Chapter 2 #2
The mayor opened his mouth, correctly read the determined expression on his face, and sat back with a resigned air. “Follow the main road out of town. It’s the last house before you reach the woods.”
Casrian left the mayor’s house with his patience strained to the limit. He pushed through the crowd of people who’d gathered outside. He set Aren and Fen in the street to keep the crowd from following. The last thing he wanted was a mob.
Usually by the time they arrived at a town, things were further gone than this.
False alarms weren’t uncommon. His old captain had loved them, treating them as easy jobs that balanced the awful ones they were called to address.
Casrian hated them. He’d rather face a fully gone witch.
If he wanted politics and flattery, he’d have stayed in the capital.
Daris fell into pace beside him. “What do you think?”
“This is bullshit,” he said bluntly. “The mayor’s wasting our time.”
Daris laughed. “Don’t be too hard on the man. His daughter is pretty, and he offered you a room in his house. We could stay a few days before we begin the long trek home. We’re bound to pass through here again on patrol at some point. We might as well foster good relations.”
Casrian wasn’t interested in fostering any kind of relations with the mayor or his daughter.
“She’s a soldier’s widow,” he said. “She deserves better than this. The mayor said he offered her a room in his house. I suspect it didn’t come without strings attached.”
Daris’s brows shot up. “You think this is revenge?”
“I think she has no family here, and he’s decided to drive her out.”
Daris frowned at the dirt-packed road they followed toward the edge of town. “She could still be a witch.”
“She could be.”
And he’d do his duty if she was.
He wouldn’t know until he spoke to her. Desperate people did desperate things. She wouldn’t be the first poor woman to turn to witchcraft to survive a hostile village. And maybe it was better this way if that’s where she was headed.
Some villages waited too long. They’d make excuses and doubt the proof of their eyes. It was better to nip it in the bud. If witches were caught early enough, they could repent.
He hated the fucking brands though.
Unsettled, he came to a stop at the end of the road. The witch’s house was past the blacksmith and the stables. They kept pigs in a lot across the street and it smelled.
The house itself was in poor repair compared to the tidy prosperity of the rest of the village.
It was built of the same white stone as the other houses, but it hadn’t been washed in ages and was more of a dingy gray, darker at the base where rain had spattered the mud from the yard.
The roof was bad. Not caving in, but he suspected it would leak.
An old, skinny cow stood in the attached yard, looking like it also had seen better days. Sick animals were often cited as witch sign, but livestock grew old and died naturally too. He saw no sores or obvious sign of illness.
Looking into the woods, the hair on the back of his neck rose.
The trees loomed closer here than anywhere else in town.
They’d been cut back from the other houses.
Here, they crouched around the little house like travelers around a fire.
It didn’t mean anything necessarily. She didn’t have the money to hire help.
There was no man with an ax to take care of the property. Still, he didn’t like it.
Turning to the men following behind, he said, “Check the woods and that shed. Take a closer look at the cow and the chickens.”
The men knew their jobs well and immediately dispersed.
“I can take the back,” Daris offered, and Casrian nodded.
Sometimes they tried to run.
Hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he knocked on the door.
Paint, which at one time had been a cheery red, flaked beneath his knuckles.
It was several moments before there was a response.
He’d just lifted his hand to knock again when the door swung open and a woman stood before him, smiling warmly.
He clearly wasn’t who she was expecting.
She was a pretty woman of about thirty years, dressed plainly in a blue woolen gown.
Her rich brown hair was braided and wrapped like a crown about her head.
The moment she saw him, the warmth in her expression went out, as quickly as if he’d extinguished a candle.
Like he was the monster here.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a thin voice, glancing over his shoulder.
“Are you Lasandra Yahl?”
“I am.” Her face paled, and she steadied herself with a hand against the doorframe. “Would you…would you like to come in?”
Her voice suggested that she very much hoped he’d say no. Before she could change her mind, he stepped forward. “Thank you. I would.”
She offered him tea which he refused. Witches had attempted to poison him twice now.
While she prepared a cup for herself, he looked around the small space.
Unlike the outside of the house, the interior was well-kept.
The kitchen was fastidiously clean. The large wooden table set before the cooking fire had been recently scrubbed, and there wasn’t so much as a morsel for a mouse on the floor.
Herbs of various kinds hung from the rafters, but there was no dust or cobwebs.
She gestured for him to take a seat at the table. There were only two chairs. The one he seated himself in looked like the sturdier of the two.
Mistress Yahl startled at the sight of Daris passing by the window outside, but she didn’t comment. When she came to the table, her chipped cup trembled in her hands and she lost several drops before she managed to set it down.
He didn’t waste any time coming to the point. “You have been accused of witchcraft.”
Her face paled further, her lips going bloodless. She swallowed twice before she managed to get out a word. “I see.”
He raised a brow. “You have nothing more to say to that?”
She folded her hands carefully on the table. “I am not a witch.”
That’s how these conversations always began. With a sigh, he took his journal out of his pocket and opened it to a fresh page. “You have set yourself up as a healer.”
“I have some skill at that, yes. People come to me for advice when they are sick.”
“Have you trained at the Academy?”
Academy-trained healers were rare in villages this small. Most made do with midwives and herbalists.
“No,” she said quietly. “I was never a student at the Academy, not officially, though I trained at the hospital there for a time in my youth.”
“You’re from the capital?”
“I lived there for several years. It’s where I met my husband.”
“Who did you apprentice with?”
She pressed her lips together. “I do not wish to say.”
He flicked a glance up to her blue eyes. They were clear, the whites healthy. Her skin was unblemished, lightly touched by the sun. If she was a witch, there was no sign of corruption in her that he could see. “Withholding such information can only hurt your case.”
“What will happen to the woman who taught me if I am found to be a witch?”
“I will visit her next,” he said. “And she will be investigated as well.”
She shook her head. “I will not pull another into my misfortune.”
“If you’re not a witch then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” He could understand her hesitation, but he needed the truth. “We clear your name and we move on.”
“What exactly is the accusation against me?”
He glanced down at the report from the mayor. “You prepared potions for Master Urich and Mistress Orla, which is illegal under the king’s law.”
“I prepared an herbal tincture to help Urich with his cough and Orla with a sore throat.”
“Without a license,” he pointed out. “You assisted at the birth of Mistress Betin’s third child who was born with a turned foot.”
“That can happen to Academy-trained healers as well. It is an unfortunate but natural occurrence.”
He moved to the next item on the list. “The cow outside is your fourth in the last year.”
“I can only afford older beasts.”
“Everyone who has attempted to take up residence in the neighboring home has taken ill. They report hearing strange sounds from the direction of your home. Animals scratching at the doors.”
A white and yellow cat leapt onto the table and sat down to watch him with green, unblinking eyes. The cat’s left ear was bent and notched at the tip. Casrian looked from the cat to Mistress Yahl. “They say you have a familiar.”