Silvermay Page 4

  ‘Not much to see,’ I answered, but that wasn’t the point.

  She blinked and shaded her eyes when we first emerged into the light, then forged ahead to make the most of it. I could see her responding more to the sun’s warmth with every minute and, by the time we’d reached the high road near the inn, she felt strong enough to take Lucien from my arms.

  ‘Oomph! He gets heavier every time I hold him,’ she said.

  Somehow we’d arrived at the Hollyoaks’, where Tamlyn was fixing yet another roof. Fancy that!

  ‘Good to see you out in the sun,’ he called to Nerigold.

  ‘A few more days and I’ll climb up to help you finish the job.’

  That wasn’t very likely but it was good to hear her so cheerful.

  ‘I could do with the help. And the view is worth the climb. Silvermay,’ he called, catching me by surprise, ‘you should come up and see it.’

  ‘No, don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Who was telling me she’s the boy in her family?’

  I glanced sideways to see what Nerigold made of this. She seemed to be enjoying my discomfort and didn’t ask what Tamlyn was talking about.

  ‘Where’s all that confidence?’ Tamlyn goaded me from his perch so high on the roof. ‘This is a chance to see the world like one of your father’s hawks.’

  ‘Go on, Silvermay. I would, if I was a little stronger,’ said Nerigold.

  Outnumbered! Even Lucien was eyeing me with a look that said coward!

  I raised one foot onto the first rung and started to climb. ‘This is crazy,’ I said, but was stifling giggles all the same. Those giggles quickly died away when I reached the top of the ladder and dared to look down. Then it was more a scream I had to kill in my throat.

  ‘Here, take my hand,’ said Tamlyn, who was waiting for me.

  I was glad of his steadying grip for that last step onto the roof, and then he was guiding me to a second ladder laid directly onto the thatch, which would take us all the way to the top. He sent me up ahead of him, saying, ‘Don’t worry. If you slip, I’ll catch you. This is high enough. Now, turn slowly and sit down between the rungs.’

  Turn, sit. Easy words to say.

  He offered his hands again for me to brace against and finally I found myself perched near the ridge of the roof, looking over his head at the view.

  ‘Oh,’ I gasped. For a few moments, that was all I could say. Then, ‘It’s amazing. Everything looks so different. Look, there’s my house and the inn. And I can just make out the roofs of Cricklethorn,’ I cried, pointing. ‘It’s like being on top of the world.’

  The fields stretching out to the edge of the wood were what delighted me the most. Side by side, the crops nearing harvest formed a patchwork of green and gold as though a great blanket had been thrown over the ground.

  ‘You know why birds like to fly now,’ Tamlyn said. ‘Would you like to be one, Silvermay?’

  ‘If I could be a hawk or a falcon, yes; but I’ve seen what they do to pigeons. Don’t think I want to be one of those.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ he replied, mocking me, and I didn’t need to see his face to know he was grinning.

  The fear had left me, replaced by an exhilaration I’d rarely known. The first time a hawk returned to my arm had brought the same feeling. And once, when I was six or seven, I’d watched all afternoon for my father to appear on the road after one of his trips to Vonne. He’d been so pleased to find me waiting and had swept me up into his arms. I was his special one. That’s how I felt on the roof with Tamlyn that day: singled out and special. It was me alone that he’d enticed up the ladders to share these sights with him.

  I’d felt close to him before, when we’d spoken of families outside my house, but this was in broad daylight and he seemed even closer. I only had to reach out my hand to touch his shoulder. I didn’t, of course. It would have been very wrong and I knew it. Besides, Nerigold was watching happily from below, with little Lucien in her arms and no idea what treachery lay in my heart. And if that wasn’t enough, Mrs Nettlefield had joined her to stare up at me. In fact, many eyes were watching me from all over the village by now, and, even halfway to the clouds as I was, I could pick out the elders with their arms folded and backbones stiff as broom handles. It would be all over Haywode by suppertime that Silvermay Hawker had climbed the Hollyoaks’ roof like a man, showing off her legs again to anyone who cared to look.

