| THE LORELEI SIGNAL |
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| Written by J.Michael Matuszewicz / Artwork by Holly Eddy |
| Make a donation to this writer: |
| DEBTOR |
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The priest's bell rang again as prayers drifted up the valley.
I crumpled up the note and tossed it into the fire.
"I owe you a day's labor and a new pail." It had been the next year that she left that one.
"Remember me?" she asked, leaning over the stone fence I was repairing.
"Of course," I said. "How's the ankle?"
"Good enough that I can fetch the water you need for mixing that lime into mortar."
I found her next to the creek some time later. Holding her broken leg straight out, she told of slipping on a rock and
watching the pail drift downstream.
She again ate heartily and had left riding the healer's donkey, destined to barter her embroidery skills for the
bone-mending.
The priest's bell rang yet again, the signal for lowering her into the grave.
I cast the second paper into the fire and passed my hand above the flames as I murmured an old prayer.
"I owe you a day's labor and a bed." I had felt rather than seen her approach that year. Studying in my chapel, I didn't
hear anything before her presence glimmered its way through my concentration.
"I didn't mean to intrude," she said, keeping her back hard up against the stone wall beside the half-opened door.
"Not at all," I said, drawing a cloth over my books. "I should have been expecting you. It's exactly a year ago today,
isn't it?"
"Yes," she said. "I'm sorry that I didn't return when I could walk without limping, but, well ..."
I nodded knowingly. Although few ventured to my holding, I had heard of how, two years in a row, she'd earned her
keep in the village by turning her hand to all sorts of fine trades, but both times had disappeared the day before the
Regent's soldiers had passed through on their monthly rounds.
"What do you say we eat first?" I said. "Perhaps that will break your little jinx." Her thin, dirty clothes marked her as a
village orphan, as did her story about sleeping in the woods the night before, but the way she absently shoved the plates
and cups into formal settings told me differently, and she handled a fork as if she had been using one all her life.
After she pushed away an empty plate and gave me a satisfied smile, I told her to change into a clean smock and apron.
I hoped that keeping her to light housecleaning might prevent another accident, but in my heart I knew better and
hurried to my chapel to do what was necessary.
When I returned to the house a few moments later, I smelled smoke and found her kneeling next to my bed,
half-undressed, her face twisted by pain, her hand already blistering.
"I found a tick under my waistband," she said through clenched teeth. "I used an ember from the fireplace, to burn it
off." Her jaw tightened more, fighting back tears. "But it was too hot, and I dropped it on your bed. I didn't know what
to do but to beat out the flames with my hand."
I sat beside her and drew her close. "It will be all right," I said and then murmured a few old words. Slowly the
stiffness left her shoulders and face, and her right hand's deathgrip on her left wrist relaxed. "I summoned the healer," I
said. "He will be here as fast as he can run from the village."
"I'm sorry," she said, looking at the hole burned in the mattress ticking and the scorched feathers beneath it. "I already
owe you so much."
"Do not worry about it," I had said. "I suspect it won't matter in the end."
The fourth clang of the priest's bell told me that the first shovelful of dirt was being cast in to cover her body.
I folded the page in half and stood it on edge next to the fire. The writing shadowed through the paper until the letters
caught a flame and passed it amongst themselves, burning darkly blue within the crisp whiteness. As I passed my hand
above it, the sheet withered to black ash.
"I owe you my life," last year's note said. It had been soldiers, not the girl, who appeared that morning.
"Old man," one said as he stomped through my carrot patch and came to stand toe to toe with me while his gang waited
on the road. "Have you seen a young wench?"
"Many, yes, many," I said, nodding. "I remember one sweet little thing I met, oh, it must be fifty years ago now, when
I was . . ."
"Today, fool," he said, his foul breath almost knocking me over. "Has a dark-haired girl passed this way?"
"Oh, yes, well, maybe," I said, still nodding foolishly. "The miller's youngest has dark hair, and she uses this road on her
way to ..."
"Fool!" he said, raising his short sword as if to strike me with its hilt.
"Hold!"
We both turned to look at the man who had shouted. He eyed us for a moment and then nudged his horse forward, the
soldiers making wide way for him. As the horse came up my narrow path, the soldier lowered his arm and bowed his
head. "I was just going to teach this old fool to speak straight, Milord," he said.
