The Usurper's Crown (34 page)

A wall of stone screened the settlement from the ceaseless winds that scoured the grasslands. No guard kept the gate, however, and they were able to pass through without impediment. Ingrid felt suddenly nervous, and she had to stop herself from pulling closer to Avanasy. This would be, after all, her first meeting with other people in this strange land, and she had no idea what would be considered polite. The fear of making herself or Avanasy ridiculous seemed to loom very large indeed.

Still, not everything was strange. The round, stone houses with their grass roofs were silent and empty. This was, after all, a fishing village and it was a fine day. Everyone who could walk would be at work in some fashion.

The smell of smoke drifted on the wind. In silent accord, they disengaged their arms from each other, and they followed the scent to the rear of the village. There, old women tended huge iron kettles full of something steaming that smelled of the sea. Brown-skinned, fair-haired children ran between the kettles. They were of various ages, although none older than eight at the most, Ingrid guessed. Some played, some attempted to sort heaps of drying seaweed into piles under the eyes of the stooped old grandmothers.

The first grandmother to see them approach hissed a warning to the others and all chatter, all motion stopped. Avanasy and Ingrid approached under the silent stare of a dozen strangers, and inside Ingrid felt her stomach tighten. The steam from the kettles seemed to flicker and shimmer in air gone suddenly still.

Avanasy gave them all his courtly bow. “A good greeting to you all on this good day,” he said.

One of the women put down the huge wooden paddle she had been using to stir the kettle. She had a face like a dried apple, but blue eyes that were bright and sharp. A worn scarf covered in faded embroidery hid her hair.

“A good greeting and a good welcome to you, stranger,” she replied, wiping her hand on an apron that had long ago been embroidered to match her scarf. “And to your lady.”

“Thank you,” said Ingrid, bobbing a curtsy. She hoped it would be appropriate. The steam flickered strangely before her eyes again. She blinked.

“We were hoping we might find a roof to shelter us for the night,” Avanasy went on. “We’ve come a long way, and have a long way to go yet.”

The wrinkled woman wiped her hands again. Her face had gone sour, but she glanced at her fellows, looking for what? Approval? Or the opposite? It was hard to tell with all the steam …

Something’s wrong
. Ingrid wiped her eyes.
Why can’t I see?

“We are a poor village,” the woman was saying. “We have little comfort to offer such folk as yourself.”

“We do not have any wish to impose,” Avanasy replied as Ingrid lifted her gaze again. “And will gladly lend our hands to what we can while we are here. I have some skills …”

Ingrid did not hear the end of Avanasy’s polite speech. A man had appeared behind the children who all clustered together to stare at the strangers. His tunic and pantaloons hung loosely on his bony frame, and he reached out to gently stroke the hair of the tallest of the boys.

He had no eyes. Like the ghost that had tried to drown Grace, his eyes were only empty sockets staring down at the young boy.

Ingrid’s hand went to her throat which had suddenly closed itself up tight.

“Ingrid?”

“Is something wrong, mistress?” inquired the leader of the women, in an icily polite voice.

The ghost laid its hand on the boy’s shoulder. The child, who was all of seven years old at the very most, didn’t seem to notice anything as he drew closer to the others, staring uneasily at Ingrid.

What do I do? What do I say? It’s a ghost. Oh, God, what does it want?

“Ingrid, tell me what is happening,” said Avanasy. In English. Oh, of course, of course. This way they could speak in private even in front of this whole assemblage.

“There’s a ghost,” she said quickly. “With the tall boy.”

“A ghost?” Avanasy repeated, stunned. “You see a ghost? You’re sure?”

“It’s got no eyes. It’s like the one who tried to take Grace.” She knuckled her eyes, uncertain if she wished she could see the thing more clearly, or if she could make it vanish. “It’s standing right behind him. It’s got both hands on his shoulders.”

“I think we’ve nothing for you here,” said the head woman edgily. “You two had best be going.”

Avanasy swung around to face her. “Forgive me, Mother,” he said. “Has there been fever in your village? Any mortal illness?”

The headwoman frowned. “And what business is that of yours?”

