Faerie Fruit Read online

  Barnaby fell upon it with a cry of jubilation, and in his exultation he held it up high. ‘What a beauty!’ he crowed. ‘And all mine!’

  For an instant Tobias could not breathe, for Barnaby held a pear in his hands. A fine, ripe, beautiful specimen, fresh and fat and mottled silver.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Tobias, but too late, for Barnaby had already carried the fruit to his lips and taken a great bite. He ate the pear in a frenzy of eagerness and soon it was gone, every morsel devoured. Afterwards he stood licking juice from his fingers, a dazed and delighted smile creasing his wrinkled face.

  His eyes met Tobias’s, returning his stare with a sober clarity Tobias had never before seen in him. His habitual scowl had gone, and he smiled.

  His next words, however, did not surprise Tobias at all. ‘I think I will have another beer.’ He stretched, made some swiftly-aborted attempt to rectify the crumpled untidiness of his coat, and sauntered back into the taproom.

  Theodosius gave Tobias a long look. ‘How long have you had pears growing out here?’

  ‘I never saw one before today,’ Tobias answered grimly. He did not waste time searching for more among the trees, for no further promising glimpses of silvery skin met his eye. The branches swayed, light and free, clearly unencumbered by any more heavy fruits.

  Wherever the pear had come from, it had fruited alone.

  Tobias strode back into the taproom, returning the lamp to its former place by the door as he went in. Barnaby stood with quiet sobriety by the bar, empty tankard in hand. He really was sober, Tobias realised upon regarding him; it was no temporary impression. Barnaby stood straight, his pale eyes bright. The hand that held the tankard was steady, its customary tremblings all forgotten. His fellow drinkers were still in full flow and the song rose to a crescendo around him, before ending in a flurry of laughter. And sour, moody old Barnaby laughed along with them.

  Tobias refilled the proffered tankard and handed it back with a sense of regret. Barnaby Longstaff, sober! What a shame that the man could only trail straight back to the drink.

  A question burned inside him; many questions, but one in particular rose to the fore. As Barnaby raised the beer to his lips, Tobias leaned forward and said: ‘How did it taste?’

  Barnaby smiled dreamily. ‘Like paradise,’ he replied, and took a swallow of beer.

  His face twisted in instant disgust and he gagged. He slammed the tankard back down upon the bar, retching, and to Tobias’s dismay he heaved up the contents of his stomach all over the polished oak floor of the taproom. The singing stopped abruptly as Barnaby staggered back, wiping his mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ he croaked. He snatched up the tankard and drank again, trying perhaps to rinse the foul flavour from his mouth. But no more than three mouthfuls of beer did he manage to imbibe before he retched again, with the same outcome.

  ‘Ale,’ he gasped. ‘Mead. Anything, Dwerryhouse.’

  Tobias complied, but swiftly wished he had not, for a swallow of ale produced the same unpleasant result, and a mere sip of mead was sufficient to set the poor man heaving again. Tobias at last set water before him and Barnaby drank deep. Every soul at the Moss and Mist waited in heavy silence to see whether Longstaff would contrive to keep it down.

  To Tobias’s relief, he did. He drank off a flagon of water in eight quick gulps and stood panting, his skin stark white and sweating and an expression of utter horror in his eyes.

  ‘I feel strange,’ he announced in a tremulous voice, and then fainted dead away.

  By the following evening, the story was all over town. Barnaby Longstaff had lost his stomach for alcohol, and could not take so much as a drop without losing his dinner. Sober he was and sober he must remain, for it made no matter what manner of drink he attempted to imbibe. Beer, ale, mead, whiskey, wine, port or brandy; all brought the same miserable fate upon him.

  That night, his customary seat at The Moss and Mist went unoccupied.

  No one in Berrie North could account for the sudden change in Longstaff. His talk of strange fruits and silver pears was attended to by none, for no one much cared for the ramblings of a known drunkard, however uncharacteristically sober he might now be.

  None save Tobias, that is.

  ‘Clarimond,’ he had said to his lady earlier that day, as they sat eating lavender tea cakes in her pretty parlour. ‘Did your mother chance to eat anything unusual, a day or two past?’

