Widsith shook his head.
“Once, I was informed of these things,” Maeve said, “if only to support the stock of lives from which Eaters drew. Now, as I near mine end, other than Valdis, few of our marvels reveal to me anything important. This maketh me innocent again, giveth a new sort of youth. And so having capped my years, I am eternally reborn.”
Widsith paled at that thought. “Thou hast lived a good and decent life here—I choose not to believe it will end soon.”
“Then why was I left behind? I wished to go with thee, this last time, suspecting by thy words, thy demeanor, thou wouldst be gone for many, many years.”
“I wanted to take thee, but thou wouldst have died long since. Times are hard on the sea and out there, in the far isles.”
“Thou couldst not have left me as a serving maid with the Virgin Queen, or in the court of Philip’s daughter?”
This amused and moved both of them. Widsith softly stroked the back of her hand. “Thou know’st what would have happened.”
“I do! I would have left the side of the Queen or the girl, chased thy departing sloop or galleon, and gone with thee. When we reached those distant shores, I would have seen thee laugh and dally with brown maids, and I would have lost my purest love in anger at thy brutal needs. And then I would have stolen a great ship to return to our isle.”
Widsith nodded. “Thou wouldst have done all that.”
“My life is here,” Maeve said. “I understand this island, but little of the greater world thou hast visited, that one they say Crafters do shape and refine.”
Maeve stepped forward, but this time with little certainty, and Widsith supported her by the arm. They walked slowly back down the aisle to the door, and Reynard followed. On the steps, Widsith lifted her—she seemed light as straw—and carried her through the great oaks to her home, a small cabin on the edge of the village, its fences burned and walls scorched. Maggie and Anutha were waiting, and as he lowered her to her feet, Maggie grasped Maeve’s outstretched hand. Anutha took the Pilgrim aside and whispered to him. Reynard heard little but the name Valdis. Anutha and Maggie then escorted Maeve into her home and closed the door, with a stern parting look from Anutha.
The Ravine
WIDSITH AND REYNARD stood on the porch while the trees rustled and leaves and sticks rolled and skittered by. The old woman, to Reynard, still seemed to be speaking—but the voice was not hers. It belonged to the wind in the forest.
“Let us take two horses from the stable,” Widsith said. “We must be swift.”
The time it took to walk to the stable was short, but the twilight was already dense. Reynard looked upon the place where he had seen the childers, but they were not present, nor was the keeper.
As they led two horses from their stalls, Reynard asked, “Is Guldreth an Eater?”
“She hath not their habits. But she is almost as old as Queen Hel, if Hel were still alive.”
“And we are just above the mud?”
“We are.”
“And you loved her? How is that done?”
Widsith crossed himself just like a Spaniard, then excused the gesture with a swift pass of one flattened hand. “Mount,” he said. The horses received them with flicks of their withers, and they nudged them into a run. They were going to the beach where the blunters stored their boat, Reynard thought, but Widsith took a turn in the deep and twisted woods, and instead they pushed along a well-traveled trail for a couple of hours in darkness and dappled moonlight, the horses seeming to magically feel their way to where Reynard smelled ice… a strange, sour kind of ice.
And then they came upon the southern end of a great cleft cut or split in the land, sunk by several dozen yards below the trees and the broken tops of stone walls. Chill air poured from the cleft, air that seemed to nip and tug at Reynard’s hair and skin. He felt something strange and dangerous in the cold that lapped and surged before them.
“This is the Ravine,” Widsith said. “Pacted Eaters dwell here much of their time, near enough to partake of Zodiako and the surrounding towns and farms. It is their due.”
Reynard stared into the Ravine, his face crooked by a curious sensation—that he knew this place, that he had been here before. The Ravine curled like a serpent between two crenellated ridges, once carved by an old river and now edged by clumps and ribbons of forest and filled with a long, strange, broken glacier. “Are you here to beseech Eaters, to demand that they save your wife?” he asked.
Widsith shook his head sadly. “After what she hath asked of Valdis, the sealing of all her years, such a request is bootless. They have not the power now.”
“But the Eaters have been tasked to serve us, if what you say be true. How can she seal herself from them?”
“That, too, is part of the pact. None can force beyond a point the will of a woman, or any human.”
“I thought Eaters were all-powerful!”
“Powerful, but they serve. They did not make the pact. ’Twas made for them.”
“By the Queen of Hell?”
Widsith grinned sadly at him. “I think thou hast not yet got the right of that.”
The horses did not like the air from the Ravine any more than Reynard did. Widsith did not urge them on. “We await here,” he said. “Our appointments arrive on no human schedule.”
Reynard peered into the shadows. “I see nobody.”
“Nobody is here, at the moment. What is it that thou dost see?”
They dismounted. “A scarp covered with sharp stones.”
“Aye, and what else?”
The horses anticipated no profit in chewing the rank grass and bushes that grew around the Ravine, so they scuffed their hooves and hung their heads.
“Ice in strange forms,” Reynard said. “Perhaps last year’s snows.”
“This ice cometh not from snow. It is shaped by the peculiar talents of the Eaters within. What else?”
Reynard suddenly clutched his chest, as if his heart pained him. “I know the ice cometh not from snow. I know about the talents of Eaters. I do know this place!” His tongue numbed with the stupid audacity he felt. “How is that possible?”
“Thou’rt sharing something, methinks.” Widsith said. “Likely thy muse hath supplied thee with impressions—a thing many of us have felt at times, if it suits the Eaters.” His own face took on a crooked look. “Canst thou journey through the memories?”
Reynard closed his eyes and stretched out his arms, as if to avoid bumping into obstacles. “I see it deep,” he said.
“Tell me what thou seest.”
Reynard tried to explain, but his words tripped him up.
“Just remember,” Widsith said. “Words will arrive.”
“I am walking, but not walking.”
“Of course. Thy mind moveth, not thy body.”
Reynard kept swinging his arms like a loose-limbed puppet, but did not move his feet. Sights and narratives arrived in broken continuity, but assembled and formed histories, rides, walks, whose details were more than elusive. Not finding the right words, he seemed to stumble onto other words—Nordic-sounding words. “Is this from the girl, the young Eater?” he asked. “From Valdis?”