"You have not the wits to teach him anything," the man said. He leaned forward and stroked his horse's neck before
looking directly at me. "Well met, peasant," he said.
"Well met, Beast."
The soldier growled and started to lift his arm again. A riding whip touched to his shoulder stopped him. "He has the
right to call me such," the lord said, smiling. "A right for which he paid a high price, back when we both served the
King."
"And now you serve the Regent," I said, not trying to hide my disgust.
He shrugged. "You may hold it against me if you like. I could see no sense in losing my lands, and perhaps my life,
when there were others ready to serve, others who might be less inclined to treat the peasants with wisdom and mercy."
"Is it the wisdom or the mercy that causes you to hire ruffians who beat up old men?"
His smile now carried little humor. "I suspect you would have shown him little mercy had I let him strike you, for I
remember only too well that your method of repaying blows is as dark as your way of collecting what's owed you."
"All I am owed is a day's peace, without thugs trampling my carrots," I said. "Be off with you."
"By my own rights, I would not have disturbed you," he said. "However, we seek the Princess, for she has managed to
escape again. I am charged with bringing her back before the month for royal marriages has passed: she must wed the
Regent's son before the next full moon. Have you seen her?"
"So the gossip is true," I said. "Your precious Regent means to carry off the crown by forcing a bad marriage on an
innocent young girl."
"Innocent! She knifed two of my guards to make good her escape this time, and last year she hit one on the head so
hard that his wits are still addled."
"Good for her," I said. "If she comes this way, I will sing her praises."
"Enough! Has she passed this way? Have you seen her?"
"The last girl I saw was the priest's daughter," I said. "That was three days ago."
Without a word he turned his horse around, rode out through the gate, and headed towards the village. The soldiers first
scattered out of his way and then hurried off after him.
It was dusk when I came out of my chapel and found her sitting on the doorstep.
"Have you been waiting long?" I asked.
"Some time," she said. "But I did not want to disturb you, in there, again."
"Come, there is a lamb on the spit and fresh peas in the kettle."
I let her eat in silence until she pushed her plate aside and replaced it with a custard cup. When she looked up at me, she
blushed. "I am eating like a heathen, I know, but it is all so delicious," she said.
"Leaving behind three good meals a day and having to forage for roots and berries would sharpen anyone's appetite . . .
Princess."
She lowered her eyes before speaking. "I had hoped you wouldn't find me out."
"Why?"
"They say that when you left my father's service you threatened to curse our entire family."
"It is true that hasty words were spoken, but not to that extreme. We were good friends and argued most about trivial
things." I poured her a glass of wine. "I would never have actually hurt him or your mother, who held you in her womb
at the time."
"Was it a trivial thing that made you leave?"
"Yes, and no," I said. "He owed me something, a small token, but would not allow me to collect. It is the principle of
my religion that a creditor has some power over a debtor. If that power is not exercised, however, it turns against us,
like wine changing to vinegar when it sits too long." I stood and began clearing the table. "To your father, it was only a
hesitation in paying a small bill; to me, it meant an undercutting, an erosion of the faith on which I have built my life. I
could not stay as either his servant or his friend with that hanging over me."
" 'I give leave to faithful friends to take what is their fair due of my wealth, my honor, and my family,' " she said.
"What is that?"
"The last words he ever spoke. I always wondered why he thought those words so important, but it was many years
before anyone would answer my questions."
An owl hooted in the woods, alerting me to the distant clatter of a horse's hooves amid the tramping of a dozen or more
men.
"We have visitors," I said. "Unfriendly ones."
"I'll climb out the back window," she said as she leapt to her feet. "They mustn't find me."
"They won't," I said and led her to a dark corner where I draped a cobweb over her face. "Do not question. Just stand
very still." I murmured an old prayer and turned away from her when the door opened.
"First you trample my carrots, and now you burst into my home," I said. "You used to have better manners, Beast."
"There is no time for pleasantries," he said, then motioned for his men to search the house. One started for the corner
where the Princess hid, then decided to look under the table instead. It took them only a minute to open my few
cupboards and look behind the chimney while
sounds of drawers being opened and my bed being upturned came from the other room. "Check the henhouse and
woodshed," he told them, "and make a wide sweep to see if she ran off into the woods."
When his squad left, I smiled at him. "Satisfied?" I asked.