  ‘Why, did I not tell you?’ she cried. ‘How shabby of me! In all the confusion, you know, I have been quite scatter-brained.’ But she fell silent without elaborating upon this point, and eyed Tobias with clear misgivings. ‘Though I am afraid you will think me mad,’ she said, confirming his forebodings.

  He sighed, and set down the last bite of his cake uneaten. ‘Pray tell me. I shall not think you mad.’

  She bit her soft, pink lips and frowned. ‘An apple!’ she disclosed. ‘I know it sounds improbable, Tobias, but I swear it was so. Just what mother wished! And so beautiful a fruit, too. I half wished I could keep it for myself.’

  ‘Plucked from a tree in your own garden, I may surmise?’

  ‘Yes, though I did not so much pluck it as catch it when it fell into my hands.’ She looked quizzical, and intrigued. ‘How came you to guess that?’

  So he’d told her the story of the silver pear, and listened to her more detailed account of her mother’s golden apple. The two had parted at last with an agreement to seek each other’s counsel at once, should anything else untoward occur. Especially if any more such curious fruits should appear.

  Tobias had walked through the gardens before he departed. He’d stood upon the bank of the river behind Thistledown House, and gazed across the stretch of water that divided her home from his. The two ancient trees were not so very far apart, he thought, watching the branches of his distant pear tree swaying in the wind.

  Tobias was not left long to wonder about the source of the strange song sung at The Moss and Mist, the night of Barnaby Longstaff’s distress. Two nights later a stranger came through the open door of his tavern, and presented himself at the bar.

  The newcomer was a strange fellow. Small was he, his head barely higher than Tobias’s shoulder. He had a slender, slight build to match his diminutive frame, though he was no frail creature, for he moved with a wiry grace suggestive of hidden strength. He wore a coat of motley patchwork over trews of mulberry cloth, a shirt with lace at the throat and a tall pair of boots. His cocked hat was of green velvet, and this he swept off as he bowed low to Tobias, revealing a lining of crimson silk. His hair was the colour of chestnuts, and tied back with a silken ribbon. A set of silver pipes hung upon a second ribbon around his neck, and he carried a polished black fiddle slung over his back.

  ‘I am told,’ said he in mellifluous tones, ‘that you brew a particularly fine honey-wine.’

  ‘I serve such,’ said Tobias. ‘But ‘tis made over the river, in Southtown.’

  The stranger did not seem to be deterred; on the contrary, his black eyes sharpened with interest. ‘Over the river,’ he repeated, and said with a smile, ‘Then I will certainly take a glass.’

  The man had the air of a discerning connoisseur, so Tobias proffered his best: a light confection, made from Ambrose Dale’s own clover honey. His guest took a sip of the pale golden wine, then a gulp; a second swallow and the glass was drained.

  ‘Another,’ he said with a glinting smile, and drank it straight down. He returned the glass with a flourish. ‘Southtown,’ he said ruminatively.

  Tobias fetched another bottle, a lavender honey-wine that Clarimond preferred. ‘New in town?’ he said as he poured.

  Apparently sated, the stranger sipped the new wine with an air of deep concentration. ‘Yes,’ he said, his smile wide and satisfied. ‘But I think I will stay a while.’

  ‘We have rooms.’

  The man shook his head. ‘A moonlit bower is to be my bed, my pillow the crisp night air, my blanket the star-strewn skies.’ His eyes twinkled o
ddly as he spoke, perhaps with merriment, or something else entirely. He dipped a finger in his honey-wine and traced it over his lips, then whistled a snatch of a tune.

  Tobias cocked an eyebrow at so strange a response, but held his peace upon the subject. ‘You’ve travelled far, I think,’ he said, casting an eye over the man’s curious garb.

  ‘In a sense,’ agreed the stranger. He looked closely at Tobias for the first time since his arrival, his black eyes intent and full of a meaning Tobias could not read. At length, he grinned. ‘It sometimes happens that history comes a-calling,’ he said. ‘It is well to pay attention, when it does.’

