Tender Morsels

  She sat long enough for Lady Annie’s soft breathing to infect her with sleepiness. She got up from her chair then, and added a neat-cut log from the bucket to the fire, and yawned and stretched while it took. She picked up one of the lady’s rings from the night table—one with a milky greenish stone—and held it awhile; it warmed, but did not spring to life as the robin had from the red stone in Collaby’s treasure-pile. Then she sat in the window, pushing the lace aside so that she could see more clearly down the street into the town. Several people passed, or came out onto their steps and spoke to each other. Urdda kept the lace across the window whenever someone walked near, but when the street was empty she moved it aside and strained her eyes to see the orchardwoman waving her arms down in the market square, ordering her children about, or to see the wagons crossing in the distance.

  She wondered what Mam and Branza were doing now. But then she remembered Teasel’s talk of three winters having passed since she left home, and the wondering evaporated into confusion.

  ‘Are you there?’ a frail voice said from the bed.

  ‘Yes, I’m here, Lady Annie.’ Urdda crossed the dim room to her side.

  The lady’s eyes shone like two little lamps. ‘What were your name again, girlie?’

  ‘Urdda, mum.’

  ‘Urdda what, child? What is your other name, your father’s?’

  ‘Well, we have determined that it is likely Longfield. But I have never had a father, mum.’

  ‘Longfield? I hope not, for your sake. You don’t want to be any relation to that no-good.’ She scrutinised the girl. ‘You haven’t got the look of him, I don’t think.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I knew enough of him to know I dint want to know more. He is dead now, and nobody misses him.’

  ‘Well, it seems we lived in a house that matches a ruined one here, that he used to occupy.’

  ‘Oh, I know the place. I used to live just up from there myself, ’fore I came into my money. So tell me, foreign girl, how did you transmit yourself, there to here?’

  ‘I found the spot where that Teasel-Wurledge-bear came through, and I wished it strongly, and I pushed.’

  The lady looked very hard at Urdda. Then she relinquished her thoughts and sat forward, out of the pillows. ‘I done a terrible thing,’ she said.

  She was not at all like a lady, with her hair all wisped like that and without her teeth. She was like a beggar-woman who had fallen by accident into this scramble of fine bed-linen, with a fabulous bed-bonnet landed by chance on her head.

  ‘She told me not to,’ she continued, ‘but I went ahead and did it, and I made a mess I could not tidy.’

  It sounded as if her mind were still quite disarranged, but she spoke clearly—if a little whuffingly from her toothlessness—and her gaze was steady and bright.

  ‘Who told you?’ said Urdda gently. ‘What kind of mess?’

  ‘That lady at High Oaks Cross,’ Lady Annie said, as if surely Urdda must remember. ‘She said, You have powers; what are you doing with them? No harm, I hope. And in the course of talking to her, I told her of that thing where I could make signs upon people and they would see their heart’s desire. I arksed her, could I ever send them there, could I ever move them toords it? And she says, Mebbe, but best not to. You can never know the consequences of such transmissions.’

  She sat, childlike again, and looked fearfully at those possible consequences, her face folded tiny around her toothlessness. Then she noticed her own mouth, and she reached to the night table where Wife Ramstrong had placed her teeth, and she clomped and clacked them into place.

  ‘But you did?’ said Urdda when the teeth were settled. ‘Against her saying?’

  Lady Annie folded her ringless hands in her lap and glanced about as if someone might leap out from behind the hangings to scold her. ‘I sent Collaby there.’

  ‘You sent the littlee-man? I thought he got there by his own power.’

  ‘His own? Collaby had no powers.’

  ‘He didn’t?’ A tiny fist crushed frog-eggs to a shining pearl in Urdda’s memory.

