The Hermit of Lammas Wood

  She turned in time to see Rebecca stepping back from a surprised-looking Benjamin Groves, one hand lifted to his cheek. She stifled a grin.

  With a final nod and wave, Benjamin turned back to the ship, striding up the boarding plank. “Single up the lines. Pull in that plank,” he called. In a moment he appeared on the afterdeck beside his father, his eyes drawn to the crew aloft.

  Tanyth and Rebecca stepped back from the edge of the pier while the lines flew through the air and two burly sailors pulled the boarding plank back aboard, securing it on deck. Several moments passed in silent anticipation before a quiet whisper started in the spruces behind them on the shore and tendrils of the morning wind played across Tanyth’s face.

  Captain Groves spoke quietly to his first mate and Benjamin’s voice carried clearly on the fresh morning air. “Let go the lines.”

  The boatswain’s rough bawl followed, and the heavy mooring lines began to snake back aboard the ship as she floated free of land once more.

  “Set the foretop! Get that jib up!” Groves shouted.

  White canvas blossomed as if by magic at the bow of the ship, pulling the craft out into the harbor as it stiffened and belled, catching the light breezes and riding them out to sea. As they gained way, more canvas blooms studded the yards and the heavily laden craft picked her way out into the bay.

  Tanyth and Rebecca watched her go for several minutes. A figure on the afterdeck turned and waved one final time. Tanyth let Rebecca return the wave before facing the town and beginning the trek back up the pier.

  They took several steps in silence, Tanyth casting small glances at her companion.

  Rebecca’s lips twitched as if a smile wanted to form on them. “Nothin’ to say, mum?” she asked at last.

  Tanyth’s quiet laughter floated on the clear morning. “You coulda gone, my dear.”

  Rebecca cast a glance over her shoulder and shrugged. “They’ll be back.”

  “You sound pretty certain. Life at sea isn’t exactly free of danger.”

  Rebecca’s laugh followed Tanyth’s into the quiet morning. “And traveling with you is?”

  Tanyth shrugged. “Well, that’s a fair point. I guess nothin’s exactly sure, is it.”

  They paced along in silence for a time before Rebecca gave another long look over her shoulder. “Not exactly sure, no, mum,” she said. “But maybe uncertainty is part of the plan.”

  Tanyth looked back at the ship in time to see it disappear around the headland. Glancing up at Rebecca, she saw the gleam in her eyes. “Maybe so, my dear. Maybe so.”

  “What do we do now?” Rebecca asked as they climbed the long hill toward the inn.

  “Well, now we go back to the inn for a nice cup of tea and perhaps one of Amanda’s scones.”

  Rebecca giggled. “No, mum, I mean what about the hermit?”

  Tanyth raised and lowered one shoulder in a half-shrug. “That’s up to the Lady and a baby. These things have their own timing.”

  “You haven’t had any more visions since we’ve been here, have you, mum?” Rebecca asked after a few more steps.

  Tanyth blew out a breath before answering. “No, but then I don’t usually have ’em unless I need ’em, it seems.” She glanced over at the young woman. “At least that seems to be how they’re workin’.”

  “You can’t...you know...just have them when you want them?”

  “No,” Tanyth said–then stopped herself, remembering a snowy morning far away when her need to know had outweighed her judgment.

  “You don’t sound that certain, mum. Pardon my sayin’ so.”

  Tanyth chewed on her lower lip and didn’t reply.

  Chapter Five:

  Plans Laid

  Penny Oakton found Tanyth and Rebecca enjoying a midmorning pot of tea at the inn three days later. Her steps sagged from fatigue, and blood smeared her simple tunic. However, her eyes shone brightly and a smile graced her lips.

  “It’s a boy,” she said without preamble.

  “That’s wonderful,” Tanyth said. “Would you like some tea? Something to eat?”

  Amanda pushed through from the kitchen. “Gracious, Penny. You look ready to drop.” She scooted another chair around and pressed her down into it. “You sit right there. I’ll get a fresh mug.”

  “But I’m a mess,” Penny said looking down at herself. She sniffed a couple of times. “And I smell.”

