Page 24

T wenty-one

I F THERE WAS anything Orabilis owned that he hadn’t spent time repairing today, Chase couldn’t imagine what it could possibly be.

From the rickety fencing meant to keep her chickens out of the garden next spring to the chair turned upside down in front of him right now, the old woman had kept him busy from the moment he woke up.

The only bright spot in his day had been Christiana’s limping after him as he’d moved from one chore to the next.

Funny, how she could be both the best and the worst parts of his day. Best by virtue of her conversation and the rare reward of her quiet laughter that had made his day go by so quickly. Worst by virtue of what he suffered at her hands right this very moment.

He reached for the mug of ale at his elbow and downed a great swallow before continuing to work on strapping the chair leg.

It wasn’t fair to hold her responsible for his current discomfort. He had only himself to blame for this predicament. Himself and his overactive imagination.

It had been his suggestion, after all, that a long soak in a hot tub would likely soothe her aching muscles; he who had carted bucket after bucket of water from the fire to the tub in the back room; and worst of all, his imagination that couldn’t seem to think of anything but her sitting in that tub, bare-ass naked at this very moment.

Something sounding suspiciously like a growl crawled up his throat.

“What’s that you say?” Orabilis looked up from the pot she stirred. “Is that yer stomach announcing hunger yet again?”

He grunted, a thoroughly noncommittal noise meant to allay her questions without his having to tell her an untruth.

“I’ve been out here by my ownself long enough that I’d forgotten how much a braw young lad like yerself could eat. Pardie!” she huffed, after reaching into the jar in which she kept her cooking herbs. “I’d forget me own head, I would, were it no so firmly attached.”

With an ongoing series of ever-louder grunts, she hoisted herself up to her feet and waddled over to the stack of cloth sacks she’d prepared for Christiana to take back to Tordenet with her.

She quickly untied the one on top and dipped her clay jar inside, filling it before retying it and returning to her stool by the fire to toss a handful into the bubbling porridge she cooked.

“Wait a minute.” Chase couldn’t quite believe what he’d just seen. “Why are you putting that in our food? Isn’t that the special mixture you prepared to send Christiana on her little vision quests?”

He’d heard of weed brownies, but this was ridiculous. Was the old woman senile?

“You pay attention to yer own hands there, lad. I ken well enough what I’m doing here.”

Chase dropped the tool he used and moved to stand over the old woman and her bubbling pot.

“We need to get something straight between us right now. I can toss back a couple of pints or a shot of whisky with the best of them.” With his Faerie constitution, he could polish off a whole damn barrel and it would have no effect on him.

“But I don’t put that stuff in my body. No chemicals.

No dwale, absolutely no opium or hemlock or any of that other shit.

And, just so we’re on the same page, I’m going to do everything in my power to see that Christiana stops using it, too.

It can’t be good for her, visions or no visions. ”

Orabilis stared up at him, one eye squinted against the smoke from the fireplace.

“Oh, do sit yer righteous self down and stop yer fashing, aye? There’s no a sprig of any of those things in this mixture.

None of it. If you must ken the truth of it, those bags I’ve set aside for Christiana to take with her are filled with naught but good cooking herbs.

You should ken that yer own self since yer the one what mixed them for me.

” She stirred the pot before fixing him again with her stern frown, shaking her porridge-covered spoon for emphasis and sending little globs of porridge flying in all directions.

“But yer no to be telling my Christy about this. No a single word, you ken?”

“No, I don’t understand. Not one damn bit of it. How can harmless cooking herbs send Christiana on these wild-ass trips to the future she says she takes?”

The old woman made a clicking sound of disgust with her tongue.

“I expected better of you. Of all people.” She shook her head and lowered her spoon to the pot in front of her.

“Though I’ve a spell or two up my sleeve, this is no one of them.

Those simple herbs work because she believes they work.

She has the power all on her own to travel the Vision, but she doubts her own abilities. She’s no like us, laddie.”

That he could believe, since he sincerely doubted there were an overabundance of Faerie descendants walking around out here.

Which meant even Orabilis wasn’t like him.

What he wasn’t sure of, however, was that he swallowed her story about harmless cooking herbs being some kind of security blanket for Christiana.

