Ambergate (7 page)

The swans must have flown away into the night. But neither, on the stretch of moonlit scrub before him, was there any sign
of the flying machine.

The Wasteland

S
omeone was lifting my head. I didn’t want them to do that; it hurt too much.

I drew my brows together with the faintest flicker. I was too hot. I heard murmuring. Then I slept.

Later there was the rim of something hard against my lips. I opened my mouth. A bitter liquid. The air smelled of something
faintly familiar.

I groaned. Again, the murmur came, then the soothing touch of cool fingers on my forehead. I recognized the scent in the air
now, but I was too tired to make sense of it. Hay, new-mown. And something that stank of animal covering me.

Another time when the touch came, I opened my eyes. Eyes looked down into mine. I shut my eyes again, and slept.

Later, I was given water.

One day I said, “Who are you?”

My lips were cracked; it was painful to move them. My voice sounded old and rusty. But when I looked over from the straw pallet
on which I lay, I could see a man sitting on a stool by the fire, and I knew him. He had watched over me during the days and
nights that had passed, had laid healing hands on my head, covered me with sheepskins. Sometimes I had watched him move about
this dark, smoky place as he tended me. There had been someone else too—a young man—but he was not here now.

The older man had been gazing into the fire, but when I spoke, he looked around, startled. Then he rose stiffly to his feet.
He was a giant, broad and strong. As I shrank back, pressing myself down into the bedding, he went across to an opening in
the wall, and in a voice to match his size shouted out into the beam of white daylight, “Erland!”

Then he came over and spoke softly to me, pulling up a stool and sitting on it with a grunt a little way away, as if he sensed
I might be frightened if he came too close—though I knew he had looked after me most gently.

“My name is Gadd, Miss,” he said. “You’ve been very poorly. I think you hit your head.” He spoke with the round vowels of
the Eastern Edge. “I gave you feverfew to cool you.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. I bit my lip at the thought of the intimate tasks he must have done for me, but his face showed
only respect and concern.

“My son will be here shortly,” he said. “He’ll be pleased you’ve woken proper.”

I nodded, and raised my hand weakly to feel my head. I couldn’t feel any bump, but my hair was filthy, matted with dirt.

“Your hands were in a state,” said Gadd. “I couldn’t get the blood from beneath your fingernails without distressing you.”

My hands—my wrists and forearms! Surely he must have seen the number branded on my skin? His face showed nothing.

“I can wash myself now,” I said, anxious.

“Slowly does it. You must rest as much as possible. My son found you, Erland. He carried you here.” He spoke of him with shy
pride.

“Where am I?”

“Why, in the Wasteland.”

I started. “The Wasteland?” I was sure I must still be on the Murkmere estate.

I looked wildly about me, at the odd, circular walls of plaited reeds. I was lying in a dwelling made entirely from grass:
even the floor covering was woven from rushes. There was no roof; the walls curved up to a central hole that let out smoke
from the fire.

“I didn’t know anyone lived in the Wasteland,” I said.

“There was a village here on the river road once,” said Gadd. “I still make use of its well and grazing ground. No man could
live here otherways.”

“So the river road is close by?” I whispered.

“You’re lying right on it, Miss, though you’d scarce call it a road these days. But if you’ve the eyes to see it, it be there.”

Gadd’s eyes were narrow slits of light, permanently half-closed, as if against the sun, and surrounded by waves of brown wrinkles.
They were so disconcertingly direct I thought he must know my destination. “Erland found your wings.”

“I was escaping…” A wave of terror caught me. “Soldiers…”

He clucked his teeth. “Easy, lass. There be no soldiers here.”

I relaxed back into the sheepskin coverings and fell silent, breathing in the fragrant green scent of the place, a mingling
of the burning rush lights above me, the sheaves of cut grasses, and the young sappy wood on the fire. In the shadows I saw
the glint of scythes propped against a wall, the dull sheen of cooking utensils hanging from hooks in the roof. There was
little furniture, save for a roughhewn table, a stool and a ribbed wooden chair.

