An Exchange of Gifts Read online

  “Then we’ll wait for his return,” the Forester said, pulling one of the stools out from under the table with a deft hook of his foot. And sat himself down. “You’ve no small beer?” he asked, looking about him.

  “Oooh, sir, nothing as grand as that. Only Adam’s ale, fresh from the brook.”

  “Nothing to eat?”

  “The bread’s rising,” she said, glad of that excuse. How long would she have to entertain this individual? And, more to the point, how would he expect to be entertained, peasant that he was. He seemed to look everywhere but at her…pointedly. Which gave her a chance to assess him.

  He was a big man, as foresters often are considering the work they do, and grizzled so he wasn’t in his first youth or hot-blooded. Not that that was any surety of proper conduct. Her maids had often chattered about old fools with young aspirations.

  “You’ve eggs there, and flour,” he said, pointing to the bowl on the cupboard shelf, “an’ milk in that pitcher. I’ll have pan cakes off you while we wait for that son of yours.”

  Only a few days before Meanne would have been hard pressed to comply but she had carefully watched Wisp making pan cakes so she now knew how. She had to work around the man in the confined space between table and hearth, but the Forester did not, as she had half suspected he might, try to grab her as she’d seen serving maids grabbed by soldiers. She was grateful but puzzled. Nevertheless, she put the stone on the coals to heat, and mixed milk and eggs and flour together, lightly, as Wisp had explained, and a pinch of salt. And carefully she’d ladled out the little flat puddles of batter, hoping she’d done it right.

  The Forester finished the lot of them, slathering on all the butter Wisp had brought back from the market. He didn’t seem to expect honey or jam, or maybe he had seen she had none on his investigation of her cupboards. He sat back as he finished and emitted a vulgar but fulsome belch, rubbing his hands up and down his midriff.

  “You may not look much, Widow Sudge,” he said, clearing his mustache with deft fingers, “but you make a good pan cake.”

  Meanne’s mind had stopped with ‘may not look like much,’ but before she could say anything—which would certainly have given her away—Wisp appeared in the door, gasping, supporting himself on the frame until he caught his breath.

  “’Tis the Forester, son,” she said witlessly. “He’ll let us stay…if we can pay him a few pennies for rent. You have the pouch?”

  “I do, mum, for you’re dreadful about putting things so safely away we never find them.”

  As that was Wisp’s very habit, Meanne had to swallow back a crisp retort.

  “Such a grand handy lad for a poor old widow like me to have,” Meanne said.

  “Thruppence, lad,” the Forester said portentously, holding out his hand.

  “And that’s for the year, then?” Wisp said, eyeing the Forester shrewdly, one hand in his pocket as he searched for the coins.

  “You must be joking,” the man said, and snapped two fingers for Wisp to hurry up. “For the month. You’ll stay ’til a new charcoal maker’s found and lucky at that.”

  “Oh, we are, your honor,” Meanne said though she longed to prick his consequence somehow or other. “Lucky indeed to have a roof over our heads an’ all.”

  Wisp finally located the coins and, as he drew them out of his pocket, Meanne gasped for they looked more like the flat pebbles a boy would skip over the water than pennies. She had been mistaken for they clinked into the Forester’s hand.

  He rose then and, without a backward glance, retrieved the big axe he had left at the door, striding away into the woods as if he, not the Lord, owned them.

  When Meanne looked back at Wisp, he had both hands over his mouth, choking back his laughter.

  “It’s no laughing matter, Wisp,” she said, hands on her hips, incensed that the Forester had had not only a good meal but three pennies from them in the same day. “He ate half the flour you brought back.”

  “Well, he got no solid coin in the bargain, Meanne,” Wisp said, wiping the tears from his eyes.

  “What do you mean? I saw you give them to him.”

  “Let him find what he thought he had, then,” Wisp said with a shrug of his shoulders, his eyes still merry. “Good thing I taught you how to make pan cakes, isn’t it?” Then he added, as he saw her puzzled expression, “What’s the matter?”

