Matt went out and began his stroll, listening to the night sounds for the hoot of an owl. When he heard it, he took a packet of powder from his belt and sprinkled a sparse, almost invisible stream beside him, chanting,
He walked around the church and the hut of a rectory attached to it, sifting powder and chanting rhymes. He had almost finished the circle when a voice beside him said, “That won’t do much good, you know.”
Inside his skin, Matt jumped a mile. Fortunately, the outside of his skin stayed right where it was and kept on chanting and moving its feet as he sprinkled powder.
“That charm, I mean,” Buckeye said. “There is no spell you can lay that can keep me from you, no warding circle I cannot cross, for you have bound me to you by the naming of magic.”
Matt closed the circle and wrapped up the packet of powder, tucking it back inside his pouch.
“You cannot keep me out.” The bauchan sounded miffed by Matt’s silence. “Not even ignoring me can fend me off, the more so as I know you hear.”
Finally Matt turned to him, grinning. “Who said I was laying the warding circle against you?”
“What… ?” Buckeye stared, taken aback. “But—But— what else has beset you?” Then anger gathered. “Does someone else wreak mischief upon you? Nay, tell me the name of that foul sprite!”
“Not on me,” Matt corrected. “I do occasionally take the side of someone else who’s being bullied, you know.”
“Someone else?” Buckeye stared. “When you yourself are not hurt in any way?” The concept was clearly foreign to him.
“Even when it doesn’t affect me at all.” Matt frowned, thinking that over. “No, that’s not true—I have the naive notion that anything that affects anybody else has some effect on me, too, no matter how small.”
“Outrageous!” Buckeye struggled with the concept, and lost. “What a positively outlandish notion!”
“Well, at least you realize it’s positive.” Matt pointed to the rectory. “There’s a good man inside there, a friar, and a fake druid has just popped up to plague him. He threw a fireball at Friar Gode this afternoon, and I’d like to make sure this Banalix can’t hurt him again in any way.”
“Banalix!” The bauchan’s face wrinkled in disgust. “A false druid indeed!”
“Oh?” Matt looked up with interest. “How do you know?”
“Och, I remember the true druids, mortal! Five hundred years ago and more, and they were the salt of the earth, the sap and the fruit and the branch of the forest, and the forest of them! They treated me with the reverence that was my due, as they treated all the spirits! But they are gone, alas, except for the few left in that isle off the western shore—gone, and only you milk-blooded folk in their place, who idolize the plow and try to deny the forest!”
“Well, fanning does provide more food, and thereby keeps more of us alive.” Matt spoke bravely, but he shivered inside at the thought of talking to a creature who was five hundred years old. He clung to the one fact that offered some promise. “You’ve heard of Banalix, then?”
“Of course! Would I let something so obscene as a false druid slip by me? He is bound for the oldest oak in the center of the woods this minute, for he has spread word through the village that all the folk who wish to bring the Old Faith to life again may meet him there!”
Matt just stared at him for a minute—two minutes, four.
Buckeye actually grew nervous. “Wizard? Have I hit upon words that can turn you to stone?”
“No, I’m attuned to a completely different kind of rock,” Matt told him. “You know, I was just going out for an evening stroll before bedtime anyway. Which way did you say this old oak was?”
CHAPTER 13
Mama and Papa woke with the sun and were on the road early, but the peasants were already in the fields. The couple left the village, following the track, talking happily with one another, for it was a beautiful morning and they were both feeling at peace with nature.
Just beyond the village, though, the road crossed a small river. There was a ford, the water only two feet deep and the riverbed floored with extra stones to give a firm footing for crossing—but at the moment the women of the village had gathered there to do their laundry. There was a cheerful hubbub of talk as they lathered the fabric with soap and scrubbed it on the rocks.
“Washing day! What a happy chance!” Mama cried.
Papa frowned. “For what?”
“For gossip! Quickly, Ramon, give me the shirt off your back!”
“Always and willingly, my love,” Papa sighed. He shrugged out of the shirt, pulled his vest back on, and stepped aside into the trees. “I assume it would be just as well if I were not seen.”
“You are so understanding.” Mama stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. Then she turned away, singing a little song, and Papa faded back under the leaves, watching.
As she came up to the ford, silence fell, and the women looked up at her.
“Good morning,” Mama told them cheerfully. “This is fortunate—I have been wondering how I should wash my husband’s shirt when we are traveling every day.”
“Travelers?” A young woman looked up with keen interest “Be still, Meg,” an older woman snapped, and the girl turned away, reddening. The older woman said to Mama, with a little frown, “You are of Merovence, by your speech.”
“Of Merovence, yes,” Mama said, kneeling down and taking off her pack. “We have lived there for three years. But we came from much farther away, to the west.”
“Ibile?” Meg looked up, eyes wide with excitement.
“Theirs is my native tongue,” Mama hedged.
“She has come a long way, Judy,” another woman said.
“Very long.” Mama wet the cloth and the soap.
“What could have brought you so far?” a fourth woman asked.
“This is not the safest of times,” Judy added.
“Indeed not, with the poor queen locked up in her castle!” Mama said indignantly. “But when my husband’s father was young, he was a footman at the castle of Petronille‘s father, the old Prince of the Pykta, and would never forgive Ramon if he did not go to deliver what help he could.”
“A noble thought, Alys,” Judy said.
“Aye,” Alys answered, “but a foolish one, for her husband has come too late to be the queen’s soldier.”
“Why would he bring you with him on so perilous a journey?” a grandmother asked, frowning.
Mama gave her a dazzling smile. “You do not think I would let him go without me, do you?” She turned back to rub soap into the shirt. “Besides, our son is grown, and I waste away at home.”
“You are young to have a grown son!” a fifth woman exclaimed, staring.
Mama gave her a wink. “It is more a matter of washing the skin every day, and staying out of the sunlight whenever you can.”
“Only the one son?” The grandmother spoke in tones of pity.
“Only the one child,” Mama sighed. “We wished for more, but God gives as He gives, and Heaven knows I am grateful that He gave me my Matthew!”
“Indeed, each child is a blessing.” The older woman looked smug. “I have five.”
“And your husband still lives, Jane,” Alys reminded her.
“We’re all blessed in that, especially with another war just rolled past us.”