Song for a Scarlet Runner

by Julie Hunt

  THE NIGHT MARKETS

  The markets were vast. There were thousands of people in the Great Hall, and rows upon rows of tables laden with goods. There were bolts of bright cloth, trays of precious stones, small mountains of seeds and beans and spices. A blacksmith was hammering iron. Potters were pedalling their turning-wheels, shaping lumps of clay. Men with big muscles and bare chests covered in tattoos were cooking food in huge vats. Everywhere people were shouting, calling out the names of their wares.

  ‘Wayfinders! Don’t leave home without one!’

  ‘Best pottery from the Western Plains.’

  ‘Goats from the distant Mountains of Mirth.’

  ‘Gifts, charms and wise fortunes!’

  It seemed everything that could be sold was for sale in the night markets of Hub, as well as some things that couldn’t be.

  ‘Sayings!’ called a woman who sat on the ground with nothing before her except a bright woven mat. ‘A saying for the marsh auntie!’ She looked Eadie in the eye. ‘Many an honest heart beats beneath a ragged coat!’ she cried.

  ‘My coat’s not ragged,’ laughed Eadie. ‘It’s just stuffed full of herbs.’

  And her heart’s not honest, I thought, but I didn’t know why.

  We passed a stack of little square cages made of twigs and wire. ‘Glowbirds,’ a man called. ‘Glowbirds to light your way!’

  He noticed me staring and said, ‘They look like simple sparrows, but they’re not. In the dark they glow like torches.’

  As we pushed our way through the crowds, groups of children pressed forward, staring at Eadie, curious but also fearful. Someone reached out to touch her coat. When we came to a clearing in the centre of the markets, a boy gave Eadie a fruit box and she stood on it.

  She spent a moment lighting her pipe, and while the crowd gathered to hear her speak she looked over the heads of the people and blew three perfect smoke rings into the air. The first ring was small and hovered above her head. The second ring circled the first, and the third looped itself around both of them. The audience applauded as the smoke rings faded.

  ‘Circles within circles,’ Eadie cried. ‘Stories within stories. Hub is the centre of the world and the place where the worlds meet. It is the most powerful place to tell a story.’

  She pulled me up and held me high above her head. I looked down on a sea of faces. Some of them weren’t even human. There was a man near the front surrounded by goats, and they all stared up at me as well. I wished I could disappear.

  ‘People of Hub and Beyond,’ she said. ‘I present to you my apprentice, the swamp waif Peat. She will be telling tomorrow, in the Undercavern.’

  A cheer rose from the crowd.

  Eadie put me down and we went on making our way through the stalls. The crowd surged after us, and now many hands were reaching out to touch my head and to stroke Eadie’s coat.

  Up ahead I saw a flash of red. The sleek! I thought. But it was a girl selling skins.

  ‘Cheap fur,’ she called. ‘Fur to keep you warm in winter.’

  When we reached her, she saw me looking. ‘Do you like the red?’ she asked. ‘It matches your hair. This is the pelt of a creature who travels between worlds. It’s called a scarlet runner.’

  I shuddered as we passed.

  Further on, a young woman with braided hair and earrings that looked like seed pods was sitting on the ground. ‘Futures!’ she cried. ‘A future for the marsh auntie and her waif. Let me read for you. No charge.’

  She reached up and took the pipe out of Eadie’s hand; then, tapping it on the ground, she peered into the white ash.

  ‘Perhaps I had better not,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’ Eadie squatted down beside her. ‘What do you see?’

  ‘A death,’ the ash-reader replied.

  ‘Mine?’ Eadie asked.

  ‘If it’s your pipe and your tobacco, the death probably belongs to you as well.’

  ‘The pipe is hers but the tobacco came from me,’ I said. It was the first time I had spoken since we’d left Mother Moss’s.

  ‘Then who can say?’ The woman turned to me. ‘Put your fingers in the ash, waif.’

  I did as she asked.

