“What am I to do?” she cried. “What am I to do? – I have lost my only child.”
Crossdogs scratched his head.
“Wait there,” he said – and left Downfeathers alone in the lane, clutching the handle of the bright-coloured cart. He ran to the tree and gripped and grappled at the hollowed out knots until he hauled himself near to the top. The crow sat and watched him as he clambered to the end of the branch. As he reached out to grab at the bird, the crow tilted back its head, crying like a child. And then it spread its wings and with one slow flap, flew away.
Crossdogs scrambled back down and set off at a run, tacking and twisting across the fields as he followed the bird. He could hear its cry, the cry of a child, echoing back to him. Crossdogs paused and bent down to catch his breath. His head was spinning but he could still see Downfeathers in the lane with her hand-cart gaudied with flowers. He stood up. There was the bird, strutting before him as if it was waiting. Crossdogs reached out but again the bird was away, and Crossdogs after it, stumbling across the uneven stubble until he came to the side of a pond.
The water was brackish and covered in weed. The blue crow sat waiting on a branch on the opposite side, still whimpering and wailing like a baby. Crossdogs set off carefully, bending brambles and branches before him as he crept till he was closer than an arm’s-length to the bird. The crow turned its head the other way as Crossdogs reached out, not sudden but slow, then quicker than quick as he grabbed true and firm and gathered the bird into his arms. There it lay whimpering and staring up at him, like as if it was a baby true and not a fowl at all.
Crossdogs carried the bundle gently back over the fields and the criss-crossing tracks till he came to the lane where he’d first met Downfeathers. He thought she’d be waiting there with her hand-cart, but when Crossdogs turned the bend, she was nowhere in sight. He called out, thinking she’d gone on to seek the bird herself – but he heard no reply. She couldn’t be far if she still had the cart – but search as he did, Crossdogs could see no sign of her.
As he continued down the lane, the blue crow cried louder, cried out for its mother. Crossdogs cradled it and rocked it and cooed, just as he’d seen his own mother do. But the crying continued, louder and louder till the poor bird was sobbing as true as a child.
“Child wants its mother, not me,” he said to himself. “And if I cannot find her, sure it’ll find her itself.”
He stopped cradling the bird and flung it on upwards, that it might fly free. But the blue crow wheeled round, lost and bewildered, still whimpering and sobbing, till it fluttered back again into Crossdogs’ arms.
“What am I to do now?” Crossdogs beseeched the bird. “Got to get to Arleccra. Got to find Greychild. Can’t spend all my time minding you. Don’t even know what kind of beast you be. Be you crow or be you babe, don’t know how to feed you. Fly on! Find your mother or feed yourself!”
But the crow just lay there and gazed up at him till its lids became heavy soon enough and soon, and then it was sleeping in the crook of Crossdogs’ arm.
Crossdogs scraped a nest of straw and placed his new charge to rest there. He peered up and down, watching the bird and watching the road and the fields all around, listening out for any sound. Each time he heard a rustling his ears pricked up, hoping it might be Downfeathers returning, or worried it might be a fox or a stoat come to steal the blue crow away. But as night came, Crossdogs could stay awake no more. He curled himself around the bird and there they slept, wrapped one with other while Crossdogs dreamt of his own mother who fed him porridge from a spoon.
But the blue crow woke him, pecking and nuzzling. At first Crossdogs rolled over but the babe gave him no peace and he had to stumble about in the moon-blighted darkness to find a handful of berries to give his charge to eat. Crow gobbled them all then looked up at him and seemed to smile with contented eyes before slipping into sleep again. But just as Crossdogs fell to sleeping too, the crow was wide awake once more, pecking at Crossdogs to harry him out and collect up a leaf full of early dew. When morning came with the rising sun, Crossdogs felt as though he should be sleeping on, but the crow was awake already, hopping all around him.
“What am I to do with you?” Crossdogs bewailed. Then he set his head all down the road.
