Mary Brown - Unicorn Ring 02 - Pigs Don't Fly- But Dragons d

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Pigs Don't Fly

This one is for my little brother,

Micky-Michael, and my half-sister,

Anna, and their families.

Acknowledgments

Thanks, as always, to my husband Peter, for his care and patience.

Belated thanks—sorry, folks!—to Bobby Travers and his daughter

Joanna for smoothing our way out here.

Thanks, too, to Margaret and Barry Shaw for their help with

Christopher.

I am also grateful to our alcalde, Don Carlos Mateo Donet Donet,

for his assistance and encouragement.

Last, but never ever least, thank you Samimi-Babaloo, my

Sam—just for being yourself!

Part 1: An End

Chapter One

My mother was the village whore and I loved her very much.

Having regard to the nature of her calling, we lived a discreet distance away from

her clients, in a cottage up the end of a winding lane that backed onto the forest.

Once the dwelling had been a forester's hut, shielded by a stand of pines from the

biting winter northerlies, but during the twenty years since she had come to the

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village it had been transformed into a pleasant one-roomed cottage with a lean-to

at the side for wood and stores. Part of the ground outside had been cleared and

fenced, and we had a vegetable patch, three apple trees, an enclosure for the hens,

a tethering post for the goat and a skep for the bees.

Inside it was very cozy. Apart from the bed, which took, with its hangings,

perhaps a third of the space, there was a table, two stools, hooks for our clothing, a

chest for linen and a dresser for the pots and dishes. Above the fire was the rack

for drying herbs or clothes, beside it a folding screen that Mama sometimes used

when she was entertaining if it was too cold for me to stay outside—though as I

grew older I preferred to sit among the pungent, resinous logs in the lean-to,

wrapped in my father's cloak, thinking my own thoughts, dreaming my own

dreams, where witches and dragons, princes and treasure could make me forget

chilblains or a runny nose until it was time for Mama to call me back into the

warmth and the comfort of honey-cakes and mulled wine in front of the fire.

Then Mama would sit in her great carved chair in front of the blaze—a chair so

heavy with age and carving it couldn't be moved—a queen on her throne, me

crouched on a cushion at her feet, my head against her knee, and if she were in a

good mood she would talk about Life and all it held in store for me.

"You will be all I could never be," she would say. "For you I have worked and

planned so that you may have a handsome husband, a home of your own, and a

dress for every season. . . ."

That would be luxury indeed! Just imagine, for instance, a green dress for spring

in a fine, soft wool, a saffron-yellow silk for summer, a brown worsted for autumn

and a thick black serge for winter with fresh shifts for each. . . . A man who could

afford those for his wife would have to be rich indeed, and live in a house with an

upstairs as well as a downstairs. Even as I listened the dresses changed colour in

my mind's eye as quick as the painted flight of the kingfisher.

Mama's planning for me had been thorough indeed. On a Monday she entertained

the miller, who kept us regularly supplied with flour and meal for me to practice

my pies, pastry and cakes; Tuesday brought the clerk with his scraps of vellum

and inks for me to form my letters and show my skills with tally-sticks; on

Wednesday Mama spent two hours with the butcher and once again I practiced my

cooking. On Thursday the visit of the tailor-cum-shoemaker gave me pieces of

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cloth and leather to show off my stitching; Friday brought the Mayor, who was

skilled with pipe and tabor so I could display my trills and taps and on a Saturday

the old priest listened to me read, heard my catechism, and took our confessions.

Sunday was Mama's day off.

She had other visitors as well, of course, besides her regulars. The apothecary

came once a month or so, sharing with us his wisdom of herbs and bone-setting,

the carpenter usually at the same interval, teaching me to recognize the best woods

and their various properties, and how to repair and polish furniture. The thatcher

showed me how to choose and gather reeds for repairing the roof, the

basketmaker, also an accomplished poacher, instructed me in both his crafts.

All in all, as Mama kept telling me, I must have been the best educated girl in the

province, and she covered any gaps in my education with her own knowledge. It

was she who taught me plain sewing, cooking and cleaning, leaving the

refinements to the others. She insisted that as soon as I was big enough to wield a

broom, lift a cooking-pot or heat water without scalding myself, that I kept us fed,

clean and washed, and throughout the year my days were full and busy.

During the spring and summer I would be up before dawn—taking care not to

wake Mama—and into the forest, cutting wood, fetching water, looking to my

traps, gathering herbs and then home again to collect eggs, feed the hens, and

weed the vegetables. Then I would milk the nanny and lay and light the fire, mix

the dough for bread, sweep the floor and empty the piss-pot in the midden, so that

when Mama finally woke there was fresh milk for her and a scramble of eggs

while I made the great bed and heated water to wash us both; then I changed her

linen, combed and dressed her hair and prepared her for her visitors. Once the

ashes were good and hot they were raked aside for the bread, or if it was pies or

patties I would set them on the hearthstone under their iron cover and rake back

the ashes to cover them.

