Chapter 12
A short plump woman carrying a basket of sewing material arrived a while after. “Jain, this Medea,” Coursa said. “She was married to my Lorenzo before he passed away.”
“Coursa, I’m so sorry,” Medea said. She dropped the basket and wrapped Coursa in a hug. Coursa’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but then her expression softened and she returned the hug. Medea turned to Jain. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, too. It was just awful what that man did.”
“Thank you,” said Jain. She gave Medea an appraising look. Medea looked like someone’s fat grandmother. “Are you sure you’ll be okay here alone?”
Medea was already straightening Joff’s blankets. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been on my own since my Norman went away to work in the City of Books. It’s a shame to miss the funeral, but Grima . . .” She walked to the fireplace and put the kettle on as she spoke. “Well, that’s a long story. I’ll be along to put a flower on his grave sometime. Now off with you. Too much chatter might disturb Joff’s rest.”
Jain and Coursa looked at each other. Coursa grinned. They left with Eduard and followed a path that led up a steady grade. The path wound its way for a few miles into the woods without incident. Then a goat kid jumped out into the middle of the trail and stared at them with one of its eyes. Goats’ eyes had always bothered Jain. The pupils were weirdly rectangle shaped, like some animal that did not belong in the mortal world. As weird as the eyes were, Jain always thought she could detect a vague malice in them.
“Baah!” the goat screamed at the world.
A black dog the size of a pony jumped out from the woods and landed between the people and the goat. The dog barked at the goat and it turned and ran down the path with another bleat of protest. The dog turned to the people and snarled.
“Shhh,” Coursa said gently.
The dog sat and looked at her. Coursa stepped forward and patted the dog on the head as she passed. Eduard walked past the dog without stopping. Jain reached out to pet the dog. The dog stood and his lips curled back to reveal rows of teeth so sharp they might have been filed down. Jain slowly retracted her hand and the dog’s snarl faded.
“Come along, dear,” Coursa said from further up the path.
The dog ran after Coursa and Jain followed, wondering which of them Coursa had been talking to. They reached a clearing where sheep, goats, and pigs wandered and foraged. In the center stood a small cottage like the one Jain lived in but with a roof made of animal hides instead of thatch. A stone barn with a wooden roof stood nearby. The barn was many times the size of the cottage and animals wandered in and out as they pleased.
“My Sarah,” Coursa said. “She and her family raise all the meat that we eat.”
Sarah stood a little taller than her mother and had huskier build. She was the kind of woman people politely referred to as “sturdy” or “rugged” and impolitely referred to as “mannish.” Though she lacked Coursa’s fine build she did have her mother’s rich brown eyes. She walked out of her house and was followed by a man that made her seem petite and three children whose ages were impossible to guess because they were all so big.
“Should one of you stay behind to look after things?” Coursa asked when the family presented themselves.
“Nah,” said the husband. “The dogs’ll look after things. They’re better shepherds than I am.”
Eduard grinned. “You say that like it would be hard to do, Reuben.”
“Well if it isn’t my little niece,” the big man replied cheerfully. “How’s the ear Eduard?”
Eduard started walking again while everyone else except Jain and the youngest of the children laughed. “What happened?” the youngest child, a giant of a five year old, asked.
“Seen and not heard,” Sarah gently reminded.
“What happened?” Jain asked.
Sarah narrowed her eyes at Jain. Reuben smiled and started telling the story. Reuben had entered Coursa’s service many years earlier after a disagreement with his prior laird over the amount he owed in taxes on his modest flock of sheep. He had met one of Sarah’s brothers, who brought him to the forest because Coursa needed a shepherd to keep her growing clan supplied with meat, milk, and other animal products. When Eduard entered his grandmother’s service, he commented disparagingly on the livestock farm and in particular on the order of one the ponds.