“This is the way I have to go,” he told the blue crow, who was burbling happily now. “Mayhap your mother has travelled this way too. Mayhap soon we’ll catch up with her and I can give you back.”
The blue crow squawked and nodded and hopped up on to Crossdogs’ shoulder. And so Crossdogs trudged on in the gentle heat of the morning sun. Every now and then he called out after Downfeathers.
“Helloooo,” he bellowed lustily. Then “Helloooo” sounded back from the hills around.
Twas only the echo of his own voice, but Crossdogs liked to hear it and soon began to sing that song that Ravenhair had sung to him when they’d sat out together, under the stars:
“… whisper of rivers
That shine in the sun,
Carrying tears to the ocean
When the long day is done.”
The blue crow squawked and pecked at Crossdogs’ chin. Crossdogs wasn’t sure if it was trying to stop him or doing its best to join in.
“… whisper of mountains
That rise to the clouds
And gather the silence
While the wind blows so loud…” he sang on.
But then from far and far:
“… whisper me my true love
Who I’ve never met…” came back to him.
Crossdogs stopped and listened. It wasn’t the sound of his own voice he heard. The echo had never been that clear. He listened again and the refrain continued:
“…But he’ll bring me sweet happiness
I’ll never forget…”
pitched higher than his voice and higher.
The crow let out a raucous caw. Crossdogs pinched its beak.
“Hush,” he muttered.
The crow looked abashed and shuffled silently on Crossdogs’ shoulder.
“Tie me a ribbon,
I’ll wear it so well…”
The refrain came again, still closer.
“I know that voice,” Crossdogs exclaimed. “Tain’t your mother, sure – though where she is I do not know. Your mother would nary know this song. Tis a song from back in Brunt Boggart and only one girlen would ever sing it…
… Let me tie you a ribbon,
You’ll wear it so well…”
he sang out full and true.
“It will whisper me secrets
That I’ll never tell!”
came back the response.
“Ravenhair!” cried Crossdogs as the girlen from Brunt Boggart with the dark flowing tresses stepped round a bend in the track. The crow flapped its wings and clattered above them.
“Ravenhair!” he cried again and they stood side by side once more.
Ravenhair’s eyes were gleaming, though her feet were sore and weary and her dress turned the colour of dust. They stared at each other a moment long, their minds swept away. Both started to speak together, then stopped, then waited, each catching their breath.
“Went following Greychild,” Crossdogs gasped, in answer to a question that had not been asked.
“Came following you!” Ravenhair smiled and they stood awkwardly laughing until they embraced, same as they ever had, under the shadow of the tall trees by the edge of Brunt Boggart’s wood. But as they held each other close, Ravenhair felt something scrabbling and pecking between them.
“What’s this?” she cried, as Crossdogs eased out the blue crow that had nestled back snugly under his coat.
The bird blinked and opened its beak.
“Ain’t never seen a crow so blue before,” Ravenhair exclaimed.
Crossdogs shook his head.
“Ain’t even no crow, be it blue or no. This be baby, sure.”
Ravenhair stepped back.
“Tain’t no babe, Crossdogs. Th
ink you been out wandering these roads too long.”
But then the crow let out a wail, full-lunged as any baby.
“Oh Crossdogs! You tell true! It is a child.”
Ravenhair stepped closer and stroked the bird’s head.
“Tis child, sure and sure,” Crossdogs nodded. “Could be our child Ravenhair, such as we always dreamed.” Ravenhair frowned.
“Don’t remember no dream like that, Crossdogs my lad. We be too young for childern. Whatever put that idea in your head? And anyway, this babe must have a mother of its own. How did you find it? Where has she gone?”
“Who knows where she’s gone,” Crossdogs replied. “Reckon we must find her. Reckon we must tend to this blue crow child best we can until we do.”
Ravenhair smiled and stroked the baby’s head.
“Best we go then,” she said.
“Best we do,” Crossdogs agreed.
They trudged on and on, singing the songs they knew from the Green and swapping snatches of tales about all they had done and where they had been.
