‘It’s not as if I can’t look after myself,’ she said one frosty morning as Errol stood, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them, wishing he had brought some mittens. He whirled around at her voice, wondering again why he had not heard her footfalls crunching on the frozen leaves.
‘I lasted in Candlehall for over a year, after all,’ Martha continued. Errol had grown accustomed to her seemingly random thoughts. It was part of her charm that she was constantly saying things out of all context. Only with long and laboured consideration could he occasionally work out the tortured twist of logic that had led from something said perhaps hours, or days, before and what she said now. Yesterday she had complained that her father was always keeping an eye on her, never letting her out. Errol could only assume that she was simply picking up the thread of that conversation.
‘It can’t be all that bad,’ he said, reaching out and taking her hand. She wore no mittens either and yet her skin was warm like newly-laid eggs.
‘He locks me in the house,’ she said. ‘Every morning after breakfast. He goes off to his meetings or to the forge and he locks the door. Then he doesn’t come home till late. It’s a good thing I can cook or I might starve.’
‘How do you get out here then?’ Errol asked. ‘Climb out a window?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Martha laughed. ‘Someone’d see me and follow. Or tell da. ‘sides, there’s much easier ways.’
‘How then?’ Errol asked, genuinely interested.
‘I thought old Radnor had taught you about the lines,’ Martha said. ‘Din’t he tell you how to walk them?’
‘Yes,’ Errol said. ‘He did. I even managed it once. But I haven’t tried again. Or rather I have, but it was too strange. I couldn’t see what I was doing.’
Martha laughed, not unkindly. ‘You think too much about things, Errol,’ she said, dropping his hand. ‘You should just do.’
Errol gasped. She had been right beside him in the middle of the clearing, yet now Martha stood a good twenty paces away.
‘How..?’ He began, but he knew the answer already. He could see the lines crossing the clearing and the brighter points where they met. Martha stood squarely over one. All he needed to do was take that small step, forget the distance between them and let himself flow along the line. In theory it was easy, but as he looked at the shifting, pulsing grid his attention was pulled this way and that. A tree off to one side was ailing, its life force pale and stuttering. One of the lines speared off in the direction of home and for a moment Errol wondered what was going on there.
‘Over here, Errol,’ Martha’s voice pulled him back and he almost staggered backwards with the force of what felt like stepping into his own skin. He had been doing it, he realised with a thrill. But he had allowed his concentration to wander; he had lost his target amongst all the other infinite possibilities. He shook his head and concentrated once more on the point where Martha stood, seeing her patient, happy smile. He felt he was closer to her than to anyone he had ever known. Even his mother was a stranger to him in many ways; more so now that she had abandoned the solitary life they had shared for Godric Defaid’s bed. But Martha understood him. She shared his thirst for knowledge, his insatiable desire to know things, not just accept what he was told. She made no demands of him that he didn’t make of himself. Quite simply when she was about he was happy, when she wasn’t he felt sad and unfocussed. He wanted her to always be around.
‘See, not so difficult is it,’ she said, her voice suddenly very close. In the next instant Errol realised he was standing right beside her, almost touching. His knees felt a little unsteady, his head fuzzy as if it were trying to catch up with the rest of him, and before he could do anything he had fallen into her ready embrace.
*
Benfro hurried along the path to the village, scarcely noticing the spread of fallen leaves that carpeted the ground and deadened his footfalls. Autumn was always a short season in the foothills and it wouldn’t be long before frost set in. Hunting would soon be sparse, the fish in the river sluggish and unwilling to take a bait. It mattered little to him at the moment, there was a meeting to attend and afterwards there would be a feast.
He had spent the morning trying not to hurry. Too many times before he had made that mistake when preparing medicinal potions with his mother. Benfro knew that if he made a mistake he would have to start again from the beginning and he would never be finished in time. So he had held his burning anticipation in check and applied himself as best he could to the task.
