Secrets of the Valley by Simon Mitchell. An adventure of mystery and magic in the valley of the River Fowey in Cornwall

Chapter 2. Castledore 23AD

"Get out of the way, you oaf," shouted the leader of the five riders. I leapt as the ponies galloped full-tilt through the entrance of Castledore, and just made it clear as they thundered past. The men dismounted swiftly and the leader strode over and grabbed my jerkin.
“Take care of the ponies,” he ordered, dropping me. The men were excited and swiftly converged on the Chieftain's hut. Soon the fort was buzzing with news of an expected attack coming from over the river.
I climbed a ladder up to the top of the stockade and looked out over the river towards the sea. There seemed nothing wrong, only the quiet. Even the birds were quiet. The air was tense as waiting for thunder. A flock of gulls took off from the wooded hill on the opposite bank, squealing into the air.
"Looks to me like they'll be crossing at low tide," growled one of the men near me."You might as well get some rest while you can. Make sure that the ponies are settled first," said the man, looking at me with knife eyes.
I went back to the ponies to give them fresh straw, grain and water. The clatter of men preparing weapons seemed isolated, easily absorbed into the eerie silence around the fort. I sat on sacks in my packed cubby-hole come storeroom, but I couldn't settle and didn't feel sleepy.

My thoughts reached back to the only time I had seen the blue-eyed man. He had jumped from the boat upriver. Catching the rope, his clothes brushed against the rigging and something fell from his belt as I sat watching. It floated to me and I skimmed it from the water. It was a flower, travel-weary and faded, now wet, but unlike any I had ever seen in the valley of my home. A one-sided raceme of tiny bells hung on the brittle stalk. I put it inside my jerkin and watched the men as they disembarked at river's end.
The travellers wore thick hides considering the summer warmth but their hands and faces showed a golden-brown, like my own dark-stained arms. The party shifted carrying sacks from the boat while the first man watched.
He had a graceful quality that separated him from the others and he stood by while they unloaded. It was as if he attracted the sunlight to himself.  He turned around and looked at me. His eyes were the clear-blue of intense sky and they reached deep into me. His gaze filled me with a sense of icy calm and wonder.
Warmth flooded my body as the man smiled. Should I give him back the flower? His thought reached across to me and he gently shook his head. He broke eye contact and joined his party, already entering the woods to the inland path.
A single tribesman remained in the boat. He pushed off and the rhythmical splash of oars filled the river glade and then faded. I was alone with the sounds of wind in trees, water on stone, and a strange gift, the flower.

Somebody rattled the door to my  store-room, breaking me from my thoughts. It was gloomy in here, the little light that came from under the eaves was dimmed by the bundles of hanging herb that gave the place such a distinctive smell and sometimes made me sneeze.

I had been upriver on an errand for my stepfather when the blue eyed man gave me the flower. I was delivering goat skins to a trader at Riversend, the fort overlooking the upper tidal reach of the river. I always stopped here if I could, to watch the boats and people come and go, it was a busy route. From here it was a short walk overland to the north-coast river. Many travellers used the route as a shortcut, avoiding the pirates and treacherous waters further to the west of land. Gold came from the north along this route. Moorland tin and hides shipped from here to trading posts by the sea, controlled by the Chieftain at the fort where I now lived.

Strayberry was my favourite roan and she always snickered quietly as I stroked her whiskered face. Dobbie, the other pony was tricky. He would pretend to be tame and then throw you off when you least expected, he also nipped as soon as you turned your head. I attached his reins to Strayberry's tail and we took the gradual slope, following the soft noises of the river down to the flood plain. My stepfather was impatient and violent if I didn't return quickly to work at the tannery.
On the way home, I thought of the all knowing eyes and the warmth of the man's smile. I could feel the faded flower inside my jerkin like it was a new part of me. I knew this was a special gift. I vowed to keep it a secret, which so far I had even though this gift had sinced changed my life.

Shouts of men at arms came from outside my store-room where I lay and I opened my eyes. It was armed men running by. The creepy silence grew again as noon passed and the tide fell away. It made me sleepy. My thoughts turned back to home, a short way up the valley. The trees thinned from the river path and I heard in my mind the enthusiastic greeting of the settlement dogs. The sounds and smells of home crossing the glade. I emerged from the trees and three of the dogs bounded towards me wagging tails and showing their gums in curious dog-smiles.
As many huts as I have fingers stood in a grassy glade, nestling in the sunrise side of the valley woods. Smoke and the smell of a fresh-cooked stew wafted to me over the more pungent smell of hides. My stomach answered with a hungry gurgle and I urged Strayberry forward.
"Where have you been, Fintan?" it was my stepfather, stepping from behind a large skin drying on a frame.
"I've been up to Riversend, like you asked, Da. I delivered the skins to the man you told me to. He said he will see you later." I knew it was futile, he was always looking for fault.
As I came within reach he pulled me from Strayberry, holding me bruising-hard by the upper arm. He was a big man and I knew if I put up a struggle, he would just slap me across the back of my head.
"Here," he said, pointing a pit of skins. "This is what you should be doing. Get scraping." He shoved me towards them, picked the tool from a log and threw it down at my feet. Leading Strayberry and the other roan, he stomped off muttering about idle children. He was always like this, in a perpetual black mood that sometimes worsened when he drank the rough cider brewed by his cousin. His teeth were bad and he seemed to take it out on me for some reason.
I had never known my own father. Ma told me he was a brave and happy man, killed in a raid on the river before my first memory. She had given me a few things that he left, which I hid when Harm moved in.

