Brunt Boggart

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Brunt Boggart Page 35

by David Greygoose


  “I have just the dress for you! Not for you the blue or green. Not for you the fiery red. I have a dress such as no-one has seen. They call it – the Robe of Smoke.”

  With that she brought a box tied with a fine white ribbon.

  “Can I see? May I try?” cried Ravenhair.

  But the seamstress shook her head.

  “Trust me, the Robe of Smoke is special – it is not just any dress. You must take it home and open it when you are all alone. The Robe of Smoke will take on any shape you choose. No-one else must see you put it on.”

  Ravenhair was so eager to try this wondrous dress that she thrust the bag of shillen into the seamstress’s hand, grabbed the box with its fine white ribbon and ran every step of the way back to her lodging house.

  Ravenhair opened the door of her room and flung herself down on the bed. She could scarcely catch her breath, so excited was she to see the Robe of Smoke. She sat and looked at the box a while, and then a while more, then slowly, slowly her fingers tugged at the ribbon which bound it all about. The ribbon fell loose and she eased the lid open. What did she see? Was the dress yellow or purple or lilac? Let me tell you, the dress was no colour at all, but a robe of smoke, true as true. It rose in a cloud from the tissue which wrapped it. Ravenhair quickly pulled off her smock as the smoke wound itself smooth as cream all around her. She peered at herself in the makeshift mirror which hung upon her wall. The Robe of Smoke swirled about and clung to her body until it fitted perfectly, then was not a robe at all but a glimmering gown so smooth as she stroked it, then a coat of fur which flowed to the floor, then a cloak of darkness as black as the night.

  “Why!” cried Ravenhair, clapping her hands in delight, “I can wear this robe any way I like, any time of day that I choose!”

  She settled on a dress which flowed and swirled and as she looked down saw that even her shoes seemed changed by the robe, not worn and broken any more. With a smile on her face and her head held high she tripped her way lightly down to the alley, then set off out to the main thoroughfare, that all might admire her finery.

  As Ravenhair walked, she saw old men gaze after her, and young men too – wifen and girlen and boys-who-would-be-men, their eyes all seemed to turn her way. Ravenhair smiled to see if they would smile, but they seemed so entranced that they only stood and stared. She stroked the length of the sheen of her dress and was pleased when others wanted to touch it too. They walked so close she felt they might embrace her, might even try to kiss her as she raised her mouth in a smile. But then they walked past and hurried away.

  “Mayhap they are bashful and shy after all,” she said to herself. “This dress is so fine they don’t know what to say. Mayhap I should just wear a plain simple cloak that doesn’t scare people away.”

  Before she could turn around, the smoke writhed and shifted to change to a cloak, trailing loose and long all down to the ground. Ravenhair stopped on the corner and smiled.

  “Now the girlen and wifen will all envy me and the young men will step up and steal a kiss!”

  The first young man who came along walked straight into her arms. Ravenhair smiled and held up her face, but it was as though he could not see her. His hands clutched her waist, not in an embrace, but rather to move her out of his way.

  Ravenhair stood all alone as the crowds thronged around her. They did not look at her, nor at her fine cloak. They seemed to look straight through her.

  “No-one can see me!” she cried.

  Spidermind woke in the sultry heat, his head still filled with the east wind’s song which had lulled him softly to sleep:

  “Wrap me in shadow

  that’s closer than night.

  Wrap me in shadow

  that swallows the light.

  Follow the darkness

  till dawn brings the day.

  Kiss me with dreaming –

  chase sorrows away.”

  In the streets it smelt as if all the fruit, all the spices, all the carcasses that lay in the crates on the quayside were slowly rotting all together. Shadows crawled by, that was all he saw. Old’uns carrying baskets, young’uns chasing the sun, girlen in their dresses and bonnets. But he did not see them at all, only their shadows. He watched and he waited till one drifted close.

  “No-one can see me!” Ravenhair repeated as she capered down the street, snatching flowers, snatching kisses, turning cartwheels and pulling faces at anyone she met. And then she spied Spidermind, picking his way along the gutter. At first she scarcely gave him a second glance, until she saw, plain as plain, the wolf’s claw root dangling round his neck.

