Hunt- Red Riding Hood Retold Page 8

  Now her words made sense. Chase leaped out of the way, just in time, as the barrels floated outside, then landed neatly on the ground.

  Rosa slid down the ladder, looking annoyed. "Did you not hear me, or did you simply not listen?"

  "How did you do that?" he stammered.

  She swore. "Magic, of course!" She waved her hand and another gust of wind came through the door, swept up Chase's empty plate, then dumped it into the washing up tub by the window. "Just like that!" She reached for her cloak, which flew into her hand from across the room. She fastened it as though it was a perfectly ordinary occurrence. "I should have taken you back to the Baron instead of bringing you here. Let you heal normally instead of…" She raked a hand through her hair. This close to her, Chase could see that it was pale gold, not white at all. "Pack your things. Let me know when you're ready to leave and I'll take you back to town." She turned and marched outside.

  Magic. Of course. The most normal thing in the world for a witch.

  For all he'd seen – Abraham's curse, then mindreading royalty in the court of Aros…he'd never truly seen magic performed in front of him. Not like this.

  That first day he'd woken up in her house, she'd told him she could fly. She'd probably floated him back here like one of those barrels. So many times he'd questioned her, and she had answered. If only he'd listened.

  She had more magic than Abraham and the court of Aros combined. Magic she'd used to help him.

  And he owed her a debt for it. A debt he'd sworn to pay.

  He followed her outside. "You can't take me back to town. I haven't repaid you yet."

  She knelt beside a firepit, watching a wisp of smoke curl up from a pile of kindling. Then she rose, turning to meet his eyes as the flames behind her leaped into the air, fanned by the wind. Rosa didn't even blink. Instead, she folded her arms across her chest, challenging him to continue.

  "I pledged my service, and you said I had a week. A week to repay you." Chase took a deep breath. "I will do anything you ask of me. Just as I would for my liege lord, or lady. Anything. Just name it. But don't take me back to the Baron yet."

  It shouldn't matter whether he stayed here or at the Great House, but somehow…it did.

  He'd said it before, but now he meant to do it properly. Chase fell to his knees and drew his dagger, which he laid across both hands as though it were his absent sword. "My life and my blade, I pledge it in your service, Mistress Rosa," he said.

  She stared at him for a long moment, before she finally said, "By all the gods, Sir Chase…no one's ever done such a thing for me before. I'm no queen. I wouldn't rightly know what to say to that. Except…if I made a joke about the size of your sword, would you consider it a mortal insult? Because that's all I can think about right now."

  "I have no idea," he confessed. "I've never made such a vow to anyone before, either." Not successfully, at least. Best if the King of Aros forgot he'd ever existed.

  Rosa held out her hand to help him up. "I guess I accept, then. It feels ungrateful not to."

  He wet his lips. "You should probably know that I am better with a bow than a sword. Oh, I can wield a sword well enough in the practice ring, but my accuracy is deadly with a bow."

  He'd sparked her interest. "I saw your bow, and wondered…perhaps we can both use some target practice, but not today. Today, I want to try and get the god of fire to bless my mead."

  That wasn't something you heard every day. "What can I do to help?"

  Twenty-Seven

  Loath to admit this was the first time she'd ever distilled mead on her own, or that it had been years since she'd seen her grandmother do it, she asked Sir Chase to fetch enough firewood to keep the cauldron boiling for several hours.

  While he did that, he would be too busy to notice she was not as sure of herself about this as she wished. Oh, setting out the cauldron and filling it from one of the barrels of fermented mead was easy enough, once the fire was hot enough, but setting the special lid on it just right was a more delicate task. Not to mention making sure she had a cask on hand ready to take the distillate, but far enough away that the cask didn't catch fire, and the liquid didn't evaporate.

  Her grandmother had always lit the firepit closest to the herb garden, and placed the cask on the far side of the garden wall, Rosa remembered, so Rosa did the same.

