pervaded everything around it. Everyone felt it growing and spreading, touching their lives in one way or another. Like a canker it was invisible to the eye, impossible to isolate and cure, but growing all the time and tainting everything with its poison.
As the Council of Elders sat in their circle, the discontent spilled out.
‘I’ve never before encountered such rudeness and restlessness amongst the students,’ said Miranda irritably. ‘It’s appalling the way they’re behaving and it reminds me of the school where I taught in London. There’s so little respect or deference towards adults and I really don’t like it.’
‘I warned everyone about this,’ said Martin. ‘I said if we let in all them Outside folk there’ll only be trouble. They led our youngsters astray with their wild clothes and coarse dancing. I seen them myself and—’
‘I seem to recall your son Swift enjoyed it as much as the next one,’ snapped Yul. ‘I don’t think we can blame the poor behaviour at school on one small party, surely?’
‘No, I don’t think it’s that either,’ said Dawn. ‘We’ve had problems in the Village School too – fighting and aggression on an unprecedented scale. The children are so defiant! Thanks for sorting out those boys I had to send up the other day, Miranda. I’ve never had to do that before.’
‘No problem,’ she smiled. ‘Thank Tom, not me! He had them mucking out the stables all afternoon – that cured their cheekiness.’
‘Aye,’ Tom growled. ‘Cocky little buggers the pair o’ them. Would’ve had the strap in the old days, but …’
His voice tailed off as he glanced guiltily at Yul.
‘Things haven’t been too good in the Nursery either, have they, Rowan?’ said Sylvie quickly. ‘That awful chesty cold and cough that’s been going around?’
Rowan nodded but failed to offer any more information.
‘It’s a nasty bug,’ agreed Hazel. ‘So many of the little ones are poorly with it. We don’t normally keep them indoors whatever the weather, but with the high temperatures they’ve been experiencing I’ve had to advise mothers to keep them at home in their beds. I’ve got a whole ward full of older Stonewylders in the hospital wing, all with this dreadful chest infection. I really think the idea of re-homing some of our frailer folk in the Hall would be worth pursuing.’
Yul nodded at this.
‘Hazel, maybe you and Martin can look into how we might organise this? Martin, you need to look at which rooms could be available for use and Hazel – you and Martin can then discuss what sort of renovations or changes would be needed to make the accommodation suitable for the elderly. Can I leave that with you two initially, and then bring me your report?’
Martin muttered under his breath and Yul’s cheeks flushed.
‘Sorry, Martin – did you say something?’
‘’Tis just I don’t have time to be worrying about rooms for the old folk,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m too busy as it is.’
‘I could get together with Hazel and—’
‘No thank you, Sylvie – it needs to be someone who’s involved with the accommodation and who knows all the issues. Cherry, maybe you could help?’
‘Aye,’ she nodded, ‘I’ll lend a hand but truth be told I’m rushed off my feet too. What you all been saying about the youngsters’ rudeness – I’m feeling it too. None o’ the work’s done proper no more, not to my standards. But when I tell ’em off or point it out – phew, you should just hear the back-chat I get and the looks they give me!’
‘I were only saying this the other day,’ said Martin, shaking his silver head. ‘No training – how can you expect youngsters like that to do a proper job? There’s no discipline and no standards and I don’t like it! In the old days we—’
‘I’m sure things’ll improve when the weather gets warmer,’ said Sylvie. ‘It’s the Wolf Moon tomorrow night and then only a couple more weeks to Imbolc. It always feels brighter somehow after Imbolc.’
‘Aye,’ said Maizie, ‘the birds know that spring’s on its way after Imbolc. Let’s hope our young folk buck up their ideas too. But I need to talk about the Village now.’
Yul sighed heavily, not liking to stop his own mother from speaking but wondering for the hundredth time why they even bothered with a formal agenda when everyone ignored it.
‘If it’s about the quotas —’ Martin began ominously and Maizie nodded vigorously at this.
‘’Tis about the quotas, right enough. I’m sorry to speak out about this, Yul,