  ‘No, his stumpetiness was the only thing odd about him. He wanted use of my powers. And once we had punchered through, he went reckless back and forth despite my warning him—because what could I warn him of? You can never know the consequences, said that lady, and I did not. When he described the place, it were nothing like the place I’d thought I were sending him. All them tall people? I thought. It must be someone else’s place of their heart’s desire. And I were afraid of what I’d gone and done, and I never did no more that kind of thing. Now you are here, and I’m wondering, is it yours, then?’ She looked keenly at Urdda across the crumpled linens.

  ‘Is what mine?’

  ‘That place what you come from. Is it the place of your heart’s desire?’

  What could she mean? ‘I always wanted to come here,’ said Urdda blankly.

  Lady Annie sagged.

  ‘All people do at home is smile and smile, and be kind. They have no opinions, and never want to go anywhere or do anything new. It is terribly dull.’

  ‘Bugger. If it were your place, see, now that you are here, the punches Collaby made through would all be gone. That whole world would be gone, once you’d stepped out of it. But you don’t reckon it were yours?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, “place of your heart’s desires”. And worlds “belonging” to people. Are you saying that I lived in a world that . . . a world of someone’s mind? That someone dreamed of?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘But . . .’ Urdda held her head to keep the thought from popping it like a soap bubble. ‘Why am I real, then? Why am I not dream-stuff? Why don’t I melt to nothing now that I am not in the dream?’

  Lady Annie spread her wrinkled paws helplessly. ‘I don’t know, my poppet. The state I am in, you might well be dream-stuff, sitting there and us talking so reasonable.’

  ‘I should perhaps find this lady, the one you met, that told you not to do . . . what you did. She might be able to explain what has happened.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure she would. And be very cross with me too, she would.’ Lady Annie eyed the bed-linen next to her as if she would like to crawl under it and lie very still and hidden there.

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I think it were Miss Prance.’ Lady Annie bit her lip. ‘It were so long ago, and I got to calling her Miss Fancy-pants for a long time, I were so cross with her for spoiling what might have been my fun and profit. But Prance, or something very like.’

  ‘And she was at High Oaks Cross?’

  ‘Yebbut she had come from farther, all the way from Rockerly, on some business, terribly important, oh-so-important. I were just a midge in her ear, an accidental dung-bundle she stepped in, that she must get off her shoe. She done that and left me by the roadside in my smell. Well, thank you, Miss Fancy, Miss Prancy. Off she goes down the road, in a hat that is like some foreign bird come alighted on her head and froze mid-flap. And would of cost a fortune to me, them days. Now I have so much treasure, courtesy of Dought, I could wear a new hat every day if I wanted, the rest of my years, with whatever bird, or a marmot or a satin rose or a gentleman’s boot on it. And no one would laugh at me, were I to walk out to market in it, I am that rich,’ finished Lady Annie.

  But then she looked out from her memories to Urdda’s listening face, and all the puff and outrage left her. ‘Open the curtains wider, girl—Urdda. Urdda was your name. I can hardly see your face in here.’

  She watched from the bed as Urdda went to the window and returned. ‘So, you is fetched up with Davit Ramstrong, have you? That is lucky, that you fell in their arms.’

  ‘They’re very kind.’

  ‘Did she say that her man had been there, that goodwife, to where you come from?’

  ‘Yes. For several months, when I was little. But he went through on Bear Day, so he was in the form of a bear.’

  ‘But a different bear et
Dought?’

  ‘That’s right. Teasel Wurledge.’

  ‘Oh my Gawd. So many to-ings and fro-ings. None of it is good.’ Lady Annie sucked on her lips awhile, and then some impulse made her fling back the bedcovers and lower her feet to the bed-box. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘Bring me that house-gown and them slippers. Let us go and see if I am ruined.’

  She took a lit candle and handed one to Urdda. Then she led her down to the cellar, through a house that echoed around them as if all the rooms behind all the doors were empty. The kitchen alone was finely equipped, although the tarnish on the pans suggested that they had not been used in some time.

