The Book of Earth (27 page)

Griff found it admirable as well. The look he gave the knight was nostalgic. “That is the news in the marketplace, my lord, though there’s some who’d rather not believe it. Some who’d prefer matters to be otherwise, even at Tor Alte itself.”

Hal studied the huntsman speculatively, and Griff, perhaps worrying that he’d said too much, shifted and nodded at Erde. “Your lad there is good with a dog.”

Hal barely spared her a glance. “Yes. He is. Have you left Tor Alte’s service, then, Griff?”

The huntsman started. “No, my lord, I . . .” He faltered, frowning, then lowered his gaze to the sand. “Well, sir, it’s possible they may take it that way. I haven’t been too careful with my mouth.”

“I know how that is.” Hal nodded and whistled the mule over. “Have you eaten, Griff? Will you share a meager meal with us?”

Seated on a rotting log at the top of the beach, Hal doled out chunks of bread, then unwrapped their dwindling block of hard cheese. Its pungent odor made Erde’s mouth water. She took her share and sat apart, as a proper prentice lad should do, but within listening range.

“No wine, I regret.” Hal unstoppered his waterskin and offered it. “Where are you headed now?”

Griff glanced over at the hound, now folded in a pile by Erde’s side. “Following the dog. On the trail of Baron Josef’s daughter, who’s run away.”

Hal chuckled. “Eloped, you mean? Who’s the lucky man?”

“No, my lord, it’s nothing like that. My lady’s but a child still, and the new hunt-master was sure we’d lost the scent. But I’d an inclination to follow my instincts. And my old Bet’s nose.”

“So there was, ah . . . ?”

“A parting of the ways, yes, there surely was, my lord.” Griff’s rueful grin was curtailed by his cuts and bruises.
“But the men didn’t mix in, so I had the best of it, and off I went.”

“You’ll have made an enemy there, I fear.”

“True enough. But it was that way anyway, my lord. Guess I’m just too old to start taking my orders from a fool whose only skill is telling young Baron Josef what he wants to hear.”

Erde couldn’t think of her father as young, but she understood how a loyal man like Griff would think anyone an upstart who presumed to succeed Baroness Meriah.

“So the girl just up and ran away?” asked Hal casually.

“Well, they say she was lured away by a witch’s spell.”

“Witches!”

“There’s talk of witches all over east, sir.”

“You sound skeptical, Griff.”

“Oh, I’m as good a churchgoer as the next man, my lord. It’s just that, well . . .” Griff fell silent a while, chewing his bread, then seemed to come to a decision. “Well, my lord baron, here’s the truth of it, and I hope you’ll pardon the mention. Young Josef’s in the thrall of that same priest who they say turned you wrongly out of house and home. It’s Fra Guill who’s stirring up all this terror of witches and burning everyone he can get his hands on, and I just can’t believe there’s as many lurking about as he’d like us to think. But there’s plenty who swear by his every word as if it were gospel. Now we’re to be looking out for dragons as well.”

“Dragons.”

Griff eyed him carefully. “Yes, sir. In fact, I do believe your name’s been mentioned in that regard, now that I think about it.”

“Yes, that’s how he usurped me. I’m suspect because of my innocent scholar’s interest.”

“It’s worse than that now, sir. Dragons have been sighted, so they say. You’re in league with Satan himself.”

“Am I really? How interesting.” Hal brushed dirt off his knees and straightened his jerkin. “The Prince of Darkness should take better care of his minions.”

The huntsman laughed, a quick bark that spoke of a deep reservoir of anger. “The problem is, some fools will believe him.”

Hal’s jaw tightened. “My sword awaits him, priest or no.”

“I’d do it myself, if I could get in range. He never goes anywhere without four stout men with him, his so-called brothers with short-swords beneath their robes. Does a true man of God need such protection?” Griff stretched legs and arms, warming to his complaint. “And young Josef—the baron, I mean—sits still for all this witch-talk that the baroness would never have allowed. He gives the priest the run of the castle, and takes him around to the other domains where the priest preaches hellfire to the people, then all the high-born sit up late carousing and plotting.”

“Carousing and plotting.” Hal sucked his teeth disconsolately. “At least that’s nothing new.”

“Aye, but usually they’re plotting against each other.” Having given rein to his tongue, Griff seemed in no mood to stop. “Now it seems there’s an army being raised, my lord.”

