The Inheritance and Other Stories by Robin Hobb

The Inheritance and Other Stories by Robin Hobb

Author:Robin Hobb [Hobb, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories
ISBN: 9781596064386
Publisher: Subterranean
Published: 2011-10-01T00:00:00+00:00


WORDS LIKE COINS

“Words Like Coins” is a Six Duchies story that was first published in the Subterranean anthology A Fantasy Medley. This lovely story follows Mirrifen, a failed hedge-witch's apprentice who has married to find security finds that threatened by a severe drought and the appearance of a pregnant female pecksie.

I am pleased to say that “Words Like Coins” is now available with literally fantastic illustrations by Tom Kidd."

“First came drought. Then rats. Now it’s pecksies.” Jami spoke into the darkness of the bedroom.

“And that’s why you’re afraid to get out of the bed to get a drink of water?” Mirrifen asked. Her sister-in-law’s restless tossing in the bed they now shared had wakened the older woman.

“No,” Jami said, with a strangled laugh. “It’s why I’m afraid to get out of bed and go to the backhouse.” She shivered. “I can hear rats squeaking in the kitchen. Where rats go, pecksies follow.”

“I’ve never even seen a pecksie.”

“Well, I have! Lots of them, when I was little. And I saw one today. It was under the front steps, staring at me with its horrid yellow eyes. But when I crouched down to see it, it was gone!”

Mirrifen sighed. “I’ll light a lamp, and go with you.”

Swinging her feet out of the bed and onto the floor in the dark still put a shiver up her spine. Mirrifen wasn’t sure she believed in pecksies but she did, emphatically, believe in rats. She tiptoed out to the banked fire in the kitchen hearth and lit the lamp from its embers. The moving flame painted shifting rat-shadows in every corner. The night before last, Jami had stepped on a rat when she got out of bed for water. Jami’s feet were already swollen from her pregnancy. A rat bite could have crippled her. Mirrifen hurried back to the bedroom. “Come on. I’ll walk you to the backhouse.”

“Mirrifen, you are too good to me,” Jami apologized.

Privately, Mirrifen agreed, but she only grumbled, “Why Drake and Edric had to take the dog with them, I don’t know.”

“To protect them when they camp! All sorts of men are on the roads looking for work. I wish they’d all stayed home. I’d feel safer.” Jami sighed as she touched her stretched belly. “I wish I could have one solid night’s sleep. Did your hedge-witch ever teach you how to make a sleep charm? If you could make one for me—”

“No, dear heart, I couldn’t.” They moved slowly through the darkened house. “My training only included simple things. Sleep charms are complicated. They have to be precisely keyed to the user. Even so, they’re dangerous. Witch Chorly once knew a foolish hedge-witch who tried to make a sleep charm for herself; she finished it, fell asleep and starved to death before she ever awoke.”

Jami shuddered. “A pleasant tale to sleep on!”

The kitchen door slapped shut behind them. Overhead, the light of the waxing moon watered the parched fields. Mirrifen inspected the outhouse to make sure no rats lurked inside, and then gave Jami the lantern.



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