frenzied little cries. Poor wee critters, they had nary a fondness for wind ever since part of the shed roof blew free and crashed against the cottage last year. If Billy didn’t stink like a whole sty full of pigs, she’d bring them inside. Still she supposed that was a foolish idea. Goats, she could say for certain, did love their comforts, but as long as they had each other, they’d take right to home in the shed. Of course, there was the wolf, too, but she supposed if it hadn’t fed on goat by now, it wouldn’t take to chewing on them just because of a storm. Besides, Marcus said as how it went off to hunt in the woods with nary a look toward so much as a chicken.

  She sighed, and eyed the shed through a wall of blowing snow. In the time it took to dress, start the porridge, and decide to milk the goats, Steeple Road had disappeared. Not so much as a footprint marked the path Marcus took. No point in standing here with the cold billowing under her skirt freezing her backside, she might just as well have at it and be done. She slipped on the bottom step and caught hold of the porch rail. That zinged her hip a good one and mint salve or no, sent pains railing down her leg. Where was the blasted rope? She felt along the railing until her hand found the bulging knot. Good boy, her Marcus, the rope felt taut, wrapped securely to the rail and tied off at the other end. She made for the shed, one hand sliding along the rope, the other holding the bucket.

  Their bags full of sweet rich milk, the nanny goats waited in turn like obedient children. Gram plopped a large fork of timothy into the feeding rack and the first one, Little Em, hastened up the run to the milking platform, tucked her head into the rack, and began munching. Em’s dexterous upper lip sought the sweetest shoots from the timothy. They disappeared into her mouth where the roll of her bottom jaw set off a gnashing and grinding of molars that made a pleasant homey sound. Impatient for his own attention Billy butted his head against her leg. She pushed him away and grasped one of Em’s udders in each hand. A few expert tugs and Gram had a steady stream of milk squirting into the bucket. Bag empty and belly full, Em ambled down the run, and Tulla sidled past to replace her.