her mouth and shut it again. When Dera made a little sound, the family turned toward her.
‘Your father be right.’ Dera wiped her eyes on the rag.
‘Of course I be so,’ Lael snapped. ‘Niffa, think! You be sure as sure the woman’s a murderer, when the whole town, it does think the opposite. Why?’
Niffa opened her mouth to answer only to have her words desert her. But a moment before she had known deep in her soul that Raena had murdered Demet and a host of other persons as well. She poisoned them. The words rang in her mind, but faced with Lael’s rational question, her mind refused to say more.
‘I know not,’ Niffa stammered. ‘I just do.’
‘Here, lass.’ Lael made his voice gentle. ‘Grief does put strange fancies in our minds. We all ken how well you loved your Demet. To lose him with not even a soul to blame – well, now.’
Niffa felt tears burn her eyes. She tried to wipe them away, but they spilled over and ran. Kiel flung one arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
‘Hush, hush!’ he said. ‘Even if Raena did hang in the market square, would it bring our Demet back? Here, here, little sister! It aches my heart to see you so sad.’
Slowly the tears stopped. Niffa wiped her face on her sleeve and grabbed a twist of straw from the floor to blow her nose. She tossed the twist into the fire and watched it flare. May Raena burn with shame just as the straw burns! She looked up to find Lael watching her, one eyebrow raised, as if he knew she worked a wishing charm.
‘I do wonder one thing,’ Dera said. ‘What does Werda think of all this talk of spirits?’
‘I know not,’ Kiel said. ‘A fair bit, I should think.’
Later that same day Niffa learned Werda’s opinions on the matter. Lael and Niffa were sitting by their fire, while Dera lay tucked up in the big bed across the room to rest. Kiel had already gone to sleep in the other room, since he would be standing watch on the town walls again that night. At the door someone knocked in a loud quick drumming. Niffa ran to open it and found Werda, followed by her apprentice. She was a tall woman, Werda, and lean as well, all long bones and sharp angles, muffled up that morning in her white ceremonial cloak. Athra, her apprentice, wore an ordinary grey cloak, splashed here and there with whitewash, doubtless from the large bucket of the stuff that she was carrying. Athra’s face gleamed with ointment, thick smears of lard flecked with some sort of herb from the smell of it. Blonde and round, Athra had the sort of rosy skin that chaps from a wrong look.
‘Come in quick,’ Niffa said. ‘Do take of the warmth of our fire.’
‘My thanks,’ Werda said. ‘It be powerful cold still.’
All three of them trooped in. Athra set herself and her bucket down by the fire, but Lael insisted that Werda take their only chair. She sat and for a moment busied herself with untying the hood of her cloak and pulling it back.
‘How do you all fare?’ Werda said finally.
‘We all be well at long last,’ Lael said, glancing Dera’s way. ‘Thanks to the gods and to Gwira’s herbs.’
Werda nodded unsmiling. For a moment the silence held as she sat looking back and forth twixt Lael and Niffa.
‘There be no use in polite chatter,’ Werda said finally. ‘I did come to see you, young Niffa. No doubt you’ve heard of the evil spirit loose in town?’
‘I have,’ Niffa said. ‘They say it did kill my Demet.’
‘Is it that you believe this?’
Niffa hesitated, gauging the black look on her father’s face. She was aware of Athra watching her from one side and Werda from the other.
‘I know not if I believe or disbelieve,’ Niffa said. ‘Think you it be the case?’
‘I do. I did see that woman of the councilman’s with my own eyes, and I talked a long time with Gwira and Korla about her faint. Truly, naught else could have caused her trouble but spirit possession. And then I did walk about the councilman’s house and compound, and there be spirits there, sure enough. I did feel them like a tingling in the air round the walls. With the witch-vision the gods give me, I did see an evil thing: a creature much like a stork, but it had the arms and face of a man.’
Lael swore under his breath. Niffa clasped her hands together so hard they ached.
‘Huh!’ Werda said. ‘You’ve gone pale, lass, and I blame you not, quite frankly. I did come to ask if these spirits, they’ve been a-troubling you.’
‘They’ve not.’
‘Good.’ Werda rose, gathering her cloak around her. ‘If you do feel the slightest alarm, then come to me straightaway. I care not if it be in the middle of the night, young Niffa. You find yourself a lantern, Lael, and bring your daughter to my house. Do you understand me?’
‘I do,’ Lael said.
‘But I don’t understand,’ Niffa said. ‘Why would they come plaguing me?’
Werda merely looked at her with a twist to her mouth, as if she were wondering how Niffa could be so stupid. Lael sat like stone, but Niffa knew he was watching her. Her mouth went so dry she couldn’t force out one word.
‘Ah well,’ Werda said at last. ‘The time will come when you’ll not be able to deny the truth. When it does, you come to me, and we shall talk.’ She turned to Lael. ‘Master Lael, I wish to paint a warding on the outside of your door. I do trust you’ll not object.’
‘Of course not.’ Lael got up and bowed to her. ‘If there be aught I can do –’
‘Nah, nah, nah. Today we’ll do naught but prepare the door.’ Werda nodded at Athra and the bucket. ‘On the morrow we’ll be back to work the charm, once the whitewash does dry.’
‘Well and good, then. Will you be painting such on the entire town?’
‘We won’t.’ Werda paused for a significant look Niffa’s way. ‘Only on the public places, the council house and suchlike, and then on those few homes that I do deem vulnerable.’
They went out, and Lael closed the door and latched it against the wind while Niffa mended up the fire again. They could hear Werda through the door, instructing Athra, and the soft whisk of the brush. Until the holy woman and her apprentice had finished, no one said a word. At the sound of their leaving, Dera sat up in bed and ran her hands through her hair to push it back from her face.
‘You did well, lass,’ Lael said to Niffa.
Dera nodded her agreement. Niffa managed a brief smile and stood up.
‘I be weary again,’ Niffa said. ‘I’d best go lie down.’
‘Ai, my poor lass!’ Dera said. ‘It does seem that all you do is sleep.’
‘Mayhap. But this news – whose heart wouldn’t it weary?’
In the long weeks since Demet’s death, Niffa had indeed been hiding from her grief in the refuge of her dreams. Since
