The Bellringer

by William Timothy Murray

  "Ullin's mother lives in Glareth, doesn't she?"

  "That is so. She left Tallinvale when Aram, Ullin's father, died. Ullin went with her, but he returned to Tallinvale the following year and stayed until he left to become a Kingsman."

  A cry and a sharp curse from upstairs, followed by a crash of metal pots, signaled Sheila's loss of temper.

  "Oops!" Robby stated as he suppressed a laugh. "That doesn't sound good."

  "No." Mirabella smiled. "I think I'd better go up and see if I can save our supper!"

  • • •

  Meanwhile, Sheila had more or less become part of the family. She helped wherever needed without complaint, and she tried to learn what she could from Robby's mother. She seemed grateful enough for their hospitality, and seemed right at home in many ways. Yet, each time Robby saw her, he was a bit surprised, and pleased, at her presence. They seldom had a chance to talk privately, but the more she was around, the harder it was for Robby to take his gaze from her. And it seemed that she continued to change, almost before his eyes. She grew more confident around others, and, in his estimation, her beauty increased daily.

  Mr. Ribbon had provided her with an allowance, "to keep ye 'til we have a chance to talk 'bout things," and with it she purchased clothes more fitting a young mistress, putting away her buckskin breeches and shirts for cotton and linen dresses and blouses and bodices. Her new clothes made her appear more feminine than she had ever before, a fact that Robby could not fail to notice. There were moments, while she and Mirabella laughed merrily together over some private joke, when Sheila was briefly like her old self. Robby observed, however, that as soon as the laughter faded away, a serious if not sad demeanor crept back over her. Once or twice, while Robby was working the store, he would suddenly see her staring at him from across the room with a look of such intensity that he would stop what he was doing to ask what was amiss. She would only shake her head, apologize, and say that it was nothing.

  One evening after supper, when the store was closed and Robby's father had been summoned back to the Common House for a late meeting, Mirabella sat with Sheila in the parlor room upstairs and chatted away as she showed Sheila how to knit.

  "My mother taught me how to do needle-lace, but it was Frizella Bosk who taught me, years ago, how to knit with yarn," Mirabella said as she handed across the needles. "Now you try."

  Sheila bit her lip and tried to remember what Mirabella had just demonstrated. After a minute or two, with Mirabella intervening only once, she had the hang of it, though her hands felt clumsy and slow.

  "You are doing fine. Just keep going with that for a bit."

  "Frizella told me that she used to work for you and Mr. Ribbon," Sheila said, not looking up from her work.

  "That is so. I knew Frizella from before I was married. I knew next to nothing about housekeeping when I married Robigor, much less anything about keeping a store. Frizella's father was an old friend of Robigor's grandfather, and somehow it fell into place that she was able to help me out. She got me started cooking, sewing, cleaning, and knitting. You know, she was pretty wild herself when she was a lass, but always a kindhearted person. She always had an eye for Mr. Bosk, and Mr. Bosk made it a point to come around wherever he thought Frizella might be. To see her, of course. I daresay he was smitten the first time he laid eyes on her. Oh, in those days they were the talk of the county! Somehow they just hit it off, and it was clear to any who had eyes. I owe her so much. Even after she and Mr. Bosk married, she came to stay several times to help me out. One year, when a terrible sickness swept through Barley, she came into Passdale just to help me, having heard that Robigor had taken ill. She looked after little Robby. That was so that I could I tend to the store and to Robigor who was out of his mind with fever for five days."

  "Did you or Robby get sick, too?"

  "Not then. But many other children did fall ill. Passdale lost over sixty people in just a fortnight. Barley suffered worse, and the Bosk family lost many of their kin. It was a terrible time."

  Mirabella watched Sheila thoughtfully for a moment.

  "Robby was very ill, a couple of years before, when he was around five years old. Frizella was here, then, too. I was out of my mind with worry, for nothing I did seemed to help. I sent word to Frizella, asking for her advice, and she came directly. But even she was baffled by the illness."

  Sheila stopped and looked up at Mirabella who now smiled.

  "Of course, he recovered," Mirabella said.

  "Of course, since there he is."

  Robby entered the room with a book under his arm.

