The Stumpwork Robe (The Chronicles of Eirie 1)

by Prue Batten

  She jumped up and began to cram clothing and a rug in a tote, rolling the few things tightly. A small miniature with a deft pencil sketch of her father followed, slipped down the side of the bag. Her dog, Hector, watched her sleepily, yawned and turned in three circles, to collapse and tuck his head firmly against his side. Ana went to kiss him, but something made stop. If she was to do this properly even he must be excluded from her life. ‘I'll not stay to marry Bellingham, and I can’t stay in the same house as Mother and Peter. I can never forgive them.’ Her muttering disturbed the dog and he grunted and burrowed his head deeper. Propelled by hurt, she turned away to grab the bag and climb through the open window, clambering on stockinged feet across the iron roof to the horse-chestnut tree by the back of the house, to jump and land like a cat on the ground. Creeping as quiet as a shade, she let herself in the kitchen door and set about piling some food into a cloth. Muslin bags filled with a little flour, dried meat, some cheese, one or two windfall apples, a knife. Time to be gone.

  She pulled the door shut and with care, picked up her father’s rowan crook. Its collar of silver bells glistened in the dark night and she thanked Aine the Mother that it was leaning against the doorframe. It was her most suitable weapon against attack from malign wights, and to avoid noise, she wrapped it in her jacket to silence it until she was behind the stables. There was a slight tinkle that seemed to ring as loud as the chimes of the Venichese campanile bells in the night air and she sucked in her breath for a moment, expecting Mother or Peter at the door.

  Nothing!

  With relief, she pulled low riding boots over the black breeches she had chosen to wear. She had knotted her hair and dragged on a dark woolen cap of her brother’s - she truly was a nightshade. A matter of moments and she was past the stables and in the middle of the Long Field, feet wet from the night dew but surely only the first of many discomforts she must endure. Not the least of which was the hurt she felt at her family’s shameless treatment of her. She would never understand, never! Then, as she hefted the bag onto her back, having unwrapped the crook and put on the coat, her bruised breasts pulled and tugged, as blue and yellow as if a horse had thrown her and stomped all over her body. As sharp as a goad, the pain prompted her to put her head down and continue through the pasture a quarter of a mile to the hawthorn hedge which separated ‘Rotherwood’ from the wildness of the Weald. She could hear the wights, their eldritch voices even now casting shivers down her arms. Throwing a last look back at the shape that was her home, Ana put a foot on the stile over the hedge and began to climb. Immediately the forest silenced. The total lack of sound crashed around her ears, more disconcerting than any noise, because for all of her life, Weald-wailing had run as a continual counterpoint to normal night sounds on ‘Rotherwood’. She grasped the crook firmly and with a tinkle of the collar of bells, she jumped to the ground to continue the journey she had begun.

  She had a plan. During the evening as she sat alone in her room, intermittent shivers shaking her body, she had dwelt on her mother’s perfidy. Unaware of anything her family might be suffering, her grief had kept her insulated. Had she been more cognisant, she may have understood her mother’s fear-driven actions a little better. Certainly she would never have countenanced a marriage to Bellingham but she may have understood the desperation. As it was she knew only that she must leave, get as far from her mother’s perceived disloyalty, from the assault, from the memory of her father’s death as possible. Whilst lying in Adelina’s van, she had heard her friend and the Amritsands merchant talking of leaving at dawn. And suddenly her solution had presented itself. In the midst of her pain, she grasped the idea as if it were her only lifeline. She would go with them. Of course they would agree; they pitied her! She could use their sympathy as her ticket of leave and travel as far as the Raj because by the Spirits, she never wanted to return to her home. Ever. Having planned her escape, hoping to meet them on the other side of the Weald, she left no note for her family. Her loyalty was done.

  The black boles of Weald trees surrounded her, leaning down over her, suffocating and ensnaring as they marched in dark, shadowy lines. Many were in the throes of discarding summer leaf and Ana’s face was brushed by falling foliage like moths on her face, or spiders. The floor of the forest crackled loudly under foot in the uncommon silence and she cast tentative glances sideways, the flick of amber eyes and the moving shape of a shade keeping pace behind the shrubs of yew and holly. Gloom pervaded. Ana longed for lunar brightness to illuminate her path but the snippet of light which had guided her to the Weald was long gone, buried beneath the mean swathes of cloud drifting across the sky. A light drizzle had begun and whilst the heavy canopy of evergreen verdure protected her like a vast umbrella, every time she stepped from the shield of evergreen to the broken spaces of deciduous, her face was moistened with the lightest wetness, a kiss, a promise of weather or something else to come.

