“Who from?”
“A Gerald the Herald,” said Anya. “He heard it from a raven.”
“Oh, from a raven!” exclaimed Shushu. She hadn’t stopped smiling. “There’s certainly enough of them about. What’s your name, then?”
“Uh … they call me Hood,” said Anya. She tapped the side of her head. “Because I like to wear my hood up.”
“Not your real name, though.” Shushu’s eyes were very penetrating, and she was peering intently at Anya’s face. The princess hoped her hood was low enough to shadow her features properly.
“No,” she replied. “Look, do you want these onions?”
“Depends what you want for them,” answered Shushu.
“I’ll give them to you. If you use these handkerchiefs when you’re cutting them, and give them back to me to wring out.”
“Oh, I see,” said Shushu. “It’s witches’ tears you’re after. You an alchemist’s brat? Or working for a sorcerer?”
“Neither,” said Anya. “I work for myself.”
“Going to make love potions, I suppose?”
“No!” said Anya indignantly. “I need them for something else. Do you want the onions or not?”
“Maybe,” said Shushu. “Where are you from?”
“East of here,” said Anya vaguely. “Does it matter?”
Both Trallonia and the Demesne of the Good Wizard were east, but then so were lots of other places, including Rolanstown.
“And you got the onions from the Good Wizard?”
“What?” asked Anya. She almost said no, but thought better of it. The witches might be able to tell if she was lying. Instead, she remained silent while she tried to think of an answer that wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Your sack,” said Shushu, “has Property of the Good Wizard stenciled on it.”
“Oh.” Anya held the sack out. Sure enough, those words were stenciled on the side of the sack she hadn’t looked at before. “Well, yes. I did get them from the Good Wizard’s kitchen.”
“Hmmm,” said Shushu. She was peering at Anya’s face again, looking thoughtful. “The Good Wizard doesn’t just hand over onions to anyone … Let’s see them.”
Anya lifted the sack to hand it over, but Shushu stepped back.
“We don’t want the sack. It might be enchanted. Just tip the onions onto the table.”
Anya undid the sack and poured the onions out onto the end of the table, catching the few that rolled off to put them back in the middle. They were very pungent onions, even before they were cut, their brown, papery skins crackling as Anya arranged them into a rough pyramid. When she was done, she folded the sack through the back of her belt to get it out of the way, though she doubted it was enchanted at all. The Good Wizard and the dwarves only seemed to make beautiful things, not sacks of rough hessian.
Shushu picked an onion up, tore away the crackling outer skin, and inspected the flesh beneath, holding it close to smell the sharp odor.
“We’ll take them,” she said. “And we will use your handkerchiefs so you can have them to wring out. Agreed?”
“If it is to be done immediately,” said Anya cautiously. She didn’t want to be waiting around anywhere long enough for the Duke’s spies to find her.
“We need to cook them for our feast tonight, so that’s no problem,” said Shushu. “We’ll cut them up straightaway. Is it agreed?”
“I’d like to borrow a bowl to wring the handkerchiefs out over,” said Anya. “And I need your promise that I won’t be harmed.”
“A bowl, certainly,” agreed Shushu. “And despite some stories about witches, we do not eat children. If we make gingerbread, we eat it ourselves; we don’t make houses out of it to lure children to their deaths.”
“I always did think that was a silly story,” said Anya. “I mean, if it rained, the house would fall apart.”
“You could make an icing that was proof against rain,” said one of the other witches. Shushu glared at her, and she fell silent.
“Is it agreed?” asked the head witch again. “Your onions in return for our tears?”
“And my safety,” said Anya.
“We will take every care that you will be safe while you are with us in the sacred grounds of our meeting place,” said Shushu. “Does that satisfy you?”
Anya thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t entirely sure the head witch was to be trusted, and there seemed something slightly tricky about those words. But she didn’t have time to waste. If a raven spy had seen her, it might already be winging its way to report to the Duke. She needed to get the tears and get out.
“It is agreed,” she said.
“Excellent,” said Shushu. “We will cut the onions at once. Who will help me?”
All the witches who were not engaged with uglifying themselves hurried over, then picked up the onions and sniffed them, rubbing their fingers to make the outer skins shred, and generally seeming very pleased with the quality of the produce. They quickly lined up along the table, selected glittering sharp knives, and began their work.
“Here are the handkerchiefs,” said Anya, handing them out to the witches. Only six witches were cutting the onions, so she gave them two each and kept the thirteenth back with the extra one that had the hand-drawn map.
One of the younger witches came over as Anya watched the onion cutting. She had just fixed on a particularly horrendous wart in the middle of her forehead, but the glue wasn’t dry, so it was very slowly sliding down towards the bridge of her nose.
“Want a cup of tea while you wait?” she asked. “My name’s Etta, by the way.”
“No thank you,” said Anya. She didn’t think it would be safe to eat or drink anything the witches made, even if they had guaranteed her safety.
“Suit yourself,” sniffed Etta. She blinked back some tears as a waft of cut onion passed by. “My, those onions are powerful.”