* * *
Arna awoke, feeling as if she were frozen from the neck down. Sleeping by the hearth in Fanndis’ cottage had not provided the warmth she’d hoped. The fire had died out long ago and the windows were not well shielded against drafts. She shivered and tried her best to cover every inch of her body in order to slink back into sleep. No sunshine peeped through the shutters and no sounds crept through the house. Morning had not yet come. For all the girl knew, it was closer to midnight than the dawn. She wished she had decided to stay in the castle for the night instead of coming right back after she had gathered her things the day before.
When she could not fall asleep after several minutes of trying, she rolled over and looked at the grey ashes of the dead fire. She did not know if Fanndis would object to her building a new one. Arna was certain that she would be frostbitten in the morning if she did not find some way to warm herself. A sudden spark danced across her mind. She wanted to try lighting the fire with the Seidh. Ever since she had made fire in Fanndis’ test, she was dying to try it again. “This is my chance”, she said to herself.
Arna sat up, tugging her covers tightly about her, and looked at the blackened hearth. She closed her eyes and concentrated, regulating her breathing and focusing her mind on one thought only: fire. She imagined a fire that would burn brightly and hot through the night without need of wood or kindling. She focused for several minutes until she felt sweat running down her temples. When she opened her eyes, she was overjoyed to see a silent, beautiful fire burning before her. She extended her hands to warm them and relished the glorious heat that thawed her frigid frame.
Fanndis watched from the entrance to her bedroom. She had wondered when the girl would try to make fire again. The results were impressive. There was great potential in her apprentice. The old woman had been startled when Arna returned to the cottage after dark and was excited by the girl’s eagerness to begin learning immediately. Fanndis had shuffled the girl off to bed by the hearth so that she would be rested and ready for the day when morning came. Fanndis was satisfied with the fire the girl had created—thankful, too, for it would heat the cottage through the night. Fanndis returned to bed.
Arna stared at the fire and found she was no longer sleepy. She thought of many things while she hugged her knees close to her chest and watched the enchanted flames. Would she ever command other elements? Perhaps she could try summoning water or wind with magic. A yawn escaped her lips and Arna decided she was too tired. After her mind drifted from thoughts of the Seidh, her thoughts settled on Lord Maslyn. She blushed at the image of his happy face. She had been fond of him for many years, and truly hoped that she would get to see him the next afternoon after his lessons were done for the day. A chill came over her and she scooted closer to the fire, letting the heat course over and through her.
An hour passed and countless thoughts bounded through her brain. Arna felt her eyelids drift closed. She scooted her sleeping pallet closer to the hearth so the fire’s warmth would be with her through the rest of the night. A deep sleep overcame her and, though she dreamed, she did not remember the dreams upon waking.
Fanndis woke the girl when the suns had begun to break the horizon in the eastern woods. Stigg had already been up for an hour or two and took his breakfast silently in the kitchen. Fanndis smiled, remembering the conversation with her son that morning. He was restless when he came in from the barn and Fanndis wondered at his behavior.
She had asked him earlier, “Whatever is the matter with you?”
“The barn was drafty,” he grumbled. “I know we couldn’t very well let the girl sleep in there, but I suppose I’ll just have to make a fire pit or something for the foreseeable future.”
Fanndis proclaimed, “Stuff and nonsense! You and Lord Maslyn will be building an addition onto the cottage for the girl. She’ll need a workspace and a place to sleep as well as a fireplace. Work on the project should begin as soon as possible, don’t you think? You don’t want to spend your entire life in that barn, do you?” Fanndis scolded.
“Hmfph,” Stigg muttered.
She shook the girl awake and bid her to wash and dress. Arna did as she was told and enjoyed the feeling of the heavy, knitted clothing that Fanndis had provided. The fabric was a wintry grey color. Fanndis said it would blend in well with the forest when she needed to go out for ingredients or to perform rituals. Everything sounded so mysterious to Arna. She was filled with excitement. When she had woken up, she was pleased to see her fire from the night was still burning brightly. When she asked it to dim, it did. She asked it to blaze once more. It did. Everything about the power she had discovered within herself solicited smiles and increasing excitement. She wondered why she had never commanded the elements in the past.
