Dear Ysobi
Thank you for your letter with all your news. It sounds as if you’re settling in well.
I’ve drafted this letter so many times, and ultimately what needs to be said should be face to face, not with this distance between us. But that can’t be done at the moment, and I wonder also whether the distance is perhaps not also a comfortable barrier across which we can speak.
I have to ask, and please answer me truthfully when you respond: Do you want to come back to me, or even to Jesith? I’ve had dreams of you drifting away in a boat upon a misty lake, me waving to you from the shore. I don’t feel there is anger between us, or bitterness, but merely perhaps a knowing that it is time to part. We’ve not had a proper relationship for years, and I don’t believe these words will come as a shock to you.
You were my light, Ysobi, my star, but stars sometimes fall, and the light goes out. I want us to remain friends, to be there for Zeph until we’re here no more, but I don’t believe we have to keep up the pretence of a chesna bond to do that. I took care of you when you were at the bottom of that pit of despair, because I loved you as family, as your son’s father, and I always will. But it was simply that. You’re better now. There are new roads ahead of you and you’re strong enough to walk them.
What I’m really saying, I realise, is that I don’t want you to come back, and for us to carry on with that arid, pretend life. There must be new life and loves for both of us in our futures. All of your lovers made the same mistake, Ys – they wanted to own and consume you. I thought I understood you, but I didn’t. I’ll always remember fondly our good times, and many of those were ecstatic rather than simply good.
Think about what I’ve said. We do need to speak face to face at some point, but I don’t want you thinking that’s a leash reeling you back in. Enjoy the Cuttingtide. May it bring marvellous things to you.
In blood
Jassenah
I put down the letter, dazed. I stared out of the window for some moments. Then I spoke aloud, ‘Dear Aru, I’m free...’
As I fetched Hercules from his field, my body felt barely anchored to the earth. I hadn’t realised just how weighed down I’d been by my life in Jesith, my responsibilities there. I would have to keep Jassenah’s letter secret for now, otherwise it could be used to badger me into committing myself to Gwyllion. I wanted to retain room for manoeuvre.
Wyva was still at the house when I reached it, having only recently finished his breakfast. ‘What brings you here so early, Ys?’ he asked as he found me in the stableyard.
‘A hamper’s arrived from Jesith,’ I said. ‘A lot of produce we can use for the festival. I was just coming to ask if you could spare somehar and a cart to bring it over to the Mynd.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Take whoever you need back with you.’ He mounted his horse. ‘It’s kind of your hara to think of us. I’ll send them thanks. Now, I’m afraid I must be off to supervise the first cutting of the fields, but Rinawne is still at breakfast. The tea will still be hot.’ He gestured at the house.
‘Thanks. Until later, then.’
I saw Gen and Cawr come out of the stables to join their brother. After raising a hand in greeting to them, I went into the house. Whatever I’d expected of Gen had never materialised, since he’d not bothered to pursue a friendship with me beyond that night of the meal. Perhaps he was aware of my relationship with Rinawne. Anyhar with half a brain could work that one out.
That day was the start of everything, really. Endings, beginnings, the field set for battle.
Rinawne had work to see to that day too, so I only intended to stay at the Mynd for half an hour or so, long enough to pick at the remains of the Wyvachi breakfast and have a couple of cups of tea. ‘You seem perky today, Ys,’ Rinawne remarked, one eyebrow raised.
‘I woke in a good mood,’ I said.
‘And were glad to hear from home, that’s plain to see.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Are you missing them? – your family, I mean.’
Rinawne had fixed me with the glacial version of his blue stare. I shrugged, acutely conscious of how I couldn’t prevent my gaze skittering away from his. ‘Of course, they’re my family.’
‘Uh huh...’ He smirked at me, but there was an edge to it. I could read his thoughts as if he’d spoken them aloud; he feared I wanted to return home.
We talked then of minor aspects of the Cuttingtide festival and its preparations and when and how Myv’s training would begin. Small talk, a little stilted. Then we heard a commotion outside.
‘Dehara, what’s that?’ Rinawne muttered, rising from his seat. We were in the breakfast room, from where we couldn’t see out over the yard. Did the air in that allegedly haunted room contract for a moment? Perhaps it was my imagination.
