about the Plague.’
‘What plague?’ Arlen asked for what felt like the dozenth time.
‘The demons, of course,’ Mery said. ‘The corelings.’
Arlen sat on the library’s roof a few days later, his eyes closed as he recited:
‘And man again became prideful and bold,
Turning ’gainst Creator and Deliverer.
He chose not to honour Him who gave life,
Turning his back upon morality.
Man’s science became his new religion,
Replacing prayer with machine and chemic,
Healing those meant to die,
He thought himself equal to his maker.
Brother fought brother, to benefit none.
Evil lacking without, it grew within,
Taking seed in the hearts and souls of men,
Blackening what was once pure and white.
And so the Creator, in His wisdom,
Called down a plague upon his lost children,
Opening the Core once again,
To show man the error of his ways.
And so it shall be,
Until the day He sends the Deliverer anew.
For when the Deliverer cleanses man,
Corelings will have naught to feed upon.
And lo, ye shall know the Deliverer
For he shall be marked upon his bare flesh
And the demons will not abide the sight
And they shall flee terrified before him.’
‘Very good!’ Mery congratulated with a smile.
Arlen frowned. ‘Can I ask you something?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ Mery said.
‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked. ‘Tender Harral always said the Deliverer was just a man. A great general, but a mortal man. Cob and Ragen say so, too.’
Mery’s eyes widened. ‘You’d best not let my father hear you say that,’ she warned.
‘Do you believe the corelings are our own fault?’ Arlen asked. ‘That we deserve them?’
‘Of course I believe,’ she said. ‘It is the word of the Creator.’
‘No,’ Arlen said. ‘It’s a book. Books are written by men. If the Creator wanted to tell us something, why would he use a book, and not write on the sky with fire?’
‘It’s hard sometimes to believe there’s a Creator up there, watching,’ Mery said, looking up at the sky, ‘but how could it be otherwise? The world didn’t create itself. What power would wards hold, without a will behind creation?’
‘And the Plague?’ Arlen asked.
Mery shrugged. ‘The histories tell of terrible wars,’ she said. ‘Maybe we did deserve it.’
‘Deserve it?’ Arlen demanded. ‘My mam did not deserve to die because of some stupid war fought centuries ago!’
‘Your mother was taken?’ Mery asked, touching his arm. ‘Arlen, I had no idea …’
Arlen yanked his arm away. ‘It makes no difference,’ he said, storming towards the door. ‘I have wards to carve, though I hardly see the point, if we all deserve demons in our beds.’
Leesha bent in the garden, selecting the day’s herbs. Some, she pulled from the soil root and stalk. Others, she snapped off a few leaves, or used her thumbnail to pop a bud from its stem.
She was proud of the garden behind Bruna’s hut. The crone was too old for the work of maintaining the small plot, and Darsy had failed to make the hard soil yield, but Leesha had the touch. Now many of the herbs that she and Bruna had once spent hours searching for in the wild grew just outside their door, safe within the wardposts.
‘You’ve a sharp mind and a green thumb,’ Bruna had said when the soil birthed its first sprouts. ‘You’ll be a better Gatherer than I before long.’
The pride those words gave Leesha was a new feeling. She might never match Bruna, but the old woman was not one for kind words or empty compliments. She saw something in Leesha that others hadn’t, and the girl did not want to disappoint.
Her basket filled, Leesha rose to her feet, brushed herself down, and headed towards the hut – if it could even be called a hut anymore. Erny had refused to see his daughter live in squalor, sending carpenters and roofers to shore up the weak walls and replace the frayed thatch. Soon there was little left that was not new, and additions had more than doubled the structure’s size.
Bruna had grumbled about all the noise as the men worked, but her wheezing had eased now that the cold and wet were sealed outside. With Leesha caring for her, the old woman seemed to be getting stronger with the passing years, not weaker.
Leesha, too, was glad the work was completed. The men had begun looking at her differently, towards the end.
Time had given Leesha her mother’s lush figure. It was something she had always wanted, but it seemed less an advantage now. The men in town watched her hungrily, and the rumours of her dallying with Gared, though years gone, still sat in the back of many minds, making more than one man think she might be receptive to a lewd, whispered offer. Most of these were dissuaded with a frown, and a few with slaps. Evin had required a puff of pepper and stinkweed to remind him of his pregnant bride. A fistful of the blinding powder was now one of many things Leesha kept in the multitude of pockets in her apron and skirts.
Of course, even if she had been interested in any of the men in town, Gared made sure none could get close to her. Any man other than Erny caught talking to Leesha about more than Herb Gathering received a harsh reminder that in the burly woodcutter’s mind, she was still promised. Even Child Jona broke out in a sweat whenever Leesha so much as greeted him.
Her apprenticeship would be over soon. Seven years and a day had seemed an eternity when Bruna had said it, but the years had flown, and the end was but days away. Already, Leesha went alone each day to call upon those in town who needed a Herb Gatherer’s service, asking Bruna’s advice only very rarely, when the need was dire. Bruna needed her rest.
‘The Duke judges an Herb Gatherer’s skill by whether more babies are delivered than people die each year,’ Bruna had said that first day, ‘but focus on what’s in between, and a year from now the people of Cutter’s Hollow won’t know