Reuben was a proud man and did not appreciate Eduard’s commentary, so he had cuffed Eduard lightly on the ear. Reuben stood a full head taller than Eduard and outweighed him by a least double, so a light cuff from Reuben had been enough to send Eduard tumbling into the pond he had just complained about. When Eduard fell in, he hit the bottom of the pond with the ear that had been struck, filling that ear with mud and dung. It had taken Coursa most of a day to get all the muck out and, between the blow and the packed filth, it took Eduard the better part of a week to regain his equilibrium. So whenever Eduard annoyed Reuben, the big man asked Eduard about his ear.
The story filled the time until they reached the next clearing and its cottage, where another family joined them. They found more cottages and more families. The woods seemed full of people with owlish brown eyes, brilliant white teeth, or the unshakable calm of the rogue matriarch. Would there ever be a clan of people who looked like Jain, she wondered.
Over thirty people had joined the group by the time they reached the top of the hill. A tree with scarred bark grew close to the path and Coursa stopped by it. She put her hand on the trunk and closed her eyes. “My Roger is buried at the foot of this tree, beneath my feet. He was the father of most of my children.”
Sarah and some of the other, older members of Coursa’s clan approached and also set their hands on the tree. The rest stood or milled about in awkward silence. Jain wondered what Coursa was thinking. The old woman stood at the grave of her lover, her husband in all but formal title, while her current lover lay on what might be his deathbed. And now she was going to bury a grandchild. What must it have been like to live so long, to see everyone die and even to outlive the next generation? Coursa had once told Jain that Roger had died in his fortieth year and that he had been older than Coursa. Eduard had said that Coursa was at least sixty and possibly older, much older. That meant that Roger had died at least twenty years prior. He must have been dead now for longer than he and Coursa had been together.
Lost in thought, it took Jain a few moments to notice that Coursa had left the tree and everyone was moving again. The trees here grew tall and strong and very little grew between them. Each of the mighty trees had a scar on its bark. Roger’s had been too faded for Jain to make out but others were more clear: a sword, a hammer, an eagle. Each must have meant something in relation to the person buried by the tree. There were dozens lining the road and more receding to the forest, hundreds in all. Jain realized then that this cemetery did not only belong to Coursa’s family. There must have once been a community of people in these woods who disposed of their dead this way. Jain wondered what had happened to that community. The closest village she knew of was her own and she had never heard of them burying their dead in this way.
A group of men that included Eduard stood around a hole beside a tree marked with a quill and book. Grima’s tied and shrouded body lay on the ground beside them. The funeral procession formed a semicircle around the grave and Coursa stepped forward to stand over her grandson.
“Grima was a strange one,” Coursa said with a smile. “While other children ran and played, he asked questions. He wanted to know everything about everything. He hated distractions. It was his love of learning and focus that made him such a good augur. He was wise in the ways of the gods and he loved all of them. He came into the service of Lord Hadrid and Grima was loyal and loving of his lord. And he remained loyal and loving to his family throughout. It is hard to believe that a man could have loyalties so divided, between rogues and gods and lairds
, and still remain faithful to them all. But Grima did. He never forgot his home. We were blessed to have him.” Coursa stepped aside.
There was a general shuffling of feet and clearing of throats before a cousin of Grima’s stepped forward and launched into a story of their childhood. The cousin, whose name was Lanslow, had wanted to climb a tree and Grima had consented to go with him. Lanslow had known that this was out of character for Grima but had not questioned it. When they had reached the higher branches Grima stopped and made his way out on one of the limbs. A nest was there and on the nest sat a bird about the size of a chicken. It had bright red, green, and blue feathers in a crest on the back of its head. Neither Grima nor Lanslow had ever seen anything like it. Grima had agreed to climb the tree because the strange bird was there and he wanted to study it. He had no more interest in his cousin’s treetop game than the cousin had in the bird.
More stories followed from other relatives. Grima had been neither playful nor especially polite to any of them. For these minor failings he had always displayed an impressive thirst for knowledge and a willingness to share what he learned when needed.
