That made no sense to me. Intrigued, I slipped out to join him.
‘Come up on deck with me,’ he said, ‘to where we stood last night.’
‘I can’t,’ I replied reluctantly. ‘Ryall is having a difficult night.’
‘Yes, of course, you have to stay near him.’ There was no mistaking the disappointment in his voice. ‘We’ll sit here, then, where you can hear if he calls out.’
I think he would have pulled me down to the floorboards if I’d resisted the tug of his hand. But, of course, I didn’t want to resist. We sat side by side with our knees up because there wasn’t enough room to stretch our legs across the passageway. Anyway, the night had grown cool and being tucked up tightly was better for warmth.
‘Do you remember how I sat like this outside your house in Haywode, in those days after your parents took Nerigold in?’ he asked.
I was hardly likely to forget. It was on those nights I had first felt the attraction between us. In those days I’d thought he was pledged to Nerigold, so my girlish dreams were a secret betrayal and something to be ashamed of.
‘I was jealous back then,’ I confessed. ‘It played all sorts of cruel tricks on my heart. I thought it was love that brought you there each night and I dreamed that you might love me instead.’
‘Dreamed?’
‘A different kind of dream,’ I said. ‘One that I had while I was awake.’
‘One you were in control of, then?’
How quickly he understood. ‘Yes,’ I admitted, and surprised myself by feeling no embarrassment at all in saying so.
Our talking had brought Nerigold into the narrow passageway with us: a ghostly presence we couldn’t see, but both felt all the same. We stayed silent for a moment out of respect for our dead friend.
Tamlyn reached out his hand to touch my face, just the pads of his fingers on my chin, enough to make me turn towards him. ‘You asked what dream it was that brought me out into this passageway,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘I’ll show you.’
And then he kissed me gently on the lips.
5
The Road Home
Athlane is an island, which was hard for me to understand. When we speak of islands in my village, we mean the grassy knobs dotted across the surface of a lake. Most are only large enough for a few trees. How can an entire kingdom be an island?
On the third day, Captain Jerbarle called Tamlyn and me to join him in making an important decision. By now, his fear of Tamlyn had been replaced by a healthy respect, which meant he was eager to help us.
‘Silvermay’s village doesn’t appear on my chart,’ he said, sweeping his hand across the map of Athlane spread over a table in his cabin. ‘This map is for seafaring men and shows only coastal towns. Point to where you think it might be.’
How would I know? I thought. But he was talking to Tamlyn, who studied the many tiny markings that I guessed must be names. The biggest dot would be Vonne, Athlane’s capital, where my father had been many times to sell his trained hawks to the noblemen who gathered at the court of King Chatiny.
‘About here,’ Tamlyn said at last, touching the map with his fingertip.
‘Good,’ replied the captain and he stabbed his finger onto the chart. ‘Do you see how the mouth of this river has carved an inlet into the coastline? I can sail my ship all the way to here.’
I might not be able to read a map, or even words, but I could see that the distance between the two places wasn’t great.
‘Ryall won’t have to travel so far over land, then,’ I said.
‘No, but it is still a two-day journey,’ said Tamlyn. ‘That will seem like an eternity to Ryall in the state he’s in.’
That gave me something else to worry about through the remainder of our voyage. Along with the joy I found in being near Tamlyn came the fear of what would happen once we reached shore. It was enough to make me wish the ship could sail on forever. Oh, Silvermay, what a romantic you are, I kept telling myself. The words sounded especially harsh if I conjured up the voice of my mother. Come to your senses, girl. You’ve got a job to do. Dreamy nights on deck are nothing compared to bringing Ryall safely to Haywode.
Thank you, Birdie, I whispered in my mind, and when the cry of ‘Land to the port side’ reached down from the crow’s nest, I was ready.
There was another half day’s sailing before we penetrated the inlet shown on the map. At last, there was no further we could travel, not with Ryall safely below deck and comfortable, anyway. He was no better for the sea voyage, but he was no worse, either, and that was something.
