“The oldest daughter frowned and walked to the window, pulling the curtains aside.
“‘The rain is easing,’ she declared. ‘And listen –’ She cupped a hand to her ear. ‘You can hear the blackbirds sing.’
“‘What’s that you say?’ asked the Fox-Wife sharply, setting down her cruet and her spoon.
“‘Blackbirds, thrushes and starlings. Dozens of them. And pigeons too, all sitting on the branch of that tree.’
“Fox-Wife threw off her pinafore and was gone – out through the door and over the grass, as quick as quick can be.
“‘What’s the matter?’ asked the second daughter, staring at her older sister.
“The eldest daughter pointed to the stove.
“‘Have you looked at the size of that pot?’ she replied, as she lifted the lid. ‘That’s way too big for a handful of tatties, parsnips and carrots. What else is she planning to cook?’
“Outside was a commotion as Fox-Wife raced around the tree, barking and howling while the birds all clattered and rose up to the cloudy sky.
“‘Maybe a pigeon. Mother does that,’ the youngest sister reminded them.
“‘Maybe a pigeon,’ the eldest daughter shook her head. ‘No pigeon is ever going to fill up this pot. This pot is big enough to take a …’
“Just at that moment the Fox-Wife came back, her sharp teeth gripping a clutch of stray feathers – her eyes rolling wild.
“‘Big enough to take…’ the youngest sister trembled.
“‘… take a Fox!’ the second sister shouted as she leapt forward and threw her skirt and petticoat right over the Fox-Wife’s head.
“The three sisters battled her and pummelled her and pulled her till in the end they tumbled her into the bubbling pot! Then they seized up their baskets all filled with juicy berries and they ran and they ran through the dripping woods and they did not stop till they came to their mother’s cottage. They paused for breath before they reached the gate and as they did so the front door opened and out stepped the other Fox, quick as quick, still twirling his whiskers. At the end of the path the Fox slowed down, turned and blew a kiss towards their mother’s front door. The sisters hid and watched as the Fox headed off to the wood.
“‘Why would this fox blow a kiss to our mother dear?’ the youngest wanted to know.
“‘Shsh,’ her sisters cautioned and they waited and they waited till the Fox was out of sight, then they ran up the path to the door.
“Their mother sat inside the kitchen. They expected her to welcome them with outstretched arms, just as she usually did, but instead she sat in the shadowy corner, staring at their father’s painted eggs set out on the table before her. She stroked each one gently before turning around with a far-away look in her eyes.
“‘Come in, come in, my little ones. Do you have berries ripe for me?’
“‘Yes, we do Mother,’ cried the sisters breathlessly, ‘—but some of them got spilled as we had to come home so quickly.’
“‘Yes, yes – I know,’ the mother said. ‘Come along now and step inside. You must be hungry, sit you down.’
“And while her daughters watched, she hauled her largest cooking pot up onto the top of the stove…”
Snowpetal gasped. Ravenhair and Silverwing giggled and pinched each other. But Firedancer interrupted:
“Why d’you plague our daughters with stories such as these? Ain’t no Fox, ain’t no Wolf neither, I can tell you. Nearest we got to Fox round here is when Pedlar Man comes round every moon. He be more Fox, I’m telling you – and you know how I know.”
Starwhisper and Silfren nodded.
“We know, sure enough,” smiled Silfren. “And know there’s plenty more been that way too.”
Firedancer spread her hands and sighed, then turned to Ravenhair and Silverwing who were still sitting listening, while Snowpetal had lost interest and trotted off to gather daisies.
“Be gone with you now. This ain’t for your ears. This is grown woman talk.”
“Ah, mother,” Ravenhair protested, “we be near grown women ourselves now. Been down to the Red Grove and all, you know.”
“I know, I know,” Firedancer replied. “But little Snowpetal don’t know nothing of that. Run along with you now and take her off with you. Take her over the Green this fine sunny day and run all your cares and worries away.”
“Cares and worries!” Starwhisper echoed when the young’uns had gone. “When we were their age we never had none.”
