Grayling's Song (3 page)

She looked one last time down the hill to her valley. There was mist on the treetops, but still she could see their herb garden and, through the trees, a peek at the ruins of their cottage. She blinked to banish her tears, squared her shoulders, and turned away.

The girl with the basket and the goat took the path down. Sunshine caressed the soft hills, their green now marked with autumn's browns and golds. It would be a good day, Grayling thought, for weaving straw into hats or finding honeycombs or watching her mother brew a rose-petal tonic to calm the belly. It was not at all a good day for being brave, going into a town and singing, and battling powerful, mysterious beings.

The path was dusty and deserted, and her footsteps padded on the soft earth. The goat, snacking on thistles and thorns, followed.

As the day wore on, the sun grew warm, and Grayling, grown drowsy, tripped over a tree root and stubbed her toe.
I knew 'twas an unsound, unwise, daft, and doltish decision sending me,
she thought.
I cannot even walk to town without bumbling.
But what if her mother knew that Grayling had some hidden power, unknown to Grayling herself, and that was why Hannah Strong had sent her? What if she could shake her hair, and flowers would appear in her path, or wave her hand, and sausages be brought her, or snap her fingers, and her mother be released? Would that not be splendid? She shook her hair like a pennant, waved her hand, and snapped her fingers, but nothing happened, and Grayling walked on, limping a bit and grumbling.

Around a corner they happened upon a party of children, young enough to be cocky and hotheaded and old enough to make trouble. Grayling froze, and she held tightly to the angelica root in her pocket.

“Hie, girl. Give us your coins!” a boy shouted. He grabbed one arm just as another boy grabbed the other, and they pushed and pulled her back and forth between them. She tripped and stumbled and fell to the ground, and the boys danced around her.

The biggest boy seized her basket. “Have you coins in there? Or food? Give it here.” He pulled her wool cap onto his head with a grin and searched the basket for something valuable. Finding only herbs and broken pots, he cursed and swung the basket away.

“Look, a goat!” a girl shouted as that animal, still munching, drew near. “Supper! Hist, Barnaby! Make the stew pot ready!” She grabbed the goat by the neck. Irritated by her roughness, the creature changed into a cat, spitting and scratching, before becoming a goat once again.

There was a sudden silence before the biggest boy whispered, “How did you that?”

Grayling shook her head. “'Twas not me,” she said. “'Tis just that the mouse ate a potion . . .” The boys were not listening. They pulled Grayling to her feet and closed in on her and the goat.

“Barnaby! Caratacus! Philby!” the biggest boy called. “Magician! We have caught us a magician!”

“And a goat,” the girl added.

A big man with a big grin and very big hands emerged from a grove of trees. “Well done, striplings,” he said in a thick and throaty voice. “It shall be goat for dinner. And a magician, you say? This silvery sprite of a girl? If 'tis true, we shall make good use of her.” He grabbed the goat by a horn and Grayling by an arm and, though they wriggled and wraxled, pulled them into the woods.

A number of folk were camped in the shadows, and Grayling shivered to see them. Their weasel-brown tunics and cropped hair marked them as the edge dwellers Thomas Middleton had spoken of—vagabonds and petty thieves who loitered at the outskirts of towns and like gnats bedeviled travelers to and from. She held tighter to her angelica root and wished fervently that she had a hare's foot or anything else with stronger magic.

The big man shoved Grayling and the goat toward a frazzle-haired woman sitting before a tattered tent of felted wool. “Tie them up hereabout,” he said.

She grinned a toothless grin and pulled a knife from her belt. “Goat stew! I can make it at once. Fetch a pot and three onions!”

The boy in Grayling's cap spoke up. “We did see it change into a cat for a moment and back again to goat. Do you think it safe to eat, or be it devil ridden?”

The big man shrugged. “Kimper will know,” he said. “We will wait and ask Kimper when he returns.” And that was that. Grayling and the goat were tied to a tree and left while the edge dwellers sat and shared bread and beer.

