Silvermay

by James Moloney

  ‘I’ve raised her from a piglet. She’s going to feed the guests when my son marries in the autumn. You’re not taking her.’

  Delit was too angry for his own good. He came on three more paces towards the lord, enough to make the sentinel step in his way. A heavy sword was already in the man’s hand and if Delit went any closer his head would soon be rolling free in the mud. The sight of the sword finally brought sense to the poor man’s mind and he backed away, but he still wouldn’t give up on his precious pig.

  ‘What of my son’s wedding? There’ll be nothing on the table. Leave the pig, my lord, so the whole village can feast on my boy’s wedding day.’

  Norbett’s answer came quickly. ‘That sow will make a fine feast, I’m sure, but it will be at my table, not yours. Now fetch the pig at once, and you can help load it into my wagons for your trouble.’

  The callous reply was too much for Delit Sweetmead. Fear of the sentinel’s sword kept him well back but it didn’t stop his tongue. He let loose with a barrage of curses fiery enough to burn the thatched roofs Tamlyn had spent so long mending. He raged on, his words angrier and fouler with every breath, until suddenly, in mid-sentence, he fell to the ground and began to writhe from side to side. His face contorted in agony and his curses were replaced by the moans of a tormented beast.

  No one dared go near him. The only man to move was the Wyrdborn in the grey vest who strolled a few steps into the wide space that had opened up around Delit Sweetmead. His hands remained by his sides but his eyes focused harshly on his victim.

  I’d heard of the Wyrdborns’ terrible magic but had never seen it at work before. The sight sickened me; for the pain it brought to a man who’d done no more than protest in anger, and even more for the way the entire village stood by, utterly helpless.

  Religo Norbett watched with a faint air of disgust, then turned his eyes away from the groaning Delit to the villagers. This was a warning to anyone else who challenged his right to steal away the harvest. But when Delit began to clutch at his throat and the unmistakable gasps of a choking man filled our ears, he called to the Wyrdborn, ‘That’s enough.’

  Delit continued to gag. His face was turning blue.

  ‘Do you hear me? Let him up!’ Norbett shouted, but the wizard didn’t want to hear him. His face shone with a brutal glee in what he was doing. Delit would certainly have died if the second Wyrdborn hadn’t stepped in and released him.

  What happened next fascinated me as much as it frightened me. As my father and two others rushed to help Delit, the Wyrdborn in the grey vest turned on the other. ‘What are you doing? You broke the enchantment!’

  ‘You’d gone too far. Norbett called enough.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to kill him. You should have stayed out of it.’

  ‘Not when a fool like you loses his head.’

  For a fearful moment it seemed the two Wyrdborn would draw their swords and hack at one another. Men had already begun to back away in case they were caught up in the struggle.

  ‘Come to your senses, both of you,’ said the religo in a voice I’d heard parents use on warring children.

  Even then, the grey-vested man insisted on a last word. ‘If you interfere with my magic again, I’ll put that sword of yours through your ribs.’

  So my father’s stories were true. When he’d first told me of the Wyrdborn who lived among us, I had listened wide-eyed and shaking with fear that one person could be more powerful than a hundred. Then, as I grew older and learned more of the world, I began to question him.

  ‘The king must be a Wyrdborn, then,’ I said. ‘To rule over so many, his magic would have to be stronger than the rest, wouldn’t it?’

  To my surprise, my father shook his head. ‘You would think so, yes, but our king is not Wyrdborn, and neither are the lords who steal our harvest. They are commonfolk like you and me.’

  He could see that this didn’t make sense to me so, with a grim smile, he explained further. ‘The Wyrdborn have great powers, but their weaknesses are almost as strong. Each thinks only of himself, and that makes every one of them greedy for what his powers alone can win. Because of this, they trust no one, they betray their allies as soon as it suits them and they are forever getting into petty squabbles with other Wyrdborn just as powerful as themselves. No one Wyrdborn can ever dominate, because there are so many who would immediately be jealous of his power.’

  ‘Are they all men?’ I asked.

  ‘No, no. Women as well, and they can be just as heartless.’

