Dragonswood (13 page)

“You look well,” I whispered.

“And you,” she said, fingering my fur-lined cloak and pretty gown. “You’re a lady now.”

I shook my head. “No, Mother. Borrowed clothes.”

“Borrowed?”

“Don’t ask more. I can’t tell you. For your own good, I can’t say more.” Rain pattered the window—or was it a stone? I poked my head out. Garth stood quiet down below. “I came to assure you I’m all right to ease your heart, but I can’t stay. Others are relying on me and anyway, Father will be home soon.” I held her hand tightly.

“Wait. I have something for you.” She left the room and came back. “Your grandfather sent us a letter and a package for you. They arrived a few days after you ran away.”

She handed me a small unopened parcel. I tucked it in my belt. Her eyes fell on my blackened thumbs.

“Oh, Tess! What you’ve been through. It’s my fault.” She took my hands and, weeping, kissed my thumbs.

“Not your fault at all, Mother. It was mine, partly mine. I stole into Dragonswood. I was seen there.” I said it to ease her. She wasn’t to blame.

“Sit down, Tess. I have something to tell you.”

“I haven’t time.”

“Sit,” she pleaded, so I did.

“I knew you went to Dragonswood,” she whispered.

“You did?”

“Out the window and down yon tree. I knew why you went.”

I peered up at her. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s to do with your father.”

“I know all I need to know about my father,” I snapped, jumping up.

“No, you don’t. There’s something I must tell you, Tess. Sit down.”

“Whatever it is it has to wait. I’m endangering more than myself staying here so long. I have to go before Father—”

“He is not your father.”

The room went white and hollow as a cockleshell. “What?”

I began to sway. She gripped my arms to hold me up. “If I’d told you this before, none of this would have happened. I waited too long,” she said. “I was afraid.”

She looked at my face. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? I was with child when I married John Blacksmith.”

“I…” She swam in and out.
Don’t faint
. “Does the blacksmith know?”

She shook her head. “He can never know.”

Mother wrapped her arms around me. I could not feel them. I was in some deep cave, abandoned. Alone. “Who… am I, then?”

“You are yourself still, Tess,” Mother whispered.

“Who is my father?” I drew back to search her face. Red shame streaked her neck. How had it happened? Had he forced himself on her? Was that why she’d put off telling me, waiting until I was a grown woman who would understand such things? “My father didn’t hurt you or force you to lie with him, did he?” Suddenly I was desperate to know he hadn’t harmed her.

“No, Tess. It wasn’t like that. We danced at Midsummer Night’s Fair. He was… kind.” She blushed.

There was love in her blush. I felt a sob coming up my throat. “Then why?… Why didn’t he marry you?”

“I could not go with him. We lived in different worlds.”

A pebble hit the window. We both jumped. “The blacksmith’s home!”

The door slammed down below.

“Woman?” The sound of his heavy boots came up the stairwell. “Woman, where are you?”

“Hurry, Tess,” Mother said.

“But you haven’t told me—”

“Quick!” She pushed me toward the window.

I barely made it out before the door flung open. Halfway down the tree I heard the demanding bellow from above, “Wife, why didn’t you answer me when I called?”

I fled with Garth back down the alley. Alice stirred but fell asleep again. Garth and I took turns carrying her wrapped safely in our cloaks. The going was slow with the rain slicking the cobbles.

Once we were safely out of town, Garth led the horses back to the road, but we made little progress in the storm. Alice woke and cried. I tried to comfort her, saying, “Hush now, don’t be afraid,” and “We’re taking you to see your mother.” The child had known me all her life; still, she was frightened to be on a dark road with me on such a stormy night traveling with a grown man who was a stranger to her.

A cold wind whistled through the forest by the time we’d made a bit of shelter. Garth strung the wax cloth tarp between two trees for a tent. Wood and tinder damp, he produced a chunk of burningstone to start a fire. Alice whimpered, so I rocked her. She was three and no infant, yet I sang her the lullabies I used to sing to Mother’s babes. All the while I thought,
I am not the blacksmith’s child. He is not my father.

