But there were changes. Her brothers had grown into lanky young men. Samuel was dead. Her father was dead. Village men, like Button Tailor, had been taken away to war. Treasure was dead. And Jon. Sunfire was gone. And she was no longer a naive girl waiting for womanhood and her father’s return. She had changed, forever. She touched her chest, knowing the presence of the amber would never leave her. When Dawn queried the strange mark on her skin, she said that it was a scar from scalding water, an accident in the palace. She knew why her father ran to Summerbrook to escape his past. The inheritance was too great a burden for anyone.
She shook out another shirt and pegged it on the line. Peter was playing with Whisper under the house gum tree. Her mother was sitting on the veranda, darning a sock. Mykel and Daryn were running the traps out in the surrounding bush. After the mad and violent world of Port of Joy and Queen Sunset’s kingdom, Summerbrook was paradise. Much of the truth of the intervening years she kept to herself. Her brothers persisted in asking her what she’d seen, where she’d been, who she’d met, so she told them stories about the Queen’s court and the great city. ‘Is it true you were made a Lady?’ Daryn asked. ‘Is it true you led the Queen’s army against the barbarians?’ Rumours and tales of her adventures had reached Summerbrook. She’d forgotten how quickly the minstrels travelled the kingdom, plying their songs and tales in exchange for food and shelter. But she deflected them from herself easily by denying any connection. ‘The Queen offered to make me a Marchlord because of what happened at the Battle of The Whispering Forest,’ she told her brothers, and her mother, and other villagers when they asked, ‘but I declined it. They made more of what happened than what was really the truth. It was another young man who actually killed Treasure Overbrook, and he was also killed in the battle, but some soldiers mistook him for me and they tried to make me a hero. It wasn’t true, and I said so.’
‘But what about being made a Lady?’ Mykel asked.
‘And what about being Lady Amber? That was you, wasn’t it?’ Daryn asked.
‘The Queen was very generous and kind. But there is no Lady Amber. She’s a made-up person—a hero for the ballads you’ve been hearing. People like to hear stories about heroes. It makes them feel safer. But Lady Amber doesn’t really exist. Believe me, if she did exist, I would have met her in Port of Joy. True?’
‘Yes, but—’ Daryn started to argue.
‘No buts,’ Meg cut in. ‘Think about it. Can you imagine your sister being able to do all those things they say in the stories you’ve heard?’ Daryn and Mykel exchanged glances, and grinned. ‘See?’ she asked.
‘But we overheard Emma tell Mum that you were going to Port of Joy to fulfil your destiny,’ said Daryn.
So Emma had said something, she thought. ‘What else did she say?’
Daryn shrugged. ‘That was it, I guess.’
Meg sighed and petted Whisper who was curled up on her lap. ‘Well, I did find my destiny,’ she said, ‘and it’s to be here, in Summerbrook.’
‘That’s hardly very exciting,’ Mykel grumbled.
‘It’s who I am,’ she answered.
‘But what about the men who came looking for you?’ Daryn persisted.
‘What men?’
‘A stranger. And Queen’s soldiers. They came here a cycle ago, looking for you, saying that you’d gone missing and no one could find you. They said the Queen hoped that you were safe and if we knew where you were that she wanted you to go back to Port of Joy.’
‘What did you tell them?’ she asked.
‘They spoke to Mum. She told them we hadn’t seen you for two years. We had as much an idea as they did about where you were.’
‘Then we’ll keep it that way.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s how I want it to be.’
‘And what about the other man?’ Mykel asked.
Meg turned to him for an explanation. ‘There was a stranger came through here just before the Queen’s soldiers. He was asking everyone about you.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Short. Thin. He looked like he was a minstrel, but he didn’t sing any tunes and he didn’t have an instrument. Nobody liked the look of him.’
‘We told him exactly what we told the Queen’s soldiers when they came,’ said Daryn.
‘And what happened to him?’
‘He went to see old Emma and that’s the last any of us saw of him. We didn’t even see him leave the village. He sneaked out at night.’
