Brunt Boggart

by David Greygoose

  “‘Oh Pedlar Man, you’re here at last,’ Ravenhair cried. ‘Where have you come from and where are you going and what do you carry in that patched old sack that hangs from your shoulders so heavy and full?’

  “The Pedlar stopped and looked at the girl and lowered the sack slowly down to the ground.

  “‘Why, I come from Arleccra and I’m going as far as my feet will take me, then all the way back again.’

  “Ravenhair shifted from foot to foot and tossed her long flowing tresses.

  “‘Pedlar Man, Pedlar Man, let me ask you again. What’s in your sack so heavy and full?’

  “The Pedlar Man unknotted the string that bound the top of the sack.

  “‘I’ve got bracelets and rings and glittering things. I’ve even got a ribbon for you to tie back your flowing black hair. Your tumbling tresses are handsome but your face is prettier still. I’m sure you don’t want to hide it away, or how will the boys ever kiss you?’

  “Ravenhair danced round and round. Now she had decided. Much as she was saddened to have lost her grandmother’s ribbon, she had to have something to tie up her hair. The Pedlar Man pulled open the top of his sack and let her peek inside. There was a glitter of trinkets and bracelets and beneath them she glimpsed the ribbons, the sheen and the lustre of silk brocade.

  “Ravenhair was so excited, the words came tumbling out.

  “‘Oh tell me, please, just how much these ribbons cost?’

  “The Pedlar Man scratched his head. ‘Each one is a shining penny.’

  “Ravenhair pulled out her pockets. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have any.’

  “She scuffed her toe in a circle in the dust as one teardrop fell to the ground.

  “‘I set out this morning, as I have every morning, to look for my ribbon, my Grandmother’s ribbon, that was stolen away by the wind.’

  “‘Don’t look so sad,’ the Pedlar Man said. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you a ribbon, especially for you, if you’ll just sing me a song.’

  “Ravenhair felt so grateful she almost flung her arms around the old man’s neck and kissed his leathery face. Instead she sat on the grass by the roadside. What could she sing, she wondered.”

  “I know what I’d sing,” said Greychild.

  “I know what you’d sing as well,” Crossdogs replied. “You only know one song – Coddle Me, Coddle Me – the song your mother taught you. Well Ravenhair had a special song too. It was a song her Grandmother passed on to her, the one who gave her the ribbon. I know it because, some nights when we’d sit out together, under the stars, she’d sing the same song just for me:

  ‘Tie me a ribbon,

  I’ll wear it so well;

  It will whisper me secrets

  That I’ll never tell.

  It will whisper of rivers

  That shine in the sun,

  Carrying tears to the ocean

  When the long day is done.

  It will whisper of mountains

  That rise to the clouds

  And gather the silence

  While the wind blows so loud.

  It will whisper my true love

  Who I’ve never met,

  But he’ll bring me sweet happiness

  I’ll never forget.

  Tie me a ribbon,

  I’ll wear it so well;

  It will whisper me secrets

  That I’ll never tell.’”

  Greychild rubbed his eyes. Crossdogs’ voice was hushed to a whisper.

  “When Ravenhair had finished her song, all the birds fell silent. There was no breeze in the trees. The Pedlar Man wrenched open his sack and let the ribbons spill onto the grass. There were yellow ribbons, red ribbons, purple and green. Long ones, short ones, wide and thin. There were ribbons striped and mottled and ribbons plain and trim. But none as dark as Grandmother Ghostmantle’s ribbon that Ravenhair had worn all her life. But now she didn’t care anymore. She flung up her hands in delight.

  “‘I want this one – no this one!’ Each one was so beautiful she just couldn’t chose. ‘I want them all!’ she cried.

  “‘Each one’s a shiny penny,’ the Pedlar Man reminded her.

  “‘And my Grandmother’s song is worth all that and more,’ Ravenhair replied.

  “And so she sang the song again and again, while the Pedlar Man sat raptured, there by the roadside. And each time she sang he twined another ribbon around her wrist, until in the end there were no ribbons in his sack – Ravenhair had them all. The sun was nearly setting down. Ravenhair had been singing her Grandmother’s song all the long hours long. She eyed the bracelets and trinkets and rings, but the Pedlar Man shook his head.

