19) Cobwebs

Bronwyn left the cottage, tucking the flask back into the pouch and pulling her cloak close across her shoulders. She sat on a stump and watched Rebeka's pyre as it burned down through the night. Robbie Longfellow hopped up and sat by her side with his head on her lap. Aodhan led Dale to the cottage and to his bed as the pale fingers of dawn touched the clouds to the east. When the tinker emerged he came to Bronwyn where she perched.

"This was a terrible business," he said, pulling out a bit of dried meat and offering Bronwyn a piece. She shook her head, grief struck, but Robbie accepted with great dignity.

"What happened to the hag?" she asked finally.

Aodhan Tinker shrugged. "What always happens. She disappeared in a flash of light and a gust of wind when her dragon fell to the knight's lance."

The witch watched the clouds redden the sunlight until the bloody sunrise spilled over the horizon. She reached deep into herself, searching for any calling or pull, but found only a great vault of emptiness, small forgotten things in the corners and cobwebs in the arched rafters.

"I have no call to seek her out," she said eventually, pulling Robbie's ears through her fingers and stroking his long face.

Aodhan grunted, shifting to sit a little more comfortably. "I would imagine not. Witches don't kill hags. It's not the way of things."

"The way of things..." She looked at him sharply, bathed in the ruddy light. "What is the way of things, then, if I can't keep death from my door, if I must be pursued by wolves and hags and mad kings? Did you know she turned those boys to swans? Even if Lisbet finishes the coats I don’t know how she’ll find them again."

"They’re lucky she didn’t curse them to be swans for nine hundred years; she’s fond of that one.” He nodded at Robbie Longfellow and gave the dog another piece of jerky. “It seems to me that you have a dragon and a Night Mare and a little God's Hound by your side to keep you company along the way. It will all come clear."

She looked down at her dog, who simply looked up at her mournfully. "A God's Hound? Is that what you are, little thief? We have much to discuss, then." Sighing, she raised her eyes to meet the tinker’s. "So what am I to do?"

"Well, the way I see it, you continue doing what you're called to do, until you can do it no more, and then pass on the flask and the mantle to the next witch."

"I never thought I had a choice of doing what I'm called to do, or not. It's always the right thing, always the thing that's easiest to come to hand." She stopped petting the dog for a moment, until he nudged her hands insistently.

"My lady, there is always a choice. It's difficult to see, though. Magic is just a tool, but it's a powerful one, and fate is fickle. We want to do the good thing, or the thing that makes us most important, and we don't always see alternative choices that we would accept. You did well with Lisbet, letting her take on the task of rescuing her brothers."

Bronwyn looked at him sharply, surprised. "It was her task to do, her skills to use. I may have lived longer, but I don't love her brothers the way she does, I do not want to save them as badly as she does, so it was the right thing to let her borrow a bit of magic to weave into a way to rescue them."

"That was a choice, too," Aodhan replied, nodding sagely, "and a wise one."

"What are you, Aodhan Tinker? Are you also a witch, if witches could be men?"

He grinned. "Oh, no, I am many things but not a witch. I know stories and songs, all of them actually, and often I see things. I arrive at convenient times. I can sometimes make a thing easier, though sometimes I choose not to."

"And what do you think I should do next? I'm out here, off my mountain, and the world seems to have found me all at once."

"A witch is difficult to put back into her tower, yes." He grinned at her and then sobered. "Because I am your friend, I think you should return to your tower for a time, and tend your garden and your giant. You will know when it's time to come back down, and what to do then."

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"And how would you advise me if you were not my friend, but a tinker who knows things?" She looked up at the sun as it rose full off the forested hills.

"I can only say that you could be a great force for good, but that you may pay for that goodness with heartache and regret."

"There is only one thing I regret," she answered, her face and her heart closed to him.

"I know," he replied, feeding another piece of dried meat to the God’s Hound Robbie Longfellow.

