The Nethergrim (6 page)

“Lovely.” Edmund seized on the word. “Lovely, no question.”

Relief tinged Katherine’s smile. “Oh, good, thank you. I was afraid I looked a fool.” She turned and made to hop the fence, then changed course and used the gate. “Papa, I laid out your good shirt and breeches. You wear them, and don’t be long!”

“Yes, child.” John shut the door. Katherine flashed Edmund a long-suffering smile and skipped onto the road, as high as her skirts would allow. Edmund wanted to skip right along beside her, but men should not skip, and he had never felt more nearly a man in his life.

Katherine spoke over her shoulder. “I have a surprise!”

“You do?” Any surprise seemed a happy wonder, whatever it might be. “What is it?”

“Tom! He’s coming with us!”

“Oh.” No—some surprises were not happy at all. “But—how? Why?”

“His master threw out his back again, so he’s sending Tom to sell his fleece. Isn’t that wonderful? It’s the very first time he’s ever even seen a fair!”

“It’s—” Edmund did not trust himself to say anything Katherine might want to hear.

“We have to make sure to show him a good time.” Katherine pointed. “Oh, there he is!”

Tom stood at the juncture of the road with a path that ran off into the western pastures. At his feet lay a pair of sacks, each of them larger than himself. Even from a distance he looked exhausted—but then, he usually did.

“I heard the story going round about how you said you found Hugh’s pigs.” Tom struggled one of the sacks over his skinny shoulders. “Everyone seems to believe it. Thank you.”

“Poor old Hugh—he loved those pigs, especially Bossy.” Katherine heaved up the other sack before Edmund had a chance to offer. “But let’s not think of it today. Let’s have us some fun!”

They walked the Dorham road around the hills and down into the village. By then the moving crowd had swelled until Edmund could see at least half the people he knew in the world ranged out in a stream going south—some on carts, a few riding, but most of them walking the seven miles down to Longsettle and then over to the castle.

“I really could take one.” Edmund could not bear the thought of being seen by his neighbors walking empty-handed while Katherine hauled a sack in her finest dress.

“Take Tom’s then. He’s been carrying longer.”

Edmund sighed. He dropped behind Katherine’s back and held out his longbow to Tom in exchange.

“Sorry about this.” Tom shifted his load onto Edmund’s shoulders. “I didn’t know I’d be coming.”

Staying angry with Tom was like kicking a starving puppy. Edmund bore up under the weight as best he could. “You know, I suppose it makes some sort of sense that your master takes you for granted. What I object to is the thought that he takes us for granted, too.”

“I have to sell all this for two marks at the least.” Tom leaned back to stretch as he walked. “But I can’t remember how many pennies to the mark.”

“We’ll help.” Katherine nodded back over her shoulder. “Edmund’s good with money.”

The weight, in truth, was not so very much. “Of course I will.”

They turned through the square, joining the West Road for a few yards and then south past the step of the inn. Edmund held his breath, but saw no sign of his mother.

Wat and Hob seemed to have decided that they had better things to do than drink in the tavern all day—they ambled up ahead, passing a wineskin between them. The Longsettle road wound up against Lord Aelfric’s private hunting chase, then down between the fields in the broad basket of the valley. The Swanborne stream made its silly music under the footbridge, giggling all the way down to meet the Tamber. On such a day even the distant moors had a kind of cold majesty.

“Katherine—Katherine!” The voice came shrill from behind them. Edmund moved aside to let a wagon pass, and found his brother sitting with his stupid little friends on the back, their legs all dangling in a row.

“Have you decided, Katherine?” Emma Russet was far too pretty to be only thirteen, and mean as a badger because of it.

Katherine muttered something under her breath. She unbent her back to look up. “Good morning, Emma. Decided what?”

“Well, who it’s to be, of course.” Emma stretched a hand to point at Tom and Edmund. “The slave or the runt?”

Katherine flushed dark. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She looked down again.

“Oh, it’s Bony Tom, it must be!” Tilly Miller tittered in her hand—Emma’s best friend, her shadow, her echo. “He trades her a kiss for every hot meal!” She was the youngest of Geoffrey’s gang of friends by some years, and had been following Emma around for as long as Edmund could remember.

Geoffrey nudged his own best friend, mouse-brown little Miles Twintree, then flung the soggy core of a half-eaten apple at Edmund’s feet. Miles did the same, though he looked somewhat guilty. The kid from across the river—Peter Overbourne, that was his name—did not bother to aim wide, nor was it only a core that he threw.

“Ow!” Edmund dropped Tom’s sack in surprise, spilling a pile of fleece onto the road.

“That’s a lovely dress, Katherine.” Miles’s big sister, Luilda, passed on a following cart, holding hands with Lefric Green. “Did you inherit it?”

“What? You—” Katherine balled up her fists, glaring at the back of Luilda’s head. Wagon and cart trundled on into the trees.

