Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [43]
“You can go either left or right,” Maggie said.
“Which way to Mother Chilton?”
She grabbed my arm, pulled me back inside, and slammed the door. “Why are you going to Mother Chilton?”
“I cannot tell you that,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster, which wasn’t much.
“The queen would not have business with that witch!”
“She is a witch?”
“Yes. No. No, of course not, there is no such thing. Mother Chilton is a healer. But Roger . . . what have you done now?”
“I have done nothing.”
“Then who has?”
Her gray eyes looked steadily into mine. I didn’t answer. Finally she said, “Turn left. Go three alleys over and turn right. Look for the tent with a picture of two black swans drawn near the bottom. Wait, you’ll need a lantern.”
When she’d given it to me, I said humbly, “Thank you, Maggie. I could not do this without you.”
“I suspect you should not be doing it at all. I’ll wait here to let you back in. Don’t be long!”
“I won’t.” How could I promise that? I couldn’t know how long I would be. I went out through the open door, holding my lantern.
In the autumn, Kit Beale had told me that the city was mostly deserted at night, the keepers of the shops and booths having gone back home to the surrounding villages. In this cold spring, it seemed completely deserted. Tents provide little shield from cold. But within a few of the cloth buildings, lanterns gleamed, and I heard laughter from what seemed to be an alehouse. Still, I would not like to be here, with the kinds of people who stayed late at night. My teeth chattered as I scurried along, and not with cold. In the third alley, I had to stoop to find the two black swans drawn at the very bottom of a tent. A crude drawing, pretending to be the mischief of a child. Cecilia had blithely assumed that I could easily carry out her wishes, because she was used to people carrying out her wishes. But without Maggie, I would never have found this place. Never.
A bellpull hung outside, and I pulled it. After a few minutes of bone-rattling chill, the tent flap was pushed aside and a voice said, “Come in, then.”
I went inside.
An open fire burned in a brazier in the center of the tent, sending its smoke through a hole in the roof and its light flickering on canvas walls. Dozens of poles stood against the walls, their butts jammed into the bare earth, and each pole dripped objects tied with string to big nails. Bottles, plants, feathers, hides, bits of wood, bulging cloth bags of all sizes, things I could not name. Besides the poles, there was room for only the brazier, a pallet of straw and blankets, and a table with a single chair. On the chair sat not the crone I’d expected but a woman neither young nor old, fat nor thin, pretty nor ugly. She wore a gray dress and gray cap. No one would ever glance at her twice; in fact, I had the sensation that I was not really seeing her at all. And yet she was solid enough, sitting there in her unadorned chair, her face pale in the dim light.
“What do you want?” she said, not unkindly.
“I’m looking for Mother Chilton.”
“I am Mother Chilton.”
“You?”
A faint smile. “Me. What are you after, lad? Unmask.”
“I cannot.” And then, inanely, “I’m sorry.”
She stood and moved close to me. Now the fire was behind her and her face in shadow. With one firm hand she turned my chin to the fire and stared through the blanket holes and into my eyes. Her own eyes were colorless, an even light gleam that seemed to reflect all light, keeping none. Her breath drew in sharply. “Who are you?”
“I told you, I cannot—”
“Do you come from Soulvine Moor?”
The question completely undid me. Soulvine Moor, which Maggie had chided me for even mentioning? Soulvine Moor, where my mother had died? I gasped, “What . . . what of Soulvine Moor?”
“Are they ready, then?”
“Ready for what? Mistress, I come for . . . for a milady posset! ”
A long moment, and then she laughed, forced and bitter. “I see. A milady posset.” Her hand dropped from my chin and she moved away.