  “‘Save your breath,’ he said, as he tied up his sack. ‘Leave me something for the other girlen. I can’t sell it all for a song.’

  “He tipped his hat back on his head and set off down the dusty track that would lead him straight to Brunt Boggart. Ravenhair watched him go, then she seized up her precious ribbons and ran off into the woods. She picked her way between the tall dark trees until she came to a pool. There she knelt by the edge of the water and tied the first ribbon into her hair. And then another and then another until her long black tresses were festooned with colours as she stared at her reflection.

  “‘Now my hair’s just as fine as any of the girlen – and the boys can see my face again and they’ll all come flocking to kiss me!’

  “And she picked up her skirts and she ran and she ran, skipping quickly over knotted roots, twisting and turning between bushes sharp with thorns. But then in the creeping dullness of dusk, her foot slipped under a fallen branch and she tripped to the ground. She lay in a bed of fallen leaves, staring up to the stars. Then she turned and she peered into a brackish puddle and she saw her hair, a tangle of raggedy ribbons – but none of them suited her like the ribbon dark as night, the ribbon her Grandmother Ghostmantle gave her. And how had she come by these ribbons? She had sung her Grandmother’s song, the song she never sang to anyone.”

  “I thought you told me she had sung it to you?” Greychild interrupted.

  “That’s what makes it so special,” Crossdogs explained. “I’m the only other person who’s ever heard it.”

  “‘Now I’ve given my song to the Pedlar Man,’ Ravenhair wailed, ‘And he’ll be singing it to everyone, not just in Brunt Boggart, but in every town and village along the road.’

  “She tore the ribbons from her hair before she reached the lights of the houses. In the mossy hollow that lay in the middle of the Green, all the girlen were sitting.

  “‘Ravenhair, Ravenhair – see what we’ve got. You missed the Pedlar Man again.’

  “‘Look,’ cried Silverwing, ‘I have a comb as white as ivory.’

  “Moonpetal showed her a glittering ring with a stone that glowed a shimmering green. Dawnflower laughed as she twisted a necklace between her long pale fingers. Duskeye smiled and clutched a box, but wouldn’t show what was in it. A gaudy bracelet dangled from Scallowflax’s wrist, while Dewdream gazed into a looking glass and Riversong threaded a needle of silver. But Ravenhair stood and stared at them all. Somehow she sensed that they didn’t seem truly happy with their trinkets.

  “‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  “‘The Pedlar Man came, just the way he does after every new moon. You know how much we all look forward to seeing him again. These gimcracks are fine, but you know what we long for most of all?’

  “Ravenhair shrugged and raised her eyes to the sky. ‘No – I don’t know. Please tell me.’

  “‘Oh Ravenhair – of course you do. We buy new ribbons every month, but this time the Pedlar Man didn’t have any. He told us he had sold them already, and he always has so many.’

  “Ravenhair smiled at her friends’ frowning faces. The trinkets that they had bought looked dull and tawdry now.

  “‘Don’t be sad!’ Ravenhair exclaimed. ‘I have ribbons enough for everyone.’ And she pulled them out from under her coat and threw
them amongst the circle of girls.

  “Then Ravenhair ran to her mother’s house and found her sitting by the window with a far-away look in her eyes.

  “‘Ravenhair, Ravenhair, where have you been? I’ve been worried about you, child.’

  “‘Mother, oh Mother – I’ve lost my ribbon, the ribbon I’ve worn all my life, the ribbon your mother gave me. All the while I’ve been without it and had to tie my hair in a scarf when I came home so that you would not see. I’ve looked for it everywhere, the ribbon dark as night. I’ve asked Silverwing and Scallowflax and all of the others. None of them have got it, none of them have seen it. I’ve searched through the streets and the alleyways and rooted through the pigmires. I’ve squinnied the roofs and the gutters and rattled the leaves on the low-hanging trees with a length of willow-stick. But I cannot find the ribbon that Grandmother Ghostmantle gave me.’

  “Ravenhair’s mother put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. She spoke to her softly, in the way only a mother can.

