“Come down from the tree quietly and slowly,” I told the boys.
They came and joined me in patting the horse. “If you look in the cart, there might be brushes for her.”
Dan went and came back with the stiff-toothed curry comb and the long-haired dandy brushes cradled in his arms. I showed them how to work the curry comb in circles over the horse’s body, how it shook off loose dirt and old skin. She was tall for them, so Dan climbed on Maro’s back to get at her shoulders.
“She should get brushed every day,” I told them.
“That’s what Pa said. He and Heino came back today, but Heino’s in the village, selling.”
“This is Pa’s horse?”
Dan nodded, but they were deep in their task.
I left them and pushed through the hedge.
Melina and Sarai were cooking a stew over an open fire—as the weather warmed, we had started cooking outside. Although we usually ate on chairs made of stumps, today they had laid out a blanket a few feet away, on top of which lay a spread of leaven bread, candied ginger and chestnuts and ripe peaches. Pa sat on the blanket as well, playing slap-jacks with Telka. His hands lay lightly over hers and every few seconds she’d try to slap down on them, breaking into giggles each time.
When they saw me come in, Melina and Sarai regarded me with uneasy respect, as if I were somehow different and formidable. Telka flung herself at my legs. I gave her a kiss on the top of her head before she ran back to Pa. Being away from her for snatches of time made me see more clearly how she was growing. The baby-roundness of her face was slowly fading into Melina’s delicately pointed chin. I felt a small twinge. For those who knew us well, she would not be my miniature as she grew, but Bettina’s.
“Lizbet,” my father said, his face split in a wide grin. “As promised, a share of the reward!” He sat Telka down on the blanket beside him and untied a small leather purse from his belt. He flung it to me and I caught it. It was heavy for its size. I teased open the drawstring and found the dull glint of gold and silver inside.
I couldn’t help letting out a little gasp and my heart went tight. It was more money than I had ever seen. At home we didn’t get so much for our medicine, and the money went into the coffer or was turned into meat and bread. With this much gold, a person could run away, set up a shop or a house or a herd. I took a few steps forward and held the purse out to Pa. Lording it over me, I thought. That would be just like him.
He shook his head.
“It’s yours,” Pa said. “I hope you don’t mind that I spent a few coins on the horse and cart.”
“No…no,” I switched to Gersan, “of course not.”
“They bought the horn and wanted more.” He stood up and came to me. We were talking business, and he wanted it to be conducted in private. We strolled over to the lambing pens on the other side of the oak tree. “I said my lass could call the unicorns to her.”
“They…they believed you?”
He put a hand to his chest and gave a neat bow. “I am known as an honest merchant of rare things.”
My heart gave another squeeze. Why not? said a small voice in my head. Picking up a horn here or there…we could make a fortune. But then I remembered Julian and his fine clothes, the arquebus he brought hunting, though it was made for the battlefield. If he had no respect for me, who shared his blood, hunters like him would have no respect for the animals they hunted or the people who sought to protect them.
“You cannot sell any more horns whole!”
He frowned. I was ruining his fun. “Don’t be absurd. They paid just to see the horn. Before I sold it, I made an obscene amount just letting people touch it! You should see their eyes light up, even as they part with their money.”
“Fair enough, Pa. But I’ve been in this business longer and I know it. Ma sold ointment made from the alicorn. We lived well and helped many folk.”
“I saw your face when you looked in that purse. You’ve never lived this well.”
“We never told the secret of the unicorns. Like this…You’ll attract the wrong kind of attention.” I had to translate the danger to the unicorns into terms he would understand. “It was our medicine that gave us a reputation and kept us safe.”
“Don’t be a little idiot, Lizbet. For ointment, you need jars, grease…it costs time and material to produce. The horn doesn’t need anything. I made twenty gold pieces for the whole thing and fifteen silver showing it off. A king’s ransom. No.”
“Hunters and kings won’t let someone as lowly as you get the glory.”