“Because it has not left you yet.” Avanasy strode into the crowd of children, who scattered like a flock of sparrows. He dropped to one knee in front of the tall boy. One of the grandmothers came instantly to stand behind the boy, laying both hands on his shoulders, just as the ghost had. Ingrid could still see the ghost, its features superimposed over those of the ancient living woman, turning her eyes hollow and her skin deathly gray. Ingrid shuddered.

“There’s nothing to fear, lad,” Avanasy tried to reassure the boy, who just shrank backward against the grandmother’s apron. “I just wish to …”

“Leave him,” snapped the headwoman. She hefted the great wooden paddle in her hand, and Ingrid saw what an excellent club it would make. “You’ve no business …”

But Avanasy cocked his head up toward her. “His father died of fever recently, didn’t he?”

The headwoman opened her mouth and closed it again. “How did you know that?”

“His ghost is here,” said Avanasy simply, flatly. “It may mean the boy is to be dealt the same fate.”

The grandmother gave out a shriek and hugged the boy tightly to her. The ghost had moved to her right, and was now staring at Ingrid with its black and empty eyes. Pleading? Warning? Ingrid couldn’t tell.

The headwoman did not put her paddle down. “If you’re some mountebank …”

“I promise you, Mother, I am not. I am a sorcerer, and I can furnish proof of that, if you require. I also promise that if this boy is ill, I can help him.”

The headwoman set her jaw and laid aside the paddle, balancing it on the kettle’s rim. She marched forward and grabbed the boy by the shoulder. Startled, the boy squeaked but the grandmother — his grandmother? Probably — let him go. The headwoman turned the boy roughly to face her while she crouched down in front of him. She seized his pointed chin and turned his face sharply this way and that. She reached up under his hair and felt the back of his neck, and then she thrust her wrinkled, calloused hand down his shirt and felt about under his arms, ignoring the way he squirmed. Whatever she felt made her blanch, and she shoved the boy’s tunic up to expose his bony ribs and sunken stomach, and even at a distance, Ingrid could see splotches of red making a rough circle on his summer brown skin.

“Dimska’s tears, no!” cried the grandmother. One of the little girls shrieked and darted away behind the kettles; soon all the children were screaming and running away, leaving the little boy dazed in his grandmother’s embrace and the old women shouting for the children to stop that nonsense!

“Take him home, Edka,” said the headwoman to the grandmother. “We’ll send for his mother.”

“But I’m not sick!” protested the boy. “I promise I’m not. I feel fine!”

“Of course you do,” murmured his grandmother. “This is nothing. It will pass.” But she was looking up at the headwoman as she spoke and her eyes were bright with tears. “Come, help me home, Iakhnor,” she said to the boy. “I need my tea.”

Dutifully, but with a rebellious, frightened frown, the boy took his grandmother’s arm and let her lean on him as she shuffled toward the cluster of huts. The ghost, its head and shoulders drooped in what Ingrid could only believe was an attitude of misery, moved to follow them.

The women had drawn the children back, clustering around them like so many birds around their chicks, as if their bodies alone could ward off what they had just seen. The headwoman, however, rounded on Avanasy.

“What are you? What do you know of this?”

“I told you, Mother,” said Avanasy without even blinking. “I am a sorcerer. I can help you, I promise it. It is possible that the boy need not die, nor anyone else.”

Two bright pink spots appeared on the woman’s wrinkled cheeks. “Last winter, we had a man come here. He said he was a sorcerer too. Had plenty of fine tricks to prove what he said. Said he could dose all the goats against the winter dropsy, and he did too, and took plenty of pennies for his trouble, and this spring, what do we have? Not a kid born alive, and no milk fit to drink.”

Avanasy’s face hardened. It looked to Ingrid as if he wanted to curse, but he controlled himself. “I ask no fee for my work,” he said doggedly. “I ask only that you let me do what I can for the boy, and for your people.”

The woman’s face darkened with her internal struggle. The other women huddled together, whispering and darting glances at Ingrid and Avanasy. She scanned them and their children, seeking for other traces of ghost or smoke, and saw none, much to her relief.

“And her?” said the headwoman suddenly, pointing at Ingrid. “What will she take?”

Pride drew Ingrid’s shoulders back. “Nothing I am not freely given, I promise you, Mother,” she said.

That silenced the headwoman, but did not lighten her expression at all. “Well, I don’t know,” she said flatly. “It’ll have to be talked over. You can stay ‘til it’s decided.”

