Orphan's Song

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  A smile spread across Birdie’s face. There was only one man who could invent an insult like that—traveling peddler, Amos McElhenny. “Amos!”

  She broke into a run, raced to the top of the rise, and stopped, overlooking the little valley on the other side. At the bottom of the slope, a tall, pack laden donkey stood knee deep in the grass at the base of a hallorm tree. The donkey’s legs were splayed and his head bent down, an image of defiance, but of the speaker, Amos, she could see no sign.

  “Amos? Where are you?”

  “Birdie, lass? Is that you?” Amos appeared, sitting up out of the grass beside the donkey. He struggled to his feet and waded uphill toward her, tugging his plumed cap down over his wild red hair. He dusted the dirt off his overcoat and breeches and readjusted his belt around his stout girth. Birdie ran down the hill toward him and, a moment later, found herself engulfed in his strong hug.

  “Perfect timin’, lass. Couldn’t be better. Just in time to join me an’ old Balaam here fer a wee afternoon snack.”

  He released her and hustled back to the donkey, Balaam. Birdie followed as Amos undid the straps holding the packsaddle in place and let it drop to the ground. He dug through the packs and pulled out a skillet and string of sausages.

  “Gather some wood, lass, an’ hurry. I’m starved.”

  Birdie collected fallen limbs from beneath the hallorm tree and tossed them to Amos, then she scrambled up the tree and perched in a comfortable crook where she could look down on the peddler at work.

  “But aren’t you coming to the Sylvan Swan tonight, Amos?” she asked as the peddler employed his tinderbox.

  “Oh, aye. O’ course I am. Don’t I always? Just got hungry, that’s all. Decided ’twas high time fer a snack.”

  “With the Sylvan Swan less than a mile away?”

  “Aye, lass, I’ve got t’ eat my fill before I arrive. Ye know Madame—none too fond o’ me an’ my lack o’ coin. Besides, who could enjoy a meal with that bollywag breathin’ fire down his neck? Whew. Gives me the shivers, just thinkin’ about it.”

  The way he said it made Birdie shiver up in the tree, and a little shower of dark green leaves sprinkled Amos’s head. Whatever a bollywag was, fire-breathing certainly seemed to describe Madame. There would be flames aplenty awaiting Birdie when she returned to the inn.

  She sank back against the obliging tree trunk, hugging her arms as a chill breeze snuck through the threadbare cloth of her dress and blew her dark hair back from her face, twisting it around a cluster of branches.

  From his flint and steel, Amos got a spark that he slowly blew into flame, then he settled back on his heels and dropped sausages into a skillet. “Actually lass, truth is I only stopped here because old grumpy-guts-Balaam decided ’twas time fer a break. I’ve learned after fifteen years with that fool beast: when he makes up his mind t’ somethin’, there’s no gettin’ around it. Best t’ sit back, break out the food, an’ wait ’til he’s ready t’ move again.” He chuckled to himself, and then peered at her. “Ye’re quiet today, lass. What’s botherin’ ye?”

  Birdie studied her hands. Black smudges from the hearth covered her palms. She could still hear Madame’s angry tirade ringing in her ears.

  Worthless. Half-wit. Mad girl.

  Dare she tell Amos the truth? She only saw the traveling peddler every few weeks when he passed through the village of Hardale on his circuit. But he had always been a friend.

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Course I want t’ know.”

  He was the only one she could tell, and she had to tell someone. Mind made up, she peered down at him through the overlapping branches. “You don’t think I’m . . . insane . . . do you, Amos?”

  “Whatever put such an idea in yer head?” He stirred the sausage sizzling over the flames. The tantalizing aroma of cooking meat rose in the cloud of smoke, and Birdie’s stomach rumbled.

  “Everyone else does.”

  “Why d’ ye say that? I mean,” Amos shifted on his heels and wiped the sweat from his brow with a red spotted handkerchief, “why d’ ye say that everyone thinks ye’re insane?”

  “I’ve heard them talking about it. They say I’m not right in the head. That something’s wrong with me. And I . . . well . . .”

  “Go ahead, lassie, spit it out.”

