The Nethergrim (4 page)

“Hmm. Well.” Grubby Hands shrugged at his son. “Better than nothing, I suppose.”

“He must be quite a hero to you folk.” The woman did not seem quite so pompous as her companions. “Bet he tells some grand stories!”

Edmund shook his head. “No. He doesn’t.”

“My friends! A round for this house on me!” Henry Twintree stood and slapped a large silver coin to the table. “And when you drink, drink to the memory of Vithric, the great and the wise, who saved us all from the Nethergrim in years gone by!”

The answering shout belled in Edmund’s ears. He cast a frantic look around for Geoffrey, hoping against hope for some help, but instead caught sight of his father glaring his way from across the room. Harman Bale turned from his cheery conversation with the elders of the village and made a significant jerk of his head in the direction of the cellar.

“Drink, my friends and neighbors, to Vithric, to Lord Tristan and to our own John Marshal.” Henry Twintree’s eyes shone dewy and soft—he seemed to be making his speech to a corner of the ceiling. “But most of all, drink to those who gave all, for you stand upon the ground their courage gave you!”

His neighbors gave throat to their agreement. Mugs were thrust up in firelight on all sides, dozens and dozens, to acclaim and to signal.

“Go on!” Edmund’s mother nudged his back. “That’s half a mark!” She picked up the coin and thrust it in her apron. Edmund hurried down the cellar stairs to find his brother’s pitcher lying empty on the floor. He kicked it against the wall with a curse and set his own under the tap.

A noisy, stamping dance had gotten underway by the time he came back up, making the trip to every table a whirling gantlet of arms and legs. It took seven weaving, ducking trips down to the cellar and back to serve the whole of the tavern—it would have taken only six if Wat Cooper had not chosen that particular moment to swing his wife right around in Edmund’s path. No dodging that one—and of course Father saw it all.

“Everyone got your round? Got it? Then here’s to ’em!” Nicky Bird leapt onto a table. “Raise ’em, come on, raise ’em up. Here’s to Tristan and John, to the Ten and the fifty, to Vithric!”

Edmund stopped, seized with the sick and flailing sensation that there was something he wanted very much to remember but could not. He glanced around the tavern room, thinking that maybe he had missed serving one of the corners. For a moment something slipped in and out of his thoughts, leaving only the memory of a pair of eyes watching him in cold disdain. He shrugged—or shuddered—then poured out the foamy bottom of his pitcher into the mug of old Robert Windlee, who had so far managed to sleep through all the din.

“To Tristan and Vithric!” Everyone raised his voice, even Grubby Hands. It was the loudest sound Edmund had ever heard: “To the Ten and the fifty, the men who slew the Nethergrim!”

Chapter
3

E
dmund lay upon his pallet, fully dressed. He had been drifting off to the sound of distant, rumbling conversation and drunken singing for as long as he could remember, and by rights should be so weary as to sleep for a week—yet he had never felt so awake, so quick with anticipation. He passed the time by watching the shafts of firelight that shot up through the many gaps in the floorboards to play on the sharply angled ceiling of his bedroom, winking off and on as the shadow of a reveler passed near the fire in the hearth of the tavern below. They were still at it, long after his father would usually have kicked out all the locals and shut the taps for the night. Horsa Blackcalf scraped the tune of a bawdy drinking song; villager and traveler slurred and shouted their way through the chorus, bashing their mugs on the tables in clumsy rhythm. Edmund could hear his father circling the room, holding them all to the tune in his fine, round baritone, pausing only to urge them to louder choruses, greater joy, and most of all the purchasing of more of his ale.

There came a restless rustle from the pallet next to Edmund’s. He shut his eyes and breathed in through his nose, deep and even as though lost in sleep.

“Edmund? Edmund!” Geoffrey leaned across the gap between their beds. His breath reeked of the onions Edmund had avoided at dinner. “Why have you got your clothes on?”

Horsa drew out the last note of the song into an uneven tremolo, after which there came a raucous cheer and the dull clack of coins being tossed into a hat. Edmund savored the familiar, happy tension in his belly. He ran back and forth over the things he had been practicing to say.

Geoffrey grasped his shoulder. “I know you’re awake!”

“Get off.” Edmund shoved his brother back with one arm and gained his feet.

Geoffrey followed him over to the window. “Where are you going?”

Edmund opened the shutters. The moonlight shone in at a slant. Nothing moved amongst the shadows in the yard below. He turned from the window and opened the trunk at the foot of his bed.

Geoffrey crossed his arms over his hand-me-down nightshirt. “I’ll tell Mum.”

Edmund favored his brother with a look of withering scorn. He pulled out a belt, then dropped it and felt around for the other.

“I’ll tell Father!”

“Think it through for a moment.” Edmund fastened the belt around his waist. “I’ve heard that you actually have some friends now—Miles Twintree, Emma Russet, that kid from across the river, what’s-his-name.”

