The Ropemaker Read online

  Still no true snow fell, and despite the incessant gales it was far warmer than it should have been. All winters in the Valley, since anyone could remember and long before, had begun with two weeks of steady, settling snow, followed by almost three months of clear skies and hard frosts, with just a day and a night of more snow now and again. This winter the ponds barely froze, but there was day after day of lashing rain and sleet, and if you saw the sun once a week for half a morning or so you thought you were lucky, and all the lanes were mire, and the animals stood hock deep in the paddocks and got mud fever and worse—a miserable time.

  Meena had gone back to her cottage and Tilja plodded down to visit her most days, which she’d never willingly done before. She didn’t expect any kind of welcome, and didn’t get one, but she knew Meena was glad to see her, and if for some reason Tilja missed a visit she sulked like a child at the next.

  Tilja told herself she went because she’d become fond of Meena, but there was another reason she didn’t want to think about. While she was at the farm, everything that she saw or felt or heard or smelled reminded her again that it would never be hers. It would be Anja’s, and she, Tilja, would have to leave it. Go away and live somewhere else, like Aunt Grayne.

  Of course her parents knew how unhappy she was, and did what they could. Ma didn’t try hugging her again, but made a point of doing household chores with her instead of sending her off on her own, and Da would sometimes take her with him when there was a job she could help with, and even let her manage Dusty once or twice. But neither of them tried to talk to her about what had happened. It wasn’t their way. They weren’t talkers.

  Meena was different. Tilja got no sympathy from Meena, who only said, “Well, you’ll have to make a life of your own like most people do. No point moping about it. Sooner you get used to the idea, the better you’ll be.”

  Despite that, Tilja felt that Meena understood how she was feeling better than any of the others.

  One afternoon late in the year, when Tilja was wrapping up to plod back to the farm, Meena said, “And by the by, you can tell that father of yours we’ll need one of the horses to take us to the winter Gathering. And not that rackety brute, Calico, tell him.”

  Tilja was startled. One of her parents went to the midsummer Gathering most years, to trade and gossip, and last year Da had taken both her and Anja with him. But no one had been to the winter Gathering since she could remember, and there’d been no question of Meena going even to the midsummer one because of her hip.

  “I’ll ask him, if you like,” said Tilja.

  “You’ll do no such thing. You’ll tell him. From me.”

  Tilja grinned at her and got a scowl back, but that evening at supper she said, “Meena wants me to go with her to the Gathering.”

  “Me too,” said Anja.

  Da frowned, and was starting to shake his head when Ma said, with sudden, unusual firmness, “Yes, they must go. They’ll need a horse.”

  “Not Calico,” said Tilja quickly.

  “I can spare Tiddykin for a day or two,” said Ma. “She’s not up to carrying the pair of you, so—”

  “Three of us,” interrupted Anja, perfectly aware there wasn’t any question of her going, but characteristically not missing the chance of a bit of spoiling and petting to make up for it. This time, though, she’d misjudged the mood.

  “Anja, be quiet,” said Ma. “You’ll have to walk the whole way, Tilja, but you won’t get there and back in a day, this time of year, anyway, so you can stay with Grayne, and you won’t get too tired. All right, my dear?”

  Tilja glanced anxiously at Da. She’d scarcely ever heard Ma take charge like this before—that was his job. He didn’t look surprised or put out, though, but simply nodded and that was that.

  Aunt Grayne looked like a plumper, jollier version of Ma. She had married a farmer’s son whose family owned a rich bit of land by the river. His father had died when Tilja was a baby, and he was the farmer now. Their house was larger and newer than Woodbourne, with glass in the kitchen windows, but they didn’t give themselves airs.

  Despite what Ma had said, it had seemed a weary distance to walk, all the way from Woodbourne, and by the time Tilja led Tiddykin into the yard she was far too tired to pay much attention to what was going on, and fell asleep almost as soon as she’d finished her supper. But next morning, when they were alone in the kitchen, Grayne said, “Tilja, I’m truly sorry for you. I know what it’s like. It happened to me, too, you know, having a little sister who could hear the cedars, when I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, Aunt Grayne, why didn’t they tell me long, long ago?”