  The only Wyrdborn I had seen came with the lord on his yearly visit.

  ‘Do any live in the villages around Haywode?’ I asked.

  My father shook his head again. ‘Most drift towards an easy life in castles and palaces where rulers employ them instead of soldiers. Clever lords keep three or four Wyrdborn, and never less than two.’

  ‘Why’s that? Why do they always have two?’

  That sad, knowing smile was back on his face. I couldn’t have been more than ten years old when we had this talk but he trusted me to understand. ‘If you have one servant who is more powerful than you, especially one who cares only for himself, he might kill you and take all you have as his own. But if you have two, and they are forever suspicious of one another, then a clever lord can play one against the other, so that each obeys in order to stop his companion gaining an advantage.’

  I had seen the sense in this, but until that day when Delit Sweetmead almost choked to death, I had never seen the ruthless balance of Wyrdborn power with my own eyes.

  The loading of the wagons began. I stood watching with the rest of the village until the sight made me too angry to stay any longer. As I reached our door, I glanced down the lane and saw something that didn’t just make me angry, it scared me more than anything I had ever seen. The Wyrdborn who’d come so close to killing Delit Sweetmead was prowling among the houses. And he’d found Hespa.

  Even from this distance I could hear her giggling at the things he said. The easy stance of her lithe figure showed she was charmed by him or by his magic, at least. That was something else I’d learnt from stories about the Wyrdborn. They weren’t content to win a girl’s heart like commonfolk. They used enchantments to create instant infatuation.

  ‘What is it, Silvermay, what have you seen?’ called Birdie, coming quickly to the door. Her face went white in an instant.

  ‘We can’t let him take her,’ I whispered.

  ‘And he won’t,’ she said, setting off towards Hespa and the Wyrdborn.

  She hadn’t managed three steps of this brave march before a hand took tight hold of her shoulder. We both turned to see Tamlyn had come out through the doorway.

  ‘Stay here, Birdie,’ he said, easing his grip. ‘And you, too, Silvermay.’

  Then he was gone so quickly there was no time to argue, no time to warn him, although he surely knew how dangerous the Wyrdborn could be. That made his action even more foolhardy. He advanced on the pair with long, determined strides, and this only doubled my fear because he looked so much like a brother come to rescue his sister, or, worse still, a jealous lover who wanted to chase off a rival. It was exactly the kind of confrontation the Wyrdborn relished.

  Before Birdie could stop me, I went closer. She hissed and seethed but I wouldn’t turn around and so she followed me. My head-start meant I had almost reached the three figures at the end of the lane before she caught me. There, with a clear view of their faces and our ears close enough to hear, we stopped and waited and hoped.

  To my surprise, Hespa was no longer smiling and playing the girlish flirt. In fact, she was frowning unhappily under the Wyrdborn’s heavy gaze, and when he reached out to touch her elbow she flinched in revulsion.

  ‘My lord, Hespa is happy living here with her family, who would miss her terribly if you take her away,’ said Tamlyn in a sonorous voice that sounded reasonable rather than challenging. ‘She’s better off here instead of going with you to the religo’s castle.’

 
; Spoken gently or not, this was defiance of the Wyrdborn. Tamlyn would pay a terrible price. Yet I could see the man’s face as clearly as Hespa’s and there was none of the rage I expected. He looked more confused than angry.

  ‘But think of the luxuries I offer you, girl. And you won’t starve through the winter, either.’

  ‘Hespa wants to stay here,’ Tamlyn repeated.

  The Wyrdborn rounded on him. ‘Quiet, you, or I’ll have the tongue out of your mouth,’ and he snatched a dagger from his belt as though he would do it anyway, out of spite.

  There was no step backward as anyone else would have done. No sign of fear. Tamlyn held the man’s gaze, remaining silent, as commanded, but unmoved by the vicious threat.

  The Wyrdborn calmed a little, much to my own relief. ‘I’ll ask you again, girl, and this time you must answer for yourself.’

  He paused and, though magic works silently and without any visible signs, I could sense the enchantment he pressed on her. Her eyes brightened, there was a hint of the silly smile I’d glimpsed earlier.

