After a brief consultation Irjo’s sons and the Toler men decided to pool their resources for their meal.  The Toler men had some dried meat, and the Telmi supplied wild rice.  There was a little wild garlic growing on the banks of the stream, and Tuomo pulled some of this to add to the water in the little iron pot that would hold their stew while it cooked over the fire.  In another pot the apprentice boiled water for tea, brewed from a selection of the dried leaves and flowers he always carried with him. Wythe took note of which dried plants he selected – some were primarily for flavor, the wild mint and raspberry, others had insect repelling properties (the warmer weather was already hatching out the mosquitoes) and some were mild sedatives.

Pieter had put his jacket back on, and he invited Wythe to sit beside him on one of the blankets he had drawn out of his baggage.  He accepted the tin cup of tea that Tuomo brought him with a courteous nod, and Wythe was relieved to see that he seemed able to behave himself – the more enlightened parts of his mind were taking over.

“What exactly is the meaning of the ritual we just went through?” Pieter asked her.

“It goes back to our understanding of our relationship to our world and the creatures in it. Our rights are not superior in any way to the rights of the land and its animals, and if we are to use them we must have their permission.  If we don’t, they are within their rights to turn on us, and seek vengeance. Sometimes they show mercy, but sometimes they do exact retribution. So it is as well to behave politely, and atone for any accidental offense.”

“But what if you were attacked, by a bear or something?  Do you have to ask its permission to defend yourself?”

            Wythe laughed at his hairsplitting. “Bears do not usually attack people – only sometimes in the spring, when they first wake up and are hungry and disoriented.  And in such a case you must defend yourself, but if you kill the bear, you must still make atonement, and not make waste of its body, but use the meat and fur in a fitting manner.”

            “So before your people hunt –”

            “The shaman will ask permission in a ritual for them to take what they need from the field or forest.  And the hunters themselves will ask their own guiding spirits to intercede for them – usually a hunter has the spirit of an animal like himself, a meat-eater. The animals have this understanding among themselves, that they have need of each other, and they can rely on that understanding to obviate any offense.  If a man relies on his guiding spirit to communicate for him, his own weaknesses, his tangled thoughts and his emotions, will not get in the way of his simple intention – to make use of his fellow creatures to maintain his own and his family’s survival. That is part of the right intention of the world, of all that is created. There is never any offense in that kind of hunting.”

            “But my hunting was offensive, because I killed the animals for some other purpose than food and clothing?” Pieter was obviously not willing to accept this notion. “But I meant no harm. I only wish to give the people of Essin the chance to see and admire the creatures who live here, that they otherwise would never see.”

            “But they will never see the living creature.  They will see a dead thing, with glass for eyes –” Wythe shuddered. Her own large, dark eyes were very like the eyes of wild creature, Pieter observed to himself – a forest deer, or something.

            “I have observed the living creatures, Maga, and I have made drawings, rather rough, but good enough to enable me to mount them in natural poses that show the ways they really move – and in the minds of those who look at them, they can come to a kind of life.”

            Wythe was silent, and sipped her tea and stared at the fire where Tuomo and one of the Toler men were watching over their supper.  “I still would rather,” she said at last, slowly, “that you give up this plan, and sell the furs to traders at Toler castle, and give the money for the care of some of the widows of Toler trappers and hunters – they have no guilds to provide for their families’ security.  That would be a worthier purpose, and one which the spirits would accept readily.”

            Pieter shook his head obstinately. “I am surprised that you oppose my scholarship, Maga. You are a friend of Prince Renhold, who has always supported every kind of scientific inquiry.  And your friend Lord Maarinen is still considered one of Vaaseli’s greatest naturalists. I would have thought to find you at least somewhat sympathetic.”

            Wythe knew that Princess Elian had seen fit, a few years ago, to publish her brother’s boyhood journals of the Maarinen forests and the Tolmyn, complete with engravings taken from his drawings, and she was not surprised that it had been received as a founding work of natural history, but she didn’t care to hear Pieter try to compare himself to Timu.

            “I never knew Lord Maarinen to kill an animal, even for food, though he never abstained from meat.  He relied on his drawings and his writings to convey the lives of the wild creatures he studied.”