Who might this Kimper be? Were he as big and rough as the others, Grayling's quest was over already. She pulled at her ropes but to no avail.

The goat nudged Grayling's arm. “Does this mouse get nothing to eat?” he asked. “I am hungry as a . . . a . . . a goat.”

“You ate your way here,” she said, “while my belly aches with emptiness.”
In truth, it is more likely fear and vexation.
Captured and imprisoned on my first day!
Tears began to carve a path through the dust on her face.

The edge folk ate and drank their fill and then, shouting and laughing, in such a mood as in other folk might call for songs and dancing, they retired to a clearing for wrestling, stabbing with sharp sticks, and caving in skulls with cudgels.

Again Grayling struggled against the ropes that bound her to the tree. “See what you have done with your shape shifting, you stupid creature,” she muttered to the goat. “Would that I had never seen you, that the potions you ate had sickened you, that you would go away and trouble me no more.”

“Alas, Gray Eyes, this mouse is bound to you.”

“Then I fear more trouble is to come.” And there was silence.

The shadows grew longer and the day dimmed as Grayling fell into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of goats changing into trees and Hannah Strong becoming a mouse and Grayling herself, helpless and screaming in a stew pot. She was awakened by the squeaking and rustling of some small creature. “Mouseling, is that you or a real mouse?” she whispered as she wiggled and stretched her aching limbs.

“This mouse
be
a real mouse.” Grayling felt a gnawing at the bonds on her ankles. “The shape shifting took it again, and the rope that held a goat proved too loose for a mouse. Now this mouse is free, and you will be too.”

“Do hurry, mousie,” Grayling whispered, “afore they come back. They would have eaten the goat, and I believe they would consider eating me also.” She wiggled, hoping to break through the nibbled ropes. “Why could you not change into a knife or a hand ax?”

The mouse continued chewing, and Grayling continued wiggling. The edge dwellers were still in the clearing, punching and pummeling each other, when, over the ruckus, she heard someone say, “Kimper comes soon. He will be pleased to see what we have caught for supper.”

Kimper?
Now! She had to get free now! Grayling gave a final, frantic pull, and the rope snapped where the mouse had chewed. She struggled to her feet, which were stiff and somewhat numbed from being bound. Gathering up her skirt, she fled into the growing darkness, with the mouse scampering after her.

The rising moon, as full as a flower, played hide-and-seek with Grayling as it darted behind the clouds and out again. Crashing into trunks and ducking under branches, she made her way through the trees to the road, where the mouse, breathing heavily, caught up with her. “This mouse will come with you, Gray Eyes,” it said between pants. “This mouse might yet be of more service to you.”

“Doubtful,” she whispered, “but still . . .” She searched the road for her discarded basket. “Here 'tis.” She dropped the mouse into the basket and ran as fast as her shaking legs would let her.
They will not catch me and make a mouse-and-Grayling stew,
she vowed
. They will not!

When the edge-dwellers' camp was far behind them, Grayling found a spot off the road for a rest. The mouse climbed out of the basket, bits of watercress stuck to its chin. “I see you have had your supper,” Grayling said. “I would scold you for eating while I ran, but you did save us back there, mousie, so I will not.” She stopped and thought a minute. “I cannot always call you
mousie,
for you are at times a goat and even a frog, and I know not what is yet to come. Because you rescued me through your shape shifting, I shall call you . . .” She closed her eyes in thought. “Pook. I shall call you Pook.”

The mouse cleaned the remaining bits of herbs from its whiskers. “Pook? Was he too a mouse?”

“Nay. Pookas are fairies, stubborn and annoying but most able shape shifters.”

Pook sighed. “How this mouse loves to hear you speak, Gray Eyes.”

Grayling snorted. How many folks could say they were admired by a mouse?

