The Spirit Stone

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‘I love you too.’ She nearly wept, then forced out her twisted smile. ‘Well, we’d best be getting home. Your Da should be riding in ever so soon, and your Mam will want to know that.’

With the child clutched tight in her arms, Morwen hurried off, head held high.

‘That’s a pity,’ Gwairyc said.

‘It is, truly,’ Nevyn said. ‘Poor lass! The child’s probably the light of her life.’

‘That too, I suppose. I meant the witchmark.’

Nevyn didn’t bother to answer. His mind was racing with plans, to return to Drwloc as soon as possible and win Morwen’s confidence. The dweomer will provide plenty of light for her life, he thought, if I can only make her see it. As Morwen passed by, some of the market people turned away. Others frankly stared. She ignored them all, doubtless from long practice, but a gaggle of boys, farm lads judging by their much-mended clothes and dirty faces, proved harder to ignore. The four of them followed her, taunting and laughing.

‘Here, ratface!’ one yelled out. ‘Witch lass! Too proud for a word with us, are you?’

When she walked a little faster, they ran after and surrounded her. The two largest lads planted themselves firmly in her path.

‘That’s enough!’ Gwairyc muttered.

Before Nevyn could say a word, Gwairyc took off running straight for the lads. He grabbed one from behind by the shirt, swung him round, and punched him so hard that blood poured from the lad’s nose. With a yelp the lad sank to the ground. One of the others broke and ran at that, but two remained game – at least until Gwairyc hit one back-handed and split his lip. With a shriek the coward fell to his knees. Gwairyc had saved the largest lad for last. Him he grabbed by the shirt and punched him in the stomach. The lad sank to the ground and vomited cheap ale all down his front. By the time Nevyn trotted up, the fight, such as it was, had finished.

‘All right, you dogs!’ Gwairyc snarled. ‘Now you’re a fair bit uglier than this poor lass is. Get out of my sight!’

The two who could still walk grabbed the vomit-covered lad by the arms and hauled him up and away. Their more cowardly but wiser friend was hovering nearby. With his help they broke into a shambling trot and disappeared in the crowd. It had all happened so fast that little Evan seemed barely troubled. He did pop his thumb in his mouth, then twisted in his nursemaid’s arms to watch her assailants run away. Morwen herself was staring wide-eyed at Gwairyc.

‘My thanks,’ Morwen said in her thick, moist voice. ‘But you needn’t have troubled yourself. I’m used to this sort of thing.’

‘Mayhap so,’ Gwairyc said. ‘But it griped my soul, somehow, seeing you mocked.’

‘You’re the first man I’ve ever met who felt that way.’ Morwen seemed less pleased than thoughtful. ‘I do appreciate it, good sir. Don’t think that it didn’t gladden my heart to see them bleed.’

Gwairyc laughed, briefly. After a nod in Nevyn’s direction, Morwen turned and walked off, carrying Evan. This time, no one bothered her.

‘Very good,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’m glad to see you have a bit of pity for someone beneath you in rank.’

Gwairyc shrugged, then began examining his bruised knuckles. Nevyn merely waited. At last Gwairyc looked up and spoke. ‘I’m not sure I’d call it pity,’ he said. ‘Everyone says that a harelip means a person’s been cursed by the gods.’

‘Everyone?’ Nevyn raised an eyebrow. ‘And cursed in the womb, before the poor baby even sees the light of the sun?’

‘It happens in the womb?’

‘It does.’

‘Well, then, that’s a bit different, isn’t it?’ Gwairyc turned to look off in the direction that Morwen had taken. ‘Seeing her mobbed like that, it just somehow griped my soul.’

‘Unfair odds, if naught else.’

‘That’s it, truly.’ Gwairyc turned to him and smiled. ‘That’s what touched my heart, then, the unfair odds.’

Nevyn was profoundly disappointed. He’d hoped that Gwairyc was feeling some compassion at last.

That evening, after a long afternoon selling herbs and sundries, Nevyn learned a great deal more about Morwen and Evan from the innkeep’s wife. After a dinner of boiled beef and bread, Wffyn went off to bed. As mere apprentices, Tirro and Gwairyc would sleep on the straw-strewn floor. They spread their blankets out in the curve of the wall at a good distance from one another, then lay down and were soon snoring. The innwife dipped Nevyn a tankard of dark ale, then took a cupful for herself and sat down opposite him at table. She was a thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, skinny woman, wearing a greasy pair of green dresses. A little woad-blue scarf, stained with sweat, bunched around her wattled neck.

‘Well, since you asked about Morwen’s sister, good sir,’ she began, ‘it was ever so great a scandal, but they always say that great beauty is better than a dowry any day, and they’re right enough when it comes to Varynna – that’s Morwen’s sister, Varynna. As beautiful as the moon in the summer sky, or so the lads all call her. Well!’ She paused for a sip of ale, then dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘And that Westfolk man of hers could see it as easy as anyone. So there she is, big with child, and her not married, so oh, she’s had her comeuppance, all right!’

‘Comeuppance for what?’ Nevyn said.

‘The airs she gave herself, good sir, ever so high and mighty she was until her belly started to swell. Now, there are some as say that Varynna was but following in her mother’s footsteps, like, because Varynna doesn’t look much like her sister and brother, if you take my meaning.’ She paused for a wink. ‘And that name! Not a usual sort of name, is it?’

