The Golden Queen (6 page)

The gangrelly boy looked up, uncertain. He startled back at the threatening tone in Gallen’s voice. He didn’t answer.

“You’ve got your father’s blood on your boot, and you’ve still got a robber’s soot to hide your shameful face,” Gallen said. Father Brian looked at the boy darkly, saw the betraying marks. The priest bit his lip.

Patrick glanced longingly down the road to Clere, set his muscles as if to run. He wasn’t an agile sort. Gallen judged that he could catch the boy in fifty paces.

“The likes of you,” Father Brian grumbled at Patrick, “would be only a burden to your widowed mother even if you hung around.”

“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” Patrick whispered. His face had turned red, and now hot tears poured down over his freckles.

“You thought you could steal from your brothers and sisters, and no one would suffer?” Father Brian asked, shocked. “What were you thinking? Aren’t times hard enough with poachers stealing your sheep and wolves in the flocks? You wanted to add another burden to your father’s shoulders, all for a few pounds to spend on whiskey?” Father Brian was known to be an occasional whiskey drinker, so he added, “or worse—beer?”

“Get yourself gone, now!” Father Brian shouted at the boy in disgust. “And never return to County Morgan. You’re outlawed from here. I’ll give you till sundown, and then I’ll spread the word. If anyone in County Morgan ever finds you walking the road again, your life is forfeit. Go and make a living for yourself elsewhere if you can, but we won’t tolerate you here again!”

“Let me stay a bit,” Patrick begged, reaching for the hem of Father Brian’s robe. “My father’s hurt bad, and my heart is sore for it. Let me stay to see if he makes it through the week!”

“What?” Father Brian asked. “You beg to stay in striking range of a sick man’s purse? Aw, to hell with you! I’d rather trust a weasel to guard the chicken coop. Get out of here before I have Gallen O’Day slit your throat.”

Father Brian picked up a large stone and hurled it at Patrick as a sign that he’d been outlawed. The stone struck the boy on the shoulder, and Patrick hissed painfully but still looked at Father Brian with pleading eyes, begging to stay.

Gallen picked up a stone of his own and threw it hard, slamming it into the boy’s thigh. “Get out of here, outlaw!” Gallen shouted.

Father Brian reached for another stone. If the lad didn’t leave, then according to custom, Gallen and Father Brian had no recourse but to stone him to death.

Patrick jumped away up the road and began limping toward Clere, shooting angry glances back at the two. He seemed to be in the throes of trying to conjure some devastating curse, and finally he shouted, “You don’t fool me, Gallen O’Day! You consort with the sidhe and creatures of the netherworld, and you’re no better than a demon yourself! I saw him, Father Brian! I saw Gallen O’Day with a sidhe last night! He prayed to Satan for help, and a sidhe came to his aid!”

“I’d be pleased,” Father Brian shouted, “if you wouldn’t make such accusations about my cousin, you damned misbegotten purveyor of patricide! Get, now!” He hurled another rock, and Patrick dodged and hurried up the road.

They watched Patrick climb the winding mountain path, between the blue pine trees and the gloam of the wood. Father Brian kept his eyes on Patrick and asked with clenched teeth, “Was there any truth to his words? About the sidhe?”

A shiver ran through Gallen. He couldn’t lie to a priest, even if that priest was only his cousin. “I’ve never prayed to the devil,” Gallen said, “but last night, when those Flahertys knocked me in the head and were hot to skin me alive, some creature came out of the woods. It looked like a man, all dressed in black and carrying swords, but its face shone like molten glass. It warned them that anyone who committed murder in Coille Sidhe would never make it out of the woods alive.”

Father Brian caught his breath and looked at Gallen askance. “You’re sure it wasn’t just a wight or some spirit of the woods?”

“It was flesh, like you or me,” Gallen said. “It put Seamus up on the horse, and I looked into its face. It … I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it.”

“But it warned men against murder,” Father Brian whispered in a tone hinting at something between confusion and awe. “It couldn’t have been in league with the devil. Therefore, it must have come from God. The thing that you saw last night,” he whispered with desperation, “could it have been an angel?”

“I don’t think so. It was dressed in black,” Gallen said.

“Then it was an angel—” Father Brian said with finality, “it was the Angel of Death, walking at the right hand of Gallen O’Day and keeping guard over him. That’s what we’ll tell people. That’s what we’ll say.”

