Tamlyn

by James Moloney

  By evening on the second day, we no longer had the road mostly to ourselves. The track from Haywode had joined with others, which in turn fed into wider roads in the way small streams combine to make a river. On the third morning, there were wagons in front of us, wagons behind and wagons passing us by.

  ‘Be careful, Silvermay,’ said Tamlyn as he tugged me out of the path of one. He called up to the driver, ‘You’ll crush someone under your wheels if you don’t keep watch.’

  The driver shouted a reply I’m too embarrassed to repeat.

  Tamlyn could have made him regret his curses, but he couldn’t afford to make a fuss. He was known in Vonne and not just by his family. By this stage in the journey, he’d taken to hiding his face inside a hood.

  ‘Everyone’s in such a hurry,’ I commented.

  ‘It’s the way of the city. You’re in for a few surprises, Silvermay.’

  Before I could experience the bustle of Vonne, I found myself stunned by its sheer size in the distance. Ryall and I had visited Ledaris, in the north, but it was an overgrown village compared to Vonne. I’d never imagined walls so high, and they stretched so far, with a narrow slit for archers built into the stonework every few yards. Inside the walls, turrets rose even higher.

  ‘The tallest is part of Chatiny’s palace,’ said Tamlyn, pointing. ‘And one belongs to my father’s house.’ He didn’t pick it out among the others, leaving me to wonder which high windows my love had stood at as a boy to look down at the city below.

  In sight of the gates, he stopped by the side of the road and we gathered in a huddle.

  ‘There are guardians watching everyone who goes in and out,’ he said.

  ‘Guardians?’

  ‘Chatiny’s men who keep order on the streets. They are his spies, too, and many are paid by Wyrdborn like my father to bring them their news first. One is sure to recognise me.’

  ‘Won’t your hood be enough?’ I asked.

  ‘Not if they demand I pull it back to show myself.’

  Ryall was looking at the road, where yet another wagon lumbered past, this one loaded with chickens in wicker cages piled ten feet high.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said.

  Tamlyn followed his eye to the wagon. ‘I’m not hiding among a bunch of chickens. They search wagons, anyway.’

  But Ryall was already gone, trailing after the wagon. He came back soon after with a sack and a length of rope.

  ‘Here, put this over your head,’ he told Tamlyn, handing him the sack.

  ‘It stinks of chicken manure.’

  ‘It’s the only one I could steal.’

  ‘I can see why. Even the farmer doesn’t want it.’

  ‘It’ll only be for a minute. Put it on and stop complaining.’

  ‘Of course I’m complaining. You wouldn’t put this over your own head, would you?’

  ‘My face isn’t known to half the city.’

  ‘No, we’ll have to think of another way.’

  ‘Fine. Go right ahead,’ said Ryall, folding his new arm neatly over his old.

  Tamlyn pondered a minute, then scanned the passers-by and behind us into the woods. Finally, he snatched the sack out of Ryall’s hand. ‘This had better work.’

  What a strange sight we made; certainly, every eye turned towards us, which isn’t exactly what you want when you’re trying to go unnoticed. In this case, it was understandable, because how often do people see a man with a sack over his head and a rope tied around his neck?

  ‘What’s this?’ asked a guardian who stopped us at the city gates.

  ‘My brother,’ said Ryall. ‘He’s crazy in the head.’ He rolled his eyes and used his finger to trace large circles around his ear in the sign of madness. ‘We’re taking him to a doctor in the city who might be able to cure him.’

  ‘Why the sack over his head?’

  ‘So he can’t see all these people,’ Ryall explained.

  This was the genius of his plan. He’d got the idea from the horses we saw that wore blinkers.

  ‘My brother goes into a frenzy when there are too many people around him,’ said Ryall, as though he had told the story a hundred times. ‘Last year he grabbed a sword and cut off my arm. Look!’

  He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt; since he’d taken off his mechanical arm, there was nothing to see but the stump. Tamlyn gave out a long, menacing moan.

  ‘Urgh!’ said the guardian, stepping back in alarm. ‘Get moving, the three of you.’