His body tensed up, his lower lip pushed out and his brow lowered. In Telka it would be laughable, but for a moment I was afraid he would hit me. Instead, he walked around in a circle, came back and gave the fencepost a great kick. The fence shuddered under my hands.
I stayed frozen where I was.
“You don’t scare me,” I said. Though I felt close to tears, I wasn’t going to cower. I narrowed my eyes and looked over, ready to stare him down.
“Find me another horn, Lizbet.” He was smiling again, careful and controlled.
I held out the purse to him again, though it was worth a future for a girl like me.
He shook his head. “Keep it. Think about it. Think about what you can get with money like that. It’s summer now, an easy season. But summer will come to an end and times will be hard. This family does not suffer shirkers. You will have to help us as we have helped you. And as soon as you spend a coin in that purse, one coin, mind you, understand that we have a deal.”
I felt a jag of fear in the bones of my arms, the muscles in my shoulders. At home, I had known what I had offered, but here, Pa was right. I didn’t give anything much to the family and yet they had fed me and clothed me.
The next day proceeded normally—that is, I pretended it was normal for me to stay inside on a sunny day to help my sisters with their work.
Pa played along. He saw the purse tied at my waist. He knew that I was tempted despite myself. He whistled as he went out to tend the vegetable patch with the boys.
I wished that Torun were there, that I had time before the sun went down to go to him and ask him what was happening. But at the heels of that wish, I remembered Bettina and her tear-stained face. I didn’t want to see him—how could I tell him about what I knew? Should I? Instead, I carded wool. I even worked a little on one of the small looms for making ribbons. I concentrated on making an even strip of red. Nothing fancy. I watched my sisters. They traded songs and rhymes, and my ribbon grew inch by inch.
“You’re not horrible,” Sarai told me. I almost blushed at the compliment, but she continued. “Still, you’d be better off in the forest getting more horns.”
“I can’t,” I said. “It will bring hunters and rich men.”
“I don’t care,” Sarai said. “That could be a good thing. I could sell my cloth to them.”
“But you don’t understand!”
“Don’t I?” Sarai snapped. “Tell me, then!”
“He’s offered me money if I can get more uksarv horns. But it feels wrong to sell my…my talent…when he’s so greedy.”
“What do you expect, Lizbet?” Sarai’s voice was harsh. “Pa is never going to let us have any sort of freedom unless he gets his cut of the money first. Bettina understood that…why can’t you?”
“Bettina gave us luck,” Telka said into the silence, as she worked on her small handloom. “That’s what Pa says. Sarai, if she didn’t go to the Alvina, you wouldn’t have gotten so good at weaving,” Telka added with desperate certainty.
“Right,” Sarai said, her voice torn between sarcasm and bitterness. She turned back to the loom and started weaving in a great clatter. In her anger, she counted her threads wrong, swore and started again.
Telka didn’t have the spirit to fight back. She ducked her head and started to work quietly.
Between the sounds of their weaving, I listened to the little house in the trees creak and shift with the wind. Bettina had gone to the Alvina. What did that mean? When I saw her, she had looked angry and almost…almost wild. So, where was she? Where had she gone? The forest? But I had been there and hadn’t seen a thing. I thought of the skull I had found years ago. Perhaps I wasn’t looking in the right places.
But the thud of hooves interrupted my thoughts. I wouldn’t have time to plan ahead.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Old Magic
We piled out on the portico. I was worried that Sida had come to me, but Telka and even Sarai were excited by the possibility. Melina followed us so that she could round us up and send us inside.
Heino trotted in on a roan nag. I had a moment to wonder how much of my money had already been spent between the two of them and then Heino said something that sent the others into a panic.
“The old woman says it’s her time,” he shouted up to us. It took me a moment to remember Velni-Ani. My sisters’ and brothers’ grandmother who had called me Alvinaisik.
Melina gasped. She turned extremely pale, but the edges of her nostrils and the rims of her eyes were flushing pink. Heino dismounted and tossed his reins to Maro, as if he had been riding horses all his life. Or, more likely, as if he’d been an arrogant man all his life.
