Healer and Witch, page 3
But the landlady would not let go of her arm. Her brow was furrowed. She looked intensely into Sylvie’s eyes. “I was young once and have not forgotten,” she said.
Sylvie waited to be released.
“You had better come right back here,” said the landlady at last. “After Ceciline. You and your brother both. I can find room for you for a few days. The boy can help out while you rest. I will advise you about men.” She leaned in. Her grip almost hurt. “With a man, you must be the one who chooses, rather than letting yourself be chosen. My husband, you will say he does not look like much, but he knows my worth as a partner. We have built up this inn together. You must find one such as he, who respects you. Also, it is not a bad idea for a young woman to carry a secret knife for protection.”
She now seemed to be waiting for a reply.
“A secret knife,” Sylvie echoed, leaving completely alone the topic of a husband. Finding a suitable one could not have been further from her thoughts or desires. But the landlady was not to know that. Many girls her age and class did marry, of course, or hoped rather desperately to do so in the future. It was the way of a normal life. But Sylvie had grown up knowing that she could choose another path, as her mother and grandmother had. She had long since decided to marry only when she was quite old, twenty-five or thirty, and then only if she had someone particular — and irresistible — in view. She almost wanted to laugh hysterically. Sylvie actually did carry a good knife in her pack of belongings, though it was for collecting her plant samples and other general uses like eating, not defense.
“Yes, a secret knife.” The landlady, who was clearly a city girl, tapped her thigh significantly. “Strapped in a sheath under your skirt. And mind you keep it sharp and ready.” Her eyes glinted with some remembered satisfaction. Finally, she let Sylvie go. She wiped her hands on her apron, frowning again. “I’d accompany you today if I could. That Ceciline’s a tricky one.”
Sylvie managed to say: “Martin — my brother will be with me.”
“I suppose he’s better than nothing,” said the landlady doubtfully. “Come straight back here afterward. Promise me!”
“You’re so kind. But I — I’m not sure —”
“You must,” said the landlady firmly. “You will need to rest. You will need a woman looking after you.” Seeing Sylvie’s reluctance, she moved, her formidable bulk blocking the door. “If you won’t promise to come back, I won’t let you go until I can take you there myself.”
Sylvie gave in and nodded acceptance. It was warming, she told herself, to see the truth of what she had learned from Jeanne and from Grand-mère Sylvie: that in private, women helped women. That the help she was being offered was not quite the help she needed mattered not.
Then, suddenly, she wondered if Martin believed that he was protecting her, if that was a reason he had come. Like arms imprisoning her from behind, a new feeling of vulnerability squeezed her chest, taking her breath.
She had never felt this way at home.
She did not like it.
“Thank you,” Sylvie said simply to the landlady, and laid a hand on her heart. “I had to come here to the city, and yet it may have been as foolish as it was necessary. But I have been fortunate indeed to meet you, madame, and your kind heart.”
“Of course, you have been foolish,” said the landlady, suddenly brusque. “On several counts. But sometimes — not always — our Lord Jesus Christ protects the foolish. And at the same time, our Lord helps those who help themselves. So they say, and so I believe.” She stepped back, smoothing her hands on her apron and telling Sylvie how much she should pay Ceciline. “And see that you give her not a sol more than that! I’ll expect you for the evening meal. That young one”— she jerked her chin toward the door, toward Martin —“will be hungry.” And finally, the landlady was gone to her busy day.
Sylvie took three deep, steadying breaths and went to fetch Martin.
Still filled with shame at having deceived the landlady, Sylvie was in no hurry to find the wisewoman Ceciline. She let Martin lead, let him explore the noisy, winding, cluttered city streets.
Martin was particularly delighted with the market. He watched for long minutes in fascination as the carpet maker deftly loomed a pile of dun-colored hemp into a neat, utilitarian square. He paused to listen to the nut seller sing the praises of his fruit. He lingered beside a particular bakery cart, nostrils twitching at the cunning twists of still-warm pastry. He followed a mule who was stolidly carting potatoes. And everywhere he went, Sylvie noticed, people smiled and winked at him and said good morning and expressed astonishment at his head of tight, bright carrot curls. Everyone seemed instantly charmed by Martin and his exuberance.