  ‘There’s a place in a blind valley,’ she said. ‘A place of stone huts and deep shadow. Do you know it?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I see a broken settlement,’ she said. ‘The bell has fallen. The huts are roofless. Cattle run wild among the ruins. Something has happened there – a plague, an illness. The people have died.’

  ‘What?’ I cried. ‘All of them?’

  ‘Not all.’

  ‘Is this the past or the future?’ I asked.

  ‘I think it’s the present.’ She was about to say more when a little goat ran between us, scattering the ashes. The crowd around us laughed, and Eadie snatched back her pipe and stood up.

  ‘Clear the way,’ she said. She pushed forward, and before long we reached the end of the markets. We went through an archway in a rough rock wall, which led us into a smaller – but still vast – cavern. In there, a ladder reached towards the roof. I looked up but couldn’t see the end of it. It disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘That’s the way to Upper Hub,’ Eadie said. ‘The ladder has a thousand rungs.’

  There were hollows and niches in the walls of the cavern. Eadie led me into an alcove at the far end.

  ‘We’ll sleep here,’ she said.

  THE THREE SISTERS

  The alcove was dimly lit by a candle at its entrance. There was a pile of blankets stacked inside and straw was spread on the floor. People were sleeping in there; they stirred when we arrived.

  ‘It’s the storyteller and her waif,’ someone whispered.

  Eadie passed me a blanket and lay down, pulling her coat around her. There was rustling in the dimness. People were edging towards us – I could see their faces as they got close. We seemed to be in a circle of light, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

  ‘From you,’ Eadie said. ‘It’s your white face.’

  I turned to the left and lit a group of people in a soft glow. When I turned to the right they disappeared into darkness and others appeared in front of me. The faces were waiting expectantly.

  ‘I promised my waif a story,’ Eadie said. ‘You are welcome to listen.’

  She pulled herself up and took something from her pouch. She held it towards me – a walnut.

  ‘There were once three sisters,’ she began. ‘They lived with their old mother in the mountains. One year they had a hard winter. The snow lay thick on the ground. When they were almost out of food, the mother called her eldest daughter and asked her to go out and see what she could find.’

  I wrapped myself in the blanket and lay down. I didn’t want to listen to Eadie’s story.

  ‘The daughter wandered far and wide until, hungry and exhausted, she began to see things that weren’t there, or so she thought. She saw a red animal. You call them swamp rats, or perhaps scarlet runners. I call them snides. The creature had fallen in a hole. It was trying to scramble up the sides, but the hole was deep and it was trapped.

  ‘Don’t harm me, it said. And I will show you the riches of the world.’

  I was listening now. She was telling a tale about a sleek.

  ‘The eldest daughter thought she was dreaming. She looked closely at the snide.

  ‘It’s not big enough to feed us all, she thought. I’ll kill it and eat it myself. And that’s what she did.’

  I looked at the circle of faces. Everyone was listening keenly. I was glad my sleek wasn’t around to hear this story.

  ‘Then the eldest daughter made a rough shelter over the hole so that it had a roof, and she got in and went to sleep. She dreamed she was wandering through a forest. The night was bitterly cold and she needed somewhere to stay. She saw a twist of smoke in the distance and followed it until she came to a clearing. In front of her was a small mud house. It had no windows or doors. She circled the house, trying to
find a way in. Then she saw a flash of red on the roof. It was a creature just like the one she had eaten. It disappeared down the chimney.

  ‘The eldest daughter climbed onto the roof and followed the animal. When she was inside the house she found it was bigger on the inside than out. The walls were white and hung with rich tapestries. There was a table set with steaming food, and the plates were made of gold.

  ‘There was no one about, so the girl sat down and ate. When she finished the food she licked the plate clean. And what a shock she got! Because the face she saw reflected in the golden plate was not her own, but a bone-white skull. She was up the chimney in a second. She leapt off the roof and, as she fled, she looked back and saw it wasn’t a house at all but an ancient grave mound.

  ‘At that moment the eldest daughter woke up. She had a terrible pain in her guts. She groaned and cried for help, but no one could hear her.’