‘He was probably a scout,’ she told her brothers, remembering Treasure’s visit to Summerbrook. ‘It’s best to tell someone like that nothing at all.’
‘But are you going to tell the Queen where you are?’ Mykel asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘And everyone else has to keep it quiet too. I don’t want to go back to Port of Joy. I’ve come home to stay home. I’m Meg Farmer only. You two remember that.’ And she refuted the references to tales and ballads that circulated, knowing that most of the village would believe her, sooner or later.
Six days after she’d woken from what seemed an endless sleep, Meg scooped up Whisper, kissed Peter’s forehead in the common room as he was polishing a pot, and told Dawn that she was going to see Emma. ‘Nobody’s seen much of her lately,’ Dawn said. ‘She’s stuck to her cottage. I’ve taken some soup and vegetables occasionally. She says she’s not sick, just tired of seeing people.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Not that she was ever much of a social being.’
The sky was painfully blue and utterly cloudless, but the morning air was mild and soothing to Meg’s skin. People waved as she passed through the village, and a group of children fishing and playing at the bridge called to her. Regardless of whether they believed the popular tales or her denial of them, she was a village celebrity for having travelled to Port of Joy and lived in the company of the Queen, something no other person had done in the living memory of Summerbrook. That tale of fame and reputation would remain for her lifetime, and become part of local folklore. She liked the inner warmth generated by the quiet adulation and recognition, but she promised herself to never let it be her source of identity. The journey from Summerbrook to Port of Joy, from farm girl to almost Royal Seer, from trying to make a frog fly to unleashing the Demon Horsemen, had taught her more than she’d ever wanted to know, and one lesson that she’d learned, above all, was the benefit of humility.
The familiar path to Emma’s cottage was overgrown, and she walked carefully through the tall yellow grass, watchful for snakes. Whisper scrambled from her shoulder and darted towards the cottage, reminding her of how Sunfire always liked coming to the old crone’s place to fossick in her unkempt garden. The last time she’d seen her dingo was when Truth brought him to the island to track her. And then what had happened to him?
Emma’s garden was in a far worse state than she remembered. Plants had gone to seed, bushes were straggly and beyond the point where pruning would restore them. Clumps of wildflowers gave the chaos colour, but the effect only made her think of madness. Three black crows were arguing in the boughs of a gum tree at the foot of the hills, their cawing echoing across the bush.
The cottage door was leaning from one hinge, and she was surprised and disappointed because if Emma couldn’t fix her own door it was customary in the village for someone to offer to fix it out of kindness. Yet no one, it seemed, was extending that village courtesy to the old woman. As Meg went to knock, Emma called, ‘Come in, Meg Farmer.’ Meg eased the rickety door open and entered.
The cluttered room would have been quite dark but for all the gaps in the walls and roof through which daylight poured, dividing the space into shafts of light and shadow. Cobwebs clustered along the roof joists and in every corner, and the crockery and pots were in disarray, as if Emma no longer cared where things were. ‘Your messenger told me you were here,’ the old woman said, her voice raspier than Meg remembered. In the dappled light, she made out Emma’s shape hunched in a chair beside the dead fireplace, and Whis
per appeared on the old woman’s lap. ‘We have a lot to talk about, child,’ the old woman said, ‘and only the truth is spoken in this room.’
She left the cottage when the sun was melting into the western hills, and painting the edges of the sky amber. The day had passed like a glance across a room, but it left Meg with indescribable sadness. Emma was dying. She told Meg after she listened to her story from beginning to tragic end. ‘I have the Wasting Death,’ she said. ‘It eats from the inside, sometimes slowly. If it’s merciful, it’s quick.’
‘How long have you been sick?’ Meg asked.
Emma chuckled and coughed with the effort. ‘I knew when you left for Port of Joy.’
‘Two years? Why didn’t you say? I could have healed you.’
‘No, child. Some things can’t be healed.’
‘How do you know? Perhaps I can still heal you.’
Emma’s face grew stern. ‘So, you would use your Blessing to save the blighted life of an old woman in a remote village, but not to save the lives of thousands within the Queen’s kingdom?’
