The Seven Tales of Trinket (19 page)

Whether I rubbed the coin for courage or for luck, I do not know. But I rubbed it thrice and placed it back in my pocket.

Then I began my tale.

My voice was timid at first, and I swallowed a couple of times until I felt the shaking stop.
No better than Berthold.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself. Though ’twas my first castle, I hoped it would not be my last. This is what I had worked so hard for.

“The Story of the Gypsies and the Seer,” I began again, “a tale of a princess with a rare gift and her father, who would stop at nothing to sell it.”

With my words, I painted pictures of the places I had been. The exotic caravans of the Gypsy camp came alive in the great hall, so real, in fact, that I could smell the chicken coop and feel the silk of the tent under my fingers. The words were flowing from my lips now, into the ears and hearts of my audience. Their eyes shone with unshed tears at Feather’s plight and they gasped when Lothar’s men drew their swords. Best was the cheer at Feather’s escape, and then the call from the crowd for another tale.

’Tis one thing to learn a story, word by word, to tell it the right way; ’tis another altogether to bring a tale to life, where moments before there was nothing but emptiness.

Thomas had placed my harp at my feet sometime during my tale, so quietly that I hadn’t noticed. A hush filled the hall as I plucked the first note and sang the first song I had ever written myself.

The great hall of a castle is an amazing place to play a tune, for the notes echo and bounce between the old stone walls and out to the folks sitting on their carved benches, hoping to be whisked away to another place and time.

I have had many adventures. But this … this was the most magical.

For five nights they asked me for my stories. I sat on the bard’s stool, rubbed my coin for luck, and told my tales: Gypsies, selkies, banshees, faeries, and pookas danced across my harp. Each yarn I spun was better than the last, each song sweeter.

Then, the Old Burned Man recovered.

IN WHICH I FINALLY HEAR THE OLD BURNED MAN

The great hall was full, for Lord John had planned a hunt and a banquet for the next day and had invited many to the event. The room was overwarm and the air sticky, but I did not care. We wedged ourselves through the crowd until a lady in a dress of fine blue velvet tweaked my braid hard and glared.

The Old Burned Man cleared his throat and spoke.

Perhaps it was because his voice was spoiled and the effort to use it sounded painful, but I felt honored to be the recipient of his words. They sang in my mind, though the back of my throat ached in sympathy. The spell he cast with his story was more wondrous and mystical than I could have imagined, and that says a great deal coming from a lass who spends most of her time imagining.

The bench we sat on was hard and we were quite squished, but I did not care. The legend of a lady who tended swords for only the bravest knights and lived underwater in a lake that never froze over was both lovely and tragic.

I listened.

I dreamed.

Though his voice was ragged, his telling was far smoother and silkier than even Bald Fergal’s. My heart soared at one moment with the magic of the story, then sank the next moment. I felt quite the fraud. My tales could not compare. I was no bard. What had made me think that I was?

And then the Old Burned Man pulled out his flute.

“I’ll only do the one song tonight,” he said, “for my throat’s still a-paining me. ’Tis a lullaby I composed myself many years ago.”

’Twas lilting and sadly sweet. But beautiful.

And all too familiar.

My blood stilled.

I knew the song.

And in my heart, I knew the player.

*   *   *

Thomas gulped, then he looked at me and his eyes grew wide. Did he, too, recognize the tune? His hand touched my sleeve, but I jerked my arm away and ran down the corridor and up the stairs. The tears on my cheeks were hot. I could not sniff them back no matter how hard I tried.

Finn raised his head when I stumbled into the room, saw it was me, and lay back down, his eyes still open. The dog watched me as I sobbed and grabbed my harp, clutching it so hard the strings bit into the flesh of my arms. But I did not care about the pain.

When you cry, your mind is a jumbled mess. Part of your brain is trying to make you stop crying and stop thinking about the things that are making you cry.
Hush, hush now, do not cause a scene.
The other part of your brain is lashing back, thinking thoughts so numerous and difficult that reason runs and hides for a while, until things die down.

