Page 8 of The Iron Dagger
“What are you doing?” he said, his voice terse.
“I am a healer, and you are hurt.” Her voice was intimate against his neck, a warm thrum he felt in his flesh. She held him for a few long moments, slightly rocking him, and Gideon felt a great tiredness settle over him. Then she began to whisper, and this time, he could hear what she was saying.
“All is part of a cycle. Grief cradles you, loneliness shrouds you. Remember it. All is part of a cycle.”
A weight seemed to be lifted from his heart, the relief so great it was almost physical. How could relief ache so deeply? His shoulders slumped under her touch, and he felt them quiver uncontrollably as hot tears finally seeped from under his burning eyelids. His face crumpled in pain, and her shoulder grew damp.
As soon as he realized this, he mastered himself, blinking them away.
They were nonsense words, trite platitudes. He felt like a colossal fool to let them affect him, even for a moment. He wouldn’t give this witch the satisfaction of wetting her shoulder.
When he pulled away, her eyes were warm. His bitterness abated slightly, and he took steady breaths.
“I know it hurts now. Let it hurt, because it is important. They were important,” she said. “This grief is like your fever. It hurts, but it is serving a purpose.”
“And your mad whispers are the willow-bark tea to my grief?” he said, relieved to hear the convincing scoff in his voice. He did not want her to know her nonsense had almost reached him.
She smiled. “I hope so.”
The woman seemed busy from sunup to sundown. She did the normal chores that he supposed all peasants must do, like drawing water and caring for her animals. But it seemed that she was used to living on her own because she did heavy labor as well. She was able to carry two large buckets back and forth from the well with little difficulty and returned from the woods with game.
She was not completely without help, however.
One day, Gideon glanced outside and watched as a burly man with fair hair cleaved a log with an impressive swing of her ax, then stacked it under her rain shed. The man never came inside the cottage, but when they spoke, Angharad’s face often lifted in a flirtatious grin. Once he playfully twirled the end of her braid, and she laughed and touched the man’s beefy arm.
Well.
He must have some wit about him, despite his simple appearance. Or the witch was easily charmed by the local rubes,which seemed more likely. Gideon turned from the window, slightly annoyed by their laughter.
Since waking in the cottage he’d done an assessment of his missing personal effects, and felt a brief burst of panic when he realized that his folio of reports was missing. Then he spied the leather pouch sitting on a chair. When the witch was out, he hobbled to the chair and snatched it up, rifling through the papers. Luckily they were all accounted for, and they appeared undisturbed.
Gideon fastened the pouch securely around his waist under his clothing. He made it a habit to keep top secret material close to his person while he traveled, and he shuddered to think what would have happened if they had been kept in the saddlebags of his wandering mount. In the wrong hands, they would prove to be disastrous.
Some days, Angharad spent long hours outdoors; doing what, he did not know. Probably embracing trees and whispering spells against the bark. She would come back with a dreamy calmness about her, which he found eerie. He had never met someone so utterly serene. No one enjoyed mucking out a chicken coop or sweeping cinders from a hearth, but she did.
One thing he had to grudgingly admit: her cooking was delicious. He was woken every morning with the sizzle of herbs and onions being tossed into a hot pan and the mouthwatering smells that followed. Once she caught him eyeing her meal over his own bowl of plain broth.
With a knowing smile, she spooned up some of the spicy stew she had made. The flavors were rich and unlike anything he had tasted before. At least some of the thousand and one plants she tended were useful for something. His stomach felt properly full for the first time in days, and he secretly wished for seconds.
As icy rains transformed the snow to mush, she performed more indoor tasks. Her absurd indoor garden neededto be watered and pruned often, and she actually spoke to the plants as she did so. He clamped the pillow about his ears to block out her murmurings when he was trying to nap. There always seemed to be laundry, and he watched her haul endless buckets of water to heat in her giant cauldron. She scrubbed at the linens until the loose tendrils of hair stuck to her neck and her face was shiny with moisture.
The loom clacked often, making his head pound, and she was sometimes interrupted in her work as a knock would come at the door. Villagers came to her with all manner of ailments; headaches, sore backs, indigestion. Hara would go to her many plants and pluck a stalk here, a few leaves there, all dropped into her mortar and pestle.
The sharp smells of herbs would fill the cottage, or sometimes smoke. The medicine would then be bottled or wrapped in a scrap of linen, and the villager would be on their way. Gideon made sure to bundle himself up in the bed whenever a visitor came, turning his face to the wall in case any Lenwen men were searching for him.
Sometimes the villagers even came to her with romantic trouble.
“Take this candle and burn it tonight after sunset,” said Hara to a teenage girl with blonde hair and a round, tear-stained face. She passed a candle that had been rolled in herbs to the girl. “Watch the flame and say: ‘boundless love I entreat.’It is impossible to turn someone’s head when they are in love with another, but this spell will help you see your choices clearly.”
The girl thanked her with a slight sniffle and went on her way.
“You give them candles and nonsense words and they believe that’s magic?” said Gideon, making his way slowly to the door by leaning on his walking crutch.
“I’m curious what you think magic is,” said Hara with a scowl. “Much of it is getting into the right mindset for the spell to work properly. Rituals provide comfort.”
“Why can’t she use any old candle?”
“She could try and use any old kitchen candle, I suppose,”
