The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards (40 page)

The door to the room opened, and Henry quickly dropped the stone back in the box.

“Henry?” his sister’s voice asked. He spun on his chair.

“Henry!” Anastasia ran toward him, bouncing. She threw her arms around his neck and then jumped back and laughed.

Una walked toward Henry, smiling. His small sister looked tired but happy. She looked like their mother. Her arms went around him, and she squeezed hard and long. His ribs popped.

“I know you’re not,” she said. “But you seem bigger.”

“I feel smaller,” Henry said, but he wasn’t sure if that was true. Not right now.

Richard had come in behind her. He stood stiffly in front of Henry, nodded, and stuck out his hand to shake.

“Henry York, I am greatly relieved to see you alive,” he said, and spread his thick lips in a wide smile.

“Henry Maccabee,” Anastasia said. “His name is Maccabee, Richard Hutchins.”

Henry laughed. “I’m glad to see you, too, Richard.”

Anastasia grew suddenly serious. Henry’s laughter died.

“Is Henrietta alive?” she asked. “You went into the fire for her.”

“Yes.” Henry grinned. “She’s in Hylfing with Zeke.”

“Zeke?” Richard asked. “What is Ezekiel Johnson doing in Hylfing?”

“It’s a long story,” Henry said. “Too long for right now.”

“Grandmother?” Anastasia asked.

Henry looked at her. “What?”

“Did you save Grandmother?”

“I did,” Henry said. “For a little while.”

Anastasia’s eyes widened. “For a little while? And then what?”

Henry looked from his cousin to his sister. Both were very still.

“And then she saved me,” he said. “And she’s gone.”

Anastasia slumped into Henry’s chair. Una stepped beside her and put her arms around her little cousin’s shoulders.

“My condolences,” Richard said. “I am very sorry.”

Through the doorway, the sound of voices and feet and yelling tumbled into the room.

“I’ll be a wizard first!” a voice shouted. “Before I’ll be made a jigging little chestnut farmer!”

Jacques stepped into the room, followed by four large faeries carrying a stiff-bodied but shaking and shouting Fat Frank.

The limb-locked Frank was tipped onto his feet and stood rocking like a jostled bowling pin about to fall. “Your fat-faced king has claimed me, and that’s his right! But I’ll not be swearing any oaths or dancing through your ritualing!” Frank’s eyes shot around the room. “Henry?” he asked. “Poor lad, the chesty nuts have trussed you as well?” His eyes widened. “Have you been a day? Do not be staying another.” He nodded at Richard and the girls. “Get that lot gone and hop to, or they’ll be bonded. It’ll be this world and no other until their hearts break or their minds crack.”

“Let him go,” Henry said.

Jacques snorted, tugged his mustache, and stepped dramatically toward Henry.

“Greenling,” he said. “Hold your tongue if you’d like to keep it.”

Nudd, the Chestnut King, loomed in the doorway. He carried Coradin’s sword in one hand and a bundle in the other. “Jacques,” he said. “Arm yourself and form up the ranks in the hall.”

Jacques blinked, opened his mouth, and then shut it again. Turning, he and the other faeren stepped out through the doorway. The king shut the door behind him. Breathing heavily, his face shone with recent effort.

“What king holds children?” Frank asked. Nudd turned slowly. He gestured with a single, thick finger. Frank’s limbs fell loose, and he staggered forward.

“Put these on,” the king said, handing his bundle to the faerie. “And quiet your awkward soul or I’ll be forgetting a bargain made.”

Turning to Henry, Nudd held out Coradin’s sword. “I have not labored so hard in my long memory. The blade has been turned. The hole has been filled. No longer does it gutter and suck, though it will kill you no queen.”

Henry took the sword. Heat rushed up his arm when he gripped it. Drawing the blade, he blinked. It was the same curve, the same vanishing edge, but it whispered with gold, and as it moved in the air, it took on some of Henry’s life, tracing fast-vanishing colors as it passed. Henry laughed and sheathed the sword. He handed it to Una and turned, poking the drawstrings of his hoodie back over his shoulders.

“Could you tie it for me?” he asked. “And at my belt.”

“Henry?” Anastasia asked. “What’s going on?”

“I’m going to Dumarre,” he said. “I have to kill the witch.”

Una tugged the first knot tight and then turned Henry around, looking into his face. “Why you?” she asked. “Where’s Father?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “I hope he’s there, and Caleb, too.”

