“You are a curious woman,” Mickel said quietly. “Such a story in your eyes.”
“Magic,” Rumble muttered. “When a raven sets its sights…”
But Patric shook his head, and the older man did not finish what he was going to say. Mickel murmured, “The raven who attacked you spit out your hair. I could almost swear he simply wanted to taste it… or your blood.”
The children scattered, melting away from the wagon. Perhaps afraid. Sally did not want to look too closely to know for certain. She shut her eyes, feeling by touch for the hem of her skirt. She tore off a strip of cloth, and bundled it against the wound in her head.
“I should go,” she mumbled.
“Rest,” Mickel replied. “Dream.”
No, she thought. You don’t understand my dreams.
But she lay down in the wagon bed, thinking of ravens and her father, and her mother, and little girls with wild hair and wilder eyes; and slept.
4
Sally danced that night. It was not the first time she had ever danced, but it was the first beyond the watchful eye of home, in a place where she was not known as the eccentric tatterdemalion princess—but as Sally, who was still a mystery, and unknown, without the aura of expectation and distance that so many placed on her. If anyone recognized her face—and there were several older women who gave her and her clothing sharp looks—no one said a word.
And no one seemed to be aware of the encounter with the ravens; nor commented on the wound in her head. She thought the children must have talked, but the people of Gatis were either too polite, or too used to strange occurrences, to make much of it.
Instead, she was treated as another Twisting Riddle, a woman of letters, who held children in her lap while she transcribed messages on the backs of flat rocks, smooth bark, and pale tanned hide; listening with solemn patience to heartbreak, tearful confessions, stories that would be amusing only to family and friends; news about births, livestock, weather; and the growing mer cenary presence with pleas attached to be safe, be at ease, stay out of the hills. I love you, people said. Write that down, they would tell her. I love you.
And all the while, Mickel juggled and sang, and juggled and danced, and juggled some more: no object was too large or small, not even fire. The other two men were also gifted, in surprising ways. Rumble dragged a stool into the heart of the gathered crowd, where he slouched with his elbows on his knees and began reciting, halfheartedly, a well known fable that also happened to be utterly boring. But at the end of the first verse his hand suddenly twitched, and the ground before him exploded with sparks and fire and smoke.
The crowd gasped, jumping back, but Rumble never faltered in his story, his voice only growing stronger, richer, more vibrant. More explosions, and he began striding forcefully across the ground, punctuating words and moments with clever sleights of hand; cloth roses pulled from thin air, along with scarves, and coins; small hard candies, and once a rabbit that looked wild and startled, as though it couldn’t quite believe how it had gotten there.
Patric was a marksman. Daggers, arrows, any kind of target. Sally was convinced to stand very still against a tree with a small soft ball on her head—holding her breath as the blond giant took one look at her, and threw his blade. She felt the thunk, listened to the gasps and cheers, but it was only when she walked away that she was finally convinced that she’d survived.
The men had other acts that impressed—shows of horsemanship, riddles, recitations of famous ballads (during which Sally beat a drum)—indeed, several hours of solid entertainment that no one in Gatis would likely forget for a long time to come. Nor would Sally. And, when the show was over, it seemed only natural that the village treat the little troupe to dinner (at which Patric’s catch of venison was sold), and to a performance of their own—as all the local musicians took up a corner of the square, and began playing to their heart’s content.
It was night, and the air was lit with fire. Sally danced with strange smiling men, and then Rumble and Patric; but she danced with Mickel the longest, and he was light on his feet, his hands large and warm on her arms and waist. She felt an odd weight in her heart when she was close to him, a growing obsession with his thoughts and the shape of his face; and it frightened her, even though she could not stop what she felt. She thought he might feel the same, which was an even graver complication. His eyes were too warm when he looked at her—cut with moments of flickering hesitation.
But neither of them stopped, and when the music slowed, Mickel twirled her gently to a halt, as Sally spun with all the careful grace she possessed and had been taught.
“Well,” he said hoarsely, standing close.
“Yes,” Sally agreed, hardly able to speak past the lump in her throat.
The people of Gatis offered them beds in their homes that night. The men politely refused. Sally helped them pack the wagon, including fine gifts of cloth and wine, and then the troupe followed the night road out of the village, toward the north. Sally kept meaning to jump out and head in the opposite direction, but her heart seemed to be heavier than her body, and refused to move from the wagon bed.
“Why did you leave?” she asked Mickel.
“It’s never good to overstay,” he replied, sounding quiet and tired. “What feels like magic one night becomes something cheap the next, if you don’t take care to preserve the memory. Familiarity always steals the mystery.”
“Always?”
“Well,” he said, smiling. “I believe you could be the exception.”
Sally smiled, too, glad the night hid her warm face. “Who taught you all these things?”
“We learned on our own, in different places,” Rumble said, the bench creaking under him as he turned to look at her. “All of us a little strange, filled with a little too much wild in our blood. Got the wander-lust? Nothing to do but wander. Now, Mickel there, he comes from a long line of those types. Knows how to recognize them. He put us all together.”
“And how long have you been at this?”
Patric flashed white teeth in the dark. “How long have you? You were quite good tonight.”
“I read. I held children and beat a drum, and stood while you threw a knife at my face.”
“But you did it easily,” Mickel said. “You made people feel at ease. Which is not as simple as it sounds. I know what Patric means. You have it in you.”
“No,” she replied. “I was just being… me.”
“As were we.”
“Mostly,” Rumble added. “I don’t usually keep chickadees in my pants, I’ll have you know.”
“That,” Sally said, “was a remarkably disgusting trick.”
“It only gets better,” Patric replied dryly.
They set up camp near the road, beside a thick grove of trees that was not the Tangleroot, but nonetheless made her think of the ancient forest. It was somewhere close, but if she kept going north with these men, she would lose her chance, lose what precious time she had left.
Perhaps it was for nothing, anyway. Despite her strange dreams and the behavior of the raven (her head still ached, and she could not imagine her appearance), the longer she was away from the gardener and her words, the less faith she had in her chance of finding something, anything, that could help her in the Tangleroot. It might be a magical forest, filled with strange and uncanny things, but none of that was an answer. Perhaps just another death sentence.
You think too much, she told herself. Sometimes you just have to feel.
But her feelings were not making anything easier, either.
Rumble and Patric rolled themselves into their blankets as soon as they stopped, and were snoring within minutes. Mickel stayed up to keep watch, and Sally sat beside him. No fire, just moonlight. He wrapped himself in one of the new cloaks the villagers had given them, and fingered the fine heavy cloth with a great deal of thoughtfulness.