Will Sparrow's Road

by Karen Cushman

  He would, said Benjamin, cease regretting the infirmities life had tossed at him and prove that unknown fellow wrong, and do it by being the very thing the man scorned—a blind juggler. "I was determined aut vincere aut mori—to succeed or die.”

  Will yawned.

  "You are right, young Sparrow,” Benjamin said. "Satis verborum. Enough words.” And he settled down into the warmth of his cloak.

  Will's body yearned to rest, but his head was spinning. How could someone decide to die or not to die? How did a blind man become a juggler? Would being blind be worse than being sold for a climbing boy? Finally he fell asleep, but his dreams were empty and cold.

  At dawn Will got stiffly to his feet, rubbed his eyes, and stretched. The girl stood watching him. She and Tidball must have returned sometime in the night. He backed away but didn't run—she was but a girl, after all, even if she did look like, well, a cat. Though he was not afeared of girls or cats, he was distinctly uncomfortable with this creature who was neither one nor the other—or mayhap both at once.

  In the growing light of morning, her fur was so light it nearly disappeared, and she seemed almost an ordinary girl in a dress of some stiff red stuff with a limp ruff around her neck. Greymalkin the cat, Tidball had called her. How did she eat? Like a cat lapping at spilled milk? And what did she eat? Mice? Or bread and ale as the rest of them did?

  Will watched her as he chewed his bread. To his disappointment, he discovered that she ate like a girl, an ordinary girl, and wiped her face on her skirt, after which she looked at him with a glance that made Will believe she knew what he was thinking and stuck out her tongue.

  "To Ely, my children, to Ely!” Master Tidball shouted, and the company made ready to go.

  "Good morrow, Solomon,” Will whispered as he hitched the horse to the wagon. He stroked Solomon's nose a time or two before climbing into the driver's seat.

  Fitz and Benjamin strode ahead of the wagon, the girl rode inside, and Master Tidball took the seat next to Will. The troupe was on the road once more, east to Ely.

  A fine, fair morning it was, with the air fresh washed by the rain. The landscape was soft, green and yellow and red with the coming autumn, and the road was lined with farms and pubs and inns for travelers.

  The wagon wheels threw up stones and pebbles as they drew near Fitz and Benjamin, and Fitz scrambled and scampered out of the way, cursing the wagon and the driver. Master Tidball laughed and began to sing:

  As I went out to take a walk,

  Between the water and the wall,

  There I met with a wee wee man,

  The weest that ere I saw.

  "Sing with me, boy,” Master Tidball said, and Will did so, for he had learned the song at the inn:

  Thick and short was his legs,

  And small and thin his knee,

  Between his eyes a flea might go,

  And between his shoulders, inches three.

  Fitz glowered at them as they passed. "That is Lancelot, to the life,” Tidball said, and he doubled over with laughter. "Oh me,” he added, catching his breath, "oh me, he does make me laugh, the ugly, disagreeable little clown.”

  "Is that why you put up with his arguments and his bad temper?” Will asked. "Because he makes you laugh?”

  "Aye. And because I thought to show them together—the wild girl and her tiny overseer. 'Twould have been a sight to see. once she did as I bade her, but now she won't, and if she won't, he won't.” Tidball smacked his knee and grumbled, "Sea-monster skeletons and three-legged chickens are not attraction enough. I must have something spectacular: a dog-faced man, perhaps, or a giant, or an armless man who plays on a lute with his feet.”

  He pulled a tattered piece of paper from his sleeve. "See this, young Sparrow—I have spent many years searching for such as this.”

  Will looked. It was a broadside with a drawing of two infants—no, one infant—no, perhaps one infant with two heads? He peered closer. No, it was two infants, joined together at the belly. He shuddered. Could such a thing be so?

  "Monstrous children.” Tidball sighed. "Delightful! If I could but find such as these, it would make my reputation and my fortune. And then Bartlemas Fair! I would have something extraordinary to show at Bartlemas Fair.”

  Will looked at the picture once more before Tidball folded it and tucked it back in his sleeve. Were there really such monsters? What did it mean? Evil? Witchcraft? What became of poor babes such as these? In heaven were they still one, or could God make them two? And if he could, then why had he made them one at all?