‘It’s different,’ Meg pleaded. ‘This isn’t a war. I said I won’t ever use magic again to kill innocent people.’
Emma nodded, and sighed. ‘So you told me in your tale. I’m sorry for you, child, I truly am. Every Blessing carries its own curse, and every curse has its blessing. I don’t want your healing. Save it for someone who has more life to live and more reason to live it.’ She coughed and spat into the fireplace. ‘My time is worn out. I have only enough time to pray.’
‘Pray?’ Meg gasped. ‘I didn’t think you believed in Jarudha.’
Emma chuckled, which made her cough again. She wiped her mouth with her ragged sleeve. ‘I pray, child. Not just to Jarudha. You said you’d read the books, didn’t you? All those books in the Royal library? How many gods were there in them? Jarudha. Hohda. Jaru. Berak N’eth. Asame. He Of No Face. How many names?’ She chuckled again. ‘Many gods? Or one god with many names?’ She shifted in her chair, and Whisper hopped down. ‘I pray in the hope that if—and “if” is the greatest word of hope in our language—if there is any god at all, and if there is a paradise, that I might at least know that answer before I die.’
‘And what if there is? What if there is and you can’t get in?’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ the old woman said. ‘The answer to the question is more important than what happens to me. I want to know the answer. If there is, or isn’t a god—if there is or isn’t a paradise.’ Her face crumpled into a smile. ‘But it seems the only way to get that answer is to die.’
Blindness was also robbing Emma of her independence, but she hadn’t told anyone how dramatically her eyesight was failing. That was part of why she was keeping to herself. Meg’s personal journey, at least for Meg, seemed to fade into insignificance against the journey that Emma was undertaking. ‘You are the only one who knows the truth,’ she told Meg solemnly, ‘and you must keep my secret, just as you kept the secret of Samuel’s death.’ So they talked, and shared the day and tears, until both were spent.
Walking down the winding path to the road, Meg was adrift in a familiar ocean of melancholy, a sea that her mind had traversed many times on her homeward journey. Memories of the people lost in the vortex of the scramble for the Conduit, of people lost in the struggle for power, haunted her. They died pointlessly, fighting battles for other people, or died because of the greed of others. But now Emma was simply dying. She’d forgotten how death just came sometimes—without the bloodied edge of a blade, or the savage bite of flame. The years of violence since she’d stumbled upon the dying soldier and his horse had warped her perceptions of life and death.
At the road junction, she waited for Whisper to emerge from the long grass. The gum canopies had lost the golden flare of sunset and were brooding in seeping darkness. A flock of sparrows fluttered across the space between two trees and vanished amongst the foliage. A dog barked in the village, probably Fetchem at the Bakers’ house—a middle-aged cattle dog renowned for being the first to scent strangers coming into Summerbrook. She looked along the road to the south, but it was empty, so Fetchem was probably barking at a possum. She hoisted Whisper onto her shoulder and headed for the bridge—and was surprised to see a figure masked in shadow waiting there. She was more astonished when the figure addressed her. ‘Meg?’
‘Who are you?’ she asked, nerves tensed.
‘It’s me,’ the man said. He lurched forward on crutches, his left leg missing from just below the thigh.
In the fading light, she recognised him. ‘Button?’
‘Button,’ he repeated. ‘Surprised?’
‘Well, yes,’ she said, excitement rising in her voice. ‘Yes, I am.’ She remembered that the last time she’d seen him, marching to battle outside Greenhill, she’d noticed that he no longer smiled. Now he was smiling again.
‘I only got back today,’ he said. ‘Hitched a ride from Quick Crossing with Carter. When I heard you were here, too, I had to see you. So I waited here.’ He laughed. ‘I’ve been waiting all afternoon. They all think I’m crazy.’
Meg felt laughter bubbling in her heart. She grinned, and said, ‘All afternoon?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are crazy, Button Tailor.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and performed a half bow. ‘Should I be calling you Lady Amber?’ he asked.
Her smile vanished. ‘Not any more,’ she said. ‘And not here. Not ever. Promise me that, Button. Please?’
