The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  Since then, she’d watched the boy who’d been kind to her, the boy who now herded the temple sheep, hoping his access to the palace and the temple grounds would provide her an opportunity to creep inside. He was just a child, yet he moved like a man and cared for the sheep with quiet confidence. He was not like other boys, and she studied him with growing fascination.

  He didn’t sleep in the fields but herded the sheep inside the gates when the sun began to sink behind the palace spires. Each day he brought them out again, though often it was not until the sun was high in the sky. One day he brought a small book to read as the sheep grazed, and she wondered if he had lessons that kept him occupied in the morning hours.

  Her chance came as chances do, suddenly and simply. A pregnant ewe, stubborn and stupid—there was always at least one—had wandered off and fallen into a thicket. She’d broken her leg, and she bleated piteously, calling to her young shepherd. Her cries echoed through the trees and over the hillside, and Ghost, lured from one of her hiding places, was tempted to cut her throat to end her misery. But Ghost hung back, not wanting to risk being seen, and watched as the boy made his way to the sheep. She wondered if he would have the skill and stomach to kill the wounded animal. It was an unpleasant task for one so young.

  He sat back for a moment, hands on his thighs, head bowed in thought. Then, as though the sheep weighed no more than an unwieldy bag of grain, he scooped her up and slung her across his shoulders.

  The sheep bellowed, and Ghost gaped, stunned at the boy’s strength. The pregnant ewe had to outweigh him by five stone, if not more. It was almost comical, the braying beast with her spindly legs nearly brushing the ground, draped across a back that should not have been able to hoist such a burden. Yet the boy carried the sheep with a steady tread, singing an odd chant Ghost had often heard echoing from inside the temple walls. The ewe would have to be put down, but the boy clearly was unwilling to leave her.

  Evidently, he was unwilling to leave any of them, and he began to gather the grazing herd, walking the perimeter, tightening the circle. He drove the flock up the hill toward the east gate, barking and pushing, urging them onward. And all the while he carried the injured sheep. Ghost hovered at the tree line, inching up the hill behind him, watching his progress with fascination.

  It took him two hours, trotting to and fro to keep the herd moving in the right direction, before he finally rang the bell on the eastern gate. The day was waning, he was drenched in sweat, but every sheep was accounted for. The dissonant clanging brought the watchman to the tower.

  “Open the gate,” the watchman bellowed, seeing the boy with his staggering burden. Nothing happened, and the watchman bellowed again, clearly perturbed.

  “Hold on, boy. I’ll raise it myself.”

  Ghost didn’t stop to think or consider. She simply ran, flying up the rise from the little copse of trees a hundred yards from the east entrance. No one cried out from the wall, no horns bugled in alert. The Temple Boy, his view obscured by the animal draped across his shoulders, did not turn toward her. She would simply walk through the gate with the flock. If anyone saw her, she would appear to be helping him.

  But no one saw her.

  She brought up the rear, eyes down, trying not to pant and alert the boy. She swatted a woolly tail, willing the beasts to obey, to stay close, and to give her cover, and she strolled through the east gate as though she had every right to do so. No one stopped her—there wasn’t another soul in sight—and when the last bleating animal trotted past her, she simply veered off into the shadows to await the darkness.

  8

  The queen had a beautiful voice. It carried across the mount on fairy wings, light and lilting, and Bayr sat atop the garden wall, listening, with his eyes on the stars. Baby Alba was whimpering—sometimes she cried in the night. Dagmar said Bayr had done the same when he was small, crying for no apparent reason, needing comfort and warmth and a gentle touch. The queen walked with the baby, patting her tiny back and singing songs that quieted the entire castle and drew lonely ears.

  The night was temperate and the gardens fragrant, and ofttimes the queen wove her way around rosebushes, plucking petals as soft as her baby’s cheeks, and Bayr would watch, wishing he could hold the child, wishing he could be held.

