Ширли Мерфи - Silver Woven In My Hair

He was a comely young man, and when he passed Thursey her heart tilted and she gave him a quick, bold smile—partly out of devilment, but mostly because she couldn't help herself. He looked so friendly and nice. His cheeks were tanned and his stride long and easy as if he had spent his life in open places and cared little for false manners. She stared at him and liked him, and she smiled.

And if Thursey's smile came across to the goatherd as the sun rising and the morning dew all glinting gold, no one else seemed to notice. His smile back at her quite dazzled her, and he stopped his goats before her.

"Can you tell me where I can stable my goats? The palace stables will all be full this night, and it is too cold for them on the hills yet; they are not used to it."

"You can stable them at the inn," she said. "I will show you." She turned to lead the way, trying not to think that her stepsisters would have a fit, and that the stalls would all be occupied by the travelers' horses, knowing only that she could not turn him away.

What a dither there had been since the arrival of the Celtic herbalist who had announced the coming of the king's party. Thursey had put fresh straw in all the stalls, cleaned the harness room, turned out all the beds, and baked puddings and cakes and pastries until she felt boiled whole herself with the heat of it and aching in every bone from lifting crocks and barrels and jugs and from the shrill haranguing of Delilah and Druscilla and the stepmother.

But oh, what a heavenly smell had risen and grown in the raftered kitchen, the smell of honey and sugars and cloves, of saffron and sweet wine, and now of great joints roasting on the hearth. The scent, even from the stable yard, was wonderful. Thursey saw the goatherd sniff appreciatively and glance, as if he couldn't help himself, toward the kitchen. He must be hungry, she thought, after such a long journey.

She helped the goatherd----his name was Gillie and his eyes were very blue indeed—bed the goats, turning out a jongleur's mule into the stable yard with the old mare. Then she brought ale and new bread piled with slices of the roasting haunch, and bid Gillie eat behind the stable where Augusta would not see him. Thursey thought that when Augusta and the stepsisters returned from watching the king's company pass, they would have twenty fits at finding goats in the stable. But she did not consider sufficiently that these were the king's own goats.

For, while Gillie might be a common herdboy, the goats were accepted at once by the stepsisters and Augusta as royal creatures. "They're near magical," Delilah cried. "They cured the prince-—and the queen, too, of course." And the spoiled Magniloquence was pushed out of her stall to make more room for them.

"You will tend these goats carefully while they are in my care," Augusta told Gillie. "If anything should happen to the king's goats while they're in my stable . . ." Then, to the stepdaughters, "He looks none too clean or responsible." She glanced around as if she expected the chamberlain to be listening, then shot Thursey a commanding glance. "Get them barley and bran mash, girl. Be quick about it. And some vegetables from the table. These are the king's goats you are tending. What are you waiting for?"

Thursey stared and tried to keep from laughing. Ordinarily Augusta would scream that goats stank and chase them out of her yard. She saw Gillie grinning, too, before she turned away.

Late in the night when the crowded inn tables had been filled and filled again, and the platters and mugs and bowls washed several times over, Thursey dried the last dish, turned down the oil lamp, and set a plate of meat and bread before Gillie at the kitchen table. Bawdy songs rang from the dining hall, and she could hear the stepsisters' high laughter. Like cows in clover, Thursey thought, with all those men in there. She stared at Gillie and wished the words of the songs didn't come so plainly into the kitchen.

It didn't seem necessary to talk to Gillie while he ate, the silence was comfortable, if only the singing would cease. There was one song about a Bristol maid that was so bad Thursey rose from her chair and began wiping up the grill, though she had already scoured it thoroughly. "You needn't mind those songs," the goatherd said, "though it is fine of you to blush. I like to see it."

This made Thursey blush all the more, then made her laugh and that made Gillie grin; soon they were laughing so hard they could not even hear the singing.

When they had settled themselves on either side of the fireplace, she poured out ale for him and he told her of Flanders and Bruges, through which they had brought the goats, and of the villages along the high road. He told her how he and the goats had been protected from robbers by the king's own knights, and how, in the early spring when the nannys bore their kids, the kids had been left in the care of the shepherd at the king's southern villa, for they were too young to travel.

Gillie was a gentle lad for all his strapping good looks, and. his words were laid down with such care that Thursey could see vividly the hills and the valleys he had traveled, the sudden spring storms, and how, when the rain was over, the fields lay glinting as if a million diamonds had fallen upon them.

"And will you tell me a tale?" she asked boldly. "A story like 'Cendrillon,' like 'Aschenputtel'—have you heard such tales in your travels?"

' La Belle Caterina,' " he said at once, his eyes lighting, "from a mummer of Italy. He told it just night before last." He studied her for a long time as if he would ask why she wanted that kind of story. He seemed most intent on the question. But he did not ask. Instead, as a log settled and the fire flared, he commenced the account of a young girl who was sent by her stepmother into the dark swamp woods, "To find a sieve among the wood spirits so she could sift flour to make bread. She was terrified of the evil place, and when she came upon a messenger of the devil, more terrified still." He told how Caterina met next an ogre, and then at last an old man who was kind to her. "The old man helped her to find the cave of the wood spirits, and the spirits led her into a room with cats spinning and weaving and cooking. Pitying the animals, she began to help them in their work, and at last, the cats, upon learning her plight, broke the spirits' spell over her." Gillie told the tale slowly while the embers burned down and the shadows deepened in the corners of the kitchen.

They were so engrossed in each other that neither heard the door open behind them.

Delilah's sharp cry made them turn. She stood in the doorway filling it, surveying the goatherd and the empty plates on the table. She scowled at the ale mug Gillie held; she glowered at the nearly empty honey cake platter (there had been two dozen). "What is the meaning of this! What is this herder doing here! What do you mean by letting this filth in my kitchen, it would have been bad enough to give him plate scrapings at the back door! You'll go without your supper for a fortnight, girl, to pay for these takings'" She stormed toward them, her face flaming. "Get out! Get out, out beggar! Catchpenny beggar!" And she shoved at Gillie furiously.

But Gillie stood smiling down at her. Delilah's face turned from red to purple with rage, and Thursey began to giggle. Delilah's eyes grew small with fury, and she drew back her hand to hit Thursey—Thursey could feel the slap before it came.

But it never came.

Gillie caught Delilah's hand before it struck, and held it firmly in his own. He stared at her for a long time, but said nothing. Then at last he spoke softly, "Don't you hurt her. Not ever. If you ever hurt her I will come back and witch you, old trollop, and you will wish you had never been born." His words were so soft, so measured, and so filled with meaning that a shiver went through the room.