Nocturne

by Louise Cooper

  She’d known from the first that it must eventually come to this, but had put the knowledge as far from her mind as possible, telling herself that there was no point in fretting over it before the time arrived. And now that the time had arrived, she didn’t know how she would find the words to say goodbye. They wouldn’t understand—they’d think she had grown tired of them, had been merely using them; and she’d never be able to explain the truth …

  “Indigo?”

  She raised her head and saw Chari looking at her with grave concern.

  “Are you all right?” Chari asked. “You look … well, strange.”

  “I’m—fine. Really, there’s nothing …”

  Indigo. Grimya spoke gently, sadly in her mind. I think you must tell them. They know something is wrong, and the moment will have to come soon anyway. Tell them, Indigo. It will be kinder for us all.

  Perhaps Grimya was right. If she prevaricated, her courage might fail her, and then where would she be? Chari was still watching her, unconvinced by her assurance, and Indigo took a deep breath.

  “Stead,” she said. “Everyone. There’s something I have to tell you.”

  Silence fell. They were all looking at her now, and suddenly the speech she was struggling to build in her mind collapsed.

  “Hey now, lass.” Stead leaned over and squeezed her arm. “What is it, eh? Come on; you can tell us. Aren’t we your good friends?”

  It was the worst thing he could have said, however unwitting, and Indigo felt stifling pain in the back of her throat. She opened her mouth, forcing herself to speak; started to say, “Stead, I—”

  And the words turned into a shocked oath as a distant, hideous and utterly unhuman wail rang out across the lea.

  Mugs crashed to the caravan floor and only Rance’s instinctive reflex stopped the little wood-stove from being toppled as everyone sprang to their feet.

  “Harvest Mother!” The hair on Forth’s scalp rose. “What was that?” He started towards the door, but Stead grabbed his arm.

  “Wait, boy! Let me look.” He shouldered past and flung the top of the door wide open. As he did so, the terrible sound began again; thin, eldritch, like the voice of a soul in monstrous torment. Chari moaned and tried to block her ears; Harmony and Honesty clung to each other, and Truth forgot his twelve-year-old bravado and stumbled across the floor to clutch at Indigo’s hand. As the ghastly sound died away again they heard shouts from other parts of the meadow; figures were silhouetted against the fires’ embers as other travelers scrambled up. Grimya, bristling, began to growl defensively—then for the third time the awful voice wailed out of the night, and from somewhere closer to the river bank a woman screamed.

  “It’s coming from somewhere across the river.” Stead wrenched open the lower door and raced down the caravan steps, Forth, Cour, and Esty at his heels. Before Indigo could call her back, Grimya had run after them, and all five were hurrying across the grass towards the bank.

  “Da!” Charity called, her voice stark with fear. “Da, be careful!”

  Grimya’s excited mental voice cut through the chaos in Indigo’s mind. The wolf had bounded ahead of the slower humans and had already reached the bank, where she stood with her muzzle raised to the wind. I can hear where the dreadful sound comes from, she said. It is a long way off, far across the river in the hills. And I can scent something; I can—Indigo! And Grimya’s voice broke into the physical world as she howled aloud.

  “Great Mother!” Indigo leaped down the steps. As she ran towards the river bank she heard a frightened wail from one of the other caravans as the two smallest girls woke, but she couldn’t stop to attend to them. She had felt the stunning mental surge of sheer terror that burst from Grimya’s mind as she howled, and an answering panic was rising in her own psyche.

  On the bank, Grimya was crouched low, ears back and snarling. Stead had tried to calm her but didn’t dare go too close, and as Indigo ran towards him he looked up in relief.

  “Damn my eyes, Indigo, she’s as frightened as any of us!”

  “Grimya!” Indigo dropped to her knees, hugging the wolf’s brindled head. “Hush! It’s all right!” And silently she added the urgent question, What did you sense?

  Grimya was shivering; she licked Indigo’s hand then nuzzled hard against her. I … don’t know. But I was afraid of it!

  “She’s all right,” Indigo told Stead, who was still watching her.