T
HE STORM HAD
passed in the night and the rising sun spread vermilion over the sea. Fishing boats were leaving the bay for the deeps beyond, their sails as red as the water. By morning Alice was braver and she laughed when Garth held her up to me in the saddle. Seagull stomped, impatient to be gone, but Garth spoke to her with a “Kush, kush, now.” Then he wrapped a soft cloth round Alice’s middle and mine so the child would not fall off.

On the road over the next two days we played our parts, the husband riding protectively ahead, his wife and child behind. I kept my hood up at first, but took it off once we were a goodly distance from Harrowton.

Alice grew more used to the ride and bounced impatiently in the saddle, squealing, “Wide fast, Tess!”

Her glee reminded me of when I was three or four bound to my mother’s waist the same way. We didn’t own a single horse, so Mother must have been taking a newly shod mare back to its owner and brought me along for the outing. I remember riding down to the dock in Harrowton Harbor, and another time trotting along Kingsway.

How high up in the world I was riding with Mother. Like Alice, I’d laughed when our horse began to trot. It delighted me to feel my mother’s warmth against my back, and to smell her scented hair.

Small as I was, I do not think I was at all afraid when we rode together. By then I was already well acquainted with fear, and had learned to hide behind the settle when the blacksmith beat Mother, so I was relieved when we could both escape.

Garth rode up ahead and as we followed him around a bend, the robins splashing in the puddles took flight. Alice laughed and threw up her hands as if to catch one. Holding her close, her small body pressed up to mine, and her plump arms spread out to the birds, I ached in the light of her laughter. For the first time I wondered at my mother. With all my efforts to protect her, she’d still taken her share of blows. Never could she stand up to her husband. Yet I knew deep down I could never be like her. I’d never let a man hit a child.

A
LICE WAS STURDY
for her age, but she grew bored with the long ride.

“Sing,” she said one afternoon with a yawn. Meg’s voice was fine. I could not sing the way her mother did, but I would try.

Lady, come ye over,

Over the sea.

And bring your heart with you.

And marry me…

“Not that one,” Alice said rudely.

Garth looked back at her and laughed.

“Sing ‘Fey Maiden,’” she insisted. Meg had told me it was her daughter’s favorite.

“Say
if you please,
Alice.”

“Please, Tess.” She tipped her head and smiled up at me.

“Very well.”

In the enchanted woodland wild,

The Prince shall wed a Fairy child.

Dragon, Human, and Fairy,

Their union will be bound by three.

I sang the second verse. If there was a third, I did not know the words. My voice was not as sweet and clear as Meg’s had been when she’d sung it to us the night we fled the witch burning.

You think it’s true?
Poppy had asked.

It’s just a song. Grandfather’s tales never mentioned any marriage between human and fey.

Fey men take lovers,
Meg had said.

“Sing it again,” Alice pleaded.

“I’m tired. Perhaps Garth Huntsman will sing it for you.”

“Sing,” she called happily to Garth, clapping her small hands.

He drew Goodfellow back to ride alongside us. “I should tell you the song has been outlawed.”

“Why?”

“The king’s regent called it dangerous.”

“It’s just a song,” I whispered.

“Is it?” His eyes searched mine.

I tried to make light of his look. “You don’t think a fairy maiden would wed a Pendragon prince, do you?”

“Not one from DunGarrow to be sure, but a half-fey girl might.”

Half fey? I remembered Grandfather’s tales of girls who went with fey men, how they ended up with child out of wedlock, and had to raise the half-fey child on their own. Not happy tales.

Garth said, “The fey folk would like to have their bloodline represented on the throne. A half-fey girl might not have many fairy powers, but she’d be drawn to Dragonswood, she’d want to protect the refuge.”

Not many fairy powers, but one, maybe one. Fire-sight. Was it true? Could it be true? My breath came fast and shallow. The boundary wall moved in and out, and the trees behind it tipped as I tried to fight the dizziness.

“Tess?” Garth’s voice came from far away.

“I need… I must get down.”

“What, here?”

“Please, take Alice.”

Dismounting, he led the horses to the roadside and took Alice in his arms. I jumped off the saddle and ran hard into the trees.

I was with child when I married John Blacksmith.

Who am I, then, Mother? Who is my father?

Climbing over the boundary wall, I did not stop running. Why had the old dragon rescued the burning girl? Why had he dropped a turtle in the pond for me? He would not have rescued ordinary girls, or flown a witch to DunGarrow. Fairies would not harbor witches.