  “That’s mine,” she tried to say, but Spidermind slipped away through the market, past the stalls of fly-blown meat, past the barrels of festering fruit, until he stretched himself out on a bench. Ravenhair sat right beside him and waited till he closed his eyes in the sun. Then she leant closer.

  “Will he feel my breath on his face?” she wondered. “Will he feel the touch of my fingers on the back of his neck?”

  Ravenhair picked at the cord which held the withered root – then froze still when Spidermind stirred, flapping his hand as if swatting away a fly before closing his eyes once more. Ravenhair returned to the knot which she had tied so many times before, but then Spidermind suddenly opened one eye and reached out to grip her hand.

  “You can see me!” she exclaimed.

  “Course I can see you,” said Spidermind. “I can see dreams of woodlice and taste the colour of the rain. Why wouldn’t I see you?”

  “That’s why you can see me,” Ravenhair replied. “No-one else sees me at all. I have become bird’s breath and slip by as quietly as the shadow of the moon.”

  She reached out for the wolf’s claw again.

  “How did you come by this?” she demanded. “It’s mine.”

  Spidermind turned away.

  “Why would you want it, this twisted old root?” he enquired as he cradled the claw in his hands.

  “Tain’t no root,” Ravenhair protested, “but a wolf’s claw sure as sure.”

  “That’s what the woman said who I got it off, all dressed from top to toe in vixen fur and her eyelids tattooed with turquoise butterflies. Told me she’d bought it from Ma Pottam’s shop. Told me she paid a fortune for it. I told her it was worthless. I told her she was robbed. And then she wrenched it off her neck and flung it to the ground. ‘You can keep it,’ she told me. ‘I wouldn’t want it anyway now you’ve touched it with your filthy hands!’”

  Ravenhair hung her head.

  “Now she has nothing. And what do I have? I have this cloak trailing loose and long all down to the ground. But no-one can see it at all.”

  “I can see it,” Spidermind assured her, and stroked her silken sleeve.

  “But I have lost what I valued most,” Ravenhair wailed.

  “I have lost my claw of the wolf.”

  “Tain’t no wolf’s claw,” Spidermind reminded her.

  Ravenhair reached out and touched the twisted stem.

  “Twas given to me by Crossdogs, my one boy true as true.”

  Spidermind held the root to his nose.

  “Ain’t no boy ever touched this,” he said.

  “This root is all I have left to remind me of Brunt Boggart, the village where I was born,” Ravenhair pleaded.

  Spidermind stretched behind his neck and loosened the knot which held the root. He let it dangle for a moment, then dropped it into her hand.

  Ravenhair clasped it to her neck. At that moment a plume of smoke swirled around her then rose and floated away, back towards Mother Pottam’s shop. She looked down to see that she was dressed in her old smock again, same as she had worn all down the Pedlar Man’s Track. She turned around to thank Spidermind, but Spidermind had gone. The street was filled with the sound of a fiddle band striking up a tune.

  Ravenhair ran towards them, her feet dancing gladly in her old wooden clogs. As a crowd gathered round to watch her every step, they pressed flowers and shillen an
d bright sparkling pebbles into her outstretched hands. And from way and far away, she thought she heard Spidermind sing:

  “Cry me a shadow

  that lies in the dust.

  Cry me a shadow

  that creeps into dusk.

  Under the twilight

  where hunger is laid,

  Kiss me with secrets

  till the tears fade away.”

  The Crying Is Done

  Let me tell you… let me tell you… Ravenhair sat at the window of her room and gazed out across the roofs of the city. She could sense the season’s moon, feel it throbbing in her head. Her limbs ached to dance, just the way she had in Brunt Boggart, around the fire on the Green. But she could not make out the stars, dimmed by the dazzle of a thousand moons – lanterns, torches, flares and beacons that lit the murky alleyways.