  She had put her hand to her hair and her face. “I don’t quite know, but…well, would you call me pretty, Wisp?”

  “Huh?”

  “Am I pretty? Or has my looking glass been lying to me all these years?”

  “You’re the prettiest sister a lad ever had,” he replied, watching her intently. “Why?”

  “Even in…well, I’ve observed,” she said correcting herself and using a prim tone, “that peasants of his rank try to take advantages of pretty girls…”

  Wisp grinned. “Maybe he realized that though you might be living in a hut, you were not to be trifled with.”

  “Because I’m a hero’s widow?” She cocked her head at him. “Pray tell me, what war was my hero husband in? What acts of gallantry did he perform to warrant three medals, none of which I have to sell right now?”

  Wisp sat on the edge of the table, swinging one foot absently and enjoying her confusion. “Wars are wars, and what man of the rank and file ever knows what the war he gets wounded, or killed in, was ever about? So, the first one was for retrieving his officer, who was stupid enough—though don’t put it that way—to fall off his steed because he couldn’t ride a rocking horse much less a trained war horse. The second was for carrying an important message through enemy lines, and the third…hmmm.” Wisp paused to regard the ceiling for inspiration.

  “For leading a charge against a superior force?”

  “The very thing!”

  “What an amazing man your father was.”

  “Aye, I thought so, too. Now, is there anything left for a hungry lad?”

  “No eggs, some cheese, and yesterday’s bread. You’ll have to bake more.”

  “No, you will, I showed you how yesterday, Mum.” Wisp’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Seeing as how you did so well with the pan cakes, I’m sure you can manage the bread.”

  She regarded Wisp with some acrimony and then smiled. Such a mundane matter as being allowed to soil her hands with cooking her daily bread had been one of the reasons she had wanted to escape her restricted condition in life. Growing plants which produced edible roots / berries / legumes / vegetables had been considered beneath a female of her rank: lovely as they were, flowers and flowering bushes had not satisfied the deep-seated need that had burgeoned, as a rare plant in Meanne’s heart, to transcend such petty confines of rank and privilege.

  “Thank you for reminding me of that, Wisp,” she said and began to assemble the ingredients for bread.

  * * * *

  By evening she had four fine loaves, though a tad scorched because she was still refining her skill in using the wall oven. But she was improving.

  “What will happen,” she asked Wisp as they ate their simple meal, “when the Forester discovers he has lost the ‘pennies’?”

  “I suspect he might come back,” Wisp said casually, “but I don’t think he’ll find the place right off.”

  “He found it easily enough this morning,” Meanne said. “Can you not stay close in case I need you?”

  “I could,” Wisp said, “but I won’t need to.”

  And he smiled that knowing smile that often made him appear much more adult than his years.

  CHAPTER 4

  Meanne was not totally reassured and found herself very wakeful that night, fretting over how to cope with the hungers of the Forester as well as his anger at being duped. Finally, she got up to infuse a cup of camomile for herself. There was no moon and only the embers of the fire—which she then st
oked to encourage a blaze that would boil the kettle—to provide light and warm her in the chill of the pre-dawn air. She had brewed her tea and turned to go back to her room when she noticed a dark bulk lying across the doorway that led to Wisp’s alcove. Surprised, she peered more closely and then decided that he had shifted in his sleep and blocked the doorway with his body. The space was just barely long enough to accommodate his slender self.

  She retired again, and the camomile infusion was sufficient to put her to sleep.

  * * * *

  Several days later, while she was hoeing in the garden, she heard distant cursing and bashings about in the underbrush. She thought it sounded like the Forester. The noise of his stumbling went on for some time, but when she went to the front of the hut to investigate, she saw no trace of him.

  The next day she heard the same sounds again, only this time there were several male voices. Still, no one came tapping at the hut door, which was a great relief to her as the men sounded extremely angry. This time she mentioned the occurrence to Wisp when he returned from checking his snares.

