A Pocketful of Crows Page 3

  ‘She’s no more than a hoor,’ said the chef, ‘for all her fine clothes and trinkets.’

  ‘I heard she was a witch,’ replied the Master of Wines with a leer. ‘How else could such as she get her claws into young Master William?’

  ‘Young Master William,’ said the chef, ‘is barely nineteen summers old. A boy should sow his wild oats, but not in his father’s castle.’

  ‘I’ve heard he means to make her his bride,’ said the Master of Wines.

  The chef shook his head. ‘A boy’s fancy. The moment the master comes home, mark my words, the baggage will be on her way.’

  That made me angry, and I fled from the rat into a wolf, and found a herd of penned sheep in the glen, and tore out their white throats one by one, but got no relief from it, even though my coat was drenched and crimson with their innocent blood, and when I returned to myself, I found the maid Fiona watching me with a curious look on her face, as if she knew more than she meant to tell.

  And so after that I was careful not to travel, except at night. It was hard. I miss being free. But I can bear it, for William. I would give up everything for him, as I know he would for me, if I were to ask him. And as the rose month reaches its peak, and midsummer is upon us, I know that our joy will grow and grow, and fill the earth with roses.

  Four

  Today is Midsummer’s Day, the day when travelling folk come together to celebrate the green month: not as winged and dappled things, but as ourselves, all brown and wild, selling our goods at the Midsummer Fair.

  On Midsummer’s Fair Day in the town square, there will be honey, and ribbons, and fruit. There will be baskets, and cages of birds. There will be potions, and magic spells, and charms to summon your true love. There will be dancing on the green, and even the Folk of the village will come, half-afraid, half-longing – to buy, to gaze, to envy, to scorn – to the gathering of the travelling folk.

  I have never yet missed a fair. But this time, I am afraid to go. The messages from the owl, the crow, the kestrel and the black dog have given way to a silence more ominous than their warnings. I cannot make them understand how much my William means to me. But William wants to go to the Fair. He wants to show his brown girl the town, with its fine buildings and towers of stone. And the maid Fiona has told him of all the many things to be bought, and he has promised me a gift, a special gift from the market.

  ‘But I already have jewels and gowns, and shoes, and combs, and picture-books. What more do I need?’

  He smiles at me. Those things belonged to his mother, he says. He has so little of his own. Until he comes of age, he has only a small allowance. And yet he wants to buy me a gift, a gift to show his love for me.

  ‘When I come of age,’ he says, ‘I shall be a wealthy man. I shall buy you a singing bird in a cage of ivory. I shall buy you a swarm of bees in a fortress of honeycomb. I shall buy you a golden ring to wear upon your finger.’

  A golden ring, to show the world that he is mine and I am his. So much for the castle chef and the Master of Wines. A June bride is impetuous and open-handed, say the Folk. I shall be a June bride, and dance on the green in my wedding veil, and throw rose petals and bridey-cakes to the children in the crowd. And all the village girls will wonder why, of all the girls he might have picked, the wild girl was the one he chose.

  And so I take my William’s hand, and smile, and say, ‘Of course, my love,’ because I want to please him, but also because I want them to see how happy we are together, I in my dress of red velvet, he in his coat of summer-sky blue, walking, gracious, hand in hand, like the King and Queen of Fiddler’s Green.

  The black dog watches in silence. The kestrel soars without a word. And William calls for his coach and four, and his man (and the maid Fiona, of course), and together we ride to the market. And as we go, I sing to myself, a little song of the travelling folk:

  Sing a song of starlight,

  A pocketful of crows.

  See the bonny brown girl

  In her borrowed clothes.

  See her in a vixen,

  See her in a hare,

  See her in her true love’s arms, at sweet Midsummer’s fair.

  Five

  The town is sixteen miles away: two hours at a fast trot. The day is warm, and I find myself sweating in my velvet. Oh, to be a doe today, in the cool glades of the forest. Or an otter by the lake, or a salmon in the stream. But I dare not travel here, not with William by my side, and the maid Fiona watching every move I make.

