The Thorn Boy Read online

  Or perhaps that was a lie.

  Yesterday, I went down to the city for only the second time since I began my retreat here. I went to the market to shop for spices, and there walked among the people, envious of their lives. There is a well there, right in the middle of all the busy stalls. I was thirsty and walked up to it. A man was standing beside it, drinking from the metal cup that the well-tender had given him. My heart convulsed. At that precise moment, the man noticed me. Our eyes met, and I saw the shock in his expression.

  He could not have been much older than myself. His skin was tawny-gold, and his long hair hung nearly to his thighs, confined at his neck.

  We knew each other instantly. It was not Akaten. This man looked nothing like him. I realise that now.

  What happens within the temple is sacred and secret, not be discussed once the devotions are completed. We must forget what happens there. But still, I may return to the market soon, and he will be there, waiting. I know it.

  Spinning for Gold

  This story is the first of a sequence I wrote for a friend of mine while I was still creating the first Wraeththu book ‘The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit’. My friend was feeling low at the time, so I wrote these pieces to cheer him up. They are retellings of old fairy stories, with a gay theme, this one being my interpretation of ‘Rumpelstiltskin’. In folk lore, you acquire power over supernatural creatures, in particular goblins and fairies, when you learn their true names. Another version of this story can be found in the Scottish folk tale, ‘Whoopity Stoorie’.

  ‘Spinning for Gold,’ is set in the land of Cos, and its king is called Ashalan, as he is in the Magravandias trilogy, but this is a distant ancestor of that character. If the Magravandias stories are set in an Alternate Victorian Age, then these fairy tales are in the Medieval Age of that world.

  This story and its two ‘sequels’, ‘The Nothing Child’ and ‘Living with the Angel’, can be seen as different chapters of the same tale.

  In the land of Cos, many years ago, an important master miller lived beside a deep-flowing river. Widowed when his two children were very young, he had acquired along with his wealth a tendency to drink and gamble rather more than was advisable. So much so, that quite often, his son, Jadrin and his daughter, Amberina, would lie trembling in their beds at night, waiting for the drunken homecoming of their father, for it was not unknown for him to behave irrationally under the influence of liquor. Sometimes, frenzied at not being able to find the whereabouts of his pipe or tobacco pouch, he would attack the furniture and even any household pets or servants who were too slow to move from his path. Having said that, however, he was not on the whole a cruel father. To be fair, his faults were merely the children of his grief, which had never healed completely, and in the faces of his son and daughter, he could often see the eyes of his dead, beautiful wife looking back at him; he loved the children passionately. Because of this, Amberina and Jadrin led a sheltered, luxurious life, which in creatures of weaker character would have led to them being altogether spoiled and petulant.Amberina and Jadrin, however, were gentle, kindly souls, without any evil temperament. Quite content in each other’s company, the siblings spent most of their time in the great forest on the east side of the River Fleercut, or else scampering over the rolling, bosomy hills to the west, beyond which lay Ashbrilim, the city of the king; a place where they had never ventured.

  Alike as twins, even though two years separated their births, they had both inherited their mother’s dark, midnight hair and lustrous eyes. Visitors to the mill-house commented on their beauty to their father, although those of more sensitive nature could sometimes not easily repress an eerie shudder whilst looking into those fathomless eyes and forest-wise faces. Friends of the miller might comment to each other, over mugs of ale, in taverns far from the mill-house, that all was not right with the miller’s children.

  ‘They spend too much time out in the moonlight,’ one might say, as if to explain their white, white skin.

  ‘And too much time in the forest.’ another might add, as if to explain their mossy hair and shadowed smiles.

  Sometimes, in an attempt to bring Amberina and Jadrin out into the real world, some well-intentioned neighbour might send their own children to encourage the miller’s progeny to enjoy more natural childish pastimes, but the other children always went home fearful and anxious. If their parents should question them, wondering if the miller’s children had deliberately frightened them, they would always answer no. Amberina and Jadrin, though strangely distant, were always polite and friendly to visitors, leading them into the forest glades and weaving their hair with flowers. No, it was not fear exactly. The children could never explain exactly what it was that made sleep come with difficulty for several nights after a visit to the mill.

