Tamlyn

by James Moloney

He stopped a few paces short of me, his face contorted by fury. I barely recognised him.

  ‘I’m not interested in how commonfolk behave!’

  ‘You say that in the anger of the moment, but you have to learn commonfolk ways if you want to be one of us. It was what your mother wanted.’

  ‘How can you be so sure, Silvermay? She wanted me to experience joy — that was her goal. Well …’ he turned a slow circle to take in the destruction he had caused, ‘… there’s joy in this.’

  ‘It isn’t joy you’re feeling, Tamlyn, it’s rage. You’re mistaking the two because you’ve let your Wyrdborn nature take hold of you again. Once we get to Erebis Felan, you will understand. It’s not just Lucien we’re going there for, remember. You’ll be released from the Wyrdborn curse and then you’ll know that grief has to be met head on, not avoided by terrible acts like this. You face it with those who love you and the pain fades away, little by little. All you’ve done here is to pass your pain onto the world around you and doubled it inside yourself while you were at it.’

  Tamlyn stared at me for a long time after I’d said this, but his expression didn’t change. Finally, he turned away from me, as though my face were a sun too bright for him to bear.

  ‘Go back to the village, Silvermay. I want to be by myself,’ he said, without turning round.

  What else could I do but leave him there and hope he came to his senses?

  10

  The Felan

  I didn’t see Tamlyn again until after sundown when I was putting bowls on the table ready for supper. Miston was eating with us; on hearing of the news he’d brought from Vonne, my father had invited him to supper and Birdie had created one of her famous stews, which filled the house with its aromas. There was another guest at the table, too, enticed by the smell — Ryall. That meant it was already going to be a difficult meal for me. Then, as I placed the first bowl before Miston, Tamlyn appeared in the doorway.

  Ossin went to him and gripped his hand. ‘Terrible news,’ he said solemnly. ‘My whole family mourns with you.’

  Despite the careful watch my father had been keeping on Tamlyn, his sorrow was genuine.

  Birdie hadn’t been told Tamlyn’s mother’s name or how she had died, but that didn’t matter. The man she knew as Piet had lost his mother and that was all she needed to know. She kissed him, then seated him between herself and Ossin as a mark of respect and a way of sharing his grief. This was how it was done among commonfolk, as I’d tried to explain in the forest, but there was no sign in Tamlyn’s face that he had even noticed the gesture, let alone understood what it meant.

  I watched him while more heartfelt sympathy was offered around the table. Would he suddenly explode in rage as I’d seen him do earlier? The anger still had a strong grip on him, I could tell, but for now he seemed to have it under control. I tried to catch his eye, to guess whether anything had changed within him, but he avoided me and that hurt almost as much as anything I might have seen in his face. I had to keep reminding myself that his mother had been murdered; of course he would act strangely. But things were about to get worse — much worse.

  ‘Had your mother been ill for long?’ Birdie asked.

  ‘Ill?’ Tamlyn considered this as though he had never heard of such a thing. ‘No, she was in fine health when I saw her last,’ he murmured in an unhappy tone.

  Birdie turned to Miston Dessar. ‘Couldn’t the doctors in Vonne do anything for her? What potions did they try?’

  Birdie was a healer and her interest was genuine. She didn’t know what pain her questions caused.

  ‘The … er … complaint came on very suddenly,’ said Miston, with one eye on Tamlyn. ‘There was no time for the doctors to be called.’

  ‘What a shock it must have been. Was Tamlyn’s father present when she died?’

  Oh, Birdie, what a question!

  Tamlyn had kept his eyes lowered to the bowl in front of him, but at this his head snapped up. ‘Yes, he was there,’ he said in a tone that brought winter into our cottage long before it was due.

  The silence that followed staunched my mother’s enquiries. Her last had drawn blood, though, and not just Tamlyn’s.

  How had Coyle known that his wife was working against him? There was a simple answer: because I had told him. Coyle had returned to Vonne, the last place in the kingdom Tamlyn and I had expected him to go, armed with what he had learned on his travels: that it was Lady Ezeldi who had sent Tamlyn to protect Nerigold and her remarkable son. And how had he discovered this? The truth hit me harder than any Wyrdborn’s fury. I had trusted him, and in the days we’d travelled together I had revealed to him all that I knew.