  “‘Last new moon when you were sleeping, I wanted to visit the Pedlar Man. I wanted to buy a necklace to make me look young and pretty again. Now that your father has gone, I hoped I might find a new man to keep me company and to be a father for you.’

  “‘I don’t want another father,’ Ravenhair replied. ‘Foxbriar is all the father I ever had and all the father I ever knew. I can keep his memory. I don’t want someone new.’

  “‘Forgive me child, if I was wrong. But I wanted to look my best for the Pedlar Man – and so I took your ribbon, the ribbon my mother gave you. I took it while you were sleeping and tied up my own tawny hair. Then I went out to the track by the woods and waited until he came.

  “‘He told me I looked so fine, with my nut-brown hair all tied up with a ribbon dark as night. I begged him to open his sack and I pawed through the jewels and the trinkets until I found a necklace which sparkled like ice against the bronze of my skin. I implored him to let me buy it, but he would not let me have it, not for all the gold I could give him, which I have to confess was not very much. But then he told me he’d give me the necklace if only I’d take off the ribbon and let down my hair for him.

  “‘And I did, my child, I did. I wanted that necklace so much that I parted with your precious ribbon, the ribbon my own mother gave you. And though I knew it was wrong, I loved the way he looked at me with my hair so loose and long. But all this time, though I’ve worn the necklace and smiled at every man I’ve met, not one of them smiled back at me the same way as the Pedlar Man.

  “‘And so last night I set out early to catch him before he even reached here with his sack. I told him I still had the necklace, but that none of the men had looked at me, and I knew that you’d been missing the ribbon, even though you hadn’t told me – so I asked if he still had it, anywhere in his sack.

  “‘He rummaged through all the ribbons and in the end he found it. We exchanged the necklace and the ribbon again, the necklace which sparkled like ice and the ribbon as dark as night, there beside the rutted track.’

  “‘But Mother, Mother,’ Ravenhair cried, ‘I went to the Pedlar Man myself today. Now I know why he did not have any ribbon black, but others of every hue and colour. I sang him Grandmother Ghostmantle’s song, again and again and again until he’d given me them all.’

  “Ravenhair’s mother clapped her hands. ‘Let me see! Let me see!’

  “Ravenhair shook her head. ‘Mother, you know that the ribbon dark as night – the ribbon your own mother gave me – is the only ribbon for me. The other ribbons were gaudy and brash and I gave them all away to the girlen who sit by the mossy hollow that lies in the middle of the Green.’

  “Ravenhair’s mother took her daughter’s face and held it between her long dusky hands. ‘My child,’ she said slowly, ‘Now that you’ve met the Pedlar Man, alone along the rutted track, you can tie up your hair on top of your head, the way that the women wear it, not loose down your back like the girls.’ And while she spoke, she took out the ribbon, the ribbon dark as night, the ribbon that Grandmother Ghostmantle had worn, and her grandmother before her. And she combed her long fingers through her daughter’s hair and braided the ribbon around it. Ravenhair didn’t know what to say. She felt as tall as a woman and as small as a child.

  “‘I’m worried about my Grandmother’s song,’ she said as she smiled and looked away. ‘Now that the Pedlar Man has heard it, I’m afraid he will sing it on street corners for pennies and everyone will know Ghostmantle’s secret song, and I will feel ashamed.’

  “Ravenhair’s mother placed a finger on her lips. ‘What the Pedlar Man remembers and what the Pedlar Man forgets is a mystery to us all. I know he did not sing the song here in the village tonight. If he had, why then Silverwing and all the other girls would have been the first to sing it to you. But leave it to your mother. Necklace or no, ribbon or no, I will go after the Pedlar Man and meet him under the stars. Just one taste of your mother’s sweet kiss will make him forget every song he’s ever heard!’”

  Greychild tilted his empty cup and Crossdogs rattled the earthenware pot, but they’d drained it of fennel tea. Through the window dawn was creeping and the first birds of the morning broke into song. Greychild leaned back in his chair and stretched. In the room upstairs they could hear Crossdogs’ father stirring in his bed. Greychild stood up.

