Ambergate (9 page)

When the strength had come back into my legs, Erland took me to the river, along the causeway road that was only a line of
flat stones, so overgrown it was almost hidden. The river stretched all the way to the sky. Low yellow-green banks, nibbled
by narrow inlets, bordered a muddy shore. Drifts of birds flew low over my head, startling me; the air was full of their eerie
wailing and piping. There was a smell of salt on the breeze, of mud, of unknown things.

Erland taught me the names of the birds: redshank, red-legged as its name; black-and-white oystercatcher; avocet, with its
upturned beak. I remembered the
Table of Significance
and knew these birds carried no omens, yet still my unease lingered. The Wasteland remained an alien, mysterious space to
me, though I tried to like it for Erland’s sake. I longed to please him, to make him love me.

He must love me already
, I thought, for on good days he seemed so entranced by my presence: smiling, full of light, his moodiness banished. Sometimes,
when we were walking, he would take my hand and swing it loosely in his, cheerful as the morning. He would call me Silky,
then.
He is mine
, I thought,
he truly loves me
. Once I pressed his warm hand, hoping he would press mine back. I gazed at his cheek, his eyes, his hair, his strong profile,
as we strode along. I’d never seen a youth so handsome.

Yet other times he would turn from me and stare over the shimmering marsh water to the far horizon, and his face would be
shut against me.

“What’s on your mind, Erland?” I said at last. “You are thinking sad thoughts again.”

He turned to me at once; he stroked my hair as if he gentled a pet. “How can I be sad when you’re here, Silky?”

But I was disturbed by a trickle of unease.
Lovers should tell each other their thoughts, shouldn’t they? But if I love him, then he must love me
.

“Your coming here has made me think many things,” he said. “What I shall do when my father dies. Shall I be an ordinary man
and live out my days like any other? I only wish I could.”

I looked at his unhappy face and longed to say, “Then come away with me, Erland, come now,” but I was too tentative.

He shrugged his shoulders abruptly as if to shrug his thoughts away. “And what of you, Silky? You have great things ahead
of you, I know it.”

I had to laugh. “How can you know it? You say it to please me, but I know nothing about the working of the world, Erland.”

“That is now. You will learn it. It will take time.”

“Your time or mine?” I said it in jest, but at once his face closed against me.

And so some days he would be withdrawn and morose, and I would try to cheer him until he became again the attentive companion
I knew.

In the shelter I avoided his eyes as if mine might say too much and show Gadd my secret love. If secret it was. In the evenings,
I would sometimes look up to see Gadd watching
me warily, a troubled look on his face in the firelight. But I was careful to show nothing, to go about cleaning pots after
supper in an unconcerned way. It gave me a thrill to pretend that nothing had changed between Erland and me, that everything
was as it had been in those dreary, dark days before we went outside together.

“I am glad to see you better,” Gadd said.

“Yes,” I said cheerily. “The Wasteland air’s so very bracing.”

“Be careful. Too much can make one light-headed.”

I was feeling so happy inside that night, I wanted to share it. I looked at his long face, poor old man. “What say you to
a song, Mr. Gadd? We should entertain ourselves. A roundelay, perhaps, with the three of us.”

Because I was so careful not to look at Erland, I couldn’t see what he thought.

“I rasp like the corncrake when I sing,” said Gadd. He sucked his pipe. “You sing us a verse or two, Miss Scuff. It be a long
while since I heard a maid sing.”

All at once I was shy; my happy confidence disappeared. I hid behind my hair, but I could see that they were both looking
at me expectantly. I couldn’t let Erland down. He might love me all the more if I sang: I would make him fall in love with
my voice.

First I gave them that rousing old song of the haymakers, “Lift Your Pitchforks High and Holla ‘Harvest’s Home Tonight!’”
They both appeared to enjoy it and gave me a little clap when I’d finished.

Then I cast around in my mind for a song to bring a change of mood. I fixed on a haunting ballad I’d heard as a
child: “I Left My Love by the Amber Gate.” It is said that somewhere in the Capital there is a fabulous, ancient gate made
from amber and gold. Perhaps the woman in the cellar had sung the old song—or someone in the streets of the Capital—I don’t
know. I was surprised at myself for I’d forgotten I knew it, but every word came out perfectly. It is a sad song, for the
girl’s lover dies in the magical place at the Gate, where the sky “rains with stars and crowns.”