  But the true moon was there, she knew it, hidden behind a mask of smoke and the sea mist fretting in from the river. She could feel its tug, feel its ache surging through the tides of her blood. Her feet began to tap, as if the Drummer was come from the Fever Tree – and she arched her back to the fiddler’s dervish skirl. And then she danced all by herself, but as if Silverwing and all the girlen who ever went to the Echo Field were dancing with her too.

  She danced down the rackety stairs of the lodging house and out into the darkness of the alleyway. There she danced between the overhanging shadows, out across the cobbles of the square, her hobnails clattering, her fingers snapping, her hands clapping high above her head, until the clouds parted and just for a moment the full moon swam, urging her on. She danced faster, she cried out loud, but nobody stirred at the windows above. Nobody woke to watch her. Nobody came to join her. And then the moon was gone and Ravenhair sank down to sit upon the cold hard stone.

  From a far away street, she could hear Crossdogs singing:

  “Here the boys do not wrestle for sport –

  They only want to maim and hurt.

  There is no scent of open fields,

  Only clouds of smoke and dirt.

  The girlen do not laugh and kiss,

  Only cast you down to taste the dust.

  There are no streams to leap across –

  Only gutters of grime and rust.

  There are no skies where songbirds climb –

  Only grey walls which block the sun.

  There is no dawn, there is no night,

  There is no dark, there is no light –

  Only the din of loneliness droning on and on.”

  “Crossdogs!” she called, but he did not come, and when she looked it was Greychild she saw, standing shivering beside her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and slowly stroked her hair.

  “Remember when you used to twine me with blossoms as we sat together on the Green?”

  Ravenhair nodded.

  “There are no flowers here,” she said.

  Greychild sighed and sat beside her.

  “Why did you come here?” Ravenhair asked.

  “I saw my mother in the Eye of Glass. I saw her there by the market stalls. I’ve been there every day. She’s not here at all.”

  “You don’t know,” she said. “So many people here. So many houses, so many back entries. Could be anywhere, Greychild. Could be anywhere at all.”

  “When I find her,” he said, “then I’ve fetched her this scarf.”

  It dangled from his hand – maroon and purple, moss green and black, all picked out in threads of silver and gold. Ravenhair smiled and ran the scarf through her fingers before draping it around his shoulders.

  Greychild looked away. He could hear a howling somewhere close. Pale rain began to fall, that smelt of smoke, smelt of oceans. The howling came again, as if from high on the rooftops. Greychild sprang up.

  “I must go,” he said and left Ravenhair still sitting in the gathering rain, still watching and waiting for the stars and the moon.

  Greychild followed the sound of the howling, sometimes near, sometimes distant. Sometimes one voice all alone, sometimes as if a whole pack ran ravaging through the streets. He darted down passageways, scaled over walls, scrambled along guttering, skirted backyards and out-houses.

  The howling grew closer as Greychild listened. It came from a dwelling whose door hung ajar. He ran soft across the silver cobbles then plunged inside. As he climbed the stairs the howling grew louder. At the top was an attic room, the skylight open, waiting for the moon – but still there was only blackness. On the bed sat a girlen whose arms and neck were scratched and bleeding as if she had been racked by thorns. When she saw Greychild she raised her head and he full expected that the howling would well from deep in her throat. But all he heard was a stifled sobbing as tears ran down her face. He cupped his hand beneath her chin and bent to kiss her, to soothe the tears away. But as he did, her lips curled back into a bare-toothed snarl and as Greychild darted towards the stairs her baying followed him as she wrenched and jerked at the chain which held her to the wall.

  Greychild ran. He ran to the pulse of a drum that he could feel but could not hear. He ran through gullies dank with moss and across wide cobbled squares. He ran to stand in the empty market, beside the boarded stalls. There he let out a baying cry as he stood all alone and gazed upwards while pale clouds scudded across a silent moon.

  As he sank to his haunches he felt a hand, soft upon his shoulder. Was this his mother, come at last? He turned around. There was not mother, but Dawnflower, true. She took him in her arms, ran her fingers through his hair – just as if she was holding him still back by the stream in Brunt Boggart.