  Footsteps sounded behind her, to the side of her, in front of her and her heart clanged in her chest. She tried to be mindful of the Weald, its tricks and vagaries. Her life had been built on the foundations of such knowledge. Of course there would be footsteps... the Others knew she invaded their domicile. They would track her, trick her, deceive her, grieve her. But, she thought, they can damage me no more than I have already been hurt this past month. So she tried not to care, the benefit of suffering a deeper pain blunting the edge of her fear of the unseelie. But to be safe, she stopped and pulled off her coat and hat, turned them inside out and put them back on again. Almost immediately she heard disgruntled whispering and the padding of feet away from her.

  She longed to rest, to light a fire to ease her remorseless aches so she halted under the thick branches of a spruce and felt around for twigs and pine needles that had been kept dry by the resinous canopy. Scrabbling in her bag for the flint she had grabbed from the mantel as she left, she stroked sparks off it with the knife. Within minutes she had a tiny flame burning, the smoke hanging abjectly under the branches, adding even more to the moist fug of the night. She chewed a windfall, mindless of the overtly sweet, autumnal flavour, staring out into the dark with her back firmly against the tree, knees scrunched up and held by one arm. The Weald had begun to speak up again, a vicious invective, but more familiar in its tone than the silence. Words flittered in the dark… snickering, the occasional howl and eerie whispering. Ana listened, trying to determine a word or a sentence. Mostly it was an indefinable hiss, a message designed to increase paranoia and fear. But occasionally out of the sibilance, she heard ‘Go home, go away, begone. Or you’ll be lost and forlorn.’

  ‘Oh, be silent,’ she yelled, but the blackness swallowed her shout and she heard laughter. She reminded herself that she had the fire and the rowan crook with its precious collar of silver bells and she banged it on the ground. Its tinkling tones would send shivers over the sniggering spriggans and sprites whose task it was to unsettle her. For an hour she sat ignoring their games, defiantly shaking the crook like some odd, nocturnal morris-dancer.

  Footsteps behind her jerked her head around. Close now, it sounded as if someone was infinitely weary as the steps dragged and she held her breath, lips bitten and chewed. The drizzle created a gauze like curtain of the smoke and pushing through it, seeming as if all the woes of the world sat on his shoulders, a small wizened man shuffled under the tree, offering no harm, nothing really as he neither acknowledged Ana nor asked permission to share her warmth but merely sat himself on the other side of the fire. The Fir Deac, she thought, elated and anxious to be in the presence of such an Other. She counted off the details of his appearance - small stature, yes. Long grey hair, yes. A faded coat the colour of a raspberry, yes. A dented black hat. Yes, it’s him! Wet and shivering, he repeatedly wiped a dripping nose with a dirty scrap of fabric.

  Prudently she left the little man to warm himself as it was known that if a mortal allowed him to sit unmolested in his insular pleasure in front of the flame, good luck could only follow. He rested b
riefly and then stood and faced her. Saying nothing, he lay twigs on the ground and then turning, tapped his ear. Knowing to acknowledge him would destroy any beneficence, she began to stow things in her tote. The Fir Deac shuffled away, his eyes not having once met Ana’s. She raised her eyebrows in awed astonishment at such a strange confrontation and bent to scoop up the twigs to throw on the fire. It was then she saw the shape of an arrow pointing away. Puffing out a grateful breath at her good fortune, she almost forgot what else the kind wight had done. He had laid his finger on his ear as though listening for something.

  Ana stood still, head cocked away from the spruce tree. The Weald had lapsed into pregnant silence, waiting. Then sweet and clear, the trill of a starling burst through, more melodious than could be imagined and harbinger of the dawn. She ducked under the spruce foliage seeking some sky. To be sure, there the sky had lightened imperceptibly. There was east! A relieved sigh puffed out because in her room, in her grieved and injured state, she had wondered if the Weald might be the death of her and she hadn’t cared. She certainly had never imagined good will coming from this odd place. What a quaint little man, full of gratitude because he was welcome to wipe his nose in front of a fire. She pulled the tote over her shoulders and picked up her crook to head easterly, knowing Others were an intrinsic part of life and could not be avoided, just treated with cautious care.

