My Swordhand Is Singing (14 page)

“Get me a drink, would you?” Tomas said, wincing as he rolled onto the makeshift bed.

Peter didn’t know what to say, but that in itself was enough to irritate Tomas.

“I’ve just been attacked by four men. I’ve killed one of them. I need a damn drink, Peter!”

Peter nodded.

“Sorry. Yes, yes.”

He fumbled around with a bottle, trying to find a mug.

“Give me that.” Tomas snatched it from Peter and drank deeply. Slivovitz dribbled down his chin and dripped onto his shirt.

Peter knelt by his father again.

“What did they want with you, Father? Why did they do this?”

Tomas took another drink, then looked into Peter’s face.

“I’m sorry, Peter,” he said. “I’ve lied to you.”

Peter shook his head, putting his hand on his father’s shoulder.

“Listen to me,” his father said. “I’ve lied to you. About so many things.”

“I don’t care,” Peter said gently. “I don’t care about that. Why did they do this? What did they want with you?”

“It’s not me they want. Well, not anymore. Not now I’m like this.”

Peter wasn’t sure whether he meant hurt, or something more, that he was a useless drunk.

“It’s not me they want. It’s that.”

Tomas nodded up, behind Peter.

“There,” he said, pointing. “Up in the eaves, behind the beam.”

Peter followed Tomas’s shaking hand to the top of the wall. He stood on a stool and felt around, and there, tucked into the crook between the joists and the roof, was the box.

“Take it down, Peter. Take it down.”

Peter had seen the box before, but now, even before he opened it, he knew what was inside. And if the sword was true, then it was all true.

His father, a hero.

“The sword?” Peter asked.

Tomas nodded.

“Have a look if you like.”

Peter’s hands trembled as he lifted the lid and gazed upon the blade inside. He didn’t dare touch it.

“But why?” he asked, shaking his head. “It’s just a sword.”

Tomas laughed, then winced again.

“Sit down, Peter. Listen to me. I’ve lied to you. That thing you see there. It’s so much more than a sword. It has power over those who return. Return from the grave. You understand?”

“Sofia told me. What I don’t understand is why you’ve denied them all these years. Why?”

Tomas took another drink, then a deep breath. He looked across the room to the fire.

“Thirty years ago, I fought with the King. They call him the Winter King now, but then he was just King Michael. The Turks had fought their way far from home, right up as far as Poland. For years we’d been powerless to stop them; the noble voivods who ruled each region too busy arguing with each other to unite. Michael changed all that, and got each voivod to swear allegiance to him. In that way he formed a mighty army that pushed the Turks back as far as the Danube. The river ran red! And then we pushed even further. I was with him as we headed far into Turkish territory. It was there that I found the sword.

“And there that I learnt of something worse than the Turks. I had heard of the
vrykolakoi
before, in fireside tales. Everyone has. But in that strange land I found myself fighting them as well as the Turks. The sword was made in a land where these terrors were common, and it has the power to destroy them for good, with a single stroke.”

Peter nodded, but it still didn’t make sense.

“But why are the Gypsies fighting you for it? Why have you never told me about any of this?”

“Wait. A story has its purpose and its path. It must be told correctly for it to be understood. Remember that, Peter.

“Well. The wars ended, but not before the King died. Not from the sword, but from some disease that found him on our forays onto foreign soil. It ate him from inside and it was terrible to see. It was then, in the disbanded armies that were making their way home, that I met Caspar. Sofia’s father.

“From him I learnt all about the ways of those who return from death. They are to be found in every land, he said, and I found out how true that was. He had heard about my fighting, about my sword, and we spent the years that followed hunting them down and putting them back to eternal rest.

“For they are like a disease too, Peter. They infect the living and make us like them. Once an outbreak starts, it is like an epidemic. It can be hard to stop. Sometimes a great many people die before it is brought to an end.”

“And the Shadow Queen?”

Tomas shook his head.

“That I do not know. I thought she was no more than a story. But if she is real, I don’t know how she is involved in all this.”

Tomas paused, staring at the floor, breathing heavily.

“Sofia said you were put in jail after the wars, because of the chaos when King Michael died,” Peter said. “Is that not true?”

Tomas shook his head.

“No. It was Caspar’s fault.”

“But he died in jail too! Or is that a lie, as well?”

“No, that much is true. After years of hunting the dead, I had had enough. Things were getting more dangerous for us, simply because we were living in a time of peace. Think about it. Think of what we used to do. We would prowl around at night, hunting through graveyards, digging up graves. Why? To stop them, send them back. Kill them, if you like. During a time of war and strife, no one gives much care to their dead. People are lucky if they get to bury them at all. But in times of peace, men who desecrate graves are not well liked. I wanted to stop. Caspar had married and had a baby girl. I wanted to do the same.”

A baby girl,
Peter thought.
Sofia.

“But Caspar convinced me to continue; he said it was too important. Soon we were arrested, but I had hidden the sword. We were tried and both ended up in jail for desecrating the grave of a nobleman. A nobleman who was returning from the soil every night to attack young girls. It didn’t matter. The local voivod locked us away for life, and I would have stayed there forever had he himself not been deposed. That came too late for Caspar, and I vowed that when I got out I would have no more to do with any of it.

“That was years ago. I met your mother a year later. She died giving birth…to you, Peter. And I renewed my vow to fight no more, to look after you. I just haven’t done a very good job, that’s all.”

“No, Father. That’s not true. I didn’t understand things, about the box, about why we had to keep moving all the time. But I understand one thing. You think it was my fault that my mother died—”

“No!” Tomas cried, sitting up, grimacing with pain. “No. I never thought that.”

