Propolis

by Non Bramley

  I nodded, wiped my face and stood.

  ‘Out,’ I said to the kids. ‘Go home and tell your parents I’m back. Tell them that every man, woman and child must come to Gudrun’s house at sunset. Tell everyone you see. Go!’

  ‘What’s happening at sunset?’ Asif said.

  ‘I have part of an answer, by sunset I must have the rest.’

  Chapter Twelve

  In my head, it was Monday and I’d been on the island for just over a week. To Asif our trip had been a month long. Sigurd’s Town was starting to feel like home.

  ‘Come back to the house. You need sleep,’ he said.

  ‘No time, I’ve wasted enough already.’ I pulled my fingers through my hair. It was stiff with salt and earth.

  Gudrun’s blackened house was as I’d left it and her grave was feathered with new grass.

  ‘Is she in there, do you think?’ I said.

  ‘You think the grave’s been disturbed? It doesn’t look like it.’

  In the orchard apples and plums were ripening, and some fruit-thieving child had broken a branch or two. The hives were filled with a lazy humming. I crouched down before the largest of them, Asif calling a warning, he was still a little afraid of them I think. Brown bodies thrummed their wings at the dark hive entrance and looked at me.

  ‘Gudrun is gone, bees, and someone is harming the children of the island. Tell me what to do,’ I said softly.

  It might have been imagination or starvation, but the humming seemed deeper, more urgent.

  ‘Come away, Jude, you’ll be stung!’ Asif said.

  ‘Tell me, please,’ I whispered, and bees poured out of the entrance, filling my sight. They covered me like a living coat, crawling over my face and buzzing in my hair. I stood.

  ‘It’s a swarm! Freyja said this would happen! I’ll get her. Just stay there. Don’t move!’

  ‘Just be still, Asif,’ I said, feeling the strange vibration as bees crawled over my lips.

  ‘They could kill you!’

  ‘Yes, but they won’t. They’re following their new queen. Just be still.’

  I waited. The wind ran dark fingers through the grass.

  ‘They’re moving!’ Asif said, as lone bees took off and flew a complex dance of circles in the air around my head.

  ‘That’s long enough,’ I said, and shook myself like a dog. The swarm dropped, took to the air in a pulsating cloud, and flew away, many bodies acting as one.

  ‘Follow them!’ I shouted, and ran across the orchard and into rough grass, stumbling and hopelessly slow. ‘Where are they going? Which direction?’

  ‘North, they’re going north. Towards the wood. I think that’s north?’ Asif said, scrabbling for his expensive compass.

  ‘Then that’s where we’re going.’

  ‘Why are we chasing bees?’ Asif moaned as he followed me – a shambling scarecrow dressed in madness.

  The woodland was older here, denser. Belladonna hung in great swags, and rhododendrons and azaleas grown to the height of trees blocked our path. My boots were slippery with sap as we crunched our way through thickets of green leaves. Bluebells, now in seed, lily of the valley and cuckoo pint spread in great abundance. Withered blossom fell around us.

  Then I heard it – the sound of bees.

  I had thought it was the swarm but it was just another hive, one of the many Gudrun had dotted across the island, standing in a little dip in the woodland floor.

  ‘Is it the swarm?’ Asif said, fighting his way through clinging nightshade and honeysuckle.

  ‘No, it’s a hive. Just a hive,’ I said thoughtfully, looking down at the little wooden box. ‘They sound docile enough at the moment don’t you think? I have a great liking for sweet things,’ I whispered, looking around me. I lifted the lid and was stung. The poor creatures disembowelling themselves in their struggle to be free. I slid a frame from the hive and held it to the light. It was full of comb, each tiny compartment sealed with wax. I scraped a little away, exposed the deep red amber of the honey and tasted it, ignoring the stinging bees. My heart beat faster.

  ‘Come away, Reeve,’ Asif said. ‘You’re so weak you’re staggering.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Asif woke me in my soft bed a little before sunset. I washed, cut the worst tangles from my hair with a knife, and put a new hole in my belt. I still felt sluggish and weak. More food helped a little.

