A Vine to Prune (Spirit Wind Book 2), page 4
She reached out and gave my shoulder a squeeze. I waited for her to depart, the little wavering globe of light going with her. In the darkness I reached inside again, felt the glow of the Fire there. I’m so sorry. I had been ignoring it for so long. I hadn’t realized I had been trying to slip into a normal life again, so soon after all it had done for me. My life had never been normal, though, not in the village, not in the convent. It didn’t make me any happier to realize that, too; for a moment it made it worse and I felt my mouth twist bitterly. But then I wondered what I meant by “normal”—if anyone had a “normal” life. From the outside, perhaps, or when we considered it all together. But in the day-by-day, did anyone feel their life was “normal”?
I climbed the ladder wearily, and laid down again on the pallet. Though my limbs felt like water my mind was on edge. More than once I thought I heard the tapping either approaching or retreating. I thought I saw a faint glow from the hole and feared the man had returned. After staring at it wide-eyed for long moments, I realized it was the dawn making its way through the windows and the shop. I must have slept a little, but it didn’t feel like it. I heard movement below, Tabitha readying the shop, and I rose.
As I stepped off the last rung, Tabitha poked her head around the corner. “I’ve sent for a carpenter,” she said. She nodded toward the back door. “High time to be able to bolt that, I think. And the smell is gone.” She gazed meaningfully at me as I sniffed. She was right; the charred scent that should have clung for perhaps weeks was gone. As I glanced around the room, I noticed there was no charred wood where the flames had been. I looked at her and shrugged. I could no more explain it than she could—at least, not beyond what I already had.
I followed Tabitha into the front. She was laying out strips of linen dyed various colors. “I was surprised to see you couldn’t bolt that door before,” I said.
“It hadn’t been that kind of village, before,” she replied. “Oh they thought I was a heretic, but they never went behind my back. I guess with all these come in for the wedding…” She left the rest unsaid, but I didn’t think it was a random traveler. I found myself looking at the mark on her counter, wondering what it meant. Was that why the mayor and his “friends” came to this shop? Did they expect something from her—and, if they did, and she didn’t give it, what might that mean?
“Are there any other seamstresses or weavers in town?” I asked.
Tabitha chuckled. “Yes, there’s another, but…” She smiled and shook her head. “He only serves the non-heretics.” She winked at me, then went past and into the back. I followed. Tabitha went to a closet next to the ladder and pulled out a folding screen and set it between her and the front, then slid out a wooden framework over which she had begun making a dress. So far the skirts were mostly arranged, though I could tell they hadn’t been cut yet. It looked elaborate, far more elaborate than any of her other articles… Of course.
“The wedding dress,” I said. She hummed as she smiled, settling herself on a stool as she began to work the fabric. “It’s beautiful,” I continued. I tried to imagine the build of the woman who would wear it. She would not be slim with that waist, and yet the skirts alone still bespoke a daintiness I didn’t have and would never attain with a life on the road. I wasn’t sure why that mattered to me.
I shook my head and retrieved more bundles of flax. “Just to replace what we lost yesterday?” I offered. “It shouldn’t take me long.”
“Go ahead,” she agreed. We worked silently for a time, until the door bell tinkled from the front.
“Miss Tabitha?” a deep voice called.
“The carpenter,” she said to me, before calling: “back here!”
I kept an eye on the doorway a moment, catching sight of the aging man who came through. He was not fat, but he had a little bit of a waddle. He dressed simply enough in brown shirt and pants. He carried a sort of box in one hand, and I saw tools of various handles protruding. In his other he carried one plank of wood. He paused when he saw me.
“Henri, this is Rae-Anna,” Tabitha introduced with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry about her.”
“Of course not,” he rumbled, though he seemed as though he did worry. Tabitha busied herself with the dress, and after a moment Henri continued his gait to the back door. He leaned the timber against the frame and grasped the handle. He was about to pull it, but noticed the jamb. He turned to Tabitha. “Why’d you have this open outward?” he asked gruffly.
