WinterMaejic (10 page)

Idon’t know how long I was unconscious. I don’t even know how long I was semiconscious—two or three days at least. Sometimes I was half-aware of things around me: a fire crackling on the hearth near where I lay; my hands swathed in aromatic poultices; Grey spooning broth, juice, or even wine down my throat; wind and rain howling outside; Grey taking care of things about my person that would have mortified me had I been fully awake; Chase curled up near me and sometimes even on the pallet as if he were keeping watch.

When I finally came fully to my senses, I wondered if it were all a dream. But, no. Although I was warm and comfortable, lying under several furs, I was in a place I didn’t recognize.

The walls were of rough-hewn stone, and the ceiling had huge, dark-colored wooden beams. A fire snapped nearby. But when I pulled my hands from under the covers, they were still balled into fists. Useless lumps of flesh at the ends of my arms.

Chase let out a small whine, and a throat cleared.

“Awake now, are you?” And the man named Grey came over to me, a look of concern—maybe even worry—on his face.

I tried to speak, but my voice was still gone. The look on Grey’s face was unbearable, and I turned away from him, rolling onto my side and facing the wall.

I wept. Tears poured from my eyes, and I couldn’t even wipe them away. Silent sobs wracked my body, and my muscles tightened and cramped. And still I wept, until my stomach clenched and threatened to make me vomit. The nasty taste of bile in my mouth made everything worse.

When, finally, I regained some semblance of control over myself, I lay on my back again. Chase set his chin on the bed next to my face, and his breath warmed my damp cheeks. I reached up a hand to stroke him, but the sight of my fist threatened to send me back into tears. I let out a shuddering sigh and closed my eyes. Just concentrate on your heart, I told myself. Slow down its racing beat. Calm your breathing with deep, slow breaths.

Then Grey was there again, holding a steaming mug.

“Here,” he said, his voice soft and deep, once again speaking as if to a trapped animal. Which, truly, I was. “Let me help you sit up and drink this.”

When he slid an arm under my shoulders, my muscles tensed. All sense of calm fled, and I almost rolled away from him again. Chase whined, as if he were trying to speak to me. But I couldn’t hear him. I should’ve been able to, but I couldn’t.

Grey must have felt my passive resistance, but he didn’t let it stop him. Instead, he lifted me up to a sitting position, then sat next to me, keeping one arm around my shoulders for support.

“Drink,” he said, bringing the cup to my lips.

And I drank. I hated my helplessness but was too worn out from spent emotion to resist. This time.

The camomile tea laced with lavender loosened my tight chest. Breath seemed to come more easily. Chase wagged his tail and set his head on my knee. It felt awkward, but I rubbed a fist against the top of his skull. He closed his eyes in pleasure.

When I finished the tea, Grey helped me to my feet, and I took a few faltering steps to a chair placed near the fire. Grey sat in the other one, watching me intently. I wished he’d look away.

He finally broke the silence. “How are you?”

Once again I tried to say something—anything—and failed.

Grey scowled in consternation. “I don’t suppose this is some case of severe laryngitis?” I shook my head. “So you
can
actually talk?”

I nodded my head, then shook it, frustrated that I couldn’t convey what I needed to.

“You can talk, but whoever did that to you back there,” and he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “did something that’s taken your voice away?”

I nodded again, relieved that he’d understood.

“Hmm. Well, you seem to be feeling a little better.”

I nodded yet again, wishing every kind of painful death possible on Anazian.

Grey stood up suddenly, startling me so that I cringed. He noticed and crouched down in front of my chair. His grey eyes bored into mine.

“Please don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.” His gaze held mine until tears filled my eyes again and I nodded. Though whether it was in agreement or just to make him stop looking at me, I wasn’t sure.

He stood up in a slow, fluid movement and stepped to the hearth, where he stirred something that simmered in a pot hung over the fire. When he returned to his chair, he showed me a hand-carved mug and bowl.

“I made these for you while you’ve been ill. I left the bark on the lower part so it would be rough enough for you to handle yourself. I mean, with your hands like that.” He looked away for a moment, almost as if he were embarrassed for his thoughtfulness. Well, considering what he’d done for me already, I was the one who felt embarrassed. I would just have to not think about it. “Anyway,” he said, ignoring my blush, “I think I figured out a way for you to at least tell me your name. You’re one up on me there, you know. I’ll go through the alphabet, and you nod when I get to the right letter. Is the first letter a consonant?” I nodded. “B, C, D.” Another nod. And so we went on until he’d gotten it all. “Donavah. Very pretty.”

A silence grew between us that I could do absolutely nothing about. I wished I could get back into bed and sleep. Forever. Better yet would be to be home, where Mama could look after me instead of this stranger doing it. Where Papa could hold me in his arms and soothe my fears away.