“Look there!” Crossdogs suddenly exclaimed as over the brow of the hill a figure came straggling.
“Is that her?” said Ravenhair. “Is that the mother of this troublesome crow that pecks at my face and frets at my dress?”
Crossdogs called to the figure who came stumbling and tumbling down over the hill. But there came no reply. Crossdogs shook his head.
“Tis not her, to be sure.”
To be sure, the figure approaching was no girlen at all but a man tall as short and short as tall, all dressed up in motley and beating the air with a sheep’s bladder tied to the end of a stick. He tumbled right up to them and sprang into their path with a somersault and a bow.
“I walk alone, but not alone. Others follow after me, by one, by two, by three.”
Ravenhair looked around, but could see no-one else, just a slack wind whining across the flat muddied fields.
“Where are they?” she asked.
“Look at me and who do you see? You see me – see Homminy!” The bedraggled figure flapped his hand. His face was caked with flaking paint.
“Yes – but where are the others?” Ravenhair was curious.
“They are here, they are there. We wander in the air like seeds. We scatter and we fall. We crawl through mud like slugs. But we will all rise up again when the hurdy-gurdy plays. Listen, can you hear it now?”
Ravenhair looked away. She could hear nothing more than the wind she heard before. Homminy beat his sheep’s bladder on the ground and let out a wail, which woke the blue crow who had fallen asleep, who then let out a scream like a baby. Homminy rushed up to him, pushing his face full close to the creature’s head.
“Hush now, little one – don’t you cry. There’s clouds in the well and flowers in the sky.”
Homminy pulled a face and tweaked his ears, but all this just made the crow cry more – until Ravenhair gathered the bird to her and pushed Homminy away.
“Stay back,” she said. “Don’t you come here all sudden, bothering this child.”
“Tain’t no bother to me,” Homminy replied. “No bother at all. Just bring it to our show tonight, when the stars shine bright in the sky.”
Crossdogs eyed Homminy curiously.
“Where will the show be?” he asked.
Homminy rolled his eyes and then flipped over on his back till he stood upon his head.
“Don’t rightly know yet,” he said. “Have to see what tune we play.”
He pulled another face at the blue crow babe and this time the child stopped its wailing and began to chuckle and chortle. Ravenhair turned around, and there over the brow of the hill came a huge brown bear, led on a chain by a short-necked man with a gap-toothed grin.
Homminy spun around on the ground.
“Tis Lumbucket and Hobknockle – the bear and his keeper.”
The bear flopped down and laid himself flat on the grass. Ravenhair stepped up closer.
“Can he dance?” she asked.
“Can’t dance now,” Hobknockle replied. “Been walking all day. In the old days Lumbucket only danced when Marsh Brunning played his hurdy-gurdy.”
“Why doesn’t he play now?” Ravenhair asked.
Homminy and Hobknockle looked at each other.
“Lost him,” Homminy shrugged. “One night after the show our tent burnt down. Nothing left but ashes and dreams. Marsh Brunning walked off into the rain. Never seen him since.”
Hobknockle nodded. “We keep on without him. Each time we meet up we wish one and all that this will be the night he’ll come back and play again.”
Homminy cocked his head.
Ravenhair listened. She could hear nothing. Only the sigh of the wind, a fox way off in the distance and then the raucous cry of the blue crow that she was cradling. Homminy glared at the bird.
“Stop that squawling,” he snarled under his breath, but when he saw that Ravenhair was staring at him, he broke into a broad grin and beat his sheep’s bladder on the ground, then spun around and turned three handstands.
“Don’t cry, little one,” he cooed. “Don’t cry.”
The bear let out a drowsy growl and opened one eye as it lay stretched on the ground.
“Be still,” Hobknockle instructed – but more to Homminy than Lumbucket the Bear. “Time enough for cavorting when Marsh Brunning comes. The sky was filled with falling stars last night. Soon enough now, I can feel it. Soon enough.”
Ravenhair shivered. She was comforting the crow.
“Let’s walk on,” she said.