A thriving town grew up the slopes away from the water, much larger than Greystone, which had been little more than a fishing hamlet. The inlet was deep and sheltered, allowing Jerbarle’s ship to tie up at the wharf. Within an hour of docking, his men had carried Ryall down the gangplank and laid him on a pallet of corn sacks that sat waiting to be loaded.
‘I will search you out again once I can pay you for your services,’ Tamlyn told Captain Jerbarle solemnly as they shook hands in farewell.
‘There’s no need,’ he replied. ‘It’s been worth the journey to meet a Wyrdborn so different from the rest. Good luck.’
He went off to the harbourmaster’s office to enquire about a cargo, leaving us to face decisions that couldn’t be brushed aside by girlish dreams any longer.
‘How are we going to get Ryall to Haywode from here?’ I asked.
Around us, labourers wheeled sacks along the dock and up the gangplanks, using handcarts like the one Ryall had already travelled in.
Tamlyn frowned. ‘One of those won’t do. Not for a journey of two days.’
I’d already decided as much. A wagon would be no better — its wheels would bump over every rock and pitch heavily into every pot hole, tossing Ryall around like a rag doll, and before long his wounds would be open and bleeding again. He could not afford to lose any more blood.
‘I could carry him in my arms,’ said Tamlyn.
It sounded like the offer of a devoted friend, but when Tamlyn lifted Ryall’s stricken body from the corn sacks, he moaned with the agony of unmended bones in his ribs and arm.
‘He needs to lie flat and as still as possible,’ I said.
‘A stretcher?’ Tamlyn suggested.
Of course, there wasn’t one lying about handily, but there were empty sacks strewn about and a little scavenging turned up a long pole that Tamlyn easily snapped in two. After tearing slits in the sacking, we threaded the poles through and lifted Ryall into place.
‘Ready,’ Tamlyn said, taking his place at one end.
It hadn’t quite come home to me until then that a stretcher needed two people to carry it.
‘Ready,’ I said, bending my knees and gripping the ends of the poles as he was doing.
‘Lift,’ called Tamlyn, and he stood up smoothly.
My own rise was anything but smooth. ‘Urroomph,’ I grunted, almost tipping Ryall onto the dock.
‘Careful, keep it level.’
Level! It was the best I could manage just to hold up my end. Ryall was a lanky young man but I was quickly learning that slim didn’t mean light as a feather.
We left the dock and began to climb the steady slope that led out of town. My shoulders strained under the weight and as my hands began to sweat, my grip became slippery. I was breathing heavily, too, with the effort of walking uphill carrying such a load. Yet there was no other way and I had to struggle on until we reached the top of the rise. From there, the road stretched out before us as far as I could see and the sight broke my will.
‘Please,’ I gasped. ‘I have to put him down.’
Tamlyn lowered his end in unison with mine and stood staring at me while my breath slowly returned to normal.
‘Better now?’ he asked, and turned, ready to take hold of the poles again.
‘Tamlyn,’ I said to his back, ‘I can’t keep this up for an hour, let alone two whole days. We have to find another way.’
He faced me again, surpris
ed and, I felt, disappointed, as though I was slacking.
‘It’s all right for you,’ I said, suddenly annoyed. ‘You have the strength of a hundred men in your muscles. I don’t even have the strength of one.’
Immediately I regretted the way this sounded, as though I was using my sex as an excuse. I was on the point of stooping to the poles again, just to prove myself wrong, when Tamlyn said, ‘I’m sorry, Silvermay. I should have realised. The weight is nothing to me.’
‘Then carry him by yourself,’ I said, managing to sound even more like a pathetic female.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said.
I thought he was goading me about my silly remark, but far from it. I had given him an idea.
‘Do you think you could lift him one more time, not to carry him, but to help me get the grip I need?’ he asked.
I didn’t have a clue what he had in mind, but the least I could do was help. This time he stood to the side of the stretcher instead of the end and waited for me to do the same on the other side.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked a voice from between us.
