After Bell Hill

by Robin Tompkins

  ‘I care not for the South, for the South cared not for us,’ Tillimanda said tartly.

  ‘They did what they thought was best to protect their people,’ Albermora said tiredly, it was an old argument. ‘Who knows, if they had not, then perhaps now the Father/Sons would rule everything from the ice to the southern sea.’

  ‘And who knows if they had, helped we might still be free…’

  ‘Major Tillimanda,’ Albermora said brusquely, shaking off her friend’s arm. ‘We are not strong but as things stand, this is as strong as we will be, from this point on, we will only grow weaker. The Father/Sons have cut us and we are already bleeding. There is a ray of hope, though not the brightest. Bracken sent word to me, proposing an alliance between his people and ours. King Billy also feels it is time to rise up and bite the hand that chokes us…’

  ‘Billy Bracken is no sort of hope for anyone,’ Tillimanda said and it was surprising that such warm, brown eyes could hold quite so much frost.

  ‘Bracken was an outlaw but now he is a freedom fighter and a hero of the people,’ Albermora said flatly, her true opinion quite impossible to discern.

  General Albermora looked at Major Tillimanda and arched her eyebrows meaningfully.

  Tillimanda held her gaze for the longest time and then said…

  ‘Thank you for not asking the question out loud and to my face but I will answer it none the less. I do and always will, support you in all things. It will be your ideas I will voice wholeheartedly before the troops; they will hear none of mine. Mine will be the first voice to shout down naysayers. You are my General, my Duchesse and my friend and I am with you to the death, if death is where we are bound.’

  ‘Major Tillimanda,’ Albermora said softly, ‘Manda… I never doubted it.’

  ∆∆∆

  Xabre held a finger to his lips, then smiled. He pushed the food through the bars, then moved to the next cage and did the same again.

  Odemar, with his unfailing eye for such things, had noticed every head that had turned with compassion, when he had, for the hundredth time bullied and abused Xabre. Each of these men, had had their already meagre rations stopped.

  No one saw Xabre, if Xabre didn’t want to be seen. He had raided the kitchen in the dead of night and was now seeing each man fed.

  It’s weakness you fool, he said to himself, putting yourself and your mission at risk over a kindly glance. Indeed, he had never done the like before but somehow these Mid-Landers and Westers had gotten under his skin. Despite their own situation, they had shown only kindness to him. None had mocked his height. He was a Souther, often not a popular thing to be here, many felt abandoned by the South in the war, yet they had been nothing other than friendly and accepting.

  I was like you once… a long time ago… can I ever be like you again? He wondered.

  There was a gentle murmur, hardly louder than breathing that sighed out of the cages.

  ‘Goddess bless you Xabre.’

  Xabre thought just the one, melancholy word, perhaps, then he melted into the shadows

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Warden of the Edge

  The night air was cold, clear and still. The moon had risen, silvering the light covering of fresh snow, that brought a serenity to the wide landscape that stretched out before her.

  Tamarin leant upon the stout, white painted guard rail, hands thrust deep into thick, warm mittens borrowed from Rosamie. Despite the cold, she tipped back the hood of her cloak, to better hear the sounds coming up from below. She felt the rush of blood to her ears, as they immediately turned pink from the biting air.

  Torches and lanterns flickered and flitted like fireflies. Tents glowed from within like lamps. At the heart of King Billy’s camp, a great bonfire roared and sparked, embers drifting up into the black, starry night. The smell of roasting meat rose up to her here on the edge.

  The rumble of voices, chattering and laughing drifted in the air. Then she heard the twanging, plucking, tooting and whistling of instruments being tuned. Looking in that direction, she watched as an impromptu band of musicians formed up. They were in earnest, muttered conversation for a good while, no doubt deciding upon tunes they all knew and could play.

  A big, red faced fellow began belabouring some empty casks with wooden cudgels and kicking them with his boots. Over this thumping rhythm, a wild and soul stirring music erupted in spiralling flurries of notes from the flutes and fiddles, that by turns scattered like Autumn leaves, then hugged each other like lovers.

  This was not a gentle music but it was beguiling.

