The Storyteller's Granddaughter

by Margaret Redfern

  ‘It is not possible. We made a promise that you would be returned to your family when your grandmother died. A promise must be kept. Word will be sent to your uncles tomorrow. No doubt they will come for you at once – perhaps they will be here in three or four days’ time. You will be cared for.’

  Cared for. She did not want to be cared for by her uncles. She did not want to be returned to the rock home that had killed her mother. She said nothing.

  ‘No doubt they will find a husband for you.’

  ‘Nene did not want me to be married to any one of them.’ The old man thought how like her grandmother she was. Not grey eyed and golden haired, as the old woman had been in her young days, but with that same remoteness, as if they looked into another world. A strange girl, so stubborn and self-possessed for one so young. And she needed to be.

  ‘So she told me. But a promise is a promise. They will be here in three or four days’ time.’ His eyes flickered towards her and away. He looked beyond her, through the tent opening at the darkening sky. ‘You are Sophia’s child, and Sophia, our Anadolu Bacı, was dear to us all. You are as dear to me as my own daughter, both because you are Sophia’s child and for your own sake. I do not want to go against her wishes but I cannot ask our men to defy your family. We are no longer warriors. We are peaceful now. We have forgotten how to make war.’

  ‘I would not ask it of you.’ she spoke as formally as he did. ‘Father of our tribe, you are wise and careful for our people. I would not wish harm to come to any one of them.’

  He nodded, accepting her obedience. His next words were unexpected, like stumbling on an unseen stub of root. ‘Your grandmother will be much missed,’ he said. ‘Not only by us. The travellers who came, the two men who had need of her medicine; they also valued your grandmother.’ A pause. A heart’s beat. ‘You also know how to make medicine from plants, Sophia’s child. She taught you well.’ Another pause. ‘You also will be much missed.’

  Her eyes narrowed. She knew then what his purpose was, and what was hers. She kissed his hand and lifted his hand to her brow, in their custom, and left him. In the short time she had been with him, the sun had dipped behind the mountains and darkness had come. The yurts were black shapes in a blacker land. How empty was their yurt now that Nene was no longer there. Nene’s soul was gone but this was no time for grieving.

  She sent away the women who came to beg her to eat the evening meal with them. She was tired, she said, and longed to sleep but when the last one had left she sat down on the embroidered cushions and patterned kilims and unplaited her long hair so that it fell over her shoulders and past her waist and spread over the cushion on which she was sitting. Kazan, her friend from childhood, had made a song in praise of her hair just last winter. Not black, like the yürük women, but dark brown, burnished like bronze, copper like the flanks of a fleet chestnut horse, gold flecked, shining like sun on the great flowing river. He sang it outside their winter house one bright morning but Nene had laughed and sent him away. She remembered this while she unplaited strand after strand. She remembered too the feel of Nene’s hands gentle in her hair because this had always been Nene’s task.

  She took Nene’s precious scissors, their inlaid blades always kept sharp and shining, and snipped and snipped until her hair was only to her shoulders, like the dark hair of the handsome young merchant, and the fallen hair lay in great coils on the kilim. Her hands didn’t tremble but afterwards, when she felt the lightness of her head, and saw the copper-bronze-gold coils lying lifeless, she mourned for her lost self. She gathered up every strand and burned them in the hearth and watched them flare up and die into ashes.

  She bound a length of thin cotton cloth about her breasts, thankful for once that she was small and slight and the little apple shapes were easily flattened. She pulled her plain blue kaftan over her gömlek and şalvar. Always blue because it was a lucky colour, Nene said, and kept away the evil spirits. The girl could not remember either of them wearing anything other than shades of blue, though only last year Nene had given her a beautiful kaftan patterned in blues and crimson and it grieved her to leave it behind. She fastened the warm ferace about her. No head covering that marked her out as a girl. Now she was a boy, in boy’s clothing, with boy’s hair and not yet years enough for chin hair. She secured a sharp-bladed knife in her belt. She put the jade amulet into a leather pouch and hung the pouch about her neck. She packed a satchel with food and skins of water and Nene’s scissors and a comb skilfully made from bone that had belonged to Nene’s mother, and her mother before that, and the little gold ring with its carved amethyst stone that she had found one day when she and Nene were gathering herbs and plants at the old monastery. She slung the satchel over her shoulder and fastened a quiver of arrows to the belt at her waist. She took up her curved bow and looked outside. All was quiet. A shadow in the shadows, she moved through the camp. The dogs watched her but didn’t stir. They knew her too well.

