Short Stories

Marigold

On market days, Gyda Greenthumb pulled her little two wheeled cart into the town of Verdacragg, the closest settlement to her home in the woods that produced a market worth consideration - smaller hamlets around the Marscheck countryside of course were still essential for food and winter provisions, but they were unlikely to produce the rarer alchemical supplies she required, or the crowds and crowds of needy peasants desperate for the services she provided. These humbler communities were too likely to contain the small minded, suspicious folk; matrons who disliked outsiders and saw strange women only as threats to their husbands and children. Witches enchant men, eat babies, and curse the innocent, or so their wagging tongues claimed. Superstition was not nothing to be discouraged in her field of work, not in these dark times, but malevolent rumours and intentions? That was more than enough to keep an unmarried woman like herself, who lived and travelled alone, and had the resources of nature at her fingertips, away.

And so it was on this bright sunday morn that the people of the Crag, already arrayed and clamouring in the street, watched Gyda the Witch roll her heavily laden cart through the South Gate. She parked herself on the first pavement she could find with enough space to accommodate her tent, in and amongst all of the ram packed stalls of proud farmers, cobblers, tanners, butchers, fishmongers… With the amount of activity buzzing in the township, it seemed that everything in the world that could be sold was being sold at the faire that day. Although that was far from the truth.

Musicians were already ambling up and down the streets, ducking and weaving out of the ways of bellowing goats, sows and geese being ushered through the throngs of crowds, playing their tunes, the madams of the city restrained on this day from pouring latrine buckets out of their windows and onto the revelers, spenders and sellers, and lusty wenches lingered in tavern doors, hooting and calling to thick armed merchants with even thicker purses to join them for ale that eve when market was done. The larger livestock were kept outside of the city walls to be sold, hemmed together in heaving paddocks, lowing to one another amiably over the ruckus of shouting hagglers, it was bad enough having to step out of the way of pigs in the street, who somehow always managed to pinch an apple from baskets as they went by, herded by young boys and girls with sticks. The town was alive with sounds and scents and sensations, and Gyda lapped it all up heartily.

Surreptitiously, the young woman chose to set up her own, modest stall on the corner of a damp and cobbled alleyway, the streets crowded and cramped together and in the shade. A bit of shadow suited her agenda quite well, adding the delectable flavour of mystery to her cart and tent that it needed to draw in those of a curious mind. A remarkable pattern had begun to arise since she had become a regular visitor to Verdacragg. First came the young folk, girls mosty, who would hover outside of her patchwork tent giggling and whispering, waiting for her to invite one of the bravest amongst them inside. Occasionally, they visited for simple cures, creams and herbs that would make their pimples vanish and unsightly warts wither away. Sometimes they wishes for charms and good luck tokens that would bring them their hearts desire - a future bride or groom. Gyda delighted in handing out scented handkerchiefs to blushing damsels, with instructions to throw the delicately crafted piece of silk at the feet of the man they wish to marry, or for the more noble born, tie around the spear of knights entering local tourneys, brutish events designed for young warriors to prove themselves outside of war. Along with these trinkets, she offered to tell fortunes, the most obvious and simple method being the reading of the palm. Tarot cards, knuckle bones and tea leaves she reserved for a different make of customer…

As the morning waned, the young would disperse merrily with their trinkets and flowers for husband catching, back to their friends and bragging of how many children they would bare, to Gyda’s amusement. Next came the wives and mothers, more often than not they were the wives of farmers and craftsmen who lived outside of the town, in the pastoral farms dotting the region, who did not often have the chance to escape the gossiping tongues of their neighbours and needed Gyda’s gentle advice. Oft they balanced a babe on their hip, but older children she would not allow inside her tent while listening to the troubles of her womenfolk, inside there was hardly enough room for two women to sit across from one another, let alone fidgeting toddlers - they were safe enough ambling around the town gawking at the market stalls while she worked.

Sometimes the women came to her complaining of their husbands beatings, or begging for help to conceive - those ones came to her without children of their own. If a lady had domestic trouble, financial worries or burdens of the heart, she would patiently listen to their stories and heat a pot of tea to be shared. Tea leaves were heaped in plentifully, as when their cups were finished, the position of the remaining leaves in the base of the cup would tell them what was to be done. It was easy enough to offer these troubled women sage advice, assurances of a brighter future, and perhaps slip them a small, hand sewn pillow stuffed with lavender and other scented herbs to help them sleep at night. They came to her with heavy shadows under their eyes, but rarely they came back, out of fear or of improved situations, she did not know. Herbs that promote fertility were expensive to buy but generally were effective unless there were other unknown factors, such as a husbands infidelity causing grievances. Gyda tried her best for these women, as it was common that they had no one else to turn to. Sometimes her visitors left for her a handful of coins as thanks, but more often than not she accepted charity of other value, such as sacks of rice or grain, or tenderly crafted house hold goods, baskets woven from reeds and cloths stitched by the fireside. She was grateful for all of it. Their lives were difficult and she was understanding of that, and more than once she gave thanks to the gods for giving her a life free from the tyranny of menfolk.

