Twenty-four! And look at me now."

She held out her hands. Grace could see sunlight through them, the bones as frail and twisted as wisteria.

"The next morning I sat aback the mare, trailing behind the nobleman whose name I barely knew, and watched my family wave good-bye. I never saw them again. We rode to his manor in the duchy of Arthannon, and I lived there with him for many years, until he died and I went to be of service to my mistress, who was not yet queen at the time."

She gazed around the garden. "I always meant to return here. And before my queen rode for Ar-tolor, I begged of her that I might stay, and the king was kind enough to invite me in." She sighed. "There are no more journeys in me, save for one."

Grace wasn't certain at what point in the old woman's story she had finally grasped the truth she had been too blind, and too caught up in her own shadow, to see. "It was you," she said. "It was you that Lirith wanted me to find."

Naida shrugged. "Sister Lirith is ever full of peculiar ideas. But she is such a lovely thing. She should be married to a strong, handsome 173 man. As should you, sweet." She gave Grace a sly wink. "A garden grows more beautiful if it is tilled more often."

Color bloomed on Grace's cheeks. "I don't ... I don't think I'll ever be that close to another."

Naida scowled. "But what is it you fear? That if a man looks closely he will see you warts and wrinkles and all, and that he will turn away? Is that it, sweet?"

Grace stepped back. No, she didn't want to talk about this. There was no way Naida would understand why Grace could never be touched that way-- 169 "What sadness on your face! But you have aught to worry about. Not a precious thing like you."Naida reached for her, but Grace pulled back and turned toward the dying tree. She folded her arms across her chest, as if to conceal her own black center. "Is there nothing that can be done to save it, then?"

Naida regarded her, then shook her head. "I fear not, sweet. Perhaps if we had known sooner. But the darkness inside has eaten at her too long."

Grace nodded. It was a harsh prognosis, but she : had spoken ones just as bad a hundred times.

"Well," she said, turning to face Naida, "I guess Lirith sent me here to help you. So what can I do?"

Naida pressed her lips together, watching Grace, then she pointed to a patch of flowers. "The rogue's thistle is beginning to creep among the fairy's breath."

"I'll see to it," Grace said, and she turned to begin her task.

174.

That week, Grace returned to the garden each afternoon to visit with the Herb Mother.

Plants were not people. However, it turned out that gardening was not as alien to Grace as she had thought. Herbs and shrubs were still life--just a different sort of life from the kind she was used to working with. In the past her occasional houseplants had met with bad ends, but that was because she had always treated them as she did patients in the ED: Give them the prescribed treatment, and they should respond. As it turned out, plants were a bit trickier than that.

"You have to want them to grow," Naida said one sfternoon.

170 mark anthony Grace halted in her work. "Excuse me?"

Naida swiped a fluttering wisp of hair away from her face. "Well, you can't simply stick something in the ground, dump water on it, and expect it to perform wonders, now can you, sweet?"

Grace looked down at the clump of fairy's breath she had just transplanted. It leaned at an odd angle and already looked as if it was wilting. "Why not? It's just a plant, isn't it?"

The old woman shook her head. "Forgive her, sisters. She does not know what she speaks."

Grace looked around, suddenly glad plants couldn't move. If they had the power, she suspected they would be happy to coil their little green tendrils around her neck.

"Look here," Naida said, moving to the clump of fairy's breath Grace had been working on. "See how she tilts to one side? But she would rather grow straight up to the sun, would she not? And here she is nearly rising out of the ground when she would feel much better if her rootswere tucked in securely, so that she might stand up tall. And how about a nice little well all around, to catch the rain when it falls that she might drink?" The old woman finished tamping down the soil 175 around the flower. "Now, isn't that better?"

Grace had the feeling Naida was not talking to her. However, she nodded all the same. She reached out and touched the fairy's breath. "What are the properties of this one?"

"A tea will ease an upset stomach and bring sleep. A tincture of the root is good against rashes. That is its magic."

Grace studied the delicate white flower. "But it isn't magic. It's just chemicals--tannins, alkaloids, other secondary plant compounds. That's all."

Naida sighed. "If that is what you believe, Lady Grace, then that is all you will ever see in them."

171.

Grace looked up and opened her mouth, but the Herb Mother had already turned her back to see to another flower.

That night, Grace went to Lirith's chamber in the west wing of the castle and asked the witch why she had sent Grace to see Naida.

"Your studies with the Weirding were not proceeding well," Lirith said without looking up from her embroidery. The evening song of insects drifted through the open window.

Grace folded her arms. "Naida hasn't taught me anything about the Weirding."

"The Herb Mother has ever been weak in the Touch."

A groan escaped Grace. "Then why did you send me to her?"

Lirith looked up. "Why do you think, sister?"

The air in the chamber was suddenly stifling. Grace lifted a hand to the bodice of her gown. Had Lirith seen the shadow in her, just as Naida had seen it in the dying tree?

176.

Lirith bent back over her work. "Both Ivalaine and I studied with the Herb Mother during difficult times, as have many others. I do not think it will cause you harm."

So that was it. There was no great point to studying with Naida. It was merely a respite. A chance to rest away from the more challenging work with the Touch and the Weirding. Grace bade Lirith good night and left the room.

She proceeded to Aryn's chamber, but a serving maid informed Grace, in regretful tones, that the baroness was finally resting, and that King Boreas had given a strict command that nothing was to disturb her. Grace could not find fault with this order. No therapy had the power to heal as sleep did. But she would have liked to have seen Aryn all the same.

Instead slip rpt-nrnpd l-r lipr /'l-iamT-r a1rn(=*172 mark anthony The next day. Grace plunged into her work in the garden with the same intensity she had always shown in the ED. If this was what Lirith wanted her to study, then she would study it with all her ability. And if Naida noticed this new fervor, the old woman did not comment on it. Instead she showed Grace how to prune a branch so that more branches would grow, how to gather the seeds of the mistmallow, which could prevent pregnancy, and she listed the medicinal properties of a dozen other herbs.

As the sun sank over the castle wall, the two sat on the bench and drank from the flask Naida always kept full.

"How did you do it, Naida?"

Grace asked the question before she really decided to. The old woman raised a thin eyebrow. Grace was committed now.

"Ride away with a man you had never met before, I mean."

177.

Naida clasped dirty, wrinkled hands in her lap. "I had to do it. The welfare of my family depended upon it. My bride-price was enough to keep them in bread for years to come."

"But weren't you afraid?"

This elicited a burst of laughter. "I was terrified! All the way to Toloria I threw up from the back of the horse. And I shall never forget our wedding night. Poor Ederell. He had to coax his bride out from under the marriage bed. But he was always a good man, kind with me from the first day we met, and in all the years I knew him he never raised his voice once." She pressed her eyes shut. "But it hurt. It hurt terribly, as kind as he was."

Grace looked down at the stem in her hand. It ended in a pale flower.

Mistmallow. A sharp, metallic scent rose from it, and memories of the orphanage ^m-*-