Scent of Magic Read Free

round of the taverns and noble houses of the section this morning.
    “Fortune favor you, goodwife,” the Sister commented, but when her small serving maid tried to raise the basket she near sent it and its contents toppling to the floor.
    “It would please the Great One,” the Star follower added a moment later, “if you would lend us this girl of yours to our aid. We have only one more place to cry for alms and she would be quickly back.”
    Willadene knew very well that Jacoba wanted to answer that with one of her angry outbursts. Yet no one refused a Sister, for that Great Mistress was well-known to rule the whims of fortune itself.
    “Come back, wench"—there was a threat of trouble to come—"as fast as you can. We have dawdled away to near the Second Bell and nothing is done.”
    Willadene eagerly took half share of the handle, and thebasket swung between her and the girl as they left. Oddly enough, Wyche was back to the window as if to watch them out of sight.
    She was breathing fast. Just as there were odors which clung to evil, so there were fragrances which matched good. She had sniffed those many times in Halwice's domain. And there was a strain of what might even be flowers—a mere whiff—as she and the girl maneuvered their way with their burden out of the inn door.
    Wyche was watching, but she thought that she knew the house the Sisters would seek out now—the section Reeve lived three doors away in the direction the Sisters were taking. His wife was well-known to be both pious and bountiful. She could cut through the alley beside the Reeve's house and, though it was near time for the Second Bell to summon all shopkeepers to the business of the day, she thought she could reach Halwice's without being seen.
    What would happen then she could not foresee. She had received both kindness and training from the Herbmistress in the past—ever since Jacoba sent her monthly for the scant supply of spices to hide the age of the meat.
    Now she walked obediently behind the Begging Sisters, fitting her pace to that of the maid whose burden she shared. The girl had not done more than glance at her once, following the rule of the Star's outventuring—eyes to the pavement and no worldly gazing at anything on either side.
    They had turned the corner to approach the Reeve's kitchen door, as was the custom. As Willadene heard die silver notes of the bells she tensed. The moment she saw the door thrown open and heard a brisk welcome for the Sisters, she herself looked to the girl.
    There was no time for any explanation—she would just have to go! Shifting her grasp off the basket handle so swiftly that the other girl had to grasp at the house wall to steady herself, Willadene ran.
    She thought to hear voices behind her and was amazedthat such did not come. But the Great One of the Star— perhaps She would spread her shining cloak between those in the house and this fugitive.
    Turn left here—yes, she could catch sight of the great Maninger House—two streets over and around another corner—Halwice's. She had never taken this way to the Herbmistress's shop before, but she was sure.
    The morning chill whipped about her and caught at her toes left bare by her house sandals. Willadene was gasping a little, aware of every lighted window, every movement on the street. She tried to force herself to fall to a walk, but within a step or so her pace quickened again.
    She could not reckon now when she had discovered this haven. It went back to the shadowy days before the plague, for she had known the Herbmistress a very long time.
    Halwice had a place on the Guild Council. She was far more learned in the properties of her wares than were many of the doctors who strutted in answer to a distress call, their badged robes of fine cut worn with a flick and flourish of hem, their brimmed hats with a dangle of face mask ready to use when one might be called to enter a disease-tainted room, their pride in their calling sometimes—most