Thomas was a reasonable fellow, and he did the same. I heard his footsteps come up the stairs, pause, then go back down.

The only creature brave enough to offer comfort was Finn. He nuzzled his enormous head under my arm. My throat was too thick to even utter, “Not now, dog, go away.” So I let him stay at my side as I sobbed, watching the tears splash on his golden coat. There was something terribly reassuring about the dog’s presence.

I was glad to have such company.

I cried myself to sleep and the night was filled with dreams.

I dreamed that I saw my father and that he told me stories and kissed me goodbye and never came back.

I dreamed my father rode on a dark stallion, with a cape that flew behind him.

I dreamed my father smiled at me with a scarred and ruined face.

*   *   *

When I awoke, I was no longer overwhelmed with sadness.

I was confused.

How could a man that old, scarred, and hideous-looking possibly be my handsome father? How could he have been so heartless to have not returned if he was actually still alive? WHY?

And I was angry.

THE HUNT

Even before the sun rose the nurse poked her head into my small closet room. “You’re all red and blotchful. Been ye crying, girl?”

I sniffled and nodded, but quickly looked away. I did not want to speak of my suspicions.

“Never mind about it, girl, whatever it is, ye must get the babe dry and fresh. He needs to say goodbye to the lord. Off to the hunt, he is.” The nurse tugged on my arms and pulled me up. “You’re a weed of a girl, you know. I swear you’ve grown in the days since you have come here.”

I only sniffed.

“’Tis a good thing you arrived when you did, what with the wolves in the forest and all. The pack’s been a-howling each night. Had you met them on your journey, ye might not have made it here whole.”

I swallowed, remembering the forlorn howls we had heard as we traveled. Sadly, it was more pleasant to think about being attacked by wolves than about having a father who stole for pleasure and laughed a dark laugh like the Highwayman. Or a hideous father who left you five years past and could have come back but chose not to.

“Seems foolish to go on a hunt for boars with wolves about, do ye not think?” the nurse continued, unaware that I was a poor contributor to the conversation. “I would think the wolves would have eaten the boars or scared them away. Alas.”

“Aye. Alas,” I offered.

“But if the lord says there shall be a hunt, then a hunt there shall be, I s’pose.” She handed me a little gown of white lace with gold trim for the babe. “Dress him. Clean his wee face, too.”

Finn the Great was at my side as I changed the babe from his soggy clothes. The hound looked at the boy with deep, soulful eyes, perhaps thinking him a pup instead of a baby.

The wolves howled in the distance as I took the child down the stairs to see his father, who promptly kissed the boy’s head and led his band of hunters out of the castle. Thomas was with them. ’Twas a boar hunt, after all, and a pig boy might be useful, for what were boars but meaner, more dangerous swine?

I was both glad and mad Thomas was gone. Glad, for I didn’t want to speak with him about last night, and mad, for I did not want to spend the day alone with my thoughts.

After feeding the infant down in the kitchens and taking him to visit his lady mother until he became cranky, I sat him in his bed and began to play my harp for him. My fingers started to pluck a familiar tune and then stopped. I would not play my father’s lullaby ever again.

Instead, I played the new tune I had composed for the selkie boy’s song, and his eyes were closed before the last verse.

“You’ve a strong voice,” a voice said, “for one so young.”

The Old Burned Man stood in the doorway. I chanced a look at his scarred face.
Were those the eyes of my father behind his gargoyle’s features?
I supposed they could be. They were similar to mine in color, but the shape wasn’t right.

Nay. He could
not
be my father, James the Bard.

But then there was the lullaby.

My thoughts were muddled.

I had sought the Old Burned Man for such a long time, just to hear his stories, not thinking for a moment that he might be my father. He looked far too old, but perhaps he was younger and just horribly disfigured. What happened to him? I wondered, then shook my head. No, I would not pity him. It was his choice not to return.

Would I prefer that my father had died? Would I prefer him to be the Highwayman?

“I thank you, sir,” I said, my voice hard like stone.

“You’re a teller, too, then. I heard you the other night. Held them in your grasp, you did, lass. Where did you learn such skill? You are quite young, as I said.”