Bronwyn left an hour after dawn, the Mare and the dog following their mistress sedately for a mile or so until the Mare got fed up with watching the witch limp slowly up the path. She nudged Bronwyn in the small of the back, sidling up next to her. Whickering, she tossed her head, rolling her eyes towards her back. "I can walk," Bronwyn snapped, her mood dark with self pity. Robbie Longfellow cut across her path, barking in high tones at her until she stopped. Between them, they nipped and yipped and bullied her until finally she relented and slipped onto the Mare's back. Robbie lept up and sat behind her, balanced on the horse's haunches. He ignored an evil look from his equine friend.

As they traveled, where they had encountered no one on their way to the Deep Woods Monastery, they seemed to encounter a great number of folk. On the first day, a cow girl sat weeping on a rock beside a stream, her milk-cow lost in the woods. Bronwyn sent Robbie Longfellow out to find the beast while she spoke with the girl. The child was simple, but loved her cow and worked hard for her mistress. The cow was returned, happy to be with her girl once again, and the cow girl gave them fresh milk in thanks.

On the second evening as they made their simple camp, they met a messenger from a queen two kingdoms away. He was weary and heartsick, for his people loved their king and queen very much. "What is your task?" Bronwyn asked, answering the weary tug against her heart.

"My queen has tasked me to find out the name of an imp who taught her to make straw into fine gold thread. I've been searching for two weeks, and if I do not return with the name in seven days, she must give the imp her firstborn son." The witch looked into the smoke of her cook fire, and the steam rising off of the cook pot where that day's game hen simmered.

"Travel back a day and take the northern fork. You will go deep into the wilderness for three days, and then you will find the cottage of the creature you seek. You will find the answer there, and your prince will be saved." She saw the fear and wonder in his eyes as she handed him a bowl of broth and a piece of hen. He took a sip or three of the soup before taking his leave, returning the way he came.

At noon on the third day, a young merchant met them on the road, two pack horses following along behind his serviceable gelding. She liked him very much, as much for his kindness with his beasts as for his gallantry. His family crest was embroidered with roses and sea-shells, and she touched them with a smile as he made tea for them over a hastily built fire. "Do you have a sweetheart?" she asked, idly.

"Oh, no, but I dream every night of the girl I'll marry," he smiled with hope and joy.

"She must be a remarkable young woman, that you dream of her each night." Bronwyn could not help but smile in return, though her face felt stiff with it.

"Oh, she is. She has long golden hair, and eyes the color of the darkest mint in my mother's garden, and she laughs and cares for the wild beasts who come to her hand."

Bronwyn stilled. "And where does she live?"

"In a rose covered tower on a mountainside. Someday when I have made my merchant-house I will find that mountain, and I will woo her."

"So you will." She drew a dusky white rose down from the steam of her teacup and presented it to him. "Your sweetheart's name is Rue. When you have made your merchant house, ride three days west of the king's castle. Present to her a climbing rose, a briar rose, and a rose from a far off land, and she will surely hear your suit."

He accepted the smokey rose with wonder and no fear. "And will we be happy?"

Prophecy rose in her like the bitter draught, and a great rush of fate and future rushed through her. When she could speak, she picked up the thread of the future that she saw in the middle of the tale. "You will be happy together, and she will give you three daughters, graceful, hopeful and honorable, and they will love violets and lilies and roses. A time will come, though, when one of your daughters will have to make a terrible choice to save your life."

He looked troubled. "Perhaps I will find another way," he said hopefully.

"Perhaps, but you must also trust your daughter. Now, go - your wares will be well received in the next town, and the one past that, and soon you shall be very wealthy indeed."

They parted ways and Bronwyn leaned against the mare's shoulder, tears wetting her face and the mare's neck. "Home, take me home," she sobbed, and they passed down the road like a fleeting shadow, the white haired witch on her night black mare, dark mane and white hair streaming behind them like wings and a hound at their heels.