  And so I watch the countryside, and pretend to listen as William tells me all about the town – a town I know as well as he does, for I have seen it many times as a bird, or a dog, or a horse, although I cannot tell him that, for fear of betraying my people. Maybe when we are married, I will. Married folk share everything.

  At last, we reach the marketplace. A cobbled square, with a fountain, around which hundreds of stallholders compete with each other for custom. I know my people by sight, of course. There’s one selling crows: she lives most of her life among the birds, and even now she looks more like a black bird than a woman, except for the white blaze in her hair. There’s one selling tokens and charms – a cluster of bells to keep the fairies at bay; a bird’s head on a willow twig to cure a bishop of the pox; a vial of rainbow water to cure a miser of his misery. And there’s another – old as Old Age, with skin as hard and brown and cracked as an ancient hawthorn tree – selling strings of coloured beads: turquoise, beryl, amethyst; quartz and pearl and ruby.

  William stops by the old woman’s stall. ‘How much for these?’

  Her eyes are as bright as the lake, and as cold. ‘For this young lady, no charge,’ she says. ‘For what we give freely on Midsummer’s Day will return to us a hundredfold.’ And she reaches out her misshapen hand and brings back a necklace of tiger’s-eye beads, brown and gold in the sunlight.

  ‘Wear this, my beauty,’ she whispers, as she fastens the clasp around my neck. ‘The gold in your eyes is truer by far than the gold he promised you.’

  I thank her, though she has troubled me. Is she suggesting he could be false? I know him better. My love is true. The old woman means to frighten me, but I shall not heed her. Instead, I laugh a little too loudly, pretend to look at some rolls of silk, and tug at the tiger’s-eye necklace, which feels as if it is choking me, then laugh again, take William’s hand, and try not to see the wild dark faces watching me from every stall, the wild dark eyes alight with scorn—

  We drive back in silence. William rides. Fiona, too, has a necklace. Hers is made of crystal quartz, as white as a string of snowdrops. William bought it as a gift, he says, to thank her for coming so far with us. This does not disturb me. The necklace is a cheap thing, as colourless as Fiona herself. And yet I do not like the way she smiles to herself as she handles the beads, pressing her fingers against her breast as if at some remembered touch. I do not like the way she looks with downcast eyes at William. I do not like her primrose hair, which makes me remember the village girl who hung the charm on the fairy tree—

  Could that have been Fiona? I never saw the other girl’s face. She could have stitched the silken charm, and passed it through the adder-stone, and hung it onto the fairy tree. Does she suspect that I stole the charm? Could that be why she hates me?

  Well, if she does, what of it? My love has pledged himself to me. I know his heart, as he knows mine. I need no charm to capture him; no adder-stone to watch him by. William will be true to me. Whatever else happens – he will be true.

  July

  The Hay Month

  A swarm of bees in May

  Is worth a load of hay,

  A swarm of bees in June

  Is worth a silver spoon,

  A swarm of bees in July

  Is not worth a fly.

  17th-century proverb

  One

  I shall bind my love with silk, as red as summer roses. I shall bind my love with runes as secret as the dreams of the Folk. I shall bind my love with whitethor
n, and rue, and rosemary, and ivy leaf, and honeysuckle, and tie it up into a charm to keep my lover faithful.

  Not that I doubt my William. Our love is like the mountains. Our love is like the stormy sea. Our love is like the midnight sky. But the old woman’s words still trouble me, and I miss my freedom. Last night I went into an owl, and hunted mice in the castle’s dry moat. I dare not travel too far from here, in case I am discovered. But I miss the peaks and the cold black lake, and the forest, and the islands. I miss the open sky, and the sun, and the song of the morning in my throat.

  And William still does not understand why I cannot give him my name. ‘You must have a name,’ he says one day. ‘All God’s creatures have a name.’

  But I am not one of his creatures. My people are older than your God. My people were here when these mountains were ice, and these valleys were nothing but streamlets running down from the glacier. I have been every bird, every beast, every insect you can name. And so I have no name of my own, and cannot be tamed or commanded. But I can say none of this to William, who looks at me so earnestly.

  ‘You call me your bonny brown girl. I need no other name,’ I say.

