‘I’m fine now,’ I said, though Garret’s vice-like grip had bruised my arms and hurt my throat. ‘He did no harm. I should go on. You don’t want me in your house.’ My gaze went to the shutters. Garret had seated himself on the floor by the well-screened hearth and was attempting to build a tower from firewood.
‘Hahss,’ he echoed.
‘He doesn’t mean any harm,’ the girl said, moving to set a kettle on the fire. ‘I hope you understand that. I hope you won’t . . .’
Her husband. This man-child playing on the floor, this big strong infant with his handsome, unthinking face. For he was a good-looking man, or had once been, his features well balanced and regular. I guessed that his eyes had not always darted about as they did now. I imagined that mouth had not always been slack and open, with a thread of spittle at the corner.
‘Wipe your mouth, Garret,’ the girl said, and when he simply looked at her, she crouched down beside him and lifted a corner of her apron to dab gently at his lips. The look on her face made me want to weep, for it was tenderness, pride and anguish all in one. ‘There, sweetheart,’ she murmured. ‘You sit quiet now and I’ll make you some honey brew.’ She rose to her feet, straight-backed and dignified in her old clothes. ‘He likes his honey brew.’
She moved to the well-scrubbed table and began to assemble ingredients, a tiny pot of honey, a pinch of dried herbs, a green apple. ‘You won’t tell, will you?’ she said. It sounded as if she was forcing the words out. ‘That he grabbed hold of you? Most of the time he’s good. Most of the time I can keep him out of trouble. But I was up tending to a goat that’s ailing, and he wandered off. You see how he is.’
‘I won’t tell,’ I said. ‘I’m not stopping here, I must get on. He did me no harm. Mara, is that your name?’
A wintry ghost of a smile crossed her lips. ‘How did you know that?’
‘He said it, didn’t he? Mara, where are you? I found a girl.’
Mara surprised me by sinking down on a chair and putting her face in her hands. I thought perhaps she was crying. After a little she spoke. ‘You understood him. How? When I tell people he still makes sense, they don’t believe me. Everyone says he’s . . . all gone, shrunk away to nothing.’ She lowered her hands, gazing at the ruin of her man.
There is always something you can give. What could I give here, when there was no mending the wrongs of the past? A smile? A song? No, I could give something far more precious to me: time. Never mind that it was a half-day’s walk to this bridge. Never mind that I must reach it before nightfall. This was more important.
I seated myself on the floor opposite Garret. He had found a little wooden cart by the hearth, with cunning wheels that turned on pegs, and was pushing it across the floor. I caught it, turned it and pushed it back to him.
‘Is this your cart, Garret?’ I asked.
‘Beha,’ the man said. ‘Beha cah.’
A silence. ‘Brendan’s cart,’ the girl translated.
‘Beha!’ Garret was excited now, anticipating a treat. He scrambled up onto his feet. ‘See Beha!’
‘Sit down, Garret.’ The girl’s voice bore a well-practised evenness of tone. ‘Brendan’s not coming today. Another day. Later.’
‘Beha come!’
I saw how tired she was. I saw the pallor of her delicate face, the lines of exhaustion that aged her, the fragile strength that would not let her give up.
‘Is there nobody to help you?’ I murmured, thinking of all the work of house and fields, and the terrible, never-ending task of watching over her damaged man.
‘We do well enough, Garret and me. He’s strong. He can lift things I can’t manage, or hold a creature still while I tend to it. He just needs telling what to do.’ Her glance went up, almost despite her, to a hook in the rafters, and I saw there something quite unexpected: a graceful little knee-harp, suspended from a cord.
‘Yours?’ I asked her, wondering how long it was since she had had time and inclination for making music.
‘Garret’s. He was a fine player, before. Folk came from all around to hear him.’ Her flat tone held a world of pain. ‘That was what drew their attention. His playing was so beautiful, some began to think it must be . . . canny.’ Her voice cracked. ‘So the Enforcers came for him, but seeing what a big strong man he was, they didn’t kill him. They thought to turn him to the king’s will and make him into a fine obedient warrior. You’ve heard what they do, I suppose. The mind-scrapers.’ Her voice had fallen to a murmur.
