Tale of Gwyn (23 page)

They stood together for an uncomfortable moment. Over the winter, Raff's beard had changed from a boy's to a man's.

“I would speak with you, Innkeeper's daughter,” he said. “Your father said I should find you.” Then he apparently changed his mind about what he wanted to say. “That's a pretty wool,” he said.

“For Rose.”

“Fine wool,” he said. He took a breath and looked at the ground at his feet. “It's time I was wed, Innkeeper's daughter.”

Gwyn's heart rose into her throat, then fell to her pinched feet. She liked Raff. He was a blunt, hardworking man, with a good holding to offer any girl. “Think you?” she asked him.

“I think,” he said. He still did not meet her eyes.

“Then,” Gwyn spoke hurriedly, “I'm glad you told me, because I have a bride for you.”

At that his eyes did meet hers. “You've been in my mind this winter, Raff,” she teased him. “A man like you, with a good holding, needs a wife who can work hard.” She didn't wait for him to agree with her. “I have a bride for you who will do that, and with a light spirit, and be pretty into the bargain. What do you say to that?”

He didn't say anything.

“But Gwyn—”

“Her name is Liss,” Gwyn cut him off. It shamed a man to be said no to, and she had no desire to shame Raff. “You'll have to prove to her brothers that you'll take good care of her.”

“Liss is a child,” Raff said.

“Think you? Then you'd better go seek her out, because it's not a child I've seen today. And I'd better find Da.” She left Raff standing, in her haste to find her father. It was time the announcement was made. She did not know why he had delayed so long.

Gwyn met her family at a table of ribbons. Wes was selecting a ribbon for Rose, to tie around her hair on this day and to pretty her neck on later occasions. Rose hung from Wes's arm and their eyes were locked together as if there were nobody else in the world.

At the sight of the two of them, so happy, a wave of sadness washed over Gwyn, and she tasted bitterness briefly in her mouth. Mother stood among women, with Tad at her skirts. Da was talking to a young man with a thick beard, whom Gwyn recognized as a cobbler from Lord Hildebrand's city. By Da's expression, she knew what they were speaking of and wished she could interrupt. The young man broke off the conversation and started to approach Gwyn. She interrupted Rose's and Wes's soft talk, to thrust the wool into Rose's arms. “It's a wedding gift,” she said.

Rose held the wool in her fingers. “I've never seen anything so soft. Wes?”

Wes held two ribbons in his hand and a penny lay on the table before him. “Very nice,” he said. He dropped the ribbons back onto the table and covered the penny with his broad hand. Gwyn could have bitten out her tongue. She had hurt him, by giving a gift worth more than what he could buy for Rose. She had given the wool at the wrong time, in the wrong way.

“It's not for Rose, though,” she said.

“But I thought—” Rose protested.

“It is for your first child,” Gwyn said, “and for all those that follow.”

Wes's mind took that information in slowly, and then a smile spread over his face and he reached out to touch the soft wool. “Is it now?” he asked.

“Aye, as I've said.”

“You're in a mighty hurry for a baby, sister,” he said. Gwyn didn't answer. “Did you get some of this fine wool for yourself as well?” he teased her.

“No,” Gwyn said. “And what would I want with it?”

For answer, he indicated Da, in conversation with a man Gwyn had never seen before. Gwyn sighed. Wes would not understand. Even Rose could not. Da and Mother, they did not. And Gwyn herself, she recognized, was not sure of her own thoughts.

It would be good to have her marriage day in the fall, to let her hair loose down her back and stand as Rose was, with her arm held close under a man's. She let her gaze rove over the people standing about and saw whose eyes lowered before her own. Then she saw the black figure above the battlements, twisting slowly, and the birds gathering around his head to take his eyes.

This had been a living man, just last night. She wondered if he had left behind a widow and children, and how they would live. If a man was hanged for his quick temper—if that was to be the law now—there would be many of the people hanged along with him.

Nobody else saw him, nobody else looked to him. Only Gwyn. And who would want such a girl for his wife, if he knew what she saw.

