Rhiannon (38 page)

What would he do, flail at the squires with his paint box? This while Jonah batted at them with the false headpiece he wore? What had they all been
thinking
last night?

And now Holt was given the slip, and no one respected the monks' robes, certainly, as they were slimed and the monks thought to be idiots. Besides which, this lot poked monks and thought it good fun when they squealed!

This was no plan whatsoever, but sure catastrophe.

Rhia's shortcut kept them at a distance from the town, which from their vantage resembled a garish painting daubed with a rough brush upon the black canvas of the night. The fires burned high and the revelers shouted and shrieked, each sound reaching the ears of the eight walkers a moment or two after it had been let forth. Each giddy laugh was over before their group so much as heard it, then, Rhia mused. A shriek of pain was not perceived by her ears until the throb that had caused it was ended. In fact, the one who'd laughed might well be crying by now—who knew? Laughter and tears, pleasure and pain—, each of the four was but a passing and phantom thing, yet who did not desire the first of each couple and tremble at its linked second?

Such were Rhia's fevered thoughts as they trudged, for she'd never felt such turmoil in her life, traveling beside these unpredictable squires, forcing laughter at their crude jokes, though her stomach turned and her head pounded. This false laughter was surely twinned with real pain to follow, yet they had no choice but to walk straight toward it!

The earl's paunchy son began to pant and blow by the time they'd gone halfway through the barley field. On the bank of the river (in fact, quite near where doomed Aleron had been tumbled from his horse), he dropped to a sudden sit upon the ground.

“My knees dislike the pounding they take!” he fumed, fanning his face, which streamed with sweat. “How much more of this?”

“We near the trail,” Rhiannon said meekly, afraid to tell how grueling it would be.

“And what adventure going up it!” Leonard quipped, surely seeking to lighten Roderick's foul mood. He sat down near his friend and yanked Rhia down beside him.

“How extraordinarily savage these locals indeed are,” Roderick stated after a bit, looking toward bright Woethersly with his elbows upon his knees. He seemed completely fascinated by the sight of the merry, drunken town.

The others had now stopped and seated themselves upon the mossy ground as well, and all watched the fires and the fire-leapers, awaiting Roderick's signal that he was rested and ready to proceed. Rhia stole a glance over her shoulder and saw Silas and Thaddeus standing in the far shadows, trying not to draw notice.

“Indeed, what debauchery,” Frederique murmured. “These
pagan
ways!”

“Beltane Eve is a holdover, is all,” Beornia said tartly. “We are most of us Christian here, as you yourselves claim to be.”

“
Claim
to be, you say?” Roderick drew back and glared at her as if she were some speaking rodent.

Beornia shrugged and sighed. “Sir, excuse my ignorance, as I have never known the exact beliefs of nobility and was some surprised that your friends would plan to poke a monk with a sword and never fear God's displeasure with that.”

Rhia felt herself go rigid with nerves as she looked over at fearless Beornia. Did this bodacious girl indeed have some plan in opening this box of snakes?

Beornia looked back at her, all innocence. “Rhiannon, I've meant to ask you. Are there presently hospice beds unoccupied upon your bluff? A young girl in town—just a babe, really—was injured at market this week. Her arm grows putrified where it was caught by the whip of some careless rider. Anyhow, it's clear she will soon die. It would be a mercy if the girl could be brought within your mother's care, as her pain's a dreadful thing to behold and her mother grows insane with the horror of the child's constant cries.”

Beornia's speech was met by deep silence,
black
silence it was, as dark as the night.

Rhia finally found breath to whisper, “Yes, we have room.”

As though adding its own brooding comment, the sky grumbled with muted thunder in that empty moment, and Rhia saw the flick of a bright skeletal finger of lightning in the eastern sky. She felt she should point out the coming storm and urge some haste upon them, but she could not find the nerve to do it.

Leonard, meanwhile, had turned to Beornia, his face grown tight with anger.