  I wanted to poke my tongue out at them all. I’d defy the elders every day if it made me feel like this, but it was time to climb down into a life that would seem rather dull after today.

  Hespa was waiting at the bottom of the ladder. ‘Birdie’s calling for you and, if I were you, I’d wipe that look off my face before she asks what put it there.’

  ‘You’re in love with him,’ said Hespa when I met her after supper on that same wonderful day.

  We used to stroll around the village most evenings, sharing our dreams of husbands and households and, if we dared, of love. But lately I had been too busy to join her; or was I just happy to stay home while Tamlyn was visiting Nerigold? That thought made me answer a little too sharply.

  ‘Me! You should look in the mirror when you say that, Hespa.’

  ‘I’m not the one who struts around the village with that baby in her arms, acting like the little thing’s her own.’

  I denied it hotly, of course, but that didn’t save me from a second barb.

  ‘Then you sat with him on the roof today for the whole village to see. I don’t know how you can spend half the day being a friend to Nerigold and the other half trying to take her place.’

  Hespa flounced off. I knew that she would come to me in the morning full of sorrow and leaking enough tears to flood the millstream. I’d forgive her and we’d hug each other like we’d done after every spat since we were five years old. But, as I watched her go, I felt a terrible dread that she might be right.

  I dragged myself out of bed the next morning with that question snapping at me like an angry dog. How could I be so miserable yet elated at the same time?

  I spent the morning waiting for Hespa, who didn’t come. But Tamlyn did, on an errand for Mr Grentree. He spoke briefly to Nerigold, then sent me a smile that was every bit as intimate as his touch to my arm a few nights before. I swear, five whole minutes passed before my heartbeat returned to normal. Such a sensation had never swept over me before. Thank the gods no one could see my heart beating inside my chest.

  Hespa’s accusing words rang in my ears. You’re in love with him.

  How could I have let this happen?

  Tamlyn lingered in the house, seeming in no hurry to get started on the jobs our neighbours had lined up for him. Then Lucien began to cry, and oh, how that boy could cry. It was the wrong sound, at the wrong moment.

  ‘Silvermay!’ my mother called from across the room.

  I turned to her, vaguely aware that she’d been calling my name for some moments already.

  ‘Get a move on, girl,’ she said, her voice almost jolly. ‘Fetch Lucien while I settle Nerigold among the cushions.’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ I said, too loudly.

  Birdie looked at me, not yet angry. Her eyes asked what was going on.

  ‘I’m tired of this,’ I said. ‘The baby makes so much noise. I don’t want to be a nursemaid any more — not for him, not for anyone.’

  Before my terrible confusion caused any more hurt, I headed for the door.

  Birdie let me make it into the open before she caught me, careful to let enough ground pass under our feet so that our words wouldn’t reach back to the house. Her grip on my elbow would have snapped bone if I hadn’t stopped instantly.

  ‘What’s got into you, speaking like that in front of poor Nerigold when there can’t be a gentler soul in the entire kingdom? Where’s my Silvermay, the daughter I’m so proud of?’

  It would need a seamstress of words to fit together the sobs and sounds that tumbled out of me; or, better still, a skill
ed puzzle maker. Birdie had a little of both in her, but mostly she was a mother with a keen eye. She hugged me and whispered, ‘It’s the young man, isn’t it? Your heart is pulling you in a hundred ways, and you want them all as much as you want none of them.’

  That was one way to describe it, and at least I’d earned a hug instead of the slap I deserved. Not that she let me off the hook.

  ‘This is what you’re going to do, Silvermay. You’ll go back inside the house, you’ll say you’re sorry to Piet for being so rude, and you’ll help Nerigold finish feeding little Lucien. And you’ll go on looking after Lucien until his mother is well enough to care for him herself.’

  That’s exactly what I did do; not because I was afraid of my mother, but for myself, as a way to redeem my heart, which continued its unruly reign over me through every minute of the day until I thought I would go mad.