He returned the smile. "Although you may not credit it, yes, I am well satisfied." He looked out the door as if to see if
anyone could overhear. "New orders have come down. If the Princess will return willingly, fine. If not, they have
announced the wedding and chosen a bridesmaid."
My heart became a cold, heavy lump. "They wouldn't dare."
"To bring the crown into the family, the Regent would dare much, and the new Bishop will sanctify anything he is told
to," he said, slapping his riding whip into his palm. "For the sake of our old friendship, I will give you two pieces of
advice. First, do not be caught between the Regent's men and the girl, for the reward is large and many will stop at
nothing."
"And the second advice?"
He used his whip to point at the table, still set with two custard cups and two glasses of wine. "You will become fat and
witless if you continue to eat and drink so much."
I watched through the window as he mounted, called his men together, and headed off down the road. When they were
at last out of sight, I went to the girl. She trembled as I wafted the cobweb from her face.
"I was so scared I couldn't move," she said. "Why didn't they see me?"
"That is not important now," I said. "We must decide how best to hide you until the marriage-month is past."
"I will go my own way. I would not see you come to trouble because of me. Do not look so alarmed; I have eluded
them in the villages and forests the last four times. I am sure I can do so again, and if not ..." She dropped her chin to
her chest. "I know I cannot go on escaping every spring. It is three years before I am of age to claim the crown in my
own name, and I know the Regent will find a way to bind me to the castle before then. It is only a game, and I know I
will someday lose it."
"There is more than that at stake," I said. "Did you not hear that a bridesmaid was chosen?"
"Yes, but what does it matter? If she takes my place, I can always renounce the ceremony."
I tried not to smile at her innocence. "You have courage, now temper it with wisdom. What will happen if the
bridesmaid speaks in your name, but you are not alive to disavow it?"
A moment's puzzlement turned to wide-eyed horror, and I suspected I might finally see her cry, but after a few deep
breaths she steadied herself.
"I cannot ask you to hide me, for I could never repay such a debt," she said. "But if there is any advice you can freely
give, I will be grateful for the rest of my life." A heartbeat later she shuddered, apparently realizing what her choice of
words meant.
"The best advice I can give is to leave this land," I said. "If you are not present at the feasts of summer and winter
solstices, they will declare the royal lineage lost. Your life, and marriage bed, will be of your own choosing once you are
sundered from the crown."
"I thought of that, but it would mean war, some nobles siding with the Regent, others against, and the commonfolk
caught in the middle. No," she said, shaking her head, "I would be trading my life for many others. I cannot do that to
my people."
"Then I will hide you until the full moon, but it will be a heavy debt, and one that you will repay."
When she walked off my land three weeks later, I knew that her fate had only been postponed. The next
marriage-month would find her bedridden with a poisoned fever. A false bridesmaid would speak in her name, giving
the Regent's son a legitimate-sounding claim to the
throne. There was no doubt that the Princess would not be alive the next day to repudiate the ceremony.
I had stood there watching her leave, hoping that my faith would be great enough when that time came.
The priest's bell clanged twice more, ending the burial.
In my mind's eye, I saw him and the few mourners walking towards the church, grieving her loss while others, far off
in the cathedral, witnessed the Bishop's formal blessing of the Regent's son as a Prince of the Realm.
I laid the last note on top of the fire, but passed my fist over it, forbidding it to burn. "Some debts I freely forgive," I
said. "I will not ask payment for food given to a hungry girl."
Fingers of flame lifted the paper.
"Of a pail and a bed, I beg no gain, just to be requited of what I lost."
The note floated higher, unfolded, and turned itself over to let the fire read it.
"Yet it would be unjust and unholy if I am plundered of a debt freely given and on which I place no usury."
Two embers deep within the stack of burning wood began to glow fiercely, throbbing with increasing heat as they
scanned the note.
"She did not die by choice," I said. "She was robbed of the life she owed me."
Black pits opened in the embers as they shifted to stare at me.
"I beg only that a thief not dishonor us by making her die a debtor."
The flames swirled around the note, tweaking its corners and turning its edges golden. When I passed my hand above it
again, the writing grew taller, began to dance with the heat. Crossing my wrists over my chest and bowing my head, I
spoke a prayer far older than any priest's
liturgy.
The crackling of the fire swelled to a wind, then to a gale. Yellow flames changed to red, then blue, and rose into a
column of pure white, cutting the clouds. Two heartbeats it thundered, three. Loose leaves and twigs sucked up by the
whirlwind vanished into nothingness as they touched the flame.
