Authors: Tony Shillitoe
‘If I’d known from the outset to where the journey
was taking me, I wonder if I would have
undertaken it. Journeys are, after all, for change.
The place from which we leave is never the
place to where we return—and sometimes we
never return at all. And the people we are
when we begin our journeys are never the
people we are at our journeys’ ends.’
FROM
Reflective Visions
,
BY KING DYLAN OF ANDRAKIS IN THE REIGN OF THE NEW KINGDOM
L
uck fell her way twofold. Not only did she pass through Quick Crossing unnoticed, parting sorrowfully with Wombat who insisted he was looking forward to sorting out the problem with his old friend, Lockup Keeper the bailiff, but she also spotted Saltsack Carter’s wagon.
‘Well, I’ll be…!’ Saltsack declared, when he recognised the young woman beneath the messy cropped red hair, the dirty face and oversized men’s clothing. ‘Meg Farmer. You have no idea how worried your mother is! Where have you been?’
For that question she hadn’t prepared an answer, although she knew she would be asked it when she returned home. ‘I—I thought I could track down—who’d stolen Nightwind,’ she improvised.
‘The army horse?’
‘Yes,’ Meg confirmed. ‘I wanted to get him back.’
‘But you’ve been gone a fortnight.’
‘I followed the thief down to—down south.’
‘So where’s the horse?’
‘I don’t know. I lost the tracks. That’s why I’m coming home.’
‘You’re crazy, Meg,’ said Saltsack, waggling his long dark locks. ‘You chased a horse thief on your own? What were you going to do when you caught up with him? Eh? Ask him to give the horse back? You’re lucky you didn’t. You’d be lying in a ditch somewhere with your throat slit. Horse thieves don’t mess around, girl. They hang horse thieves in most towns. Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again.’ He fixed her with a chastising gaze, before he smiled and invited her to climb aboard. Then he slapped the reins and the wagon creaked into motion.
She was glad for the wagon ride and the company. Saltsack talked on and off, telling her that he’d heard the war was almost over because the Rebels had been defeated, and the Queen’s army was returning to Port of Joy. He recounted various stories of the army’s exploits that he’d heard in Fairday’s Tavern in Quick Crossing: how the army’s Warmaster had stood alone to face the enemy onslaught and unhorsed their magical hero before he died; how an unknown soldier had single-handedly brought down the evil Marchlord Overbrook, the scourge of the Queen’s forces. Meg listened silently, remembering fragments from the terrifying morning on the meadow outside The Whispering Forest and noting how the telling of the tale was already exaggerating events. ‘They say the rebels lost twenty thousand men to only three hundred of the Queen’s men,’ said Saltsack. ‘Twenty thousand to three hundred!’
She knew many more than three hundred Queen’s soldiers had perished, but it seemed the battle was quickly becoming folklore, and she inwardly smiled at the possibility that it would become a ballad sung in taverns and around fires at night. ‘But what about Summerbrook?’ she asked. ‘Has anything happened?’
Saltsack slowly told her the gossip that he knew, but little had changed in the village in her brief absence.
They stopped overnight at the Black Kangaroo Tavern in Woodman’s Springs, where a stranger named Flora Cattle, a curt woman with thin lips and uninviting narrow eyes, was the new owner. Meg recalled the violent night she’d endured at the tavern and shuddered, but she kept that knowledge to herself, and slept soundly and dream-free in a fresh and comfortable bed at Saltsack’s generous expense.
They pulled into Summerbrook late the following afternoon, chased by a saturating shower of rain. When they stopped outside Archer’s Inn, the Archers didn’t recognise the bedraggled passenger on Saltsack Carter’s wagon until he identified her as she dismounted. Word spread quickly and people came out of their houses to greet her. She kept to her story of pursuing a horse thief, and politely refused a kind invitation to eat in the inn, telling the gathering that she had to see her mother first. Saltsack offered a ride to the farmhouse, but Meg insisted on walking the short distance. Leaf and Brown Archer walked with her, asking her questions about what the world was like beyond Summerbrook, why she’d cut her hair, was she scared being so far from home. The girl and boy left her at the junction and she walked on, filled with trepidation.