‘Better go and see,’ I said.
We could hear hara calling out, the nervous whinny of a horse, running feet. Soon, we were running too.
Wyva met us at the back door. His shirt was covered in blood, his hands similarly red.
‘What’s happened?’ Rinawne demanded, his voice shrill. ‘Is it Myv?’
Wyva closed his eyes briefly, shook his head, then turned to me. ‘We need you, Ys. Thank Aru, you’re still here.’
I followed him outside.
Hara were gathered around a cart, where a har lay redly on straw. It took me only a moment to realise this was Gen, but he was so bloodied, I couldn’t determine at first what his injury was. However, as I reached the cart, and leaned over its side, I saw it was his right leg, a wound so bad below the knee it was nearly severed. Hara had already made a tourniquet around the thigh. Gen looked at me beseechingly with shocked, glazed eyes, but did not speak.
‘Can you mend it?’ Wyva was saying to me, over and over. ‘Can you mend it, Ysobi?’
‘Clear the table in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘Get him in there. We’ll need boiled water, cloths, any medical equipment you might have.’
Myv came running to us, accompanied by Porter, as hara carried Gen inside.
‘Is he dead?’ Porter snapped.
‘No,’ I answered.
‘Let me help,’ Myv said, his face strangely expressionless, his eyes fixed on the hara carrying his hurakin inside.
We went into the kitchen, where I washed my hands and told Myv to do likewise.
‘Tell me what to do,’ Wyva said.
‘Wash yourself,’ I said. ‘You’ll be ready then when I need you.’
I went to Gen and put a hand on his shoulder, projecting a wave of soothing energy, which I hoped would act as a mild tranquilliser. Some hara though, mainly through fear, can’t relax enough to accept the current. I hoped Gen wasn’t one of them. ‘Everyhar else – out, please,’ I said. Porter went to leave with the others. ‘Not you,’ I said. We locked stares for a moment.
‘Shall I leave too?’ Rinawne asked, from where he stood at the door, with Dillory’s hands on his shoulders. I could see he wanted to go, was frightened by what he saw.
‘Yes, you go.’ I smiled at him and he turned away, let Dillory guide him. Wyva closed the door.
‘What happened?’ I asked Wyva. I removed the shredded remains of Gen’s trousers using some kitchen shears I’d held hastily under the hot tap.
Wyva shook his head. ‘The scythe,’ he said.
‘Well, I can see that, but how?’
He stared at me, his eyes strangely sunken. ‘It was as if... as if...’ He looked away from me. ‘No, no...’
‘As if, what? Just tell me!’
‘As if it attacked him, all right?’ Wyva’s eyes were fiery with challenge now, daring for me to contradict him.
‘OK,’ I said simply, then put my hand on Gen’s shoulder again, spoke to him. ‘Well, I think I can patch you up and save your leg, Gen. We can prevent infection setting in from the start.’ In humans, of course, infection had often been the worst hazard in serious injuries, especially before medicine became advanced enough to combat it. In hara, controlling i
nfection was fairly simple, since the harish body is adept at healing itself. In the case of a deep, physical wound like Gen’s however, it would need some help. I could see the shinbone was broken – cut through – as if from a battle wound. At least the break was clean, but how could this happen in a hay field? Gen would not be a fumbling amateur with a scythe, I was sure. None of the hara out there would have been. I could probe that matter later. First, the practical work. ‘We need to set the leg,’ I told Wyva.
He nodded.
‘Fetch me something we can use as splints, also something for Gen to bite on while I set the limb. Myv, boil all the tea cloths.’
Fortunately, a huge pan of water was already simmering on the stove, as Dillory had been in the process of making a large batch of meat stew for the haymakers’ dinner.
‘Porter, fetch the most alcoholic drink you have in the house.’ He departed swiftly to do so, returning equally swiftly with a bottle of Wyva’s finest plum brandy.