Silence crushed me when the column broke, nothing left of my fire or the last note, nothing but the girl standing before
me.
"I, I was unsure," she said, clasping a thin shroud to her breast. "I hoped, and I prayed, but I wasn't sure."
"It was a close thing," I said as I rose and offered her a blanket to wrap around herself. "And a trifle foolish, trusting
your life to my faith."
"I did not mean it to be, when I started," she said. "I only wanted your gods to guide me to you every year, making sure
that I arrived safely, in hope that I would repay what I owed."
"Still foolish. What if the accidents had not happened and I had made you work for your meals?"
"Who is being foolish now?" she asked, smiling. "If you think back, you were never watching when I got hurt."
I looked at her a long moment. "That took great courage."
"It was for my people," she said.
"Come, I will take you back to the castle and you can renounce the wedding."
"No. The barons will rise up to prevent another plot. That means war and suffering for my people."
"Not at all," I said. "When they see that treachery could not put you in the grave and keep you there, no one, not even
the Regent, will dare plot against you again."
"But my debts," she said. "I owe you my life."
"Your first debts are to your people, to govern them with love and understanding, and to provide an heir to the throne.
At the same time, you can begin to settle your account with me." I pulled an acorn from my pocket and pressed it into
her hand. "Plant this in your garden. When it is fully grown, use its wood to make a pail. When you finish it, I will give
you two eggs from which you may raise a flock of geese. Their down will replace the bed."
"That will take so long," she said. "And, well, you are no longer young."
"My gods will ensure that I am still here to collect. I consider a guarantee of living sixty more years is good interest on
your debt." I offered her my hand while she stepped out of the ring of stones which had held the fire. "It is time for you
to go home, without fear."
In the distance, two bells rang, the country church solemnly drawing the funeral to a close and the cathedral hollowly
announcing a new power in the land.
I crumpled up the note and tossed it into the fire.
"I owe you a day's labor and a new pail." It had been the next year that she left that one.
"Remember me?" she asked, leaning over the stone fence I was repairing.
"Of course," I said. "How's the ankle?"
"Good enough that I can fetch the water you need for mixing that lime into mortar."
I found her next to the creek some time later. Holding her broken leg straight out, she told of slipping on a rock and
watching the pail drift downstream.
She again ate heartily and had left riding the healer's donkey, destined to barter her embroidery skills for the
bone-mending.
The priest's bell rang yet again, the signal for lowering her into the grave.
I cast the second paper into the fire and passed my hand above the flames as I murmured an old prayer.
"I owe you a day's labor and a bed." I had felt rather than seen her approach that year. Studying in my chapel, I didn't
hear anything before her presence glimmered its way through my concentration.
"I didn't mean to intrude," she said, keeping her back hard up against the stone wall beside the half-opened door.
"Not at all," I said, drawing a cloth over my books. "I should have been expecting you. It's exactly a year ago today,
isn't it?"
"Yes," she said. "I'm sorry that I didn't return when I could walk without limping, but, well ..."
I nodded knowingly. Although few ventured to my holding, I had heard of how, two years in a row, she'd earned her
keep in the village by turning her hand to all sorts of fine trades, but both times had disappeared the day before the
Regent's soldiers had passed through on their monthly rounds.
"What do you say we eat first?" I said. "Perhaps that will break your little jinx." Her thin, dirty clothes marked her as a
village orphan, as did her story about sleeping in the woods the night before, but the way she absently shoved the plates
and cups into formal settings told me differently, and she handled a fork as if she had been using one all her life.
After she pushed away an empty plate and gave me a satisfied smile, I told her to change into a clean smock and apron.
I hoped that keeping her to light housecleaning might prevent another accident, but in my heart I knew better and
hurried to my chapel to do what was necessary.
When I returned to the house a few moments later, I smelled smoke and found her kneeling next to my bed,
half-undressed, her face twisted by pain, her hand already blistering.
"I found a tick under my waistband," she said through clenched teeth. "I used an ember from the fireplace, to burn it
off." Her jaw tightened more, fighting back tears. "But it was too hot, and I dropped it on your bed. I didn't know what
to do but to beat out the flames with my hand."
