The Bellringer

by William Timothy Murray

  "Oh, no, not at all." Sheila hoped she would not be asked to help, since she did not have much practice at domestic work. But she felt awkward just standing around while Mirabella stripped the bed, so she joined to help in spite of her nervousness.

  "I'm afraid I'm a bit clumsy when it comes to things like this," she said, trying to tuck a corner. "I haven't had much practice, as you can see."

  "I am good at it only from picking up after two men for years," Mirabella laughed. "When I was your age, I didn't know these things, either!" She did not explain that there were servants to do these chores when she was Sheila's age. And Sheila understood that Mrs. Ribbon came from a rich family, grander even than the Bosks.

  "I've as often slept out of a bed as in one," Sheila went on, "as I imagine you know. I barely remember anything about my parents, and, well, I've pretty much had to take care of myself."

  "I know," Mirabella nodded. "One does the best one can, and you could have done worse. Still, I believe you are somewhat changed since we last spoke. That was last year, I think, or even before. Your speech has changed. You have hardly a hint of Barley. And, look at you! I remember you as a vivacious girl. Daring! Full of fire and brashness! Now you seem more, well, you seem calmer?"

  "If you mean less wild," Sheila said, somewhat taken aback by Mirabella's description of her, "I suppose I am. Ashlord has been laboring me hard with my manners and my speech. He has tried to teach me the proper ways of saying things and often he insisted that I read aloud to him. There were times when I hardly uttered a word without being corrected! Before, I could barely read. Robby got me started. Ashlord sort of picked up where Robby left off."

  Mirabella stood back and watched Sheila finish the bed.

  "Robby missed you," she said to her. "When you left, he looked for you all over Barley. Oh, at first he tried to hide what he was doing by inventing unnecessary errands to run. When he ran out of excuses, he asked to take leave of the store for entire days. I think one time he went as far south as New Green Ferry, thinking you had kin there."

  "I should have at least written a note to him, I know," Sheila admitted. "I just needed to be away."

  "Well, we are all relieved that you are well. Mrs. Bosk assured me you were, and I trusted her as I always have. She told me as much as she could without breaking confidence with you. That she had looked after you for awhile, but that you were under Ashlord's care. She asked that we not tell Robby. So we arranged for Robby to have more to do around the store and house than would allow him to take off. We never told him why, though. I thought that if he wanted me to know about you and him, he would tell me. Still, I tried to work it into conversation that I felt you were safe and all right, without letting on about my own inquiries."

  "Mrs. Bosk is a good woman."

  "The best in Barley," Mirabella agreed. "And Robby tells me you only just found out about the death of your uncle."

  "Yes, that's right."

  "Did you know that Mrs. Bosk insisted that Ashlord not tell you?"

  "No."

  "She wanted to protect you as much as she could. I believe she thought that if you knew about it you would return too soon."

  "I probably would have."

  "Well, it was a gruesome business, and the less you had to do with it the better, probably."

  "Just so you know," Sheila said, "I'm relieved that he is dead. Even glad. Even if he was kin of mine."

  "Just to be frank," Mirabella replied seriously, "you are not the only one who was relieved at his death. He was not a pleasant man, to say the least."

  "I know."

  "I don't know how you endured him all these years!"

  "I didn't, for the most part. He's why I spent so much time hunting and fishing and sleeping out in the woods. I was always afraid of him. I stayed on there because, because I—"

  "Because you had nowhere else to go," Mirabella stated flatly.

  Sheila nodded.

  "And that, my dear, is a shame on me and Mrs. Bosk and all of the good folk of Passdale and Barley! I am truly sorry for not being more concerned for you."

  "How were you to know?" Sheila retorted. "I spoke to no one about it. Not even to Robby! And I did not expect any help from anyone."

  "We have eyes," Mirabella shook her head. "And I, for one, at least should have asked more questions about that dreadful man."

