Free The Enchanter's Forest by Alys Clare

spotted a pair of wheatears – white arses, as they were commonly known – flying low over the heather.
         It was, he decided, a perfect day for riding and he wished that he had no fixed purpose but could saunter on until fatigue and hunger finally drove him home. But he did have a purpose, and an urgent one at that. Clucking to Horace, he increased his pace to a smart canter and set himself to the task of finding Hadfeld.
     
    Presently he noticed that the landscape was changing. Encroachments had been made into the heathland and there were increasing numbers of assarts, where the untamed countryside had been claimed and converted into farm land. Sheep grazed the wiry heathland plants and there were large areas of bracken, fenced off like a crop, and Josse guessed the plant was being grown for fuel. Nothing ate bracken; he recalled Sister Tiphaine once telling him that it caused sickness in most animals but that, in small doses, it was useful as a contraceptive. He smiled to himself; whatever could they have been talking about to have prompted her to tell him that interesting little fact?
         He came to a hamlet of four or five low, huddled little dwellings, outside one of which a couple of women sat over a huge basket of nettles. Observing as he approached, Josse noticed they were tearing the tops from each stem and throwing them into a cooking pot, setting the remaining stems and leaves aside in another basket. One of the women looked up and gave him a grin; she was a round-faced woman in perhaps her mid-twenties, pleasant looking except that she was missing all but three of her teeth.
         ‘You have a good harvest there,’ he remarked, returning her smile.
         ‘Aye, and the blisters to prove it,’ she said with a bubbling laugh. ‘But nettles is free, sir knight, and ours for the picking, and the tender young shoots make a tasty meal. The rest of our haul will go for nettle beer.’ She winked at him as if anticipating the pleasures of an evening of mild intoxication.
         ‘I wish you joy of it,’ he said. ‘Am I on the right road for Hadfeld?’
         ‘Aye, more or less. Keep on till you reach the stone cross and then turn left, then right. That’ll take you to Hadfeld.’
         ‘Who are you after?’ the other woman asked. She was older but had the same features; an elder sister? ‘I’ll wager it’s young Florian.’
         ‘Aye, it is,’ Josse agreed.
         ‘Thought as much.’ The woman nodded sagely.
         ‘Do many folk come seeking him just now?’
         ‘Aye, but most of them in truth are seeking Merlin’s Tomb, which is nowhere near Hadfeld but lies just within the forest, some—’
         ‘Thank you; I know where the tomb is,’ Josse interrupted.
         ‘Been there already?’ the first woman asked.
         ‘I . . .’ Josse hesitated, reluctant to discuss his business with two inquisitive strangers.
         ‘He’ll be after our young Florian to demand his money back,’ the woman said to her companion in a whisper deliberately pitched loud enough for Josse to overhear. Glancing up at him, she added, ‘The cure lasted but a day and then back came the troubles, double fold.’
         Despite himself, Josse laughed. ‘I am not sick, thank the good Lord, and it was not to seek for help that I visited Merlin’s Tomb.’
         ‘Then you’re the lucky one,’ the older woman said, all levity suddenly absent from her voice and her face, ‘for there’s more ’n one family hereabouts lighter in the pocket and still tormented by worry over whatever it was drove them to the forest tomb in the first place. People ain’t best pleased with young Florian,’ she added darkly. ‘If you’re a friend of his, sir knight’ – the look she cast at Josse suggested she would think the less of him if he were – ‘then maybe you should warn him to watch his step and his back.’
         He met her gaze levelly. ‘I am no friend