After the wives returned to their husbands working hard to make a profit in the crowds as morning trickled into afternoon, Gyda would take a well earned lunch break, carefully wrapping her tea pot in a thick cloth inside her tent and asking a neighbouring merchant to kindly watch her wares while she took a short walk up to the town plaza, to find a ray of sunlight to sit in and warm her bones as she rested. For her lunch, she liked to buy a bread roll to have with her stew and sit in sight of the Market Tower, a gleaming building of pale stone positioned at the center of the main plaza. It was affectionately named the Butter Cross, after the farmers wives and daughters who sold butter in it’s shade, moving their stalls in circles around the little clock tower as the sun looped around the sky - forever having to stay in it’s shadow lest their wares melt. Gyda chose a comfortable enough spot insight of the clock at the edge of the town square and settled down to eat. She was in plain sight, but while men tipped her caps respectfully at her, not once would anyone stop to speak with the strange herbalist. She understood their concern. It was a curious existence, the life of a cunning woman, holding the common townsfolk enthralled. But with their respect came a wary mistrust. Forever on the fringe of society, she was, to her considerable relief, free of the oppressive life of women. She had tasted the life of a cloistered Sister, which she found to be overmuch constraining; as an unmarried herbwife, she was free from the cruelties of husbands and landlords, and had no need to fall into the trap that whoredom offered, while many were not so fortunate. Liberty, for the life of a social pariah. Gyda supposed she could empathise the feeling. But it was a hard life, there were no soft beds, generous lovers or the protection of a well guarded brothel. She slept in the fields as she travelled, under hedgerows if the weather became harsh, and she only had her own arms and legs to transport her cart across the rutted countryside. Even a small pony or mule would be far beyond her means to keep. No, it was better that she got by alone, while she was still young enough to traipse around the jagged wilderness heartily.

The afternoon rolled by, and she brushed aside her contemplative mood to to mop up her stew with her last scrap of bread and make her way back to her tent. Curiously on that day, she found she had a queue of peasants waiting for her already. Steeling herself, she cleared her throat and greeted the crowd warmly, asking them what was the matter. It soon became clear that, over their indignant protests, they all lived in the same hamlet, and that morning their prized calves which were to be sold that day in the cattle pens, twins, had gone lame. Both of them. That was the beginning of the curious tale, and by the end and with some confusion, they explained in unison that their landlord’s wife was to blame. She was jealous they claimed, since she had already lost many cows from their herd that winter and did not wish to see her tenants fare better than herself. The family insisted that they had no-one else to turn to. Now, Gyda knew it was folly to sabotage the villeins who rented and tended your lands, but since the elders produced a young, female kid to give her as payment, the herbalist felt she could not turn them away. A goat that could give milk through the winter months was priceless.

With a grateful nod and an authoritative wave of her hand, she invited the patriarch of the household, an aged man in possession of a fine mustache and a tobacco stuffed pipe, inside her tent to sit with her. Sat with almost their knees touched in the cramped space, it was hard to avoid the stench of his smokey breath, but Gyda endured. Firstly, she explained to him that while she may not be able to discern the truth of the matter, she could show him what the events meant, and what they would lead to, with the help of her dog-eared stack of playing cards. She lit a beeswax candle and in it’s flickering light shuffled the deck and asked her guest to pick three cards from her hand. The gentleman did just so and held them gingerly in his cracked and withered farmers hands. Next, she asked for him to show her the cards, and together they leant over in the candle light to debate and discuss what the pictures could tell them. In the end, the farmer and his family went away convinced that the twin calves were a sign that they had grown lazy and idle that winter, and if they were not to improve their gluttonous lives, they would never be free of the curse laid upon them.

As always, the uneducated common-folk managed to talk themselves into their own solutions, with Gyda’s guiding hand, and as they left her alone at last with her new companion, she shrugged her shoulders and smiled at the small she-goat.

“I think I’ll call you Marigold.”

The Cunning woman

Gyda Greenthumb, healer, midwife and teller of fortunes...

While not a magician in her own right, Gyda possesses what the common folk would call the Knowledge. Essentially, through years of study she has come to learn a seemingly mystical understanding of nature’s forces… any farmer can tell you which season to plant, how to stop crows taking yours seeds, and when is the best time to harvest, but Gyda’s knowledge can heal injuries with the correct mixture of herbs, cure a stomach of harmful bacteria and even foretell the weather. To a peasant in the fields, it is magic, but for a cunning woman, it is simply years of study.

As a healer and midwife, Gyda takes no monetary payments for her skills, though donations of other essential goods, eggs, milk and even bags of oats, are always accepted. She supports herself for the most parts by selling her honey and healing elixirs at town markets, offering to sell fortunes to the more gullible folk, and selling trinkets and good luck charms such as pillows stuffed with lavender or camomile leaves to improve sleep and even handkerchiefs ‘enchanted’ to bring the man you will marry… capitalising on the superstitions of the common man in order to support her main calling - healing the sick in need. Without gold, she can not afford the more exotic, rare ingredients for her tonics, and without the generosity of those she aids, winter alone in the Old Forest would be very hard indeed.