  With a tug of the rope, Ryall happily complied.

  When we’d walked far enough from the gate, Tamlyn whispered, ‘Find some place I can take this sack off without being seen.’

  ‘That’s not as easy as it sounds,’ said Ryall. ‘There’s a lot of people around.’

  This was certainly true, but we had just passed an empty lane that would have done fine, and another was coming up, which Ryall also ignored. He tugged on the rope and winked at me.

  ‘Hey, I’m not a donkey,’ Tamlyn called. When he heard me chuckling, he grabbed wildly for Ryall, catching him by the shoulder. ‘Get this sack off my head or I will cut your arm off.’

  Ryall led us down a narrow lane until there was no one likely to see. ‘All right, off it comes,’ he said, amid a shower of tiny chicken feathers and worse.

  Although he was still grinning when Tamlyn’s face emerged, he quickly wiped the smile off his face. My poor love was furious over the way he’d been made fun of, and when a Wyrdborn is furious it’s best to be careful.

  I put my hand on his arm. ‘Just a bit of fun. This is what commonfolk do to each other. It’s a sign of affection, really.’

  He looked at me doubtfully and grunted, the fire not yet gone from his face.

  ‘You have to admit it was funny, and Ryall’s trick did get us past the guardians,’ I said, pressing myself closer against him.

  Much to my relief, I felt the tension go out of his body and there was even a smile of sorts. That was better. The Wyrdborn didn’t smile at jokes, only at misery.

  I wished my father had been there to see Tamlyn’s face. Birdie’s words returned to my ears as well: He looks at you as a man should when he’s in love. Oh, to see what she had seen. I was greedy for every look he sent my way

  With Tamlyn’s face again hidden by his hood rather than a smelly sack, we ventured into the crowded streets. I had visited the market square in Ledaris, but the press of bodies there was nothing compared to this. Traders called customers to their stalls, prices were haggled over, cheats were shouted at, ribald comments drew belly laughs from men who seemed to be there just to be entertained. Among it all, we quietly asked for directions from strangers who barely glanced at our faces.

  Eventually, we left the noise and crush of people behind and found ourselves before a modest house in a street that few people wandered down. We knocked, and soon the door swung back to reveal a man whose eyes widened like flowers opening to the sun.

  ‘What are you three doing here?’ asked Miston Dessar, since he was the man we’d come to find.

  He poked his head out into the lane to see if anyone had followed us, and for a moment I feared he would send us packing.

  ‘Get in off the street,’ he said finally and just about dragged us inside.

  ‘You said you would help us,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Help you! Help you get yourselves killed and me along with you, I suppose,’ he said grimly. I didn’t think he was as afraid as he made out, though.

  ‘Help us to free Lucien,’ I said.

  ‘From my father,’ Tamlyn added, as he pushed back the hood with one hand. His other clutched the new sword so that it didn’t scrape against the wall in Miston’s narrow entrance hall.

  ‘Why not steal stars from the night sky — it would be easier,’ said Miston.

  ‘Then you won’t help us?’ I asked. ‘You want us to go before Coyle finds out we’re hiding in your house, is that it?’

  Miston let his eyes roam from Tamlyn, to me and final
ly to Ryall and the odd fingers of steel that poked from his sleeve. ‘Not much of an army to beat a man like Coyle Strongbow, but no, I won’t throw you out. There’s a lot at stake. Come in, welcome to my home.’

  Miston lived alone, it seemed, because there was no sign of a wife or children, just a house scattered with books. A servant climbed up from the cellar, emerging from the stairs on the far side of the room. Beyond the stairs was another doorway, leading to Miston’s bedroom, I guessed. At a murmured command from his master, the servant brought cheese, bread and a bowl of olives. When they were set out on the table, Miston invited us to sit and help ourselves.

  ‘Your father hasn’t left Vonne since your mother’s death, Tamlyn,’ he said.

  ‘Since he murdered her, you mean.’

  ‘He’s got away with the crime, it seems. No one speaks of it any more on the streets.’

  ‘Does he have Lucien with him?’ I asked.

