‘Couldn’t you get it away from him?’
‘Nobody takes anything from a Wyrdborn, Silvermay.’
I shrugged in apology. ‘But you must have spoken to him about the rope while the two of you were on the run.’
‘Yes, I spoke to him, and not simply about the rope of his hair. I had no idea my tongue could form so many words,’ Ryall said wryly. ‘He is torn apart inside by the strange love he feels for you, and by other things I don’t want to name.’
‘Then I will go and speak to him.’
‘No,’ said Ryall, and this time it was he who put his hand on my arm, not in consolation, but to restrain me. ‘I mean what I say, Silvermay. He is a man in torment.’
‘All the more reason to go to him.’
‘If he was like you and me, then I would agree. But Lucien is a Wyrdborn. He can’t understand the emotions that commonfolk feel, and the love you nurtured in him only confuses him. You must listen to me, Silvermay. I’m afraid of what will happen to you if you go looking for him. There have been times I’ve wondered whether it was right to bring Lucien back here at all. If he cannot work out what he feels, he may simply kill you to make his confusion go away. That is the way the Wyrdborn have solved all their problems for centuries.’
I had struggled to sleep for days after Tamlyn was taken from me but eventually the weariness of long hours in the fields claimed me. Now, not even that was enough. The other man I loved had returned yet he could not take the final steps to join me. Those steps would have to be mine.
In the morning, Ryall was keen to take his place beside me in the fields, but Birdie wouldn’t hear of it.
‘If the religo’s men return, they will pounce before you can take cover,’ she told him.
It suited me not to have Ryall close by. It would be easier to slip away into the trees without his protests.
I worked near the forest edge for more than an hour, hoping to sense Lucien watching me as I had done the day before, but nothing stirred the hairs on the back of my neck. I made for the trees and, with a deep breath, pressed on into their shadow until I couldn’t see the field behind me any longer.
‘Lucien,’ I called.
I went deeper still into the forest, until the light from above was mostly shrouded by the thick canopy. Here, I began to sense his presence again, but still he didn’t answer. Ryall’s warning resounded in my ears. It had been easy to reject in the safety of the village, but alone in the forest was another matter.
Above me, the sky darkened suddenly until barely any light at all crept through the trees, and at the same time a weird screeching echoed down the trees’ trunks. Looking up, I found the canopy moving, not in response to the wind, for there was none. The blackness was alive somehow and coming lower. Birds — a massive flock of them descending upon me.
I bent at the knees to make myself lower, and instinct forced my arms above my head. The first of the birds was already upon me, a hawk, and behind it a dozen sparrows. When did sparrows ever chase after hawks? When did hawks ever venture into the forest at all?
A crow flew by my head, its talons brushing my hair, then three more, and among them starlings and blue-tits. What kind of flock was this? I was sure I saw the teal-green flash of the underneath of a duck’s wing. The birds’ flapping and squawking, the low passes so close to my face, frightened me more than anything I had ever known. The urge to run took hold of me. The best escape was a return to the field I’d come from and I turned …
Then a memory came to me. Tamlyn had called hawks onto his arm when he was a Wyrdborn. His father, Coyle, had possessed the skill, too, and his mother, Ezeldi, if the stories he had told me were correct. Perhaps all the Wyrdborn could work such magic, and not just on hawks. This was Lucien’s doing, I realised. If Ryall was right, these birds were the weapon he’d chosen to kill me.
I fled back the way I had come, only to stop suddenly.
Kill me? He would never do such a thing. I would not be here if that belief hadn’t guided my footsteps; and if I believed it two minutes ago, I could believe a bit longer yet. The birds hadn’t slashed me with their talons or gouged my eyes with their beaks. Lucien was testing me, trying to scare me away. That was it. He couldn’t bear to hear me reject him in cold, hard words, so instead he was forcing me to show him that rejection by running away. Then he could convince himself that was my answer, without the pain of spoken words and a clear view of my face.
‘Lucien!’ I called over the cacophony of swirling birds. ‘I won’t run from you, Lucien. You love me too much to hurt me. You know that and so do I.’
