The Medievals 1, page 3
part #1 of The Medievals Series
His father tousles Richard’s hair: “Come, we must hurry if we are to beat the sun down the rock.”
But Richard remains at the ledge a moment longer, looking out over the Realm, his mind trying to stretch to the horizon. He wonders what unimaginable things are out there in the Beyond, and where they exist. Maybe in the Eternal Forest. Or the Cloudlands that rise up beyond it. He wonders if he will ever go to these places. Or if the echo of his roar will ever be loud enough to reach them.
Perhaps someday. Tomorrow, however, he will still wake up the Poet Prince. And as Richard follows his father back down the mountain, he thinks: No, this is not where my story begins.
{Wendolyn}
A fortnight has passed, yet the sharp pain lingers in Wendolyn’s head. Everything is brighter and louder now. Harsher. Even the soft morning sun assaults her vision, prisms of endwinter light breaking against her eyes.
The pain began when her world went black in the woods while trying to save the life of the doe, and nothing she has tried will ease the ache in her head. Every night, Wendolyn has slept with a towel of wet alder leaves across her forehead; and every morning she has boiled ginger root shavings in water and sipped the concoction. These are remedies she has overheard in the village market, shopkeepers and old women dispensing their household cures. But nothing works. The pain prevails.
And so does the fear.
She remembers the look in the eyes of her friends when she regained consciousness, the bitter cold on the back of her neck as she lay there on the forest floor. Etan, Leeta, Landon, and Galen. Especially Galen. The swelling whites of his eyes betrayed his fear. Something had silenced him. He was scared of her. They all were.
A few days after the unexplainable incident with the wounded deer in the woods, Wendolyn sought out Leeta. After being without her friends for longer than was normal, a loneliness had crept in, and she decided that if her friends would not come to her, she would go to them; and maybe they could tell her what happened -- what they saw that scared them enough to make them flee from her. After searching the village, Wendolyn had found Leeta playing with the others not far from the Edge of the World, all perched together on Sanctuary Rock.
Etan, Landon and Leeta were engaged in a game of knucklebones, laughing. As they played with the bone dice, they did not notice Wendolyn at first. She watched them as she approached, a strange and cold sensation squeezing her chest: Wendolyn realized that she had not been invited. Even worse, perhaps she was unwelcome.
She stopped moving toward them. And standing less than a stone’s toss from her three friends, Wendolyn suddenly had the urge to turn on her heels and run away before they became aware of her.
But it was at that very moment that Leeta spun around and saw Wendolyn. In Leeta’s eyes, Wendolyn saw something more chilling and merciless than the winter air that divided them. They held each other’s eyes for only a moment, but it was long enough for Wendolyn to know that she was, indeed, unwelcome here.
Then, Leeta quickly turned back to the others, and whispered something to them. It is possible that Leeta did not want Wendolyn to hear her words. But the wind carried them to Wendolyn’s ears all the same.
“Witch,” Leeta had said. “The witch has found us.”
Landon and Etan whipped their heads in Wendolyn’s direction, and their looks matched Leeta’s.
Leave, their looks demanded.
And so she did. As fast as she could. Without looking back.
That was more than a week ago, but the betrayal is still wrapped tightly around her bones. And the thought that she is now friendless touches the upper swallow of her throat.
Now, standing in the back room of the cottage, Wendolyn tries to put her headache -- and Leeta’s words -- out of her mind by refocusing on the pile of herring on the scarred wooden table in front of her. She and her father will be leaving for the market shortly, and the fish will need to be ready for sale. Today is the first day in over a week that the clouds have held back the snow, which means the markets will be crowded.
It is March and, up here in the mountains, it can snow from October to April, sometimes even into the middle of May; then by late spring, the snow retreats. But between now and then, there are often days-long snowstorms in Cumbria. And the snow can be so dense that Wendolyn cannot see her own hand in front of her face. And she cannot breathe while confronting it. During this weather, people tend to stay away from the markets, and her father stockpiles fish and fowl.