A half-fey girl might not have many fairy powers, but she’d be drawn to Dragonswood, she’d want to protect the refuge.

I ran and ran.

I knew you went to Dragonswood,
Mother had said.
Out the window and down yon tree. I knew why you went. It’s to do with your father.

I’d seen the love in Mother’s eyes when she’d spoken of my father.

Why didn’t he marry you?

I could not go with him. We lived in different worlds.

Different worlds. Our human world. The fairy kingdom; ah, they were different enough.

“Tess?” Garth called in a worried tone.

I did not answer or turn back. The woodland welcomed me. Greenery bowed, branches waved. It all fit. My longing for the wood, my secret power, Mother’s confession, the dragon’s rescue from the pond. I knew it in my body. In my bones. I’d known it long. I’d known it always, but never understood till now.
My father is a fey man.

Poor Mother had run home and married the first man who asked her so she would not have to raise a half-fey child alone.

Chapter Nineteen

A
LICE!”
M
EG RACED
outside, swung her little girl down from the saddle, and hugged her, crying with joy. My arms felt suddenly empty, my chest where Alice had leaned her head on the long ride went cold. I could only watch mother and daughter from atop my horse, Meg’s arms around her girl, and Alice squealing, “Mama! Mama!” Kissing her cheeks the way a small child does, clasping Meg’s face between her pudgy hands.

Soon Poppy and Aisling ran out from the kitchen, their hands still wet from washing up. Even Tom came out, eyes shining with tears.

Alice called, “Da!” and he took her in his arms. Tom had improved greatly while we were away. Aisling and Poppy’s ministrations had strengthened him, but it was Alice who brought color to his cheeks.

Garth helped me dismount and led the horses to the barn. His head was slightly down and his steps weary. It had been a long ride. I was watching him go when Meg flung her arms around me. “Thank you. Oh, thank you Tess!” She kissed me wetly.

“Thank Garth. He’s the one who—”

“I will,” she squealed, her voice as high-pitched with delight as her daughter’s, but I noted she did not go to the barn to seek him out immediately as I would have done.

Later that afternoon we ate Meg’s hearty stew and bread trickled with honey. God bless the bees for it.

I had been content to play the family when we were together on the road. And I’d thought Garth felt the same, but the man shed the guise of marriage and fatherhood like an old cloak when he joined us at table. Had it all been a game? The long talks we’d had in the saddle or at the fire, the attentiveness he’d shown me when I’d played his wife? I’d only tasted the stew and bread, but my hunger had already vanished.

Taking an apple, I went out to the stable.

Things had changed between us after I’d sung “Fey Maiden.” I’d been quieter on our ride, lost in thought, the hoofbeats echoing
fey, half fey,
in my head. Even Alice noticed my strange moods and had ridden with Garth part of the time. Had he looked at me differently after I’d run off from him and Alice? Did he suspect something?

Seagull’s blond neck was smooth under my stroking hand. “You understand, don’t you, my lady?” She eyed me quizzically, chewing the apple I’d brought. Garth stepped in and re-saddled Goodfellow. “Tess, will you give Cackle a hand and see the animals are fed while I’m away? And if you can, help him walk the dogs?”

“We only just got home this morning.” The word
home
had slipped in without my thinking. “Where are you going?”

“I have duties,” he said, cinching the saddle a little tighter. “They’ve been sorely neglected while we went for Alice.”

“Do you regret it?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to say that, only it slipped out.

“What? No, Tess. I don’t regret it.” He slid the bit into Goodfellow’s mouth. Out near the pigsty, I heard Alice laughing. She’d come out with her father to watch the pigs.

“I’ve not thanked you yet for helping me fetch her,” I said.

“That’s thanks enough.” He pointed at father and daughter across the fenced sty.

I wanted to say more and keep him with me a moment longer, even if I was still smarting over the way he’d ignored me at the table, but Aisling appeared with a lumpy burlap sack.

“This should help,” she said. Garth slipped it into the saddlebag. Food for the journey? How long would the man be gone? Garth bid me hold Horace’s collar as he rode off. The old dog howled and strained, wanting desperately to go with his master. I felt the same, yet had to restrain myself as much as I restrained the forlorn hound.