Finally the moment came when no one stepped forward to tell another story and it was time to lower Grima into the ground. Eduard, Lanslow, and two other men grabbed some of the ropes that trailed off the shroud and lifted the body. They arrayed themselves around the grave and began to lower Grima. Coursa and the other relatives began to sing. Jain did not know the song, so she stayed respectfully silent. The song was called “The Lament of the Gods.” It was a song said to have been written by the gods themselves. Dagda, the sun god, rose over the world and panicked when he did not see everyone he had seen the day before. As he ascended the sky he saw that some had died in the night and more people died as the day went on. All this he watched, helpless and grief stricken, until he could bear it no more and he returned, weeping, to his home beyond the horizon. The sky god, Toran watched the world through night and day, witnessing the passing of the people, unable to look away. He expressed his grief and rage at the passing of the people by throwing cold and storms upon the land.
The last verse came from the Morigaine, goddess of the land. She did not mourn the passing of mortal men because she understood that all life must pass. Just as the seasons came and went, so too with the loves of men. Morigaine knew better than any other that part of the cycle of life was death. Even she could not know what lay beyond that far shore but she did know that it was not something to fear, so she did not worry and weep for those went.
As the song continued the men lowered the body into the grave. They timed it perfectly so that the body came to rest at the end of the last verse. A sickly woman with black hair and pale skin walked forward. She wept as she tossed a handful of wildflowers into the grave. “Goodbye, my boy,” she said between sobs.
The family clearly had their own rituals and traditions developed over years, decades, maybe generations. Jain knew that she needed to keep quiet and let them do this. The worst thing she could do would be to act out or draw attention. She knew this, and she rushed forward anyway. Jain wrapped Grima’s mother in a hug. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Jain kept saying over and over. The pale woman hugged her back and they wept together.
A gentle hand fell on each of their shoulders and they looked up into Coursa’s eyes. “Let’s all get back to my cottage. We’ll all have tea and a bit of something to eat.”
The men filled in Grima’s grave while Jain and Grima’s mother wept. The two women walked away, arm in arm. Grima’s mother’s name was Alissa and she was the wife of Alban, a son of Coursa’s who was currently working as a servant to the Council of Lairds in the City of Books. He did not know that his youngest son had died. Their other children had all been at the funeral. Now one of them would have to travel to the city and inform their father.
Sarah, Lanslow, and their children went back to their farm, as did all the other families with children and a few of those without, including Alissa and all but two of her children. Of those who remained, most bore a familial resemblance to Coursa. There was something else about them, something Jain had failed to notice before; they were all armed. None of them spoke and they all moved with purpose.
Coursa set out bread and cheese and put the kettle on when they reached the cottage. “Everyone make yourselves comfortable,” she said. Jain and thirteen of Coursa’s descendants crowded into the main room. Some sat but most remained standing, like soldiers at attention.
“Grima did not die alone,” Coursa said. “Laird Tomkin and his son died yesterday, along with all the men who traveled with them and Airk, the traitor.” A few people looked Jain’s way at this. “You can all thank Jain for the traitor’s death. She ran him through. She also helped fight the laird’s men.”
“Why didn’t you call on us?” one of the men asked.
“There wasn’t time,” Coursa replied. She frowned as she thought about Joff. “It’s done. Now we have to deal with the consequences. A laird has died. We have to assume that he told people where he was going. They will be coming.”
“They, who?” someone asked.
“The lairds,” Coursa explained. “We’ve killed one of them. They’ll be coming for us now. They have only ever been united by foreign invasion and peasant rebellion.” The kettle began to whistle. A blue-eyed women with a graceful, slender form like Coursa’s took the kettle and started pouring for those who wanted it. “Thank you, dear,” said Coursa. “Now, we have to stop them before they organize. Eduard, you and Eli will travel to the City of Books. You will inform Alban of his son’s fate and you will give him this.” The vial seemed to appear in Coursa’s hand. Everyone in the room had seen the trick before so none of them reacted. “Be careful with that. There’s enough voraxa poison in there to kill everyone in this room and a few more. When the council is called I want Alban to put that in their wine. Then I want him to make his way back here. The poison will take a few days to act, so he should be able to get away without suspicion if he is quick and careful.”
