Snow White and Rose Red (38 page)
Read Snow White and Rose Red Online
Authors: Patricia Wrede
As usual, it was the Widow who reminded them all that there was work to be done. “If thou‘dst have thy scrying done ere noon, ’tis time to begin,” she told John.
“I fear you’re right,” John said. He tore his eyes from Rosamund and looked across at the trestle table where the Widow stood. “Have you finished your preparations?”
“I’ve yet to mix the herbs; all else is ready,” the Widow replied. “I wait only on thy alterations.”
“I crave your pardon for my delay,” John said, rising from his seat on the hearth. He joined the Widow at the table, and Rosamund and Blanche crowded close around him to peer over his shoulders. “Angelica, juniper, rosemary, eyebright, rue, and yarrow,” he said, examining the Widow’s herbs. “Do you mix them all together, or add them singly?”
“Together, and crushed into a powder,” the Widow answered. “And I speak the charm as the water’s poured across them.”
“Mmmmm.” John stared at them a moment. “‘Tis chiefly the angelica that makes this spell so plain to those of Faerie; that, and its pure humanness. ’Twould be best if we could substitute some Faerie herb.”
“Would mortal herbs that grew in Faerie do as well?” Rosamund said. “We’ve rosemary, and rue, and yarrow, at the least.”
“‘Tis well thought of,” John said, smiling warmly at her. Rosamund blushed, the Widow frowned, and John went on hastily, “Leave out the angelica, then, if ’twill not hurt the charm’s potency, and use herbs grown in Faerie for the rest.”
“That’s all?” the Widow said.
“Not quite; while you work your spell of scrying, I’ll cast one of another sort so that even if Madini sees what we’re about, and follows it, ‘twill be me she finds, not you.”
This satisfied the Widow at last. She began measuring herbs into a tin dish on the table, while Rosamund removed the jars of rosemary, rue, and yarrow and replaced them with the Faerie-grown herbs. John paced the room while the Widow repeated the spell she had used to watch Rosamund and Blanche in Faerie so many months before.
As the Widow spoke the last words of the charm and began pouring boiling water over the powdered herbs, John stopped his restless movement. Turning to face her, he spoke a word of warding and drew in the air with the forefinger of his left hand. A faint, smoky shadow followed his fingertip; it hung for an instant in the center of the cottage, then dissipated.
“That’s not the most consoling of charms,” Rosamund commented to him in a low voice.
“‘Twill do what’s required,” John answered, “and ’twas none of my inventing. What dost thy mother see?”
“Dee’s house,” the Widow answered, bending over the dish of herb water. “Someone has set a spell upon it, or rather, round about it. The magic still glows golden on the doorsills.”
“Faerie dust!” John said. “‘Tis Madini’s doing, I doubt not. Do you see her there?”
“No,” the Widow said. “But I do agree with thee; ‘twas her mischief that we sought, and ’tis hers we’re shown.”
“Canst thou see the crystal, Mother?” Blanche asked.
“‘Tis not kept outside the house,” the Widow said. “Nor is it of Madini’s—no, thou‘rt right; I spoke too hastily. The crystal’s here, and marked by the same magic as doth guard the house. That’s all; the vision’s gone.” She straightened with a sigh, and rubbed a hand across her eyes.
“If thou‘rt finished, I’ll open the door and let the odor out,” Rosamund said, and suited her actions to her words. The Widow carried the dish of herbs and water outside and emptied it under the rosebushes; when she returned, she discovered that her daughters had asked John to stay and eat with them. Bowing to the inevitable, the Widow refilled the kettle and sent Blanche to the garden to bring in a few more carrots and onions to add to the supper stew.
The hint of Faerie added to the Widow’s spell did, indeed, keep Madini from noticing it. Unfortunately, it was just what Dee and Kelly had prepared their own spells to espy. The wizards knew at once when the Widow’s scrying spell touched the crystal, and they dropped their other business and dashed for the study. They arrived in time to see a swirl of light flicker and fade in the heart of the crystal itself.
“‘Tis done!” Kelly said, after examining the crystal and the table it stood on. “We have them now. Said I not that ’twould be so?”
“What matters it?” Dee asked. “We leave today for Poland; the barge is already half-loaded.”
“Do you think that Faerie’s bound to England?” Kelly said. “‘Tis no more tied so than are Heaven and Hell. We must stop them now, John, else we’ll regret it a thousandfold.”
“What would you have us do?”
“What we’d planned,” Kelly answered impatiently. He muttered a peculiar sentence, half in Greek and half in Latin, then leaned forward and scooped up the crystal. “We’ll trace this spell to its source, and put an end to our troubles.”
“An you must have it so,” Dee said with a reluctant sigh.
Kelly smiled grimly and hid the crystal in the loose sleeves of his scholar’s robes. Then the two men left the house. As they crossed the threshold, Faerie dust sparked invisibly, and the crystal flickered in unseen response. Unconscious of anything unusual, Dee and Kelly turned down the street and started for the edge of Mortlak. They could not, of course, walk through the village streets openly carrying the crystal, but they were certain that the source of their troubles lay outside the town, so they were not disturbed by their inability to consult the glowing sphere for guidance during the early part of their trip.