Ryall was awake now, and looking rather worried, but Tamlyn didn’t answer. On his signal, I put every skerrick of strength I had into raising Ryall from the ground. He now lay between us as we faced each other.
‘Now what?’ I grunted.
‘Hold your side a bit longer,’ he commanded, and while I looked on, astounded, he kept up his share of the weight with only his right hand, which he’d shifted to the middle of the pole, and at the same time crouched to position himself beneath the stretcher. His left hand reached up and took the weight from my side and then he stood upright. Now I was staring at one man holding another directly over his head, both arms straight and his load perfectly level.
‘How is it up there, Ryall?’ he asked.
‘Closer to the sun,’ came the reply.
Back on the ground, I wasn’t as convinced. ‘Now what?’ I asked again.
‘We walk to Haywode as planned,’ said Tamlyn.
‘With you holding Ryall above your head like that?’
‘It was your idea, Silvermay. Carry him yourself, you said.’
‘A two-day walk!’
‘I told you, the weight is nothing to me and this way I can cushion Ryall from the bumps in the road. Would you like to sit up there, too? I’m sure I could manage.’
‘Now you’re showing off.’
He grinned. ‘And why not? I may be a Wyrdborn, but I still like young ladies to admire my strength.’
He set off along the road as though he didn’t care whether I followed. I did, of course, and what a sight we made; there can’t have been anything like it in all of Athlane.
The people in the first village we came to seemed to think so, as well, if their round-eyed stares were anything to go by. The entire population came out to see such a feat.
‘What strength. How does he do it?’ a man asked me as we passed.
There was a simple answer, one I was worried they would suspect, but when I helped Tamlyn lower Ryall to the ground and the people came close to inspect this strong man, I saw only wonder in their faces. Like Captain Jerbarle, they simply couldn’t believe that a Wyrdborn would help another human being and so they didn’t guess that Tamlyn was one of that hated breed.
‘Some water?’ offered a woman, holding out a jug she had brought from her own home. There was food, too, which was very welcome because we hadn’t brought any with us.
‘We can’t pay you,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry about it. We’d offer you more, but the religo was here yesterday for his annual …’ The man looked around and I wondered if he was tempted to say ‘theft’ but he played it safe. ‘Visit.’
We rested for half an hour and then Ryall was hoisted into place above Tamlyn’s head — with the help of the villagers this time — and we were on our way again. Towards evening, we saw wagons in the distance, turning off the road towards a grand mansion we could see on the rise.
‘The religo on his rounds,’ Tamlyn remarked. ‘I sense Wyrdborn among the wagons.’
With the day fading into dusk, we arrived in a village from where the religo’s wagons had only recently departed. Even in the poor light I saw utter despair in the faces of the men we passed, and many of the women were weeping openly. They barely seemed to notice the remarkable sight Tamlyn made with the stretcher above his head. He lowered it outside the inn and we asked if there were any jobs we could do there to earn something to eat.
‘Something to eat,’ the innkeeper repeated bitterly. ‘There’s nothing to spare, I’m afraid, even if you carried a sack of gold. Our religo was here just this afternoon and now we’ll need every last morsel for ourselves, just to survive.’
‘We saw the wagons on the road,’ I said. ‘It’s the same in my own village. We’ll struggle this winter, too.’
‘I’m sure you will, but you won’t starve, will you? I tell you, people will die in this village before spring.’
His wife came out of the inn to see who he was speaking to. She held a two year old in her arms and the innkeeper’s face grew more miserable as he looked at the child.
‘Did the religo take too much?’ I asked.
‘No, he took the same as last year.’
‘A bad harvest, then?’ asked Tamlyn, as concerned as I was.
‘No, it was a better year than most.’ He could see further questions coming and saved us the trouble of asking them. ‘This village is claimed by two religos and rather than fight for the right to plunder us, each simply takes his full due.’
‘And you can’t stop them?’ I asked.