“Lady
Chatter,
as I shall call you,” he addressed her, “you might better look for God's
displeasure
in the idle disobedience of peasants who gaggle about the streets and yield not to their betters as they ride by. King Henry rules by God's will, and we who are his knights
display
the king's will—that is,
God's
will—for all in the realm to see. The mother might have moved this child from our route. As she didn't, I had to.”

“One less peasant to grow up and breed,” Frederique added with a yawn.

To Rhia's surprise, this comment drew Leo's ire as well.

“And what would
you
know about it, Fred, as I am the one who has to assume the follow-through for all such things?” he snapped. “Your mind is on the trysts you plan or your next wager at the games table, whilst
I
am generally left to be champion for us all!”

They all sat without talk for a bit longer, then Roderick, with a sigh that was more a groan, got to his feet, which signaled the others to stand as well.

Beornia's bold move and Leo's anger in response had stifled conversation, and they proceeded to cross the river and take the trail in uneasy silence. Maddy led, having been up the path before, so that Rhiannon could bring up the rear with Silas and Thaddeus following.

Rhia'd worried a little that she would be expected to lead, and thereby would not see Thaddeus and Silas at all. But no one wanted the job of traveling so near those two, because of the unpredictable nature of the witless, and because of their smell. Besides, with all the hazards of the woods, those last in line were quickest to be picked off, just as those who led were most likely to come upon any treacherous land-shifts in the trail. The squires obviously preferred to travel in the middle with their lessers taking the chances.

“This Leonard has shown murderous disregard not once but
twice,
” Thaddeus hissed to Rhia from close behind her. “He's caused one death and will soon cause a second, and that's just what we
know
of.”

Rhiannon could make no reply, and she wished Thaddeus would not speak of it, as her heart seized so she could barely breathe when she thought of a child suffering so. The fire that had caused such awful misery to Primrose was bad enough, but this seemed worse, as a fire has no power to reason out its actions, and a man does, or
should
have.

“Say, can't you stop that idiot's blathering?” Roderick complained. “It lowers my vigilance as I pick my way.”

“Doodle doodle
doooo
!” Thaddeus crowed in response.

In spite of the feeling of black foreboding that dogged her, Rhia had to smile, then she turned to shush Thaddeus sternly enough for the others to hear.

Constant lightning flickered the darkness by then and thunder boomed close and closer, so that all the walkers looked up at the sky whenever they might take their eyes from their feet for a step. Phosphorescence leapt upon the swirling waters of the bay as the wind grew blustery, pushing waves that crashed against the beachfront with some force. A moaning wail set up as well, the sound of mermaids keening, Granna might have said, though more likely the rising wind howled through the many crevasses and small caves that pocked the bluff's rough limestone skin.

And if the sky and the waters grew fearsome, the woods grew more so. For the oaks had begun to thrash from side to side, as if they meant to pull their gnarled roots from the ground and stride away. Lights danced amongst the leaves as well, the same phosphorescence to be seen upon the waters, purplish and sizzling. Rhia'd seen this before in other storms, though it was rare. The sailors hereabouts talked of such light playing about their masts in especially murderous weathers.

But though the howling wind and thrashing, loose-rooted trees were disturbing, the small lulls when the wind died down were truly terrifying, for then could be heard the clickety-clack that had so concerned Granna the day they'd gone down this trail to lay hands upon the corpse. The lepers within the trees had ganged in a chorus it sounded, intent on climbing along with these midnight travelers and harrying them in this way.

“What
is
that?” Roderick finally demanded, pushing his hands against his ears. “It sounds like the devil himself, playing upon the rib bones of the damned!”

“Doodle do, doodle
dooo
!” Thaddeus crowed from the rear. “The devil plays upon the rib bones of those left to die within the woods, - doodle-doodle-
doooo
!”

Roderick whirled angrily to Rhia. “Stop the mouth of that idiot right
now
!” he demanded, unsheathing his sword. “Another word and I run my blade through his and his brainless friend's worthless hearts and shove their stinking hides into the sea!”

