A Passionate Magic (11 page)

Trevanan was set in a protected fold of land
where the cliffs broke off for half a mile or so. A river ran out
to the sea along the north side of the village, just before the
cliffs began again. Inland, the fields were tilled for barley and
oats, for cabbage and root vegetables, but the chief food of the
village and the source of its prosperity was fish.

As they rode along the cliffs and down into
the valley, Dain explained to Emma how schools of pilchard were
caught in great sweeps of netting that extended from boat to boat.
The fish not needed for food for the village were salted and packed
in barrels, then carted to the deeper water port of Camelford, from
where the barrels were sent by ship to Spain or Normandy.

“I saw a few boats at sea yesterday,” Emma
said, “but there are none today.”

“They were after some other fish,” Dain said.
“The pilchard don’t arrive until later in the summer, which is a
good thing, for we need every man here on land to work at
rebuilding the houses.”

The entire village consisted of no more than
two dozen houses spread along a rutted, gravelly road that branched
off the cliff road and ran straight to the beach.

“It’s the path used by the heavy fish carts,”
Dain said when Emma commented on the deep ruts. “Agatha’s house is
the little building you can see across the meadow, just next to the
river. She prefers to live apart from the village proper.”

The men-at-arms and servants who had come
with Dain to help with the rebuilding stopped at the two houses
that were being restored from the ground up, while Dain and Emma
rode on to Agatha’s home. It was no more than a hut, sheltered
within a stand of willow trees that were all badly stunted by the
continuous wind from the sea.

As Emma and Dain approached, a tiny woman
came around the side of the house. Agatha’s face had been weathered
by sun and wind, covered with fine lines, and her hair was thin and
gray. But her silver-pale eyes were bright with intelligence and
her voice and step were both firm.

“So, this is your new lady,” Agatha said to
Dain. She touched Emma’s cheek with a wrinkled hand, and where her
fingers trailed, Emma’s skin grew warm.

“Teach her what you can,” Dain said to
Agatha. “Emma has some idea of being useful to Penruan. Lady Emma,
I will send a man-at-arms to escort you home at day’s end. I will
be staying here at Trevanan for several days.” With a hasty nod to
the women, he remounted and rode away, heading for the work
site.

“How that boy has changed since he was
younger,” Agatha said, looking after him.

“Have you known Dain all his life?” Emma
asked.

“Aye. There was a time when Dain was often
here at my cottage, despite the way his mother continually spews
hatred against me into his ears, warning him to keep his distance.
But Dain quietly defies his mother’s wishes. He allows me to live
here in the village because I am expert at healing the ills and
injuries of his men, and because I keep the villagers healthy.”

With a hand on Emma’s arm, Agatha drew her
around the little house and into the fenced herb garden at the
back. The fence was woven of irregular branches, apparently picked
up during Agatha’s walks in search of herbs, the branches bound
together with vines. Within the confines of the fence herbs grew in
wild abandon. At one corner, where the fence had almost collapsed,
it was held up by a great, spreading rosebush. A few late roses
bloomed pink on the untidy canes, but most of the canes bore large,
bright red hips.

“For jelly,” Emma said. “I love the taste of
rose hip jelly. Do you dry and powder the hips for a hot drink in
winter, as we do in Lincolnshire? Oh, there is lavender next to the
rose, and there’s thyme, and rosemary and mint over there, in the
shade.”

“You do know the herbs,” Agatha said, nodding
her approval. “Come, sit with me and tell me how you plan to
circumvent Lady Richenda’s disapproval of any effort to minister to
the earthly ailments of men and women.”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Emma said.
She took a seat on the bench Agatha indicated, a black stone slab
laid on two rocks and placed beneath an aged apple tree. All three
pieces of the bench were obviously cut from the nearby cliffs and
were worn smooth by years of use. “Agatha, how long have you lived
in Trevanan?”

“Since I was a little girl,” Agatha said,
settling herself next to Emma. “My granny was the healer before me.
At least, she called herself my granny, so no one would act
spitefully toward me while I was a child and unable to defend
myself. But I’m not so sure that’s what she was.