  The rolling heaviness of the Weald began to give way to clearings and spinneys in the drab light between night and day. She glimpsed fields and green hills in the distance as the sun arose in a sluggish way and at the foot of the green downs she could see the grey ribbon of the Barrow Highway. Walking steadily, she entered a dappled glade full of ferns and mosses... a pretty place. A small stream tinkled over pebbles and despite the grey day, the water sparkled with invitation. Balm to Ana after the potential menace of the Weald, she wandered to a small pool, a crystalline loop to the side of the rill. Around the edge, like the perfectly scalloped hem of a Venichese robe of state, waterlilies floated; moon shaped discs upon which alighted leggy leaf-dancers, their bodies and wings iridescent in the gloaming. She knelt at the water’s edge, trailing her fingers back and forth and then splashed a handful on her face. The ripples reached to the outer edges of the pool, calmed, and then presently a mirror-like surface reflected an image of the surrounding elms and beech of the coppice, alight with autumnal hues.

  But languorously within the deeps a paler colour filled the expanse of gold until Ana saw a white face, dark waving tresses and a sinuous body. It smiled at her; an enticing and beguiling gaze. Green eyes as perfect as jade and as clear as crystal drew her to the very edge of the pool. She leaned closer and the face floated immediately beneath the surface so she could discern the jaw, the mouth, the cheeks and nose of… ‘Pa?’ she whispered as she reached out a finger and traced it over the water. The woman’s image had faded and in its place, Ana’s father’s likeness smiled back. Two ripples set out in concentric circles as tears fell from Ana’s cheeks into the water. ‘Pa, is it really you?’ The image nodded and she blindly reached out a hand the better to stroke the face she so loved and that she had missed more than she thought possible. As her hand reached down, strong fingers laced around her wrist and dragged.

  But Ana was mesmered, bewitched by the face that so haunted the deeps of the pretty waterway. She neither struggled nor shouted, merely relaxed into the grasp drawing her closer to the watery grave. The visage of the figure, fully satisfied it held its prey, reverted to a pale as death woman’s face. Only as it smiled and revealed its jagged teeth would anyone have realised it was one of the deadly waterwights of the Weald.

  But the peace of the coppice broke as a masculine voice rang out. ‘Let go or I will destroy you!’

  ***

  As Kholi and I left Orford together, we had no idea Ana was in such a formidable state, even though we knew she had absconded. If I had any idea at all of her travail, I would never have had such great excitement in the pit of my belly. But in Kholi I had such an attractive man, an erudite travelling companion. Such experiences and viewpoints did he relate! I warmed to him as we rode along. No longer did I see him as just a pleasant dalliance in my travels.

  A great part of our early conversation was about Ana. How the young woman had obviously been tipped over the edge by her assault and run away. Because we did believe she'd run away despite the fact that doomsayers in the village felt she had left to take her own life. They begged us to keep an eye out for her and of course we did but we saw nothing and eventually concluded she had passed in another direction entirely. My heart broke that she had left her home in such circumstances for there was a fragility about her that worried both Kholi and myself.

  But it is time now to hunt for more books and you must move on, following the trail of tiny bees until you come to the tawny owl on the oak branch. He was such a rewarding enterprise to stitch and I grew to love his portly stance and those wise, wise eyes. Worldly wisdom, lucky bird! Oh that we all, my friends and I, had a quarter of that wisdom. But hindsight is a useless thing so there is little point in dwelling on the past.

  In a good light you must carefully slit the stitches holding his body to the silk and underneath you will find another book with which to continue your journey.

