Shadowfell (6 page)

‘Goodnight to you, Neryn,’ she said. ‘Safe journey.’

‘And to you,’ I replied, wondering how she knew my name.

‘Nowhere is safe,’ said Silver. ‘Not for your kind, not for our kind, not for anyone. In this benighted realm, all is turned to darkness.’

‘The wolves howl,’ put in Long Fingers.

‘The winter bites,’ said Red Cap, and as he spoke, there was a wriggling from the sling on his back, as if whatever was there had burrowed down deeper.

‘King’s men come with cold iron,’ said the crow-like being. ‘They seek out our hidden places.’

‘I know that, and I am sorry for it. If it was in my power to help, I would. But all I can do right now is follow my own path.’

‘You will be cold.’

‘Lonely.’

‘Hunger and thirst will walk the road with you, every step.’

‘The wind will chill you. The rain will soak you. Your shoes will break apart.’

‘Many trials lie before you.’ Even the woman in the green cloak had joined in now. ‘You will be tested to your limit.’

‘Enough!’ I snapped. ‘My father died not long ago, I’ve lost the last of my family, and I’m tired. I’m terribly tired. Stop making me sad and let me sleep.’

They vanished as if they had never been, fading into the stones and the water and the darkness of the forest. I felt instantly ashamed of myself, but when I whispered, ‘I’m sorry,’ there was only the night, and the call of a bird, and silence.

I dreamed the Good Folk were in their circle again, with a furious debate raging among them.

‘Her? A wee lassie with holes in her shoes? You’re off your head!’

‘What about the way she shared her food with us? If that’s not the Giving Hand, then I’d like to know what it is!’ The creature who spoke resembled a small bush, for it was all over twigs and leaves, with eyes like ripe berries set deep in the foliage.

‘Sorrel speaks wisely, as always,’ said the woman in the green cloak. ‘You felt the girl’s presence as we all did, don’t deny it. It was powerful. Compelling. A pull the strongest of us would find hard to resist. It makes no difference if she’s a wee lassie or an old woman of seven-and-seventy.’

‘The Giving Hand?’ A wispy, big-eyed being spoke, its voice all scorn. ‘Easy enough to give when you’ve plenty to spare. Didn’t you see that supply of way-bread? Let’s see how giving the lass is when she’s half-starved and too weak to forage.’

‘And even if you’re right, Sage,’ said a little man in a rattling cape of nutshells, ‘what’s one out of seven?’

Red Cap cleared his throat. Now he was seated by the banked-up fire and he had a miniature version of himself in his arms, up against his shoulder. The infant from the sling; perhaps he was soothing it after a nightmare. ‘It’s a start, that’s what it is,’ he ventured, eyes going from the little woman, Sage, to Silver and back again, as if he were not sure which of them might bite first. ‘Give this lass time and we’ll know one way or the other.’

Sage folded her arms, her head on one side as if she was thinking hard. ‘It wouldn’t want to be too much time,’ she said. ‘Whether she’s what I think she is or not, her gift puts her in danger. Let her fall into the hands of king’s men and we might lose our only chance.’

‘This is utter nonsense! I can’t believe so many of you have let yourselves be caught up in such foolishness.’ Silver spoke with sharp authority. ‘You’re meddling in matters that lie far beyond your understanding. Ancient things. Weighty things.’ A pause. ‘Perilous things.’

‘Aye,’ put in the big-eyed being, ‘you’d stir up what’s best left sleeping and bring down disaster on all of us.’

‘When has our kind ever joined with their kind in a venture that did not end in catastrophe?’ asked Silver. Clearly no answer was expected, but the bushy creature, Sorrel, spoke up.

‘In the war between the Sea Folk and the brollachans,’ he said smoothly, as if he had only been waiting for the opportunity to provide this information. ‘A human fellow. A Caller. But for his leadership, the brollachans would have been wiped out in the north, and the human folk of the isles along with them. It’s in the long songs. Even you cannot argue with those, Silver.’

‘A story. That’s all it is, an old tale. Those times are gone. To do this would go against everything we are; it feels wrong, it smells wrong, it’s as wrong as an eaglet in a dove’s nest. Human folk got Alban into this sorry state. Let human folk get it out again. It’s not our fight, it’s not our quest, it’s not our business.’

‘Alban is our home,’ Sorrel said. ‘Since time before time; since long before humankind set foot on this shore.’

‘What will you do when the storm comes?’ put in Sage, her eyes fixed on Silver. ‘Defend your home or lie down and let it fall to pieces around you?’

The answer to this, I did not hear, or if I did, it was gone when I awoke. But everything about the dream seemed real: the harsh urgency of the Good Folk’s whispered interchanges, the cryptic references to me and my journey, the dark blanket of the night and the cries of owls in the trees above. I wondered if it had been no dream at all. Perhaps, thinking me asleep, they had decided to debate my worth or my future or whatever it was, and I had been just sufficiently awake to hear them. One out of seven. Seven of what?

Next morning, when I rolled out of the warmth of the cloak, I found that my footwear had been repaired, the torn uppers cobbled together with tiny fine stitches and the linings replaced with a flexible substance like tightly packed cobweb. When I slipped the shoes on, they were no longer too small but fitted me perfectly.

I knew it was perilous to accept fey gifts. The king’s wrath fell swiftly on anyone found to be in possession of such an item. A wooden spoon that happened to have a magic symbol carved on the handle, or a piece of weaving that was a little too expert, could see a house burned to the ground with the occupants still inside. No matter if the spoon had been carved by someone’s old grandfather, or the weaver simply happened to be clever with her hands. Under this king, suspicion was as good as proven fact. And Keldec’s will was absolute.

