Lucien

by James Moloney

  ‘I will do whatever Silvermay asks of me,’ Lucien confirmed. He and Tamlyn stood either side of me.

  Slowly, Miston’s face lost its pallor. ‘Not a king, but a leader among equals,’ he murmured. ‘Such a leader wouldn’t give way so easily to greed.’ He paused for a moment, meeting my eyes. ‘There are several men who come to mind already. Good men, wise men, who would serve this new council well.’

  ‘I would expect to see women on the council, too, Miston. Haven’t I proved a woman can take the lead?’

  Miston bowed reverently. ‘Indeed you have, Silvermay. Perhaps you should sit on the council yourself.’

  ‘One day maybe I will,’ I said, yet even as I spoke I reached for Tamlyn’s hand and threaded my fingers between his. ‘But for now, I have another life to lead.’

  ‘Tamlyn, then?’ Miston suggested. ‘It would strengthen the council if the husband of such a remarkable young woman was part of every decision.’

  I watched as Tamlyn considered the offer. He didn’t glance at me to judge my wishes or to seek my permission. Tamlyn would always make up his own mind and I would love him whatever he decided.

  ‘No, Miston. Like Silvermay, I have a different role I am keen to take up, right here in Haywode,’ he said, and his fingers gently squeezed mine. I loved him even more for that answer.

  There was more to discuss, but I knew by then that Miston would take on the challenge, no matter how much it daunted him. However, if Tamlyn and I thought we would be able to begin our married life together that day, we were quickly disappointed.

  ‘I will do it, Silvermay,’ Miston announced at last, ‘but only if you come with me to Vonne for the proclamation. The success of this new order depends on you and Lucien together. The last Wyrdborn obeys you before anyone else. There must be a ceremony in the capital to show that I am your choice of leader.’

  It didn’t seem much to ask. The important thing was that Miston had agreed to take on the task I’d asked of him, so I said yes without a moment’s thought. Foolish me! When Miston spoke of acting quickly, he meant it; we weren’t even allowed to catch our breath after the battle. With Miston now eager to begin his new role, Tamlyn, Lucien and I found ourselves beside him on the road to Vonne that very afternoon. And we did not travel alone! Instead, we led a procession that trailed behind as far as the eye could see.

  Word of what had happened seemed to jump ahead of us while we slept at the roadside on the first night. In the morning, people came out of their farmhouses to watch us pass. Perhaps such a procession would have brought stares anyway, but it was what happened at the first village that disturbed me. The villagers lined the road as others had done before them, but when we drew close, they knelt and bowed low until their foreheads touched the grass. It wasn’t Miston or even Lucien they singled out for such reverence, it was me.

  ‘The power resides in you, Silvermay,’ Miston explained. ‘The people of Athlane have been taught to fear power.’

  ‘Stop the horses,’ I shouted, and pulling sharply on the reins of my own mount, I slid to the ground.

  The villagers stayed on their knees, not one of them daring to look up as I walked among them. A few were trembling, which was the last thing I wanted.

  ‘Stand up, all of you,’ I ordered, but this only confused them more. Some rose tentatively to show me faces tight with fear; others pressed themselves more painfully into the dirt as though this would please me.

  I tried again. ‘Please, I beg you. Stand and look me in the face. No one will harm you.’

  The softened tone of my voice must have reassured them because they climbed cautiously back to their feet.

  As they did so, I went forward and gently touched each person’s hands. ‘From now on, you need not fear the rulers in Vonne. You must simply respect their laws.’

  Where had those words come from? I wasn’t aware of practising them in my head beforehand, although they did seem to match what the four of us had spoken about as we rode. Now it was those words that jumped ahead of us as we made our way to Vonne. Farmers, traders, innkeepers, their wives and children, even vagabonds and curious dogs continued to gather at the roadside. Many of them bowed as we passed, but none grovelled as those first villagers had done. Some cheered, some clapped, and in the faces of all I saw the respect I had spoken of — and, with it, hope.

  Our reception along the road should have warned me of what to expect in Vonne. Miston had spoken of a ceremony and my country-girl imagination had pictured a hundred people assembled for a wedding. Instead, a thousand people crammed into the palace to hear Miston Dessar take an oath to serve the people of Athlane, and ten thousand more cheered him as he walked in procession through the streets of Vonne.

  Lucien and I walked with him, at the head of the lords and religos, the generals, the judges and the rest. I had expected Miston to take the central position, but he had a different idea.

  ‘You must walk between us, Silvermay, as a symbol of how Athlane is now ruled. I have been proclaimed leader, yes, but it is through you that I command Lucien.’

  My gown that day was made from cloth of gold and decorated with more pearls than I managed to count. There was no doubting its beauty, and no doubt either that I would always prefer the dress Birdie had made for my wedding day. I longed to feel it around me once again even as we paraded through the streets.

  ‘When can I go home?’ I whispered into Miston’s ear.

  ‘Tomorrow, Silvermay, I promise. But now you must hear the first law our new council decided upon when we met last night.’

  When the procession returned to the palace, Lucien helped Miston climb the parapet to stand above the people he now led.