  Tamarin’s cunning ways told her that someone was coming. Moments later, Vajek came into view, emerging from the steps below onto the walkway, silhouetted against the moon, casting a huge inky black shadow before him.

  ‘Good evening Tammy, if it’s fresh air you came out for, then you certainly found it,’ he said.

  ‘It’s indeed fresh,’ Tamarin said with a smile. ‘With all that’s been done and all that’s been said… I found it very hard to sleep,’ she added.

  ‘Well now, Vajek doesn’t need much sleep,’ the big man said, ‘besides, I find it hard to lie abed when Mag doesn’t rest beside me. Precious little sleep she’ll have tonight I reckon, fighting hard for young Danner.’

  ‘If any can bring him back to us, it will be Magramelia,’ Tamarin said seriously.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right and no doubt,’ Vajek said. ‘My Mag’s a wonder.’

  Below, a statuesque woman, perhaps near as tall as Magramelia stepped forward into the firelight. Her long, black hair washed out like a wave from beneath her cap and she was draped in the flags of the Duchy of Warn and the Duchy of Perl.

  At the sight of this human flag, this call to arms, the music changed. Now it was martial, driving, rousing. She opened her mouth, threw back her head and a voice of quite extraordinary power and beauty burst out of her, like shafts of sunlight burst out from between black clouds.

  To Tamarin’s surprise, for she had never taken him for a musical man, Vajek joined in, in a pitch perfect baritone.

  The song, was the ‘lay of the Defenders.’

  From the North they came, like a hard biting rain,

  With cold hearted misery, inflicting their pain.

  We stood before them, we stood without fear,

  Full ready to fight for all we hold dear.

  Ring the bell! Ring the bell!

  Call them, call them!

  Ring the bell!

  They rose from the earth our land to reclaim!

  Ring the bell! Ring the bell!

  Call them, call them!

  Ring the bell!

  They drove the dark forces almost out of our land.

  ‘Two Face,’ pushed back and they made a last stand.

  Atop old bell Hill in a thick fog from hell,

  Like ants ‘Two Face’ swarmed and the defenders they fell.

  Ring the bell! Ring the bell!

  Call them, call them!

  Ring the bell!

  But when the bell rings, they shall rise again!

  Under hill sleeping, those women and men.

  They can come again, this we must remember,

  Just as flame rises again from a small windblown ember.

  Ring the bell! Ring the bell!

  Call them, call them!

  Ring the bell!

  Tamarin could hardly breathe and Vajek’s broad face was damp as the song faded away.

  ‘I reckon you will sleep alright now Tammy,’ Vajek said, ‘I do.’

  He squeezed her shoulders and smiled.

  ‘Come to breakfast in the morning, at our house. Mag will love it and I reckon you should meet Teasel too.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Tamarin said, giving his massive hand a squeeze and wondering who Teasel might be.

  ∆∆∆

  'Abillie, Abillie, the Woodland King… Abillie…’ The voice was sing song, reedy and birdlike. It drifted through Billie’s dreams like perfume on the wind, l
ike a scent you should follow. Bracken was caught between sleeping and waking for a moment, unable to move, not sure what was real and what was not.

  He came awake with a slight start, rolled onto his back and stared up into the roof of his tent, which had a faint, pale glow from the moonlight. Lying still and quiet he waited but heard nothing. A dream then, he thought, no more than that.

  Just as he rolled over, thinking there was a little more sleep to be had before the dawn, he heard it again, louder, nearer.

  Swiftly, he tumbled out of his cot and into his breeches and boots. He was just shucking his way into his jerkin when the tent flap parted. Avaric pushed his face into the tent, wearing a concerned frown.

  ‘There’s a voice in the night, a voice that calls your name,’ he said.

  Billie nodded his agreement, strapping on his sword and pistol. He bustled outside and purposefully snatched up a burning torch from the guard stationed beside his tent.

  ‘Well then, let’s you and me and this lad here, go off and find out who speaks eh?’ he said.

  King Billy and Avaric held their torches high, scanning the treeline keenly for any signs of movement. The night was so still, not even the trees stirred. Around them, the camp slept, it was almost possible to see the dreams of the occupants hovering in the cold, darkness.

