My Swordhand is Singing

“What do you mean?”

  “Do you need to ask? You saw the dead woodcutter stop at the water. You saw it with your own eyes. They cannot cross running water, which is why your father put himself on an island in a river. Ask him!”

  Peter was cold and tired, shaking violently now, and yet his heart had just been chilled still further.

  “Is that why you did it, Father?” he said. “Is that why you dug the channel?”

  Nothing.

  Then Tomas turned back from the doorway.

  “Get her off here,” he said, almost too quietly to hear.

  “Father, we can’t do that. She’s wet to the—”

  “Get her away! Go!”

  Thrown into a rage, Tomas spat the words, his eyes wild. Just as suddenly tears welled in the old man’s eyes, as he stood in the doorway, defeated.

  Peter looked at his father and his shame was almost too much to endure.

  He turned to Sofia.

  “It’s all right,” she said, before he could speak. “I’ll go.”

  “You can’t,” Peter said, but she was already crossing the bridge. “It’s not safe.” Peter lifted his hand to Sofia, but in friendship.

  “It’s safe enough,” she said. “The sun is almost here. There can be no evil by daylight. I must go back to my people.”

  “Wait!” Peter said. “You’ll freeze before you get there.”

  He was weighing something in his mind.

  “Take Sultan,” he said at last. “He’ll give you some warmth and you’ll be home quickly. I’ll come for him later.”

  Sofia nodded.

  “Thank you. You must not worry. I’ll look after him.”

  Peter smiled and said, “When Father finds out…”

  Sofia returned the smile.

  They fetched Sultan from his stall. He seemed pleased to see Peter. He snorted steam into the cold morning air.

  Sofia swung herself easily into the saddle.

  “What will you do?” she asked.

  “I’m going to look for Agnes. I must.”

  “Peter, you should know—”

  “Don’t say it,” Peter said, interrupting her. “I must try to find her. She…I…”

  He hesitated. He couldn’t say what he was thinking, and anyway, he didn’t even know if it was true. Had there ever been anything between them?

  “I understand,” Sofia said. “But be careful.” She leant down in the saddle and, taking Peter by surprise, planted a quick kiss on his cheek.

  “For luck,” she explained, kicking Sultan into life. She laughed. “You should have let me do it before—we might have had an easier time of it!”

  Peter watched her go, and then heard her begin to sing. She sang the Miorita, of course, and Peter smiled in spite of himself.

  “Let it just be said I have gone to wed

  A princess so great, at Heaven’s gate.”

  Peter watched her go, and without even meaning to, raised a hand to his cheek, feeling the wetness of her lips with his fingertips.

  As soon as she was out of sight Peter suddenly realized how bitterly cold he was. He went into the hut, and saw his father poking the fire, trying to coax it into life after its quiet slumber through the long night.

  “Father,” Peter said.

  Tomas lifted his head.

  “Has she gone?” he asked, still shaking from his outburst, but Peter didn’t answer. Through his mind ran a series of pictures, each more evil than the last, culminating with the awful sight of Stefan’s eye staring from inside his grave.

  “Son?”

  Exhausted, freezing, and scared, Peter’s body gave up, and the world faded as he collapsed onto the floor.

  28

  The Dream of the Queen

  In the dreamworld through which Peter struggled, everything was shadow. As he lay unconscious, he knew nothing, saw nothing, yet somewhere nearby a presence closed in on him.

  Out of the darkness, a white spectre floated toward him. As it came closer he saw a pale face, disembodied and deathly. It was the face of an ancient but powerful woman, with strong nose and eyebrows, and vicious eyes. Now the face pressed right against his own, and he saw that though the face was ghost-white, there was a shadow across it, from eyes to lips, a strange five-sided shadow, like an inverted pentagon hanging from the brow and pointing at the lips.

  The face drifted away, and fortunately for Peter, when he woke, he remembered nothing of his nightmare.

  29

  Ancestors and Hostages

  When Peter woke, it was to the sound of singing. Someone was singing the Miorita, but as he opened his eyes he realized that it was he. Had he been singing in his sleep?

  Tell my murderers

  To let my bones lie somewhere close by,

  By the sheepfold here so my flocks are near,

  On the open ground so I’ll hear my hound….

  Tell not a breath of how I met my death,

  Say I could not tarry; I have gone to marry

  A princess—my bride is the whole world’s pride.

  That stupid song! It was even in his dreams now.

  Peter opened his eyes and found he was lying in bed. He swung his legs to the floor and sat up, rubbing his head.

  Suddenly he knew what it was about that song that annoyed him so much. It was the weakness of it. The meekness. The way the shepherd gives in, without even trying to fight his murderers. Peter couldn’t understand it, giving in to fate, to death, without even trying to stop it. Surely you had to be stronger than that, to survive? To live?

  Tomas was nowhere in sight. The shutter was open and Peter saw bright, burning daylight beyond, though he had no idea what time it might be. Daylight. How he had longed for it! How he wished it would never grow dark again! What had Sofia said?

  “There can be no evil by daylight.”