“I have lots of friends. More than you!”

Edmund moved a bowl of water to the window. “You and I share a room. We have since we moved here four years ago, and we will until one of us runs away or Father dies. Must I go on?” He examined his wavering reflection in the moonlight and tried to smooth down a few jutting strands of his hair. Folk carried on downstairs as though that night was all there was or ever would be.

“So—I think we understand each other.” Edmund ruffled his brother on the top of his head. “Yes?”

Geoffrey slapped his hand away. “Are you waiting for that girl?”

“No.” Edmund reached down to fuss with his boots. “What girl?”

“You know—the big one!”

“She’s not big!” Edmund caught himself before his voice rose too loudly. “She’s just tall.”

“She’s a head taller than you, and she could pick you up and toss you like a sack of apples.” Geoffrey stuck out his chin. “Father’s right, she’s an ox!”

“Who’s an ox?”

Edmund jumped. A head thrust itself up over the sill of the window beside him. Katherine’s eyes were so dark a brown that in moonlight they were wells, endlessly deep but sparked with mirth.

“Evening.” She leaned crossed arms on the wooden sill, as though she were twelve feet tall and just passing by the window. “Lovely weather we’ve been having.” All the smooth, clever things Edmund had been meaning to say simply melted.

Geoffrey scrunched up his freckles. “How did you get up here?”

“This is hurting some.” A boy’s voice floated softly from the yard below. “Don’t know how long I can hold you.”

“Sorry, Tom.” Katherine disappeared from the window. Edmund leaned out to see her jumping down off a pair of skinny shoulders, landing in the stack of hay beside the empty kegs and rolling back into the yard with a whoop. Wat Cooper’s dogs set to barking from the next croft over, but they barked at everything.

“Is that Tom?” Geoffrey pushed up next to Edmund. “Oh, ho, he’s not supposed to be out!”

Tom slipped back into the shadows under the grain shed. Edmund sighed to himself. Just once he would like to ask Katherine to sneak out with him and have her come alone—just once.

“If Tom gets caught, I bet his master whips him good,” said Geoffrey. “Emma Russet says his master whips him all the time!”

Edmund seized his brother by the shirt. “And if Tom gets caught, we’ll know who tattled, won’t we?”

Geoffrey shrugged him off. He leaned out the window. “Hey, Katherine? Katherine!”

“Yes, Geoffrey, hello.” Katherine beat bits of chaff from her cloak. “Edmund, are you coming down?”

“Katherine, I saw what Edmund wrote about you!” Geoffrey leaned out. “He said—”

“You little toad!” Edmund ripped his brother back from the window. Geoffrey squirmed from his grip and dodged giggling around the tiny room.

“He wrote a poem!” Geoffrey raised his voice dangerously high, almost as loud as the singing from the tavern below. “He said that your hair was like a—”

“Shut your face! Shut your face!” Edmund got a grip on Geoffrey’s collar. He threw his brother hard onto the cot and raised a fist.

Geoffrey sneered at him. “Go on. I’ll scream.”

“Edmund? Tell Geoffrey I saw him playing down in the creek with Miles Twintree and Peter Overbourne this evening.” Katherine spoke just loud enough to be heard over the noise. “I thought it was a bit odd since the tavern was so busy. My papa saw it too, and thought the same.”

Geoffrey’s face twisted into the sort of scowl that spoke of unquestionable guilt.

Edmund smiled. He let go of Geoffrey’s shirt and tweaked his nose. “Sleep tight, little toad.” He swung a leg over the sill and hung from it to drop into the hay.

Geoffrey sat up on the pallet. “Why can’t I come, too?”

Edmund pretended not to hear. He shifted over, trying to angle his fall into the soft middle of the haystack.

“Come on.” Katherine beckoned smiling. “It’s not far.”

Edmund let go—and knew at once that he had missed his mark. He landed one foot hard on a tight-wound bale and stumbled backward through the yard to flop at Katherine’s feet.

“Whoops.” She stooped over him. “You’re not hurt?” Her long hair swung down across his face—it smelled of spice and apples. He wanted to lie there forever.

“There you go.” Katherine grabbed his hand and hauled him standing. She wore breeches under boots, and a shirt cut for a man but embroidered with roses at the collar. “Come on, let’s get moving before we’re caught. Tom?”

“Here.” Tom stepped out from the gloom—taller still than Katherine, half a head over most grown men, but where Katherine had gained grace in proportion to her reach, his height had seemed to come by stretching him into a raw, rangy spindle. There were moments, especially in poor light, when they could almost be brother and sister, but the illusion disappeared when they moved or spoke. Katherine always led, and Tom followed, stuck to her like a burr on her shirt.

Katherine listened at the corner of the inn, then shook her head and pointed north. She crept off in front of her friends, leading them in between Wat’s looming kennels and Knocky Turner’s ramshackle garden, then up between the cottages to the edge of the village square. She leaned out to peer around, then crooked in a finger. “Looks clear.”

