If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1) Read online

  “You’ll scare her!” Morie shook her finger at me.

  “That’s likely.” The dog hadn’t moved, though I had lurched up and wrenched my neck all the worse.

  Annora put a steaming mug in my hand. “Virda hasn’t come yet. Is there anything I should start besides breakfast? What do you like?”

  “Oat gruel!” sang Morie. “With honey, please.”

  “Anything.” I took a pull on the brew. “I’ll milk and feed. Morie can gather eggs.”

  “You come too.” Morie patted the broad black head, and the dog thumped its tail on the floor.

  “Morie, some dogs chase chickens. You can take Murr.” I stretched my shoulders. Tonight I’d sleep in a bed.

  “And Annora,” Morie assured me. “She wants to get the eggs too.”

  “I’ve no doubt.”

  “And Virda,” Morie prattled happily as she went off to get her boots by the back door.

  “Ask Virda if she wants a dog,” I said, eyeing the massive shaggy thing. It seemed to look at me with gentle reproach. “Only she is a widow alone, after all.”

  ###

  When I carried the milk back to the house, I found Virda and Annora exploring the kitchen garden, and Morie teasing Murr with a strand of twine on the back stoop. The dog sat with dignity next to the steps, ignoring the kitten’s occasional scrambles across her paws.

  “Her name is Wieser,” Morie told me confidently.

  “What, she told you? Now you can talk to animals, too?”

  Morie nodded, bouncing her dark curls. “Like Annora.”

  “Well, Wieser, you need to come over to the pump and get a wash to cut the smell. Morie, go get a comb in the barn. You can get some of Wieser’s snarls out.” I went in the kitchen for a sliver of soap, and to set the milk bucket next to Morie’s basket of eggs. Wieser rose when I stepped back out and followed me to the pump without prompting.

  She had to have been on her own for some time judging from the look of her coat, which hung clotted with mud and matted around burrs and twigs. She was not thin, however, and stood patiently while we sluiced her with cold water and dragged at her fur with the comb. Annora came over, too, and worked at the tangles. Some we had to cut away, but most Annora teased out with slim fingers. Wieser shook herself when we finally stepped back, and the sun gleamed on her curly black coat.

  Next I packed up torches, lanterns and oil in the barn instead of packing foodstuffs, since everyone else gathered in the kitchen and larder after Wieser’s bath. An axe and shovel were the largest items, so I had to start strapping everything onto Dink, our mule. I had a leather pack stuffed full, and figured I could carry no more than one pack at a time without raising questions. I had many trips up into the hills ahead of me, if I was to stock three caves with a week’s provisions. I started a list of what I took, figuring it would soon challenge memory to recall what I placed where. Dink pulled wisps from his hay net. I was writing an inventory of the first pack when I heard a sound behind me, a soft cough.

  I jumped and spun about as though doing something guilt-worthy, and found Annora holding out a paper-wrapped packet and a water jug.

  “Some food. You’re going up to the high pasture? Virda said you and Wils have brought all the animals down. Maybe you want to take Wieser with you?”

  I almost said “Why?”, but realized she meant since I didn’t have Wils. No doubt she didn’t know I’d been doing it alone all summer while Wils courted her. Wieser herself appeared at Annora’s side just on cue.

  “I’ll go by myself as I generally do—thanks though. Lots of stockmen use dogs, I’m surprised a calm one like Wieser isn’t working a herd somewhere. Although, black dogs scare the stock, you need a dog with some white on it, but not all white or the herd won’t pay it any mind.” To my ears, I sounded just as idiotic as Wils had become.

  “She’s come to us now, to stay,” Annora said. “Judian, how will we get news of your da and Wils? Should we expect they will send word where they are? Should we go back to the town to see if we can find out … anything?”

  “We can rely on Virda, she knows all the news and gossip anyone can hope to learn. She’s down to the village at least every few days for this and that, though not all the way to the harbour town. There’s often merchant traffic coming through there. She’ll be sure to nose out any developments recounted. And she’ll carry every tale she can back up here to us, be certain.”