  By afternoon there were fewer villages and fewer trees as they found themselves in the fenlands. Will marveled at the sights, so different from the gentle hills and fields they had left. The low-lying flatlands pocked with misty marshes and mires of reeds and rushes were flecked with windmills and crisscrossed by dikes and drainage ditches. In places the water lapped at the side of the road.

  Sedges, vetches, and grasses grew in profusion, and the air was noisy with the music of coots and cuckoos, whirligig beetles and dragonflies, and the drumming of the snipe. Tufts of solid ground rose above the shallow waters, and swans resting on those little hillocks looked to Will as if they were floating on tiny barges.

  There was a scatter of cottages on the edges of the marshes and on small islands here and there. Pointing to a reed-thatched cottage, Will asked Master Tidball why its walls were plastered with smears of what appeared to be cow dung.

  "They are drying it for fuel,” Tidball said. "There be few trees to chop in this place.” He pointed to a man walking on stilts, casting his fishing line into the marsh. "Fens be strange, watery places. And the folk who live here be strange folk.” Cocking one eyebrow and lowering his voice so Will had to lean in, he said, "Why, I have heard tales of web-footed people in these fens, of witches and demons who raise hail and tempests and hurtful weather, of ghostly monks chanting in the ruins of their priories.”

  Will stiffened.

  "As we travel, watch for the giant Tom Hickathrift, who prowls these fens,” Tidball continued. "Cruel, he is, with the strength of twenty men, and he devours little children.” Tidball scratched his nose and spat over the side. "Folk like us would stand no chance against Tom Hickathrift.”

  Will was silent after that, and watchful.

  They stopped at sunset. Will pulled the wagon into a dry spot. He and Master Tidball climbed down and stretched, waiting for Fitz and Benjamin to catch up.

  "Master Tidball,” said Will, "I ask you again for my wages.”

  "Fitz is the man to see.”

  "Nay, Fitz said there is no money for wages.”

  "I will attend to him. In the meantime, see to the horse.”

  Will unhitched Solomon and set him loose to find his supper. Then Will set himself loose, his legs itchy from the hours on the wagon seat. He kicked and jumped and ran west into the sunset, waving his jerkin and shouting, "I be the swiftest runner in the county! None can o'ertake me, and they will choke in the cloud of my dust!”

  The flat land offered a fine view of dark lowering clouds, below which the sun fell until it was gone from out of the sky and there was only a rim of gold, and then finally only the memory of gold. The very air was aglow. Will's breath caught in his chest.

  Once it began to darken, he ran back to the wagon, where Tidball, Benjamin, and Fitz were gathered. The creature Greymalkin joined them and sat in silence. They built no fire but ate cold pork pie that Fitz brought out from the wagon. Wages were scarce, Will reflected, but leastwise Master Tidball was feeding their bellies again.

  "I hear the fiendish Black Dog still roams hereabout,” Tidball said through a mouthful of pie. "A giant hound he is, with eyes like blazing fire. In the dark of night you cannot see him but can hear the pad-pad-pad of his paws coming ever closer and closer. Pad-pad-pad," he repeated. "Closer and closer. Pad-pad-pad."

  The creature leapt up, wrapped her cloak about her, and hurried into the wagon.

  Wisps of fog passed over
the moon. Will pulled his jerkin on, then lay down and curled around himself for warmth. He thought about the story Benjamin had told him and the questions he still had. The night was black enough, but Will squeezed his eyes shut to make it darker still.

  "Sir Juggler,” he whispered to Benjamin, "I have been pondering what you told me, and I bethink me I might rather die by the wall than live blind.”

  "Facile est dicere, young Sparrow, it is easy to say. But 'tis difficult to give up the habit of living.” Benjamin went on to tell Will how he had learned his juggling, there by the wall of the city. He took to begging for coins and paid small boys to buy leather balls for him at the market fair. He threw the balls low and close to his body to begin and practiced for hours every day. "What else had I to do with my time? At first I was fearful—I trembled and boggled and the balls fell nolens volens, willy-nilly, and hit me on the head, dropping useless at my feet, and the boys fetched them back. But I practiced until my arms ached and my fingers grew raw. People stopped to watch, and my cap filled with coins. And so aud sum, I am here.”

