Leesha turned to him suddenly, and Rojer started, quickly raising his eyes.
“Thanks again for doing this, Rojer,” Leesha said.
As if Rojer could refuse Leesha anything. “It’s hardly a chore to sit through a meal, even if your mother’s cooking could try a coreling’s teeth,” he said.
“For you, maybe,” Leesha said. “If I show up alone, she ’ll plague me until I’m ready to spit over when I’m going to find a husband. With you there, she may at least cover her fangs. Perhaps she ’ll even take us for a pair and draw off entirely.”
Rojer looked at her, his heart stopping. He slipped into his Jongleur’s mask, face and voice betraying not a bit of what he was feeling, and asked, “You wouldn’t mind your mother thinking us a pair?”
Leesha laughed. “I’d love it. Most of the town would accept it, too. Only you and Arlen and I would know how ridiculous it is.”
Rojer felt like she had slapped him, but his heart resumed beating, and with his mask in place Leesha noticed nothing.
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” Rojer said, changing the subject.
“Arlen?” Leesha asked, and Rojer winced. “Arlen! Arlen! Arlen!” she said, laughing. “It’s just his name, Rojer. I’m not going to pretend he doesn’t have one, however mysterious he wants to seem.”
“I say let him seem as he likes,” Rojer said. “Arrick always said, if you rehearse an act you never mean the audience to see, sooner or later they’ll see it. All you need is one slip, and his name will be on every lip in town.”
“So what if it is?” Leesha asked. “The ‘Painted Man’ isn’t comfortable in town because folk treat him differently. Admitting he has a name might go a ways toward fixing that.”
“You don’t know what he’s left behind him,” Rojer said. “Could be some folk might get hurt if his name got out, or others might come hunting him with some account to settle. I know what it’s like to live like that, Leesha. The Painted Man saved my life, and if he doesn’t want his name out, I mean to forget I know it, even if it means giving up the song of the century.”
“You can’t just forget things you’ve learned,” Leesha said.
“Not all of us have as much space upstairs as you,” Rojer said, tapping his temple. “Some of us fill right up, and forget the old things we have no use for.”
“That’s nonsense,” Leesha said. Rojer shrugged.
“Anyway, thank you again,” Leesha said. “I’ve no end of men volunteering to stand in front of demons for me, but not one who’ll stand in front of my mother.”
“Reckon Gared Cutter would do both,” Rojer said.
Leesha snorted. “He’s as much my mother’s creature as any. Gared destroyed my life, and she wants me to forgive him and make him babies still, as if him taking so well to demon killing somehow makes him a catch worth having. She’s nothing but a manipulative witch, poisoning everyone around her.”
“Bah!” Rojer said. “She’s not so bad. Understand her, and you can play her like a fiddle.”
“You’re underestimating her,” Leesha said. “Men see her beauty and refuse to look past it. You may think it’s you doing the charming, but in truth she’ll be seducing you like she does every man, turning them against me.”
“That’s tampweed talk,” Rojer said. “Elona isn’t some corespawned genius bent on destroying your life.”
“You just don’t know her well enough,” Leesha said.
Rojer shook his head. “Arrick taught me all about women, and he said the ones like your mum, who were really beautiful once but are starting to show their age, are all the same. Elona was always the center of attention when she was young, and that’s the only way she knows how to interact with the world. You and your father have long conversations about warding that she’s no part of, and it makes her starve to be noticed, any way she can. Make her think she’s the center of attention, even if she’s not, and she’ll eat out of your hand.”
Leesha looked at him a moment, then barked a laugh. “Your master didn’t know a thing about women.”
“He sure seemed to,” Rojer replied, “considering how adept he was at bedding them.”
Leesha raised an eyebrow at him. “And how many has his apprentice bedded using these brilliant techniques?”
Rojer smiled. “Kissing tales aren’t the kind I spin, but a Milnese sun says they work on your mum.”
“Taken,” Leesha said.