Everyone, that is, except a tall, broad-shouldered young man wearing a richly embroidered blue surcoat. The young man had reason to be displeased, Sylvie admitted to herself: Martin, distracted, had run full tilt into him. There was a moment when it seemed they would both go down in the mud.
Then the young man found his balance, grasped Martin by his grubby forearms, lifted him as if he weighed three feathers, and set him safely on his feet. Martin started to smile up at him, and maybe to apologize.
But the cool look in the rich young man’s eyes froze Martin’s smile. Dismissively, the young man spoke. “Heed your surroundings, boy.” Fastidiously brushing off his hands as if he had touched dung instead of boy, he said something under his breath to his shorter, stouter, older, and far less well-dressed companion, whom Sylvie was startled to recognize as Yves the accountant, swallower of the landlady’s spit. Yves had exchanged his self-satisfied smirk for an obsequious one.
The haughty young man was moving on, but Martin’s eyes flared. His hands fisted. Sylvie stepped forward hastily and grabbed one of them. She held it firmly.
“Martin,” she said. “I suppose we could afford a pastry. Shall we get one and share it?”
Martin tore his resentful gaze from the blue surcoat as it disappeared into the market throng. He nodded stiffly. Relieved, Sylvie tugged him in the opposite direction. She would need to speak to Martin later about the importance of controlling his temper. Later would be soon enough, of course.
As Martin finished his last buttery bit of pastry, a boy selling eggs reached out and touched Martin’s red hair. “It means you’re good luck,” he said. “Or it means you’re a troublemaker. Which?”
Martin laughed, fully himself again. “Troublemaker,” he caroled, dancing away backward, as heedless as before.
“Me too!” said the egg-boy. He grabbed up a precious goose egg, took a few backward steps of his own, and held up the egg, poised. “Catch it if you can!” he called to Martin, and let fly.
Martin leaped up and snatched the egg, whole, out of the air. He held it up delicately between his fingers, the fingers that could snatch a fish live from the water.
Around them in the plaza, people burst into scattered applause and laughter. Martin bowed deeply. Then he rose — and suddenly and unexpectedly, he lobbed the egg back toward the egg-boy.
The egg-boy ducked, which wasn’t necessary because the egg sailed an easy ten inches above where his head had been, to land with a smart crack on the front of a certain richly embroidered blue surcoat.
Sylvie clapped a hand to her mouth.
Everyone but the chickens and pigs stared as the thick yellow yolk of the goose egg slithered its way downward, impeded here and there by pieces of eggshell and now-ruined threads of embroidery.
Sylvie thought she saw a flicker of emotion on the young man’s face — shame? Or — but it couldn’t be — amusement? But she must have been mistaken, because, no, his face was a cool mask, and he did not so much as look down at the egg. Instead, he sent a single long, comprehensive glance around the market, seeming to take note of every person present. Sylvie thought that he should not have been able to dominate the crowd with such a glance. Surely, he was not more than six or seven years older than she was?
Finally, his gaze settled inevitably and unerringly on Martin.
“You,” said the young man.
One would have had to know Martin as well as Sylvie to interpret the tilt of his chin as anything but insolence. Sylvie braced herself, trying to think of something to do, and failing.
“Trouble,” moaned the egg-boy under his breath.
Without moving his eyes from Martin’s face, the man said, “Who is responsible for this small boy?” For all that it carried, his voice was level.
It was only a few steps to Martin’s side. Sylvie took them. She felt the young man’s gaze weigh her and find her wanting.
She raised her chin. “He’s my brother,” she said to the rich young man. “It was an accident.” She sneaked a look at the still-dripping yolk. It had nearly reached the man’s waist. The stain would never come out.
Good.
“Indeed, he’s sorry,” she said. She put a pleading note in her voice, even though she hated doing it. The young man’s brow lifted in mocking disbelief, while Martin said nothing.
