Tender Morsels

  ‘But nature gave my mother her heart’s desire,’ said Branza, not hotly, but puzzled still.

  ‘Nature did, and I do not question that it was of benefit, in terms of her safety and your own.’

  Branza met Miss Dance’s gaze. ‘What was she keeping us safe from? Has she told you? Wild animals, was it? And improper things that men do?’ She pushed the memory of Teasel Wurledge from her mind.

  ‘If your mother has not told you, I will not tell it you either; I will not breach her protection of you.’

  ‘I am a grown woman.’

  ‘Then go like a grown woman and ask her. She may tell you; she may not; but it is her story to tell, not mine.’

  ‘And you will not send me back to that place of safety—or to whatever world is mine? To my own heaven?’

  She heard it in her own voice: her last bit of hope and longing, the appeal she was making to this mysterious lady’s pity.

  The lady looked upon her a long time. Then the fire crackled and spat sparks out onto the hearthstone, and she turned away to take the little broom there and sweep them back.

  ‘A heart’s desire,’ she said, sitting back when she was done, ‘it sounds like a fine thing. And your mother’s was, as she wished, the best place to raise her babies in: a kind world with no enemies, gentle upon children and full of natural wonders and pleasant society. Having walked there, I can vouch for your mother’s good heart; I have been to other heavens that were nowhere near so sweetly made. I do understand, Branza’—here she reached across the space between the chairs, and her white hand, surprisingly warm, rested momentarily on Branza’s—‘I do understand your sadness in being here, in the true world. I took you away from your home most abruptly because I was under such strain, and your grief will be greater for it, for the suddenness with which you have had to adjust to a world without your wolf, without all those littler wild things that you loved and that seemed to love you back, without all the kind people. You are enduring a great loss.’

  Branza sat silent, stiff with disappointment, seeing those animals, that house, those brown-haired people, all too clearly.

  ‘But heart’s desires? My dear, I see by your misery—by this very request you are making—that you know more of true men’s and women’s hearts than once you did, than your mother’s world permitted you to see. Such chipped and cracked and outright broken things they are, are they not? They have their illnesses too, and their impulses. And hearts are not always connected well to minds, and even if they are, minds are not always clear and commonsensical. A heart may desire a thing powerfully indeed, but that heart’s desire might be what a person least needs, for her health, for her continuing happiness.’

  Branza hardly heard the words—these would be the parts of the conversation she would be unable to relate to Urdda later, for she was listening only for the tone, the gentleness, the understanding coming from this woman, who had seen inside her to her raw, sore soul and was taking such care not to damage her further.

  ‘My mother,’ she managed to say. ‘Mam was healthy and happy there—and so were we! Well, I was. Urdda always yearned for the true world, even before she knew of it, I think.’

  ‘In your mother’s case . . .’ Miss Dance’s eyes looked blind, reflecting the fire’s orange. ‘She had suffered so greatly, you see—but that is her story to tell you. But I think she was in such deathly pain—and none of it deserved—that when she came to that place, the precipice there . . .’

  ‘The moon-babby took pity on her, are you saying?’

  Miss Dance took up the poker and stabbed the fire slowly, thoughtfully. ‘Something like that. I will not pretend to know exactly what happened.’

  ‘And I am not so sad as Mam? Or not so undeserving of my pain?’

  Miss Dance sat back, a smile on her face that Branza could never have imagined there when they first sat to talking—all the tiredness of the world was in it, and yet all the warmth, too, and the humour, and the generosity. ‘You are pure-hearted, Branza, and lovely, and you have never done a moment’s wrong. But you are a living creature, born to make a real life, however it cracks your heart. However sweet that other place was, it was not real. It was an artifact of your mam’s imagination; it was a dream of hers and a desire; you could not have stayed there forever and called yourself alive. Now you are in the true world, and a great deal more is required of you. Here you must befriend real wolves, and lure real birds down from the sky. Here you must endure real people around you, and we are not uniformly kind; we are damaged and impulsive, each in our own way. It is harder. It is not safe. But it is what you were born to.’