The birds became more frenzied, their wings slapping against my shoulders, beaks snapping viciously only inches from my nose. If I threw myself to the ground, at least I could cover my head with my hands. Most of all, I wanted to run, just as Lucien wanted me to.
No! It would mean the end between us.
I straightened, forcing my shoulders back. The only weakness I allowed myself was to close my eyes.
For a full minute the maelstrom continued, yet it didn’t grow any worse — not as far as I could tell with my eyes clamped shut. Feathers still slapped against my arms and occasionally my face, but not enough to bring pain. In fact … yes, the frantic beating had slowed.
I dared to open one eye, just enough to peek out under the lid, and saw the birds spiralling towards the sky in one enormous column. Their noise went with them and, as they cleared the canopy, daylight flooded in once more.
Now a different sound reached my ears. The crack of a twig? No, it was the deliberate snap of something larger.
When I spun round, there was Lucien. If not for the fallen log between us, he could have stretched out his hand to touch me. He held a birch branch in his hands, broken into two pieces. As soon as my eyes fell on him, he dropped each half, the way a soldier surrenders his weapons.
‘It’s true, what you said, Silvermay. I do love you,’ he said. Despite the brutal strength he had just demonstrated, his voice was meek. ‘My greatest fear is that I will hurt you, like I hurt Tamlyn.’
‘Tamlyn is fine now. You let him go. That’s all that matters.’
‘But I was going to kill him, Silvermay. It was in my heart. I could feel it there, a terrible urge to see him dead at my feet. I have carried that truth in me ever since, knowing I had to tell you. Do you hate me, Silvermay?’
If he had killed Tamlyn that day in Delgar’s house, I certainly would hate him. I would spit in his face and beat at his chest no matter what he did to me in return. Should I tell him that? But he hadn’t followed me home to Haywode to hear me speak of hatred.
‘You didn’t give in to the urge, though,’ I said. ‘That was the Wyrdborn inside you, and you pushed it back, out of the same love that has brought you here to me. You want what I promised when I took Nerigold’s place in your life. No, I don’t hate you, Lucien. I love you, just as I always have.’
What did I expect? A smile of relief? I certainly saw relief in his face, but not beaming through a smile. He looked down at the red and gold leaves beneath his feet, unable to hold my gaze. Then he turned his back on me and dropped to sit heavily on the log that separated us, his body bent forward, his elbows on his knees, his head hanging between his shoulders. And then I heard it, the wrench of a man’s crying from so deep in his chest it must surely come from his very soul.
I stepped towards him and laid my hand on his shoulder; it was all I could do. Since the day Lucien had become mine, I had done my best to plant a humanity in him that his Wyrdborn nature lacked. It was still there, or I would be lying dead among these trees. I couldn’t do any more. The rest was for him to experience.
‘You don’t know how important it is that you feel this way,’ I told him after a while, when his sobs had eased.
‘Do all commonfolk feel pain and happiness jumbled into one?’ he asked.
‘All of us. Tamlyn found it hard at first, even when the Wyrdborn curse was stripped from him. That curse still lives in you, Luc
ien.’
‘The wizards of Erebis Felan couldn’t help me. I only have you.’
I stepped over the log then and crouched before him. ‘Give me your hand,’ I said.
Though he was hesitant at first, he straightened and let me take his right hand in mine. Gently, I opened it up until his fingers pointed skywards and the palm was towards me. Then I placed my own hand against his and waited to see whether the memory had survived the trauma of his rapid growth.
His face crinkled into a smile. ‘The game we used to play,’ he whispered, as though raising his voice any higher would scare away the moment.
‘Listen to me, Lucien. You will never be released from your Wyrdborn nature the way Tamlyn was, and so the vow I made to Nerigold cannot be fulfilled. Instead, you and I will make a new vow together. We will find other ways for you to know the happiness that the commonfolk feel in living. Will you swear that with me?’
His eyes filled with a hope that seemed to draw all the blue from the sky. ‘I swear,’ he said, not in a cautious whisper this time, but with the commitment of a man.