“Didn’t you?” Peter said quietly. “Didn’t you?”

They fell silent.

Peter thought about his father’s old life. He had fought with the King, and the King had died. He had fought with his friend to protect people from the hostages, and instead of being rewarded, they had been thrown in jail. His friend had died there. Turning his back on this warrior life, he had found a wife, and then had seen her die giving birth to his only son. He should have been proud of his son. But he had turned away from him. Was it simply too much, to see a reminder of his wife’s death every day?

So finally, as soon as Peter was old enough to fend for himself, Tomas had turned to the one thing in life that had never let him down. Drink.

Peter looked again at the sword.

To stop me seeing this, you broke my toy,
he thought.
My little wooden goose.

But he said nothing.

Though his heart had been damaged by his father’s story, there was one small seed of hope. Tomas had finally told him everything. There were no more secrets between them, none of the secrets that had kept them apart all Peter’s life.

They could act.

“Tomas. My father,” Peter said. “Why did they do this to you? You were on the same side, once.”

“There are no sides here. I vowed not to fight anymore, and I will not. Look at me! One scrap and I’m all but done for. Another one would kill me.”

“So you refused to join them? And they wanted the sword instead? So why not just give it to them? Give it to them, and let’s get out of here. Go far away.”

“And go where? We’ve been running all our lives. The hostages, those who return, are everywhere. The ancestors, those who fight them, are everywhere too. But the sword is mine and I will not give it up. They’ll be back soon, and I suppose next time they’ll send more than four weaklings to get it. I cannot help that.”

“No, but it doesn’t have to be this way. If you won’t help them, then just give them the sword. It makes no sense to keep it. Then they can try to stop this epidemic.”

Tomas grew suddenly angry.

“I told you! It’s not my fight anymore! It’s not our business. We’re just woodcutters. I want to live quietly on this island. Bother no one, and be bothered by no one!”

Peter stood and stared at his father.

“How can you be so selfish!” he shouted. “Help them! Give them the sword at least. They need you. I need you!”

“Everything was fine until they arrived.”

“If that’s true, then why do you drink? It’s killing you, and yet you will not stop! And why would you need to drink but to stop yourself from seeing, from thinking?”

In answer, Tomas kicked out and knocked a chair flying across the room.

Peter jumped back and watched, horrified, as Tomas lifted the bottle of slivovitz to his lips.

When Peter closed the door of the hut behind him, Tomas had still not stopped drinking.

34

The Camp

Peter had not been to the Gypsy camp before, but he knew it was somewhere away to the west of Chust. He’d heard that the Gypsies had settled in a clearing in the trees. Sultan moved easily through the great forest, still willing to do his master’s bidding despite their fruitless logging trip.

Peter’s mood was grim, and though rage boiled inside him, his face was nothing but a mask of determination. As he rode he kept one hand on the reins, the other on the shaft of his axe. The world had gone crazy, turned itself upside down. His father had killed someone, and he was riding to confront the victim’s family. He might just need his horse and axe to make it out alive.

And if he didn’t make it out again? At that moment, he didn’t much care. Wasn’t that what the Miorita was telling him? To accept your fate, meekly, with no resistance, no struggle. If that was the case, then he would go to the Gypsy camp without fear, and get them to leave Tomas alone, to fight their own battles.

And as for Sofia…

He kicked Sultan in the ribs unnecessarily hard. The old horse broke into a canter, but shook his head to show he wasn’t happy.

The clearing was ahead, and even at this distance, through the trees, Peter could see the yellows and reds of the caravans, and wood smoke twisting up into the sky.

He pulled Sultan to a halt and tethered him to a tree.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

Peter wished he were as confident of that as he sounded, but sliding the axe from Sultan’s saddle, he knew he had no choice but to go through with it. The Gypsies would regroup, and be back for the sword.

At first he walked boldy, upright, making no attempt to hide himself as he neared the clearing. He could see the camp clearly now. There were five caravans and two open carts. The caravans were arranged in a circle with their doorways facing a large campfire, over which hung a cooking pot. Horses, tethered to stakes and tree stumps, chomped on the contents of hay bags. Peter saw a series of stakes planted in the ground, in a circle just outside the camp itself, about halfway to where the trees began. From the top of each stake hung a cluster of something white and bulbous. It took a moment for him to realize they were strings of garlic bulbs. Protection.

Now Peter saw someone jump from the low step of one of the caravans, and as he watched the Gypsy crossing the circle, something caught his eye. He dropped to a crouch, and crept a little closer.

Sitting against a large birch trunk on the far side of the clearing was Sofia. She was alone, in the snow, with her legs out straight in front of her, and her arms by her sides.

Seeing her there, and puzzled by it, Peter forgot all about what he had come for, and his anger with her. He crept forward nearly to the edge of the trees, then began to circle round toward her.

He was used to moving through the winter forest, and he made no sound as he deepened his arc slightly to approach Sofia from behind. For a while he thought he had lost sight of the tree where she was sitting, but there it was again, ahead of him.

Now he understood.

Ropes were tied tightly around the trunk and around Sofia. The others had bound her to a tree, and outside the circle of garlic.

“Sofia!” he whispered.

There was no reply, but then, she was on the far side of a thick trunk, unable to move.

As he crept closer, his dexterity deserted him. The head of the axe caught against the trunk of a dead sapling, which cracked loudly. He glanced ahead and saw Sofia’s hair flick out—she had turned her head.

Fearing she might call for help, he rushed the last few paces until he was right against her tree trunk.