Rhiannon froze with horror. Then she stepped back, shaking her head, her arms spread wide, as though she could protect Thaddeus and Silas with that limp gesture.

Roderick meanwhile took a step toward her with his eyes wide and frenzied. A small, hard smile now played upon his lip. “Stop his babbling, lady,” he said quietly, slowly placing the tip of his sword right against Rhia's throat. “See, I find that I care not how I skewer them. Whether I slice them each alone, or the two together, or reach through
you
to skewer
three
upon my sword. No, it simply, alas, matters not to me one whit how many meet their doom.”

“Roderick, leave it!” Leonard called with a nervous-sounding laugh. “It's of no importance. We
must
beat this storm and claim our rewards for this fraught hike!”

Lightning gave Rhia a look at Leo's face, and from his expression she suspected that Roderick was bullying by nature, and that though he was too lazy for swordplay, he might savor just this chance to feel mighty by “skewering” those who had no way to fend. He might be quite daft, in fact. Who would dare tell the earl's son so?

Leonard and the others were grouped and watching from ahead on the trail. The two girls looked about to swoon, and even Frederique seemed alarmed. “Er, Roderick? Best bear in mind there will be
witnesses
to this thing you contemplate,” he warned.

Rhiannon was suddenly shoved off her feet and into the writhing trees. She looked up to see Thaddeus advancing upon Roderick, swinging Silas's bagpipe above his head! He managed to bring the thing down so as to knock Roderick's sword from his hand. It went spinning into the air and over the side of the bluff.

Roderick lunged for the spinning blade and found himself treading thin air. Thaddeus grabbed his cloak and held on tight as Leonard and Frederique rushed over. With lots of hefting and grunting from all three, the earl's son was finally pulled up and drug back from the edge to sit shaking and sputtering upon the solid ground of the path.

He scrambled clumsily to his feet, put out a quavering hand, and howled, “Your
sword,
Leo! Give it to me this instant, for mine is gone and I needs must kill this idiot with the rooster crow who parted me from it!”

Rhiannon saw Leonard and Frederique exchange a hooded look. Then Leonard sighed and moved close to throw a comradely arm around Roderick's shoulders.

“Well, here's the thing, good friend. We stand in a small calm before a storm, and we're close to adventure with three good-looking maids inside a tight-roofed chapel bound to hold some pretty thrills. Let's get where we're going without further ado and have our fun, then afterward I will lend my sword for this killing. Your revenge will be a capstone to the evening's promised entertainment. How's that sound?”

No one will ever know how that sounded to the earl's son, because the storm right then gave up its ample warnings and dropped down upon them with a banshee screech. Everything in all directions became a swirl of wind and water and biting sleet that knocked the torchlight out and took all thought from their heads except to somehow keep from being blown to kingdom come. They each of them clawed their way and slip-slid, partly on two feet and partly on all fours, sometimes sliding downward but gradually moving upward until they'd finally managed to travel the last quarter mile of the path.

But upon the blufftop's slippery rock floor, there was small relief awaiting them, for they staggered in murky darkness, unsteady on their feet, their outer garments so caked and heavy with mud that they all matched the slimed pair Thaddeus and Silas had presented before. Indeed, it seemed that by some outrageous fluke of fashion, those two had recruited the others to their way of dress.

Rhiannon pushed her hair from her face and stood with her teeth achatter, straining to see through the downpour. She was hoping with all her heart to perceive a tiny spot of light glowing in the direction of her well-loved settlement of cottages. Any small glowing ember or candleflame would be so welcome to her eyes, as it would show where Mam and the others waited and watched, ready to rush from hiding at any signal from her or Jonah or Thaddeus. She needed such assurance!

But there was not so much as a spark atop the bluff that night, as Mam and Granna were supposed to be at Roodmas. This afternoon, all had agreed that candles in the cots and even the large flame in their firepit had to be extinguished to make the ruse work, as such an extinguishing would normally be in order when an entire family had ventured from a forested place for the evening, leaving no one behind to tend the fires.