            “Perhaps we do not all have Lord Maarinen’s unique talents, but we still may have something to contribute to the world’s knowledge.  I have learned the art of taxidermy, as well as the art of hunting – these are the only skills I can offer to my discipline.”  Pieter sounded a little bitter, and Wythe allowed herself the rather disturbing experience of scanning his mind once more.

            Pieter was bitter, both about his lack of telepathic ability, that had kept him out of the well-born’s usual careers of diplomacy or religion, and about his hard upbringing, on his father’s small estate, in a wild spot on the coast, where the only living was from fishing. Wythe was aware of how even the memory of the fishing boats and wharves stank in Pieter’s nostrils, and how the more profitable trade of whale-fishing frightened him.  Hunting on the downs and woods above the coast had been his only pleasure, and the patronage of his father’s lord, Arno Paarin, his only opportunity to advance beyond huntsman to scholar.

            And he really was sincere about using what ability he had to expand his countrymen’s knowledge.  He had a desire to serve a higher purpose than his own advancement, though that was important to him too.  Again she felt herself reluctantly allowing him some sympathy.

            “Perhaps if I ask the permission of the spirits specifically for your project –”

            “Would that make a difference – if I had their permission?”

            “I am not sure it would be granted.  I will have to seek the intercession of my own guiding spirit.  I will do that tonight.  We will see.”  Wythe stood, and looked down at Pieter for a moment.  He had that pet-dog look in his eyes again, but this time it was a look of supplication. Perhaps she would be able to give him at least something of what he wanted.

            After the little group had eaten their supper the Toler men did produce a flask of liquor, but Wythe forestalled them offering it to her companions with a stern look, and they retreated to the tent while Irjo’s sons spread out their bedrolls and Wythe’s near the fire.  Pieter seemed reluctant to retire, and still eager to converse with Wythe, and though she was tired from the hard riding they had done in pursuit of the scholar, she thought she could indulge him for a little while.  She might still be able to enlighten him enough about her people and their beliefs to alter his plans, if she treated him sympathetically.  Of course part of Pieter’s desire to keep her talking was desire of the body – he couldn’t conceal that from her, even if he had wanted to. But she didn’t feel threatened – he knew she was a maga, and must be fully aware of both the vows and the expectation of respect that went with that position.  But it was apparent that some of the tales told about her and Timu had given him a peculiar idea of her moral character.

            These were misunderstandings that she had grown used to.  Only the Telmi and the country people of Vaaseli seemed to understand that admittedly strange relationship, and the uses that politics had put their love to had only compounded the confusion.  Even Timu’s own sister, while she believed that Wythe and her brother considered themselves to be married to each other, could not accept that they must never live together if Wythe were to use her powers to their full extent. Perhaps she didn’t see why the powers were so important, though they had helped to save her husband’s kingdom.  But whatever the stumbling blocks might be to Elian’s understanding, the inhabitants of Essin and the educated nobles of the countryside had concocted their own explanations for the pair’s activities during the civil war, and the separate courses of their lives afterward.

            Wythe’s own diplomatic delegation, in those days, had done its part to muddy the waters. When she and Timu had gone north, suddenly and secretly, to find the shaman whose powers Lord Valmur was using, they had encouraged every wild rumor, from abduction to elopement, in order to confound the plotters working to usurp the throne. And when the crisis was over, and Lord Valmur was dead, only the official bodies of the Alliance and of Vaaseli were privy to the true story, and even then there were still parts about which Wythe had maintained a discreet silence. Partly it was because it was so difficult to explain “love-magic” to the supposedly sophisticated, who regarded it as a country superstition. Partly it was because she felt that she and Timu deserved their privacy.  And so the rumors persisted, even after ten years, in songs and stories, as well as gossip.

            And Pieter’s mind had obviously been affected by the wildest stories. While they spoke of the features of the lands he had traveled through, and the creatures he had seen, he sat as close to Wythe as he dared, and when he spoke he kept his eyes focused on the fire before them, but when he was silent she could feel his gaze straying over her body, from her neck with the kerchief tied around it to her calves between the hem of her dress and the top of her boots, and when she intercepted it he looked away guiltily.

            “But how in the world,” he finally asked her, “did you come to be a shaman of the Telmi?”

            Wythe sighed.  “You have heard the stories of the civil war.”