  Dagmar had made him scrub in the cold iron tub. The weight and the woolly coat of the injured ewe had irritated his neck and rubbed him raw beneath his rough jerkin. The cold water had soothed the sting, but his heart was heavy, dragging his thoughts to lowly places, and he’d crept out of his bed and made his way up the wall. Now he sat, watching the queen and her infant daughter.

  She was kind, the queen. It wasn’t hard to see. She was soft where the king was hard, a light against his darkness, and the boy was quite bewitched by her.

  “I see you there, Temple Boy,” she called out, her voice a singsong croon. “If you can climb the garden wall, you can surely climb down and join us. I’ve been wanting to thank you for some time.”

  Bayr’s pulse quickened and he considered slipping away, back to his room beneath the eaves. Instead he abandoned his poor hiding place and dropped down into the garden. He sidled to the queen’s side, his eyes shifting between his feet and the infant in her arms.

  “Your name is Bayr . . . Is that right?”

  He nodded, grateful he needn’t reply.

  “You saved us . . . little Alba and me. In the procession. You were very brave and so skilled.” The queen set her hand on his shoulder, anointing him with her thanks, and he shifted closer, drawn to her touch. The baby in her arms cooed and reached for his hair, tangling her tiny fist in the unbound black mass. Dagmar had not plaited it after his bath, and it had dried in unruly waves. Bayr laughed, stepping even closer, allowing her better access.

  “Would you like to hold her?” the queen asked.

  Bayr gasped and tried to withdraw, but the girl child squalled, refusing to relinquish his hair, and he froze midstep.

  “I c-c-can’t,” he breathed, though he would have liked nothing more.

  “If you can calm a crazed horse, you can hold a baby girl,” the queen insisted gently.

  Bayr lifted his eyes to the infant, and she smiled in delight, kicking her tiny legs.

  “Sh-she s-smiled,” he stammered, forgetting his fear.

  “Yes. She smiles often. She is a happy child, most of the time. The nights make her restless . . . or maybe she just likes to come to the gardens. It is our favorite place.”

  Bayr held out his arms as though preparing to receive a bundle of sticks. Queen Alannah laughed and, with one hand beneath Alba’s bottom and one hand beneath her right arm, brought the two children chest to chest. Instinctively, Bayr enfolded the babe, taking her weight against him and notching her downy head beneath his chin.

  “See? You know what to do,” the queen crowed. Bayr’s cheeks flushed with pride and his eyes found the queen’s before drifting down in bashful ebullience, but he didn’t relinquish the baby.

  “Would you like to walk with her?” the queen asked.

  Bayr twitched in agreement and stepped forward with a tentative tread, moving as though he traversed a broken bridge suspended above a bottomless pit. The queen laughed again but inched along beside him.

  “Master Ivo tells me you are blessed by the gods. He says you are Alba’s protector. I feel very safe when you are near,” she said quietly.

  Bayr could only nod, his arms tightening on the princess in his arms.

  The queen did not seem to mind that he did not converse, and they crawled along the petal-strewn paths, the queen softly singing, Bayr barely breathing.

  The babe became boneless in his arms, her sweet breath tickling his throat, and before long, her hand fell from his hair.

  “Alba feels safe with you too, young Bayr.”

  “I l-love h-her,” he whispered. He hadn’t meant to speak, but the queen didn’t laugh at him. She only smiled, and her eyes shimmered down at him.

  “I love her
too. So very much,” she said.

  “I m-must g-g-go,” Bayr said. He didn’t want to. But Dagmar would check on him. He always did, and he would worry if Bayr was not in his bed.

  “You will visit us again, won’t you?” Queen Alannah asked.

  He nodded, the joy in his chest stealing his breath. The queen kissed his cheek and slid her arms beneath the sleeping child. Bayr relinquished her with a whispered goodbye, and without another word loped toward the far wall. He scrambled up it, feeling the queen’s gaze on his shoulders and the phantom weight of a sleeping princess in his arms. He thought he caught a shiver of white on the far side of the garden, but it must have been a trick of the moon, a glimmer of stars upon the garden stream, for when he looked all was still, all was dark, and nothing was there.