  “Have they gone to war? Or just to find out what’s happening, as Fenn said?”

  I raised my shoulders. “I wish I could say.”

  “So,” she brushed straw off her skirt, “do you come back for supper? We’ll wait for you, if you will be back by dark.”

  “Yes, I’ll be back by nightfall. Have Virda stay until I come down, and I’ll carry her home in the small cart. Ahh … she’ll mother you ragged if you let her.” I did feel I should warn her.

  I got a sunny smile in response. “I quite like her. She’s been nothing but kind. She thought a lot of your mother.” She paused to look about her. “I do know how to muck out stalls, if that needs doing.”

  I nodded toward the pitchfork and stuffed the list paper in my pocket. I had to hold the food packet after tying Dink’s pack shut, for I left no room in it. “It seems there’s enough food here for both Wieser and me,” I said, hefting the packet. “So you’d better come with, dog. Let’s go.” I took a walking staff from next to the door. “We’ll be back. Don’t let Morie worry you to a frazzle.”

  Annora waved as I led the way upslope and Wieser followed, placidly padding alongside Dink.

  I went to the closest cave first, not far from the upper meadow. I figured we needed one we could reach quickly from the house. Wils—when he used to work—and I were often up in the meadow with the goats and our few sheep, keeping watch over them while they looked for ways to die. Our shelter there, truly more of a hut, would not do for a hiding place. But the cave he and I had explored could not be seen easily, back in the trees and boulders on the north side of the meadow. I led Dink to the entrance, and tied him while I pulled the pack from his back. Then I led him back to the meadow and tied him near the stream so he could drink. Wieser felt compelled, for whatever dog reason she had, to splash in the pool and get soaked and sloppy while getting her own drink and then shaking all over me. “How many baths a day are you used to?” I asked while I wiped my eyes.

  I placed everything deep inside the cave and up on a ledge as high as I could reach. I thought about digging the trench for the fire. Wouldn’t it be better to do that after I had hauled everything we needed to all the caves? I remembered a tin trunk at home, and thought that would help keep mice out of the food I brought up. I had heard of folk who dug deep holes to hide clay pots filled with food, before disguising the trap doors above. How deep could I dig in the cave floor before I hit stone? I think the folk that did that must have lived in the plains, where the grass-covered soil runs deep, instead of the mountains. Up here, the bones of the earth rest closer to the surface.

  I knelt at the back wall and scratched the symbol for the kavsprit there with my knife. The wise always leave deep-earth creatures some offering to thank them for allowing folk to share their dark places, so they make no mischief. I put some pine nuts and wildflower seeds in a palm-sized linen pouch beneath the sign, and water in a thimble of clay. Both would be empty when I returned, but I didn’t expect to see the creatures themselves. Few folk ever had. They kept hidden whenever men came about, and dwelled ever with no light at all.

  Next I took the axe out to the trees and gathered and chopped dry wood to keep at the back behind a rock, so a firewood stash couldn’t be seen from the mouth of the cave. I would also have to bring some pots or jugs to store additional water.

  “What would you suggest?” I asked Wieser. “Maybe you could be fitted with panniers like the dogs in Da’s one book.” Wieser had a broad back, and was surely strong. Really, not a bad idea to have her haul with me. I shared the hard-cooked eggs, brea
d and cheese Annora had sent, since none of it would keep in the cave.

  “Blankets,” I said to Wieser, because back inside just a short way the air grew damp and chill. I knew it would always stay the same within, whether hot outside or bitter cold. A draft wafted from deeper in, but the passage soon narrowed so much there was no way to go further. Wils and I had tried to explore more last spring, but were blocked by crowding, dark rock. Likely there was a whole network through the mountain, all interconnected. Usually I liked to imagine things such as that, but just then the thought made me glad for Wieser’s sturdy presence.

  I left the water jug at the back of the cave, refilled from the stream, and strapped the empty pack onto Dink. I felt I had done a good day’s work but still had plans and lists coiling and flexing in my mind all the way down to home.