“Thank you, Mother,” said Avanasy gravely.

“Ara!” snapped the headwoman to another of the grandmothers. “Stop fussing, old woman, and take these two to the god house.”

A particularly ancient woman bent almost double under her dowager’s hump broke away from the others and hobbled past them without a word. Avanasy bowed once more to the headwoman. Taking this as her cue, Ingrid curtseyed again. Together they followed the ancient dame toward the center of the village.

Ingrid found she could not tell one of the round, stone huts from the other, until Ara led them around to a threshold that had been painted red. She stood aside, gazing at them sourly as Avanasy thanked her. She did not wait about as he and Ingrid entered the gloomy hut.

When Ingrid’s eyes adjusted to the dim interior, she saw a single round room with an altar in its center. The altar was a simple affair; carefully piled stones surmounted by a polished wooden plinth holding a plaque that looked to be worked brass or bronze on which the figure of a weeping woman had been painted. She stood ankle-deep in the foaming tide and a pair of gray seals raised their heads to her.

There was little else to see; some bales, baskets and folded blankets, a table and two chairs, a hearth built against one wall with a stack of firewood beside it.

“This, I imagine, is Dimska of the Tears,” said Avanasy. He bent and kissed the icon. “We should leave some gift as well.” He drew his pouch from his sash and brought out a pair of copper coins which he laid at the icon’s base.

Ingrid realized she was staring. She blinked and looked away, but not soon enough. Avanasy smiled at her.

“This is very strange for you, isn’t it?”

Ingrid nodded. “Although I’m not certain what my trouble is. My family was never one for church, not really. Mother had us all baptized, and she read the Bible on Easter and on Christmas, but that was the end of it.”

“To honor the divine in one form, Ingrid, is to honor all its forms. Here, the divine is Dimska,” he gestured toward the icon, “who performed some great miracle that helped her people.”

Ingrid nodded. “It’s just one more thing to get used to, I suppose.” She shook herself. “Avanasy, what happened out there? What did I really see? What’s happening to me?” She shivered again. She couldn’t help it. It was wrong, what she had seen, where she was, everything that was happening. It was all wrong, although she could not have said why.

Avanasy was beside her at once, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. “Ingrid, I’m sorry. I did not foresee anything of this kind, and I should have.” He held her for a moment, and Ingrid let herself be held, letting his warmth enfold her and ease the shivering that crawled up and down her skin.

“Magic in your world is buried deeply. For it to make an appearance at all, it must be strong, but I had, I have, no good measure for how strong. What plagued your sister on your shores was in your world nothing more than a restless spirit. On this shore, it would have been a monster, a lord of the storms and hurricane. There, it touched you and left no effect. Here …”

“Here I’m beginning to see things.” She pulled away from him and stared out the door, looking at the tiny slice of the village it showed her; gray walls, pale roofs, gray sky, gray and stony ground. “Oh God, and Grace tried to warn me.”

“What?”

“Before I left … as I was leaving actually. I thought … I did not take her seriously. Not really. I thought she was trying to trick me into staying, which she was …” Ingrid shook her head. “Grace told me she was beginning to see things, that she’d had a premonition of Leo’s accident.” She drew in a long, shaky breath. “She thought the ghost might have done something to her.”

In the distance, she could hear the faint sound of women’s voices calling and children answering. Other than that, the world was hushed.

“Probably it was not done deliberately,” said Avanasy. “The touch of the immortal can affect the mortal being. It can bring … changes.”

“Changes, like the second sight?” Ingrid clutched the doorframe more tightly. She could not bring herself to turn around, but she also could not say why.

“Yes.”

“Is that all that’s happened to me?”

“I don’t know,” said Avanasy softly. “I don’t even know that I have correctly interpreted what has happened. I am far from my books and my tools.”

Ingrid nodded and bit her lip. She felt him move close behind her, but she still did not turn to look at him. She continued to stare out at the tiny piece of gray world. By straining her ears, she could just hear the sea, an eternal rushing sound that would never silence. She could smell its salt on the wind.

Something was happening inside her. She could feel it stirring in her blood and her bones. She had no name for it and no way to perceive what she might be at its finish. Fear gripped her, and anger at her willingness to come so far in such ignorance; for all she knew her love for Avanasy was real and to let him leave alone would have broken her heart, and yet, and yet …