Now he was free. The odd-smelling poultice was packed into earthen jars and sealed with wax-dipped cork. The labels were all neatly written, fixed to the jars with pasty glue, and the whole morning’s work had been stored carefully away. Benfro had even begun clearing up the mess but his mother had finally relented at that point, letting him go before he broke something in his haste.
‘Don’t be too late back,’ she had said as he had run out the door. ‘And don’t upset the meeting. Sir Frynwy’s doing you a great honour allowing you there at all.’
The track climbed up a short hill, narrowing near the top where it passed through a cutting, as if countless thousands of passing feet had slowly worn a groove through the earth. The trees hung over the road here, their shedding branches meeting and twining in the middle so that the way was always dark and cold. As a kitling, Benfro had been afraid to walk the few tens of yards alone, but he had long since grown out of such foolish nonsense. Still, he slowed to a walk as he entered the tunnel.
‘Well, hello there squirt. And where do you think you’re going this afternoon?’
Benfro’s hearts nearly stopped. He stood motionless for long moments as his mind caught up with his imagination. He knew the voice. There was only one dragon who would ever address him in such a manner. But still she had managed to shock him. And on this errand she was the last dragon he wanted to see.
Frecknock stepped from the trees onto the leaf-strewn path. She was between him and the village, Benfro noted with dismay. He would have to deal with her before he could get to the meeting.
‘I asked you a question, squirt,’ Frecknock said.
‘I’m going to the meeting,’ he replied.
‘You? And what makes you think you’d be welcome at a meeting of the village elders? You’re only ten years old.’
‘Thirteen, actually,’ Benfro said. He was always wary of Frecknock. She was bigger than him and he knew from experience she could catch him a nasty blow if he wasn’t careful to keep out of her reach.
‘Sir Frynwy invited me,’ he said. ‘He values my opinion.’
‘So you know what this meeting is about?’ Frecknock said, her voice suddenly less harsh, more interested. Benfro’s suspicion grew.
‘Yes, I do,’ he said.
‘Well tell me then, Benfro,’ Frecknock said, her voice almost laughing.
‘I think that Sir Frynwy should do that himself,’ Benfro said.
‘Oh dear,’ Frecknock said. ‘It’s about his precious Llyfr Draconius, isn’t it. And you saw me with a book up at the falling pools. Now you’re going to tell the whole council about it and they’re going to ask me what I was doing.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Benfro said, backing away, but as Frecknock uttered the words, memories bubbled up in his mind like marsh gas. ‘Come now, squirt,’ she said, advancing as he retreated. ‘You are not a good liar at all. The tip of your tail twitches and you keep rubbing your hands together. Take it from one who knows. You need to practice more.’
‘I don’t... I didn’t... What did you do to me?’ Benfro asked. ‘You were there doing that... thing. I saw you, but I couldn’t remember. Not till now.’
‘So it actually worked,’ Frecknock said. ‘How splendid.’ She was smiling at him in an odd way, still approaching as he moved back up the path in the direction he had just come. Benfro wondered if he should turn and flee. He knew other ways to the village through the trees and even if he missed the m
eeting he could explain to Sir Frynwy what had happened. He could explain everything, now that his memory had returned. They would still let him come to the feast, surely. He tried to turn his head the better to make his escape, only to find that he couldn’t drag his eyes away from Frecknock’s.
‘Stop now, squirt,’ she said and to his surprise Benfro did. He didn’t want to, but somehow his legs weren’t responding to him anymore.
‘Good, that’s right,’ Frecknock said. ‘A little respect for your elders and betters.’ Benfro was still fixated on her eyes. They glowed like dying embers and they seemed to grow, bigger and bigger, until all he could see was that terrible glow surrounding him, drowning him.
‘You’re too nosey for your own good, you know that squirt?’ Frecknock’s voice was enormous, drowning out his thoughts like a thunderstorm. Benfro found it difficult to concentrate on anything but that sound and the swirling, sickening light.
