The Nethergrim (18 page)

“Boy!” Lord Aelfric’s voice rose to a shout, but faltered. “Where are you going? There is much to be done before dark!”

Katherine looked back to find Harry following her—jogging, for it was in truth Indigo leading their way.

“Harold—Harold! Leave off this nonsense at once!” Lord Aelfric rode to the edge of the fence. The knights exchanged knowing sneers, and not a few of them shook their heads.

“You told me that one of these horses is mine to take, did you not?” Harry shot the words over his shoulder. “I choose this one.”

“Then where are you taking him?”

“To his trainer.” Harry drew level with Katherine. He held out the reins.

She took them—their hands curled together for as long as they dared with so many watching. “If you want my opinion, Harry, I think you are turning out very well.”

“I will come by the village as soon as I am able—tomorrow at the latest.” He knelt before her. They both knew she did not need the help, but she stepped into his hands and gained the saddle. She felt Lord Aelfric’s glare, but kept her back to him.

Harry stepped back. “Trust in your father, as I do. He is the finest man I have ever known.” He cast a bitter look back toward the farm. “I wish he was my own father.”

“I wish I was his son.”

His smile broke wide. “No. Every day I thank the stars that he had a daughter instead.”

Chapter
18

E
dmund sat on the step of the inn, mending a threshing flail in the thin light of a day when all the warmth in the world seemed to drain into the blank blue sky. The village had reverted to what looked like normal business—the only obvious change in the frantic rush of the harvest were the castle guards who roved the fields in pairs. Missa Dyer swept dust through the doorway of her brother’s workshop across the street while Henry Twintree marshaled a drove of oxen onto the road with the help of his eldest son. Nicky Bird perched on Baldwin Tailor’s roof to mend a hole while Baldwin harangued him from the square below, loudly accusing him of shoddy workmanship and the use of bad thatching. Even Telbert Overbourne shuffled past, looking pale and crumpled but carrying his sickle for some day work.

“Hard at it, there, Edmund?” Two of the castle guards made their way up the road, their tread slow and heavy from a long patrol in armor. The taller and younger of the two made a sweeping bow. “Or should I say, your wizardliness.”

“If I’m a wizard, why am I untying this knot with my fingers?” Edmund tried yet again to tease apart the frayed leather cord that bound the beater end of the flail to the handstaff. “Did you see anything out there?”

“I am happy to say that there is nothing to report.” The guard’s voice grew muffled as he bent to shrug off his armor. “Save that I now know every path and stream in this village as though I was born here and had never set foot outside it, and have counted all the leaves on all the trees and found them in good health and order, and have taken the liberty of naming all the frogs down by the creek, placing them into clans by the markings on their backs and taking for myself the title King and Overlord of all Frog-Kind. If only a man could grow rich upon a tax of flies.”

Edmund grimaced as his nails found hard purchase on the knot and worked it loose. The guard’s chain armor slid clinking to the ground along with the arming coat he wore beneath it. Missa Dyer stopped sweeping and leaned on her broom to watch.

The other guard, a sallow-cheeked man somewhat older than his companion, stood watching the cloudless sky with an air of distrust. “It’ll go hard for us if this keeps up. Too many days like this mean trouble later.”

“That’s not how it goes,” said the taller guard. “Cold early means it lets up by the solstice.”

“That’s an old wives’ tale, that’s all that is.” The older guard stomped up past Edmund and into the inn.

“I think he’s getting bored with me.” The taller guard threw armor and coat over his shoulders. He sniffed at the air. “Mmm—smells like stew’s on.”

“Not even a trail, then?” Edmund turned as he passed. “No tracks?”

“If my mother cooked as well as yours does, I’d never have left home.” The taller guard followed his companion inside.

Edmund tried to work his fingers into the knot on the other side of the flail. He bent his fingernail, cursed, and flicked the smarting nail against his thumb. He put his finger in his mouth and sucked on it, then looked up, his attention caught by an urgent wave from across the street.

“What?” He put a hand to his ear. “I can’t hear you.”

“I said.”
Missa shot an apprehensive glance at the open front windows of the inn.
“Is he married?”

“Is who married?”

Missa waved her hand above her head.
“The tall one!”

Like it was market day. “How should I know?” Like nothing had happened.

“Ask him!”