  Eadie paused.

  ‘Go on, Auntie,’ came a man’s voice.

  ‘When the eldest daughter didn’t return the next day, the old mother sent her middle daughter to look for her.

  ‘The middle daughter followed the tracks in the snow for days, until she found her sister half dead in the hole. She was frozen and almost too weak to speak. She used the last of her breath to tell what had happened, then she died.

  ‘The middle sister heaped snow and earth over the grave. She sat for a while weeping for her sister, then she continued on her way.

  ‘She had not gone far when she came across a hole, just like her sister had done. A snide was trapped in it.

  ‘Don’t harm me, it said. I’ll show you the riches of the world.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of hurting you, said the second sister. She let the snide go, but then when it ran away she gave chase. She followed it across the mountains and over plains and through forests. She chased it through the years of her life until, one day, it led her into a clearing and there was the mud house without windows or doors. When the snide leapt down the chimney, the girl followed just as her sister had done. The table was set and the golden plates were heaped with steaming food.

  ‘The middle daughter didn’t eat the food, because she knew what she would see at the bottom of it if she did. Instead, she tossed the food onto the floor and put the plates in her bag.

  ‘As soon as she did this, the rich tapestries disappeared and the room began to shrink. She raced for the chimney but she couldn’t fit. The ceiling pressed down, and the white walls became rough, crumbling dirt. Soon she was crouching in a hole no bigger than the one in which she had found the snide.’

  Eadie held the walnut in front of her face and gazed at its wrinkled surface.

  ‘Back home, the old mother waited, and when her second daughter didn’t return she gave her youngest daughter the last of their food and sent her out to see what had become of the others.

  ‘The youngest daughter followed the tracks of her sisters. She found two mounds and she guessed that her sisters had died. So she continued on. She had not gone far when she came across a snide trapped in a hole.

  ‘Don’t harm me, it said. I’ll show you the riches of the world.

  ‘You poor thing, the youngest sister replied. You could have died if I hadn’t come along.

  ‘She only had a small piece of bread, but she gave it to the snide, then she reached into the hole and helped the creature out. The snide did not run away. Instead, it followed her, and when she lay down to sleep it lent her the warmth of its body.

  ‘The next morning, the creature began digging under the tree where they had slept. It dug up a hoard of nuts, and when the sun came out, the nuts shone golden in the light. The youngest daughter filled her pockets and went home to her mother, and together they lived to see many more winters.’

  Eadie put the walnut in her bag. I closed my eyes and thought of the golden nuts. I was hungry, and I wished my sleek was with me.

  ‘Did he show her the riches of the world?’ someone asked.

  ‘He saved her life with his offering, and then he followed her home and gave her his friendship,’ Eadie said.

  ‘Thank you, Auntie.’

  ‘Goodnight, Auntie.’

  There was rustling of straw and bodies as people settled back down for the night.

  ‘Wait here, Peat,’ said Eadie. ‘I’ll get you something to eat.’

  She got up and left the alcove, returning soon with a bun that reminded me of marsh cake. She had a hot drink for me as well.

  ‘Why didn’t Mother Moss want you to bring me here?’ I asked.

  Eadie looked troubled. She turned her face away. ‘Just eat up and go to sleep,’ she said. ‘You’ll need to keep up your strength for tomorrow.’

  When I had finished my supper I rolled over and pulled my knees up to my chest. I wished I still had my cow charm. I had a bad feeling about the performance, and I didn’t want to do it.

  THE UNDERCAVERN

  When we woke the next morning the alcove was deserted. Outside our sleeping place, I could see a shaft of light shining down to the foot of the ladder. Sunlight. People were stepping off the last rung one after another and heading through an archway that went in the opposite direction to the night markets.

  ‘They’re all going to the Undercavern,’ Eadie said. ‘They’ll be lucky to get seats. Come on. Let’s go.’

  She led me from the alcove to a wide passageway at the far side of the cavern. People stood aside to let us pass.

  ‘What time will you begin, Auntie?’ they asked.

