The SoulNecklace Stories Page 4

Taking my slippers off so my footfalls would be silent, I crept down the stairwell. Across the courtyard, through the postern gate, were the stairs to the outer keep where the laundry maids’ hut was, and the pleasure grounds. I was going to do something I had always longed to do, but never had the courage to try. Today, I was going to try my hand at thieving.

  Chapter Five

  The Boar and the Minstrel

  Aunt Agnes stood at the farmhouse door. Like her writing, she was angular and spiky. Her gray hair was tucked into a bun, but bits of it had come out of the pins and hung loose about her neck. Her mouth was grim. Aunt Agnes, it seemed, wasn’t given to smiling.

  “You must be Will. Ferryman told me you’d be here afore sundown. Pity you didn’t think to write, tell me you were coming.”

  “I couldn’t ...” said Will

  “Couldn’t what?”

  I couldn’t write, thought Will, because who would take the message? Save the Courier, and Will had come with the Courier anyway, so he’d get here just as fast as any message.

  Aunt Agnes sighed. “Can’t you write? What was your ma thinking of? Fancy not sending you to school!”

  “I can write,” protested Will.

  “So. You can write, you just chose not to?” She sniffed. “Just like your precious father. Bone lazy.”

  * * *

  That was the way of it. With Aunt Agnes, nothing Will could do or say would be right. If he remarked on the weather being pleasant, she would say he’d wished drought upon them. If he said it was wet, Aunt Agnes said he was hoping for a flood. After a couple of weeks, Will learnt not to talk. Aunt Agnes told visitors that he was Foreign and Not All There. She would tap her head and they tutted sympathetically and stared at Will like a freak in a show.

  It had taken three days to travel to the Kingdom; a long route across moorland and marsh. The Courier, not being one for speaking, said little beyond what was necessary. They saw no people on their journey, no sign of life or other habitation. The world felt large and lonely to Will.

  Finally, they reached the Straits of Terenu. Water swirled angrily around the rocks and seabirds cried overhead.

  “How do I cross?” Will asked the Courier.

  “Never had cause to myself. Most folk, they hold the token. And call for the Ferryman.”

  “Call? Call what?”

  “I don’t know. They do it inside, like.” He thumped his chest.

  Will clutched the seed so its carved surfaces dug tight into his hands, and left their print on his fingers. “I wish,” he thought. “Oh I wish.”

  With his heart he called for his mother, his father.

  “Ah,” the Courier sounded surprised. “It worked. Not everyone is heard.”

  Out of the mist came the Ferryman, pulling his boat along the ropes.

  * * *

  Uncle Wavern, a big man with few words and a hard hand, was busy on the farm, mending fences and fixing gates and calling sheep. The only person Uncle Wavern ever spoke with was the farm dog, Bess, and even then it was a rare moment to have more than two words together: “Come here,” “Go there,” “Not that.”

  There was a flock of sheep, three cows, milked once a day, and two pigs that grunted and snorted in their sty and ate the household scraps. Aunt Agnes had a nanny goat, as hard-faced as her owner and just as mean-spirited; Will only had to enter the yard for the goat to put her head down and run at him. Fortunately, she had no horns.

  Two big horses were kept for ploughing and general heavy duties, as well as a smaller cob for general transport. The farm had numerous cats that were always having kittens. Will was supposed to drown these poor, mewling creatures in the disused farm well, but he could never bear to. Instead, he hid them, placing them at far ends of the barn, or in empty sheds. As a consequence, the cats liked Will. In the rare moments when he had a chance to rest, they would come to him, purring, and rub their faces against his fingers.

  Will rarely saw his cousins, Aled and Whithern. Apprenticed to the Castle, they only returned to the farm when on leave, or if stood down for some misdemeanor.

  Aunt Agnes appeared to care for her sons more than she cared for her husband or her home. She smiled at the big lads when they came in, a rusty smile that seemed to creak from lack of use.

  “What is it this time?” she would ask, and shake her head when they told her. Greasing the cellar steps; fighting the other guardsmen; betting on a dogfight.