  Three strongboxes big as coffins squatted in the cellar. Lady Annie set her candle on one of them, took a key from a chain around her neck and unlocked another. ‘Help me open the lid,’ she said. ‘All that metal strapping weighs it down fearsome.’

  Urdda put down her candle and helped lift it open. Inside was just such treasure as the littlee-man had died protecting: bright coins, silver and gold; pearls such as he made from frog-eggs; and here and there a bird-stone, veined or mottled or a clear single colour.

  ‘Good,’ said Lady Annie. ‘That much is established, then: it were not your heaven. But what were you doing in someone else’s heaven-place? When did you sneak in?’

  ‘I always lived there.’

  The lady perched on the rim of the chest, picked up a smooth chunk of turquoise, and tossed it from hand to hand as she thought. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she said. ‘What a horrible mess I have made.’

  ‘Mister Dought must have travelled there many times, to gather this much treasure.’ Urdda turned to the other two strongboxes. ‘Are they full of treasure too?’

  ‘To the brim,’ said the lady glumly. ‘He were very naughty. And of course he fetched as much or more for himself.’ She let the turquoise fall with a chink into the treasure-chest, then brightened and sprang up. ‘Anyway, what I was about to say—help me lower this without losing my fingers—is, I were on the point of offering you a position, for I cannot have you burdening the Ramstrong purse when it were me—or Collaby empowered by me—that made it possible for you to travel here.’

  She stooped to lock the box, then straightened and took up her candle again. ‘Can you cook?’

  ‘I can cook.’

  ‘Do you know about ladies, and how they comport theirselves?’

  ‘Not really. Only a little, from stories. But I can discover. Goodwife Ramstrong knows a great deal, and she also knows some women who work for that man Hogback, and other merchants.’

  ‘Good, good.’ Lady Annie had begun climbing the cellar stairs; her eyes were now level with Urdda’s. ‘I will tell that sluttern what comes and does for me to take her slops and go. You shall light my candles for me every night. You shall draw the curtains, and open them of a morning. You shall bring me my bloom-tea upon a tray, like a lady, and cook me little lovely-things to tease my tastebuds. I shall have a lady’s maid as befits my station, just as Collaby always said and I refused it. We shall play at ladies together; we will stroll about the town, a lady and her companion. You shall have bed and board and . . . some money. How much is sensible? More than that cook, because you will be doing more.’

  ‘I . . . I do not know how much. I will have to ask Todda,’ said Urdda breathlessly.

  ‘Yes, she will know. Now let us go and choose you some quarters from the many rooms I have, all knocking about empty, and think about how we will furnish it for you.’

  Urdda retrieved her own candle and followed the lady’s brisk figure up the stairs.

  In the spring after second-Bear left, Branza came upon two wolf-cubs, starving and staggering in the forest.

  She brought them back to the cottage. ‘I cannot think what has happened to their mother,’ she said, opening her apron to show them to Liga. ‘Will they take goat’s milk, do you think, or will it kill them?’

  ‘It must be better for them than nothing,’ said Liga.

  Branza went to their care with her usual diligence. Both cubs grew well at first, increasing in energy and playfulness and then in bulk and strength. Branza asked of a shepherd how he commanded his dogs so that she could tame her new charges to sit and lie when told, and behave themselves in and about the cottage, and come to her call or whistle when they were farther afield. But no sooner were they of an age to reliably trot at Branza’s heels when they were not stalking and pouncing on one another, than the larger, girl-cub caught a fever from playing too long in swamp-water, and after a night’s shivering and burning, she died.

  ‘Oh, little one,’ said Branza to the brother as he pawed the earth in which she was digging the wolf-grave, ‘now you will be like me, won’t you? Always missing someone, sister or sweetheart or bear.’

  She fetched the dead wolflet and laid her in the ground, and the brother went down there too, and sniffed all around her as if to assure himself she was positioned right. When he was satisfied, Branza lifted him out, and he sat, quite sober and respectful-seeming, as she pushed the earth in, and covered the she-wolf, and patted the grave flat.