Regularly throughout the year she also performs religious ceremonies on important feast days, such as lighting the first Yule Log of Midwinter, blessing the first plow in the fields at spring and the first lambs to be born, charting the weather and predicting the years harvest in the fall and so on… as a midwife she presides over many births in the communities for townspeople who can not afford physicians fees, blessing the children to live long and happy lives before leaving the family to celebrate their newly arrived gift. By charting the stars, she is also able to tell fortunes with regards to a person's star sign, that is, which celestial constellation a person is born under and thus what kind of life they shall live.

Her favourite methods of fortune telling are palm readings and reading tea leaves, an art form which allows her to act more as a supportive listener than a nonsense selling crook. Many people come to her to unburden themselves of their life’s troubles, trusting in her kind and supportive advice and fortunes. Taking the time to drink tea together and talk or even just to hold another person's hand, is often more therapeutic for the lonely or anxious than the fortunes she tells. Needless to say, the future events she ‘foresees’ are always good… and efficiently vague. For those brave enough though, she will perform readings from Tarot Cards and human knuckle bones, although be warned… the readings from this mysterious art form eerily more often come true than not…

Short Stories

The Maiden Fair

On a day in midsummer, Gyda found herself happily without a single chore to be done at her home, deep in the forest that bordered Marscheck. There were gentle breezes brushing through the treetop canopy, filling the air in the glade with the sweet and gentle music of rustling leaves, who heralded with their lush green and yellow fronds the impending call of fall, and in time, the snows of winter.

But for now, the cold months were barely a glimmer on the horizon for citizens of the southern lowlands, who enjoyed warm and fresh winds from the lapis lazuli coastline that they fished and sailed, through many months of the year. Gyda had climbed up the stepladder and out of her door and found herself pausing to listen to the branches sigh and shiver above her with the soft gales of the North, opening her mouth and allowing the fresh and heavily scented aroma to deeply fill her tired chest.

A full week she had spent in blissful seclusion, tending and weeding her garden, hanging herbs to be dried, dusting her rafters and shelves around rows and rows of glass phials and jars. At least once a season she made sure to sweep the dust from all corners of her ramshackle hole-of-a cabin, built primarily around the roots of a tree and with only stone and packed earth to form it's walls, and bundles and bundles of straw to thatch it's roof.

The result was a house that was perpetually a fire hazard and in a constant battle against the grime that such a woodland dwelling tended to attract. More than once had she pulled free wiggling worms from the pounded soil that served as a crude floor, albeit scattered with hay and sprigs of lavender. So she made sure to adhere to her strict cleaning regime, and not to leave her home untended for many days at a time while she traveled the foothills of Rahlmont and the rolling hills of Marscheck.

It was indeed the most beautiful region in Terenia, she believed, and oft times, she felt its beating heart was precisely here, in her lush glade of verdant flowers and fat, happy bees.

With the garden pruned daily, although to an outsider, it would always appeared a jumbled disarray of exploding colours, and the inside swept (a task inevitably lengthened by superstition forbidding her from simply sweeping the dust out of her windows and doors, instead it must be collected in an iron pan, carried outdoors and thrown into an eastern wind, so that the evil-eye could properly be expelled from her tranquil home) she had been free to organize her books and make small additions and adjustments to her most treasured possession, her bulky and misshapen grimoire, listing and detailing all of her herbalist arts and lore of the wilderness.

Due to the cost of ink in the kingdom, she kept such additions to a minimum to preserve her supply, instead on a day-to-day basis making use of a thin and fragile square of slate she had been gifted many years ago, using chalk that could be dug from the ground, of which she had a veritable endless supply.

When her scribe work was done, she finished the washing of the home, linen and robes, an easy and swift job since she did not possess a great deal of either of those essential articles. With the heat of the high summer well upon her, the laundry was soon dry and folded inside the hut, leaving her once more with not a great deal to do in her day.

Now with a bounty of time on her hands, she prepared the oldest of her potatoes and carrots in her stores into a few batches of stew, storing them in jars that she kept packed in the cool, damp soil beneath her home, and feeding the peelings of those vegetables to her dear goat, Marigold- who was already near twice the size she had been since the day in the markets that she acquired the sweet natured creature.

With the cooking, cleaning and care of her animals finally completed, Gyda at last stepped outside to enjoy the peace and quiet of the land she lived on. She half felt like taking a stroll through the woods, but decided against it, settling instead on quietly observing the movements of her darling bees around the glade, and which buds of pollen they preferred this year. On a yearly basis, her yield of honey could vary quite greatly in taste, bees being fickle creatures, she supposed, though their favourites were timeless – white cowslip, and wild tulips.

Time ebbed away, and as afternoon sunk into dusk, and Gyda found herself holding her breath as a gluttonous bee rested its weary body on the tip of her finger, a sound pierced the air, causing the bees to scatter and return to the nest, her goat inside to bleat anxiously, and the birds in the trees to disperse in a flurry and flutter of wings. Gyda blinked and gazed with baited breath into the tree line at the north point of the tightly packed glade, wondering if another of the villagers had tracked her down in her home to seek some form of aid. What she saw instead, shocked the breath from her lungs.