  Tanyth grinned at her. “Smells like a healthy newborn to me.”

  Rebecca waved a hand in front of her nose. “Is that what that is?” Then she laughed.

  Penny grinned. “Well, I’m pretty sure part of it is me. I’ve been up for two days and young Master McGilvry took his sweet time.”

  “You look fairly done in,” Rebecca said.

  “I feel fairly done in, but I’ll be right enough by tomorrow. More’n I can say about poor Audrey. Woman doesn’t have the hips for childbearin’, if ya ask me.”

  Amanda came back with a pair of mugs and some leftover breakfast sausages wrapped in fresh biscuits. She plunked it down on the table and pulled up a chair for herself. “You get on the outside of that, young woman. Can’t have our only midwife keelin’ over on our doorstep. Terrible for business.” She grinned and poured hot tea into mugs all around. “Tough one, was he?”

  “Fair. Not as bad as Melly Walters last winter, but Audrey really needs to pay attention to her cycles and keep current with her herb tea.”

  Amanda laughed. “Well, Melly didn’t really get to choose when her girls would come and you’re the only one who thought she’d have triplets.”

  “Triplets?” Rebecca asked, her eyes wide. “Mercy.”

  “Darkest night of winter and the All-Mother decided Melly’d have triplets in the heart of the first bad snow of the season,” Penny said. “When her Boris showed up at my door, his face pale as the snow on his parka, I knew we was in for it.” She sipped her tea and leaned into the warm steam coming off the mug.

  “Eat, dear. You need to keep your strength,” Tanyth said.

  Penny shook herself and reached for the sausage biscuit. “Was just trying to remember when I last ate. Sometime yesterday. I think.”

  “There’s more where that came from, if you want it, Penny.”

  “Thank you, Amanda. Put it on my tab.”

  “Oh, go on. Your money’s no good here.”

  Penny gave her a wan smile and nodded. “Thanks.”

  The four women sat in silence, sipping tea, while Penny made short work of the biscuit. She seemed surprised when the plate was empty.

  “There’s another in the warmin’ oven, if ya want it,” Amanda said.

  Penny took a deep breath. Something seemed to unwind in her face, as some tension that Tanyth couldn’t name relaxed. “I think I’m ready to get home and get some sleep.” A heavy yawn almost caught her words, and they all laughed.

  “Scoot, then. You’ve earned it,” Amanda said. “I’ll put up a couple of meat pies and some cookies for the McGilvrys. Perry can take it over.”

  Penny nodded, seeming distracted. “Yeah. Audrey’s gonna be flat on her back for at least a day or two so that’d be good. Mickey’d poison himself trying to cook.” She stood and pressed the fingertips of one hand to the table top to keep her balance. “Full belly, hot tea. Yeah. I’m ready for a nap.”

  “There’s a bed upstairs, dearie.” Amanda said.

  Penny looked at the stairs for a long moment before shaking her head. “Mine’s prob’ly just as close, and it’s what I need right now. Thanks.”

  “We’ve got venison for tonight. Come back when you wake up. Our treat,” Amanda said to her retreating back.

  “I may take you up on that, unless I sleep through till morning,” Penny said over her shoulder. “Right now, I need to get out of these smelly clothes and into a warm bed.” She raised a hand and waved it without turning around.

  The outer door closed with a quiet thump as she left.

  “A boy,” Amanda said. “Mickey??
?ll be so pleased.”

  Rebecca hid a scowl behind her mug.

  “Has a few daughters already, I take it?” Tanyth asked.

  Amanda nodded. “How’d ya guess?”

  “Something about Mother Oakton’s comments. This wasn’t her first little one, was it?”

  “No. Her third. Two daughters who wrap that big lug of a daddy around their fingers. He dotes on ’em something terrible.” Amanda paused to sip her tea. “But he’ll have a son now to carry on the name. He’ll be happy with that.”

  “Like daughters won’t?” Rebecca asked.

  Tanyth heard the bitterness in the girl’s voice but Amanda gave no sign that she’d noticed.