  “Well, I’m starting to wonder if they might be right. I hear things all the time, but now more than ever before. I hear . . . music.”

  “D’ ye now?” A smile creased Amos’s bronze, weathered face. “Well, that’s not so bad. Naught like a cheerful song t’ help pass the time o’ day.”

  “No, it’s not like that.” She sighed. How could she explain it to the peddler? It wasn’t like the ordinary working songs farmers’ wives sang in the fields, or the bawdy sea shanties drunken sailors belted out at the top of their lungs, or even the magnificent ballads traveling bards occasionally sang at the Sylvan Swan.

  “It’s always the same. Well,” she hastened to clarify, “not exactly the same. It’s the same five notes, but it always sounds different, like a different voice is singing it.”

  Even as she spoke, the notes echoed in her ears. The voice, a deep throaty hum like the droning of a dragonfly’s wings, was joined by another, a jouncing baritone. Five notes repeated, lowest, high, middle, low, low.

  Haunting, echoing, reminding.

  “Do you hear it, Amos?”

  The peddler solemnly shook his head.

  Birdie’s breath, pent up in her excitement, exhaled from her lips in an audible sigh. She dropped to the ground and sprawled on her back in the soft grass. She shouldn’t be surprised at Amos’s response. No one else ever heard the music.

  As a child of five, she had first heard the ethereal melody floating through the summer grasses and ran inside, bursting with excitement to tell Madame. Her joy had earned a cuff to the ear. The Song returned several times as she grew up, each more real and beautiful than before, yet never remaining for long. A short spell, a breath, and then it was gone again and she knew not when it would return.

  But now, she heard it almost constantly. Madame scoffed at her “fantasies,” and the two terrors never wearied of teasing her about it. She couldn’t summon the courage to question Master Dalton on the subject, and now, surely Amos too would think her insane. She must be. Why else would she hear a song that no one else could?

  Amos cleared his throat, signaling the end of the conversation, stabbed a sausage link with his knife and bit into it. His face melted into a satisfied grin as he chewed slowly, soaking in the pleasure of the moment.

  “Good?” Birdie sniffed appreciatively. The conversation might not have turned out as she’d hoped, but it hadn’t been as bad as she’d expected either.

  Amos speared another sausage and offered it to her. Her stomach rumbled—a reminder that Madame had deprived her of her last two meals. She took a bite and forced herself to chew slowly, ignoring the urge to gulp it down at once.

  “Have some more, lass. There’s naught t’ satisfy like a belly full o’ meat an’ laughter, as me mother used t’ say!”

  After they finished eating, Amos clambered to his feet and stuffed his supplies into the packsaddle while Birdie put out the fire. The peddler tossed the packsaddle onto the donkey’s high withered back and cinched it tightly. Balaam peered over his shoulder at the mountain of packs, and an expression of resigned misery darkened his brown eyes.

  Amos smacked the donkey’s neck. “Reckon we’re both due fer a rest. Only a few more days an’ then we’ll be headed home to my mother in Bryllhyn. Visit’s long overdue.”

  Bryllhyn. Somehow the name filled her with an incredible longing. It sounded like a quaint, homey sort of place, like she always dreamed of.

  Birdie rested her chin on her knees and gazed at the western horizon. It taunted and beckoned to her at the same time, whi
spering of lands beyond the Midlands and the narrow confines of the inn, of a place beyond Madame’s reach and the two terrors’ mockery.

  And somewhere out there, before the sky touched the sea, was the little village of Bryllhyn where Amos’s mother lived.

  The place Amos called home.

  “How is life at the Sylvan Swan?” Amos squatted beside her, wrinkles crinkling his forehead. “Are they treatin’ ye well? What about those two terrors?”

  Birdie studied the ground. Somehow Amos always knew when something was wrong.

  “Ah, so I’ve struck on it. Been gettin’ ye in trouble again have they?”

  Her cheeks burned. “No, it was my fault. I can’t ever seem to get anything right.”

  She was about to say more, but the music drifted over her and she felt silent, spellbound by the beauty of the five repeated notes. Then a second voice joined in with a different melody. Dark and terrible, a hideous distortion of the first song. It wrapped around her like a plume of smoke, draining the air from her lungs.