  We walked along the quay, ignoring the questions of those we met along the way. I’d not killed the elves, no. I couldn’t give them the answer they wanted.

  The real truth was terrible in its simplicity.

  I’m not a great lover of drama, but the sunset conspired against me. The sky was glorious, a deep gold with streaks of russet and green.

  There was Gunnar, and he held the frail hand of his wife who wouldn’t turn to the blackened ruin that had taken her sister’s life. She was still in mourning, her face covered in a deep hood. Children played and darted. Olaf came, a little out of breath from the climb, and he held me in a long embrace.

  Halldor, Freyja, Frida, Anna, Magnus, they all came until a crowd stood in the long grass that glowed an otherworldly green in the evening light. Even the doctor came, his dark face ashy from a month’s confinement. I walked among them.

  ‘Aaron, I have a question for you.’

  ‘Are you intending to kill me, Reeve, is that what this charade is for?’ he said. ‘There’s been no more deaths since you locked me away like a criminal.’

  ‘No harm will come to you, I promise. Just answer a question for me. When the propolis was stolen, who’d visited you?’

  ‘There were two – the first the day of the fire, the second three days later. I can’t be sure which of them’s the thief.’

  ‘Just give me the names.’

  ‘God help me, if I tell you you’ll hang me for sure.’

  ‘You’re in no danger. One of them was Bjorn, wasn’t it? The day before he fell sick.’

  Aaron paused and blew out his cheeks. ‘Oh, fuck it. Yes, you’re right. He’s the second. Had a nasty graze on his knee. It was sore and he was limping. Said he’d fallen when he was climbing a wall. How did you know?’

  ‘Who’s the other?’ I said.

  He told me, and I thanked God, patted the doctor on the back and moved on.

  ‘How are the children?’ I asked Freyja.

  ‘Alive. Sleeping still but taking a little honey water. Where have you been, Reeve?’

  I smiled and beckoned everyone to me; I didn’t have the strength to shout.

  ‘I know what’s been harming the children of this town,’ I said. ‘Follow me.’

  We walked to the little workshop where Gudrun had prepared her honey. It was still chained shut.

  ‘Asif, bring me a child of twelve, a child of thirteen and a child of fourteen.’

  He tilted his head. ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘I have a job for them.’

  Asif called three children from the crowd – the two youngest had red hair.

  I beckoned them to the workshop’s small window, not even a wide as my forearm, and crouched down to them.

  ‘I want each of you to see if you can climb through this window. It’s too small for a grown-up but I think you could manage it. Be careful – the floor will be covered in broken glass. What do you say?’

  The first, a lad of twelve years had to jump to cling on to the window sill. He pulled himself up and scrambled through, as the murmuring crowd looked on, intrigued.

  ‘Can you reach the lowest shelf? Don’t touch it – just tell me if you can.’

  The lad reached up, turned to me and nodded. ‘Yes, just.’

  ‘Out you come then. Well done.’

  Next to try was a little girl of thirteen. She was taller than the lad but not broader and she managed it with very little effort.

  ‘Now you,’ I said to the tallest and broadest of the children.

  This young man with blonde hair and green eyes had the most diff
iculty and couldn’t squeeze through, although he tried, scrapping the skin from his arms. I patted the lad on the back and turned to the crowd.

  ‘Gudrun’s bees are the poisoners of your children.’

  I held up my hand to quiet the sounds of anger and incomprehension and laughter.

  ‘Nothing has been touched in this workshop. It’s exactly as she left it. The pot of red honey that stood on the lowest shelf was collected from a hive hidden in the woodland where the bees feast on pollen from bluebells, rhododendrons, belladonna and God knows what else. These plants are a delight to bees but deeply poisonous to us. They make a red honey that Gudrun knew was toxic. She only kept it to feed back to her bees in the winter, and usually stored it on a high shelf away from her own daughter, who loves sweet things. Children have been sneaking into Gudrun’s honey stores for years. A little harmless thievery, nothing more. That’s why she latched the shutter every day and made her shelves so high. I believe that on one occasion she mistakenly left the toxic honey on a lower shelf and forgot to shutter the window. I believe that Petur used this window to enter the workshop and eat from the red honey that was the only jar he could reach. He died from its poison.