  ‘And will my father name you thus, when he comes home from the wars? And at our wedding, must the parson say: I join thee together in matrimony, William John Makepeace MacCormac and . . . a bonny brown girl?

  The bride of July is handsome, but quick and sharp of temper. I do not want to be sharp of temper, and yet what can I say to him, when he teases and presses me so?

  ‘I do not have a name,’ I say. ‘My people have no need of them.’

  But this time William will not stop. ‘Is your name Amanda?’ he says. ‘Amanda is Beloved. Or Ailsa, Noble Maiden? Or Morag, which means Princess?’

  ‘And Fiona?’ Slyly: ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means White Lady.’

  I should have known. The bride of July is handsome, but quick and sharp of temper. I turn away so that he cannot see the glowering of my black brows.

  He laughs and takes me in his arms. ‘Surely, you are not jealous of poor Fiona?’ he tells me. ‘Does the sun envy the dandelion? Does the star envy the firefly?’

  I shake my head.

  He laughs again. ‘But I cannot wed a nameless girl. I shall name you Malmuira – Dark Lady of the Mountains. Thus are you named, my brown girl. Thus do you belong to me.’ And with that, he kisses me, and laughs, little knowing that with one word he has bound me faster than any charm of the Faërie.

  Two

  I shall bind my love with salt, and lead, and pennyroyal. I shall bind him with spider silk, and pudding grass, and larkspur, and with the sound of a moon moth against a windowpane at night, and with the taste of a memory that has soured into smoke.

  A named thing is a tamed thing. So says the lore of my people. A named thing keeps the hearth, the home. A named thing has a master. And now, for the first time, I have a name. Malmuira. Dark Lady. I wear it like a golden crown. I wear it like a collar.

  Tonight I feel restless. I want to run. I want to fly, and hunt, and swim. I will go into a crane, and fly over the marshlands. I will go into a bear, and fish for salmon in the lake. I will go into a vixen—

  But I cannot free my mind. The crane flies on without me. The bear hunts upriver, shaking his head. The vixen raids the chicken coop and crosses the meadows without me. My head is on fire. What sickness is this? The maid Fiona brings me a draught. But I want to be alone to shed this skin and be free of myself. Perhaps I am overreaching my skills. A housecat, then, or a mouse, or a bat. I shall nest under the eaves. I shall run through the stone halls. I shall feel the clean night air and look up at the naked stars—

  Still, I cannot free myself. My dress, with its bodice, feels like a cage. The silver mesh around my hair feels like a fishing net lined with lead. The tiger’s-eye necklace around my throat has become a bridle of hot stones. I want to tear myself free of it all, but I cannot. I have a name. It binds me. I am no longer a child of the world, no longer one of the travelling folk, but a named thing. A girl called Malmuira.

  For a time, I cannot think. I am a wild bird in a snare. I am a fox in a steel trap. I want to scream, to bite, to run. But all I can do is sit quietly, by the window, and stare at the sky. My William calls me for dinner. There will be a roasted fowl, and artichokes, and many wines. There will be a raised apple pie, and comfits, and cherries and peaches. I shall wear a yellow silk gown, with rings of gold on my fingers, and the servants will bow very low, and call me My Lady, with that sneer that they hide behind their hands, and think: Is that your name, My Lady? Can that really be your name?

  I tell him I am not hungry. I will not go to dinner. He looks displeased but says nothing, and goes to dine without me. I wish I could tell him how I feel. But that would mean giving away secrets that are not mine to give. I cannot betray my heart, my blood. The travelling folk may have disowned me, but they are still my people.

  Three

  Last night it rained, and the sound of it was like a stream with a throatful of stones. And in my dream I remembered the adder-stone I had thrown away, and tried to find it in the stream, so I could see William. But the stream was filled with pieces of glass, which cut my hands and made them bleed, and soon the water was nothing but blood, dark and hot and crimson—

  I awoke from my troubled sleep to the sound of voices. William was not at my side. I rose, and went to open the door. There was a light in the passageway. I saw a man in outdoor clothes carrying a lantern, and William with his back to me. The maid Fiona was at his side, wearing a dress of grey cambric, her unbound hair falling down her back, and I felt a small, sharp stab at the way she looked at him through her lashes.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I said.