“I’m not so sure—” Gallen started to argue, but Brian spun and grabbed Gallen’s collar at the throat. “Don’t dispute me on this! I’ll not have it said that a cousin of mine consorts with demons. Only you and the robbers saw what happened last night. No one can contradict your testimony! It was God who sent the Angel of Death to stand guard over you—do you understand me? And I’ll excommunicate anyone who begs to differ!”

“Yes,” Gallen said, confused and frightened. Father Brian’s argument made sense, but in his heart Gallen knew that he would not live this down easily. Five other men had seen the sidhe, and they could not but tell what they had witnessed. Somehow, Gallen felt sure, this would come back to haunt him.

Chapter 4

At dawn, the townspeople in Clere dragged the dead monster from the inn and dumped its body into the bay. Father Heany said that no creature damned to be so ugly should be buried on hallowed ground, and the ocean seemed the only place big enough to hide such a fiend.

The town militia guarded the roads but still hadn’t seen more monsters. Yet Maggie knew they were coming. All over town, dogs sniffed the air and barked, sending up keening wails that troubled Maggie’s soul.

“Can you smell them?” Maggie asked Orick just after dawn.

“Aye,” Orick grumbled, standing on his hind legs to catch the scent. “There’s an oily stench on the wind, not from anything human.”

Everywhere, townspeople were rushing about frantically, spreading rumors. But Maggie Flynn just stood, watching longingly up the north road to An Cochan. Gallen still hadn’t returned. He was hours overdue.

“I’m going to An Cochan,” Maggie said at last to Orick, her voice quavering. “If Gallen doesn’t know what’s afoot, he’d better be warned.” She glanced up the road again. There was a tightness in her stomach, a certain knowledge that Gallen had already found trouble. He would never willingly keep a client waiting, and Maggie suspected that his body lay somewhere on the road to An Cochan. If she was lucky, he might still be alive.

“You’re as likely to meet one of those monsters on the road as he is,” Orick said. “And he’s better prepared to defend himself. Just sit tight.”

Orick paced in a circle, rose up on his hind legs and tasted the air again.

Cries of dismay rose from the south end of town. Crowds of people began shouting. Maggie and Orick rushed to the crossroads, looked down the lane: between the shading pine trees, up the cobbled streets lined with picket fences, an ungodly array of giants marched three abreast. Some of them, green-skinned ogres, looked like huge men, eight feet tall. At their head was one of the monsters Orick had slain last night, its too-human head down low, sniffing the ground, blinking at the townspeople with orange eyes.

There were thirty or more of the monsters, and in their center, well protected, walked a creature straight from the bowels of hell. It stood seven feet tall and had a chitinous black carapace. It walked on four extraordinarily long legs, and it held two huge arms before it. One club like arm seemed to end only in a vicious claw, while the other revealed a small, spidery hand that held a black rod.

The beast’s head was enormous, with three clusters of multifaceted eyes in various sizes—two sets of eyes in front, one in back. A long, whip-like whisker was attached to each side of its lower jaw, beneath teeth that looked like something that might have belonged to a skinned horse. Its main body was only about a foot wide across the front, but its ribs would have measured three feet in height. From its shoulders sprouted two enormous pairs of translucent wings, the color of urine. Its bloated abdomen, which was carried between its front and back pair of legs, nearly dragged the ground.

People shouted and ran for their houses, dogs barked and leapt about insanely. Some women and an old man fainted outright, falling to the ground.

Father Heany in his vestments rushed to the street and confronted the black beast. He swung a crucifix overhead and shouted, “Beelzebub, I command you in the name of all that is holy to turn back! Turn back now, or suffer the wrath of God!”

Beneath the black devil’s mouth, dozens of tiny fingers drummed over a patch of tight skin.

The ogre guardians stepped aside, and for one moment the devil faced Father Heany. It pointed the short black staff at the priest. Flames brighter than lightning fanned out, catching Father Heany in the chest. For a moment, Father Heany stood, blazing like a torch, and then the flesh dropped from his bones and his skeleton fell in the middle of the road, amidst a puddle of burning skin. Maggie felt as if her blood froze in her veins.

The ogres trampled Father Heany’s body and just kept advancing toward the inn.

Maggie backed away, retreating between two house-trees toward the edge of town, and Orick padded quietly beside her.

When the menagerie of creatures reached Mahoney’s Inn they stopped, and the doglike leader crouched to sniff the bloody ground.

He turned to Beelzebub and cried, “Master, a vanquisher died here!”

