Dragonswood

by Janet Lee Carey

  At the table Old Weaver tugged his wool hat down over his ears. “Put the poker down, woman,” he ordered. She did, though with a grunt. Later, whilst the two men planned it all out, we sat with Alice between us. The child stuck to her grandmother like a limpet.

  “Mistress Dulcy,” I said, “have you seen my mother?”

  She nodded. “On washing day down at river.”

  I used to bring our washing to the riverside. Mother had to do it now. So soon after childbirth and she’s not strong. I felt a pang. “Does she… look well?” I had to know if Father used her as his punching bag now I was gone.

  Mistress Dulcy put her hand on my arm, smearing char from the poker on my sleeve. But she understood my question. “As well as ever,” she whispered over Alice’s head. “You might go see her.”

  Could I risk it? I sorely missed her, wanted desperately to see her, but I’d thought it too dangerous to stay any longer here than we had to, to fetch Alice. Now she’d said it, my heart ached. My father would be at the Boar’s Head this time of night. I might just sneak in, hold her in my arms, tell her not to worry, that I was all right. Across the kitchen Garth was awash in dim firelight. He put his foot up on a stool and rested his forearm on his knee as he spoke earnestly with the weaver. How strange it was to feel safe with a man yet not be confined by him, a feeling I was only beginning to grasp, one I was sure my mother had never known.

  “I will try, mistress.”

  She nodded.

  I gently clothed Alice. Dulcy sniffed as she packed her a small bag; the child did not own much. By the time I tied her cloak and put up the little hood, Alice was half asleep again, her little body slumping against me.

  When I picked her up to go, Dulcy gripped my arm. “When you see Tom, tell him he’s a good boy,” she said. “And tell him to come home as soon as ever he can.”

  “I will.” Tom would never come home. How could he? But I wouldn’t hurt her mother’s heart now she’d opened it to me.

  ALICE WAS ASLEEP again when we left Weaver’s. The hailstorm had ended, rain fell, but softly. Outside, I told Garth what I wanted to do.

  “Are you sure, Tess?”

  “It won’t take long, I promise.”

  We made a quick plan and stole through town with the sleeping child. Down the alley by our house, I pointed to the woodshed below my upstairs window. “You can hide here out of the rain and look out for my father. If you see him coming, toss a rock up to my window to warn me.”

  “How will you get out, Tess?”

  I nodded at the oak tree. “I have a way down. I’ve used it lots of times before.” All rested on Father’s nightly excursion to the Boar’s Head. I knew his habits, how long he stayed. I didn’t think he’d turn me in, but I wouldn’t visit long enough to risk his beery wrath. I’d never let him hurt me again.

  Through the kitchen window I caught Mother mending torn breeches by candlelight. My eyes welled seeing her at her sewing. I knocked. She opened the door and fainted straightaway. I caught her before she struck her head against the doorframe and quickly drew her back inside. When she woke, she whispered, “Tess. Thank God. Oh, thank God.”

  We were both crying for joy, but I knew we hadn’t much time. Leading her up the stairs to my room, I opened the window a crack, peered down at the shadowy figure holding a sleeping child. Quick as I could I told Mother of my journey north with Meg and Poppy. For her own protection I did not say where we were hiding, only that we were all safe for now.

  I looked closely at her in the spare candlelight, and was relieved to see no welts or bruises on her face.

  “You look well,” I whispered.

  “And you,” she said, fingering my fur-lined cloak and pretty gown. “You’re a lady now.”

  I shook my head. “No, Mother. Borrowed clothes.”

  “Borrowed?”

  “Don’t ask more. I can’t tell you. For your own good, I can’t say more.” Rain pattered the window—or was it a stone? I poked my head out. Garth stood quiet down below. “I came to assure you I’m all right to ease your heart, but I can’t stay. Others are relying on me and anyway, Father will be home soon.” I held her hand tightly.

  “Wait. I have something for you.” She left the room and came back. “Your grandfather sent us a letter and a package for you. They arrived a few days after you ran away.”