  “Then she’s the only one among us who is!” Stead’s face was ashen. The night was quiet again, but in the silence the echoes of the terrible wailing seemed to linger. More people were emerging from vans and tents and cautiously approaching the bank; a horse whinnied and gradually voices began to break the hiatus. There were whisperings, questions, shadowy figures clustering in small groups to debate and point across the river. Somewhere in the background more than one person was sobbing, a reflexive reaction to fear and shock.

  Stead stared out across the water. Softly, through clenched teeth, he hissed: “What in the names of a thousand curses is out there?”

  Cour shook his head emphatically. He, too, was white-faced. “Don’t ask, Da. Better not to know.”

  “No,” Forth interjected fiercely. “We should know.” He gestured wildly at the smooth, sliding water. “There’s something ugly over the river, Da, and I’d take any wager that it’s got some bearing on what’s going on in Bruhome! We shouldn’t just sit here like a flock of sheep—we should go after it, and find out what it is!”

  “Don’t be a dumb ox, boy,” Stead retorted angrily. “Whatever that thing is, it’s beyond our understanding!”

  “How do we know that unless we look?” Forth persisted. “Da, listen to me! If we take the ponies—you and me and Cour, and maybe even Rance if he’s got the stomach for it—and Indigo and Grimya; they’re both more than equal to most men; we can go and see for ourselves what’s to do!”

  Grimya said silently, but with terrible emphasis. No. And suddenly Indigo knew what the she-wolf had been trying to tell her but couldn’t articulate. She got to her feet.

  “No, Forth.”

  Forth turned, startled, and Stead stopped on the verge of a furious rebuttal. Neither of them had ever heard Indigo speak with such authority, and Forth scowled, annoyed by her intervention.

  “What d’you mean, no?” he demanded. “How else are we going to find out what’s out there? Or do you expect us to sit here and do nothing?”

  “Yes,” Indigo said. “If you’ve any wit, that’s exactly what I expect.”

  Stead started to say, “Look, lass—” but Forth interrupted him, angry now.

  “You listen to me, Indigo—”

  “No, Forth, you listen to me!” Her tone was sharply aggressive. “And for once, have the sense not to argue with those who know better than you do!” She paused. “None of you—none of you—should go in pursuit of whatever it is that’s out there. Not tonight, not tomorrow or any other night. Leave it alone. Do you understand me?”

  Forth was visibly taken aback. Others close enough to have overheard were watching them curiously, and to cover his chagrin he tried to make light of it. “Look, Indigo, I don’t blame you for being afraid, but—”

  “Yes, I’m afraid.” She cut across him. “And I’m ready to admit it—which makes me less of a fool than you!” And before he could respond, she turned on her heel and stalked away, back towards the caravans.

  Forth swore and, determined that she shouldn’t have the last word in such a way, made to start in pursuit—then stopped again, his stomach turning to water as the thin, eerie wailing rose again out of the night. This time it seemed that not one but fifty voices were moaning in desolate harmony; people cried out fearfully, backing away from the water’s edge—and the wailing subsided, fading until only one stark, tortured voice remained. For a moment a single note of deep agony echoed from the distant fells; then it, too, shivered away into nothing and was gone.

  Nearby, two men hugged themselves and bowed their he
ads in silent, fervent prayer. Forth and Stead met each other’s gazes, but neither could speak. Cour and Esty were holding tightly to each other’s hands, mute. At last, Stead broke the silence.

  “Go back to the vans.” There was a quiet authority in his voice that none of them would dare to flout. “Maybe none of us will sleep tonight, but we’ll bar the doors and keep the night at bay.” Esty and Cour started to move away and Forth would have followed them, but Stead held him back.

  “Forth.” His eyes were intense, and troubled. “I don’t like to see quarreling.”

  Forth flushed angrily. “She started it! Talking to me as if I was no better than a harvest-dance dumdolly—”

  “Maybe she overstepped the mark, but she thought she had good reason,” Stead said soberly. “She was only trying to act for the best; and for all any of us knows, she might be right. Make your peace with her, Forth, and don’t bear a grudge.”

  Forth hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “Yes, Da.”

  “Good lad.” Stead looked back over his shoulder to where the river flowed, smooth and peaceful. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt a strong conviction that there would be no more phantom voices; at least, not tonight. But as for tomorrow …

  “This has made up my mind for good and all,” he said quietly.

