Chapter 47
Maylie
Eleven winters old
THE FRONT ROOM of the Governor’s cottage was a crush of bodies, the windows fogged with steam, the air full of eager chatter and the smell of spiced milk wafting from the kitchen.
Girls wove through the crowd, handing out mugs and sugared crackers, while the older women laid claim to the stools and armchairs, settling in for the afternoon.
Maylie waded across the sea of homespun skirts, looking for her aunt.
The Split was an annual tradition where the women of the village gathered to trade what they had woven, knitted and sewed over dark winter evenings.
It was usually a lively, joyous occasion, but Maylie could not help feeling a little overwhelmed by the hubbub after many quiet fireside days in her aunt’s one-room cottage.
She knew she ought to be sorting through the sheets, clothes and trinkets that were on offer, and haggling with the other Silicia girls and women, but she felt self-conscious and the heat from the roaring fires mixed with the scent of the sweet spices made her dizzy.
Finally, she spotted her aunt by the kitchen threshold, a tray of herb pouches in Tadrie’s hands and a gaggle of women circled around her.
‘This spring it were a girl from Guiniel,’ an older woman called Hedrie said as Maylie approached. She was some sort of relation – perhaps a second cousin by marriage – but anything wider than immediate family did not count for much to Mountain folk. ‘The only girl in that family. A tragedy.’
‘Don’t matter if you have the one girl or twelve,’ replied Beatrovie, the baker’s wife. ‘’Tis a tragedy all the same to lose a daughter to the Maiden Sacrifice.’
All of the women nodded.
‘How old’s your eldest niece?’ Hedrie asked Tadrie.
‘She’s fourteen. We’ve a few winters yet.’
‘The lot don’t fall to Silicia often,’ said Beatrovie. She reached forward and patted Tadrie’s arm. ‘May the Great Creator protect her.’
Tadrie took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, can I interest you in a linen pouch?’ She caught sight of Maylie and smiled. ‘I made them with my apprentice.’
The women all turned and clucked approvingly at Maylie.
‘’Tis good for you to help your aunt,’ said Hedrie. ‘She was like a mam to your own mam and she’s been a mam to you too.’
‘And we need more healers,’ added Beatrovie.
All winter Tadrie had been plagued with a rasping cough that no elixir seemed able to shift.
She had remained weak and out of sorts, unable to fulfil her usual tasks.
Under her instruction, Maylie had tended the herb garden, foraged for wild plants and mixed simple tonics.
She had accompanied Tadrie on visits to villagers’ cottages, administering to the sick, and delivered medicines around Silicia, acquiring the nickname ‘Little Healer’.
Hedrie picked up one of the linen pouches on Tadrie’s tray. She looked ready to begin a haggle, when she paused.
Something in the air had shifted.
Cloche-covered heads bowed in feverish whispers and a ripple of agitation rolled through the room.
The kitchen was at the back of the Governor’s house and it took a moment for the mutters to reach Maylie: “The King’s men are here …”
A hand grabbed Maylie’s shoulder. She looked up to see her aunt tugging her away, pulling her towards the back door.
‘Go to my cottage,’ said Tadrie in a low voice. ‘Use the longer path and stay away from the main square.’ With a hiss of annoyance, she added, ‘I suppose you’ll have to go alone. Who knows where that sister of yours is.’
Esmelie was probably wherever Ravie happened to be.
Since last summer, Esmelie had taken to following the Governor’s youngest son around.
It was clear she was smitten. Even Pap had noticed.
Awaking one morning from a stupor, he had pointed a finger at his eldest daughter and said, ‘Watch yourself. I don’t want to be living with no whore.
’ Esmelie had replied that she didn’t ‘want to live with a drunkard, but what could be done about that?’ Which had earned her a beating, though she had told Maylie afterwards that it was worth it.
‘I’ll need to speak with the King’s men,’ said Tadrie, pushing Maylie out of the back door. ‘Then I’ll come home.’
‘Wait!’ Maylie stumbled on to the stone steps. ‘Auntie, won’t someone say something about me to the King’s men? Surely folk must know.’
Tadrie’s jaw clenched.
‘Especially after what happened at the Juillespie’s cottage …’
Last moon, Maylie had visited the sickbed of old Grandpap Basie Juillespie with her aunt.
She had been about to administer a tincture when a wafting shadow had caught her eye.
Turning, she had screamed in terror at the sight of a red-eyed, keening woman floating across the room.
When Maylie had tried haltingly to explain to her aunt what she had seen, Tadrie had sighed and muttered, ‘Must’ve been a banshee. ’ Two days later, Basie died.
