Page 23 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

“What’s the matter with you?” railed Liir, when the Scarecrow had let him go.

“What’s the matter with you?” said the Scarecrow. “I’m trying to keep a low profile in order to help you, and you have to go and signal the heads of state and alert them about it?”

“I didn’t signal her!”

“Well, she must have a sixth sense then, for she turned, and she saw you.”

“She doesn’t know who I am. She doesn’t know I exist!”

“And let’s keep it that way.”

2

THE ANIMOSITY THAT OBTAINED between Sisters Doctor and Apothecaire subsided once dusk fell on their first evening away from the Mauntery of Saint Glinda. The women erected the frame of thin skark ribs and fixed the waterproof awning to it. Then they huddled together under a blanket. When the wolves of the oakhair forest howled their midnight requiem, the Sisters mangled their devotions into such a gabble of syllables and sobs that, had the Unnamed God been condescending to listen, it could only have concluded that its two emissaries were afflicted with sudden-onset glossolalia.

“The Superior Maunt thought it safe to send us out on an exploratory mission even though the faces of those three young missionaries had so recently been scraped,” said Sister Apothecaire the following morning, which dawned damp and windless. “I trust her in every particular,” she added fiercely, unconvincingly.

“Our charge is clear,” said Sister Doctor, “safety or no. We are to make an effort to address the tribal Scrow, if we can locate them, and certainly the Yunamata. We must enquire about the disaster that struck those missionaries. With the conviction of our faith in the Unnamed God, no harm will befall us.”

“Do you propose the missionaries were in greater danger because their faith was weak?” asked Sister Apothecaire.

Sister Doctor’s lips became thinner as she folded the awning away. “Cowardice, said the Superior Maunt, will not serve us in this task.”

Sister Apothecaire relented. “Cowardice is a dubious attribute. Yet I possess it in spades, so I hope on this venture to learn how to use it to my advantage if I must. All gifts come from the Unnamed God, including cowardice, and self-repugnance.”

The mules dropped their heavy hoofs on the path, picking a way between ranks of thin trees with branches nearly empty of leaves. Little cover.

“Perhaps,” said Sister Doctor, “the Superior Maunt sent us out because we would be better able to tend to each other, medically, were we attacked.”

“If we survived. Well, I’ve no doubt that our skills here in the wilderness will prove useful. After all, I do speak a dialect of West Yumish.”

“When you’ve had a bit too much seasonal sherry.”

They laughed at that and proceeded in companionable silence until Sister Apothecaire couldn’t stand it. “Now Liir is Candle’s responsibility. Funny little thing. What can she bring to Liir that we can’t?”

“Don’t be stupid. She can bring youth and charm, if she can get his attention. She can give him a reason to survive. This is something neither you nor I could do. If he opened up his eyes after a long coma and saw either of us right off, he’d probably kick the bucket in a nonce.”

Sister Apothecaire did not murmur assent. She was rather proud of her looks. Well, her face, anyway; her figure was regrettably lumpy. “Perhaps,” she said distractingly, “Candle has a natural talent that the Superior Maunt can sense.”

“What sort of talent?” Sister Doctor shifted in her saddle and turned to peer at her colleague. “You don’t mean a talent for magic? That’s distinctly forbidden in the order.”

“Come come. You know perfectly well we resort to it when we must. Not that we’re very good at it. I need hard

ly remind you that these are dangerous times. Perhaps the Superior Maunt thinks that in the rehabilitation of the boy, such a talent is called for.”

By the straightening of her spine Sister Doctor signaled that she did not intend to second-guess the Superior Maunt’s motives. Sister Apothecaire regretted having brought it up. “Well,” she continued, falsely jolly, “I don’t have much of a sense of Candle one way or the other. If she’s got common magic or common sense, it’s news to me either way.”

“She certainly has no talent for music.” Sister Doctor sniffed. “I do remember the day she arrived, though. I happened to be suturing one of the novices in the kitchen. I turned to ask kindly for water, and there was that Candle, her rickety domingon slung over one shoulder like a crossbow. Mad old Mother Yackle had her by the hand, as if she’d just created her out of calves’ foot jelly. ‘The gypsy Quadling, her uncle leaves her to us,’ said Mother Yackle.”

“Mother Yackle doesn’t speak and hasn’t in years.”

“That’s why I remember the event so distinctly.”

“Did you see the Quadling uncle?”

“I went to the window, and he was making his way rather hurriedly through the kitchen garden. I called out to him, for there are procedures for the introduction of a novice, and this wasn’t one of them. But he wouldn’t be stopped, merely called over his shoulder that he would be back in a year if he was still alive. It’s rare to see Quadlings this far north these days. I imagine the poor girl is quite lonely.”

“Well, yes. No one speaks Quaddle.”

---