He called her back before she reached the mouth of the alley.
"Angharad."
She turned, not sure she could bear another of his sorrows. He might be able to forget them, but she could not. They were a part of her now. She took them willingly— for that was part of a poet's task— regretting only that in taking them, she did not lessen his burden.
"There's an inn on the south side of the market," Tom said. "The woman who owns it is a friend to those you seek, though she doesn't have the curse herself. You'll know it by the sign of the pipe and tabor above its door."
"Thank you, Tom."
"Be careful. The witch-finders know her as well. They watch her, marking her customers and friends."
"I'll be careful."
He nodded. "You do that."
He burrowed deeper into his nest of rubbish as she turned again. But that wasn't the image of him that she took away with her. She remembered instead a young man she'd never known. A young man who, no matter what he told himself or others, would never admit defeat.
12
Persecution of the Summerborn was not a new custom, but it was a tradition perpetuated more on the Continent— in Sarama and the Hundred Kingdoms of Thurin— than in the kingdoms of the Green Isles. At this time in the Isles' history, it was a rarity, frowned upon by most because they didn't believe in witchery in the first place.
But there were always some who believed. Some who saw not wonder, but danger, in a Summerborn's eyes. Angharad had run across scattered pockets of them before, once barely escaping with her life. They could be found anywhere, but their numbers were strongest among those who lived on the shores nearest the Continent— Northern and Southern Gwendellan, and the northeast peninsula of Fairnland.
Angharad had kin on the Continent— the travelers had kin everywhere— and she had heard the tales.... But she had not heard rumors of a recent concentrated upsurge of enmity against the Summerborn in the Isles themselves. It wasn't until she saw the sailor with his necklace of fingerbones that she realized hard times were coming once more for those who bore Hafarl's gift.
At least they were coming for those foolish enough to remain in Gwendellan.
The fingerbones of the Summerborn were supposed to store their witcheries, bringing those who wore them a piece of a Summerborn's soul— the part that gave witches their luck and longevity. All one truly needed was one bone, from one finger, but when the wearing of such bones was in fashion, men and women took to wearing bracelets and necklaces, even dangling earrings, made from the fingers of many witches. The more one had, the greater the luck. The longer the life.
Or so the old tales said.
Unfortunately, Angharad knew the old tales to be true.
Witcheries did live in a Summerborn's fingers, in their fingerbones. It was a fingerbone that had given Fenn his second chance. It was fingers that woke the music that called forth the green. It was the movement of fingers, combined with the power of names, that let wizards work their spells. It was fingers that shaped the Sign of Horns that kept ill-luck at bay.
Fingerbones held the marrow that gave the Summerborn their witcheries, just as the sacred stone underlying the earth was Anann's witchery. The ancient stoneworks that riddled the Isles were her fingerbones.
Trade in such goods dealt mostly with ancient relics from Summerborn long gone into the Land of Shadows, or with the bones stolen from graves of the recently dead. It had been a long time since the Isles had known a terror time, a time when witch-hunters stole the bones from their living victims.
There were stories of fingerless Summerborn— alive, but with their witcheries stolen— who had wandered the countryside, shunned by all who came into contact with them. Unable to fend for themselves, they soon died— of hunger, for they could neither harvest nor hunt nor earn their way without the use of their hands; of the cold and frost when Lithun ruled and winter lay upon the land.
Many took their own lives.
Long ago.
Angharad remembered the sailor again.
Had his necklace consisted of relics or witcheries stolen from those already dead? Or had a new source for a Summerborn's fingerbones been found?
Were Aron Corser's witch-finders providing him with a supply of witcheries taken from the hands of living Summerborn?
Angharad flexed her own fingers and shivered.
Bad enough to lose their use, to never play her harp again, to be dependent on others simply to eat, to clean herself and dress— if others could be found willing to take on the task. But the loss of those witcheries would also close her off from the enchantment that her music could call up on those nights when the moon was right.
To have the sight but not its use.
Only a memory.
To lose the green.
I will be careful, Tom. As careful as careful can be. I will borrow the wariness of Tarasen's shyest charges— the hare, the deer— trusting not to my luck, but to caution.
For she could not abide it.
To lose the green.
The very thought made her feel sick and weak, when what she required now was strength.
—
From the small store of coins she had left, Angharad replaced her tinker garb with clothing more suitable to one of the housey-folk. When she finally approached the south side of the market, she wore the knee-length grey kirtle of a fisherwoman, with its sleeveless top and divided skirt; an embroidered blouse cut low in the bodice, following the local fashion; straw sandals and her old shawl to hide the blaze of her red-gold hair.
Not all Summerborn had red hair, but many did. In a place such as this, where most hair colors tended to drab browns and black, it was enough to set her apart. And that she could not afford. She needed to be invisible, rather than catch anyone's eye.
Her journeysack bulged with the addition of her tinker garb and her small harp. The instrument was stowed away since being a harper was also enough of a novelty to call attention to her. Besides, it was common knowledge that, while a harper wasn't necessarily Summerborn herself, she would know those who carried Hafarl's gift in their blood.
Through the poetry of their music, harpers could see into the green.