  ‘By order of the council,’ he cried, ‘from this day forward, the tribute paid by each village to its religo is to be no more than he needs to maintain the roads and bridges in his region and to keep order among the people.’

  As Miston spoke, Lucien stood behind his shoulder. There was no need to warn the religos what would happen if they continued their old ways. The cheering that followed the announcement could be heard by travellers an hour’s walk from the capital.

  I have not mentioned Ryall’s name even once in this tale of the hectic days after the Battle of Haywode. There is a simple reason for that — he had no part in them. He was there in the village, of course, when I enlisted Miston to become Athlane’s new ruler. He stood with Hespa, holding a sickle tightly in his hand — the only weapon he’d been able to find to protect her should desperate soldiers have come marauding after the battle. But he did not join the long line that followed us to Vonne, and by the time we returned to Haywode a week later, he was gone.

  ‘He headed back to Nan Tocha,’ said Birdie, when she saw the surprise on my face. ‘Said he missed his carefree life as a trapper and wanted to be alone in the mountains like he was before.’

  I suspected otherwise and went to see Hespa. ‘You argued, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, dry-eyed, ‘but the result is the same. He has gone to live in the mountains.’

  ‘He asked you to go with him. That’s what you argued about.’

  She nodded, but refused to look me in the eye. ‘Anyway, my father says he must pay the bride price like any other man.’

  That was probably true; Hespa’s father often boasted of the price he would demand for such a daughter, as though her beauty was something he had crafted with his own hands. But I also knew Hespa wasn’t so easily defeated when she had her heart set on something.

  I said no more and went back to my home, or to the home that used to be mine, at least. What I mean is, I went to the cottage where Ossin and Birdie Hawker live and where I grew up, so it will always be my home in that way, but …

  I am getting muddled. Perhaps I should explain that when Tamlyn and I dismounted after the long ride back from Vonne, my parents greeted us with smiles that hinted at a secret.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked them. ‘You look like your touch can turn lead into gold.
’

  ‘Nothing quite so wonderful, I’m afraid,’ said Birdie, ‘but I’m sure you’ll think it so. Miston spoke to us before you departed. “Find a house for the newlyweds,” he said. “Fill it with furniture. The new council will pay, in gratitude for all you have done.”’

  While I had been parading reluctantly through the streets of Vonne, Ossin and Birdie had bought the Widow Lavender’s house. The old lady had died the year before and, since her only son lived miles away in a place of his own, the house had stood empty ever since. Not any more, though. It was a grand house for Haywode, with a separate room for sleeping and a loft for storing things out of the way.

  When Birdie grew tired of showing off all its extravagant features and finally left us alone to enjoy them, Tamlyn called me to the door. ‘Come on. There’s a place we have to go.’

  I just wanted to flop down in the luxury of our own house, but the excitement in his face won me over.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked, struggling to keep up.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  He led me towards Mr Nettlefield’s inn.

  ‘I hope this surprise is more than a tankard of ale,’ I said.

  Tamlyn didn’t answer; instead, he guided me into the cobblestoned square in front of the inn. He checked left and right to get his bearings, shifting a little as though we must stand in precisely the right position. I had already guessed why.

  ‘Do you remember what we said in this very spot, Silvermay?’

  How could I forget? I raised my hand, opening the palm towards him, and in response he stretched out his own, palm upwards, and watched as I settled mine on top. Then, at a nod from him, we spoke the words.

  ‘We promise to remain faithful to one another until death breaks our bond.’

  When it was done, Tamlyn said, ‘There are no soldiers to drag me off to battle this time, Silvermay. No one will take me away from you again.’

  ‘Then our life together starts from this moment,’ I said, fighting tears.

  Faces were watching us from the ale room, but we couldn’t leave that special place without a kiss.

  When we stepped away from one another, Tamlyn took my hand again and started across the square. ‘There’s more of those back in our house,’ he said.

  ‘More of what?’

  ‘Kisses.’

  He was right, and I am finding them there, still.

  It didn’t take long for Tamlyn to become a respected man of the village. If his hands no longer blistered and bled when he harvested the wheat it was because they were hard with calluses. After just a few short months, he was as skilled with hawks as my father.

  ‘I can’t speak to them as I once did,’ he confided to me, ‘but your father has taught me a different way.’

  Birdie and I would watch the two men together as they called down the hawks to perch on their arms, or toiled side by side in the fields, arguing occasionally about how best to do things. She and I were mother and daughter and what we saw happening before our eyes was the making of a father and son.

  ‘Coyle was no father to you at all,’ I said to Tamlyn one night as we snuggled by the fire.

  His eyes moistened. ‘Sometimes I wish I’d been born your brother.’

  ‘If that was so, you couldn’t be my husband,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Perhaps not, then,’ he laughed, but only days later he asked me to go with him to visit my parents. There, he said to Ossin, ‘The name Strongbow reminds me of nothing but misery. With your permission, I would like to be known as Tamlyn Hawker.’

  And so I became one of those rare wives who keeps her family name even after she is married.