I had not only heard it, I had seen it with my own eyes, trapped as I had been in the wall of Grandmother’s cottage and forbidden so much as to squeak. I nodded, wondering that Mara was prepared to speak so openly to me.
‘They brought him back next day and he was like this. No warrior, nor even the man he had been, but . . .’ Mara faltered to a halt, watching Garret as he pushed the little cart along the hearth. ‘It’s hard for people to understand,’ she went on. ‘He barely sleeps at night. I sing to him, tell him tales, hold him and soothe him. If I’m lucky, he’ll drop off for a bit before sunup. As for the harp, I can’t get it down; he’d only break it.’
‘Who is Brendan?’ I asked, knowing it was none of my business, but wanting, suddenly, the reassurance that she was not quite alone.
‘Our son. I sent him away, to my mother’s village. Garret misses him. But it’s too dangerous. He doesn’t know his own strength, you see. What they did to him, it was meant to make him obedient. But sometimes their magic goes awry, steals away some part of a man that there’s no getting back.’ She tipped her chopped ingredients into a small pot and added water from the kettle, using her free hand to bat her husband’s curious fingers out of harm’s way. ‘No, Garret, hot!’ She stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon. ‘Brendan’s only three years old. He’s best off out of this. We don’t see him much.’
‘See Beha!’ Garret’s voice was insistent, woeful. ‘Beha!’ He drummed his feet on the floor.
There was a basket of straw at one side of the hearth, perhaps bedding for an animal. I plucked out a handful and began to weave the strands together, pretending I did not see the pair of bright eyes within the basket, eyes that most certainly did not belong to a cat or rabbit or motherless lamb. ‘Look, Garret,’ I said.
He was instantly fascinated, edging over to sit right beside me, his gaze intent on my busy fingers. I twisted and knotted and bent the straw to make a little figure with legs, arms and a head, then put it in his hand. ‘Garret,’ I said. ‘Man.’ As I made a second, slightly smaller manikin, with a head of long wispy hair, Mara sat down at the table, watching in silence. I wondered how long it was since anyone had given their time to Garret, how long since she had been able to rest for a few moments knowing he was safe and happy. I thought of that last season with Grandmother, when Father was out labouring on farms to earn our keep, leaving me to tend to her. The exhaustion of the road was nothing beside the bone-shattering weariness of those endless days and nights of constant watchfulness. She had seldom slept more than an hour at a time. She had lost control of her bodily functions. She would rock to and fro, weeping, making me wonder if, deep down, there still burned a tiny spark of the brave, wise woman she had once been.
‘Mara,’ I said, handing Garret the second little figure. ‘Woman.’
Garret smiled. He made the two tiny people do a little dance along his leg, and a whistle emerged from him, an attempt at a tune. ‘Beha,’ he urged. ‘May Beha!’
As I fashioned Brendan, a very small straw person, I imagined Mara and Garret’s son in fifteen years’ time, a young man finding his path in the world. I thought of him in twenty-five years’ time, with a wife and children, and parents he hardly knew. ‘Brendan,’ I said, putting the finished manikin in Garret’s hand. ‘Your son. Your boy.’
From the basket of straw the strange eyes watched, unblinking. Perhaps this sad pair was not entirely alone. There was an infinitesimal rustling sound.
‘Mice,’ said Mara a little too quickly
. ‘They’re everywhere this autumn. Will you take some honey brew? It’ll warm you for the road.’
I rose to my feet. For now, Garret was happy with his little straw family. ‘Thank you. I shouldn’t linger here.’ Mara’s eyes met mine across the table, where three cups of brew stood gently steaming. ‘You’ve been kind,’ I added. I would not tell her about Grandmother. She need not know that I understood all too well what it meant to see a loved one come to this. ‘I honour you for your courage and goodness.’
Mara wrapped her hands around her cup. ‘Not so good,’ she murmured. ‘I look at him sometimes and I wish . . . Never mind.’
‘It can be hard to go on.’ I had tended my grandmother for a scant two seasons before an ague killed her. Garret looked strong and healthy; he could live for forty years.