Witch-finders would be very interested in harpers.
—
Pendall Street marked the southern edge of the market. Beyond it were the narrow streets of Cathal's poor, where the housey-folk lived in close squalor, the buildings decrepit and crowding each other, the streets littered with refuse. Pendall itself was a wide busy avenue that ran from the Merchant Quarter to the docks, with a wide range of inns on either side of the street.
The Pipe & Tabor was on the poor side of the street, down by the docks, and Angharad had no trouble finding it. She stood across from it, a few doors down under the shadow of a sign with a foaming mug of ale, and regarded it for a long moment. She could see no one watching the place, but that meant nothing. The witch-finders could easily have taken a room in the inn behind her, or in any one of the others that were close enough to offer a view of the Pipe & Tabor.
She gave a nervous tug at her new clothing and wished she were anywhere but here. But it was too late to turn back and she had nothing to gain by standing outside. It would only call attention to herself.
My name's Ann Netter, she reminded herself. I've come here from Mewer, on route to visit my cousin in Eynshorn who has work for me. No, I'm not a witch. Nor a tinker or a harper. Just myself— a fisherwoman.
She looked down at her hands.
A fisherwoman. With calluses on her fingertips— the tips of a witch's fingers, no less— and none where one would gain them from working the nets, or cleaning the day's catch, or the hundred other tasks that such a woman would have.
Still, they would just have to do.
She squared her shoulders, but before she could take a step, the door to the Pipe & Tabor opened with a bang as its thick wooden panels hit the stone wall of the inn behind it. Two men came out, holding between them a struggli
ng boy of no more than fourteen summers.
The boy was a street urchin— reed-thin and hair all tousled. He had a lean hungry face that was smudged with dirt, and his clothes were such a ragged patchwork that Angharad couldn't tell where one garment left off and the other began.
Her sight told her that he was Summerborn.
She didn't need her witch-sight to tell her what his captors were. Witch-finders, the pair of them, and two of a kind with their stocky bodies, thick shoulders, groomed hair and the fine cut of their clothes. Prosperous witchfinders.
"Let me go, you stupid louts!" the boy was shouting.
"If I was a witch, don't you think I'd've fried you both by now?"
The witch-finders didn't bother replying. They merely dragged him along the street where men and women stopped and looked, but lifted no hand to help the boy. Here and there, Angharad saw fingers shaping the Sign of Horns, warding the boy's ill-luck away from themselves.
Angharad took a step towards the struggling threesome, then stopped.
What was she doing? They were two to her one. She might be able to call up a witch-fire with her staff— enough to startle them— but that would merely be revealing her for what she was. And that would be no help to either the boy or herself.
Better to wait.
She knew where they were taking the boy. To Aron Corser's. She could plan first, then see about helping.
The witch-finders had dragged the boy almost to the end of Pendall now, where the street opened onto the docks. Looking at the scuffling threesome, thinking of the trapped boy, the fear she had seen in his eyes, Angharad flexed her fingers. She could almost feel the press of a cold iron blade against them, where finger joined hand.
The iron cutting through skin and muscle, popping the finger free from its end joint...
She took another step, but hesitated once more as a new thought came to her.
How could she have been so blind? Aron Corser might well be stealing fingerbones from living Summerborn— but that was only after he was done with them.
She thought of the glascrow and remembered Tarasen's words.
It needs the Summerborn to kindle it.
Aron Corser wanted a witch to solve the riddle of his puzzle-box.
It feeds on our green.
Why the merchant would want that, Angharad didn't know. She could see a profit in the selling of witches' fingerbones, but loosing the glascrow on the world, letting its shadow swallow the green.... There was no profit in it. It made no sense.
Unless he simply hated Summerborn.
Hated them enough to destroy the source of their gift.
Men were capable of any hate, any madness.
Swallowing thickly, she watched the witch-finders drag away the boy. When they were finally around the far corner, she crossed the road towards the inn.
She wasn't done yet— not with Aron Corser, nor his witch-finders. But first she needed to speak to the owner of the Pipe & Tabor. First she needed to find the Summerborn who had not yet been taken.
13
The Pipe & Tabor was the oldest building on Pendall Street— one of the oldest in Cathal— dating back to a time when it had stood by itself at the edge of the original Old Market. The town had grown up around the inn and market, the common in front of the inn first becoming a dirt track, then a cobblestoned street that was now lined with the buildings of the Pipe & Tabor's finer and more prosperous cousins. But for all the gilt and finery of its competitors, the old inn had an air about it that put Angharad at her ease as soon as she crossed its threshold.
Its interior was clean, if shabby. It was obvious that whatever profit there was to be made in the inn went to stocking the kitchen and bar, rather than decoration. The floors were well-worn stone, strewn with straw and rushes, the walls paneled with oak, the hearth smoke-blackened fieldstone. The tables and chairs were of a plain older style— roughly hewn in comparison to present fashion, but eminently serviceable. Old cotton curtains were pulled back from the windows to allow illumination; wall sconces and smoke stains on the walls themselves showed where the candles were set at night.