  “Oh my boy,” she cried. “Why did you run? I have come all this way to find you.”

  She twined a dark poppy into his hair, just as she ever had before. As she rocked him in her arms her breath was hot against his cheek.

  “Coddle me,” she whispered. “Coddle me, coddle me, my darling boy…”

  But Greychild pushed her away.

  “You are not my mother,” he said.

  She held him firmly at arm’s length.

  “Greychild, listen – I tell you true. Your mother is gone. I am all the mother you have now.”

  And then they came, the girlen of his journey, each and every one. Saffron, touching an orange to his lips, singing, “Coddle me, coddle me…” to add to the refrain.

  A wind blew soft across the square.

  “I’m leaving you here till the crying is done…” Mystra continued.

  “I’ll bring you sweet milk and I’ll fetch you fresh bread…” Ashblossom promised, her long white hair wrapped close around him.

  “The trees are your chamber, green moss is your bed…” Jessimer lulled Greychild almost to sleep as she plied him with first an apple, then a damson, then a peach.

  They ruffled him and tussled him and tousled his hair. They planted him with kisses, here and there, there and here, as they tossed the scarf he’d brought for his mother from one to each to another. They took him in their arms and they spun him all around as their feet drummed across the cobbles with scarcely a sound. Greychild sighed and Greychild cried and then he laughed and ran with them.

  “We are all your mothers now,” the girlen sang as they swung him one to each across the market square.

  Greychild clapped his hands – and as he did the moon loomed out from behind a bank of scudding cloud. Its light reflected pale silver on the haze of mist and Greychild stared straight into its eye and clapped his hands again. The moon held his gaze, drinking him in, until its eye saw everything and yet saw nothing at all, only brightness, only darkness, only skeins of crystal light which drew him on.

  For an instant all in the city were wolves – old’uns, wifen, girlen – their eyes ablaze, their yellow teeth snarling, dripping saliva as they ran, as they prowled, as they howled. And Greychild, the WolfBoy, was boy true and true, running from them wildly, running to find the arms of his mother. But only an instant and then all was as before and Greychild stood shaking, wondering which way to turn.
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  Could smell blood, could taste blood, everywhere he went, roaming in the alleys, howling at the flood of the moon. Could sense Wolf wild on the wind. Wolf that was not wolf, was the scent of trapped tracks, running in the gullies that led to nowhere. Then not Wolf but mother, her arms wide open, her breast soft and warm, the caress of her breath as she held him, singing, “Coddle me, coddle me, my darling son…”

  Then not mother but Wolf, true as true, standing at the back of the alleyway, the light hard behind her. But as he stepped forward was not Wolf at all but only shadow, cold and grey, only smoke, only dust. Then not even shadow but nothing, only emptiness, only aching, only loss.

  He made his way to the quayside where pale-eyed children shuffled towards him, holding out their hands while from the unlit doorways beggars called, clutching their empty bowls. In the shadows stood the knife-sharpener, the butcher boys and the flower-seller, the gamblers, the wastrels and the sailors who reeled neither drunk nor sober.

  They poured onto the dockside and watched as the great ships lowered their gangplanks and down clambered a raddle of horn-backed creatures, their eyes smouldering wild as volcanic fires. They moved among the crowd, handing out painted eggs to the pale-eyed children who stared in wonder at the pictures of cities and deserts such as they never had seen, of mountains lit with tongues of fire, trees whose fruit burned bright as lanterns and flowers dancing in hidden caves. Then from the eggs black crows broke out, each clutching an eye in its beak. They swooped and harried, swirling around until they circled into a wheel of raucous squawking.

  “On and on,” they screamed. “On and on!”

  Louder and louder – until out from the very midst of them stepped the stooped and wizened figure of Marsh Brunning, cradling his hurdy-gurdy in the crook of his arm. One knotted hand turned the droning wheel while with the other he fingered the rattling keys as a mournful dirge echoed from its belly. The notes spilled out in a sighing whisper and then grew louder, raw and harsh as it sang of the lowlands, fields and streams.

 

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