‘He’s my husband.’ She spoke with devastating simplicity. ‘I’m all he has.’
Not long after, with my supplies replenished by a gift of bread and cheese that Mara had insisted I put in my bag, I was at the door of her cottage, my cloak around my shoulders, my belongings on my back.
‘If I could shelter you here, I would,’ Mara said. ‘But folk distrust us. If they weren’t afraid of Garret’s temper, they’d have cast us out long ago.’
‘You’ve already given me more than most folk would,’ I said. ‘Best if I move on now. How far away is the bridge?’
Mara turned pale. ‘You mean the old bridge? The one up that way?’ She jerked her head toward the north, up the track.
‘That’s right.’
‘Nobody goes there, not any more.’ Her tone was hushed. ‘Try it and the river will send you down again, stone dead. You can’t get across up there.’
My heart sinking, I looked back down the valley toward the king’s bridge, which was the only other way. The guards were checking everyone before they passed over. Their weapons glinted in the weak autumn sunlight. ‘I’ll have to chance it,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Mara. Thank you.’
‘The gods guard your steps,’ she said, her voice a mere whisper.
Behind her in the doorway, Garret suddenly loomed. He had tucked his straw family into the neck of his shirt; their faceless heads peeped out over the coarse homespun, blind witnesses to my departure. He uttered a series of sounds that I took to be a farewell.
‘Goodbye, Garret,’ I said, managing a smile. ‘You’re a good man and I wish you happiness.’
From one of the houses further along the track there came the sound of voices, and Mara pulled me back inside the door. ‘Wait,’ she muttered.
Two men emerged from the house. There was a further exchange of words. One went back in and the other headed along the track toward us. We waited, the door closed to a crack, the three of us silent. The man kept walking, passing Mara’s cottage without a sideways glance and disappearing in the direction I had come from. I breathed again.
‘Go now,’ Mara said. ‘I doubt if anyone here will challenge you, but that fellow who passed, Donal, will likely report that he’s seen a stranger in these parts. You’d best make haste.’
‘Report,’ I echoed. ‘To whom?’
‘Sentries. Guards. Word always gets back to the Enforcers, one way or another.’ Her tone was flat.
There was a tight feeling in my stomach. ‘I’ve brought down trouble on you,’ I said.
‘I’ll have a story ready. Besides, even the Enforcers are wary of Garret. He protects me well, in his way.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s quite a walk to the old bridge. Looks as if you don’t have much choice of ways, with Donal heading down toward Summerfort. Don’t try to cross at night. That place, it’s . . . there’s a thing there, an uncanny thing. Underneath. That’s what they say, that it won’t let anyone go over.’
Given a troop of Enforcers and an uncanny thing under a bridge, I knew which I would choose. ‘Thank you, Mara,’ I said. ‘I wish you well.’
‘Travel safely.’ The door creaked shut.
Beyond the straggling row of houses, the path became steeper. My fey-mended shoes were still sound, but my legs soon grew weary. My pack felt as if it were full of stones. A veil of clouds shrouded the watery sunlight; it would rain again before nightfall. I could not stop coughing. I might just as well have rung a bell to let folk know I was coming. I did not stop to rest, for it seemed to me that if I sat down I would find it hard to get up again. I hoped my choice to stay awhile in Mara’s cottage had not cost me the chance to get across the bridge before dark.
I had been lucky, and I knew it. Garret could have killed me before I said a word. Mara could have made him hold me captive while she called in the Enforcers. The fee she would have earned for that would have kept her and Garret in food all winter. Most folk would not have hesitated.
I kept on walking. There was nothing I could do to help her, nothing anyone could do to turn Garret back into the healthy, whole man he had been before he was given over to a mind-scraper. Their official name was Enthrallers, and in a way that name was apt, because what they did turned folk into thralls, wholly obedient to the king’s will. Except when it went wrong and the person ended up like Garret, a fine man reduced to an infant.