  She handed me a small unopened parcel. I tucked it in my belt. Her eyes fell on my blackened thumbs.

  “Oh, Tess! What you’ve been through. It’s my fault.” She took my hands and, weeping, kissed my thumbs.

  “Not your fault at all, Mother. It was mine, partly mine. I stole into Dragonswood. I was seen there.” I said it to ease her. She wasn’t to blame.

  “Sit down, Tess. I have something to tell you.”

  “I haven’t time.”

  “Sit,” she pleaded, so I did.

  “I knew you went to Dragonswood,” she whispered.

  “You did?”

  “Out the window and down yon tree. I knew why you went.”

  I peered up at her. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s to do with your father.”

  “I know all I need to know about my father,” I snapped, jumping up.

  “No, you don’t. There’s something I must tell you, Tess. Sit down.”

  “Whatever it is it has to wait. I’m endangering more than myself staying here so long. I have to go before Father—”

  “He is not your father.”

  The room went white and hollow as a cockleshell. “What?”

  I began to sway. She gripped my arms to hold me up. “If I’d told you this before, none of this would have happened. I waited too long,” she said. “I was afraid.”

  She looked at my face. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? I was with child when I married John Blacksmith.”

  “I…” She swam in and out. Don’t faint. “Does the blacksmith know?”

  She shook her head. “He can never know.”

  Mother wrapped her arms around me. I could not feel them. I was in some deep cave, abandoned. Alone. “Who… am I, then?”

  “You are yourself still, Tess,” Mother whispered.

  “Who is my father?” I drew back to search her face. Red shame streaked her neck. How had it happened? Had he forced himself on her? Was that why she’d put off telling me, waiting until I was a grown woman who would understand such things? “My father didn’t hurt you or force you to lie with him, did he?” Suddenly I was desperate to know he hadn’t harmed her.

  “No, Tess. It wasn’t like that. We danced at Midsummer Night’s Fair. He was… kind.” She blushed.

  There was love in her blush. I felt a sob coming up my throat. “Then why?… Why didn’t he marry you?”

  “I could not go with him. We lived in different worlds.”

  A pebble hit the window. We both jumped. “The blacksmith’s home!”

  The door slammed down below.

  “Woman?” The sound of his heavy boots came up the stairwell. “Woman, where are you?”

  “Hurry, Tess,” Mother said.

  “But you haven’t told me—”

  “Quick!” She pushed me toward the window.

  I barely made it out before the door flung open. Halfway down the tree I heard the demanding bellow from above, “Wife, why didn’t you answer me when I called?”

  I fled with Garth back down the alley. Alice stirred but fell asleep again. Garth and I took turns carrying her wrapped safely in our cloaks. The going was slow with the rain slicking the cobbles.

  Once we were safely out of town, Garth led the horses back to the road, but we made little progress in the storm. Alice woke and cried. I tried to comfort her, saying, “Hush now, don’t be afraid,” and “We’re taking you to see your mother.” The child had known me all her life; still, she was frightened to be on a dark road with me on such a stormy night traveling with a grown man who was a stranger to her.

  A cold wind whistled through the fo
rest by the time we’d made a bit of shelter. Garth strung the wax cloth tarp between two trees for a tent. Wood and tinder damp, he produced a chunk of burningstone to start a fire. Alice whimpered, so I rocked her. She was three and no infant, yet I sang her the lullabies I used to sing to Mother’s babes. All the while I thought, I am not the blacksmith’s child. He is not my father.

  THE STORM HAD passed in the night and the rising sun spread vermilion over the sea. Fishing boats were leaving the bay for the deeps beyond, their sails as red as the water. By morning Alice was braver and she laughed when Garth held her up to me in the saddle. Seagull stomped, impatient to be gone, but Garth spoke to her with a “Kush, kush, now.” Then he wrapped a soft cloth round Alice’s middle and mine so the child would not fall off.

  On the road over the next two days we played our parts, the husband riding protectively ahead, his wife and child behind. I kept my hood up at first, but took it off once we were a goodly distance from Harrowton.

