“Aye, that’s so,” Simon said, frowning. “ ‘Tis this that I’ve but now come to see.”
Rod turned to him, frowning too. “But you’ve already done your part, taken your risks. No one would call you a coward for going South now!”
“I would,” Simon said simply.
Rod looked directly into his eyes for a moment, then turned away with a sigh. “What can I say to that, goodman?”
“Naught, save ‘gee-up’ to thine horse.”
“Why?” Rod asked sourly. “This cart may be pulled by a horse, but it’s being driven by a pair of mules.”
Sundown caught them still on the road, with grainfields at either hand. “Nay,” Simon assured Rod, “there is no town near.”
“I was afraid of that,” Rod sighed. “Well, the earth has been my bed before this.” And he drove off the road, pulling Fess to a stop in the weeds between the track and the field. He was cutting vegetables into a small pot before Simon could even volunteer.
The innkeeper eyed him quizzically, then asked, “Dost ever have a pot with thee?”
“I was a tinker once. Habits stick.”
Simon smiled, shaking his head, and leaned back on an elbow. “I think such travels are not wholely new to thee.”
“We’re even,” Rod snorted. “I get the feeling spell-breaking isn’t all that new to you.”
Simon was still for a moment, but his eyes brightened. “Almost could I believe thou didst read minds.”
“If I did, I’d need to have yours translated. So when did you start spell-breaking?”
Simon sat up, hooking his forearms around his shins, resting his chin on his knees. “The men of the village came oft to mine inn for drinking of beer, which they took as part-price for the produce they brought. Anon would come one whose heart was heavy, with thoughts in turmoil, to drink and be silent—mayhap in hopes that beer would quiet his unrest.”
Rod nodded. “Strange how we keep trying that solution. Especially since it never works.”
“Nay; but speaking thy thoughts to a willing ear, can help to calm them; and the troubled ones would talk, for I would hearken, and give what sympathy I could. Yet one there came who seemed like unto a wall in winter—like to spring apart at the first freeze. He could not talk, but huddled over his flagon. Yet the jumble of his thoughts rode upon such pain that they fairly screamed. I could not have shut my mind to them, even had I wished to—and brooding over all was the shadow of a noose.”
Rod looked up sharply. “The kid was suicidal?”
“Aye. And he was no child, but in his thirties. ‘Tis these passages from one state to another that do wreak their havocs within us, and his children all had grown.”
Rod couldn’t understand the problem; but he had Gwen for a wife. “What could you do about it?”
“Fill another flagon, and one for myself, and go to sit by him. Then, ‘neath the pretext of conversing—and ‘twas very much a pretense, for I alone did speak—I felt through the snarl of his thoughts, found the sources of his pain and shame, then asked aloud the questions that did make him speak them. And ‘twas not easy for him thus to speak—yet I encouraged, and he did summon up sufficient resolution. I meant only to have him thus give me pretext to discuss his secret fears, to tell him they were not so fearsome—yet I found that, once he had spoken them aloud, and heard his own voice saying them, these secrets then lost half their power. Then could I ask a question whose answer would show him the goodness within him that could counter his hidden monsters, and, when we were done, he’d calmed tolerably well.”
“You saved his life,” Rod accused.
Simon smiled, flattered. “Mayhap I did. I began, then, to give such aid to all such troubled souls that I encountered. Nay, I even sought them out, when they did not come into my inn.”
“Could be dangerous, there,” Rod pointed out. “Just so much of that hauling people back from the edge, before the neighbors decided you had to be a witch to do it. Especially since you were poaching on the parish priest’s territory.”
Simon shook his head. “Who knew of it? Not even those I aided—for I gave no advice nor exhortation. And look, you, ‘twas a village. We all knew one another, so there was naught of surprise should I encounter any one of them, and chat a while. Yet withal, the folk began to say that troubled souls could find a haven in mine inn.”
“Definitely poaching on the priest’s territory,” Rod muttered. “And that was an awful lot of grief to be taking on yourself.”
Simon shrugged, irritated. “They were my people, Master Owen. Are, I should say. And there were never more than three in a year.”
Rod didn’t look convinced.
Simon dropped his gaze to the campfire. “Thus, when Tom Shepherd lapsed into sullenness, his brothers brought him to my taproom. In truth, they half-carried him; he could no longer even walk of his own.” He shook his head. “ ‘Twas an old friend of mine—or should I say, an old neighbor.”
“What was the matter with him?”
Simon turned his head from side to side. “His face was slack; he could not move of his own, and did but sit, not speaking. I drew a stool up next to his, and gazed into his face, the whiles I asked questions, which he did not answer; yet all the while, my mind was open, hearkening at its hardest, for any thought that might slip through his mind.”
“Sounds catatonic.” Rod frowned. “I shouldn’t think there would’ve been any thoughts.”
“There was one—but only one. And that one did fill him, consuming all his mind and heart with a single graveyard knell.”
“Suicidal, again?”
Simon shook his head. “Nay. ‘Twas not a wish to die, look thou, nor even a willingness, but a sureness, a certainty, that he would die, was indeed that moment dying, but slowly.”
Rod sat very still.
“I labored mightily ‘gainst that compulsion. Yet I could but ask questions that would recall to mind the things that would make him wish to live—wife, and bairns, and careful neighbors; yet naught availed.” He shook his head. “One would have thought he had not heard; for still throughout him rang the brazen knell of death.” Simon sighed, turning his head slowly from side to side. “In the end, I could but bid his brothers take him to the priest, but the good friar fared no better than I.” He shrugged. “I could not cast into his mind thoughts to counter that fell compulsion. The power was not in me.”
Rod nodded, understanding. Simon was only a telepath, not a projective.
Simon picked up a stick, and poked at the fire. “He died, in the end. He ate not, nor drank, and withered up like a November leaf. And I, heartsick, began to wonder how such a doom came to burden him. For he’d ever been a cheerful fellow, and I could see that one had laid a spell upon him. Aye, I pondered how one could be so evil as to do so fell a deed.
“So I commenced long walks throughout the county till at length I found that same wholehearted, whole consumption of a mind—yet ‘twas not one mind, but a score; for I came into a village, and found that half the folk who lived there were bewitched. Oh, aye, they walked and spoke like any normal folk—but all their minds were filled with but one single thought.”
“Death?” Rod felt the eeriness creeping over the back of his skull.
“Nay.” Simon shook his head. “Twas praise of Alfar.”
“Oh-h-h.” Rod lifted his head slowly. “The sorcerer’s enchantment team had been at work.”
“They had—and, knowing that, I went back to mine own village and, in chatting with my fellow villagers, asked a question here, and another there, and slowly built up a picture of that which had occurred to Tom Shepherd. He’d met a warlock in the fields, who had bade him kneel to Alfar. Tom spat upon the ground, and told that warlock that his Alfar was naught but a villein, who truly owed allegiance to Duke Romanov, even as Tom Shepherd did. The warlock then bade him swear loyalty to Alfar, or die; but Tom laughed in his face, and bade him do his worst.”
“So he did?”
“Aye, he did indeed! Then, knowing this, I went back to the village where half had been of one thought only, and that thought Alfar’s. I found only ten of a hundred still free in their thoughts, and those ten walking through a living nightmare of fear; for I spoke with some, and heard within their thoughts that several of them had defied the warlocks, and died as Tom Shepherd had. Even as I stood there, one broke beneath his weight of fear, and swore inside himself that he’d be Alfar’s man henceforth, and be done with terror.“ Simon shuddered. ”I assure thee, I left that village as quickly as I might.”