            “I remember some of its events, though I was still a boy.  Some of my father’s men went to fight with the Paarin armies for the prince and King Hendric.  But I suppose you are speaking of events here in the north.  Yes, I have heard the stories.”  Pieter hesitated, and Wythe was aware of some actual fear of her moving in his mind.  “They say that you killed Lord Valmur yourself – using his own weapon against him.”

            “Not exactly.  My companions and I were taken captive by some of Lord Valmur’s troops in the wilderness of the Tolmyn, and when Valmur fled Essin he contrived to meet them.  He was planning to regain control of the shaman he had been using, and to use me too, but Lord Farin and his men attacked their position, and he tried to flee with me as hostage – and I used telekinesis in an attempt only to stop him – he was killed when his horse threw him.”

            “I think I have heard that explanation – but it isn’t quite as – stirring as some of the others.”  Pieter gave her a rather unpleasant smile, and Wythe made up her mind that she certainly didn’t want to hear the other stories.

            “Well, it is the true one.”

            “But why haven’t you continued your career in the diplomatic service?”

            “I never gave it up officially.  I spent five years studying the operations of telekinesis, and attempting to teach the mages of the Alliance about it.  But I knew they were uncomfortable with some of the things I had learned among the Telmi, and reluctant to accept them, and at last I gave up trying, and came here, to study more, and more directly.”

            “And you became a shaman.”

            “It seemed quite natural.  I had taken the Raven shaman from them – he was the one that Valmur had been using, and he came with us to Essin: he never returned to his people, but became a student of service methods, and finally went to Xanthia, I am told.  The other clans shared their own shamans with the Raven, but there were no apprentices in the clan itself – Irjo has raised all his sons to be warriors, and the few women of the clan have all they can do to manage their herds and their families.  So I felt obliged to help them.  And I found that it was the deepest wish of my heart.”

            “You have an apprentice now,” Pieter said quietly, nodding toward Tuomo, who still sat up, across the fire from them, working with his knife to whittle some object from a stick of wood, and obviously keeping an eye on them, though he was trying to be subtle.

            “Tuomo is a fine boy,” Wythe said, “and he needs his rest, as do you and I also – he will sit up as long as I do, so you really must excuse me . . .” She stood and Pieter stood beside her, and grasped her hand. 

            “If you would like, you could have the use of my tent – I will expel those fellows, and –”

            Wythe laughed, and removed her hand from Pieter’s grip gently.  “I prefer to sleep in the open, thank you, Pieter Sevren.  Now, go to bed, and get some sleep. We will speak some more tomorrow.”

            The ravens were the first thing Tuomo noticed that made him wonder. As he rode with sister Wythe’s party toward the sacred lands to find this year’s fire he kept his eye on all the creatures of the land and air they might encounter.  He was learning to follow the guidance of their spirits, learning to listen to more than just the raven totem, but now, nearly within sight of their goal, it was the ravens who commanded his attention.  He was only the first to notice, however; soon all his brothers were remarking on the number of the birds they saw rising and falling in the air ahead of them, beyond the treetops. Tuomo caught Wythe’s eye and turned his horse’s head to ride beside her.

            “What is the meaning of that?” he asked her, almost in a whisper.

            “They have found some carrion –”

            “Enough for such a crowd?”

            “I don’t think they can count portions, Tuomo,” Wythe smiled at her apprentice.  He was Irjo’s youngest son, and so precious to the old warrior that he had gained his father’s permission to learn the ways of a shaman without more than a little begging. Tuomo was always eager to see signs, though often truly more perceptive of them than even well-respected shamans, and now Wythe had to admit to herself that there really was something unusual about the number of birds ahead of them, and their excitement.  “We will know when we get there,” she told Tuomo calmly, though she felt less calm with each step forward her horse took.

            It was very early in the spring, and snow still lay in the shadows of the forest, but the open meadows were beginning to come to life with new green grasses, and the sun was strong and hot on their necks, and Wythe had felt it giving her strength each day as they had ridden. The clans had begun the spring migration, and this year it was the Raven’s turn to seek out the new spark of fire to bring to all the northern camps before Midsummer. She and Tuomo and three others of Irjo’s seemingly limitless supply of warrior sons had broken away from the main migration a week ago, and headed north and west, toward the sacred lands.

