The Moorchild (7 page)

Yanno lifted the latch, ducked under the low door frame, and stepped down heavily onto the sunken earth floor, shoving aside one of Anwara’s hens that was disputing the way with him. Saaski caught the bird and tossed it outside
in a flurry of feathers and wild clucking, then followed Yanno and stood warily meeting his eyes.

“Shepherd came to my smithy an hour ago,” Yanno said without preamble. “Asked me did I have a child so high.” He held out a big hand. “ ’Twas you he saw this morning?”

Saaski nodded.

Yanno studied her a moment, then made a half-embarrassed gesture. “Said he thought t’was a pixie. One he’d seen afore.”

“Said it to me, too,” Saaski mumbled. “He’s some kind of noddikins, is what I thought.”

“He’s cousin to Cattila—young Hungus’s wife, up the street here. Name’s Mikkel. Never heard he was addled.” Yanno paused. “Maybe not too bright. You never saw him afore, then?”

Saaski swallowed, tried to say “never,” ended by shrugging.

“What’s that mean?”

“Means I dunno! I might’ve—when I was little, and kept running off. Can’t recollect.”

“Ahh, that could be it,” said Yanno, and he sounded oddly relieved. Then he frowned again. “Where was it this morning? That he ran onto you?”

“Well, um, up above the Highfield, like.”

“That’ll be wasteland, but Torskaal land.
Our
grazing.
He
lives other side of the moor. Never comes our way.”

“It was on the moor, then,” said Saaski unwillingly.

“Aye, there ’tis! Now, I’ve told you! Stay on village land! You’re ever in mischief! I’ll lay odds you was plaguing his sheep.”

“I wasn’t! I was just—I fell asleep.”

“
Asleep?
In the middle of the moor there? Child, that’s daft.”

Well, I was sleepy,
Saaski thought. However, she knew better than to say it. Yanno did not like argufying young ones. Instead she chewed her lip and looked elsewhere.

Yanno turned away with an exasperated gesture. “Eh, then, you listen to me! Stay off the moor, you hear? You’ve got no call to be there. You’re never to go there again.”

Saaski was staring at him now. “Not ever?” she gasped.

“Leastways till you’re a grown maid and know what’s what. Moor’s a wild sort of place. No playground for snippets like you.”

“But Da’—but please—”

“That’ll do, now. No argufying.” Yanno glanced toward the doorway as Anwara stepped in. “Your mother’ll say the same!”

Anwara pulled off her shawl and hung it on its accustomed peg, asking absently, “The same as what?” Without waiting for an answer she added, “What was the great forgathering up around the well just now? A body’d think ’twas a conventicle!”

“Conventicle of gossiping, same as every day,” Yanno muttered. His glance at Saaski told her clearly to keep her mouth shut. She was glad to obey.

“Gossiping about what? They broke up fast enough when they saw me coming!” Anwara was eyeing them both suspiciously.

“How should I know? I was at my forge. Cattila’s cousin Mikkel was around, blethering some tale!” Yanno waved
the subject away. “The child here was on the moor again this morning—right among Mikkel’s sheep, she was, ’cause he saw her there. Now, wife, I’ve told her to stay below the wall—and
off
the moor. From this minute till I say different! You’re to tell her the same.”

His tone was stern enough to divert Anwara’s attention from the well gossipers to Saaski, who stood numb and despairing, thinking of Tam and the juggling and the piping, now never to be hers. There was no use hoping Anwara would defend her this time. She had ever fretted about the moor, scolded when Saaski ran away there, begged and ordered her to stay below the wall. The moor was wild and dangerous. Some said there were wolves. Everyone knew there were treacherous bogs, tales aplenty of grown men wandering off the trails and losing their way, breaking a leg in some mishap and dying helpless of pain and starvation—and other, darker tales of bogles and hobgoblins, of Moorfolks’ mischief and the fool’s-fire that led you where it willed. . . .

It sounded nothing like Saaski’s beloved moor, which for her was wide with freedom and unshadowed by fear. But Yanno meant what he said this time. He and Anwara changed the list of her duties and the shape of her day; before they were finished she was all but house-tethered.

It was all that rattlehead shepherd’s doing, Saaski thought bitterly. Yanno was afeard of his tongue, that was the long and short of it.