  ‘I doubt he’s in Coyle’s house. As I told you in Haywode, Silvermay, Ezeldi was sure he wasn’t there, and if Chatiny gets word of where the child is, he will demand that Coyle hand over the prize. You can be sure of one thing, though: the boy won’t be far away. Coyle won’t trust anyone to watch such a valuable prize for long, not without checking it often with his own eyes.’

  ‘Then he must visit him,’ said Ryall, speaking for the first time. ‘If we watch his house, Coyle is sure to come out sometime and all we have to do is follow him.’

  We stared at him in silence. All we have to do … If only it could be that easy: follow a man, slip in behind him, steal what he is hiding and run off into the night. It didn’t sound so hard, as long as you left out that this was the most dangerous man in the kingdom, that we wanted to steal something he’d already killed for, and he wanted us dead in any case.

  ‘Ryall has a point,’ said Miston. ‘You can’t rescue the child until you know where Coyle is holding him.’

  ‘A vigil outside his gate, then,’ I said. ‘Could we do that, Tamlyn?’

  He took a moment to think about it and I had the impression his mind had been on other things. ‘The house looks down into a square. There are often food stalls, entertainers. We could linger among the crowds until he appears.’

  ‘Not you, though, Tamlyn,’ said Miston. ‘His servants would pick you out, no matter how well you hide your face. The way you stand, the set of your shoulders — you are too clearly who you are.’

  ‘It’s up to Silvermay and me, then,’ said Ryall.

  ‘Two people alone will find it difficult,’ said Miston. ‘The gate will need to be watched day and night. Let me talk to my colleagues who’ve seen the horrors of the mosaics, just as you have. We scholars are no use with swords, but we can keep watch and trail a man without raising suspicion.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do while this is going on?’ asked Tamlyn, not at all impressed.

  ‘I see you’ve barely left your sword alone since you arrived,’ said Miston. ‘Be patient, Tamlyn, and you will get a chance to use it.’

  So it was settled, or at least we had agreed on some kind of plan. There was one thing that still bothered me, though, and I decided to face it as soon as Miston had led Ryall down into the cellar where Tamlyn and I would also sleep.

  ‘Tamlyn, look at me,’ I said, rather solemnly. This was a serious business and I wanted him to know it. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me, are you here to rescue Lucien or to take revenge against your father?’

  ‘Both,’ he said instantly.

  ‘Which is more important to you? Tell me that.’

  He wouldn’t answer and turned away so that I couldn’t read his face.

  ‘We’ve come here to get Lucien,’ I said. ‘That’s all that matters. Our pledge to Nerigold still stands, and there’s nothing in that pledge about killing your father.’

  Still no reply.

  ‘Promise me, Tamlyn, that you will put Lucien first until he is free.’

  He seemed to be waiting for me to say more, but when I fell silent he spun round. ‘Until Lucien is free. Yes, Silvermay, you have that promise from me. Are you happy now?’

  With his promise, yes, but as for the way I’d had to force it from him, no, I wasn’t happy at all. Like Birdie, I was worried that sword at his belt was going to be trouble, no matter what power it held over Coyle Strongbow.

  14

  Keeping Watch

  Coyle didn’t live in a house, he lived in a stronghold. Tamlyn had spoken of a turret, but the entire building was a turret, tall and narrow, as though it had been designed to fend off invaders long after the rest of the city had fallen. It was made of pale sandstone, which had weathered and darkened over the years to a sinister grey. As for its size — our cottage in Haywode wasn’t even half as big as the stables I could see jutting out from behind the tower. The whole building gave off a brooding menace, its shadow spreading across the cobblestoned square where I stood staring in wonder.

  ‘How many people live there?’ I asked Miston Dessar, who had led Ryall and me through the streets for our first sight of the place.

  ‘Now that Ezeldi is dead, just Coyle and Hallig. I hear the other son is a fugitive.’

  He deliberately spoke like one who didn’t care enough to know the son’s name, in case prying ears were closer than we thought.

  ‘But surely it’s too big for one family,’ said Ryall, who had grown up in a hut even smaller than mine.