  He stood up, unsteady on his feet at first, unable to get the Miorita out of his head. He thought about the end of the song, where the shepherd marries the princess from the stars. That’s the story he tells his lamb to pass on to his mother. To stop her from grieving, from being hurt. Peter understood that. If only he hadn’t hurt his own mother. It had been his first act in the world. His birth, her death. If only he could have saved her from harm! And though he knew he was guiltless, the guilt still came.

  The full meaning of the ending was lost to him—a cloud he could not penetrate. Nonetheless there was something about the story that was pulling him in. The princess. A wedding to the cosmos. A place and a purpose in life, even in death.

  No.

  He killed his thoughts, tired of it all.

  Peter put his hand above the stove. Still warm. Gradually everything that had happened came back to him, right up to the moment when he had collapsed. Someone, presumably Father, had put him into bed. But how long had he slept? His belly ached with hunger, so maybe it had been a long time.

  He felt awful. He was hungry, his head hurt, his legs ached, but he had to ignore all that, because there was something he had to do. The something was to look for Agnes, and now he remembered the shock of finding her prison hut empty when he returned from the graveyard.

  “By the Forest!” Peter said aloud. “What is happening here?”

  He needed his father. He checked the toolshed and found that his father’s axe was missing. Had he actually gone to work? Without Sultan?

  His father was useless as a source of physical help, but Peter instinctively knew that what Sofia had told him about Tomas was all true. If only Tomas would admit it, then maybe he could help Peter to understand the things he’d seen. In the hut, in the graveyard, in the forest…

  All he really wanted to do was harness Sultan to their cart, put Tomas and everything they owned onto it, and ride far, far away. Peter had once heard there was a country to the west by the sea, a warm country where grapes as large as apples hung from endless vines. Maybe they could just ride and ride until they found it.

  But Tomas was out somewhere, Peter had lent Sultan to
the Gypsy girl, and there was Agnes to find. If anything had happened to her…

  He closed that thought because the end of it puzzled him, and was not what he wanted to feel.

  Then he remembered something else.

  The sword.

  Sofia had talked about a sword and now, after all these years, Peter knew what was in his father’s box without even opening it. He looked around the room until his eyes fell on his father’s mattress. That was where it was.

  He took a step toward the bed, then hesitated, thinking about a small wooden goose, and the tears he had shed when Tomas had destroyed it.

  But no.

  There should be no more secrets.

  Guiltily, he stepped forward and lifted the mattress, feeling with his other hand for the box.

  There was nothing there.

  30

  The Elders

  Peter walked to Chust. As he went he chewed on some rye bread he’d found in the jar, trying to quell the ache in his belly and find some strength. By the time he reached the village, the bread was all gone, but his hunger remained.

  “That will have to do,” he said.

  He had no plan, but as he walked down the main street he suddenly thought that maybe he should start at the hut at the edge of the forest. That was where he had last seen Agnes. Maybe daylight would give some clue as to where she had gone. Maybe some tracks.

  The thought of daylight made him look to the sky. The earlier morning sun had vanished behind a high and thick bank of cloud. But it seemed light enough, and he had no choice. He would go back to the hut.

  He retraced his steps back up the main street. As he went, his thoughts were invaded by the events of the night. He had seen things that were not possible, or rather that his father had told him were not possible. All his life Tomas had told him to ignore the stories they heard, as they moved from one town to the next. Now, in the smallest, most God-forgotten place they had ever lived, it had all come true. It had all come to life, just as Radu and Stefan seemed to have done.

  He was passing underneath a high window when his attention was caught by raised voices.

  He might have walked on, were it not for two words.

  “…Shadow Queen…”

  He paused, but could make out no more, because of the babble of voices. Deciding he was wasting time, he hurried on toward the hut.

  It looked so different by daylight. What had been a place of living terror a few hours before was now simply lifeless—cold and empty. By day, though still not welcoming, it held none of the horrors of the night.

  Peter hunted around, but found nothing. Enough snow had fallen in the night to obscure even the frantic marks Radu had made scrabbling for the millet. The wood from the shattered door lay cast around, almost hidden but for one or two spikes of timber.

  And in the freshly fallen snow there was not the slightest sign of a footprint, or anything else that might have given Peter a clue.

  Inside, his search was just as useless. There was nothing there but the bed, the stool, and piles of unspun wool.

  The only thing he learned from his visit was that it had been real. Everything he had thought he had seen, all the awfulness, had really happened.

  He sat on the stool, wondering what to do. In truth, he knew there was only one answer, but he didn’t like it. He must walk back to Chust, find an Elder, tell what had happened, and ask for help looking for Agnes.

  The Elders. Old Anna, taciturn but fearsome. He certainly didn’t want to face them. And then he realized—those voices floating down to him from the window had come from Anna’s house.

  An irrational anger seized him, and he stormed back into Chust.

  31

  Village Talk

  He didn’t even knock.

  As he’d thundered toward Anna’s house, it had occurred to him that it was all her fault. She was the one who ran things in the village, she had ordered that Agnes should be the bride at the Nunta Mortului. She must know by now that Agnes was missing, that the door of her prison lay splintered in the snow. She should have organized a search party.