The giants stopped. Beelzebub strode forward and let the whip-like tendrils at his mouth feel the ground, twisting from side to side.

Orick circled behind a tree to hide. Maggie had seen enough. Her heart was pounding, and she struggled to breathe. Every instinct told her to run.

“Let’s get out of here!” she said.

“Wait,” Orick whispered. “Let’s see what they want.”

One ogre kicked down the door to Mahoney’s Inn and rushed inside. A moment later, it dragged out John Mahoney. The innkeeper screamed, gibbering for mercy.

Beelzebub made clicking noises, and one of the giants translated, shouting, “Where did they go? When did you last see them?”

Mahoney fell to his knees. “I don’t know who you mean. Who do you want?”

“You are the owner of this inn?” an ogre shouted. “Two strangers came here last night. A man and a woman.”

“I didn’t see them,” Mahoney begged, crying. And Maggie realized he was telling the truth. He’d already been abed when the strangers came.

But the ogres thought he was lying. One of them growled, and Beelzebub flapped his wings suddenly and leapt into the air. He landed on John Mahoney, teeth first. Maggie saw red blood spurt from John’s head, like the spray of a sea wave as it washes over a rock, then she turned and ran for her life, Orick barreling along beside her.

They hit the woods, rushing through the trees, leaping over logs. Maggie ran until her lungs burned and she could hardly tell which way to go. Still, no matter how far or fast she ran, it did not seem that she was moving far or fast enough to get away. Always she would look behind her, and the town seemed too close, the monsters seemed too close. She probably would have kept running forever, run like a maddened beast to her death, but Orick growled and caught her by the cloak, pulling her to a stop. She screamed and kicked at him, but the bear only growled, “Stop! The strangers went this way! I can follow their trail. We must warn them!”

The two strangers rushed ahead through the forest, and Orick sniffed at their trail in the early morning, forepaws digging into the thick humus while his hind paws kicked forward in a rolling gallop. Maggie struggled to keep up. Between the towering black trees, the forest was wreathed in mist, with the early morning smell of fog that has risen from the sea. Sometimes Orick would spot a juicy slug as he ran. He would dodge aside and grab it from the mossy ground, flicking it into his mouth with his tongue. Yet mostly as he ran, he dreamed, and not all of those dreams were his own: snippets of racial memories stirred in him, visions from the Time of Bears, glimpses of forests from ages past. As he ran among the silent woods, he remembered being a bear cub, tearing at a log for sweet-tasting grubs and termites. Winged termites fluttered above him in a shaft of sunlight, glittering like bits of amber or droplets of honey. Sunlight shone on the emerald leaves of a salmon berry bush. In the memory he felt a vague longing for his mother, as if she were lost, and he heard something large crashing through the forest before him. A trumpet sounded, and a great shaggy beast suddenly towered over him, curved tusks thrusting out impossibly long. It shook its head, and the tusks slashed through the air, casually scattering the flying termites. The cub turned and ran.

Orick relived tales told by his mother, tales so familiar that he could not separate them from his own memory: how she had loved the taste of squirrel meat until she discovered the squirrel’s midden and found that eating its cache of food was wiser than eating the squirrel. He listened to his mother describe tactics for catching salmon—how an old bear should slap the fish from the water with his massive paws while a smaller bear should use his teeth, stretching his head down under the water to gaze open-eyed into the stream. In Orick’s waking vision, he dreamed of bright silver fish slicing through the icy foam. He tasted the small scales in his mouth, the juicy salmon wriggling as it tried to swim free of his grasp.

So it was that as Orick ran through the forest, chasing the strangers, he felt as if he were running backward through time, to the heart of wonder. Surely this morning had already been magic. In solitary battle Orick had defeated a monster, and now he was galloping away from others of its kind, grunting under the weight of his store of winter fat, barreling into the primordial forest of his dreams, into the unknown.

Once, as he passed through a shadowed valley, Orick glimpsed a wight—the flickering green soulfire of someone long dead, a woman with long hair and a frown. She glanced at Orick, and then the wight gazed heavenward. She seemed to recognize that morning had come, and she sank into the hollow of a log.

Orick tracked the strangers’ scent. After two hours, the strangers had marched into a bog of briny water and were forced to veer up a mountain and intersect the north road to An Cochan. Orick and Maggie crept to the edge of the road, Orick padding on heavy feet, sniffing the sour mud of the strangers’ footprints.