  “Because you don’t start hearing the cedars the moment you’re born, or even as soon as you can talk. You sort of grow into it. I wouldn’t know, of course, but that’s what your mother says. It wasn’t too late for you last summer, even. . . .”

  “That’s why Ma took me to the lake!”

  “Yes, but then, when she realized Anja was starting to listen to the cedars . . . As I say, I’m sorry, Tilja. I know how it feels.”

  “You really minded?”

  “I don’t think I stopped crying for a month. There were times when I felt I could have killed Selly.”

  Yes, thought Tilja. Aunt Grayne had known how it felt.

  “But you’re happy now?” she said.

  “Yes, of course. Very. I often dream about Woodbourne, but . . .”

  “But you don’t come there. That’s why we always have to visit you.”

  “Yes, I decided if I had to stop loving it . . . I don’t know how I can help you, my dear. The best I can tell you is that you’re going to have to make a life of your own, and that’s good. If you’d been able to hear the cedars you’d have had no choice. You would have belonged to Woodbourne all your life—just as much as Woodbourne would have belonged to you—more, perhaps. You’d have had to marry somebody and have children, so that there’d be a daughter who could hear the cedars and belong to Woodbourne when her time came. Your grandmother . . . no, that’s her story, if you can ever get her to tell you. She’s very fond of you, by the way.”

  Tilja was still trying to think of an answer when they heard Meena’s hoarse shout from the parlor, and she hurried off to help her into her boots.

  They hadn’t far to go now, but by the time they were on their way the road was crowded. For the last few days there’d been a sharp, gusting wind with a few thin snow flurries, but at least there’d been frost enough to harden the road surface, or the throng would have turned it to a quagmire. This was not at all like the midsummer crowd, when everybody, even those with stock to drive, wore their brightest clothes, so they could be seen for miles across the fields like strings of colored beads moving steadily along. And they sang then, and as their paths gathered to the center hallooed to each other, so that the spirit of summer festival seemed to have overflowed the Bowl of Gathering and spread across the Valley.

  But now everyone was in winter clothes, browns and grays, like the bare landscape, and the first thing they spoke of when they met was the weather. This was not a normal subject of conversation, as it is in some countries. What was the point, when the weather was just what you’d expect? You said, “Nice day,” or “Cold enough for you?” and went on to something else. But not this year, though all the conversations were pretty much the same, and came to the same conclusion—no one liked it.

  The Gathering was held at a place where long ago the river had changed its course and a bend had silted up, leaving a natural bowl, open at one end, with the river running past. The convenors had, by custom, seen to it that good log fires were burning, round which people could settle and talk. The main trade was in the autumn’s pickles and wines and preserves and cheeses, and smoked or salted meat and fish, and also in what families had been making to pass the winter evenings, carved knickknacks and fortune spoons and small furniture, rugs and hangings and winter cloaks and so on.

  Tilja settled Meena down with Aunt Grayne by one
of the fires, tethered Tiddykin at a horse rail and gave her a nose bag, and started to wander round the stalls looking for a small present for Anja, to make up for her not having been with them. The river end of the arena was already crowded. She overheard at least two people saying that there were far more here than they’d have expected at a winter Gathering.

  Then a drum started to beat, a heavy, throbbing note. Tilja knew what it meant, because she’d heard it before at the midsummer Gathering she’d been to. Though people came mainly for the gossip and the stalls, the real purpose of these meetings was to allow matters affecting the whole Valley to be discussed and decided. If someone managed to persuade the convenors that the subject was worth it, they would order the drum to be beaten, and those who were interested enough would gather at the inner end of the bowl and listen, and if they wanted, speak, and finally vote with a show of hands. Most people didn’t bother, but at midsummer Tilja had gone along out of curiosity. It had been pretty boring, something to do with preventing sheep scab spreading from farm to farm.