I wondered, often, what kind of man it would take to carry out an Enforcer’s duties. Did the king use fear to keep them obedient? Did he offer rewards they could not refuse? It seemed to me it would be better to die standing up to a tyrant than to survive as a tool of his will. If I ever had to face the Enforcers, I hoped I would be as brave as Grandmother had been.

‘Many trials lie before you,’ I muttered to myself. ‘You will be tested to your limit.’ True, maybe; but as a piece of advice, not especially helpful. As for the shoes, clearly mended by no human hand, I must wear them. With autumn closing in, and many days’ walking over rocky hillside and untracked forest ahead of me, I simply could not do without them.

I remembered the settlement of Silverwater clearly. It lay on the shore of the freshwater loch, a collection of mud-and-wattle buildings with roofs of thatch, all surrounded by a dry-stone wall. The most substantial building was fashioned of shaped stones and had a small tower. It was the home of the district chieftain, Dunchan. A long time ago the folk of his household had given Father and me two nights’ shelter. We’d earned our keep by shovelling cow dung the first day and cleaning out a privy the second. Father had done most of the work; back then, he’d been a strong, fit man, though given to bouts of melancholy. In that household the meals had been good and few questions had been asked. We’d done the work we were given, kept ourselves to ourselves and, on the third day, moved on.

I could reach that place by tonight. The loch was in sight, and if my memory served me well, the settlement was about a half-day’s walk along it. Maybe I should change my plan. If I told a convincing story, perhaps Dunchan’s folk would give me work over the cold season, and I could move on north in springtime when there would be good foraging in the woods. That made sense, provided they believed I was no threat.

I glanced down at my shoes with their fey mending. Walk into Silverwater wearing those and I’d be handed straight to the authorities. Even a tolerant household like Dunchan’s could not afford to ignore such plain evidence. And what about the Cull? I had no idea which way those Enforcers were headed after they’d worked their evil in Darkwater. The path of the Cull was different every year; the order in which settlements and farms were visited was never the same. Some escaped altogether, though nobody could ever be sure that would happen. The element of surprise let Keldec cast his net more effectively. Folk never knew when the Enforcers were coming. To seek shelter at Silverwater might be to bring down disaster on that household.

Before the sun was at its peak I reached the loch shore. I did not walk on the path by the water, for it was busy. Cull or no Cull, life had to go on. I saw men fishing, boys with geese, a girl with a small herd of goats. And from time to time I saw folk scrambling to the side of the track when drumming hoof beats announced the arrival of a group of black-cloaked Enforcers riding their big dark horses. They went in pairs, harnesses jingling with silver, leather-helmed heads high, round shields blazoned with the Stag of Alban: the king’s emblem. Mostly they were travelling eastward, as if returning to Summerfort, where Keldec’s household spent the warmer part of the year. A shiver went through me. The king might still be in residence there now. My journey would take me right by that place, close enough to be almost sure of meeting Enforcers on the way. I would not hasten the day when that might happen. I kept to the precipitous slopes of the forest, letting the trees shield me.

I made good progress along the shore, and before dusk I saw, framed by beeches, the settlement of Silverwater down the hill below me. There was the cluster of cottages, there the long wall, there the chieftain’s house with its modest tower. And in the yard, between barns and outbuildings and stock pens, something out of place. I halted in the shadow of the trees.

A small crowd was gathered in that open space: men, women and children, the chieftain’s whole household, and perhaps the villagers as well. They stood in complete silence, faces ashen. Stationed around them were Enforcers with weapons drawn. No running. No screaming. No burning. But where a lovely oak grew in the very centre of the open ground, an oak I remembered well from my brief stay here, for its shade had been enjoyed by chickens and dogs and children alike, a dark matter was unfolding. A glance showed me the rope hanging from a strong bough, and Dunchan of Silverwater standing very still below it, balanced on a stool. A masked Enforcer stood behind him. As I watched, cold to the bone, the Enforcer slipped the noose over Dunchan’s head and drew the knot tight.

‘No,’ I muttered. ‘Oh, no.’ Dunchan’s wife was in that silent crowd, his children, his loyal servants and men-at-arms, a whole household of good people. I imagined folk hushing their little ones, fearful that a cry at the wrong time would bring down the same fate on them.

I wanted to shut my eyes. I wanted to turn away. Part of me protested:
This is not my story, these are not my folk. I’ll just turn my back and walk on. I’ll pretend I didn’t see this
. But I kept my eyes open, and I stood witness to the hanging of a good chieftain. When it was done, the Enforcers backed off and Dunchan’s friends cut him down. His wife knelt over him and closed his eyes. The Enforcers were keeping their distance; it seemed this one execution was all the punishment they had come to deliver. Already some of them were riding out through the gates, though five or six remained.

Silence would have saved Dunchan’s wife. She chose another path. She did not collapse on her husband’s body, weeping. She stood up, head high, and hurled defiant words at his killers. With my heart in my mouth I watched her do it, and I saw an old man fighting to keep a child – the chieftain’s little son, I guessed – from running forward as she spoke.

She was killed with a single expert stroke of the sword. Her head rolled away, coming close to the feet of the frozen onlookers. The killer gave his weapon a desultory wipe on a tuft of grass, sheathed it and spoke a few words to the crowd. The old man had his hand clapped over the child’s mouth; I saw a woman edge in front of them to shield them.
No more
, I willed the Enforcer.
Let there be no more evil done here
.