Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [66]
The barren branch was now showing life, in fact, the entire bush had come back to life. Green leaves were slowly unfurling and there was a hint of buds where there had been only dry thorns before.
The Jinn stalked over to her.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
She shrank back. “T-tending the garden,” she stammered. “They were drying dying, these roses. Green things…it is what I do….”
“A waste of magic!” he growled. “Putter about in the dirt if you wish, but waste no more magic on it! Your magic is mine to draw on!”
She nodded, and let go of the branch. He stalked away.
And only then did she heave a sigh of relief. The illusion of greenery about the bush faded away. It took very little magic to create an illusion, especially when it was one that someone would reasonably believe.
But while she was at it—the bush was still alive, it only needed coaxing. And today in the bottom of a chest she had found a very practical set of the baggy trews and a sleeveless shirt of some light beige stuff that was not linen and was not silk, being softer than the former and tougher than the latter. She went to change into those, to nurture the garden the hard way while she continued to think and plan as hard as she ever had in her life.
There was no fence or border or even a border guard on the road where the Kingdom of Led Belarus ended and the wilderness began. The only sign of the transition was the road itself, which went from being in relatively good repair to degenerating to a rutted dirt track within a matter of a few hundred yards. This was forested land, the beautiful hardwood forest of the north, mostly untouched even by woodcutters. The trees reached high into the sky, and the track lay deep in shade. Where fallen trunks lay, they were covered in soft moss. Here the leafy trees were mixed with cedar, and the scent of them was sharp on the air. There should be mushrooms. He wished he had the time to look.
It was there that he encountered the old beggar woman.
He had been expecting one all along. In fact, he was rather surprised that The Tradition hadn’t supplied him with old beggar women between every village. If ever there was a situation that The Tradition must surely be agitated about—if something like the Tradition could be agitated—it was this one. The Sea King’s daughter missing, some dire problem in the north, and not a Godmother in sight. By now it must be spinning around like a dancing mouse, trying to find a solution to a problem. It was, he thought, dreadfully ironic that usually it was a Godmother working to find a way to steer The Tradition into an alternate path in order to solve a problem. Here it was The Tradition itself frantically casting around to heal itself.
It was too bad that he didn’t yet know what the problem was.
Needless to say he was not at all surprised to see the old beggar woman there just over the border, as if she had been placed there to intercept him.
She was a small, bent bundle of black and rusty-brown fabric beside the road. He couldn’t see her face, only the fold of her shawl over her head and a curling lock of white hair. She looked up at him from under her shawl as he rode near, and held out her hand to him, entreatingly. “Please, young man, can you spare an old woman a crust?” Her voice was soft and quavering.
“Little mother, I can spare far more than a crust,” he said, dismounting. “You look fair famished and you are terribly far away from anything like a village. Come—” leading his horse with one hand, he took her by the elbow with the other, and escorted her to a fallen log. “Here, now sit down, rest your honored bones, and let me tend you, as surely your own son would want you to be tended.”
“Alas I have no son,” she replied, looking startled as he spread out a napkin and broke open a small loaf for her, stuffing it with the cheese he had bought at the last village. He put the bread down on the clean napkin, then handed her his own waterskin to drink from.
“Eat and drink, little mother,” he said, “and when you are done, I will take you up behind