“An army?” Hal contrived to look skeptical, but this man’s information was sure to be more than rumor. “What for?”

“The priest and the young baron call it a crusade of believers, gathering to rescue the kidnapped child from the Legions of Satan. And the countryside is in a terror, with no better explanation for their bad luck and misery. But, my lord . . .” Griff leaned closer and dropped his voice, despite their obvious solitude. “I could easily see how this ‘crusade’ might be aimed somewhere else. When we lost the girl’s scent and the new hunt-master was so ready to turn back, the men thought it was fear of her witch-powers. But I had to wonder if he was under orders not to drift too far from Tor Alte, where the Hunt might be called upon to provision the kind of army whose loyalty depends on how well you feed them.”

“To many, a full belly is reason enough to offer one’s sword in service these days.”

“There are not deer enough in the forests for that kind of army.”

Hal leaned in closer, elbows on knees. “Aimed where else, Griff?”

“I think you can guess, my lord.”

Hal’s fists clenched. “At the king! Of course! Times are bad and the throne is now truly vulnerable. That hell-priest has allied himself with the barons’ cabal, or they with him.
I wonder who’s using who. Where is this army? Who else is involved?”

“So far, the army is only a few hundred men marching about under Baron Josef’s command, rousting out sinners and witches, and emptying out the peasants’ larders in the process. But word is, others are preparing, may even be on the road already. The cabal, as you say, flocking to the priest’s crusade.” He cleared stones with a sweep of his hand and sketched a rough map in the sand. “Stürn, Dubek and Zittau in the east, Rathenow and Schoenbeck in the north, and then Köthen, your old neighbor.”

Hal started. “Köthen? The old man?”

“The elder lord is dead, sir, just last year.”

“Not
young
Köthen? In arms against the king?”

“That’s not what they call it, my lord.”

“Yes, yes. A ‘crusade.’ Is there any resistance? I must get to the king. Does no one call them traitors?”

“Who’d dare oppose the word of the Church? A mere whisper of disapproval and there’s a white-robe in your courtyard, sniffing out witch-plots.”

“Stürn and Rathenow I’d expect, but Köthen! The king’s own nephew, who fostered the crown prince! I can’t . . . I must . . . I’ve wandered enough!” Hal’s outrage forced him upward into motion. He paced the sand in broad, abrupt strides. “Isn’t it enough that they hold the real power? Now they want the throne for themselves?”

Griff glanced up and down the beach before nodding once. “And I’ll have none of it. But I’m outnumbered at Tor Alte right now, so off I came, after the girl. If she really has been witched, so much the worse for me, but a man’s got to have a purpose in life, and the trail’s old but not yet dead.” He ran a scarred hand through his thinning hair and smiled slyly. “Like ourselves, sir, you know what I mean?”

Hal snorted, then laughed outright, his rage deflected as an idea came to him. “Indeed I do.” He sat down again and passed along the last of the bread, together with another thin slice of the cheese. “Suppose I was to suggest to you another purpose?”

Griff studied his food thoughtfully. “I might find myself listening, my lord.”

“Go back. Be the king’s eye at Tor Alte, or if possible,
with Baron Josef’s army. You could start by spreading word that the baron’s daughter is dead.”

The huntsman chewed on a curl of crust. “How do you figure that, my lord?”

“Well, if the witch-child is dead, what further excuse for a crusade?”

“They’ll say dragons, or the weather. They’ll not back off now. It’s gone too far.”

“Then let it go farther!” Hal’s eyes took fire again. His back straightened. “Force them to show their colors! Call it what it already is, what it’s been for the last two years! A full-fledged baron’s revolt!”

Griff eyed him with wary respect.

“We’re not the only ones getting old, Griff. But His Majesty is not dead yet, and his son’s a fool whose only asset is his legitimacy. No, don’t look scandalized. You know it’s true, and so does the king. He takes his help where he can find it.”

The huntsman considered this, taking the time to finish off his bread and savor the last of his cheese. “The people do cry out for a leader, sir. Oh, I mean, not where a peer or a white-robe can hear them, but there’s hope and desperation enough out there to stoke the wildest rumors. I’ve heard a few already.”

“I’m sure.” Hal shook his head warningly. “But when people look for messiahs, they end up with Fra Guill. We must be our own salvation, I fear.”

