Frank took a breath as if to say something but when Tanyth looked up at him, he merely coughed into his hand and reached for his handkerchief.
“I understand, mum.”
Tanyth smiled at her. “Thank you, my dear. Just give me ‘til tomorrow. Come see me in the morning.”
Rebecca’s face brightened. “Thank you, mum.”
“No promises!” Tanyth cut in. “I need to think about it.”
Rebecca nodded several times. “O’ course, mum. I understand. I do. But you didn’t say no, yet. That’s somethin’.”
Tanyth huffed a laugh out and nodded her agreement. “True. Now, scoot.”
Rebecca smiled and nodded to Frank one more time before scampering off toward the inn.
Tanyth watched the young woman go before glancing up to see Frank looking down at her. Something in his expression made her frown at him. “What is it?”
“You’re gonna to let her go with ya?” he asked, looking at Rebecca’s retreating back.
Tanyth gave a non-committal shrug. “I really don’t know,” she said. “Honestly, I’ve been travelin’ on my own so long, I wouldn’t know what to do with her.”
She felt Frank stiffen slightly.
“Is that why you won’t stay here?” He didn’t look down at her, just continued gazing off into the village.
“Stay with you, you mean?” Tanyth said, poking him in the ribs with one sharp finger.
He looked down and gave her an abashed-looking smile. “Yeah. Well, with me and the rest of the people here.” He paused, his eyes searching her face for something. “You’ve a home here, you know. Yours for the takin’.”
She laid one hand against his weathered face and caught his wandering gaze in hers. “You know I can’t do that.” Her voice was barely louder than the winds whispering in the pine tops behind the cabin.
He lifted one shoulder in acknowledgment. “I know what you say, Tanyth, but I still don’t believe it. You’re not goin’ crazy.”
She huffed out a single bark of laughter.
“You’re not,” he insisted.
“Frank, normal people do not see things through ravens’ eyes. It’s just not natural.” She withdrew her hand and scrubbed her lips again with her fingertips. “When I woke up this morning and couldn’t pucker to blow on the fire because I had a beak—” She closed her eyes and shook her head as if to rid herself of the memory.
“But that was a dream, Tan. You and I both know that.”
“Nightmare, more like.”
“Exactly, and you woke up.”
She scoffed.
“You did. You woke up and it was just a dream,” he said.
“What if I hadn’t? What if it wasn’t?” Her eyes searched his craggy face in turn. “What if it was a warnin’?”
“Warnin’? Warnin’ of what?” He sounded curious and a bit frustrated.
She sighed and folded her arms under her breasts as if hugging herself for warmth. Her eyes scanned the now familiar landscape of the village, stopping here and there with no apparent reason. Finally she turned her gaze back to his. “If I knew that, Frank Crane, I wouldn’t have to go now, would I?”
Frank drew a deep breath and blew it out before screwing his mouth into a grimace. “No,” he said. “I don’t suppose you would.”
The sound of a horse’s whinny wafted on the morning breeze. “Sounds like I’m needed at the barn,” Frank said, glancing down at her once more. “And prob’ly just as well.”
He took three steps before she asked, “What do you mean by that?”
He gave her a devilish grin over his shoulder but didn’t stop walking. “Anytime a woman uses a man’s full name, it’s time he finds a place to hide. The barn’ll do for now.”
Under other circumstances the comment might have earned him a sour look, but Tanyth saw the twinkle in his eye and a chuckle bubbled out of her.
Frank gave her a wink and a nod and his long legs soon carried him out of sight around the inn.
She stood there for a few more moments, her fingers seeking her lips once again. Somewhere in the forest a squirrel chittered and drew her gaze in the direction of the noise.
“You’re a foolish, old woman,” she muttered to herself, but her fingertips continued to reassure her that her lips were still lips, that her fingers were flesh and blood, not feathers. “Foolish,” she repeated before rousing herself to go back into the hut.
