I said I did. It made Tess’s gift more precious than ever, and I took to polishing it every night on my nightgown when I went to bed. However, just then I wanted to know about what had just happened.
“What was it, there at the bridge?” I asked.
“Bridge magic, child. Calling up the deep dwellers. One of the ten thousand magics, and not the simplest. We learn a simpler one today, herbary, and see you pay attention.”
I did my best. I certainly never forgot what they taught me that afternoon. Rainhat root, pounded with the seeds of shivery-green, when the seeds are still in the pod and the root taken on the same day, will bring a sleep no power is proof against—no, not even Healing. “A day, a drop,” said old Tinder-my-hand. “Two days, two drops. Drink a flagon of it, and a man will sleep a year and starve while asleep, for in this sleep he will not swallow nor shit nor pee nor aught but barely breathe, girl.”
“It sounds ... dangerous,” I said.
“It sounds useful,” she corrected me. “May come a time you’d like Mendost to be asleep for a few days? Well? But never for anything small, girl. We don’t use the wize-art for small things.”
So I learned the formula for sleep, and another very complicated one for making people or creatures fall in love—that one had sixteen ingredients that had to be mixed in the right order and the right quantities—and yet another for reducing temper. Murzy caught my eye and reminded me, “Not for anything small, Jinian. Put that thought right out of your head,” so I stopped thinking of putting it in Mother’s tea. Still, it would have been an improvement.
Herbary isn’t really secret. There are books, often not even hidden away, where you can find out about it. So it doesn’t matter if I say some things about it. You’ll notice I don’t tell what the sixteen ingredients are. Murzy says it wouldn’t be wize at all. But I can tell the story without telling the truly secret things. Besides, some of them aren’t truly secret anymore since the changes.
After that, I spent a great deal of time with the sisters. Murzy. Tess Tinder-my-hand. Margaret Fox-mitten. Bets Battereye. Cat Candleshy. And Sarah Shadowsox. And Jinian Footseer. Seven of us, which is the usual number. I have talked of them as though they were all equally old, but Tinder-my-hand was oldest, white-haired and frail, forgetful a bit at times and at others so quick it surprised you. Murzy and Bets were next oldest, alike enough to be sisters, both full of bustle and no-nonsense. Cat was dignified and knife sharp, dark hair drawn up in a braid crown. Sarah had wild red-brown hair and eyes like a mountain zeller, all soft caution. They were about middle-aged, I suppose, thirty or so. Margaret Foxmitten was tall and thin as a whip and not much older than Mendost, and she could be more beautiful than Eller when she chose, but there was something forbiddingly elderly about her, for all her soft skin and shining hair. When she sat in the dust of the courtyard, husking fruit or chopping grain, no one would have looked at her twice. It was a kind of disappearing, of invisibility, and Murzy suggested I would do well to learn it. I seemed to be disturbingly visible whenever I was present, and I decided I was just too young to bring it off.
Time went on. Jeruval got his Talent—I‘ve honestly forgotten what it was. Pursuivant, I think. He went off, then, to Game with some Demesne or other until he got tired of it or got killed. Poremy still had a year or so to go before he could expect to get his Talent, if any, and Flot perhaps two years. It comes, usually, around the fifteenth or sixteenth year, though I’ve been told Witchery comes earlier than that and Sorcery much later. I was about thirteen years old, just getting my breasts and woman-times. That’s when Murzy told me to get myself ready for a trip.
I heard her talking to Mother.
Overheard.
Well, listened. It was on a teetery branch of a tall tree outside the tower window, so I guess you couldn’t say “overheard”. I just happened to be there. Looking for birds’ eggs.
Murzy was saying, “My oldest sister, ma’am. Not much longer in this life, I shouldn’t think, and it would be nice to spend Festival together. So, a couple of the dams and I decided—with your permission, of course, ma’am—we’d go on up to Schooltown and spend a few days with her. I’d be happy to take young Jinian with us, too. Get her off your hands. The girl’s got a good heart, but heaven save us, she’s always into mischief ...”
Mischief! I was into no such thing, and started to say so, but the branch cracked under me and I decided to be still.
Mother fingered the crystal she had on a chain around her neck. Mendost had given it to her, and she always wore it. “Children are a trial,” she said. That was nothing new. She often said it, especially to me.
“They are that, ma’am.” That was new. Murzy always said to me that children are one of life’s great joys, so I knew she was up to something. “I think any conscientious mother needs a rest from time to time.”
“You’re right.” Mother sighed. You would have thought from that sigh she didn’t have two hundred pawns around to do whatever they were told, plus all the kinfolk, plus Garz and Bram. From that sigh, you’d have thought the whole weight of the Demesne was on her head. “They wanted me to make a Dervish of her, you know, Dam Murzy. I wouldn’t do it to a child of mine, but I’ve wondered since if it wouldn’t have been best for her. With her nature