  Two of the horses had been left behind. The girl paused, eyeing them thoughtfully. One raised its head. It was the chestnut mare with the blaze of white on her nose, her favourite, the one she rode when she had the chance. They were corralled for safe keeping from the wolves and wild boar. Better not be on foot at night in the mountains. And without a horse she had no hope of catching up with the two men and their caravan. She hoped she would not be named a thief for taking the mare. She clicked her fingers and called the mare by name: Rüzgar. The mare came trustingly, hoping for titbits. The girl whispered pet names to her and wound her hand through the pale mane and led the little mare out of the corral and up the mountainside. Once they were clear of the camp, the girl mounted bareback, easily, as she had been taught. The night sky was bright with stars. She gazed up at them, seeking out the familiar patterns that would guide her safely through the night. It was Nene who taught her the names of the stars in the vast sky, and how to travel by their direction.

  And that was how she left her home of seventeen summers, secretly, silently, not daring to take her leave of anyone. It was better for them not to know.

  It was easy for the mare to follow the familiar track that led up to the top of the gorge, even in the dark, though her flared nostrils and white eyes showed her fear. The girl looked back once to where the black yurts were just visible in the glimmer of fire from the hearths. The comforting noises of chickens and goats and dogs settling for the night rose up from the valley, familiar and loved and utterly lost to her, as Nene was lost. Oh my dearest one, my Nene, my wisest of grandmothers, grey-eyed Sophia, I shall miss you every day of my life. Leaving you is so very hard.

  ‘Leaving,’ she said. ‘What is that? It means nothing. While the heart remembers, there is no leaving.’

  It was as clear as if Nene had been standing beside her, as if the words were spoken aloud. The girl turned away and headed for the road that led to Karaman.

  4

  Love for the lovely shining maid will not

  Be brought out from its nest…

  (Dafydd ap Gwilym, 14thC)

  Edgar was worse. The fever was not abating and the belly cramps had him doubled up in agony all through the night. He’d just dropped into sleep when he was woken up again by the morning call to prayer. No rest for the poor boy. No choice but to wait until he recovered even if that meant missing the last sailing of the season. Twm wasn’t happy; Edgar was a chance-come-by traveller who had no claim on them whereas Heinrijc Mertens, their employer, would be anxious for their safe return. But Dai insisted they couldn’t abandon the boyo, not now when he was ill. In the end he had his way but it was a disagreement, see, and he didn’t like disagreements on the road. It was bad for the men, the cameleteers and muleteers. That was the way to a bundle of problems. He knew his guide from the last journey; knew him for a trustworthy man, dark as bog oak and eyes keen as a kestrel’s but good in a tight corner. There was an edginess about them all this journey; a quickness to see a slight where none was meant and a quickness to argue, and that rubb
ed off on the animals so they were rarely placid and often restive. But the men had a fondness for Edgar. He’d not been with them long, for sure, but he was a well-natured boy who never fired up no matter how Blue teased him about his dainty ways. Indeed, Edgar’s coming had made for better relations all round. Never a word about how he came to be wandering in these parts but then nobody asked questions like that. Never did. Best keep quiet, these days.

  The hancı wasn’t very happy about it – not at first. When he realised it was nothing catching, nothing plaguey, he said they could stay for the usual three days at no cost but had to move on after that or look to payment. A relief it was to be inside the high walls of the han and safe from robbers, with the comfort of a sound building and fresh water and bathing. The animals were stabled in the court with all the others – camels, mules, horses, dogs. At least they were looked after and a man on call at every han if a shoe was loose or a horse went lame or needed doctoring. You just had to get used to the noise and the stench. He’d known worse. Far worse.