27
Lucien
Lucien sat at our kitchen table in exactly the place Ryall had been yesterday when I’d almost bowled him over with the force of my welcome. Today, Ryall had taken a seat on the opposite side, so that I could sit beside the latest arrival. Also at the table was my mother. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Lucien for a moment.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said for the seventh time. ‘This is not a trick? The young man I see before me is Nerigold’s child?’
‘Not a trick,’ Ryall confirmed and held up his re-grown arm to remind her of the magic that lived in her latest guest.
‘You seem so … ordinary,’ she said to Lucien.
Lucien looked down at the tabletop in shyness. He had no memory of Birdie — how could he when he was just a baby in her arms when last he was here? — and he had enough to confuse him without facing this strange truth as well.
‘Where is Tamlyn?’ he asked. ‘I would like to see him, to say how sorry I am.’
‘He’s been taken off to the fighting,’ I began, and followed with the rest of the story, my tone increasing in sadness. ‘By now he is part of an army that will sweep away the smaller forces that have sprung up since the king was murdered. That is what our religo hopes, anyway. Norbett thinks this army will help him take Chatiny’s place.’
‘Your religo won’t become king so easily,’ said Lucien.
He and Ryall exchanged a glance that seemed heavy with warning.
‘What do you mean?’ Birdie asked, beating me to the question.
Ryall answered. ‘Lucien is talking about what we saw on the way here. Our ship set us ashore well to the north and we had to travel through much of Athlane to reach Haywode. We saw soldiers on the move — not a small army, but thousands of men — and more were flocking to join them from towns like Ledaris. Other religos have seen the strength in numbers and they are building a great army, too. The new ruler of this land will be decided in one great battle.’
‘Between evenly matched sides — is that what you are saying?’
‘The northern army was marching this way,’ Ryall replied, avoiding my eyes. He knew what I was thinking.
‘Two great armies, each as powerful as the other,’ I murmured. ‘The fighting will go on until the last man is dead.’
Our sombre discussion was interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching along the lane. There was no need for Ryall and Lucien to hide, though, for no soldier of Norbett’s would ever be so light on his feet.
‘Hello,’ called a voice I knew as well as my own and Hespa’s face appeared in the doorway. Not much went unnoticed in Haywode and Hespa would have heard that we had visitors. That they were male visitors was enough to draw her attention. Her eyes had already found Lucien’s handsome face and her own brightened at the sight of him.
But it was Ryall who rose quickly to his feet and, to my surprise, bowed graciously. ‘It’s good to see you again, Hespa,’ he said.
That was a turn-up. When Hespa had helped me nurse Ryall after his arm was cut off months before, he had been so rude to her she’d come storming to me, waving her hands in fury and calling him foul names I didn’t even think she knew.
‘Ryall, but it can’t be you. You have … you have two arms!’ said Hespa.
And so the worrying talk of armies and battles was forgotten while the story was told again: of Ryall’s arm and, even more astonishing, of Nerigold’s baby, who had returned as the handsome young man beside me at the table.
Like my mother, Hespa refused to believe it, at first. ‘A Wyrdborn,’ she murmured nervously when the truth finally settled into her mind. Hespa had special reason to be wary of the Wyrdborn. Not so long ago, one had used his cruel magic to win her affection and only Tamlyn’s intervention had saved her from being carried off as the man’s mistress.
‘Lucien will not use his magic against you,’ I assured her. ‘Or against any of us,’ I added to show my confidence.
In response, Lucien raised his hand, showing me the palm in a gesture that only the two of us understood.
In the meantime, the former foes had settled together on the bench, pushing Birdie to one end while Hespa insisted on inspecting Ryall’s arm.
‘It’s as though it was part of you from the day you were born,’ she said.
Ryall seemed in no hurry to stop the stroke of her fingers across his skin.
I stifled a giggle. Was this the same Ryall I’d thought of as an overgrown puppy only months ago? He might not have grown in body as Lucien had done, but he had leapt ahead in other ways and I was glad for him.