Sunfire bounded towards her, his golden coat contrasted against the verdant grass. A few paces short, he dropped to a trot, laid back his ears and let his pink tongue loll in greeting. Meg hugged the dingo, glad to be reacquainted with the comforting texture of his short fur and canine smell, before she headed for the house.
She found her little brother Peter playing on the veranda. When he saw her, he said her name and reached out, so she scooped him up, and entered the kitchen. ‘Oh, in Jarudha’s name!’ Dawn exclaimed, and dropped the
mixing bowl. Shock filled her face. She looked down at the mess of flour and milk on the floor, started laughing, and spread her arms just like Peter. ‘Oh, Megen, where have you been?’ she asked, as they embraced, squashing Peter between them. ‘Where have you been?’
She felt unfathomably happy, sitting before the crackling hearth, watching the shadows dance around the room, the light playing over her mother’s and brothers’ faces. Her days of travelling through wintry weather, sleeping on the ground and eating uncooked food, being abducted by the Rebels, and getting caught in the desperate struggle of the war seemed no more than an extended dream. She told Mykel and Daryn fragments of what she’d seen, but she didn’t mention the war or Wombat or Blade or Treasure. She lied, to add drama to the tale she wove for her brothers, that she’d cut her hair for money at a wigmaker’s in Quick Crossing, because she’d run out of food. She explained what it was like to sneak into barns to sleep, and how she had trapped animals when the money had run out. She even told them a half-truth that she’d had to hide from a Rebel band that nearly stumbled upon her camp.
Dawn listened to her daughter’s fabricated journey about chasing the horse, and scolded her for being so silly, and told her that no animal was worth so much personal risk, especially one that wasn’t their horse in the first place. The boys bragged to her that they’d planted the crop without her help, and that they’d done all the chores, and she laughed and told them that they would be men one day, which started a brief, playful scuffle. She sat Peter on her knee, after a warm and filling meal of pumpkin soup and baked vegetables, and sang a ballad to him, one that Wombat had taught her, and she had to carefully mask her tears as she remembered the big man’s kindness and companionship.
She sat in a silent, warm cuddle with her mother for a long time, glad to be held like a child again, as if the world beyond her village no longer existed. Rain pattered softly on the roof.
Her bedroom was unchanged. Sunfire padded in, jumped onto the bed and curled up, one eye watching Meg change into her nightdress. She climbed beneath the yellow cover, relishing the soft mattress and smell of clean linen, and snuggled in, pushing against the dingo’s weight to get comfortable.
The soothing rain ebbed and flowed, but she lay awake for a long time, remembering the people and the events that had crowded her life in the past cycle. Her hand closed around the amber crystal on the chain at her neck as she pondered the healing power that she knew she had acquired. She thought of Wombat, and hoped that he had resolved his issues with the Quick Crossing bailiff, and she was grateful to have had the big man’s protective presence on her adventure. She thought of Blade, remembering his eyes and his gentle touch on the last night, and a mixed pang of love and guilt flooded her. She thought of Button Tailor and wondered where he had been during the battle, and whether or not he and the other young men from Summerbrook had survived, and what their fates were. And she thought of Treasure. She could see his handsome face as she remembered it from the first time they’d talked, his grey and blue eyes staring at her. She imagined his lips against her own, his hands on her skin in the darkness of her room, his strength and passion, and the dam of pent-up emotion burst within. She clutched her pillow to her breast and let the tears pour out of her heart, stifling her sobs for what she’d lost in chasing her love.
She stood over a corpse on the battlefield, not wanting to look down, yet against her will she knelt beside the
fallen knight in blue armour and reached for the visor on his battered helmet. She begged herself not to open it, but to no avail as her hand tipped it back. Smiling at her was the face of an old man, his grey streaked beard flowing out of the helmet as if pleased to be released, and he winked at her cheekily.
She opened her shutter on a crying world. The night was lightless and the rain endless. The cold air brought goosebumps along her arms. Sunfire stirred and sat beside her, his canine head leaning against her arm as if he could feel her sorrow and wanted to offer comfort. She put her arm over the dingo’s back and sat with him, staring into the emptiness of the night that mirrored her heart.
