In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  Then Clovermead smiled dreamily and flexed her fingers into claws. “Bears! Oh, I could do anything I liked if I were a big, strong bear. That would be fun. Rrargh! I wonder what it’s like to bite people?”

  Chapter Three

  The Brooch of the Burning Bee

  For ten days Clovermead searched under every elm, oak, pine, fir, beech, and nondescript bush near Ladyrest. As she ransacked the foliage for the lost whatever-it-was that belonged to her, the leaves in Timothy Vale began to turn color. The lower slopes of the Reliquaries became solid orange and yellow, while the sugar maples in the Commons flared a bloody, coruscating red. Already the night temperatures were close to freezing. Men and boys brought the sheep down from the high pastures, while their wives and daughters picked apples and harvested the barley and the wheat. Gaffers and Grannies with rheumatism and broken bones sniffed at the morning breezes and direly predicted a cold, snowy winter. Pilgrims anxious to pass south of the Chaffen Hills before the first snowfall hastened through the Vale. Waxmelt and Goody Weft kept busy serving their flurry of guests and scarcely noticed that Clovermead was spending long hours away from Ladyrest.

  On the eleventh day Clovermead tramped west from Kestrel Hill and crept into Gorseberry Dell. She hopped onto the stone wall that marked the boundary of Gaffer Bolts’ land and peeked in. Before her, unattended by man or dog, the Gaffer’s sheep bleated in a low and fenced-off square of meadow. The flock had eaten the grass down to a green stubble, and now they huddled by the far fence and nipped what grass they could reach through the wooden slats. Beyond the meadow were marshy thickets crowded with thorns and blueberry bushes. In the center of the thickets rose a lone ash tree’s skeletal crown.

  “Trespassing is wrong,” said Clovermead reflectively. “Not that Gaffer ever minded, except when I took carrots from his garden or when I dipped that lamb into the pot of blue dye. But he shouldn’t care if I just steal a quick look at his tree. Sweet Lady, a whole flock of witnesses gazes upon my surreptitious misdeed! Fortunately the nearest court is in High Branding, and precedent does not allow sheep to testify in a court of law. Not that they could say anything but ‘Bleat!’ and ‘Baa!’ I dare Gaffer Bolts to prosecute me solely upon ovine testimony. I need fear nothing.”

  Clovermead jumped down from the wall, dashed past the startled sheep, and bounded into the thicket. Thorns tore at her clothes—one long spine cut through to her arm and drew blood. Clovermead cursed the offending barb with Tansyard oaths she had learned from Sorrel—”Serla mordey, Mirra commeri,” and best of all, “Lempur madnerap ved heraka madnerap sim coralla tir madnerap!” She didn’t know what they meant, but they sounded wonderfully enraged and unladylike.

  The ash stood huge and aloof within the thicket, neighbored only by dead leaves and wispy ferns. A ferocious blast of lightning had murdered the tree long since and left it leafless, barkless, and charred jet black. Shoulder-high to Clovermead, the lightning had gouged a jagged hollow. Years of rain had softened the wound with a green bandage of moss.

  “I might have put something in that hollow,” Clovermead said doubtfully. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d forget coming here, but perhaps I was young and foolish. Goody Weft would say I still am young and foolish, but she’ll say that when I’m one hundred and two. Are you there, lost whatever-you-are?” She sidled toward the ash’s trunk and quickly thrust her hand into the cavity. Her fingers dug past leaves and crawling grubs and caught on metal. “I’ve found something!” Clovermead bugled. “Sister Rowan, you were right!” She shook off an inquisitive insect, pulled the object out, and raced back to the wall. She ruffled the fleece of puzzled sheep as she ran.

  “I suppose I must have come here when I was knee high to a newborn lamb,” said Clovermead as she hastily decamped to the safety of Ladyrest property. “Nevertheless, I don’t remember that tree or that thicket at all.” She rubbed at the metal thing. “This is disgustingly dirty. I don’t mind a little grime—Goody Weft would say I don’t mind a lot of grime—but there are limits to everything. I must remember in the future to bury treasure in tightly sealed metal caskets. Goodness, it’s a brooch of some sort. I don’t remember that I ever owned one. Does it sparkle when it’s clean?”

  Clovermead ran east to Billybeard Creek and squatted at the water’s edge. The clear water loosened most of the grime from the brooch, and Clovermead’s thumb scoured away further encrustations. She lifted the brooch into the pale sunlight and squinted.

