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had been used up. Or perhaps Pony was just too numb to think after what had happened with Dun
Mare. Or too calm. Was her mother's fate inescapable? Yes. She had felt what it would be like in a
swamp north of Ely where she had used her Gift to kill one of her Herd. Why did she continue on? If she
would end in the lake, if her destiny were foretold, what matter how she used her Gift? What matter that
she wasn't sure as Alfred was? She was not important. Her destiny was what her mother had told her it
was: to practice the Gift, produce a girl-child, wait for the day like Dun Mare's and her mother's.
Maybe she went on because she wanted to make Dun Mare's death count for something. It was on this
silly quest that Dun Mare had been lost. To turn back was a betrayal. She had already betrayed one she
cared for. She had seen the betrayal in his eyes. Probably she had betrayed her mother and the Goddess
as well. She could not afford another.
She and First Mare walked side by side when they could, or single file. Pony couldn't risk the extra
weight of riding. There was not much to eat in the swamps. First Mare found grasses growing in among
the hawthorns. The hips of the berries on the guelder rose proved edible, if sour. Mostly there were just
the strappy, razor leaves of the sedge that grew everywhere. And every day it rained, or snowed with
great wet flakes.
The skies only cleared as they approached a larger plateau in late afternoon of the third day. Pens and
huts perhaps a score in all gathered where herons and cranes stalked the edges of a large pond of
clear water. The rhythmic clang of a smith working sounded somewhere. Women moved about the
clearing tending a large communal fire crowded with pots. As Pony approached, a group of men
appeared, climbing up the plateau from the other side with spades slung over their shoulders, pushing
barrows. They were muddy and there was a weary set to their shoulders, but for all that they were jovial,
singing some song in raucous voices. With a shock, she realized it was a song with Denesc words. She
had been in the Danelaw for days. But she had assumed Stowa was a Saxon village. Could the Danes
have murdered Britta the witch?
It came as almost a relief when a pretty woman with blond braids looked up from poking new blocks of
some black earth into the fire. She straightened, and Pony saw that she was big with child. She elbowed
the woman next to her, and soon everyone was staring at Pony.
A huge man limped out of the crowd of men. "Welcome," he said. "My name is Karn."
Pony breathed. He spoke in Saxon, but she recognized the accent from someone else who spoke that
way. He was Viking. He had a Viking visage, sure. The planes of his face were hard, his eyes ice blue.
His light blond hair fell past his shoulders. He, too, wore it in the Saxon style, not shorn at the nape.
Others in the crowd held to the Viking way. Pony's danger came home to roost in her heart like a
jackdaw. No one here knew she was Epona of the Horse Vale. Her status could not protect her. "My
name is Epona," she whispered.
"Your hestr is fine." He used the Denesc word for horse. His smile did not reassure her.
But she could hold only to her purpose, the purpose for which Dun Mare had been sacrificed. "I seek the
witch. The red-haired one," she added, remembering Alphonse's confusion.
The big Viking nodded. "Many come for her."
Perhaps these people knew the way to the old woman. Pony only hoped it was close.
"Come in and warm yourself," the pretty, pregnant blonde invited. "My name is Hild."
Pony pressed her shoulder into First Mare's; she didn't want to leave her.
The big Viking stepped forward. "I will care for your horse."
As if she were your own, Viking? No. thought Pony, and did not move.
He pointed to where a great bay stallion was making his way through a manger of fodder in a pen on the
other side of the village. "Thorn would like the company."
First Mare made the decision with her stomach. She followed the big Viking toward that full manger. It
had been a long three days. Pony's own stomach had stopped growling, but the scents rising from the
pots in the fire tantalized. She followed First Mare's lead.
Pony watched Hild pass her a steaming plate of stewed cresses. Hild was definitely Saxon, though Pony
could hear Danish words sprinkled in her speech. "Where is this witch?" Pony asked through a full
mouth. "I must speak with her." Hild's fire was welcome.
"Britta? She gathers herbs. Tonight we celebrate the repair of the dike. She will be there."
"The witch comes to town?" Pony had imagined a solitary crone hermited in the wilds.
Hild looked surprised. "She lives here."
Pony started. What village would harbor a witch. "Is she the one who sees the future?"
Hild pressed her lips together. "I will speak not of Britta." But she held out a clean cyrtle and some
knitted stockings for Pony. "I have no clothing like yours, but I am much your size. This fit me before the
babe gave me a belly."
Pony sighed and smiled. "That they be dry is all I require. I have not been so wet in my life, though
standing naked in the rain or swimming."
Hild laughed. "You are not native to the fens, then. We may not be rich in silver, but we are rich in wet."
Pony took the clothing gratefully as Hild excused herself to tend the pots. She dressed and stood in the
doorway of the blonde's little hut. The village prepared for a feast. Pony had not enjoyed the noise of a
busy village since Chippenham and Val.
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