  “Oh, really?” he said, looking rather pleased. “The Forester was probably doing some other task nearby.”

  She took that as a possibility and then fixed the rabbits he had brought for their dinner. He ate hungrily, for Wisp always had a good appetite.

  “All the food never shows on you, Wisp,” she said with some surprise, for he ate like two men. “You’re still as gaunt as ever. I thought I was turning into a better cook than that.”

  “Oh, you are, you are indeed, Meanne,” he said enthusiastically, for she had made a fruit cobbler out of berries and he had had three servings.

  “And for all you’re out in the sun and fresh air, you’re as pale as ever, too.”

  “I am?” Wisp looked concerned about that.

  “Ah, well, I’m in the forest, under the shade of trees, not in the garden sun. Perhaps I should take a bit more sun when I can. We’ve had such lovely weather. D’you need help in the garden? Everything seems to be growing like wild flowers, and it’s just luck that my snares have caught us dinner for the next day or two.”

  “The seedlings are growing, too,” Meanne said acrimoniously. “But I could use your help transplanting. All my starts have done well and now have to be set out.”

  So they did that the next day, and Meanne was pleased to see that there was more color in Wisp’s face and, as the month progressed, a shade more weight on his bones. She didn’t for a minute consider him ‘fragile,’ for he worked as hard as she did and nothing seemed too heavy for him.

  One afternoon they heard the Forester and his men tramping about, and Wisp smiled at their cursing.

  “Must be after some minks,” he said. “They do harry the small game and they kill for pleasure.” Several had been caught in his traps and he had killed them immediately, saving their skins for tanning. “That’s all the vicious creatures are useful for anyway. You’ll have a mink muff and scarf for the winter, Meanne,” he added, his eyes sparkling. “Mink’s ever so soft and warm, you know.”

  She was tempted to remark that ermine was softer but smiled back for his thoughtfulness. He was like that, always thinking of her comfort, not what she could do for him.

  “And mink is much prettier than rabbit,” she said. “I shall make you a vest of skins to keep you warm in the winter.”

  “By the time winter comes, there’ll be enough to make fur for sleeping under, too.”

  It was about then that they realized that winter would be coming all too quickly and they must make the hut more weatherproof, despite it having lasted unattended for many years. So they spent the next day filling the holes in the walls with wattles and clay from the stream bank.

  Meanne was scrupulous about preparing her herbs and simples, and pounding or mixing her lotions and salves. Out of some of the harder woods, Wisp carved little bowls and jars, fashioning lids as well, for her compounds. Glass was expensive and rare and, although Meanne sorely missed the bottles she had once had to use, she said nothing about it. Wisp was also trying to harden leather for bottles. Meanwhile she had enough to do, reducing the willow juice to the right proper strength to reduce fever and pain. Wisp seemed so interested in what she was making that she began to teach him.

  When she offered to teach him to read and write, he said that that wasn’t necessary for a lad of his station in life. Then he told her stories that the minstrels had recited in his last position. That was when she got up enough courage to ask him why he had been so fiercely beaten.

  “A ma…lad oughtn’t to be forced to evil ends,” he said, suddenly very stern and grown-up.

  “For evil?” She was aghast.

  “I came here where no one would find me.”

  “Did you come far, then? I mean, there’s no chance that people in the village might be set to hue and cry to find you?”

  He smiled reassuringly and patted the compassionate hand she had placed on his arm. “No fear, Meanne. As I told you before, I’m far, far from any who would know me, I swear it.”

  That she couldn’t doubt from the earnest expression in his eyes and face.

  “Nor would I ever put you at risk, Meanne,” he added. “But you, you knew of this hut. Is there anyone nearby to recognize you?”

  “I was only a child when I first saw this hut,” and she waved around at the comfortable, homely room they had created between them, “and am grown beyond recognition.” She laughed. “I realize that the Forester is the same as the one in my…when I visited here so long ago, but he certainly didn’t recognize me.”