“Excuse me,” Richard said, facing Nudd. “I’m going to need a sword.”

The big king laughed. “I have no other. You must carry arms like Franklin.” All eyes turned to Frank. He was adjusting a smooth breastplate, glistening like glass but grained like the shell of a chestnut. It looked like it had sucked on to his shape. A tree-grown chestnut mace, triple-knobbed on top with green spiked konkers, hung in his belt. He looked up and scrunched his face around his knob-nose.

“Henry York,” he said. “You and I have been a-brawlin’, but going for the witch is something else then. You’ve a surety about this?”

Henry nodded. “Yes. Well, maybe. I hope so. But you don’t have to come. I mean, I assumed you would. But I’d forgotten about your magic.”

Frank glared at him.

“You don’t have to,” Henry said. “That’s all I’m saying.”

The former faerie faced Henry and put his hands on his hips.

“Fat Frank don’t have to? Just because I’m yellowing? Don’t be forgetting that I saw you yammering in your first fight, nothing but a lump waiting for death to sit on him. Now you think you’ll go a-warring without me? You wouldn’t make it as far as I can fall.”

Muttering, Frank turned away and cinched up his belt. “What do I have to lose, then? Come good or ill, I’ll be chalk in a ditch before the moon wanes.”

“Brother green,” the king said, ignoring Frank. “You have your sister, your cousin, and your friend beside you.
You have Fat Frank and a blade remade. You have the Blackstar, and a faeren troop awaits you. Is our bargain binding?”

“It is,” Henry said, and his heart beat cold.

“The Blackstar?” Fat Frank looked from the king to Henry, his big eyes wide. “The Blackstar?”

“What bargain?” Una asked. She squeezed Henry’s arm. “You made a bargain with faeries?”

“Excuse me,” Richard said. “When do I get my mace?”

“I want one, too,” said Anastasia.

Something thumped against the door.

“The Blackstar?” Frank asked again. “Nimweasle’s Blackstar?”

Una stepped around in front of Henry, forcing him to look into her eyes. “Henry, what bargain?”

Again, the door thumped, and the Chestnut King threw it open. The raggant walked into the room, and Beo leapt in beside him. Behind them both, two rows of bizarrely armed and helmeted faeren stood stiffly. Jacques stood in front.

“Rags,” Henry said, and he turned to the king. “He looks great.”

“We tended to him,” the king said, and nodded. The two lines of faeren moved into the room, crowding Henry and the others back into the wall. Richard pressed up against Henry on one side, and the girls on the other. Fat Frank stood defensively in front of them. The raggant climbed up onto the table and sat beside the Blackstar. Beo
sat in a corner and watched with ears up. The faeren each wore a breastplate like Frank’s—deep, glossy, grained, and sucked on to their different shapes. And they each carried an oversize chestnut mace, though only Jacques and Frank held maces with three knobs. And they were all—all but Frank—wearing green spiked helmets to match their maces. The room was restless with breathing, and the faeren lines still overflowed into the hall. The king waded through them like a great, bearded, floating island until he stood beside Henry. He set a green disk covered with spines on top of Frank’s head. It molded and shaped itself to the faerie’s skull, flaring out below his jaw and rounding above and around his eyes. A long spike crawled down above the faerie’s nose, almost to his lip. When the helmet had stopped growing, it creaked and crackled and hardened in place. The tips of every spike tightened and browned.

Richard cleared his throat, but before he could speak, the voice of the Chestnut King boomed over the spiked helmets.

“Soldiers, faeren of Glaston’s Barrow, brothers to the king, we go to war, we cross boundaries into the territory of the queene.”

The faeren cheered, and the king raised his hands. “We cross boundaries between worlds. Again, Endor rises. Nimiane, witch-queen, enthrones herself an empress in Dumarre. We will strike her down.”

The room was silent but for Beo’s panting and the sound of faeries shifting on their feet.

“King,” Jacques said. “Is this our fight? Can her evil reach us here?” Mutters and whispers moved through the room.

Nudd’s face flushed, and his beard rose and fell with the heaving of his chest. “Silence! Jacques is in the right. Her evil cannot reach us here. Let us burn the ancient three-mace trees and close off the ancient ways. Tear down the tower, the crown of our barrow, and let us hide ourselves from evil. Let no one leave the mound, and if evil grows, we shall flee farther.”

The king chewed on his lower lip, glowering at the room. Every pair of faeren eyes was down. Jacques, where skin peeked out of his helmet, was pink.