F
OUR DAYS PASSED
with no sign of Garth. I helped Cackle with his daily chores, feeding the pigs and chickens, and walking the dogs two at a time. Garth’s favored hound came along. Horace was older and quieter than the rest and did not require a leash. The first day out, the freckled pointers were not well-mannered. Tails wagging, they tugged their tethers and pulled me off my feet. I allowed this but once, before shouting and taking a firmer hand.

Returning the dogs, I went out a second time alone, but for faithful Horace. After a goodly walk, I took out Grandfather’s small parcel and undid the string. I’d expected a letter, but unfolded a small painting I’d done when I was a child. A picture of DunGarrow Castle all colorful and bright. My name was at the bottom in a child’s hand, and by it one word Grandfather must have written just for me.
Remember
.

A chill came reading that one word. He must have known about me from the start. I thought of all the stories he’d told me of the fey—his way of providing me with my family history. He’d learned some tales firsthand from the fey folk he met crossing the sea. They’d come from all manner of places in the world in search of safety and freedom in Rosalind’s refuge. I knew he’d cherished his meetings with the fey folk on their voyage to Wilde Island.

Grandfather had offered what he could, arming me with knowledge of my father’s people while honoring Mother’s secret. Along with the little painting, he also sent a lady’s handkerchief. The rose-pink cloth was smooth and sparkled in the sunlight. I’d never seen anything so fine.

His one word whispered through me.
Remember
. Perhaps he’d longed to tell me the truth about myself. But it was Mother’s news to tell. He had to respect that. “She waited much too long,” I said to the child’s painting, the handkerchief.

I tucked his gifts away. On the path I listened for any whispering voices in my deaf ear. All was silence from the fey world since I’d learned who I was. Did they still want me to come north? If so, why not call me now? But part of me wasn’t disappointed. I knew I could not go quite yet. In my heart I was waiting for Garth’s return.

While I’d been away south with Garth, Poppy had washed our old leper robes. In the evening we cut them to make new short cloaks for Meg and Poppy, and a little cloak and smock for Alice. All were green, for we had no dye. We took pleasure sewing together by the fire. Mother and I had done some stitchery for the tailor to make some extra market money, but Meg was the better seamstress.

We settled in the three stuffed chairs by the hearth, warm, dry, and barefoot with the golden flames so near us. Poppy was in the chair Garth liked to sit in to read with her eyes on my ink drawing.

I felt myself blushing.
I should have taken it down.

Poppy said, “It’s a good likeness of him.”

“Do you think so? I didn’t quite capture his—”
Ease, charm, complexity, stubbornness, secretiveness…

“His what?” Meg’s eyebrow lifted.

“His… expression.”

“He would be difficult to draw,” Poppy agreed. “Garth Huntsman keeps very much to himself.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved. “That’s it.”
Can we talk of something else now?

“And did he keep to himself on the road?” Meg inquired.

I threw my garment piece at her. Meg laughed and tossed it back.

Poppy snipped the clean cloth spread over her knees. “It’s almost a shame to cut them up.”

I was surprised. “I thought you hated your leper robe.”

“I did, but this big cowl”—she held it up—“hid my face. I found it a relief.”

“I don’t understand.” She’d been angry with me the whole time we’d hidden out as lepers, though not as vocal about it as Meg.

“No one saw my face while we were on the road. I’m tired of men only liking me for my looks. Even my father cared for me only because of what I might win him.”

“A noblemen for a son-in-law,” Meg said with a nod. Lord Bainbridge had a handsome castle and vast farmlands. People did not marry below their station; still, the wheelwright had noticed how the lord’s eldest son, young Richard Bainbridge, had eyed his beautiful daughter.

“Father hated me when I was a child. It was only later when I grew up and he saw the woman I was becoming did he—”

“He didn’t hate you, Poppy,” Meg said.

“He did! I felt it all my life. He hated me because Mother died the night I was born.”

“That wasn’t your fault.” I wasn’t sure Poppy believed me, if she even heard me at all.

“I prayed nightly for my father to have a change of heart, that he might love me.” She teared up a little, and clipped threads, searching for composure.

