by E. Hibbs
“Gettin’ too dark to see what I’m doin’ in ‘ere now, y’see,” Pearl Spring said. “Thought I’d light the lamp.”
Silas didn’t reply. But he kept listening to the tapping, and to the shivering leaves outside. Finally, the wick caught, and Pearl Spring put the flint down on the floor. There was a faint skitter as one of them rolled.
Silas froze, his head fixed in the direction of the lamp. Underneath the cloth, where it rose up over his nose, there was a faint lighter patch under the darkness of his eyelids. He touched the band tentatively, and then without thinking, ripped it off and opened his eyes wide. Light exploded and he recoiled with a yelp, clamping both hands over his face.
Pearl Spring gave a small shriek of alarm. “What? What is it? What be the matter?” she asked frantically.
Silas slowly moved his eyelids apart and peered through his fingers. Light and colour shot in again, and he blinked rapidly, trying to focus. His heart slammed in his chest like a great drum.
The haze turned into a wash of colours and detail, and he lowered his hands; mouth hanging wide open in amazement. The flame was like a miniature sun before him, the wick burning from where it lay in a pool of oil. He wiggled his fingers and stared at them; at his right hand and covered left one.
Pearl Spring let out a strange whimper, and he looked up at her. A shock of recognition welled in his chest as his brown eyes met her grey ones. She was the girl with the black ringlets who he had seen at the Fayre.
Her face drained of colour; she instantly leapt to her feet and ran from the tent, screaming for her uncle. Panic gave Silas new strength. He jumped up – narrowly avoiding hitting the beam for a third time – wavered unsteadily for a second, and then flung back the flap of the tent, sprinting into the outside world.
The night opened around him, the sky twilit and laced with the strings of stars. Alarmed cries from men and women around the campsite flew up like a flock of crows as they noticed him. Cool air waved through his hair and grass blades shot up from between his toes with every stride. He hadn’t even thought to search for his boots or clothes, or even his belt with his knife. The cheesecloth trousers felt horribly thin around his legs, but he didn’t pause to think about it.
It was too much. His last truly lucid memory – of the Lake and the demon and the water over his head – was bad enough, but now the return of his sight and the Patrian girl’s reaction had filled him with a deep terror.
Get away from here, he thought frantically. Get yourself away from here, you fool!
He wiped at his eyes to clear them of tears whipped up by the wind, but as soon as he did, he felt his chest slam into something big and rounded. He staggered back, and then his eyes widened in alarm. Five carthorses were tethered to posts in front of him with simple leather bridles, each standing at least fifteen hands high. And the nearest – a great charcoal stallion – was tossing its head in agitation, showing the whites of its eyes. Before he could react, it raised one of its huge hind legs and ploughed a hoof deep into his stomach.
Silas felt all of the breath shoot out of his lungs and he flew backwards, hitting the back of his head on the earth. Dazed, he held a hand to his forehead. The leather glove felt strange against his skin.
He was vaguely aware of two stocky men coming over and then bundling him aside. They pushed him against another – thankfully vacant – horse-pole, before binding his wrists behind it. They left him there, and Silas shook his head to clear it, but that only made it hurt more. Underneath the glove, his palm stung, and the throbbing in his arm had returned now that it was twisted around the pole.
He was immediately approached by a tall well-built man with a shock of curly hair laced with small glass beads, and a neatly-trimmed beard, both the colour of soot. A dark purple kerchief was tied elaborately around his neck, embroidered with silver silk into patterns that Silas had never seen before. Under a heavy brow, a pair of startling green eyes scrutinised every inch of him.
“Yer mad imbecile!” he snapped. Silas recognised him from his voice as being Pearl Spring’s uncle. He glimpsed her over his shoulder, standing aside from a group of men and women who had gathered outside the centremost tent. The man shifted his weight and Silas’ eyes snapped back to his.
“Who are yer?” he demanded; his words with a sharpened edge. His hand slowly crept to a small golden crucifix hanging below the kerchief on a length of leather. “Be yer some kind o’ demon?”
