The Muddy Creek

Attempted Assault and Murder by Witchcraft.

The reason King Alizner appointed me as a top advisor was because I discovered powers hidden in old Ruby Malone.

Before Bertram drowned, I used to enjoy walking early mornings through the king’s fields. I liked listening to birds calling in the quiet. The air was so much fresher out of the palace, especially as the rising sun glistened across dewy fields of clover. Merchants would be hauling full mule carts to market, and Bertram would be stumbling home drunk and harassing someone.

He was a scrawny fellow. Reminded me of a mangy cat that, though full of hissing, I hadn’t thought dangerous. Smelling of piss and whiskey, he seemed more a creature to be pitied than feared.

It was springtime of my seventh year as our king’s labourer for the royal gardens. Back then, surrounded by the same stone walls, the straight rows of tulips were as beautiful as now. But this was budding, not blooming time. Our tulips were closed green stocks, and the creek ran high.

I wandered without purpose other than fanciful notions. For having been a village child, I’d grown up thinking village life was more real than the palace world of kings and queens. But after seven years the familiarity of palace life was beginning to replace what I thought of as normal. So when I had time, I liked to mingle among common folk so as not to forget who I’d been.

Reaching the creek, I saw Maxweir’s cart had gotten stuck. Each time the mule pulled, the wheels dug deeper, so by the time I was yanking, half its wheels were mud-buried. At the creek bottom, mud soaking above his booted ankles, Maxweir braced and pushed as the rapid mud streamed.

After we’d gotten the cart up out of the mud ditch, Maxweir clapped my back. “Glad to see you.” His bonny wife, clutching reins in one hand and child with the other, smiled her thanks. The boy must have seen the pause as his chance, for he slid from her knee and jumped from the cart. Barefoot, he skipped to the creek where the water would have been above his knees. And cold.

“Alfred.” Maxweir scooped up the child, and they were off.

Merchants seemed such a tough lot, it never occurred to me to fear for them. Safety wise I mean. But I did think another cart might have trouble crossing the creek. So, as I had some time, I hung about. As spring was always my favorite season, I was comfortable leaning against a rock and looking out at the world returning to life. By mid-summer, the shallow brook would be a trickle over mud and stone, and by fall a dry mud bed.

I heard a crash in the brush and wasn’t surprised to see Bertram come from the woods. A young merchant woman was ahead of him trying to get away.

Coming between them, I scolded, “Bertram,” and told her, “He don’t mean no harm. Is only drunk.”

Deliah glared in response and spat at my feet.

After she stomped away, I said to Bertram, “You can’t keep chasing after women. Couldn’t you see how frightened she was.”

Bertram had grinned stupidly.

“Or maybe the woman will turn vicious on him. Then he’ll be sorry.” Using a stick to batter branches out of her way, Ruby Malone came out of the woods. Her hobbled steps were quick like a skipping dance, and her expression furious like a pot ready to bubble over. “Best watch yourself.” Hissing, she shook a stick over Bertram and spit on the ground.

Bertram laughed, slipped, and fell on the spit.

I should have left him there with Ruby raining curses down on his head. But, as I had to get back to the palace, and Bertram’s dwelling was on my way, it seemed best to take him back with me.

It’s fair to say I was a naïve as a child looking at the prettiness of a fox’s coat or gleam of a snake’s skin, without fearing the creature’s bite. The women knew enough to leave the viper where it lay, but I decided to bring it back to its nest. And Bertram hadn’t the beauty of a fox or viper.

Where the mud stream widened into a brown bay, Bertram lived in a falling down shack with a dirt yard. When we reached the gate of his tattered fence, I asked if he could make it from there. He “yes sir,” ‘d and tugged at his hair as though it were tip of a cap and fell in the dirt. Sighing, I drug him back up and half carried him to the shack’s front steps where he stumbled and fell again.

At the time, as bad as he staggered, I thought I had to at least see him through his front door. Figured I’d drop him, once we got inside. That he’d get sunburnt lying in the dirt.

The front door opened to a dirty kitchen which Bertram fell across. Sprawled, he could have been comical had had he not seemed so pitiful. Either way, I turned for the door. Dropping him into the dirt-reeking hovel was as much of a good deed as I intended. 

