Free Lavondyss (Mythago Cycle) by Robert Holdstock Page A

have Christian names, and that’s for sure.’
    ‘My dolls’ names are my own business,’ she said.
    ‘Your dolls’ names are the devil’s business,’ Gaunt retorted, and added almost inaudibly, ‘Broken Boy’s Fancy …’
    He rose stiffly from the bench and rubbed the lower part of his back. As he walked away across the garden Tallis watched him, puzzled by what she felt to be his sudden anger, saddened by it. She couldn’t think what she had done. He had been friendly, chatty, then abruptly turned hostile; just because of her dolls.
    Gaunt called back, ‘You’re your grandfather’s girl, all right.’
    ‘I don’t remember him,’ she said, kicking beneath the bench, her knuckles white where she gripped the seat.
    ‘Don’t you just …’ Gaunt said, then turned in the middle of the lawn to stare back at the girl. He thought hard for a moment, then came to a quick decision. ‘All I want to know is … if I ever ask you for help … and I don’t mean now, not yet, not for a while … but if I ask you for help …’
    He hesitated and Tallis thought that he looked nervous, more uncomfortable than she had ever seen him, watching her in a knowing, almost fearful way. ‘If I ask you for help,’ he repeated, ‘
will
you help?’
    ‘Help what?’ she said back, equally nervous and very puzzled. She really didn’t understand what he was talking about.
    ‘Will you help me,’ he said again, putting strange emphasis on the words. ‘If I ask for help … will you help me!’
    She didn’t answer for a moment. Then, ‘What killed the rat?’
    After the briefest of pauses Gaunt smiled thinly, shaking his head as if to say, ‘Clever little so-and-so’. ‘You’d bargain with me, would you?’
    ‘Yes,’ Tallis said. ‘I’ll bargain with you.’
    ‘Water,’ he said quietly.
    ‘I thought so,’ Tallis said. She shrugged. ‘Yes. I’ll help. Of course I’ll help.’
    ‘That’s a promise then,’ he said, and wagged a finger. ‘And a promise broke is a life choked. We’ll call this one “Gaunt’s Asking”. Don’t forget.’
    Tallis watched him go, her small body shaking, deeply disturbed by his words. She liked Mr Gaunt. He was disgusting, and he teased her, and he always smelled of sweat; but he was a comforting presence and she could not imagine life without him. He told her silly stories andshowed her bits and pieces of nature. Sometimes he got irritable with her, sometimes he seemed unaware of her. But until today he had never confronted her.
    She liked him and of course she would help him … but in what way? What had he meant by that?
Help
him. Perhaps he had meant help him to make dolls, but that seemed unlikely. And why had he been so
upset
by her dolls (and where had he seen her making them?). Her dolls were things that were special to her, part of her game. They had meaning for Tallis Keeton, but for no one else. They were fun, and they were magic, but their magic was a special magic and had nothing to do with the gardener, or her parents, or anyone else.
    A few minutes later, when she went back to her camp between the sheds, the smells of woodsmoke and winter had gone. Perhaps she had been mistaken. And yet the thought of a fire, burning somewhere out of sight, intrigued her.
    She found a stick of firewood and took it back to her room. Using her own tools she blunted the sharp edges, rounded the head and cut a deep gouge for the neck. She carved eyes that were closed and a thin mouth that smiled, adding two hands and crossed legs. She patterned the hair as flame. She returned this fire doll to the alley, throwing it to the far end, close to the grimy greenhouse glass.
    She waited at the end of the alley for a while but the doll did not call back the fire: that scent of snow and woodsmoke had slipped away, out of the summer’s heat.
    Someone
– an invisible someone. The whole conversation with Gaunt became very meaningful suddenly. He had referred to Tallis as ‘her grandfather’s