  Aled was the worse. Thickset and squat, with a low forehead and thick eyebrows, he looked more ape than man. Aled seemed to enjoy enlivening his off-duty hours by tormenting Will. “It’s the Foreign Maggot!” he said. Will learnt to run very fast to dodge blows, to lie quiet for hours at a time.

  * * *

  Monday through Friday, Will went to school. The schoolhouse was a half-hour walk, and Will was expected to make the distance on his own two feet, regardless of the weather. Today was Friday, and it was raining.

  Will slogged miserably through the mud. He wore his school trousers (horrible things that reached halfway to his ankles so he felt like a pirate, but Aunt Agnes refused to make him new ones because, she said, he would only grow out of them), his summer jerkin and a cloak. It was early autumn and the wind off the sea was cold. The rain blew into his face, stinging his eyes so he could barely see. He’d been in the Kingdom for near on six months.

  “Hey, Will!” It was Jimmy Vale. His da, the village baker, let him take the donkey to school. “You want a lift?”

  Will wiped the water from his face. “Can he carry me?”

  “He’s a donkey. Of course he can carry us.”

  Will clambered onto the furry back. The animal turned his neck and gave him a resigned stare. It wasn’t much faster than walking, but at least it kept his feet out of the mud.

  “I got some more bread for you,” said Jimmy, glumly.

  Long ago, Jimmy’s da had decided that Jimmy should follow the family tradition, be a baker too. But Jimmy wanted to be a wanderer and cared nothing for bread. So Jimmy and Will had struck up an understanding. Jimmy would bring in soft bread for Will and Will would taste it and describe how it was made, what kind of yeasts were needed, how to grow them. Then Jimmy could go home and tell his da, and his da, impressed by his son’s knowledge, would give him a week’s rest from the bakehouse.

  Will couldn’t face food, not this morning. “I’ll eat it later.”

  “Aye,” said Jimmy. “Don’t want it all wet. Might spoil the taste.”

  The two boys sat on the donkey’s back and rocked from side to side in the rain.

  “Whither n’s home again,” said Will gloomily.

  “Ma says the way those two misbehave, it’s a disgrace. What’s he done now?”

  “Nothing. He’s been promoted.”

  “What? Never!”

  “To the Princes’ own guard.”

  “They must be desperate. There’s two princes, aren’t there?”

  Will shrugged. What did he know of princes and castles and such stuff?

  “What of Aled? Is he home too? What’s he done?”

  Will shook his head. “He’s trying to behave, I think. He got flogged last time.”

  “What do you think a flogging would be like?”

  On the back of the donkey, Will shifted uncomfortably. It would be like Uncle and his belt, he thought. Like this morning, when the gate had come open and the sheep had gotten out. It was his fault, of course. And last week: broken crockery, a missing cake, the fox in the chicken coop. Everything that went wrong at the farm was Will’s fault, so Will got the punishment. The leather belt on the bare back. Sometimes, Uncle used the buckle end.

  “I’ve decided something,” Jimmy announced.

  'What?”

  “When I grow up, I’ll be a minstrel.”

  “But you can’t sing.”

  “I can learn, can’t I?”

  Will wasn’t sure about this. Seemed like singing is one of those things you can either do or not. It wasn’t as though
Jimmy loved music; Jimmy liked talking fast and moving quickly. Useful qualities, no doubt, but not what one thought of as useful to a minstrel.

  “Can you play an instrument?” Will asked.

  “I can whistle. Listen.” Jimmy pursed his lips and blew out with force. The donkey paused mid-step.

  “I think,” said Will seriously, “you need to practice more.”

  “Don’t you tell no one of this, Will Baker. Da will skin me alive, you know. He’s set on me baking, and that’s that.”

  “If you learn some songs, maybe he’ll change his mind,” said Will. What would Will do when he grew up? He was nearly thirteen, old enough for “prenticing. He didn’t want to be a farmer. The only animals that liked him were cats. You can’t farm cats.

  * * *

  Will arrived back at the farm that afternoon in better spirits than usual; Jimmy had given him a lift home on the donkey. He stood at the gate, staring down the narrow lane toward the farmhouse. In the gray light it seemed to squat on the land like a toad. Behind the thatched stone house were barns, all thatched. Their peaked roofs looked like witches’ hats.