I knew the kind of prayer she meant. So many years I’d prayed for my stepfather when I was young, begging the man would grow in faith, drink less, or if he must drink, that the ale would not work to loosen his rage. Lips bruised and swollen, I’d beg. I spoke of those old prayers as we three stitched together. Eyes fixed on my sewing, I confessed my deep disappointment when I’d heard no answer from God.

Meg asked, “Do you doubt God?”

The fire’s light and shadow wavered around us. Even with all that had happened I felt something holy in the world.
Perhaps we are all too small-minded to glimpse creation, even our little corner of it.
“I doubt my understanding of God,” I said at last.

Meg crossed herself and gave me a look of deep concern. Tom’s health was better. Alice was with her again. Was her faith stronger than mine, or was it that her happiness was close at hand? I was glad for her. I still had my questions.

“Does prayer ever work to change a man’s heart?” Poppy asked “My father changed his opinion of me, but not in the way I’d hoped. When I showed signs of becoming a woman, he became suddenly attentive. Still, he did not like me for myself.”

I thought she might cry more, but she sat with a straight spine, squinting with concentration as she snipped. “I liked all the attention at first, the way the boys and men stared at me when I went to mass or shopped at market. I’d been lonely before that time, except when we’d played together—you and Meg and me,” she added. “But soon enough I was tired of all the glaring. Eyes followed me everywhere.”

We’d been good enough friends for me to know she’d grown tired of men’s reactions to her, but she’d not talked so openly of it before. I was surprised by how much it had bothered her. Meg seemed surprised too. She’d stopped sewing to listen.

I wanted to ask if Poppy minded the way Garth had watched her sometimes. He’d seemed less intent on her since we’d come home with Alice, but then, he’d only been home a few hours before he left. I decided not to ask, feeling closer to Poppy now than I’d felt in a long time. “Someday you’ll find the right man to marry,” I said, hoping the right man wouldn’t be Garth.

“How will that change anything?” she asked.

Meg huffed. “It will change everything. Your husband will not want other men ogling at you all the time. He’ll protect you.” She smiled to herself, thinking of Tom, I supposed.

“There,” I said. “Your new cloak.” I stood, holding it up for her. “And see, I’ve kept the cowl as large as you like it.”

Poppy smiled and jumped up to try it on.

In the morning, Alice wore her new green smock when she followed me outside to feed the chickens.

“Me,” she said, holding out her hands. I gave her a little feed. She threw it in a wide arc. Hens cackled and scampered over. “Oh, you’re very good at it,” I said.

“Me,” she said with her hands out again. When the chore was done, Alice shouted, “Catch me!” as she ran for the maples. I chased her to a leaf pile out beyond the kennels.

“I’ve got you!” I tickled her sides, then swung her round and round. Meg stepped outside to watch. Dusting flour from her apron, she crossed her freckled arms and laughed. Tom joined her. He wasn’t strong enough to swing his Alice around just yet, so he took Alice’s small hand in his larger one, and went looking for Tupkin.

When I was three did my fey father spy me laughing?

Did he hear my laughter, long to pick me up, hold me, and smell my hair?

Am I not his daughter?

I
WAS ELBOW-DEEP
in dishwater and peering out the kitchen window when Garth rode in. Before the huntsman could leave the saddle, Horace bolted through the door, barking. Tom followed the old dog out. The door was left open, so I overheard the men conversing in the yard.

Garth dismounted and patted Horace, the dog’s tail whipping his legs. “Cackle’s good with the hens,” he said. “But I could use another man about the place. There’s much to watch over here.”

Walking Goodfellow toward the stable, he asked if Tom and his small family might stay on more permanently. “I know you’re a weaver by trade, but if this sort of occupation suits you—”

Tom interrupted to happily accept the offer. I scrubbed and dried the pot, keeping busy so I would not rush outside. When Goodfellow was back in his stall, the two men hastened to the kennels. The excited hounds howled and jumped up and down when Garth freed them. In a mass of wagging tails they followed Garth and Tom over to the pigsty. The animals all seemed joyful at their master’s return, and though I was still at my work, I too felt a gentle warmth glowing outward from my heart as if Garth lit a candle there.

I’d set a warmed platter on the sideboard, as I had every meal since Garth left in case he returned hungry. It was all I could do to keep myself from running outside with his grub. The pot was clean, but I scrubbed harder so as not to make a fool of myself.