  “Oh, daughters are fine with Mickey McGilvry. Don’t get me wrong.” She sighed and took another sip of tea. “But daughters get married and leave. They’re the treasures a father must share with the world. Sons, though–the work of the father is to leave a strong son. Sounds like Mickey’ll have a chance to do that.”

  “So fathers don’t owe daughters the same courtesy?” Rebecca asked, her brow furrowed in a scowl. “They just cast them off when it’s handy?”

  Amanda took a good look at Rebecca then, and smiled into the face of the storm. “Daughters are born strong, my dear. They have the magic in them to grant new life. That’s something that fathers can never have, can never know. All they can do for daughters is love them enough to let ’em go when the time comes.” She reached out and patted the young woman’s hand where it lay on the table. “It’s a hard thing for them, too.”

  Rebecca’s eyes gleamed in the morning light but she blinked back whatever might have come next. With a sniff she buried her face in the mug and drained it. “Thanks for the tea. I should see to my pack and bow. We’ll be heading for the hermit soon.”

  She stood and walked away from them, climbing the stairs with heavy steps and a ramrod in her spine.

  Amanda watched her go and sighed when the door above them closed with a hollow smack.

  “She’s had a rough time of it, my dear. Don’t take it to heart,” Tanyth said.

  Amanda gazed into Tanyth’s face, her eyes moist but not leaking. “She’s not alone in that. I wish I’d had sense enough to make up with my own da before I lost him.”

  Tanyth sighed. “Sometimes the Lady’s gifts don’t seem all that great,” she said.

  “You, too?”

  She shook her head. “No, my father and I got along much better than I did with my mother. He passed over the year I was married, and my mother followed shortly after.” She paused to look into her half-empty mug. “They weren’t around to disapprove of me when I left him,” she said, not looking up.

  Amanda reached over and placed her smooth hand over Tanyth’s wrinkled one, but didn’t speak.

  Tanyth patted it. “Thank you. It was a long time ago.”

  “No children?”

  “One. A boy. In the beginning he was the apple of his father’s eye. A strong lad, big for his age and just as stubborn and strong willed as his father. The two of them had some terrible fights.” Tanyth felt a sad smile curling her mouth as she remembered those things she’d pushed aside for so long.

  “What happened?” Amanda asked after a moment. “Sorry, mum,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Tanyth looked over into the younger woman’s eyes. “No, nothin’ to be sorry for.” She patted her hand again and held it firmly in place. “In the end, Robert left home and joined the King’s Own as soon as he was old enough. He disappeared into the military and I never heard from him again.”

  “He never wrote you? Ever?”

  “Well, I never got any letter from him. I trusted that the King’s Own would care for him. If not the way I would, then at least he’d be out of his father’s reach.”

  “He just ran away?” Amanda’s eyes started to brim again.

  “It’s not like that,” Tanyth said, patting the woman’s hand again. “He thought it would solve the problem. That with him gone, his father would become less angry. Less violent.”

  Amanda sighed. “But it didn’t, did it?”

  Tanyth shook her head. “No. With Robert gone, Roger had no other target for his anger. He climbed into a tankard of ale every night and when he stumbled home, I was the only one there. It wasn’t too long afterwards that I left and started on the long, long path that’s brought me here.”

  “He just let you go?” Amanda’s eyes went wide astonishment.

  Tanyth shook her head. “No, he came after me. The village healer had taken me in, and he found me there.”

  “What happened?”

  Tanyth felt her mouth curl into a smile at the old, old memory. “She wouldn’t let him in.”

  Amanda blinked. “She wouldn’t let him in? How did she stop him?”

  Tanyth shrugged a shoulder. “I have no idea. She stood in the doorway and wouldn’t let him pass. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—push past her. I just sat there in that old woman’s kitchen while she blocked the door with her body.” She paused, replaying the scene in her mind. “It’s odd. She wasn’t a big woman. Really rather a slip of a thing, and old. Lady, I thought of her as ancient. She’d lived in that same cottage for winter after winter, and she’d been old the first time I met her.”

  “But she turned your husband away?”

  “Aye. That she did.”

  “Man doesn’t usually let a woman do that to him,” Amanda said, her voice low.