            There was no map, and Wythe had never been there, nor had any of her companions, but the way was in her head in the song that Oumua had taught her. The low hills to the south, the marshlands, then the hills to the north that they must climb to the higher meadows, then the way downhill, skirting the forest that led to the last stretch of marsh before the inlet of the northern sea. The sacred lands of the sacred fires.

            They were in the high meadows now, and there was the forest before them, where the ravens were flying and squabbling – just beyond that, with their first view of the marsh and the sea beyond, they would find the fire that burned in the ground, where shamans for generations had lighted the spark that would supply hearth fires for the next year, beginning with the great Midsummer fire.

            “Do we need to go through the forest, or around it?” Tuomo asked Wythe.

            “Skirt it, according to Oumua – but I think we should see what those ravens are fighting over.”  She knew that Tuomo and his brothers were all curious, and so was she, though her curiosity was becoming edged with apprehension.

            So they rode directly into the forest – there were no trails, but it was a fairly old stand of trees, so the trunks did not crowd them, and the last summer’s undergrowth was not very thick. Sunlight shafted through the boughs of the evergreens, and a pair of emerald green hummingbirds darted along before them for awhile, brightening into brilliance as they encountered the rays. They could no longer see the ravens, but they could hear them.

            As the cries of the birds grew louder, the horses became distinctly jittery – most unusual for these stolid ponies, and Wythe gripped her mount tighter with her knees, and leaned over its neck to murmur in its ear soothingly.  There was a faint unpleasant smell on the air – like wet wool, but sharper – the smell of flesh that had rotted almost to total decay – and then they came into a clearing, and the ravens ascended before them with their great wings thrumming audibly, and they saw what had attracted them.

            There was a heap of animal carcasses in the center of the clearing – or what remained of the carcasses – mostly bones with only a little rotten flesh clinging to them.  Some were scattered away from the pile, and Tuomo and his brother Mika swung down from their ponies to look at them.  “Marked by teeth – dragged about by wolves or bears in their feeding,” Mika said. “But marked by knives also.  Someone has been hunting here.”

            “But no one of the people.” Tuomo said softly, looking a little sick.  Wythe saw that all her companions were becoming frightened, and she knew why. Someone had been hunting in forbidden lands, and made mere waste of the flesh of the animals he had killed.  No one of the Telmi would ever do that – but no stranger should be permitted here, and trespass alone was a grave spiritual danger.

            “They made camp here, too, whoever they were,” Wythe said, pointing to the charred remnants of a fire to one side of the clearing, and the trampled grass around it.

            “And went south – with a sledge,” Mika followed the path of crushed plants and slashed saplings a little way into the forest.  “They have cut trees wherever they stood in the way of passage, and left the timber lying.”

            Wythe dismounted briskly, and began to rummage in her saddle bags.  “Tuomo, gather tinder.  We have work to do here.”

            While Wythe and her apprentice prepared for a cleansing and atonement ritual, Mika, Juhto, and Turpu went in different directions into the forest, looking for further signs of the trespasser. By the time Tuomo had a fire kindled, in a fresh place on the opposite side of the clearing from the intruder’s campfire, his brothers had come back.

            “I found the remnants of snares in several places,” Juhto said, showing Wythe a handful of leather cords. She was looking through the pile of bones, holding her kerchief over her nose and mouth. “What kinds of animals did he kill?” Juhto asked her.

            “Mostly marten, perhaps fox – and – I think a bear cub. Squirrels too.”  Wythe shook her head and turned and walked away from the carnage quickly, and tied the kerchief around her hair again.

            “Who would do such a thing?” asked Turpu.

            “Not one of the people,” Tuomo said again and everyone nodded.

            “A man of the south has been here,” Wythe said with grim conviction.  “And after we have made atonement and cleaned this place, we must find him.”

            The ritual came first – an offering to the fire of herbs, and then the burning of the cords that Juhto had found, and of some of the bones of the animals, while Wythe and Tuomo chanted to their spirits, and the ravens flew from tree to tree above them.  Then the brothers and Wythe all worked together to gather as much dry brush as they could, and wove it in among the piled bones, and then set the brush afire, and kept on feeding the flames with more brush, until all the flesh was burned and the bones well-charred.  Then they used their knives to cut and dig a pit in the earth, and buried what was left of the bones.  Only when all traces of slaughter had been removed did Wythe give the sign to bury the ashes of their own little fire, and mount again, and follow the trail of the intruder.