  Suddenly a black shadow passed over them.

  The men turned, this way and that, making their torches roar and flame but saw nothing.

  The shadow came again, larger, slower. Billy looked up to see a huge, pale owl glide silently by. As he watched, it banked and turned, whiffled and dropped quickly down, to perch on a low branch just outside the circle of firelight, great eyes glowing electric blue in the reflected light from their torches.

  ‘Just an owl then, flying above us… not a dragon or some such,’ Avaric said with a shrug and a laugh.

  ‘Well now, a dragon I’ve never seen, nor do I rightly know if I believe in them. I do believe, that that owls a looking at me like my long lost Nuncle though…’ Billy said thoughtfully. He thrust his torch into the guard’s hand.

  ‘Avaric, you follow on behind me now but not too close, that torch might cause it to take fright,’ Billie said, striding purposefully forward, guided only by the owls burning eyes and the moonlight on the snow.

  ‘Abillie?’ Avaric said in surprise, as King Billie quickly exchanged the fire glow for the moonglow. Flustered and puzzled he hurried after him.

  The snow was too thin and soft a layer to crunch underfoot, so Abillie approached the huge bird almost silently. It stared at him, then gave a shrug of its wings.

  ‘Abillie, the Woodland King,’ it said clearly and it blinked.

  King Billy took two steps back.

  ‘That’s me I reckon,’ he said, after a moment, regaining his composure.

  ‘You have been chosen Abillie, chosen to free the land,’ the owl said.

  ‘Have I now…’ Billy Bracken responded, tipping back his head.

  ‘You will free the land; I will help you. I will send you help…’

  ‘Help is it? Well Goddess knows we need it,’ he said. Then he paused, realising what he had just said. Bracken dropped to his knees, all the cynicism had left his voice as he said, ‘Holy Mother, is that you?’

  The light changed subtly as Avaric came up behind him with the torch, casting Billy’s kneeling shadow on the snow.

  There was a disturbance, as someone else arrived, pushing past Avaric, who had thrust out an arm to stop her. Jasadir came level with King Billy, she looked confused, almost as if she was half dreaming, she was wrapped in the blanket from her cot, which she clutched in a white-knuckle grip.

  ‘I felt… I felt… something?’ she muttered quietly.

  Saradev hurried up beside her, sword drawn, a lantern in her other hand.

  ‘Sister? Sister? I heard you leave the tent… Jasa, what is it Jasa?’ Her face had worry written boldly all across it, as she looked into Jasadir’s face, saw the vague, almost drugged look of it.

  Startled, Saradev hissed like a cat as the bird spoke again.

  ‘I will send you help, Abillie the Woodland King but first you must help me.’

  The owl stared into King Billy’s face, then, after a moment, turned to look at Jasadir. The burning eyes moved back to Billy. Then, without warning, the owl lifted off the branch in a flurry of wings and snow.

  ‘When I return, I will tell you how,’ it said, climbing swiftly and silently into the deep, dark and starry night.

  ‘Was it? ’Avaric said softly, almost reverently.

  ‘Who else, eh? Who else would speak to me through a wild thing like that? It was she… it was our Lady and that’s the right of it.’

  ∆∆∆

  The sun was just rising, coral pink and glowing in the East. A mist hung thick and low among the pines. Tamarin, wrapped deep in her cloak, hurried along the sparkling, frost rimed walkway and down the slippery, icy steps. Below, the camp was just beginning to stir. Last night’s great bonfire had gone out but dozens of small cooking fires were springing up.

  She rounded a curve in the rock face and there, tucked back in a crevice, out of the wind, was a door. The stout door, studded with iron nails, was painted with the ‘watchful eye’ symbol of the Warden of the edge.

  Tamarin knocked and waited.

  The door opened, in a blast of warm air and cooking smells, to reveal a beaming Magramelia. She folded Tamarin up in an enthusiastic bear hug that took her breath away.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she said happily, in her high, sweet voice. She drew Tamarin in, closing the door behind her and sweeping off her cloak, almost all in one movement.

  ‘Here she is, come to see Vajek and Mags,’ Vajek said heartily, patting the padded bench beside him. Tamarin sat, smiling at the welcome and at the normality of it all, after everything that had gone before.