  "What is done is done," Sheila said. "There is no use in agonizing over the past, as Ashlord would say, if only we learn something from it. I would not have been a happy or gracious guest in any home that tried to take me in, anyway. But now, well, I will try very hard. And I hope that you will forgive my ignorance and look beyond my poverty."

  "Oh, Sheila!" Mirabella declared, putting her arm around the girl. "You are not as ignorant as you think. And you are never poor if you carry your valuables here." She touched Sheila's chest lightly. "Come. I know you must be tired. Would you like to take a bath and clean up?"

  "A bath?"

  "Why, yes. A hot bath."

  Sheila's eyes lit up at the prospect.

  "Yes!" she nodded. "But, oh!"

  "What is it?"

  "I have nothing else to wear," she said. "And these buckskins are filthy!"

  Mirabella laughed, pulling Sheila into the hall and toward the washroom.

  "You forget!" she said. "I own the store!"

  Then in a whispered, mischievous tone, she teased, "I only let the boys run it to keep them busy."

  • • •

  It was well after dark before Robby finished the store's books. While Sheila was luxuriating in a hot soapy bath, Robby was adding and subtracting, tallying accounts and reviewing the inventory books. There were a lot of purchases on credit to record for all of the things people needed to make repairs—nails, canvas, some lumber, oil, tools, and the like. He noticed that his mother had done most of the transactions at well below the standard prices. That was not a surprise to Robby; the Ribbons had a habit of bending prices downward when times were hard. He also noted that many of the new credits that she had given exceeded the normally allowed amounts. That did not surprise Robby, either. As he put away the books and blew out the desk lamp, he remembered something his father had said on more than one occasion, "The profit made on goodwill may exceed that attained from gold." Robby smiled at the sentiment now being put to practice.

  He checked the strongbox and the doors and windows one last time and slowly climbed the stairs. He was tired and sore, and he had too much to think over. He knew he should clean up and take a bath, but he just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. As he entered his own room, he could hear his mother talking to Sheila in the room across the hall, making sure she had everything she needed. He closed the door, sat down heavily on his bed, and looked around. All of the familiar things, from the curtains to the little writing table in the corner, looked somehow different. An odd feeling came over him that all his life, up to now, these things had been dull, not even real, and now they had somehow become real. He noticed how worn the wooden floor was, how the middle drawer of his chest of drawers was a little uneven, and how the water basin seemed a more vivid blue-green than before. They were all just the same as they ever were, yet nothing seemed the same, now. It was an odd sensation, almost like a mild intoxication. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe it was just the overwhelming events of late. Whatever it was, Robby felt himself changed from the person he was just a few days before, though he could not decide what was different.

  "Perhaps nothing has changed after all," he muttered. "Except now I just know a little more. Though what good will knowing do?"

  His words sounded hollow; the little knowledge he had illuminated nothing, like shining a light up into the night sky of his ignorance.

  Standing up, he left his room and went to the sitting room down the hall and to the cabinet where the map rolls were kept. He pulled out several and looked at each carefully. They were all maps of the region, and most had all of the major features, rivers and roads, boundaries and p
lace names, but some had a little more detail here and there than others. Shuffling through them, he was interested for the moment in the River Bentwide and its course north of Passdale. Most of the maps showed Lake Halgaeth from which the river flowed, but none so far showed what he thought he remembered seeing on one of them. At last he pulled out a map that he immediately knew was the right one. He unrolled it, revealing gold leaf lettering in one of the ancient cursive scripts all around the border of the map. The rest was done in distinct black ink, and, though it showed few roads and only a little of the region around Passdale, it did have more detail of northeast Barley than the others. Depicted were the inlets of Lake Halgaeth where various rivers and streams were. It showed the Saerdulin's old course running past Tulith Attis, as well, and even the Line Road. On the map, the east road extended past the old fortress and on through the Boggy Wood. From there, it traced a path eastward and there was a note on the edge of the map that said "To Colleton." What interested Robby in this map was the lightly inked line running behind Tulith Attis, and, printed along it, "Old Course of River Saerdulin." With his finger, he followed that line as it curved south and westward, growing faint until it joined the Bentwide some ten or so leagues south of Passdale. Reversing his way, he followed the line back north and eastward, passing Tulith Attis where the bridge was well marked, and continuing with his finger northward to Lake Halgaeth. There, where the line reached the boundary of the lake was a small thick mark, drawn across the first line. Beside it, in small script, were the words "Heneil's Wall." That was it, what he thought he had remembered.