Edmund set his teeth. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Ask him later! Please!”

“Yes, yes, fine, all right. Later.” Edmund prevailed at last over the second knot. He blew on his chilled fingers and used a new length of cord to bind the ends of the flail back together. He stood up and gave the mended flail a few experimental swings, then threw it over his shoulder and went through the front door of the inn.

A guard thunked his mug. “Boy—hey, over there.”

Edmund hurried on, pretending not to see the hands raised from the table by the fire.

Thunk, thunk
. “Hey!”

“What’s that boy’s name again? The blond one.”

“I think it’s Richard.”

“Richard! Get us another round, will you?”

Edmund stopped by the kitchen door and looked back. The five guards watched him expectantly for a moment, then one waved his mug back and forth.

Edmund stomped down the cellar stairs.

“That’s three farthings,” he said when he returned with the ale pitcher.

The sallow-cheeked guard threw back his coif to show a narrow, balding head. “The castle’s paying.” Edmund shrugged and poured out the ale.

“You’re that one, aren’t you?” said another guard, more lately arrived from Northend. “The wizard.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

A guard raised his full mug. “To Lord Aelfric, for picking up the tab.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said another, and did.

“Speaking of which.” The newer guard turned back to Edmund. “I didn’t get my fill of this fish. Have you got some more back there?”

“I’ll go look.”

“Leave the jug, will you? There’s a lad.”

Edmund set down the pitcher and pushed back the kitchen door. “They want more fish.”

His mother sat next to a bubbling pot of stew. She held the ladle in her lap—she looked up slow and late.

“Mum.” Edmund leaned by the door. “Mum?”

Sarra heaved herself up and smoothed down her dress. “They can’t have more fish, unless they’d like to go catch some themselves.” She sniffed her mixture, then dipped in a finger and tasted it. “Hand me those bones on the table, will you, dear?”

Edmund turned back inside the tavern. “There’s no more fish. We’ve got bread and cheese, frumenty, leek soup, some turnips. That’s it.”

The guards looked disappointed. “You don’t have any mutton?”

“You ate it all this morning.”

They shrugged at each other. “Sounds all right, I suppose.”

Edmund could not bear the thought of seeing his mother again. He went out the front and around the side of the house. The grain shed stood at the highest point between the inn and the river, above a handsome sweep of yardland leading down to the banks. The slope dropped off to the right, through the wide croft that spread back from Henry Twintree’s house all the way to the riverside, dotted with nearly enough apple trees to earn it the name orchard. One tree stood above all, the great double trunk that gave the family its name. Miles Twintree dangled halfway up its branches, a basket in the crook of his arm. “Edmund!” He waved with an apple in hand. “Edmund! Want one?”

Edmund held out his hands to catch the apple, bobbled it, then seized it in. He nodded up at Miles. “Thanks.” For the briefest of moments he felt better. He pushed back the door to find his father hard at work on a sheaf of barley on the threshing floor.

“Edmund.” Harman did not miss a beat. He raised his flail and brought it down, knocking ears of grain from the stalks and collecting them in the wide, flat winnowing basket.

“Father—” Edmund brought himself to the edge of speaking, but could not force himself across it. He joined in; father and son tensed and released in turn, one swinging down as the other drew back.

They filled the basket and brought it outside. Edmund took up the winnowing fan to blow air across the lip of the basket while his father tossed the grain. He caught his father watching him—a strange, intent look as hard-fixed as anger. Bits of chaff puffed out in a wide sweep onto the path.

Edmund brought the winnowed grain inside and hauled out another sheaf. He worked himself up to speaking again, then lost his nerve. He dropped the bushel on the threshing floor and knelt down to cut the twine around the stalks. His father started hammering at the barley the moment he got up and out of the way.

The sun reddened down past the door. Edmund got a splinter from the handle of his flail. He stopped to pick at it, felt the long slide of pain when he drew it from his hand. His father stopped threshing, and held him in that strange look—then turned abruptly away.

“The light’s starting to go.” Harman set his flail by the wall. “We’ll finish up tomorrow.”

Edmund could hold it in no longer. “Father, he’s alive. Geoffrey is alive.”

His father stopped at the doorway. “Don’t go raising false hopes, son. Your mother’s had it hard enough—you’ll kill her.”