  It was early summer and Jadrin had just celebrated his sixteenth birthday. Soon Amberina would be fourteen years old. Their birthdays were very close together, both born under the sign of the moon and the water. After a large and cheerful tea-time, enjoyed only with the servants (as the miller had been gone to the city for some days,) the two youngsters went hand in hand, down to the reedy edge of the river, some yards south of the tall, lichened mill-house, where the stream widened into a deep, dark pool overhung with waving willows. They knelt down in the soft, damp earth and gazed into the water, not yet brilliant with the reflection of stars, but lazily roiling, dark as if with unspoken secrets. Jadrin sighed and leaned out over the pool. Amberina moved quickly to untie his hair from the black ribbon at the back of his neck, so that the raven waves, like water itself, fell to kiss the surface of the pool, floating out like weed into the dusk. ‘I feel a strange heaviness about me,’ Jadrin murmured in a soft, sad voice.

  ‘It is only your own hair floating in the stream,’ Amberina answered, mischievously.

  ‘No,’ her brother replied, looking up and turning to face the hills behind which the sun was still sinking in a blaze of rich colours. ‘It comes from that way, I think.’ He pointed.

  ‘Then it is probably just our father coming home from Ashbrilim,’ Amberina said. ‘Perhaps he will be drunk again and have lost all the money he earned in the city.’ They both looked at the huge, solid walls of the mill-house rising from the river upstream; as if fearful it might crumble to dust in an instant.

  Jadrin sighed again. ‘No, I don’t think it is that either.’

  ‘You are growing old, my brother!’ Amberina sang and jumped up to dance in the pale owl-light, looking almost like the ghost of her mother; all floating white linen and midnight hair.

  Jadrin smiled at her wistfully, but he could not share her joy. He gazed deep into the trees across the river, but could find no comfort in them either. After a moment, he stood up. ‘I think I shall go back to the house,’ he said.

  His sister looked surprised. She held out her hand. ‘Won’t you come to the deepest, darkest glade with me?’ she asked. ‘The white deer gather there tonight. Perhaps they shall speak our fortunes.’

  Jadrin could not tell his sister that he was no longer sure he wanted to hear his fortune, although it had been their custom to go to this place every year on his birthday. Once the deer had intimated where to find an egg-shaped quartz of power under the bank of the river. Sometimes, when the children gazed into it, they could see the lights of the city glowing within, the tall towers of Ashbrilim and the white road that led to it.

  Now Jadrin shook his head and put up his hand in negation. ‘I have to think,’ he said and walked away from Amberina, soon lost in the half-light.

  As he was climbing the bank up to the house, it happened that his father’s valet, Tufkin, came down the path towards him. ‘Be quick, master Jadrin,’ he said, ‘your father has sent me to find you.’

  ‘Is all well at the house?’ Jadrin enquired, noting the servant’s worried mien. Perhaps Amberina hadn’t been far from the truth in her conjecture about their father’s financial affairs.

  ‘The house still stands, aye!’ Tufkin r
eplied dryly, jerking his head towards the thick, grey walls. ‘Come along.’

  Jadrin followed him.

  If he supposed to find his father still reeling, red-eyed from the effects of last night’s drinking, Jadrin was wrong. Skimblaze the miller stood sober and erect, leaning against the stout wooden table in the kitchen of the mill-house. Jadrin noticed immediately the suppression of a cunning glance steal across his father’s face. All was not well. He waited for Skimblaze to speak. The miller made several anguished noises, before turning his back on his son and saying, ‘The time has come, Jadrin, for you to go to the city.’

  Cool as mint, the boy replied, ‘The time has come? I had no idea it would ever be due!’

  ‘Come, come, you are nearly a man, Jadrin. What kind of education is it for you paddling about in the river and having only a little girl for a companion?’