  "I bet it washed out," he said aloud.

  "What would that be?" Mirabella said from the doorway. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

  "I didn't mean to jump so!" Robby said with a chuckle. "I didn't hear you come in. This is what."

  He showed her the map and saw a look of concern on her face when he pointed at the spot he had found.

  " 'Te Lamath Heneileth.' That is what it was once called, 'Heneil's Wall,' " she said. "I saw it once when I was a child. I was traveling with my family, down from Glareth in the north, and we took boats to cross the lake. The water was black as coal and as still as glass, and I will never forget the fog, lifting in straight columns all around like a forest of ghostly tree trunks, and the only sound was that of the dipping of our oars. It was cold and I slept some, bundled down low in the boat beside my mother. But she woke me and pointed toward the crescent moon between the twin towers of the wall, like two horns rising against the moonlit sky, shrouded with mist and black in the shadows. The boatmen boats had steered us out of our way to see it, at my father's request. We went right alongside the wall, nearly close enough to touch its mossy stones. It seemed to have taken us a long time to pass it, and I was afraid, but more afraid to cry. I don't know why, but the memory of those dark towers with the moon between them sometimes haunts my dreams."

  "Well," Robby said, breaking himself from a near-trance at her story. He heard so few of them from her, and he was now so terribly curious about anything she might tell him about herself, that he wished she would just keep on talking. But he lacked the nerve, just yet, to ask questions. If she did not want to tell him about her family and her past, he thought (as he always had), then she must have good reasons.

  "I don't think anyone will be frightened by Heneil's Wall anymore."

  "You think it is gone?"

  "Yes, I do," Robby nodded. "I think it washed away in the storm."

  "I do, too," she replied. "And I think you know more about it than you let on."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Well," she sighed, "I think Ashlord told you a great deal, and maybe he told you not to share some things. But I know that more happened at Tulith Attis than what you said earlier when your father was here."

  Robby felt his face redden, but he remained silent.

  She removed a piece of paper from her apron pocket. Robby recognized it as the note he had hastily written and given to the Bosklander who was ordered to ride to Passdale ahead of him.

  "My note to you."

  "Yes, your note," she said. "Or should we say, 'your notes?' For there is more writing here than perhaps you intended for me to see."

  She held out the paper to Robby.

  "What do you mean?" he said, taking it. There was his note, written plainly, but in a hurried hand, on one side of the paper. He turned it over and saw, to his own surprise, the inscription he had copied from over the Iron Door.

  "Oh, this?" he stammered. "It's just some—"

  "Before you weave yourself into more trouble," Mirabella interrupted him, holding up her finger, "perhaps I should tell you that I know those runes, and I know what they say. I should also tell you that I know where it was written, and that, although I have never seen the bell room, I know well the phrase you copied and have known of it since before I ever crossed Lake Halgaeth. Indeed, all of the children of my day were told of it."

  Robby stood staring at his mother, caught out in his earlier omissions and not knowing what to say.

  "Mother, I... It's just that..." Robby stammered, but could not figure out what to say. He saw the growing look of concern, and pain, on her face.

  "I'm sorry," he said at last. "I did not tell you everything that happened." Robby plopped down into a chair and shook his head. "Ashlord asked me not to tell anyone. And I'm not sure you would believe me if I told you."