His grip, that while walking felt as slippery as water locked, locked about my elbow. Disbelieving, I looked down. Fixed on me, his alert eyes didn’t look like those of a lost kitten. Hard fingers pulled me down, and I had to twist to escape his grasp. I pushed him back, and I was no weakling having spent weeks turning over garden soil.

I couldn’t imagine what he wanted with me, but I felt like prey under a wolf’s eyes. We tussled, and he was stronger than I could have imagined. It took all my strength to throw a broken table-end at him, but he went down.

He fell with a groan, sputtering and chortling like it was some joke. This time he stayed down, but blinked at me as though trying to determine if I’d fall for his deception again. I bolted out.

“You were able to get away.” Leaning on her stick in the dirt yard, Ruby Malone scrutinized my face. Her ancient face looked a mass of craggy wrinkles as though time had taken a rough knife to her.

My eyes watered at her concern, and I looked away and hurried past. Before that, I was too shocked to believe Bertram attacked me. When I reached the gate and saw it fell from its hinges, fury rose from my chest to my throat. “What ever you think you know, shut your mouth about it.” I slammed the rickety gate behind me.

I spent the rest of my morning mucking out horse stalls to work off my anger. When weary and spent, my mind turned over the day’s events and what Ruby knew.

I went down to the king’s river to sink into the cold, clear water, and swim until I no longer stunk of horse and shit. Until I could no longer smell that wretched house or Bertram’s putrid breath. Of feel hardness of hands determined to force me down. Trying to forget sorrow I’d seen in Ruby’s eyes, I dove into the clear water. I wasn’t ready to think what her sorrow meant. Trying to lose shame of how I’d spoken, I dove again.

Ruby had come out of the woods at the muddy creek behind Deliah and Bertram. Had she seen something then. Or known before and helped Deliah.

I swam another lap across the river trying to reason it out. But only speaking to Ruby would clarify.

Two days later, rest day, I decided to visit and found Ruby in a rocker on her front porch like she expected me. The day was fair, but mist hung in the air that must have chilled the old woman.

“I wanted to say I was sorry, Grandma, for my harsh speech when last I saw you.” She wasn’t my grandmother. Likely older. But I showed respect with the term.

“I’s just glad you’re alright,” she answered, rocking.

“You knew he’d do something.”

“That man ain’t no good,” Ruby Malone agreed.

“He tried something with Deliah?”

“You’d have to ask her about that.” Rocking, Ruby tapped her stick against the porch floor with hands, veined and freckled from age and hard work. Sorrow etched every crevice of her sourly puckered face as her gaze went to where sprouts stretched from garden rows. She must have been older than Bertram and known him all his life. “It doesn’t seem there’s a woman that’s not been bothered by that cretcher,” Ruby said. 

“If every woman’s been bother, why hasn’t king’s justice been sought?”

“Are you going to go and stand before the king and tell your story?”

Shame burning my ears, I looked out at her yard that was the size of Bertram’s, but lush with grass and sprouts.

His attack had been the type a woman, not a man, feared. A woman would be pitied, but a man ought to be able to look after his self. But then I thought about Deliah and how big and strong she looked beside scrawny Bertram. I wouldn’t have guessed he’d strength to hurt her.

Making a fist, I considered pounding him, but hadn’t smashed fists since leaving the village and King Alizner seemed likely to frown on my pummelling an old man.

“There’s a recipe I’ve heard of bound in a book at the king’s library.” In shadow of her porch, I saw cruel gleam in her eyes. Desire for vengeance. Her chair creaked as she got up and went into her house.

Inside she searched her shelves until her wrinkled hands held a soft parchment card. Stroking its top with a bony finger, she said, “This is the symbol. When you see it, you’ll know you’ve found the book.” On the purple parchment there was a lopsided green triangle wrapped in a red circle.

“Who’s the author and what’s the book title?”

“I don’t know titles or authors. Wording or reading.” She waved for me to pocket the parchment.

I arched my eyebrows thinking Ruby’s mind gone. “Is this all you need?”

“No,” Ruby answered. “I need clay from the creek and hair from the man’s head.”