  “Very battered,” Clovermead judged. “The color’s dull—most likely it’s pewter. But look at that design! The bee has a crown on her head, so she must be a queen bee. Those are flames around her. That isn’t usually good for bees. Nor for queens, I suppose. One reads of fiery ladies, but I always imagined that meant something different. Still, the blaze doesn’t seem to be hurting her. It must be an emblematic design of some sort. The bee wields a burning blade. Strange, I don’t remember this brooch of the burning bee, either, but I suppose it must be mine. I can see how I forgot it. The coral earrings Daddy got me are much prettier. I wonder if he remembers the brooch?”

  “Hello, Clo,” said Waxmelt as Clovermead bounded into the Ladyrest dining room. “You just missed a pilgrim all the way from Forging Falls, in Selcouth. He sang a prayer before he ate, and he told all sorts of odd stories about a wise donkey. He had a wisp of a beard and twinkling eyes and fat cheeks. You’d have liked him. Do you want some tea? There’s a pot still hot on the stove.”

  “Yes, please!” said Clovermead. She tossed the brooch from hand to hand while Waxmelt went into the kitchen. “Do you remember how Sister Rowan had a vision in a puddle and told me I would find something in a tree that belonged to me?” she called out.

  “Sister Rowan was the nun you said fell into Goat River and banged her arm and got our clean towels all bloody?” Waxmelt poured steaming mint tea into two mugs. “You didn’t tell me her name before. And I think this is the first time you’ve mentioned a vision. Is that why you haven’t been underfoot lately? You must have been climbing every tree in the Vale.”

  “Just the ones around Ladyrest. Sister Rowan said it wasn’t far off. Anyway, I found something.” Waxmelt came back into the dining room with the mugs in his hands. “I dug into the hollow ash tree on Gaffer Bolts’ land and I found this brooch—”

  The mugs crashed to the floor and splintered with a crack like thunder. Fragments skittered in every direction and tea splashed on Waxmelt’s boots.

  Her father’s face had turned pasty white. His hands shook. His eyes were large and round and filled with crawling fear.

  “Put that away, Clovermead,” Waxmelt whispered. He crept to the front door, closed it, and bolted the lock. Then he lowered the shutters over the windows and the room grew dim. Clovermead could scarcely see her father anymore. All that remained of him was a little man stinking of terror.

  Clovermead got a leather cord from the kitchen, laced it through the brooch, and hung it around her neck, under her shirt. Her fingers were cold and clumsy, and it took her two minutes to make the knot tight. She tried to speak, but no words came out. Her father was as scared as a child.

  “A vision in a puddle,” Waxmelt said. He tried to laugh and almost choked. “Sweet Lady. Sweet Lady.” He looked down at the broken mugs. “I have to sweep these up. The guests will hurt their feet.” He walked rigidly to the kitchen, brought back a broom and a pan, and handed the pan to Clovermead. He swept in the broken pieces while she knelt.

  Waxmelt gently took the pan from her when they were done, left through the door to the midden, and scattered the remnants of the mugs amidst the manure. Then he returned to the dining room and sat down by Clovermead. He could not look her in the face.

  “Sister Rowan said this brooch belonged to me,” said Clovermead. “Does it?”

  Clovermead watched while her father’s mouth opened and closed uncertainly. He had never before hesitated so much when Clovermead asked him a question, not even three years ago when Clovermead had asked him i
f human babies got born like calves or like ducklings. Clovermead watched his face twist, and it reminded her of how she looked when she was trying to tell a fib, to hide something naughty she’d done. But Waxmelt had always told her never to lie, that it was better to tell the truth and take the consequences. Waxmelt had never lied to her.

  Until now. Until now. Clovermead watched her daddy’s familiar face twist strangely, horribly, as he tried to think of what to say. Her heart ached as she saw him try to figure out what stories she would believe.

  “You wore it as a baby,” he said at last. “I pinned your swaddling clothes with it. So, yes, it is yours.”

  “Why was it in a tree?”

  Waxmelt opened his mouth and shut it again. He cleared his throat. “I put it there for safekeeping.”

  “Why? Who are you keeping it safe from? What is it?”

  “It’s an old family heirloom,” said Waxmelt with a painful, horrible smile. “It isn’t worth much, but I didn’t want it stolen. I didn’t know the Valefolk when I first got here, so I thought I would hide it in a tree for a while. Then I was afraid soldiers might come north—”

  “You’re lying.” Clovermead couldn’t keep the words inside her. Then she stepped back from him, afraid, and waited for her father to be angry at her and yell at her for doubting his word. She hoped his face would smooth out, return to normal, and that he would tell her some simple, obvious truth. She longed for that lying face to go away.