  They sat awhile; the fire popped and whispered as Miss Dance’s words sank into Branza’s mind, and spine, and grieving heart.

  Miss Dance regarded her, her face in the firelight sparely fleshed, strong-boned, decisive of nose and chin. Her eyes, and the cat’s beside her, seemed to glitter with equal intelligence. ‘You may never be entirely happy; few people are. You may never achieve your heart’s desire in this world, for people seldom do. Sit by enough deathbeds, Branza, and you will hear your fill of stories of missed chances, and wrong turnings, and spurned opportunities for love. It is required of you only to be here, not to be happy. But believe me, you will have a better life here than in the other world, where your mother’s happiness was the ruling principle—and the idea of happiness she held at fifteen, no less! She never refreshed or nurtured it by exposing herself to any truth, or hardship, or personality more complex than her own daughters’. And while I can understand why she did not, given the strength of her fears and the distresses of her past, I cannot—almost—’ She laughed a little. ‘Were it up to me to forgive or no, I could not forgive her, I do not think, for depriving herself so, and you and Urdda with her.’

  It was not as if Miss Dance had been talking; it was as if she had been reaching into the clear stream that was Branza’s life and one by one turning over the rounded stones at the bottom. Deeper and deeper she had gone, until she was unsticking stones that had been fast in the stream-bed, turning them and rubbing them with her long white witch-fingers so that the mud broke off them and was carried away. And now she was done, and the last, deepest, stone was excavated and washed clean, and the water ran clear among them, and all their surfaces, all their colours and veins and smoothness and imperfections, could be seen afresh.

  ‘Miss Dance?’ Branza said, but then her mouth would not pronounce such formal words as came to her mind. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, and pushed herself up out of her chair again, and bent and kissed Miss Dance’s high, smooth forehead, and then both hollows of her cheeks. ‘I will let you sleep,’ she said. ‘I have stolen so much of your time.’

  Miss Dance laughed, low and quite as a witch should. ‘Better you should steal my hours, my dear—my days, even—than that you should stoop to hedge-witchery to achieve your heaven.’

  ‘So,’ said Urdda as the two sisters followed the footman’s lamp down the quiet streets of Rockerly to their night’s accommodations. She had been asleep when Branza returned to the parlour, and even with the goodbyes and the sharp outside air, she did not feel properly awake. ‘Will you be coming home with me? Or will you go home to Mister Wolf? You are so sprightly in your step, I think the second.’ Even in her sleepy voice there chimed a little sadness, and even with her sleepy ears she heard it.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Branza cheerfully. ‘You will not have to travel alone.’

  ‘I won’t?’

  ‘No, no. I am coming with you.’ She glanced at her startled sister, then reached through the slit of her cloak to take Urdda’s hand and tuck it into the crook of her own elbow. Then she laughed, and the laugh echoed back from the walls of Rockerly’s houses. ‘I may not be happy,’ she said, ‘but I will be.’

  ‘You seem very happy,’ said Urdda crossly.

  ‘Do you wish I were not?’ said Branza. ‘Do you wish I would glum and gloom for you, as you’re used to?’

  ‘Of course not. Only—’ On
ly she did not know what. She felt three-quarters asleep; she could not be sure she was not walking in a dream.

  Well, in a dream it hardly matters what one says, does it? ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Branza. I think Miss Dance has magicked you a little bit mad.’ But she squeezed Branza’s arm hard, and she leaned against her sister as well as she could while they walked, so that Branza might know how glad she was to hear it, to know that she was staying, to keep her in the same world.

  When Urdda and Branza returned to St Olafred’s, all went well for a time. Much of Liga’s anxiety faded once she knew that not only would Branza stay by her in this world, but that she would do so willingly, in response to whatever Miss Dance had explained to her. And the two daughters were not so cross-purposed as before; instead of seeming to blame Urdda for the way the town life operated and the thicket of customs and prohibitions she must negotiate, Branza, with many a roll of her eyes and an exasperated sigh, would consult her younger sister as to the manners to employ with different people and the shades of signification given off by garments and gestures, glances and tones of voice. The two of them still squabbled, but the fear had gone from Branza’s side of their arguments and the frustration from Urdda’s, so that often Liga would find herself smiling as she listened, as ghosts of her littler, less troubled daughters flashed and chattered in the air between the two young women.