As I listened to the fire sparking, I must have closed my eyes, for when I opened them Gadd had gone and there was a youth
crouched on the matting not far from me. He was staring at me, but as soon as he saw me look over he bent his head. His straight
fair hair fell forward into his eyes.

I said painfully, “Thank you—for bringing me here.”

He looked at me again. Under the fall of fair hair his eyes were deep-set and grave above a jutting nose, but now a smile
lit his face. He was lanky and long-limbed in his rough breeches and patched jacket; he’d not yet filled out to his full strength
like his father, but he was tall and broad-shouldered, and moved with a quick litheness unlike his father’s stiff gait.

“What is your name?” he asked. His accent was not as strong as his father’s.

“I have no given name,” I said in a low voice. “I’ve been called Scuff—for part of my life.”

He considered the name solemnly, then shook his head. “You must find your true name.”

“How long have I been here?”

He shrugged. “Time passes differently in the Wasteland.”

“How did you find me?”

“Your wings are still out there, in a reed bed that cushioned your fall.” He jerked his head toward the opening in the wall.
“You weren’t moving, so I lifted you up and brought you here.”

“Your father nursed me,” I whispered.

“He’s a healer.”

I thought of Gadd’s cool touch on my forehead, all he’d done for me. “I wish I’d the means to pay him.”

“Money would mean nothing to him,” said Erland gruffly. “He cared for you because you were hurt.”

I didn’t know what to say, faced with such unquestioning kindness. Tears filled my eyes. Though I couldn’t say such a thing
to this grave, unworldly youth and his gentle father, who together had saved my life, I wished I had died when I fell from
the air. There was nothing to live for.

I had no way of telling how much time was passing, nor did it matter to me.

I lay listlessly on the pallet, listening to the fire crackle or to Gadd and Erland talking to each other as they moved about,
preparing food, bringing in clanking buckets of well water or cow’s milk, sharpening blades. Their thoughtfulness
was endless. They rigged up a reed screen to preserve my modesty, and brought me bowls of water to wash myself in.

When it grew dark outside, they pulled my pallet closer to the fire and I would watch Gadd plaiting reeds into baskets and
mats to sell, for although the rheum had stiffened his legs, his fingers were nimble and clever. I would scarce touch the
fish they cooked for supper, and it seemed too great an effort to talk. But I’d notice how easy they were together in conversation,
how they’d joke and tease each other in their soft voices. As Erland passed Gadd’s stool, he’d ruffle his father’s graying
locks in mocking impudence; in return, Gadd would pretend to box Erland’s ears or clap him on the rump to chase him to his
duties.

And in their eyes there was such affection that deep inside me something woke and twisted with emotion.

During the day I was often on my own, for Erland went out whatever the weather, and Gadd only stayed behind if the rheum was
bothering him badly, for he needed to tend the animals. But I did not have the desire or strength to go out with them. I scarce
had the energy to do more than empty the bowl they’d given me for a chamber pot: the few dragging steps to the latrine ditch
they’d dug in a clump of silver birch. Not far away I could hear the lowing of a cow, a goat bleating, but my eyes didn’t
leave the ground. It was too dangerous.

I’d often finger the amber stone that Aggie had given me, dangling it like a solid drop of sunlight on its leather thread,
touching the smoothness that had saved me from the sky.

Or had it?

Sometimes at night I would dream. The dreams would be a blur of images: Pegg’s hand on the pistol; the upturned faces of the
soldiers; the brands burning below in the darkness; the dogs howling and straining on their leashes. I’d feel Pegg’s pistol
in my ribs, the leather flying harness cutting into my body.

And then I’d drop into space.

I would cry out in terror and wake to find Gadd by my pallet, hushing me, smoothing my hair back from my face. Then I’d whisper
over and over again, “How did I survive such a fall?”

Gadd said nothing. He sat there quietly, a dark soothing presence, until at last my trembling ceased.

But there was a curious thing. Sometimes on waking I had the sensation of wings beneath me. A sea of feathers held me up so
that I floated on the night wind. It seemed that I skimmed the air, rose into the glittering, dark blue firmament, and sailed
beneath the stars. I flew on, light as a bird, and all the time there was a force beneath me, supporting me, guiding my way.
Whether it was dream or memory, I had no notion.