She glanced at him. “I didn’t build it, Henri,” she said patiently. I fought back a grin, hiding it the moment before Henri turned on me. And yet I couldn’t help myself as he stared at me.
“I didn’t build it either,” I said as seriously as I could.
I jumped as the box crashed to the floor, the tools rattling inside. “Fit for a king’s jester,” Henri mumbled, though I felt no harm in him. I glanced at Tabitha who only raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I’ll need to go get a different bracket,” Henri said.
A thought struck me as he started to leave, and I hurried after him. “Henri,” I called out as he neared the door. He turned, glowering. It seemed he was just like that. “Is this a carpenter’s mark that you know?” I asked, pointing to the faded symbol.
He seemed reluctant to take his eyes off me, as though I might be poking more fun at him. But when he looked, after a moment’s study he paled, then went red. “I’m an honest man,” he said, looking up. “I do my work. And you young…women…only seem to jest and prod.”
“Henri, we meant nothing by it,” I said. “But you did ask a kind of silly question.”
He grumbled. “A man doesn’t talk and you say he’s too quiet; he starts talking and you say he’s silly. ’Twas merely a thought that foolishly came out, I’m sorry.” He made an elaborate bow and turned to leave.
“Henri,” I pleaded. He stopped but didn’t turn. “You’re absolutely right, and I’m very sorry. I’m sure Tabitha would be too.” He glanced over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Maybe she wouldn’t be; he knew her probably better than I. “But this is—it might be very important, if you know this symbol.”
He turned halfway, but did not look at the counter again. When he spoke, his voice had lost all of its bluster. “If you don’t know it, lady, then I should not tell you. It might be taken wrong, by the wrong people. Don’t prod!”
He left hurriedly, and I returned to the back. It was perhaps the worst answer he could have given. All I knew was it was something like I feared, but nothing of what it was about. Was it some sort of signal?
Tabitha was tucking something away when I looked up, I couldn’t tell what. But distracted as I was I merely went back to work. She kept humming, some tune I vaguely remembered from a festival day back in Holden.
Henri returned a little later, and the three of us worked without talking most of the morning. He was truly a Master, working with an efficiency I admired. Never a wrong move or misplaced gesture, and he didn’t even bother to test the quality when he was done. He merely thunked the bar across the door, turned, and thanked Tabitha. She smiled and paid him along with her own thanks, and he was gone.
“And now, lunch,” she said. “Despite my confidence before the mayor yesterday, I am further behind than I would like on this dress. Here.” She handed me the little bag of coins out of which she’d just paid Henri. “Just on the other side of the inn is a seller, Jannis. Tell him it’s for me and he’ll give you what you need. And pay what he asks; he and I worked it out long ago.”
I left with only a vague smile. She never asked what I chased after Henri for, and I never mentioned it. She had given her explanation, and I doubted with further prodding she would change it—even if it were false. Besides, I still didn’t have any clear idea what it was. That it worried him so also worried me, and yet it fit. If it did belong to those men, or some society they belonged to, of course it was gravely evil. But why were they such close friends of the mayor? Was it a society, or was it only them?
I passed the inn, saw Jannis’ storefront. His was openly on the street, three tables set in a circle with goods laid out on it. He was with another, so I waited while I looked over what he had. I didn’t know if Tabitha ever intended to pay me in coin, or just give me the room—not that I would be ungrateful. But if I ever wanted to buy something for myself…
The customer turned and I stepped aside to clear his path with a mumbled greeting, eyes still on the red and golden apples. When he didn’t move, I finally looked at him.
“Oh! Thomas!” Happiness, anger, puzzlement, and attraction all danced a whirling jig through me. His own features seemed to go from displeasure to amusement. I latched on to that, at least at first. “I didn’t…I was looking at the apples, I didn’t expect you here. Where…” The anger and puzzlement crept back in. “Where have you been?”
“Working,” he said. “Haven’t you?”