  ‘Will you come with me when the wagons are ready?’ he asked.

  Hespa’s future lay in a single word. I could barely watch. Then, as quickly as the signs had appeared, they vanished. Hespa’s face hardened and she began to tremble. ‘No, sir. I want to stay here.’

  That wasn’t the end of it, surely. A man like him didn’t let others decide. If a girl refused him, he could simply scoop her onto his horse and ride off. But this didn’t happen, either. Instead, Tamlyn risked speaking again.

  ‘The wagons are loaded, my lord. They are waiting for you. Shall I help you onto your horse?’

  The man’s chestnut mare appeared behind him, as though it had been summoned by magic. Tamlyn cupped his hands and, accepting the Wyrdborn’s muddy boot onto his palms, boosted him into the saddle. He bowed submissively and was repaid with a savage kick that left him sprawled in the mud. Then the grey-vested Wyrdborn rode away to join Religo Norbett, leaving Tamlyn no more than bruised and muddy on the ground and my dear friend Hespa free to help him up.

  6

  A Hawk Among the Trees

  Once Religo Norbett and his wagons had disappeared along the road, Hespa had little memory of her encounter with the Wyrdborn. All that remained was a deep sense of dread that left her weeping and barely able to stand. Birdie and I helped her home, and I stayed to comfort my friend. By evening, her fear had lifted and, better still, our argument was behind us. No one was happier about that than me.

  Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened back there in the lane. It was as though Tamlyn had simply talked the vile man out of stealing Hespa away. How had he done it? Whatever skill he’d used, it had taken great courage to approach a Wyrdborn the way he did. Part of me wished the entire village had been there to see it, but, for Hespa’s sake, Birdie and I would never say a word.

  That didn’t mean the name ‘Piet’ stayed long from our lips when Hespa and I met the next day. As ever, I was nursing my little Smiler after his morning feed.

  ‘You were right,’ I admitted with a sheepish grin. ‘I had all sorts of silly dreams about him.’

  ‘Me, too,’ she said. ‘But now that he’s been here nearly three weeks, I don’t feel the same. He never looks at anyone but Nerigold and you, so there’s not much point.’

  ‘And he only looks at me when I have this one in my arms,’ I said, holding up the baby. ‘My heart is behaving itself, too,’ I added. ‘It was just his good looks that attracted me and I’m past that now, same as you. He’ll take Nerigold away down the road sooner or later, and in a week, or a month, I’ll have forgotten all about him. The sooner the better, really.’

  How much of that was true? I didn’t want to examine it too deeply, preferring to laugh about the infatuation that had driven Hespa and me apart.

  I played with the bundle in my arms. ‘When are you going to smile for me?’ I asked him. ‘My cheeks are aching from showing you how.’

  No baby can really understand what is said to him, everyone knows that. But this didn’t stop Hespa’s cry of delight when Lucien’s round face immediately broke into the most wonderful smile.

  ‘He heard you, he heard you,’ she laughed.

  I was too astonished to correct her. We hurried inside and gave Lucien to his mother, hoping he would melt her heart with the same gorgeous bow of his lips.

  ‘You said I was wasting my time, that it would be months,’ I reminded Birdie.

  She humphed loudly. ‘It was wind. You’re not the first to mistake a burp for a smile.’

  But Smiler seemed to enjoy his new skill. With his mother there to see, he produced another beautiful grin. Nerigold burst into tears. If I hadn’t felt so triumphant over my mother, I would have done the same.

  Birdie made a face that combined surprise with a rare concession that she’d been wrong. She inspected Lucien for a few moments then walked away saying, ‘He’s a big lump for only four weeks.’

  I’d told Hespa that Tamlyn meant nothing to me. Early the next morning I had a chance to prove it to myself when Birdie dropped a basket into my arms.

  ‘Mushrooms — those big ones from the edge of the wood are the best,’ she said brusquely, but she was smiling, too. She knew it was my favourite chore.

  I loved the misty silence among the trees before others came to disturb my solitude, so I was disappointed to see another figure some way off, gathering firewood. My harvesting took me closer and I saw it was Tamlyn, and my disappointment vanished a little too quickly. It wouldn’t matter if I watched him for a while, I decided. He wouldn’t even know I was there.

