The Hob's Bargain(56)

"A-ren," he cajoled.

"Faran-rotting cold spring," I complained, then squeaked. "You could be a little less thorough."

He ignored my complaints and took no more notice of my body than if I'd been a horse he was grooming. It was still curdling embarrassing - insulting, too, come to think of it.

He dried me with a soft cloth, then wrapped my shivering body in a single piece of silk that caught the moon's light and changed it into a thousand shades of green and gold. It wasn't very warm. I couldn't tell what made it stay where it was.

"Quit fussing with it or it'll be on the ground," the hob warned as he took a step back to look at me.

"I'm not fussing, I'm shivering."

He'd set aside his cloak when he started washing me. I snatched it from the ground and covered the sarong with it.

He grinned, and I had the childish urge to kick him in the shins. "Now we have to do something about your hair. Sit on this rock."

He took my hair from its braids and combed it out until it hung past my hips.

"There," he said at last, satisfaction in his voice. "Now to find the symbols of the earth's bounty. Wait here."

When he was gone, I found myself comparing these preparations with the ones I'd undergone for my marriage. Then it had been my mother and sister bathing me, preparing my hair. I drew Caefawn's cloak tighter against the memories, choosing instead to worry about meeting with the earth spirit.

The hob returned too soon for my peace of mind. With him he brought an armful of greenery. He sat at my feet and, whistling cheerfully, wove a tight circlet of rowan that he placed on my head before selecting wildflowers and tucking them around it.

"What is the earth spirit like?" I asked.

"I don't remember much about him," he replied, selecting some mountain aster from his booty. "Though I recall he'd associated with humans a long time. 'Twasn't much like the mountain; she's fair wild, she is - almost as informal as the water spirits, though they tend to be vulgar."

"The fisherfolk are like that, too." I asked him something that had been bothering me. "After I talk to the spirit, will I be bound to it - as you are to the mountain?"

He dropped the flowers on the ground in surprise. "Of course not. You're a human, not a hob. No elemental would ever take a human for a servant - too obstreperous."

I blinked at him, uncertain whether I felt more incredulous or insulted. "And you're the very paragon of tractability, I suppose?"

As quickly as that, his merry mood was gone. He tucked the last of the flowers in my hair and let out a slow breath. "The mountain commands and I obey."

My, but didn't he sound happy.

"If I felt like that about it, I wouldn't obey," I commented.

"That's why elementals avoid humans," said the hob.

I walked barefoot in the hob's cloak and a sarong of silk and moonlight with circlets of flowers around my head, my wrists, and my ankles. Caefawn walked in front of me, occasionally warning me of sticks and thorns - sometimes even before my feet found them first.

I wondered if what I was doing would offend the One God more than my being mageborn already had. My father said Tolleck, the new priest, was very young, but blessed with a gift enabling him to speak to the One God. Father'd smiled at me and said it gave him hope, seeing how a priest that close to the One God was a good man.

"Caefawn?"

"Hmm?"

"I won't be worshiping this spirit, will I?" The moonlight allowed me to see his eyebrows raise. "No, indeed. Though I've heard of one or two elemental spirits who tried to require it. Not healthy for anyone concerned - even if the gods don't get involved. Just be respectful." I stepped on another sharp rock, and swore.

My feet were sore by the time we reached the old snag. In the night the ancient oak looked eerie, full of shadows and of silver where the light touched it.

"It's over here," I said, starting for the field.

"Wait here," he said, and stripped his cloak from my shoulders. "This is close enough. You don't want to force yourself on it."

"That's right," agreed a boyish voice. "It wouldn't do to force yourself where you aren't wanted."

The boy perched casually in the branches of the old snag. He wore rich-looking clothes of light-colored velvet; I couldn't tell whether they were pink or blue. One of his arms was twined in the branch above the one he sat on, the other rested negligently on one hip. Not what I'd expected of an earth spirit.

"I have to go a lot of places I couldn't, if I went only where I am wanted," I replied sharply - forgetting the one piece of advice the hob had given me. Be respectful, he'd said.

"I have to go a lot of places I couldn't, if I went only where I'm wanted," he said, repeating my words in a high singsong voice. It sounded even stupider the second time.

I swallowed my words and waited until I could speak calmly. Ridicule, I told myself sternly, was a childish game. Responding meant you lost.

"Spirit," I said calmly, even respectfully, "I have come to find out why you sent your servants to attack us."

He bounced off the tree to crouch at my feet. He was so close I could smell the herbs on his breath.

"Killed and maimed the earthen, you did," he said in a sad voice. "Poor dead things." He said it in Caulem's voice.