“Very sorry,” Sylvie insisted. Beneath her skirt, she trod viciously on Martin’s toes. “Martin?”
Martin muttered something inaudible that might perhaps have passed for an apology, but probably not, and Sylvie spared a moment to reflect that if this horrible young man failed to murder Martin, she herself could do it later with her bare hands.
Time stretched.
At last the young man strolled forward, booted foot by booted foot. The heavy leather boots stopped in front of Martin, but their occupant looked down on both of them, though Sylvie was grown as tall as any woman. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an exquisite silk handkerchief.
He squatted in front of them with the grace of perfect physical control — Sylvie found she hated him for that, too — and held out the handkerchief to Martin. “Wipe it up, boy,” he said. There was no expression on his face at all, no clue to his thoughts, just the stillness.
Martin made no move to take the handkerchief. The delicate ivory fabric trembled in the spring breeze.
“Martin,” said Sylvie, for some reason now truly feeling desperate. “Please.” She snatched for the handkerchief herself, but the young man moved it unhurriedly just out of her reach.
“I’ll wait,” he said calmly. “The boy will do it.”
Sylvie felt the hatred swell higher inside. “No, he won’t,” she said, and somehow the pleading tone of before had left her voice and the words came out defiant. The young man turned his head and looked at her with interest for the first time. Sylvie thought again of the secret knife she didn’t have strapped to her thigh. She reminded herself that healers did not kill, even if sorely tempted.
In that instant Martin reached for the handkerchief.
Sylvie’s whole stomach heaved in relief.
Martin held the handkerchief as gently as he had the egg. He lifted it level with the young man’s rich blue surcoat, at the beginning of the egg stain. He dabbed at the stain carefully, his fingers rigid. Sylvie reached for and grasped his other hand. He let her.
At last it was over. Martin held out the begrimed handkerchief.
The young man shook his head and stood up. “Keep it,” he said. “And in future, watch yourself.” He turned back to his companion, Yves the accountant, who was studying the ground as intently as if he could read his future there. “You had a report on the alum supplies controlled by Venice,” the young man said to Yves.
“Oh yes, yes.”
Sylvie put her hand on Martin’s shoulder. They watched the young man walk away with his accountant.
The show was over; the market returned to normal. Sylvie said to Martin, “I know you didn’t want to do that. But I’m glad you did. We don’t need trouble. Not with a rich person. Do you see?” Her frustration and fear were still in her voice.
Martin had clenched his hand completely around the handkerchief, crushing it, regardless of the wet, sticky yellow stains now on his hands. He looked up at Sylvie but didn’t answer.
“Don’t cry, Martin,” said Sylvie urgently. “Don’t cry.”
Martin swallowed. “I saw him,” he said. “I saw him and — and I aimed.”
“I know. Why?”
“I don’t know! Because I wanted to. Because I could. I didn’t really think about what came next.”
“Oh.” For there was nothing she, of all people, could find to say to that.
Martin marched over to the egg-boy. He opened his hand and the ivory silk handkerchief dropped silently on top of the perfect pyramid formed by the whole speckled eggs. “I broke your egg,” he said. “I can’t pay, but the handkerchief is worth something. When it is clean.”
“But it was my fault,” said the egg-boy, making no move to pick up the dirty silk. “I threw the egg to you in the first place. I thought it would break then.”
Martin shrugged. “But I was the one who broke it.” He was staring at the handkerchief. Slowly, he picked it up again and put it in his pocket.
Sylvie asked the egg-boy, “Who was that man?”
The egg-boy was eager to talk. “His name is Chouinard.”
Of course. This was the master Yves the accountant had bragged of at the inn. The merchant who was organizing the large caravan to carry cloth, spices, and tapestries southward. She ought to have guessed, but she had thought the sponsor of such an expedition would be, well . . . older. More like Yves: short, stout, and . . . well, not so impressive.
“He lives here in Montigny, this Monsieur Chouinard?” asked Sylvie. Beside her, Martin said nothing, but she knew he was listening intently.