“Yes, of course. And she’s letting me stay in her loft. You can stay there too…” I trailed off as his lips compressed.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said.
My heart fell. “Because you’re still angry with me?” I said. I couldn’t help it. As soon as it left my mouth, I worried I should have made it my fault—it was, in a way, though I still hadn’t figured out what precisely I had done.
“No,” he said softly. I knew immediately what he meant by the tone. There were only a few, very particular times he had spoken to me in that tone. And my heart soared.
But I knew I still shouldn’t try to touch him. I had never fought so hard to remain still, and I gripped my hands together tightly. “Please come by tonight,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
He nodded. “I will. After supper, Mr. Messick is done with me for the day.”
“Is it good work? Is he treating you well?”
His lips went thin again. I couldn’t help watching them, but I tried to listen too. “We can talk tonight,” he said finally. “It’s fine,” he continued quickly as my eyes flashed to his. “Yes, he does. But…well, we can talk tonight.” He smiled, and for the briefest of moments I saw him the way we were before the fire came to me.
I smiled in return. “Okay,” I said. “That sounds…I’ll like that very much. And I’ll be sure to listen, this time.”
“Well,” he said, “we’ll have to talk about that, too. But I have to go; Mr. Messick will start to wonder if I’m coming back.”
His first words jolted me, though he hadn’t said it harshly. And I knew we would have to talk about it, I just didn’t expect him to be so forthright with it. “Okay,” I said. And he left.
I turned to Jannis, who politely acted as though he hadn’t heard any of it. “For Tabitha, at—” But Jannis began gathering food immediately and piling it into a basket. It looked the same as the one Tabitha had yesterday and I wondered if he had somehow gotten it back. As he handed it to me, I realized he could have come to the shop towards the end of the day—I was rarely in the front and didn’t know who came in or not.
“Tuppence,” he said. My eyebrows lifted. I had thought, when Tabitha warned me not to haggle, it would be steep. For me alone it would have been, true—I wouldn’t make twice that in a day. But for Tabitha, and food enough for both of us…I handed over the coins, thanked him, and left.
“Rae-Anna?” she called from the back when I entered the shop.
“Yes,” I replied; I had come in from the front, assuming the back door would still be barred.
“Give me a moment, please,” she said.
I waited, brows furrowed as I listened to the thumps and scrapes coming from the back. It was not my place, and likely not my concern, but she had not struck me as the secretive kind before. Soon enough her head poked around the corner and she waved me back. We began setting the table.
“Did you see Thomas?” she asked.
I startled, glancing at her, at her knowing smile. “You knew he would be there,” I said.
She shrugged. “It’s a small enough village,” she said. “I asked around a little when I went yesterday, was told he had come across one Mr. Messick who I know…” She tilted her hand. “Reasonably well. I thought you might meet him there.” She handed out her utensils again and we sat. “Are you still worried about him?”
“I suppose not,” I said. “At least, not about that.”
She waited for grace, and to start eating. “What is the worry, then?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. It was mostly true—I didn’t know enough to converse about it. “He said he would come by tonight, after supper? So we could talk.”
“Good!” she said with a wide grin.
The rest of the afternoon dragged on, and then suddenly we were eating supper. I don’t even remember what we talked about. I was listening for the door, even though he had said “after.” Maybe Mr. Messick ate dinner early.
Tabitha smiled as she cleaned up as though she knew all this was going on. Probably she did. She seemed to have a grasp of things I didn’t realize. It made me feel a little foolish for it, but I couldn’t help myself anyway. She left, then, going to her own room I supposed.
I sat in the silence, in the light of the single rush, trying not to count my breaths. Some type of celebration went by the shop outside, not entirely drunken. A dog barked somewhere else. Just as I realized I could use the time to pray, I heard the door open and the little bell tinkle. I rose and went to the front. For a brief moment, I feared it would not be Thomas—that another hooded man would come to visit. But then I came around the doorway and there he was.