I took the delicate flower from my clothes and laid it safe in the sun to finish drying.
I hated being a tanner's boy. As I reached into the pit of horse-piss, bark and roots to pull out the next goatskin I gagged and the stench made my eyes water. I let it drain for a moment and carried it over to the stretching racks. Globules of fat and blood still spotted the inner surface. Harm removed most of the mess before soaking, and it lay stinking in a vat nearby, ready for boiling down to oil the skins. Another vat contained rotting fish, which was reduced with quick-lime into the stench-mix.
I put the skin on a log to drip and untied the dried one from a wooden frame. It was attached with fine plaited sinews of leather woven by my mother. I put the skin in the lean-to on top of the other dried ones and took the frame over to the fresh skin.
First one corner, then opposite, then the other corner and its opposite. I attached the middle portions, tensioning the skin on opposite sides. As the sun dried it would tighten and aid the cleaning process.
The vile mess ran down my arm soaking into my clothes and adding to my tanner's stain. Sometimes Harm made me collect this run-off from the corral, a filthy pond of pony stench. I would love just one set of clothes without this taint. I could never get used to it although it hung perpetually about our home.

I attached the frame to the upright stakes and started scraping. The bright eyes of the man came to my mind. They had shown huge, open spaces, like winter sky from the top of Hylman Tor, yet the blue was also a depth of summer sea.
For some reason, just the thought of those bright eyes lightened my load. The flower was a special gift. Just thinking about it made me smile. I looked at it, drying on a log in the sun. I put down the tool and picked up the stem. The petals made a delicate noise as I stroked the flower across the skin of my cheek; it was dry. I picked up a sharper blade from the log.
Running over to the pile of cured skins I selected a goat-leg that stuck out, Harm didn't miss the odd piece. I cut it off and scored down the centre, making a wallet for the flower. As I folded it around the frail stem it made a crisp sound. I replaced the flower, encased in its protective layer, inside my jerkin and went back to work.

As I pulled the blade down the skin to scrape the muck, I half closed my eyes and pictured the bellflowers nestling inside my top. The picture came clearly to my mind but the bells hung, new and white, shining in the light of another land. Suddenly a shock of warm glow erupted in my chest next to the flower. It was like my heart had just smiled at me. I dropped the scraper in surprise and opened my eyes. The bright feeling faded from my chest.
I shut my eyes again, and pictured the flowers. This time the energy grew fast and a quicksilver thrill expanded into my upper torso, shooting down my arms and legs like white fire. I felt I was glowing, my body filling with the bright moment that sun erupts from cloud after heavy rain.

"Fintan!" Boomed a voice behind me. It was Harm. "Stop your daydreaming and get inside. Your mother's made stew for your lunch. As soon as you've finished get on with these hides, I need some for trading."
"OK Da." I managed, swiftly coming back to myself.
I would experiment later with this new-found gift.
After work, as it was low tide, I walked across the river. Stepping stones made this an easy task. On the other bank, a little way down in the woods, was a mossy niche that caught the evening sun. There, I could be in private.
I snuggled down into one of my favourite places and opened the wallet to examine the tiny flowers. The withered stem was worse for wear. The dried bells were tatty and now crushed inside the wallet. I replaced it carefully in my jerkin. Shutting my eyes, I brought the picture to my mind. I imagined the petals pure white, gleaming in their summer sun. Soon, the strange energy suffused my body.

I was made of light; a filigree web of pure-fire. I became motionless, suddenly petrified, a young deer caught in a moment of fright. I was aware in a new way of the space around my body. My senses merged with the life under my hands. I felt the soft moss, a cushion from the mass of glittering granite below me. I could feel the flow of the river endlessly skating by at my feet. The warmth of the evening sun on my cheek was the warmth of sun on rough bark. My arms were branches, my hands the delicate twists of latticed twigs. My leaves, turned gratefully to the light, whispered me their secrets.
My senses extended and rooted into earth. I felt the woodlouse in the rock crevice, tasting the air for the scent of rotten wood with my feelers. I was for a moment a water vole alerted by a scrabbling noise in the ground above. A badger, shifting dirt in preparation for her short-sighted night venture. The sleepy owl starting to wake for the night's hunt, rustling and preening silent wings for deadly flight.
The nearby hoot brought me out with a start. It wasn't my dreaming, but the sound of a voices from outside. I got up and left the store-room to see what was happening.

