The Fatal Child (20 page)

It should have hung first, Melissa thought, as she burned her tongue on her first mouthful. Dadda would have hung it for three days. But after all that winter, who was going to wait? It was good – warm and juicy and very, very good. She ate more than she would have thought possible.

Puck leaned back with a sigh. He hadn’t said anything for a while. His face was thoughtful. She knew what it was. You killed the goat, you ate on it, but you felt sorry for it, too. And grateful. That was right. That little life had been closed off so that you could go on. And Atti was also right. It had been beautiful.

Funny thing, beauty. Always getting where you didn’t want it.

Puck had begun to hum, or maybe sing – Melissa knew so little about the hill tongue that she could not be sure if there were any words in the sounds he made. She stopped licking her lips to listen. She had not heard anything like it before. It was a low, slow, sad tune. It made her think how very small the two of
them were, here by their spark of a fire, and how around them in the night were the great mountains – huge, cold things that had stood long before she was born and would be here long after she was dead, and each year they wept their melting waters into the torrents below. It made her think of Atti, and the beauty she wept for, and the horrors that surrounded her as coldly as the mountains themselves.

She wondered what the boy was thinking now, and whether he had ever slept away from his village before. He must have known, when he set out with those goats, that it was going to take him all day to get them here. And he’d have had to get them across the river somehow, and up the narrow path which would have been cut every few hundred paces by another streamlet off the mountainside. It was good of him. It was more than good.

She huddled a little closer to him for warmth. She suddenly felt very aware of him – the strange press of his shoulder against hers and his thigh against her thigh. Her blood seemed to be turning upside down inside her, slowly. She almost put her head on his shoulder but did not quite feel she could. She thought she might put her arm around him. Or he might put his around her. And then … Then what would she do?

It was a little like looking over one of these mountain cliffs, down at the great drop below her, with her stomach tingling with the strange, awful delight of it. And what she always did was wait there for a moment, then turn and walk back to where there
was firm ground all around her, and she wouldn’t look again.

She lifted her head as the song ended. ‘That was nice,’ she said. ‘Thank you – I’m going to sleep now.’

She got to her feet without waiting for an answer, smiled at him and let her feet take her firmly back towards the kitchen, where Atti would already be lying in a silent heap under her blankets. She walked quickly, and after the first few steps she knew that she was safe. He would not follow her.

He would not follow her into the inner courtyard, where the stone fountain and the empty throne stood like the ghosts of another time.

The arrival of the goats meant more work. The girls had to take turns leading them to pasture and watching them there, to be sure that they did not stray or get taken by mountain beasts. But Melissa did not mind this. It was worth it for the goats’ milk alone. There was more time in the earlier mornings and later evenings to fit in other chores. And goats were goats, not only useful but funny and good for the temper.

She was watching them one summer afternoon, about a year after her first arrival at the house. The sky was clear, the sun was on the mountainside and the wild flowers bloomed like little fountains of colour wherever they could in the rocky ground. The goats moved on the sloping hillside, pulling at the sparse green with their big lips. And a stone went rattling down the hillside a hundred paces away.

Her eyes jerked away from the herd. Someone was coming up the path. Could it be Puck again? But he had come only a few days ago. And she could not hear a donkey bell or hooves. Who could it be?

More stones rattled. A man’s head and shoulders bobbed into view and disappeared again. Then he rounded a boulder and stepped into full view.

It was the King!

He saw the goats first – one had just emerged from a clump of thorns below the path. He stopped and shaded his eyes. Then he saw her, too, and waved a friendly hand. And he began to pick his way down to her.

Melissa started up in confusion. She couldn’t believe it was him – really him, coming down the steep hillside towards her in his rough cloak and jerkin and leggings, smiling with unshaven lips and coming nearer every moment! She had thought him a hundred miles away in the March, judging all the people who needed to be judged. And he was here!

‘Melissa,’ he said. ‘It is good to see you again. Are you well?’

‘Um – yes, lord,’ she said, and wondered what else to say.