“Well, you can’t tell me much of your story, but I’m guessing you’d feel better knowing something about me.”

He should’ve been right, but a sense of self-absorption had overtaken me. Now that my thoughts were beginning to clear, I found that I felt much more interested in thinking about myself, what had happened, and what would happen. I shrugged.

Grey took it as a sign to continue.

“You’ve probably already started wondering about my name. Well, from the moment I was born, my parents decided something was wrong with me. They gave me as little care as they possibly could. I guess my older sister pretty much raised me. Not that I remember very much of any of it. Just snatches here and there. My parents didn’t even give me a name, just called me ‘Grey’ for the color of my eyes.

“When I was three, maybe four, they brought me way out here and left me with the hermit, Malk.” A long pause, and bitterness hardened his eyes. “Or I should say left me
for
him. He wasn’t home, so they tied a length of rope to my waist, tied the other end to a nail on the wall high out of my reach, and . . . and just walked away. Didn’t even look back.” Another pause during which Grey gave a violent stir to his cup of tea, causing some of it to spill over the side. I just watched, aghast at what he was telling me. “Malk didn’t come home for three days, and I can only imagine his surprise at finding a half-dead toddler on his doorstep. He nursed me to health, and then raised me as the son he never had. Always called me Grey, since that was the only name I knew to tell him.”

He looked searchingly at me, as if trying to decide whether he could trust me. Then he said, “Malk understood what was inside me. He didn’t have the ‘gift,’ as he called it, himself, but he didn’t begrudge anyone who did.” I wondered what gift he could be talking about. Then he shook his head abruptly, as if to dispel his thoughts. “It doesn’t matter. Malk was an accomplished magician and healer. He taught me as much as he could. And I was eager to learn it all. He died a few months ago, and now I expect that I will become the hermit-in-the-woods in his place.”

He fell silent, and I wished more than ever that I could say something. Then Chase barked, causing us both to jump. Grey’s hand reached reflexively for the knife at his hip before he realized that the dog was only barking at the pot on the fire. Grey laughed.

“So you think it’s time for supper, do you, boy?” Chase wagged his tail, and if he could have, I’m sure he would have grinned. “Crazy dog. I sometimes think he should have been born human. He’d be better at it than some people I know.” Grey arose and set about getting our meal ready.

The stew was delicious and rich with more healing herbs. The meat was so tender that it must have been simmering all day long. I felt sure that Grey had prepared it with care so that I would be able to slurp it without his help.

When the meal was done, I eased myself slowly to my feet. Grey watched me, poised in his seat to provide help if needed, but also apparently understanding my need for some bit of independence, no matter how small. I made it to the pallet and using both fists, managed to pull the furs over myself.

Grey moved to a pallet he’d placed near the fire. I watched drowsily as Chase lay next to him, curling up along his stomach. He scratched the dog’s ears, almost as if it were an automatic reaction. Chase’s tail thumped against the blankets in a lazy rhythm.

Grey began speaking. At first, I thought he was talking to Chase, but his voice was soft and the words felt into rhythm with the dog’s tail. Then I realized he was telling a story, a bedtime story, something meant to ease me into sleep. I closed my eyes—indeed, I could scarcely have kept them open if I’d tried—and let Grey’s soothing voice float into my thoughts.

“In the woods there once lived a wicked cobbler who liked nothing better than to make people miserable. He was magic, was this cobbler, and he used his power—meager though it was—to inflate his reputation until it was believed that he was the best cobbler in the land. People travelled from near and far to have shoes made by him.

“But the shoes never fit quite right. They were too tight or too loose. Perhaps one heel was slightly higher than the other. Or perhaps a few nails poked through the sole.

“Despite the discomfort, though, people still wore the shoes because they were, after all, the height of fashion.

“So much so that the king himself sent his daughter to the cobbler to have him make her wedding shoes.”

But I never heard the end of the tale, for at this point, I fell fast asleep.

I dreamt that night. I traveled by foot through woods in the dark, and as I walked, I realized someone was looking for me. It could only be Anazian! I blocked my thoughts, trying to merge myself with the darkness. “Donavah! Donavah!” Voices cried from high over my head. Voices I recognized but couldn’t place. I hid deeper and deeper inside myself, not wanting to allow any danger to get through my defenses. Then my ears filled with Anazian’s laughter, and this time, he pressed my whole body into a huge oak tree. I screamed as life was crushed out of me.

I awoke bathed in sweat. I screamed again, this time for real, but, of course, there was no sound. A dog let out a yip, and a shadow rose from the floor and came over to me. I shrunk back against the wall, but the man kept coming toward me.