Free The Very Best of Kate Elliott by Kate Elliott Page B

way to a rocky spine of land where boulders made a great jumble of the forest floor. A stream burbled through the undergrowth, running low at this time of year.
    In the other three seasons, the old woman had lived deep in the forest in this rocky dell within an astounding growth of sprawling evergreen rose-trees that were more shrub than tree. Sticks woven into the arched branches made a house of remarkable grandeur, one so artfully concealed that you could not see it unless you knew it was there.
    Anna had herself lived here off and on for five years as a girl, because the old woman had demanded an apprentice from the village, someone to fetch and carry for her, and Anna had been the only girl bold enough to volunteer. She had been paid with learning. The old woman had instructed her in herbcraft and many other cunning skills, although Anna had not passed some subtle test and so had never been taught any deeper secrets. Most of all, she had been given the gift of freedom, able to speak her mind, to ask any question she wanted regardless of whether the old woman answered it, and to run where she willed on summer nights. She had met her husband in the forest, for he was a woodsman’s son and became a woodsman himself in time. So they had set up house together after she got pregnant. By then the old woman had vanished, never to be seen again.
    “Uwe,” she said. “Go back and make sure no trace remains of our trail.”
    He left his heavy pack behind with its store of grain, for they had known they would have to depend on feeding themselves if the stores in West Hall were burned or looted.
    Anna visited the rose bower several times a year to sort out its store of firewood, rake the ground, lay in grass, clear out any animal nests. The old woman had taught her that a fire must always be laid, ready to light. She was glad of that teaching now, for even in darkness she could start a fire on the old hearth. By its golden light she shifted the general onto a layer of grass.
    His eyes were open but he did not speak. By the reckoning of his cold glare, she suspected he was in so much pain he dared not speak. Perhaps he was barely conscious, half sunk into the blinding haze that separates life from death.
    She opened her bag and got to work.After peeling back the temporary bandage and his bloody clothing and giving him a leather strap to bite on, she cleansed the gash with a tonic of dog rose and whitethorn. Afterward she sewed it up with catgut as neatly as a torn sleeve. A poultice of mashed feverbane leaves she bound over the wound with linen strips. That he did not pass out again during all this surprised her, but it took men like that sometimes: the heart would race and keep them wakeful despite the pain. She therefore lifted up his head and helped him drink an infusion of willowbark and courage-flower. She then fortified herself with the cider and bread she had brought for herself, since the old woman had also taught her that no one could keep their wits about them if they were starving or thirsty, especially not those who were needed to care for the ill and injured. He watched her from the pallet of grass. Being evidently a polite man, he did not speak until she finished eating.
    “Where am I and how did you come to find me?” he asked in a voice made harsh with weakness and pain.
    “You are in the forest between West Hall and Woodpasture, my lord general.”
    “You know me?”
    “I live in Woodpasture, my lord. We have a market in our fine market hall every week.”
    “Woodpasture?” He murmured the word, seeking through his memory. “Ah. Bayisal.”
    “That is the name they call it in the king’s court, I think,” she said kindly.“But it is not our name. How came you to fall under the Forlanger sword, my lord?”
    He breathed in silence for a time, measuring the pain in his hip or perhaps simply fishing back through the last few days. “Treachery. They and I are ever at odds in court. Lord Hargrim is ready to