greatest victories. Believe me, Raffaele, when you hate that much, it is not hard to kill a man at all.'
7th Day after the Full Moon,
October 1211
Ash — Its wood is so tough that mortals fashion spear shafts from it. They plant it about their dwellings to protect them from the evil eye. If a man's cattle are diseased he should wall mice or shrews up in the holes of living ash trees, which mortals call the Shrew-Ash, and as the mice weaken and die, so shall the disease die out among the cattle.
If a mortal should suffer sores in his ear, he must boil ash keys in his own urine and therein soak black wool, and press the wool into his ear. A child passed through a split in an ash tree will be cured of bow legs or swellings of the groin. Many ash trees are adorned with the locks of children's hair, which if offered to the tree will cure that child of their cough. Honey made from ash blossom is smeared on the lips of newborn babes, or else they are given the sap which oozes from a burning ash twig, to protect them.
Mothers cradle their infants in ash wood to guard them from foul spirits. Witches use it for their brooms, so that they shall never fall into water and be drowned. Ash wood in a boat will keep it from sinking.
The female ash tree, sheder, will counter the curses of warlocks, and the male ash, heder, will work against the hexes of witches. For the ash is a sacred tree and the three weird sisters of fate — past, present and future — water the ash so that it will never die.
And, at the roots of the ash tree lie three wells — remembrance, rebirth and destruction. And the deepest well of them all is destruction.
The Mandrake's Herbal
Osborn, Son of Warren
'I have the clothes ready for you,' Ma said. 'Hurry now, it'll soon be time, and Osborn's not the kind of man to idly pick his nose and wait.'
She tugged impatiently at Elena's shift and indicated the kirtle and hooded cloak which lay on the table.
'I can't, Ma. I can't,' Elena wailed. 'Please don't make me.'
She'd had nothing else to think about these past three days except Osborn. Even when sheer exhaustion drove her to sleep, his face floated in front of her, with its cold, indifferent expression as if she was nothing more than a hog or a sheep he was inspecting at market, and worth even less. She could still hear the impatience in his voice as he pronounced her sentence, itching to have the business done with and ride out with his hawks. He'd dropped the words carelessly into the air, as a rich man might toss a coin to a beggar to stop him whining, although Osborn would sooner kick a beggar out of his path than give him charity.
And every hour of every day, she'd tried to imagine Osborn's face when he sentenced Athan to be hanged. Had it worn that same bored expression, or was it filled with anger because she had defied him and not waited meekly for the rope as he had instructed? Was that rage in his voice when he condemned Athan to death, or cold cruelty?
And how had gentle, bewildered Athan gone to the gallows? She imagined him standing there, his head lifted inviting the noose, bravely defiant. What were his last thoughts of her? Bitterness that he'd been punished for her, or was he glad to die for her? She knew in her heart it was not the latter. For his face, too, haunted her nights, the horror and disgust she'd seen in his eyes that night he'd thought she'd murdered his son.
And yet... and yet she still could not believe Athan was really dead. He was still there, still walking down that familiar track on the way to the fields. If Athan was gone, then it seemed the whole of her life before this place had merely been a child's game of make-believe. The village, the manor, her childhood and Athan had existed only in her dreams.
Ma pushed her roughly down on a low stool and pulled the kirtle over her head. Then she fastened an old woollen cloak about her shoulders, which smelt of cinnamon.
'Come on, my darling, there isn't much time. Now, listen carefully. Talbot'll take you to a part of the city they call Mancroft. There's an inn on Briggs