He stopped. The morning sun had nearly cleared the hills now, shining on the road, and it seemed strange that the sun could be so warm and inviting on a day so filled with fear. Orick listened. Kiss-me-quick birds were jumping in the bushes, calling out for kisses.

Maggie was panting from the long run. Orick glanced at the road, inviting her to climb up.

She shook her head violently. “I think I heard something.”

Orick tasted the scent of the strangers, looked uphill. They had crossed the road shortly before, heading up under the old pines, into a patch of chest-deep ferns on a knoll. Orick saw the bole of a young house-pine up there, grown from a seed gone wild. Though the house had only open holes for doors and windows, it was the kind of place that made a good temporary shelter for travelers. Orick could not see the strangers, but their scent was strong. He suspected they were hiding inside, resting where they could watch the road.

On both sides of them, the road curved sharply into the deeper woods. The trees provided heavy cover. Orick started to climb, but suddenly heard the shuffling of heavy feet on the muddy road to the south. Both he and Maggie faded back, crawled into the shadow of a twisted pine. From under the heavy cover, Orick watched the road above.

Orick’s snout quivered in fear, but the scuffling footsteps had halted a hundred yards off, and everything became silent. Orick wondered if the monster had stopped to wait for passersby, or perhaps quietly slipped off into the woods, or if it had turned around and headed back toward Clere. For ten minutes, he and Maggie waited in silence, and Orick was just imagining that the danger had passed when Gallen O’Day came ambling up the road, heading toward Clere, whistling an old tavern song. Orick moved a bit so he could see Gallen clearly. Gallen looked worn, and his head was wrapped in a bandage. Orick wanted to call to him, warn him of the strangers in town, but at that very moment a deep voice shouted, “Stop, citizen!”

Gallen stopped and stood looking up the road, his mouth hanging open. An ogre hurried down the road to meet him. The ogre’s chest and lower extremities moved into view, and Orick got a close look at the thing. Its long arms—covered with bristly hair and strange, knobby growths—nearly reached the ground, and in one hand it held an enormous black rod, like a shepherd’s crook. Its fingers could not have been less than a foot long, and they ended in claws that were like nothing Orick had ever seen on a human or bear. The ogre wore a forest-green leine, belted at the middle, and wore enormous brown boots. As Orick watched, the ogre clenched its fists rhythmically, in and out, in and out, flexing those claws threateningly. For a moment, Orick though it would lash out, catch Gallen by the throat.

“Citizen,” the ogre growled in a heavy voice Orick could understand only by listening intently. “I am searching for a man and a woman, strangers to your land, thieves. Have you seen them?”

“Thieves?” Gallen hesitated. “Well now, sir, with the great fair just ending at Baille Sean, the road is heavy with strangers. I saw several pass by an hour ago. Yet I must admit that in all my days, I have never seen anyone stranger than yourself. Would you mind if I be asking: do these strangers present as much of a spectacle as you?”

“No,” the ogre answered softly, hunkering closer to Gallen. “The two I seek are more of your size, citizen. One man is a warrior, skilled in all arms, and he is a scholar. Yet if you saw the pair, your eye would catch only on the woman: she is of unequaled grace and beauty, and at first you would watch her distractedly, almost unaware of anything or anyone else. But the more you watched her movements, the more entrancing she would become. Her every step is like a dance, every soft word a song, and soon you would fall under her spell. If you stood in her presence for an hour, you would think you loved her. If you were with her for a day, you would become lost, and you would find yourself helplessly worshipping her forever—such is her power.”

Gallen’s mouth had fallen open again, and he stared at the ogre. Orick bent lower so that he could try to see the ogre’s face, but the trees were in the way. Orick was tempted to come out of hiding, if only to see this curious beast, but fear made him stay hidden. Finally, softly, Gallen asked, “What is this woman’s name?”

“Everynne,” the giant answered.

“I saw her,” Gallen said, “late last night, at the inn in Clere. She had dark hair, and a face so sweet and perfect that she seemed then to steal my heart.” Orick wanted to shout, dismayed that Gallen would betray the strangers, but Gallen went on. “And I saw her with her companion again this morning, only an hour ago. They stopped in An Cochan to buy fresh horses, and they hurried off north.”

Gallen pointed up the road toward An Cochan, and Orick felt his muscles ease in relief. He could always tell when Gallen was lying, and right now the young man was sending the ogre off on a mad quest.