"Lee,_Mary_Soon_-_Vigil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lee Mary Soon)

======================
Vigil
by Mary Soon Lee
======================

Copyright (c)1999 Mary Soon Lee
First published in Talebones Magazine #5, May 1999

Fictionwise Contemporary
Dark Fantasy


---------------------------------
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. If you did not purchase this ebook directly from Fictionwise.com then you are in violation of copyright law and are subject to severe fines. Please visit www.fictionwise.com to purchase a legal copy. Fictionwise.com offers a reward for information leading to the conviction of copyright violators of Fictionwise ebooks.
---------------------------------


EACH DAY the war drew closer. Branwen refused to let the worsening tidings disrupt her duties. When Old Connell died in his sleep, she supervised his burial, then waited by the grave for his spirit to settle. As usual, she sent her apprentice down to her sister's for the night. At nine years old, Evan was too young to stay on a dark hilltop with an unquiet spirit.
Branwen sat on her reed mat, a woolen cloak pulled tight around her. Spring nights were still cold up in the highlands. Wind whispered through the row of pines behind the graves, carrying the smell of resin. In the moonlight, Connell's ghost paced the border of his grave.
"My fault," said the ghost, borrowing the wind to shape the sound of the words. "I should have stayed, should have stayed."
"It's all right," said Branwen gently. Her fingers worked the spell to bind spirit to bone. "It's the way of things that we make mistakes, and then regret them when they're past mending. But you were a good man, Connell."
"Not then," sighed the wind. Connell's outstretched hand passed through her face, colder than the night air. In the wind she heard Connell tell of a girl he had lain with before his first wife, a bastard son he'd never met. Loneliness shivered through every word he spoke.
Branwen murmured what comfort she could, while she reworked the binding spell. Slowly the ghost drew back into the mounded earth, its form fading. Branwen saw the stars shine through the outline of Connell's head. Only minutes later, the ghost was gone.
For a while longer Branwen sat alone on the reed mat, fingering the charm bracelet on her left wrist, the last gift from her mother. Her eyes stung, and she rubbed at them impatiently. Her mother had died years ago, yet keeping a graveside vigil always brought Branwen back to the same well-worn grief.
She picked up the mat, her legs stiff, and walked to her cottage, just outside the burial ground. She tucked herself under the quilt, and bade herself sleep. Instead she lay awake for an hour, thinking about the war, about her mother, about Connell.
Her thoughts shifted to her apprentice, how fiercely proud Evan had been when he arrived last summer, the only child in his family's history who'd ever had such a gift: he could speak to ghosts! Soon after his arrival, Evan had begged Branwen to let him keep vigil with her. But long before the shadows lengthened that first afternoon, Evan's enthusiasm had evaporated, a grimness settling into his face. So Branwen had sent him to her sister's; the boy deserved his childhood. Branwen would make sure that Evan accompanied her sister when the army evacuated the village. On that thought Branwen finally fell asleep.
* * * *
By the time Branwen woke it was late morning. She found Evan sitting on the drystone wall that bordered the burial ground, his knees grubby, his hair tousled. He drummed the wall with his legs, in time with a song he was humming.
"Evan, if you're so keen to wear away at that wall, maybe it's time you learned how to repair it."
Evan stopped drumming abruptly. He stared at his feet as though disowning them. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that."
"No harm done, but we may as well have the lesson anyhow. Did you ever help your father build a wall?"
Evan shook his head, and jumped down to stand beside Branwen.
"This is a drystone wall." Branwen laid her hand on it. "It's a special type of wall made just out of stones, with no mortar to hold them together. All the walls in the burial ground are like this."
"Why? Is it a kind of magic?"
"No," said Branwen, trying not to smile. The boy was always hoping to learn more magic. No doubt his daydreams were full of dragons and heroes and tousle-haired boys with mysterious powers.
"Then why isn't it made like an ordinary wall?"
"Well," said Branwen, "There's an ancient legend of a sorcerer who mixed blood into the mortar of the walls of a great tomb where eight warriors lay, side by side."
"And then?" demanded Evan, his eyes round.
"And then the sorcerer cast a great spell and the warriors rose out of the tomb, and though the warriors' bodies were still wraiths, no more substantial than mist, each warrior held a broadsword in his hands. And the swords were solid as this wall." Branwen thumped the wall. "And the eight warriors chopped the sorcerer up into tiny pieces, and terrorized the surrounding countryside for years to come."
"Why?"
"Perhaps because the sorcerer kept asking questions when he should have been doing something more useful," said Branwen dryly. She bent down beside Evan, and showed him how the stones fit together, their shapes chosen to make the structure stable.
When she got up again, she paused to savor the clear spring day. The hillside was touched with green, the grass shooting up. Down below she could just pick out the red roofs of Darseton by the bend in the river Pleth. Further away a wisp of grey painted the horizon, more like smoke than a rain cloud. Branwen reached for Evan automatically, her hand fastening on his shoulder. She had heard the army was burning the fields behind them as they retreated, leaving nothing but scarred ground for the enemy.
With an effort, Branwen made herself release the boy's shoulder. "Evan, get ready to go to the village."
"Again?"
"Again. I'm coming with you this time." Something in her voice must have silenced Evan, because he dropped his usual flood of questions. He sprinted ahead of Branwen to her cottage. By the time she got there, Evan had packed two lunches and a change of clothing into his knapsack.
"Thank you, Evan." Branwen unlocked the top drawer of the kitchen chest, where she kept the few valuables she owned. She took out her drawstring purse, closed the drawer, stopped, opened the drawer again, lifted out a thin gold chain. Unclasping the charm bracelet around her left wrist, she removed a tiny silver rabbit from the bracelet. She threaded the rabbit onto the gold chain and handed it to Evan.
"Mistress Branwen?" Evan stared from her to the chain. He touched the silver rabbit carefully, as if afraid it might break.
"My mother gave me the bracelet when I was about your age; the rabbit is meant to bring luck. I want you to keep it."
Evan put the chain and the rabbit down. "I don't want it. You're only giving it to me because you want to get rid of me."
"No, Evan." Branwen squeezed Evan's shoulder. "I don't want to get rid of you -- "