Christopher Stasheff

Friend Gallowglass would know how the people do like us,’ Toby informed her.

All the joy went out of the child’s face; her eyes went wide and round; she caught her lower lip between her teeth.

She unbuttoned the back of her blouse from neck to bodice and turned away. Her back was a crisscross of scars, a webbing of welts - the sign of the cat-o’-nine-tails.

She turned back to Rod as Toby buttoned her blouse again, her eyes still round and tragic. ‘That,’ she whispered, ‘for naught but suspicion; and I but a child of ten years at the time.’

Rod’s stomach tried to turn itself inside out and climb out through his esophagus. He reprimanded it sternly, and it sank back to its ordinary place in the alimentary tract. Bile soured the back of Rod’s tongue.

Bridgett spun and disappeared; a nano-second later she was back with her partner, giddy and exuberant again.

Rod frowned after her, brooding.

‘So you may see,’ said Toby, ‘that we are most truly grateful to our good Queen.’

‘She did away with the fire and/or water bit?’

‘Oh, she revoked the law; but the witch-burnings went on, in secret, There was only one way to protect us, and that she chose: to give sanctuary to any of us who would come here and claim it.’

Rod nodded, slowly. ‘She’s not without wisdom, after all.’

His eyes wandered back to Bridgett where she danced on the ceiling.

‘What troubles you, friend Gallowglass?’

‘She doesn’t hate them,’ Rod growled. ‘She has every reason in the world to hate the normal folk, but she doesn’t.’

Toby shook his head, smiling warmly. ‘Not she, nor any of us. All who come to shelter in the Queen’s Coven swear first to live by Christ’s Law.’

Slowly, Rod turned to look at him. ‘I see,’ he said after a moment. ‘A coven of white witches.’

Toby nodded.

Are all the witches of Gramarye white?’

‘Shame to say it, they are not. Some there are who, embittered through greater suffering than ours - the loss of an ear or an eye, or a loved one, or all - have hidden themselves away in the Wild Lands of the mountains, and there pursue their vengeance on Christopher Stasheff all mankind.’

Rod’s mouth pulled back into a thin, grim line, turned down at the corners.

‘They number scarce more than a score,’ Toby went on. ‘There are three in the prime of life; all the rest are withered crones and shrunken men.’

‘The fairy-tale witches,’ Rod growled.

‘Of a truth, they are; and their works are noised about just sufficient to cover report of any good works that we may deal.’

‘So there are two kinds of witches in Gramarye: the old and evil ones, up in the mountains; and the young white ones in the Queen’s castle.’

Toby shook his head and smiled, his eyes lighting once again.

‘Nay, there are near threescore white witches beside us, who would not trust to the Queen’s promise of sanctuary. They are thirty arid forty years aged, good folk all, but slow indeed to be trusting.’

Understanding struck with all the power of Revelation. Rod leaned back, his mouth forming a silent 0; then nodding rapidly, he leaned forward and said, ‘That’s why you’re all so young! Only the witches who still had some trust and recklessness left in them took the Queen’s invitation! So she got a flock of teenagers!’

Toby grinned from ear to ear, nodding quick with excitement. ‘So the mature witches,’ Rod went on, ‘are very good people, but they’re also very cautious!’

Toby nodded. His face sobered a trifle. ‘There are one or two among them who had daring enough to come here. There was the wisest witch of all, from the South. She grows old now. Why, she must be fair near to thirty!’

That line caught Rod right in the middle of a drink. He choked, swallowed, gagged, coughed, wheezed, and wiped at his eyes.

‘Is aught wrong, friend Gallowglass?’ Toby inquired with the kind of solicitousness usually reserved for the octogenarian.

‘Oh, nothing,’ Rod gasped. ‘Just a little confusion between the esophagus and the trachea. Have to expect a few quirks in us old folk, you know. Why didn’t this wise witch stay?’

Toby smiled, fairly oozing understanding and kindness. ‘Ah, she said that we made her feel too much her age, and went back to the South. If thou shouldst come to trouble there, but call out her name, Gwendylon, and thou’lt right quick have more help than thou Christopher Stasheff needst.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ Rod promised, and immediately forgot as he had a sudden vision of himself calling a woman for help. He almost went into another coughing fit, but he didn’t dare laugh; he remembered how sensitive he’d been in his teens.

He took another swig of the wine to wash down his laughter and pointed the mug at Toby. ‘Just one more question, now: why is the Queen protecting you?’

Toby stared. ‘Didst thou not know?’

‘Know I didst not.’ Rod smiled sweetly.

‘Why, she is herself a witch, good friend Gallowglass!’

Rod’s face faded. ‘Hmm.’ He scratched the tip of his nose. ‘I’d heard rumors to that effect. They’re true, eh?’

‘Most true. A witch unschooled, but a witch nonetheless.’

Rod raised an eyebrow. ‘Unschooled?’

‘Aye. Our gifts need a stretching and exercising, a training and schooling, to come to their full. Catharine is a witch born, but unschooled. She can hear thoughts, but not at any time that she wishes, and not clearly.’

‘in. What else can she do?’

‘Naught that we know of. She can but hear thoughts.’

‘So she’s sort of got a minimum union requirement.’ Rod scratched in back of his ear. ‘Kind of handy talent for a Queen. She’d know everything that goes on in her castle.’

Toby shook his head. ‘Canst hear five speak all at once, friend Gallowglass? And listen to them all the hours of the day? And still be able to speak what they spoke?’

Rod frowned and rubbed his chin.

‘Canst repeat even one conversation?’ Toby smiled indulgently and shook his head. ‘Of course thou canst not - and neither can our Queen.’

‘She could write them down…

‘Aye; but remember, she is unschooled; and it needs high training of an excellent good gift to make words of thoughts.’

‘Hold on.’ Rod’s hand went up, palm out. ‘You mean you don’t hear thoughts as words?’

‘Nay, nay. An instant’s thought suffices for a book of words, friend Gallowglass. Must you needs put words to your thoughts in order to have them?’

Rod nodded. ‘I see. Quantum thought mechanics.’