Children of the May (Children of the May Book 1)

Chapter Twenty-Six: Magikos (part one)

I punched the wall in the second courtyard. It hurt, but it helped release some of my anger. That they should all be suspicious of Margaret… all of them apart from Accolon – Accolon!

I dried my wet hands on my cloak, stretched my face into a smile, and went back into the great hall.

The meal was over, and the others were making their plans for the day. Mordred was heading up to see Palomides, while Elia was off to the music room to continue her attempt to teach herself the trumpet. ‘When I get it, you’ll hear it right around the castle,’ she had been saying for the previous week. ‘But at the moment it just sounds like a fart.’

‘We are all quite aware of what it sounds like, thank you,’ Bellina told her. ‘We’ve heard. We’ve heard too much. It is harrowing. You’re not half the musician you claim to be.’

But Bellina’s sharp words did not hurt Elia’s feelings; the little bard simply laughed and stuck her tongue out at the cruel girl, before wandering off to her practice.

Margaret was in the corner, where Alisander and Aglinda were trying to teach her a game they’d invented involving chalk and stones. None of the rest of us could follow the rules they’d developed.

Epicene caught my sleeve as I was passing the table. ‘It is time to go to the library, Drift,’ she whispered. ‘I have found a book amongst the Greek texts. I think it has chapters on spell-breaking.’

‘N-Not today, Epicene,’ I snapped, my head still filled with the thought that the fire-sorcerer was helping Melwas deceive Mordred. ‘I-I-I’m going to show M-Margaret the castle.’

‘Drift, please.’ Epicene’s pupils were huge in her white eyes.

‘N-No.’

* * *

‘My mam used to sing me a song before she died,’ Margaret told me as we climbed the stairs of the north tower. I had made her stay silent until we passed Palomides’ chamber, telling her that the invalid should not be disturbed. ‘Did your mother ever sing to you, Drift?’

I pretended I was out of breath and shook my head.

‘Mam used to sing this song to me every night, just before she pulled the curtain around my bed. I can remember her sitting just there in the rushlight. Dad would be by the stove, warming his feet on the grate. My mother’s long hair hung down, and from where I was it looked like Dad was in a picture, and its frame was made of her hair.

‘After Mam died I thought I’d forgotten the song. I’d lie awake at night trying to remember the words and the tune, but they’d never come to me.

‘When I was in the sea that night, after the ship broke up, after Aglinda was pulled away from me by the current, when I thought I was taking my last breath – suddenly there it was. I thought I could hear Mam singing to me from the next life. It felt like home, like I was back at the cottage and she was still alive.’

I wiped a tear from her eye. She smiled.

‘When I woke up here in the castle, in Lady Bertilak’s chamber, the song was still in my head. I had forgotten it for ten years, and it took meeting you to bring it back, Drift.

The cottage hearth

Is sweet and warm

Much warmer than

The marsh-light’s call

My sweetest babe