  “About leaving Bruhome?”

  “Yes. One more show, and we’ll be on our way.”

  There was a long pause. Then Forth said: “I’m glad, Da. I know I was the one who spoke against it, but …” He, too, looked at the river, and suppressed a shiver. ”Between you and me, I’m glad.“

  •CHAPTER•IV•

  The mood in the meadow encampment was deeply subdued the next morning. People greeted one another warily, and seemed anxious to avoid meeting a gaze directly; certainly no one was willing even to mention the events of the night, though the memory hung about the encampment like smoke.

  In Bruhome itself, however, the atmosphere was very different. The townsfolk, too, had heard the phantasmic sounds echoing out of the fells, but unlike the outsiders they made no secret of their fear. When Indigo, Chari, and Cour arrived at the morning market to buy provisions for the caravan, they found it thronged with people, talking, questioning, and speculating. It seemed as if every man, woman, and child in Bruhome had taken to the streets, seeking comfort and security in the company of their fellows. Or rather, Indigo amended grimly, every man, woman, and child not yet afflicted by the sickness. There had been nine more stricken during the night, so rumor had it; what had begun as an isolated phenomenon was threatening to become an epidemic, and the events of the night gave an extra, ugly dimension to the townsfolk’s terror. Some said—and the whisper was growing, creeping through the town—that the dreadful wailing had been the voices of disembodied souls, lost and wandering among the fells: the tortured spirits, perhaps, of the poor creatures who had vanished from their hearthsides since the blight began.

  Listening to the rumors, the tales, the fearful murmurings, Indigo tried not to think about the clash she had had with Forth at the river bank. Both Forth and Stead—and Cour and Esty, who had also witnessed it—had made no further reference to the incident, but the memory still struck a sour note in Indigo’s mind, and the talk rife in the town did nothing to diminish it. She hadn’t meant to belittle Forth; but at that moment, with Grimya’s warning resounding in her head and the after-echoes of that ghastly wailing still tainting the air, she had been frightened; and with good reason.

  Something dire and unclean had come to Bruhome. Indigo believed that she knew its essence if not its form, and she was determined that the Brabazons must be shielded from it at all costs. Forth’s reckless bravado was no match for this, and curiosity was a deadly trap. They had to move on. They had to leave her and Grimya behind and get away from Bruhome, before they became embroiled in something beyond their ability to understand, let alone control.

  “… do you think?” Cour’s voice broke into her mind. “Indigo?”

  She looked up blankly and realized that he’d asked her a question, but it hadn’t registered.

  “What?”

  Cour grinned. “Where were you? Behind the moon?”

  “I’m sorry.” She looked about her at the slightly faded festival garlands adorning walls and posts and awnings; suppressed a shiver. “I was looking at the flowers.”

  Cour raised his eyebrows. “I asked how much oatmeal you think we’ll need. One sack, or two? I don’t know how long it keeps.”

  Indigo struggled to drag herself back to mundane matters, but her brain wouldn’t respond. “I … don’t know, Cour. Best ask Chari.”

  He frowned. “Eh, what’s wrong? You look as if you’re in a trance!” And suddenly his expression grew alarmed. “Indigo, you’re not coming down with the sickness?”

  “No,” she assured him. “No, Cour.” Bruhome’s sickness wouldn’t afflict her, she knew that instinctively. Another, greater effort, and this time her mind cleared and the real world came back. “I’m all right.”

  “Ach, it’s the mood in this place.” Cour gestured helplessly about him. “It’s getting to us all, Indigo. I’m beginning to think Da ought to forget tonight’s show, and move out now. I know it sounds unkind, because these people need cheering; but … well, sometimes you have to put yourself first, don’t you?” He watched her face, anxious for approbation, and Indigo nodded.

  “I agree with you, Cour. In fact I’d speak to your father about it myself if I thought it’d make any difference.”

  “It might. Da’s more likely to listen to you than to anyone else, except maybe Chari.”

  Indigo scanned the faces milling around them, telling herself not to think about that, not to think about what it would mean; not yet … “Where is Chari, anyway?”

  Cour turned, looking back. “She was over there a minute ago, at the ironmonger’s stall. Said she wanted a new rivet for the big ladle; the handle’s coming off. But I can’t see her now. Chari?” He raised his voice. “Cha-RI!”