Face furrowed with compassion, Emma listened carefully to every detail as Meg tearfully related Treasure’s fate, and she consoled the young woman when Meg could no longer control her sorrow. Later, when Meg explained how her injuries and Wombat’s wound healed miraculously, the old woman’s demeanour became happier. ‘Then there is no doubt you have the Blessing,’ she said, as Meg finished.
‘If it means my dreams are twisted and cruel, then I don’t want it,’ Meg told her, between sobs.
‘Dreams are always hard to interpret, child. That yours are so clear is important.’
‘Then why did I dream that Treasure was an old man last night?’ Meg asked. ‘He’s dead. He’ll never grow old.’ And she broke down into more tears.
Emma let Meg finish crying while she went about making a pot of rosemary tea. She placed a cup in front of Meg, saying, ‘I know you don’t drink my herbal teas, but I want you to drink this. It will calm you. Then we have to talk.’
Meg wiped her face, sniffing, and cupped the warm tea mug in her hands to sip at the sweet-smelling contents. She saw the old woman looking at her kindly, and was repentant that she’d been angry.
‘I’m sorry for what has happened to your love,’ Emma said, as she took a seat. ‘Nothing can change what has been. All that can be changed is what might come.’ She paused, poured herself a cup of tea, and continued. ‘What you’ve learned, my precious child, is that in you is a great gift—a gift greater than any other you’ve been given. To be able to foresee—that is a potent Blessing, more than anyone could wish to be granted. To be given the power to heal—that is
wondrous
! Samuel was right to pass the amber to you. You are much more than any of us could be.’
‘I don’t want to be
anything
!’ Meg protested.
‘You don’t have a choice, child,’ Emma cut in. ‘You don’t choose the Blessing. It chooses you. And once you are chosen there’s no hiding from it. The Blessing is a responsibility, not just a gift.’
‘And that’s
my
point!’ Meg interrupted. ‘I don’t want that responsibility. I have my family, my brothers, my mother. They’re
my
responsibility. I have my father—’
‘You and I know your father is dead,’ Emma said bluntly. Silence hung between them for a long moment, before Emma went on. ‘When I was your age I desperately wanted to have the Blessing—’
‘You’ve told me all this!’ Meg snapped. ‘I’m not you! I’m not going to do what you wanted to do. All right? I’m not you!’
Emma sighed and stood. ‘Sooner or later you will come to terms with what you have and who you really are. In the meantime, you must learn how to read properly, and to write, and I will teach you what I know so you can see how blessed you are. Then, when
you are ready, you will have to leave Summerbrook and go to the Queen’s court.’
‘Why?’
‘To become a Seer, Meg. That is your destiny.’
Meg put down the mug and stood. ‘I’ve seen what Seers do,’ she said, ‘and I’ll
never
be one of them.’ She turned and stormed out of the cottage.
W
ith the advent of an early Akim season, after the long period of rain, sunny days were quickly transforming Summerbrook into a beautiful garden. The bushes and trees sprouted white and gold wattle blossoms, and the river flowed briskly. The flood of purple and yellow and maroon wildflowers across the fields and lower slopes filled Meg’s heart with joy. As a mob of grey kangaroos bounded away through the thick green bushes, she patted Sunfire’s head and released him to hunt.
Whisper the bush rat perched in the basket under her arm, while Meg searched for the herbs that Emma wanted. She was meeting the old woman daily, with Emma intent on teaching Meg everything she knew, especially how to read. ‘Reading is the key to all knowledge,’ Emma insisted. ‘And not just any reading either. People who can read critically can never be misled.’ Meg was learning quickly, more rapidly than even she expected to learn. ‘It’s the crystal,’ Emma told her. ‘It enables you to absorb more. It’s like a—a funnel that channels everything into your mind. I wish I knew more about what the crystal does but
Samuel never divulged everything he knew about its power.’
She also made Meg show her how her healing touch worked. ‘I don’t know how it works,’ Meg argued. ‘It just happens.’