  “No doubt of that,” Wisp said with a grin playing at the edges of his wide mouth.

  “I wonder what he is thrashing about in the forest to find. He hasn’t had much luck.”

  “No, he hasn’t, has he?” And Wisp chuckled softly to himself before returning to the carving he was making.

  “That jar is so lovely, Wisp. Is carving your Gift?”

  “I like it and I seem to do well,” Wisp said, looking critically at his handiwork, “but it’s not likely to be my Gift. After all, I’m too young for it to have emerged, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” she said on the end of a heavy sigh. “We’ll have to wait a little longer, but you’re so nearly fourteen, aren’t you?”

  “I guess I am,” Wisp said, almost as if he had forgotten how old he was.

  Meanne would have liked to ask him more about his parents, where he had come from, and especially what Gifts were in his family. Even the lowliest had some special ability and, in a poor family, such abilities could be shared and paired and magnified. Though where her Gift had come from had always puzzled her relatives and annoyed them. Since it was her Gift, practical and actually very useful, she had never shared their opinion. Their disregard of it had forced her to seek her own way, without their help and guidance. Once again she was pleased with how successful she had been, finding the hut unoccupied—especially meeting up with Wisp—and being able to indulge her Gift as lavishly as she did now.

  Soon she would have to work harder, for harvest time was near when most of the remedial and curative plants and herbs would need to be gathered, prepared and put carefully away until needed. Of course, she’d been gathering and preparing certain plants throughout the summer whose blossoms or early shoots were the source of the curative substances. And Wisp had been selling the produce in the market. Sometimes, though, he forgot the prices she set on the goods and came back with less than she thought they’d get.

  “How can I put aside enough for us to get through the winter if you don’t charge the right price?” she demanded of him the second time he failed to bring back what she thought the preparations were worth.

  “Come yourself, then, and see that the right price is paid,” he’d replied without a trace of remorse.

  “You know I can’t.”

  �
�Why not?” and he turned very wide blue eyes at her in surprise. “You’d be safe enough with me!”

  “Safe?”

  “Forester never harmed you, did he?” Then Wisp leaned toward her. “You know what? You’re getting woodsy.”

  “Woodsy?” Even to her own ears her exclamation sounded shrill and strident. “Woodsy?” she repeated with less heat and more scorn.

  “My mum said she was always the better for having a chance to chat with other wives and mothers.”

  “I’m neither wife nor mother…and stop grinning like that. You were the one who cast me in that role!”

  “Me ol’ mum,” andhe imitated the voice she had used. “Tell you what…if I fix you up, no one’ll ever guess that a pretty lady lives behind the muck and lines.”

  “Thank you, but no thank you,” Meanne said with some hauteur, but Wisp only howled with laughter.

  “Lady Meanne’s back,” he said teasingly and danced away from the swat she tried to land on his impudent self.

  CHAPTER 5

  By the time the leaves were turning, the nights growing cold indeed while their supply of coins for the winter had not reached the sum she felt they needed to buy flour and other essentials, Meanne revised her decision. If they didn’t make enough from the last of her harvesting, they would go hungry…and be cold. One of her two dresses was in rags and tatters now, worn thin in spots from washing earth and cooking stains from the skirt and, worse, Wisp had not purchased enough skeins for her to finish two thick sweaters against the winter chill. But then, she didn’t expect the same intelligence that had made two thick wide fur sleeping rugs to know how to buy enough yarn or the right kind of woolen material for a skirt. She would have to go to the market herself to be sure.

  “You’re sure I won’t be recognized?” she asked as she sat patiently through his ministrations at disguise. What she meant was, when she had looked into the still water of the pool last evening, she had been both pleased and dismayed that her features were still arranged in a manner that was prettier than mere ‘pleasing to look at.’ That wouldn’t have changed overnight.