  This time, though, almost everyone stopped talking as the slow, menacing thud filled the bowl. At least half the crowd left what they were doing and began to move toward the sound. Tilja went to look for Meena, but met her already hobbling along. Aunt Grayne wasn’t with her, but a young woman had taken pity on her and was helping her (and getting no thanks for it, of course). Tilja took over, and they made their way along amid the mass of people until their way was blocked by the throng.

  “This is no good,” said Meena, and began to barge a path sideways until she reached the slope that surrounded the bowl. There were a lot of people already standing there for a better view, but muttering and groaning, she forced her way up between them with Tilja trailing behind and smiling with nervous apology at anyone Meena had shoved aside. They stopped at last, and turned, and Tilja found herself looking out over the heads of the crowd to the slope opposite. To her left were the fires and the stalls, with the river beyond them, and to her right the smooth curve of the hill that closed the bowl off. A section of it had been cut away to make a small platform where several people were standing, the drummer with his tall drum, the three convenors with their yellow scarves of office, and an old man leaning on a staff, with a slight, dark boy about Tilja’s age beside him. Despite the age difference, the old man and the boy were strikingly alike, with narrow, hooked noses and pointed chins.

  “This’ll do,” said Meena. “Move over a bit, will you? I’ve got to rest this leg of mine.”

  Without waiting for an answer she nudged the man beside her off the hummock he was standing on and groaningly lowered herself onto it. She was making far more fuss about her aches and pains than she ever did at home, but when Tilja started to sympathize she was answered with a special blank stare that told her Meena’s hip was no worse than on most days. She was just using it to get what she wanted, and why not?

  The drumbeat ended with a long roll. The crowd hushed. The convenors stood aside and the old man moved forward, feeling his way with his staff and gripping the boy’s shoulder with his other hand. The boy stopped him at the edge of the platform and he leaned on his staff for a while, as if studying his audience, though Tilja guessed he must be almost blind. His body looked slight but not frail under his dark brown cloak, and strong white hair bushed out beneath his fur cap. Judging the moment when the crowd’s attention was about to break, he drew himself up and spoke.

  “I am Alnor Ortahlson, from Northbeck, under the mountains. It is my task to sing to the snows each year, as my father did, and each one’s father before him, since the time of Reyel Ortahlson, who began it. I do so still, despite my age and blindness, because my son is dead, and his son is not yet old enough.”

  His voice seemed not much louder than a speaking voice, but it was slow and firm, and carried clearly through the come-and-go wind.

  “You all know Reyel’s story,” he went on, “though some of you do not believe it, and most of you are not aware that a man of our family still sings to the snows each year. I cannot make you believe. All I can tell you is that my own father never told me what song to sing, but when my turn came I climbed to the face of the glacier and there the song came to me and told me how I should sing it. Then I went back down to my millhouse, and by the time I was at the door the snows were falling, as they had done for my father and all our fathers before him.

  “This is the forty-seventh year in which I have climbed to the glacier and sung. Not the same music always, nor the same words, but still the same song. Each of those years the snows heard me, and fell.

  “But not this year. This year no song came to me. I sang what I could from memory, but the snows did not hear me. I knew as my grandson led me down the mountain that the true snows would not fall.

  “They did not fall. Which of you has seen true snows these last miserable months? Without them, the glacier will begin to melt, and then what will stand between us and the horsemen of the northern plains?

  “Yes, that is all I have to tell you. And yes, the convenors were uncertain whether it was cause enough to have the drum beaten, but I persuaded them. How can snow hear, or not hear, you will ask. If a family take it into their heads to go out and sing to the sun each night, before dawn, does that mean they have caused the sun to rise? Of course not.

  “In return I have two questions to ask you. Why are you all here? Why so many, and from so far, at this ill season? What persuaded you to come? Was it a dream, a voice in your head, some vaguer feeling? If so, is it possible that that dream, that voice, that feeling was, without your knowing it, the same thing that I felt when I knew in my heart that the snows did not hear me?