Eduard took the vial and slipped it into one of his pockets. “We’ll go in the morning.”
Coursa proceeded to give out more assignments. A father and son team were given the two crossbows and assigned to haunt the woods where another laird liked to hunt. A mother and son got the job of traveling to another shire where one of Coursa’s children worked as a groom in the laird’s stable. A few leaves from the right plant slipped into the feed of the laird’s prized horse would turn the magnificent yet docile gelding in a bucking, kicking monster when the laird tried to ride him. And so it went. Every laird in The Holdings would suffer at least one attempt on his life. The very fortunate ones needed only to avoid the wine in the City of Books. Tomkin’s closest allies would each have to avoid at least two attempts.
Numbers had never been a friend to Jain, but she reckoned that if half the assassination attempts were successful then The Holdings would lose enough of its lairds to ensure years of chaos. Some of the lairds had no heirs. Some of the assassination plots would also reach the heirs of those who had them, and even if heirs survived there would be inevitable disputes involving regencies for the very young and brothers’ wars between claimants. All of Tomkin’s advances toward uniting the country under one king would be wiped away at a stroke. Given her own experience with Tomkin, Jain did not think that was such a bad thing.
“What about me?” Jain asked when she realized that she had not received an assignment.
“I need you to stay with me and Joff,” Coursa said. She sighed. “Some of Tomkin’s men may come looking for him. I would rather it not be just me and Joff if that happens. You don’t know my family or our hideouts.”
“Are you sure you trust her?” one of the grandchildren asked. “She is the one who brought the traitor.”
“And the one who killed him,” Coursa replied before Jain could so much as look su
llen. “Come on dear. Let’s get back to your cottage and check on Joff.”
The shadows of early evening lay long and dark across the path as Coursa and Jain walked. Questions filled Jain’s mind, but she asked none of them.
“Awfully quiet tonight, dear. What’s on your mind?” Coursa smiled her strangely unsettling smile.
“Coursa,” Jain began. She stopped and hesitated for a moment. “Coursa, how long have you been planning this?”
Coursa’s smile widened. Her faced seemed made of massive brown eyes and brilliant white teeth. The effect was alluring and repulsive all at once. The eyes were warm and inviting, but they knew too much. The teeth shone like the dawn, but they were sharp and strong. “I figured it all out today. Not bad for short notice.”
Jain stopped. Coursa took another step and turned to face her. “No,” Jain said. “You have people in all the right places. You have a way to kill all of them at once. You have ways into all of their castles, ways to get to all of them. You sent your children and your grandchildren to work in those castles. How long, Coursa?”
Coursa smoothed her skirts and sat down on a tree stump next to the path. “All my life. I did not kill Tomkin’s grandfather. I should have. He hunted me for years.” Coursa looked off down the path. In that moment Jain would have believed that Coursa had gone senile, so distant was the look in the old woman’s eyes. “Torlain was his name, Tomkin’s grandfather. My Roger was a servant at the castle. I didn’t know that when we met. I didn’t even think of it. He would come to the forest when he could get away and we would spend the day together.” She wiped away a tear. “I didn’t tell him about the price on my head, but he found out.”
As Jain knelt, she took Coursa’s hand in her own. “What happened?”
“Roger poisoned Torlain’s food. When Torlain died, his grudge died with him. No one knew who poisoned Torlain, so Roger kept working at the castle. Through the years I always knew where to find things and if the laird’s men were after me, because he knew. He managed to get one of our children into service there. I always knew what was happening. I always had a plan for if the laird got too close. So I just kept sending my children places, setting them up in trades and places where they would find things out.”
“How long?” Jain asked.
Coursa shrugged. “Forty years.”