‘You should have been here for Silvermay’s surprise,’ Hespa was saying, and it occurred to me that there was one story we hadn’t yet told the new arrivals.
‘See, there’s the dress she wore,’ Hespa plunged on.
Birdie had hung my new dress from a hook on the wall to remind me of my wedding day. I never passed it without pressing my face to the soft fabric.
I tried to catch Hespa’s eye, and saw Birdie was doing the same, each of us hoping to reveal the news in our own way. We might as well have tried to stop a charging bull.
‘Silvermay made such a beautiful bride,’ Hespa exclaimed. ‘Tamlyn couldn’t take his eyes off her, and why would he want to? Of course, he was every bit the dashing groom.’
I looked at Lucien, wondering if he understood the words ‘bride’ and ‘groom’. Had he even heard them before? Did he know what marriage meant; that I had made a promise even more powerful than the one he and I had made that morning? He wouldn’t return my gaze.
‘Married!’ cried Ryall. ‘Silvermay, that’s wonderful. I knew you two would …’
He faltered, the unrestrained joy in his face suddenly replaced by caution. His eyes flicked across the table towards Lucien, who found more interest in its worn wooden surface than it deserved.
‘Married,’ said Ryall again, giving the word the same wariness I’d seen in his face. ‘You must fear for Tamlyn even more then, now that your religo has taken him to join in these battles.’
‘I think of it every minute,’ I confessed.
‘He’ll come back to you,’ said Ryall. ‘He might not be a Wyrdborn any longer, but he’s still a fine swordsman.’
‘Will that do him any good if he’s caught in a melee? Father says they are deadly, even for the best fighters, because the killing blow can come from behind, the side, anywhere.’
‘He might die,’ said Lucien, without looking at me.
It was a hurtful thing to say, especially at that moment. No one with a sense of humanity in his heart would blurt out such words so bluntly. It was Lucien’s Wyrdborn nature, I told myself. He had nothing within him to help him consider the feelings of another being. But these thoughts didn’t prepare me for what Lucien said next.
‘If he dies, you won’t be married any more.’
Despite the shock of this further
bluntness, it was only what I had lamented to myself each night since Tamlyn had marched off with the religo.
‘No, my marriage would end before it had even begun,’ I agreed.
‘What would you do then?’ Lucien asked.
‘I don’t want to think about it. If the gods smile on us, I will never have to.’
Lucien now stared at me, as though he expected me to think through his question and come up with a clearer answer. That was when I saw in his face what he was thinking. If there was no Tamlyn in my life, the love I felt for him might become Lucien’s instead.
‘Is that what you want?’ I demanded. ‘You’re hoping Tamlyn dies in this war?’
Suddenly, Lucien seemed aware of what he had said. He still might not understand the pain he had caused me, but he could hardly miss the anger in my eyes. Perhaps he also glimpsed the cruel workings of his own mind, because he became flustered and stammered, ‘No, Silvermay, no, er … that’s not what I want, I was just —’
‘Then you shouldn’t speak this way,’ I snapped at him.
If Lucien needed anything more to realise the shameful blunder he had made, he had only to search the faces of Hespa, Birdie and even Ryall, who saw more deeply into his soul than the two women. The fury in his face was darkest of all.
‘I can’t stay here,’ Lucien said. ‘I need fresh air.’ And before any of us could respond, he sprang to his feet and hurried through the door.
I knew he hadn’t gone outside for air, and when I poked my head through the doorway shortly after, there was no sign of him. He had gone back to the woods. After what he had said about Tamlyn and what he had been thinking, I couldn’t go after him. For the first time since I’d laid eyes on him, I pushed him to the side of my mind so that I could breathe the air more easily myself.
Ryall knew that Lucien had run off, as well. He came out to feel the sun on his face, a risk he could only afford for a few fraught minutes at a time when the religo’s men might appear without warning.
‘How will he live?’ I asked him. ‘The roads are dangerous, the religo’s men —’
Lucien Page 21