Once Mama was settled in her chair by the fire it was away again for more wood

and water and once I was back there were the hives to check, a watch on the

curdling goat's milk for cheese, digging or sowing or watering in the vegetable-

patch and perhaps mixing straw and mud for any cracks in the fabric of the

cottage. Then indoors for sewing, mending, washing pots and bowls, followed by

any other tasks Mama thought necessary.

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Once the gathering, storing and salting of autumn were over, my outside tasks

during the winter were of a necessity curtailed, although there were still the wood-

and water-chores, even with snow on the ground. There were the stores to check:

jars of our honey, crocks of flour, trays of apples, salted ham, clamps of root

vegetables, strings of onions and garlic, bunches of herbs, dried beans and pulses.

That done, it was time for candle-dipping, spinning, carding wool, sharpening of

knives, re-stuffing pillows and cushions, sewing and mending, mixing of pastes

and potions and repairing of shoes.

Then came the time I liked best. While I dampened down the fire and made us a

brew of camomile flowers, Mama would comb her hair and sing some of the old

songs. We would climb into bed and snuggle down behind the drawn hangings for

warmth, and if she felt like it my mother would either tell me a tale of wicked

witches and beautiful princesses or else, which I like even better, would tell once

more of how she had come to be here and of the men she had known. Especially

my father.

I had heard her story many times before, but a good tale loses nothing in the

retelling, and I would close my eyes and see pictures in my mind of the pretty

young girl fleeing home to escape the vile attentions of her stepfather; I would

shiver with sympathy as I followed the flight of the pregnant lass through the

worst of winters and sigh with relief when she reached, by chance, the haven of

our village, and my heart filled with relief when I re-heard how she had been taken

in by the miller and his wife. Once her pregnancy was discovered, however, there

was a meeting of the Council to decide what should be done with her, for now she

was a Burden on the Parish and could be turned away to starve.

"But of course there was no question of that," said Mama complacently. "Once I

had discovered who was what, I had distributed my favors enthusiastically to those

who mattered, and all the important men of the village were well disposed to heed

my suggestion for easing their . . . problems, shall we say? Of course much was

tease and promise, for there is nothing more arousing to a man than the thought of

undisclosed delights to come. . . . Remember that, daughter. You had better write

it down some time. Of course I was far more beautiful and accomplished than the

other girls in the village, though I say it myself, even though I was four months

gone. I still had my figure and my soft, creamy skin, and of course every man likes

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a woman with hair as black and smooth as mine. . . .You would say, would you

not, child, that my skin and hair are still incomparable?"

"Of course, Mama!" I would answer fervently, though if truth were told her hair

had grey in it aplenty, and her skin was wrinkled like skin too long in water. But

she had no mirror but me and her clients, and who were the latter to notice in the

flattery of candles or behind drawn bed-curtains? Besides, those she entertained

were mostly well into middle age themselves and in no position to criticize.

"So by the time the meeting of the Council came round it was a foregone

conclusion that I would stay. It was decided to offer me this cottage and food and

supplies in return for my services," continued Mama. "Of course I laid down

certain conditions. This place was to be renovated, extended, re-roofed and

furnished. I was also to entertain six days a week only: Sunday was to be my day

of rest.

"At first, of course, I was at it morning, noon and night, but eventually the novelty-

value wore off and my friends and I settled to a comfortable routine. Your elder

half-brother, Erik, was born here and three years later your other half-brother,

Luke. . . ."

Erik now was a man grown with a shrewish and complaining wife. Dark, long-

faced, with tight lips, he had teased me unmercifully as a child. Luke I

remembered more kindly. He was apprenticed to the miller and had the same

sandy hair, snub nose and gap-toothed smile. It was obvious who his father was

and he even resembled him in temperament: kind and a little dim.

And now came the part of Mama's story of which I never wearied.

"Some dozen or more years ago," she would begin, "your half-brothers were fast

asleep and I was all alone, restless with the spirit of autumn that was sending the

swallows one way, bringing the geese the other. It was twilight, and all at once

there came a knocking at the door. It had to be a stranger, for there was fever in

the village and I had forsworn my regulars until it had passed. . . ."

"And so there you were, Mama," I would prompt, "all alone in the growing dusk. .

. ." Just in case she had forgotten, or didn't feel like going on. So vivid was my

imagination that I felt the shivers of her long-ago apprehension, imagining myself

alone and unprotected as she had been with the October mist curling around the

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cottage like a tangle of great grey eels, slither-slide, slither-creep. . . .