  ‘If this is true then surely Gudrun fed them the poisoned honey?’ Olaf said.

  ‘It’s possible, but why would she? Why would she decide to kill now? But it’s true that only children of a certain height, a certain build were both small enough at the shoulder and tall enough to enter through this window and reach up to the shelves. Children of the ages twelve and thirteen.’

  The children of Sigurd’s Town, so many of whom had red hair, were listening to my every word. I could save them one grief at least.

  ‘Anna, gather the children together and take them to the church. Their parents will join them soon.’

  I faced the whispering crowd. ‘Petur’s death was, I believe, a terrible accident. However, when Gudrun knew of his death she didn’t destroy the red honey. She left it where is was and then died. After that, she couldn’t have moved it even if she wanted to. Then Bjorn crept in and ate.’

  ‘But why is he still alive if he did the same as Petur?’ Asif asked.

  ‘If he’d eaten more he would be as dead as his half-brother. Bjorn had already tried to break into the workshop but had slipped and grazed his knee in the attempt. He visited Aaron for a salve, which worked enough for him to try again the next day. That was his purpose the morning I discovered him here, and he hid from me behind a tree. He must have cursed his luck. When he left me at the cove he finally succeeded in getting into the honey stores on his third attempt, but he actually ate very little.’ I turned to Bjorn’s father. ‘I think he was more determined to prove he could do it than to steal.’

  ‘This is all lies, Reeve! Why would my mother want to harm children?’ Magnus said.

  ‘I don’t believe she did, not truly. It wasn’t a conscious decision; she left it all to fate. She knew that not all children would be in danger, just those who could both enter and reach the red honey … children of twelve and thirteen … the illegitimate offspring of your father.’

  Magnus turned to his aunt Briet, who looked up at the sky, her hood falling back, revealing a face still swollen, but now showing the pink bruises of bee stings. ‘Aunt, is this true? Was Petur my brother?’

  Briet hummed under her breath – a strange, tuneless little song. She dropped her husband’s hand, brushed past Magnus and gazed at the bleak doorway of the ruined house.

  ‘So Gudrun’s death was an accident.’ Olaf said. ‘A dropped candle or some such thing. God help us all. What a tragedy.’

  ‘No, Gudrun was murdered. By her sister, Briet.’

  Gunnar snarled. ‘That’s a lie!’

  ‘I wish it was. On the day that Gudrun died, Briet came to the house to see her sister. She was bewildered by grief and looking for the comfort of family. When she arrived, Gudrun was distraught; little Pia had eaten the red honey and was dying.’

  ‘Gudrun’s screaming,’ Briet said earnestly in a high, sweet voice. ‘Tried to make her sick. The honey’s poison. Pia pissed herself, just like Petur, and I knew it. She killed my boy. I never wanted him to, not at first. No. It wasn’t my fault. That’s why he’s gone now.’ She nodded at me, her head too heavy for her neck, smiled and hummed her sick little tune, up into the boughs of an apple tree.

  ‘Briet,’ I said softly, putting my hand into hers. It was hot and slick. ‘You poured oil from the lamp and lit it. Your sister was too distraught to notice. Then you took the necklace from your neck – a new gift from your husband – and chained the door shut. You couldn’t get into the honey stores, so you tried to destroy the nearest hive. But it was too heavy and you were stung, many times. You jumped into the spring to drown the bees that attacked you. Your husband stole three jars of propolis from Aaron to treat the pain. Gunnar knew a request for so much of it would raise too many questions so he slipped it into a pocket when the doctor’s back was turned.’

  ‘Prove it,’ said Gunnar.

  ‘You may be a liar but your wife’s not. She’s the only one here who’s always told me the truth,’ I said.

  Briet squeezed my hand, a broken Eve in a fallen Eden, and smiled at her husband. It broke his heart.

  ‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said. ‘She did her best to protect all of your children, damned her own soul to do it. Even when she was broken she was stronger than me. I thought it was all over, then Bjorn got sick, so I went back to the honey store. When I couldn’t get in I broke off a tree branch, pushed it through the window and smashed the jars.’

