A Time of Justice

‘Here, there’s a fine apothecary in town. Duryn’s his name, and he has a shop over by the west gate.’

‘Well, er ah, you see, I was hoping to find a woman with herb lore, not a man.’

The old woman sighed in faint disgust, looked at Rhodry who was hovering nearby, sighed again, then crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Jill.

‘Now you should have thought of such things before you ran off with a handsome silver dagger,’ the old woman snapped. ‘Oh, your poor family! Is it too late for you to ride home?’

‘Far too late,’ Jill said, thankful that she was lying about this supposed pregnancy. ‘They’ll never take me back now.’

‘Well, my heart aches for you, lass, but you waded into this mucky river, and now you’ll just have to dry your own clothes. You lasses! Ye gods! Thinking you can roll around with any man who takes your fancy and not have to give the Goddess the tribute she demands. Lasses weren’t like this in my day, they weren’t. We knew the right side of the blanket from the wrong one. Now it’s a nasty impious thing you’re thinking of, and even if I could do a thing about it, I wouldn’t, and neither would any honest woman, neither. You’d best get yourself to the temple and beg the priestesses to do something about that man of yours. No doubt he’ll try to run out on you, but our gwerbret will put a stop to that if the Holy Ladies ask him. Lasses! Ye gods, didn’t you think?’

Jill hastily rose and began babbling something about having to leave. The old woman followed and caught a startled Rhodry by the arm.

‘You’d best do the right thing by this lass and marry her, silver dagger,’ she announced. ‘Maybe she was stupid, but you lads are the scum of the earth, getting lasses with child and then riding on again. You had the fun of getting the baby, and now you’d best turn your hand to supporting it.’

This tirade was attracting quite a crowd. The cheese seller strolled over, the egg woman hurried up – everywhere folk stopped and turned to listen. When a scarlet-faced Rhodry tried to stammer out some excuse, the crowd snickered and grinned. A couple of stout older men, one of them quite well-dressed in the checked brigga of a merchant, trotted over and made the old woman bows.

‘Now what’s this, Gwedda?’ the merchant said. ‘Has this lad dishonoured this poor lass?’

‘He has, and now she’s with child. You men! A rotten pack, all of you.’

‘I’m going to marry her!’ Rhodry squealed. ‘I swear it! Come on, Jill!’

Rhodry grabbed her arm and dragged her along as he shoved their way through the snickering crowd. Once they got clear of the market square, they ran all the way back to their inn. As soon as they got into the refuge of the dark smoky tavern room, Rhodry grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

‘You and your ideas! You might have warned me!’

‘I figured you wouldn’t have gone along with it if you’d known.’

‘Cursed right! All I want now is to get out of here. Everyone’s going to be smirking every time we walk out on the streets.’

‘There’s still the bounty. We can’t just ride away from it.’

Rhodry groaned. Jill was about to say somewhat soothing when she noticed a little boy wearing torn brigga and the sleeveless remains of a shirt hovering in the doorway. Thinking he was a hungry beggar child, she went over to offer him a copper. He took it tight in one grubby fist and looked her over with solemn dark eyes.

‘Be you that lass who was in the market? The one they was laughing at?’

‘I am. What do you think about that?’

‘Naught. My Gram said that she wagers she could help you.’

‘Oh, does she now?’ Jill knelt down to look him in the face. ‘And who is your Gram?’

‘Just my Gram. She lives on our farm. She said I should find you, like, and tell you.’

‘An, I see. And where is your farm?’

‘Not far. She’s gone back with the wagon. Do you want to come back with me?’

‘I do, and here, I’ve got a horse. You can ride it, too.’

The boy grinned to reveal missing front teeth. Jill supposed that he was too young to even know what kind of errand he was running. She told him to wait and hurried back to Rhodry, who was less than pleased at the thought of her going off alone.

‘I don’t want to alarm old Gram,’ Jill said. ‘Besides, usually this kind of woman won’t speak in front of a man. Let’s not put her off. She’s the only clue we’ve got so far.’

‘Oh, well and good, then. But don’t drink whatever it is that she brews up for you, will you? The Lord of Hell only knows what it’ll do to you.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ve a plan in mind.’

