The Land of the Silver Apples

Chapter Eight THE LOST CHILD

“Lucy was only two days old,” Father began, “but Alditha was sick with milk fever. She was unable to nurse the infant. Fortunately, the tanner’s wife had just given birth to a child. I packed Lucy in a basket and carried her to the tannery, which, as you know, is on the other side of the hazel wood.” Jack knew the place—who didn’t? Before the tanner had died two years ago, you could smell his workyard long before you could see it. He soaked hides people brought him in a great lime pit. After the hair had fallen off, he scraped the skins, soaked them in a sludge of bark to turn them brown, and packed them in whatever rotten fruit he could beg from farmers. He finished with a coating of pig and chicken manure. To say the place reeked like the back gate of Hell didn’t even come close.

But it was a matter of life and death, Jack realized, for Lucy to be taken there. He half remembered her being gone. He’d been more concerned with Mother’s illness at the time.

“The tanner’s wife, bless her, nursed Lucy until Alditha recovered,” Father said. “I went to fetch the infant home, and on the way back I saw that the ground of the hazel wood was covered with ripe nuts. It was a fine opportunity. That late in the season, the wild pigs had usually cleaned them up. I wedged Lucy’s basket into the branches of an elder tree at the edge of the wood. She was well hidden there, sleeping like a little angel. I remember thinking how like me she was.”

Jack, the Bard, and Mother all sat up straight. Pega, not being that familiar with the family, continued to watch Father with rapt attention. The others knew that Lucy was nothing like Giles Crookleg. That was the wonder of her. She was golden-haired and blue-eyed, as pretty as a sunbeam in a dark forest.

“I thought she’d be safe,” mourned Father. “I thought nothing could reach her. I filled a bag with hazelnuts, and when I returned, I saw something move in the elder tree. I dropped the bag and ran. I heard the most terrible keening noise, worse than the howling of wolves. From all sides of the elder tree jumped a swarm of… things.

“They were like small, misshapen men, dappled and spotted as the grass on a forest floor. They moved around in a dizzying way, first visible, then melting into the leaves, then visible again. They scuttled around like spiders, passing a bundle from one to the other, and I saw—I saw—that it was Lucy!”

Father bent double, almost putting his head on his knees. Jack thought the man was going to be sick. He felt sick himself at the thought of that tiny baby being tossed back and forth. Mother had turned white with shock.

“What happened next?” asked the Bard.

Giles Crookleg sat up, his face twisted with pain. “I tried to catch them, but they kept weaving back and forth, tossing the baby between them. They sped off through the trees and up into the hills, away from the village. They went under branches so low, I couldn’t follow and through gaps so narrow, I had to go around. I cursed my lameness. My speed was no match for theirs. They pulled away, going farther and farther ahead until they were only a blur in the distance. And then they were gone.

“Still I ran, calling and promising them anything if only they would give me back my child. But they never answered. There were dozens of trails in the forest, dozens of little streams and valleys. I searched one after the other until darkness began to fall. At last I returned to the elder tree. I knelt down under it and prayed to God for mercy, if not for me, for Alditha.

“And as I prayed, I heard the wonderful, warbling sound of a happy baby. I climbed up to the basket, and there, wrapped in a blanket, was the most beautiful infant I had ever seen. I knew God had sent her,” said Giles Crookleg, his eyes alight with joy. He looked utterly transported, but as the moments passed with no one breaking the silence, the rapture faded from his face.

“I hope God sent her,” he said.

It broke the spell. “Do you mean Lucy isn’t my child?” cried Mother.

“I told you I wasn’t,” said Lucy comfortably. Of all the people in the room, she was the only one who wasn’t dismayed. She stretched her arms like a cat and yawned delicately. “Da always said I was a princess.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” shrilled Mother. “I would have taken this Lucy, but I’d have searched for the other one. The whole village could have helped.”

“Yes, well, you were ill. You were quite out of your head for a while.”

“Not then! Not when you came back! I thought the baby looked different, but I’d only seen her briefly. Oh, Giles, how could you?”

“I was tempted and found wanting,” Father said in a hollow voice. “I fell into sin. Don’t think I haven’t scourged myself for weakness!”

“Please stop offering up your pain to God,” the Bard said wearily. “We have a serious problem, and it hasn’t been helped by your deception.” He walked over to Lucy and looked into her eyes. Mother had sunk to a bench. She hardly seemed to breathe. Jack felt he was in a bad dream. How could Lucy stop being his sister? But he had to admit she sometimes acted strangely.

“Who is she, sir?” he asked the Bard.

“That is a most interesting question,” the old man replied. “I’ve seen changelings”—Father moaned and Mother caught her breath—“but never one like this. Changelings, poor things, are misfits in our world.”

“Could I be one?” Pega said suddenly. Jack looked up to see her anguished face. It was half in shadow from the birthmark and half pale with fear. “I’ve often thought I was. The chief’s wife has a mirror made of polished bronze, and I looked into it.”

“No, my dear,” the Bard said gently. “Changelings are always terrified because they’ve been torn from their rightful place. They fall into terrible rages and scream until everyone is driven mad. But changelings don’t understand what they’re doing, for they can’t understand other people’s feelings. You, my child, are not like that.”

Pega’s relief was so obvious, it was painful to watch.