“Got them now,” said Silfren.
“Got them now for sure,” Firedancer continued. “Maybe that’s what I meant to say – take all our cares and worries away.”
Silfren laughed and Starwhisper too. Then they stopped and gazed up at the clouds. Stared down at the ground. Shuffled their feet.
“Be that time again soon. Season’s moon. All that dancing and prodding and shoving,” Starwhisper muttered.
“No good for me. I’m done with all that,” Silfren sighed.
“Speak for yourself, gel. I’m glad of it still,” Firedancer retorted.
“If anyone’ll have you,” Starwhisper chided.
Firedancer smiled a faraway smile. “I could still have whoever I choose.”
“Got to find’em first,” Starwhisper reminded her.
“Or they got to find me,” Firedancer replied, with a toss of her hair and a glint in her eye.
Next day after next, and a few days after that, season’s moon came and the cavorting and carousing all down on the Green. But then the next morning, early and bright, traders set up stalls where the dancing had been. There were petticoats and fancy shawls, sweetmeats and cakes and all kinds of trinkets such as no-one in Brunt Boggart could make. They came from far and wide – from over the hills and up the river, from the back of the wind and beyond. The Pedlar Man was there with his ribbons and his sack – and the horse traders washing their mares in the river, the bare-knuckle fighters in their make-shift rings and fortunetellers hunched in their tents.
Quick and quick and slow as slow, the young’uns and the old’uns, the wifen and the girlen, the farmers and the Crow Dancers tumbled from their beds, never mind how late they been carousing, never mind some had never slept at all, never mind their fumbled heads – and stumbled down to the Green again where they had been just the night before – and traipsed around the market, stopping at every stall.
Starwhisper, Silfren and Firedancer met at the edge of the Green.
“What you minded to buy today, gel?”
“Don’t rightly know.”
“Depends what they got.”
“Same as before, for sure, for sure.”
“But always the chance you’ll see summat new.”
“That’s why we come.”
All three were agreed.
“How much you got?”
“Silver shillen.”
Each one of them nodded. Each season’s moon they each put by a silver shillen, specially for this day. Never less, never more – always the same, every time the market came.
“I’ll go this way – you go that, and Starwhisper you go t’other. Then meet up back here in the middle of the market, in the middle of the Green at the middle of the day.”
“And then we shall see…”
“… who’s bought the best. Who’s spent their shillen the wisest.”
And they set out, Starwhisper, Silfren and Firedancer – to poke and to pry, to banter and haggle, to barter then buy.
Firedancer tried on bracelets and necklaces, pendants and ear-rings, but could find none that she wanted – none that made her feel more like herself than herself. But then she came to a stall where a tall man stood all draped with scarves – tied to his fingers, wound around his waist, twisted about his wrists, festooned across his shoulders and knotted into his long dark hair. Deep maroons and purples, mossgreen and black, picked out in threads of shimmering silver, dazzling gold. Firedancer glanced at the man whose dark eyes seemed to be watching her without eve
r watching at all. She reached out and touched one of his scarves. The man smiled.
“My name is Turnfeather,” he told her. “Try this scarf, I can see that you want to. It will suit your complexion so well.”
Turnfeather let loose the scarf and draped it around Firedancer’s neck. He took a step back and held up a mirror which glinted in the sun. The scarf was picked out with designs of creatures such as Firedancer had never seen before, as like they might be the wondrous eggs painted by the man who had lived in the cottage at the edge of the wood. Firedancer studied her reflection.
“It suits the sheen of your hair. It suits the tone of your skin. It suits the untamed child I see dancing in your eyes.”
Firedancer gazed into Turnfeather’s own eyes. They were deep, they were dark. For a moment she saw reflected, just as he said, the untamed child a-dancing there.
“How much is it? – for the scarf?” she asked.
“Two silver shillen,” he replied.
Firedancer sighed.
“One shillen is all that I have,” she declared.
Turnfeather stepped closer and took her to one side.