  Alice grew more used to the ride and bounced impatiently in the saddle, squealing, “Wide fast, Tess!”

  Her glee reminded me of when I was three or four bound to my mother’s waist the same way. We didn’t own a single horse, so Mother must have been taking a newly shod mare back to its owner and brought me along for the outing. I remember riding down to the dock in Harrowton Harbor, and another time trotting along Kingsway.

  How high up in the world I was riding with Mother. Like Alice, I’d laughed when our horse began to trot. It delighted me to feel my mother’s warmth against my back, and to smell her scented hair.

  Small as I was, I do not think I was at all afraid when we rode together. By then I was already well acquainted with fear, and had learned to hide behind the settle when the blacksmith beat Mother, so I was relieved when we could both escape.

  Garth rode up ahead and as we followed him around a bend, the robins splashing in the puddles took flight. Alice laughed and threw up her hands as if to catch one. Holding her close, her small body pressed up to mine, and her plump arms spread out to the birds, I ached in the light of her laughter. For the first time I wondered at my mother. With all my efforts to protect her, she’d still taken her share of blows. Never could she stand up to her husband. Yet I knew deep down I could never be like her. I’d never let a man hit a child.

  ALICE WAS STURDY for her age, but she grew bored with the long ride.

  “Sing,” she said one afternoon with a yawn. Meg’s voice was fine. I could not sing the way her mother did, but I would try.

  Lady, come ye over,

  Over the sea.

  And bring your heart with you.

  And marry me…

  “Not that one,” Alice said rudely.

  Garth looked back at her and laughed.

  “Sing ‘Fey Maiden,’” she insisted. Meg had told me it was her daughter’s favorite.

  “Say if you please, Alice.”

  “Please, Tess.” She tipped her head and smiled up at me.

  “Very well.”

  In the enchanted woodland wild,

  The Prince shall wed a Fairy child.

  Dragon, Human, and Fairy,

  Their union will be bound by three.

  I sang the second verse. If there was a third, I did not know the words. My voice was not as sweet and clear as Meg’s had been when she’d sung it to us the night we fled the witch burning.

  You think it’s true? Poppy had asked.

  It’s just a song. Grandfather’s tales never mentioned any marriage between human and fey.

  Fey men take lovers, Meg had said.

  “Sing it again,” Alice pleaded.

  “I’m tired. Perhaps Garth Huntsman will sing it for you.”

  “Sing,” she called happily to Garth, clapping her small hands.

  He drew Goodfellow back to ride alongside us. “I should tell you the song has been outlawed.”

  “Why?”

  “The king’s regent called it dangerous.”

  “It’s just a song,” I whispered.

  “Is it?” His eyes searched mine.

  I tried to make light of his look. “You don’t think a fairy maiden would wed a Pendragon prince, do you?”

  “Not one from DunGarrow to be sure, but a half-fey girl might.”

  Half fey? I remembered Grandfather’s tales of girls who went with fey men, how they ended up with child out of wedlock, and had to raise the half-fey child on their own. Not happy tales.

  Garth said, “The fey folk would like to have their bloodline represented on the throne. A half-fey girl might not have many fairy powers, but she’d be drawn to Dragonswood, she’d want to protect the refuge.”

  Not many fairy powers, but one, maybe one. Fire-sight. Was it true? Could it be true? My breath came fast and shallow. The boundary wall moved in and out, and the trees behind it tipped as I tried to fight the dizziness.

  “Tess?” Garth’s voice came from far away.

  “I need… I must get down.”

  “What, here?”

  “Please, take Alice.”

  Dismounting, he led the horses to the roadside and took Alice in his arms. I jumped off the saddle and ran hard into the trees.

  I was with child when I married John Blacksmith.

  Who am I, then, Mother? Who is my father?

  Climbing over the boundary wall, I did not stop running. Why had the old dragon rescued the burning girl? Why had he dropped a turtle in the pond for me? He would not have rescued ordinary girls, or flown a witch to DunGarrow. Fairies would not harbor witches.

