Page 6 of The Iron Dagger
She saw more details than she had let on, and it must have shown in his expression. Angharad shrugged.
“That wasn’t even divination, just guesswork.” Angharad took a large bite of her own bread. “There’s a newcomer to our village who came from nobility—the bard’s wife, Alexandra. Her husband was frantic trying to find her a few days past. I’ve taught her a little herblore, and all the pieces fit.”
He should have foreseen that the other residents of Little Snail would have taken note of a noble lady living in their midst, but another detail jumped out at him.
“Youtaught her?” burst Gideon, his soreness over his own failed scheme getting the better of him. “If you call yourself a healer, why are you teaching people how to poison?”
“Because every now and then an act of evil can be used for good. If you hadn’t abducted her, she wouldn’t have poisoned you. One could argue she was just restoring balance.”
He glared at her. He was the first to admit that he had a limited moral code and did not feel remorse about using people for his own gain. But it irritated him when people who painted themselves as pillars of virtue and honor went against them. He could not abide hypocrisy.
“I don’t think you could call yourself a white witch. Murky gray at best.”
To his annoyance, she seemed to seriously consider his barb as though it were a thoughtful observation.
“You’re probably correct. As much as I say I practice white magic, deep down, I like a bit of revenge. Justice is the noble word for it, but I don’t mind a touch of violence when it’s deserved.” She leveled him with a penetrating gaze.“Youdeserved it.”
Gideon felt himself rising to her bait, the vicious retort already forming on his lips, but he stopped. It did not serve him to waste energy arguing with her. He did not know why he should care about this stranger’s judgment, so he put it aside.
“Where is the necessary?” He’d be damned before he let her change his soiled bedclothes again.
Angharad showed him the little hut near the creek and gave him a knobbled stick to use under his arm as a support. She tried insisting that he bundle himself in shawls, but he just tugged his cloak from the drying line and wrapped it about hisshoulders. When he stepped outside, the bitter wind cut through the fur-lined robe like it was gossamer. He wrapped it around himself tightly, tottering painfully on the stick along the path she had made through the snow.
When he returned, he found that she had changed into a shift and was dipping her loose hair into a basin of water. The woman really had no sense of modesty at all, but then Gideon decided that it did not matter. Until he gained enough strength to leave, she was a convenience. She was a means to an end. From now on, nothing she did, no matter how outlandish or overly familiar, was his concern. He would not allow her that much power. She could dance naked in the moonlight and he would find it none of his business.
She glanced at him as he came in, but did not say a word.
Unclasping the cloak from his shoulders, he crawled back into the warmth of the bed. Despite his best efforts to keep his sojourn outdoors brief, he was wracked with chills again. Secretly he wished he had another cup of the bitter medicinal tea, but he stayed silent. He stared up at the twisting tendrils of green above, but the gentle sloshing of water in the basin was far more interesting, and his eyes surreptitiously drifted to the right.
Angharad scrubbed soap through her hair, bending over the basin and standing in such a way that the firelight silhouetted her body through the fabric of her shift. He tore his gaze from the way her waist flared into the suggestion of round hips and long legs, concentrating instead on her hands.
Her movements were methodical and thorough, and he watched as she poured clean water through her hair to rinse it. A wave of wet fragrance washed over him, that warm herbal scent from earlier. She wrung out her hair, and then she sat upon a nest of quilts by the hearth and began to comb through her wet locks.
It was hypnotic. He stared at her fingers as they snagged in a knot, felt the tension as she worked through it with the comb, and then the release as it smoothed. The cat sat by her side, its eyes closed and its paws tucked under its body, making it look like a charred loaf of bread.
When her hair was smooth, she began to twist it into two braids down her back. Then she blew out her candle and settled down into her makeshift bed. Gideon felt a twinge of self-consciousness, and briefly wondered if he should offer to take the floor instead, but then he closed his eyes and set his jaw. She made the choice to put him here, so here he would stay.
TWO
Angharad
Living with the man while he was awake was a rather jarring experience.
She had lived alone for more than a decade, ever since her aunt passed away from a seizure of the heart. Aunt Merowyn had been a great healer, and had sheltered Hara after her escape from Montag as a child. Merowyn’s brusque manner was so different from Hara’s own gentle mother, with few sweet words to spare for the foundling child. The year after Hara’s escape had been dark, and she was often sullen and meek, homesick for her mother and unwilling to learn Merowyn’s brand of healing magic.
She found Merowyn’s practice of herblore to be a low and dull use of magic. Anyone, witch or common folk, could pick herbs and learn to mix powders and potions. Hara was accustomed to sharp pens and smooth vellum, spending hours in her tutor’s solar working on formulas and reading magical theory.
Life in the cottage was less structured.
Hara whined when Merowyn would rouse her to pick certain herbs at all hours of the night, and she rolled her eyes when Merowyn would whisper thanks to the twigs and leaves.
Then she began to see them work. They caused fevers to break and babies to recover from croups. Wounds healed without scars and pain melted away.
Over time, she and her aunt grew a mutual understanding of each other, and while Hara did not havea calling towards healing the way Merowyn did, Hara’s compassion grew under her aunt’s tutelage.
When Merowyn passed away, the entire village attended her funeral pyre to pay their respects for her healing services, and Hara finally understood the importance of her aunt’s work. Though healing did not come naturally to Hara, she felt honor bound to keep her aunt’s memory alive, and so she continued to offer remedies to the village. It was the best way she knew to honor the woman who had sheltered her and healed so many.
Hara was accustomed to doing her spellwork in peace, but Gideon’s cold gaze never seemed to leave her as she performed her most innocent of rituals. It created a tense energy that she found discomforting in her home. The very air tasted of mistrust and suspicion, but she had to admit, it was not entirely one-sided.