‘Then let’s see,’ said Emma. She picked up a knife, and cut herself across the back of her forearm. Shocked, Meg scolded the old woman as if Emma was a child. ‘Enough lecturing!’ Emma complained. ‘I’m bleeding. Fix it.’ Meg grabbed a towel and wrapped Emma’s arm. She concentrated, as she had with Wombat, and willed the arm to heal. The familiar tingle snapped along her spine and when she removed the towel a few moments later Emma’s cut had vanished. ‘A Blessing indeed!’ Emma declared, studying her arm. ‘You have a remarkable gift!’
Meg smiled, remembering the incidents that marked the passing cycle since her return. She was considered a celebrity for having travelled so far beyond Summerbrook, further than most people ever travelled—the exceptions being the Archers, who’d been to Port of Joy, and the Carters, who travelled the kingdom carrying merchandise. She was invited to relate her tale at the inn one evening and twenty people gathered to listen and ask questions. Everyone was concerned about the cutting and selling of her hair and she embellished the part of her imaginary journey where she had to hide from the Rebels. She considered singing a ballad, as she had to the soldiers, but restrained herself, although she did add to her story that she’d sung at a tavern to earn money.
The memory of Treasure haunted her every day, although she had not dreamed about him since returning, which surprised and disappointed her. ‘Dreams pass when the events pass,’ Emma told her. ‘Your dreams are about the future.’
‘Then why do I sometimes dream about dragons?’ she asked.
‘Dragons?’
‘I think they’re dragons. I dream I’m flying on something big.’
‘Jarudha forbid! Even I don’t believe those old tales,’ Emma said. ‘Perhaps those are some of your ordinary dreams. Not every dream is prophetic.’ Emma dismissed the dragon dreams, but she was intrigued by the dreams where Meg imagined a voice calling her, and the people with the strangely beautiful faces forging the fiery sword, although she had no explanation for them, except to attribute them to Meg’s unique imagination. She could read the texts that Emma showed her with ease now, as if she could always read. And Emma taught her how to create simple fire spells, and how to magically mend broken objects, a skill at which Meg quickly became adept. ‘You have the Blessing,’ Emma regularly reinforced on her. ‘Your destiny is far beyond your home. You have the potential to become a great Seer.’ Meg listened patiently to the old woman’s predictions, and the unknown future nibbled at her thoughts, teasing her, sometimes taunting her, with what she might be. ‘Whatever the future does bring,’ Emma insisted, ‘a Seer has great power, young Meg Farmer, and with power there is responsibility. Having the Blessing does not give you the right to act as Jarudha.’
Meg also had a new friend—or at least was reacquainted with one that was new to her before she’d left—Whisper. ‘I know your mother doesn’t like it, but Whisper is yours. You can’t refuse her,’ said Emma, holding the bush rat towards Meg.
Meg took the little animal, feeling her weight in her hands, and saw the intelligent, sparkling eyes studying her. ‘But why?’ she asked.
‘She’ll show you when she’s ready. She knows you have the Blessing. See?’ Emma pointed to Whisper climbing along Meg’s arm towards her shoulder. ‘She trusts you already.’
‘But why is she so black? Bush rats are brown.’
‘That is a mystery even I don’t know the answer to,’ said Emma, smiling.
Dawn protested at the rat’s return to the farm, especially when Meg said that the rat was no longer staying in the cage outside. ‘That thing can’t come inside, Meg. It’s a dirty creature.’
‘If she sleeps outside, then so do I,’ Meg replied, and Dawn saw in her daughter’s expression that she wasn’t bluffing.
So Whisper took up residence in Meg’s room, and often perched on her shoulder. Remembering the mess that the rat created on her first visit, Meg prepared for the worst, but Whisper seemed to have instantaneously become immaculately house-trained, not once pissing or shitting inside, even though Meg never saw her actually go outside to relieve herself. Whisper was regularly cleaning herself, sitting on the arm of a chair, or in front of the fire, or on Meg’s bed. Sunfire also willingly accepted the rat’s presence, fascinated enough to constantly follow the rat and observe her, and occasionally resorting to licking the rat’s fur. The three boys enjoyed having a rat in the house to keep them amused, and no matter how often Meg asked Emma why she had to keep the rat Emma gave no answer beyond ‘You will see when Whisper is ready’.