  ‘I know. I heard the sound of it in my dreams,’ I said.

  Terrible things are done in the name of love.

  Chapter Fourteen

  On our last morning at Tresgo I found Olaf outside his much desired church. He looked morose, not his usual good-natured self at all.

  ‘You got it built,’ I said. ‘That’s at least one happy ending.’

  ‘Is it? No one uses it except Asif and the children. I built it for all but no one seems to have any use for it.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘So it’s happened.’

  Olaf turned to me with a quizzical look.

  ‘Places that are for all are for none. People are odd in that way,’ I said.

  ‘It looks like I’ll have to find an apple tree to preach under after all,’ Olaf said, and sighed. ‘At least we’ve built a school, I suppose. Reeve, something’s been bothering me. How did Pia get to her mother’s poisoned honey? The door of the workshop was always locked if Gudrun wasn’t in it, and Pia’s such a tiny little thing. How did she reach the window?’

  ‘Do you remember that in Gudrun’s house we found a charred log and a piece of twine? There was a knot in the wood. It was loose and rattled. When I pressed it, it fell out, leaving a hole. A hole where you could pass through the twine and knot it. Pia’s a highly intelligent little girl. She used this wood as a step, climbed through the window and pulled the wood in after her. She did the same to get to the honey shelf.’

  Olaf whistled softly and shook his head.

  ‘When Pia’s better you can ask her yourself. Freyja says the children will be up and about any day now.’

  ‘Thank God in his mercy’ Olaf said, then looked uncomfortable. ‘Reeve, could I have the cross back?’

  ‘I lost it.’

  He sighed. ‘And you didn’t find any elves?’

  ‘I’m sorry. But I’d still keep people off Piskelli. It’s a very dangerous place, even for a Reeve. What will your Prior do with Briet?’

  ‘She’s to be taken to the abbey and given rest and peace. Gunnar and the children are going with her. No one wants her punished, not even Magnus. I don’t think there’s more we could do to her that life hasn’t already done.’

  ‘That’s a good decision, he may make a head man yet.’

  ‘Has Asif Ink Finger spoken to you?’

  I smiled at the name, it was such a succinct description of a studious man who wa
s always covered in ink stains.

  ‘He’s told me he wants to stay. It seems his vocation is teacher, not Reeve.’

  ‘We’ll be happy to have him. He’s made friends here. And so have you,’ he said, smiling up at me. ‘Jude the Risastórt.’

  Aaron was waiting for me at the quay. He paced for a while, then turned to face me. ‘I’ve been considering it and I probably need to thank you,’ he said.

  ‘For the money? I said. ‘We burned your stock. You deserved to be paid for it.’

  ‘That was a shitty thing to do you suspicious fucker so I’m not thanking you for that,’ he said. ‘But I’m grateful I’m not dead. If you hadn’t put me under watch and another child had died, there’s a chance I might have been hung in your absence.’

  ‘I never truly suspected you, but you are a liar of sorts aren’t you?’

  He gave me a long steady look. ‘And you’re a clever bastard. You know Pia’s my child.’

  ‘I do. Why was she adopted by Gudrun?’

  ‘Lilia died having her. Her husband was already dead. He was a violent bastard, beat the shit out of her. Broke her arm and jaw the last time he got in a rage. Died of poison, they say … visiting the abbey at Tingale, just after he saw the doctor for the pox he’d picked up from some whore. I am a bad man, Reeve, but I’ll die here an old man with nothing more to confess than kicking that evil shit out of the world. I don’t regret it, or giving Pia up. Truth is, I don’t like children very much. They bore me. It doesn’t mean I don’t love the little sod but I can’t stand the prattle of children. It’s so brainless. It’s good she’s staying with Freyja. How did you know Pia’s mine?’

  ‘She’s clever, resourceful and ruthless.’

  Aaron laughed and shook his head. ‘Blood will out.’

  I was at sea when Olaf preached his first sermon under the boughs of a pear tree. On the lowest branch he found hung suspended a chased golden cross with a garnet glowing at its centre. It was the first miracle the good Brother had ever witnessed. Those islands bear strange fruit.