Perhaps it is in my blood,
I wanted to say, but I did not. I merely shrugged.

The silence was awkward.

I wanted him to leave, but then … perhaps …
Was I completely certain?

I cleared my throat. “The song you played on your flute last night. ’Twas lovely. It was yours?”

He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “Just an old lullaby, written long ago, for a very special child.” He sighed and looked off, his voice quiet. “Some say it has magic.”

He had his secrets, too, then.

He asked to see my harp, so I showed him. “Unusual and fantastical,” he told me.

The conversation continued in such a manner, stilted and uncomfortable.
Are you my father? If so, why did you leave us and never return?
The words screamed in my head.

But I could not make them come.

TRAGEDY

After the Old Burned Man left me, the nurse reappeared and began tidying the room as the babe continued to doze. She took one look at my face and shooed me off. “We’ll be fine here, lass. The hound can help amuse the boy when he wakes. Go try and shed whatever heavy weight you’re carrying around. You’ll do no one any good brooding about like that.”

I grabbed my mother’s cloak and set off, leaving through an old door at the bottom of the tower held ajar by a heavy rock. “’Tis cleaning day,” I was told by a woman with a broom when I asked about the open door. “Got to sweep out the hall to make things nice for the banquet tonight.” Ah yes. The banquet. In my dark mood, the thought of fine food made my stomach turn. I wandered under trees and down the green paths of the castle grounds, hoping that the farther away I was from the Old Burned Man, the clearer my thoughts would become.

Was I not happy, then, to have found the man I thought was my father? Truly, it was more likely that James the Bard was the Old Burned Man than the Highwayman. After all, the Old Burned Man was a teller. That was a clue right there.

But nay, I was not happy. All I felt was anger. When I set off on my quest for my father, I did not know what I would find. I hoped to hear of my father, of course. Had I expected to hear only of his death? Perhaps tragic, yet heroic. But that at least was an acceptable reason for him never to return.

If he was alive, he
would
have come back.

Should I tell him that my mother had died with a broken heart? Mayhap yes, if that would hurt him. Although the fact that he’d never returned showed his lack of care. It would not matter to him at all. And if
he
was not my father … well, those were thoughts I did not want, either.
How did the Highwayman know the lullaby?
I blocked this question from my mind.

I sat under the trees until the sun was low in the sky.

That was when screaming started.

“Wolves! A pack of wolves!”
I heard someone cry. I dashed through the castle gardens toward the keep, bumping into a large figure wrapped in gray.

“Nay, lass,” said the Old Burned Man, “’twill do you no good to run. Best to stay here and safe, until the guards round them up.” He held me by my shoulders, the fine fabric of my mother’s cloak in his scarred hands. I glanced to where his fingers softly touched the threads.
Did he remember when she made it?
I looked away.

“The wee lad might be afraid. I am going to him and you will not stop me,” I said. “’Twould be sad, would it not, for the child to feel abandoned?”

His hands dropped in an instant, as if I had burned him myself, and I ran, red-faced, to Castlelow.

Had he noticed the cruelty of my words? The angry, beastly part of myself hoped so.

*   *   *

Up the stairs I climbed, taking two at a time when I could. I could tell he was panting and huffing behind me, but his legs must have been damaged as well, for he was not fast for a grown man.

I arrived in the babe’s room to find the nurse wailing.

“He’s dead! He’s dead! I left him for but a moment alone with the hound. Just a moment! The beast!” she cried. Her arms were flailing and she clutched the hem of her dress against her face. Then she pushed past me and ran down the stairs. Finn was there, by the babe’s bed, blood on his coat, blood on the floor. He looked at me and bared his teeth.

“The hound killed him! The hound killed my master’s son!” The nurse’s voice echoed eerily through the tower.

And truly, that is exactly how it appeared. Why Finn should attack the babe, I could not say. Had the howls of the wolves thrown him into a canine frenzy?

“There,” said the Old Burned Man, “behind his left flank, the babe’s arm … ’tis
moving
.”