‘Don’t call me “lord,” Melissa. You’ll only swell my head.’

‘Um … yes,’ she said. If he wasn’t to be ‘lord’ – or ‘sir’ or something – she did not know what to call him.

‘You’ve grown,’ he said. ‘I think the mountains must be good for you.’

‘Um,’ she said, and looked at her feet.

He must have seen that her tongue was tying itself into knots. But he said nothing about it. He looked around the pasture like a man who had at last come home. ‘Goats,’ he said. ‘I used to do this.’

And when she did not answer he asked: ‘Do they behave themselves?’

‘Mostly, lor— Um. Mostly, yes, they do.’

‘Mostly. There’s a villain in every goat, isn’t there?’

Sunlight, and pasture, and a little purple hill-flower sprouting between the stones at her feet. And the tallest, handsomest, wisest man in the world had suddenly appeared before her! Why couldn’t she say anything?

‘And what do you do if a wolf comes? Or a lynx?’

She pointed to her long stick, the sling and the pile of carefully chosen stones. ‘They’re no trouble.’

‘No trouble, so long as you see them first. Is that a sling?’ He bent over and picked it up. ‘I never had one of these. I know the hill folk use them, though.’

‘They gave it to us. They give us lots of things.’

‘There are good people in that village. Can you use it?’

She nodded.

‘Show me.’

It was never going to be a good shot, not with him standing there. Puck would have rolled his eyes – maybe even rolled on the ground, beating the earth in mock despair. But the King nodded as her stone skimmed the top of the bush she had aimed at.

‘That would scare them, wouldn’t it? So. How are things?’

‘Well enough, lord.’

‘Do you like it here?’

She did not know what to say.

‘Do you miss the March at all?’

She thought about it, and nodded. ‘Winters are harder here.’

‘Hum. Is Mother up at the pool?’

‘Don’t know where she is, exactly,’ she said, and managed not to say
‘lord’
this time. ‘You come to talk with her?’

‘Yes. About various things. She says another of the princes in the pool is ready to hear us now. So there’s that. Also …’ A rueful smile played over his lips. ‘Well, there’s Atti.’

Atti. Her heart sank. ‘You going to talk to your mother about her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Um …’

He looked at her, and her mouth shut itself at once.
(I’m sorry, sir, but they just don’t like each other?)
She could not say it. He would want to know why. And she couldn’t tell him that either. It seemed to have started even before there could be a reason.

Ambrose grinned sourly. ‘Older woman, younger woman,’ he said. ‘It’s eternal. You would think Mother of all people would be above that now, but she isn’t. Not when she thinks it’s about me.’

In the end Melissa’s tongue failed her again. She could only shrug and say, ‘Maybe.’

‘Well, let’s go up and see what we can do. I’ll give you a hand with the goats, shall I? How do you call them? Cu-cu-cu-cu …?’

It was too early to bring the goats back in. There was an hour of good daylight left before dusk, which was the most dangerous time for wolf and lynx and that. But Melissa could no more have told him so than she could have flown. She stood up and gave the long, dropping whoop that her mother had taught her, years ago in the clearing by the stream.

‘That’s a March call,’ said the King, surprised. ‘Didn’t these come from the hill people?’

‘They did, lord.’

But they’re
my
goats now, she thought.

The goats did not behave.

It was the old mother-goat who was the worst. She knew she was being cheated of an hour of pasture. She made the two of them do more running and shooing on the steep slopes than Melissa normally had to do in a week. Melissa would have felt bad about it if the King had not enjoyed himself so much. He laughed and leaped about the boulders as if he were trying to be a goat himself. And when they finally had the animals all assembled on the path, he waved a thorn branch like a banner over his head and called, ‘Ho, knights – to the Dark Tower, ride!’ Of course the goats bolted and scattered, so he ran after the leading pair, laughing and swearing at his own stupidity.

That left Melissa to round up the stragglers, including the mischievous old mother, who had taken herself
off to catch another few mouthfuls. Melissa chased them and cursed them, aware that the King was getting further ahead all the time. She cursed herself, too, for being so surprised and stupid when he had appeared.