  A fog of guilt lay around me. Surely the others could see it? If any of them had spoken to me, I would have run from the house, from myself, run until I had left the physical world entirely. Could you do that? I would have traded my soul for a way.

  I didn’t dare glance towards Tamlyn in case the same thing occurred to him. Maybe it already had. Maybe that was why he refused to look at me. Every minute we remained at the table was a torment. What would follow, though? Night; sleep. I would never sleep again, knowing what I had done.

  I had to tell Tamlyn, had to confess, and if he tore me to pieces like he had the hut in the woods, then at least my pain would be brief. Better to die quickly than carry the stain of what I’d done in every step, every breath, every thought.

  I was clearing away the plates when I heard Tamlyn offer to walk Miston Dessar back to the inn. I grabbed a shawl and hurried after them, catching up just short of the Nettlefields’.

  ‘It was my fault,’ I blurted out. ‘I told Coyle about Lady Ezeldi. She is dead because I betrayed her when I thought he was you, Master Dessar.’

  They stopped walking and turned to face me, but in the darkness I could not read Tamlyn’s face. His silence told me he hadn’t guessed the truth before now and it would surely take a few moments to sink in.

  ‘What are you talking about, Silvermay?’ asked Miston. ‘When you thought who was me?’

  ‘Tamlyn’s father, Lord Coyle. He joined Ryall and me after we had fled Ledaris many weeks ago. He said his name was Miston Dessar; he pretended to be a scholar so I would trust him as I’d trusted your cousin, Arnou. He wanted Lucien, you see, and he knew from the mosaics that I must give the baby to him willingly.’

  ‘You, Silvermay! You are the second woman they spoke of in Nan Tocha. I had begun to wonder if it might be you. Coyle tricked you, then?’

  I waited for Tamlyn to say something, but still there was no response.

  ‘Yes,’ I told Miston, ‘and I am so sick with guilt I can hardly breathe. I was a fool. I should have guessed who he was.’

  ‘How could you have guessed?’ said Miston. ‘Had you met me before? Had you heard anything about an elderly scholar by that name?’

  ‘No, but I should have sensed something was wrong. Because I was so trusting, I betrayed Tamlyn’s mother.’

  Miston stepped towards me and folded me in his arms like a loving grandfather. ‘No, no, betrayal is not the word. You had no reason to doubt the stranger’s identity. There’s no betrayal when a man like Coyle steals your trust and uses it to get what he wants.’

  I was grateful for Miston’s words and for his arms around me, although it wasn’t Miston’s arms I had hoped for and his understanding I needed. He seemed to know this, because he released me and turned us both to face the third member of our lonely group.

  ‘Tamlyn, you agree, don’t you?’ Miston asked. ‘Silvermay is beside herself with regret when she has no need to be.’

  ‘You are right, Master Dessar. My father is a trickster, a cheat, and he would be proud to hear me say it. Silvermay didn’t know who she was speaking to; she is not to blame.’

  His words lifted a great burden from my soul, yet his tone was strangely indifferent. It disturbed me to hear him speak as though I wasn’t there, as though he and Miston were discussing an unfortunate girl from another village. It w
ould have been easier, in a way, if he had become angry, called me a fool and an accomplice in Ezeldi’s murder. At least then I could repeat my sorrow over and over, and beg his forgiveness.

  He spoke again, this time to me. ‘You are an innocent among ruthless people, Silvermay, caught up in a struggle that is too much for you. My father used you, as he has used so many commonfolk before you. You’re afraid I will hate you because of what you told him, but if anyone is to blame, it is me. I thought Coyle would take Nerigold’s baby to some faraway hiding place. Instead, I should have warned my mother to flee. Lucien is a prize Coyle would kill half the kingdom to keep.’

  There it was again: I was free of blame. Yet something was missing. Tamlyn had dismissed me as no more than a child who’d fallen into waters that rose well above her head. I was nobody, a commonfolk girl who had been easily tricked and thrown aside. He spoke as though I had no part in what had already happened and what was still to come.

