But why?
the annoying little voice in her mind demanded.
The moment you say “I will,” the holdings won’t be yours any longer. You’ll be a chattel, thrown in with the estate as a makeweight. Bardol likes you as little as you like him. He could even beat you, and no one would cry against him for it.
That truth was so painful that Tildi sank onto Teldo’s writing stool to think about it. She had nothing of her own left here at all, nothing but a few clothes and books and a few mementos of her parents.
So why shouldn’t she go? She was as passionate about magic as Teldo. Perhaps not as advanced in her studies, but that could come in time. Probably the wizard had no real idea as to Teldo’s abilities. If … if he thought she was Teldo, he would take her on and let her learn. All she had to do was get to Overhill and present the letter. It was a radical idea to travel such a long distance, since she had never set foot outside the Quarters in her life, but she was good at finding her way. Once she had passed over the hills into the human realms, someone ought to be able to direct her to Overhill. Teldo had talked about the road over the Eastern Hills that divided the land of the smallfolks from the human realm beyond. She could remember almost everything that he and the other men said about the journey. How hard could it be, beyond a few days’ walking?
For the first time since the tragedy she started to feel hope. She began to look around her with renewed interest. She must pack what she meant to take with her. What should she do first?
Oh, but how could she leave the Quarters? Human ways were not smallfolk ways. What if she couldn’t find decent food, or if the living space offered her by the wizard—even if he did accept her as her brother—left no room for privacy? What if their practices were indecent or dishonorable? What hints she had had of the culture from reading Teldo’s correspondence told of lives very different from the ones smallfolks led in the Quarters. She would have no recourse but to return to Clearbeck—and Bardol.
The little voice inside her head grew excited at the prospect. What if the culture is different? What if you cannot abide by the wizard’s rules? Find another place! You’ll learn more as you go along. There’s more to know outside the boundaries—a world is out there! She could see it for herself. Teldo would want her to.
The thought of her brothers brought back the morning all over again. Tildi began to cry, harder than before. She was mourning not only their death, but the death of the pleasant life they had had here. Not one thing was left the way it had been at the moment she had awakened that day.
And now she would change, too. Instead of being someone’s sister, she would be herself, by herself.
The wizard Olen expected a male apprentice. He would never accept a mere female, so he must believe that she was Teldo. She must make herself look like her brother as best she could. The family had always remarked upon how much the two of them looked alike, leaving aside the obvious differences of gender and height—but the big folk rarely took them seriously. Gosto was always annoyed with his trading partners’ assertion that little folk were small enough to put in their pockets, so Olen would not be likely to notice small details that would give her away to other smallfolk. The inch or so between her height and Teldo’s wouldn’t be noticed. As for the rest, that was easily disguised. Surely the wizard didn’t expect to see her without her clothes! She wore cosmetics only for feast days. The only thing that would give her away was her long hair.
The more she thought about it, the more that seemed like the only solution. This wizard, perhaps, represented a new beginning for her. She must grasp the opportunity and make the necessary change.
In the dead of night she blocked all the windows in the big, empty house with the storm shutters. Anyone stopping by would assume that she wanted her privacy on her first night alone. They would be sad, but they would understand. She gathered up the fine shears from the sewing box, two looking glasses, a multibranched candlestick, and all the determination she had in her soul. Glancing up and back along the main hallway that intersected with the short passage that led from the front door, she wondered where she could have the most privacy.
The stillroom was the obvious choice. It had solid stone walls with no windows through which a determined well-wisher could peer in. Tildi carried her burdens down the winding flight of flagstone steps that led from the cupboard behind the central chimney, and locked herself in.
Undoing the ties of her white cap, she set it aside with reverence. It
symbolized the tradition of hundreds of years of her people, tradition upon which she was turning her back, but only because it had turned its back on her first. The face that looked out at her from the looking glass seemed trepidatious. Was she betraying all she knew? Shouldn’t she do as hundreds of her foremothers had, and give in to the commands of the male elders?
No.
She knew from the bottom of her heart that what they required was wrong.
The long plait of hair fell down her back. Tildi felt for the spot where it met the nape of her neck, and brought the scissors around to it, with her eyes squeezed shut so she wouldn’t have to see the first devastating cut. Her hair had not been clipped since Jole Bywell had slopped leather glue in it when she was six. Cutting through was like sawing off her arm.
The severed braid fell over her wrist like a garter snake dropping out of a tree. When she opened her eyes, the sight astonished her. She looked so much like Teldo, albeit Teldo in need of a good haircut, that tears began to run down her cheeks again. Tildi brushed them away with her wrist. He was gone forever. The only memory of him was here in her face. She’d do honor to that memory as best she could.
With the two glasses arranged so she could see behind, she trimmed what remained of her hair in the same style she used to trim Teldo’s. She managed to achieve detachment from the task at hand, peering critically at her work instead of thinking that it was happening to her. She parted her hair on the side and combed the length over the side of her head. A snip here and there to cut carefully around her delicate ears, making sure it was even on both sides, and she was finished.
There,
she thought, turning her head to catch every angle in the two glasses, it looked just like her brothers’ hair did. After all, she cut theirs every month. When she was finished, she noticed the ends of her hair, freed of the weight they’d carried all these years, beginning to curl up on their own. The curls changed her face subtly, making it not entirely hers. Her reflection was that of a stranger, some cousin of the Summerbees. She was certain now that no one in the Quarter would know her at a distance. If she was observed by a neighbor they would assume that “he” had heard the news and had come to help his orphaned cousin. Alas, the Summerbees had no kin that lived close by. Even the ancient great-uncle of her mother’s had been gathered up by his many descendants and taken back into the distant downs in the warm Quarter to the southwest.