  He burst into Anna’s house and, following his instincts, went up a low flight of stairs. There! He could hear the voices again. He flung open a door, striding into the room, all sorts of accusations on his lips.

  What he saw took the words away.

  “How dare you!” Anna was the first to recover from the shock of Peter’s entrance.

  She was surrounded by a motley group. Other Elders, as well as Daniel, the priest, and Teodor, the feldsher, stood arranged on one side of Anna. On the other Peter was amazed to see a party of the Gypsies. Sofia was not there, but Peter recognized Milosh, her uncle, at their head.

  Peter suddenly doubted himself. Feeling like a small and stupid boy, he wanted to run from the room, but he forced himself to speak.

  “Agnes!” he blurted out.

  “What?”

  Anna barked the word at him, and even that was enough to unsettle him. She was an alarming figure, very tall for an old woman. Her face was sharp and her nose sharper. She had eyebrows like a man’s that seemed fixed perpetually in a scowl. It was no wonder she ordered everyone else around, controlling this wretched little kingdom with ease.

  Peter tried again, desperately trying to make some sense.

  “Agnes! You put her in the hut, but she’s been taken! By those things!”

  Anna took several steps toward him, and despite himself, Peter retreated slightly.

  “People are coming back from the grave!” he yelled. “You know it. I heard you talking about the Shadow Queen. And they know it!” He pointed at the Gypsies. “They’ve come to try to stop it, but Agnes is missing! You have to do something! Help me find her.”

  Peter stopped. The silence in the room was even more terrifying than Anna herself.

  “This is not your place, boy,” Anna said, when she was sure he had finished. “You do not belong in this village. You and your useless father! I have tolerated you. Now I find out there is more to you than at first appeared.”

  Almost imperceptibly she glanced toward the Gypsies. They must have told her about Tomas. The sword.

  “You should understand this, boy. Chust is my concern. Do not trespass on my patience. I am aware of everything, not just in Chust, but all around it. I have been discussing the threat posed by the Shadow Queen with those assembled here. These people, from the village and outside it, who are wise enough and powerful enough to act. And yet you dare to break in here and insult us all!”

  She stopped for effect, and Peter took the opportunity.

  “But Agnes,” he gasped, “you’ve as good as killed her! She was taken. Why don’t you—”

  “Be quiet!” Anna shrieked, with such intent that the room seemed to darken. “You know nothing. Yes. Agnes is no longer where she should be. In the hut. But she was not taken. She left herself. You helped her! She has disgraced us all by breaking her honor in this way.”

  “No,” said Peter. “That’s not true. She’s missing.”

  “Enough!” Anna declared. “Remove him. We have no time.”

  The men closed around Peter, and though he struggled, they forced him from the room easily, and dragged him back down the stairs.

  In a moment he found himself sitting in the street in the snow.

  “But Agnes!” he cried. “We must find her and help her.”

  One of the Elders paused and considered Peter.

  “You are a foolish boy. Agnes is at home. With her mother. She has disgraced herself, and you helped her do it. Count yourself fortunate we don’t punish you and your father for the shame of it all.”

  “At home?” Peter could scarcely believe what the man had said. “At home?”

  “Go and see for yourself.”

  The man spat at Peter’s feet, and shut the door.

  Peter stood up. He looked down the street that led to Agnes’s house.

  He ran all the way there, skidding in the snow and ice.

>   He didn’t even have to get as far as her house.

  There she was, up ahead of him, looking just as she always did, though Peter saw with a shiver that she was still dressed in mourning weeds. Why hadn’t she changed to her own clothes? The forty days had been broken after all. Was there still a need to dress for them?

  She was crossing the street, toward her front door.

  “Agnes!” he called, breaking into a run again as he saw her unlock the door.

  He saw her turn and look at him, but the relief he felt rapidly turned to confusion as she saw him, then deliberately looked away.

  She opened the door, and while Peter was still yards away, she slid inside.

  Peter was in time to hear the door being bolted from inside.

  “Agnes!” he called through the door.

  No answer. He tried again, this time slamming the palm of his hand against the wood.

  “Agnes! What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Go away, Peter.”

  Her voice came through the wood, muffled and faint.

  “What?” Peter cried. “What do you mean? Are you all right? I’ve been looking for you since—What happened to you?”

  “Go away, Peter.” Once again, her voice was dull and flat.

  “Why are you being like this, Agnes? What’s wrong?”

  Peter strained to hear her, pressing his ear to the door to catch her words.

  “Go away. I left the hut and now I’m in disgrace. My whole family. Hah! What’s left of it. Go away, Peter. I want nothing to do with you. I never did want you. You were never good enough for me. Now you are less than useless.”

  “Agnes!”

  “I’m well, Peter. Does that make you happy? Now go away.”

  Peter stepped back from the door, looking stupidly at the wood, trying but failing to understand.

  Agnes was right.

  What was he good for?

  He walked away.

  As he went he passed again by Anna’s house, but this time could hear nothing.

  Neither did he see Old Anna looking down at him, a wide smile slowly spreading across her face.