Mind-scraping was a scourge. Of all the terrors confronting the folk of Alban, it was the worst. And yet, Grandmother had told me, it was an ancient art, which once had been a power for good. I’d struggled to believe this. Long ago, she’d said, such work had been known as mind-mending. It had been a canny gift of unusual power, shared by only a handful of folk in Alban. As the years passed, fewer and fewer were born with the gift, and fewer and fewer learned the right use of it, until it was all but forgotten.
A mind-mender could lay hands on a sleeping person’s head and make a way into their thoughts; in this, the craft was no different from an Enthraller’s. But a mind-mender’s purpose was not to exercise control. It was to heal. A mind-mender could comfort the troubled and bring solace to the grieving. He could provide balm to the dying, hope to the despairing. A mind-mender’s gift would come in the form of healing dreams, for as short or long a time as they were needed. The sleeper did not remember these dreams, Grandmother said, but their power to set matters right was profound.
It became even harder for me to believe this when I saw Grandmother herself fall victim to the Enthrallers. That night showed me mind-scraping at its cruellest. I had known and loved my grandmother as a strong, wise old woman, the heart of our community. I had seen what was left of her afterward. If there was ever such a thing as mind-mending, it must have existed in a forgotten time, in a realm of light and goodness and courage. I wondered, later, if the story had been a fine imagining designed to comfort me. How mind-mending had become warped and debased into the evil art of mind-scraping, even Grandmother had been unable to explain. All she’d said was that Keldec used magic for his own ends, in his own way. I supposed that if even one mind-mender had still existed when he came to the throne, the king could have bribed or coerced that person into serving his ends. If so, that mind-mender’s spirit must surely be dark as the grave.
I walked on and the path became even steeper. The river valley was narrower here. The main track was still visible as a pale ribbon, and the Rush was a swirling pathway, now close to the foot of this hill where I walked. The light was starting to fade. I hoped the bridge was not too much further. A spasm overtook me and I stopped to cough, bent double on the perilous track. Gods, it hurt! When the fit was over I took a moment to adjust my pack, and in the quiet I heard footsteps behind me. My heart performed a panicky dance; cold sweat bathed my face. I made myself breathe.
The footsteps ceased. Not those of a man, I thought. Little, pattering steps. Let it not be Sage and her friends, I prayed.
I pressed on. My legs hurt, my back ached, my head was dizzy. My feet were losing the knack of finding safe spots to tread. Curse this weakness! I must get there in time. If I could cross the river, if I could reach the main track further up the valley, where there would be some cover, I had a chance of reaching Three Hags pass without b
eing stopped. A burst of shivering ran through me; the wind was rising. Don’t think about the bridge, Neryn. Don’t think about the dark, and the wind, and falling down.
The path rose higher; the slope to my right became a cliff. Down below, the Rush roared between its banks as if desperate to break free. I crested a rise and teetered, for the path no longer skimmed the edge of the drop but sloped sharply down. And there, some distance ahead, was the bridge.
The Rush raced along the foot of the cliff. On the far side of the river stood an odd looming mass of rocks that put me in mind of Grandmother’s old tales about stone monsters that rose up in anger and crushed unwary passers-by. And spanning the gap between cliff and stony mound, a distance of some fifty paces, was a single log of wood. A veritable giant of a tree must have furnished this trunk, and I could not imagine who had moved it into place, or how it had been done. It was the work of ancient gods, maybe. The thing stood high above the raging river.
One step at a time, Neryn, I told myself. Get there first, then walk across and don’t look down. Once over, I could camp for the night. Those old rocks looked full of chinks and crannies, and there were plants growing there, deep among the stones. I would join them.
The footsteps again, furtive, careful. ‘Don’t follow me,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s not safe.’
Someone shouted. A man’s voice, and now a man’s steps, booted feet closing in fast behind me. My heart leapt into my throat. I skidded and slithered and stumbled down the path, fixing my eyes on the dark line that was the bridge. One false step would send me tumbling into the icy waters of the Rush.
‘Down there!’ someone shouted. A second voice called, ‘Don’t lose sight of her!’ Run, Neryn! I came up suddenly against a rock that projected out from the cliff face, almost blocking the path. ‘Stop!’ someone yelled, much closer now. I edged past the obstacle, my feet shuffling sideways on the path. I did not look back. I did not look down.