She slipped the latch and ducked her head as she’d done a hundred times. The lintels on the doors were low and she had to step down three steps to enter the cozy hut. She’d managed to get in and out of that very door untold numbers of times all winter long. Yet she clipped her head on the top of the door and the bright pain pushed her off-balance. Her foot missed the first step, heel catching on the second as she pitched forward into the room, empty teacup flying, holding out her arms to break her fall.
The dry twig snap of her forearm seemed loud in the quiet room before the sharp pain blossomed.
She lay there on the woven grass mat of the floor, cradling her arm, and cursing herself silently until the pain made her pant the words aloud. “Foolish. Old. Woman.”
Chapter Two:
Winged
The next couple of hours passed in a fog of pain. Broken bones were common enough in the village. The quarrymen managed to break at least one bone a year among them and rambunctious children fell out of their share of trees. When Tanyth showed up at the inn cradling her left arm, Sadie and Amber plopped her into a chair and had the bone set, splinted, and nearly wrapped almost before the three swallows of rum burned down to her belly.
“Poultice,” she said, eyes still streaming from the combination of pain and rum.
Amber blinked. “Poultice?”
Sadie said, “Bone stitch, of course. You taught us, right? Comfrey. Make a poultice?”
Tanyth nodded, pleased that the younger woman had remembered.
“We got some growing just outside, mum,” Sadie said, heading for the back door.
“Too young yet,” Tanyth said, breathing deep and pushing the air out, willing the pain to go out with each breath. “Get dried from my hut. Grab a whole bundle and bring it back.”
Sadie changed course and bolted through the connecting door to the common room. Tanyth heard her footsteps slapping on the steps as she went out the door.
Amber held the loose end of wrapping. “Should I continue, mum?”
Tanyth looked down at her arm. The flesh was already turning a nasty color and looked puffy from swelling. “It’s set, thank the Lady,” Tanyth said. “Long’s I don’t move much, it should be all right like this.”
“We’ll have to wrap it eventually, mum.”
Tanyth poked her skin with one finger above and below the obvious bruising, wincing a little at the pressure. “Yeah. But wrappin’ it now, I’ll just swell under the wrappin’. Best let it fill in a bit before you go squeezin’ it with that.”
Amber nodded and pulled a pot down from the hanger, filling it halfway with water and putting it on the stove. “Sadie will be back in a minute, mum. You just rest easy.”
Tanyth tried to relax. She closed her eyes and pictured the woods behind her hut, cool and damp. She concentrated on breathing in the rich forest smell, even while her nose told her that bread baked nearby.
In moments, they heard Sadie’s hurried steps. She burst through the door with a bundle of gray-green plant material in her hand. “Sorry it took so long. Had to use the broom to get it down.”
Tanyth smiled. “I had to use the broom to put it up there, so seems fair.”
Their winter of training showed as the two broke the stalks of comfrey into the pot, the musky smell of it not quite able to beat back the scent of fresh bread. Amber pushed the leaves into the water with a large wooden spoon and swirled them around a few times.
Sadie looked to Tanyth. “Willow bark tea?”
Tanyth sighed but nodded. The sharp pain in her arm throbbed with each beat of her
heart and she tried to think of anything else. Even the bitter taste of willow bark would distract her.
“How wet do we want this, mum? Pasty?”
“Make a thick paste of it. Soak the bandages in the water before you wrap me.”
Sadie and Amber nodded and set to their tasks, Amber fishing the hot, soggy herb out of the pot and placing it in the cheese cloth that Sadie held open above a bowl. The gray-green liquid dribbled into the bowl with a faint splashing sound.
The back door burst open, startling them all. The sudden flinch made Tanyth wince. Frank strode into the kitchen, his eyes raking the room.
In three strides he knelt beside her chair, his gaze alternating between the swollen, discolored limb on the work surface and her face. “You fell down?”
She laughed in spite of herself and rubbed her head with her free hand. “Bumped my head, too.”
He leaned over to look at her scalp but didn’t touch it. “Got quite an egg there.”
She nodded, the rum making her at once giddy and drowsy as her body’s reaction to the emergency passed and the two women finished constructing the poultice.
“Stand back, Frank,” Sadie said. “We need to get this on her arm.”
“What is it?” he asked, even as he rocked back and stepped out of the way.