“For you – one shillen only,” he whispered in her ear. “But do not tell the others.”
Firedancer smiled, put her hand in her pocket and pulled out her purse, unbuttoned it slowly, then gave him the one coin that nestled there. Turnfeather took the money quickly and with a nod and a wink slipped it into a leather pouch tucked away under the scarves which festooned his waist. Firedancer hurried away. She felt the scarf around her neck caress her in a warm embrace.
While Firedancer was buying her scarf, Silfren flitted from stall to stall. She felt hungry, but she couldn’t decide what to eat. There were loaves, there were pies, there were fancy cakes – but hungry as she was, she just couldn’t choose. She turned again to another stall, then another and another. The emptiness inside her led her on, but nothing that she saw was what she wanted. And she knew what she wanted, for every season it was the same, an old woman came to the market and with her she brought the most delicious sweetmeats you’d ever care to eat. Oozing with honey, all sumptuous and soft, yet crisp on the top.
“Have you seen her?” Silfren asked Moonpetal and Dewdream, but the girlen just shrugged and Silfren hurried on. Surely the old woman must be here – she always came and Silfren always spent her silver shillen on a bag of sweetmeats that tasted as golden as a summer’s day – and Silfren felt just like a little’un again.
But not today. Not this market, not this season, not this moon. Silfren started to worry. Mayhap the old woman was sick. Mayhap she’d never come again – and then what would Silfren do? No-one could ever bake the sweetmeats the same. Silfren asked her once for the secret of the baking, but the old woman had smiled and looked away and said something Silfren couldn’t quite catch about the colour of the sky and the bees. But mayhap she’d just run out of honey. Or mayhap, Silfren realised as she saw a familiar stooping figure setting down a basket and dusting off a table…
“Mayhap I just got caught up on the track!” The old woman greeted her with a smile and a kiss. “The way gets longer as each season passes. But what can I get you, my dear?”
Silfren watched excitedly as the old woman set out her wares.
“Oh – you know, you know. I don’t have to tell you!”
And the old woman smiled and parcelled up a wrapper of sweetmeats from the tray on the table, then took Silfren’s silver shillen and popped it in her pocket.
“A season’s sweetness be there for you – eat them slowly now!”
But Silfren was away, lost in the crowd and already unpeeling the sticky wrapper as the sweet honey clung to her fingers and her lips, then danced on her tongue, as it slid down her throat to feed the hunger that she carried inside her from season’s moon to season’s moon.
* * *
While Silfren was eating her sweetmeats, Starwhisper moved slowly, picking at apples, pears and plums – weighing each one in the palm of her hand, then putting them back again. She was not hungry, just curious to test this season’s crop. She passed the stall where Firedancer had bought her scarf, ran her fingers across the colours and textures, but then moved on. Her own clothes, which she made herself, were fine enough already. In her pocket was her silver shillen, but she was in no hurry to spend it. In her bag she carried the dolls of straw which she had made these last days gone. She was seeking out the Pedlar Man, for he always took some to carry with him to other villages, north of the river, south of the mountains. Starwhisper had never been blessed with children, nor even with a husband nor any other man – her dolls of straw were man enough and child enough for her. She spent her days gathering the straw for their bodies and the berries for their eyes, then twisting and plaiting the new dolls in her fingers. Now she wandered out to the edge of the market, away from the hubbub and noise, to where the grass was beaten flat from the dancing the night before and blackened circles marked where the bonfires had burned full bright. There stood the Pedlar Man with his pack upon his back. When he saw Starwhisper he swung it down and greeted her.
“Now then Starwhisper, what fine straw dollies have your nimble fingers shaped for me?”
Starwhisper emptied her bag and the straw dolls tumbled out and lay upon the grass. Their dried berry eyes stared up as the Pedlar Man prodded at them and turned them all about.
“Good as ever!” He clapped his hands. “I’ll take them all,” he cried as he poured a pile of silver shillen into Starwhisper’s outstretched palm.
“Thank you,” she said as she hurried away.