  Ghost had fallen asleep in the palace gardens between the rosebushes and the southern wall. It had been cool and fragrant, and her belly was full. She’d raided the turnip patch and pocketed as many carrots as she could swiftly pull before ducking behind the greenery. The carrots were delicious, though the soil clung to their sunset flesh. Her hands had been even dirtier than the vegetables, but beggars—and thieves—could not be too fastidious or impatient. She had no plan, only purpose, and she’d waited for hours, hiding behind riotous blossoms, listening to the sounds of the castle yard, and resisting introspection. Avoiding despondency had made her drowsy.

  Night had fallen while she slept, the darkness deepening from purple to black, from sunset to starlight. The soft cry of a child had pulled her from her dreams, and her body had reacted, sending milk to her glands and soaking the front of her dress. She had clutched her chest, remembering where she was, remembering her purpose, and she’d pushed the prickly vines aside, peering out from the shadows.

  The rising moon cast the queen and the babe in a reverent glow, and Ghost tightened her hand around her knife, not realizing she held it by the blade and not the handle. The tickle of warmth beneath her sleeve, not the pain, was what alerted her to her mistake. Since her child had been taken, she’d been wracked by an agony so great, the sting of the knife did not register at all.

  Her mouth moved around Alba’s name, and she drank her in, remembering the tired cry and the flailing fists, the silk of her hair and the creamy scent of her warm, wrinkled skin. Being so close to her child, so close to salvation, drew the tears from her eyes, and she prayed to Freya to guide her steps and direct her blade.

  She would kill the queen and retrieve her child. The gods had provided a way and delivered them both into her hands.

  But the Temple Boy was watching too. The queen had called out to him, so Ghost had bided her time, listening, stretched behind the roses in her mud-colored cloak, waiting for her moment. They made a lovely picture, the three of them, traipsing through the garden, and Ghost had become lulled by the scene, entranced by the queen’s song and quieted by the moon-drenched sky.

  The Temple Boy—Bayr—had come and gone. He too had been caught in the queen’s spell. He had held Ghost’s child, his young face shining with adoration. Alba was so loved. So wanted. So revered. And the knowledge had filled Ghost with joy and hope.

  Then the moon moved behind the clouds and the enchantment was broken. Hope became horror, joy became realization. The gods had not delivered the queen into her hands. They had shown her all the things she wasn’t, all the things she couldn’t give, and they had said, “Disappear, little ghost. Go away. Give us the babe. She belongs to us.” And when the moon peeked out again to see if she’d heard, the beams of light revealed a hatch near the base of the south garden wall, wooden and welcoming, and slightly ajar.

  “Disappear, little ghost. Go away,” the gods whispered once more. They’d even provided a way out. The roses had brushed her skin, biting her with their thorns, forcing her out from among them and closing in like brambles behind her.

  “Run away,” they whispered. And she did.

  It was much harder to get inside the walls than it was to get out. The garden hatch opened onto a flight of rough-hewn steps leading down to an earthen tunnel that eventually led her onto the heath far beyond the wall. The exit was so narrow a man would struggle to use it for escape, and it was concealed by grass and boulders and half covered by bushes that harbored all manner of creatures. The creatures urged her to flee as well.

  Ghost raced across the moor, blood streaming from one hand, her knife clenched in the other, seeking the refuge of the forest, drawn to the tree where she had hidden her coins, to the place where the grass curled in ragged tufts, sprouting around shapes in the soil. A small stone was placed beneath the tree, too perfect and smooth to be coincidence, and she wondered if it marked a grave. Mayhaps it could mark her own. She had a knife. And she was brave. But she was not brave enough.

  She collapsed beneath the boughs, hiding her face in her arms. She didn’t want to live, but she was too tired to die. She was hot and cold, rage and resignation, but she’d made a choice. Alba could be a princess instead of a slave, a daughter of a queen instead of the offspring of a ghost. She would never look on her mother and see a monster or an aberration.