  Their business began to prosper too. The wedding of the ale-man Keller’s daughter Ada in early June was really the making of them. It was a fine occasion, with Keller laying on a feast for the greater part of the town to come to, for Ada was his only daughter and he wanted all his customers to celebrate with him. And the bride looked so well in the raiment Liga and her daughters had made, both father and groom were brought to tears at the sight of her there in the dappled sunlight under the wedding-laurels, and several matrons of the town decided then and there that when the time came, their daughters would be clothed by those Cotting women.

  Midsummer came. Liga had only vague memories of these celebrations: of hanging at the edges with her mam, too shy to join in the dancing and games. Urdda and Branza, from about nine years of age, had gone up to town to join in, but Liga never quite assembled the courage, preferring to sit out the long evening at home, with the town bonfire a distant flare, a distant scatter of flying sparks, and the shouts and music gusting partial and insubstantial on the warm breeze.

  This year Branza and Urdda would not hear of her staying indoors; they gathered a group of Ramstrongs and Threadgoulds in the middle of which Liga could be comfortably swept along through the masked and garlanded town and out onto the Mount, and deposited near the bonfire. And there, seated on a blanket next to Todda, who was big and beautiful with child now, Liga hugged her knees and watched and watched, the dancing on one side and the games on the other. Everyone, from infants just walking to old grummas and grumpas, raced and threw at marks, and balanced eggs on their noses, and everyone danced. Liga had never seen—had never allowed herself to see, at home—husbands and wives, and men and women of marriageable age, dancing together, though she and her mam had danced, and she and her girls, a little. She saw the girls’ hands in the boys’, the men’s hands on the women’s hips as they spun and promenaded them, and—she hugged her knees tightly—she hardly knew how to feel, that this was public and permissible, that no harm was meant by it. How blithely the girls moved, her own daughters among them! They talked as they danced, and they laughed, with the men and across to one another—they stumbled and missed steps sometimes and scrambled to catch up, and still they laughed! Girls danced with their fathers—she had not seen this, had not known this—gloriously carefree, with no fear of beatings or bedtime. Such lives they had! Such lives she had given her daughters, she reminded herself—look at them! beautiful, the both of them!

  Here was Ramstrong, damp-shirted and pretending exhaustion after the loopings and passings of the clover waltz. ‘Liga, you’ve not yet danced a step!’ he cried, approaching her and putting out his hand.

  ‘Yes, have a dance, Liga,’ said Todda. ‘I cannot partner him; ’twould be like his dancing with a fatted goose!’

  Liga resisted at first, but Ramstrong urged her: ‘Come, ’tis a simple enough step, the simplest,’ and Todda: ‘Go on, Liga; I promise he will not trip over your feet,’ and the music was very easy-rhythmed and enticing, and before she knew it, her hand was in a man’s and she was being led, heart pounding, in among the couples.

  Oh my Gracious, she thought, but the music and the chatter and fire’s roar and crackle hid that whimper she gave, that gasp. And Ramstrong turned to her, all kindness and relaxment, the most reassuring face in the world, and caught her other hand, and then she was dancing with a man for the first time, held by a man for the first time in her life without any force or evil intention. The fire made the faces around them glow and the eyes sparkle; she knew she must be as kindly lit, and she knew her hair, dressed and beribboned by her excited daughters that afternoon, was more becoming than it had ever been. Terrified, dazzled, and elated that she could dance in company and no one could discern that she did not belong, did not deserve this, she followed the steps she had learnt with her mam; danced with her giant mam; danced with her tiny girls on the grass around the cottage, on the matting on the cottage floor, but which were meant—didn’t she know? couldn’t she see now?—for nights such as this: warm, dark and sparkling and glowing with bonfire light, with music all around like a spell, like a magical cordial, to be drunk in deep drafts from the air, with people all around, their voices one over the other, their smells—now sharp sweat, now the cedar and lavender of gowns stored year-long just for this dancing.

