Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper

Author:Susan Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2007-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

• The Rose-Garden •

Faces flashed round them like a kaleidoscope’s shaken images. A child swung a handful of bright streamers before their eyes, laughing, and was gone; a hopeful flurry of green-necked pigeons swooped by. They passed a group of people dancing, where a tall man decked with red ribbons played the flute, a gay, catchy little tune; they stumbled, almost, at a place on the smooth grey paving, over a fragile crumpled-looking old man who was drawing with chalks on the ground. Will had a sudden startled glimpse of the picture, a great green tree on a rounded hill, with a bright light shining out of its branches, before the flute-player led the dancers past him in a flurry of music, and he was whirled away.

Gwion’s bearded face was still there in the crowd, moving beside him. “Stay close!” he called. But Will noticed now that no other eyes than Gwion’s ever met their own in this crowd. The people all around seemed able to see him now, and glanced as they would glance at any other passerby, instead of turning a blind unwitting face to someone who was, for them, not there. Yet nobody properly looked at him, or at Bran; there was no recognition, no glimmer of the interest they showed in one another. He thought: we have come a little way along—we are here now, but only just. Perhaps they will really see us, later on, if we do well at whatever it is we are expected to do….

Laughter swelled in the crowded square, from a circle of grinning faces watching a juggler. Marvelous smells wafted past from stalls selling food. A fine spray caressed Will’s face, and he saw the glittering drops of a fountain, tossed in a diamond stream up to the sun and down again. He saw Bran in front of him, pale face alight behind the dark lenses, laughing as he shouted something to Gwion. Then there was a stir in the crowd, heads turning; bodies pressed back against Will. He heard the hooves of horses, the jingling of harness, a creaking and a rambling of wheels; through the heads of the crowd he could glimpse riders bobbing by, bareheaded, dressed in blue. The rumbling grew; he could see a coach now, its roof dark blue and splendidly curlicued in gold, and blue plumes tossing before it from the foreheads of tall midnight-black horses.

Hoofbeats slowed, wheels squeaked on the stone street; the coach stopped, rocking gently to and fro. Gwion was close again, drawing Will and Bran forward. The crowd parted easily, respectfully, each one making way instantly at the sight of Gwion’s erect grey head. Then the coach was before them, suddenly enormous, like a shining blue ship swaying there on strong leather straps hung from a highwheeled curved frame. A crest was engraved in gold on the glossy door, higher than Will’s head. The black horses stamped and blew. There was no coachman to be seen.

Gwion opened the coach door and, reaching inside, swung down a step for mounting.

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