Chains of Gold by Nancy Springer Page B

the goddess I will curse you with the curse of the wandering dead who are denied—”
    â€œI’ll not open to ye nohow!” a man’s voice bawled from within, interrupting me. “Curse all ye like; how can ye curse me with aught worse than what ye are, ye death-dogged wench—”
    â€œTake him to the witch!” a woman shrieked. “Take him to the devil in his soddy, and let us be, and hap he’ll be addled enough to succor ye.”
    The witch. The devil in his soddy. If it were the small brown man who had greeted us, he might.
    â€œCurse you anyway,” I muttered, turning and leading Bucca away.
    It seemed that there was nothing for it but to go back up over the esker. I sweated with fear, doing that, now that I knew what lay beneath. But nothing stirred under my feet, and as we climbed my fear of the serpent gave way to a sharper and more stinging fear. Arlen’s breathing had gone shallow, his face the color of old snow, his hand cold in mine, as cold as the cold winter wind.
    â€œMother, help him,” I begged the wind as we hurried down the farther side, too fast for safety.
    A stretch of snowy moorland, and then the copse, the dugout in the hillside just below it. The roof was of grass, the walls all of piled peat, smelling damp and earthy even in the deep winter freeze. I shall always think of that place when I smell the sod smell, and of that time, and of the spur of fear in me.
    The door was of wood, and it stood closed. I rapped and cried out, “Please hurry—”
    It opened.
    Several sorts of feelings went through me in an unexpected surge: hope, gratitude, rage, desolation, maybe a few more, but mostly hope—even though the man had been called a witch, and even though the expression of his face was not promising, not welcoming, not anything of the usual human sort, merely brown and blank.
    â€œA bed,” I said incoherently. “He needs—help, some warmth, a healer—”
    â€œThere is no bed,” he said.
    At the time it seemed a setback beyond bearing. “No bed!” I shouted, fairly ranting at him. “Do you not sleep?”
    â€œNot in the usual way.” Nevertheless, he stepped back, opening the door wide to me. “But we will put something down for him. Bring him in.”
    â€œHorse and all?” I railed. I am sure I do not know why he did not despair of me and shut the door in my face. He was offering us aid, and I was so demented, I was shouting at him.
    Nor did he shout back. Instead, he merely stepped to Bucca’s side, took Arlen down in his arms, and carried him easily within.

SEVEN
    The soddy seemed very much like any cottage toward the front, except that the floor and walls were made of earth. Farther back, though, it began to get hillocky, with mounds of loose earth piled up and roots hanging down. I didn’t care. It was warm. A peat fire burned on a small brick hearth. The man had me lay our blankets right before it, and then he put Arlen down on them, gently, and I began to peel blood-soaked clothing from him.
    â€œWait,” the man said. “Boil water first. He is not bleeding any more; leave him.”
    How could I just leave him lying there? But the small brown man already had a kettle of water suspended over the fire, and he was crumbling herbs of several sorts into it. I suspected bitterly that he could care for Arlen better than I.
    â€œAnd you,” he said to the center of the room, “out. It is crowded enough in here without you.”
    At first I thought he was speaking to me, and I bristled. But before I could snap at him again I felt a peculiar sort of lightening sensation, a clarity, that I could not identify. It had come on me so gradually and had been with me so long that I took a long moment to comprehend: the presence was gone.
    â€œIt is waiting for you outside,” the witch said. “Cold does not dismay it.”
    He spoke offhandedly, as of