  William glanced back at me. It may have been the light, but for a moment I thought he looked annoyed. Not at me. Never at me. But something must have happened.

  William did not speak to me, but gestured for me to go back inside. I was barefoot, in my nightgown. My hair was wild. I understood. I went back into our bedroom and I waited for William to come. But hours passed, and he did not, although I heard his voice from outside, and the sound of horses in the courtyard. Someone had arrived. I heard at least a dozen horses.

  I would have gone into a bird, to see what the commotion was. But I could not. Nor could I travel into a rat, and listen from inside the walls. And so I waited until dawn, when Fiona came to dress me and to bring me my chocolate and the hot water for my toilette.

  But this morning there was no hot water. Nor was there any chocolate, in its little bone-china cup with a honey-cake on the side, or a piece of shortbread. Instead the maid Fiona brought me a plain green cambric dress and a dish of porridge, and brushed my hair only long enough to secure it under a plain white cap, and all the time she was looking at me from under those long eyelashes, as if to say: I know your kind. You are not of our kind. The Master may not know it, but I do.

  I did not ask about the dress, or the missing chocolate. I said nothing as I washed my face and hands in cold water. The maid Fiona sat and watched, and did not offer to help me. Then, as I reached for the bracelets and rings that I had taken off for the night, she said to me in her milkwater voice:

  ‘The Master desires me to take those back. They were My Lady’s, and should not have left her chambers.’

  I was surprised, but said nothing. Instead I put on my tiger’s-eye beads, and wished I could be a tiger. If I were a tiger, I would tear out the throats of village girls; of cornsilk, buttermilk, cottontail girls. I would tear out their white throats, and dance in the rain all cloaked in their blood. Of course I cannot do those things. But I can still wear my tiger’s-eye beads, which my William gave to me, and smile although my heart is lead, and I do not feel like smiling. My William will come to me soon. My William will explain all this.

  Fiona went out, with that look of hers, like a cat with its face in the cream-pot. I threw the cold porridge onto the floor, and tried to read
the storybook that was lying on the table. It was about a handsome P-R-I-N-C-E, who falls in love with a P-R-I-N-C-E-S-S. But she has been cursed by a W-I-C-K-E-D W-I-T-C-H, and made to scrub floors in his father’s kitchens. The stupid prince does not recognise her when he goes in search of her. But a G-O-O-D F-A-I-R-Y, moved by her plight, gives the girl three wishes. The princess asks for a fine silk gown, and some dancing shoes, and a coach with four white horses, all so that the prince will notice her. And sure enough, now that she is beautiful, he marries her, and gives her a veil, and a gold ring to put on her finger to show that she belongs to him, and, with his father’s blessing, they live H-A-P-P-I-L-Y E-V-E-R A-F-T-E-R.

  It is a ridiculous story. The prince should have recognised his love whatever she was wearing. Even dressed as a bird, or a rat, or snake, or a fox, or a weasel, his heart should have told him she was there. And why did the princess not speak out when the prince went looking for her? Why did she lurk in the kitchens, waiting to be saved? Why could she not save herself? And what does the prince’s father have to do with anything? And why would one of the Faërie have given her three wishes? And why would she waste them on a dress, some dancing shoes and a coach and four?

  Perhaps the pictures in the book will shed some light on the story. But the princess in the pictures looks just like Fiona: a village girl with primrose hair and a pale, round, milkweed face. The prince is not much better. But the wicked witch is brown, all dressed in rags and feathers. The wicked witch has wild black hair, and eyes as black as cauldrons.

  I wonder what the village girl did to offend the wicked witch. Did she simply look at her in that sly, contemptuous way, as if to say: I know your kind? Or was it something even worse?

  I look at myself in the mirror. Even with my wild hair caught beneath the little cap, I still look like the wicked witch. I take off the cap and shake my hair free. The tiger’s-eye necklace is choking me, and I would like to take off, but it was William’s gift to me, and so I endure the discomfort.