  Dai had pushed them on to reach this han because it was only half a day’s ride from the nomad camp and the wise woman they’d met early last summer. If anyone could help them, it would be her. The physician at the han had done his best but he shook his head and sighed and pouted as if Edgar had no tomorrow. Well, that wasn’t so. Edgar had tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. A life of tomorrows. He’d make sure of that.

  In truth, he was worried for Edgar’s sake but – confess it now – he’d a wish to visit the nomads again. Would she be there, the girl seen in the shadows of the yurt over a year ago in the early summer months? Just a glimpse before the old woman sent her away but so slender, with that heart-aching curve of cheek and tumbling hair and golden eyes. He couldn’t tear his gaze away though her eyes reproached him for staring like a moon-struck clod. Such glowing beauty that there was no forgetting her, though nothing could come of wishing. That ragtag group of boyos came before any girl’s beauty.

  Thomas Archer was happy enough to journey with him and visit his bad Turkish on these people. Thomas Archer. He said it was his name but Dai knew better than that. He had good cause. But that was the name he went by, and if that was his wish so be it. The men called him ‘Tom’, short names being easier to shout across a wide land, see, especially if there was trouble brewing. In Dai’s mind, it was always ‘Twm’, the Welsh way, though Tom wasn’t Welsh. Indeed he wasn’t.

  He hadn’t recognised Dai. And why should he? Years it was since that strange meeting, and a few lifetimes ago for both of them. And then Twm Archer had been taken on by Heinrijc Mertens. Happenchance but as if it was meant to be. He’d brought his own man with him, Giles – from the West Country. Near the Marches, judging from his accent, but the English side; in his twenties, most likely, wiry and tough and kept himself to himself. He knew no more of Giles than when the man first joined them and they’d been travelling the trade route for months now, longer than he cared to remember, and Twm was right: he’d a longing in him to be home. Poverty stricken for sure, and rain-drenched, and bog-ridden, and beaten to its knees – the English Edwards had seen to that – but home for all that.

  Fifty and more years since the second war had left Cymru in ruins, its last prince murdered, his brother Dafydd dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury then that brutal killing of him, at Edward’s decree. The first Edward; a ruthless king, his taid had told him. It was his soldiers that had ravaged Cymer Abbey. The children – Dafydd’s sons and daughters and Llewelyn’s only daughter, Gwenllian, a babe-in-arms but the Princess of Wales for all that – all vanished, spirited away. There were rumours, of course; taken to England, to this castle, that nunnery, but Taid said better turn a deaf ear and keep a still tongue. Careless talk cost lives these days when the Welsh were little better than slaves in their own country. Times had changed and they were ruled by the English Edward who had ringed Wales with his great castles and towns where the Welsh were not allowed to live; out at the curfew, that was the order, but with Edward’s cruel twist they were not allowed to trade anywhere except within the town walls. Come the morning curfew, back they had to trudge. Living was hard. Then Edward died on the banks of a loch in Scotland and the second Edward was king. That prince born at Caernarfon, the Prince of Wales promised by King Edward the first: a false prince, Taid said, nothing Welsh about him except the place where he was born. What was it the Irish said? ‘Sure, if you’re born in a stable it doesn’t make you a horse’ – but that had a heretical ring to it and these days it was enough to light the faggots under you. So many killed, so many burned alive, Duw a’n helpo.

  All the burning and blood spilt and torture and dreadful deeds were done in the second Edward’s name but it was the powerful and ruthless Despensers, father and son, who ruled the roost. The son was made Lord of Glamorgan and he was hungry for whatever he could lay his hands on. He’d do anything, anything, and by the foulest means. Dai’s father said the common joke was that any sheep or cattle lost had ‘gone to Caerffili’ – a black joke because Hugh Despenser was notorious for confiscating any sheep or cattle found roaming on his land. That was a joke in itself; sheep and cattle were the least of it. Under his rule, human life counted for nothing. There’d come a hope when Rhys ap Llewelyn Bren led the uprising. Dai had been a young boy when his father joined Rhys’s rebels. That was the last the family had seen of him. The revolt was crushed. Llewelyn Bren was Hugh Despenser’s prisoner. No proper trial – wel, nothing new there – but savagely hanged, drawn and quartered at Cardiff castle and all his lands seized.