"And so there I was," continued Mama, "determined to ignore whoever, whatever

it was. But again came that dreadful knocking! I grasped the poker tight in my

hand, for I had forgotten to bolt the door—"

"And then?" I could scarcely breathe for excitement.

"And then—and then the door was pulled open and a man, a tall, thin man, stood

in the shadows, the hood of his cloak pulled down so I could not see his face. You

can imagine how terrified I felt! "What—what do you want?" I quavered, grasping

the poker still tighter. He took one step forward, and now I could see his cloak was

forest-green, and the hand that held it was brown and sinewy but still he said

nothing. Then was I truly afraid, for specters do not speak, and of what use was a

poker against the supernatural?"

I gasped in sympathy, crossing myself in superstitious fear.

"I think that my bowels would have turned to water had he stood there silent one

moment longer," she said, "but of a sudden he thrust one hand against his side and

held the other out towards me, saying in a low and throbbing tone: 'A vision of

loveliness indeed! Do I wake or sleep? In very truth I believe the pain of my

wound has conjured up a dream of angels.' "

How very romantic! No wonder Mama was impressed.

"The very next moment he crumpled in a heap on my doorstep, out like a snuffed

candle! What else could I do but tend him?" and she spread her hands helplessly.

And that was how my father had come into her life. At once she had taken him

into both her heart and her bed—what woman wouldn't with that

introduction?—and nursed him back to health. For an idyllic month, while the

village still lay under the curse of a low fever, my father and mother enjoyed their

secret love.

"He was both a courtly and a fierce lover," said my mother. "A trifle unpolished,

perhaps, but not beyond teaching. He was always eager to learn those little

refinements that make all the difference to a woman's enjoyment. . . ." and my

mother paused, a reminiscent smile on her face.

"And what did he look like, my father?"

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But here always came the odd part. Perhaps the passage of years had played

strange tricks with my mother's memory for my father never looked the same for

two tellings. At first he was tall, then recollection had him shorter. Dark as Hades,

fair as sunlight; eyes grey as storm clouds, blue as sky, brown as autumn leaf,

green as duck-weed; he was loquacious, he was taciturn; he was happy, he was

sad; shy, outgoing . . . I was sure that if ever I loved a man I would remember

every detail forever, right down to the number of his teeth, the shape of his

fingernails, the curl of his lashes. But then Mama had known as many men as

there were leaves on a tree, so she said, and always tended to remember them by

their physical endowments rather than their physiognomy. In this respect she

assured me that my father was outstanding.

I hated the sad part of my father's story, but it had to be told. One frosty day, as

my mother told it, the men from the village came and dragged him from the

cottage and carried him away, never to be seen again. "They were jealous of our

love," she said, and she had never ceased hoping that he would return, her

wounded lover who came with the falling leaves and left with the first frosts.

He had left nothing behind save his tattered cloak, a purse full of strange coins,

and a ring. Mama said the coins were for my dowry, but that the ring was special,

a magic ring. She had shown it to me a couple of times, but it looked like nothing

more than the shaving of a horn, a colorless spiral. It would not fit any of my

mother's fingers, and she would not let me try it on.

"He wore it round his neck on a cord," she said, "for it would not fit him either. He

said it was from the horn of a unicorn, passed down in his family for generations,

but it did nothing for him. . . ."

She had tried to sell it a couple of times, but as it looked so ordinary and fit no

one, she had tossed it into a box with the rest of her bits and pieces of

jewelry—necklace, brooch, two bracelets—where it still lay, gathering dust.

* * *

My days were not all work and no play, though I mostly made my own free time

by working that much harder. I had two special treats. If the weather was fine,

summer or winter, I would escape into the woods or down by the river, lie under a

tree and gaze up into the leaf-dappled sunshine and dream, or sit by the river and

dangle my toes in the fast-running water. This would be summer, of course, but

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even in the cold and snow there were games to play. Skipping-stones, snowballs,

imaginary chases, battles with trees and bushes . . . Away from the cottage I was

anything I chose and could forget the confines of my cumbersome flesh and flew

with the birds, swam with the fish, ran with the deer. Gaze up into the rocking

trees in spring and I was a rook, swaying with the wind till I felt sick, my beak

weaving the rough bundles they called nests. Dangle my fingers in the water and I

was a fish, heading upstream into the current, the river sliding past my flanks like

silk. Given the bright fall of leaves and I ran along the branches with the squirrels

and hid my nuts in secret holes I would never remember. Winter and I

sympathized with the striped badgers, leaving the fug of their sets on warmer days

to search for the scrunch of beetle or a forgotten berry or two, blackened into a

honey sweetness by the frost.

But the thing I loved most in the world to do was write in my book.

This had grown from my very first attempt at writing my letters, many years ago.