A young and fair maiden burst from the hedges, shuddering with panting breath and her hands wringing with desperate sorrow. She was lost, that much was obvious to the herbalist. But what was even odder were the garments she wore and veil upon her head. Her gown, flowing over her wrists and trailing behind her, was of soft, rose-red pink velvet, and was sure to have snagged on every root and branch she had passed on the forest floor, its hem tattered beyond repair. Atop her head, she wore a fine, cream veil of muslin cotton, fixed over her hair by a ridiculous, cone-tipped hat, from which flowed lengths and lengths of shinning and colourful ribbon. Gyda half suspected that the milk-skinned maiden had just escaped a wedding ceremony, and promptly concluded that she had indeed fled her own wedding. Alarm sat in her stomach as she considered such a reality. Oh dear... She sighed inwardly.

It was difficult to see as her long hair was plated neatly beneath her modest, waist long veil, but as the maiden forlornly and with some relief approached the place in which Gyda sat, although she was now hastily rising to her feet, she snatched a glimpse of golden corn-silk tresses beneath her veil. A maiden from a fairy tale, she realised with true shock, had just thrown herself into her secluded home. She was of a mind to send her packing home. A quick glance around the boughs of trees surrounding the meadow gleaned no answers and revealed no traveling companions – the girl was on her own.

The maiden threw herself down dramatically at the herbalist’s surprised feet. “Oh Madam! You don’t know how glad I am to have found you! Please. You must shelter me for the night, for darkness is fast approaching and I have nowhere else to go...” She clung to the hem of her own heavy, russet green gown.

Gyda frowned down at the young woman shaming herself on the ground, cowering before her like a booze-addled peasant. True, she did not hold much stock in the ranks and titles that divided their society, but she did expect an educated girl of obvious wealth to compose herself with greater dignity. In that moment, the straw-haired maiden could have been a princess of the realm or the daughter of a knight, it was not obvious, for whoever her family was, they had lavishly dressed her for the day of her wedding.

“Must I?” Gyda stoutly objected. “What of your father’s house?”

“I cannot go there!” The maiden pleaded, wringing her hands once more.

“Why not?” The herbalist asked with a raised brow, the freckles on her forehead wrinkling and writhing across her brow.

“He has sworn me to a brute! My husband to be...” The words from her sweet, rosy lips immediately confirmed her growing suspicions. A runaway bride.

Gyda sighed wearily, hating herself for what she had to do. The girl had no choice but to do her father’s bidding, or throw herself at the mercy of a convent. If her father was wealthy and as such valued her, she could not simply slip away and live a new life – for his knights would come dragging her home to a beating with a birch stick.

Gyda felt at once that it was her responsibility and duty to spare the witless girl from such a humiliating fate. Her best option was to return home and to practice a convincing story to explain her disappearance from the ceremony, the herbalist realized with a grimace.

“Be that as it may...” She answered, choosing her words carefully and slowly lest she frighten the girl away from her. “You do not know that a miserable fate awaits you with this man, until you have seen it for yourself. Are you brave enough to come with me, child, and glimpse into the future that this blessed marriage holds for you?” Gyda said, holding out her hands invitingly, meaning to take the runaway into her home, for now.

“My future...?” The girl echoed her nervously. In that moment, it dawned upon her that the older womann, whose home she had unceremoniously invaded, could be a witch, or a sorceress, from the stories that her nursemaid had told her by the bedside. “What powers grant you such sorcery?”

“My own,” Gyda retorted sharply with a frown. “If you will not accept my offer, be gone with you. Your fate is your own.”

“No!” The maiden objected. “I will do as you say... Your words are true. Perhaps I do not know what lies in my future after all...”

The herbalist nodded approvingly, and helped the girl kindly to her feet. “Wash the tears from your eyes, child; for there is no more need to weep. You are quite safe in my home,” she explained, gesturing around herself. Clearly, there was no living person for miles from where they stood. Gyda wondered with amazement how the girl had even made it, alone, so far into the forest.

She felt the girl sag with relief, for she was holding her at the shoulders with both hands. “Seven blessings to you, madam. I have walked miles since this morning, without a single kind face to behold.”

Gyda waved away her meaningless platitudes – her fawning fell on deaf ears, for she knew well enough that the girl only said such things out of gratitude. You are too generous for your own good, Gyda scolded herself scathingly. She simply lead the girl inside the hovel, assisting her carefully down the short ladder, and told her to be seated while she gathered what was needed, lighting a ring of circles on the large table that dominated the floor space as she did so. As the oak surface had been polished only that morning, the runes that she had carved by hand into the soft wood gleamed and glistened, drawing the maidens gaze. Her eyes bulged at the sinister etchings, fear once more gripping her child-like heart in a flutter.

“Madam... Are you truly a witch?”

Gyda decided right then that it was best not to stoke the hysteria of the local population unnecessarily, after all, if this troubled young woman returned to polite society and spoke highly of her, it was directly to Gyda’s benefit, and could possibly grant her years of privacy in her woodland home, she hoped, at least.