If, Gwyn thought, there were one of these young men who also saw the hanged man, then that one she might take. But if they saw, they did not speak of it, as if by not speaking they could make it disappear; and such men Gwyn would not marry.

She went to her father, pulling him away from the men around him. “Your mother is angry at you,” he said. “You left Tad.”

“I'll make peace with her,” Gwyn promised. “But you must make the announcement.”

“Daughter,” he asked her, “how can you be so sure?”

Gwyn made herself smile into his worried face. “Aye, I am, Father.”

“Your mother says—”

“You gave me your word. Would you have all these young men go unwed because your wife is unwilling to have an unmarried daughter?”

“Your tongue is too sharp.”

“And would you wish that on some poor youth?”

He sighed. “As you will.”

“Thank you, Da.”

“I hope so,” he answered.

IF YOU KNEW WHAT TO
look for, you could see the whisper spreading through the people and the speculations among the women. The Lords and Ladies knew nothing of it, of course; they sailed through the crowd of people like clouds through the air. Relief at knowing the announcement was made lifted Gwyn's spirits. She took Tad by the hand and dragged him off to buy him a fairing. “A ribbon for your wife?” she offered.

“You're teasing,” he protested.

“It's never too soon to begin saving up gifts, a fine lad like you and will be the Innkeeper's heir. You'll have your choice, and you'll want a pretty to give her.”

Tad's face grew red with embarrassment. She pulled him toward a booth where ribbons were displayed. “Gwyn!”

“Then perhaps a scarf, to tie around your neck when you go dancing and courting?” She pulled him in another direction.

“A scarf? What would I do with a scarf? You've gone mad, Gwyn.”

“You could cover your ugly face,” she teased, pulling at his hair.

“Then you'll be getting one for yourself, as well.”

They laughed together and went to look at a booth where daggers lay out in rows, their wooden handles polished until they shone. “Gwyn,” Tad said as they looked them over, “I'm sorry. I am. I shouldn't have said—”

“Perhaps not,” Gwyn agreed. “But there's truth in it, isn't there?”

“But it was unkind. And besides, I like you, the way you are,” he told her. “I do, you know.” He sounded surprised and that amused her.

“And so do I. Now, make your choice before I fall asleep standing here waiting.”

Tad stuck his new dagger into his belt. “You'll have to take orders from me,” he warned her. “When . . . you know.”

“Then they'd better be sensible orders,” Gwyn warned him.

They spent the afternoon together, joining occasionally with other people. They sat with Liss and her brothers to watch the play performed. The people sat on a grassy hillside, behind the benches on which the Lords and Ladies sat. The play told the story of the farmer's wife who scolded the devil and then chased him out of her kitchen with a rolling pin. The actors wore paint on their faces and shoes with built-up heels, so that they seemed not real. They spoke like the people, but they moved clumsily across the wooden stage and their words were often stupid. Gwyn did not enjoy the performance as much as she had in previous years, and despite her fine shoes she felt ill at ease. Liss chattered away, while her brothers made ominous remarks about anyone who might ask to dance with her. Gwyn answered Liss's remarks with only half of her mind. They required no better attention. With the rest of her thoughts she considered Tad, and the man he might become, and she wondered if the players felt as safely hidden within their costumes as she had when she walked into the Fiddler's house, and she wished Blithe had come to see Rose wed, giving up her stubborn grief; she decided she would get some sweets for herself and Tad, and she thought she might speak a word of comfort to Burl, on Rose's wedding day.

The play ended without her noticing it, and the actors bowed briefly, passing their baskets among the audience. They would be hurrying into the city for the night's performance before the Lords. Gwyn wondered what play they would do there. Most likely something with princesses and dragons, like the tales Gaderian told.

The people moved about the fairgrounds again, making their last purchases when prices could be bargained lowest. Gwyn sent Tad on ahead to find the sweet vendor, giving him four pennies to spend. She had seen a booth where the Steward had stood earlier and Bailiffs gathered. It was run by a wizened man with a withered arm. But when she went looking for the books spread out over the table, it was empty. The man stood alone.