  A few people glanced up, but Chari was nowhere to be seen. Cour said something under his breath and started into the crowd, then stopped and pointed, grinning.

  “There she is. On the bench outside that tavern, resting her feet if you please, the lazy cat! Chari! Over here!”

  A suspicion, no more: but Indigo’s stomach contracted without her knowing why.

  “Chari?” And suddenly Cour’s expression changed. He began to move, shoving past surprised and indignant townsfolk as he hastened towards his sister. “Chari!”

  Chari was slumped on a wooden settle that fronted the lime-washed wall of one of Bruhome’s many alehouses. Her hemp bag, on the ground beside her, had tipped over and her purchases were spilling out, but she was oblivious to it: her head lolled at a drunken angle, strands of bright hair falling over her face, and her hands flapped weakly, helplessly, beyond her control.

  “Chari!” Cour reached her in a skidding slide, dropping to his knees and grabbing hold of her arms. “Chari, what is it? What’s amiss?”

  Indigo, catching up with him, bent over Chari and took her face between cupped hands, forcing the girl’s head up. Utterly empty eyes met her shocked gaze, and she knew, knew, before logic could take control, what it was.

  Chari’s face was deathly white. For a moment she stared unseeingly at Indigo, then her mouth curved downwards in a look of ineffable sorrow.

  “So sad,” she said, and there was deep wonder in her voice, a terrible, childlike innocence. “Ohh … so very sad …” And her body keeled sideways off the bench as consciousness fled.

  Cour caught her. “Chari!” He called her name harshly, desperately, shaking her. “Chari!”

  “Don’t!” Indigo reached out to stop him as he seemed about to crack Chari’s skull against the wall in his frantic urgency. “Cour, it’s no use! She—”

  And she stopped, abruptly aware of the people gathering around them, of the curious faces and, as fear changed to certainty, of the shock and sym
pathy and tide of fellow feeling.

  “… just like Goodwife Frenc’s girl…”

  “… so sudden, no one can ever predict when …”

  “… Burgher Mishyn ‘s little boy; you recall how he …”

  “Cour—” Amid the rising murmur Indigo heard her own voice and barely recognized it. “Go back to the meadow-fetch your father; run!” And, when it seemed that he was too stunned to comprehend fully, “Cour, don’t you understand? She’s got the sickness!”

  “What has she done to deserve it? Answer me that—what has my little girl ever done to deserve to be struck down in the bloom of her youth, at the height of her beauty, at—”

  “Da; Da, please.” Forth, who had come running with his father from the meadow, gripped his shoulders and shook him very gently, trying to stem the babbling flow of words. “Chari didn’t do anything. It’s just…” He looked up helplessly at the ring of concerned onlookers; Burgher Mischyn, brought from his nearby house by the commotion, shook his head sadly and others stared at the ground beneath their feet. “It’s bad luck, Da.” Forth finished miserably. “Just bad luck.”

  “Bad luck?” Stead sprang to his feet, furious. “The Brabazons don’t have bad luck! Good luck, that’s what’s always attended us! Even when your thrice-blessed mother was taken from us that wasn’t bad luck, that was the will of the Great Goddess and a reward for her after years of toil! We don’t have bad luck—not until now; not until we came to this forsaken midden of a town, with its blight and its sicknesses and—”

  “Da, stop it!” Forth shook him again, harder this time. “You don’t mean that, and you know you don’t! This isn’t Bruhome’s fault; they’re suffering as much as we are!”

  Stead’s face was almost purple. Tears ran down his cheeks and for a moment it seemed as if he would strike Forth; but after a moment a grain of reason struggled to the surface and he looked away, blinking.

  “You don’t understand,” he mumbled. “You don’t understand what it is to have children, and to love them and try to protect them, and—”

  “Steadfast, my good friend,” Burgher Mischyn stepped forward and put an arm about the distraught man’s shoulders. “There are many people here who do understand, and who sympathize with your suffering.” He sighed heavily. “If I had thought for one moment that this sickness might spread to our guests, then I would never have allowed the Revels to take place; I would have quarantined the town, I would have done anything … Stead, I am at fault, and I grieve for it!”