We can excuse a demon who stalks the night seeking blood. It is his nature, he was created for just such a purpose. But not a man who by day commits acts of murder and by night returns home to be a good, loving husband and father. For that is evil of a monstrous kind, and casts doubts upon us all.
But I am running ahead of myself. Where was I? Ah, yes, the village by the lake. I had watched the whore dance, and I had seen the return of the village men. And now, as the winter sunlight faded, I was standing outside the hut staring out over the cold lake.
An old woman came walking across the mud-flats. She was tall and thin, her bony body covered with a long woollen gown, her shoulders wrapped in a plaid shawl. Upon her head was a leather cap, with long ear-pieces tied with thongs beneath her chin. She was carrying a sack and she walked with the long strides of a man. I took her to be more than seventy years old.
‘Do you not bow in the presence of a lady, Owen Odell?’ she asked, stopping before me.
I was shocked and did not move for a moment; then good manners reasserted themselves. ‘My apologies,’ I said, extending my left leg and bowing low, sweeping my left arm out in a graceful half-circle. ‘Have we met before?’
‘Perhaps,’ she answered, smiling. Her face was lined, but good high cheekbones prevented the skin from sagging. Her lips were thin and her eyes, deep-set beneath shaggy brows, were bright blue. Forty years before she must have been a handsome woman. I thought.
‘Indeed I was,’ she said brightly. ‘Thank you for looking beyond the crone and seeing the true Megan.’
‘You are a magicker then?’
‘Of sorts,’ she agreed, walking past me to her hut.
Jarek was asleep on the bed. Megan carried her sack to the rear of the room, tipping the contents on to a wide table. All kinds of leaves and roots had been gathered, and these she began to separate into small mounds. I moved behind her, looking down at the first mound. I recognized the flowers instantly as Eyebright, downy leaves with white petals tinged with violet and with a yellow spot at the centre of the bloom.
‘You are a herbalist also, madam?’ I enquired.
‘Aye,’ she answered. ‘And doctor, meat-curer, midwife. You know this plant?’
‘My nurse used to make an infusion of its leaves for winter colds,’ I told her.
‘It is also good for preventing infection in wounds,’ she said, ‘and for relieving swollen eyes.’
I cast my eyes over the other plants. There was wild Thyme, Figwort, Dove’s Foot, Woundwort and Sanicle, and several others I could not recognize.
‘Your magick is strong, Megan,’ I said.
‘There is no magick in gathering plants,’ she muttered.
‘Oh, but there is when it is winter and none of them grow. You have a spell-garden somewhere and your enchantment works there even while you sleep.’
‘You have a long tongue, Owen Odell,’ she said, a short curved blade hissing from the leather scabbard at her waist, ‘and I have a sharp knife. Be advised.’ I looked into her eyes. ‘An empty threat, madam,’ I told her, keeping my voice low.
‘How would you know?’ she asked. ‘You cannot read my thoughts.’
‘No, but I like you, and that is purely on instinct. My magick may not be strong, but my instincts usually are.’ She nodded and her eyes lost their coldness. Smiling she slipped the skinning-knife back into its sheath.
‘Aye, sometimes instincts are more reliable than magick. Not often, mind! Now make yourself useful and build up the fire. Then there are logs to be cut. You will find an axe in the lean-to behind the house. After that, you can help me prepare the hanging birds.’
I learned something that evening: physical labour can be immensely satisfying to the soul. There was a stack of logs, sawn into rounds of roughly two feet in length. They were of various thicknesses and the wood was beech, the bark silvery and coarse but the inner bright and the colour of fresh cream. The axe was old and heavy, with a curved handle polished by years of use. I placed a log upon a wide slab of wood and slashed at it, missing by several inches. The axe-blade thudded into the slab beneath, jarring my arms and shoulders. More carefully I lifted it again, bringing it down into the centre of the log, which split pleasingly.
As I have said I was not a small man, though I had little muscle. I was tall and bony, but my shoulders were naturally broad, my arms long and my balance good. It was a matter of a few minutes before I was swinging the axe like a veteran woodsman, and my woodpile grew.
I worked for almost an hour in the moonlight, stopping only when my fingers became too sore to hold to the handle. There was a deep ache in my lower back, but it was more than matched by the pride I felt in my labour.
For the first time in my life I had laboured for my supper, working with my hands, and the flames of tonight’s fire, the warmth I would know, would be the result of my own efforts. I laid the axe against the lean-to and began to stack the chunks I had cut.
Megan walked out into the night and nodded as she saw all that I had done. ‘Never leave an axe like that,’ she said. The blade will rust.’
‘Shall I bring it inside?’
She laughed then. ‘No, young fool, leave it embedded in a log. It will keep the blade sharp.’
She waited as I stacked the firewood, then bade me follow her to a small hut at the rear of the building. Even with the winter wind blowing the stench was great as she opened the door. There were some twenty geese, seven turkeys and more than a dozen hares hanging there. I cast a swift spell and the aroma of lavender filled my nostrils.
‘Have you ever prepared a goose?’ she asked.
‘For what?’ I answered, forcing a smile.
‘I thought not. Nobleman, are you? Servants to run your errands, build your fires, heat your bed? Well, you will learn much here, master bard.’
Stepping forward, she lifted a dead goose from a hook and pushed it into my arms. The head and neck flopped down against my right thigh. ‘First pluck the bird,’ she said. ‘Then I will show you how to prepare it.’
‘It is not a skill I wish to learn,’ I pointed out.
‘It is if you want to eat,’ she replied.
After working with the axe, I was extremely hungry and did not argue. My hunger, I should point out, did not last long. Plucking the bird was not arduous, but what followed made me wonder if I would ever eat goose again.
She carried the carcass to a long, narrow bench. I followed her and watched as she sliced open the skin of the creature’s neck. Then she cut away the bones and head and pulled clear the crop-bag which she flung to the floor. ‘Useless,’ she said. ‘Even dogs wouldn’t touch it. Now give me your hand,’ she ordered me, and took hold of my wrist. ‘Insert two fingers here either side of the neck, and rotate them inside the beast.’ It was slimy and cold and I could feel the bird’s tiny tendons and veins being torn as my fingers slid over the brittle bones. She pulled my hand clear, then inserted her own fingers into the hole. ‘Good,’ she muttered, ‘you have released the lungs, the gizzard and the heart.’
‘I’m so pleased.’
Turning the goose, she took up a small knife and then pushed a finger into its body. Extending the skin, she cut a circular hole at the rear and discarded the sliced flesh. ‘Push your hand in and pull out the insides,’ she ordered me. I swallowed hard and did as she instructed. My stomach turned as the oily, dark and bloody mess pulled clear. I stepped back from the table.
‘Don’t you vomit in here!’ she snapped. Stepping forward, she continued to clean out the goose, removing what appeared to be oceans of fat. ‘Good tallow,’she said. ‘Candles, grease for leather, ointment for the rheumatik. Liver, heart and lung make for good broth. A fine bird.’