  At home the horror had begun, and no man of the household to provide except for Taid who was old and feeble now – and himself, a mere boy, and all those mouths to feed with whatever he could find in those years of famine: his mother, his two brothers and three sisters and aunts and uncles, Taid’s other woman he had kept, though his wedded wife was long dead, and her children and children’s children…all through those nightmare years of rain and harvests ruined, cattle dead of murain, grain spoilt by mould, fields rotting, stomachs groaning with hunger then starvation and death…all those years ago and he still didn’t want to remember. And all the while the wars going on: Isabella and Mortimer waging war against the King and the Despensers; her triumph and the desperate end of Hugh Despenser. That was when Dai was at Hereford castle. He’d been witness at that execution. An evil, ruthless man, true, but no man deserved such suffering. The stuff of nightmares. Then the King’s death – murdered, though that was never proved, and he was buried with all pomp. Another reign of terror under Isabella and Mortimer, but by then Dai had escaped it all. That was when he’d taken ship, first for Flanders, away from that stinking cesspit. There was nothing to stay for: Wales was finished and England given over to vicious thugs on the payroll of the rich and powerful. His own bandit companions in the Welsh hills…? Poor men trying to stay alive, even if they were thieves and robbers, and protected by ordinary folk trying to stay alive.

  He’d never been back, though Isabella’s son, the third Edward, had despatched Mortimer – an honourable execution for a dishonourable man – and imprisoned his she-wolf mother in a castle that was comfortable, sumptuous even, with her minstrels and huntsmen and grooms, and luxuries poor folk couldn’t even dream of, if rumour told true; but imprisonment for all that.

  No, he’d never been back. But now…now he’d barter all the spices and silks and gold and silver and amber and pearls and grain and horses of this land, and its great plains and high mountains and fertile coast – all of it – for one glimpse of the Mawddach, for one moment of the long-wished-for speech that was sweet to his ear.

  Dai bach, what are you thinking, man? There’s no home and no family waiting for you. Best keep your wits about you and get these poor buggers to a safe haven. They’re all the family you have now – these, and Heinrijc Mertens, that strange peacock of a man with a heart as big as Taid’s, though that’s not what you’d be thinking from seeing him in his fine robes and well-fe
d plumpness and fluttery hands.

  It was a hard ride to the summer pasture, further than he remembered. Always so, isn’t it? But they found it easy enough by the shape of the valley and the ancient wrecked city on the further side with its line of broken pillars and the highest point tower-like against a sky that was fleecy with clouds. Hen scrattins. That’s what Blue called them. Hen scrattins, these fluffy light clouds, though Blue never could say why. Just another of his outlandish sayings.

  They came down the valley on a track that was brown earth this time of year. Bright green it was when they were there early in that summer a year ago, and full of flowers. A beautiful sight. He had misgivings when he realised their men were away, and there were only women and children, though they were hardy enough, that’s for sure, and those great dogs loose. But the old chief and the old men were there to make them welcome and offer food and drink. Figs and honey, that God-given combination. Would fig trees grow in the old country? Would they grow in Flanders? He’d miss their smooth, fresh plumpness. Dried, they were light and easy to carry and kept hunger at bay. He could have done with a few dried figs in his satchel in the old days. He’d a mind to take a young tree or two back with him. And the biscuits! He wished he could have asked the women for the recipe, taken it back for Heinrijc, but he and Twm were there to barter goods and beg the medicine. Because of that, they let the old man make a good bargain and get the best of the deal. It pleased him well enough, the old boy.

  The wise woman was dead. And such a woman. Honoured she would have been in the old country, and here she was, a woman living with the nomads and useful because she knew the art of turning plants into medicine. But, fair now, they claimed her as one of their own, this Christian, as one of the Anadolu Bacıları, That’s what they were called, the Anatolian Sisters. Dai had heard talk of them before now. And the girl? She was there in the shadow of the tent. She thought she was invisible but he saw her. He felt her presence. Her sorrow became his own. This grey-eyed old woman who knew so much – her grandmother, then. Sophia. A strange name amongst the tent dwellers. Her name meant ‘wisdom’. A good name for a wise woman.