  “My second question is this. Is there a woman here from Woodbourne, in the south, a woman of the lineage of Dirna Urlasdaughter?”

  “Yes, of course I’m here!” snapped Meena from the ground. “Help me up, some of you. Look sharp! Don’t hang about!”

  The man she had shoved off the hummock lifted her to her feet and stood her on it, and the people just below her cleared to either side so that everyone could see her. Her head went back and her chin stuck out, as if she were facing down an assembly of unjust accusers.

  “Well, here I am,” she snapped. “Take a good look at me. I’m Meena Urlasdaughter from Woodbourne, and I’m here to tell you the old gaffer’s right. Something’s up, and he knows it, and I know it, and if you’ve got any sense in your heads you know it, and that’s why you’re here, like he told you.

  “I’ll tell you how I know it. First snows, one of our women goes into the forest and leaves a couple of sacks of barley under the cedars by the lake, and sings to the cedars. Dirna started it, because Faheel told her, like he told Reyel to sing to the snows, and we’ve done it ever since. It’s what keeps the forest like it is, with the sickness in it, so that men can’t go in there, and the Emperor can’t get at us like he used to, any more than the horsemen can get past the glacier at us to come murdering and looting. At least you know about the sickness. None of you men who live along by the forest will go in there, not for more than a minute or two, like my fool of a son-in-law tried the day I’m going to tell you about. Went in to look for my daughter Selva who’d gone to sing to the cedars, and came out all dizzy and sick, and stupider than he is by nature. But not so stupid he didn’t send for me, which he should have done in the first place, and me and Tilja here had to go in and get my daughter out.

  “Wait. There’s more to it than that. We found my daughter lying by the lake, unconscious, and we couldn’t wake her, so we brought her home on the sled, and she didn’t stir for six whole days, and then she couldn’t remember anything of what had happened to her, nor why she had this mark on her forehead I’ve never seen the like of. Since Dirna’s day we’ve sung to the cedars, I tell you, and nothing like this has happened in all those years, only now it has, the selfsame year, what’s more, as the old gaffer went up to sing to the snows and they didn’t hear him, and we’ve got this weather no one’s ev
er known to happen before.

  “I tell you something’s wrong with the forest, just like something’s wrong with the mountains, and if we don’t do something about it the sickness will be gone, and next thing the Emperor will be sending his tax collectors up here, with his armies to back them up, and they won’t just be after this year’s taxes either. It’ll be all the taxes we’ve not being paying these last twenty generations! And if you think what we’ve been talking about, Alnor and me, is all just chance-come things, might have happened any of these years, only now they’ve all come together, then you’re bigger fools than I took you for.”

  She stopped abruptly, and the man helped her down onto the hummock. The drummer beat a short roll and a number of people put up their hands to speak. The convenors took them in turn. Most of them simply wanted to confirm that they’d had a dream, or some odd feeling telling them to come. One woman said she hadn’t meant to until the last minute, but her old dog had tugged at her cloak and pretty well led her to the Gathering. Then a burly man on the slope opposite Tilja said, “This is all very well, and something strange may be happening, if you want to believe in that sort of thing. For myself, I don’t, but supposing I did, what then? What are we supposed to do about it? Try if anyone else has better luck, singing to the snows and the trees? Bit late for that, this year, anyway. We’re half through winter already, and the time for the main snowfall is come and gone two months back, so how are we going to tell if something’s worked, or it hasn’t? That’s till next winter, anyway.

  “So what I say is, let’s see how it all goes for a few months, and what sort of a spring we get, and so on, and maybe talk about it again here midsummer, if anyone’s still bothered. And then maybe next fall, after Alnor’s gone and done his stuff in the mountains and Meena’s daughter’s done hers in the forest, we’ll get our snowfall like we always have, and we’ll know this year was just some kind of freak. Or maybe we won’t, and that’ll be the time to get our heads together and sort out what to do about it.”