  Miston didn’t seem concerned by Tamlyn’s response. ‘The matter is settled, then,’ he said, ‘and it’s time I said good night. I’ll leave for Vonne early in the morning. My task was to deliver the ring and now that is done.’

  Tamlyn nodded. From the way he kept his hand inside the pocket of his britches, I guessed he was turning the silver ring over between his fingers.

  ‘Are you going to wear it?’ I asked as we left Miston at the inn and turned towards the Grentrees’ house.

  ‘Wear it?’ he repeated, as though he didn’t know what I was talking about. ‘Oh … um, no, that’s not why my mother wanted me to have it.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me why she sent it to you, are you?’

  ‘Not yet, Silvermay. I’m not even sure myself at the moment,’ and he took my hand in his.

  At last, I thought, he is beginning to thaw inside. He’ll accept my sympathy and let me help him through these next few days.

  After we’d rounded a corner, he stopped next to a wall with no windows and checked quickly that there were no spying eyes elsewhere to see us together.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he said, ‘something we’ve talked about. I thought it was the right thing, but now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Erebis Felan,’ he said, ‘and what’s going to happen when we get there.’

  ‘We know what’s going to happen. The wizards will strip Lucien of his powers and give him the chance of a decent life among the commonfolk.’

  ‘Yes, but you expect me to submit to the same wizards, don’t you, Silvermay?’

  ‘It’s not what I expect. You want it, too. I thought you understood how important it is for you, for us.’

  He wouldn’t answer me directly, but let go of my hand. That was an answer of sorts.

  ‘If I become weak like the commonfolk, I’ll be an easy victim for my father,’ he said. ‘I won’t be able to fight as I’ve done in the past.’

  ‘Weak?’ I said. ‘No. Don’t you see what a curse your powers are? You’ve got it all wrong, Tamlyn. We commonfolk are much stronger than the Wyrdborn.’

  ‘Not in the ways that count.’

  ‘In the ways that count the most,’ I shot back at him.

  I had a hundred to list off, but he was in no mood to listen.

  ‘You have strange ideas about power, Silvermay. If the commonfolk are stronger, then why do the Wyrdborn cause you all so much misery? The things you value didn’t save us from the dogs Coyle sent to track us down; they didn’t save you from the water spout during the storm two weeks ago. It was my Wyrdborn strength that did those things.’

  That much was true, and while he spoke so forcefully, there was no chance for me to argue my point: that brute strength was not the only measure of a being’s power. Besides, he had his own arguments and he was going to make them, no matter what I said.

  ‘My powers will help us find Lucien and set him free. You won’t be so much against them, then, will you, Silvermay? You don’t speak of surrendering my powers when they bring you what you want. You’re the one who must understand, not me. There are things I have to do, things I want very badly, and I’m glad of my Wyrdborn strength because it will let me succeed where any commonfolk would be killed in an instant.’ He spoke with an intensity that made me recoil, and he wasn’t finished yet. ‘You should know this now, Silvermay. I will help you rescue Lucien and I will see you both reach Erebis Felan, but I won’t surrender my powers to the wizards.’

  And he walked away from me before I could reply.

  What would I have said? So much of what he’d laid out before me was true. I would welcome his Wyrdborn powers if they offered help to free Lucien, so to speak of them as a foul mark on his soul made me the worst kind of hypocrite.

  I spent a troubled night behind my curtain, barely sleeping at all, it seemed, which made the time stretch out endlessly, as though morning had decided to stay beyond the horizon forever more. And that kind of stubborn wakefulness doesn’t just frustrate the mind, it taunts and tortures it. Whenever sleep crept close, visions of Tamlyn tearing entire trees from the ground with the power of his body chased it away. If this wasn’t enough, his face crowded into view, the tension in his jaw, the rage in his eyes. Before that night, I’d lulled myself to sleep many times with a different image of his face and I wished it would come to me again. But it stayed hidden, making me see instead that sometimes love demanded patience and belief.

  It wasn’t only the change in Tamlyn that disturbed me. What a two-faced friend I had turned out to be, wanting him to give up his Wyrdborn powers in one breath and eager for him to use them in the next. No wonder he was confused; no wonder part of his anger seemed aimed at me.