Edmund followed her out into the square, which was really no more than a bulge in the wide West Road where it met the roads to Dorham and Longsettle. A statue of some old knight stood between the sweeps of wagon ruts, facing east across the bridge toward the dark and empty moors. No one knew who he was, or even whether he was meant to be saluting or shaking a sword in that direction, for his head and right arm were long gone.

Katherine looped them around behind the statue, creeping under the yew trees that flanked the grand silent entrance to the village hall. Edmund shot a glance down the Longsettle road toward the inn as they passed west, and spied the dim outlines of men talking on the steps. Nicky Bird was in the middle of one of his shambling stories, from the sounds of it, and no one seemed to take note of the three friends before they slipped safely out of view.

Tom wore a ragged tunic cut for a man his height but twice his weight, which made him look something like a running scarecrow. Absurd as he appeared, he had the practiced, economical gait of someone who traveled long distances on foot, and Edmund had to break into a sprint from time to time just to keep him in sight. The sound of their footfalls seemed to carry an uncomfortable distance across the open fields around them, but they were free of the village by then, and there was no one to mark their passing.

“All right, Tom, we’re not running all the way there.” Katherine let herself drop back next to Edmund. She shot him a smile that raced his heart. “What is it about sneaking out that’s so much fun?”

Edmund looked up at the stars. A few fat clouds slid past the moon. The breeze was just cool enough to tingle on the skin. He had the unaccountable feeling that marvelous things were possible.

“Your father must be excited for tomorrow.” He had rehearsed it ten ways, and judged this opening the best.

“Papa? No, he hates the whole idea. If it weren’t for me, I’m not sure he’d even go, though I guess Lord Aelfric would likely make him.” Katherine stopped, looking ahead, then south into the trees that lined the road. “Tom?”

“Over here.” Tom’s voice came from somewhere past the first few trunks. “It’s the short way.”

Katherine felt out before her and plunged off the road. Edmund followed at her heels, breathing in the trail of her scent, blessing the darkness for an excuse to keep so close. He could see his hands well enough, and the occasional flash of movement from Katherine, but all else was shadow and suggestion. Their clothes made rounds of creak, hiss and whip as they fumbled on, deep in gloom on a rising course up the side of Wishing Hill.

“But you’ll be going to the whole thing? The reason I ask is, well, you see—I heard there was a feast afterward—and a dance—” Edmund failed to catch a branch Katherine bent back before him. He did his best to splutter and gasp without making too much noise.

“That was not the short way, Tom.” Katherine pushed out onto a space of open trail that wound toward the summit of the hill. She drew up level with her friend, then leapt abruptly past him and pelted up the track. “Race you to the top!”

Tom watched her go, then turned to Edmund. “You don’t want me here.”

“That’s not true.” Edmund tried to face his way through the lie, but Tom just stared at him until he shrugged and looked away.

“You can go on ahead of me if you like,” said Tom.

“She would only believe I really beat you if you broke your leg.”

Tom nodded, then seemed to disappear into the dark, so rapid and silent was his ascent up the path after Katherine. Edmund set his feet and put on his best turn of speed, determined at least to come in a respectable third, even if third was last.

The earth of the slope on the north face of the hill had long ago been fashioned into sharply twisting ramparts, forcing any who ascended it to switch back and forth on his climb. The ramparts had sunk into gentle, waist-high rolls of ground, covered with a vigorous growth of spruce and maple, yet they still preserved the blurring form of a trail with only a few downed trunks to be vaulted on its course. At every puffing switchback Edmund spied a little more of the broken-down ruin of the old keep at the summit, first the tallest standing tower, then the snaggled top of a wall. Tom stood on a rock at the edge of the hilltop, looking out over the valley that surrounded their home.

“Are you two coming in here?” Katherine’s voice carried out through the tumbled gap of what once had been the gatehouse, her voice folded onto itself in close echo.

Tom’s face had that expression he sometimes got, a blank and faraway stare that most folk took for evidence he was a little soft in the head. “Just looking at the trees.”

“Oh, you can look at trees anytime!”

Edmund picked his way past Tom, over the waist-high jumble of stones that choked the entrance. He found Katherine in the courtyard beyond, seated on the tall dark stone that stood in the center, at the very tip of Wishing Hill.

“I love it here.” She swung her legs back and forth, kicking her heels into the stone.

“So do I.” Edmund jumped down to solid ground. Beyond the ruined gates the courtyard lay nearly bare, too deep in the shadows of the walls to let much of anything grow. “Did you win?”

“The race?” She laughed—two notes at even pitch. The moonlight lit her silver, glinting down the spill of her long dark hair.

“Come on, Tom!” She leapt down from the stone, then turned and placed her hand on it. “Make a wish!”