  He worked hard, much harder than I was doing looking for mushrooms, until a large bird flew low over his head and settled on a fallen log only ten paces from where he’d laid his bundle. It was a hawk, I was sure of it, which surprised me because hawks didn’t usually enter the woods. Their wide wings and breathtaking speed were better suited to fields and plains.

  With its powerful wings folded away, the bird eyed Tamlyn for a few moments, before filling the forest with a single sharp cry. Tamlyn stopped adding branches to his pile and stared at it, seeming as puzzled as I was. Slowly, so that the bird didn’t fly off in fright, he took off his vest and wrapped it around his left arm. When this was done, he called softly to the bird, holding up his swathed forearm. To my open-mouthed astonishment, the hawk flapped the short distance to drop its talons onto this makeshift perch.

  There, it bobbed its head up and down and from side to side, its beak working open and closed like shears. I couldn’t hear anything, and my knowledge of hawks told me they weren’t singers, but that’s exactly what it seemed to be doing.

  Tamlyn waited, solemn-faced, until this strange performance was over. Then, moving his right hand almost faster than my eye could follow, he grabbed the hawk by its neck and used his freed hand to wrench its head savagely sideways. The hawk fluttered pathetically for a moment or two once he’d let it fall to the ground, but there was no doubt it was dead.

  I gasped in outrage. He turned and spotted me among the trees. ‘Silvermay!’ he called in surprise.

  I tramped through the underbrush towards him. ‘How could you do such a thing!’ I shouted. ‘My father calls them the lords of the sky. They’re magnificent birds — just look at the one you’ve killed!’

  I’d reached him by now and seeing the poor creature so close, its outstretched wings that would never fly again, only doubled my fury. ‘A bird as tame as that can be useful, too. Father could have trained it to hunt rabbits in the winter. After that robbing lord carried off so much of our grain, we could do with some extra food.’

  It was more than the senseless killing that disgusted me; it was the brutal way he’d dispatched the bird. I’d never thought someone as gentle and heroic as Tamlyn could do such a thing.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to witness it, Silvermay,’ he said unhappily.

  ‘What kind of apology is that?’ I railed at him. ‘I don’t
hear any regret that you wrung the bird’s neck.’

  ‘It had to be done,’ he said with the same sadness.

  That made no sense to me at all, but he wouldn’t answer any more of my angry questions. Instead, he lifted the bundle of firewood onto his back and headed towards the village.

  I was too upset to follow him and, besides, Birdie wouldn’t listen to any excuses if I returned with so few mushrooms. Picking enough to fill the basket took time and let my temper cool, which was no bad thing considering the news that awaited me when I finally returned.

  ‘They’re leaving,’ Birdie told me as I dumped the mushrooms onto the table.

  All thoughts of Tamlyn’s cruelty vanished. ‘No, it’s too soon,’ I said in a rush. Sometimes, what you truly feel comes only when you’re caught by surprise.

  ‘Yes, Nerigold is still too weak to travel,’ said Birdie, assuming that was what I’d meant. ‘Now come with me, Silvermay. I have something to tell you.’

  My mother tugged me by the elbow until we were outdoors and well down the lane. There she stopped, looked directly into my face and said, ‘You must go with them, to help Nerigold with the baby.’

  ‘No!’ It felt like the word had been torn from my throat. I swallowed hard, as though this would fill the void, but my desperation was just as strong. ‘No, Mother, don’t make me do this.’

  I couldn’t tell her that my reasons had nothing to do with Nerigold and my little Smiler. Everything I’d told Hespa was a delusion. My heart hadn’t given Tamlyn up at all, and now my own mother wanted to extend the torment.

  ‘Don’t make me do this,’ I begged a second time, and already tears were streaming down my cheeks.

  Birdie folded me into her arms and said into my ear, ‘I know why you’re so reluctant, Silvermay. You still think yourself in love. Well, this is your chance to show how strong that love is. Go with them, so the ones he loves will live to make him happy.’