“Lucy…” the Bard said hesitantly, “seems to care, and yet her emotions flit by like sunlight on a stream.”

“She cares for me,” Giles said stoutly.

“When it suits her.”

“Well, she’s not a changeling, and that’s that. Everyone loves her,” declared Father.

“That’s because I’m a princess,” said Lucy, fluffing her pretty golden hair.

“I need to think about this,” the Bard said, ignoring Lucy’s adorable smile. “Such a fine spring evening shouldn’t be spoiled with useless worry.” The old man removed an oilskin packet from his carrying bag. It contained four excellent smoked trout that Pega had caught. Mother had already prepared barley cakes and a pot of parsnips mashed with a knob of butter.

Pega helped to serve dinner. She set to work as easily as she had in the Bard’s house, and Mother thanked her warmly for it. I helped too, Jack thought. I mended fences all day and chased evil-hearted ewes. No one paid the slightest attention to me. Nobody ever does. Good heavens, I sound like a whiny three-year-old. It must be that fever the Bard was talking about. And he forced himself to look pleasant.

The Bard entertained them with a story about an island made entirely of ice, on which he had spent a week. He’d had a battle with a troll-bear floating on the same island and drove it into the sea.

Jack’s thoughts kept going back to Lucy. She had always been different from the rest of them, so fair and golden-haired. It wasn’t only her coloring. She moved in a way that made you glad. Her smile made you forget how irritating she’d been a moment before. Even Jack, who wasn’t as besotted as Father, found himself laughing for no good reason when she chose to be pleasant.

The Bard and Pega stayed the night, for which Jack was grateful. He felt uncomfortable around Father. There wasn’t enough bedding for all of them, so of course the Bard got the best of it. Jack and Pega made do with meager piles of straw, while Lucy, as befitted a lost princess, slept on a heap of fluffy sheepskins.

Jack woke before dawn, cold and irritable. The Bard was already sitting by a lively fire and beckoned him to the hearth as though nothing had happened the day before. “I’ve been thinking about your sister,” the old man said, poking the flames with his staff.

“I suppose she isn’t really my sister,” Jack said. In a way it felt as though Lucy were dead, though of course she was sleeping in the loft.

“It isn’t a matter of blood ties, lad. All your life you’ve cared for her, and that makes her your sister in your heart. What concerns me is what she is capable of feeling.”

The dawn chorus of birds was beginning—the whistle of robins, burble of wrens, and trill of thrushes. Beyond them all, in orchards and woodlands, crows called to one another as if reassuring themselves that their comrades had survived the night. Thorgil would have understood what they were saying, though she found their empty-headed chatter annoying.

“I saw Thorgil, sir,” Jack blurted out. “When I was farseeing.”

“You succeeded? Well done!”

Jack basked in the praise. He explained how he’d seen the painted bird sitting on the cane and how it suddenly had a grasshopper in its beak.

“That happens when the vision comes alive,” the Bard explained. “You saw the bird as he was when the old Roman painted him.”

“There was a light on the cane, and when I turned to find out where it was coming from, I saw a fire on a seashore. Thorgil was having a fight with a strange boy.”

“That sounds about right,” the Bard said. “Tell me, was the water to the east or west of them?”

Jack was suddenly swept with longing, and the vision strengthened in his mind. He saw the gray-green sea stretched out beyond the fire. The sun was rising above a fog bank far out on the water. And that meant—that meant—“The water lay to the east!”

The Bard nodded. Jack understood at once. The Northmen had crossed the sea again. What were they planning? Was Thorgil even now sailing down the coast with a band of berserkers?

The Bard put his finger to his lips. “We’ll speak of this later.” Jack heard Lucy complaining from the loft and Father apologizing. Pega sat up abruptly with straw dripping from her wispy hair. She sprang into action, storing bedding, lining up cups, and placing a poker in the fire to heat cider. Jack appreciated her efforts, but sometimes her incessant energy made him feel tired. Before Mother arrived, Pega had the iron pot, purchased with Jack’s silver, on the hearth and was heating water for oatmeal. Father lurched down the ladder with Lucy in his arms.

“Where’s my cider?” the little girl demanded. “I’m dying of thirst. I like my porridge with lots of honey.”

“I’ll help you,” Jack said hastily, before Pega could drop the poker on Lucy’s head. He took the skin bag and filled the cups. Mother took over the task of preparing oatmeal.

“I want to see Brother Aiden,” she said, looking down at her work.

“Of course,” Father replied meekly.

“Excellent idea!” said the Bard. “I have questions for him too. I’m fairly certain what those creatures in the hazel wood were, but Brother Aiden’s opinion would be useful.”

“I want to know where they live.” Mother stirred the oatmeal without looking up. “I want you to find them, Giles, and bring our daughter home, and I want this to happen immediately, with no side trips to drink ale with the blacksmith. Do you hear me?”

It was so rare for Mother to give orders that everyone stared at her in amazement. People forgot she was a wise woman with knowledge of small magic and an ability to control animals by voice alone. She was using that voice now. No one spoke, not even the Bard. Jack felt the air tremble.

“Do you hear me, Giles?” repeated Mother.

“Yes, dearest,” said Father. The air stopped vibrating. Everyone relaxed and continued with whatever he or she was doing.