“Doing his chores with the rest of the wee monsters. He’ll be by here soon enough.”

Without warning Nicholas put his ear to Jennet’s very round belly, and she squeaked in surprise.

“Nicholas!” Callie’s tone was more surprised than sharp.

“Och, never mind, Callie. He means no harm.” She put her hand on the boy’s head. “Too bad, you’ve missed today’s concert.”

Nicholas’s head came up so quickly that Jennet jumped.

“Careful,” she said, laughing. “It may no be so much to brag on, but it’s the only nose I’ve got.”

“What’s a concert?” Nicholas said.

Jennet raised a brow in Elizabeth’s direction, but it was Lily who answered. “Do you know what a theater is, or a play?”

He nodded vigorously. “Punch and Judy.”

“Of course. Well, a concert is something like that, except there’s music instead of acting. People playing instruments—”

“Like the fiddle? Levi plays the fiddle.”

“Like the fiddle and piano and other things. And sometimes people sing at a concert. I think Jennet was telling you that her baby sings to her sometimes. Is that it, Jennet?”

“Just so,” Jennet said. “When this little one is feeling frisky, he sings to me. Sometime you might just catch a bit of a song, if you’re aye lucky. As he seems to have gone to sleep, you can have a story from me, if you’ll go off and have some proper dinner after, straight away.”

“You needn’t,” Callie said to her.

“But I want to,” Jennet answered. “Sitting under this apple tree on a summer’s day has put me in mind of Thomas the Rhymer.”

—

“Now Thomas,” Jennet began, “was laird of the castle at Ercildoune in the Borders, and though he lived hundreds of years ago, people still talk of him.”

“You’re talking about him right now,” Nicholas observed, and Lily called him over to sit with her, where she could keep him quiet.

“One day when Thomas was a young man he was out hunting near Melrose Abbey when he lost his way. The gloaming was coming on and it looked as though Thomas would have to sleep rough in the heather, when an old woman came out of the woods on a horse and offered to show him the way.

“Now note, my hens, she never said the way to what, and Thomas was too hungry and tired to ask.

“They rode along for so long that Thomas lost all sense of direction and time. His mind told him it must be late at night, but there was light all around, a glowing among the trees.”

“A fire?” Nicholas asked nervously.

“No. Nothing like that. Listen now.

“And finally they came to the very heart of that endless forest and at that spot the path split in two. On the right the path led back to the world as Thomas knew it, and the other—that was a mystery. Between the two paths, in the fork of the road, stood the most beautiful apple tree Thomas had ever seen. No taller than he was himself, but full of fruit though it was long past harvest. At the sight of those bloodred apples his stomach gave such a growl that the birds stopped singing in the trees, and his hunger raged up and it was all he could do to mind his manners. Because as hungry as he was, Thomas could see that this was no ordinary tree. It was then he kennt that the old woman had led him into an enchanted place where man born of woman was rarely allowed.

“The old woman saw how it was with him, and so she got down from her horse and plucked an apple, and she offered it to Thomas.

“‘Thomas Learmont of Ercildoune, will ye eat of this apple? It will grace ye wi the gift o truth.’

“Thomas was very hungry, but he hesitated nonetheless. For who cares to be burdened with the truth every moment of every day? What of stories and dreams? To always see the truth must be like going through the world without eyelids, so it seemed to Thomas.

“But in the end his hunger was larger than his misgivings and Thomas took the apple and bit into it. And the taste of it filled his mouth and belly both, it was so good. With that, the old woman shriveled up, just where she stood, and in her place a spark of light grew and grew until who stood there but a beautiful young woman, none other than the Queen of Elfland. Thomas was so overcome by her beauty that he kissed her, and together they went down the left-hand path to the Land of the Elves where they feasted for three days and Thomas ate his fill of fruits he had never seen before.

“At the end of the feast days, the Queen of Elfland told Thomas that he must return to his own world, where seven years had passed. Thomas did not want to leave his Queen, and so she made him a promise. If he stayed seven years in his own lands, he might come back to the land of the elves to stay. Because the Queen of Elfland liked Thomas just so much as he liked her, you see, but she understood that such choices must be made carefully, and with a freedom of spirit and clear understanding.

“And so Thomas was sent on his way with the gifts of truth and poetry and music, which delighted the folk of Ercildoune and surprised them as well, for the Thomas who had gone away for seven years had not one but two tin ears, and could no more carry a tune than he could a cow.

“For seven years he ruled his lands wisely, and in the evenings he would sing and play on the harp for anyone who cared to listen. The truth was with him too, all through those seven years, so that he saw things to come. These he put into his songs, and so he became known as Thomas the Seer or Thomas the Rhymer. And that is Thomas’s story.”