My body yearned to curl up on the fluffy furnishings of Ondrey's nest, close my eyes and worry about the rest of the barbarians in the morning. Furs had a slight stink of a wild beast, but they looked darn cozy.
"Do you still wish to see where Yadwiga makes her camp?" Ondrey asked with a refreshing directness.
I followed suit. "Yes."
Miccola rolled her shoulders till they cracked. "Fine, let's go then. We're done here anyway."
I picked up my cloak from where I had stretched it out to dry. It was warm, but stank of damp wool. Lovely.
"Escort Phedoxia to her tent, please," I asked, still wrinkling my nose. "It shouldn't be hard to find Yadwiga's fire. I'll go alone with Ondrey."
Sleep fled my lieutenants' eyes as if by magic, replaced by concern, but they recognized the dismissal. Miccola's fingers squeezed my elbow when she pushed past me out of Ondrey's tent, a 'be vigilant' pinch. Phedoxia didn't inflict further injury on my person. Her narrowed eyes conveyed a sterner message. As if I couldn't handle one man!
Outside, fires crackled in the gusting wind, showering hunched sentries with sparks no matter which way they turned. They cursed and spat on the logs, adding to the hissing of the damp, resin-weeping firewood. It smoked more than it burned.
Ondrey was a silent presence behind my right shoulder.
I twisted my head till I could see his eyes. Nothing ominous flickered in them, despite the reddish glint of reflected firelight. "Which way?"
"Toward the forest," he said cryptically. "Then you'll see."
We walked a little, to the temporary barricade of sharpened stakes. I put my hand on and shook it. It held fast, despite springing a little. It would stop a galloping horse. "Do you expect an attack?"
"I always expect an attack."
A man after my heart! That's why I tried to keep disdain out of my next question. We were at the edge of the camp already. All the tents stood at our backs. He just wanted to talk to me alone, confess that the witch was a figment of folk imagination. That he used the legend to usurp the chain of command. Not that he wasn't capable, and I understood the plight of being dismissed as unworthy of a position-- anyway, I asked him as evenly as possible, "So, where to now?"
His hands lowered onto my shoulders—not an unpleasant sensation of a large warm body behind me, his beard tickling my forehead—to turn me a bit to the left. He pointed, nearly brushing my cheek with the fluffy cuff. "Can you see this light over there?"
No. Yes. A red glimmer, no bigger than a star in the sky, trembled between the trees. "An old woman sets her tent this far out?"
"Not a tent. It's a cabin."
I could hear his strong heartbeat. His pulse didn't speed up at all. He probably spoke the truth.
"Yadwiga has a hunting lodge here? How fortuitous."
"You may say that. The forest witch has her lodgings wherever there is a heartwood. Her cabin moves through it."
"The cabin moves? How? Drawn by what?"
"Under its own power. It has legs. Chicken legs, to be precise."
There was only one rational explanation why our conversation was developing along these lines.
"I don't smell the drink on your breath, Ondrey. Is it Ashanti or a similar herb?"
"No, Your Grandissima. I'm sworn to abstain from all worldly pleasures, including spirits, opiums and... things, until--"
I couldn't see his face, but I felt him step away from me. I didn't think he was walking away from me.
"It does not matter," he finished quietly. "I'm telling the truth about the cabin. This is how the Forest Witch lives, it's her magic."
I breathed in and out, letting my guts decide if I believed him or not. My guts felt too comfortable around him. I didn't think he was a raving maniac. This was a bizarre land with dark beliefs and darker magic, the land of the exiles who had worshiped Bhutas in the past. Phedoxiua declared they still did. Perhaps she was right...
I wished she was. Dark magic was always stronger in the stories than the alternative. I needed all the help I could get to take Ratne.
However, I was nobody's fool. "I wish to see the cabin with my own eyes, Ondrey."
"It's not much to look at. A log cabin, one window, a screeching door. Badly in need of a fresh coat of paint on the window frame too."
"And it has chicken legs."
He drifted closer, tickling my neck with his breath. "Yes, but when it folds them under, it's just a cabin."
I chuckled, enjoying his tale, leaning more and more against him, his hands embracing rather than guiding me like before. Even the wind had died down, letting the clouds have a break from their interminable chase from one corner of the sky to the other.
"I grew up in the heartwood, in that cabin. Yadwiga took me in after my parents had perished in fighting. She does it sometimes. Takes in strays and orphans. Long life... I suppose it gets lonely for her."
I straightened out of his embrace, turned around, searched his face in the light of the struggling moon. Perished in fighting—he said this about his parents with a casual attitude of someone born on a lawless frontier.
This was no lie to impress a woman. Memories flickered in his eyes. It was just like clouds when they obscured and revealed Yansara's eye. Sad memories, then bright ones.
"Naturally, some say she eats those children to stay young, but..." Ondrey opened his arms wide to the sides to show he was in one piece, grown-up, if a hand shorter than a giant. "Maybe I didn't look tasty."