“No, I am not. I am a woman of the Seven Virtues, just as you are,” she told her in a reassuring voice. “But I am a herbalist, and a woman of the forest, and to survive alone in the wilds, you must know their secrets.”

Rounded eyed, the young maiden parted her lips and nodded wordlessly. Good, Gyda told herself. That had done the trick. Now, her craft was ready, and her tea pot on the fire, stoked with raspberry tea leaves, would soon come to the boil. The herbalist gestured for the maiden to take a seat on a three legged stool at the table, directly across from her. The girl did so at once.

“Now, wash your hands in the bucket, and offer me your clean and upturned palm,” The herbalist commanded her. As instructed, she dunked her muddied and bruised hands into the ice cold water and washed them quickly, drying them on her velvet skirts before handing over to Gyda her hand – the right one, of course. In the glowing light of the candles, the herbalist creased her brow and inspected the now clean lines upon the maidens palm.

“As I suspected. There are children in your future, squalling babes, though I cannot see their father,” Gyda described, tracing her forefinger over the telling lines in her palms. The girl shuddered at the touch, but a hope-filled breath escaped her lungs, telling Gyda what she needed to know. This lady at least wanted children of her own, like any young maid should.

“To see more, we must consult the bones...” The herbalist said ominously, reaching for a sack tied with a cord at the edge of the table. Something that sounded like stones rattled inside the sack as Gyda untied the cord and poured the contents of the bag onto the oak table. What appeared to be large, smooth edged bones rolled onto the table like dice, illegible runes carved into every face that the maiden could see. Her eyes bulged in fear and shock once more, as she took back her hand from where Gyda had held it.

“Bones?” The maiden asked her.

“Yes. These are the knuckle bones of giants...” The herbalist lied. They were in fact the knee caps of cows that she had bought from the butcher. But the runaway bride did not need to know that... “They are older than even the stories of our people tell,” Gyda continued, nodding sagely. “They have seen the past, and they know our future. Close your eyes.”

The maiden closed her delicate eyelids at once, Gyda noticing that her lashes had been painted with black coal for her wedding and now almost brushed her high cheekbones, except where it had smeared with tears.

“Ask yourself what your heart desires most, and hold that wish in your heart.”

Gyda didn’t even need to ask her, to know what the answer would be. She wanted love, love like the bards sang of and the manuscripts described in gold illuminated paint. Even a blind person could see it, or she would not have run away from her own wedding day. She waited a moment, before gathering up the bones in her hands and spilling them back upon the table, rolling wherever fate decided. There were five bones, and though the runes were unreadable to the princess bride (whether or not she was indeed even a princess...) Gyda read them as followed. Priest. Crossroads. Headsman. Time. Crown. She smiled with secret relief, for she did not even need to tell an untruth as she deciphered the meaning of the bones before her.

“Now open your eyes.”

The girl did as she was told in a flash, as fast as she could, but was momentarily dazed by the flickering light of the candles and unable to see clearly. Slowly, the runes on the bones came into focus at last.

“But what do they mean?” She asked in a pleading voice. Still smiling, Gyda pointed to the first. “The Priest. I do not need to explain its meaning to you on this day. Today is the day of your wedding, and the rest of your life will be determined on this day, if you choose wisely.” She moved on, pointing to the second. Two lines over-crossing were displayed on the upwards facing side of the bone. “Here is the Crossroads, again, the meaning it clear. You have a choice to make today, but if you have already made that choice, it is not for me to know,” she told her cryptically, before moving onto the third. “Now we have the Headsman... Alongside the Priest, I think you can see for yourself... Disaster awaits you on one of your chosen paths. Chose very carefully, my dear,” said the herbalist grimly, causing the maiden to suck in a fearful breath. Anxiously, she gestured for Gyda to continue. The fourth rune appeared to be a crudely drawn hourglass. “Next we find Time. Time is running against you my dear, it may already be too late to turn it back, but that is your decision to make. And last of all, the crown...” She exhaled a dramatic breath, as though she were truly glad to see such an omen. “Great fortunes await you... But you must have courage, and fortitude...”

The maiden nodded her head vigorously, as though all at once, she was certain of her fate. The lost look had vanished from her continence, but still she was troubled. “What ails you child?” Gyda asked her curiously.

“It is only, as you say... How do I know what to choose, if you do not know yourself?”

The herbalist wanted to slap her own forehead with her hand, but refrained from doing so. If the girl was a fool, it was not her fault, but her mother and fathers. She didn’t even seem to know her own mind, in fact, Gyda was willing to bet gold coins on the fact that her flight from the wedding was the first decision she had ever had to make in her life. She nearly laughed.

“Perhaps the Tarots hold the answer,” she now offered instead, gesturing to the deck of cards sat on the left hand corner of the table top. They were larger than playing cards that men gambled upon, almost the size of her entire hand. She placed them in the centre of the candlelit circle.

“Choose the first three, and show them to me.”

The maiden once more did as instructed, with a trembling hand, for such cards held dreadful powers; even a sheltered maid like her knew that. Once the cards were revealed, her future may indeed become set in stone, although no one could explain why that was.

