Free Tamlyn by James Moloney Page B

course Ryall’s going to be angry, Silvermay. He will say foul things to your mother, and to me when I visit him. It will take time for him to accept what had to be done.’
    â€˜He blames me, and he’s right.’
    â€˜You saved his life. He will see that one day.’
    The other men were standing idle now, waiting for Tamlyn to do his bit. I tramped back across the stubble left by the harvest, hoping my mother would be finished with her other patient by now. Instead, I spotted Hespa.
    â€˜I can’t face Ryall like this,’ I told her. ‘Birdie will insist I stay close to nurse him while she makes her rounds. Will you take my place, Hespa? Please, just for today.’
    She’d been my closest friend since before I could remember and she saw how much I needed her help. ‘Of course,’ she said without hesitation.
    There was a trade-off, as you’d expect. I had to take on her chores for the day, and it was just my luck that it was washing day. I hated washing. All of the villagers’ clothes were cleaned in a large stone trough fed by a channel diverted from the stream. The trough was covered by a roof supported by four sturdy poles. Beneath its shade, the women of the village tucked up their skirts and waded barefoot into the knee-deep water, where they slapped wet clothing onto the stones and rubbed soap into stains.
    It was lunchtime before we spread the wrung-out sheets on nearby shrubs to catch the sun and the midday breeze. Returning to our cottage, I foundHespa sitting in the sun, giving its autumn rays one last chance to brown her skin before it faded to the snowy white of winter.
    â€˜Don’t worry, I haven’t left Ryall alone,’ she assured me when I sat down beside her. ‘Your mother’s with him now; she said I should come out for some air. How are your hands?’
    â€˜Wrinkled and sore,’ I said. ‘How do you keep yours so soft?’
    â€˜By getting my friends to do the washing for me whenever I can,’ she said with a barely concealed smirk and held her arms at full stretch with the palms of her hands facing downwards to show off the uncreased skin and perfectly shaped nails.
    â€˜Mind you, I was about to rake my nails across that boy’s face when Birdie came back,’ she said, no longer teasing me. ‘He’s the rudest, most bad-tempered human being I’ve ever come across. And immature.’
    To Hespa, that simply meant he was younger than her and therefore didn’t count in her world.
    â€˜He’s in there moping and feeling sorry for himself, but lots of men lose an arm in accidents around the farm,’ she went on. ‘What’s so special about him?’
    â€˜He’s a trapper,’ I explained. ‘And very good at it. It was what made him special, and it’s not as though life has been very generous to him since the day he wasborn. His parents died when he was only a baby. He used his skill to make something of himself and now we’ve taken it away.’
    Hespa still didn’t look very sympathetic.
    â€˜Try to understand,’ I said, laying my hand on top of hers. ‘How would you feel if some boiling fat splashed onto your face when your mother was making soap? The burns would leave scars for the rest of your life.’
    Her eyes widened in horror. Her face was her most precious gift. ‘That’s different. How you look matters to a woman.’
    â€˜And for a man, it’s what he can do with his hands that earns him the respect of other men.’
    I’d obviously hit a nerve: behind her eyes I saw regret that she hadn’t been more patient with Ryall. Perhaps it was the twinge of guilt in herself that made her sense it in me.
    â€˜You blame yourself, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, just remember, Silvermay, it wasn’t you who caused the damage to his arm. It was that Wyrdborn monster, one of Coyle Strongbow’s sons.’ She