After Farmer Flint of the Middle Valley died, his widow stayed on at the farmhouse1. Her son had gone to sea and her daughter had married a merchant of Valmouth, so she lived alone at Oak Farm. People said she had been some kind of great person in the foreign land she came from, and indeed the mage Ogion used to stop by Oak Farm to see her; but that didn't count for much, since Ogion visited all sorts of nobodies.
She had a foreign name, but Flint had called her Goha, which is what they call a little white web-spinning spider on Gont. That name fit well enough, she being white-skinned and small and a good spinner of goat's-wool and sheep-fleece. So now she was Flint's widow, Goha, mistress of a flock of sheep and the land to pasture them, four fields, an orchard2 of pears, two tenants3' cottages, the old stone farmhouse under the oaks, and the family graveyard4 over the hill where Flint lay, earth in his earth.
"I've generally lived near tombstones," she said to her daughter.
"Oh, mother, come live in town with us!" said Apple, but the widow would not leave her solitude5.
"Maybe later, when there are babies and you'll need a hand," she said, looking with pleasure at her grey-eyed daughter. "But not now. You don't need me, And I like it here."
When Apple had gone back to her young husband, the widow closed the door and stood on the stone-flagged floor of the kitchen of the farmhouse. It was dusk, but she did not light the lamp, thinking of her own husband lighting6 the lamp: the hands, the spark, the intent, dark face in the catching7 glow. The house was silent.
"I used to live in a silent house, alone," she thought. "I will do so again." She lighted the lamp.
In a late afternoon of the first hot weather, the widow's old friend Lark8 came out from the village, hurrying along the dusty lane. "Goha," she said, seeing her weeding in the bean patch, "Goha, it's a bad thing. It's a very bad thing. Can you come?"
"Yes," the widow said. "What would the bad thing be?" Lark caught her breath. She was a heavy, plain, middle-aged9 woman, whose name did not fit her body any more. But once she had been a slight and pretty girl, and she had befriended Goha, paying no attention to the villagers who gossiped about that white-faced Kargish witch Flint had brought home; and friends they had been ever since.
"A burned child," she said.
"Whose?"
"Tramps'."
Goha went to shut the farmhouse door, and they set off along the lane, Lark talking as they went. She was short of breath and sweating. Tiny seeds of the heavy grasses that lined the lane stuck to her cheeks and forehead, and she brushed at them as she talked. "They've been camped in the river meadows all the month. A man, passed himself off as a tinker, but he's a thief, and a woman with him. And another man, younger, hanging around with them most of the time. Not working, any of 'em. Filching10 and begging and living off the woman. Boys from downriver were bring- ing them farmstuff to get at her. You know how it is now, that kind of thing. And gangs on the roads and coming by farms. If I were you, I'd lock my door, these days. So this one, this younger fellow, comes into the village, and I was out in front of our house, and he says, 'The child's not well.' I'd barely seen a child with them, a little ferret of a thing, slipped out of sight so quick I wasn't sure it was there at all. So I said, 'Not well? A fever?' And the fellow says, 'She hurt herself, lighting the fire,' and then before I'd got myself ready to go with him he'd made off. Gone. And when I went out there by the river, the other pair was gone too. Cleared out. Nobody. All their traps and trash gone too. There was just their campfire, still smoldering11, and just by it-partly in it-on the ground-"
Lark stopped talking for several steps. She looked straight ahead, not at Goha.
"They hadn't even put a blanket over her," she said.
She strode on.
"She'd been pushed into the fire while it was burning," she said. She swallowed, and brushed at the sticking seeds on her hot face. "I'd say maybe she fell, but if she'd been awake she'd have tried to save herself. They beat her and thought they'd killed her, I guess, and wanted to hide what they'd done to her, so they-"
She stopped again, went on again.
"Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe he pulled her out. He came to get help for her, after all. It must have been the father. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Who's to know? Who's to care? Who's to care for the child? Why do we do what we do?"
Goha asked in a low voice, "Will she live?"
"She might," Lark said. "She might well live."
After a while, as they neared the village, she said, "I don't know why I had to come to you. Ivy12's there. There's nothing to be done."
"I could go to Valmouth, for Beech13."
"Nothing he could do. It's beyond. . . beyond help. I got her warm. Ivy's given her a potion and a sleeping charm. I carried her home. She must be six or seven but she didn't weigh what a two-year-old would. She never really waked. But she makes a sort of gasping14. . . . I know there isn't anything you can do. But I wanted you."
"I want to come," Goha said. But before they entered Lark's house, she shut her eyes and held her breath a moment in dread15.
Lark's children had been sent outdoors, and the house was silent. The child lay unconscious on Lark's bed. The village witch, Ivy, had smeared16 an ointment17 of witch hazel and heal-all on the lesser18 burns, but had not touched the right side of the face and head and the right hand, which had been charred19 to the bone. She had drawn20 the rune Pirr above the bed, and left it at that.
"Can you do anything?" Lark asked in a whisper.
Goha stood looking down at the burned child. Her hands were still. She shook her head.
"You learned healing, up on the mountain, didn't you?" Pain and shame and rage spoke21 through Lark, begging for relief.
"Even Ogion couldn't heal this," the widow said.
Lark turned away, biting her lip, and wept. Goha held her, stroking her grey hair. They held each other.
The witch Ivy came in from the kitchen, scowling22 at the sight of Goha. Though the widow cast no charms and worked no spells, it was said that when she first came to Gont she had lived at Re Albi as a ward23 of the mage, and that she knew the Archmage of Roke, and no doubt had foreign and uncanny powers. Jealous of her prerogative24, the witch went to the bed and busied herself beside it, making a mound25 of something in a dish and setting it afire so that it smoked and reeked26 while she muttered a curing charm over and over. The rank herbal smoke made the burned child cough and half rouse, flinching27 and shuddering28. She began to make a gasping noise, quick, short, scraping breaths. Her one eye seemed to look up at Goha.
Goha stepped forward and took the child's left hand in hers. She spoke in her own language. "I served them and I left them," she said. "I will not let them have you.
The child stared at her or at nothing, trying to breathe, and trying again to breathe, and trying again to breathe.
收听单词发音 |
1
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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filching
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| v.偷（尤指小的或不贵重的物品）( filch的现在分词 ) | |
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smoldering
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| v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的现在分词 ) | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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ointment
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| n.药膏，油膏，软膏 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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21
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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prerogative
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| n.特权 | |
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mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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flinching
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的现在分词 ) | |
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shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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