  With which cryptic utterance, he downed the rest of his honey-wine and wandered away. He drifted between the tables, humming snatches of a brisk melody. The curious stares of his fellow drinkers he answered with bows and smiles.

  ‘It is far too quiet in here!’ he said, and fetched his fiddle from its place across his back. He struck up an air at once, and within three bars Tobias recognised the melody which had so recently taken over his common room. His customers knew it, too, and soon took up the tune. The stranger’s voice rose above the rest, and when the familiar verses came to an end, he sang on alone.

  He went on, playing faster as the song progressed and ended and began again, his bow a blur upon the strings of his fiddle. The final verse poured forth at such a speed, Tobias could barely distinguish the words; but the fiddler never missed a syllable, nor grew short of breath. He finished the song with a flourish of his bow and a ringing laugh, acknowledged the cheers of his audience with a sweeping bow, and darted for the door. He was gone in an instant, disappearing into the night with only a final, parting flurry of notes by way of farewell.

  Tobias watched for him some time afterwards, but he was not seen again at The Moss and Mist.

  Chapter Three

  Clarimond walked south to market as the sun rose, there to purchase samphire, walnuts and the last peas of the summer for her pantry. She had thoughts of crafting a nourishing diet for her mother, though Mrs. Waregrove scarcely seemed to require it, for her health only continued to improve. So sprightly was she, she might have been ten years younger.

  Some days had passed since her mother’s miraculous recovery, and there had been no more talk of apples since — or pears either, for she had received Tobias’s account of Barnaby Longstaff’s fate with interest. But the dreams continued to haunt her sleeping hours, and sometimes she fancied she discerned the scent of apples upon the air when she awoke.

  ‘Should you encounter such another fruit,’ Tobias had said to her, ‘I charge you not to eat, Clarimond! There can be no doubt that there is something strange about them.’

  She had not needed such a warning, for she had seen the curious effects for herself. Clover Waregrove had reduced herself to penury with her eagerness to share her possessions, and Barnaby Longstaff was said to be gravely sick, his abruptly enforced sobriety taking its toll upon his ageing body. Clarimond had no desire to find out how consuming such a fruit might affect her.

  Nonetheless, she could not help but remember the perfect golden apple with wistful regret. Such an exquisite, blooming thing it had been, so beautiful and inviting! And she could not forget its delicious fragrance, a scent which seemed to follow her wherever she went.

  Sternly, she redirected her thoughts, and considered instead the safer delights of samphire and sage, of pickled walnuts and honeyed tea and bunches of fresh, fragrant rosemary. These things she procured with ease at market, and added a cluster of mint and a cloth bundle of gooseberries to her basket for good measure.

  Rising above the cheerful bustle of the market were the strains of a fiddle, and voices raised in song. Rarely afforded the opportunity to enjoy music, Clarimond would have liked to remain and listen. But her mother awaited her at home, and her myriad duties would not keep all morning. Regretful but resolute, she turned her back upon the market and directed her steps back towards Thistledown House.

  Her route took her down Willowingle Lane and past Fox’s Yard, tranquil indeed after the crowded market. The air was cool so early in the morning, and the sun shone gently. Clarimond breathed in the peace and the beauty, forgetting apples at last, so charmed was she by the spray of late-blooming roses adorning Evangeline Garnett’s garden.

  Her steps slowed as she walked through Heatherberry Spinney, for the air was fresh with the scent of dew-dampened earth, and an occasional lone cornflower grew by the path, enchanting her eyes with flashes of bright, vivid blue.

  In the centre of the spinney, the clusters of hawthorn, wych elm and ash trees gave way to a large clearing, in the centre of which grew a tangled old tree of a type Clarimond had never been able to identify. It was not so tall as its surrounding fellows, though it was far broader, its twisting branches reaching out to the edges of the glade. Its rough bark was covered in knots and broken stubs where withered boughs had fallen, though its leaves grew thickly enough.

  Clarimond had always fancied this lone tree possessed a friendly nature, and watched over the Spinney as its kindly guardian. As a child she had rambled among its sturdier limbs, imagining welcoming faces traced into the hoary bark. Even now she liked to pause beneath its leafy canopy and breathe the warm summer air, for it was like visiting an old friend.