  A little ray of daylight came into the room from the horn window in the door and another, from a long shaft chiselled into the soft, amber sandstone, to let air in and take the smoke out. They gave the room a soft, golden light, full of dancing dust motes and wisps of smoke,

  ‘There’s thick, buckwheat griddle cakes and honey,’ Magramelia said, ‘or sausage and bacon if you prefer, that’s what himself is having, as you might guess?’

  ‘Griddle cakes sound lovely,’ Tamarin said.

  ‘Are you sure now?’

  ‘Oh yes, I wouldn’t ask Vajek to share his breakfast and in any case, I really would prefer the griddle cakes.’

  ‘Oh, Vajek will be sharing anyway, with his true love…’ Magra said archly.

  As if on cue, something startlingly fast, flew past Tamarin’s face to land with a soft thud on Vajek’s wide shoulders.

  Tamarin retained her composure but her eyes certainly widened. Looking to her right, she saw a small, slim, silver grey tabby cat perched on Vajek’s shoulder. The cat had one of those feline faces that looks as if it is beaming with smiles and she was enthusiastically rubbing that face in Vajek’s beard.

  ‘Well now Teasel,’ Vajek admonished, in the gentlest of voices. ‘You must behave yourself; we have a guest. This is Tamarin, Rosamie’s niece and she’s come to breakfast.’ Teasel appeared to take little notice, rubbing her whole body against Vajek’s jaw, her slender tail quivering against his ear.

  ‘I don’t know if you remember Trouble? Kapek the baker’s cat?’ Magra said. ‘Well she had kittens and homes were needed. This one took one look at Teasel, who was then of a size to fit her whole self in one of his hands and that was that… smitten. It’s quite mutual, I will do well enough when Vajek’s not there but when he is…’

  Tamarin held out a hand towards Teasel, who sniffed it. With her cunning ways, she knew the cat would allow touching. She stroked Teasel and gently tugged on her tail.

  ‘Well now, I think she likes you,’ Vajek said.

  ‘She does,’ Tamarin said with certainty, ‘but she adores you, you are meat and drink and all the world to her.’ She
added wistfully, ‘We cannot keep cats down below, the Father/Sons would say they were familiars… it would be the death of the cat and the human both.’

  The pancakes arrived, hot and piled high, with honey from the hives further up, amongst the sage and clover, on the top of the edge, gathered in the summer and stored for the winter.

  ‘That’s too many Magra!’ Tamarin said.

  ‘Not nearly enough, with all you’ve been through I’d say,’ Vajek said, stripping off a morsel of bacon from his own breakfast and hand feeding it to Teasel.

  ‘Well, if food can make the world right, then there won’t be a Father/Son in the land by the time I finish these,’ Tamarin said with a smile.

  ‘Oh, just you leave some if you’ve a mind, I’ll take no offence,’ Magramelia said.

  ‘No, I can’t do that, they are beautiful.’

  ‘How is Danner?’ Tamarin asked seriously, between mouthfuls.

  ‘Well now, he’s stronger than he looks and I think perhaps we have saved him, I have good hopes that he will live… though it will be a long recovery,’ Magra said.

  ‘Such good news,’ Tamarin said.

  ‘Ah yes! Mags, do you tell Bobdan not to worry over his barge. I went down and had a word with King Billy. He says Bobdan is a ‘hero of the people’ no less and he has Billy Bracken’s word that his barge and all goods and chattels aboard are safe and will be kept safe by Bracken’s people.’

  ‘King Billy seems a good man at times, then at others…’ Tamarin said.

  ‘I take your meaning, I do, I have more than one eye on him,’ Vajek said nodding slowly.

  ‘And Uncle Gorg?’ Tamarin asked.

  ‘Oh, his healing will be swift, he has that vital spark that all the cunning folk possess. He was already teasing the nurses outrageously this morning with his nonsense.’ Magra said. ‘I will likely release him into the care of Rosamie later on.’

  Tamarin nodded and smiled, knowingly.

  ‘What’s next for you Tammy?’ Vajek asked, his voice kindly but concerned.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ she answered, face clouded.