‘It’s not, truly.’ Nevyn managed a polite smile.

‘A bit of the Westfolk, eh? So, anyway, Varynna did nurse the little lad, but for everything else, she handed him over to her sister, and I doubt if she’s touched the lad since he was weaned. Goes to show how wretched a mother she is, giving her lad to a witch lass to raise!’

‘Now here, Morwen seems to be taking good care of the lad.’

‘Oh, I suppose she’s fond of him. She’ll never have a child of her own.’ She paused for a ladylike sneer at the very thought. ‘Well, as to Varynna, her brother was ever so angry, having a bastard in the family, but he could do naught about it thanks to the will.’

‘Hold a moment. What will?’

‘Tsk, you’re so easy to talk to, I keep forgetting you’re not from around here, good herbman. Their father’s will. You see, he died of a fever, so he knew he was going, like. So he called in the priest of Bel and a few other men of good standing to hear his will. The farm went to the brother but only on the condition that he provided for his mother and the two sisters.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘So brother Dwal was stuck, like, with the three of them. The mother died not long after her husband, though. She’d not been quite right since Morwen was born.’ She tapped her forehead and winked. ‘It was the shame of it, I suppose.’

‘Now here, why blame her?’

‘It must have been her doing, producing a deformed get like that. No doubt she stepped over a crack or killed a hare or suchlike when she was carrying the child. That’s the way these things always happen.’

‘Not truly. It’s much more likely to be the effect of malefic lunar influences on the four humours, you see, early in the pregnancy. The moist humour is particularly susceptible.’

‘It is? Well, fancy that!’ She looked utterly unconvinced. ‘But, truly, we were speaking of our haughty little Varynna. So anyway, this spring all the old gossips had a fair bit more to wag their tongues about. A merchant and his son came in, all the way from Abernaudd, they were, and come to look for Westfolk horses. And the son was fair taken with Varynna, turned quite daft he was. But the father, well now, he had more of a head on his shoulders, and he wasn’t too pleased to find that his son’s new ladylove had a bastard. Back and forth they went about it, yelling and pounding on the table right here in my inn, and finally the old man relented. As long as the bastard never darkens my door, says he, you can marry her and take her away.’

‘Ah, I see,’ Nevyn said. ‘And now Evan’s father is coming to collect the little lad.’

‘Just that.’ The innkeep’s wife finished her cup of ale in one long swallow. ‘And Dwal’s fair pleased to be rid of both of them, I tell you. He’s planning on finding a wife himself now.’

‘Poor little Morri! Losing the lad seems to be aching her heart, and badly.’

‘I suppose it is.’ She shrugged the issue away. ‘Her nose-in-the-air sister wants the child far away from her, as far as he can get, and truly, the Westfolk live on the edge of nowhere, and so that’s that.’

Late that evening, after the innwife had gone to bed, Nevyn stayed by the glowing coals of the dying fire and considered Morwen’s strange situation. The unusual harelip was a clear example of repercussion, as the dweomerfolk call it, where some mark or wound from a particularly violent death carries over to the victim’s next life. The victim’s flood of ancient emotion marks the budding etheric double of the child in the womb, which in turn influences the physical body. Yet since such repercussions rarely last more than a single lifetime, Morwen’s scarred lip indicated that this incarnation was her first since Branoic’s horrible death all those years past.

And she’s so scrawny, Nevyn thought. No doubt she’d had a difficult time eating as a baby and a small child. Most children with harelips did. Once she’d grown older, most likely her kinsfolk had begrudged her food. Nevyn realized that he wouldn’t need some complicated scheme to take Morwen away from her family. Most likely her brother would be glad to see her go if Nevyn could convince her to leave.

On the morrow Nevyn left his stock of medicinals in Wffyn’s care and went with Gwairyc to Morwen’s brother’s farm, which lay not far beyond the town wall. It was a prosperous-looking place, three round houses joined together in a cluster, all of them white-washed and roofed in new thatch. They sat on a square of green grass, protected by an earthen wall from the cows and horses grazing in a large pasture out back. Beyond the pasture lay wheat fields.

By the front door Morwen was sitting on a little bench in the sun while she watched Evan playing with a leather ball. When Nevyn hailed her, she got up and walked over to the gate. Two big black and tan hounds accompanied her, tails wagging.

‘Good morrow, good sirs,’ she said in her moist lisp. ‘What brings you to me?’

‘I was wondering if you’d seen any sign of Devaberiel yet,’ Nevyn said. ‘He might arrive today, you see.’

‘I’ve not.’ She looked away, fighting tears for a long few moments. ‘Ah well,’ she said at last, ‘I’d invite you in to wait, but my brother takes it ill when I have guests. He’s always afraid I might offer them a bit of his ale or bread.’

‘Ye gods,’ Gwairyc said. ‘From the look of your farm there’s no call for him to be so miserly.’

‘There’s not, and he’s not, except when it comes to me.’

‘I see.’ Nevyn had long since got out of the habit of making small talk, but now he badly wanted to linger. ‘Do you have many guests?’

‘Me?’ Morwen paused for a short bark of a laugh. ‘Hardly, good sir.’

‘What? No friends or suchlike?’

‘There was only one lass in our entire village who ever dared befriend a maimed creature like me, and she –’ Morwen paused for a quick intake of breath that might have been a sigh or a choked back sob. ‘She died but two years ago. Lanmara, her name was.’