“They’re not false!” Edmund willed himself to speak before his father could leave. “Father—Father, wait—I have a book!”

His father bowed his head and seemed to buckle. “Don’t grow up like me, Edmund.” His voice husked and quavered. “Say you won’t.” He stepped outside.

“Father!” Edmund grabbed for his shirt. “You don’t understand—I’m not saying Geoffrey is alive because I believe it. I’m saying it because I have reasons to think it’s true.”

His father turned, in shadow from the dying sun.

“I have a book.” Edmund let it all out in a babble. “I don’t think I’m supposed to have it, but I do, and I’ve read things in it about the bolgugs, and the Nethergrim—I’ve found things, I think I know what it wants, what it’s trying to do. I’m putting it all together, and I think it means those bolgugs were taking Geoffrey alive, taking him away into the mountains. The Nethergrim needs seven children, that’s why the kids went missing down in Roughy. He has to have seven children, but he only has five. Please, Father, you must listen.”

“I am listening.” His father knelt close, searched his face. “Edmund, where? Where are they taking him?”

“Into the Girth, to a valley where rivers meet. I don’t know which rivers yet, but there’s only four it could be—Katherine’s gone to ask John Marshal for help, and—we can save him. Father, we can save Geoffrey. We can.”

His father gripped his shoulders. “Go back to the start, son, and go slow. Tell me what you’ve learned, and I promise you—”

“Edmund?” His mother’s voice rang out across the yard. “Edmund, come inside now!”

Harman stepped to the door. “We’re talking, Sarra!”

“Please come now, dear.” She sounded shrill—her words echoed to the river and back. “It’s time for supper!”

“Supper can wait!”

“Now, Harman!”

“Curse it all, woman, I told you—bah.” Harman grabbed for the door. “Come on, son. We’ll talk it over inside.”

Edmund felt a weight lift from him. He followed his father down the shadowed path and in through the yard. They found the kitchen door hanging wide and a pot of stew boiling to the brim.

“This is going to burn!” Harman pulled the pot from the fire. “Sarra, where are you?” Edmund stepped past into the tavern. The feeling that something was terribly wrong came a moment too late.

The castle guards sat slack at their table, staring into space and babbling sounds that did not add up to words. A single rushlight cast them in wavering shadow—from above, near the ceiling. Edmund looked up—his mother hung suspended in the air, held there by nothing he could see, but whatever it was, it pinched her hard, making dents along her arms, in her belly and on the side of her neck. She held the rushlight in one dangling hand.

“No alarms, if you please.” The faltering light cast a face in sharp relief behind her. “Not a sound, not a shout. Do just as I say and she lives.”

“Who’s that? Edmund, is your mother in there?” Harman thumped through the kitchen door. He gasped and rushed forward, but Edmund held out his hand and shook his head.

“Edmund, is it?” The stranger twisted his features into a vicious smile. “And this is your father? I can only think that these two failed to raise you as they should. Did they never tell you that it is wrong to steal?”

Edmund stared, unable to think or move, locked in the stranger’s narrow gaze. Beads of sweat rolled down the man’s brow. He coughed, his body shook—Sarra wobbled in the air and nearly fell. The rushlight dropped from her hand and guttered in the trampled straw. It nearly went out—then it caught the straw ablaze. Orange light swelled the room.

Edmund’s father put up his hands and spoke as slowly and as calmly as he could. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I promise you that you may have anything you want from me, anything at all, if you just let her go.”

“I’ll let her go when I please,” said the stranger. “Put down that flail.”

Beneath his terror, Edmund felt something moving in his mind—and with a start he came to know it for what it was. It felt like the moment when he first learned to read, the first time the shapes and squiggles on the page had resolved into thoughts. It was at once strange and familiar, a tune he knew though he knew he had never heard it before.

He could sense the stranger’s magic.

He could feel its flow around him. He heard the subtle chord of the spell, recognized its design from the pages of the book. He could even see its flaws.

The stranger wavered, seeming to grow older with every breath he took.

“You’re drawing through the center.” Edmund advanced, staring hard into the stranger’s bloodshot eyes. “You don’t have the strength to keep that up for long.”

The stranger flicked a finger. Edmund’s mother let out a moan—a trickle of blood ran down her neck. The side of her dress ripped open and a welt formed beneath.