  When Wieser, Dink and I emerged from the meadow trail, smoke curled from the kitchen chimney, and gold evening light touched the stone walls. It’s a good house, I thought. Rambling and large enough to have quiet places to be alone and good rooms for all of us together to eat and read by the fire. I felt a rush of missing Da and Wils and wanting war to stay far away from our house and lands. I put Dink away and readied the little cart, but found the evening barn chores already done, with the horses pulling at their hay nets and the water trough full. Wieser and I came to the back door, where I heard Annora singing, in a clear rich voice that put me in mind of my mum singing to us when we were small.

  Wieser wanted to go in, probably because something smelled delicious in the kitchen, but I stood for a bit and listened, my heart beating in time to her music.

  CHAPTER 4

  I worked around the regular chores to find time to carry my packets up to the caves. Of an evening, after Morie and Annora went up to bed, I crept around the house gathering lamp oil and dried meat and fruit and all such like items. Annora sometimes stood and puzzled at a shelf which had become less laden from my dark-of-night raiding, but she did not ask any questions.

  She sewed smocks and leggings for Morie, and taught her to whipstitch the edges of a felted vest. I came in one evening to find her working on a soft leather vest for me. Generally, I got Wils’s old clothing—cut down if I looked to trip over it or snag it on fenceposts. I’m not sure I ever had anything made for me before, being the second son. I wondered at it, soft and supple, made with two wool-lined pockets for hand warming.

  “How did you learn to make such a thing?” I asked her. I could have been more polite, but she smiled wide for she could see I liked it well.

  “It was easy to work up, such soft leather. Is it goatskin? I’ve used deerskin before. My gran taught me simple leatherwork. I can even make boots, just light ones, not like soldiers’ boots. Good for walking in the woods.”

  Which she surmised my absences to be? “That would be useful. Is there leather enough?”

  Annora nodded, firelight glinting on her hair, and bent to her work. Morie teased Murr with a bit of yarn, and scolded when he went for the finger that twitched it instead of the end of the tuft. He rolled on his back with claws up-stretched, purring so loud I could hear him over the pop and crackle of the fire.

  ###

  Da taught me how to read by the fire of an evening, my eyes following as he moved his long, strong finger along a line of letters until I could make sound and sense out of the words. We owned any number of books. I loved them all, and balanced favorite ones on my lap to read aloud to Da when I had learned enough to be fluent. Morie had been read to, but was not yet learning to read herself when Da and Wils left us. Annora used paper and ink to make little books for her, and drew the pictures of the animals and flower sprites she wrote about. Morie was enchanted, as if she hadn’t already thought the sun rose for nobody but Annora.

  Morie read her books to Murr and Wieser, and she tried to read them to me. One story told about rabbits dancing in the moonlight. Morie assured me Annora had made the meadow rabbits dance, on a night with an early moonrise. And perhaps Annora could make rabbits dance. She proved able to milk Noda, our ill-tempered nanny, without the useless thing stepping in a full bucket or sneaking in a kick. Which I had never been able to do in all my years of chores.

  Annora made a doll for Morie—a poppet stuffed with lamb’s wool and dressed in a miniature smock like Morie’s own. It seemed to be bound to Morie with invisible twine, and collected eggs with her every morning.

  “What’s her name, then?” I asked wearily, sitting down to a supper of lentils and bread. Up and down the trail every day was wearing on me.

  “Her name is Iggle. She likes her name,” crooned Morie. “Judian, when are Da and Wils coming home? Iggle is missing them.”

  “Yeah, I can tell. What if I tell her as soon as somebody tells me.” I stared into my bowl for a bit. “I miss them, too.”

  “Oh, me too,” breathed Annora. But still she didn’t cry. Nor did she look up from the needlework in her hands.

  ###

  As the weather grew colder, folk began to bring animals up to Annora on the mountain, since she did not dwell at the village edge any longer. I often brought Dink to the barn on my return from the high country and found somebody’s milk cow with a caked udder being tended by Annora in a lantern’s glow, or an injured hawk with a bandaged wing. She used some of the garden herbs I hadn’t known the proper use of to concoct her broths and tisanes. Many plants hung in the kitchen rafters, drying in bunches for the first time since my mum had gathered them.

