The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards (35 page)

Gray shapes moved silently to surround the house. Crossbows, pikes, and swords spread themselves in a fence. Sparks stood out in the dark as someone struck a flint, and then an oily flame came to life on the end of a torch and quickly spread to a dozen others. A man walked to the door.

The pounding of his fist echoed through the inn.

“Rebels and traitors!” he shouted. “Weapons to the floor! Crawl out in a line or burn together!”

The voice of Zebudee, strengthened by years of barroom ballads, boomed a reply. “Servants of the snake! Back to the sea on your bellies, or a merry good-bye to you and your souls!” And then quieter, to the room, “Torches first, lads.”

While Henrietta watched the torch-bearing soldiers step forward, the room filled with the sound of shattering glass. Zeke and the man next to him both forced arrowheads and fists through panes and then let fly. The torchmen in the ring all fell, but while the flames flickered on the cobbles, a swarm of crossbow bolts ripped through the windows and blankets and rattled through the beamed room. Glass and wool fell onto Henrietta’s head as the soldiers rushed forward, pressing at every window, forcing the door. Throwing the blanket away, she saw the flame
and moon shadow that was Zeke draw his bow and release it inches from a climbing soldier’s belly. The man folded over and tumbled into the inn, two others still alive behind him. Henrietta staggered backward, pulling her knife.

It was then that she saw the three shapes beyond the rushing soldiers, the three men in black with the moon-silver helmets. One of them drew his long sword and began to move forward through the clattering mayhem. It parted around him like so much mist.

“Zeke!” Henrietta yelled. “Zeke!”

As if he knew her voice, the fingerling turned and walked toward her window. The others walked behind him.

Throughout the dining room, the shouting grew triumphant. The soldiers had broken. Armed men leapt out of the windows, running survivors down. Three men jumped out over Zeke where he knelt, shrugging off a soldier’s body. All were cut down with the fingerling’s long blade. The dark men had reached the window and were climbing through. Zeke found his feet and staggered backward, notching another arrow, drawing his bow. The long blade flicked, and Zeke’s bow leapt out of his hands in two halves. The man raised his sword above Zeke like an executioner, and Henrietta ran forward, yelling. She jumped into the man’s chest and threw her arms around his neck. For a moment, she hung on him, groping with her little knife, trying to slide the blade up the back of his helmet. And then, for the second time, the man’s fingers found her hair and forced back her head. The butt of his sword
cracked against her temple, and she slipped away, floating in a pool of darkness.

When Henrietta opened her eyes, her body was folded over something big and moving, squeezing against her stomach and chest. Her breath wasn’t coming easily, and her ribs ached. Her quick pulse drummed in her temples. The only light came from the moon and some distant orange flickering.

Groaning, she tried to straighten up, but she couldn’t. She was draped over the back of a horse, and a tight rope ran between her hands and feet beneath its belly. A man rode bareback in front of her. Craning her head, she could see a broad metal belt and silver chains running up his back to a collar, and from the collar to the rim of a silver helmet. A long sword was sheathed on his back. Two other horses rode nearby. A second shape drooped behind one of the riders.

“Zeke?” Henrietta said. “Zeke?” The man in front of her shifted slightly.

“If that is his name,” the man said, “the queen knew him. She requires you both.”

“Who are you?” Henrietta asked. “Why are you doing this?”

“I am called Coradin. My father was also Coradin. We have always carried swords.”

“Did you want the finger?” Henrietta asked. “Does she make you do everything?”

When the man said nothing, Henrietta arched her
back as far as she could and tried to see where they were. Hylfing was below her, at the bottom of a long, smooth slope. The square was full of tiny torches, and a huge bonfire blazed near the center. While she watched, the bells began to ring. She knew this slope well. She and Eli had galloped down it on Caleb’s horse, with lightning falling around them. The fingerlings were taking her to the wizard door.

“What happened in the city?” she asked.

“Do the bells not tell you? The soldiers were slain or captured. The galley was taken. The slaves were freed.”

“Did the inn burn?”

“How many more questions await me?”

“Did it?”

“No.”

