Chapter Thirteen – Moonlight

Pazu woke. It was dark in here with the door closed, almost pitch black. He rolled out from under the poncho and crawled across the hay to the barn door. Outside the yard was blue and quiet and mysterious, Tahro was well up on the southern horizon, waxing now and casting her pale light. He went out into the yard, moving quietly. He glanced up above the barn and saw that Ptamos had risen too and was already high in the south east. That would make it at least two o'clock. It would be getting light in two hours. It was still warm, even in the small hours of the morning and the crickets chattered in the lane, in the bushes. Up on the fold a sheep bleated.

He went back into the barn and picked up the thing he had kept there since dinner time. Holding it carefully he made his way quietly to the side door, the scullery door. He put his ear to the wood and could hear a snuffling breathy sound on the other side. One of the hounds was awake, had probably heard him outside in the yard. But the dogs knew Pazu's smell now and no longer barked. Which was just as well, because what he planned to do wouldn't be possible if there was so much as a single bark.

He lifted the latch and pushed the door open. The big wet hairy muzzle greeted him on the other side. Pazu squatted down and let the dog smell him properly. The dog could probably smell the slight trace of unease and nervousness on the boy, and possibly a tiny hint of another emotion – hope. But the dog stayed quiet, turned and padded out to the main kitchen and lay down on the stone floor before the dying glow of the fire. Barefoot, and praying that he made no sounds, Pazu went in.

The kitchen was a big room the whole width of the house. One side faced the courtyard. There was a deep stone sink below the window and from there Morwen could watch all that came and went in the yard. With one of the wagon doors open to the lane she could watch who went past as well. Apart from the front door by the sink that led into the yard and where Morwen had stood that first morning and lashed them with her tongue, there were two doors out from the kitchen, one to the side scullery where Pazu had just come in. In there was the big galvanised laundry bath that sat on its metal legs above the scullery fireplace. Morwen would heat water there and wash the clothes and bedding. From the scullery another door led to the pantry, a small room that was actually partly below ground at the back of the house. The ground rose slightly here, sloping up through Morwen's kitchen garden and the apple orchard beyond and towards the ridge of the sheepfold. But the difference in ground levels meant the pantry was always cool and it was here, stored on shelves and covered by damp cloths that Morwen kept her meats, cheeses, butter and milk.

The other door from the kitchen led along a dark narrow corridor down the spine of the house. The best parlour was on the right with big bright windows that faced the garden. On the left was Tanners workshop and at the far end were the stairs.

It was towards the stairs that Pazu now crept, carefully cradling the thing he was carrying.

He realised he'd never been up the stairs, in fact, apart from going into the best parlour once or twice where Tanner sat in the evenings and smoked his pipe, Pazu had only ever been in the scullery and kitchen. He climbed slowly, he was in no hurry. The wooden stair treads were uneven and old. He knew some of them would creak. However he had good balance, a good careful step and was used to moving in awkward places. Down mines or under the guts of the pumping engines to get at difficult bearings that needed his oil can. He had worked his way carefully around lots of places and Tanner's staircase was an easy test. He reached the top. The stair opened out onto an upper hallway or landing which lay directly above the downstairs one, it ran back along the spine of the building under the roof. There were three doors.

Pazu moved silently forward and lay his ear carefully against the first door. There was no doubt who was behind it, the deep booming snores of a man told him all he needed to know. He pressed on to the second door which was on the other side of the landing and would face the garden, above the parlour. He listened. Silence. He stood there three or four minutes straining to pick up any small sound but there was nothing. He put his hand to the doorknob and turned. The door lock released and he carefully pushed. The door opened three or four inches and then let out a loud squeak. Pazu froze. Faintly from downstairs there was a doggie grunt and the click, click of claws across the stone floor. Pazu waited, holding his breath. The snoring continued. Downstairs the dog wandered about for a minute then he heard the sounds no more. Pazu pushed the door again.

The room was quite large but clearly not where he wanted to be. It was filled with junk, beds, boxes, all sorts of accumulated household rubbish. There wasn't room to sit on the floor it was so packed with junk. Pazu looked carefully around wondering how a simple farmer and his wife could own so much rubbish before carefully closing the door behind him. As he pulled it closed he lifted hard up on the doorknob so its weight would bear against the hinge in a slightly different place. This time there was no squeak.

The boy turned, checked behind him towards the snorer's room, and moved on. One more to go.

He reached the far end of the landing where the third door faced him. It looked like this room went across the end width of the house and would be above the kitchen. Again, he listened. There was no sound. Patiently however he waited, the last thing he wanted was for the occupant of this room to be wide awake, and to see him when he went in. After a short while he caught a faint noise. It was the sound of someone turning in their sleep, there was a hissing noise, the noise a blanket and sheet make when someone turns restlessly under them. And something else, a faint sigh, the gentlest of sounds, but such a sweet sound too. Pazu found he was sweating. He wiped his damp palm down his shirt and put his hand to the doorknob. And turned.

please don't lock it

The latch clicked loudly and he applied pressure so it slowly opened. There was no squeak, no other sound. He put his head round the door.