“Hair from his head!”

“It doesn’t have to be hair. Only hair ‘s easiest to get. Blood or bone would work as well.”

It was my fault for thinking I might get help from her.

As I owed her some comfort for my harsh words, I accepted her bucket. If I had luck when I returned, the biddy would have forgotten why she’d sent me.

Instead, she cackled with delight and stuck her hands in the bucket squishing mud between her fingers.

“I don’t know about finding the book,” I said. “In the king’s rooms, books are sorted by who wrote them. Without knowing that, its like to take forever to find one.”

“I should think purple would stick out among the king’s gray books,” Ruby answered as her fingers smoothed a round clay ball.

“It might be good if I had someone to help me look.”

“Any of the women here like to help you. Hardly one’s not been bothered by the cretcher.”

Remembering Deliah’s disdain as she spat at my feet, I was doubtful.

As Bertram seemed easier found, I decided to search the poor breweries. In a rough straw and mud thatch, Bertram sat on a rock stool with his lips pressed to a glass that sat on the bar.

Even though I searched for him, I felt shocked watching him laugh in his glass and seem to have difficulty picking it up. Revulsion rushed my stomach. How could I not have seen his vileness and thought him only a foolish old man. It would have been easy to yank hair from his oily head, but as I shifted on my feet, my thoughts were on bashing in his skull.

A hand clasped my arm, and I jumped ready to strike before seeing Deliah’s shiny, knowing eyes. “Ruby said you might need help.”

“She asked me to get hairs from his head,” I answered.

She nodded. “When I create a distraction, you get the hairs.” Picking up a jar, she shattered the glass down on his head. “That’ll teach you to try and put hands on me,” she hollered.

After that, things happened quick.

Deliah shoved clothes at me, saying, “Think you’ll fix him up.”

No one doubted I’d help Bertram when I examined blood oozing from his head and plucked hairs as I made sure glass hadn’t stuck. I left him pressing one cloth to stop the blood. The other held his blood‑ripped hairs.

Ruby’s face radiate pleasure at our return. The mud I’d given her was an upside-down clay dish drying on her porch.

Running, we soon reached the palace’s great stone walls. I’d gotten so used to their enormity that I forgotten their intimidation until seeing Deliah awestruck.

“Come on.” I grabbed her hand and was glad she didn’t whack me for my boldness.

The king’s library was six rooms of tightly shelved books. Leading Deliah to the middle, I said, “Let’s start here and work our way out. That way we won’t miss anything.” I took the purple parchment from my pocket.

“Are you sure it’s even here?”

I wasn’t and so didn’t answer. The task felt overwhelming but within ten minutes, Deliah asked, “Is this it?” She carefully tugged out a book. Disbelieving, we stared. It matched the card perfectly.

“Should we really do this?” Deliah asked.

“Did he really hurt you?”

“Bastard’s stronger than he looks,” Deliah answered.

When we returned, Ruby had arranged a firepit in her backyard. “You’ve done well,” she greeted us and struck flint until the wood caught. The low flames danced eerily giving her eyes a demented glow. “You’ll have to read it. I don’t know wording,” she said. Beside a cauldron, she’d stacked ingredients.

There were more than a hundred pages in that book.

Ruby must have seen, I didn’t know where to find the spell for she pointed to a low wood table and said, “put it there.”

When I set the closed book atop the table, Ruby reached for a trimmed hawthorn branch. “Set it on its spine so the pages will fall open.” She held up her wand and struck a page as the book opened. “Read it.”

“A spell for enemies,” I read.

“What are the ingredients?”

I read the list and she checked the bundle she’d piled by the fire. “Good. Good.” Satisfied, she set the cauldron of water above the fire. It seemed silly then. Watching an old woman count bubbles as they surfaced and adding exact drops. Boiling flower fluff and rickety twigs. The concoction looked like mud at the bottom of the dish she’d crafted. When she carefully set a cloth doll wrapped with strands of Bertram’s bloody hair into the mud, it seemed ridiculous. Comical.

But the next day, Bertram was found facedown drowned in the creek.

And when our King Alizner looked for a magician, I recommended Ruby Malone.