  Then she sat on the wall to watch the knight hauling barrow after barrow of wood. He favoured one leg over the other – as she expected, for while he'd healed enough to walk, he still had not healed completely – and more than once, he'd winced as the load he carried was more than his half-healed ribs could handle. She half expected him to complain at being forced to do the work of a lowly woodcutter, especially in his condition, but the man simply smiled as he passed her and kept going.

  A smile that warmed her heart, each time she saw it. Watching him work, she thanked the gods for sending her such a man in time for Midwinter. Why, she might even enjoy her initiation now.

  When he'd piled up enough wood to fill all four firepits, he perched on the wall beside her and asked, "Do you think we have enough to summon your fire god now, or will he want a bigger pyre before he puts in an appearance?"

  Rosa laughed. "He doesn't actually appear," she admitted. "It's more of a story my grandmother always told, about the ways to make the best mead. The recipe originally came from the goddess of bees, but the god of fire and the goddess of winter had a competition one Midwinter, to see who could make the best mead…" She stopped at the knight's sceptical look. "You're of the new faith, aren't you? The one with only one god, who cures diseases, conjures bread and fish, walks upon the surface of water without falling in and can raise people from the dead? The god of the desert people in the south?"

  Chase nodded. "That sounds like the tales our priest told, yes. A faith more than a thousand years old is hardly new."

  "It is new here. And the more people who believe in it, the fewer will respect the old gods, or give them their due. Then they grow angry, and it falls to we few who remain to remember the old ways, to save those raised in the new faith from a wrath they cannot begin to understand." Rosa shook her head. "Those who spread the new faith say the old gods are evil, but truly, they are not. Only when they are angered or not shown proper gratitude for their gifts do they stop caring for their people…but surely that is not evil. If you cared for someone every day, and never heard a word of thanks from them, only insults when they did not ignore you altogether…would you not turn away from them, too?"

  It would be so easy to ignore the needs of the village, to live her life as she wanted, without taking up the mantle of priestess to the gods of the forest. Especially when even the village children taunted her…

  "I'm a knight, not a god," Chase said slowly, "but if people hated me, I admit I would not want to help them, either. Yet…many of our priest's tales told of forgiveness, and charity, and how we should help those who needed it, not just our friends. Perhaps because if the other gods withdraw their assistance, it is up to us to perform their duties." He wiped a hand across his eyes. "Alas, I am no theology scholar. I learned to wield a sword and shoot a bow. Who am I to know a god's thoughts, or the reason they do what they do?"

  His words put her to shame. Who was she to question her fate, indeed? She had received her magic as a gift from the gods, and she owed them her service for such a blessing.

  "But I have heard many stories from my father's bible. What I have not heard is a tale about a mead-making competition between gods. So, Mistress Rosa, must I beg for this tale, or is it only told at Midwinter?"

  A blush stole across her cheeks. "No, Midwinter is when…when they drank the mead. The tale is told whenever it's time to make it." She eyed the cauldron, which had not yet begun to steam. "I suppose we have plenty of time."

  She took a deep breath. "The goddess of winter and the god of fire were drinking mead together one cold winter's night. The offering was made to the goddess, in thanks for helping a brewer, an
d the goddess said she would show the god of fire how to improve on the nectar of the gods, for that's what they called mead.

  "She spread her magic around the jar, until ice formed on the outside. When she lifted the lid, the contents had frozen over, like a lake in winter. But just like a lake, when she smashed a hole in the top, there was still liquid inside, sweeter and more potent than before. She lifted out a jug of the stuff and shared a cup with the god of fire, who proclaimed it as his new favourite drink.

  "He drained his cup, then said fire was far better than ice when it came to drink that warmed you from the inside, and he would make something even better.

  "The goddess said he was welcome to try.