  She had never seen it seed itself. No seedlings ever sprouted from the ground beneath, and no saplings with matching leaves ringed the clearing. There was a reassuring stability to its unchanging nature which endeared it still more to Clarimond, for though life buckled and twisted and shifted around her, the tree never altered.

  She could not have been more surprised, then, on that bright, clear morning, to discern something different about her favourite tree. One specific and quite distinct difference, in the shape of a succulent blush-pink globe dangling invitingly from a low-hanging branch. It was round and full with a tuck in the top, its smooth skin spangled with white like a breath of frost.

  Mesmerised, Clarimond reached out to touch it, and found it softly furred beneath her fingers.

  ‘Why, ‘tis a peach!’ cried she in swift understanding. Its colour did not much resemble those in the picture-books she had seen, but its characteristics were otherwise familiar enough.

  Wondering, she glanced fleetingly about, but saw no other such pomes sprouting among the branches above her. One blissful peach grew splendidly alone, like the apple upon the trees at Thistledown, and the pear at The Moss and Mist.

  And Clarimond felt instantly torn, for what was she to do? The fruit woke a hunger in her to taste it, and almost did she throw caution to the winds, and fall upon it at once.

  Her better nature won, and she ruthlessly thrust such unwise desires aside. She turned her back upon the beautiful, seductive thing and walked away, but she had not gone three steps before she thought better of it. Were she to leave it where it grew, would some other person find it, and eat it all unawares? It fell to her to carry it out of the temptation of others, though it sorely tested her.

  She turned back, uncertain. It was not so easy to spot, hidden there among a cluster of leaves. Perhaps she ought rather to leave it, and trust that no one merely passing by would chance to catch sight of it.

  But as she watched, the peach fell from the tree. It dropped, with a soft thud, onto the dry earth below, where it lay in full view of the path.

  She certainly could not leave it precisely there. Quickly she returned and scooped it up, secreting it beneath the produce in her basket. She tried not to look too closely at it, for fear that her resolve might weaken. Would it hurt for her to only taste the peach? If she did not eat it entirely, perhaps it would not affect her, supposing it to be the same strange kind of fruit as the others.

  Besides, had the fate of her mother and Longstaff truly been so bad? Mrs. Waregrove had learned generosity and Barnaby sobriety, neither of which traits could be considered contemptible.

  If she ate, what alteration might occur in her?

  Thus was curiosity add
ed to temptation, and Clarimond shuddered. She rearranged her rosemary and pea pods to better hide the peach, and hurried away. Perhaps if she took her treasure to Tobias, he would have some idea of what to do.

  ‘I hardly know,’ said Tobias upon consultation, dashing Clarimond’s hopes in three words. She had set the peach upon the polished oaken bar before him, and he gazed at it in consternation. ‘You found it in the spinney?’

  ‘Yes. Proffered by my favourite old tree, there in the centre.’

  ‘I know the tree.’ Tobias’s expression grew moody, and he sighed. ‘I did not know that it was a peach tree.’

  ‘Nor I. There was no sign of any other fruit, but what if it should produce more?’

  ‘What if there should be more golden apples and silver pears?’ Tobias touched the peach very gently, and Clarimond saw in his eyes a reflection of the temptation she herself felt. ‘I shall put it in the strongbox,’ he decided, and carried it thither at once, locking it away with resolution. ‘How is your mother?’

  ‘She talks of giving away Thistledown for use as an orphanage.’

  ‘It is well for you that she cannot.’

  Clarimond smiled faintly. ‘No, for the house is mine. But she talks of nothing else.’

  ‘The effects may wear off, you know.’

  ‘If it was the apple that so changed her? Yes, perhaps they will. But there is no sign of it yet.’

  Tobias kissed her hand, and settled her basket back upon her arm. ‘Stand fast! And if you should find any more apples growing in odd places, bring them to me. There is room in my strongbox yet.’

  Clarimond left him with a promise, and turned her steps towards home. She was alert as she walked for more oddly-coloured fruits sprouting among the trees of Berrie South, but she saw no more. Her feelings were mixed as she entered her own house, torn between relief and a trace of regret.