He was suspicious of Gwyn, at first, but she told him about how she liked to draw pictures. “If you take the charred wood from a fire—but you must wait until it has cooled down,” she added.

An expression of disgust at her stupidity washed over his face.

“It will make lines. But it's only wood I have to draw on. And my Da gave me coins. He said I could have whatever I wanted with them. He said I was too old for such foolishness as drawing pictures, because I should be wed. But he said I could have what I wanted—” She looked as sad as she knew how. “But I don't have very many coins, I don't know—is a book, just a little book, so very dear?” She fumbled in her purse and drew out a piece of silver. He had been ignoring her until his eye was caught by the coin. “That's all I have and I don't think it's very much. But have you anything? I don't care how small it is. Have you anything this coin will buy?”

His eyes shifted to the booths nearby, but nobody saw him.

“Aye,” he said. He reached into a sack behind him and pulled out a small book, its leaves of paper held between two clumsy slabs of wood, which were joined by rough leather hinges. The thing was worth nothing near the value of the coin. Gwyn knew that.

“Is this enough?” She pushed the silver coin across the table at him. “I'm sorry I don't have any more, but—”

“It's not enough, but you've a pretty face,” he told her, taking the coin quickly.

“Oh, sir,” Gwyn said, her voice like honey off a spoon. “Oh, sir.”

She took up the book and hid it in the folds of her skirt until she could turn her back on the crowds and fit it inside of her shirt, where the waist of her skirt would hold it safe. The sharp corners of wood cut into her stomach, but that didn't bother her. This, she thought to herself, was a present to herself. And was there any reason why she shouldn't buy herself a present? A non-wedding present, that's what it would be.

In the late afternoon, the fiddlers gathered in the field, pitchers of ale on a low table behind them, tuning their strings into harmony. It was the young who would dance the sun down, while the rest watched and listened and remembered and talked. Gwyn wondered if she should stand out, but thought that this last time she would dance with the rest.

She found a place beside Liss in the circle of girls. “Isn't this fun?” Liss asked. “Isn't it fun to be away from my brothers?”

“They're still watching you,” Gwyn warned her.

“I know, but they can't hear what I'm saying. I do love dancing, Gwyn, don't you? I always feel so—pretty,” she said.

“I feel as if my feet hurt.” Gwyn laughed.

“Is that Raff talking with my brothers, think you?”

Gwyn thought so.

“He looks a man grown.”

“Aye, and he is. Just as dull and serious as Da.”

“He's serious, but not dull,” Liss answered quickly. “I think it's better if a man is serious, don't you?”

The music started so Gwyn didn't have to answer. She had already heard what she was listening for.

They danced the circle dance, a circle of girls inside a circle of men. Their feet moved lightly under the music. The two circles turned, one inside the other, and then stopped so that couples might dance a round. At the end of the round, each partner moved back to his original place. Gwyn danced one round with Cam, whose eyes mocked her. “Is it true, then, what I hear?”

She could think of no response.

“And what of my broken heart?” he asked, as they held hands to spin one another around. “You might have given me a chance.”

“A chance to what?” Gwyn laughed. “Break
my
heart?”

“You have no heart to break, Innkeeper's daughter.” His face looked serious and his eyes held hers. “Or didn't you know I was thinking to ask you?”

Aye, he said that now, now when she must say no, Gwyn thought, because he was a false man. Their round ended, and she danced back to the circle of girls, smiling to Cam as she left him.

When the face of the sun touched the horizon, Gwyn left the dancers and moved back to join the watchers. She had found little joy in the dance. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and felt the soft grass against her soles. When a short, round man with a wheaten beard that grew wild over his face stepped up to her, she almost put her feet back into the shoes, for decency's sake. Then she decided not to: In this one thing, at least, she would entirely please herself.

“It's been a good fair,” the man said. His name was Am, and he had a holding to the north of Blithe's home, north of Hildebrand's City, where he kept pigs. He was a round man, with a round head, round eyes, and a round belly underneath his shirt. “Have you enjoyed the day, Innkeeper's daughter?”