The Hob's Bargain

waist, and fold back the sleeves. The shirt, which had come to Caulem’s hips, hit me just above the knee. I belted it to keep it out of my way. His boots were too big, but mine would work.
    The boy’s clothes made me different from the silly woman who believed in happy-forever endings. The woman who’d killed her husband because she’d tried too hard to be like everyone else.
    It occurred to me that I was more than a little crazy. If the priest could have seen me running to my cottage and slipping through the shelves into the cellar, he might not have been so quick to defend me.
    Over several days, the dark enclosure of the cellar became my shelter against the world. I left the main floor as it was, covered with the scattered remnants of my life. Like some half-mad animal I cowered in the dark of the earth, leaving its embrace only at night.
    I couldn’t run from the visions, for they came to me no matter how hard I tried to hold them away. They came with sound more often than not, and sometimes smells as well. I watched as the villagers buried my family in the plot behind my father’s house and scattered fragrant petals on the disturbed ground over their graves. All from the closed darkness of the cellar.
    I knew what the world outside my cellar was doing, whether I wanted to or not.

    L IKE ME, THE VILLAGE BURIED ITSELF AWAY FROM THE truth of its isolation. The planting season was so much work, they were soon lulled into complacency. The raiders were quiet. The houses that could be repaired, were, and new houses were started to replace the one or two dwellings that were beyond fixing. There were a few more earth tremors, but they were weak and easily ignored.
    Perhaps, opined the townswomen as they washed their clothes at midweek, the bandits had left altogether. Perhaps they’d wandered on to Beresford and kept going. Didn’t Albrin’s man, Lomas, report that Wedding Pass was clear, though he hadn’t followed it all the way through to Beresford? Wasn’t it sad about Hobard’s daughter, Aren? Doubtless she was just maddened by the grief of losing so much so quickly, but what a thing to claim! She was lucky that the old priest had died; he would have had her burned for that—and some of the women whispered that the new man was too soft.
    No one came from Beresford—but then the Beresforders, like the Fallbrook farmers, were in the middle of spring planting, and they were even farther north and higher in the mountains than we were. Except for Wandel Silver-Tongue, we seldom had anyone come through in the spring, even with the road to Auberg open. Melly usually left only the tavern open until after planting, for Wandel stayed in the manor house when he came. Lord Moresh was particularly fond of him and allowed Wandel free access to his library.
    Six days after Silvertooth fell, Wandel had an argument with the steward (and didn’t everyone at some time or another, for a more disagreeable man I’ve never known) and rode out for Wedding Pass.
    He sang as he rode, mostly about nasty things that happen to stewards who have no understanding of music and harpers. He used both hands on his harp. His white mare followed the cobbles of the King’s Highway. As they neared The Bride and Groom, Wandel put his harp away.
    The steep sides of The Bride rose to his left, casting her shadow over the road, and The Groom rose almost a third again as tall, though not half as steep, on the minstrel’s right.
    Up on the side of The Groom, the scar of the original road wound steeply to Beresford. The King’s Highway was much more gradual because the king’s bloodmages could clear through the thick thorn bushes that grew between the mountains as ax and scythe never could. I’d heard the farmers swear the stuff could grow a fingerspan in a day and take root where only moss would thrive; but even after centuries, not a single sprig pushed up between the stones of the King’s Highway.
    Wandel looked at the path lying before him and began humming a soft tune. It was one of his favorite songs, having to do with a man whose house lay in the path of the road. He’d been so stubborn and tricky the mages had finally gone around his house. To this day, Wandel swore, there was a valley where the road traced a neat half-circle around a bare spot of ground where a hut might once have stood.
    Goes to show you, the harper liked to point out, that a person could be