Free Tamlyn by James Moloney Page A

a kiss as we had done aboard the ship. But if we had shown our affection in these ways, news of it would have reached home before I did.
    â€˜Some days just have to be lived through, Silvermay,’ Tamlyn said when we stopped short of the Grentrees’ door. ‘I spent many days in my father’s house when I wondered what was the point of being alive. It was worse after he’d blinded my dogs — I had to watchtheir misery and suffered along with them. I wonder if that was why Hallig didn’t kill Ryall immediately — to punish us as much as him?’
    â€˜The Wyrdborn make me sick,’ I said, without thinking.
    â€˜Their ways make me sick, too.’
    My thoughtless tongue had done it again! ‘I didn’t mean —’
    He stopped me with a finger to my lips, which hopefully nobody saw. ‘Tomorrow, Silvermay. That was how I dealt with the nights seeing my dogs suffer: I turned my eyes towards tomorrow.’
    It sounded so wise, but all the same I slept that night with no eagerness for the next day. As it turned out, I was right to dread the morning.
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    Ryall was awake when I slipped out from behind my curtain dressed in a night smock. I hadn’t washed or dressed for the day yet and I felt half-naked when his eyes followed me. He said nothing, though, and I quickly ducked behind the curtain once more. It wasn’t fair to my mother, but I took a long time to get ready that morning. By the time I emerged a second time, she was feeding Ryall from a bowl.
    â€˜Take over from me here, Silvermay,’ she called immediately.
    I finished spooning the porridge into Ryall’s mouth, and when it was done he asked for more.
    â€˜That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’ I said to Birdie when I returned to the pot.
    â€˜Very good.’ Dropping her voice, she added, ‘When he first arrived, he could barely keep a thing down. It was the fever. It’s all but gone now. There was no doubt his arm had to come off.’
    Years ago, Birdie had made a doll for my sisters, which eventually became mine. By then, it had grown ragged from too much love and the shredded rags that filled its inside were escaping through the seams. One day, when I’d been too rough, an arm had ripped away from the shoulder. ‘It just came off,’ I’d told my mother, and now she used those same words about Ryall. I shuddered.
    My mother left soon after to check on another of her patients, taking with her the embroidered sack that was as familiar as it was welcome in every house throughout the village. Tentatively, I returned to Ryall’s bedside.
    His body might have been on the mend, but not his spirits. ‘You should have let me die,’ he said when he’d finished the second bowl of porridge. I noticed that he kept his head deliberately turned to the right so that he wouldn’t glimpse the bandage and what it meant.
    â€˜You were lucky in a way,’ I said. ‘Birdie was able to leave your elbow.’
    At this he stared directly into my eyes, not saying a word, and I realised what a stupid thing I’d said. I doubt I had ever seen such coldness before in the eyes of anyone but a Wyrdborn.
    â€˜I never let you down, Silvermay, not even when Hallig got hold of me in the woods. I thought I could trust you to do the same. Instead, you betrayed me — you let them do this to my arm.’ For the first time since I’d come to sit with him, he looked at the bandage. Then he turned away as though he would never speak to me again.
    I fled into the open air and burst into tears like a silly girl caught cheating in a game. I needed Tamlyn. He wasn’t hard to find: a tall and busy figure in the fields. But when I reached him, there were three other men close by and my father was not far away, watching him as promised.
    Tamlyn listened as best he could through my sobs and offered sympathy in words, since that was all we could share.
    â€˜Of