  "Do you mind if I join you ladies? I'd like to finish reading this book that I have on loan from Mr. Broadweed."

  "Robby, why don't you sit here, where the light is good? I think I'll make a pot of tea."

  Robby nodded and sat as Mirabella left the room.

  "You've been very busy, lately," Sheila said as she continued knitting.

  "Yes, with the store. So have you, I take it. I heard something about you helping Mrs. Greardon?"

  "Oh, well, I've only been helping your mother. She's been doing most of the work. Mrs. Greardon is trying to take care of so much of her late husband's business so that she can support their little boy. She's not bearing up too well right now, and Mira is helping with the cleaning of the house. It turns out that the Greardon house nearly lost its roof, among all of their other misfortunes, and everything in the house got soaked in the storm. Mirabella and I have been trying to help her sort out what can't be saved, and cleaning and washing everything else. Some of her late husband's kin and a good number of Passdalers have been doing the same at the mill, trying to see if it can be saved at all."

  "Can it?"

  "I haven't heard. It seems to have something to do with the foundation, but I'm not sure what."

  They chatted like this for a while until Mirabella returned with a tray and served them all a cup of aromatic tea. Robby sipped while he read, and the women discussed a few more points of knitting. After a while, all grew quiet, knitting needles clicked, pages rustled, and tea was slurped until Sheila began stifling yawns at such an embarrassing rate that she excused herself to bed, bidding the mother and son a good night. Robby watched her leave, and saw her throw a last glance and smile back at him just as she passed through the door. Mirabella saw him look after her, but said nothing and kept at her knitting. After a moment, Robby turned back to his book and continued reading about the Seven Realms. The book was a hand-copied manuscript, written as a school text, and it had little in it that was not already familiar to Robby: a dry review of the end of the First Age, with the coming of Men to the eastern shores, and the beginning of the kingdoms of Men leading up to the founding of the Seven Realms. There was, however, a portion pertaining to Vanara and the Elifaen that lived there, and how, more than any other place, Men and Elifaen established close ties of trust and loyalty to each other. This led Robby to think about marriages between the two races and to wonder about his own family. He looked up at his fair mother, bent over her task in the soft light, the open window on the far side of the room permitting a breath of cool air to slip in, which playfully tousled a strand of her red hair, causing it to fall across her face.

  "Mother?"

  "Yes, Robby?"

  "May I ask about your scars?"

  Mirabella looked over at Robby, her brows up and with surprise in her eyes.

  "I was wondering," he asked delicately, "if you have always had them? From birth, I mean."

  Mirabella put her knitting in her lap to give Robby all her attention.

  "No," she said. "The scars came upon me when I was very young. Before my becoming a woman, even. That is sometimes the way for children born of my people. Of our people, I should say. Some of us are permitted a time without pain, a time of joy and peace within. Mine was truly a blessed childhood, and I had not a care in the world, in spite of all that went on around me. I think I was wiser, too, in those days of my youth, than I have ever been s
ince."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It is hard to explain unless you have known it," she said wistfully. "I could hear better. The air through the leaves of summer was as a crowd of voices. In winter, when limbs are bare, a thin whisper. The water pouring from the brook over rocks and ledges. I can't explain. And I could see better. I could almost see things...breathe."

  She shrugged and smiled, shaking her head.

  "How did it happen? How did they form?" Robby asked awkwardly. "The scars, that is."

  "For each person it is different, and may come at a different time for one than another. For some, it comes at a very early age, for others in later years, and, for a few, not until the final moments of their life. The emerging of the scars is called the Scathing, and it is accompanied by a kind of sickness, or, to be more truthful, a kind of madness. With me it came suddenly. I remember playing in a field, gathering wildflowers and weaving them into garlands. There was a lark that played along with me, and a little fawn, too. A shadow fell over us, as if covering the sun, and I grew dizzy. I felt a burning on my back, and, as I was later told by my brother, my screams brought my father running for me. I do not remember the next days very well, only that they were full of pain, delirium, and restlessness. This ended with a deep and utter sadness, and I tried to throw myself from my window, somehow having it in my mind that the rushing of air as I fell would somehow cure me. Or that, if I was a good girl, I could fly away into the sky. Of course, my family prevented me from fulfilling the nightmarish desire, and I recovered very slowly, if indeed it can be said that the Scathing is a thing to be recovered from. I was still suffering when my family left Vanara later that year and came east."