“They told me that you would host the supper, Melina. You’re the next oldest in the family.”
“When?” Melina said, her voice soft and flat.
“Tomorrow.” There was a pause as Heino pushed through the hedge and climbed up to us. “I think I’ll stay here tonight,” he said. “No point in going back now.”
Melina opened the door and rushed inside. We followed, leaving Pa and the boys to help Heino in.
As soon as Heino entered, I felt his eyes flick-flick-flicking from the loom to Sarai’s discontented face to Melina’s silent and swift movement from the hearth to the table. She picked up jars and dishes and put them down again, unsure what to do first.
I stood by the door without an idea of where to put my body. He saw me watching and winked.
Sarai rubbed at her right eye with the heel of her hand. “Does she have anything to wear?”
Heino shook his head. “She said you had shawls…” he trailed off. He and Pa exchanged glances. I imagined they considered these shawls as potential merchandise, not family possessions.
Melina nodded. She went to the alcove where her bed was, and pulled out the flat, rectangular box that lay underneath. This was where she kept her best pieces. She opened the lid and lifted out a neat stack of cloths. She pulled out one, two, three, four white shawls with long, trailing fringes. One of the shawls had a faint, reddish-brown smear on the edge, but Melina handled this one with the most care. Then she took out a shawl of joyous red with a fringe that was yellow like goldenrod.
“Do they have the food?” Melina asked.
“Yes. But she asked you to make honey cakes.”
Melina’s and Sarai’s eyes met for a long moment.
“And she couldn’t give us more warning?” Sarai said. Her voice was wet and angry enough for both herself and her mother.
“Is…is there a way I can help?” I said into the silence that followed.
Melina looked up at me with an expression that was close to hatred. Sarai put her hand over her mother’s.
“Go make supper. Take Telka.”
As I passed with Telka, Heino showed me his teeth. They were tiny, the milk teeth of a small child. Any child in Heino had died long ago. How could Pa be such a fool to bring him here? Telka’s hand squeezed tighter around mine. Neither of us liked being near him.
Telka and I worked on the meal quietly. We fetched water and built up the fire next to the summer kitchen, a three-walled shed. I sent Telka with Maro and Dan to pick string beans, a few onions, and handfuls of dill and parsley. Then I chopped and fried the string beans and onions in mutton fat. Telka and the boys fed the fire and watched my progress hungrily, as they perched on seats made of sawed-down trunks. We ignored the muffled explosions of conversation in the house above us.
“Can we have dumplings, Lizbet?” Maro asked.
“The flour is in the house,” I said. Then I remembered something. “Your Ma is making honey cakes. Ask if you can eat them.”
The children exchanged uneasy glances.
Maro cleared his throat. “Those are for the Alvina,” he said.
“I thought the Alvina were a story.” I said.
Maro looked at Dan with his eyebrows raised. “Of course they’re not!”
Dan tugged at one of his curls. “Maybe we can have eggs…I’ll see if the hens laid any.” He walked away and Telka trotted after him.
Maro was watching the sizzling onions and beans intently.
I cleared my throat. “At the village, they were mean to me. They thought I was an Alvinaisik.”
“People don’t like the Alvina to come here. We go to them,” Maro said. He picked up a stick and poked at the fire. Then he pushed the stick into the red, glowing heart of the flames and stood up. “I better get the fire in the oven ready if they’re baking honey cakes.” He walked away to the little brick oven on the other side of the summer kitchen. I was left to chop herbs and think. How was Velni-Ani going to meet the Alvina? How could Melina feel, knowing her mother was leaving her?
While I had made dinner with the younger children, Sarai and Melina had been busy at work with their own preparations. The next morning, all we had to do was obey their directions.
We set up a trestle table and rolled the trunk stools around it. We laid out a tablecloth and set onto it dishes filled with the treats Pa had bought in town, a platter of honey cakes, several links of smoked sausage and a set of thimble-sized cups, a tumbler, and a jug filled with fruit brandy. The boys scoured the grass for lingering sheep pats and took them to the midden heap in the back corner of the vegetable patch.
