When Caewen awoke, she was somewhere warm and comfortable. Much more comfortable than the cold grass of the field that she remembered pressing against her face before the darkness and the dreams took her. Her eyelids fluttered. At first her vision was a blur. But, after a moment or two, stretched long and crisply fragile, she was able to take in smoke-blackened rafters above her, the underside of thatch, and the smells too, bitter, acrid and sweet all mingled and interlocked with each other. The underside of the roof was too colourful for thatch. It made no sense until her eyesight settled. Then she saw: rows upon rows of dried flowers and stalks hung from the rafters, bunches upon bunches of leaves.
“Hullo,” said an old worn voice, male, elderly. “I see you’ve rejoined us.”
“Poison,” said Caewen.
“Yes, yes, I know. I’ve drawn it out with a poultice. Hawthorn flowers and clay and other rarer things. Outside the boundaries of this land, you’d like as not be dead. But poison is a thing we’ve long had to treat and often, hereabouts. Harsh poisons breed keen herb-masters, as they say.”
“I’ve never heard that?”
“Oh? Maybe it’s just something we say in our little hitherlands then.”
“Why do you have harsh poisons?” she managed to ask, and then, realising she felt an absence, “Where’s Fetch?”
“Snakes, for the first answer. The woods of Heathre have the most deadly snakes in all the world, or so I believe, and so I am told by other, more learned folks than I. And, as for the second, he’s safe enough, aren’t you, little night-weird?”
“Tssch. Tsh. Well enough, true. Though cramped.” The voice came from a wood box sitting on a table.
“Well,” answered the old man with a smile in his eyes. “It was that or it was the coal sack, and you wanted the box.”
“I don’t see why I couldn’t have stayed in the satchel, tssh, tsch, tsh.”
The old man sighed as if this conversation had been going in circles for hours already. “Because the Reeve wanted to look over all her things.” He got to his feet unsteadily. Caewen saw that he was walking on one wooden leg. “And though I know enough about things that have bodies of air, earth, wind, water, shadow or flame to know such creatures are not always evil, the Croft-Ward is a more superstitious man. He would have taken unkindly to you.” He hobbled over to a table and started mixing together milk from a chipped jug with a grey-green powder. “We’ve been over this.” He shot a look at Caewen, an exasperated smile on his face. “Many times.”
“Thank you,” said Caewen, gulping the words out. Her cheek still throbbed but she could feel the cool wet heaviness of the poultice lying against her skin. “I’ve some coin, and can pay you.”
He shrugged. “I cannot say as I’m in a position to decline coin, but I’d help a poor lass as come under attack on the roads, this way or that way, and all the same.” He clunked a wooden spoon to knock off last drips before bringing the concoction back to Caewen’s bedside. “Here. Drink this. It’ll make that headache go away too.” He paused for a moment, before saying, conversationally, “The Croft-Ward of course… he doesn’t think you’re a poor lass, not exactly. What with the sword and the cloak and various other things in your possession.”
She sat upright and regretted it. Pain echoed in her skull and down her neck. The poultice slipped off and fell in her lap. “The antler! The old antler! No one should touch it!”
“I presume that would be hidden in your little rune-cut box? It’s safe. I secreted it away before letting the Croft-Ward finger his way through your things. The little lockbox felt… hm… a bit out of the way of matters that poor folk in a poor village ought to be trifling with. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to.”
“Where is it?”
The answer came from Fetch. “Why do you think his old herbbox is so cramped. Tsssch. It’s in here with me. Tsch.”
“Oh. Good.” Then to the herbman, she said, “Thank you. You’ve done a greater thing than you can ever guess by keeping it secret. Again, thank you.”
“Have I?” He looked at her but his thoughts were inscrutable behind his wash-out pale eyes. “Perhaps I’d rather not know what you mean by that. Best left unsaid, I think.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. Caewen looked around the room. “Where am I? You said it just now, but I didn’t catch it.”
“Heathre. Small kingdom on the road between nowhere and someplace else equally as distant.” He smiled. “Famous for its fine breed of sheep, its birch-sugar liquor, pine-needle marmalades, and its snakes.” A shrug. “And not much else.”
“What about you? You haven’t told me your name?”
“Haven’t I? Remiss of me.” He continued to potter around with some of his little jars and unguents. “Seath. Folks call me Seath.”
“Just Seath?”
“Seath the Healer. Seath the Herbman. Sometimes, Seath the Cunningman, but I don’t deserve that last one. Too much sawdust up here for cunning,” he tapped his head and smiled.
She frowned. “I don’t remember much. Brigands? Footpads? I was ambushed by a band of rough-looking men–but they might have just been peasants? They had a knight with them, all in armour.”
He paused when he heard that. “The man, did he have a sigil on his shield? A surcoat?”
She had to think hard. “Yes. A swan, crimson I think, or maybe orange. The rest of the shield was grey.”
“Ah. I was afraid of that.”
“You know him?”
“We did. Or we thought we did. I don’t know who he’s become, or what he is. Something went wrong in his head, I guess.”
He offered her the milk with the powdered herbs in it. She took it and drank it. The taste was sour and sweet. Not unpleasant, but strange. “What do you mean by that? You did know him?”
“Yes, yes, in a way. I mean, myself, not personally. But, that will come, all in good time. All in good time. For now, rest. I’ll try to get your things back from our most beloved Town Croft-Ward before temptation gets the better of him and he sells your sword to the blacksmith. He’s been asking after your health. I’m quite certain he will be disappointed to find you among the living.”
“He won’t just take my things anyway? You should advise him not to. I have ways to get back what is mine. The blade alone is not my only weapon.” She spoke coolly and with a clear injection of meaning.
“He’s no fool. He and I both guessed you have… other arts to call on, shall we say? We may be a rural, cloddish sort of folk, but we are not fools. Not even the Croft-Ward.” He smiled wanly. “I shall fetch back your things. You will live. The Croft-Ward will be disappointed, but only a little.”
“Thank you.” His words reassured Caewen enough that she was already losing track of the words, slipping away, dozing, and asleep.