Forty years! The old woman had plotted the downfall of the entire social order for forty years. That was more than twice as long as Jain had been alive. Lairds squabbled over inches of land and titles no one cared about. And while they had squabbled, Coursa had plotted. It had nearly come undone at the cottage. If that battle had gone differently . . . “Coursa,” Jain said.
Coursa’s eyes found Jain’s, and the smile returned, fiercer then ever. “Yes, dear.”
“What would have happened if we had lost to Tomkin yesterday?”
“Clever girl. I’m sure you can figure it out.” She pulled away from Jain and stood up. “Now come along. I want to see how Joff’s doing.”
“I do, too,” Jain replied. “He seems to be the one thing you didn’t plan on.”
Coursa stopped and whirled so fast that Jain stepped back in fear. But Coursa was not angry. Her eyes fairly glowed and she inclined her head in something that was almost a bow. “You see more than most, my dear. It’s good to see my influence has not gone to waste.”
Voices emanated from the cottage as Jain and Coursa approached. “It’s amazing what you learn about medicine just by listening to people,” Medea was saying.
“Yes,” Joff agreed in a weary voice. “But I prefer . . .”
“Like when I was pregnant, I learned from my sister that you can prevent rickets by putting iron around a baby’s crib.”
“Actually, if a child is nursed by . . .”
“Oh, yes the nursing is important,” Medea interrupted. “But we must remember to do everything.”
“The best thing is to . . .”
“Hang garlic nearby. That’s what my cousin told me. She’s the best midwife in her shire. She hardly ever loses mothers or babies.”
“Well, I never read anything about garlic,” Joff began diplomatically. “But I have read . . .”
“Well, my cousin would know,” Medea chattered over him.
Jain and Coursa stopped outside the cottage to listen to the conversation, or rather to Medea’s monologue since Joff’s contributions did not seem to mean much. Coursa looked at Jain and grinned. “Poor man,” Jain whispered. “He’s so beaten.”
“He is that.”
Jain’s eyes narrowed. “Do you like that about him?”
“That’s what I like least about him,” Coursa replied, a note of distaste in her voice. Her expression softened and she chuckled softly. “Although I don’t know how he would deal with me if he were otherwise.”
“Shall we go and rescue him?”
“Let’s do.”
They walked in on Medea in the middle of a rambling discourse on . . . something. The topic had shifted from rickets to some other ailment. When she saw them walk in, Medea smiled. “Hello. We’ve had the loveliest conversation.” She launched into a recounting of the topics they had been discussing.
Joff gave them such a look of wide eyed panic that Jain had to feign a coughing fit to keep from laughing.
“Thank you for looking after him,” Coursa said as she gently but firmly took Medea by the arm and started walking her to the door.
“Oh it was nothing,” Medea said. Jain picked up Medea’s bag and handed it to her. “He reads a lot. He knows about all kinds of things.” Medea continued to talk as Coursa all but shoved her through the door and bade her goodnight.
“That was impressive,” Jain said as she took a seat by the fire. “I was afraid she’d stay the night.”
“We had that in common,” Joff said grimly. “I pretended to sleep for a while. Then I had to use the privy.”
Coursa whirled on him. “You got up and went to the privy?”
He shook his head. “She knew about that, thank you very much, so she brought the bucket. For a while I told her I needed to go back to sleep, but that didn’t shut her up.” He moved over slightly to let Coursa sit on the edge of the bed.
“How are you feeling?” Coursa asked as she put a hand on his cheek. “It sounds like you aren’t as tired as you have been.”
“Better. It’s not so hard to stay awake now.”
“We should clean you up,” Coursa said. “You’re starting to smell.” Coursa turned away from the bed. “Jain, would you heat up a bucket of water?”
“There is a tub out back,” Jain said. “It might be easier to bathe him in the morning.”
“Most likely,” Coursa agreed. “But I don’t know if he’ll be ready to walk and I need to clean him up. He could also do with a change of clothes.”
“Some of Airk’s old clothes will be the trunk,” Jain said. “They’ll be big on Joff but I imagine they’ll do. I’ll go and get some water.”