  “I knew there must be worlds beyond Brunt Boggart,” he said. “I’m going to find the Pedlar Man’s Track to see where it will lead me.”

  Crossdogs shook his head. “First journey you must make is back to Granny Willowmist’s house before anyone sees you. Oakum Marlroot and his men will all be snoring now. There’ll be some fat heads among them today. They won’t be out in the fields till near noon, that’s for sure.”

  Greychild opened the door. He could hear the cats squawling round Granny Willowmist’s cottage. He smelt the morning air, the scent of dew wet flowers, the dull waft of dung from the pigmires and the dust on the path that wound away from Brunt Boggart. Now he knew where it led, out towards the Pedlar Man’s Track and a day’s walk and a day’s walk and many days’ walk from there, all the way to the city of Arleccra.

  Riversong, Larkspittle and the Moon of Blood

  Let me tell you. Let me tell you… cold was on the world, gripped in a fist of frost. In Brunt Boggart, all around the Green, fires flickered in the crofts and the cottages, but still it was cold. Cold was in the sky as the stars glistened clear, searing through the emptiness of cloudless night. And early the next morning, rooks pecked at the thin ice down by Pottam’s Mill, while ducks upended, searching for grubs in the muddied water. Cold was on Larkspittle’s hands as he blew on his fingers in the pigmires, in the slurry yards, as he slopped out the troughs. Cold was in his back, in his belly, in his bones.

  But his eyes shone brightly with a warmth he’d never known, when he looked up and saw, just for an instant, Riversong standing next to the old barn door. It was like as if he’d never seen her before, but he knew that wasn’t true. Larkspittle had known Riversong ever since he could remember, ever since they’d been babes together, ever since they was little’uns running and laughing, tumbling and singing ring songs down by the meadow, beside the eddying stream. They grew up calling and shouting, climbing trees and falling, getting wet-footed in the spring-time puddles, gathering berries from branches and bushes, then lying in the shadows turning green with belly-ache.

  Now here she was standing, watching him – and he was watching her in that moment so short it went on forever – before she smiled and turned her head, then clutched at the long scarlet skirt that she’d never worn before and ran away, all by herself, around the side of the barn. Larkspittle shook his head. The way that she looked at him now was just the way that she’d gazed at him with a warmth all of her own when they’d danced the last dance together, on the summer Green at the Blossom Moon. But now it was cold. The Moon of Blood was coming.

  As their shadows grew longer, Riversong’s hair grew strong
er, and Larkspittle’s chin grew a fuzz of fur and his voice dropped into his boots. Some days he hardly saw her at all – and Riversong found that some mornings she just wanted to sit by herself, all under the shade of the willow tree and puzzle out how her body was shaping and mellowing and where it would lead her and why. While Larkspittle ran with the boys-who-would-be-men and spent all the long day long bending branches and wrestling on the Green.

  Now if they glimpsed each other in the shadow of the evening, Riversong and Larkspittle would gaze long and full and then they’d look away, look back to their companions and pretend that they had no memory of all the seasons they’d grown together and pretend they had no yearning for the years they knew would come. For now the boys grew whiskers and hung fox pelts from their shoulders and the girlen all wore scarlet skirts and braided ribbons through their hair. And each would watch each other and throw names at their childhood neighbours and taunt and chide and roll their eyes and streak their cheeks with clay.

  And they’d play day-long games of Fox-and-Geese and Chainy-o, to try and catch each other then try and run away – with much falling down and laughter and fumbled mirth and tumbling while they watched the boys-become-men walk out in pairs with girlen who knew that they were full women grown – watched them walking side by side, elbow to elbow, waist to waist until they disappeared along the shady path that led to Sandy Holme.

  At Sandy Holme the lazy stream flowed slowly under the arch of a cattle bridge and the flowers in the meadow grew bright and sweet and the birds flew up to the clear blue sky. And there a boy-who-would-be-man and a girlen-become-woman could lie down side by side in the long lush grass and watch the sun climbing high above them and feel its warmth in their arms till they walked on back home again past the old’uns who stood in their cottage doorways – some knowing, some disapproving, some too weary to care.