When the equipment was assembled, I gave Gen a large draught of the brandy and again put my hands upon him to sedate him. I wrapped the wooden splints in the boiled cloth and asked Myv to give Gen the piece of wood – a sawn off section of a narrow tree branch – that Wyva had fetched for his brother to bite upon. ‘Be strong,’ I murmured to Gen, then gestured at Wyva and Porter. ‘Hold him down, please.’
Despite the pain relief I’d tried to give him, Gen still screamed and tried to writhe as I set the bone. The room seemed to reel with his cries, strangely muffled around the wood his teeth were clamped upon. The raw sounds echoed throughout the building, so that even in the lulls as he drew sobbing breaths, I could still hear them faintly, bouncing from room to room. The walls of the kitchen shifted, creaked, shuddered.
Myv was holding the injured leg. He looked up at me. Something’s here, he told me in mind touch.
Ignore it, I sent back. It’s attracted by the disturbance, that’s all. Do what you can to calm Gen, try to make him sleep.
Myv was remarkably successful in this, because Gen noticeably quietened down, his cries reduced to soft moans. Once the bone was in place, I directed agmara, healing energy, into the wound and instructed Myv to assist me in that. I approved of his calm, businesslike manner throughout. In mind touch, I informed him how to direct the energy more precisely, and he obeyed me without further questions. I could sense the agmara flowing from him easily, as if it was visible light. He was made to be a hienama, I thought, and wondered from whom he’d inherited these talents. Wyva was doing his best to be stoic, but I could feel panic hovering about him. Porter...? Well, Porter was unreadable, but did as he was told.
(Is he dead? I wondered about that question as I worked.)
Once we’d infused the wound thoroughly with agmara, I sewed the flesh back up. Myv watched me closely, in a decidedly detached and academic way.
‘Will he be all right?’ Wyva asked me. By this time, Gen had lost consciousness.
‘There’s no reason why not, but he must do his part too,’ I said. Hara who’d stuck assiduously to caste training, of course, would be in a far better position to administer healing, whether to themselves or others, but I remained silent about that. This was not the time to make criticisms or judgements. I remembered something Ember Whitemane had said to me, though, about how the Wyvachi had lost something and turned to hara like me to try and get it back.
Once the job was finished, Myv and I removed the remainder of Gen’s clothes and bathed him. Then I lifted him in my arms and Wyva directed me to Gen’s bedroom. The healing now must take its own course.
Rinawne was in the bedroom with Dillory and stepped up to take over from us. Myv insisted on staying by his hura’s side. Wyva meanwhile asked me to remain at the Mynd for a while. He was going to clean up but wanted to speak with me. I needed to wash too, and Wyva offered me a replacement shirt, since mine was soiled with Gen’s blood.
‘How did this happen?’ Rinawne asked me before I left the bedroom.
‘Don’t know yet,’ I said. I touched his arm. ‘We’ll find out.’
In the library, Wyva offered me some of the plum brandy. ‘Might as well finish this,’ he said gloomily.
I stared askance at the glass he offered me, remembering only too vividly the image of it seeping from the sides of Gen’s mouth, bloodied because he’d bitten through his lips and tongue. With difficulty, I took a sip. ‘Try not to worry,’ I said. ‘You know we’re hardy creatures, Wyva.’ I wondered then why a second-generation har, born with the ability to mend so efficiently, would be as scared as Wyva was then.
‘Most hara are,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing. Nothing.’ He smiled at me unconvincingly. ‘It was just a shock... Gen was standing there in the field with us all, laughing, talking, the next moment it was as if an executioner had struck him down.’
‘Where was the scythe? How did the accident happen?’
‘He was leaning on it,’ Wyva said. ‘Perhaps the shaft snapped or something.’
‘You said earlier...’
‘I know what I said, but that’s not possible, is it?’
There was a feverish, angry edge to his voice, so I decided not to push him. ‘Well, all that matters is that he heals. Myv did very well today, Wyva. He’s an exceptional harling. I’ll give him instructions to care for Gen.’
‘Thank you.’ Wyva put down his glass and came to embrace me. For some moments, he hung on to me as if he was drowning. ‘The dehara sent you to us,’ he said.