Crossdogs looked at her, wondering whether she was making an excuse to escape from their new companions.
“I’m cold,” she explained. “And the baby needs feeding.”
But as she walked, they all followed on – Homminy dragging his sheep’s bladder along the ground as Hobknockle and Lumbucket lumbered behind, clanking their chain, while on top of the hill in the distance the broken sails of a windmill creaked around and around. A dark flock of birds wheeled above them from beyond the flat horizon.
Then by the side of a tumble-down wall they saw Whisper, his face as pale as ash, his belt hung with kindling sticks and a dull metal tinder-box dangling on a string near down to his knees. He struck the flint, then struck it again. Nothing came but a tiny spark which would not light the wad of oily rag wound tight about a stick which he clenched in his fist.
“Curse this wind,” he muttered, his voice rasping and hoarse, his nostrils twitching, discoloured with snuff. “Curse this wind. Never blew like this when Marsh Brunning played his tune.”
Lumbucket cocked his ear to one side, as if he was listening, but no sound came. Not any wind and not no hurdy-gurdy either. They gathered themselves together, grunting and muttering, with Crossdogs, Ravenhair and the blue crow babe tagging on behind.
They came in a while to a bend in the road, where leaned a shack with its roof staved in. There stood Slipriver – all willowy and tall on only one leg, tossing painted wooden discs slowly up in the air. First one by one, by two, by three, by four and five. But she dropped them all and they rolled this way and that. She leant down awkwardly, trying to keep her balance.
“Never used to happen,” she said, “when Marsh Brunning stood beside me, urging me on with his tune.”
She gathered up the discs one by one and slipped them in the pocket of her great black coat.
Then as the moon rose the dishevelled troupe halted in a dark rooted hollow. Slowly, in cracked and broken voices, each began to sing:
“Which way is the wind
Who runs with the sun?
Soon as you find her,
You know that she’s gone.
Soon as you find her,
She turns to a stone
That shrivels to dust
When the long day is done.”
Crossdogs and Ravenhair watched while the blue crow babe slept. There was much fussing and flurrying as a dull crumpled canvas was pegged out on the gr
ound and a flutter of faded banners strung between the trees. Hobknockle began to beat his drum in a steady rhythm while Lumbucket rattled his chain and howled mournfully, as out of the bushes came a scramble of childern, old’uns and mothers who must have heard the commotion from a village nearby. They fell to clapping, singing and laughing while Homminy rolled over and over, tumbling and stumbling, leering at them all with his wild-eyed grin before chasing the childern all about the hollow. They screamed and shrieked as they ran away, wheeling past Ravenhair and almost knocking her over.
“Don’t wake the babe!” she protested.
One by one, the troupe stepped forward. Whisper carried a star of twisted twigs, which he placed in the centre of the clearing. Then Slipriver followed, with a star carved from stone which she laid down carefully beside it. Hobknockle pulled a star hammered out of metal from deep in his pocket. And finally Homminy waved a star of plaited rushes and flung it to land beside all the others. As the last notes of the song faded, the crowd of waiting children applauded them, then sat to wait expectantly. The ring of performers looked at each other.
They closed their eyes, listening for the sound of the hurdy-gurdy, listening for the crack of a footstep in the woods. But all they heard was the restless complaining of the waiting children which rose to a hubbub, cursing and calling. “Now he will come,” Whisper rasped hoarsely. “The stars are joined.”
Slipriver shook her head.
“Not all joined yet. Downfeathers is missing. Marsh Brunning won’t come till she is here.”
Whisper stepped forward, brandishing his unlit torches, trying in vain to light them again in the breeze which swirled around the clearing. Then he sat down and Slipriver rose, standing elegant and tall on her one slender leg. Out of her hat tipped a cascade of oranges which she began to juggle, tossing them higher, up into the air. But as first she dropped one and then missed another, the children dived forward, seizing them eagerly, tearing off the peel and cramming the juicy segments into their mouths.
Brunt Boggart Page 24