In the wake of the paladin’s arrival several weeks ago, the villagers could not decide whether or not they were happy about it. The children were excited as children ought to be when a holy warrior stays in a nameless village at the edge of the Gray Spine. Brother Lukas, the illiterate acolyte of Paronian who acted as the village's "priest" was quick to assure the town that this winter would be a safe one. This was not the assurance of a sermon, but rather of quiet conversations in houses, stables, and hushed tones by the inn's fire. Yet, despite these pleadings of calm there was still a tension in the village. If you stopped someone to ask about it their answer would probably be to the effect of: "all 'us in the village was relieved to have a Paladin of Men’ilian for protection this coming win’er don't get us wrong sir, i's his companion, she's...well...you know."

  The paladin had brought his wife. Or perhaps she had followed him here. What was more clear is that her palms were branded with the thirteen-sided star of Mentilian, a punishment for magical crime. She had snaking tattoos climbing up her neck, legs, and arms of the many symbols of Yuroinis: frogs, crows, ants, and dragonflies in a lion’s skulll. Some girls of the village that claimed to have spied her bathing in the pond even said she had a tattoo of the first yew tree upon her back. Dogs did not bark at her; she might-as-well not exist to them for they did not play with her either. The boys of the village caught bugs and rats and crows, in hopes that she would give them threnits for them.

  However her voice was not raspy like an insect’s scurry, nor did she partake of the flesh of animals when she ate. She scorned the apples offered to her, and ignored the stares of the villagers. She was clean, the village could see that her brown hair was combed and washed regularly. She answered most questions with silence, except when she was asked for her name and where she was from. “My name is Nayinis wife of Ghalos the paladin of Mentilian and I am from a small village in The East much like this one,” the paladin’s wife would answer hastily before returning to her business. She would often speak with the paladin while the villagers were just out of earshot, they would never venture too close for they feared that they too might be charmed just as they assumed the paladin was.

  The woman was a necromancer. Or perhaps she used to be a necromancer. So far none of the villagers dared to ask as they debated among themselves. The year had been brutal, and they needed as much help as they could get. Offending the paladin could doom them all, they knew. Early in the year sickness had taken many of the village. Those who had survived the illness could barely stand to work. There had been a drought in the summer, only half of the crops had yielded anything and  peddlers had come to town with candies of arsenic and cyanide. In the beginning of Autumn mistwalkers had murdered the tanner’s daughter and stolen old Fynsil’s goats. They had found her bloodied and gnawed in a small creek several miles north. At least they hoped it was her.

   Mercatian Cone, the old smith, had made his opinion well known by the end of Autumn.

   “Who are we to feed a necromancer? Our storehouse is strained as it is. What does she do for us?! For all we know she could be tryin’ to kill just like that damned peddler. At best, she’s bad luck. She must leave. All she will bring is misfortune.”

  Several subdued hear-hears and a few claps could be heard in the warm longhouse where the villagers had met.

  “Mercatian, I understand your concern. But I dreamt of the auspices of Paronian and Mentilian several weeks before their arrival. I believe the paladin was sent here. Who are we to object to the plans of Saints? Besides, they would not send a necromancer to our village in dire need of help.”

  Few of the villagers murmured  faint praises to the Saints. The last year had been a difficult time for faith in the village. Yet, they all gave the acolyte reverence enough to not protest his opinion. Many believed that if they kept faithful to Lukas’ teachings that perhaps Borinean would pity them and bring them the aid they had hoped for instead of ominous women from distant lands.

  “I think we have the right to know why he brought her, and who she is. It’s our village. Why not ask?”

  Hildegarde Mentilian, the tanner, had stood up. Several months prior she had changed her name as a promise to the second saint in exchange for justice. Since the paladin’s arrival she had sided with the acolyte: no questions, for if he were to leave they would surely not make it through whatever this winter was to bring. Conversation churned amongst the villagers like an ocean at storm. Debate rolled on, until it was eventually agreed upon that someone would have to ask: “Hello sir paladin why are you bound in marriage to a woman who looks like a necromancer? Why have you brought her with you to our fine village at the edge of the Gray Spine?”

  Rufus, the barber, was the first person to work up the courage to ask a few days following the meeting in the longhouse. The first snow had fallen before the evening he had knocked on the door of the paladin’s room. His wife answered. The paladin had left to go into the woad earlier that day.

  “Did you have a question for him?”

  “Uh-” 

  Rufus stumbled and choked on his words, somehow tripping over the word “hello” and practically tumbling down a verbal hill by the time he had gotten to “marriage.”

  The paladin’s wife replied with annoyance.

  “If you must know the nature of our companionship and my presence, I will answer it to anyone who comes to the longhouse tonight. I will answer it once, and only once because as soon as my husband returns from the woods I will not have the time for your prying eyes and digging questions.”

  The news spread quietly, like a plague. Instead of a cough, it was a whisper. Instead of a sniffle it was a suggestion: “come to the longhouse tonight to hear the necromancer speak.” In the evening, the longhouse was full. 

  Some of the children speculated that she had charmed the paladin, for they could never hear what she said when the two spoke. Other children said it was the other way around. The elders were most nervous. They feared that the paladin had left, and had abandoned them to misery. The snow had come early this winter, and another one of the goats had been stolen yesterday.

  The paladin’s wife stood in the center of the longhouse. She held her hand to her throat, massaging the tattooed insects on her neck.

  “I am no stranger to rumors. Yes, I bear the first yew upon my back. It is also true that my palms have been marked for their crimes.”

  The longhouse once again churned like a sea of words and speculation. The necromancer grabbed her yew staff and beat it once hard against the wooden floor. The sea calmed. The only things left speaking were the small, ignored sounds of the fire crackling, of snow tapping the window, of wood creaking, of the wings of insects drawn to their fate at the central hearth.

  “You say you had questions for my husband. Yet, the way you stare at me tells me none of your questions were about him. You have never questioned him with your gaze, and had no intention of questioning him with your words either. You are not questioning who he chose, you are questioning why I am here. I will tell you my story, for I need your trust. I will tell you of my still-birth under the double moon, my childhood, and of my loss. You will hear the story of how I walked through The Rippled Plains, and how I supped the teet of the first yew as I sought vengeance. You will learn how I uncovered the secrets of the lair Yuorinis and how I lived to remember the wretched song of the thirteenth saint that only brings pestilence and death. I will speak my many secrets to you, for the rotting maiden and Decay have brought me to your village to defeat a threat that is ancient and powerful, and to succeed in defeating it I will need your trust.”

  The fire of the hearth went out. The room was now draped in moonlight that hushed the villagers. She spoke low, so only those who leaned in could hear her story.