The Tears of the Moon

Stories for Another Day

Once there was a rich nobleman who lived in a great house and had everything his heart could desire. All around him lived poor people in cold, cramped houses with little enough to eat in spite of working hard from dawn till dusk every day, but Valerian never gave any thought to them.

Then one day a terrible plague struck the town and the countryside around it. People fell sick and lay in their homes with no medicine and no-one to look after them, and many of them died. In his great house, with plenty of food to eat and warm fires in every room, Valerian hardly knew what was happening, until one day his favourite servant, a young man named Coby, fell sick and fainted before his eyes.

Valerian lifted him in his own arms and carried him to the servants’ rooms. “The boy is ill,” he said. “Help him.”

But no-one rushed to help him. The cook was sitting in her chair weeping into her apron, for her own child had just died of the sickness. The head footman, who was trying to comfort her, said, “There is no-one to help, and nothing we can do. Many of the servants are in bed with the sickness themselves, or else they have gone to say goodbye to the dying in their own families.”

Valerian was struck with horror and shame. “But surely, with good care and medicine, they will recover?” he said.

The footman shook his head. “None of those who become sick with the plague live longer than a few weeks,” he said.

Valerian laid Coby down and instructed the head footman to do what he could for him, then he rushed from the house. Throughout the whole town and the neighbouring city he searched for medicines, or for a doctor who could help him, but he could find no-one. Everywhere he went, there were houses full of the sick and the dying.

Returning to the marketplace, he searched wildly for healing herbs or medicines of any kind but there was nothing. Everything had been tried, and everything was useless.

He was standing in the centre of the marketplace tearing his hair, when he heard a low voice, singing, “In sorrow or in sickness, healing comes soon for those who are touched by the tears of the moon.”

Valerian turned and saw a girl plaiting vines and weaving them into a basket. “You, there,” he said. “What is this about the tears of the moon? What are they, and how can I get them?”

The girl, whose name was Silva, said, “It’s only an old song, sir. My mother used to sing it to me, and her mother to her.”

“Is it true?” Valerian demanded. “Can the tears of the moon save someone from this sickness?”

“I don’t know,” said the girl, her deft fingers continuing to form the sides of the basket.

“Look at me when I speak to you,” Valerian said roughly. “Don’t you see who I am?”

“No, sir, for I am blind,” said the girl, her fingers still working.

“Blind?” said Valerian. “How can you do that work, if you cannot see?”

Silva smiled. “This is work of the hands, not of the eyes,” she said. “My fingers know the vines and the baskets form themselves under my hands. See?” She plaited the top edge of the basket and wove in a handle.

“The song you sang – where can I get these ‘tears of the moon’? Is it a herb, or a plant?” Valerian asked.

Silva shook her head. “It is only an old legend. Whoever can weave three reed baskets in one night between moonrise and moonset will find the tears of the moon.”

“Your fingers are swift and skilful,” said Valerian. “You can surely finish three baskets in one night.”

Silva shook her head again. “Baskets of willow, or cane, are quickly made. But reeds from the Black Lake are as sharp as knives and as thick as leather. They must be woven on the same day that they are harvested, for by the next morning they are dried out and brittle, and impossible to weave with. Only the most skilled hands can make baskets from reeds without being cut to pieces. But once woven, they make the most beautiful baskets, light and waterproof.”

Valerian said, “If you will do this for me, I will pay you whatever you ask.”

Silva said, “I would gladly weave one hundred baskets if it would help cure the sickness, but even as skilled as I am, I can barely finish one in a day.”

Valerian thought for a moment, then said, “Then you must teach me.”

“You?” said Silva. “Have you ever made a basket before?”

“No,” Valerian said, “so you had better begin at once.”

Day after day he sat at Silva’s side, letting her take his hands and guide them in bending and twining the vines together. His first efforts went straight into the fire, and his second were not much better, more like sieves than baskets. After endless hours of learning, and weaving long into the night, he could make a passable basket.

“I don’t think you would find a buyer for it in the market,” Silva laughed, “but it is a basket of sorts.”

“Now teach me how to cut and weave the reeds from the lake,” Valerian said.

The reeds grew straight as swords all around the edges of the lake, and they were tough as leather, as Silva had said. Even the heaviest knife could only cut a handful before it became blunt and needed sharpening again. After a whole morning of harvesting the reeds, there were barely enough to make even one basket.

Valerian began to weave them and the first reed sliced though his fingers. He cried out in pain, “How can anyone ever make a basket with these?”

“Perhaps that is why it is only a legend,” Silva said. But Valerian refused to give up hope. He went on cutting down the reeds and trying to weave them in a basket. The reeds cut his fingers and his palms, and his fingers bled so much that the baskets were red with blood.

Then he remembered what Silva had said, that the baskets must be made in a single night, between moonrise and moonset and he almost despaired. If he could barely make a single basket in full daylight, how could he ever finish three, working in darkness? His heart sank, then he remembered her gentle voice saying, “It is a work of the hands, not of the eyes.”

He covered his eyes with a bandage and set to work. His fingers were clumsy and took much longer to find the strands he wanted. But he persisted until his hands flew at the task more swiftly than they ever had with the guidance of his eyes. Finally he decided that ready or not, Coby and the others who lay close to death could wait no longer. “If I don’t succeed in finding the tears of the moon, whatever they may be, they will die. I simply must succeed.”

It was the night of the full moon, close to the middle of winter when the nights are longest. All day he and Silva cut and hacked at the reeds around the lake until there was a huge pile ready. As soon as the moon rose, Valerian set to work.

He plied and twisted, weaving the reeds tightly up against each other, round and around. He could barely see what he was doing but his hands knew their job. His first basket was finished just as the moon reached the highest point in the sky. “Half the night gone, and only one basket made!” he exclaimed. He redoubled his efforts, weaving faster than he knew he could, and finished the second basket in almost half the time of the first.

His fingers were split and covered in blood, but he set to work on the third basket with all the determination he had. The moon was sinking quickly and he had to force himself not to slacken his pace, no matter how tired he was.

The moon was within touching distance of the horizon when he reached the top of his third basket only to discover that he had used the last of the reeds. He jumped to his feet and ran to the edge of the lake and began sawing at the reeds. In his haste he dropped his knife. It sank into the water and hid itself in the mud. He searched frantically but he could not find it.

With tears in his eyes, he tore at the razor-sharp reeds with his bare hands. With blood running down his arms, he glanced past the reeds towards the moon which was slipping silently below the horizon. Suddenly he noticed that on the reeds around him there were droplets of a clear liquid like dew, which reflected the silver light of the moon, as if the reeds themselves were weeping. “Tears!” Valerian cried. “The tears of the moon!”

He sped back to his nearly finished basket and wove the last of the reeds into its border. Then with the finished baskets, he raced back to the lake edge. One by one he shook the standing reeds gently so that the droplets fell into the baskets, while the moon dipped lower and lower. As the last echo of moonlight left the sky, he shook the last of the dew into his full baskets.

Carefully he carried them back to the town, to his own house, where he gave some to Coby and the rest of the servants. They stirred and woke, refreshed and well again. With Silva at his side, he went through the town, giving the medicine to anyone who was sick, and they too were cured.

From that day on Valerian had his house made into a hospital for the sick, and he and Silva and their children and grandchildren after them were famous throughout the seven kingdoms as basket-makers and healers.