  "So he took another jar, and built a fire beneath it. Soon, the jar began to boil. He took his sword and shield, placing the shield atop the bubbling jar, and propping it up with his sword, held upright in an empty jug." Rosa gestured at her setup. A conical copper lid with a pipe at the top, which slanted down to the empty barrel on the other side of the wall, was a far cry from the sword and shield, but if she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine it being the first such still, before time and practice had refined it to what she had now.

  "My grandmother said the sword and shield were made of bronze, which glittered like gold," Rosa added.

  Something tightened in Chase's expression, as if he did not like this particular detail.

  Rosa hurried on. "The steam touched the shield and turned to liquid. The droplets ran down the sword until they formed a rivulet, filling the jug with what looked more like water than mead. Yet when they drank it…it burned their throats like liquid fire.

  "The goddess said that ordinary mead had the power to heal, so this stuff was so medicinal, it could cure anything, so she declared that the god of fire had won the contest.

  "He poured himself a cup of the sweet mead from the goddess's jar, and said the mead he'd made by fire was so strong, so pure, it should not be drunk by mortal man except on the very cusp of death. A mead most men could not drink was hardly mead at all, and he declared the goddess had won the contest.

  "They then proceeded to drink more mead, as they argued about who had won the contest. By the time they had drunk all the mead, they had forgotten all about the competition, and it was time to…to do what deities do at the Midwinter solstice…so they never declared a winner." She ducked her head to hide her blush.

  Chase laughed, his good humour returned. "I love it! Gods who get so drunk they forgot to pick a winner."

  Rosa smiled, happy to let him believe it. If she told him why they'd been too distracted by their other duties, he would be horrified. Sir Chase the Chaste would not understand the power of fertility rituals, especially between gods.

  He waved at the cauldron. "So you are making the fire mead today. Why not the ice mead?"

  Rosa pointed at the barrels lined up outside the cottage. "I left those outside last night. I skimmed the ice off them while you were still sleeping, when I lit a fire in the baking oven for our bread. We call it Midwinter Night mead, for the goddess, and usually it stays in the casks for another year before it is drunk the following winter. The flavour is richer."

  "And what will you do with the fire mead?"

  This part was the bit she understood the least, for no matter how well her grandmother had explained it, Rosa had not been able to grasp how it was possible.

  "The distillate – which my grandmother called the raw spirit, for it feels like your very soul has been ripped out of your throat when you drink it – is mixed with magic imbued leaves, so steeped in healing magic it is said they could bring a man back from the brink of death." She thought of the Baron – why had Grandmother not given him the medicinal mead? Unless she knew it would not work, for his growth disease could not be cured by it. There was so much her grandmother had not had time to tell her. "Perhaps that is what your desert god used. Maybe they knew the secrets of distilling there, too. Or your desert god stole the secret from our fire god."

  "I'm not sure what intrigues me more. Gods getting drunk and stealing from one another, or magical, life-saving leaves. I wish I'd had some when my sister was dying. I might have been able to save her." Chase's shoulders slumped.

  "You can't save everyone. Sometimes, it is simply their time." Rosa closed her eyes. "But sometimes, it's not. It's every bad decision you and everyone else ever made, that rips someone from you before their time. And no matter how much you wish you'd done things differently, that maybe you'd been brave enough to go instead of them, or you'd been quicker to take action in the past when it might have made a difference…it is still too late. I would give anything to have her back, and yet I still know I couldn't save her."

  "Your grandmother?" Chase guessed.

  Rosa nodded, not daring to raise her eyes lest he see the tears spilling down her cheeks. It did not do for a witch to show weakness.

  "Was it sudden?"

  Another nod. "The first snows had just fallen. We didn't even know the wolf had come down from the mountains. He killed her on the road, on her way home."

  He stared at her. "You mean…the wolves the Baron sent me to kill? Your grandmother was killed by a wolf pack?"

  "It was only one wolf then. The same wolf who killed my family, the last time the snows came. The same wolf I tried to kill the day before you came, but I thought it was just an ordinary wolf. I should have listened better to her stories…" Rosa shook her head, angry with herself. "It must have found a pack in the mountains and taken it over. Like…a man building an army…" Even as she said the words, they felt right. Like a man, not a wolf.