  ‘But why haven’t you told me of this before?’ Jadrin sat down. In his heart, he could feel a shred of guilt, a shred of deception, winging its way about the room like a baleful spirit. He had no desire at all to leave the riverside, the forest, or his sister, his only friend.

  Skimblaze cleared his throat.’ You need to learn more about life, my lad. One day all this will be passed onto you and I want to give it to a whole person, not some half-fairy changeling! You need your feet bringing down to earth.’

  ‘You can’t make me go!’ Jadrin cried. He had never spoken out against his father before. ‘I will hate it!’

  ‘You’re going, my boy! You’re going! Tomorrow, and that’s an end to it!’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Jadrin murmured in bewilderment. ‘Is Amberina to accompany me?’ He asked this without much hope.

  Skimblaze cast a quick, furtive glance over his shoulder. ‘No. Amberina is too young. Come now, don’t give me that face. You will learn to enjoy it. All travel is good for the soul. Run along now, you’d better start packing your things.’ Skimblaze faced the window once more, looking out at the gently sloping bank. Perhaps he could see a faint suggestion of his lovely daughter down there, dancing lightly through the dusk, her mind far from cities and partings. Still Skimblaze could not fully face his son.

  ‘Where am I to go?’ the boy asked, in a small, husky voice.

  ‘To the court. I’ve secured a place for you there. You’re from a good family. Do you think I’d let you go if it was to anywhere else?’

  ‘Have you been arranging this these last few days?’

  There was a moment’s silence. ‘Yes,’ Skimblaze said.

  Jadrin climbed the curling, creaking stairs to the room he called his own. At the summit of the house, it had the smallest windows, all of ruby glass. It also felt near to the heart of the mill. Lying in bed at night, Jadrin could sense the great wooden machinery, turning, turning. The wall nearest to it, where he kept his bed, was always warm. Jadrin opened the window and gazed mournfully out over his beloved countryside. Half-heartedly, he threw a few belongings into a bag and then sat down on his bed, head in hands. He had no idea why his father should suddenly force such a thing on him, but he couldn’t help suspecting the reason behind it might be connected with Skimblaze’s weaknesses for good liquor and gambling for high stakes. He felt uncharitable thinking that, but the idea would not leave him. Jadrin shuddered. He was inexperienced and young, but as he watched the rising moon appear in the velvet sky beyond his window, as the wood cooled and creaked in the late evening, you could see, by looking at his eyes, that Jadrin would not be totally helpless out there in the unknown world.

  In the morning, accompanied by Tufkin, Jadrin bid a mournful farewell to Amberina. As he leaned down from his horse, she placed a garland of woodland flowers about his neck, and offered him a velvet bag. ‘Here is half of the quartz we found,’ said she. ‘I have the other. Guard it well, my brother, for it may help you in the world.’

  Jadrin smiled and kissed the top of her dark head, already feeling a hundred years older than she. Then he lifted his horse’s head with a swift command and glanced coldly at the mill-house door before cantering quickly off towards the west, Tufkin behind him.

  In the doorway to the mill, Skimblaze drained the glass he held, grimaced, went back into the house and slammed the door behind him.

  Amberina looked in at the kitchen window ‘Why are you doing this father?’ she asked.

  Skimblaze sat upright in his chair, reached across the table for another mug of wine. ‘You have magic, both of you,’ he said, as if in explanation. ‘Skills beyond the mortal man. I’m right. I know I’m right...’

  Amberina shut the window without another word and went down to the river-pool. In the still, morning water, she could see an image of Jadrin riding towards Ashbrilim, his head held high like a prince.