I sat beside her and drew her close. "It will be all right," I said and then murmured a few old words. Slowly the
stiffness left her shoulders and face, and her right hand's deathgrip on her left wrist relaxed. "I summoned the healer," I
said. "He will be here as fast as he can run from the village."
"I'm sorry," she said, looking at the hole burned in the mattress ticking and the scorched feathers beneath it. "I already
owe you so much."
"Do not worry about it," I had said. "I suspect it won't matter in the end."
The fourth clang of the priest's bell told me that the first shovelful of dirt was being cast in to cover her body.
I folded the page in half and stood it on edge next to the fire. The writing shadowed through the paper until the letters
caught a flame and passed it amongst themselves, burning darkly blue within the crisp whiteness. As I passed my hand
above it, the sheet withered to black ash.
"I owe you my life," last year's note said. It had been soldiers, not the girl, who appeared that morning.
"Old man," one said as he stomped through my carrot patch and came to stand toe to toe with me while his gang waited
on the road. "Have you seen a young wench?"
"Many, yes, many," I said, nodding. "I remember one sweet little thing I met, oh, it must be fifty years ago now, when
I was . . ."
"Today, fool," he said, his foul breath almost knocking me over. "Has a dark-haired girl passed this way?"
"Oh, yes, well, maybe," I said, still nodding foolishly. "The miller's youngest has dark hair, and she uses this road on her
way to ..."
"Fool!" he said, raising his short sword as if to strike me with its hilt.
"Hold!"
We both turned to look at the man who had shouted. He eyed us for a moment and then nudged his horse forward, the
soldiers making wide way for him. As the horse came up my narrow path, the soldier lowered his arm and bowed his
head. "I was just going to teach this old fool to speak straight, Milord," he said.
"You have not the wits to teach him anything," the man said. He leaned forward and stroked his horse's neck before
looking directly at me. "Well met, peasant," he said.
"Well met, Beast."
The soldier growled and started to lift his arm again. A riding whip touched to his shoulder stopped him. "He has the
right to call me such," the lord said, smiling. "A right for which he paid a high price, back when we both served the
King."
"And now you serve the Regent," I said, not trying to hide my disgust.
He shrugged. "You may hold it against me if you like. I could see no sense in losing my lands, and perhaps my life,
when there were others ready to serve, others who might be less inclined to treat the peasants with wisdom and mercy."
"Is it the wisdom or the mercy that causes you to hire ruffians who beat up old men?"
His smile now carried little humor. "I suspect you would have shown him little mercy had I let him strike you, for I
remember only too well that your method of repaying blows is as dark as your way of collecting what's owed you."
"All I am owed is a day's peace, without thugs trampling my carrots," I said. "Be off with you."
"By my own rights, I would not have disturbed you," he said. "However, we seek the Princess, for she has managed to
escape again. I am charged with bringing her back before the month for royal marriages has passed: she must wed the
Regent's son before the next full moon. Have you seen her?"
"So the gossip is true," I said. "Your precious Regent means to carry off the crown by forcing a bad marriage on an
innocent young girl."
"Innocent! She knifed two of my guards to make good her escape this time, and last year she hit one on the head so
hard that his wits are still addled."
"Good for her," I said. "If she comes this way, I will sing her praises."
"Enough! Has she passed this way? Have you seen her?"
"The last girl I saw was the priest's daughter," I said. "That was three days ago."
Without a word he turned his horse around, rode out through the gate, and headed towards the village. The soldiers first
scattered out of his way and then hurried off after him.
It was dusk when I came out of my chapel and found her sitting on the doorstep.
"Have you been waiting long?" I asked.
"Some time," she said. "But I did not want to disturb you, in there, again."
"Come, there is a lamb on the spit and fresh peas in the kettle."
I let her eat in silence until she pushed her plate aside and replaced it with a custard cup. When she looked up at me, she
blushed. "I am eating like a heathen, I know, but it is all so delicious," she said.
"Leaving behind three good meals a day and having to forage for roots and berries would sharpen anyone's appetite . . .
Princess."
She lowered her eyes before speaking. "I had hoped you wouldn't find me out."
"Why?"
"They say that when you left my father's service you threatened to curse our entire family."
"It is true that hasty words were spoken, but not to that extreme. We were good friends and argued most about trivial
things." I poured her a glass of wine. "I would never have actually hurt him or your mother, who held you in her womb
at the time."
"Was it a trivial thing that made you leave?"