“Fanndis,” she asked. “Why have I never summoned magic before?”
“I suppose it may have been because you did not know how to organize your thoughts properly or because your yreth production was insufficient until recently. There could be thousands of reasons that aren’t readily apparent,” the old woman replied.
That answer satisfied the girl for the moment. Arna rolled up her sleeping pallet and put it where her master directed. Much of the morning was spent in the kitchen. Fanndis showed Arna how to dry herbs by tying them at the stems and hanging the bundles from the beams that ran across the ceiling. They made poultices, teas, and ointments—for the villagers, Fanndis told her.
“It’s very important that a Seidh woman be a top-notch healer. The villagers need to be able to trust that you can help them with your skills.”
“Aren’t there doctors?” Arna asked, innocently.
“Of course. However, doctors cannot heal certain terminal cases and we can often help where they cannot,” Fanndis said.
“How?”
“By making the patients comfortable, or helping them believe there is hope in their healing. Miracles do happen, you know. Sometimes when you give somebody hope, a mysterious turn around in their health soon follows. Of course, the medicines we give them help, but a person’s faith and hope go much farther than herbs. Besides, hospital medicine is often more expensive than some of the poorer villagers can afford.”
They continued this way until the suns reached their zenith. Arna loved the work; from the scents of the herbs to hearing Fanndis say their names. Fanndis explained that she gathered some of them during summer. Some of them came from elsewhere. Fanndis informed her that there was a secret greenhouse in the forest that she had maintained since she was still an apprentice. Arna was intrigued and asked to see it as soon as possible.
“We’ll probably need to make a run to it sometime this week. There is a village woman who’s about to deliver her first child and there are herbs there that can help ease her labor.”
By lunchtime, Arna was ready for a break and was hoping that Bialas would come join them soon. Her hope was rewarded when she looked out the kitchen window and saw Lord Maslyn coming through the clearing. Her heart flipped and she followed Fanndis to the door to greet him.
“Welcome, Lord Maslyn. I trust your lessons went well this morning?” Fanndis politely inquired.
“Oh, yes. Father Kimbli and I had a grand time learning about land treaties and the price of horses twenty years ago.” Soryn rolled his eyes dramatically.
“That sounds immensely exciting,” Arna chortled.
Stigg had been working all morning in the back of the cottage, clearing snow from around the back kitchen. He came in shortly after the boy’s arrival and washed up for lunch. Fanndis and the girl returned to the kitchen to set the table and present a meager lunch of herbs, pickled vegetables, and a soup of salted pork and cabbage. They had let the soup simmer over the fire all morning and the scent filled the entire house with a mouthwatering aroma.
The four sat down at the small table in the kitchen and Stigg grunted as he bowed his head. Fanndis immediately copied her son, followed questioningly by Arna and Soryn. They looked at one anoth
er and shrugged. After a blessing, the meal lasted only a half hour or so. When everyone had finished, the women cleared the table while Stigg motioned for Lord Maslyn to follow him to the back clearing of the cottage. Arna winked at the boy and whispered, “See you soon.”
Lord Maslyn had no idea what Stigg was taking him to do, but was looking forward to working with his physical strength after a morning of mental activities. Stigg walked towards the woods with an axe and Lord Maslyn assumed he was to follow him. After traipsing through the trees, brambles, and thigh-high snow for several minutes, the boy quickly grew tired of walking. They eventually stopped at a frozen creek bed. Soryn considered asking Stigg what they were doing, but decided to wait and watch. The man began to hack at the ice covering the creek. It took Stigg about five minutes to break through a small section of the frozen water. Soryn could see strong currents flowing underneath the ice. Stigg had a pack on his back that Soryn had not noticed before. The man hauled it off of his shoulder and sat it in the snow by the creek bank.
He retrieved a pair of slickers that went to the waist. Soryn noted they were lined with lamb’s wool and would be warm even in the freezing water. Stigg waded into the creek. The water was quite deep—coming up to his upper thighs. He pointed at the pack and Soryn found a pair of rubber work gloves. The boy handed them to Stigg and watched as he slipped them on and then promptly plunged his arms into the freezing water. At first the boy thought they might be doing some primitive form of fishing, but when Stigg picked up a huge stone from the creek, he knew they were not looking for fish.