  The palace of the king stood upon a high hill at the heart of Ashbrilim. Jadrin and Tufkin rode right up to the palace gate, which were three times the height of a man, where Tufkin presented the letter he carried from Skimblaze. Eyeing Jadrin stonily, the guards let them pass through. Rarely having left his country home, Jadrin was amazed by the sights he beheld. Such opulence! The noise overwhelmed him, the bustle, the smells. He caught sight of willowy figures in splendid clothes leaning over balconies above the yard they crossed. One or two fingers pointed; he heard a stifled laugh. It was late afternoon and the walls of all the courtyards were afire with blooming vines beginning to release their heady, evening scent into the air. Tufkin paused to ask directions and dogs ran between the horses’ legs as they found their way into the stableyard. Jadrin looked around, wide-eyed, studying all the day’s-end tasks being completed in noisy joviality by the well-fed servants of the king.

  A tall, gaunt man in dark, voluminous clothes ducked away from a forkful of yellow hay carelessly held aloft by a passing stable-boy, waving away the almost disrespectfully cheerful apology. Jadrin realised the gaunt man was heading in their direction.

  ‘You are the miller’s people?’ the man asked and with a nod, Tufkin handed him Skimblaze’s letter. The man smiled. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, looking up at Jadrin. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Galbion Floom, King Ashalan’s secretary.’

  Jadrin responded politely. He and Tufkin dismounted and their horses were led away to the stables. ‘Now, boy, if you would follow me please,’ Floom instructed, indicating the way with his hand. Jadrin looked around. Tufkin was hanging back.

  ‘Am I to go alone?’ Jadrin asked.

  ‘It is not my place to follow,’ Tufkin replied edgily, stepping backwards. ‘I’ll just take a tankard of ale in the servants’ quarters.’

  Shrugging, Jadrin curled his hand more tightly around the velvet bag that hung from his neck on a cord, and followed the gaunt man through a dark doorway. In silence they began to climb a winding staircase. They climbed and climbed. Soon, it seemed, the bustle of the courtyard was left far behind and they had entered a sleeping, ensorcelled place, deep in the core of the palace. Jadrin’s guide did not speak. They walked down long, dusty corridors, silent, but lit by bars of golden evening sunlight, fighting its way through dusty glass. More stairs.

  ‘Is it much farther, sir?’ Jadrin asked, wondering what desolate spot a miller’s son (no matter how affluent) would be given in the palace of a king.

  ‘No, my boy. We are here.’

  Before them was an ancient, iron-studded door. Galbion Floom struggled with the heavy metal latch.

  No one has come here for a while, Jadrin thought with a not altogether unpleasant thrill of dread.

  Floom had managed to open the door and was now fastidiously wiping his hands on a large handkerchief. Without a word, Jadrin walked past him and into the room beyond. He dropped his bag onto the floor and dust lazily raised itself and eddied round his feet. He was in a high-ceilinged chamber, a gloomy place. The sole window was narrow and far above Jadrin’s head. Only a little of the evening sunlight came down onto the wooden floor, having to fight through shrouds of cobwebs and dust. ‘Well!’ Jadrin said, half amused, half aghast. In the shadows, he co
uld see a mean, narrow bed, a washstand and, of all things, a spinning-wheel. Whatever else the room might contain was hidden in the darkest corners, except for several neatly twined bales of straw, which had been placed just inside the door. Jadrin looked at these askance and said, ‘Well!’ again. Was this some kind of joke? Was he expected to bed down in straw like an animal?

  ‘Am I to live here?’ Jadrin asked, unable to hide the dismay from his voice.

  ‘For the time being.’

  Jadrin shook his head. Dismay gave way to anger. Surely he could not be treated like this. His father’s animals lived in stables more comfortable and cleaner than this.

  ‘And are all your guests accommodated in rooms of this type?’ he couldn’t help asking.

  There was a moment’s pause before Floom said, ‘You do know why you are here, of course?’

  Jadrin looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t believe I do.’

  ‘You are Jadrin, the miller Skimblaze’s son?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Floom stroked his chin. ‘And you are, as he claimed, something of a... wonder worker?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A magician,’ the man said irritably. ‘That was the terms, I think.’

  ‘Terms? Magician? I think you’d better explain.’ Jadrin, on the whole, was a stranger to anger. Now his indignation was tinged with fear.