  "A wolf building an army? Impossible. It was just a pack of them. Hungry, seeking food, and I foolishly left my horse where they could find it. I should never have left my eyrie. If I'd stayed up high, I could have picked them off one by one and I would have already claimed the Baron's reward." He jumped to his feet. "I shouldn't be sitting here, sharing stories by the fire. I should be out there, with my bow, fulfilling my quest."

  "No!" Rosa grabbed his arm. "You're not healed yet. You've barely been out of bed for a few hours – you're in no state to go out hunting on your own. The medicinal mead may have brought you away from the brink of death, but it still takes days to heal. That beast out there is no ordinary wolf. There is magic about him, I tell you, or I would have killed him myself before you came. I tried, and failed, and barely escaped with my life. I could not kill one lone wolf, and you cannot defeat him with a pack at his back. If you were to go out there now, I might not be in time to save you again." She gestured at the still, which had started to drip. "Besides, don't you want to taste for yourself, and see which of the old gods truly makes the best mead?"

  Five days. She only had to keep him here for five days. Long enough for Midwinter to have come and gone, and for her to have kept her word to Alard. But she would have to keep her word to the Baron, too, and become a priestess at Midwinter. For that, she needed the knight.

  "Please, Sir Chase. You have travelled to many places, and undoubtedly tasted many fine things. Perhaps you can settle the score between the goddess of winter and the god of fire. Perhaps they will see fit to offer you a blessing that may help you in the coming battle."

  "The bishop back home would have me excommunicated for even thinking about accepting your offer."

  Hope sparked in her breast. "But you are considering it, are you not?"

  He stared at her, as if measuring her soul. "More because it is foolish to refuse a drink offered by a beautiful woman, than because some deities I do not believe in may offer me some kind of magical assistance."

  The knight had turned the tables on her, for he was far more skilled at flattery than she would ever be. "You go too far, Sir Chase. No man has ever called me beautiful and told the truth in the same breath."

  "Then it seems the men of your village are more foolish than me." He took a deep breath. "It is said far and wide that Queen Margareta of Aros is the fairest lady any man has ever seen,
but I have gazed upon her face and I can honestly say you bring more joy to my eye in a moment than a lifetime spent in her presence."

  Rosa didn't know what to say. She managed a shy smile. Finally, she said, "Then I thank you for the compliment, Sir Knight."

  Perhaps her mother had not been wrong about knights and their courtly courtesy after all.

  Twenty-Eight

  He didn't deserve her thanks. He hadn't lied, but…he hadn't told her the truth about the Queen of Aros, either. Then again, no one here needed to know the truth about how he'd been banished from Aros. Least of all Rosa, whose ice-fair features were lovely enough to tempt any man. Including the Baron's son, he was sure.

  A thought that shouldn't send a rush of anger through him, yet there it was. He'd experienced jealousy before, envying Abraham and Maja their happiness together, but that was nothing compared to the acid eating his insides now.

  Even as he told himself he was here to complete a quest and earn a reputation, a tiny voice in the back of his mind added how wonderful it would be to win Rosa's heart along the way. To share her bed the way a man usually did with a woman, dishonour be damned.

  Only he would have to leave her at the end of the winter, for he had no place here. And to break the heart of a witch who could probably kill him with a glance, or curse him for the rest of his days, did not seem like the wisest course of action.

  The Baron's son was a better match for her, he reasoned. She could rule over the Great House instead of this tiny cottage, and have servants to do the work for her. And surely she had family here, for in a village so small, everyone must be related to some degree.

  Unless the wolves had killed them all.

  But why would a wolf do that – kill a whole family, yet leave the rest of the village untouched? Until now. It made no sense.

  "What can you tell me about the wolves?" Chase asked, trying to sound casual.

  "Well, there was only one until the day you decided to go after him," Rosa said.