Ширли Мерфи - Silver Woven In My Hair

"Not all!" said a voice from the crowd.

Thursey stood on her toes to look. Stepping out from behind a tiny donkey was a monk as round and cheery as one could imagine. His brown robe was dusty and wrinkled and his tonsure seemed grayer, but Anwin's smile was just as merry as ever.

"Not all, lady," repeated Anwin. "You have one more daughter who is old enough to dance at the ball."

Augusta had stopped dead, and now she turned upon Anwin with fury in her eyes.

The herald frowned at her. "Is this so, woman? The King wants every girl, particularly this year."

"She was too young before," Augusta said glibly. "I was just about to give her name when ..." she glared at Anwin.

"What is it then, woman?" The herald did not seem enchanted with Augusta.

"It is Thursey!" Augusta spat defiantly, and now her glare had settled on Thursey herself with such hatred that Thursey trembled. Oh, what good would it do to have her name on the lists? Augusta would think of some way to keep her home and would be all the more cruel because of it. Still it was kind of Anwin to try, to stand up for her so. And how good it was to see him. She grinned and stepped forward, but Anwin was addressing Augusta.

"Have you lodging, mistress?"

Augusta gave him a black look. "Yes, lodging," she said shortly and hatefully, and turned away from him. She had not the courage to refuse the monk, though she would make his stay as miserable as she dared.

"STABLE the donkey then," Augusta told Thursey when they were home, "but feed it straw! And see that that monk mends the pots for his keep, the lazy good-for-nothing, and puts new thatch on the roof. I can't run a charity for every beggar and catchpenny in the country!"

Thursey put the little donkey in a clean stall and gave him such a pile of hay she could hardly see him on the other side of it. And when her work was done, she raced out to the hills and found Anwin pottering about among some tansy, picking bits here and there and humming to himself and to the bees that accompanied him.

He took her hands and stood staring at her, and it occurred to Thursey with a shock that she no longer had to look up to meet Anwin's eyes. She was taller than Anwin by several inches. "You've grown," he said, smiling. "You've grown into a young lady."

"I . . . maybe not quite a lady, Anwin. Augusta says I'm not. Have you news for me of my father?"

"Yes, child," he said softly. "But I was hoping you wouldn't ask me right off. It does not pleasure me to bring it."

She stared at him and could say nothing.

He remained silent, looking so unhappy.

When at last she found her voice, it was no more than a croak. "He is dead, then, Anwin? Is my father dead?"

"Yes, child, he is dead. But he died, I am sure from the information I have, among the king's troops that stormed into Balkskak castle."

She turned away from Anwin and stood looking out over the windy fields. She thought she felt her father close to her.

Died among the king's troops as they stormed into Balkskak castle. Died and would never come home again. Died ... he would not come home, not ever. How much she had counted on that, on seeing her father again. She turned at last to Anwin, and he put his arms around her and held her for a long time.

My father died storming Balkskak castle, she thought over and over and tried not to think: He will not come home to Gies ever.

When at last she had calmed herself, Anwin said softly, "There was a goatherd here. He spoke of you and has your dinner for you. He said there was plenty for three, but I . . ."

"Oh," she said, pulling her thoughts back from the blackness, "Oh, do come Anwin. You'll like him." It would do no good to pine by herself. She took Anwin's hand and began to lead him up over the hills.

Gillie was settled in the lee of some boulders where the sun hit warm. He spread out currant cakes and lamb pie, blackberries and tea with heavy cream, China cakes and trifle.

"How did you ever get it all?" Thursey said in amazement, trying to put the sadness away from her for the sake of the other two.

"I made a friend of the cook."

"Is she young and beautiful?" Thursey said, grinning.

"She's old and wrinkled and kind."

Thursey sat down on the grass with her feet tucked under her, and the monk settled more slowly, to recline against the warming stone, his boots stuck out comfortably from under his brown habit. And in spite of the quantity of food he consumed, he began adroitly to winnow out the story of the goats and how the prince and queen had come to the Isle of Carthemas to be cured, and how Gillie was set to tend the flock.

"The king brought the queen and prince, himself, with only a few trusted servants, long before the royal party came," Gillie said quietly. "And the queen and prince were taken to the hills where the sun is strong, to rest in its warmth and be treated by the healers with our goat's milk and cheeses and herbs. It is a wild, bonny place, Carthemas, and the air is clear and pure."

"The prince must have been badly wounded when he was made captive," Anwin said. "A wound that took so long to heal."

"An ugly wound, and the sickness and fever seemed to prevent it from healing. An ugly battle too, it is told," Gillie said easily.

Anwin leaned back sleepily against the boulders. "And where were you during the war with Balkskak, young Gillie? On the Isle of Carthemas all that time?"

"Carthemas didn't even know there was a war until long after Gies's summer palace was freed, and the prince and queen brought half dead across the sea to rest there."

"They say he is very weak still," Anwin said. "That he hardly showed his face when the king's party entered the village."

"I saw him wave," Thursey said. "A thin, pale boy inside the curtains."

"The prince is a man grown," Gillie said shortly.

"Yes, but thin all the same."

"Wait until the night of the ball; the prince has vowed to dance until dawn. I think," Gillie said, studying Thursey, "that he will find you a winsome partner. Maybe he will dance with no other."

Her face turned warm with embarrassment.

"What will you wear?" Anwin asked softly. "For Gillie's right, child, you'll be the loveliest lass at the ball."

"Oh, Anwin, I can't go. They will never let me."

"I saw the herald ride down," Gillie said. "Was he announcing the ball?"

"Yes, and Anwin made Augusta give my name for the lists."

"Then you must go. They say the king commands that all on the lists must attend."

"If Augusta has to let me, then she'll dress me in something horrid." She stroked the silken white coat of the nanny beside her. "Besides I —I truly don't want to go." Why couldn't Gillie understand that to dance with a prince was not what she wanted at all.

"Yes, you do," Gillie said heartlessly. "I can see it in your eyes. I told you I would help you with a bit of magic, and I will. Just you wait and see." And he winked at Anwin.

"YOU should get a beating," fumed Augusta, "but there isn't time. Get those chests in the hall open, we must have the silks out for suitable gowns. Hurry!" "But I thought—" "The chests!" screamed Augusta.

"BUT I THOUGHT THEY HAD GOWNS," Thursey screamed back. "I made them just after Christmas, their gowns for the King's ball!"

"Wrong color," Augusta said shortly. "Delilah hates green, and lavender makes Druscilla look bilious. You haven't any taste; you made a botch of it, and now it is to do over and not a minute to spare! Get those chests open!"

"But I didn't pick out the colors, they did!" Thursey didn't expect an answer to that. She flounced into the hall and began banging open the heavy oaken chests that lined one wall. If she were going to get a tongue-lashing, then she might as well be nasty enough to earn it. Besides, Augusta couldn't do much to her, or there would be no one to sew the new dresses. She began lifting the laces and the satins, the voiles, the silks of amethyst and scarlet and melon, the taffetas of cerise and amber, out of the heavy chests and laying them across the great trestle tables.