Grayling's Song Read Online Free Page A

mouse loves to hear you speak, Gray Eyes.”
    Grayling snorted. How many folks could say they were admired by a mouse?
    Darkness fell. It frightened Grayling a bit but also made her feel safer, hidden from anyone following. “I want to go home,” she whispered, but truly she now had no home. The cottage was gone, and her mother was becoming a tree. She snuggled into the roots of an ancient oak as if they were a mother’s arms, and at last she slept. And the mouse watched over her.

III

    orning found Grayling, with a mouse asleep in her basket, on the outskirts of a town. Early as it was, folks had gathered to buy and sell, haggle and quarrel, barter and bargain and steal. There were masters looking for servants and servants for masters, young women in search of husbands and young men with anything but marriage on their minds, fortunetellers and fortune seekers, horses and horsemen, shepherds and sheep. Stalls brimmed with apples and parsnips and fresh brown bread, silken laces and amber bracelets, woolen hats and wooden spoons. Never had Grayling been alone among so many things and so many people, so many colors and sounds and scents.
    An old woman in russet with a basket of onions strapped to her back pulled on Grayling’s skirt. “Ain’t you the wise woman’s daughter?” the old woman asked. “I seen you with her once. She did help my granny with a cramping in the bowel. Where be she?”
    â€œNot here,” said Grayling.
    â€œLikely to be?”
    Grayling remembered the rough, brown bark of her mother’s legs and shook her head. “Nay, not likely. Not likely at all.” She turned to leave, but the woman tightened her hold.
    â€œBe you wise, then? Belike you can help me. I have a wart here on my heel. Hurts summat fierce when I walk.”
    A young woman standing nearby heard and approached them. “You be a wise woman?” She looked down at the ground as she spoke. “I have me overmuch sorrow. Woe, oh, woe. Can you cheer me?”
    â€œAnd me,” said a gnarled old soldier with watery eyes and a crooked nose who stopped beside them. “I worry, worry, worry. Have you a charm or spell to stop the worries?”
    â€œNo, no, and no,” said Grayling, backing away. “I have no magic, charms, or spells. I am but the wise woman’s daughter.”
    â€œWhat
do
you have?” asked one listener.
    â€œAnd what
can
you do?” asked another.
    Grayling chewed on her lip in thought. She performed easy tasks—she could gather herbs and make a stew when there was meat, light the candles, and strain the beer. But what could she do to
help
folk? “My mother has a healing song—”
    â€œShe ain’t here, you said,” said the woman with the wart.
    â€œAye. Still, I’ve heard her sing it many a time. Mayhap I can recall it,” Grayling said. She took a deep breath and, shy and uncertain, began to sing, her voice soft and quavering:
    Â 
Earth and Mars,
    Moon and stars,
    Orbs that fill the sky—
    Â 
    Spider webs and
    Beetle heads,
    Beasts that creep and fly—
    Â 
    Heavenly orbs go by,
    Spirits of creatures come nigh.
    Bring healing from woe, from pain, from ills,
    Let trouble like wind blow by.
    Â 
    â€œIs that all? What use is a song?” her listeners called, but one of them said, “Sing it again.”
    So she did, louder and with fewer quavers.
    The old man patted Grayling’s shoulder. “Hearing your sweet voice, I forgot my worries for a while.”
    â€œAnd I believe my sadness is less,” said the young woman with a very small smile.
    The two left. Grayling’s heart gave a happy jump. Could it be she had the skill, the power, the magic, to heal with a song?
    The woman with the wart unstrapped the basket of onions from her back, sat, and removed her shoe. She rolled down a stocking more dirt than wool and pulled it away from her heel. The wart remained, large and