The first card the girl laid on the table depicted a Goddess, holding two children in her arms, and her voluptuous chest laid bare. The maiden blushed and stammered, asking to know what it meant.

“It is not for me to tell you, for you must answer that question in your own heart,” the herbalist answered vaguely. As she had ordered the cards herself for this purpose, while the girl had had her eyes shut.

The second card showed this time a male and female Virtue, holding each other in their arms. This time the maiden did not ask the same question, only blushing an even deeper shade of red.

In the third and final card appeared a white horse, a herald of good fortune and a prosperous future. At last, the girl was delighted, Gyda noted with some relief.

“Does this answer your question?” The herbalist asked her unexpected quest.

“I think so...” She replied uncertainly. “I think I know what I must do...” She dropped her eyes to her hands that were threaded together by the fingers. On her fourth finger on her left hand, Gyda had not missed, sat a glowing gemstone in a golden band. Her marriage ring, the one given to her by her husband to be. Such trifles were useless to a hermit like Gyda, and she swatted away the Vice of Envy with practiced ease. She also resisted the urge to pressure what that answer might be from the girl. It would break the spell of enchantment, misdirection and illumination that she had effortlessly woven that eave, mending the threads of time and the girls future with one deck of cards, a handful of bones and her own hands. It was in moments like these that she took true pride in her role as a soothsayer and charlatan. Otherwise what was the point of the entire illusion? Malevolence? That was not the kind of person that she was.

The maiden gulped back a hard lump in her throat, defeated. “Will you... Will you take me back to the village?” She tenuously asked the herbalist, her lower lip quivering nervously.

Gyda refrained from cheering aloud. She had efficiently rid herself of an unwelcome guest, and saved her future in the process. There was no need to rub salt into the wounds.

“Of course, we shall leave at first light.”

 * * * * * *

Short Stories

Flashback

Gyda, 15. Mountain Steppes.

Time stopped, and crystallized in a single moment as the huntress took aim at her prey. After days of tracking through the mountain pass, days spent listening to the calls of the wild, days spent searching for tracks in the mud, days spent scenting the change in the wind… The only thing she could hear now, a roaring in her ears, against the drumming of her own blood, was the quiet click of her knocked arrow touching against the wood of her beloved longbow, the slide of it grazing back in a silent whistle as she pulled the string taut. It was magic in her ears, and the birds themselves seemed to hold their breath as she prepared to take the life of a creature possessing a heart larger than her own, for the first time. The elk that had lived a good life, that had followed the laws of the forest in its blood without ever once needing the rules explained, waited patiently, unawares, for her to make her kill.

It was in that moment, as she loosened her fairy-like fingers and freed the string from her tense, trembling grip, that she realised killing was easy. Taking a life was the part that demanded consideration. And while all the creatures of the forest were blessed in their mother's eyes, the nobility of the elk, the indomitable, skyward-reaching arch of its antlers… brought the first flicker of remorse in Gyda’s chest since the day she she first snared a rabbit. Pride and satisfaction had quickly washed away that eight year old's childish conscience, but this time she felt the fear beat inside this elks very chest as it’s eye caught the movement and whistle of her arrow a heartbeat before its skull was pierced. Stunned, time slowed as the elk tumbled with a quivering shudder. A cloud of pollen and flowering seeds billowed out from where the creature had fallen, and then peace returned to the mountain glen. She could hear the bubbling of the creek once more, and the wings of the birds erupting from the trees. They would carry word of her kill for miles. She wondered if they rejoiced, or lamented, her success that day.

‘Kneel.’

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, though she felt no fear. As always, the Old Mann was one step behind her, watching. She’d known he would be, but she hadn’t known. As well as he had been teaching her to read the lines and shadows of the forest, to hear the sounds in her hands, feel the scent of the ground in her feet… He eluded her.

At his command, she obeyed, pressing her knees into the dirt and folding her hands in her lap. Her ashwood weapon, laid beside her. Her kill, half a glen away from where they lingered in the line of trees.

‘To whom do you give thanks.’

Without taking a breath she spoke the words. ‘I give thanks to the Lady of the Storm, the Mother of Men, Queen of the Skies…Wolf Mother, hear my prayer and accept my offering.’

Silence answered them, and still Gyda held her breath. If the Old Mann was stood behind her, she’d have no way of knowing it, for she did not once take her eyes from the elk. If a single bird landed upon her kill to feast, the meat belonged to Her and her blessed children. And her hunt would begin again.

The winds changed, and no creature, no black bird or raven swooped.

‘The kill is yours.’ Said the Old Mann. ‘Prepare it as I have taught you.’

Trembling, Gyda stood and stumbled out into the clearing, taking a single, iron knife from her pouch. Long hours of work now lay ahead of her, and this she would do alone.