‘Perhaps some folk suspect, but ’tis none of their business,’ said Tadrie.
Maylie thought of the women’s averted gazes inside the house. They definitely knew something.
‘The King’s men are looking for those with proper magic,’ added Tadrie. ‘They want lasting Gifts.’
‘But I’m eleven winters, Auntie. I should’ve grown out of—’
‘Enough, May!’ Tadrie snapped. ‘Be off with you.’
She slammed the door shut, leaving Maylie standing on the back step in the chilled spring afternoon without a coat.
Maylie hugged her arms around her body and stamped her feet.
Whenever she mentioned the shadows – the Hidden People – a strange look would pass over Tadrie’s face.
She insisted that Maylie must ignore them until she grew out of the Sight.
‘’Tis dangerous to speak to such creatures, May,’ she would say, as if Maylie did not know that already.
But it was not always so easy. Maylie had not told her aunt that she often left out a cup of milk for the beast that lived in her father’s cellar, or that she sometimes waved at the shadow that liked to watch her from the forest. Not all of the Hidden People seemed wholly bad.
‘Hey!’ called a voice. ‘Are you Maylie?’
Maylie jumped. A skinny boy with brown, wispy hair trudged towards her. She did not recognize him and she frowned.
‘Your aunt sent me,’ he added. ‘I were waiting for my grandmam by our wagon when she came out front to talk to the King’s men. She wants me to walk home with you.’
‘I don’t need anyone to walk me home.’
He looked nervously behind him. ‘The healer were pretty firm about it.’
Maylie sighed. Most of the Silicia children feared the crochety healer who lived close to the dark forest. And they were probably right to; Tadrie was known for her fierce temper. ‘Fine,’ she said.
They set off on a trodden path through the smattering of cottages on the east side of the village. The boy was tall and Maylie had to jog slightly to keep up with his lumbering strides.
‘’Tis one fancy house,’ said the boy, nodding his head behind them. ‘I didn’t go inside, but I counted the windows. Six rooms. Plus two outhouses in the yard and a proper stable.’
Maylie shrugged. ‘’Tis the Governor’s house,’ she replied. The current Governor had been elected four terms in a row and his family had lived in the beautiful house since the first of his five sons was born.
‘The Governor of Pienzi has a normal cottage same as everyone else,’ said the boy. ‘Nothing so grand.’
‘’Tis Pienzi where you’re from?’ asked Maylie. She had assumed that he was a child of the shepherds or goat-herders that lived outside the village on the mountainsides.
‘’Tis right.’
‘Why’re you here?’
The boy kicked at a loose stone that skidded across the grass. ‘I’ve eight brothers,’ he said. ‘Too many children, so I were sent to live with my grandmam.’ Before Maylie could ask another question, he added, ‘The King’s men are here to find folk with magic …’ He glanced sideways at her.
There was a pause.
‘My aunt will tell them there’s no one like that in Silicia just now,’ replied Maylie. ‘She’s the healer of the village and consulted on all things magical.’
‘She’s got a Gift?’
‘Of course not! She’s no magic-wielder.’
Maylie scowled, but the boy was staring straight ahead.
‘Last summer a girl from Pienzi went with the King’s men,’ he said. ‘My oldest brother said she were going off to learn proper magic in Galasque and that’d be the last we ever saw of her.’
Maylie fiddled with the frayed sleeve of her woollen jacket. Like all her clothes, it had once belonged to Esmelie and needed repairing. ‘What were the girl’s Gift?’ she asked.
‘Something to do with music.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I heard her sing once and it were like a dream.’
They fell quiet and Maylie sought for something to say. She had a few friends at the schoolhouse, but outside of lessons, she suspected them of avoiding her. She knew everyone disapproved of her father and she had overheard a few mutters about her ‘reckless’ sister.
‘Are you gonna start taking lessons?’ she asked.
‘My grandmam says I should.’ The boy scratched at his head and added quietly, ‘I’ve not been to a schoolhouse before.’
‘You’ll like it. The minister’s wife is the teacher. She’s kind.’
They reached the edge of the village and began climbing the steep slope towards the forest, following the bank of the stream that wound down the mountainside. Ahead of them stood Tadrie’s cottage, rickety and covered with vines, set against the backdrop of the looming trees.
‘’Tis here so you can go now,’ said Maylie, but then felt guilty, thinking that perhaps she had been rude. ‘I guess I’ll see you when lessons start at the schoolhouse?’
The boy nodded.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked, just as he began to turn away.
‘Chrisanie,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Goodbye, Chrisanie.’
She watched as his gangly frame climbed away down the mountainside.