Jori Part 1 – Rejuvenation
A Fairy Tale of Sorts
Author's note:
This is part 1 of a 4-part story arc. As always, character development is important to me so most of my stories start slowly. All characters, mythical and otherwise, are over eighteen.
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This was bad. Thick forest, no trail, pitch dark and raining. Navigating by the intermittent flashes of lightning, stumbling otherwise. Looking for some kind of shelter from the rain; a large fallen tree, a small cave, even a bower of thick bushes. The only good thing about the hard, driving rain – even the wolves were quiet. They weren't insane.
He had no fire. Everything was wet. Even the flint and steel in his tattered pack was useless without dry tinder. He shouldn't have come this way. He knew it. He'd had no choice. The highwaymen pursuing him would have found him anywhere else.
He'd seen too much. He'd stumbled across their camp by accident, but it didn't matter. They knew he knew where it was and that was a death sentence. His only chance for escape was to plunge into the woods and try to lose them before he was eaten by some animal... or worse, some monster. After all, this was the Blackheart Forest, renowned for insidious enchantments and the darkest evil.
Clothes torn, skin cut and bleeding from a thousand thorns, hungry, desperate, scared. There had to be refuge somewhere.
And then, hope.
In a lightning flash, a thick tangle of briar. And a small hole in it. Maybe the den of some forest creature, but worth checking. There was nothing else.
Taking off his pack and pushing it before him, he got on his belly and tried to crawl in, the spikes tearing at what little he had left. Another lightning flash and he could see he was in a sort of tunnel, larger at the far end. And no animals.
Relief coursed through him as he pushed in harder, working his way to a place where he could actually sit up. Another flash and the terror returned. A scant fifty yards across an overgrown clearing sat a strange, twisted cottage carved into the bole of a gigantic tree. And worse, there was faint yellow light bleeding from a couple of tiny windows and smoke trying to rise against the rain from a fieldstone chimney.
Someone was home.
Home in this Godforsaken hellhole. It couldn't be good. Must be some kind of monster. Or madman. Maybe one of those wild Nature Priests of the old tales.
He'd have to wait. Wait for light, for the storm to pass. He was safe here, in the mouth of the bramble hedge. Sort of. Certainly nothing as big as a bear or a wolf could reach him farther back in the tunnel. Though much smaller creatures could be just as deadly. He would stay here, freezing, exhausted, starving, until he could better see his surroundings.
The cottage door opened, the yellow light from within spilling out into the clearing. And standing backlit in the doorway was a human sort of figure, but old and bent over from the looks of it. And raggedy. It stood quietly looking his direction, perhaps knowing he was there. He held his breath and didn't move. Not a twitch or shiver.
Another lightning flash and a huge surprise. The figure was an old woman, with long, unkempt hair, wrinkled face and hands, a simple sackcloth garment hanging on her frail frame, leaning on a walking stick taller than her hunched over form.
Mad
woman
, he corrected his thoughts. Or maybe a priest. Could still be a priest.
Then she beckoned to him. She cupped her outstretched hand and gestured for him to come to her. It was unmistakable and it was terrifying. She knew he was there. And she was summoning him. He didn't dare move.
Then he heard her. Through the storm and across the clearing, he heard her words as if she were standing only ten feet away. Cracked and feeble, belying the power in them, he heard her words.
Come. Be warm. Eat. Rest. You will not be harmed.
He heard her words and he felt a pull in his chest. His heart certainly wanted to go. Or maybe it was his stomach. He could resist. He knew that. He just didn't want to...
Or did he? The war raged within, the
Shoulds
and
Should Nots
. Survival. Stay in misery, but relative safety. Or go, and find shelter and comfort and his body's needs... with someone he did not know, who lived deep in a dark and dangerous woods, and who seemed the most unlikely to be able to take care of herself.
In the end, comfort won. His body rebelled at staying in pain and misery, slowly freezing and starving to death. If he were going to die, better it be quick – and someplace warm and dry.
She was still standing in the open doorway as he struggled to his feet. Halting, unsteady steps drew him nearer to this creature, though more lightning convinced him she was some kind of ancient human, a wizened crone, a forest dweller, now more likely to be one of the legendary Druids. He was as close as fifteen feet to her when she spoke.
"Welcome, traveler," she said in that same old voice he had heard across the clearing, yet no louder nor softer than before. "Need must sorely drive you, to be out this night. Sooth, all creatures must seek shelter before a storm as this. Please, enter. Warm yourself. Eat and drink while I tend to your wounds. When healed and the storm abates, you may leave. I will not stop you."
Hesitantly, he approached her as she moved aside to allow him to pass. Certainly ancient, he could see now, but not unpleasantly so. Not like the hags and shrews and old harridans who frequented the pubs, begging scraps or selling favors, cursing those that would turn away. This virago had a grace to her, hidden somewhat by the deep lines and sallow, leathery skin. And eyes which sparkled. Ageless. Blue and grey as winter ice on a hard sea. But knowing. Very knowing.