Night came, and together the Old Mann and the girl roasted the heart of the elk upon their fire, in offering to the spirits of nature. The charred ash rose up into the air and scattered, the scent of burnt flesh filling her nostrils harshly. Tonight, they boiled the bones of the elk in the cauldron until the broth was brewed. It was a meagre, tasteless meal but one filled with vital, strength giving goodness. It would not do to celebrate the death of such a noble creature with feasting, Gyda had decided, at least not for her first hunt. And the Old Mann agreed. Tonight was a humble, somber celebration. In bags around them they had packed as much meat as they could carry and store for the winter. Their elk had fattened nicely after the years bountiful summer season, and what they had not been able to take, they left for the birds to finish.

Gyda had emptied her soup bowl when she noticed that the Old Mann had been staring for a long time.

‘Do you remember the stories of the She-Wolf and her Mate?’ He asked her all of a sudden.

Gyda blinked. ‘The Wolf is the father of men, the Mother is our mother. The Pack stays strong, no matter how many of our pups are taken by the New Gods,’ she almost chanted, bowing her head.

‘And what of the stars?’

The girl looked upwards in contemplation. Between the clouds of early Fall, she could still see the glinting sparkle of the constellations. At least, parts of them. She knew where to find the She-Wolf , and from there she could work out the rest. In time, with practice, she’d know them all. The Fox, the Stag, the Bear… the Mann-Beast.

‘They are guiding lights, nomads through the veil of night. Through them, the Spirits guide our way. They call the pack North…”

“Alway remember, child. You are Neran. The pack will leave the weak behind.”

After the attack of the Wolf-Beast in the Old Forests, Gyda begins to have nightmares of her memories, of her childhood growing up in the Boreal Steppes of the Brudvir Tribes, of the mann who raised her, a Stranger. The nightmares transform into a brutal death scene in which her mentor and guardian is killed by a Wolf-Beast similar to the one in the Old Forest, a false memory, but perhaps a portent of the future. The Old Mann in her dreams, as he had done in life, guides her to seek the Council of the Stars.

Dream: The Last Camp. Gyda, 21.

The Old Mann looked up at Gyda from across their fire pit, sending a jolt through her. She'd been chewing on the evenings stew absentmindedly, and this was the first time he'd caught her eye that day, hours after the sun had settled behind the mountains western crags. The young woman sat up straighter and hastened to finish the mouthful of tasteless, boiled rabbit, waiting for him to speak first.

Such behaviour was now commonplace to her. He'd been known to go weeks on end without uttering a single word, now that his instruction focused primarily on observation - to see if she had learned from a lifetime of his careful tutorage, learned well enough to survive alone - rather than criticising her abilities at every turn. It taught her the important discipline of self-improvement, saving her the mental strain of looking always to her guardian for corrections. It was far more beneficial to ask herself those questions, and make alterations where she found herself slacking.

This subtle change to his teaching methods now Gyda had reached her twentieth year gave her a clear enough message - the man who had raised her, alone on these mountains, would not always be here to protect her in the wilderness they inhabited. They were alone, and without him… Well the thought of it was enough to send ice through her veins, even as the cliffside gales beat against them. She was staring complete aloneness in the face, as she met his dark eyes across the wind jostled fire.

So familiar, and yet so unlike her own steely, silver irises. He was as familiar to her as the scars and scrapes on her hands. He was all she'd ever known. But who he was to her remained as much a mystery as why it was they lived alone in the Boreal Steppes of the North in the first place, away from the other tribes and villages that peppered the region. This was not her home. They were outcasts, that much he'd never needed to explain. Why else would a mann of his age raise a child in such unforgiving, cruel conditions? As for his age… Exposure to the elements had grooved lines across his skin like a ploughed field, and his tangled mane of hair had been solid grey since her earliest memories, perhaps even before she could walk. What his natural colouring had been, she'd never thought to ask, just as she’d never asked his age. To her, he was ageless, and if he was a relative of hers, he’d never revealed it. Now, she was afraid to ask, and perhaps to him it was immaterial.

He held no position of importance in any society that she knew, and so his decision to raise her, to take on such a burden, could not have been for the hope of a successor, someone to carry on his work after he was lost to the world. But she did not know if there was anyone left to mourn him, aside from herself. He played no anointed role in honouring the gods, aside from the customary offerings at each feast day, but Gyda was sure that the gods would not notice if they were to someday stop all of a sudden. The Old Mann only advised her to respect the Old, and fear the New. He made no demands of her, no promises to continue his work. She shivered, and continued to wait with her breath caught in her throat. She was his ward, and her trust in him was absolute.

Her guardian appeared to be chewing on his own words, twisting and pinching his mouth as he prepared to speak. She suddenly remembered to breath, the cold air misting and freezing on her lips once more.

‘Five are the aspects of the Wild.’ His deep, gravelly voice seemed to pierce the night all at once, sending another thrill through her as she prepared to inscribe into her memory permanently the knowledge he was about to share. The Old Mann did not like to repeat himself, and rarely told a story twice.

‘And you may meet all of them, or none of them…

The first is the Wolf. He will bring you prey to hunt, or he will name you the Prey. Flee, but there is no escape.’

Listening to his words, cold slivers of ice flowed through her veins, causing her hairs to stand on end.