Schick-schick-schick.
Wendolyn trims along the spine of the herring that she and her father caught at the iced-over lake yesterday. She grabs a spoon and works the backside of it against the grain of the scales, removing them. Then, she uses the knife to slice from the tail, along the bottom, and up to the neck, with the slippery guts of the fish nearly falling out on their own.
She tosses the gutted fish onto the pile with the others and allows herself a small smile. There is always a sense of accomplishment that finds her lips when Wendolyn preps a fish in a flowing series of motions, no longer having to stop and think about the steps her father taught her.
“Well, it seems the student is becoming the master.” Wendolyn looks up to see her father standing in the doorway leading to the back room, his head ducking to avoid the low ceilings of the sagging cottage.
“Soon, you will have no more use for me,” he adds, giving her a rare, teasing grin.
Her father is a handsome man. She knows this because of the women in the village. The way they giggle to one another after stealing a glance at him. The way they dawdle at his stall in the market, leaning over too far and for too long as they examine the meat and fish. “Thorne, what is the freshest piece of meat today?” they ask him provocatively. This, even from the married women. And, of course, Wendolyn can plainly see it for herself what they see: his ruddy cheeks; his thick arms; his shoulder-length hair that holds equal parts silver and brown.
But her father shows no awareness of the women; or, at least, no interest. While at the market, her father is concerned only with selling all of the meat and fish they have brought with them that day.
In fact, he always appears slightly on edge when he and Wendolyn are out in the village together. Wendolyn knows that her father is always watching her even if his eyes are not on her.
One time, a hunched man in a hooded cloak bumped into Wendolyn in the market, and her father had a knife at the man’s throat in the time it took her to blink. As the blade thinly broke the skin of the man’s neck, Wendolyn saw a flash in her father’s eyes: the Nameless Fear.
The man shrieked, his hood falling away to reveal just an old, stumbling drunkard hiding a bottle at his lips. Her father regained his nerves, pulled the knife away, and then apologized to the man, sending him away with a fish, free of purchase. Wendolyn remembers standing there, shaking, wishing that she could solve the mystery of her father’s mind.
It is only once her father is back at the cottage deep in the woods, his world secured behind a door, that he is more at ease -- that he allows his shoulders relax, if only for a second. In those moments, he lets slip a smile for Wendolyn, as he is doing now. But even still, there is always a dark thread that runs through her father’s highest spirits.
“Almost finished?” he asks her.
Wendolyn nods, picking up her pail of fish.
“Good,” he says, “Because Zongshi is getting impatient.” A wink betrays his sense of humor as her father makes mention of their faithful horse that pulls their goods to the market.
◆◆◆
The market is busy, although not as crowded as Wendolyn had guessed. And then she remembers: today is the Prince’s Triumph Day, which means that some of the villagers have chosen to travel to the kingdom for the festivities. It is a day’s journey by horse, but the event promises to be filled with feasts and games. And Wendolyn has heard that in the evening the crowds will gather in the King’s Arena for a show of spectacles and fireworks.
It would be nice to attend such an event. But Wendolyn knows not to bring it up with her father. He does not like to travel beyond the mountains of Cumbria.
They travelled to the kingdom once before. It was the year that the crops remained in the ground and the fish stayed away. Her father had relied on fur trading for his business that year: the skins of ermines, foxes, and mountain sheep. But since nobody else in the mountains had food to trade, Wendolyn and her father were forced to journey to the city outside the castle walls and sell their wares in the King’s Market. It was exciting -- seeing new faces and unknown landscapes. Wendolyn remembers one face in particular.
It was the face of a fair-skinned boy with eyes as blue as truth. He looked to be about Wendolyn's age, but it was as if he was from a different world, his clothes made of materials she had never seen before. It was a world that belonged to the rich. Although, something unpresuming in his comportment told her that wealth had not spoiled him in the way it can spoil others.