Jill saddled up her horse, lifted the boy up to sit behind the saddle, then mounted, following his direction to go to the north gate of the city. He was so entranced with getting to ride on a real warhorse that she had to keep reminding him to tell her the right road, but they finally found the farm, about three miles to the northeast. In the middle of fields of wheat and vegetables stood a sprawling compound behind a low earthen wall, the family house, the cow barn, the well and pigsty all jumbled up together among the dung heaps and the haystacks. When they rode in the gate, a pair of mangy yellow hounds ran up barking to greet them. Jill dismounted and set the boy down.

‘Mam and Da are still out in the fields,’ he said. ‘That’s why Gram said to bring you now.’

Gram herself came strolling out of the house. A stout hard-muscled woman with gnarled hands, she was wearing a black headscarf and a brown dress, pulled up into her dirty kirtle to leave her ankles and muddy bare feet free. She gave Jill a look of honest sympathy and turned to the boy.

‘Bucket of slops and greens by the hearth,’ she announced. ‘Them chickens is hungry.’

When the boy ran into the house, she gestured at Jill to follow and led her down to the gate where he couldn’t overhear. Flies buzzed round them, and distant chickens cackled.

‘Now what’s all this, lass? Gwedda’s a nasty sort with her tongue. Hah! Mincing round with her nose in the air over you, and here she’s buried two husbands and so eager to get another you’d swear she was a bitch in heat, you would, and at her age!’

‘She was wrong, too. I’m not with child. I was trying to tell her, but all she did was natter on and on at me, and I couldn’t say much with my man right there.’ Jill glanced round as if expecting Rhodry to pop up and spy on her. ‘It’s about him, you see. Here I gave up my family and everything when he asked me to go with him, and every town we ride to, he’s looking over the lasses. I can’t say a thing about it. What if he just left me? Oh, by the Goddess herself, it aches my heart.’

‘Ah. Them handsome men, all face and no heart, truly.’

‘So I’m finding out.’ Jill did her best to sound bitter. ‘So I thought, well, maybe Aranrhodda could help me keep him faithful. You hear about things, charms and suchlike, to keep your man in your bed and nowhere else.’

‘So you do. Now how long are you going to be in Lughcarn? You can’t make up a powerful spell like this one in between baking your bread and cutting your dinner meat.’

‘At least a few days. My man’s going to go up to the gwerbret’s dun and see if he can find a hire, but we’ve got money now, so he won’t be in any hurry.’ She noticed the mention of money bring a smile to the old woman’s face. ‘He spends every copper the minute he gets it, but I sneaked a bit for myself.’

‘Sensible lass, and if you’ll listen to an old woman, you’ll go on sneaking a coin here and there and laying it by, like, somewhere in your clothes where he won’t find it. Now our Lady of the Cauldron can help you keep him, sure enough, but the day’s going to come when you won’t want to keep him, and then what are you going to do?’ She fixed Jill with a stern look. ‘A woman with a bit put by can find herself a husband who’s got a cursed short memory for what she done before she met him. You remember that.’

‘I will, good dame, and my thanks, but I can’t imagine ever not loving my wonderful Rhodry.’

The old woman rolled her eyes heavenward at the follies of young lasses, then considered the problem, idly tracing a line in the dust with her big toe.

‘I’ll need a bit of his hair,’ she said at last. ‘Just a bit will do.’

‘I’ve got some. I was combing his hair last night, and I kept what was in the comb.’ She reached into her brigga pocket and took out the strands of Rhodry’s hair, carefully wrapped in a scrap of cloth.

‘Oho! You seem to know a bit about our Lady’s power.’

‘Well, my Mam knew a Wise Woman near our house. And sometimes I heard them talking when I was just a little lass.’

Smiling, the old woman tucked the bit of hair into a fold of her kirtle.

‘Now, tonight, when it’s good and dark, I’ll take this out to yonder copse. And I’ll bind it up around a charm that’ll bind him tight to you. But he’s a good-looking man, and we’ll do a bit more. I’ll make you up a pot of salve, and I’ll tell you how to mark him with it when he’s asleep. And then.’ She held one forefinger straight in the air. ‘If he tries to roll around with some other lass, well, then.’ She curled the forefinger slowly down. ‘He won’t get much fun out of it, and neither will the little slut.’