  Waxmelt hung his head. His eyes scuttled from hers. Lies, lies, her daddy wanted to tell her lies. Clovermead wanted to cry.

  “Yes. I was lying to you.” Waxmelt swallowed heavily. “I can’t tell you about the brooch, Clo.”

  “Not even when I’m older?” Clovermead tried to make a joke of it, but she heard herself pleading.

  “Not even then, Clo.” She flinched at his words. His face was full of fear and lies, and he hadn’t even noticed how shamefully his daughter had begged him for the truth. “Clo, the brooch has to stay hidden. Put it back in the ash tree—no.” His arms, his legs, his whole body, twitched. “It’s not safe there any longer. Your nun saw where it was. Keep it hidden on you instead. Beneath your shirt is fine. But you have to keep it out of sight.”

  “Why? Why would anyone care about a junky brooch? It’s just pewter.”

  “I can’t tell you why, Clo. You’d hate me if you found out. Dear Lady, I don’t want you to hate me.” Waxmelt let himself look at his daughter. Desperate, naked love filled his gaze. Clovermead had to turn away. He had lied to her and he was still lying to her and the lies clawed at her heart. It wasn’t fair of Waxmelt to love her so much.

  Waxmelt reached out a hand and stroked her shoulder. “Keep the brooch hidden and don’t ask me questions. Please, Clo.”

  “Father, can’t you tell me anything?” Her voice rose to an odious squeak.

  “No,” said her father. “Nothing at all.”

  Chapter Four

  Lucifer Snuff

  Clovermead scarcely spoke to her father for a week. Then, late on a bitterly cold night, they found themselves sitting side by side in front of the fire in the dining room. They let the roaring red heat wash over them. Waxmelt shivered now and again and rubbed his ears and nose. Clovermead spread her fingers toward the baking warmth.

  A spark burst from the hearth onto the stones, burned brightly, and died.

  “I’ve been thinking, Father,” said Clovermead finally. “There’s a lot about you I don’t know. Where are you from?” She traced the outline of the brooch hidden beneath her shirt.

  “Linstock.” Waxmelt’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “Where exactly, Father? High Branding? The Lakelands? Low Branding? Chandlefort?” Waxmelt was silent. “Who are my grandparents? What did they do for a living? What did you do before you came to Timothy Vale?” The silence grew longer. “Who was my mother?” Clovermead’s eyes started to glisten and she brushed the tears away, swearing furiously at herself for her weakness. Lies and silence, she groaned inwardly, and her stomach twisted. I don’t know my father at all. She felt dark and hollow inside.

  “Your mother was a beautiful woman.” Waxmelt put his hand on Clovermead’s hair and stroked it gently. “She had hair as yellow as yours. It looked like butter and sunlight.”

  Clovermead saw a reflection of beauty in Waxmelt’s sad face, from a distant place and time. He’s telling the truth, she told herself. It’s true: Mother was beautiful and I have her hair. Clovermead bent into Waxmelt’s hand and let it cup her chin. His grip was tender and familiar. He had held her so for as long as she could remember. Clovermead leaned on her father and let her anger melt a little. He had told her two truths.

  “I wonder if she’d think I’ve raised you properly.” Waxmelt laughed wistfully. “You ought to be a fine little lady, Clo. You should be in silk dresses. Your mother never meant you to wear trousers and fight with a wooden sword.”

  “What was her name?” Waxmelt was silent. A knot of rage filled Clovermead. She wanted to roar with fury, and she tore herself from her father’s nestling support. “You tell me little scraps of truth and you keep everything else secret. When will you tell me the whole truth, Daddy?”

  “Never,” said Waxmelt.

  That night Clovermead sobbed herself to sleep beneath her blankets. She dreamed that her father had plucked the stars from the sky and left her weeping in the dark. Her tears turned to howls, her howls to roaring, and she scraped at the lightless earth until it bled. The earth screamed, and Clovermead woke as the moon fell in the hour before dawn. She gasped a prayer to Our Lady for sweeter dreams. When she slept again, a beautiful woman with yellow hair rocked her in a cradle, caressed her, and sang her a lullaby.

