The Midnight Circus, стр. 28
Theold woman muttered something that was part curse, part fear, then moreloudly said, “No good will come of this dead cold child. He shallthrive in winter but never in the warm and he shall think little ofthis world. I have heard of such before. They are called Winter’s Kin.”
Themother sat up in bed, careful not to disturb the child at her side.“Then he shall be a Winter King, more than any of his kin or kind,” shesaid. “But worry not, old woman, you shall be paid for the live child,as well as the dead.” She nodded to her husband, who paid the midwifetwice over from his meager pocket, six copper coins.
Themidwife made the sign of horns over the money, but still she kept itand, wrapping her cloak tightly around her stout body and a scarfaround her head, she walked out into the storm. Not twenty steps fromthe caravan, the wind tore the cloak from her and pulled tight thescarf about her neck. An icy branch broke from a tree and smashed inthe side of her head. In the morning when she was found, she was frozensolid. The money she had clutched in her hand was gone.
Theplayer was hanged for the murder and his wife left to mourn, even asshe nursed the child. Then she married quickly, for the shelter and thefood. Her new man never liked the winter babe.
“Heis a cold one,” the husband said. “He hears voices in the wind,” thoughit was he who was cold and who, when filled with drink, heard the darkcounsel of unnamedgods who told him to beat his wife and abuse her son. The woman nevercomplained, for she feared for her child. Yet strangely the child didnot seem to care. He paid more attention to the sounds of the wind thanthe shouts of his stepfather, lending his own voice to the cries healone could hear, though always a minor third above.
Asthe midwife had prophesied, in winter he was an active child, his eyesbright and quick to laugh. But once spring came, the buds in his cheeksfaded, even as the ones on the boughs grew big. In the summer and wellinto the fall, he was animated only when his mother told him tales ofWinter’s Kin, and though she made up the tales as only a player can, heknew the stories all to be true.
Whenthe winter child was ten, his mother died of her brutal estate and theboy left into the howl of a storm, without either cloak or hat betweenhim and the cold. Drunk, his ten-year father did not see him go. Theboy did not go to escape the man’s beatings; he went to his kin, whocalled him from the wind. Barefooted and bareheaded, he crossed thesnows trying to catch up with the riders in the storm. He saw themclearly. They were clad in great white capes, the hoods lined withermine; and when they turned to look at him, their eyes were wind blueand the bones of their faces were thin and fine.
Long,long he trailed behind them, his tears turned to ice. He wept not forhis dead mother, for it was she who had tied him to the world. He weptfor himself and his feet,which were too small to follow after the fast-riding Winter’s Kin.
Awoodcutter found him that night and dragged him home, plunging him intoa bath of lukewarm water and speaking in a strange tongue that even he,in all his wanderings, had never heard.
Theboy turned pink in the water, as if life had been returned to him byboth the bathing and the prayer, but he did not thank the old man whenhe woke. Instead he turned his face to the window and wept, this timelike any child, the tears falling like soft rain down his cheeks.
“Whydo you weep?” the old man asked.
“Formy mother and for the wind,” the boy said. “And for what I cannot have.”
Thewinter child stayed five years with the old woodcutter, going out eachday with him to haul the kindling home. They always went into the woodsto the south, a scraggly, ungraceful copse of second-growth trees, butnever to the woods to the north.
“Thatis the great Ban Forest,” the old man said. “All that lies thereinbelongs to the king.”
“Theking,” the boy said, remembering his mother’s tales. “And so I am.”
“Andso are we all in God’s heaven,” the old man said, “but here on earth Iam a woodcutter and you are a foundling boy. The wood to the south beours.”
Thoughthe boy paid attention to what the old man saidin the spring and summer and fall, once winter arrived he heard onlythe voices in the wind. Often the old man would find him standingnearly naked by the door and have to lead him back to the fire, wherethe boy would sink down in a stupor and say nothing at all.
Theold man tried to make light of such times, and would tell the boy taleswhile he warmed at the hearth. He told him of Mother Holle and herfeather bed, of Godfather Death, and of the Singing Bone. He told himof the Flail of Heaven and the priest whose rod sprouted flowersbecause the Water Nix had a soul. But the boy had ears only for thevoices in the wind, and what stories he heard there, he did not tell.
Theold man died at the tag end of their fifth winter, and the boy leftwithout even folding the hands of the corpse. He walked into thesouthern woods, for that was the way his feet knew. But the Winter Kinwere not about.
Thewinds were gentle here, and spring had already softened the bitterbrown branches to a muted rose. A yellow-green haze haloed the airand underfoot the muddy soil smelled moist and green and new.
Theboy slumped to the ground and wept, not for the death of thewoodcutter, nor for his mother’s death, but for the loss once more ofhis kin. He knew it would be a long time ’til winter came again.
Andthen, from