Читать книгу Silver's Edge - Anne Kelleher - Страница 8

Then

Down dusty roads the child fled, heart drumming in her thin chest like the gallop of a thousand horses, chased from sleep by hulking hordes of goblins who grabbed at her with gleaming teeth and outstretched claws. She startled awake, the echoes of her dream screams dying in her ears, crying aloud at the sight of the banked grate, where the coals glowed like red eyes in the dark room. A cold wind was howling in the trees, and the window rattled in its frame. A gusty draft stirred the curtains just as something crashed onto the roof above her head. She cried again, louder now, and yanked her thick woolen blanket higher, the rest of her small body stiffening with dread, the whole house, it seemed, shuddering under the impact.

“Nessie? You all right?” Her father’s broad face loomed out of the shadows of the doorway, his white nightshirt luminous in the gray light. He came closer, feet bare, the black hair on his chest curling out of the open collar of his nightshirt. A dark haze of beard shadowed his chin. Disheveled and bleary-eyed as he was, the sight of him relaxed her instantly, even as the sound of something scraping against the windowpane made her eyes widen once more.

“Papa, the goblins,” she moaned. “They’re chasing me—there’s one outside my window—”

“Hush, now.” His voice was a gravelly rumble as compelling as distant thunder. “That’s nothing but the branch I should’ve had the sense to cut down long before this. The wind brought it down, that’s all. There’re no goblins outside, not now, not ever.”

Cautiously the child peered over the homespun sheet, which was soft with many washings. Her father had spoken, her father who was the rock at the center of her world. Her father was Dougal the village blacksmith and the best armorer for leagues around. Even the mighty Duke of Gar came to Dougal when he wanted a new sword or dagger. “But, Papa,” she whispered, “Granny Wren, tonight, at the Gathering, she said the goblins come a-hunting little children—little children is what they like best to eat.”

With a stifled hiss of exasperation, the blacksmith crossed the small space to his daughter’s bed and knelt on the ragged scrap of rug. “Ah, little one, Granny Wren likes to hear herself talk. It’s how she knows she’s still alive, I think, for there’s no other reason for half the things she says. But come now, didn’t you also hear her speak of Bran? Bran Brownbeard, the greatest smith there ever was, in either Brynhyvar or the OtherWorld, the place called TirNa’lugh?” He paused. Her dark eyes were bright in her rosy little face and she shook her head, falling readily into the spell his whisper wove. “Perhaps you’d already gone to sleep by then? Hmm? Such a tired little girl I carried home tonight.” He smiled and smoothed the dark, damp curls off her forehead, his thick slab of a hand bigger than her entire face. “Bran Brownbeard was a mighty mortal man, who with the help of the Queen of the sidhe and her magic, forged the Silver Caul that lies upon the moonstone globe in the great palace in the very heart of the Other World.”

“What’s a call, Papa?”

“A caul, sweetling. It’s like—like a net, or loosely woven blanket, made of purest silver.”

“How’d he do that, Papa?”

“He took silver, for silver hurts the goblin, and the sidhe, too, more than anything else—it burns them and that’s why a mortal man was needed to do it—and with the sidhe Queen of the OtherWorld, who hates the Goblin King, for he would take her kingdom if he could, together they worked great magic and made a powerful web of finest strands of purest silver. They called it the Silver Caul, and the Queen took it to her palace, and there she placed it over a great green moonstone, and there it lies to this very day, keeping the goblins out of Brynhyvar.”

“Why does silver hurt the goblins?”

“I don’t know rightly, sweetling. But it’s why we wear these—” He fumbled at the neck of his nightshirt and dangled his silver amulet on its leather cord before her.

“That’s why we must never take it off?”

“Exactly. The silver protects us.”

“But, Papa, if the Silver Caul keeps the goblins out, why must we wear silver, too?”

Because there are worse things than goblins, he nearly replied. It was the race that called themselves the sidhe that were the worst of all, for they seduced mortals with promises of otherworldly delight, leading them to vanish out of sight and time. Your own mother was snared by one of them, he almost said, but he caught himself. They were treading dangerously close to questions for which he must carefully consider the replies. He pushed aside the curtain and peered out into the night. It was coming up to dawn. The low-lying clouds overlay a sky of lighter gray. Time to stir the oats he’d set to cook last night in the great iron kettle nestled in the warm forge, to check for damage left by the now-passing storm, to try to decide what to tell the child if her questions led them to the subject of her mother, and if she were old enough to know even part of the truth. “Not now, sweetheart. I’ll tell you the story later. I promise. But ’tis so late, it’s early, and I must be about my work. You go back to sleep for a bit, it’s too cold to be running about early today.” He kissed each one of her grubby little fingers in turn, noticing how pink they were beneath a thin layer of grime, then rose to go. He resolved to remember to drag the bathtub from the shed beside the kitchen before nightfall. Her eyelids were already beginning to droop.

“But, Papa?” Her voice stopped him at the door. “The Silver Caul? That’s what keeps the goblins away? For real?”

“There are no goblins in Brynhyvar, Nessa. I promise. So back to sleep with you, now, like a good girl.”

“Yes, Papa.” She shut her eyes with a sigh.

He ducked his head beneath the uneven frame of the low doorway and paused to look over his shoulder at the little face lying on the pillow. Dearer to him than all he owned, dearer than life, she was. He had lost her mother to the sidhe, and he was determined such a fate should never befall her daughter. Such a headstrong little thing, she could be, so like her mother, curious and engaging. But if she seemed more interested in the fire and the forge, hammer and tongs, than in the tools of more womanly pursuits, so much the better. Better her mind be full of iron, he thought, than the sort of empty-headed nonsense which had contributed to her mother’s disappearance.

The child curled on her side, one round cheek pillowed on her open palm, a scrap of threadbare blanket nestled beneath her chin. A line from an ancient lullaby ran through his head. The might of Bran protects thee, the Faerie Queen shall bless thee, no goblin claw will rend thee. But he took no comfort in it, for he expected no blessing from that quarter. He would see to it that if ever goblin or sidhe touched so much as a hair of his daughter’s head, she would be well-prepared to defend herself.