“It’s called bone stitch,” Tanyth said, steeling herself for the heat and pressure that would probably hurt.
“Can I help?” he asked.
Amber tutted and shooed Frank out of the way with backward flicks of her fingers. “Go clean the barn or something. She’s not going anywhere for half an hour or more. Come back then and you can help her get home.”
“That’d be a trick,” Tanyth muttered considering that she didn’t really have a home at the moment.
“You hush,” Sadie said. “That rum’ll turn you into a chatterbox and you don’t wanna be sayin’ things you’re gonna regret later.”
Tanyth blinked and looked at Sadie. “How much did you give me?”
Sadie poured another dollop into Tanyth’s mug. “One more shot oughta do it.” She thrust the mug into Tanyth’s free hand and lifted it up to her mouth. “Drink up. Doctor’s orders.”
While Amber and Sadie positioned the soggy mass along the length of Tanyth’s arm, she up-ended the mug and felt rum roll over her tongue and burn down her throat. “Much more of that and I’m going to pass out.”
“We don’t want that now, and not so much as to make you sick, either, mum, but you need to go lay down in a bit. That’ll help keep you in bed.”
Tanyth grinned. “Oh, I think Frank can keep me in bed jes’ fine on his own.”
The two younger women giggled. “I’m sure he can, mum, but you’ll need to be careful about that arm for a day or twelve until it’s had a chance to start knitting,” Sadie said.
Tanyth felt her eyes blinking slowly as she tried to think about Sadie’s words, peering down at the hot poultice resting on her arm. Even the faint weight of it made the bone throb but the heat and moisture felt good on the swollen flesh.
“Be better cold, fer swellin’,” Tanyth said. “Never snow around when you need it.”
Amber giggled. “Not much ice this time o’ year either, mum.”
“You just relax, mum,” Sadie said, and patted her good shoulder. “You’ll be right as rain in a few weeks.”
Tanyth looked down at her splinted and poulticed arm. “This isn’t good.”
“No, mum. Looks like you’re going to be stayin’ a bit longer than you planned,” Amber said.
Tanyth frowned at that. “Can’t. Gotta get north.”
Sadie poured Tanyth’s mug full of tea and placed it on the table within easy reach. “That may be, mum, but you can’t go anywhere with your arm the way it is, so you may as well sit back and enjoy it.”
“Hurts,” Tanyth said glaring at it.
“It’ll do that for a few days,” Amber said. “Then it’ll itch like crazy.”
Tanyth nodded. “Yes. It will.” She said the words carefully, aware of a growing numbness in her nose and cheeks.
“Frank should be back shortly ta take you to your hut,” Sadie said.
“Not yet,” Tanyth said. “Wait a bit, then wrap with them shoggy bandageses.” Tanyth smacked her lips and wet her whistle with a bit of the hot tea. “No willow bark in that one.”
Sadie grinned at her. “It’s steeping, mum. We want it good and strong.”
Tanyth nodded. The pain in her arm receded a bit. It still hurt like the blazes but the odd appendage lying on the table seemed to be part of somebody else. “Jes’ as well,” she mumbled.
“What’s that, mum?” Sadie asked, leaning closer.
“Nuthin’. Prob’ly want that willow bark now. Maybe splash some rum in it?”
Amber frowned in concentration. “Will that make it work better?”
Tanyth shook her head slowly, gently so as not disturb her arm. “But I won’t be able to taste it.”
Sadie laughed. “You’ve had enough, I think. And if you can taste anything after that much rum, I’d be surprised.”
Tanyth blinked and tried to sit very still. The room had an odd rocking feeling to it. She looked at her arm. It wasn’t moving, so that was good.
Amber thrust a mug into her free hand and Tanyth sniffed before gulping down the whole mug.
“Gah, that’s awful,” she grumbled.
“You could taste that?” Sadie asked, eyes wide in amazement.
Tanyth rolled her tongue around in her mouth, realizing that some part of her face was feeling quite numb and that the bitter taste in her mouth was more memory than flavor. “Not really,” she said after several moments consideration.