  Thunderstorms pelted the Vale for a week. Snow fell on the northern Reliquaries, faded, returned, and spread to all the peaks around Timothy Vale. Waxmelt caulked the cracks in Ladyrest’s timbers and spent a day with Goodman Sawyer hauling a winter’s worth of logs to the firewood yard. He filled the stable full of provender for Nubble Pony, Jessamyn Cow, and Ladyrest’s assortment of chickens, goats, and pigs. Goody Weft collected her season’s wages from Waxmelt, packed her belongings, and made ready to join her family in the North Vale for the winter.

  “I’ll stay another week,” Goody Weft said. “No one in his right mind will come through here any later. Then I’ll be off home. Lady bless me, I’ll wager my nephews say less in a month than you do in a day, child! Ah, but they’re good boys. And good listeners—I’ll enjoy myself, telling them the tales of the year. They’ll scratch their heads for a week when they hear about that Tansyard!” She chuckled as she went upstairs to the guest rooms to strip the beds and put the folded blankets in cedar chests.

  Between the squalling downpours Clovermead practiced her swordplay. Now she fenced in grim earnest and sliced at lies and silence with smoldering anger. She parried and thrusted, ran and stretched, until she dripped with sweat and gasped with exhaustion in the biting cold.

  One night she went with Sweetroot Miller to a dance at the Merrin house, but her feet were clumsy and she ached every time a Goody or a Gaffer asked after her father. Card Merrin asked Sweetroot to dance, and then to dance again. Sweetroot said yes both times, smiling, and Clovermead wondered if she should be jealous. She slipped away from the happy, dancing couples into the kitchen and spent the rest of the evening helping Goody Merrin prepare the food and clear the tables and wash the dishes. For once she enjoyed these chores: They kept her mind busy and blank.

  A last clump of pilgrims fled south into Timothy Vale. Behind them storms disgorged snow and more snow. They blew on their fingers and huddled gratefully by the Ladyrest hearth.

  “Did you see a Tansyard?” Clovermead asked a matron from Ryebrew. Let her say yes, Clovermead prayed. Let her say Sorrel’s finished his business and will come tomorrow. Then he can take me to some far land where fathers don’t lie to their daughters.

  But Sorrel has secrets too, said a mocking voic
e inside her. Ask him very nicely what they are and he’ll purse his lips. You have to make people tell you the truth. You have to rip the truth out of them.

  “Do you mean the tatterdemalion?” the matron asked. Clovermead nodded. “We crossed paths with him a day south of Snowchapel. I never thought I’d see a pilgrim heading north so late in the season. I don’t think he’ll be back before spring, little girl. The storm behind us was a blizzard. The passes are shut for the winter.”

  That night Clovermead dreamed she was sprawled on her stomach deep in a cave. She was very warm and very sleepy. At the cave entrance Sorrel stood by his horse and stared out anxiously at the falling snow. Clovermead yawned and Sorrel whirled around to look at her. His eyes widened in fear. Then he leapt onto Brown Barley and galloped into the heart of the blizzard. Clovermead tried to call after him, but all that emerged from her throat were strangled growls.

  The pilgrims left before dawn and missed a morning at Ladyrest so blue, crisp, and beautiful that Clovermead bolted from her half-eaten breakfast to squelch around the muddy firewood yard and gleefully exhale to see her breath turn to white mist. She galloped to the old maple tree by the Road, her wooden sword jouncing against her legs, plucked a last brown leaf from its lowest limb, and with her curious fingers traced its withered veins. The leaf had grown ragged and moldy with age.

  Inside, Goody Weft was cleaning dishes in the kitchen. Waxmelt whisked the fallen leaves on Ladyrest’s doorstep at Clovermead. Their soft pressure startled her as they fell on her feet. She squeaked with shock and sprang away. Her father grinned. “Mr. Sorrel should have taught you to watch for ambushes.”

  “Is it battle? Then, by my guerdon and my halidom and my gorget, have at you!” Clovermead snatched a clump of leaves from the ground and waggled them threateningly at Waxmelt. He raised his broom before him and swung it wildly at the foliage in her hand. Clovermead sidestepped his mighty blows, dashed forward, giggling, and scattered the leaves on the newly clean doorstep. Quickly she whirled and drew her wooden sword against Waxmelt’s vengeful broom. Sword and broom resoundingly thwacked each other, and great and loud was the combat that raged across Ladyrest’s yard. “Ladyrest! Ladyrest!” cried Waxmelt, and his daughter clarioned her own battle cry, “For dirty doorsteps!” At last they tumbled into the pile of leaves by the stable door, dropped their weapons, and piled foliage on each other from head to foot.