I sang sweetly that night. I knew it, as you know when you do something your heart is in. I thought of Erland’s precious love
and sang for it; and as he and his father sat and listened by the fire, I captured both of them in the spell of my singing.

Afterward there was silence. I looked from one to another, my heart beating quick. They stared into the flames, each lost.

Gadd roused himself. He said huskily, “That was well done. Thank you for it. You sing like the nightingale.”

I knew it was a compliment, but I touched my amber quickly, for the nightingale can sometimes signify Death to those who hear
it.

Erland raised his head and looked at me. “Beautiful,” he murmured. Our eyes met.

“You sing now, Erland,” I said hastily, for I did not want Gadd to think anything of his comment.

“I don’t sing,’ said Erland. His face was shadowed.

“Please, Erland.” He shook his fair head.

I shouldn’t have pressed him further, but I felt bold after the success of my singing, and so I did. “You’re a coward,” I
said, laughing. “I have sung. Now it’s your turn.”

“I never sing,” he muttered.

“But your voice can’t be like the corncrake’s too! Let me hear it.”

“No!” He leapt to his feet, knocking his stool over with a thud on to the matting. His shadow flickered over the walls as
he went in two strides to the doorway. Without looking back, without further word to either of us, he ripped the sheepskin
hanging aside and disappeared into the night.

It was suddenly very quiet in the shelter, except for the hissing of the wood on the fire, as the cold night air found its
way inside. Blown smoke billowed around us. I felt my eyes smart and a great gulp rise in my throat.

Gadd shook his head and rose stiffly to straighten the hanging.

“What have I done?” I whispered when he came back to the fire.

He settled himself again with an effort and gave his pipe a steady suck before he answered. “Erland does not sing.”

“But he was so angry. I don’t understand.” My voice trembled.

“And he would not want you to try,” said Gadd. “Don’t concern yourself over it.”

“But he may come to harm,” I wailed, “out in the dark—alone.” I thought of the Birds of Night, and shuddered.

Gadd grunted in amusement. “Erland? He be a wild creature himself in the dark. Sometimes we fish at night…” He looked over
at me and it was too dark to see his expression. “You should leave soon, before the season starts, before things go further.”

I knew what he was saying to me. He had known all along about our love and disapproved of it. I was dismayed; but
Gadd seemed deep in his thoughts, and I could say nothing. I wanted reassurance and comfort, and only Erland could give me
that. If he loved me, he would come back soon, apologize for his temper and smile at me, and on the morrow he’d take me out
again.

When Erland did finally return, I was asleep. But the next day he took me out fishing and never mentioned the previous evening.
Nor did Gadd say anything more to me about leaving. I thought,
Perhaps he has accepted that we love each other
.

And so time passed, a green time of fine rain and pale sun and troubled happiness, until the morning there were two moons
in the sky. And that was my last day on the Wasteland, though I didn’t know it.

That morning when we went out, I could still see the moon, fat and full in the sky as if it were too lazy to leave. A second
moon peered milkily from behind the clouds. I knew it was the sun in hiding, though it gave no warmth today. The Wasteland
looked a desolate and gloomy place without the sunlight, the stunted trees and bushes tinged gray.

Erland frowned up at the sky. “There’s a spring storm coming.”

“How can you tell?”

He shrugged. “It’s in the air. The birds sense it.”

He began to stride away and I ran to catch up with him. I didn’t know where we were going.

“I must secure the boats.”

“When will the storm come?” I panted, perturbed by his sudden urgency.

Erland didn’t slacken his pace. “Maybe tonight, maybe not for another day or so.”

Down by the river everything seemed the same to me. There was no sunlight on the water today; wind ruffled its dull surface.
The tide was on the early ebb and had not yet drained the muddy inlets that wandered over the marsh between the old grassy
dyke wall and the river.

I watched Erland maneuver the punt close to where the dory, the small flat-bottomed sailing boat, was already moored in a
wide creek. He weighed the rope’s end—the painter, he called it—down with heavy stones on the bank. Then he checked the dory’s
mooring. “Should be safe enough.”