Sadie snickered. “Didn’t think so.”
“How long should we leave this on, mum?” Amber said waving a hand in front of Tanyth’s eyes.
“What?”
“The poultice, mum. How long?”
Tanyth started to shrug but thought better of it. “Half hour or so. No more than that. Need to do it again tomorrow. Grind the roofs up.”
“Roofs, mum?”
Tanyth ran her tongue around inside her mouth again and focused on her numb lips. “Roots. Mash up the roots.”
“You have some roots?”
Tanyth shook her head gently. “I got no roots jes’ now. But I dug comfrey root las’ fall. Show you when I get back to my hut.”
“Should we wrap you up, mum?” Sadie asked.
“Been half hour yet?” Tanyth blinked down at her arm. It looked terrible. “S’all swollen. Hurts.”
“Yes’m. It’s been a half hour. Let us wrap it up and we’ll get Frank to help you back to your hut,” Sadie said, lifting the bundle of cheesecloth and herb off the top of her arm.
Tanyth nodded slowly and felt her lips purse in thought. “That would be good.”
Between the two of them, Amber and Sadie got a solid wrapping around the splint and Tanyth’s arm. With it solidly wrapped, they were able to readjust the splint’s bindings at wrist and elbow, easing the pressure on swollen flesh.
“That’s not too tight, is it, mum?”
Tanyth looked at her arm and considered it for a long moment. “Should be fine,” she said, sure she needed to be more concerned by the events but unable to muster the strength. “Any tea left in the pot?”
Amber dribbled a bit into the empty mug. “Anything else we can do for ya, mum?”
Tanyth lifted the mug and took a loud slurp off the top. “I’ll be fine. Jes’ need to lay down, I think. Roots tomorrow, then maybe we can cast it up.” She peered around the inn’s kitchen looking at each of the two women in turn. “Half hour yet? Where’s Frank?”
Amber grinned and crossed to the back door. She had a quiet conversation at the doorway that Tanyth couldn’t hear and came back with Frank in tow. “Here’s Frank. You ready to go lay down?”
Tanyth considered it as the dull throbbing in her arm took on a sharper urgency. “Yes. I think I better do th
at.” She looked at Frank and spoke very carefully. “Can you loan me one of your hands? I seem to have only one I can use right now.” She tried to lift the injured arm and stopped. The movement of the muscles under the binding made her gasp, “Ow.”
He helped her stand, holding her good arm firmly under his. “Let’s go get you comfy, shall we?”
Tanyth nodded, vaguely aware that she was already too drunk. “That’d be good,” she managed to say and then focused all her attention on holding on to Frank’s arm with her good one and steadfastly ignoring the jolts of liquid pain that splashed through her body with each step.
It felt like an awful lot of steps before Frank finally got her stretched out on her cot, damp bandages safely wrapped in a bit of canvas to keep them from leaking onto the covers. She let the darkness sweep her away.
She opened her eyes on the rising of the moon. Silvery talons raked the shadows. The old owl across the vale reminded her that he still lived. All was quiet below. She would hunt in the morning, but she dropped off the branch high in the spruce and glided to the ridgepole of the big building. The cold time was almost over, and the chill of night didn’t dig so deeply. She wondered if the man had left a rabbit. Sometimes he did and they were tasty. She would like a rabbit.
She soared off the roof and explored the base of her tree. There was no rabbit and she crooned a call in the darkness. The bright moon showed the way back to her branch and she returned to her roost. When the bright returned, she could hunt. The food time—the warm time—she felt it coming on the night wind.
Fluffing up her feathers, she sidled up to the trunk of the tree and tucked her head under a wing.
She woke with a start and the sudden movement awakened the pain in her arm. No longer sharp, dulled by familiarity, it still made her sweat.
“Easy, there.” Frank’s quiet voice came out of the dimness.
Tanyth saw him rise from a chair beside the banked hearth and cross to her.
“You all right?” he asked.
“No, you old fool,” she croaked and the sound alarmed her, reminded her of the dream. She put her free hand up to her lips to make sure the fingers were really fingers, that her mouth had lips.