‘I can see that even you are wilful enough to throw off my memory hex. It was a hasty, ill-planned thing anyway. Still, it’s served its purpose. Now we’ll have to see about a more permanent solution to your nosiness.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Benfro asked, struggling as if he were sinking in wet mud. ‘What do you want?’
‘Such bravado,’ Frecknock said. ‘You wouldn’t be so cocky if you knew what I could do to you. Now tell me what you saw yesterday, up at the rock pools.’
Something in Benfro’s mind clicked and he remembered everything with total clarity. The rock; Frecknock sitting so still; the gourd and the book; the voice of Sir Felyn and the soft, alien hands.
‘You took it,’ he said. ‘You took the book.’
‘Yes, I did,’ Frecknock said. ‘But you won’t tell anyone about it. Or about my little assignation.’
‘You can’t stop me,’ Benfro said, hearing the wavering uncertainty in his own voice. ‘I’ll tell everyone. You’re putting us all in danger.’
‘No. I’m not,’ Frecknock said, her words become solid in the air around him, battering his senses like a gale against loose shutters. ‘And you won’t tell anyone.’
Benfro struggled against the voice that pressed in on him like a suffocating weight. He was losing all sense of who he was. It was as if he was being crushed by Frecknock’s terrible presence. As if everything he had ever known and been was smothered by her. Then, as quickly as it had come, the feeling evaporated. His head was once more his own and the noises of the forest, absent for too long, filtered back to his ears.
‘Tell me now,’ Frecknock asked him, her eyes perfectly normal so that he began to doubt what he had seen before. ‘Have you seen a heavy leather book recently?’
Benfro stared around, shocked. The light was gone, the terrible, overpowering sense of suppression was gone. He lifted a leg off the ground and it came as it ever had. He moved his head from side to side without difficulty.
‘I asked you a question, squirt. Have you seen a heavy leather book recently?’
Of course I have, Benfro thought. You know I have. You had it. You stole it from Sir Frynwy.
‘No, I haven’t,’ he said.
‘No, I haven’t,’ he said again. But that wasn’t what he had meant to say.
‘No, I haven’t.’ It came out a third time, even though he was trying to scream that he knew what she had done.
‘That’s good,’ Frecknock said at last, a little smile spreading across her face. ‘I wasn’t sure that it would work. Not without melting your pathetic little brain, at least.’
She stepped to one side of the track to let Benfro past. He could only stare at her with a frustrated rage surging through him. What had she done to him? Why couldn’t he say what he wanted to say?
‘Well don’t just stand there, squirt,’ Frecknock said eventually. ‘Sir Frynwy invited you to his meeting. Don’t you think it a bit rude to be late?’ And she clouted him hard across the back of the head repeatedly until he ran from her towards the village.
~~~~
Chapter Ten
It is written that in the earliest days, when He still walked among his chosen, The Shepherd directed King Balwen towards fair Myfanwy and filled his heart with love for her as He filled her with devotion for him. His blessing upon that union was the foundation of our people, the beginning of the Twin Kingdoms.
Our Lord no longer walks amongst his flock, but He watches over us at all times. From our first breath He is there, even until we depart this life and make that final journey to the safe pastures. He is our guide through life, our protector from the Running Wolves. His compassion knows no bounds, His wisdom is infinite, and nowhere is His generosity more amply demonstrated in His blessing of the union of man and woman. For if we search our hearts, we can see that He has brought together <
From The Marriage Service - The Authorised Prayer Book of the Order of the Candle
The wedding ceremony itself was something of an anticlimax, Errol thought. After the weeks of preparation, the panics and long arguments over seating, after the frightening transformation of his mother from a strong-willed, capable and slightly scary woman into something not much better than the giggling girls who sat and whispered at the back of the church during Suldith prayers, the actual marriage was frighteningly short. One moment he was ushering villagers into their seats, amused at the way they all spoke to him as if they were his best friend. Then almost before he had settled himself into the unfamiliar pew at the front of the church, Father Kewick in his grandest cassock was uttering the Shepherd’s Blessing: ‘Keep watch over your flock and protect us from the Running Wolves’, and the whole thing was over.