  ‘You do not dance like a bear,’ she ventured to Ramstrong, with a laugh.

  ‘I do not,’ he said, smiling back. ‘But you and I know, Liga, how much of a bear I am at heart.’

  This delighted her, that he would confess to that bulk and clumsiness when here he was, as tall and strong as a man could wish to be, and yet so slender and fine-made in contrast to that beast.

  She danced two dances with him, but then a round dance was called and she could not bring herself to be passed from stranger to stranger, especially as she felt herself to be too overwrought, and the light too patched and poor, to identify whether any of those men, Cleavers or Foxes or such, were among the partners assembling. Ramstrong returned her to Todda’s side, and took up Branza and was gone again.

  ‘He have not shamed me and crushed your toes?’ Todda said, passing Liga a water-cup, and she drank gratefully.

  ‘I did not use my toes, I think, but only floated above the ground!’

  And she sat to calm herself and watch Branza turn and greet the others and move through the stately dance. Perhaps I have not spoiled her life utterly, she thought to herself, by keeping her so sheltered for so long. Perhaps Miss Dance has brought us back in time for the girl to devise her own joys and desires. And look at Urdda there, talking to Widow Tems and making her laugh so. Need I be anxious on either of them, really?

  Not on a night like this, she decided, surrounded by kind friends and with all the townfolk aglow and celebrating before her, with Anders running up to his great-uncle to plead for something and Ousel curled in a nest of blankets beside his mother. On Midsummer Night, I may put my worries aside, I think. I may have as much pleasure from Midsummer Night as the next woman.

  ‘Ah. I see.’

  Lady Annie watched for a while as Branza went at the ground with a stick. She made as if to sit on the cottage step and enjoy the morning sun, and rest after her walk here, but then she changed her mind and went to the far end of the stone, and poked at the ground there with her walking stick until she found the soft place. ‘I see what you have been up to.’

  She wandered off to find a better tool than her walking stick.

  Branza stayed, diligently digging, her jaw set. Rainshowers had sealed over the surface and compacted the dug dirt a little, but they were only six weeks?
?? rainshowers, not a decade and more’s interspersed with baking sun.

  Annie returned and began to dig. And to hum, the warbling wandering song she always sang when she was busy. It was an awful sound, hardly music at all, but still it was a comfort for Branza to hear it, and to have the old woman working beside her.

  They dug on, and Annie hummed, and also cursed occasionally. ‘Nawp, a little farther,’ she said, drawing a dusty hand out of her excavation. ‘You’ve wedged it in well, girl.’ She wore a town dress, which she now cheerfully wiped her hands on, leaving pale paw-prints. She flashed Branza a neat ivory smile and went on working.

  A little later, as Branza sat on the end of the step wiping the dust from the ruby’s splendour, Annie cried, ‘Ah, there she is!’ And she held up the clear jewel.

  ‘Can you feel any magic in the thing?’ said Branza. ‘Or was it all drained quite away by Mam’s desirings?’

  ‘Oh, I would not know how to use such a thing, or even assess its powers.’ Annie stood and turned the crystal in her dusty hands. ‘All I can tell you is that it is of improbably good quality, for a stone its size. If that makes it magic, then it is magic.’ She laughed. ‘Of course, that it were guv your mam by a sprite would indicate too!’ And she brought it and gave it to Branza.

  ‘Could you speak to that sprite, Annie, if you had need?’

  ‘Might be, my love. I have seen one or two creatures similar. Moody things, they are, though; hard to make ’em take substance. They must decide for theirselves. And my need have never been as great as your mam’s that time.’

  ‘Why, what was her plight? “I was very unhappy,” is how she puts it to me; no more than that.’

  Annie wiped her hands on her dress again and sat close behind Branza on the step. ‘Ah, ’taint for me to tell you, poppet. You will have to press her.’