Tabula Rasa

Chapter 59

Tilla crouched down in front of the bushes, which stank of urine. “I know you’re there,” she said gently. “I can see your foot.”

The foot was snatched back out of sight.

“I just want to talk to you,” she said.

There was a scuffling from somewhere amongst the leaves. Dismal shouted a warning and she sprang to her feet, catching sight of a small figure scrambling away from her up the hill, then veering to the left as if he were trying to get down to the stream. She grabbed fistfuls of skirt and ran after him. Dismal rode round to cut him off. The boy realized the danger and changed course like a startled animal, running back across the slope, trying not to get trapped against the wall. Tilla managed to intercept him and there was one of those silly dodging games with him feinting to one side and then trying to run in the opposite direction. Dismal closed in. Finally she flung herself at the boy and they ended up rolling down the damp hillside in a flurry of arms and legs and skirts.

When they had disentangled themselves Tilla said, “Your knee is bleeding. Let me look.”

The boy did not even spare a glance at the hole in his trousers. He was keeping a wary eye on Dismal. He whispered, “Is that him?”

“Who?”

The boy did not answer.

“You must be Aedic. I am Darlughdacha. Tilla for short.”

Again, no answer.

She said, “That man is with me. Does he look like someone you’re afraid of?”

The boy nodded. That was progress.

“You are safe with me,” she assured him, but he was still watching Dismal’s every move and bracing himself, ready to run. Tilla called to Dismal not to come any closer. “You see?” she told Aedic. “He won’t hurt you while I’m here.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I know,” she told him. “Is the man you are afraid of one of the soldiers?”

For a moment she thought he was refusing to answer again. Then she heard, “He got Branan. Now he’ll come for me.”

“Who is coming for you? That man there, or someone like him?”

He said, “He put a body inside the wall.”

“You saw him do it?”

“I didn’t mean to! It wasn’t my fault!”

“I know,” said Tilla, placing one hand over his. “Tell me about the man.”

“I can’t,” the boy mumbled. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what he looks like. It was too dark.”

Tilla felt her shoulders slump. She had spent a whole day tracing the source of the rumor, and now she had found him, he knew nothing that was of any use at all. “Why did you say it was Branan who saw him?”

The boy became agitated. “I didn’t mean to do it! I didn’t mean any harm! He was hurting me!”

“The man?”

The boy shook his head violently. “Matto.”

“So you told Matto something to make him stop hurting you?”

“Mam said you shouldn’t tell lies. But Mam’s in the next world and there’s only Petta, and Petta doesn’t like me.”

“I don’t think it’s just you,” said Tilla, who had the impression that Petta didn’t like anyone.

He said, “Is it true people can pass through from the next world at Samain?”

“I have never seen it,” Tilla confessed. The meeting she longed for with her own family had never happened. No one could tell her how to find the hills that opened at Samain to let the living go inside. All she could truthfully say was, “I think they can see us and they watch over us.”

“Do you think Mam can see me?”

“I’m sure she can,” Tilla assured him. “My family are all gone to the next world too. Perhaps they have met.”

He said, “I thought she might come tonight.”

“And so you wait for her here, where you used to live.”

He nodded.

“I think she will know where to find you wherever you are,” she told him, pushing away the fear that she had deserted her own ghosts by following the army. There was no time to dwell on that now. “But she may not be able to come to you. Were you here waiting for your Mam when you saw the man with the body?”

He shrugged. “I s’pose.” He looked at her. “All of your family?”

“All of them. The Northerners came raiding.”

There was no need to explain further: Even a child of this age had heard the stories. He said, “Are you still sad?”

“It is an ache that I carry inside me wherever I go,” she told him. “But I am still glad I have my life here. I do not want to join them before my time comes.”

He nodded thoughtfully. They sat in silence for a while. Dismal, still keeping his distance, allowed the horses to graze. The sun was sinking in a clear sky and a chilly breeze rattled the bushes.

“We must go,” said Tilla, getting to her feet. “I should have taken you back to your family before. They will worry about you, out alone tonight.”

“No they won’t,” he said, and she was afraid it was true.

“I will get someone to take you back.” She was sure the Legion would help. She had visited Aedic’s family on a military-branded horse, with an escort from the fort, and the last thing the army wanted was any whiff of their being involved in the disappearance of another boy. “Do you want to ride my horse?”

He nodded, eager. “I’ve never been on a horse before.”

She gave him a leg up into the saddle, ignoring Dismal’s obvious disapproval, and led the animal down toward the little fort. Halfway there the boy interrupted her gloomy thoughts about being no closer to finding Branan with “Tilla can’t be short for Darlughdacha.”

“It’s a long story,” she told him.