Why couldn’t she have said all the things that fine people said, like
I give thanks to Michael that he has guarded you on your way
and so on?

Why couldn’t her slingshot have hit the bush,
whack
, as it should have done? Why couldn’t she have told him all the things that had made her laugh in the last year, so that he could have laughed, too? He would have, if she had given him the chance.

You have grown
. Why couldn’t he have said:
You have grown pretty?
But she’d probably have died on the spot if he had.

She reached the house at last, shooing the wretched goats along before her. As they approached the gateway, Atti came out.

‘They’re arguing,’ she said.

‘Oh! Why?’

‘About me.’

She walked past Melissa and looked out over the steep drop to the valley floor. Melissa faced the doors. Loose thoughts in her brain wailed that a wonderful moment was being spoiled – spoiled because of Atti! Grimly she shooed the goats into the house.

Phaedra and Ambrose were facing each other in the inner courtyard. Ambrose had his hands on his hips. They were both angry. Melissa knew it at once, although they did not shout or shake their fists at
one another. She could hear it in their voices, as cold and distant as the mountain snow.

‘… but I do
not
judge her, Amba. I
might
, but I do not.’

‘So why does she have nightmares still?’

‘How do you know that she does?’

‘It doesn’t matter how I know,’ said Ambrose. ‘The point is, she is having them. You know that.’

‘I do. But
I
have never chosen to disturb her sleep.’

‘She’s scared of you. That’s the truth. Why?’

‘I give her no reason to be scared.’

‘It’s not about reason, though, is it?’

Melissa fled into the kitchen. She couldn’t get between the two of them but maybe a little supper would help. People often stopped being cross if they were given something to eat, didn’t they? Maybe Ambrose was hungry! He’d have been walking all day and for many days before that. Maybe that was the trouble. Anyway, she felt better working for him with her hands than trying to talk to him with her tongue. Her fingers could do her talking for her. He would see that.

The embers were still warm and rekindled quickly. Melissa found the pan, the vegetables, the water, the knife. The bread was old but there was goat’s milk in the pantry and fish drying on the frame. She could put something together that would please him.

She wanted to keep busy. She wanted to have something to do. Anything not to have to listen to the voices out in the courtyard – those cold, angry voices, of people who should never be angry with one
another. She put the water on and then scraped and chopped the vegetables. She did more than usual because of the extra mouth, and more again because it was him. It was early (for a summer’s day) and there was still plenty of light to see by.

Check the fire. Let it begin to work its way back down to embers. What next? The broth was on and would need watching, but she did not want just to hide in the kitchens.

Water! She should refill the jug. She picked it up and carried it out into the courtyard. Even before she stepped into the light, she knew something had changed. The voices had stopped.

Ambrose was still there. He was walking by the low wall that ran along the open end of the courtyard above the steep slope to the valley floor. But the person beside him was not Phaedra. It was Atti.

Ambrose was explaining something to her, waving with one hand as he walked. He was looking at Atti as he spoke, as if he were anxious about what she might think of what he was saying. Atti was nodding slowly as she listened. What struck Melissa most was how small she was compared to him. She did not even come up to his chin.

Phaedra was standing in the shadow of the columns. She was also watching them, with hard eyes.

‘He thinks she should leave,’ she said flatly.

‘I got that much,’ said Melissa. ‘And go where?’

‘Back to the March. He wants to move some families into the old castle of Tarceny and make it his home.’

‘Oh,’ said Melissa again. She tried to imagine it. ‘A castle like this one?’

‘Much bigger.’

Bigger? thought Melissa. Even bigger than this?

Ambrose and Atti reached the end of the wall, turned and began walking slowly back again. Melissa noticed that Ambrose was still doing most of the talking. Atti would nod, or ask a short question, and then Ambrose would answer, saying lots of things, and saying them eagerly as if he had so many things to tell her and wanted her to be excited by them, too.

‘I do not like being told that we have failed,’ said Phaedra softly.