Having done all of this, we had nothing to do but change into our best clothes and wait. Melina lay down on her bed and drew the curtain. It took Sarai two deep breaths to go from satisfied with her work to anxious and bored. She took a handloom out onto the shady western side of the portico and told Telka and me to do the same. “No point in wasting time,” she said as she started to work. Beside us, the boys carved spoons.
The air was still and humid. I felt the sweat prickle and form on my forehead, on the back of my knees.
I thought I heard my heart beating louder.
Tun-tun, tun-tun.
Telka turned her head to listen. No, it was not my heart. Sarai’s hands slowed on her loom and she stood up from her stool. I followed her around to the section of the portico facing east towards the village.
Tun-tun, tun-tun. And now I could hear a low, steadily alternating whine.
The scrawny drummer and the old fiddler from the wedding emerged from the eastern forest. Behind them walked Rina and her mother supporting Velni-Ani between them. Lastly came a group of villagers headed by Rina’s snub-nosed husband, Giron, all carrying baskets of food.
“Mama,” Sarai called. “They’re here.”
She ran to the ladder and clambered down. Not knowing what to do, I watched from above.
Sarai tore across the yard, but as she reached the hedge, she paused to catch her breath. She disappeared through the bushes and emerged on the other side with her hair neat and her hands folded in front of her. The party of villagers met her and she bowed her head to them. The fiddler stopped to speak, but the drummer kept his rhythm. Tun-tun, tun-tun. Sarai nodded again and returned to the house. She climbed the ladder angrily, and it shook as she pulled herself up. I followed her to the door, but she didn’t go into the house. Inside, Melina stood, frozen over the hearth. She had heard the drum; she had been waiting with folded shawls in her arms.
“I
t’s time,” Sarai said. “Maro, Dan, come. Telka, you stay inside. You’re too young. Lizbet, look after her.”
The boys climbed down the ladder and began greeting the villagers.
Telka’s brow puckered. She went to her mother who stood in the doorway, but Melina simply shook her head and left us, one arm clutched around the bundle in her arms.
Telka tried again, turning to Sarai. “I want to go.”
Sarai dug at her eye with her fingers. “No.” Then she began climbing down.
Telka turned to me. “I don’t want to go in. It’s too hot.”
I nodded. We crouched down and looked through the slats of the portico railing as Melina and Sarai showed the village men and women to the trestle table. They laid down their food and the warm air filled with the hum of conversation. The drum and fiddle ended their melody with a flourish.
The villagers formed a circle around Velni-Ani, and Sarai poured brandy into the small cups. Velni-Ani’s tumbler was far larger than the rest, and she had to hold it in both hands to keep her wrists from trembling. After drinking deeply, she began a song in a wavering, broken voice and they all joined in. I couldn’t understand the words and couldn’t tell whether they were nonsense sounds or an older dialect.
After the song was done, they tossed back the drink and Sarai poured another round.
They sang and drank a second and a third time.
Velni-Ani nodded. She held out her hand and beckoned to Melina.
Melina held out the shawls, one by one, for the closest female kin. White for Rina. White for Rina’s mother. White for Sarai and Melina. Joyous red for the grandmother. They folded themselves into the shawls, covering their hair. The tassels hung down to the hem of their skirts and trembled with each movement. After the women had adorned themselves and Sarai picked up the plate of honey cakes, the party made their way out of the family enclosure.
“Lift me up to see,” Telka said. So, with Telka’s milky breath on my cheek and her fat arms pressing into my neck, we watched.
The drummer took up his rhythm and the fiddler began to pull her bow across the strings. The women walked downhill, towards the river. Rina and Sarai held hands to make a seat for the old woman, and they carried her across the shallow water. Their shawl fringes trailed behind them, touching the water, flinging droplets upward with each step. On the other side, they put her down and the party kept walking along the path I knew so well.
The Changeling of Fenlen Forest Page 17