  "Aye, but are you not sorry that you cannot see to read and to write? Do you curse God and fortune and the pox?”

  “Me iudice, in my opinion, life is like juggling,” said Benjamin. “Things come at you—balls, clubs, knives, sorrow, loss. Either you stand there and let them hit you or you throw them back pugnis et calcibus, with all your might.

  “Now acta est fabula, the story is over. God grant you pleasing dreams.” He pulled his cloak over his face and began to snore.

  Will thought about begging and juggling and suffering from the pox. He thought of his own life and the hungry children at the fair. He himself had had much thrown at him, but still he was more fortunate than some. The fortunate Will Sparrow, he said to himself. Certes, an odd notion.

  He wrapped himself more securely in his cloak and lay watching for giant men and dogs as long as he could keep his eyes open but finally fell asleep to the eerie lullaby of the honking of the swans.

  Suddenly out of the darkness came unearthly howls and the sound of giant footsteps. Pad-pad-pad. Pad-pad-pad.

  “Hist, Sparrow, what is that?” Benjamin asked in a husky whisper.

  Will jumped up, his heart pounding as the steps drew nearer. Pad-pad-pad and ghastly howling. The Black Dog! He stood frozen in fear.

  Fitz clambered out from beneath the wagon and stood next to Will, and the girl poked her head out the door, calling, "What? What? What?” All then was quiet until the sound came again. Pad-pad-pad. Will shuddered and backed up against the wagon.

  Benjamin's head swiveled as if he were smelling the air. "'Tis coming from that direction,” he said, pointing.

  A bit of moonlight showed not a black dog or demon of any sort but instead Tidball, stomping his good foot and thumping the ground with his walking stick.

  "A pox on you, you pitiless villain!” Fitz shouted. "The Devil take your evil jest. You near sent us into apoplexy.”

  The man only laughed. "You cowards!” he cried. "Afeared of a cripple and his walking stick!” He dropped to the ground and howled once more before saying, "Ah, I be a jolly prankster indeed. You, young Sparrow, you are not a cringing coward. You admire a merry jest.”

  Will thought it had the smell of a cruel prank rather than a jest, but Tidball's words felt like an arm around Will's shoulders. They were together against the others—the sound versus the odd. He threw a weak smile to the man. "'Twas a merry jest indeed, Master Tidball.”

  The girl came out from the wagon and, mumbling, lay down next to Fitz. Belike oddities did not understand jests, Will thought. Tidball yawned and closed his eyes, but Will stayed awake long into the night.

  THIRTEEN

  OF THE CREATURE GREYMALKIN AND

  THE GIRL GRACE WYSE

  IN THE morning fog everything was but shapes and shadows. Will relieved himself against a willow tree. His stream steamed in the cold—it would be autumn soon, and then winter. His purse was empty. Would he be on the road once more, eating frozen berries and sleeping on the ground? Would he never be safe and warm and dry? Shivering at the thought, he brushed cold droplets from his skin and clothing and dried Solomon's coat with a handful of reeds.

  Tidball, under the wagon, awoke and bellowed in pain. Will helped him to slide out. "'Swounds,” he said, "but this ankle of mine troubles me no end. Belike 'tis due to last night's merriment. Today I ride inside the wagon. You, boy, take the wild cat.”

  Muttering, "I am ne'er a cat,” the girl jumped out of the wagon and climbed onto the seat. She was wrapped in her blue cloak and had pulled the hood forward, hiding her face.

  Will bade farewell to Benjamin, who would walk with Fitz again, and strode to the wagon. He stared at the creature. Never had he been so close to it—to her. She was not so very big or dangerous-looking, huddled there in her cloak. When he climbed onto the seat, she looked away. He picked up the reins, and they traveled an hour or two in silence.

  Will was unsure and ill at ease, but it had been a long, lonely ride, and there was much farther to go yet. He sought diversion. Mayhap, he thought, 'twould be possible to talk to her now that he could not see her face for her cloak. He might pretend she was a person and not an oddity at all.

  He cleared his throat several times and squeaked, "What means the name Greymalkin?”

  She said nothing.