            Pieter Sevren and his two Toler companions had been traveling south for two days, across the empty rolling hills west of the road to the Tolmyn, when one of his guides first noticed that a party of horsemen was following them.

            “They are coming at some speed, sir – as though they mean to overtake us,” the man reported, and Pieter, looking back to the north, could see them too, just cresting a hill, and raising some dust from the dry meadow as they galloped. Five mounted men, apparently.  Pieter considered for a moment, then made his decision.

            “Let us wait for them, and see what they want.”  He was a little worried that this might mean trouble – he had consulted no one about this excursion, and he knew that there was a royal directive that any southern visitors to Telmi lands should announce themselves to the nearest elders.  “Seek permission” actually, though none in the last ten years had been known to refuse it.  Still, how much trouble could five herdsmen on their ponies be?  He would make his apologies, give them a few knives or something, and all would be well.

            So he rode up to the two-deer team that pulled his sledge, and took hold of the near animal’s halter, and stopped them, then turned to watch the approach of the horsemen.

            Matters began to look a little different as the horsemen approached.  For one thing, one was a woman – young, small of stature, riding her horse astride so that her short deerskin dress was hitched up to her knees.  Her dark, curly hair was cut short, like the hair of her male companions, and there was a bow like theirs slung on her back, and a knife on her belt. But three of the men also wore swords, and as they approached Pieter could see that the weapons were of Vaaselian forging.

            So this was Maga Wythe, he thought to himself. He had never seen her, though he had heard all the legends.  When she had been in Essin as a diplomat, he had been wasting his youth on his father’s miserable estate, and trying to find an escape into a better station. Thank the gods he had found it in his studies, and the patronage of the Paarin. Well, she was a rather attractive woman – not exactly pretty, with that short nose and wild hair, but she had a fine if slender figure, and a very fine leg between the top of her short Vaaselian boot and the hem of the deerskin tunic. Something had made young Lord Maarinen throw away his future in Vaaseli for her sake – though to all accounts he had made the best of that too.  Some people just had advantages, Pieter supposed – from the gods or something.

            “Greetings,” Pieter called out affably as soon as he judged the party was in earshot.  But they rode on at full speed, with the woman leading, until they were only a few yards from the sledge, and then pulled up their mounts abruptly, so that dust puffed up from under the ponies’  hooves.

            “Who are you, and what are you doing in these lands?” Maga Wythe gasped a little, Pieter noticed, from the exertion of the gallop, and he couldn’t help noticing her bosom heaving beneath the deerskin – wonderful leatherwork, really, tanned as soft and smooth as butter, and the color of winter butter too.  It was a rude greeting, Pieter considered, though spoken in high Vaaselian, with a fine accent.

            “My name is Pieter Sevren.  I am a naturalist, ma’am, on an excursion to collect specimens.”

            “You have come from the forest to the north, near the sea-marsh.  We have been following your trail since yesterday afternoon, and I think I know what kind of specimens you have collected.”  Pieter couldn’t fail to notice the contempt and anger in Wythe’s voice and her expression, and he saw that he would have to say something to placate her.

            “I am sorry that I could find none of your elders to inform of my plans –”

            “You would find none in this region.  No one comes here, except –” she hesitated for an instant.  “No one comes here.”

            “Well, I did not know that – I did not know whose permission to seek.”

            “There would be no permission.  What are you going to do with those skins you have taken?” The maga gestured to the men behind her, and they all dismounted and went to the sledge and pulled the deer hide cover from the sledge’s cargo.

            “Stuff and mount them, ma’am, to exhibit to scholars in Vaaseli.”

            To his surprise Maga Wythe bowed her head at that, seemingly in sorrow, and he saw her make a little sign with the fingers of her right hand over her heart.  When she looked up again the anger was back however.

            “Do you really not realize what you have done, Pieter Sevren?”  She spoke his name like a curse. “No, I see you do not.”  She shook her head slowly. “There is a wood to the east, and there should be water there, and a place to camp.  We will go there, and I will inform you.”