“Yes, sir. But now, what of the girl? I feel . . . well, the baroness’ own granddaughter—shouldn’t someone be looking for her?”

“The girl is safe.”

“Ah.” The huntsman nodded slowly.

“She’s suffered greatly and needs more than anything else to be free of pursuit.”

“Hmmm. Well.”

“I cannot tell you where she is or how I know this, but you can take it to be true, upon my honor. So, will you do it? Will you carry the lie back to Tor Alte?”

Griff grinned at him. “I suppose if you were a warlock like the priest is saying, you could just witch me into doing your bidding.”

“I’d prefer that the king’s name had that power.”

“And so it does, my lord. So it does.”

*   *   *

By midday, the beach was swept clear of their traces and the huntsman had begun his journey back to Tor Alte to spread Hal’s “righteous lie.”

TO THE WOMEN NOW? Erde scrawled on the sand as the knight checked the fastenings of the mule’s packs.

“To the Women, yes. You listen well.”

WHAT WOMEN?

“Oh, some friends of mine.”

AND GERRASCH.

Hal cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, his also, and you could learn from the old bast— . . . your pardon, my lady. You play the squire so well, I keep forgetting . . . the old
gentleman’s
example: the less you know, the less you can betray.”

I WOULDN’T TELL.

“No, not if you could help it.” He tightened a final knot with an unnecessarily abrupt jerk. The mule glanced around in surprise. “If Fra Guill will burn innocent women, don’t you think he’d relish getting his hands on someone like Gerrasch? Someone truly unconventional, someone ‘unnatural’ who roots around in the forest gathering herbs and dabbling in magic? I can feel the heat of the stake already. It wouldn’t be pretty.”

IS GERRASCH A WITCH?

“Milady, please!” Hal quickly obliterated her words with his foot. “Gerrasch is one of God’s Holy Innocents, though I doubt the hell-priest would see it that way. So remember, his safety depends on our discretion.”

Erde took his cue and carefully scuffed away the rest of her scribblings. Hal seemed to have a lot of friends who required this special secrecy. Erde knew she must honor that need as long as she continued to accept his protection and advice, which she must until she got where she was going. But she could see she was not always going to agree with him.

For instance, she was not entirely comfortable with the notion of the “righteous” lie. She pondered this during their long hours heading southwest into the hills at the far end of the lake. At first she’d thought it would serve her father right to hear the gruesome tale that Hal and Griff had concocted between them, her tragic death by drowning in an icy torrent, her broken body swept away over the
falls. She conjured satisfying visions of a remorseful baron, too grief-stricken to leave his rooms. But picturing Tor Alte as she trudged along yet another rocky and unknown road made her homesick for the castle and the life she’d known. Even though her rational self knew that life was ended forever, the child in her longed for it anyway. She began to feel a bit sorry for her father, to regret that she had allowed such a terrible lie to be sent to him. It seemed the burden of her guilt would never lighten, only increase in this inexorable fashion.

YOU WERE GOOD WITH GRIFF, she wrote during a hasty break for a meal. Though they’d been traveling for several hours already, the huntsman’s news had made Hal as impatient as the hound had been. He worried aloud about the king, and cursed himself for not staying in Erfurt, under cover, to be there when his sovereign needed him. He talked of armies and strategies and the various possibilities of alliance as he saw them. He muttered about where one could hide something as big as a dragon. He felt they were rested enough and ought to press onward through the night. She had to jog his elbow to bring his attention to her dusty scrawl.

“Good? You mean I was nice to him?”

CLEVER.

Hal studied the letters in the sand as if they might rearrange themselves to read something different. “You’re implying manipulation, aren’t you.” When she gazed back at him noncommittally, he laughed out loud. “Ha! I do perceive Meriah’s steel in you! Of course I manipulated him, but not as in playing with him or using him without his knowledge—I merely turned his head so he could view the situation clearly.” Hal swept his arm in a wide arc as if the valley behind them with its gray lake and dark trees were the only kind of view he meant. “So he could see where his interests might intersect with ours. That’s called diplomacy.”

CRAFT.

“Ha!
States
craft!” he declared. “Well, that’s what I’m good at—my gift, you might say. For twenty years I’ve put it at the service of our king, an itinerant manner of service your grandmother never really understood either, but a crucial one to monarchs nonetheless.”