  “Lassie? What’s wrong?”

  “Did . . . did you just hear that?”

  He shook his head.

  “The song,” she insisted. “Didn’t you hear it?”

  “Lassie, I—”

  A thought leapt into her mind. “Perhaps if I sing it for you!” She jumped up and opened her mouth to sing. For the first time, the melody poured from her lips, pure and golden, like drops of liquid sunlight. The effect was startling, even to her.

  Silence fell upon the hillside. The crisp autumn breeze stilled. The swaying grasses froze. High above, birds halted amid flight, hanging motionless in the vast blue sea. She shuddered under the sudden weight, as if everything was pressing in around her, drawing near to watch and listen. Even the trees seemed to have bent over, dipping their gnarled boughs in silent but rapt attention.

  A hand clapped over her mouth. “Stop it lassie,” Amos hissed in her ear. “Stop it now!” He removed his hand slowly, eyes darting to scan the horizon. Worry and fear marred his white face, and his hands trembled as he let them fall to his side.

  Birdie stared in astonishment. Amos frightened?

  “What was that?” he demanded. “Some kind o’ witchery?” Sweat beaded his forehead.

  She shook her head but could find no words.

  He grasped her by the shoulders, searching her face with his eyes. “Where did ye hear that song? Who taught it t’ ye? Does Dalton know about this?”

  “Nobody taught it to me.” She swallowed to moisten her dry throat. “I just heard it.”

  “Well, ye mustn’t sing it again.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He released her and sank heavily to the ground. “That song. ’Tis unnatural. ’Tisn’t right. There’s somethin’ about it that reeks o’ . . . I don’t know! Ye just mustn’t sing it, d’ ye understand? Never again.”

  The deep throated whinny of a horse broke into the conversation. Birdie spun around. Beside her, Amos stood, fumbling for a weapon, finding nothing but the knife at his belt.

  A mounted stranger reined his horse to a stop before them. He was clad in black armor and wore a long silver cape that hung down to his booted feet. The visor of his helmet was raised, revealing a swarthy face shadowed by a black beard. A thin-bladed sword rested in an ornamented scabbard at his side. His left hand flashed in movement, and the sword sprang forth, red stained tip pointing toward Amos and Birdie.

  Hand on Birdie’s arm, Amos slowly side stepped toward Balaam, pulling her with him.

  The stranger’s voice halted any further movement. “Drop your weapon.” His horse, a massive armored creature with an odd reddish-black mane and tail, danced in place, but he scarcely seemed to notice, moving with the horse like a tree swaying in the wind.

  Amos growled and his gaze flickered from side to side. The stranger’s horse screamed—such a wild, harsh sound Birdie had never heard before—and reared, pawing at the sky. Amos threw down his knife and yanked Birdie behind the protective shield of the donkey’s protruding belly. Balaam hee-hawed nervously but did not move.

  “Send the girl over here,” the stranger commanded in a cool, distant voice. “I want to talk to her.”

  “Stay still,” Amos mouthed at Birdie. His right hand inched toward the packsaddle. “No need,” he called out to the stranger. “She can talk just fine from here.”

  Birdie rose on her toes to peer over the tall donkey’s back. The gray horse snorted, and pawed the ground. A leather skirt, patch-worked with metal plates, covered the horse’s chest and rump, while a metal mask concealed its face from view—for protection probably, but it made the steed look sinister, like a statue rather than a living beast.

  “Don’t try my patience, old man.”

  “An’ don’t try mine.” Amos’s arm jerked, dipping into the pack and out again. A strange black tube appeared in his hand and extended until it matched the length of his forearm. Birdie watched in bewilderment as he slipped a red tufted shaft into the tube and raised it to his lips.

  “If ye an’ that horse o’ yers have a mind t’ dance, I could blow a fair sort o’ tune on this, don’t ye think?” Amos said. “Or have ye never heard o’ the spear pipe o’ the Vituain Desert? Solid cane shaft with an iron tip coated in poisonous Vrimgor sap leaves a nasty wound, so I’m told.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” the stranger spat. “Put it away. You have nothing to fear from me. I only wish to ask the girl a few questions.”