‘The second is the Manbeast. He comes to hunt with his children, the Skinchangers, or to adopt the damned into his family…

The third is the Great Stag, his whose hooves drum the Blood Summons. Those who hear the beat are damned, there is no escaping the hunt…

The fourth is the Quick Fox. Do not become complacent, the fox is a trickster, he will lead you through the mists and into the eternal abyss…

The fifth is the Mighty Bear. Disturb him, and you will be torn apart. Make offerings, and you will be rewarded with strength…’

The Old Mann took a long breath, and did not speak again for a time, as though the tale had taken the last of his strength to tell. Of all the Old Gods, her guardian spoke of Mann-Wolf the least, and she suspected that he was the one he feared the most. And on this night, it was as though merely speaking his name revealed their hiding place to the demon King of the Hunt.

A single pair of yellow eyes glowed in the darkness.

Gyda awoke gasping from her dream, sweat dripping from her brow. It was a memory… and yet it was false. What did this mean?

‘Gyda! Run...’

...Too late. Too late did the Old Mann’s warning shake the mountain, her entire world. Too late did she stand to face or flee her fate… The Beast of the night broke from the shadows, it’s terrible maw, it’s glistening teeth, drenched in foul saliva. Her guardian, her protector, her teacher… he met his end beneath the man-wolf’s claws, dreaded razors that cut through flesh like a sickle cuts through the wheat… The Old Mann fell in a spray of crimson red against the deep, endless white.

Fire tore free from her throat. Everything was forgotten, her hands to take her weapons, her feet to carry her away… Only anguish remained, tearing from her lips like the sea foam of a storm. She cried aloud until her breath ran short, hardly able to believe the vision unfolding before her eyes, and like the tides her wails began afresh as the Old Mann’s insides were laid upon the ground… His blood extinguished the campfire, and painted the wolf's jaws. Dripping…

Her keening stirred something within the devouring beast, causing it to flatten its ears against it’s skull and cast her a baleful look, as though to say… You’re interrupting my meal.

Fear restarted her instincts like an electric shock.

I’m going to die… The Wolf has come.

Gyda awoke huddled in pain and shivering in the snow some hours later, her memory clouded. Trees surrounded her, and as images of the Beast attacking crowded into her thoughts, she could only surmise that she had been dragged away from the camp to be devoured, or she had escaped a short distance before her inescapable slaughter arrived. She could not remember.

But I am alive… Her blood soaked through the thawing snow surrounding her, like a ghastly mosaic. Unless… No. If the Beast had dragged her eternal soul into thE Spirit Realm, her mortal blood would not be decorating the place where she now lay, the place where she had fallen. Indeed, she had escaped, that much she could tell. Elsewise she’d see the blood tracks where she had been dragged away into the forest. And her mortal agony remained.

The bloodstained paws of the Beast painted the rest of the sad tale for her… She had been savaged on the ground, the Wolves teeth and claws she could still feel in the brutalized flesh of her back, her shoulders, and her neck… Evidently, the Beast had been sated by the meal her guardian had provided moments before she fell. Perhaps once she’d fallen unconscious, the desire to chase its prey, then lifeless, had abated. Anguish ripped through her heart anew.

She did not know which pain she felt more keenly now… the pain of loss, or the pain of her injuries. She realised now that she lived only because her guardian had not, and with that knowledge came the understanding that she couldn’t even risk returning to their camp to bury him as her conscious demanded. She could only leave his corpse for the ice and snow to claim, and in the spring the birds and beasts of the mountain would claim what parts of him that had survived the winter.

Grief overcame her, and the darkness fell. And in the shadows, the great Antlers of the Huntmasters helm lingered…

Three days would pass in a haze of red-hot fever and ice-cold fear, before the wounds of the Wolf-Beast would relieved her of her mortal injuries. Another day, and she’d have perished from blood loss and infection, no matter how well she tended the shallow scores of wolfen claws upon her back, or cleaned the puncture holes of its teeth deep in her neck. The feral Beast had held her down like a she-wolf dominating it’s cub, and had raked her back for the punishments final lesson.

On the first day, as the dawn of her new life rose up in the sky and thawed her frozen, blood-drained limbs, Gyda clawed her way to safety. The pain in her back was too much for her to stand, and so on her hands and knees she searched for shelter. A fitting predicament, for the Huntmaster’s most freshly dominated Hound… She might as well have had a leash and collar scolding it mark into her flesh. Though the fang wounds would serve well enough as his brand of ownership.

The second and the third day passed in an indistinguishable blur of pain, grief and sickness. She knew the end was coming, whatever that meant for her, and as the dusk of her old life set in the sky, she felt his lips upon her forehead…

Where He kissed her, the scent of blood filled her nostrils. She felt it trickling down between her eyes, across her cheek and onto her lips… The blood of the hunt filled her senses, and washed everything else away…

The hunt begins…

A blood curdling scream tore from Gyda’s lips as she lurched awake in her cupboard-bed inside her forest cabin. Tangled and thrashing in her bedsheets, she was drenched in sweat, the blood she had imagined...? Not for the first time since the attack in the Old Forest, she asked herself why this was happening to her, and what it meant… Was it her own fear, horror poisoning her mind? Or something more… Intangible?