And Meg faced a crisis—a personal fear—that she kept entirely to herself. Since returning to Summerbrook, she had missed two periods. After the first, she hoped that it was an aberration that would correct itself the next cycle. It didn’t. And she was scared.
She pulled green plants from the earth, studying the leaves to make certain they were applewort. She had to find three sprigs of king’s tears—a spiky plant with tiny blue flowers—a full clump of applewort, and at least twenty little black seeds from the emu weed that grew along the edge of the hills. Memories of finding the dying soldier flickered through her thoughts as she searched. So much had happened since, but she was safe at home and the war was over. She saw Daryn running towards her before he saw her. He called and she answered, and waited for him to reach her, puffing from his exertion. ‘There’s soldiers in the village,’ he said. ‘They’re asking for you.’
Her eyes widened. ‘What? Using my name?’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘Did they say what they want?’
‘They’ve been sent by the Queen. They say you’ve been ordered to go to Port of Joy.’
His news made her feel cold, and she fumbled with her basket. ‘I haven’t got everything Emma needs.’
‘They want you to hurry,’ Daryn insisted, and he tugged her arm until she followed.
Mykel was waiting at the farm. ‘Mum’s gone into the village,’ he said. ‘They’re all waiting for you, Meg. What’s this about?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. She looked around nervously. ‘I’ve left Sunfire behind.’
‘He’s all right,’ Mykel said. ‘He goes off all the time.’
‘Hurry,’ Daryn urged.
The entire village was assembled outside Archer’s Inn, and there were curious questions from people that Meg politely ignored as she followed Daryn through the crowd to the inn door. A soldier, bow draped over his
shoulder, stepped aside and opened it to allow Meg and her brothers entry.
Inside, her mother and Emma were talking to more soldiers. Fletcher Archer was pouring a fresh round of ale, but he paused when he saw Meg. Everyone turned to her. She felt weight on her arm as Whisper climbed out of the basket and up towards her shoulder, and when Meg saw the astonishment on the soldiers’ faces, she said, ‘She always does that.’
‘Are you Meg Farmer?’ asked a soldier with a neatly trimmed beard and soft brown hair.
‘Yes,’ she answered.
‘You don’t have to go,’ Dawn said.
The soldier glanced at Dawn, and approached Meg, producing a parchment, which he unrolled and read aloud. ‘At the request of Her Royal Majesty, Queen Sunset, regent of Western Shess and all tribal lands therein, Meg Farmer of Summerbrook is to be escorted to Port of Joy and presented at Court to be honoured for her part in the defeat of the Rebel army.’ The soldier looked up and added, ‘My name is Leader Westridge. I serve in the Queen’s Elite Mounted Archers. It is my honour to escort you to Her Majesty,’ and he dipped his head as a show of formal respect.
‘What is going on?’ Dawn demanded, her face pleading for an explanation.
Meg shrugged, but Westridge turned and said, ‘Your daughter is a hero of the kingdom, Mrs Farmer. She slew Marchlord Overbrook at the Battle of The Whispering Forest.’
Dawn’s jaw dropped open in disbelief, and she stared incredulously at her daughter. ‘Did you—
fight
—in this battle?’
Meg looked away at Emma, who was nodding knowingly. ‘It’s true, Mum,’ she said quietly.
‘You were in a
battle
?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you serious?’ Mykel exclaimed. ‘You killed someone in a battle?’
‘Not just someone,’ said Westridge. ‘She stopped the one man who could have turned the battle against us. Everyone who’d faced Marchlord Overbrook in combat had been butchered at his hands, but your sister brought him down.’
‘I only wounded him,’ Meg corrected.
‘You broke through his magical armour,’ Westridge said. ‘No one had been able to do that. If you hadn’t, who knows how the battle would have ended? Her Majesty has been told the story and she wants to meet you, and reward you for your courage. She is even more impressed to hear that you are not even a soldier, but a woman.’