He stood stiffly, and his eyes were blank, though somewhat affixed to the strange symbol on the counter. I stopped. Something was wrong. I felt a strange charge in the air. “Thomas?” I called quietly.
His eyes didn’t move, didn’t look at me. “I’m sorry. I don’t think talking will solve anything,” he said. His voice was flat, wooden. “I just came to tell you that. I can’t live this life you’re trying to drag me into.”
My heart quailed, and yet the Fire in me bolstered me like someone holding me up. “Thomas, you know it was always your choice.”
His eyes flickered then as though he tried to move them but was unable. “That’s what manipulators say, isn’t it.” This time his voice had an odd dual quality, as though two voices spoke at once. “Leave me alone!”
I studied him. That sounded like his own voice, well enough, and yet…
There was a flicker of movement outside, but in the darkness I couldn’t see what it was. Thomas suddenly turned and the bell tinkled again as he left. And I could swear, just as the door swung shut, there was the corner of a swirling cloak out in the street as Thomas’ boots tapped away. And, with the tapping, now a sound of metal clattering faintly.
Tabitha came almost immediately out of her room. “What happened? Did he leave so soon?”
I continued looking at the door. “I think we need to find out everything we can about that symbol,” I said. “And I need to meet the Mayor’s friends.”
5
“But if you go back to Henri, won’t he foist you off like he did before?”
Tabitha asked a legitimate question, and I continued spinning the yarn while I considered it. We had gone back to work, now that our evening was free again. And I had forgotten how the wheel helped me think. Tabitha carded, silently waiting.
“Maybe I don’t start with him,” I mused. “He said if I didn’t know, he was not one to tell me. If I can uncover a few details about it first, make it seem like I already know a little bit, he’ll reveal the rest.”
She nodded. “Perhaps, though he can sit like a boulder in a hole once he’s made up his mind. So, where do you start, then?”
Where indeed. “What about the Mayor?”
She barked a short laugh. “We’re a small enough village, but you wouldn’t know it to talk to him. If he doesn’t come to you, you don’t talk to him.”
“Can’t someone petition to talk to him, if it was something important? Or aren’t there, I don’t know…councils or something he attends?”
It was her turn to consider. The wheel creaked once; it would need tallow soon. “Councils are always held in his residence,” she said finally. “And only those invited are permitted. But the next isn’t scheduled until after the wedding. Petitions, though…” She shook her head. “Again with the wedding he’s probably quite distracted. You could send a request, I guess. I assume you want to start looking into this sooner, though.”
“Very much so.” We continued, the wheel silent again. “I wonder… If I did see one of the mayor’s friends outside, did he intercept Thomas somehow? Or had he known he would be coming to me? How well do you know Mr. Messick? Who is he?”
“I’ve met him once or twice, when he used to get around. I was never entirely clear who he was, except someone very important. My husband and I weren’t from here, originally; we came here when a plague came through our village to the south. But when we did, we had to meet Mr. Messick shortly after we arrived and when we intended to stay here.”
“Was he the mayor, back then?”
“No, the mayor came from a different line. It was the current mayor’s predecessor when we arrived, and while he didn’t exactly defer to Mr. Messick…” She paused a moment as she began clearing the combs. “I got the sense the mayor never quite contradicted him either.” She snagged a new batch of wool and began again.
“Would I be able to see him?” I asked.
She gave a little half-smile. “We might be able to arrange something. Oddly, he is a little more attainable than the mayor. I think he likes the company. I’ll see if I can send a message in the morning.”
The night was quiet, at least externally. Internally, I worried about Thomas until I managed to fall asleep, and again several times when I awoke through the night. He had to have been in some kind of thrall, but what kind? Was he still in it? I had to think he would come back to me as soon as the thralldom ended. And when had he gotten it? Had he been intercepted? Or was there something at this Mr. Messick’s house? What if Messick himself did it? Tabitha didn’t seem to think of him that way, but I still only had her word that the symbol on her counter didn’t hold her under some sway either. Was this all some elaborate trap?