All day long, the seagulls mewled over the rush dome above my head. I stared into space for hours, hearing their plaintive
cries above the spitting of the fire, and my mind felt dull and empty. I wondered if I were going mad. When Gadd and Erland
came back they often found me sitting on my pallet, huddled in the sheepskin coverlet and gazing fixedly at nothing.

One afternoon, Gadd came over to light the rush lights on
the shelf above my pallet, and surprised me. I’d pulled my screen across to give them the impression I was asleep, but I was
lying on my back staring blank-eyed at the patterns the plaited rushes made as they met over my head in the darkening shadows.

He sat down on a stool close by me in the pool of green light and sucked on his pipe in silence for a while, not looking at
me.

I sat up and pushed back my matted hair. “It’s the dratted seagulls,” I said fretfully. “They are sending me mad.”

He said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered at last. “I don’t know what can be wrong with me.”

“Your soul yearns for what it’s lost,” he said calmly, “and for what it’s not yet found.”

It was the truth, I realized, and my eyes pricked.

“I’m thinking that soon it will be time to set about your new life,” said Gadd.

Panic gripped me at once; I clutched the sheepskin.

“Please, I beg you—could I stay here? I could cook for you both, keep house?”

He looked about him, smiling. “A housekeeper, here? But it would not be seemly, the three of us living together in one room.
Besides, Erland be away most times. It would not do—the two of us together.”

“Please, Mr. Gadd!”

“During the winter it be bitter cold in here. In the summer I be out all day and sometimes nights, given good weather.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” I said, but he shook his head.

“It be no life for a young girl,” he said gently. “Be there nowhere else you can go?”

I thought of the letter in the pocket of my cloak, and said with reluctance, “I have an address where I may find employment,
a house in Poorgrass Kayes.”

“Aye, it be where I sell my work. Erland will take you there in the dory.”

My heart sank. “But not yet, Mr. Gadd?”

He considered me a long moment. “Not yet.”

After that day, things changed for me.

The following morning, after the animals had been tended and we had eaten our breakfast of oatmeal and dried herring, Gadd
set off with his fishing rod. I expected Erland to follow. By now I knew he hated being inside during daylight. Even in the
evening he was never still. He moved restlessly around the cramped space by the fire and never settled to his weaving as his
father did.

Now he beckoned me to the opening in the rush wall. “Close your eyes,” he said.

Puzzled, I obeyed. I felt him guiding me, then gentle fingers on my face. He turned my head to the light. “There! Don’t you
feel it? The change in the sunlight?”

Radiance lit the insides of my lids; I could feel warmth on my upturned face. It stole through me from the tip of my head
to my feet. It bathed my cold skin, warmed my thin
blood. When I breathed I could smell it in the air: a green warmth, as if everything in nature were breathing.

In pleasure I opened my eyes and saw Erland’s smile. “Summer’s on her way.” He held out his hand, as if to pull me outside.

At once I was frightened. “What are you doing?”

“Going to check the boats. Come with me.”

“But I…” I couldn’t think of what to say.

Somehow I found myself outside the shelter, clutching the amber at my neck. The light was strong after so many days in darkness.
It was as if I’d emerged from the cellar. I rubbed my dazzled eyes, and the light softened into a green-brown water-world.

I saw the grass-and-wattle dome of the shelter where I spent my days. I saw shingle and tall grass and pools, glistening like
tears, all the way to the rim of the sky. There were islands of silver birch and gorse, with bright yellow flowers like tiny
drops of egg yolk, and high in the sky, seagulls wailing over a strange, flat land.

It was the first time I had raised my head to look at it. I took my hand away from the amber. “It’s beautiful!”
But there’s too much space
, I thought.

“It’s a wild, magic place, with its own rules,” said Erland. “You have to respect it.”

He began to pick his way along a finger of shingle between water and reeds. His leather bag swung against his side. He wore
no jacket over his rough calico shirt, as if it were already summer; his hair shone in the sun. I knew he was smiling again,
a secret smile, at the fairness of the day.