The sight that met him was almost enough to make his heart stop beating. She was there, that was the first thing that he registered. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. The curtain wasn't drawn and through the window facing the courtyard above the kitchen window, bright moonlight flooded in. The combined light of Tahro and Ptamos filled the room with gentle pale beams, the light falling across the wooden floor and the bed. The window was a little open and a light breeze came in. Swallowing past a dryness in his throat, Pazu stood, back pressed to the door, not daring to move, and looked at the bed. It was a warm night, too warm for blankets and she had become hot and pushed them down, the bedding lay across her legs. She wore a white night shirt, she must have made it from one of Morwen's old shirts, like she did with Dola's old clothing. It had a high neck and puffed sleeves that covered only her shoulders and was light and loose. Sheeta lay on her back, one arm hanging out of bed, the white wrist near the floor. Her other arm was raised and lay on her pillow. Pazu couldn't move. He couldn't do anything but stare. The night dress was quite short and between the hem of it and the pushed down blanket there were exposed three or four inches of her legs above the knee. The skin there was as white and smooth as her back, even smoother and softer looking, if that was possible.

But it wasn't just there that Pazu looked. The night dress material was very light and thin and the moonlight that fell across her made it almost translucent. And it was to the place between her neck and her waist that Pazu found his gaze inexorably drawn. He took one look at what was there, at the shadows, and the shape of her and then looked hurriedly away. He shouldn't see such things, such private things. He should leave. Eyes closed, his heart pounding he decided he'd do what he came to do and then go.

Averting his gaze from her, he stepped forwards. Beside the bed was a little cabinet. On it was a candle stuck down with its own wax, a book, her belt, her hair band. These and the clothes she wore were all she owned. He compared these few things to what awaited her at home and he realised that she couldn't live here, in another country, travelling the roads with him. Working from place to place, making a living, travelling on. Her home had everything, a house, her yaoko (1), her farm, her livelihood. That was where she should be, among her friends and people, not with him wandering the land like a gypsy. She deserved better. Pazu reached out and touched the hair band. No, he had to take her home, war or no war, he somehow had to get her home. And if that meant a nobleman would be waiting there and a marriage had been arranged then that was as it should be. It was in Gondoa where she would be happy.

He put down the thing he had brought. It was a clear glass jar, Morwen used them for bottling her pickles and preserves. He'd filled it with cold well water and picked three of the little forget-me-not plants. He turned the jar around and looked at the tiny pale blue flowers. They were the same colour as the moonlight. He turned to go, but before he went he could not help but look again. Her face was turned a little away and her pillow of wiry bushy hair lay about her face. In the moonlight it was no longer red-brown but dark, nearly black and mysterious as the dusk. More than ever he wanted to run his fingers through it but as he faced the bed and his arm reached out, he touched not her but the blanket, the sheet. He'd turned a little and found himself lifting the blanket and drawing it up and over her. He glanced at her one final time before letting the blanket down so she was covered. Warm night or not, she would get cold before dawn. He knelt, as though at an altar and lifted her white arm, placing it across her on top of the blanket.

Standing, he turned to go but as he did so a tiny movement caught his eye. A blue droplet of moonlight moved, a bead, a tear it was, on her neck. The stone, the Laputan stone she wore. But in the moonlight it was doing something. He bent closer and watched it. It lay on her skin in the hollow of her neck and it moved. Inside the polished crystal, behind the winged seal, the inside of the stone seemed to be swirling and pulsing like smoke. Pazu stared, fascinated. He had never seen it do this and he didn't know what it meant. He put his face very close and looked up at the window. The light of Tahro and Ptamos combined and fell on the stone. Pazu could see both moons in the sky, the larger brighter moon below the smaller. The two moons looked like a small head on a larger body. Pazu considered this and would have wondered if it was significant had his thoughts not been interrupted by his name being spoken.

"Paetsu…"

He straightened up instantly, filled with panic. She moved, turned on her side and became restless.

"Paetsu…"

The word wasn't spoken very loudly, but faintly, softly. She spoke in a part- whisper, part- sigh. Sheeta began to move in her sleep, she seemed troubled, she made other noises, low moans as though she was struggling with a dream enemy. Then she spoke again, she spoke twice, repeating something, Pazu heard it clearly but he didn't understand.

"Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh… Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh." (2)

She pushed the blanket down a little again and then made a sound that could not be mistaken. Crying. In her sleep she was crying. Pazu didn't stay, he couldn't intrude any longer. He wanted to comfort her but he shouldn't be here, this was the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong everything. In fear and panic he left the room and fled quickly down the landing, chased all the way by the sound of her crying.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8 March 2007

(1) Yaoko :: Yaks, the Gondoan mountain ox. Bred, for milk, cheese, a kind of sour butter, meat and furs.
(2) Much as I'd love to, at this point in the story I can't give you the translation for this, it would ruin everything. Sorry.

For author notes about Chapter Thirteen, please see my forum (click on my pen name)