‘But I–’
‘Was it Jasper who told thee?’
Alisoun blushed. ‘I heard a rumor that she is your daughter Asa. Then I asked Jasper and he said he had heard she made no secret of it. But as you have not spoken of her–’
‘When did she arrive?’
‘I think about the time you left the city.’
Magda thought back to a gray-haired woman supporting herself on a cane. She had seen her from behind and felt a tug. But so faint.
‘She has not come to you?’ Alisoun asked.
‘No. Art thou worried she will supplant thee?’
‘She is family.’
‘She would prefer it were not so.’
‘Then why come to York?’
‘Magda does not know. But thou needst not fear. Thou art more daughter to Magda than Asa has ever been. This is thy home as long as thou wishes it.’ She rose to fetch the stew, giving her apprentice a moment to regain her composure.
While they ate, Magda led the conversation toward the proper seasoning of a coney stew and the items Alisoun should put aside in the shop for her next assignment.
Afterward, while sharing a touch of brandywine, Alisoun returned to Celia Cooper, concerned that Ned’s father, learning that Asa was Magda’s daughter, had threatened to replace her with the leech Bernard. ‘Ned has seen Guthlac Wolcott’s decline and warned his father against him, but the man is stubborn,’ said Alisoun.
Edwin Cooper was the worst of hypocrites, spouting pious nonsense and loudly condemning others for their sins while bedding the maidservants and casting them out when they became pregnant. Magda knew of this from young women who had worked in his household and come seeking her help.
‘Ned might suggest that his mother ask to go to St Clement’s Priory,’ said Magda. ‘The infirmarian has experience with women of Celia’s age. She would be safe and well cared for.’
‘Why would Edwin Cooper agree to that?’
‘Is the young woman with the red hair still serving in the household? If so, he will feel free to be with her.’
‘I see. But is that not a cruel use of her?’
‘This one is wise to his ways and uses him to her purpose,’ said Magda.
Alisoun considered for a moment. ‘I will tell Ned.’
Only as Alisoun rose to depart did she speak again of Asa. ‘She claims to be a healer. Did you train her?’
‘No. Asa believed she should be able to heal without the long study. She believed that as it was in her blood her mother must be punishing her by instructing her to study and observe, that she was hiding the craft from her. She was ever impatient with a world that did not bend to her idea of how it should be.’
‘Much like me when I first came to you.’
Magda laughed. ‘There were echoes, yes. But that was long ago and thou hast come far.’
When she was alone Magda returned to the fact that she had not sensed Asa’s presence in the city, nor had she recognized her on the street. She wondered how that connected to her rush of memories of Sten. Their children were the twins Yrsa and Odo. Asa had a different father. Was the other, more frequent watcher somehow connected to Sten? She was now quite certain it was Asa who sometimes joined him. But how would they have met? Sten and the twins had been long gone from Magda’s life when she met Asa’s father Digby. Stepping outside, she settled beneath the dragon and let the quiet of the night calm her. Only then did she go to bed.
Just before dawn the cry of an owl wakened her, its claws scratching along the roof. After a long pause, it took flight. No more sleep for her. As Magda prepared her basket of healing remedies for the day’s visits she considered who might have died in the night. But by day’s end she had heard nothing to explain the portent.
Several days passed without news of the death of which the owl had warned. Magda let it be. Nothing to do until the prophecy came clear. She continued to be curious about her watchers. The one most often about was male, she sensed cautious interest. And she was now quite certain his occasional companion was Asa, wary and angry. Whether the man was also kin she could not tell, but after sensing him she often thought of Sten. That, too, she let be. Her days were busy, and that would be so through the summer. When Lucie Wilton returned to her apothecary, likely within a fortnight, Alisoun would move on to Lucie’s family manor in the countryside south of York to care for the couple’s children, who would remain there until the manqualm quieted in York. It would ease the minds of the couple to have a competent healer in the household should the Death find the manor. Magda was happy for Alisoun to go, but her absence meant she would continue to care for folk outside the city by herself. Just yesterday a family north of Easingwold had been struck, an infant sickening in the morning, dead by nightfall. The news spread quickly. Magda had learned of it as she began her rounds.
In late afternoon, with her physicks dispensed, roots and herbs gathered, Magda turned toward home. But she did not hurry. The warmth of the day enfolded her in a pleasurable caress, inviting her to stray off the path here and there in search of tender shoots she might have missed. A cluster of coltsfoot in the ruins of an old shed rewarded her. Humming to herself and absorbed in harvesting the bright plants, she did not feel the weather shift until the wind whipped her skirts about her legs as she turned back toward the forest track. A briny wind. Glancing up, she saw the canopy of trees being whipped by the gusts, though there was blue sky beyond. Clear now, but not for long.
Caw! A beady eye studied her from an overhanging branch. Caw! Caw! Raven. When Asa was a child, Raven had watched out for her. Caw! With a ruffling of feathers, the bird rose to the sky just visible through the woodland canopy. Magda quickened her pace, all temptation to step off the path in search of plants gone with the wind and the raven.
By the time Magda emerged from beneath the cover of trees into the fields before the abbey walls, clouds chased the blue westward, chilling the air. Caw! Caw! Raven tacked into the wind. Tucking the basket beneath her cloak, Magda continued to the riverbank opposite her home. One of the lads hailed her, offering to row her to the rock.
‘Magda will go by foot,’ she said. The tide was coming in, but it was not yet so high. ‘Take thyself home. Shelter from the storm.’ She tucked her skirts up into her girdle and put her shoes in her basket.
Caw!
She crossed over the shallow water using the smooth river stones pressed into the mud to afford a reasonably dry walkway. Once on the rocky outcrop she paused, watching Raven fight against the sharp east wind to at last alight on her dragon. Raven’s battle with the storm reminded Magda of her daughter; so Asa had ever been, fighting against the elements, against anything.
Gazing out over the water, Raven fluffed her feathers, turning one eye, then the other on the Ouse, where the storm whipped the incoming tide into a boiling surge from the sea. Caw! Caw!
‘Is Asa threatened by the storm?’
Raven did not respond.
Nor did Magda sense that her daughter waited within the house. Shaking out her skirts, she took shelter in her snug home.
All night wind and rain battered the house while the fire within snapped and chuckled, the varied woods in conversation. Now and then Magda dipped her finger in a cup of goat’s milk and fed it to the kitten curled up in a basket on the edge of the table, the runt of a litter who had been handed to her by a young girl when she returned at midday. Magda had been given the goat’s milk in payment just hours before. Nature’s balance. Hungrier now, mewing for more, the kitten wobbled about in the basket, her gray, tan, and white asymmetrical markings reminding Magda of her own patchwork clothing.