the basket up, and hooked it onto his elbow. His brow wrinkled in obvious displeasure as the little mushrooms rolled around. She closed her eyes, praying they would double or treble in number. Sadly, they didn’t. She hoped he’d not beat her hard.
“You can tell me about it on the way back. I’m sure I will enjoy the tale of how all the mushrooms went away.”
She wriggled. “Put me down. I can walk.”
He shook his head. “Nin, since noon this day, you have destroyed the best batch of seeing mushrooms I have made in an age, interrupted my meditations not once, but twice, put out the kitchen fire, and achieved what I’d imagined to be the impossible. You got lost in the forest but a few yards from the tower. I think you are best where you are, for now.”
The reel of her day’s blunders was meant for one whose wits had wandered. She squirmed, but it was futile since he didn’t set her down. “I didn’t put the fire out.”
“But the soup did. You left it with no lid, and the pot boiled over, so we have no fire to return to.”
She closed her eyes. He thought she was stupid.
A sudden pain caught in her chest. She missed Aunt Jen, Cousin Lettie, too. She wanted to go home where the fire often smoldered sulkily, but at least the stew pot hung with something in it most days. She turned her face to his shoulder.
Aunt Jen and Lettie had stood stone-faced with the others to make her go that morning. Only Alicia might have sorrowed to see her leave, but any tears were well hidden behind a scrap of heavy weave fabric her friend called a veil.
With the night dark like her thoughts, the one semblance of comfort came from his embrace.
“When we get back you will sleep. You need to. Tomorrow we will begin again.”
Chapter 3
Poor little wretch.
Her head nestled on his shoulder. Thick, light brown eyelashes swept down on her cheeks. Strands of fair hair wisped about her face. At least the damned villagers had left her hair in a messy, loosely tied plait. He’d heard of others cast out shaven and naked.
Bloody fools with their witch’s mark nonsense. What was he to do with the wench? How could the villagers be so superstitious and foolish? She showed little talent for magic, yet, here she was, all for the sake of a mark on her hand.
The tower came into sight. He would put her to bed, then think what should be done about her. He had found a bedroll for her before he realized she must be lost. His annoyance that he had to hunt through the woods had dissolved when he glimpsed her, clinging to the branch. Those helpless, wide, fearful brown eyes could have melted a sterner heart than his.
While he had searched, his plan had been to tell her she would have to go. A ripple of shame stirred. To do so would be worse than sending a kitten out into the rain. He tightened his arms about her. One glance told him he couldn’t send her away.
He shouldn’t have sent her out for mushrooms she had little hope of finding. He’d been wrong, bad tempered, and petty.
Her breath had slowed in the steady rhythm of sleep. He altered his grip, shifting her weight in his arms. She’d told him she was coming nineteen, but he could scarce believe it. True, the village youngsters often looked undersized from years of poor nourishment. In that respect, she appeared no different from the others.
Her hand slipped down from his shoulder. Lost in sleep, she rubbed her nose on his robe.
Tomorrow he would speak with Simon, the village chieftain, to see if he could persuade them to take her back. She should be in the village making ready to find a husband.
He strode on, the moonlight flickering over her face. Though she remained grubby, her features on closer examination struck him as more than pretty. With her small frame, fair hair, and such a tiny pointed chin, she had a charm as unworldly as one of the fae. When he first opened the door at her knock, for a brief second, he had believed her a true fairy, but the loud yell when the door hit her hand showed his mistake.
What would her life be if he sent her back to the village? Even if he persuaded Simon and the elders the old wise woman was wrong, she would still have a bad time of it.
If she did marry, she would perhaps die. How many of the others had drawn their last agonized breath in their effort to bear their first child?
A wave of nausea crawled over him. More than one young woman from the village had died in childbirth since he’d arrived at the tower. The superstitious crones, who attended each prospective mother, usually left it too late for him to help.
He glanced down at her smooth cheek with its smudges of grime. This little one should not bear such a fate. Why should the poor girl suffer for the sake of a meaningless mark on her palm? It was time he took a servant of sorts. He’d not send her away. Tomorrow, for certain, he would regret this moonlight decision, but he would keep her.
The lock was set low in the door, but he managed to balance her as he turned the intricate key. The torches in the kitchen flared at his glance. He dropped the basket from his elbow onto the table before he set her on the bedroll. The tiny pallet proved ample for her, and he covered her over with a blanket.
One swift look commanded the fire. The flames took, burning up bright yellow before they died back. He threw on another log. The remains of broth in the pot warmed. He ate a small bowl full. Her cooking left room for improvement. She stirred on the pallet, but did not wake. There would be time enough for all tomorrow.
He moved the soup pot from the fire and left her to sleep. Before he went to his bed, he went out into the night, walked over the rise, and stripped so he could rinse himself off in the stream. Tomorrow he’d begin the mushroom brew again. Twelve was well less than twenty, but should be enough.
He shivered from the chill of the water. When she woke in the morning, he would have to get her to come out here to bathe. He’d also find her a clean garment to wear. Her dirty brown dress repulsed him. The thing hung like a sack, the kind of rag worn only by the poorest women.
Why had he not seen her when he traded?
A pack of children always scampered about in the village square, like puppies in search of scraps. As to the older girls, the boldest of them haunted his shadow. No matter. Such girls meant trouble, and created the kind of problems he tried to avoid. But this one… He searched for a word. He could think only of small and grubby.
The green robe clutched about him, he went into the tower and made his way upstairs. Dropping the robe onto his bed, he opened the curtain at the window. A patch of silver lit the floor, and he breathed in the cool night air as he opened the glass. He sat cross-legged to meditate until the cool, precious light of the moon dimmed.
* * * *
He woke with the dawn, listening to the peaceful sounds of earth and sky as he dressed. On the stairs, he heard movement from the kitchen. Nin, too, woke early, it seemed. Surprised to find the fire burned high with golden red flames, he paused in the doorway.
She stood, bent at the hearth, busily stirring a wooden spoon in his smallest cauldron.
“What are you doing?”
She looked up with a tentative smile. She had bathed,