She caught herself staring at him in the markets; but when the boy looked at her, her eyes darted away, and she was embarrassed. But her gaze was long enough that his face still lives in her memories.
“Wendolyn?” Her father’s voice brings her back to the present. She looks to her father, who then nods at an old man holding his coins out for purchase.
“Sorry,” Wendolyn says to the customer, taking his coins and then handing him a wrapped fish.
As the old man moves off into the slushy village market, Wendolyn shades her vision from the sun hanging brightly in the sky. Plashes of sunlight form in the puddles of melted snow, hitting her eyes.
Wendolyn’s head pains her, and she has spent much of the afternoon squinting -- defending against the harsh light. And out here in the market, the noises of the streets create a pounding sensation at the edge of her skull, like someone -- or something -- wants to get out.
“What is bothering you, Wen?” her father asks her as another customer leaves their stall, having just purchased the last of the fish. “You’ve had the pinched eyes of a barn owl for much of the day. Are you feeling alright?”
“I am fine,” Wendolyn lies. She has not told her father about her headaches -- or about what happened in the woods a fortnight ago. Or about Leeta calling her a witch.
“Okay, if you are sure,” he responds.
She can tell her father senses that Wendolyn is not telling him everything, but he does not push her.
“It seems we have undershot the village’s needs today, and we are out of fish," he says. "Load up Zongshi for the trip home.”
Wendolyn grabs the pails and crates, moving to the back of the market where Zongshi patiently waits. The old white horse takes its name from a word that means ‘always’ in the Lands of the East. It is a name the horse was given before Thorne came to be Zongshi’s owner; and for Wendolyn, the name is fitting. Zongshi has been with Wendolyn since she was a baby; so for her, the horse has been with her always.
As she loads the cart that is hooked to Zongshi, she looks back at the market stall, where a woman has already cornered Wendolyn’s father into a flirtation. Wendolyn has not seen this woman before, which means she has probably come from a neighboring mountain village -- perhaps in search of a husband. She is pretty, with a warm smile. But, unfortunately for her, she has chosen the wrong man for her advances.
Wendolyn’s father points over in the direction of Wendolyn and Zongshi, no doubt forced to tell his woeful tale of the widowered father. The woman gives Wendolyn a look across the distance, one that says, “You poor girl.” Being a motherless child, it is a look that Wendolyn recognizes immediately.
Her mother breathed her last in order to give birth to her. It is a fountainhead of guilt within Wendolyn; and it is stronger on some days than others. Some days, she is tortured by the idea that she killed the very thing that brought her into this world. And other days, there is the sense that her stained innocence makes her undeserving of this life.
Wendolyn’s father only speaks of her mother when Wendolyn asks. Even then, it is not with a sense of emotion or loss, but as a matter of fact.
Wendolyn knows that emotions do not come easily to her father. But it seems even more difficult for him when it comes to Wendolyn’s mother. He betrays no sentiment for her; and when Wendolyn looks around the cottage, she finds no proof of her mother’s existence, nothing saved by her father to preserve the memory of her. It is as if Wendolyn’s father simply allowed the spirit of her mother to disappear the moment she died, like steam from a mug on a winter’s day, never to be seen again. And it makes Wendolyn wonder about the relationship shared between her father and mother. Did they love each other?
With no help from her father, Wendolyn is left to guess about the sound of her mother’s voice, the color of her hair. And with no memory of her mother’s face, there is no place Wendolyn can go in her mind to visit her.
Instead, her mother is like a distant star in the sky that Wendolyn will never be able to see, and to which she will never travel.
As this thought of Wendolyn’s mother dissipates into the cold air of the marketplace, Wendolyn turns her attention back to the flirtatious woman, who finally gives up on her father, leaving the stall. Wendolyn smiles to herself, amused: the gentle spurning of this woman by her father was fated from the start.
