The first bone has come to us already, the next is yours to summon. Trust the spirits, they'll show you how.'
Gytha dropped the wizened thorn apple with its scrap of blood-soaked cloth into the ancient scrip hanging from her waist. She scowled. Madron still treated her as a child, even though Gytha was the one who had to nurse her now. But in their own way mother and daughter did have a fondness for each other, for who else did they have to cling to in life? And there were other ties that bound them too. Some bonds are much stronger even than love or death. For words are not the only gifts the dead bequeath to the living. Madron had suckled Gytha on the rich milk of hatred and now it ran like poison through both their veins.
The old woman turned her head, trying to sense what her daughter was doing. 'My supper? You fetching my supper? You've been at it long enough.'
'Patience, Madron, you'll just have to wait for it to brew, isn't that what you always taught me?'
Her mother spat angrily into the rushes. Gytha smiled and slowly stirred the pot, letting the rich aroma of the woodcock waft across to the hungry old woman. She had her own ways of tormenting her Madron.
Three Days before the Full Moon,
December 1210
Salt — When a man eats of another man's salt, their souls are bound together and they are sworn to protect one another. When an oath is sworn on salt, if it proves false, the oath- taker will surely die. A prayer made near salt will be answered.
If mortals move to another dwelling they must leave behind a little bread and salt else bad luck will follow them and ruin come to the new occupants. If salt is spilled, it must not be gathered up, but the spiller must throw a pinch of it three times over his shoulder. But he should beware lest he throw it between himself and another, for salt which falls between two mortals is a sign that they will quarrel bitterly.
Salt is sprinkled in the cradle of an unbaptized infant to keep it safe from the faerie folk, and is placed on the body of the newly dead to guard the body from being possessed by a demon and the departing soul from being snatched by the Devil before the rites of burial.
Salt and water stirred three times and sprinkled over an object that has brought ill-luck will lift the curse from it, but if a mortal would curse land or a tree or beast that is fertile and render it barren, he should throw salt upon it as he utters the spell.
Salt can bless and salt can curse, for salt is salt until it falls into the hands of mortals.
The Mandrake's Herbal
A Whisper
'Just give me the name of one of the men!' Hugh demanded. 'Then I promise I will end this.'
'Can't. . . master. I swear on my life. . . I've told you everything. She's called . . . Santa Katarina, that's all I know,' the man sobbed.
'Which isn't enough,' Hugh snapped. 'I'm beginning to think you've invented this tale, just to save your miserable little neck.'
Hugh shivered in the icy wind cutting across the marshes. He was beginning to get bored with this. The light was rapidly fading from the sky and his belly was growling with hunger.
The man struggled to push himself up on to his hands and knees. 'It's true, every word of it. . . the French ship . . . everything.'
He screamed as Hugh's groom brought his whip down again on his bruised and bloodied back. Hugh's horse reared and snorted in alarm, pulling against the rein which tethered him to a nearby tree. Hugh took a few paces towards it, murmuring softy. He stroked the beast's neck gently, soothing it until it had calmed. The smell of fresh blood always makes young horses nervous until they become battle-hardened.
He and Osborn were enjoying the hospitality of a neighbouring landowner for a few days. That is to say, Osborn was enjoying it, but Hugh was bored witless by the unctuous little toad and his even duller wife who were so anxious to welcome their new neighbours they insisted on showing them every single hog and byre on their wretched little estate.
Hugh, mercifully escaping for a few hours with the excuse of exercising his new horse, had seen a man with a sack over his shoulder running along