"Can't vouch for Yadwiga's taste, but to me you look perfectly delicious."
We laughed, strengthening trust between us. Even without this rapport, I could have made love to him, had he not put some distance between us as we walked back. His vow must have been comprehensive and included copulation.
"I do want to confer with Yadwiga," I told him before getting into my tent. "Nomadic cabins and your sad childhood story notwithstanding."
"Understood, Your Grandissima."
"Perhaps one day you'll call me Ismar," I said. I really hoped so, no matter how much I loved my new title.
***
Snow had stopped falling while Ondrey and I chatted about the witch. It didn't resume by dawn. I rubbed sleep out of my eyes with a handful of melting snow I scooped a judicious distance away from the tents. We'd probably march through mud today, but we'd march. And the sooner, the better. I had a castle to besiege.
I went to the supply wagons to impress the need to move faster on the women loading them.
My eyes up on a woman tying down sacks of millet, I nearly tripped over a crone. The ancient thing was lugging two sacks too large for her. Some women just didn't know when to quit the camp-following business. Though, from the way Ondrey talked about Tverizh yesterday, maybe the intermittent warfare wouldn't let them find an occupation more suitable for the golden age.
"Which wagon, nana?" I asked and hoisted the woman's bigger sack onto my shoulder.
She had the eyes of a bird glued to a toad's face. Wrinkles, scales, tufts of hair in the lip's corners, warts—every blemish of age one could think of, there were five of it. Next to her, Phedoxia would get her wish to look like a spring chicken.
"You're one of the Southerners, aren't you, granddaughter?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm. From a city called Palmyr." It made me homesick to say it—not like my usual self. Perhaps it was the crone's voice. It was so kind, it lulled a woman into comfort.
"Are you a Princess there, in the South?"
I chuckled—why would she think that? Then I remembered what Phedoxia told me. There were Princesses and peasants here, nothing in between. And peasant girls didn't like going to wars very much. The Princesses, on the other hand...
"No, I'm not a Princess. I'm a mercenary and earn an honest living with a sword in hand," I explained the best I could.
She bobbed her head, neatly wrapped into a white shawl of some fluffy wool, with a flower pattern. They must miss flowers during the long winters a lot. Everything was so white and gray.
"So you're like our riders? A woman paid to fight for a Princess in land and silver, to keep your horse and your kit in order?"
I wondered if that was what Ondrey used to be in the Grand Princess' army. A landed rider rather than a peasant levy, like Phedoxia had implied. It would have made sense, given his aptitude. Made him similar to me in every respect, except he was a man.
"Something like that. Only we call our ruler a Queen. Queen Zinaida of Palmyr. Maybe you've heard of her?"
The crone shook her head, a 'no'.
"And the money is good?"
"Can't complain." I didn't think she needed an explanation of how we could leave our employ, once the contract had run out.
"Enough for a woman to keep a husband in addition to a horse?"
Her pointed curiosity made me chuckle. "Aye. Want to sign up with the Deadhead Company, nana?"
She laughed louder than me, showing yellowed and surprisingly undamaged teeth. "Nay, child, it's too late for me to dream of men. It's for good-looking women like you and with good hearts! If you aren't fated to build a strong house with many bright-eyed daughters, who is?"
"I can't complain about my fate. I'm three years married to a sweet man. He runs the household for me with an honest hand. Humble. And very pretty." Kozima materialized in my mind's eyes, with his soft mouth and a curtain of dark curls over the tall forehead, gentle hands, heat racing under my lips' touch. I stifled a sigh. "Like I said, can't complain."
"Good, good... and here we are. There's my wagon, granddaughter."
We dumped our respective loads into the wagon. She wiped her hands on the dark skirts sticking from under the fur-trimmed felt vest. Squirrel or fox, I wasn't sure. Her face creased into a warm smile. I smelled fresh bread... lavender tea... other wholesome things--all in my imagination, obviously, since the camp stunk of horse dung, smoke and piss. Those were pleasant imaginings.
"When a woman is kind to her lesser, that's how you know she's good. You'll be blessed with many husbands and daughters, Ishmara from Palmyr."
"Thank you," I said, smiling and turning to leave. A blessing is a blessing, even if it comes from a strange crone in a foreign land.
"Wait... how do you know my name?"
It was my name, slightly changed by the local accent, perhaps, but recognizable. Also, one of the Bhutas was named Ishamara, but I was more troubled that she knew my name.
I whirled at her, but the crone was no longer where she should have been. In a busy camp, I stood all alone by the wagon. I twisted my head this way and that. Maybe she could waddle really fast. The white shawl was nowhere to be seen between the heads of the working women.
Ondrey was a different matter, however. He towered, sleeves rolled up for work, showing off the corded muscles. He was hatless today, with only a thumb-thick leather string across the forehead to keep his sandy hair back. His grin was so wide, it nearly pushed past his cheeks.
I advanced on him to find out what was so funny.
He greeted me with a respectful bow. "Your Grandissima, you wished to meet the Venerable Yadwiga. You had your wish."