Free Tamlyn by James Moloney

me.
    â€˜You can’t walk away, girl. There’s more for you to do. He must be convinced.’
    â€˜No,’ I said. ‘He’ll never agree. That’s why I made him say how much he wants to live. We must make the decision for him. You must cut away the poisoned part of his arm whether he agrees or not. He asked me to find a way and that is the only one.’
    Birdie stared at me for a long time before she said, ‘I was right. You have grown up in your time away from us, Silvermay. I worried you would cling to soft-hearted hopes, earlier, but I was too hasty. What you’re proposing seems hard on Ryall, but it’s the right decision. Call your father, and that young man, too. They’ll have to hold him down while I do what has to be done.’
    â€˜I can’t be there when you do it.’
    â€˜I understand,’ she said. ‘You’ve done enough. You have saved a life, and not for the first time, I’d guess.’

7
Desolate Days
    O ssin and Tamlyn were mending a net on the banks of the stream when I found them and explained why they were needed. Neither hurried, nor even said a word on the walk back to our cottage, until, just before they disappeared inside, my father muttered, ‘Poor Ryall.’
    Then they were gone and I certainly wasn’t going to follow.
    Ryall guessed what was to happen as soon as he saw two strong men at his bedside. ‘Silvermay!’ he shouted, and kept bellowing my name over and over.
    I ran along the lane, away from the cottage so that I couldn’t hear him any more. Even this wasn’t far enough once the knife cut into his flesh. There was no potion in Birdie’s bag to dull that kind of pain and his screams could be heard throughout the village, in myown ears especially. It was horrible. I never want to live through a half-hour like that again.
    Finally, there was silence, blessed silence. It was done. I’m sure there were more whimpers of pain, but these didn’t reach to the edge of the village where I had sought refuge. I didn’t return until the afternoon, and by then the bloody rags had been burned, clean sheets spread on the bed, and Ryall lay sleeping with a pristine bandage wound tightly around his arm just below the elbow. Where the rest of his arm had been, there was nothing.
    â€˜Oh Ryall,’ I whispered. ‘What have I done to you?’
    I wished I’d never left Haywode, never gone to Nan Tocha, and Ryall had never stumbled across us on the trails where he set his traps. Then he would still be happy, with two strong arms and ten nimble fingers for his handiwork, and lively eyes that looked ahead to a life spent carefree and content.
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    The second night of my homecoming had none of the excitement of the first. How can there be joy when something so devastating happens to a young man you care about? My only comfort came from the colour that was already returning to Ryall’s cheeks now that the festering wound no longer poisoned his blood.
    Birdie had dosed him with as much of her sleeping potions as she dared and so he didn’t wake as I helped with the dinner, nor when we spoke in low tones at the table. Tamlyn joined us once again. Without a word being said, it had been accepted that he would eat the evening meal with us so that he wasn’t a burden on the Grentrees. After the religo’s visit at the end of the harvest, every mouthful had to be carefully rationed so that no one starved during the coming winter.
    When it was time for Tamlyn to return to the Grentrees’, I blurted out, ‘I’ll walk you there.’
    I sounded foolish because the journey was barely fifty paces and he hardly needed my protection. I was hoping for a few minutes alone with him, of course. But even after dark, there were figures going about the lanes between the houses and eyes watching through the many windows. I would have liked to feel his arm around me, or, better still, shared