As he eased past her, ducking to enter the cottage, she spoke again.
"I would know your name, traveler," she asked. "As you sit at the fire and warm yourself. I will have some soup and bread for you shortly."
He moved cautiously towards the fireplace, a merry yellow blaze casting its light about the room.
"Jori," he told her, surprised at how weak and tentative his voice sounded. "They call me Jori."
"Ah, Jori!" she smiled a broken smile. "Earthmover. Farmer. You are a farmer, then, boy."
"I was," he admitted. "So was my father, and his father. But I'm not, now." He gingerly settled himself into a woven wooden chair before the fire, setting his pack at his side.
The old crone was busying herself around a well-worn cupboard, bringing forth a wooden plate and bowl, a horn-and-pewter spoon with a strange design on the handle, and a ceramic goblet inscribed with runes he did not recognize. She didn't speak to him as she rummaged, but kicked a small table over in front of him. She was humming to herself as she set the wooden ware on the table, then filled the bowl from a steaming pot near the fireplace.
She set it in front of him and he could smell a savory mix of vegetables and what was probably rabbit wafting up from the bowl while she retrieved a small loaf of bread from her cupboard and set it on his plate.
"Does m'lord Jori desire butter?" she asked, surprising him. "Or maybe use the bread for sopping?"
"I'm... I'm, uh... fine," he stumbled. "I'm not a lord and this is just fine, thank you, Mistress... um... may I ask your name?"
"You may," she told him, then turned and walked away, seeking something else.
Great... a daft old crone
, he was thinking when she returned with a bottle of spirits.
Well, maybe not so daft
he amended as he watched her pour a couple of inches of a heavy wine into the goblet, then add a little water.
"Eat. Drink. Warm up," she told him, then moved to sit in another chair facing the fire. He watched with curiosity as she picked up a bundle of knitting and resumed whatever project he'd interrupted.
He wasn't about to argue, and with only a passing nod to the thought that the food and drink might be poisoned, he began sating his hunger and thirst with relish. He was well into his meal when he was interrupted by her speaking again.
"I was once known as Marthe des Loups," she told him as she knitted. "Some have known me as Sybille. Long, long ago, I was known as Lady Gauvain. But none would know me anymore, by any of those names. I have no name. Not to humans. Those who do know me have their own tongues and their own names for me."
"It seems, though, tonight I am your benefactress. You may call me Angelique."
"I thank you very much, Mistress Angelique," he answered, setting down his food for a moment. "I do not know what force or reason put you in my path, and I will not care and simply be grateful. And repay you any way I can. You only need ask."
"I will remember that, Jori Earthmover," she smiled with that crooked smile. "Now finish your meal. When you are done, we will attend to the damage done to you by my forest while you tell me your tale and the reasons you have wandered into my domain."
He was not about to argue. Again. Fate had blessed him with the shelter he so desperately needed and he would not question the workings of Providence. He finished his meal in silence and was awed by the warm glow it, and the fire, imparted in him, relieving so much of his discomfort. When he was done and had drained his cup, she spoke to him again.
"In a few minutes you will feel warm enough not to need or desire clothing. When you do, you will divest yourself of your garments and lie down over there, on that bed sticking out from the wall. You will lie on your belly and I will tend to your wounds."
Somehow there just wasn't any question in his mind that she was right and sure enough, when a few minutes had passed, he began to feel overly warm. So he did as he had been told and carefully stripped, stacking his torn, damp, meager clothing on top of his also torn, damp and meager pack before walking slowly to the bed and lying down on it, face down.
He thought he caught the crone watching him as he walked naked across her hut, and he thought her eyes had sparkled with their own inner light as she appraised him, but he wasn't going to worry about it. She was ancient. She must have seen her share of naked men. Even young men. He decided one more wasn't going to upset her.
After he was settled, she put down her knitting and went to another cupboard, withdrawing a box and carrying it with her over to the bed he was occupying, face down. She sat on the edge of the bed, opening the box and spreading some of its contents out, next to him. She poured some kind of liquid into a small ceramic bowl, then dipped a fine moss or something similar into it, using it to begin cleaning his cuts and scratches.
The liquid burned at first, then slowly subsided. He knew he had some pretty bad cuts and they would probably all react like that. But the pain was lessening, and he was grateful.
"How came you into my realm?" the crone asked as she worked on his back.
"I was fleeing." He saw no reason to lie. Nor did he want to.
"Fleeing whom?"
"Highwaymen. I had stumbled across their camp and they were out to kill me."
"Why would a farmer be traveling the King's Highway? Especially in this storm?"
"As I said before, Mistress, I