  Happiness plays tricks with time. Before I quite knew it, more than half a year had passed since the ceremony in Vonne when I’d walked between Miston and Lucien to show that justice now ruled in Athlane. Some of the religos had tried to ignore the new ways, until Miston sent Lucien to visit them. Word quickly spread of these visits and he wasn’t called on much after that. Most people remain satisfied when laws are administered with justice and good sense; and while I was told Miston’s councillors argued endlessly, they seemed to find the right decision when the time came.

  Lucien travelled often to Haywode, where he might have demanded the best bed in Mr Nettlefield’s inn if he chose, but he preferred my old one in my parents’ simple cottage. During the day, he worked in the fields with Tamlyn or sat at our table telling me of his joys and sorrows. The curse still lived in him, as it always would, but I didn’t hear him utter the word Wyrdborn on any of his visits. Each time before he left, we pressed the palms of our hands together to renew our pledge.

  ‘Do you feel happiness?’ I asked him once.

  ‘Enough to go on living,’ he replied.

  He no longer wore the rope of hair on his belt.

  Through the months, Hespa came every day to lay out her dilemma as if it were new to me each time.

  ‘If you are lonely without Ryall, then follow him to Nan Tocha,’ I told her.

  She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t live in the mountains. The women there grow old before their time. Think of what it would do to my face and hands. I’d have to skin the animals he traps, too.’

  I have to admit, I didn’t fancy such a life, either.

  ‘Then find someone new,’ I said. ‘You are the prettiest girl in the district. You can take your pick of the young men.’

  At this, she would make a face, and so we went around in circles, month after month. She was so preoccupied by her own troubles, she didn’t notice that I no longer wore my favourite blue dress. Until she did, I felt no reason to tell her why.

  ‘I’m going,’ she announced one morning. ‘I must be mad, but I’m going. Oh, Silvermay, I’ll be a mass of wrinkles before I’m twenty-five.’

  ‘Yes, you probably will,’ I agreed, just to tease her.

  I expected her to delay, but no, she began to collect what she’d need, even though her father wailed loudly every night in Mr Nettlefield’s ale room about the bride price he would miss out on. Then, only days before her departure, a figure appeared on the road that led into the village. Hespa and I saw him first, just as we’d seen different figures approach on the day Tamlyn, Nerigold and Lucien entered my life. This one wasn’t leading a horse with a woman seated on its back, though, and he didn’t come from Vonne, either.

  ‘It’s Ryall!’ Hespa cried and immediately ran towards him.

  All through our childhood I had been able to beat Hespa in a foot race, but this time I didn’t try. It wasn’t just that she should be the first to greet Ryall; I had been feeling off-colour in the mornings lately and didn’t feel up to running.

  I wanted to welcome Ryall back among us, though, and when the two of them reached me I hugged him close. He saw the change in me immediately, but when he stepped back, about to mention it, I put a finger to my lips and winked. Hespa was too caught up in her own delight to notice.

  ‘Where is your father?’ Ryall asked her.

  ‘At the inn, as usual.’

  Since it was late on a summer’s day, the ale room was crowded with men, who all became witnesses to the transaction that followed.

  ‘You demanded twelve gold coins as the bride price,’ Ryall said to Hespa’s father before he had even said hello.

  With a flourish, he emptied a purse onto the table between them, where the coins glowed warmly in the afternoon light. I didn’t need to count them to know there were twelve. I didn’t need to ask how he had earned them, either, when traders paid good money for fox, sable and other furs.

  ‘She’s yours, then,’ said Hespa’s father. ‘Nettlefield! Bring drinks for everyone.’

  Hespa looked at me and shrugged. ‘Sold like a prize pig at the spring fair,’ she said. She had long complained that it would happen this way.

  They were married three weeks later. On the morning before the wedding, Hespa and I walked to the edge of the woods together to collect flowers for her garland, just as we had done for my own. On o
ur return, we stopped at the place where we’d seen Tamlyn for the first time, no more than a dusty shape on the road that day. If I lingered there, making Hespa impatient, it wasn’t simply to remember our first meeting. I was thinking of names.

  Tamlyn and I needed to choose a name for a little girl, if Birdie’s prediction was right. He had suggested Geran, after the brave woman who had taken us to Erebis Felan where the curse of the Wyrdborn was lifted from him. It was a fine name, but that place by the roadside reminded me of another brave woman we should commemorate. I still thought of myself as Lucien’s mother, but soon I would have a child of my own and my thoughts often drifted to Lucien’s real mother, Nerigold.

  There, on the morning before Hespa’s wedding, I whispered her name once more, and went home to tell Tamlyn that I’d made up my mind.

  About the Author

  JAMES MOLONEY is one of Australia’s best-known authors for the young. He has twice won the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award, but his greatest success has been in winning the hearts of children and teenagers with humorous novels such as Black Taxi, and his brilliant fantasy adventures beginning with The Book of Lies. He lives in Brisbane, where he writes every day in a shed specially built in his backyard.

  Praise for Silvermay, winner of the 2011 Gold Inky

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  ‘a thrilling read that outlines the importance of friendship and the fight between good and evil’

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  ‘Silvermay is a compelling story with deftly drawn characters. The world is interesting, and the plot gripping’