“Wait!” the Pedlar Man called after her. “Won’t you stay and drink with me? I have good red berry wine all here in my flask.”
Starwhisper stopped and shook her head.
“Not today, Pedlar Man. You have my dolls. I have your shillen. That’s all we need to do. I’ve heard too many tales of what happens to young wifen who stop and drink with you.”
The Pedlar Man shrugged and turned away, sat down on the grass and unscrewed the top of his flask. But Starwhisper hurried on, back to the bustle of the stalls where she caught sight of Firedancer parading her scarf and Silfren with her mouth crammed full of sweetmeats. The stalls were heaving with trinkets and baubles, but these were not for her. The racket of geese and swine filled the air as she strayed to the far end of the market where the farmers stood around – Oakum Marlroot, Mottram Ironfield and Redgut – running their eyes over the horses and goats which were tethered in a pound. And there on a table stood a line of open sacks, each filled with seed for the field – carrots, parsnips, turnips and beans.
“What can I have,” Starwhisper asked the lad who stood at the stall, “if I give you this silver shillen?”
“Why, you can have a fistful of each of ’em,” he replied – and quick as quick he weighed out the seeds into a wrap of sacking. Starwhisper thanked him and paid over her shillen as she tucked the wrap away into the pocket of her apron.
Firedancer stroked the scarf which clung around her shoulders. She liked the way it felt. She wished she had brought a hand-mirror with her so that she might see her face set off by the scarf. But then she realised she needed no mirror for as she walked around the market she could see how she looked in the eyes that followed her every step. Firedancer returned their gaze and smiled. She combed her fingers through her long tawny hair, letting it tumble loose down over the scarf. Then she sighed. For smile as she might, try as she might, the women only glanced in envy and then they looked away. And the men, why the men were nothing but a lunk-headed crowd who gawped at her stupidly. Each time she thought one might approach her, they took another draught from the glass in their hand and then turned the other way.
Firedancer stroked the scarf again. She pursed her lips and stared straight ahead. She found herself back at the stall where Turnfeather was still standing. He looked at her and smiled.
“The scarf suits you fine – it matches the glint in your eyes, the shine of your hair.”<
br />
“Why thank you, so kind. Your words make me blush, almost as much as the touch of your scarf, which strokes my shoulders as I walk. It makes me feel so I want to be kissed.”
“I’m sure that you will be,” Turnfeather replied.
“Well none of these men folk have happened up yet,” Firedancer sighed. “Do they think I’m a woman all alone? Or do they just think that I’m Foxbriar’s wifen, though he be lost and gone? Or mayhap they just think of me as Ravenhair’s mother? Or mayhap they just think that I’m Firedancer, that they’ve grown with and known, young’un and woman, all their lives long.”
“They don’t know what they’re missing,” Turnfeather replied. “I know when a fine woman wraps herself in a scarf of mine, then she’s strong in need of a kissing!”
Firedancer blushed. “You know not what you say!” She took one step towards him, then another step away.
“Fine scarves! Step up! Fine scarves for all!” Turnfeather bawled, then turned to Firedancer once again and whispered quickly in her ear. “I will stay in Brunt Boggart awhile and awhile before I journey on. Old Granny Willowmist has lent me the key to the tumbledown cottage where one of her sons used to live. Come and see me there tonight and I will show you more scarves.”
Firedancer cast her eyes to the ground, but then looked up again and smiled.
“I will,” she said. “I will. But first you must tell me how you come by your scarves, for they are handsome and fine and covered all over with such wondrous designs. Do you make them yourself? With your fingers so long and pale as the moon you could weave them deftly and strong – fine threads for fine women to caress their soft skin.”
Turnfeather shook his head and smiled.
“My mother taught me how to weave in the years before she died, night after night as I stood by her side – shuttle and needle and loom – but she is the more skilful weaver still, although I’ve tried and tried.”
In the middle of the market, in the middle of the Green at the middle of the day, Starwhisper, Silfren and Firedancer met again. They linked their arms each to each and gazed deep into one another’s eyes.
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