Good
, I thought.
Now the day can he peaceful, as it always is
.

There was a distant explosion of noise, so sudden, so violent in the stillness, we did not have time to move. We stood, rigid
with shock, blasted by sound. The birds rose in a tumult of cries and beating wings.

Erland came to life before I did and pulled me down on the springy turf.

“What was that?” I cried.

He held me close. “A gun.”

I’d never heard a gunshot before; I was trembling.

He raised his head. “They must be on the river somewhere. Soldiers from Windrush—fooling about, most like.” Only soldiers
and the Lawmen in the main towns had a license to carry guns.

“You said no soldiers ever came,” I hissed.

“They don’t. They must have a chart.”

“Did they see us?”

“Don’t know.”

“They’ll see the boats!”

“Plenty of boats on the river.”

I lay, scarcely breathing, his arm still around me. Mud seeped up through the turf; I tasted the grit of sand in my mouth.
The birds settled back; the air closed around us. For a moment everything was still. Then, unmistakably, we heard the creak
and squeak of wood, and slow but regular, the dip and splash and surge of water being pushed away. Not far from us a craft
was being rowed over the river and coming closer all the time.

“I’ll go to the bend and look,” whispered Erland.

“No, don’t! Stay with me!”

But he was already wriggling away like an eel beyond the dory, along the bottom of the dyke wall where it followed the bulge
of the shore.

I lay where I was, my heart thumping. There was laughter not far away: high-pitched, excited. Two male voices, with the slight
hoarseness of youth: one, more educated than the other, sounded tipsy. I held the amber stone and prayed to the Eagle, a wordless
prayer for protection. Two young soldiers, relishing a day’s freedom on the river. Let that be all it was.

The voices grew closer.

“There he is again, damn him—thought I’d got the ruffian!”

“You’ll waste your shot, Sir. And be had up for murder.” The accent of the Capital.

“Not for killing a vagrant. Doing the law a favor. It’s a game, Chance, cheer up. Plenty of shot left. Where’s he got to?”
A whoop. “There he is!” Another blast of sound as the gun was fired. Birds flew squawking and piping in all directions amid
insane laughter from the youth. There was a sharp, burning smell on the clean air.

Had Erland been hit? There was no cover here. I pressed myself harder into the tufty grass. My heart thudded, for I remembered
the name Chance. It was the soldier who had come into the kitchen at Murkmere, the young Corporal. The soldier with him must
be the Lord Protector’s son, Caleb Grouted.

The boat scraped over shingle. They must have found somewhere to land without having to wade through mud. I heard the distant
crunch of boots as they climbed out, a flurry of startled birds, high-pitched giggling from the youth with the gun, a tipsy
snatch of song, “A-hunting, a-hunting, a-hunting we will go!”

Where is Erland
? Very cautiously I lifted my head.

The two young soldiers stood on the grass at the bend in the river. They were looking straight toward me, staring over the
desolate marshland. Chance had the painter of the rowing boat in his hand; Caleb Grouted held his musket cocked, the leather
holster dangling loosely. They were looking
for Erland; they couldn’t see him, but I could, and my heart lurched.

He lay, almost submerged in water, in one of the shallow inlets between the dyke wall and the river. He was closer to the
soldiers than he was to me, hidden only by the height of turf and low sedge above him. But he was trapped. If he moved, they
would see him.

“This place gives me the creeps, Sir. Let’s go.”

“He can’t hide from us, Chance, not here. He’s somewhere about and we’ll get him.” Caleb Grouted swung his musket slowly across
the landscape.

“He could be dangerous.”

A sudden wild giggle. “Not when he’s shot at, he won’t be. We’ll make him dance, Chance!”

I stood up.

I think I had a notion that they would see me and realize I was the girl they’d been hunting, would be distracted and Erland
could escape. I can’t remember. At the time it seemed the only thing to do.

I don’t think Caleb Grouted noticed me immediately. But in that minute a great many things happened.

Erland turned his head, perhaps to check where I was. He saw me stand up and an expression of horror crossed his face. At
the same time Caleb Grouted spotted him, and with a shout of triumph, raised his musket to take aim.