‘How can we stop them when they bring Wyrdborn to threaten us? They are monsters and only a fool defies them.’
I understood his anger. Hadn’t I witnessed the humiliation of good men like my father year after year when none dared challenge the religo’s greed because of his Wyrdborn’s menace? I looked at Tamlyn’s face and found it glowing with shame because he was one of the monsters the innkeeper had referred to.
‘Can’t you go to the king and ask him to rule in favour of one or the other?’ he asked.
The innkeeper threw back his head and laughed. ‘Do you think Chatiny gives a damn about us, or disputes between his religos?’
‘It’s his role,’ Tamlyn said.
‘King Chatiny’s role is to plunder the entire kingdom, if you ask me. Why would he step between two of his lords when he takes a share of the tribute from each?’ At this, his wife went inside again, leaving her husband to continue, ‘If you have no money, I can’t give you a room for the night, but there’s a stable at the back. You two and your injured friend are welcome to sleep on the straw. The animals will keep you warm.’
In the stable, we carefully lifted Ryall from the stretcher and laid him on the straw, which was clean and dry. He wouldn’t have been any more comfortable inside the inn, especially after the innkeeper’s wife brought us each a blanket.
‘What my husband said about the food is true,’ she told us. ‘I’m sorry to leave you hungry, but I must save all we have for our children.’
It was good of them to do anything for us, considering the blow they’d suffered that day, and here she was apologising for not doing more. After she left us, I was as angry as I’ve ever been in my entire life.
‘It’s a disgrace,’ I muttered. ‘It’s not supposed to be this way. No one minds paying tribute to their religos in return for the roads they build and their protection from brigands, but they’ve become greedy. They take whatever they want because no one can stand up to the Wyrdborn.’
Tamlyn’s shoulders slumped in dejection. ‘You don’t need to say any more, Silvermay. If not for the Wyrdborn, the commonfolk would live easier lives. I feel sick at heart that I am one of them.’
I reached across to touch his arm. ‘I didn’t mean …’
‘It’s all right. You can include me in what you say and I have no right to object. I am a Wyrdbo
rn and my kind help greed grow worse and worse across the kingdom.’
I said no more. Instead, the anger resounded inside my head, where it became all the louder for being cooped up. The leaders who governed Athlane were callous men who stole from their people then lorded over us in luxury. The injustice of it burned me like coals, but what could I do, a commonfolk girl without special powers, with no army to command and certainly no royal blood in my veins like the heroes in the fairytales of my childhood always had. I was Silvermay Hawker and I had enough trouble helping those close to me; the rest of Athlane would have to take care of itself.
While Ryall drifted towards sleep, I sat in the straw beside Tamlyn, our shoulders close enough to touch without quite doing so. I pulled at the stems and stalks until he took one from me and threaded it playfully into my hair. He liked what he saw and began to poke more around my head, placing each one carefully.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Making a crown.’
‘I don’t want to be a princess.’
‘Don’t you? I quite fancied being a prince — when I was a boy, anyway. My mother heard me pretending and had a crown made for me. She encouraged my games.’
‘Doesn’t sound much like a Wyrdborn mother.’
‘She was different,’ said Tamlyn, becoming serious. He stopped decorating my hair and stared into the gloom of the stables.
‘She gave you those puppies so you would feel their love for you,’ I said.
‘Puppies,’ he repeated softly. ‘I have never used that word, yet you’re right: when Ezeldi first brought them to me, they were barely weaned. I don’t like to think about what they’ve become.’
‘That was your father’s doing,’ I reminded him. ‘It’s your mother I want to hear about.’
He stared at me as though it had never occurred to him that one person might want to learn about another. In the world of the Wyrdborn they didn’t, I supposed, unless it was to discover a weakness.
‘My mother is very beautiful,’ he said, ‘even though she is past the age when women are at their prettiest.’ A gleam came to his eye. ‘Like you are now, Silvermay.’
Tamlyn Page 4