  "Do you still suffer?"

  "Not all the time. That is to say, the pain is more subtle as the years pass," she answered. "The physical aspect of it is tolerable, and sometimes I do not notice it at all. That comes and goes. The other part..."

  Mirabella paused, searching for words. She looked at Robby and smiled weakly.

  "The other part is not so much a pain as it is an odd blend of emotions, melancholia, anger, resentment, and remorse. Feelings that I have had since childhood, when the scars first formed."

  "Remorse? What could you have done to have such feelings? As a child?"

  "Children feel guilt and shame even when none is warranted. More bitterly, in some ways, than do grown-ups," she replied. "But what I speak of is the remorse of my people, remorse for my people, the things we have done, the price we have paid in what we have lost. Once we communed with all nature, living in harmony and in a delight of understanding. The Faerekind were here when the world was formed, Robby, and when the forests were young and the rivers first took their courses. Our people saw the mountains rise to mighty heights and took joy in the rains that smoothed them down. We rode the air with the birds and the butterflies and needed no sustenance but air and laughter, sunlight and moonlight. But our wings were stripped from us, and our form became heavy in the world, and we lost more than just the ability to fly. We were no longer able to commune with the earth or sky as we once had done. Although I was born long after that time, I still feel it, I still taste it as a part of my past, though I have no memory within me of that age. There is a story told of a prince among our kind, a mighty warrior and poet, who, when he realized the extent of our loss, wept for a hundred years until his eyes dried of tears, and then he took his own life. Indeed, suicide is common among our kind, so dark is our hearts."

  Robby considered what she said and wondered at her. He knew no others of her kind, and had only met, very briefly and many years ago, a passing troupe of Elifaen during festival time. They seemed happy enough, with their gay songs, but now, as he recalled, even the happiest of their songs were wistful.

  "Will I also go through the Scathing?" he asked.

  "I do not know. I once thought you would. When you were a child, and very sick, I thought you were going through it then, but I was wrong. It may be that you will never know it. If the Scathing does come to you, you will have no warning, no sign of its coming. So you cannot prepare. You may as well not fret one way or the other about it. Only hope, if it does come, that you have good people about you."

  Mirabella put her knitting into the little basket beside her chair.

  "Now I would like to ask you something," she said with a wry smile, leaning over the arm of the chair toward Robby. "I know you and Sheila have had a special relationship. I just wonder, is it very special?"

  Robby reddened just a little and closed his book.

  "Yes, for my part anyway. She is as dear to me as any other person. More than any other, I think."

  "But this arrangement we have here, her staying with us, does not suit you?"

  "Oh, it suits me fine. Except, well, we haven't had much time to spend together."

  "I know you've been very busy with the store. I'm sorry."

  "No, I don't mind that. It's good, in a way, to be busy."

  "But?"

  "I don't think it matters that she and I have so little chance to be, well, to be alone. I don't think she wants it. Not right now."

  "I think she wants it more than she lets on," Mirabella said, shifting her legs up underneath her so that she was bundled into the chair like a little girl. "I find it strange, though. It's obvious she cares a great deal about you. She looks for you, pretending not to. And when you are not around, she finds a way to ask after you. Oh, without seeming too concerned, mind you, but still she asks. When you are around, I see how she looks at you. And how you look at her, too. Only, I think she has a lot on her heart right now. She knows, I think, that she can confide in me, but she has not chosen to do so. Not yet. Maybe never."

  "Mother, please don't press her too much," Robby asked earnestly. "You are right, there are other things on her mind, weighing upon her. Some have to do with me and some do not. I don't feel right about telling you about them, what I know of them, anyway. If she wants you to know, I think it is her place to speak, not mine. I hope you understand."

  "Of course I do. You can rest assured I'll not pry. I'll keep an eye out for her, though, and, if it comes up, I'll do my best to respect her privacy, too. She isn't the only one in this house with reasons to keep a cautious tongue. Let's just see how things go."