  It was one such cool evening when the smith’s wife came to our door. Annora and I trooped out to her little cart, where her son of about eight years old sat holding the reins and looking sullen.

  “I don’t know what to do,” said the wife, loosening her shawl from about her head and shoulders. “Bar’s gone off with the men folk to war, and it’s just me and the little ones trying to keep things going at the forge. Ticker here took it in his head to go hunting and you see what’s come of it. We can’t have any more bad luck!” She drew a square of canvas away from the cart bed, uncovering a dead vixen with swollen teats, an arrow wound in her chest. Ticker hung his head lower still.

  “You’ve found her litter, though?” Annora pointed at a basket I hadn’t noted, tucked up under the cart seat. This brought a little spark to Ticker, who hurried to take the basket up and proffer it to Annora as he climbed to the ground.

  “I had to look for the den a long time. I looked and looked before I found it. I didn’t mean to kill a mother fox. I shot her before I realized. I wouldn’t have taken her if I had known!” He shot a look at his glowering mother.

  “It is strange,” Annora said kindly as she knelt in front of the boy. “The vixen was ill-favored, bearing so far out of her season. This should be a spring litter. You wouldn’t expect to find her with young kits now.” She lifted the woven lid and looked at the tangle of small fuzzy bodies.

  “Can you take them to foster?” asked the wife. “We can’t afford the bad luck, killing a mother. You know how that follows a person. Idiot child!”

  Annora likely would have taken the kits in any case, but faced with the distress of both the hunter and his mother, I stepped forward and took the basket.

  “We’ll see to them as best we can,” I said. “They’re very young,” I added doubtfully. The basket was hardly heavier than if packed with feathers.

  “I’ll find a wet-nurse for them,” Annora confirmed. And in fact, I expect the mother and son had not traveled back to the village forge, by the time Annora had the kits tucked up with Wieser in the barn, in a wooden box lined with fresh straw.

  “She hasn’t any milk,” I pointed out.

  “She will by morning,” replied Annora, holding a bowl of some kind of milky-colored herb sap for Wieser to drink.

  “Will she be tied to home, then?” I had gotten used to her company.

  “I’ll find a vixen, so they don’t grow up not knowing their proper ways. Here, we need to keep it dark for them now, like the den.” She took up the lanter
n as Wieser began to lick the nearest kit, which wriggled and squeaked. I counted six altogether, and sent up a prayer to the gods that the ill-luck of the smithy’s wife and son would not be visited on us instead. It was strange, the vixen bearing so late in the year.

  When we returned to the front steps, we found the little vixen’s body, still in its pitiful square of canvas, laid on the bottom step.

  “They do want it all to be far from their own door, don’t they?” Annora said, with the first touch of annoyance I had heard in her voice since she came to the mountain.

  “I’ll bury her. The smell of blood will make the stock restless. I’ll go get the shovel and carry her over beyond the apple trees.”

  “Do you want help?”

  “No, no need.”

  When I returned to stow the shovel, I saw Annora’s silhouette in the moonlight, standing at the edge of the larch grove with her arms outstretched. I could hear her humming softly but could not make out if she sang words.

  Three days later, a sleek red vixen was curled up with the kits when I went into the barn for morning chores, and Wieser was sitting by Dink’s stall. I put my head out the door and called to Annora as she passed by with the full egg basket. “Is this the fox that was sitting out here the night of your wedding dinner?”

  “That was a dog fox. Not much good for nursing kits. I called this one from farther away, though she’s been that one’s mate before,” she said as she walked on through the dewy grass.

  “Yah, of course,” I muttered, taking up the pitchfork. “Probably brought her bloodstock certificate all written out. Chapel apostate probably signed the paperwork for the mating. Matter of record. You could look it up.” I kept grumbling while I worked, but the foster-mother did not stir from her charges, and Wieser waited patiently for me to get Dink ready for our journey to the caves.