“So the merchant tells Arrick, ‘I paid you to teach my wife to dance!’ ” Rojer said, “and Arrick, calm as dawn, looks at him and says, ‘I did. Ent my fault she preferred to do it lying down.’ ”
Elona burst out laughing, sloshing wine from her cup as she banged it on the table. Rojer joined her, and they clapped their cups together and drank.
Leesha scowled at them from the other end of the table where she and her father were talking. She honestly didn’t know which she dreaded more: winning the bet with Rojer, or losing it. Perhaps bringing him was a bad idea. The bawdy stories were bad enough, but worse was the way Rojer’s eyes kept flicking to her mother’s cleavage, though she could hardly blame him, the way Elona had it on display.
The plates had long since been cleared. Erny sat leafing through the book Leesha had brought him, his eyes tiny behind the thin, wire-framed glasses that never seemed to leave the edge of his nose. Finally, he grunted and set it aside for later, gesturing at the stack of bound leather books in front of Leesha.
“Only had time to make a few more,” he said. “You fill them faster than I can bind.”
“Blame my apprentices,” Leesha said, fetching the teakettle from the fire. “They make three copies for every book I fill.”
“Still,” Erny said. “I only had one grimoire of wards my entire life, and never filled it. How many is this you’ve made now? A dozen?”
“Seventeen,” Leesha said, “but it’s as much demonology as wards, and more comes from the Painted Man than me. Just copying the wards on his skin filled several books.”
“Oh?” Elona asked, looking up. “And how much of his skin have you seen?”
“Mother!” Leesha cried.
“Creator knows, I’m not judging,” Elona said. “You could do worse than bear the Deliverer’s child, even if he’s a horror to look at. But you’d best get to it, if that’s your plan. Plenty younger and more fertile than you will soon be vying for the privilege.”
“He’s not the Deliverer, Mum,” Leesha said.
“That’s not how everyone else tells,” Elona said. “Even Gared worships him.”
“Oh, and if Gared Cutter thinks something, it mustbe right,” Leesha said rolling her eyes.
Rojer whispered something in Elona’s ear, and she laughed again, turning her attention back to him. Leesha blew out a sigh of relief.
“Speaking of the Painted Man,” Erny said, “where has he got off to? Smitt tells me another Messenger’s come from the duke, summoning him to an audience, but again he’s nowhere to be found on Messenger day.”
Leesha shrugged. “I doubt he much cares about an audience with the duke. He doesn’t consider himself one of Rhinebeck’s subjects.”
“You’d best tell him to think twice,” Erny said. “The Hollow isn’t producing wood like it should, and Rhinebeck is getting angry. Ignoring Messengers may hold him off now, while the road is choked with snow and he can’t send a sizable force, but come spring melt the duke will want answers, and assurance that Deliverer’s Hollow remains loyal.”
“Does it?” Rojer asked, looking up. “If the Painted Man sets himself at odds with Rhinebeck, the Hollow would likely flock to his banner in an instant.”
“Yes,” Erny agreed. “Other hamlets, as well, and probably a great many folk in Fort Angiers itself. The Painted Man could start a civil war with a word, which is why it’s all the more important he declare his intentions before Rhinebeck does something rash.”
Leesha nodded. “I’ll talk to him. I have unfinished business in Angiers, myself.”
“The only unfinished business you have is under your skirts,” Elona muttered. Rojer choked and wine spilled from his nose. Elona smiled smugly as she sipped from her cup.
“At least I can keep mine around my ankles!” Leesha snapped.
“Don’t you take that tone with me,” Elona said. “I may not know anything about politics or demonology, but I know you’re a winter away from becoming a spinster crone, and no matter how many corelings you leave dead behind you, you’ll still go to your grave regretting not having addedlife to the world.”
“I’m the town Herb Gatherer,” Leesha said. “Saving those who would have otherwise died doesn’t count as adding life to the world?”
“Vika saves lives,” Elona said, referring to one of Leesha’s fellow Gatherers. “Din’t stop her raising a brood for Tender Jona. Midwife Darsy’d do the same in an instant, if she could find a man able to close his eyes and stiffen long enough to put a child in her homely womb.”