  “Aye, we’ve naught t’ fear from you, Khelari. But ye’ve quite a bit t’ fear from me if ye don’t turn yer prancin’ pony around and get out o’ the Midlands an’ back t’ the North where ye belong.”

  The stranger’s dark eyes flickered with some expression or thought that Birdie could not identify. He seemed to be almost chuckling as he sheathed his sword and twitched his cape aside to reveal a large medallion hanging around his neck beside a teardrop shaped red jewel. He lifted the chain holding the medallion, and Birdie recognized the engraved symbol—a shepherd’s crook entwined with a crown—as that of the ruling family of the Midlands.

  “My name is Carhartan, the Second Marshal of the Khelari,” the stranger said. “I travel as the Takhran’s representative, under the protection of your King Earnhult. You dare not touch me.”

  “I don’t care who or what ye are. If ye try t’ harm any o’ mine, I’ll see that ye rue the day ye did it.”

  “How old are you child?”

  The sudden question startled Birdie into answering, “Twelve.” She forced her chin up and stared at Carhartan’s eyes—so dark and terrible they seemed, now that his gaze was bent upon her.

  The lines across his forehead deepened. “And where do you live? Is this man your father?”

  “Enough,” Amos said. “No more questions. Lass, it’s time we were goin’.” He grabbed Balaam’s lead rope, ignoring the donkey’s snort of refusal, and tugged, forcing the stubborn beast to move through sheer strength.

  Birdie followed. She glanced back at Carhartan and just caught sight of a hideous expression of wrath and hatred on his face before it smoothed away and the strange coldness returned. He dipped his head in salute and smiled. His steed danced in place, then spun around and galloped southward.

  Amos kept the strange weapon in his hand until the pounding hooves faded in the distance and the gray shape of horse and rider disappeared over the top of the next rise. Then he shakily mopped his face with his kerchief, and removing the shaft from the spear pipe, tucked it away in the packsaddle.

  He was frightened, Birdie realized. Really, truly frightened. For some reason, that thought scared her even more than the stranger. “What just happened, Amos? Who was that?”

  He must have heard the worry in her voice, for his face brightened visibly and he winked. “Bah, a bit o’ nonsense that’s all. Naught t’ trouble yer pretty
little head. Now, isn’t it about time ye were gettin’ back t’ the inn?”

  2

  By the time Birdie and Amos neared the Sylvan Swan, the sun— Tauros—was fast approaching the westerly horizon. Birdie chafed at Balaam’s lumbering pace. Despite Amos’s prodding and pulling, the big donkey waddled along at a snail-like tempo, snatching mouthfuls of pricknettle weeds as he went.

  “Can’t he go any faster, Amos?”

  The peddler whacked Balaam’s hindquarters with the rope. “Not unless I carry him—which I’m not goin’ t’ do. The slobgollomly grub-belly. He’s stubborner ’n a gadfly an’ more obstinate ’n a toothache.”

  Birdie bit her lip and followed in silence, trying to ignore the swift downward trajectory of the sun. She had never been so late before. Every second that passed was fuel for Madame’s wrath. Of course, she could run ahead of Amos, but when it came to facing Madame, having a stout friend at her side might mean the difference between merely losing a meal and gaining a beating.

  Finally, they rounded the curve of the last hill and beheld the Sylvan Swan at the bottom of the trough before them. The inn, a long, low, stone building, whitewashed, and thatched with rushes weighed by hanging rocks against inclement winds, stood in the center of a wide yard. The double doors of the barn opposite the inn yawned open, reminding Birdie of a dozen chores already overdue.

  “No sign o’ Madame, eh?” Amos chuckled. “Quick. Let’s go while the goin’s good. I’ll help with yer chores.”

  Birdie hurried down the hill into the yard with Amos and the donkey at her heels. She had nearly reached the barn when the inn door swung open, and Madame stepped out onto the threshold.

  “So, the runaway returns.”

  Birdie stumbled to a halt, took a deep breath, and turned to face the innkeeper’s wife. Madame’s face was flushed from afternoon baking, and flour speckled her apron and dusted the tip of her pointed nose.