  ‘There are things I have to do,’ he’d said and it wasn’t hard to guess what he wanted his powers for.

  Until yesterday, I’d let myself believe that the needs that drove him were the same as my own, that what mattered most to him were Lucien’s rescue and the journey to Erebis Felan to fulfil our pledge. After that, we could make a future for ourselves, together. All through the blissful voyage from Greystone, he’d seemed set on exactly these things. It could only be his Wyrdborn nature that had made him change so quickly. I wished I knew more of this foul magic, how it worked on the soul and what could challenge its dark impulses.

  At last the sky began to brighten, and for the first time that anyone was likely to remember, I was out of bed before my mother. She was still soundly asleep, in fact. Lucky thing! It was a cold morning and I decided the best way to warm up was to get busy, so with a bucket swinging from my hand I set off for the well, enjoying the grey mist of my breath as I slipped between the houses. On the way back, my eye was caught by a figure emerging from the inn — Miston Dessar making an early start as he’d said he would. I left the heavy bucket on the side of the road and went to wish him a safe journey.

  ‘You’re up early,’ he commented. ‘Not even the innkeeper has stirred yet.’

  ‘If you owe him money, he’ll hear you,’ I said, and, as though he had been listening at the door, Darry Nettlefield appeared, unshaven and looking suspicious.

  Miston laughed and fished for coins in his pockets to pay his bill. While he haggled with Mr Nettlefield, I wondered if I dared voice the important questions in my mind.

  ‘Free to go,’ Miston said at last, but stayed where he was.

  I asked whether his blisters had healed, then, with the innkeeper back inside, carrying more coins than he was entitled to, I said, ‘It was a great tragedy that your cousin was killed in Nan Tocha. Did you see him often?’

  ‘When he was in Vonne, yes, but not once he was sent to the mountains to dig among the ruins.’

  ‘Oh.’ My disappointment slipped out before I could stop it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Silvermay, I know nothing more of Arnou’s work in Nan Tocha than the king does — nor Lord Coyle, for that matter, because it seems he also read the reports sent back to the capital. Of course, I’ve been to t
he diggings myself now and was able to visit Arnou’s grave. But dead men cannot speak, even to the cousins they grew up with.’

  ‘What did you think of …’ Suddenly it occurred to me that Mr Nettlefield might be listening ‘… of what was found there?’ I finished, keeping the details vague.

  Miston understood why I had hesitated. ‘Come with me to the edge of the village. That way, you will be not only the first person who welcomed me here but also the last to wave me goodbye.’

  I walked beside him, neither of us saying much until we were well past the last house and only the empty road stretched ahead. Here, he stopped, no longer as anxious to be gone.

  ‘No one will overhear us now, I think. You want to know about the pictures on the walls — those ghastly creations made of tiny pieces of stone and coloured glass? You took charge of the baby after his mother’s death, didn’t you, Silvermay?’

  ‘Yes. In the moments before Nerigold died, Tamlyn and I made a pledge that we would save her son from the Wyrdborn curse shown in the mosaics.’

  ‘Save him? From what I saw in those gruesome scenes, it’s the entire land of Athlane that will need saving.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. The future doesn’t have to be the way those mosaics show it. Arnou said as much himself. Tamlyn and I are going to make sure that little boy becomes one of the commonfolk and lives the happy life his mother should have had.’

  ‘That’s impossible, Silvermay. You’ve pledged yourself to something no one can do.’

  I was a farmer’s daughter who couldn’t read or write, while Miston was a scholar from Vonne, one of the clever men who knew what was possible and what was not. I should have bowed to his knowledge. Should have, yes, but that wasn’t what I did. The world was quick to tell girls like me what they should and shouldn’t do, but I was going to do what was most important to me.

  ‘You’re wrong. There is a place across the sea that can help us,’ I said boldly and folded my arms.

  ‘You’re talking about Erebis Felan, I suppose. Oh, don’t look so surprised, Silvermay. Scholars have been studying the Wyrdborn for years. Of course I know the stories, and yes, Erebis Felan is more than a legend, it is a real place. But if you take the Wyrdborn baby to that land, he will be killed instantly.’