‘Thou’rt eager to thrive, little one,’ Magda murmured. The kitten rubbed its head against her hand. The child would not return, her family would forbid it. No matter. A home would be found. ‘Thou hast a good appetite.’ From a shelf she plucked an old cloth glove that was missing several fingers. With a snip, it lost another. Filling it with some milk, she held it to the tiny mouth. The makeshift nipple was soon suckled dry. ‘Enough for now.’
Magda settled to work, humming as she ground nuts and roots for a broth that sustained her when busy, kept in a small jug she carried with her as she traveled in her donkey cart to the farthest reaches of Galtres, her primary visitation routes. The cart and donkey were a treasured gift from Old Crow, the late John Thoresby, Archbishop of York. Her good friend in the end. He had not always been so.
A neighbor kept the cart and donkey for her, and when Alisoun was not available to groom Nip, her name for the ever-hungry being, the neighbor’s daughter did so. For her, Magda prepared a tisane to ease the child’s tremors, the result of a head injury when young. As the girl grew and explored the world the tremors were easing, but not yet gone, and she hid from the world in fear that folk would think her cursed or possessed by a devil. Foolish ideas from the same source as made some folk fearful of Magda’s skills as a healer. The Church taught intolerance for the mysteries that did not serve it, and the people suffered. Turning her mind back to the child, Magda added angelica for sweetness.
A gust of wind found the chink between the door and the sill, sending the fire dancing. The kitten mewed. Magda found her trembling, and after feeding her another nipple full of the goat’s milk she tucked her in her basket bed and softly sang as she stroked her asleep. Despite the storm, a peaceful moment, an evening of contentment. When she had prepared all that she needed for the next day’s planned visitations, Magda lifted the kitten from her basket and held her on her lap while enjoying a cup of spiced wine in the fire’s warmth. As they sat, the kitten purring, Magda’s thoughts drifted to Wicket, the kitten with whom she’d slept as a small child, the being with whom she’d shared her dreams, her fears, her secrets. ‘Perhaps thou hast come to share Magda’s bed once more?’ Setting aside her empty cup, Magda sprinkled sand over the fire so that it would die down, and slipped into bed with the kitten.
As she drifted off to sleep she sensed Raven on her shoulder, whispering of another who had slept with kittens long ago, and other small beings she would spend the day drawing. Flowers also Asa had drawn, covering the walls of the house with fantastical bouquets and vines out of which peeked the young beings she nursed to health. She created beauty, yet believed she had no gifts. A contrary child, always preferring what others had, certain all had more than she. From what she had seen of her present art, Magda guessed that Asa now drew what she sensed roiling the minds of the ill, but had not learned to draw from memory once she had left the patient’s presence and then burn the nightmare to release that which poisoned the spirit. A mistake a teacher would have caught and corrected.
Sometime in the night Magda woke from a troubled sleep, thinking of the bank across from the swans’ nest. She had dreamt a body floated there, swollen from time in the Ouse. In the morning she would walk the bank to see whether she dreamed true. The kitten mewed and touched her face with both front paws. Stroking her gently, Magda returned to sleep.
After feeding the kitten in the early morning, Magda walked upriver to the place in her dream. Father Swan glided by, a ghostly grace in the rising river mist, looking back toward something snagged by a fallen log that was in turn trapped by willow roots along the bank. She found the bloated corpse of Sam Toller, eyeless, one hand shredded, a wreck of the appendage with which he might in life have grasped on to the log and pulled himself from the waters. She guessed he had snagged on the log before the storm dislodged it and carried it here.
She bowed her head, thanking River for carrying him to a place where he might be found, grieved, put to rest. May his spirit be at peace. She remembered his daughter Mary speaking of him with deep affection. A kind, generous man, a caring father. She would take a calming draught to Mary when next she traveled north past Easingwold. And if his death proved no accident, may those responsible be brought to account.
Magda sensed her male watcher behind her. Not Asa. Today he was wary, as if unsure of her, even frightened, but also curious, almost eager. He stood beneath the trees a few strides from the bank, revealing himself with a movement as she stepped close to the water. Though she did not turn she felt him stretch out his arms as if to steady her, but stopped short of touching her. He might of course mean to push her in. He had been watching when Sam left her home, and the mix of curiosity and fear suggested this, that he might realize she could implicate him.
‘Thou wouldst offer to assist this old woman in pulling the body from the river?’ she asked as she turned to face him.
A step backward, brows pulled down in a frown, eyes wary. ‘I thought you might need help.’
The young man was a stranger and yet familiar. She studied him as well as she could, with him still shadowed by the trees. He was not yet twenty years, she thought. Healthy. Ah. Now she saw it. It was the eyes. He was kin, of that she now had no doubt. That did not ensure he meant her no harm, but she was not worried. She smiled at him, hearing his name in her mind.
‘You smile in the presence of death?’ he asked.
‘The dead take no offense.’
‘You are not frightened?’
‘Art thou? The dead cannot harm thee.’
He returned the smile. ‘You are all they say you are.’
‘They? Thou hast asked about the Riverwoman?’ She waved off his attempt to answer. ‘No matter. There is no need to assist now. The coroner must see him where he lies. Wilt thou watch him? See that he does not float away?’
‘I– Yes, of course. For how long?’
‘Not long.’ With a nod, she left him.
Returning to the shanties of the poor, she chose the eldest of a clutch of lads who came out to see whether she had work for them this day. ‘Go to Crispin Poole’s home on Coney Street. What was the Swann home. Say that Dame Magda has need of the coroner of Galtres.’
The lad took off, several of the younger ones trailing after him. Those who remained asked what had happened, was there a body. ‘In good time.’ Calling the youngest to her, a lad called Twig who often helped her with animals, she asked whether he might care for a kitten while she was away for the day. ‘A half penny and a potion for thy dam.’ Beaming, he followed her across the still ebbing tide. She instructed him in the feeding of the little one, then left him cradling her as she fetched the basket she had filled for her day’s visitations and departed. She would not neglect the sick for a dead man. Her part in the morning’s grim discovery would soon be complete.
Back on the bank she thanked her watcher and advised him to go on about his day. ‘Thou art welcome in the dragon’s house any time. This evening after sunset would suit Magda. Come with an appetite. Asa is also welcome.’
‘How did you–?’
‘Magda has sensed thee watching, sometimes with Asa. After sunset, Einar.’
‘You know my name? Asa came to you after all?’
He might be kin, her daughter Yrsa’s grandson, judging by the eyes, but he was not gifted with the knowing of names. She would be curious to learn whether he carried any of the gifts passed down through her own or Sten’s families.
‘No. She has not yet come to see Magda. Go now.’
She kept her ears pricked until she could tell he was well away upriver, then settled on the remnants of a stone wall to await Crispin Poole, welcoming the memories stirred by the encounter. In the brown water of the Ouse she saw a child frightened by the fear in her father’s eyes when he chided her for greeting a stranger by name. She had not understood, her mother having never told her this was a gift others did not share. She had not known she was different until that day when her father tucked her behind him as he told her mother of the incident. Never tell anyone outside the village that you hear their names. She saw her mother’s fear. They will curse you. She had not known it to be a gift not all healers shared, had not known to ask. It seemed a useless knowing. A name told one little about a person, least of all what ailed them. But later she had understood – men considered a name a thing of power.