Errol had never been overly concerned about material wealth. His mother had raised him to appreciate what little they had, and their cottage out in the woods had always seemed more than adequate. He wanted for little, apart from books, and even they could be returned once he had read them. Clothes were necessary to keep him warm, food for sustenance, but neither were something he gave very much thought to. Godric on the other hand was possibly the richest man in the village and seemed determined to let everyone know. So Errol was dressed in the finest clothes he had ever seen.
It was nice to wear a pair of boots that fit properly and kept out the creeping autumn cold. The trousers were soft, supple leather, far warmer than his old ripped and mended rough cloth rags, but the cotton shirt was stiff around the collar and made him itch. The jacket was apparently the latest fashion from Candlehall, but Errol thought it made him look like a cockerel strutting round the yard after the hens. As he stood at the entrance of the village hall, next to an equally embarrassed looking Clun, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries with people who had only ever cursed him before in his life, he longed to escape back to the cottage, his old clothes, his old life.
Perhaps it was the people. The whole village had turned out for the marriage of Godric Defaid, expecting to be well fed and entertained. Hennas had no relatives, but Godric’s extended family had all made the journey, swelling the ranks even more. Errol was not used to the company of so many, preferring the solitude of the woods or the company of just his mother. Or Martha. The milling faces made his head swim, each new person’s false smile adding to the sea of people until he felt he must surely drown.
‘Ye’ve come up a bit in the world boy.’ Errol started out of his daydreaming at the voice, looking up from the massive, powerful hand that clasped his and into the wide face of the smith, Tom Tydfil. ‘Still, I never thought I’d see Godric so happy. Not since Molly died, anyway. I guess I’ve ter thank yer mam for that.’ It was a strange, almost grudging compliment. Then Errol remembered that Tom, too had lost his wife. Only where Godric had sought out and found a new partner, Tom Tydfil had turned to the bottle for solace.
‘Ye’ll mind me daughter, Martha,’ the smith said. Errol looked across from the smith to the figure who stood beside him, almost hidden b
y his bulk, and nearly fell over.
She was wearing a long dress, the first time Errol could recall not seeing her in trousers. Autumn leaf green, it was embroidered on the top half with twining patterns that might have been simply pleasing shapes, or might have been two dragons, climbing into the sky with great wings, their curling tails hanging down in mirrored curves that crossed at a point at the base of her stomach, their heads rising with the cut of the dress to emphasise the slight swell of her breasts. Her shoulders were bare, covered with a loose shawl of fine green silk and she wore long gloves of the same material that came two thirds of the way up her arms. She had taken her jet black hair out of its normal ponytail and tied it up around her head in a swirl that made her seem both older and taller than her thirteen years. Smiling that mischievous grin he knew so well, she raised one hand for him to take.
‘Errol, we meet again,’ Martha said. ‘And not so wet this time.’
Errol was confused, both by this unsettling vision of beauty before him and by her words. He had been with her just yesterday, after all. They had been discussing the endless preparations for the wedding and then Sir Radnor had recited to them a passage from Sir Rhudian’s Marriage of Gwynhyfyr, one of the oldest dragon tales. Errol had even managed to walk the lines for a short distance in the afternoon, though the effort still left him dizzy and he needed Martha’s presence to anchor him from the infinite distractions of the grym. Martha had told him she would see him at the wedding, then disappeared in front of his eyes. Yet now she was acting as if she hadn’t seen him for years.
Martha’s eyes flicked away from Errol’s face to her father’s and back as he stood there holding her hand like it was a wet fish. Then it dawned on Errol that Tom Tydfil really knew nothing of their daily meetings.
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