  ‘Oh, there are servants to clean and cook the meals, and he keeps a squad of his own guardians. They all live on the lower floors, but higher up, where the grand windows offer a view over the whole city, no, it’s mostly one man’s domain.’

  I examined the gates with the eye of someone who might want to unlock them one day. The bars and decorative curls had once been coated with gold leaf, but it had worn away, leaving dark steel as forbidding as the building it guarded. The sharpened spikes across the top looked particularly vicious, especially since someone had impaled the skull of a dog on one of them. The sun-bleached bones proclaimed a wordless message: Don’t climb these gates or you will join me here.

  We were careful not to stare for too long, then wandered around the square looking lost so we could pick the best vantage points for our vigil.

  ‘If we had a stall — for selling chestnuts, maybe — we’d blend in,’ said Ryall.

  There were many stalls already in place, and because a steady stream of people passed through the square on their way to elsewhere, there was a musician or two, as well, hoping for coins to be tossed into their upturned hats.

  ‘Can you sing, Silvermay?’ asked Ryall.

  ‘Like a chorus of drunken cats.’

  ‘Too bad, and I doubt I’d be much good at juggling,’ he said with a wink at me and a smile towards his mechanical hand.

  We agreed that I would take the morning watch, and after one more circuit of the square they left me to it. To hide my face, I was wearing a bonnet I’d found in Miston’s house. It was the sort of thing I’d normally use to dress up a dog on carnival days, but if it served its purpose, I wouldn’t complain.

  I was a spy and my eyes never strayed far from my target for long. At the same time, I could not afford to stare nonstop at Coyle’s house and so I strolled about as any casual observer would on a visit to the city. So much was new to me. One of the most surprising sights was a pair of lovers holding hands and laughing loudly at their whispers together. In Haywode, such open affection would be reported to the elders and the boy and girl would be scolded for their intimacy. Not in Vonne, it seemed. The couple passed me, too wrapped up in their joy to notice a girl watching them enviously. This was how I wished I could be with Tamlyn. When the young man bent to steal a kiss, I turned away before the girl had time to show her delight.

  The morning passed slowly, with only one lesson learned by the time Ryall came to take my place — nothing much stirred in a Wyrdborn’s house. My only entertainment was a clever magician who gathered a crowd around him to show off his tricks.
I’d joined the crowd once or twice, because it would have seemed strange if I hadn’t. He drew regular applause from his audience and quite a collection of coins in his cap, too, I noticed. A little older than Tamlyn, he had a soft, narrow face and a high voice. He seemed very confident of his abilities, with good reason — little girls squealed when he made a coin appear from behind their ears, and later he had a woman worried that the brooch he’d borrowed for a disappearing trick had actually vanished. She was on the point of calling for the guardians when it appeared again, neatly clasped to her dress where it had been in the first place.

  How had he done that, I wondered. Conjurers came to Haywode with the travelling shows each summer, but I had seen none as skilful as this one was. He stayed in the square all through the day, it seemed, because Ryall came back singing his praises, too.

  Tamlyn was in a terrible temper by that time, after an entire day cooped up inside Miston’s house and nothing but more of the same to look forward to. After a burst of questions when I first returned he became silent again and it wasn’t hard to guess what he was brooding upon. It didn’t surprise me, then, to be woken in the hour before dawn by the closing of a door. It was Tamlyn, returning to the house. He’d been keeping his own watch on his old home, I guessed, and I decided not to question him about it.

  He was even more restless when I came back from my vigil the next day, and if I hadn’t been there to keep an eye on him I’m sure he would have gone out into the streets, despite the risk of being recognised. I watched for him leaving the cellar that night after we had all gone off to bed, determined to go after him. We hadn’t had a moment alone since leaving Haywode and I wanted to talk, to be with him, even if I knew it couldn’t be like it was on board the ship.

  The night-time noises settled around us; from above Miston’s snoring became a rhythm that reminded me of home and I had to pinch my arms to stay awake. It was no use — I fell asleep. Yet my hopes weren’t lost, because when I awoke, hours later, it was to the sound of footsteps in the entrance hall.