  ‘Soon,’ she replied.

  The passage wound deep under the ground. It was lit by lamps mounted on the wall, and smaller tunnels fed into the main corridor. People streamed in from these. Everyone was going in the same direction.

  We entered the Undercavern through two sets of doors. They were huge doors, covered in green felt, and as one set closed soundlessly behind us, the others opened. The air inside was still – not hot or cold – and people lowered their voices as they entered. If there was a ceiling, it was so high above I couldn’t see it. The lamps were low, but I could see that the walls of the Undercavern went straight up, like a cliff face. The seating was scaffolding – a rickety structure made of long poles and wooden planks – and people were climbing ladders to take their places high up along the rock walls.

  In the centre of the Undercavern was a large flat stone. It was big enough for several people to sit on, but no one went near it. It was lit by a circle of candles.

  ‘That’s where we’ll be,’ Eadie whispered. ‘But for the moment we will wait here inside the doors.’

  I watched the crowd flow past. I recognised some people from the night markets. The woman selling sayings went by. ‘The test of the heart is trouble,’ she said to me. ‘You can have that one for free.’

  When all the seats in the Undercavern were full, Eadie closed the doors. Some of the lights went out and a hush fell on the crowd.

  ‘Tell the Siltman story,’ Eadie whispered.

  She led me to the stone in the centre and she welcomed the audience, saying something about how it had been a long time since she’d last performed in Hub. I was only half listening. She looked huge in the candlelight. Her nose and chin were brightly lit from underneath and her eyes were in deep shadow. Her coat blended into the darkness, and I couldn’t see where it ended.

  ‘Let me introduce my swamp waif!’ she declared.

  I gasped as she pulled me towards her. The white clay on my face was tight, like a mask. My throat was dry and my legs were trembling. I didn’t trust Eadie, and I didn’t know why it was so important that I tell the story. There was applause, and then a quiet waiting. Eadie left me standing alone in front of the audience.

  ‘Start,’ she said.

  I couldn’t see the faces of the crowd, but I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. For a moment my mind went blank. I couldn’t remember how the story began. I couldn’t remember anything. Then the first lesson of storytelling came into my mind: Always open and
close your stories. If you don’t, the characters can come out into the world.

  The nail. I needed the nail. Eadie had the story pouch. She was standing aside with her arms folded. In the half-light she looked like a great bear guarding the door.

  ‘Eadie, the pouch?’

  ‘Just start,’ she said. ‘Once, long ago and far from here, there lived a warrior. His name was Pike . . .’

  There was nothing to do but continue.

  ‘Pike slept with a battleaxe tucked in his belt. Every night he dreamed of fighting, and every morning he woke with the battle light shining in his eyes.’

  My voice sounded loud in the Undercavern.

  ‘Pike lived in a stone fort at the top of some cliffs, and his enemy, a giant called Scabbard, lived in a sea cave at the bottom. Every day they met on the path and fought. You’d think one would have killed the other, but the two were perfectly matched.’

  It was not difficult to tell the story once I had started. And I could feel the audience listening.

  ‘One night Pike dreamed he lost the endless battle. He dreamed Scabbard speared him straight through his heart, and he was so frightened by this that he decided to seek advice.’

  I paused and looked into the crowd. Was it only the day before that I had been telling the same story at Mother Moss’s? It felt such a long time ago. Now I was performing in front of a huge crowd, and the story seemed bigger as well. My voice became stronger.

  ‘There was a wayfarer who came to that part of the world – an old man known as the Siltman. People would visit him at his camp by the river mouth, because they believed he had knowledge and special powers. Pike decided he would take his dream to this man.’

  I described the Siltman. I made him tall and thin, with long grey hair.

  ‘He wore rags that flapped around him,’ I said. ‘And he travelled with a pack of dogs – wild rangy creatures that were taller than he was.’

  I closed my eyes and continued.

  ‘The Siltman had always been old, and he never grew any older. He came each winter, and people knew when to expect him because his footprints and those of his dogs appeared on the beach three weeks before he did.’