Henrietta wished that she could laugh, that she could be happy, that she could taunt the man with failure. But she didn’t think that he had failed. If he had wanted to burn the inn, it would have burned. He had wanted her. And Zeke. Why? What did that mean about Henry?

“My cousin got away, didn’t he?” Henrietta strained to look up at the back of the man’s head. “I mean, the witch wouldn’t care about me if she had him.”

Coradin said nothing.

Henrietta forced more air inside her aching ribs. Talking hurt, but she didn’t care. “We’re going to the old wizard door, aren’t we? I’ve been through it before. With my uncle. But where then? Where are you taking us?” Pausing
long enough to know that the man wasn’t going to answer, she continued. “You know you’re going to die, don’t you? When my uncles kill the witch, you’ll probably go, too, right? Because of that finger. My uncles
will
kill the witch. She might make a big mess first, but they’ll kill her just like they killed Darius.”

“I do not know Darius,” Coradin said. “But the queen has no life to lose. Still your tongue. No more words.”

“She has some kind of life,” Henrietta said. “And she’ll lose it.”

Coradin drew the sword over his shoulder and twisted in his seat, setting the butt against the back of Henrietta’s head. He raised it.

“Okay, okay,” Henrietta said. “I’ll be quiet.”

The man began to resheath his sword.

“You are going to die, though,” Henrietta added.

In one motion, the big man’s arm came down and around. For the second time that night, the sword hilt cracked against Henrietta’s skull. For the second time that night, she forgot that the world existed. She forgot who she was or
that
she was. She knew nothing.

Frank sat cross-legged watching the flames dance in three galley lanterns on the planks in front of him. Beams popped, and aspen leaves brushed against his arms as the ship rode the sea’s uneven back. They were all gathered around, all watching the lights. And they had all eaten, but not much. Crusts and cheese had been dropped through
the hatch before dark. Most of a night had passed since then.

Meroe groaned. His shirt was off, and the wound in his side had already begun to seep through the fresh bandage Hyacinth had bound tight around his middle. He pressed a fist against it and inhaled deeply. His face calmed.

“Dad,” Penelope said. “What’s going to happen to us?” She was leaning on her mother.

“Couldn’t say,” Frank said.

“Nothing good,” said Dotty.

Frank leaned over and kissed Dotty on the cheek.

“Frank Willis,” she said. “I can’t remember when we’ve been in worse trouble.”

“Can’t you now?” he asked. “I think that I can. Dots, love, we’ve held hands a little closer to death’s brink than this.”

James plucked himself an aspen sapling and stripped off its leaves. Monmouth yawned and stretched out on his back.

“I should swim,” Meroe said. “Out the death hatch below. This captain will not free us.”

“Trailing blood out of that wound?” Frank asked. “You’d be chumming for sharks and every other meat-eater.”

Isa sighed and leaned her head on Hyacinth’s shoulder.

“How long since we heard a sailor’s tread?” James asked. “We should go above.”

“Soon,” Frank said.

“We are still sailing south. South.” James bent the aspen, but it did not break. He cinched the slender trunk into a knot and threw it into the shadows. “The morning will see us in Dumarre.”

“What will they do with us in Dumarre?” Isa asked.

“Nothing good,” Dotty said again.

“Monmouth,” Penelope said. “Do you have another forest in you?”

The slight wizard sighed and tucked his hands beneath his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t know that I had the first one. What good would it do?”

Hyacinth began to hum quietly. It was a song from her own childhood, a song her mother had sung, standing on the roof of her house, watching the sea, waiting for the return of her father.

Frank leaned his head back against a timber and breathed slowly. He reached out and pulled his wife and daughter against him. The tune was distant and familiar. When Hyacinth began to softly sing the words, he knew their meaning, though the language was long forgotten, nothing more than a painful memory of childhood lessons. The song was full of sweetness, thirsting for reunion, sorrowful, bending beneath separation.

Frank shut his eyes and listened to the creaking ship. He listened to the gentle lilt in Hyacinth’s voice and Penelope’s breathing as she sank into sleep.

James stood up, and Frank opened his eyes. His nephew looked at him and then looked at Meroe. Frank nodded. Meroe nodded.

“Monmouth,” James said quietly. He tucked a long knife into the small of his back. “Come with me.”