“Sometimes. He has a big house here. But he’s a nobody, who does not even know the name of his own father.” Though the egg-boy’s words were firm, his tone was not. He looked uneasily around. “Well. No one talks about that anymore. It’s true, though. He’s a bastard.” Strident now, his voice. He leaned forward. “He went away. He was — I don’t know — just my age, or even younger. He was nothing then. Nobody. But a handful of years later, he’s Monsieur Chouinard. And . . .” He rubbed his fingers together significantly. “So we bow and scrape, here in Montigny. But we do not forget.”
He paused and grinned at Martin and added, low, “Perhaps not all were sad, just now, to see him egged.”
“Oh,” said Sylvie.
“He has other houses, too, so they say,” said the egg-boy. “In Venice. And Bruges. Paris. Forty men work for his business here in Montigny. Some say . . .” He dropped his voice again.
“What?”
“Some say it’s unnatural. You can’t become rich out of nowhere. You should not rise above your given place in the world. So perhaps there is sorcery in it somewhere, or the work of the devil.”
Sylvie’s shoulders stiffened. She did not want to hear more on that topic. As to Monsieur Chouinard’s parentage, well, Jeanne had chosen not to marry Sylvie’s father. She took a step back from the gossipy egg-boy. After all, what did it matter about this man, this Chouinard? She and Martin would not see him again. They had their own concerns. Why had she even asked?
“Come, Martin,” she said. “We should be going.” Stiffly, she thanked the egg-boy.
Martin followed her out of the market, his feet dragging.
It was getting late, Sylvie thought. And she, too, was tired. But it was past time to find the healer, the wisewoman Ceciline.
By taking three steps to her two, Martin kept abreast of Sylvie as they wound their way through the dusty, narrow alleys below the western tower of Montigny’s wall. It was different from the friendly market area. Here, people hurried past with their heads lowered and without a greeting for each other, let alone for strangers — even if the stranger was a small boy with red hair. Here, the lowering sun seemed to have difficulty finding its way around the tight buildings to reach the pavement, and the cheerful clatter of the market was replaced by a low sullen mutter, punctuated by an occasional sharp wail from an unseen child or the harsh voice of an angry husband. Here, according to the landlady of the inn, lived Ceciline the wisewoman.
Several times Sylvie opened her mouth to ask Martin how he was feeling, or to warn him to avoid Monsieur Chouinard — in fact, to run the other way and hide if he should see him — for the remainder of their time in Montigny. But Martin’s lips were pressed together in a thin white line, and his small forehead wore a heavy frown of thought, so Sylvie said nothing. For now.
What could Martin be thinking? He was just a child, and the truth was, he had done wrong. The punishment hadn’t been unfair or even cruel, Sylvie thought now. And certainly Martin had been through punishments far more painful. The farrier whipped him regularly; she knew that for a fact. It was just young Monsieur Chouinard’s aspect that had been so alarming. She sighed.
“Could this be it?” asked Martin suddenly. “There’s a yard. Sort of.” He’d dropped a few steps behind and was pointing into an entryway that Sylvie had passed without really seeing. She went back. Martin was right. Tight and unpromising though the entry was, it formed the mouth of a tiny courtyard. A tumbledown stone house, with windows like lidless eyes, stood on the other side. “She’s got the only cobblestone yard in that part of town,” the landlady had said, as resentful as if her inn didn’t have a big courtyard of its own.
A peculiar stillness descended the moment they set foot in the courtyard. Sylvie twitched. She couldn’t like the place. Martin, too, was dawdling. “Come on,” she said to him. There were only a couple more hours of daylight. “Let’s see if she’s home.” They crossed the courtyard, lifted the clumsy iron door knocker, and let it fall three times.
Sylvie did not expect a response. Or maybe it was that she suddenly did not want one. In her mind, she and Martin were already retracing their steps across the courtyard, into the alleys of west Montigny, and back to the safety of the inn and the welcome of its landlady. When there was no response to her third knock, she turned with relief to go.
“Good afternoon,” said a low, laughing voice behind them. “I’m here. Didn’t you want me after all?”