‘I heard rumours that you’d gone missing many cycles ago. I was already trying to get home then. What happened?’
‘Nothing happened. You know what it’s like out there. Stories get exaggerated. People said I was something more than I ever was. Promise you won’t say anything here to anyone about that. You have to promise.’
He shrugged, dropped his smile, and said, ‘That’s an easy promise. But why?’
‘Because I’m not that person,’ she said. ‘I never was. Don’t ask me why. Not yet. One day, I might tell you why. Just let it go for me. Please.’
‘You’ve only ever been Meg Farmer to me,’ he said, smiling again. ‘I’m just so happy to see you. I’ve never stopped thinking of you, even when things were at their worst. You got me through them.’
She stared at the darkening figure in the dusk, saw the missing leg, and felt her heart lighten. The dream made sense. ‘I’m happy to see you, too, Button,’ she said softly. And she embraced him, glad to be enveloped within his arms, knowing not everything had been lost to the war.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The last kiss lingered on her lips as she wandered from the riverbank towards home. He’d teased her, calling her ‘Meg Tailor’, and told her of his expectations—cooked breakfasts, a clean house, ten children and a dingo like Sunfire. She had scolded him affectionately, and wrestled with him, culminating in that final, sensual long silence as they kissed. Their wedding preparations were in full flight. The Summerbrook women had rallied to her mother’s side and were organising a feast to be held in Archer’s Inn to celebrate the union, and the men were helping Button to build a two-roomed cottage—their first home—near the Farmers’ place. She smiled and touched her fingertips against her lips, lost in happiness and expectation, enjoying the gentle sun’s midmorning warmth. So Mykel startled her when he burst from the bushes, yelling her name. ‘What?’ she asked, grabbing his shoulders. He was shaking and blood trickled from his lower lip.
‘Soldiers!’ he told her. ‘And a man in a blue robe! They’re looking for you! They brought Sunfire with them. They’ve got Mum and Peter and Daryn!’
The news stunned her, turning her skin to ice. ‘Are you all right?’ she whispered, touching his lip.
He winced, but assured her that it was nothing. ‘The Seer hit me when I told him you weren’t here.’
‘Where did they come from? Did they come through the village?’
‘Out of the hills. From the north-west.’ Meg broke into a run, heading
for the farm. ‘You can’t go there. They’re waiting for you!’ Mykel warned, as he started after her, but she ran on.
She dropped to a walk when she saw the soldiers and their horses outside her home. They weren’t Royal soldiers. They wore red ochre leather armour, similar to the style of the troops that had come with Seer Truth to Whiterocks Bluff. Mykel caught up and dropped into stride beside her. She stopped him. ‘Go and tell everyone in the village. Tell them to stay away from here,’ she ordered.
‘But they can help. I’ll get Button.’
She grabbed his arm, snarling, ‘No! Keep everyone away. It’s too dangerous!’ and fixed him with a look that told him to do exactly as she said. He nodded, and headed for the village centre, as she continued towards the house.
When the soldiers saw her approaching, they called out, ‘Your Eminence! Someone is coming!’ and came towards her to take her into their custody.
She stopped short and held up a hand, palm outward. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. The effect of her determined warning surprised her. The soldiers stepped back warily, as if they already knew what she could do, but from the house emerged a group of men led by a white-haired Seer. She recognised him instantly—Seer Light. And beside him, no longer in his trademark Royal black but in a grey tunic and ochre trousers, was Follower Servant. The other three men were strangers. One held Sunfire on a chain. ‘Where is my family?’ she demanded. She gazed at the dingo and her heart ached for her long-missing companion.
Light descended from the veranda and faced her. ‘Under my protection,’ he said, scowling as always.
‘Let them go.’
‘When you agree to come with us,’ Light replied.
‘Let them go,’ Meg repeated flatly, her cold anger seething.
‘You are in no position to bargain, Amber.’ He motioned to a companion and the man went into the house. He returned, dragging Peter by one arm. The boy was crying and the man’s grip was clearly hurting.
The Amber Legacy Page 45