The cook had broken out a round of food, bringing a cheer from the men. No ponies had been seen over the river, so Lugh sent out a handful of scouts, heavily armed on the swiftest ponies. I went back up the ladder to view the valley. The afternoon hung heavy with expectations.
Screams came from the woods below, then silence. What seemed like an eternity later, four of the men rode back, one of them injured and bleeding from the shoulder. They had been riding down the hill on this side of the river, when a small party of men had ambushed them. The missing man had been dragged off his pony, and clubbed about the head. The injured man had just taken a glancing blow from the tip of a sword. Lugh called me over to attend the man. He sat on the ground and I placed my hand on his shoulder just above the wound.
I shut my eyes and summoned the energy. Nothing happened. I opened them again; a small group of people had formed around us to watch the miracle. I tried again, but only a tiny glimmer came in return, a memory from far away. Pwyll and Conn, the other two boys my age, were watching carefully.
"I told you he was a faker," said Conn, loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Fintan is a faker," chimed in Pwyll. "Spirits deserted you have they Fintan?"
 "I can't do it." I said to Lugh. "It isn't working."
"Take him inside," said Lugh, indicating the man. "Get him some more traditional treatment from Nevli. Lost your powers have you Fintan?" He said, turning to me. I nodded. "That's a shame as I think we're just about to need them."
A lookout man from the north wall of the stockade yelled that there were people coming and Lugh ran to the platform. I followed him up the ladder. Another cry came from the other side of the fort as a messenger arrived from the river harbour. He was hoisted up the seaward side of the fort with a rope.
There were men from Riversend on ponies and others from my settlement walking up the spine of the hill. They were carrying a rough stretcher, alongside which ran my sister Gerslin, and my friend Carl.

Lugh ordered them let into the compound and we came back down to ground level.
My mother had been injured in the attack up river. An arrow stuck out from her side. She lay on the makeshift stretcher, and I cradled her head in my hand while a tribesman called Cermryr told us what had happened. The attack had been swift when it came. A small army of men had stormed the hill at Riversend, before they'd had time to even shut the gates. The lookouts hadn't seen them. Cermryr had only got away because he had seen the attack from the edge of the woods, and ran down to warn our settlement. They had just got away just as the raiders crossed the river, but a deadly shower of arrows had killed two of them. One of the arrows had injured my Mother.

I looked at my mother's white face in disbelief; she was slipping away, gripping at her stomach in pain, the arrow still protruding from between her hands. I didn't have the power to make her better. I had to get out of the camp and take my gift from the tree. I ran to Lugh's hut and ran in, too fast for the guard to stop me.
"Lugh. Chieftain Lugh? Please let me leave the camp."
"A moment boy," said Lugh holding up his hand for silence. I need this man's report from the coast first. "How many boats did you say?"
The messenger from the coast closed and opened his hands four times. Lugh sat down for a moment on a nearby bench.
"Do you hear that Fintan? Boats full of armed men pulled up in Lantic Bay yester-eve. They've spent the night working their way inland to take the whole river at once. They know what's here, that's why they're attacking."
"What is here Chieftain Lugh?" He stood up and crossed over to a wooden chest against the wall. He opened it and called me over. Inside was the dull gleam of many tiny pieces of gold, and layers of small sacks, no doubt full of the precious metal.
"Chieftain Lugh, I have to leave the camp, my mother is hurt and I need to get something to help her," I pleaded.
"Why boy," he said, "we're just about to be attacked. What an earth possesses you to go gallivanting about in the woods at a moment like this?"
"I just need my gift, to heal my mother," I said desperately. "I need the flower," I blurted it out. The life of my mother hung in the balance as the Chieftain thought for a moment.
"So you do have something. I wondered what it was. A flower you say? Where did you get it?" he asked.
"A man with blue eyes gave it me down by Riversend." I had the story finished in a trice. "Let me go Chieftain, my mother has no one else," I pleaded.
"You know how dangerous it is out there at the moment. Pirates are trying to take control of the river system." He paused in thought. "On the other hand we need your healing skills here. I cannot spare a single man to guard you, if you go, you are on your own. We need all of the ponies here, so you'll have to go on foot."
"I have to go Chieftain, my mother is injured and I can help her, and others only if I have the flower."
"OK then, go. Remember that there are armed men in the woods, so keep out of sight. Take this knife in case you need to defend yourself."
He handed me one of the knives from his tunic. I felt honoured by the Chieftain's blade. It weighed heavy as I put it into my carry sack. I ran back to my mother.
"I can help you mother," I breathed into her ear. "Just hang on, I'll be back as soon as I can." I kissed her hair fondly, she was very pale but she managed a weak smile. I clutched Gerslin to me for a moment, and ran.

END OF CHAPTER 2

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