Silas was too stunned – and winded – to answer.
“Speak up!”
“Nay!” Silas burst out, his voice hoarse as he forced his lungs to work. “Nay, I am not a demon! I swear to God!”
“Then do explain yerself! How be it that we happen upon yer all blind n’ helpless, and now yer can see?” He moved closer – and Silas amazed himself when he did something that he had never done in his life: shrank back.
But it seemed a well-founded movement. Despite his short height, Silas was strong, but he knew that even without his injuries, he was no match for the power of the man in front of him. And he bore another strength; which Silas was more familiar with, to the point of seeing a part of himself reflected in the flashing green eyes. It was the cool, deep strength of warranting respect – of being in charge, and knowing it.
“Answer me!”
Silas shook his head. “I know not! But I am no demon, please believe me! I’m a mere lad!”
There was a horrible silence. Any other time, Silas would have withdrawn into it as naturally as breathing, but now it set his teeth on edge. When he thought he could bear it no longer, the man tore his eyes off him and strode over towards the gathering of people. They disappeared into the tent at the centre, and Silas inspected the camp for the first time, marvelling at his eyesight. He had never been so grateful or relieved for it.
There wasn’t a large number of tents – from where he was, Silas counted eight, including the bigger one – seven gathered around the centre and the cone of firewood standing beside it. They looked spacious enough to sleep four people, and yet small enough to easily transport. They were all made from curved willow staves, sunk into the ground and covered with a thick canvas tarpaulin caked in tar. Small smoke-holes gaped at the tops.
Near the horses were the wooden carts that Silas had seen the Travellers selling from at the Fayre. They were now stripped down bare, their cargo supposedly being stored inside the tents. As he studied them, he realised that the wheels were more thickly-built than those of Valley carts, to withstand longer journeys over rougher terrain. In places, the carts were painted the same bright colours as the Travellers’ clothes – and occasionally, in the mixture of reds, greens and blues, he noticed the tail of a lizard or the wings of a butterfly.
As for the site itself, Silas recognised it now that he saw it. They had pitched in the corrie to the south of Fanchlow: a hollow in the mountainside that had been worn away by ice centuries ago. The only trace of that ice now was the small circular lake nestled in the dip of the ground. Silas had seen it whenever he had gone up to the pastures to check the sheep, with its sheer back wall jutting into the water. He knew that if he’d had more freedom to move, he would have seen Cedarham to the south, curled up on a terrace in the very fold where the Valley floor met the foothills. Further south still, barely visible, there would have been Ullswick, tucked inside its oxbow lake.
But his mental wanderings didn’t distract him from noticing Peal Spring coming over towards him quietly. She knelt down in front of him, but well out of reach. He fixed her with the unblinking, overbearing stare that he had perfected years before.
“Yer seem to have calmed down a bit now,” she said after a few moments.
Silas didn’t respond. She swallowed, and shifted her weight.
“The Seniors ‘ave called a Moot about yer,” she told him. “Until they decide oth’rwise, yer be unclean, y’see. Dangerous. That be why they’re a’keepin’ yer apart o’er here.”
Silas’ eyes darkened. “I was not unclean wh
en you were caring for me,” he snapped.
“Yer was,” she insisted. “I was the only one – besides me uncle – who was in there with yer, lookin’ after yer. N’ even then, I had to make sure the air was kept clean, n’ me hands as well.”
Silas remembered the heady incense that had been burning, and felt the heat rising to his ears.
“Anyways,” she carried on, “yer must understand, this only be our way. Goin’ from place to place as we do, we’s used to folk findin’ us strange. All our movin’ around all the time – it makes us tight-knit, y’see. Anythin’ and anyone who’s not one of us, we needs to treat as though may harm us. So many innocent troupes just like us ‘ere has got wiped out or what-not; jus’ ‘cause they weren’t careful.”