  A half-fey girl might not have many fairy powers, but she’d be drawn to Dragonswood, she’d want to protect the refuge.

  I ran and ran.

  I knew you went to Dragonswood, Mother had said. Out the window and down yon tree. I knew why you went. It’s to do with your father.

  I’d seen the love in Mother’s eyes when she’d spoken of my father.

  Why didn’t he marry you?

  I could not go with him. We lived in different worlds.

  Different worlds. Our human world. The fairy kingdom; ah, they were different enough.

  “Tess?” Garth called in a worried tone.

  I did not answer or turn back. The woodland welcomed me. Greenery bowed, branches waved. It all fit. My longing for the wood, my secret power, Mother’s confession, the dragon’s rescue from the pond. I knew it in my body. In my bones. I’d known it long. I’d known it always, but never understood till now. My father is a fey man.

  Poor Mother had run home and married the first man who asked her so she would not have to raise a half-fey child alone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ALICE!” MEG RACED outside, swung her little girl down from the saddle, and hugged her, crying with joy. My arms felt suddenly empty, my chest where Alice had leaned her head on the long ride went cold. I could only watch mother and daughter from atop my horse, Meg’s arms around her girl, and Alice squealing, “Mama! Mama!” Kissing her cheeks the way a small child does, clasping Meg’s face between her pudgy hands.

  Soon Poppy and Aisling ran out from the kitchen, their hands still wet from washing up. Even Tom came out, eyes shining with tears.

  Alice called, “Da!” and he took her in his arms. Tom had improved greatly while we were away. Aisling and Poppy’s ministrations had strengthened him, but it was Alice who brought color to his cheeks.

  Garth helped me dismount and led the horses to the barn. His head was slightly down and his steps weary. It had been a long ride. I was watching him go when Meg flung her arms around me. “Thank you. Oh, thank you Tess!” She kissed me wetly.

  “Thank Garth. He’s the one who—”

  “I will,” she squealed, her voice as high-pitched with delight as her daughter’s, but I noted she did not go to the barn to seek him out immediately as I would have done.

  Later that afternoon we ate Meg’s hearty stew and bread trickled with honey. God bless the bees for it.

  I had been content to play
the family when we were together on the road. And I’d thought Garth felt the same, but the man shed the guise of marriage and fatherhood like an old cloak when he joined us at table. Had it all been a game? The long talks we’d had in the saddle or at the fire, the attentiveness he’d shown me when I’d played his wife? I’d only tasted the stew and bread, but my hunger had already vanished.

  Taking an apple, I went out to the stable.

  Things had changed between us after I’d sung “Fey Maiden.” I’d been quieter on our ride, lost in thought, the hoofbeats echoing fey, half fey, in my head. Even Alice noticed my strange moods and had ridden with Garth part of the time. Had he looked at me differently after I’d run off from him and Alice? Did he suspect something?

  Seagull’s blond neck was smooth under my stroking hand. “You understand, don’t you, my lady?” She eyed me quizzically, chewing the apple I’d brought. Garth stepped in and re-saddled Goodfellow. “Tess, will you give Cackle a hand and see the animals are fed while I’m away? And if you can, help him walk the dogs?”

  “We only just got home this morning.” The word home had slipped in without my thinking. “Where are you going?”

  “I have duties,” he said, cinching the saddle a little tighter. “They’ve been sorely neglected while we went for Alice.”

  “Do you regret it?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to say that, only it slipped out.

  “What? No, Tess. I don’t regret it.” He slid the bit into Goodfellow’s mouth. Out near the pigsty, I heard Alice laughing. She’d come out with her father to watch the pigs.

  “I’ve not thanked you yet for helping me fetch her,” I said.

  “That’s thanks enough.” He pointed at father and daughter across the fenced sty.

  I wanted to say more and keep him with me a moment longer, even if I was still smarting over the way he’d ignored me at the table, but Aisling appeared with a lumpy burlap sack.