“Sometimes, when an unwanted babe is born, if
a young mother is afraid of what her parents will do to her or to
her lover, or if she’s a servant at the castle and fears losing her
place there, then she bears her child in secret and leaves it on
the moor. I do think that’s where Granny found me, for I never
recall her speaking of a child of her own who could have been my
mother. My sire could have been Dain’s grandfather or one of his
men-at-arms, or a fisherman from the village, or even one of the
outlaws who will continue to live on the moor no matter how
ferociously the lords of Penruan try to be rid of them.

“Who my parents were doesn’t matter,” Agatha
said. “What’s important is that Granny recognized me when she first
saw me. She always told me she knew at once I would grow up to be
the best healer in Cornwall. She knew me. Yes, she did. Just as I
know you. I’ve been waiting for you to come, Emma. It’s past
time.”

“You recognized me as a fellow healer, even
before Dain told you?” Emma said.

“Aye, and more than a healer.” Agatha’s
fingers rested on Emma’s hand like the delicate brush of a dry
autumn leaf across her skin. “You are like me in more ways than
one. You aren’t who people think you are. You aren’t even who
you
think you are.”

“What do you mean?” Emma asked. For just a
moment she was afraid, and wished she could pull her hand away from
Agatha’s. But Agatha’s soft old fingers lay lightly on hers, the
touch strong as steel manacles. In that gentle, unbreakable touch
Emma recognized one who owned an inborn magic far stronger than her
own.

“Never mind,” Agatha said. “All will be
revealed when the time is right. That’s the way it always is ...
when the time is right. That’s what I tell the girl, too.”

“What girl?” Emma asked, speaking softly
because she understood that Agatha’s mind was wandering into
pathways where she, Emma, could not follow. She didn’t want to
disturb the old woman’s thoughts until Agatha had said all she
meant to say.

“Well, she’s not a girl anymore,” Agatha
said. “Her time is coming, soon enough. And so will your time come.
Now,” Agatha said briskly, removing her hand from Emma’s and thus
freeing the younger woman from the spell that had held her, “come
and I’ll show you all of the herb garden and then my workroom
inside, and afterward we can talk about what’s troubling you and
how to mend it.”

An hour later Emma and Agatha were back in
the herb garden, again sitting on the rock bench in the sunshine.
Without quite knowing how it had come about, Emma had revealed to
the older woman the circumstances of her marriage, including the
fact that Dain had so far avoided the act of consummation.

“He doesn’t trust me,” Emma concluded her
account. She sipped from a cup containing Agatha’s herbal wine,
which was marvelously cooling, and picked from a plate on the bench
a food she had not encountered before. Agatha called it a pasty and
claimed it was a commonplace treat in Cornwall. The baked
half-round of crisp dough enfolded apples chopped with herbs and
spices to make a savory filling.

“The villagers use meat or fish for the
filling,” Agatha said, “though I prefer vegetables or fruits.
Either way, it’s a convenient food to take along when traveling, or
for the fishermen when they go out to sea for a long day of work.
Now, Emma, about that cave you mentioned. Did you see anyone
there?”

“No,” Emma answered. “Just the footprints I
told you about, that suddenly stopped at the rock wall. I know of
no magic that will allow a mortal body to pass through solid rock.”
She paused, waiting to hear Agatha’s reaction to her carefully
worded statement.

“Well, you don’t know all there is to learn
about magic, do you?” said Agatha. “Did you tell anyone else what
you saw?”

“I was going to tell Dain, but when I
mentioned the cave he began to talk about Merlin and King Arthur,
and about a lady in white who appears from time to time. He was so
opposed to the very idea of magic that I said no more on the
subject.”

“That’s his mother’s doing. You haven’t told
Dain about your magical abilities yet, have you?”

“No. I feel I will have to gain his trust
first. Then perhaps he will be able to understand that not all
magic is evil.” Emma paused to take another bite of the pasty she
held and to wash it down with some wine. “I have seen the lady in
white twice; once on the moor and again on the cliff.”

“Have you?” said Agatha, as if mysterious
appearances and disappearances were nothing very surprising to her.
“There is no need to fear the lady.”