Darkness fell. It frightened Grayling a bit but also made her feel safer, hidden from anyone following. “I want to go home,” she whispered, but truly she now had no home. The cottage was gone, and her mother was becoming a tree. She snuggled into the roots of an ancient oak as if they were a mother's arms, and at last she slept. And the mouse watched over her.

orning found Grayling,
with a mouse asleep in her basket, on the outskirts of a town. Early as it was, folks had gathered to buy and sell, haggle and quarrel, barter and bargain and steal. There were masters looking for servants and servants for masters, young women in search of husbands and young men with anything but marriage on their minds, fortunetellers and fortune seekers, horses and horsemen, shepherds and sheep. Stalls brimmed with apples and parsnips and fresh brown bread, silken laces and amber bracelets, woolen hats and wooden spoons. Never had Grayling been alone among so many things and so many people, so many colors and sounds and scents.

An old woman in russet with a basket of onions strapped to her back pulled on Grayling's skirt. “Ain't you the wise woman's daughter?” the old woman asked. “I seen you with her once. She did help my granny with a cramping in the bowel. Where be she?”

“Not here,” said Grayling.

“Likely to be?”

Grayling remembered the rough, brown bark of her mother's legs and shook her head. “Nay, not likely. Not likely at all.” She turned to leave, but the woman tightened her hold.

“Be you wise, then? Belike you can help me. I have a wart here on my heel. Hurts summat fierce when I walk.”

A young woman standing nearby heard and approached them. “You be a wise woman?” She looked down at the ground as she spoke. “I have me overmuch sorrow. Woe, oh, woe. Can you cheer me?”

“And me,” said a gnarled old soldier with watery eyes and a crooked nose who stopped beside them. “I worry, worry, worry. Have you a charm or spell to stop the worries?”

“No, no, and no,” said Grayling, backing away. “I have no magic, charms, or spells. I am but the wise woman's daughter.”

“What
do
you have?” asked one listener.

“And what
can
you do?” asked another.

Grayling chewed on her lip in thought. She performed easy tasks—she could gather herbs and make a stew when there was meat, light the candles, and strain the beer. But what could she do to
help
folk? “My mother has a healing song—”

“She ain't here, you said,” said the woman with the wart.

“Aye. Still, I've heard her sing it many a time. Mayhap I can recall it,” Grayling said. She took a deep breath and, shy and uncertain, began to sing, her voice soft and quavering:

Earth and Mars,

Moon and stars,

Orbs that fill the sky—

 

Spider webs and

Beetle heads,

Beasts that creep and fly—

 

Heavenly orbs go by,

Spirits of creatures come nigh.

Bring healing from woe, from pain, from ills,

Let trouble like wind blow by.

“Is that all? What use is a song?” her listeners called, but one of them said, “Sing it again.”

So she did, louder and with fewer quavers.

The old man patted Grayling's shoulder. “Hearing your sweet voice, I forgot my worries for a while.”

“And I believe my sadness is less,” said the young woman with a very small smile.

The two left. Grayling's heart gave a happy jump. Could it be she had the skill, the power, the magic, to heal with a song?

The woman with the wart unstrapped the basket of onions from her back, sat, and removed her shoe. She rolled down a stocking more dirt than wool and pulled it away from her heel. The wart remained, large and red. She shook her head. “Belike the others were not healed but merely cheered by the singing,” she said.

“Belike,” said Grayling, and her shoulders slumped. “I have no magic, no healing spells, and no wart charms. I cannot help you.”

The woman frowned and raised a grimy fist.

Magic or no magic, Grayling would have to do something to avert evil signs or painful thumps. She reached into her basket, pulled out a broken jar with scraps of ointment that had escaped the mouse, and sniffed it.
Sharp,
she thought,
whatever it is. Strong. Mayhap potent.
“Here, take this,” she said to the woman with the wart. “Apply a drop every morning at dawn for seven days, and your wart will disappear.”
By which time, I trust I will be far, far away.