"Yes, and no," I said. "He owed me something, a small token, but would not allow me to collect. It is the principle of
my religion that a creditor has some power over a debtor. If that power is not exercised, however, it turns against us,
like wine changing to vinegar when it sits too long." I stood and began clearing the table. "To your father, it was only a
hesitation in paying a small bill; to me, it meant an undercutting, an erosion of the faith on which I have built my life. I
could not stay as either his servant or his friend with that hanging over me."
" 'I give leave to faithful friends to take what is their fair due of my wealth, my honor, and my family,' " she said.
"What is that?"
"The last words he ever spoke. I always wondered why he thought those words so important, but it was many years
before anyone would answer my questions."
An owl hooted in the woods, alerting me to the distant clatter of a horse's hooves amid the tramping of a dozen or more
men.
"We have visitors," I said. "Unfriendly ones."
"I'll climb out the back window," she said as she leapt to her feet. "They mustn't find me."
"They won't," I said and led her to a dark corner where I draped a cobweb over her face. "Do not question. Just stand
very still." I murmured an old prayer and turned away from her when the door opened.
"First you trample my carrots, and now you burst into my home," I said. "You used to have better manners, Beast."
"There is no time for pleasantries," he said, then motioned for his men to search the house. One started for the corner
where the Princess hid, then decided to look under the table instead. It took them only a minute to open my few
cupboards and look behind the chimney while
sounds of drawers being opened and my bed being upturned came from the other room. "Check the henhouse and
woodshed," he told them, "and make a wide sweep to see if she ran off into the woods."
When his squad left, I smiled at him. "Satisfied?" I asked.
He returned the smile. "Although you may not credit it, yes, I am well satisfied." He looked out the door as if to see if
anyone could overhear. "New orders have come down. If the Princess will return willingly, fine. If not, they have
announced the wedding and chosen a bridesmaid."
My heart became a cold, heavy lump. "They wouldn't dare."
"To bring the crown into the family, the Regent would dare much, and the new Bishop will sanctify anything he is told
to," he said, slapping his riding whip into his palm. "For the sake of our old friendship, I will give you two pieces of
advice. First, do not be caught between the Regent's men and the girl, for the reward is large and many will stop at
nothing."
"And the second advice?"
He used his whip to point at the table, still set with two custard cups and two glasses of wine. "You will become fat and
witless if you continue to eat and drink so much."
I watched through the window as he mounted, called his men together, and headed off down the road. When they were
at last out of sight, I went to the girl. She trembled as I wafted the cobweb from her face.
"I was so scared I couldn't move," she said. "Why didn't they see me?"
"That is not important now," I said. "We must decide how best to hide you until the marriage-month is past."
"I will go my own way. I would not see you come to trouble because of me. Do not look so alarmed; I have eluded
them in the villages and forests the last four times. I am sure I can do so again, and if not ..." She dropped her chin to
her chest. "I know I cannot go on escaping every spring. It is three years before I am of age to claim the crown in my
own name, and I know the Regent will find a way to bind me to the castle before then. It is only a game, and I know I
will someday lose it."
"There is more than that at stake," I said. "Did you not hear that a bridesmaid was chosen?"
"Yes, but what does it matter? If she takes my place, I can always renounce the ceremony."
I tried not to smile at her innocence. "You have courage, now temper it with wisdom. What will happen if the
bridesmaid speaks in your name, but you are not alive to disavow it?"
A moment's puzzlement turned to wide-eyed horror, and I suspected I might finally see her cry, but after a few deep
breaths she steadied herself.
"I cannot ask you to hide me, for I could never repay such a debt," she said. "But if there is any advice you can freely
give, I will be grateful for the rest of my life." A heartbeat later she shuddered, apparently realizing what her choice of
words meant.
"The best advice I can give is to leave this land," I said. "If you are not present at the feasts of summer and winter
solstices, they will declare the royal lineage lost. Your life, and marriage bed, will be of your own choosing once you are
sundered from the crown."
"I thought of that, but it would mean war, some nobles siding with the Regent, others against, and the commonfolk
caught in the middle. No," she said, shaking her head, "I would be trading my life for many others. I cannot do that to
my people."
"Then I will hide you until the full moon, but it will be a heavy debt, and one that you will repay."