As she spoke – in her strange voice that was both warbling and soft – Silas felt himself loosening, as though her words wove a spell deep into his bones. He looked at her properly for the first time. She was exactly as he remembered from the Fayre, but her eyes were even more stunning up close. They were as grey as a winter sky, but being so deeply set in her face, shadows fell naturally around them and made them seem large and shining. He wasn’t surprised to see that she was a few inches taller than him, but he was when he noticed that, unlike the men, she was slim to the point of having hardly any muscle. Any that she did possess was hidden underneath a baggy cream top, its wide collar embroidered with a dark blue floral motif.
Silas frowned. Although the men saw to the majority of hard labour in the fields, Valley women and girls had their own fair share of work. Araena and Mekina were well-toned – and underneath her baby fat, Selena had a few bulges of muscle too. But not this girl. Being next to her as he was, Silas felt twice as big as he did beside Mekina.
He looked at her face again. Her ringlets hung to halfway down her back, some stray strands entwined with her own gold crucifix. Then he realised the source of the strange tinkling noises that had surrounded her when she had moved. Worked into her hair around her face were a line of small coloured beads similar to her uncle’s, and another – of tiny periwinkle shells and pearls – was strung down from behind her ear.
“Yer’ve gone very quiet,” she said. Then she cast her eyes down, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry for runnin’ away like I did. I was afraid – I still am, to be honest. But it were not good o’ me.”
Silas was surprised at her indignity. He was only used to hearing something similar after scolding one of his siblings, for sneaking a few mouthfuls of salted pork behind his back, or not completing a chore on time. But never like this: unprompted.
Pearl Spring looked up at him again. “But I’ll tell yer now, yer needn’t be worried. Whatever they decide, we won’t harm yer. That ain’t our way. You be in no danger with us. At worst, all they’d do is cast yer away, since yer ain’t even a part o’ the troupe.”
That helped Silas to relax a little. When he had been tied to the post, the terrifying thought of being killed had crossed his mind.
“Why are ye telling me all of this?” he asked warily.
She shrugged. “Ain’t it just mere politeness?”
Silas pursed his lips. “Aye.”
“Well, then. There yer go.”
He looked at her long and hard, trying to judge her, and finally spoke in a low undertone. “Do you believe me to be a demon?”
She hesitated, fleetingly casting her eyes over him. “I shan’t say,” she replied.
“Because I am not.”
“It ain’t for me to say. It be up to me uncle and the Seniors. I be just a humble girl; nowt I say for or against yer will be to any avail.”
Silas rested his head against the post and wiggled his fingers to make sure his blood would keep flowing. With the movement, the freezing pain in his left palm burned, and he bit down on his lip.
He sighed, and closed his eyes. He found he didn’t care if anybody would listen to her; too much had happened for him to keep it to himself any longer.
“I am no demon,” he repeated softly.
“I told yer,” she went to say again. “It won’t be any good speakin’ to me –”
Silas cut her off. “Nay. A demon did this to me.”
Pearl Spring stared at him in silence before there was a sudden explosion of movement out of the central tent. She quickly shied back, head bowed in respect. Silas watched, his eyes wide, as her uncle approached, flanked by four men and two women. All of them were so old that their backs were bent, and they walked with staffs for support. Silvery hair that shone in the torchlight flowed around their faces, plaited and bound in ways that were not of the Valley.
Pearl Spring’s uncle was the youngest of them; he looked to be in his late twenties, whereas Silas couldn’t hazard a guess at the ages of the others. The years that showed on their faces seemed to double what he had seen on even the oldest Valley folk – even Father Fortésa was duly put to shame.
But despite being the youngest, her uncle seemed to hold the most standing – which confused Silas. The Peregrin Seniors seemed to be the counterpart to the village Elders, but the Elders were all more-or-less of equal status. There was no set leader.
Pearl Spring’s uncle stepped out from the other Seniors. “I am Shadow Mask,” he said loudly. “Who are yer and what be yer purpose?”
Silas hesitated, choosing his words with care. Hidden from the Seniors’ view, he wiggled his fingers nervously.
“I... My name is Silas.” He forced himself to sound confident. “I am a farmer’s son from the village of Fanchlow. I am no demon, please believe me. I know no more than thee how my sight returned to me. But I shall tell: it was a demon that did take it from me.”