When they reached the edge of town, Kelly paused in the shadow of a building. He checked carefully to make sure they were unobserved, then drew the crystal from his sleeve for an instant. The glow at its heart was brighter, and he smiled.
“That way, John,” he said, replacing the globe within his sleeve. “And not too far, I think. We’ll reach our goal ere midday.”
The two men set off again. As they struck out along the road, heading south toward the forest, they passed the portly figure of Master Phillip Rodgers, traveling in the opposite direction. The three men nodded greetings and went on, but Master Rodgers did not go far. He had been lurking in the forest for the early part of the morning, looking for proof of the nefarious activities in which Rosamund and Blanche were presumably engaged. Now he saw the two men whose magic he had been sent to investigate heading out of Mortlak in the direction of the forest and the Widow’s cottage. With the sinking feeling that his efforts to avoid political trouble were about to come to naught, Master Rodgers turned and followed.
CHAPTER · TWENTY-THREE
“ ‘Why are you standing there staring?’ ” cried the dwarf. His face turned red with rage, and he began cursing at the girls. Suddenly there was a loud growl from out of the forest; a moment later, a black bear appeared among the trees, coming toward them. “
THE WIDOW WAS JUST FINISHING HER STEW-MAKING when Dee and Kelly arrived at the cottage. The visible traces of the scrying spell had been carefully cleared away, and Rosamund and Blanche were busy with ordinary tasks. Rosamund laid out wooden spoons and bowls on the trestle table and argued with John, while Blanche sat in a corner, frowning at her mending. Blanche still had not found the opportunity she wanted to tell John—and her mother—about the ointment she and Rosamund had made for Hugh, and it was troubling her. Now and then she patted the pocket where she carried the vial, as if to make certain it was safe.
The knock at the door surprised everyone, for they were not expecting visitors, but it did not trouble any of them. Rosamund set down the clump of spoons she was holding and went to answer it. Her expression of polite welcome changed to shock when she saw who stood outside. “Master Dee! Mother, ‘tis Master Dee and Master Kelly!”
“Mistress Arden?” Dee said as the Widow came hurrying forward. His voice was uncertain and slightly apologetic; he was not at all sure how to explain his reasons for appearing so unexpectedly at the Widow’s door. The strong smell of cooking onions and the half-laid table made it plain that the inhabitants of the little cottage were engaged in perfectly ordinary activities, not sorcery, and Dee’s memory of his strong-willed wife’s reaction when he had, upon occasion, interrupted her supervision of the dinner preparations made him dubious about the sort of welcome he was going to receive.
“Good day to you, Master Dee, and what may I do for you?” the Widow said, doing her best to conceal her astonishment.
“You may tell us what you mean by your interference in our affairs,” Kelly snapped before Dee could answer her. “And you may cease from it at once. Nay, John, I’ll not be silent; this woman’s the source of that spell we sensed.”
“You’re certain, Ned?” Dee said, while the Widow, stunned into silence, stood and stared.
“I’d hazard my life on it,” Kelly answered, making a small gesture toward the sleeve in which he had concealed the crystal.
“There must be some mistake in this,” the Widow said, finding her voice at last. “What mean you by this talk of spells, sirs?”
“You know as well as I,” Kelly growled.
“Belike she doth not,” Dee said nervously. “Think, Ned! We know the root of that meddling to which you referred; ‘tis hardly possible that Mistress Arden is of such a kind.”
“Speak plainly, an you must speak at all,” the Widow snapped. Her initial shock was past, and she had had time to realize that Dee and Kelly were the last men in Mortlak who would denounce her for witchcraft, or who would be believed by the townsfolk if they did so. “Have you aught to accuse me of? Then go back to Mortlak and lay your proof before the constable; Heaven will protect the innocent. Or does it please you to rant at helpless women?”
“Perhaps ‘tis we who should summon the constable, Mother,” Rosamund said. She had come back to stand just behind the Widow’s shoulder, where she could study the unwelcome visitors. Blanche, too, had set aside her mending and come to her mother’s side, though she said nothing.
“You would be ill-advised to do so,” Kelly said. “Take our warning as it’s meant, and have done with hindering our work, or you will rue the consequences.”
John, who had been standing out of the visitors’ tine of sight, moved around where he could see them. “It seems Mistress Arden’s right in saying you’re pleased by threatening others,” he said in tones of exaggerated politeness.
“Nay, Master Rimer, this is no affair of thine,” the Widow said. “Masters Dee and Kelly will be leaving now; I think they can have no more to say to me.”
Dee would have been more than happy to do as the Widow had said. He had been startled and not altogether pleased when Kelly’s tracing spell led them to the small cottage outside the forest, instead of to some Faerie haunt, and he was even more disturbed by Kelly’s hostile demeanor toward the Widow. John’s unexpected appearance in the cottage was the final straw. “Come away, Ned,” he said. “‘Tis surely some mistake.”
“Mistake?” Kelly rounded furiously on his companion. “‘Tis no mistake! He’s part of it too; look!”
Kelly plunged his right hand into the left sleeve of his gown, and from its loose folds he pulled the crystal globe. It was glowing redly, and heat radiated from its smooth and shining surface. Blanche gasped and took an involuntary step forward, jostling her mother and her sister. John shouldered past the Widow with an absently murmured apology, his eyes fixed on the sphere in Kelly’s hand.
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