“No!” Nudd roared. “Let evil hear the pounding of our feet! Let evil hear our drumming and our chanting songs of war. Let evil fear us! Let evil flee! In any world, may dark things know our names and fear. May their vile skins creep and shiver at every mention of the faeren. Let the night flee before the dawn and darkness crowd into the shadows. We march to war!”

Nudd threw his arms up toward the ceiling, and the chestnut lights surged into a blaze. The shout that rose up with the king’s thick arms forced Henry back into the table. Fists and maces climbed with the yelling voices, and the faeren of Glaston’s Barrow began to stomp in time. Henry blinked in shock and felt his sister and his cousin grab at his shirt. Fat Frank’s cry rose up louder than any other, and his mace swung laps in time with the drumming of his feet. The raggant’s wings were flared, and
Richard, flushed red with shouting, pounded his fists against the earthen wall.

He was the last to quiet when the king raised his hands. The room was more than restless now. Helmets bounced and feet tapped. Maces rolled across breastplates.

“An age ends,” the Chestnut King said. “As you have known, I will not be with you long. My centuries have past, and another rises to lead you. You see before you Maccabee, called Henry, dandelion green, seventh son to Mordecai Westmore, seventh to Amram Iothric—before him may the witch-queen fall and Endor green! Beneath him may the roots of Glaston’s Barrow deepen, and the faeren peoples bloom, for he will be your Chestnut King!”

Fat Frank spun around and looked at Henry. Una grabbed two handfuls of his shirt. Richard, Anastasia, and half the room cheered.

“He’s human!” someone yelled.

“Human by birth,” said Nudd. “As was I, and the king before me. But he will not be human long, and this world will be his own.” Reaching beneath his beard, Nudd removed a necklace and held it high—a solid ring of silver with simple hooked ends for a clasp. Pierced in the center, with its eye out, there was a single, perfect chestnut. Nudd hooked it around Henry’s neck. “He is my heir,” he said. “And he leads you to war.”

“To war!” a small faerie yelled, raising his mace, and Henry almost laughed, recognizing Thorn. No one joined in.

Nudd took Henry by the shoulder and led him through the quiet crowd to an overloaded bookshelf.

“In happier times,” he said, “there was a door connecting the royal chambers in the barrow of the king to the same in the palace of the queene. There is a three-mace tree in the hills north of Dumarre, but this will bring you there with greater speed. The former queene was a lover of courts and cities, and her palace has a doorway into Dumarre.”

Nudd gripped the side of the bookshelf and pulled it, grinding, away from the wall. A wooden door, nearly black and covered with cobwebs, was inset into the hard earthen wall. It was covered with dusty carvings of rabbits and flowers, trees heavy with fruit, and two people who were apparently in love. Henry thought they would have looked better if they’d been wearing a bit more, but he had much bigger things on his mind.

“We’re going into the Faerie Queene’s bedroom?” he asked.

Nudd nodded. “That you are, lad.”

The faeren eventually reformed their double column, beginning at the cobwebbed door. Jacques and Frank stood at the front, ignoring each other. Richard had been fully armed, and Anastasia, who had been given only a knife, stood between him and Una. At least she had Beo. The dog had always liked Henrietta better than anyone, but Anastasia seemed to be the next best thing. His big head was under her arm, and he was tall enough for her to
lean on his shoulder. She had already told Richard that his lips and his helmet made him look like a puffer fish, and even though she’d been right, Una had made her apologize. Everyone was waiting for Henry. He had left the room with the fat king, and when he walked back in alone, he looked pale, and he’d tucked his new necklace into his sweatshirt. A chestnut breastplate had been sucked on to him, but he’d refused to wear the helmet. Watching him move toward the door, Anastasia felt pride bubble up inside of her. It was hard not to be proud. He was her cousin. They shared blood. And he’d been smart enough to realize that he’d look stupid in one of the faerie helmets.

Henry reached the front of the double faeren column and looked back. He’d thrown up in the hall, but only the king had seen him. Twice. But he hadn’t cried. There wasn’t any point, and he’d felt too sick. This was it. Win or lose, dead or alive, he was done with his world. He puffed out his cheeks, looked at Fat Frank, wished he had a mint or some gum, then looked back at all the waiting faeren. He cleared his throat. He couldn’t just open the door and march in. What were all these faeries thinking? He was supposed to be their king? He was nothing next to Nudd.