There was an exchange of mutterings from the Seniors and the crowd of other Peregrin that had gathered to listen in. Many of them touched the gold crucifixes around their necks; others crossed themselves and muttered “Kyrie eleison”. At the forefront, standing beside one of the torches, Silas glimpsed Pearl Spring. Her face was as set as it had been when he had said the same thing to her.
Shadow Mask raised a hand and silence fell. He kept his eyes on Silas. “Why?” he asked. “Why did it make yer blind? Would that be the reason for that there state o’ yer hand?”
Silas bit his tongue. To reveal any more seemed too dangerous, even though the Travellers had cared for him. His family’s faces shot through his mind. He couldn’t risk endangering them in any way by speaking openly about everything that had happened.
When he didn’t reply, he thought Shadow Mask would become angry – but then he realised that if he was, then he was the type of person who let it stew coolly.
Eventually, he said, “Do yer tell the truth?”
Silas nodded. “Aye.”
“Then swear it.”
“I swear to God and in His name!”
Shadow Mask stared at him for a moment before glancing over his shoulder at the Seniors. They all gave silent nods, and then he turned back.
“All righ’,” he announced. “It be the truth. Yer shall stay ‘ere until yer recover, and then yer go on yer way.”
Silas felt a wave of relief wash over him and he quickly nodded his thanks.
Shadow Mask glanced up. “Ev’ryone go back to yer business! Ai, Tomas, Andreas!” he said, and the crowd of people began to disperse back around the camp. Two men – who Silas assumed to be the ones who had bound him – approached from the throng.
“Release him,” Shadow Mask ordered them, “and take him back to the sick-un’s tent. Then both o’ yer go and wash yerselves after handlin’ him. Yer must sleep apart from yer wives tonight until yer be clean.”
They nodded dutifully and the larger one drew a knife from his belt to cut the cords. Silas glanced at Shadow Mask, who had beckoned for Pearl Spring to come. She obeyed without hesitation and he placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
“Irima, he be in yer charge,” he told her. “I want yer to take care o’ him and make him well.”
“Yes, uncle,” she replied.
<
br /> Tomas and Andreas pulled Silas to his feet and guided him back to the tent where he had woken – which, he now noticed, was pitched at the very edge of the camp, and well apart from the others.
CHAPTER XI
Merrin and her Demon
27th day of Jyune.
M y dear Lady, what strange events have happened these last two days! Tomas has found a young man unconscious on the hillside and soaking wet to the very bone. I cared for him all of y’day: he was blind and bore a horrid mark upon his left hand, which I did cover swiftly with a olde glove of Uncle’s. But when the sun did sink behind the mountains, his sighte returned to him!
Oh, Lady, the terror! I thought he were some kind of demon! I fled! The Seniors and Uncle held a Moot to determine his purpose there and then! But they deemed that he is a mere boy and I am now to care for him until he does make a recovery enough to leave us.
His name is Silas, and he is of my own age or perhaps slightly my elder – but I may only presume so because of his manner, for he is a serious and reserved one who acts older than he may truly be. He has not spoken of his surname as of yet. But the horrifying nature of his blindness was revealed to-day: he does become blind upon the rising of the sun, but sighted upon its setting!
What power is this? Oh, Lady of our Lord! To watch his eyes transform from browne to the colour of milk is so terrible and it frightens me so! I do feel pity towards him but I must confess that I am terrified. He appears to mean well, but in truth I cannot wait for the day when I see him walk away from us.
*
Merrin watched the spider in silence. It hadn’t moved since she had returned to the cave. She whispered thanks to the creature for leaving a space just large enough for her to squeeze underneath the web. Now, it kept her company, rather than leave her alone with herself.
Delamere Forest belonged to the Lake, all of the trees that grew accustomed to a life ruled by the water. It held an aura of stillness and tranquillity that couldn’t exist without Her. But they weren’t of the Lake. They were hard and harsh, and trapped in the air.