  Only one thing changed. Where once I had wanted these three to stay forever, after that day I couldn’t wait for them to leave.

  5

  The Wyrdborn

  In Vonne

  ‘You’ve had more news of Nerigold,’ said the woman.

  She stepped through the doorway into the joyless room; a room that others dared enter only on the command of its occupant and even then with trepidation.

  ‘Come in, Ezeldi,’ said Coyle Strongbow.

  He offered no smile and, though he had spoken calmly, made no effort to disguise the ironic tone in his voice. The woman was already in the room, after all. Anyone watching from the shadows would have been surprised to learn this pair was man and wife.

  ‘You seem to know about this business as quickly as I do,’ he said when she stopped a few paces before him. ‘You’re not still jealous, are you? I told you, she was just a plaything. I sent her off long ago, once she no longer amused me, like I did with all the others. Why do you keep asking about her.’

  His wife gave no answer. ‘What’s the news?’ she asked instead.

  Coyle pointed to a letter on the table beside him, which had arrived by courier only an hour before. ‘Queasel has watched the ports for a week but there’s been no sign of her. He’s leading his men back along the roads to search villages and farms that might have taken her in. They’ll work methodically until they find her.’

  Ezeldi shook her head. ‘Unless she’s underground, already in her grave. Is there any point keeping up this search?’

  Her husband had been tolerant until now, but at this suggestion he became tired of the game they were playing with one another. The room was already cold but, when he answered, his words brought an even heavier chill to the grey stone walls. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew why I want her found.’

  Ezeldi gave a disdainful bow and left her husband’s chamber as abruptly as she had entered.

  She made for her own rooms on the other side of the grand residence. These weren’t as cold and bleak as the rest of Coyle’s stronghold. The décor was hardly as plush as the queen’s suite in the palace, but she particularly liked the gold and blue chair beside the window where she sat on sunny mornings. If the Wyrdborn could command such things, she would make the sun shine through that window every hour of the day.

  She went to the window now, but with a different purpose, one that did lie within her power, if she could find the right creature. The view showed her the bustling city of Vonne and, beyond its walls, the chequered pattern of barley fields and corn interspersed with woods. It was a sight she never tired of, though today her eyes scanned the sky above. There were no birds visible; or, rather, none of the type she needed.

  She glanced at the inviting chair beside her. No, she must act quickly. She would stay vigilant until what she needed appeared as a speck in the distance, even if it meant standing by the window for the rest of the day.

  My mother wouldn’t let Tamlyn take his family back onto the road until Nerigold was strong enough, and that day seemed as far off as ever. There was nothing I could do but keep the promise I had made to myself: to care for my little Smiler and be a friend to Nerigold. Since the rift between Hespa and me was taking time to heal, I could do with a friend; and, despite the struggle between my head and my heart, that’s exactly what Nerigold had become. As for Tamlyn, I stayed out of his way and denied myself the sight of his face.

  The harvest began, and any remaining grumbles in the village about Tamlyn quickly faded when he was first into the fields each morning and stayed until the last of the weary figures made their way home to supper. Even the mean-eyed elders marvelled at his energy.

  It had been a good summer and, when the last of the grain had been threshed, our barns were full. They wouldn’t stay that way for long, I knew that by now, and, at sixteen, I was old enough to resent it as much as anyone. Like every other pair of eyes in Haywode, mine began to scan the road to the south, waiting. When would he come? How bad would it be this year?

  An answer to the first question came soon enough. ‘He’s here!’ cried a boy with sharper eyes than the rest of us.

  ‘It’s as though he waits on the road, just out of sight,’ said my father as he hurried from the house.

  I watched from beside him as two riders led the way into the village, followed by a line of wagons. Two more men on fine horses eased along among the wagons, one on the far side, the other trailing behind the last. Of the leading pair, only one was armed: a large man with narrow, darting eyes who watched us cautiously as the richly dressed lord beside him approached the inn. The wagons were driven by labourers no different from Haywode’s men who watched them enter the village with such sullen resignation.