  "Did your mother give you that name?”

  Still she said nothing.

  They rode a mile or more before Will said, "Will you not speak to me at all?”

  There was more silence, broken only by the lonesome sound of frogs croaking in the fog.

  Will grew bored, restless, and eager for company—even hers. Finally he said, "'Tis right dreary and wearying to be riding here as if alone. And so, both to occupy myself and ensure your attention, I shall sing in a loud voice every rude tavern song I learned at the inn.” He sang, "I pray now attend to this ditty, a merry and frolicsome say” and "Come drink to me and I shall drink to you.” He bellowed, "Pinch him, pinch him, black and blue,” "What hap had I to marry a shrew,” and "A soldier's a man, life's but a span, why, then, let a soldier drink!” finishing with a chorus of belches. Still the girl said nothing, and the silence grew as heavy as a sodden coat about Will's shoulders.

  As the day grew older, the mist cleared, revealing the road that stretched on and on, held back from the pools and marshes by willow-banked dikes. In the distance a hill rose from the flat land, topped by towers taller than Will had ever seen or imagined.

  "Think you, Greymalkin,” asked Will, "that those towers reach nigh unto heaven?”

  She made no answer.

  The nearer they rode to Ely, the taller the towers grew. The wagon climbed the hill to arrive in the town itself. Will stood at the base of the towers, looking up, and he could not see the tops. 'Twas Ely Cathedral. "Fie upon it,” Will muttered. "God himself must have added the topmost stones, for no mortal man could climb so high.”

  "Aye,” the girl said, and Will was pleased that he had finally moved her to say something, even if it were only aye.

  The town was full of the fair, with booths and stalls all around the walls, at the gateway, in the streets, and on the wharves on the river. The place was bustling with merchants setting up. Stilt walkers and tumblers and dancers with bells on their shoes cavorted past to the sounds of tents flapping, merchants calling, lute players and flute players and little boys with tin whistles. Some folks had to make do with cloth laid on the ground to display their wares, but Will found a space next to the ale stall at the edge of the market square where they could erect their booth and park their wagon behind instead of leaving it in the field outside the fair.

  Soon Fitz and Benjamin arrived. Benjamin bade them farewell, saying he would ply his trade at the east end of the fair but would return ere the fair was over if he chose to travel with them further. Fitz and Will carried boxes and barrels from the wagon to the booth. Tidball sat on a box and directed them with
his walking stick until he fell asleep, whereupon Fitz, looking up at the late-day sky, said, "I must away. Finish unpacking, and I will return as soon as I ... anon. I will return anon.” He scuttled away.

  A soft voice came from inside the wagon. "Hist, who be out there?”

  "Ah, Greymalkin, I knew you could speak when you wished to,” Will said.

  She looked out. "Oh, 'tis you, rude boy,” she said as she jumped down. "Know this: I shall not speak to you so long as you call me Greymalkin. 'Tis a name for a cat.”

  "What then?”

  "You may call me Grace Wyse, for such I have now named myself. I have long been thinking of a fitting name. I had considered calling myself Wynefred or Millicent or Thomasine, but cats might be called such, might they not? I have met nary a cat with a name like Grace Wyse.” She sighed. In contentment? Will wondered. In sorrow? In resignation? How could he know the thoughts of such a creature? She peered at him. "Grace Wyse,” she said. "Do you not think it a fine name for a person?”

  There was that face, ginger haired, with pointed chin and green eyes, right before him. And he could not help but ask, "Why is your face as it is? Was your mam frightened by a cat? Or is it mayhap a witch's curse?”

  The girl's shoulders slumped. "I find I do not wish to speak to you after all, rude boy.” She hopped back into the wagon and closed the door.

  To Will's mind she was a creature—a fairly tame and harmless creature, but a creature nonetheless. However, she spoke like a person and acted like a person and thought herself a person, and he had reminded her that she was, well, different. Very different. An oddity. He was surprised to find he was sorry for what he had said, but he was reluctant to say so.

  Lying came easily to Will, and thieving. To humble himself and apologize was more difficult, but he would not leave it this way. He cleared his throat loudly and with a croak began to sing "Greensleeves,” a song he knew well, but with his own words: