A Swiftly Tilting Planet (12 page)

His body gave a mighty shudder and he gasped and turned toward Zylle, then glanced fearfully at the brook. The fire was gone, and only their two faces were reflected.

She asked, “What did you see?”

Eyes lowered, gazing on the dark stone of the bridge, he told her, trying not to let the images reappear in his mind’s eye.

She shook her head somberly. “I make nothing out of it. Certainly nothing good.”

Still looking down, Brandon said, “Before I was made to feel afraid of my pictures, they were never frightening, only beautiful.”

Zylle squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I’d like to tell my father about this one, for he is trained in the interpretation of visions.”

Brandon hesitated, then: “All right, if you want to.”

“I want him to give me comfort,” she said in a low voice.

They turned from the brook and walked on home in silence, to the dusty clearing with its cluster of log cabins.

The Llawcaes’ cabin was the first, a sizable building with a central room for sitting and eating, and a bedroom at either end. Brandon’s room was a shed added to his parents’ room, and was barely large enough to hold a small bed, a chest, and a chair. But it was all his, and Ritchie had promised that after the baby was born he would cut a fine window in the wall, as people were beginning to do now that the settlement was established.

Brandon’s cubbyhole was dark, but he was used to his own room’s night and moved in it as securely as though he had lit a candle. Without undressing, he lay down on the bed. In the distance the thunder growled, and with the thunder came an echo, a low, rhythmic rumbling which Brandon recognized as the drums of the Wind People as they sang their prayers for rain.

In the morning when he wakened, he heard bustling in the central room, and went in to find his mother boiling water in the big black kettle suspended from a large hook in the fireplace. Goody Adams, the midwife, was bustling about, exuding importance.

“This is a first birth,” she said. “We’ll need many kettles of water for the Indian girl.”

“Zylle is our daughter,” Brandon’s mother reminded the midwife.

“Once an Indian, always an Indian, Goody Llawcae. Not forgetting that we’re all grateful that her presence among us causes us to live in peace with the savage heathen.”

“They’re not—” Brandon started fiercely.

But his mother said, “The chores are waiting, Brandon.”

Biting his lip, he went out.

The morning was clear, with a small mist drifting across the ground and hazing the outline of the hills. When the sun was full, the mist would go. The settlers were grateful for the mist and the heavy dews, which were all that kept the crops from drying up and withering completely, for there had been no rain for more than a moon.

Brandon went to the small barn behind the cabin to let their cow out into the daylight. She would graze with the other cattle all day, and at dusk Brandon would ride out on his pony to bring her home for milking. He gave the pony some oats, then fed the horse. In the distance he could hear hammering. Goodman Llawcae and his son Ritchie were the finest carpenters for many miles around, and were always busy with orders.

—I’m glad Ritchie didn’t hear Goody Adams call
Zylle’s people savage heathens, he thought.—It’s a good thing he was in with Zylle. Then he started back to the house. The picture he had seen in the brook the night before troubled him. He was afraid of the dark man with cruel thoughts, and he was afraid of the fire. Since he had tried to repress the pictures, they had become more and more frightening.

When he reached the cabin and went in through the door, which was propped open to allow all the fresh air possible to enter, his mother came out of the bedroom and spoke to Ritchie, who was pacing up and down in front of the fireplace.

“Your father needs you, Ritchie. Zylle is resting now, between pains. I will call you at once should she need you.”

Goody Adams muttered, “The Indian girl does not cry. It is an omen.”

Ritchie flung back his head. “It is the mark of the Indian, Goody. Zylle will shed no tears in front of you.”

“Heathen—” Goody Adams started.

But Goody Llawcae cut her short. “Ritchie. Brandon. Go to your father.”

Ritchie flung out the door, not deigning to look at the midwife. Brandon followed him, calling, “Ritchie—”

Ritchie paused, but did not turn around.

“I hate Goody Adams!” Brandon exploded.

Now Ritchie looked at his young brother. “Hate never
did any good. Everyone in the settlement feels the lash of Goody Adams’s tongue. But her hands bring out living babies, and there’s been no childbed fever since she’s been here.”

“I liked it better when I was little and there was only us Llawcaes, and the Higginses, and Davey and I used to play with Maddok.”

“It was simpler then,” Ritchie agreed, “but change is the way of the world.”

“Is change always good?”

Ritchie shook his head. “There was more joy when there were just the two families of us, and no Pastor Mortmain to put his dead hand on our songs and stories. I cannot find it in me to believe that God enjoys long faces and scowls at merriment. Get along with you now, Bran. I have work to do, and so do you.”

When Brandon finished his chores and hurried back to the cabin, walking silently, one foot directly in front of the other, as Maddok had taught him, Ritchie, too, had returned, and was standing in the doorway. The sun was high in the sky and beat fiercely on the cabins and the dusty compound. The grass was turning brown, and the green leaves had lost their sheen.

Ritchie shook his head. “Not yet. It’s fiercely hot. Look at those thunderheads.”

“They’ve been there every day.” Brandon looked at
the heavy clouds massed on the horizon. “And not a drop of rain.”

A low, nearly inaudible moan came from the cabin, and Ritchie hurried indoors. From the bedroom came a sharp cry, and Brandon’s skin prickled with gooseflesh, despite the heat. “Oh God, God, make Zylle be all right.” He focused on one small cloud in the dry blue, and there he saw a picture of Zylle and the black-haired, blue-eyed baby. And as he watched, both mother and child changed, and the mother was still black-haired, but creamy of skin, and the baby was bronze-skinned and blue-eyed, and the joy in the face of the mother was the same as in the picture of Zylle. But the fair-skinned mother was not in the familiar landscape but in a wild, hot country, and her clothes were not like the homespun or leather he was accustomed to, but different, finer than clothes he had seen before.

The baby began to cry, but the cry came not from the baby in the picture but from the cabin, a real cry, the healthy squall of an infant.

Goody Llawcae came to the door, her face alight. “It’s a nephew you have, Brandon, a bonny boy, and Zylle beaming like the sun. Though sorrow endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning.”

“It’s afternoon.”

“Don’t be so literal, lad. Run to let your father know. Now!”

“But when may I see Zylle and the baby?”

“After his grandfather has had the privilege. Run!”

When Goody Adams had at last taken herself off, the Llawcaes gathered about the mother and child. Zylle lay on the big carved bed which Richard Llawcae had made for her and Ritchie as a wedding present. Light from the door to the kitchen-living room fell across her as she held the newborn child in her arms. Its eyes were tightly closed, and it waved tiny fists in searching gestures, and its little mouth opened and closed as though it were sipping its strange new element, air.

“Oh, taste and see,” Zylle murmured, and touched her lips softly to the dark fuzz on the baby’s head. His copper skin was still moist from the effort of birth and the humidity of the day. In the distance, thunder growled.

“His eyes?” Brandon whispered.

“Blue. Goody Adams says the color of the eyes often changes, but Bran’s won’t. No baby could ask for a better uncle. May we name him after you?”

Brandon nodded, blushing with pleasure, and reached out with one finger to touch the baby’s cheek.

Richard Llawcae opened the big, much-used Bible, and read aloud, “I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name
of the Lord. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous. I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”

“Amen,” Zylle said.

Richard Llawcae closed the Book. “You are my beloved daughter, Zylle. When Ritchie chose you for his betrothed, his mother and I were uncertain at first, as were your own people. But it seemed to your father, Zillo, and to me that two legends were coming together in this union. And time has taught us that it was a blessed inevitability.”

“Thank you, Father.” She reached out to his leathery hand. “Goody Adams did not like it that I shed no tears.”

Goody Llawcae ran her hand gently over Zylle’s shining black hair. “She knows that it is the way of your people.”

—Savages, heathen savages, Brandon thought.—That’s what Goody Adams thinks of Zylle’s people.

When Bran went to do his evening chores a shadow materialized from behind the great trunk of a pine tree. Maddok.

Brandon greeted him with joy. “I’m glad, glad to see you! Father was going to send me to the Indian compound after chores, but now I can tell you: the baby’s come! A boy, and all is well.”

The shadow of a smile moved across Maddok’s face, in which the blue eyes were as startling as they were in
Zylle. “My father will be glad. Your family will allow us to come tonight, to see the baby?”

“Of course.”

Maddok’s eyes clouded. “It’s not ‘of course.’ Not any more.”

“It is with us Llawcaes. Maddok—how did you know to come, just now?”

“I saw Zylle yesterday. She told me it would be today.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“You weren’t alone. Davey Higgins was with you.”

“But you and Davey and I always played together. It was the three of us.”

“Not any more. Davey has been forbidden to leave the settlement and come to the compound. Your medicine man’s gods do not respect our gods.”

Brandon let his breath out in a sigh that was nearly a groan. “Pastor Mortmain. It’s not our gods that don’t respect your gods. It’s Pastor Mortmain.”

Maddok nodded. “And his son is courting Davey’s sister.”

Brandon giggled. “I’d love to see Pastor Mortmain’s face if he heard himself referred to as a medicine man.”

“He is not a good medicine man,” Maddok said. “He will cause trouble.”

“He already has. It’s his fault Davey can’t see you.”

Maddok looked intently into Brandon’s eyes. “My father also sent me to warn you.”

“Warn? Of what?”

“We have had runners out. In the town there is much talk of witchcraft.”

Witchcraft. It was an ugly word. “But not here,” Brandon said.

“Not yet. But there is talk among your people.”

“What kind of talk?” Brandon asked sharply.

“My sister shed no tears during the birth.”

“They know that it is the way of the Indian.”

“It is also the mark of a witch. They say that a cat ran screaming through the street at the time of the birth, and that Zylle put her pain into the cat.”

“That is nonsense.” But Brandon’s eyes were troubled.

“My father says there are evil spirits abroad, hardening men’s hearts. He says there is lust to see evil in innocence. Brandon, my friend and brother, take care of Zylle and the baby.”

“Zylle and I picked herbs for the birthing,” Brandon said in a low voice.

“Zylle was taught all the ways of a good delivery, and she has the healing gifts. But that, too, would be looked upon as magic. Black magic.”

“But it’s not magic—”

“No. It is understanding the healing qualities of certain plants and roots. People are afraid of knowledge that is not yet theirs. My father is concerned for Zylle, and for you.”

Brandon protested. “But we are known as God-loving people. Surely they couldn’t think—”

“Because you are known as such, they will wish to think,” Maddok said. “My father says you should go more with the other children of the settlement, where you can see and hear. It’s better to be prepared. I, too, will keep my ears open.” Without saying goodbye, he disappeared into the forest.

Late in the evening, when most of the settlement was sleeping, Zylle’s people came through the woods, silently, in single file, approaching the cabin from behind, as Maddok had done in the afternoon.

They clustered around Zylle and the baby, were served Goody Llawcae’s special cold herb tea, and freshly baked bread, fragrant with golden cheese and sweet butter.

Zillo took his grandson into his arms, and a shadow of tenderness moved across his impassive face. “Brandon, son of Zylle of the Wind People and son of Ritchie of Llawcae, son of a prince from the distant land of Wales; Brandon, bearer of the blue,” he murmured over the sleeping baby, rocking him gently in his arms.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon saw one of the Indian women go to his mother, talking to her softly. His mother put her hand to her head in a worried gesture.

And before the Indians left, he saw Zillo take his father aside.

Despite his joy in his namesake, there was heaviness in his heart when he went to bed, and it was that, as much as the heat, which kept him from sleeping. He could hear his parents talking with Ritchie in the next room, and he shifted position so that he could hear better.

Goody Llawcae was saying, “People do not like other people to be different. It is hard enough for Zylle, being an Indian, without being part of a family marked as different, too.”

“Different?” Ritchie asked sharply. “We were the first settlers here.”

“We come from Wales. And Brandon’s gift is feared.”

Richard asked his wife, “Did one of the Indians give you a warning?”

“One of the women. I had hoped this disease of witch-hunting would not touch our settlement.”

“We must try not to let it start with us,” Goodman Llawcae said. “At least the Higginses will stand by us.”