  • • •

  Work at the store continued to be brisk. While Robigor, the elder, was busy as Acting Mayor, Robigor, the younger, ran the store as he was taught, under the watchful eye of his mother and with only the occasional supervision of his father in the evenings. The people of the Eastlands, resilient and hearty stock, quickly recovered from the floods and realized that the damage was not as severe as it could have been. Grateful for that, and for Mr. Ribbon's wise and careful management of civic affairs, and for his way of bringing folks together to agree upon ways to work together, the people received what they needed to rebuild, and to salvage their late harvests. While many of the fruit trees were ruined, and most of the late corn and melons washed away, much of the barley and wheat had already been harvested and beans, nuts, and grapes were aplenty. They knew they would not starve this winter and so they got on with their lives. Everywhere there were discussions about the four raiders, especially the Dragon Man and the one that got away—for he was never found by the Bosklanders—and the entire countryside remained watchful. Doors that were seldom closed were now being locked, people were keeping dogs, and few went anywhere unaccompanied. Rumors spread that the lone intruder was nearby, that he lurked behind every bush and tree, and that he only waited for a chance to thieve and plunder. There was talk about bandits who gathered in the Thunder Mountains, and some feared they would send forays against Barley. But there was no thieving and no plundering, unless one counted those few apples hoisted in the market, or that extra ale that went unpaid until the next day down at the tavern. Folks regained their stride, never too hurried nor too worried (as was their way), for there was too much work to do to waste effort fretting about some lost badman in t
he dark. With nothing more serious happening, and having survived the storm, there was something of a pleasant relief in the air as preparations for the Autumn Festival began.

  Indeed, these preparations kept Mr. Ribbon especially busy as it fell to him to make most of the arrangements for the public event. And, as mayor, he had many other responsibilities besides. The most pressing was to have a survey of the roads and bridges completed as soon as possible. There was also the annual census to be prepared for the King's Treasure. Besides the Renewal Oaths to be taken during the festival, there were the required accounts about taxes and tariffs that were required by the governor (thankfully, there were few taxes in these parts and no tariffs at all, though the question did arise at a recent council meeting of whether some new tax was needed to pay for the repairs to the roads and bridges). As well, Mr. Ribbon had to deal with any petitions unanswered by Duinnor (no petitions, either, and Mr. Ribbon had never heard of one being made), and many other formalities that needed put to parchment and sent on to Formouth, where Prince Danoss sat as administrative governor of the Eastlands Realm. At the same time, the Bosks were pressing to raise a new county militia once more, to be placed, naturally enough, under the command of the Laird of Bosk Hall. One afternoon, after a meeting at the Common House, Mr. Bosk and Mr. Ribbon stepped onto the store porch together. As they entered the store, Robby heard Mr. Bosk trying to convince the mayor to sway the council.

  "We don't yet know anythin' 'bout them looters," he was saying as they came through the door. "Might be more of 'em. Now ye wants a fine turnout at the Festival, don't ye? Well, folks ain't likely to leave thar homes if they be worried 'bout the likes of strangers an' robbers an' such."

  "Ye won't get an argument from me 'bout that," Robigor was nodding. "But thar's a lot on ever'one's plates, right now. Most ain't finished makin' repairs, an' winter's fast comin'. Thar's few to spare for any militia till we have the roads in repair, an' thar's little money in the county treasury to cover the like."

  "Affernoon, Master Ribbon," Bosk nodded to Robby and quickly turned back to his father. "Looky here, Robigor. I've got as much work to get done as any. I can raise fifty er sixty men, fast like, good Line Riders all, trained an' ready to make defense. But that ain't enough to take on the likes of what we seen last month if a bigger party of 'em come. Master Ribbon whar thar. He can warrant the fight them fellers put up. I don't dare send less than three patrollin' together, an' that ain't nearly what it takes to cover the county proper-like. I can raise another hunnerd or two hunnerd, maybe, but they'll need trainin' an' arms. That'll take time an' help. If some others from Passdale, Leeriver, an' the rest of Barley join in, we can have nigh five hunnerd. Once they're all trained an' armed, we can break into companies. Whilst some goes 'bout thar work, others'll be on patrol. If the alarm is raised, they can all come out."