“Darsy’s done more for this town than you ever will, Mother,” Leesha said. She and Darsy, both former apprentices of Hag Bruna, had been at odds once, but no longer. Darsy was now Leesha’s most devoted student, if not her best.
“Nonsense,” Elona said. “I did my duty, and gave the town you. You may be ungrateful for it, but I think the Hollow benefits well enough for my troubles.”
Leesha scowled.
“Any fool watching you and the Painted Man together can tell there’s been something between you,” Elona pressed, “and that it’s not to either of your satisfaction. Did he fail abed?” she asked. “Darsy gives me herbs for your father when he—”
“That’s ridiculous!” Rojer cried as Erny flushed red. “Leesha would never—”
Elona cut him off with a snort. “Well she sure ent going with you. It’s plain as day you got the eye for her, but you ent good enough, fiddle boy, and you know it.” Rojer’s face turned beet red. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“You’ve got no right to talk to him like that, Mother,” Leesha said. “You don’t know—”
“Always what I don’t know!” Elona barked. “Like your poor mum is too dim to see the sun shining in her face!” She gulped her wine, and her face took on a cruel cast Leesha knew well, and feared.
“Like I know the boy’s song about how the Painted Man found you after you was left for dead by bandits on the road,” Elona said. “And I know how men treat women like us, when there ent no one to stop them.”
“Mother,” Leesha warned, her voice hardening.
“Not how I’d wanted you to lose your flower,” Elona said, “but it was time it was done somehow, and I expect you’re the better for it.”
Leesha slapped her hand down on the table, glaring. “Get your cloak, Rojer,” she said. “It’s getting dark, and we’re safer out among the demons.” She shoved the blank books into her satchel and set it over her shoulder as she snatched her richly embroidered cloak from the peg by the door and threw it about her shoulders, clasping it at her throat with a silver ward pin.
Erny came over, hands spread in apology. Leesha embraced him as Rojer put on his cloak. Elona stayed at the table with the wine.
“I really wish you wouldn’t walk around after dark, magic cloak or no,” Erny said. “We can’t exactly replace you.”
“Rojer has his fiddle,” Leesha said, “and I have more tricks than wards of unsight, if a coreling were to somehow find us. We ’re quite safe.”
“You can witch all the Core to your bidding, but not a simple man,” Elona sneered into her glass.
Leesha ignored her, putting up her hood and stepping out into the dusk.
“Now do you believe me?” she asked Rojer as the door closed behind them.
“Seems I owe you a sun,” Rojer admitted.
The snow crunched under Leesha’s booted feet as she and Rojer headed to the village proper. Their breath fogged in the crisp winter air, but their cloaks were lined with fur and kept them warm enough.
Rojer hadn’t said a word since Elona’s comment. His head was down, face buried under long locks of red hair. His fiddle was tucked in its case, slung beneath his motley cloak, but she could tell from the way his fingers flexed that he longed to hold it. He always played the fiddle when he was upset.
Leesha knew Rojer shined on her. Most everyone knew, really. Half the women in town thought she was mad for not snatching him up. And why not? Rojer had a boyishly pretty face and a quick wit. His music was beautiful beyond words, and he could bring a laugh from Leesha when she was at her lowest. He’d shown more than once that he was willing to die for her.
But try as she might, Leesha could not bring herself to see him as a lover. Rojer had barely seen eighteen winters, a full ten years younger than her, and he was her friend. In many ways, Rojer was her only friend. The only person she trusted. He was the little brother she’d never had. She didn’t want to hurt him.
“Your apprentice Kendall saw me the other day,” Leesha said. “Pretty girl.”
Rojer nodded. “My best student, too.”
“She asked if I knew how to brew a love potion,” Leesha said.
“Ha!” Rojer barked. Then he stopped short and looked at her. “Wait, can you?”
Leesha laughed. “Of course not. But the girl doesn’t need to know that. I gave her a tincture of sweet tea instead and told her to share it with her would-be love. Watch out if she offers you tea, or you might be in for a night of kissing.”