  Will sighed. He didn’t want to go inside. There would be Aunt Agnes, with her grim face and maybe some of her horrid visitors. Perhaps, if he skirted through the forest and came into the barnyard from the rear, he could start on his chores and avoid his aunt.

  Will often escaped into the woodland; it was a quiet place, where no one called him names, where the rules of life were simple and clear. Eat or be eaten. He’d taught himself to find his way through tangled undergrowth by watching the lichen on the trees, by following small clues like rabbit and wild boar runs. In the forest, he felt free.

  Not so this afternoon. He stepped into his favorite clearing, the one with the big beech at its end, and stopped. Cousin Whithern stood at the other end, facing away from him. He had a bow and an arrow on its string. He was trying to shoot with it.

  What was he aiming at? Cautiously, Will stepped backward, behind a tree trunk, and squatted down to watch. A fawn, with clear brown eyes, watched the hunter calmly.

  “Go away!” whispered Will, but not so loud that Whithern would hear. He’d be likely to shoot Will instead of the deer if he thought Will had interfered.

  Whithern pulled back the bowstring, held the arrow to the string. He seemed to pause for breath, listening to something. Then he let go the arrow. The string hummed.

  Just as the arrow seemed sure to hit, the fawn started, ran. Cursing, Whithern picked up the arrow. He turned, paused. Had he seen Will?

  Dropping into the bracken, Will lay quiet, listening to the pounding of his heart. He didn’t dare to breathe. Whithern stalked toward him, gazing at the bracken with narrowed eyes. He fitted the arrow to the string, pointing it at the undergrowth.

  The world seemed to slow, to still to this moment. The young man, with a bow and a scowl, and Will crouching in hiding. Even the breeze hushed. Will could almost feel the earth moving below him. Any second now, he thought dizzily, he’ll shoot that arrow right through me. He felt balanced on a brink: death or life.

  A loud roar burst from the trees where the fawn had stood. Whithern spun around, staring. A boar! Huge and wild, meant for the King’s table, it saw Whithern and charged.

  Whithern dropped bow and arrow, turned and ran full tilt through the clearing, past Will’s hiding place. The animal roared and stopped, but the man kept running until he was out of sight. The boar snorted, as if laughing, and began rooting at the ground under the trees.

  Heart pounding, Will stayed in the undergrowth, waiting for the boar to leave. It seemed loath to go. Maybe there were truffles under that tree, for it snuffled and tramped at the earth with great energy. How long could he stay here before Aunt Agnes decided he was shirking his duties? And that would mean Uncle and his belt. Will was still sore from the morning’s beating.

  Moments like these were bad times. Mostly, Will was too busy doing chores or studying or trying to keep warm to think. But sometimes there might be an occasion when he was quiet and still and not too cold. Then he would think of Ma, of her warm, steady hands holding the yeast to the light, or Da, treading the dough in the trough. Even the apprentices, how they laughed and teased him. Laughter. That was what he missed the most. That and Ma’s hugs. Sniffing, Will wiped his nose.

  The boar paused, lifted his head. Just then, Will heard singing:

  “I’m a pirate strong and bold,

  Wealthy but I’m growing old,

  I’d like to shower a lass with gold

  But when girlies look at me, they scold.”

  That’s Jimmy! Where did he learn that song?

  “So before I leave my ship at night,

  To meet a maiden, fair and bright,

  I’ll drink a wine to stop my fright,

  Another gin to set me right.”

  The boar snorted, pricked up his ears.

  “Now maidens do not bother me,

  For I am brave and strong and free,

  I’ll pour some whisky in my tea,

  And ask them ALL to marry me.”

  The boar trotted out of the clearing. Will popped his head out of the bracken. Now Jimmy began whistling. The boar didn’t seem to like this.

  “Jimmy, ware!” Will shouted.

  The whistling stopped. Picking up the discarded bow and arrow, Will ran toward his friend.

  There were crashes in the undergrowth; branches tore, earth sprayed as the boar began to charge the musician. Jimmy screamed, the boar roared.

  “Beat it, pig!” Will shouted.