Her vexations were not over. Ill luck came in threes, everyone said, and the third blow fell a few mornings later. She went out to the shed to milk and again found Moll’s
bag empty. Someone—or something—had once more got there ahead of her. This time no one could blame the calf, which was now stalled in Siward’s ox-shed, across the road.

They would blame Saaski. She knew it well.

She stood a moment, baffled and angry, just outside the shed door, telling herself to go on, go back home and get it over with, but dreading to face Anwara and start the village tongues wagging once again. Suddenly she turned to scan the rough wooden wall beside her, remembering the strange mark she had seen there—or
almost
seen—that other morning this had happened.

And there it was again.

It seemed clearer this time. Fresher. There were three straggling lines crossed by another, all contained within a mark curved like a cupped hand. She stared at it until it wavered and vanished, then put down her empty bucket, found a twig, and tried to scratch the pattern in the dirt.

It was oddly hard to copy. She was on her third attempt when a shadow fell across her hand, and she found Old Bess leaning over her, watching. Quickly she straightened up, scrubbed at her scratchings with a bare foot.

“Nay, child, don’t rub them out. Let me see.” Old Bess put out a restraining hand, but she did not sound angry. “What is that mark?” she asked.

“I dunno. I saw it—” Saaski’s glance went to the shed wall, and Old Bess’s followed it. The mark was there again, slightly glimmering, then partly gone. “D’you see?” said Saaski. “It comes and goes like that.”

Old Bess gazed silently at the wall, then at Saaski. “I see nothing,” she said.

“But—” Saaski went to the wall, stood on tiptoe to put one finger on the mark itself. “Just there.”

“Aye, I don’t doubt you, child,” said Old Bess slowly. “But I can’t see it.”

For a moment their eyes met—Saaski’s puzzled, Old Bess’s speculative.

“Draw it again—on the ground there,” said the woman.

Saaski tried her best. It was not the same, but close enough. “What is it?” she asked. “I saw it t’other time, too.”

“What other time?”

There, now, I’ve gone and let it out, thought Saaski, bracing herself for a tongue-lashing. She drew a long breath. “T’other time Moll was milked afore I got here.”

“I see.” Old Bess did not really seem surprised. “So that’s happened again today?”

Saaski nodded, and waited, uncertain which was coming—the expected scolding or totally unexpected support.

Old Bess said quietly, “The mark is a rune. I think it is a sign meaning a cow may be milked here—and the thief will go blameless because the blame will fall on someone else.”

Saaski could feel her eyes stretching wider and wider. The word
rune
was echoing and re-echoing in her mind, filling all its spaces. It was several moments before she grasped the rest of the remark. “Somebody
wants
me blamed?” she faltered.

“Maybe not that, exactly. Just—there is safety for the thief if you are.”

Saaski barely heard the answer. “What is a rune?” she asked urgently.

“A kind of writing.”

“I think I know some other ones,” whispered Saaski, rather frightening herself. “Or once did,” she added confusedly. “I daresay ’twas a dream.”

“Could you draw one of the others?”

“I could not,” Saaski said quickly, unwilling to try or even to ask herself why she was unwilling. She cast about hurriedly for some safe subject.

Old Bess supplied it. “Suppose we wash this mark off the wall. If you guide my hand, I will do the washing.”

“Will we tell my mother?” whispered Saaski.

Old Bess smiled briefly. “We will tell Anwara the cow was milked. But I will come with you to tell her. The washing we will do later, when she has gone to the Lowfield to weed her peas.”

So it happened. Saaski did not know why it was so much easier to break the ill news with Old Bess standing, calm and silent, behind her, but it was. It even seemed easier for Anwara to take the blow—or else she was too dismayed to rage. She merely stood by the table and heard Saaski out, her hands motionless in the bread dough, her thin shoulders drooping. Then she sighed deeply, wiped her hands, and went to poke up the fire.

“Put away the churn, then,” she said harshly. “You will bake the loaves this morning while I’m at my weeding. Don’t let them burn.”

“I won’t, Mumma,” Saaski murmured, and that was the end of it.

Later, when Anwara had gone to the Lowfield and the loaves were cooling, Old Bess came back, carrying a small
cloth-wrapped bundle. “Fetch a bowl and put a little water in it,” she told Saaski. “And a pinch of salt,” she added when the bowl was ready.

Saaski hesitated, then found a spoon to dip the salt out of its wooden box. Salt had always stung her fingers.

“Now come along,” said Old Bess.