Rojer shook his head. “Never stick your apprentice.”
“Another of Master Arrick’s brilliant maxims?” Leesha quipped.
Rojer nodded. “And one I’m happy to report he practiced as well as preached. I knew other apprentices in the guild who weren’t so lucky.”
“This hardly compares,” Leesha said. “Kendall’s nearly as old as you are, and she’s the one buying love potions.”
Rojer shrugged and put his hood up, pulling the edges of his motley cloak together to strengthen the wardnet. The last of the light had faded, and all around them misty forms were rising from the snow, solidifying into corelings that hissed and cast about, scenting them in the air but unable to find them.
Erny had set his house away from the village so that he would not have to endure complaints about the smell of his papermaking chemicals, but that distance also put it outside the great ward of forbidding that protected the village proper.
A wood demon wandered into Rojer’s path, sniffing the air. Rojer froze, not daring to move as it searched. There was a sharp movement under the cloak, and she knew one of the warded throwing knives he kept strapped to his wrists had fallen into the palm of his good hand.
“Just walk around it, Rojer,” Leesha said, continuing down the path. “It can’t see or hear you.” Rojer tiptoed around the demon, twirling the knife nervously in his fingers. He had grown up juggling blades and could put one into a coreling’s eye at twenty paces.
“It’s just unnatural,” Rojer said, “walking plain as day through hordes of corelings.”
“How many times must we do it before you tire of saying that?” Leesha sighed. “The cloaks are safe as houses.” The Cloaks of Unsight were her own invention, based on wards of confusion the Painted Man had taught her. Leesha had modified the wards and embroidered them with gold thread into a fine cloak. Demons ignored her when she wore it, even if she walked right up to them, so long as she moved at a slow, steady pace and kept it wrapped around her.
She’d made Rojer’s cloak next, embroidering the wards in bright colors to match his Jongleur’s motley, and she was pleased to see that he seldom removed it, even in daylight. The Painted Man never seemed to wear the one she had made for him.
“Nothing against your wards, but I don’t think I ever will,” Rojer said.
“I trust your fiddle magic to keep me safe,” Leesha said. “Why don’t you trust mine?”
“I’m out here in the dark, aren’t I?” Rojer asked, fingering his cloak. “It’s just eerie. I
hate to say it, but your mother wasn’t far off the mark when she called you a witch.”
Leesha glared at him.
“A Ward Witch, at least,” Rojer clarified.
“They used to call Herb Gathering witching, too,” Leesha said. “I’m just warding, same as anyone.”
“You’re not the same as anyone, Leesha,” Rojer said. “A year ago, you couldn’t ward a windowsill, and now the Painted Man himself takes lessons from you.”
Leesha snorted. “Hardly.”
“See the light,” Rojer said. “You argue his own wards with him all the time.”
“Arlen is still thrice the Warder I am,” Leesha said. “It’s just…it’s hard to explain, but after looking at enough wards, the patterns started…speaking to me. I can look at a new ward and just by studying the lines of power, guess its purpose more often than not. Sometimes I can even change the lines to alter the effects. I’ve been trying to teach the knack to others, but none seems to get past rote.”
“That’s what fiddling’s like for me,” Rojer said. “The music speaks to me. I can teach my apprentices to play songs well enough, but you don’t play ‘The Battle of Cutter’s Hollow’ for the corelings to pacify them. You have to…massage their mood.”
“I wish someone could massage my mother’s mood,” Leesha muttered.
“About time,” Rojer said.
“Ay?” Leesha asked.
“We’ll be in town soon,” Rojer said. “The sooner we talk about your mum, the sooner we’ll be done talking about it, and can get on with our business there.”
Leesha stopped short and looked at him. “What would I do without you, Rojer? You’re my best friend in the world.” She put just the right emphasis on the word friend.
Rojer shifted awkwardly, walking on. “I just know how she gets to you.”
Leesha hurried after. “I hate to think my mum could be right about anything…”
“But she often is,” Rojer said. “She sees the world with cold clarity.”
“Heartless clarity is more like it,” Leesha said.