She wondered if she ought to draw in light hairs on her face, and decided against it. A boy her size would just be beginning to see changes in himself, and she could always argue, if pressed, that “he” wasn’t old enough to grow a mustache yet, with a proper expression of chagrin. No, she must not speak to anyone. In spite of the startling change, the people hereabouts would know her voice. She had to get away before the first light, or trade her loneliness for a prison she couldn’t break. They could keep the land, and all that went with it, if they insisted, but she would not be part of the package, please and thank you.
Until she departed, she kept her white cap tied on so that no unexpected visitor would see her barbered hair and ask awkward questions. She set about gathering up travel provisions, plus a few comforts. One of the boys’ rucksacks ought to hold what she needed. She hauled it down into the stillroom, keeping an ear out for visitors.
Her boots were unsuitable for mountain travel, that she knew, but Teldo’s were barely two sizes bigger than hers. If she wore two pairs of stout socks they would fit just snugly. And clothes? For a moment she was shamed at having to travel as a boy. Still, she couldn’t put herself into danger if others saw an unescorted girl. She retained her own undergarments, chemises, and drawers, but took what clothes of Teldo’s that were closest to her size.
She started to put the cap into the pack, took it out, put it back, took it out, and at last stuffed it down into the corner of the pack with her braid folded up inside it. Anyone who found that would figure out in an instant how she had disguised herself, and there would be a hunt after her in hours.
Soap, a comb—ought she bring a razor for show? No, she told herself. Don’t waste the space on it when there were so many useful but heavy things that must be left behind. A stout knife, though, would come in handy. Pierin’s had been brought in by the farmhands that afternoon from the field where he had dropped it. Trying not to remember how the shiny, green-black residue got there, she scrubbed off the thraik blood, honed the blade sharp, and found a makeshift scabbard for it. She threaded it into the belt around her waist holding Teldo’s pants up. It weighed a surprising amount, but she’d be a fool to go without it. She took a few utensils that the boys swore were vital for sleeping in the wild, such as a jack for holding a kettle over a fire, and a long metal spoon that would not burn and could be used for stirring or eating. A pot for cooking and making tea. She rummaged through the pantry for food
that would last several days, for who knew how long it would be before she reached a farm or an inn? A bottle of well water. Salt and a few herbs, to make camp food more interesting. Some physics, a roll of bandages and fleabane from the medicine cupboard. Fishhooks and a line. A jaunty cap and a warm cloak over all completed her wayfaring clothes.
All of Teldo’s magical impedimenta must come with her. She might need it, and Bardol would certainly throw it out the moment someone let on to him what it had been used for. Teldo hadn’t much: a wand he had been carving out of alderwood; an ornate brass pot that he mysteriously referred to as a “cauldron”; a couple of rings and amulets. He’d paid such high sums for the latter that he had begged Tildi, his only confidant in matters magical, never to reveal to Gosto what they had cost. Teldo had never learned what they were for, but perhaps the wizard could translate the runes that decorated them. Most of the space in her pack she stuffed with his papers, most especially the leaf of the book they had never been able to read, his texts on magic, and his correspondence. Tildi folded up the letter from the wizard, Olen, offering Teldo the apprenticeship and tucked it into her bodice. If she reached Overhill with nothing else in her possession, she must have that.
A bit of space remained. In her most practical heart she knew she ought to pack in a few more pairs of socks or a warm scarf. She found herself drifting around her brothers’ rooms. Why not take a memento of each one? No one else might like to hear the stories of how they had made this or found that—nothing was more boring than someone else’s family history—but it would be like bringing them with her. She already had Pierin’s knife and Teldo’s wand. Marco had a small pipe he had made from a river reed. With it he could play tunes as light as birdsong. Those went into the safest corner of the pack. It was more difficult with Gosto. In the end she took one of his handkerchiefs. They were large, practical, and entirely masculine, but softened by many washings into a texture like kidskin. How often she had tucked one into his overall pocket as he went out into the fields. They would come back filthy with soil and sweat, or torn from being used to help haul up a fence post, or covered with blood where they had been used to tie up a cut hand or wipe the face of a newborn lamb. These handkerchiefs were like a diary of Gosto’s day.
Ruthlessly, she turned out the strongbox that Gosto had kept under a loose floorboard beneath his bed. The family’s small treasures were also kept there. Tildi removed the thin gold band that had been her mother’s
wedding ring and her grandmother’s before her only worn on feasts, and all the hard coinage, leaving just enough money to pay Mirrin’s and his girls’ wages. It was still her money for three more days. By the time any pursuer could have guessed where she’d gone and caught up with her, she ought to have taken up her apprenticeship to the wizard Olen. Chances were that they’d no longer wish to bother with her, and the mayor and the elders could do what they liked with the farm. They would anyhow. Tildi simply wouldn’t have to be a party to it. Pity she wouldn’t be able to watch the alarm raised when she was noticed to be missing. By the time the girls and the farmhands returned to the house, she would be gone. No tea made. No breakfast laid out. No water pumped up for baths. No washing hanging out. No mending in the basket. No sticks broken for the fire. No bread rising in the bowl near the fireplace … . Once Tildi began to enumerate all the household tasks she did out of love for her brothers and had no intention whatsoever of doing for her unwanted intended, a long journey alone overland to an apprenticeship sounded like a week off with time to read in bed!
She left the strongbox unlocked on the big table. After raising the hue and cry about her disappearance, Mirrin would figure out what it meant. Let Bardol and the council work out how to pay the farmhands thereafter. He could mortgage the crops. Time and Nature knew they were more than worth the cost.
By the time Tildi had completed all her preparations she was hungry again. Blessing the kindness of smallfolks, she tucked into the funeral meats with good appetite. The leftovers, of which there was a good plenty, would make a fine lunch for her puzzled farmhands.