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worse two months from now."  But
Syliva was really thinking of the birth.  It could go badly.  Lovisa was such a
frail woman, so thin and small.
    "Don't worry for me," Lovisa said,  "All will
be well."
    They chatted while Lovisa spun, their talk turning to the
comfort of the ordinary:  wool and weaving, cooking and the weather.  A brief
visit was all Syliva could allow herself.  Celvake the carpenter was in pain
from the hand he had broken two summers ago, and the entire Monjor family had
contracted some sort of grippe.  Aksel had told her to ask for dried meat in
payment, but she already knew that she would ask for nothing.  Celvake would bring
them cut firewood, and the Monjors would give her butter.
    The Monjor's main house was the biggest of thevalley.  Old
Monjor in his day had divided the ancient family hall into two rooms, and his
son Kurnt added the three separate bedrooms, each with its own small brick
hearth in the corner.  That was when Aksel, not to be outdone, hired Celvake to
help him build the two upstairs bedrooms along with the interior stairwell.  Those
stairs were still talked about in Hyerkin, and the way Celvake told the story
of building them made a bear hunt seem tame.
    Syliva discovered as she entered the Monjor house that
Kestrin had arrived before her and had busied herself in the kitchen preparing
the soup that, while it would not cure the grippe, would at least allow the
family to rise from their beds and take care of themselves.  Kestrin juggled
soup stirring, herb chopping, and root grinding, did not hear Syliva enter the
room, and started when she spoke, turning fast and breathing in audibly, her
wavy red hair swishing, a glare beneath black eyebrows softening at once.
    "Do you — I'm sorry, dear, I didn't mean to frighten
you.  Do you need alderclove for the soup?"
    "No," Kestrin said, turning back to finish the
grinding.  "I still had some of that you gave me last week."
    Kestrin had always looked older than she was.  She moved and
spoke abruptly, with a nervous way that made some folk keep their distance from
her.  Still, she had already had suitors call on her father and could be in
courtship if she wished, but she had no eye for young men.  Her piercing grey
eyes were always on Syliva, always learning.
    No particular event had marked the beginning of her
apprenticeship with Syliva, for they had been special friends since her birth. 
She had been only hours old when her mother died, and her father had let Syliva
take her home for the first month while he recovered from his grief.  Her
mother had conceived unexpectedly late in life, and so her father was old
enough to be her grandfather.  The little red-haired girl began following
Syliva on her calls in the village as soon as she could walk fast enough to
keep up, and Syliva's love for her was natural as breathing.
    She watched her protégé mix the herbs into the soup and
reduce it to its best potency.  Kestrin looked at her.
    "That's exactly how I would have done it," Syliva
said, tasting a drop of the broth.  "I do believe you don't even need me
here today.  Well, you keep everything they give you.  It will most likely be a
slab of butter."
    "That's alright.  Father is eating nothing but
flatbread and butter anyway."
    "How much flour do you have?"
    "We have enough for about a dozen loaves."
    "Is that all?"
    "Yes," Kestrin said, unconcerned, ladling soup
into clay drinking cups.  "We still have a keg of cheese in the cellar,
though, and can trade some to the Barlsens for millet and meal.  But my father
says we'll soon have to start feeding brambles to the goats."
    "Tell him to bring a nanny or two over to my house.
    My son Jonn is going to take all of ours up to the high
valley to look for good grazing.  He can tend a few extra."
    "I'll tell father."
    "Oh, and could you do something for me when you're
finished here?  I must go to the woods this afternoon to look for spindlewort
and wild nionae.  Would you be