  For several days he did not understand that his sister was gone. Branza took great care to engage him in play just as much as the dead wolf had used to, and at the times when the brother and sister would have rested together she carried him about in her arms, or had him in her lap as she sat holding wool for Liga to wind, or only resting herself, noting the weathers as they passed across the window.

  And from that time, the two spent every hour together. The wolf slept in the house, even when he grew full-sized, on the floor beside Branza’s bed where she could reach down and touch him whenever night thoughts woke her, or bad dreams. And during the day he companioned her, whether she gathered or gardened, laundered or fished, snared, strode the hills and heaths, or wandered singing in the forest. He even sang himself, after a fashion, if Branza prompted him right, and in this, as in everything he did, he delighted her.

  He was welcomed as she was when they went into the town. He would submit to pats on the head and scratches on the belly most willingly, and even would suffer some of the smaller children to ride on his back a few steps, held on by their bigger brothers or sisters. Branza was careful to keep him obedient when the market was on, and Wife Sweetbread sometimes gave her a piece of this or that meat to reward him with. Others remarked on his fine coat and intelligent face, or greeted him as if he were as much a person as Branza herself—which indeed she grew to think of him as.

  Liga, too, approved him. Most suitable friend, she called him, for my angel child, but only when she thought Branza was out of hearing. She too enjoyed to command and reward him, and to have him draped over her feet as she sat working in the sunshine at the doorway in autumn and spring.

  Wolf was not nearly as close a spirit or as complex a companion as Urdda, Branza thought, but he was warmth and consolation. He was not nearly as mysterious and alluring as second-Bear had been, but then he was not nearly so troubling either. He had his touch of wildness, his fondness for howling to his fellows on still nights under a full moon, but in the main he stayed content to brighten their cottage, their days, their world, with his extra ration of beauty and youth; to come to their call and play when life grew overly quiet; to prompt them for touches and attention when either of them was tempted to regard herself as lonely.

  Urdda reached the top of the tower before Annie did, and crossed to the castle wall. The icy air was not quite as still here as it had been below; its pauseless breath chilled Urdda’s neck and hands and ankles, and made her eyes water.

  St Olafred’s was almost silent below, everyone huddled at their hearths except the smith, from whose cosy shop echoed up his hammerings, like a dulled bell. The forest around was a vision of lifelessness, leaflessness—a black mist barely moved by the breeze—and snow rimmed the view, painted thickly on the distant heights.

  Urdda’s gaze fell, as it always did eventually, to the southwest beyond the town, to a curl of smoke there. Wel
l she knew that it was from the wildfolk’s fire at Gypsy Siding, yet her heart still wanted to believe that Mam and Branza were out there in the cottage among the trees; that the smoke was from the cottage chimney; that she’d only to run down the town and out along the road past the Font to join them there and tell them of her new life: of Annie and her customers, their ills and remedies; of Ramstrong and Todda and their families. Most of all, she wanted to tell about, and thus relive, the carriage ride she had taken with Annie to Broadharbour at summer’s end to see the ocean’s hugeness and flatness and wildness at the edges; to help Annie choose fabrics (such fabrics!) for her winter clothing; to buy herbs and dried creatures, ground horn and such for Annie’s mud-makings, which she had got up the spirit to begin again; to order furniture and cartage. To exchange, in fact, as much of Annie’s wealth from the strongboxes, in as many different places as possible, for items of real and lasting value.

  So I can bring you there, Mam, Urdda might say, shedding her shawl with the heat of the soup, with the heat of the cottage fire. You and Branza both. As soon as I have got all her wealth exchanged, she’s promised me, we will make some effort towards bringing you there.

  Annie muttered and puffed at the top of the stairwell. ‘Blemme, that’s warming,’ she said, emerging. ‘Ooh, and just as well!’ She pulled her cloak closer at the neck. ‘We mustn’t stay too long up here. We shall freeze to the stones like a pair o’ gargoyles.’