When she walked off my land three weeks later, I knew that her fate had only been postponed. The next
marriage-month would find her bedridden with a poisoned fever. A false bridesmaid would speak in her name, giving
the Regent's son a legitimate-sounding claim to the
throne. There was no doubt that the Princess would not be alive the next day to repudiate the ceremony.
I had stood there watching her leave, hoping that my faith would be great enough when that time came.
The priest's bell clanged twice more, ending the burial.
In my mind's eye, I saw him and the few mourners walking towards the church, grieving her loss while others, far off
in the cathedral, witnessed the Bishop's formal blessing of the Regent's son as a Prince of the Realm.
I laid the last note on top of the fire, but passed my fist over it, forbidding it to burn. "Some debts I freely forgive," I
said. "I will not ask payment for food given to a hungry girl."
Fingers of flame lifted the paper.
"Of a pail and a bed, I beg no gain, just to be requited of what I lost."
The note floated higher, unfolded, and turned itself over to let the fire read it.
"Yet it would be unjust and unholy if I am plundered of a debt freely given and on which I place no usury."
Two embers deep within the stack of burning wood began to glow fiercely, throbbing with increasing heat as they
scanned the note.
"She did not die by choice," I said. "She was robbed of the life she owed me."
Black pits opened in the embers as they shifted to stare at me.
"I beg only that a thief not dishonor us by making her die a debtor."
The flames swirled around the note, tweaking its corners and turning its edges golden. When I passed my hand above it
again, the writing grew taller, began to dance with the heat. Crossing my wrists over my chest and bowing my head, I
spoke a prayer far older than any priest's
liturgy.
The crackling of the fire swelled to a wind, then to a gale. Yellow flames changed to red, then blue, and rose into a
column of pure white, cutting the clouds. Two heartbeats it thundered, three. Loose leaves and twigs sucked up by the
whirlwind vanished into nothingness as they touched the flame.
Silence crushed me when the column broke, nothing left of my fire or the last note, nothing but the girl standing before
me.
"I, I was unsure," she said, clasping a thin shroud to her breast. "I hoped, and I prayed, but I wasn't sure."
"It was a close thing," I said as I rose and offered her a blanket to wrap around herself. "And a trifle foolish, trusting
your life to my faith."
"I did not mean it to be, when I started," she said. "I only wanted your gods to guide me to you every year, making sure
that I arrived safely, in hope that I would repay what I owed."
"Still foolish. What if the accidents had not happened and I had made you work for your meals?"
"Who is being foolish now?" she asked, smiling. "If you think back, you were never watching when I got hurt."
I looked at her a long moment. "That took great courage."
"It was for my people," she said.
"Come, I will take you back to the castle and you can renounce the wedding."
"No. The barons will rise up to prevent another plot. That means war and suffering for my people."
"Not at all," I said. "When they see that treachery could not put you in the grave and keep you there, no one, not even
the Regent, will dare plot against you again."
"But my debts," she said. "I owe you my life."
"Your first debts are to your people, to govern them with love and understanding, and to provide an heir to the throne.
At the same time, you can begin to settle your account with me." I pulled an acorn from my pocket and pressed it into
her hand. "Plant this in your garden. When it is fully grown, use its wood to make a pail. When you finish it, I will give
you two eggs from which you may raise a flock of geese. Their down will replace the bed."
"That will take so long," she said. "And, well, you are no longer young."
"My gods will ensure that I am still here to collect. I consider a guarantee of living sixty more years is good interest on
your debt." I offered her my hand while she stepped out of the ring of stones which had held the fire. "It is time for you
to go home, without fear."
In the distance, two bells rang, the country church solemnly drawing the funeral to a close and the cathedral hollowly
announcing a new power in the land.
| The clang of the priest's bell echoed up the valley. Hunched over my small fire, I pulled a sheaf of papers from my pocket and unfolded them. "I owe you a day's labor," the top one read. She had stopped at my holding and offered to work for food. I sent her up to fix the hole in the henhouse roof, but not more than a breath later she was on the ground again, her ankle twisted at an odd angle and her fingernails digging into her palms as she fought to keep from crying. While I summoned the healer, she ate a week's worth of meat and potatoes, and then she went with him to work off the doctoring by grinding herbs and mixing potions. I had found the note under her empty plate, a curious thing because the paper was fine enough that, even half a sheet, it was worth a good meal. |
| Selected as one of the 100 Notable Stories of 2006 by Story South |