  "I know you are in some kind of trouble, Robby," she said, taking a chair beside him. "Or else you would not have been asked to keep secrets from your parents."

  "I'm not sure he meant for me not to tell you, Mother, but I don't know what I am to do. I'm not in any kind of trouble, exactly."

  "Then you must be in danger," she concluded bluntly. "Or else you would not have been in the bell room of Tulith Attis in the first place. I do not want you to break your word with Ashlord, but I think your parents have a right to know if their child is in danger. We all heard the Great Bell, though most did not know what it was."

  "Did you?"

  "Yes. I felt it as much as heard it. As if something spoke to me inside, calling me to come with sword and fury. I sat up straight from the deepest sleep and nearly frightened your poor father to death with my wails. I've never had such a feeling! Robigor had to hold me back. At the time, I dismissed it as an awful motherly worry about you, and I wanted to rush out to Tulith Attis immediately, in spite of the storm. I felt as if something was out there, in the dark and rain, that needed to be attacked." She looked at Robby and said, "I have tried all my life to spare you from the burden that was laid upon my kind, and upon my family. My life with your father has been a blessing from the heavens, and I thought Passdale would shelter us from the intrigues of the past. When I heard the Bell's three tolls, I feared that doom was upon us, upon our family and our people."

  "I don't understand," Robby said. "How can I? You have never told me much about yourself or your family. I never knew you were a Faere Child!"

  "I am Elifaen."

  "See? I don't even know the languages or the right names for things. And now I have stumbled into things that I never imagined could be possible. Ashlord thinks I am in danger from the Dark One, or at least from some servant or other of his. I don't even know who or what the Dark One is! Just scary stories, a few legends here and there, and that's about all. Yes, I rang the Bell, though I did not mean to do it, or even know that I had done it, I was in such terror! Ashlord told me later. He says I have a role to play in things. And, on top of all that, there was the Dragonkind on the road to Boskland. Everything has gotten so jumbled and complicated."

  "I will make a pact with you," Mirabella said. "I will answer all of your questions, if I can, if you will strive to answer all of mine."

  "I'm not sure if I know any answers. And what about Daddy?"

  "We will tell each other what we think," she said. "First, tell me what happened. I will try to find a way to tell Robigor, if that is needed. Together we will wo
rk out what needs to be done. I know you are tired, but your father will be home soon, I hope, and it is better that I know before he gets here, in case there is anything that needs explaining to him."

  "Very well," Robby said. "I'll start by telling you that in the storm I missed the path that leads off to Ashlord's place. Instead, I stayed on the way that goes around the north side of the fortress to the bridge, and, in spite of my promise to Daddy, I crossed it."

  Chapter 9

  Ullin at Colleton

  On the night that he sent Robby to Tulith Attis, Ullin sat with his back against a tree trunk with his ground sheet pulled over him against the driving rain. Anerath, having no such shelter, stood nearby as watchful and as patient as ever, shaking his head from time to time to sling off the rain. Ullin's sleep was as fitful as the tossing branches overhead. He worried about sending Robby out on such a stormy night, and he hoped that Robby made it back home before the worst of the weather came. He fell into and out of sleep, shrugging off the wild sounds that forests make in storms, jerked alert again and again by the cracking thunder. He wished he could find good sleep, that he could settle into a pleasant dream. Around midnight, the hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck stood on end, and he immediately tossed off his covers and stood. The forest was pitch dark, but he could hear it coming from the southwest like a stampede. When the first peal of the Great Bell struck Forest Mistwarren, all of the trees in its path shuddered. It shot through the forest like an airless wind, and when the thunder reached Ullin and Anerath at its greatest pitch, the Kingsman cried out, putting his hands over his ears, and Anerath reared and spun. Heavy silence fell upon the wood, and Ullin cautiously removed his hands from his ears. Above, the sky lightened by the dimmest degree as Lady Moon sought an opening in the clouds to peer through.