Joseph Lewis - Wren the Fox Witch

“I know, I understand how you feel, but here in this country, for all intents and purposes, you are a witch. You’re also the ideal person to speak to her for me.” Omar turned to the dwarf. “Major, would you be so kind as to escort my apprentice to see Yaga?”

“Show some respect,” Vlad muttered. “Do not call the sainted mother by her name. Or if you must, at least call her Baba Yaga.”

There was a brief discussion in Hellan and then the dwarf stood up and gestured to the door. Wren stood, pulled her scarf up over her head, and followed the major out into the larger audience chamber. A few waiting petitioners glanced up, and then turned back to their papers and ignored the pair walking down the corridor.

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” she asked. She glanced back at the closed doors of the room with a cold, sinking feeling that she might not see Omar again, that she was leaving her only anchor, guide, and protector behind her.

“Call me Tycho,” he said. “Would you believe, I didn’t even have a surname until this year?”

“A what?” Wren rubbed her right wrist where her sling should have been, and felt the lightness of her belt where her stag horn knife and pouch of sling-stones should have been.

But I still have the ring. I still have the aether, only, it’s midday and the sun is warm and the aether is thin. If there’s trouble…

“When I was promoted, I needed a surname,” Tycho said. “They’re not common where I come from, in Sparta. Then again, dwarfs aren’t common in Sparta either. So I chose Xenakis. It still feels strange to hear it. So you can just call me Tycho.”

“Oh. All right.” Wren passed through the light falling from one of the tall stained windows and glanced down at her skirts. She could see the specks of dirt and blood clearly against the faded black of her clothes. “Could I wash up before I meet with this woman? We’ve been traveling for weeks now and I haven’t really changed or bathed since… a while.”

“Absolutely. Please, follow me.” Tycho turned and led her through several doors, down corridors and across empty rooms until they came to a carpeted corridor. Every chamber had gleaming white walls hung with dark paintings of people lounging in gardens or being lashed by demons, and every window was framed with dark green curtains hung from golden rods, and every corner of the ceilings were armored in sculpted wooden panels, some covered in thin grooves and some crafted to look like leaves and berries. Wren tried to see all the details at once as she hurried after her guide.

He paused in front of a closed door. “This is one of the rooms kept for the Duchess’s niece, Daphne. But she was sent back to Athens with the rest of the family just before the siege began.”

Tycho opened the door and Wren stepped inside. It was a small bedroom, and everything was covered in dusty white sheets. The bed, the dresser, the small table, and the chairs all looked like snowy little hills.

“Here.” Tycho opened a tall cabinet and gestured to the clothing hanging on the rod. “Feel free to wear anything you like. Daphne won’t mind. She’s not the minding sort. And the wash room is right back here. I’ll just wait outside for you.” He stepped back out into the hall and closed the door.

Wren glanced at the dozen or so dresses in the cabinet and then went to the wash room where she found a porcelain bath tub and a porcelain bowl on a wooden table. Above each basin were a pair of small hand-pumps, and after a moment’s experimentation she figured out how to make the left one produce lukewarm water and to make the right one produce freezing cold water. She stripped off her black jacket and black sweater and black blouse and black skirts and socks and stood over the bowl of warm water for several minutes scrubbing her face and arms and chest. She even soaked her hair and when she was finished the water in bowl was a curious blend of gray and brown, with many small brown things floating in it.

I thought it would be worse.

She wandered back out into the bedroom dripping water as she went and looked at the dresses again. There was only one in black.

Well, that makes this simple.

The long skirt was pleated and fringed in black lace, which she found amusing and she wondered how long that fringe would survive. The blouse was so thin and cold and smooth that she couldn’t imagine what sort of fabric it was made of, and resolved to ask Omar about it later. When she had the top on, she found that it too had black lace around the cuffs and the neck, and there were voluminous folds hanging from her upper and lower arms, overlapping to transform her arms into drooping black flowers. The black jacket at first seemed too small, but that was only because the sleeves only came down to her elbows, the better to display her layered blouse sleeves, she guessed.

When she was finished dressing, she stood in front of the window and squinted at her dim reflection superimposed on the view of the palace grounds outside. A tiny draft whistled around the edge of the window and the movement of the air made her lace and ruffles and ribbons flutter gently around her.

I look like a raven.

She smiled.

A pretty raven.

She found a black ribbon in one of her jacket pockets and used it to tie her thick red hair back from her face, and then she covered her hair and ears with a thin black scarf that she found in the dress cabinet. She stepped back out into the hall and said, “I’m ready.”

The short officer turned and looked at her, and froze. He blinked. “Uhm. Yes.” He smiled, and a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth made it look as though he wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say.

Wren waited.

“Right.” Tycho tugged his jacket down smooth over his chest and straightened his back. “Let’s be off.” He started walking and she followed, but he kept slowing down a bit to walk beside her instead of in front of her, and since she didn’t know where they were going, she kept slowing down to follow his lead, and so they proceeded rather slowly, glancing at each other every few moments.

Either he thinks I’m pretty, or I put the dress on backwards and he’s trying to think of a polite way to tell me. I don’t think I’d know what to say to either one.

She followed him out into the courtyard and down a broad brick road through a park of yellowed grass and naked trees. Gradually, the major stopped looking up at her and they quickened their pace, and her thoughts returned to the task at hand.

Damn it, Omar. You old coward. Why am I going to talk to this woman? She doesn’t know me. I don’t know her.

“Can I ask you something?” Tycho said, glancing up at her.

Wren looked at him, and for a moment she forgot about the corpses and the immortals, and she saw a handsome young man struggling to keep pace beside her, and she slowed down a bit and managed a smile. “Sure. As long as it’s not about my ears.”

“Oh.” He looked away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Oh gods, he looks mortified!

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” she said. “I’m just a little sensitive about them, and it’s a rather long story.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’d tell you about my condition, but it’s a rather short story.”

She smiled, and he smiled back.

“All right, well, I’ll tell you the short version then,” she said.

“Just my type!”

She said, “Well, there was a plague, and everyone in my country was becoming infected, including me. It wasn’t a normal plague, with spots and smelly bile and death. It was a… soul plague, I guess. Then Omar found a cure, except it wasn’t quite perfect, and everyone was left with a little bit of a fox’s soul inside them, which gave us these ears and eyes.”