Not Zakry. Although the image of him; but he was younger, ten years younger, and different. Features softened a little, and hair a deeper yellow, not quite so fair. Eyes a darker blue. Shoulders broader and arms thicker.
My son! The knowledge hit her, impossible to deny. My baby, Zakry’s son! Despair threatened to overwhelm her. How many years! How long have I lingered in this place between life and death? Clarity arrived and she understood now; those darknesses, those times when she thought she had slept for minutes, those had been days, weeks even. The changing light had been the passing of seasons. She had been trapped in this horrible state of not-living, not-dying, for years. Years when she had thought it but days! Rage rose up. Who has done this thing to me? She wailed a soundless cry of pain, and Neesa seemed to sense she was near. She looked right at where Elaine floated, and there was sadness in the girl’s eyes. She inclined her head toward Bram, as if saying, See, this is what you came for. Elaine looked again at her son and a soft yearning began to replace the anger. She wanted to hold him in her arms, to comfort him, to tell him of her love. And she wanted to protect him, for now she understood the presence of the black tendrils of evil, the need for a child of hers, and she knew without doubt Bram’s life was at risk. Someone must warn him.
Tell him, boy! Tell him! Elaine shouted.
‘Tell him, boy,’ said Neesa, as if listening to another voice. ‘Tell him!’ she repeated softly.
‘Bram . . .’ Rip said.
‘Mmm?’ Bram said, his strong white teeth tearing at the bread.
It was stolen from a guard’s table while the man went to use the privy, and it was tough and black, made from mixed barley and rye and full of husks. That didn’t disturb either Rip or the young man; it was much like what they ate every day.
‘Sorry,’ Bram said when his mouth was free; he took a long drink of water and a bite of smoked pork. ‘Right hungry. Haven’t had much to eat today, except hard knocks.’
‘Bram, the old man—the Baron—said something really strange.’ Rip frowned, remembering. He couldn’t stop remembering. It played over and over again in his head. ‘And the oily man. He said you were the Baron’s son, and the Baron said not to say that, because you’d killed his lady.’
‘Me the Baron’s son!’ Bram laughed. ‘Baron Bram of the Barn! My lord of the Muck-heap!’ Then his face changed. ‘What did he say about a lady?’
‘That you’d killed her, and that was why he wanted the bag over your head.’
Kay cut in. ‘It is like the Wicked King and the Good Prince!’ he said. ‘The evil stepmother wants to kill the Prince, and the King hates him ‘cause his mother died having him, so she puts him out in the woods, but the woodcutter finds him and fights the wolves and takes him home to raise him as his own!’
‘That’s just a story, youngster,’ Bram said uneasily. ‘Right now, we’re in the part before the happy ending.’
Rip looked at him. Bram doesn’t think we will have a happy ending, he thought. But we will! Bram’s a hero!
‘What are they doing?’ Flora asked curiously, pointing.
Lorrie goggled at her, and then at the field beside the road. The strong sweet scent of the cut hay drifted over to the two girls in the dog-cart, and the scythes flashed as the mowers moved down the flower-starred field. Birds burst up out of the grass before them and circled above, diving at the buzzing insects that the blades disturbed. The mowers were singing as they worked—that made it go easier, as she well knew, with memories of days at hatchet and churn and spinning wheel and hoe and rake—until one of them called a halt. He unslung a little wooden barrel he wore around his neck on a cloth sling, pulled the bung with his teeth and tilted it back until a stream arched into his upturned mouth; cider, probably.
She could see the worn shirt sticking to his back with sweat; he looked up as he passed the little barrel on and waved at her with a grin. He’d be the farmer, the Lord of the Harvest. She knew she was right when he gave the signal to start work again a moment later.
There were six working with scythes, five men and a woman: swinging a scythe took strong arms and back, much more than harvesting grain with a sickle. Women and girls and youths followed them, raking and turning the cut hay and pushing it into a long roll on the ground, a tad. They’d be back, of course, to keep turning it until it cured, and then to pitch it onto a cart and bring it home to go under cover and feed stock through the next year.
‘Why, they’re cutting the hay,’ Lorrie said, conscious of the long silence of her astonishment. ‘First cutting, but a bit late. Haven’t you ever seen hay cut before?’