“I gathered as much from the comments made by
a few other people who also have seen her from time to time. Dain
admits to seeing her, but only from a distance. From the way he
spoke I assumed he’d rather not discuss her.”

“This is a land of legends and magic,” Agatha
said. “No one ever learns the whole of it, not even after a
lifetime of study and practice. There are still secrets to be
revealed. But I shall know the greatest secret of all before
long.”

“What secret is that?” Emma asked.

“Why, don’t you know?” Agatha smiled, her
eyes silver bright and utterly without fear. “It’s the secret of
what lies on the Other Side. I expect to learn it in another year
or two, perhaps sooner.”

Emma stared at her for a moment before
realizing that Agatha was speaking of her own death. Emma saw no
reason to protest against a knowledge deeper and wider than her
own.

“It will be a sad day for Trevanan,” Emma
said, “and for those at Penruan who are injured or ill.”

“Not while you are here to take my place,”
Agatha said. “Years ago, I thought the girl would be the one, but
she was banished. Wicked, wicked, to send her away like that!”

“What girl?” Emma asked for the second time
since meeting Agatha.

“And so you were sent in her stead,” Agatha
continued, as if Emma had not spoken, “and we must make certain you
remain at Penruan, for there are those who would force you outside,
too, and lock the gate behind you, just as was done after
she
was thrust out to face the world alone.”

Emma began to wonder if Agatha’s aged mind
was faltering.

“The first thing we must do is get Dain into
your bed,” Agatha went on. “I know the recipe for a potion. Tis the
same magical draft that was given to Iseult and Tristan, that bound
them together forever, through life and beyond, into death. I will
make it for you.”

“No!” Emma cried, thoroughly alarmed by this
idea. “I will use no magic to charm my husband. Dain will come to
me in genuine desire, by his own will, or I will not accept
him.”

“What you want is rare, child. Dain knows
little of love. His father, Baron Halard, grew into a bitter and
unloving man, and as for Lady Richenda— well, she never was the
kind to happily warm a man’s bed, not even in her youth, and she
has always been as cold and unyielding a parent as ever Halard was.
Perhaps, if the girl—”

“What girl? Agatha, what, or who, are you
talking about?”

“I see Dain riding down the road, leading
your horse and with a man-at-arms in attendance,” Agatha said,
rising from the bench. “It is time for you to return to
Penruan.”

“May I come again?” Emma asked, her mind
whirling with unanswered questions. “Or will you come to
Penruan?”

“I only go to Penruan when Dain summons me.
Now, don’t forget the basket I gave you. There are rooted herb
plants packed in moss for you to set out in the kitchen garden, and
a few ointments and tinctures already prepared and sealed in jars
and vials, all tucked under those bunches of cut herbs for drying
that I laid on top.”

“There is so much I want to learn from you,”
Emma said, thinking of the lady in white, and the girl of whom
Agatha had spoken, and the place she thought of as Merlin’s cave.
So many mysteries to be solved.

“You’ve learned more in this one day than you
realize,” Agatha said. “So did I learn more from you than I
expected. We will meet again soon.”

Emma rode away, back to Penruan Castle,
thinking she must hasten her efforts to establish herself as the
castle healer. Not only did she want to make her position secure
before Lady Richenda returned, but she felt an urgent need to
gather as much information from Agatha as she could. She did not
doubt that Agatha foresaw her own death approaching. The thought
saddened Emma, but she believed Agatha’s declaration that she was
meant to succeed the old healer. After Agatha was gone, if the folk
of Trevanan knew they could look to the castle for aid in times of
sickness or injury, not only would that be a good use of Emma’s
herbal medicines and magical skills, it would also strengthen
Dain’s position as lord.

There hadn’t been time to speak to Dain about
her plans before she left Trevanan, not with his man-at-arms and
Agatha herself present. Emma resolved to discuss the issue with
Dain as soon as he returned to Penruan.

She looked over her shoulder once and saw
Dain still standing before Agatha’s hut, talking to the old woman.
And then Emma set her eyes upon Penruan Castle and rode on.

Dain vowed he would not gaze after Emma like
some lovesick minstrel, so he kept his full attention on
Agatha.