  Chapter Eight

  Liam slept soundly with no profound feelings of guilt or sadness running through his head. In the typical Faeran way he simply moved on, having removed one piece from the shatranj board. He had put his head on the pillow in his room at the tavern, closed his eyes and slept. And would have remained so, if an accursed ruckus had not begun downstairs about an hour before dawn. Voices shouted and cursed, doors slammed, feet ran. He swung his booted feet to the floor as he hadn’t bothered to undress, and opened the door of the room. Light gleamed from the bottom of the staircase and noise levels rose. A serving maid ran past. ‘Mistress, what goes below?’ Liam smiled engagingly at the maid, who simpered and tucked loose hair behind her ear with a spare hand, the other holding a bundle of clothing.

  ‘It’s the Bellinghams, sir, something bad has happened.’

  A voice boomed from below. ‘TARA, C’MON LASS!’

  The girl looked apologetically at Liam and swung away down the stairwell. Liam followed her. He would see without being recalled, waft in and out of a crowd, listening and asking questions and no one would remember him after they had answered. A fug of smoke and steam smelling of wet wool, tobacco and horse wrapped round him as he entered the room. People gabbled and shouted and asked questions, and a roar soared as a bear of a man yelled above the rest. ‘QUIET, THE LOT O’ YER!’ Bruin the pub-keeper stood his ursine bulk on a table. The crowd hushed on seeing his ruddy face with its long side-whiskers. His eyes sparked with impatience. ‘Let the poor men have a sup and then Jimbo, can yer tell us what yer know?’

  Jimbo flushed as heads turned but he took a long swig of his ale, wiped his head vigorously with Tara’s proffered cloth and stood on the table next to Bruin. ‘Jonty Bellingham’s gone!’

  Those of the muttering crowd who had been out in the night nodded in agreement and then buried their faces in their tankards and left the young ostler to tell the story.

  ‘Go on,’ Bruin nudged him.

  ‘He didn’t come home and by dark the boss were worried. So he got a group of us estate workers together and we followed the track from the farm, we took the dogs an’ all.’ He stopped, took another slug of his drink and wiped his mouth with the cloth. ‘The boss were dead set the young fella would have come home ‘cos they had to organise the big announcement fer today. Anyhoo, we searched the paddocks and the hedgerows and finally got to Buck’s Passing and there were a mess of horse prints as though someone had been through and the boss made us get down and search on foot and it were me...’ He stopped again and paled and put the cloth to his eyes with a shaking hand.

  Bruin put his arm along the lad’s shoulders. ‘Come on, its orright.’

  Jimbo nodded. ‘Well you see, I f
ound him. Well, it weren’t him, it were...’ he swallowed. ‘Bits of him.’

  A sharp intake of breath from the crowd sucked the atmosphere of the tavern dry. Liam leaned against the wall, arms folded and tapping his biceps with bored fingers.

  ‘You see, it were the Cabyll Ushtey. Everyone knows Buck’s Passing is his lair. We all take it at a gallop. Anyhoo, I didn’t just find bits of him...’

  ‘What bits?’ Someone earned a savage glare from Bruin as Jimbo’s shoulders shook with a stifled sob at the question but he bravely answered.

  ‘His innards. You know how they always say the Cabyll Ushtey don’t eat innards.’ The audience nodded sagely as if they all had intimate knowledge of the water monster and its habits. ‘Anyhoo, I found bits of his clothes and you could see blood washed up along the shore and not a sign of his horse.’

  There was a ghastly silence filled only with the crackle of the fire and Tara swishing past Liam, muttering under her breath.

  ‘What did you say?’ He whispered just loud enough to gain her attention and she coloured as if caught in a misdemeanor. She glanced around, surveying the otherwise engaged crowd and then leaned closer to him.

  ‘I said no loss, sir!’ Her angry eyes turned on the crowd and Liam raised a prompting eyebrow. ‘He raped me,' she continued, her arms wrapped round her body. 'I hate him What if I’m pregnant? The Bellinghams’d kill me to kill the babe, cos I’m just a serving wench! Good luck to the Cabyll Ushtey I say!’ Her agitated whisper hit the walls and bounced back. Liam reached out a hand and ran it down her arm and she calmed. ‘But you know,' she continued more equably, 'it’s a blessing and a sadness in a way. The announcement Jimbo mentioned? Well, Bellingham was to be betrothed to Ana Lamb. Aine sir, I tell you - she’s as gentle as her name and she would definitely have died under his family's care. It's a madhouse. But now she’s gone and run away, all for nothing.’