The wizard quickly found his feet, and the two of them moved away. They did not climb the ladder. They both disappeared down into the floor, down into the slave hold, down to the death hatch.

The water was barely cool, and its temperature told James just how far south they had already come. Too far. The currents were mixing. Before long, the water would be warm. He bobbed beneath the surface, filled his mouth, and then spat out the salt water against the ship’s side. Monmouth slid through the water beside him. The moon was low, scraping its light across the sea and painting the aspen galley silver. In the east, the horizon had begun to gray.

Kicking his legs, James surged up against the hull and grabbed two fistfuls of young aspens. He twisted them quickly around his wrists, braced his feet against wet wood, and began to climb.

For Monmouth, it seemed easy. The aspens never gave way in his hands. But James struggled, constantly slipping as his slender holds tore free from the ship’s side. By the time one hand had reached the rail, he was fighting to keep his breath even and quiet, praying that he wouldn’t fall and rouse any sailors with his splash.

Monmouth slipped over the rail like something part snake and part cat. Clenching oak instead of aspen, James pulled himself up in time to see Monmouth lowering a body gently down beside the double tiller. James rolled softly over the rail and sat on the deck, breathing hard.

Monmouth held up four fingers and pointed down the length of the ship. In the moonlight, James could see two bodies stretched out in sleep, and two more sitting beside the deck hatch, swords across their knees.

Drawing his knife, James crept forward to the stairs and moved silently down to the center deck.

Henry sat in the sun. His dream was fuzzy around the edges but crystal clear where it needed to be. The baseball diamond was almost perfect. Almost. The infield was grass, and the reddish earth of the base paths was freshly combed beneath crisp chalk lines. The outfield fence was boarded and painted with local sponsors. Those kept changing for some reason. His subconscious mind was having trouble settling on endorsements. The bleachers were changing, too, from a few aluminum rows behind home plate to stands that would work better in a minor-league park and everything in between.

The dandelions were a bigger problem. At first they’d sprouted everywhere. He’d worked at it, and now they disappeared whenever he looked at them. But as soon as he looked away, he just knew the outfield was erupting with gold.

He was standing on the pitching mound.

Three more problems. He had no glove. He had no ball. He had no players.

He tried to make a glove appear, but his mind wasn’t buying it. The stupid cop had his glove, and no dreaming
could get it back. And he didn’t know where his baseball was. The bald faerie had probably taken it. Again, his mind knew the ball was gone and wouldn’t help out with any imagining. And players … why couldn’t he conjure up players? One of them could bring a ball and some bats, and he could borrow a glove.

He stared at the plate and tried to imagine a catcher. Something moved in his periphery, off in the completely golden left field. He turned, and the dandelions rushed into hiding.

It was his grandmother. She walked slowly, and her eyes were closed. The sun was on her face and playing in her braided hair.

Henry smiled, watching her face while she walked toward him. She stopped on the grass beside the mound and opened her eyes.

“Your hair is really white,” Henry said. “Are you actually here?”

She smiled at him, and for some reason, both joy and sadness mingled in her eyes. Then she nodded.

Henry laughed. “The faerie said no one could dream-walk into this place.”

“Nothing could keep me away,” his grandmother said. “Not from this. Though I do not dream-walk.”

“Not from what?” Henry asked. He stepped off the mound and sat down in the grass.

His grandmother smiled. “Thirteen years ago, at this dark hour of the morning, a boy child came into the
world. Your mother, Hyacinth, sang over you, weak from the struggle but flushed with the triumph. And when I saw you in your father’s arms, I wept.” She lowered herself to the grass beside Henry. “You fought your mother long, but when you came, you were as swift as a sunburst.”

“Today is my birthday,” Henry said. Sadness rolled over him. He’d forgotten. And he’d pictured a feast like the one at his christening. Aunt Dotty had promised him pies. “Wait.” He looked into his grandmother’s face. “You’re talking. Are you sure you’re real? You’ve never been able to talk in a dream.”

“For me,” his grandmother said, “this is no dream. I am as real as I have ever been.”

Henry sat perfectly still. Something heavy sank inside him. Something he refused to look at or think about. “What’s going on?” he asked, and his voice was quiet.