  “I have nothing to give,” she moaned, her face pressed to the earth. “I have nothing but love, and my love will not shelter. My love will not save, or clothe, or feed. My love will only harm.”

  She had hate—bitter and biting. She hated the king and she hated his queen. She hated the moon and the moor and the innocent door in the wall that should not have been so easy to find. She hated the burn in her heart and the faith she couldn’t shake, even though life had never given her reason to hope. She hated the people of Saylok for bowing to a king who lied to them.

  But her hate was no match for her love.

  “I have nothing to give you,” she moaned again, and this time she spoke to the child she’d borne, the child who’d grown in her body and reshaped her heart.

  “So I will give you a queen. I will give you a beautiful queen who sings to you,” she wept. “I will give you a father who rules a kingdom, and a boy to watch over you. I will give you a life without hiding, a world without fear, a home I cannot give you on my own. This is what I will give you—the only thing I can give you. A life without me in it is the only thing I have to offer.”

  She ran her palm across the stone and closed her eyes, too tired to move, too weary to care that someone might find her when the sun rose. And then she slept, hoping she would never wake.

  She lay facedown beneath Desdemona’s tree, a rumpled brown cloak without form or features. At first Dagmar thought she was dead, an old soul who had sought solitude in the forest to meet her end. He knew immediately she was female. The white hair was loose and unplaited—the hair of a woman, not a warrior. He formed the star upon his brow and called out in warning, as much for her sake as his own, but she didn’t move. No scent of death surrounded her, no blood stained her cloak, and when he rolled her to her side, he felt the warmth of life beneath his hands. Dirty streaks lined her cheeks, and the silvery brooms of her lashes made no headway in the grime. He realized she wasn’t old at all, but she was clearly in trouble.

  Her eyes fluttered open and he hissed, startled, and stumbled back.

  She didn’t scramble upright or scamper away, as he expected her to. Maybe she couldn’t, but her eyes tracked him without interest or fear, as though she were resigned to whatever fate had in store. She gazed at him wearily for several seconds before closing them again, hiding her luminescent orbs under blue-veined lids.

  “Are you wounded?” he asked.

  She didn’t respond, but she didn’t appear to be in pain.

  “If I help you sit, can you drink?”

  She opened her eyes again, and he took her interest for assent.

  He approached her once more and pulled his water flask from around his neck. Kneeling beside her, he slipped his arm beneath her shoulders, and propped her against him so she could drink. She didn’t pull away or protest, and when he held the flask to her dry lips, she drank t
hankfully.

  Was this the creature Ivo had spoken of? She was not a wraith, nor a specter, but she was frightening to behold. And she was thirsty.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “Where have you come from?”

  “Who are you?” she whispered, her voice as colorless as her skin.

  “I am a Keeper of Saylok. I live in the temple.”

  “I am a ghost, and I live beneath this tree,” she rasped, the words clear but oddly pronounced.

  He frowned down at her, convinced Loki—or Master Ivo—was playing tricks on him. But the girl was not a vision or an apparition. Her flesh was real beneath his hands, and his water flask was completely empty.

  “I am not the only one living beneath this tree. There is someone buried here. See this stone?” The girl touched Desdemona’s marker. “It is a good place to die.”

  “My sister lies beneath this tree. That is her stone, and it was not a peaceful death,” he contended.

  She stared up at him, solemn, compassion in her gaze.

  “Is that why you are here? To die?” he pressed. He did not want to think about Desdemona.

  Her eyes closed again, and her slight form trembled against him. “It is what I wish.”

  “Why?”

  She dropped her gaze and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head. Her pale nose, smudged with dirt and protruding from draped folds, was the only part of her face he could see.

  “If you truly wanted to die, you wouldn’t have drunk all my water,” he said mildly.

  “Mayhaps my body wants to live,” she whispered. “But I do not.”

  “The will is a stubborn taskmaster,” he agreed. “But if you aren’t going to die, there are better places to live.”