Angharad stood for a moment while the door closed behind her to let her eyes adjust to the light. It being mid-afternoon, there were few customers. A pair of old codgers, bewhiskered, the one with a pipe, the other chewing on a twig, were sitting at a table by the hearth playing drams. A stout, round-faced merchant with what appeared to be his son— the two were so alike— shared another table. A fifth man, his features hidden in shadow, sat by the window overlooking the harbor. A barmaid was polishing tankards by the bar.
Angharad looked at the girl. Tom had spoken of the owner as being a woman, but somehow she doubted that this slip of a girl was she. The door to the kitchen opened then and a tall, grey-haired dame stepped out into the common room, carrying a tray laden with sliced beef, fresh-baked bread and a tureen of soup which she brought to the merchant and his son.
Despite her grey hair, the woman couldn't have been much older than thirty summers. She had a pronounced overbite that gave her face a horsey cast; her figure was trim where it should be, and full elsewhere; her features were pleasant, her eyes warm, her smile infectious. When she glanced over at her, Angharad couldn't but be charmed by her.
"Welcome to the Pipe & Tabor," the woman said as she approached, wiping her hands on her apron. "My name's Edrie Doonan. How can I help you?"
"I'm... ah... Ann Netter," Angharad replied.
Edrie smiled, taking in the bundle of Angharad's journeysack and her fisherwoman gear.
"First time in a town so large?" she asked.
"No— I mean, yes. It's all so bewildering."
Edrie nodded. "Will you be wanting a room?"
"I... yes. Of course."
This was all going wrong, Angharad realized. She wasn't used to putting on a false face. The lies stuck in her throat. She had never before hid the fact of who and what she was.
A tinker, and proud of it.
A harper, and skilled at her trade.
A witch, and there was no shame in that either.
"Well, we have rooms in plenty," Edrie said. "Is there only the one of you?"
Angharad nodded. She cleared her throat.
"But it isn't just about a room that I've come," she said, pitching her voice lower.
Edrie's eyebrows rose quizzically.
"That boy," Angharad said. "The one those men were taking away..."
The warmth began to leak from the innkeeper's eyes.
"What of him?"
"I've come about him as well," Angharad said. "I'm looking for those with... with the gift."
Like a cloud blocking the sun, the friendly warmth fled completely. Edrie regarded Angharad coldly now, her lips pulled tight and thin.
"Get out of here," she said.
"But—"
"Get out, or I'll have my stablehand throw you out."
"You don't understand. I'm here to help, not—"
"I won't repeat myself again, Ann Netter or whoever you really are. I want you out of my inn; if I could see it done, I'd have you out of Cathal and the Isles as well."
She stood very close and poked Angharad's shoulder with a stiff finger.
"Am I making myself clear?"
Angharad nodded numbly. "V-very clear," she said.
"Then why are you still here?"
"I'm not what you think I am," Angharad tried as she turned for the door.
"Your kind never are. There's worse things we can do than barter a few coins for another's freedom, but what that might be, I can't think just now."
"But—"
"Out!"
Angharad had the door open by now. Edrie gave her a shove and Angharad stumbled out onto the cobblestones. The inn door slammed shut behind her.
For a long moment Angharad simply stood there, staring at its worn oak panels. She was frustrated and angry and half-inclined to set her rowan staff against the wood and set it aflame with a witch-fire, but common sense
prevailed.
The innkeeper thought she was in league with the witch-finders— that she went ahead of them to point out likely candidates for capture in return for a few coins. Never mind that the woman was wrong, Edrie Doonan and she were still allies. The innkeeper simply didn't realize it yet.
Angharad looked down Pendall Street.
Now what? She still needed lodgings. She still needed to find other Summerborn to help her. The glascrow remained unfound and Aron Corser had captives that needed rescuing.
She was beginning to get a headache.
First, lodgings, she decided. She shifted the strap of her journeysack to a more comfortable position and was about to set off down the street to choose another inn, when the door behind her opened once more. Angharad turned, a hopeful smile on her face. But it wasn't Edrie, having reconsidered her treatment.
It was the man who'd been sitting by himself by the window.
Out here on the street she could see him better. He'd the brown Gwendellan hair and ruddy complexion of a man who worked either the sea or the land. His clothing was plain— serviceable gear, rather than fashionable— and he had an honest face, with a twinkle in his eyes that kept the smile on Angharad's face.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I thought you—"
"Were Edrie, come out to change her mind? Not likely. Once she gets an idea, there's no shifting her."
Angharad nodded. "Yes, well..."
"Couldn't help but overhear the pair of you," the man went on. "Talking about Jackin and all."
"Jackin?"
"Jackin Toss— the lad what the witch-finders snatched."
"I was just... curious," Angharad said cautiously.
"That's all. I was wondering what he'd done."
The man shrugged. "Born with the wrong blood, is what. Lad never had much luck. Grew up on the streets, barely making do, and now this. Sets a man to wondering what the world's coming to."
"Can't anyone stop them?" Angharad asked. "The witch-finders, I mean."
"Who's to stop them? These parts, the folk don't much care for those born with the witchblood in them. Town guard turns a blind eye— so long as there's no trouble on the streets themselves. What the witch-finders do with their catches when they get them home... well, that's of no concern to the guard."