But as the woman moves off and the rest of the market is revealed behind her, Wendolyn’s smile falls. Among the villagers, she sees Etan and Landon. And they are looking at her.
More like… spying.
Wendolyn gives an unsure wave to them; but now that they have been caught, the two boys nervously look in another direction -- at anything but Wendolyn. Then, Etan tugs on Landon’s coat, whispering an urgent message. And without looking back at Wendolyn, Etan and Landon hurry out of the market, disappearing.
What had she done? Why were they so scared of her? What can Wendolyn do to convince her friends that she is not what they think?
Wendolyn decides she must talk to her father about this.
◆◆◆
“Your eyes deceived you, that is all.”
Her father sits across from her at the table, spooning broth from the wooden bowl into his mouth. As they eat supper, Wendolyn is telling her father about that afternoon in the woods.
“It was not my eyes. I saw nothing. My world went black. But the other children…” Wendolyn wishes that she could remember what happened. “Something I did bent the steel of that knife. And the doe was able to run again. It was impossible.”
Without looking up from his bowl, her father says, “Perhaps the doe’s leg never was broken.”
Her father is hiding something.
He is a man that believes honesty is written in the eyes; and whenever her father’s eyes do not meet hers, she knows there is a secret behind them.
Wendolyn presses him. “Father, what is it? What are you not telling me?” He stays silent, so Wendolyn adds, “What is wrong with me?”
The pale green light of winter reflects off her father’s face, entering in through the bearskin curtains. And the cold night air has already wrapped itself around the cottage, reaching in through the old wooden joints.
“There is nothing wrong about you. Do not let anyone tell you differently.”
“But there is. There is something wrong with me, because I do not trust myself. I look at my arms and my fingers, and I do not recognize them as my own. And my head…” The fire crackles as she chooses her words. “Everything is louder. And there are sounds… unfamiliar sounds. Words I have never heard before. It is as if someone is inside of my head, yelling at me in a language not my own.”
As her father rises, Wendolyn catches a flicker in her father’s eyes -- like he understands a deeper meaning in her words.
Standing before the fire with his back to her, he says, “What I keep from you, I keep from you for your own safety.”
“Safety from what?”
Her father’s back continues to face her, refusing to give her an answer.
With no words from her father, Wendolyn’s eyes move around the cottage, searching the objects in their home for new meaning. For answers.
Fish netting. Leisters. Hunting spears. The cupboard that holds the glowing flower. The blackened chimney. The festoon of dried oak leaves that she made to decorate above her bed. The tanned wolf hide that holds a sketch of her.
Wendolyn focuses on the animal skin on the wall.
She remembers when her father used spent firewood to draw the charcoal likeness of her. Several years have passed, but she looks very much the same. Her eyes just as round. Her lips, just as thin. But her hair is different. In the sketch, she has short, boyish hair, closely cropped all around her head with the exception of one long, wavy strand that she kept tucked behind her left ear.
She remembers she had asked her father to cut her hair as a warrior maiden might. But when one of the boys -- was it Galen? -- laughed at her warrior look, she wished for months her hair would grow back. And a year later, it finally found its old length.
In the sketch, the thread of long hair loops over her ear and then twists down to her shoulder, where it touches her birthmark. Wendolyn looks from the sketch to her own shoulder, where the birthmark hugs the crest of her back. She has to turn her head to see it, which is why she oftentimes forgets that it is even there.
A beige, shapeless blotch. A sandy island in the middle of an ocean of alabaster skin.
The birthmark and her violet eyes. Two things that have always made her worry that people would think she is different.
But now there is something else. Something that her father will not reveal to her. Something that makes the other children scared of her.
“Father, am I what they say I am? Am I a witch?”
Again, Wendolyn tries to prod him from his silence. And this time, it works.
Her father turns, resolute, and rejoins her at the table. He pulls his chair next to hers and sits. His eyes nauger into hers.