‘Do I have to go?’
Westridge’s astonished expression answered her question. ‘No one refuses Her Majesty’s requests.’
‘Then can I have one last night with my family?’
‘Your men would be welcome in my inn, Leader Westridge,’ Fletcher Archer offered. He winked at Meg over Westridge’s shoulder.
Westridge scratched his beard, considering the situation, and said, ‘Why not? A night’s rest in such a fine establishment would be good for my men.’ He looked at Meg, and added, ‘But we leave at dawn tomorrow.’
‘I understand,’ she replied. ‘I’ll be here.’
‘You
actually
fought in the war?’ Daryn’s amazement hadn’t subsided, even after Meg told a portion of the true story to her attentive brothers while they finished their lunch meal.
‘I was terrified,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t brave at all.’
‘But that soldier said you were,’ Mykel argued.
‘Stories get changed the more people tell them.’
‘But you’re famous! Like all the heroes in the ballads!’ Daryn exclaimed. ‘I bet they’re already singing a song about you.’
‘I doubt it,’ she said.
‘The Slaying of the Blue Knight,’ Daryn babbled, and he started humming a tune.
‘How many others did you kill?’ Mykel asked, eager for the gory details.
‘I didn’t kill anyone.’
‘Except the Blue Knight!’ Daryn chimed in.
‘Leave your sister alone,’ Dawn ordered, as she returned from throwing food scraps to the chickens. ‘You boys can go tend to the cattle. Or hunt for some wombats.’ She glared at Meg. ‘I don’t like that rat sitting near the table.’ Meg coaxed Whisper from her shoulder to her lap. ‘That’s still at the table,’ Dawn observed angrily, as she collected bowls from the tabletop.
‘I’ll clean up, Mum,’ Meg offered. She rose from her seat and let Whisper jump to the floor. The rat scampered across the room and sat up in front of Sunfire, nose twitching expectantly. Sunfire licked the rat’s face.
‘That rat can’t stay here if you go,’ Dawn said. ‘You go. It goes.’
‘Emma said I have to take Whisper with me,’ Meg said.
‘You should have told me the truth,’ Dawn remonstrated.
‘What sense would the truth have made? You’d have thought I was mad if I just walked in and said, “Mum, I just saved the kingdom.”’
‘It still doesn’t make sense. What really made you go and get caught up in that stupid war?’
‘I told you, Mum. I wanted to get Nightwind back. Only I never found him. I got caught up in the war instead.’
‘Is that why you really cut off your beautiful hair? So you could be like your stupid father and get yourself killed? Is that why you did it?’
‘Mum!’ Meg said, exasperated. ‘I didn’t mean for anything to happen.’
Dawn put down the dish she was holding, and dropped the washcloth on the floor. ‘I’ve spoken with Emma,’ she said.
Meg met her gaze. ‘So?’ she asked tentatively.
‘She told me the truth.’
‘About what?’ Meg shifted uncomfortably, waiting for her mother’s explanation.
Dawn took a step closer, her eyes filled with a strange mixture of sadness and something else. ‘She told me you have the Blessing.’
Meg sighed, partly relieved that Emma had only told Dawn some of the truth, partly annoyed that her mother knew about the Blessing. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Dawn asked.
‘How could I when I wasn’t even sure myself?’ Meg replied, shrugging.
Dawn held out her arms and waited for her tall daughter to allow herself to be enfolded in them. ‘I understand why you have to go to Port of Joy,’ she said, as she hugged Meg. ‘I’m proud of you. I knew you would have the Blessing. Why do you think I always persisted with checking? It was always in you. I just—I just don’t want to lose my daughter.’
‘You won’t lose me. I promise. I will come back home.’ Something tugged at her trousers and she looked down to find Peter with his arms stretching to be picked up. Meg and Dawn laughed, and together they hoisted the child up to nest between them.
‘Is Meg going to be a soldier?’ Peter asked.
‘No,’ Dawn said. ‘Meg’s going to meet the Queen.’
‘Who’s the Queen?’
Dawn laughed. ‘The Queen is a lady who lives in a big city.’