Porter and Fush were allocated to accompany me back to the tower and fetch the hamper. Fush was silent to start with, but then took to dire muttering halfway through the forest walk. He was a slight har around Porter’s age, with delicate almost elfin features. His arms, however, were muscular, strong. ‘The wards came down,’ he said, to nohar in particular. ‘That’s what happened.’
‘Shut it, Fush,’ Porter said. ‘Was an accident. Wyva said so. The shaft snapped.’
‘Was the ysbryd drwg, that’s what it was, and you know it.’
‘I said shut it.’
‘The what?’ I asked.
‘Old fairy stories,’ Porter said coldly. ‘Tales to scare harlings.’
‘You’re a pelking liar, Goudy.’ Fush pointed at me. ‘He should be told. Why have him here and not tell him?’
Porter grabbed Fush by the collar, pushed him against a tree. ‘If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll break all your teeth.’
‘For Aru’s sake!’ I snapped. ‘Let him go, Porter. No need to behave like a rabid dog simply because Fush believes in certain things.’ I pulled Fush from Porter’s hold and said to him, ‘I know about the wards, Fush. I’ve seen them everywhere. I know also they’re there to keep something at bay.’
‘The ysbryd drwg,’ Fush said, ‘the bad ghost.’
‘Pelking idiot,’ said Porter.
‘I know there’s a ghost,’ I said, ‘or that hara believe there’s one, but Fush, ghosts can’t hurt hara physically.’ He looked doubtful, to say the least. ‘Really, I mean that.’
‘This one can,’ Fush insisted, glaring at Porter.
‘Well, while I’m here it can’t,’ I said.
Fush gave me a look to say he wished that were possible, while Porter gave me a strange look I couldn’t interpret at all.
Over the next few days, the drama died down. I went to see Gen every day, and even he told me the scythe had snapped so that the blade had sliced into his leg. ‘Are you sure about that?’ I asked him.
He held my gaze. ‘Yes. I’m sure. What else could’ve happened?’
‘How about the ysbryd drwg?’
Gen rolled his eyes. ‘For Aru’s sake, Ysobi, who put that in your head?’
I laughed. ‘That’s fine coming from a har who discussed the family curse with me.’
‘Seriously, it was an accident.’
Yet still I couldn’t forget the way the house had creaked and groaned around us as I’d wo
rked on Gen’s leg, and Myv’s anxious mind touch: Something’s here.
Wyva praised my healing, because it was clear Gen was mending quickly. As a reward for his own part, Myv was taken to Hiyenton market to pick a new pony for himself, whichever one he liked. Everything had turned out fine so Wyva was happy. He never mentioned the episode again to me.
Sometimes, I’d pass Fush in the corridors when I visited the Mynd and he’d give me a furtive glance, but it seemed he’d shut his mouth too. Still, whether the legend of the ysbryd drwg was a fairy tale or not, I noticed a lot more protective wards of grasses and twigs appearing in the hedgerows, along the lanes. Mossamber’s hounds went crazy every night; eventually I became so used to the sound I barely noticed it. The land began to heat up as midsummer drew close.
The Wyvachi planned to hold their official Cuttingtide celebration on the evening of Pelfazzarsday. While traditionally, most would opt for the Aruhanisday instead, Wyva felt that the holiday aspect of Pelfday would be better. Hara generally expected not to be working all day then. The preparations had been made, the feast arranged, and my script had been carefully transcribed onto some handmade parchment Wyva had given to me and bound with a golden ribbon. I intended to make a gift of this scroll to Myv after the ceremony.
On the Hanisday Rinawne came to the tower for lunch – he and Wyva were making formal visits to other local leaders that evening, a common aspect of festival occasions. As we ate our meal, we talked about Myv and his aspirations. Rinawne was not surprised about any of it. ‘Now we’re talking about it, it seems to me we’ve been overlooking the obvious,’ he said. ‘Myv is different to most hara. By no means less intelligent or damaged in any way, but he walks his own path. He was very attached to Rey and Porter – still is. I’ve always known he adored the – er – less communal parts of Rey’s calling – like he said to you. He’ll gobble up the magical education like eating newly-baked cake, but the thing he’ll have to work on is reaching out to other hara.’