“Take those back to the cottage and set them near that area I’ve cleared of snow,” Stigg said.
Soryn reached down to pick up the icy rock and shivered at the touch. He cradled it in his arms—it was excruciatingly heavy—and toted it all the way through the woods back to the cottage. When he returned to the edge of the creek, Stigg had already laid out six more of the enormous stones. Soryn knew he would have to work more quickly if he was to keep up with the man.
They carried on in this manner for several hours. Despite the fact that the air felt twenty degrees below freezing, Soryn was drenched in sweat. He eventually worked out a rhythm that helped him to stay caught up with Stigg’s work in the creek. Several times, Fanndis’ son had to break up newly-forming ice around his legs. Occasionally, he stepped out and dried off before going back in. It was a painstaking process and Soryn’s entire body ached by the time Stigg took off the slickers and gloves.
They walked back to the cottage in silence, each carrying the last of the stones in their arms. They deposited them by the cottage and Soryn tried to guess their purpose in hauling a hundred rocks from the creek. There was a shoveled out area of snow and debris next to the left side of the back kitchen wall. Stigg retrieved a strange tool with a large metal roller at the end and set it in the freshly uncovered purple dirt. He rolled it all over the area and Soryn realized it was packing the frozen dirt to make the surface level.
Soryn could hide his curiosity no more. “Stigg, what exactly are we making?”
“Arna will be living here from now on and she’ll need a permanent place to sleep and work,” he replied.
Lord Maslyn felt a surge of pride roll through him when he knew he was building Arna a place to stay. He helped Stigg for the rest of the evening. They placed a layer of rocks all around the perimeter of the room and put smaller stones under the empty places where the larger ones were set against the back kitchen wall. The suns had not yet set, though they were close to doing so. Soryn wondered if they would be tearing down part of the back kitchen wall or if Arna would have her own entrance. He would find out soon enough.
When the work was over, Stigg simply took the cloth he kept in his trousers’ back pocket and wiped his forehead. Without saying anything, he walked into the kitchen and did not come back. Soryn took that as his cue that the day was at an end. He exhaled heavily and rubbed his arms through his coat to help alleviate their increasing soreness.
He entered the cottage and slumped into a chair by the kitchen table. Fanndis and Arna were both there and giggled at the sight of him. Arna brought over a warm compress they had been keeping by the fire. She promptly shut the kitchen door and told her friend to remove his coat. He did, though it caused ribbons of pain to shoot through his arms and shoulders. Groaning, he finally completed the task, and Arna placed the compress on his shoulder blades through his shirt. Soryn sighed as the heat helped melt away some of the soreness.
“You’ll need to ask Jori to take you to the hot spring in the bottom level of the castle tonight.” Fanndis ordered.
“We have a hot spring in the castle?” Lord Maslyn asked in surprise.
“Yes. Where do you think all that hot water comes from that you enjoyed when Jori brought it for you to wash with?” she retorted.
“I thought they had to boil it.”
“Thankfully, there is a bountiful spring flowing under the castle. Long ago, they discovered it when warm water came up through cracks in the stones in the castle dungeon. They immediately tore up the floor and a huge spring was uncovered. It’s kept secret from the villagers. There are other springs in the area. Most villagers use the public spring near the mountains,” Fanndis explained.
Stigg returned to the room minutes later carrying a lantern. The boy knew it was time to go. Arna helped him put on his coat over the compress and Soryn followed Stigg out the door. They walked in silence through the forest until they reached the tree line. From there, Soryn walked alone through the snow—aching every step of the way—to the bottom tower door. When he was halfway there, he heard a familiar voice.
My, my…what have they done to you in those woods? Ulla’s velvety voice was a welcome distraction.
“Good evening, Ulla. Pardon me while I feel like dying after hauling rocks for four hours,” Soryn replied, groaning intermittently.
Hauling rocks, is it? That Fanndis is a slave-driver if ever I saw one.
“Not Fanndis; her son, Stigg. That man is a workaholic. He may be the death of me unless I can bulk up some muscle.”
Ahhh. What project requires so many rocks?