  He put the bow to his cheek, the arrow against its string, and through broken bushes, looked for the boar. Black and hairy, it was nearly as tall as Jimmy. Jimmy, screaming, clung to the lower branches of an oak, trying to pull himself upward.

  “Gerroff!” shouted Will.

  The boar turned to face him, hesitated for a moment, and charged. Will had time to notice details: upturned tusks, steam from the pig’s nostrils, angry little red eyes. He put the bow up, pointed the arrow and released the string.

  As the arrow flew, time seemed to flicker. Everything happened as quickly as a heartbeat, an eyeblink. The animal roared. Jimmy screamed. Will shouted.

  Silence.

  Jimmy whimpered. Will stood motionless, as though turned to stone. And the boar stopped, shook once and toppled onto its side. The arrow had struck true. Will had shot it in the eye.

  Will crossed the clearing, stared up at the oak. Jimmy still clung to its bark, his legs covered in muddy grazes, snot on his face. The boys said nothing for a time, just gazed at the hairy beast, now lying unmoving on its side. Suddenly feeling sick, Will sat. He’d never killed anything before. Then he looked up at wide-eyed Jimmy.

  “I don’t think it liked your singing,” said Will.

  * * *

  Much later, Cousin Whithern came up to Will’s chamber. Aunt Agnes, her mouth grim, had washed Jimmy’s cuts and sent him home on his donkey. Uncle Wavern removed the boar’s carcass and hung it up for butchering on the morrow. Sent to bed without any supper for not doing his chores, Will shivered under a thin blanket.

  “Did you really shoot that thing?” said Whithern.

  Expecting a blow, Will ducked. “I ... I used your bow. I’m sorry.”

  “It was a good shot,” said his cousin, unexpectedly. He put the bow and a quiver full of arrows onto Will’s bed. “You can have it, if you like. I’ve got another bow at the Castle.” From his pocket, he pulled a beef pie. “Here,” he said. “You must be hungry.”

  * * *

  Next day, being Saturday, there was no school, so Will was put to work hauling wood. He was stacking it against the porch when Jimmy’s da came to the farm.

  Aunt Agnes answered the door. “Master Vale. What brings you here?”

  “I want to talk with your lad,” said the baker.

  “Will? Why? What’s he done?”

  “Mistress,” said Master Vale, “he saved my lad’s life. Don’t you
think I might be a little grateful?”

  Aunt Agnes jerked her thumb in Will’s direction, and stood, sour-faced, as the baker went over to Will.

  “Boy,” Master Vale said, “my Jimmy’s told me of you. He says your family were bakers?”

  Will nodded. Jimmy’s da was much smaller than Will’s own da.

  How could he lift the heavy sacks of flour? Or tread dough? “Jimmy tells me you’ve got a way with the yeast, like.”

  Will nodded. “I used to help my ma.”

  “Mistress,” said the baker, turning to Aunt Agnes, “I’ll be needing another 'prentice soon. This lad seems like a good worker. And he’s got a knowledge of the craft. I’d be keen to take him off your hands.”

  “You want Will? Why? You’ve already got a son,” said Aunt.

  “I could use two apprentices, mistress. And I’d like to do something for this lad here.”

  Aunt Agnes thrust her hands into the pockets of her apron, shook her head firmly. “In our family, baking brings ill fortune.”

  “Oh Aunt, please? Can’t I go?” Da had always wanted Will to be a baker, just like his father, and his father before him.

  “You forget yourself, Will,” said Aunt Agnes. There were spots of color on her cheeks. “It’s not your choice whether you go or stay. And baking means nothing but ill luck to me and mine. Why!” she snorted, “Look at your mother, your father. No, Baker, 'prenticing for a baker is not for Will.”

  The baker looked at Will’s downcast face, at the angular woman in front of him. “What do you plan for him, then, Mistress? You can’t have him here forever. Your oldest will have the farm. What of this lad?”

  Aunt Agnes avoided his eyes. “He’ll be taken care of.”

  The baker snorted. “An able-bodied lad, brave and strong from the looks of him, to be left to live on charity. That’s no life, Mistress. It’s a waste.”

  If Will hadn’t been feeling sick with disappointment, he would have laughed at the look of shame that crossed Aunt’s hard face.