Page 9 of The Queen’s Witch

The wind rose outside, Mother Redcap still slept, but I could not let this go. It was evening; we had both slept the day through.

She looked scarcely alive, her face creased and brown-spotted. Age had abruptly increased upon her with the loss of her powers. I took her hand, and instantly she came alert, her sunken eyes fastened on mine. “Ye have more questions.”

“I am sorry. But . . . yes. Before your toad was burned, you asked the Dark One something. One word. And He replied with one word.”

“Do not—”

“We have come this far in truth. Tell me. Please.”

Did she answer me from weariness, or from a desire to help, or even from resentment that I would not let her sleep? I was learning how mixed human reasons can be.

She said, “I asked Him where yer Third can be found. I did not think He would answer, but He did. And that alone should tell ye not to seek yer Third. If He wishes ye to know anything, it cannot mean well for ye.”

“What did He say? Where is my Third?”

Mother Redcap closed her eyes. “Hever.”

“What is that?”

“A village.”

“A village? Where?” Almost I seized her shoulders to shake the answer from her, but sense prevailed. Never lay violent hands on a thrice-braided witch.

Mother Redcap, eyes still closed, said, “I do not know where.”

I felt it then, even through grief and anger, and knew it for what it was: the miasma of a lie.

I said carefully, “You do know.”

Her eyes flew open and she studied me. “Ye can detect lying. Always?”

Anything other than truth would be a mistake. “No. Not always.”

“Ye could do so before yer cunning-woman ceremony?”

“Yes.”

“Then ye have more natural ability than even I knew.”

“Please, Mother Redcap—where is Hever?”

She considered me, her tired eyes almost lost in sagging flesh. I set my lips tightly together, afraid of saying the wrong thing.

Finally, she said, “I will tell ye more, but only after I tell some of my own past.”

I did not care about her past, not in that moment. But I nodded; anything to keep her talking. I felt her try to spell herself for a burst of strength, and fail. An odd sensation, to feel another’s attempted magick at second hand. I was a cunning woman now.

She said, “It is yer past too. Ye never knew yer mother, Alysoun. Nor did I. I was born the bastard daughter of the lord of Blickling Hall, Sir Geoffrey, near Norwich. My mother, a kitchen maid at the hall, be one Bessie Rowe, cousin to your grandmother’s grandmother. She died birthing me. I was an embarrassment, an unwanted burden, a mistake to be killed, had not Sir Geoffrey’s sister been moved to pity. She paid a distant cottager to nurse and raise me, a woman who saw to my bodily needs but was cold and unloving. Be it not for my protector from the Hall, when I became a maiden, I would have been turned out, penniless and alone.

“Listen carefully, Alysoun. This part be vital. My lady recognized my natural ability, and to do that, she must have had a trace of it herself. Ability passes through generations by blood, mostly mother to daughter. There be male cunning folk, but they be weak in magick. There be no thrice-braided men. When I reached twelve years, my lady took me from the cottager and apprenticed me to a cunning woman. Later, I became thrice braided, but while still young I abandoned the great magicks. Do not ask me why; I will not tell ye. Suffice it to know that for long decades I settled as a mere cunning woman in Tydd Saint Stephen, calling on the thrice-braided cord only once, when I turned Joan into a hare.

“I owe my life and livelihood to my lady of Blickling Hall, and when the young wife of the new lord was in a difficult birthing and close to death, my lady sent for me and I went. For her sake, not that of the family that would have killed me moments after I drew my first breath. The midwife attending the birth at the Hall be terrified lest the babe die and she be blamed. I found a curse on the mother. Some Sister, I never discovered who, had wanted that babe to die. I removed the curse and saved both mother and infant. After that, I was called to attend every birth at Blickling Hall for three generations, even after my lady was dead and buried. Each time I was rewarded well, and I carefully saved those moneys. Some bought the cloth for yer wedding kirtle.

“Through the generations, I learned much about the family at Blickling. There indeed be natural ability there, but not strong and never taught, never even acknowledged. Not in every generation, but in the blood. I saw, too, that through the generations, the family was all—save only my lady—quarrelsome, grasping, ruthless. When some twenty years ago they sold Blickling, I was glad. No longer would I be required to go among them.”

Again, Mother Redcap closed her eyes. I waited as long as I could, and then said, “But, Mother Redcap, please . . . My Third?”

“Yer Third,” she said, “be found among those who left Blickling Hall for Hever Castle. The family, or their servants, or mayhap another bastard kin.”