  “She’d seen the bruises. She knew what he’d do to me.” Tanyth took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So did I, come to that.”

  “And she wouldn’t let that happen again,” Amanda said.

  Tanyth’s head bobbed in the smallest of nods.

  “She must have been quite a woman.”

  “She was certainly more woman than I am,” Tanyth said. “I couldn’t stand up against Roger Oakhurst, but she did.”

  Amanda stiffened.

  Tanyth glanced over to see the woman’s eyes wide and staring. “What is it?”

  “Oakhurst?”

  “Yeah. Roger Oakhurst.”

  “And your son’s name is Robert? Robert Oakhurst?”

  Tanyth felt her face pinch into a frown. “Yes, what’s the matter?”

  “He joined the King’s Own how long ago?”

  “About twenty-three, twenty-four winters ago. Why, Amanda?”

  Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times before she found her voice. “The commandant. The one we call Prince Robert?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s Major Robert Oakhurst.”

  Chapter Six:

  The King’s Own

  Tanyth sat staring into the fire. “After all these winters, can it possibly be him?” she muttered.

  “What’re the odds, mum?” Rebecca asked.

  “I have no idea,” Tanyth said. “Two Robert Oakhursts? It’s possible. Robert isn’t that unusual a name and the Oakhurst clan is certainly wide spread.”

  “But twenty winters gone, mum? And him only a common enlistee?”

  “I know. How could he be a major?” Tanyth shook her head, trying to dislodge the incongruity. “I’ve traveled all around Korlay,” she said. “Of all the places he could have been? How can he be here?”

  Amanda brought them a fresh pot of tea from the kitchen. “You still thinkin’, mum?”

  Tanyth looked up into a frowning face. “Yeah. I just can’t believe it. It’s crazy. It has to be some other Robert Oakhurst.”

  The heavy door at the front of the inn opened and closed as the first of the evening crowd came in for dinner.

  Tanyth lifted the mug of tea to her lips and inhaled the savory fust, closing her eyes and letting the warm steam wash over her face.

  “Would you know him if you saw him, mum?” Amanda asked, an odd tone in her voice.

  “Lord and Lady, I have no idea. It’s been over half my life since I saw him and he was just a boy at the time. Why do you ask?” She opened her eyes
and glanced at Amanda.

  Amanda’s gaze was fixed on the entry. Tanyth turned to see what was so interesting.

  An officer of the King’s Own stood there, the insignias and medals inscrutable to her, but the face that stared out from under the peaked cap was eerily familiar.

  Tanyth wasn’t aware that she’d moved at all until she stood in front of him, looking up into–.

  “You have your father’s eyes,” she said.

  “And your chin,” he said.

  Her gaze flickered down to his chin, then back to his eyes. Oh yes, he did have his father’s eyes. The same coldness, the same appraising look.

  “It is you, isn’t it, Mother?” he asked.

  “If you’re Roger’s son, then yes, it’s me.” She tried to smile but the look in his eyes wouldn’t let her.

  “I’m his son.” His voice growled out from his chest. “I thought I was an orphan.”

  She stepped back in astonishment. “An orphan? Who told you I was dead?”

  “Father. Before he died.”

  Tanyth felt the floor shift under her feet for a moment. “You talked to your father? After you left?”

  His head bobbed slowly in the affirmative. “When I’d completed my basic training, the quartermaster made me write home to tell my family where I would be posted. It—” His words choked off and he cleared his throat. “Our whole regiment was shipped off to the Eastern Isles, and they made us send the next-of-kin notices home in case we didn’t come back.”

  “How long...?” she asked.

  “Basic training lasted three months. We spent two winters in the Eastern Isles.”

  “I never saw your letters,” she said. “I thought you’d escaped.”

  His eyes clouded for a moment. “So did I.”

  “But I was there then. It was only after you’d been shipped out...” Her voice tailed off as the realization struck her. “He knew.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t. He told me you’d caught a fever right after I left and died.”

  “But I didn’t,” she said.

  “No, you didn’t. You left him there alone instead.” Ice wrapped his words and anger filled his eyes. “A sick man, one who could barely care for himself, and you just left him?”