When she had gone, Joff smiled. “Alone at last, eh?”
“Don’t get any ideas. Your heart is still too weak. Now take off your clothes.”
A broad smile spread across Joff’s face. Coursa shook her head and helped him take of his shirt. His pants, trousers, and the shorts he wore under his trousers had all been soaked with sweat the day before and now the odor made Coursa wince. She folded the clothes and set them just outside the door. Joff pulled the blanket back over himself as Jain walked in.
“Don’t be bashful,” Coursa said. “I’ll need Jain to put down a different sheet while I wash you.”
“It’s okay,” Jain said in a soothing tone. She set the bucket down next to the bed and went to get a rag for washing and a bigger rag for drying. “I know what a man looks like.”
Joff pushed the covers aside and swung his legs off the bed. A few moments passed before he pushed himself up. Coursa gra
bbed him and pulled him to an upright position.
“Are you alright?” Coursa asked.
He smiled and glanced down.
Her eyes involuntarily followed his. “Oh. I’d say you’re better than alright.” She let him go and took the rag. No one spoke wile Coursa washed him, except when she asked him to turn around so she could wash his back. Jain focused on the bed sheets. Coursa had been right: everything smelled horrible. Even the straw mattress could have done with some airing out or even changing, but there was no time for all that. She put a clean sheet over the mattress and clean blankets on the side where Joff could easily reach them.
When Coursa had finished washing him, Joff sunk back to the bed, his eyes glazed with exhaustion. Course put her had on Joff’s chest and he groaned, with pain or pleasure was hard to tell.
“Joff, your heartbeat is wild.”
“Tired. Better than I was.” Fatigue weighed heavily in his voice.
Jain took one of the blankets and covered him with it.
“Joff, I need you to draw the sword. I’m afraid you’ll die.”
“I just want to sleep,” Joff replied. “I’ll be better in the morning.”
“Joff,” Coursa said, but he was already asleep.
“What do you think?” Jain asked from the other side of the bed.
“He’s getting stronger,” Coursa replied in a tone that betrayed no optimism.
“But?”
A sigh deflated Coursa’s whole body. “It’s not happening fast enough. The herbs are helping, but his heart’s been beating too fast for almost two days and it was weak to start.” Her voice trembled on the last few words.
Some of Joff’s pale hair had fallen across his pale face. Jain reached over and smoothed it away. “He’s so thin, so pale. It’s like there’s not enough of him.” It was true. Joff looked like nothing so much as a drawing with none of the details fleshed out or filled in.
“I need for you to promise me something,” Coursa said. When Jain nodded, Coursa said, “I am old. If Joff recovers from this, there’s a good chance he’ll outlive me. I need for you to take care of him.”
Jain looked at the wisp of a man on the bed. He had lived on his own for some time but from what Jain understood it had not been much of a life. Mostly he had just tried to eke out enough of a living writing translations to hire other people to take care of him. No one knew the details of what Airk had told Tomkin or what Tomkin had passed along to anyone else. It was entirely possible that Joff’s recent role in Coursa’s organization was known. If that was the case then a return to the City of Books would mean a trip to an augur’s stone sacrifice table. Feeble as Joff’s blood was, it was bound to be pleasing to one or another of the gods.
“I’m not asking you to take him to your bed,” Coursa said. “I wouldn’t begrudge you that. Some of the things he’s read . . .” Coursa grinned at Jain’s expression. “Anyway. I need to know that he’ll be taken care of.”
The illness wracking Joff’s body would kill him within another day or two. If he did somehow live through it, then Coursa still showed no signs of frailty or illness, so she would probably live a long time. If Joff did survive and Coursa did die then the arrangement would leave Jain with the best translator in The Holdings. “I’ll look after him,” Jain said. “But I’d rather not have to. Is something wrong, Coursa?”
“I’ve been feeling my age more than usual.” She smiled weakly. It was not her terrifying grin, just the wan smile of an old woman who has had too much excitement. “Get some rest dear. I’ll take the first watch.”