Peter Dickinson - The Ropemaker

And he was gone, leaving Tilja instantly furious. What right had he? And then not giving her a chance to show what she thought of him? Seething, she made her way back to Meena and found her on her hummock. Most of the others had gone and there was room to move.

“Didn’t take you long,” said Meena.

“I ran into the boy,” said Tilja. “Alnor wants to talk to you, too. He’s at the platform.”

“All right, then. Let’s be going.”

With Tilja’s help she picked her way down the slope and hobbled over to the platform. They found Alnor just in front of it, leaning on his staff with his blind eyes seeming to stare in fury at the retreating crowd. Everything about him, even his stillness, expressed his anger. He seemed unaware of their coming, and Meena stood and studied him in silence for a little. The boy, Tilja was glad to see, had disappeared.

“So you’re Alnor Ortahlson,” said Meena abruptly. “I’ve heard of you. It was your son died rafting, right?”

Slowly Alnor turned toward her.

“That was my son,” he said harshly.

“Hard on you, but that’s how it goes,” said Meena. “Well, I’m Meena Urlasdaughter, and we’ve one or two things to talk about. Might be warmer by the fires, but there’ll be too much chat.”

“I have asked my grandson to fetch us two horns of hot cider.”

“Just what I fancy. Run along, Tilja, and give the lad a hand. He’ll be spilling it all over the ground if I know boys. Get a couple of mugs out of the saddlebag if you want some for you two.”

Tilja didn’t want anything to do with the boy, but reluctantly she hurried off, fetched the mugs, and found him at one of the cider stalls. He’d just been served, and sure enough was trying to find a way of carrying two large horns, brimfull of steaming cider, without disaster through the crowd. She took one of the horns and they tipped some of the cider into each of the mugs and carried them all back. They found their two grandparents sitting on a sort of turf bench, with their backs against the timbers that shored up the platform.

“Just what the wise woman ordered,” said Meena. “That should put a morsel of warmth into old bones. Now we’ve got to talk, so you two can make yourselves scarce for a bit. No, first you can bring me my dinner, Tilja, and that rug. Off you go.”

Cross with the whole world by now, Tilja moved off to do as she was told, sipping the heady, sweet drink as she went. The boy strolled nonchalantly beside her, seeming to take it for granted that that was what she wanted.

“I’m Tahl,” he said. “Ortahl for long, but that’s confusing in our family. Who are you?”

“Tilja,” she said. She managed to make the syllables sound as chilly as the day.

“Tilja Urlasdaughter, of Woodbourne under the forest,” he said, making it sound like some grand title from a story about old heroes. “Go in there much?”

“A bit.”

“So what’s in there? Apart from trees. Cedars, your grandmother said. And that lake. And squirrels and birds and whatever. What else?”

Tilja paused in her stride. It was as if her body had wanted to halt and confront him, but she’d managed to force it to walk on. She did so in silence, not looking at him. More than anything that had happened since Anja had found the hand ax, this was what had been eating into her heart. Meena knew the answer to Tahl’s question, and Ma, and even Anja. She wasn’t sure if Da knew. But she, Tilja, didn’t. It made her feel as if she didn’t really belong in her own family, didn’t belong at Woodbourne, not now, not ever.

“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?” he said as they reached the horse lines. “I don’t see why not. Sure, you don’t talk about it outside the family. We don’t, either, about . . . about what we’ve got. But this is different. We’re Ortahlsons and you’re Urlasdaughters. We aren’t like anyone else. We can tell each other, can’t we?”

Tilja was standing beside Tiddykin, unbuckling the strap that held the rolled rug in place behind the saddle. She stopped and stared at the hornbeam buckle, polished with wear, as if it could tell her what to do. There’d been something in Tahl’s voice, still the same teasing, unsettling tone at the surface, but underneath a kind of pleading, just as unsettling.

“All right,” she said bitterly. “I’ll tell you. The answer is, I don’t know. I haven’t been told. Because I can’t hear what the cedars say. I don’t know the way to the lake. My little sister, Anja, does. You’ll have to ask her.”

She glanced at him. He was staring at her. She couldn’t bear it and turned away before she started to weep.

“That’s rough,” he said in a totally different voice, sensible, gentle, as if he meant every word. “That’s really rough. It isn’t fair.”

She unbuckled the rug and got the dinner bag out of the saddlebag through a blur of tears, and they set off in silence for the far end of the arena. When they were about halfway there he said, “Look, we aren’t allowed to talk about it, either, but I’ve thought of a way. They won’t want us with them yet, so I’ll just get Alnor his dinner and then we’ll go over there on the slope where they can see us if they want us, and while we’re eating . . . right?”

They settled on the hummock where Meena had sat for the meeting and shared their food between them. Tahl had some little pink fish, pickled in sweet vinegar with herbs, which Tilja had never eaten before and thought delicious. Below them a group of men were setting out a ring for the kick-fighting contest. This was a popular sport in the Valley, and the best fighters were heroes in their villages.

“First,” he said, “you’d better tell me your story about Asarta and Reyel and Dirna. It sounds as if it’s different.”

She did so, between mouthfuls. It took a while. Some of the time Tahl seemed to be more interested in the kick-fighting, but she plowed on. Now and then she glanced across at the platform to check if Meena wanted her, but the two old people were still deep in talk, sitting side by side on the turf bench, sharing Meena’s rug. At the river end of the bowl the far-dwellers were beginning to start on their way home.

“That’s really interesting,” said Tahl when she finished. His eyes were sparkling with excitement.

“I thought you weren’t listening.”

“I don’t listen with my eyes, you know. But fighting’s in our blood. Alnor was Valley Champion four years running.”

“Can you do it?”

“My da died before I was old enough to start, and Alnor’s blind, so there’s no one to teach me.”

He tried to speak lightly, but Tilja could hear how much he minded.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’ll find someone. . . . But listen—I think I know what you’ve got in the forest—stuff in your story that isn’t in ours. It’s just a guess, but I’m pretty sure. Do you want me to tell you?”

“If you’re allowed to,” Tilja said sourly.

“All right, we’ll play a game. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to guess the answers, only I’m not going to tell you if you’re right or wrong. You’re going to guess that, too. Try it that way?”

The mocking note was back in his voice, but Tilja heard it differently now. It wasn’t her he was mocking, or anyone in particular. It was more like a screen, or a mask, behind which he could keep the real Tahl hidden. She’d had a glimpse of that Tahl just now, the glee of guessing the answer to the riddle, the sorrow of never being taught to kick-fight. She nodded.

“First question,” he said. “Why isn’t there any real magic in the Valley? There used to be, when it was part of the Empire. There was magic everywhere then. Where’s it gone?”