The Book Without Words_ A Fable of Medieval Magic - Avi [7]
As far as the reeve was concerned, it was his duty, his obligation, to keep Fulworth beneath his outsized thumb. And in the exercise of this power, his silent partner was Mistress Weebly.
Mistress Weebly was the town apothecary, a profession that enabled her to gather information about town inhabitants. Not only did she provide physic for the sick and dying, she offered potions, tonics, and charms to those suffering from other kinds of afflictions, real or imagined. That’s to say, broken arms or broken hearts were all one to Mistress Weebly. A woman of insatiable curiosity, she traded in rumor, gossip, and scandal the way a merchant trades in goods. And everything she gleaned by way of personal information was of the greatest interest to the reeve.
Their arrangement was this: she told him what she learned; he protected her from the occasional questions raised about the advice she offered and the odd things she sold.
So it was that Mistress Weebly had informed Bashcroft about the girl who had recently come to town, the one who appeared in her shop with a raven on her shoulder. And when this girl began to buy such things as spider’s legs, white clay, and fire-lizard’s tail, the reeve and Mistress Weebly were even more interested. But other than the girl’s name—Sybil—they knew very little.
Bashcroft had ordered Mistress Weebly to learn more about the girl. For whom did she work? Where did she live? And, most of all, what was the purpose of such odd purchases?
As the reeve shifted his corpulent bulk to find a tad of comfort on his bed, he made up his mind he would speak to the apothecary on the morrow.
CHAPTER TWO
1
THE EARLY morning was cold and damp when a shivering Sybil stepped from Thorston’s house into the muddy, ice-encrusted courtyard. Odo, hunched on her shoulder, gripped her shawl so tightly his talons pricked her skin.
“Sybil,” he croaked into her ear as the girl walked toward the city center, “must I say it again: Master insisted no one must learn of his existence, much less enter the house.”
“Master is all but dead,” said Sybil. “If we’re to get the gold-making secret we have to do something.”
“But you said the apothecary has been asking questions,” said the bird. “And what of the reeve? You claimed he was watching you. You may be a fool, but those people aren’t.”
“I’m not a fool,” Sybil protested.
Odo shook his head in dismay. “A fool is the first to think himself wise but last to know it isn’t so. Oh, I do wish I could fly away.'’
“Where would you go?”
“Master once told me about a land called Italy. He said the sky was always blue and warm. Flowers are beautiful. Bright colors are on walls. People sing while they work. Even the drying laundry looks like flags of celebration.”
“Could I go with you?”
“Can worms sing?”
Stung, Sybil said, “You think only of yourself.”
“I don’t like to waste my—”
“Shhh!” Sybil whispered. “People are ahead. It will prove a disaster if you’re heard talking.”
They made their silent way through the narrow, crowded streets of Fulworth, passing merchants with sickly faces, empty hands, and even emptier purses; passing porters and traders hauling meager goods on backs or in broken barrows; passing an old ox pulling a cart of steaming dung, making his laborious, slipping, sliding way. Black-robed priests and nuns crept along the high street, clutching rosary beads and wooden crosses in chilled hands as cold lips whispered pensive prayers; goodwives, few with parcels, hastened past street-level shops, whose lowered shutters offered more icicles than goods. Troves of foot-stamping, teeth-chattering paupers were already begging and were already being ignored. And among the throng was Brother Wilfrid.
As Sybil and Odo went by, the old monk, catching a whiff of Thorston’s goat reek, whirled about. He spotted Odo first, then Sybil. His stink is on that raven, he reasoned. That must be the girl I detected. The one I need to help me. The one in peril.
He began to follow.
Sybil, unaware she was being pursued, reached the apothecary, a small shop