And he definitely wasn’t falling for the “spell or two” garbage she was spouting.

“Don’t you even try to suck me into the whole witch thing. It may work with those people back at Tordenet, but I know better. Witches aren’t real. They don’t exist.” He gave her a look he hoped was suitably withering.

Her responding grin was not at all what he expected.

“No? So witches dinna exist, eh? No more than, oh, let’s say Faeries exist? What have you to say to that one, young lord Noble?”

How could she possibly . . . He closed his mouth when he realized it hung open, sitting down heavily on the hearth as the old woman cackled, sounding every bit the witch people claimed her to be.

Orabilis was right. He of all people should know better than to question what exceptions existed in the world. It was only that, for some reason, his driving need to protect Christiana kept pushing common sense right out of his reach.

Behind them, the door to the little bedroom opened and Christiana emerged on a cloud of fragrance and steam, her face breaking into one of her rare smiles.

“What have you said to so amuse my Shen-Ora?”

“Only that, should yer brother’s men take another day to arrive, this one will gladly start the digging on a new waste pit for me.” The old woman returned Christiana’s smile, hoisting an eyebrow when she turned to face Chase. “Did you no agree to that, my sweet lad?”

Trapped, he nodded, his mind a blank.

“You should see to yer beastly big animal, Chase, dearling. Before the sun goes down and you lose the day’s light.”

Again he nodded, heading for the door. Only Christiana would fail to see how transparent her old “Shen-Ora” was in trying to get him out of the house and away from her.

“I’ll accompany you, if I might.” Christiana joined him at the door, lifting her cloak from the hook on the wall. “Keeping my body moving has helped me this day. And after the long soak, I’m feeling quite supple.”

Supple? He swallowed hard, hoping neither woman noticed his reaction.

“A good idea,” Orabilis agreed. “Oh, and Chase, dearling, would you mind seeing to my goats and chickens while yer in the shed? Their feed is by the door. Christy can show you where it is if you canna find it on yer own. And by the time you finish, I’ll have yer meals waiting for you.”

“Of course,” he answered. What else could he say with Christiana beaming up at him, her eyes shining like those of a child on Christmas morning?

Though, seriously, the “dearling” stuff was laying it on bit thick.

“Is it no wonderful here?” Christiana asked as the door closed behind them. “This place has such a feel to it. It’s as if I’m breathing in pure life.” As she turned away, he took her hand to steady her walk. “Sounds daft when I say it aloud, I suppose, but I do love my visits here.”

“It doesn’t sound daft.”

Nothing she said sounded anything but beautiful, her voice lilting like a melody written just for him.

Inside the shed, he helped her take a seat on an old wooden bench before beginning the task of feeding the animals.

“Thank you for yer kindness to Orabilis. Many find her to be fair intimidating at first, but she’s a dear, kind woman and very special to me.”

That much was clear to him, though not the reason why.

“You called her ‘Shen-Ora.’ What does that mean?”

Though the light in the animal shed was low, he could almost swear she blushed.

“When I’m here, I fall to old habits too easily, I fear,” she said quietly, almost as if she were confessing.

“It’s a name my mother called her and I used it, too, as a wee bairn.

I’m no sure it has a true meaning, though my mother said it was an endearment, something akin to saying ‘my mother’s mother. ’ ”

Chase stopped in the act of tossing the straw around the stall where he stood.

“Your grandmother? Surely Torquil wouldn’t send his own grandmother out into the middle of nowhere to fend for herself.”

Christiana shook her head slowly. “I dinna ken whether or no Orabilis and my mother were truly related to one another. I do ken that I could love no one of my own blood any more than I do her. It was she who cared for me after my mother’s death.

She who led me out of my days as a child, and onto the path of being a woman.

It was she who taught me all I ken of the ways of healing.

And were she truly of my mother’s blood, it would only be more reason for Torquil to despise her, as he despised my mother above any other.

You see, Torquil and I share our father’s line but we’ve different mothers.

He alone was the issue of our father’s first marriage. ”

Things were starting to make more sense to Chase now.

“So this is why Torquil prepares for war against your brother, Malcolm? Because Malcolm is your mother’s son?”