  Father went closer to the road but I wasn’t left alone for long.

  ‘Who are those men?’ asked Tamlyn, who had come down from yet another roof he was fixing.

  ‘The one in the golden cloak is Religo Norbett,’ I told him. ‘He’s lord of our district, appointed by the king. His manor house is ten miles to the south, past Cricklethorn. He comes every year at the end of harvest to take our tribute.’

  ‘Tribute?’ repeated Tamlyn.

  ‘Yes, in grain and livestock. Some goes to the king; the rest he keeps for himself. A tax, he calls it, but my father calls it robbery.’

  ‘So many wagons,’ said Tamlyn.

  I sniffed in disgust. ‘Yes, so many.’

  ‘Who are the others?’ he asked.

  ‘The big man next to him is the sentinel who guards Norbett in case anyone tries to harm him.’

  ‘But there are fifty strong men in Haywode and none of them looks very pleased to see him,’ he commented. ‘They could overpower one man without any trouble.’

  ‘Yes, that’s why the other two are here.’ I nodded towards the horsemen half hidden among the wagons. ‘With those two to protect him, there could be a hundred angry warriors in the village and Norbett would still be safe.’

  Tamlyn’s eyes sought them out quickly and watched until a single word escaped his lips. ‘Wyrdborn.’

  ‘Yes, both of them,’ and though I had known it from the beginning, just hearing the word was enough to send an icy shiver through my blood.

  There was nothing in particular to distinguish the men from commonfolk or hint at the terrible powers they possessed. The one near the leading wagon had come last year; I remembered his dull grey vest and the insolent set of his face. The other simply looked bored.

  Word continued to spread — ‘He’s here, the wagons have come!’ — and, across the village, men were emerging from their homes. It was a tradition in Haywode that when Religo Norbett came with his wagons, the men of the village gathered near the inn and along the road in silent defiance. I’d never understood what good it did, since the lord took away whatever he wanted and no man ever lifted a hand to stop him.

  The women chased their children indoors. The tension I remembered so bitterly was building now that Norbett and his sentinel had dismounted at the inn and accepted the stiff courtesy of the elders. They led him inside, leaving the rest of us to wait while the list was
negotiated. That list, tallied up while they sat around Nettlefield’s table, would decide how much of our harvest was carried off by men who hadn’t lifted a finger to grow it.

  I went closer for a better view. Not too close, though. There had been rumours from other villages: when the lords came calling for their tribute, the Wyrdborn sometimes took prizes of a different kind — young women like me. They disappeared inside distant castles and weren’t seen for months. When they came home, they were unharmed and had no memory of being gone at all. Yet all the stories ended with the same sad refrain: the youthful joy that had made the girls so beautiful was gone forever.

  At last, the religo emerged from the inn. Behind him came the elders, ashen-faced, their leader clutching a scroll, which he unfolded and began to read aloud.

  ‘The following tribute is to be loaded in the wagons,’ he began. ‘Bags of grain …’ Here he paused to swallow hard while the men of the village drew closer to hear. ‘Two hundred and thirty.’

  A groan rose up from every throat, even my own. That was twenty more than last year and even that had seemed too much. One thing was already certain: we would all be thinner before the end of winter.

  The list went on, naming bales of wool and the number of lambs. At last, the elder reached the end of the scroll and, despite the shock and the weight of what lay ahead, Haywode sighed in relief. The worst was known now. Or so we thought.

  As men began to turn away, Norbett stepped across to the elder and whispered something. The weary elder raised his voice again and said, ‘Plus Sweetmead’s sow.’

  ‘No,’ came a shout from among the disgruntled onlookers. A short man with a red face and wiry grey beard pushed his way through. It was Delit Sweetmead and it wasn’t hard to know why he was so upset. ‘My pig’s not on that list. Go on, you show me where it says my pig has to be stolen as well.’

  He was on dangerous ground using words like stolen. But he was right, too: the sow had been added on a whim after the rest of the list had been read out and we all knew it. Delit Sweetmead knew it better than any of us.