Saaski obeyed, carefully balancing the bowl and eyeing the little bundle still tucked under Old Bess’s arm. Except for old man Fiach and his dog, both dozing in a dooryard, the street was empty. From the smithy just beyond the cowshed the clang of Yanno’s hammer sounded rhythmically on the still, sun-warmed air. Old Bess walked straight to the shed wall, stooped down, and opened her bundle on the ground. It was full of the leaves and stems and yellow flowers of St. John’s wort. Saaski skipped hastily back, slopping the water a little.

“It will not hurt you, Saaski,” Old Bess said calmly. “You need not even touch it. Just give me the bowl, then guide my hand to the mark.”

She took a handful of the plant trimmings, dipped them in the salt water, and waited. Gingerly Saaski took hold of her wrist, located the half-visible rune on the wall, and placed the hand with its dripping leaves over the center. Old Bess scrubbed—this way, that way, over the whole area. After a few moments she paused. “Is it gone?”

“Nearly,” Saaski told her. “A bit toward the—that edge.” She pointed, holding her finger just off the wood.

Old Bess dipped a fresh handful of leaves and flowers and scrubbed again. This time nothing was left. Saaski met Old
Bess’s questioning glance and nodded.
Why can I see it and you cannot?
she wanted to ask, but kept silent, fearing she might not want the answer.

“Then pour out the water, and take the bowl back to its shelf. Our little task is done.” Old Bess bundled up the crushed trimmings and tied the cloth. She smiled her tight, brief smile at Saaski. “If you dream of some other rune, will you come and show me?”

“I will,” Saaski murmured.

“Good. Now I’ll just have a word with your da’.” She turned and headed for the smithy.

A word with Yanno? What about? Uneasy again, Saaski watched from the cottage dooryard until Old Bess disappeared under the wide smithy roof and Yanno’s clanging broke off. Then she darted closer, ducking behind the tall clump of gray-and-gold mullein that grew by the smithy wall. Yanno’s deep voice rumbled; Old Bess’s answer floated out clearly.

“Nay, I was but passing—and puzzling about your cow. I wonder, Yanno, that you do not hang a horseshoe over the door of that shed.”

More rumbling, with a questioning lift at the end.

“Eh, well.” Old Bess’s voice had a shrug in it. “It is said to turn away bad luck. Tell Anwara I will bring her some melilot tomorrow to flavor her cheese.”

Old Bess emerged from the smithy and went her way up the street. Saaski watched from behind the mullein clump, forgetting to move because of consternation about the horseshoe. Would Yanno do that? Nail iron right over the door she had to go in and out of twice a day? Iron made her
shiver, made her teeth ache and hurt her if she touched it. Yanno knew it did—they all knew. Old Bess had just begun to seem so friendly—now this. There was no puzzling her out.

The clanging from the smithy started up again, but at a jerky pace, and suddenly there was the clatter of Yanno’s hammer landing amid his other tools. Belatedly, Saaski came to her senses and scampered home. She was barely inside when Yanno stalked past.

A moment later the hammer blows sounded again, not ringing as they did against the anvil but with a somber
thunk, thunk, thunk
as the horseshoe was nailed above the cow byre door.

After the horseshoe went up there was no further trouble about the milking. And for a while, there was no other nuisance to blame Saaski for. True, she had to force herself into the shed each morning and evening, shivering as she passed under the horseshoe, but this bothered no one but her.

A far larger burden was the unused energy now bottled up inside her. Forbidden the moor and her free wanderings, she attacked the churning with a vigor that sloshed the milk out of the tall wooden churn, swept the smooth-trampled earth floor so hard she raised dust where there had been none loose before. She had a rough hand with the bread dough and washed crocks hard enough to crack them. Since she balked at scouring the iron pot—braving the horseshoe twice a day was bad enough—she was put to scrubbing the hearthstones, and the table, and Yanno’s
other tunic until he complained that she had well-nigh worn it out.

All this took up only part of her morning.

“It’ll never answer,” Old Bess had told Anwara at the outset. “You may cage her but she’ll slip out through the bars—or beat herself senseless against them.”

“Mother, what blather! Any child needs to learn to mind a house, and do the tasks.”

“This child needs freedom. She needs the moor.”

“The moor! Why, you know as well as I—” With an indignant cluck Anwara dismissed the matter. “Doesn’t she go daily to gather wood? That’s roaming aplenty. When the sheep shearing’s done next week, I’ll put her to washing my fleeces.”