“We’re building a room for Arna off the side of the kitchen, since she’ll be living there once we get it completed—which, at Stigg’s pace, could be by tomorrow night.” Soryn hoped they would not work that quickly on it. He was sure he would faint at the exertion.
Well, you certainly won’t be in prime work condition the way you’re carrying on.
“I’d like to see you haul rocks for hours on end. You’d be complaining, too,” Soryn replied, indignantly.
I’m sure you’re right. Why don’t you have Jori take you to that hot spring that they keep in the dungeon?
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Soryn said as he made it to the tower door. He truly thought he might die as he slowly climbed up the stone steps to his room. It did not occur to him to ask how Ulla knew about the spring.
Come now, little Maslyn…show me what you’ve got. I know you can climb those stairs more quickly than that! Ulla’s words sounded like ridicule to Soryn, who wanted to say a few choice words to the pig.
Instead of generating creative mental insults, Soryn just continued on, trudging up the stairs. When he made it to the tower room, he promptly collapsed on his bed. He knew that in order to get Jori, he would have to pull the cord near the doorway to the castle passage. That meant he had to get up again. He almost did not know if it was worth it, but the promise of the warmth of the hot springs was too tantalizing to ignore. Minutes later, he finally pulled the chain—twice to be sure Jori would hear it if he was in his room or if he was in any other important part of the castle. After that, he went back to his bed, collapsed once more, and waited for his manservant to arrive.
Jori came after about five minutes. Soryn was nearly asleep on the bed, though the pain was enough to keep him from falling completely unconscious.
“Is there something I c
an do for you, sir?” Jori asked, amused by the display.
“Jori, is there a hot spring in the castle basement? Fanndis’ son had me toting rocks most of the day. If I don’t get some warm water for this, I think I might be dead by morning…” Soryn thought his dramatic flair was sure to work on the manservant.
Jori merely chuckled and nodded.
Lord Maslyn carried himself in as dignified a manner as he could while they passed servants going about their nightly routine. Many of them bowed, excited to see the master of the house finally released from the tower room. Others continued their business and ignored him. Soryn did not care at the moment. All he cared about was making it to the water below.
It took almost twenty minutes to navigate the enormous castle passages and stairways down to the dungeon. Though no one had been imprisoned recently, the entire area felt confining and desolate. Jori continued to lead his young master through a long hallway with cells on either side—all of them empty. The manservant opened a heavy wooden door and moist heat filled the dungeon passage. Jori handed Lord Maslyn a towel and change of clothing.
“I’ll return for you in an hour, sir. Do be careful in the spring,” Jori announced and left, shutting the heavy wooden door behind him.
Soryn looked anxiously around, assuring himself that he was truly alone. The windowless stone room was enormous. Torches were set about in each of the four walls, reflecting yellow light off of the grey stones. The spring bubbled up through the floor. Soryn saw that it had been contained in a stone pool cut in the center of the room. The water was murky, but he saw that a fissure at the bottom of the pool allowed the warm water to flow in and drains on each side allowed it to flow out so that the level remained the same. He also saw that there was a shelf-like precipice in the pool where a person could sit.
Sighing in contentment, he stepped into the steaming water. It was so warm, it hurt at first—his body was still freezing from the outside air and the drafty castle. He slowly immersed his legs; kneeling first, then sitting. A groan escaped as he settled into the wonderfully hot water. The tension in his muscles began to release and though he was still sore, he felt much more relaxed after a few minutes.
It was strange for him to think that just days before, he had been locked in the same tower he had lived in for so many years and that, now, he was completely free to move about anywhere he wished. Soryn had enjoyed his lessons with Father Kimbli that morning, though the subject matter bored him. He also enjoyed the work with Stigg, even if his body screamed at him for having participated in it. Perhaps he would become strong more quickly this way. He was glad he did not have to be completely cut off from his friends, but could also pursue his mayoral duties.
He settled down into the water and let the warmth of the spring flood his senses. Rivulets of heat washed over him and he wanted nothing more than to remain in the pool as long as possible. Suddenly, he felt inspired to give thanks to whoever had watched over him during his life. He wanted to thank those people who were helping him now. Bowing his head, he said a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening. Though he could not see the stars in order to count his blessings like his mother taught him, he counted them by the stones lining the walls.