Now it was thick as a kindling log and twice as heavy. At first the clerk had

formed letters for me in the earth outside, or had taught me to mark a flat stone

with another, scratchy one, but as I progressed he had shown me how to fashion a

quill pen and mix inks, so it was but a short step to putting my first, tentative

words on a scraped piece of vellum.

As parchment or skin was so expensive I sometimes had to wait for weeks for a

fresh piece, but I practiced diligently with my finger on the table to ensure I

should make no mistakes when the time came.

For the Ten Commandments, my first page, the old priest provided me with a fine,

clear page, but by the time I finished it was as rough and scraped as a pig's bum.

My next task was the days of the week, months and seasons of the year, followed

by the principal saint's days and festivals of the Church calendar. Then came

numbers from one to a hundred. This done, the elderly priest dead and another,

less tolerant, in his place—he never visited Mama—I was free to write what I

wished, whenever I could beg a scrap of vellum from the clerk. Down went

recipes for cakes, horehound candy, poultices, dyes and charms.

I do not remember what occasioned my first essays into proverbs, saws and

sayings. It may have been the mayor, once chiding me for hurrying my tasks.

"Don't remove your shoes till you reach the stream," he had said, and this conjured

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up such a vivid picture of stumbling barefoot among stones, thorns and nettles that

down it had to go. Not that it cured me of haste, mind, but it was an extremely

sensible suggestion. Then there were my mother's frequent strictures on the

behavior expected of a lady: "Do not put your chewed bones on the communal

platter; reserve them to be thrown on the fire, returned to the stock pot, or given to

the dogs." Or: "A lady does not wipe her mouth or nose on her sleeve; if there is

no napkin available, use the inner hem of your shift."

She also gave me the benefit of her experience of sex; pet names for the private

parts, methods of exciting passion, of restraining it; how to deal with the

importunate or the reluctant, and various draughts to prevent conception or

procure an abortion. Down these all went in my book, for I was sure they would

one day prove useful, though she had explained that husbands didn't need the same

titillation as clients. "After all, once you're married he's yours: you will need

excuses more than encouragements."

When the pages of my book grew to a dozen, then twenty, I threaded them

together and begged a piece of soft leather from the tanner for a cover and a piece

of silk from Mama to wrap it in. A heated poker provided the singed title: My

Boke. At first Mama had laughed at my scribblings, as she called them, for she

could not read or write herself, but once she realized I was treasuring her little

gems of wisdom and could read them back to her, she even gave me an occasional

coin or two for more materials, and reminded me constantly of her forethought in

providing me with such a good education.

"What with your father's dowry and my teachings, you will be able to choose any

man in the kingdom," she said.

And that was perhaps the only cause of friction between us.

A secure, protected, industrious childhood slipped almost unnoticed into puberty,

but I made the mistake one day of asking Mama how long it would be before she

found me the promised husband, to be met with a coldness, a hurt withdrawal I

had not anticipated. "Are you so ready to leave me alone after all I have done for

you?" I kept quiet for two more years, but then asked, timidly, again. I was

unprepared for the barrage of blows. Her rage was terrible. She beat me the colors

of the rainbow, shrieking that I was the most ungrateful child in the world and

didn't deserve the consideration I had been shown. How could I think of leaving

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her?

Of course I sobbed and cried and begged her on my knees to forgive me my

thoughtlessness, and after a while she consented for me to cut out and sew a new

robe for her, so I knew I was back in favor. Even so, as year slipped into year

without change, I began to wonder just when my life would alter, when I would

have a home and husband of my own, as she had promised.

And then, suddenly, everything changed in a single day.

Chapter Two

That morning Mama was uncharacteristically edgy and irritable. She complained

of having eaten something that disagreed with her, and although I made an

infusion of mint leaves and camomile, she still seemed restless and uneasy.

"I shall go back to bed," she announced. "And I don't want you clattering around.

Have you finished all your outside jobs?" I had. "Then you can go down to the

village and fetch some more salt. We're not without, but will need more before

winter sets in. Wait outside and I'll find a coin or two. . . ."

This was always the ritual. Our store of coins, which Mama always took from

passing trade, were hidden away, and only she knew the whereabouts. I didn't see

the need for such secrecy, but she explained that I was such a silly, gullible child

that I might give away the hiding place. I couldn't see how, as I scarcely spoke to

anyone, but she insisted.

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摘要：

PigsDon'tFlyPigsDon'tFlyThisoneisformylittlebrother,Micky-Michael,andmyhalf-sister,Anna,andtheirfamilies.AcknowledgmentsThanks,asalways,tomyhusbandPeter,forhiscareandpatience.Belatedthanks—sorry,folks!—toBobbyTraversandhisdaughterJoannaforsmoothingourwayouthere.Thanks,too,toMargaretandBarryShawforth...

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