Katherine sighed. “Why is it I can never think of anything to say back?” She knelt to help Tom pack everything in again.

“That kid Peter’s the worst of them.” Edmund rubbed at his chest where the apple had struck. “Geoffrey’s turned into an utter brat since they started running about together.”

Tom beat some dust from a fleece. “I know why folk make fun of me, but I can’t see why they do it to the two of you.”

“I’m too big, and Edmund’s too small,” said Katherine. “I run about dressed like a man most of the time. He likes books a bit too much for a village where hardly anyone can read.”

“We don’t fit.” Edmund heaved up his sack. “We never will.”

“So long as we’re all together, I don’t care.” Katherine led them onward down the road. Her words hung in the air, and after a while “all together” was all that seemed to matter.

Chapter
5

E
dmund had learned since moving to the village that everyone resented the town that had sprung up around the castle. That’s how they said it—“sprung up,” though from all he knew, the town was more than a hundred years old. People had long memories in Elverain, long enough to tell muddy stories of a time when things were different, though there was no one left alive who had ever seen it. What seemed to bother them most was the name—the town was called Northend, which gave the idea that it was somehow the north end of everything, though of course any number of villages were yet farther north, off the king’s highway and up the old roads. Edmund did not dislike Northend at all, a well-kept and prosperous place made of tall, narrow houses of wood and plaster clustered tight and bounded by even narrower alleys and cross streets. At its center was the large cobbled square where the highway came north out of the flat, fertile fields of Quail to end where it met the Longsettle road. Bright banners and pennants had been hung about the square in the baronial colors, dark green and silver-white, above a noisy crowd that milled to and fro amongst the many stalls that had been raised there. Lord Aelfric’s castle stood north of the town, old and massive and squatting lonely on the crest of a treeless hill.

Tom stopped abruptly by the first of the houses. Edmund took the pause to let his sack down to the road. “You all right?”

Tom did not look all right in the least. “I’ve never seen so many people.”

“You’ll be fine—we’ll look after you.” Katherine took him by the arm. They followed the road in between the best-made houses in Elverain. They were soon surrounded by hawkers and merchants of all descriptions.

“Fine linens!” A short man with a braided beard bellowed from his stall. “Shifts, dresses, and headpieces, or buy it by the bolt! The finest Westry flax, spun into linen light as a feather. Approved by the renowned Weavers’ Guild of Tambridge! Step right in!”

“Candles!” called a young woman, pointing to a stall full of elegant tapers. “Lovely white wax, brilliant light! Made in the famous beehives of Anster. Come get your candles!”

“Honey cakes!” cried the man from the next stall, who looked like the young woman’s father. “Delicious pastries covered in sweet Anster honey! Nothing so delicious in all this world!”

Katherine stopped and reached into her belt. “Oh, I love those!”

“I’ll get them!” Edmund dug out a tiny wedge of silver—one piece of a penny that had been cut into fourths. He bought two cakes and—a stroke of genius!—gave the first to Tom. Katherine beamed at him as he held up the other before her.

“Potions!” shouted a man as he came between them, carrying a box full of all manner of vials and jars. “Potions of all descriptions and efficacies! Potions to help you sleep, potions to keep you up all night! You, my lad!” He looked Edmund up and down, then over at Katherine. He drew Edmund aside.

“I’ve just the thing for you—you look like you could use the help.” He swirled a crystal vial full of rich red liquid. “A few drops of this in her wine and before you know it, she’ll be waiting for your hand. Just six pennies, but a whole lifetime of joy! What do you say?”

Katherine stomped over and led Edmund away by the sleeve. “Whatever it is, he doesn’t need it!”

The man gave Katherine a dark look. “You mind that one, my boy. More trouble than she’s worth.” He turned his back before Edmund could think of a retort.

Tom stared around him as though looking for some path of escape. “What do I do?”

“The first thing you do is keep your hand on your purse.” Edmund pulled him out of the worst of the bustle.

“Why? I don’t have any money yet.”

“It’s just a good habit.” Edmund cast about him for a likely-looking merchant. They had laid things out in a different pattern than they did for the regular fair in the spring. This fair had a wild, haphazard character, more ale tents and makeshift gambling halls than proper merchants, and far too many folk who just seemed to loiter and look, neither buying nor selling and so quite likely there for a less savory purpose.

“That one looks promising.” Katherine stood up on her toes. “Over here.” She shouldered up a sack and pushed them off toward the corner of the square in the fullest sun.

Tom craned around him, his green eyes wide. He pointed. “What’s that?”

Edmund glanced across. “That’s a play. People acting, you know. That one’s about the making of the kingdom. It’s a bore.”

“Oh.” Tom nodded. “I didn’t know they had singing. What’s that, then, over there? Is that a play, too?”

“Those are two men arguing over the price of a barrel of salted herring. I suppose you could treat it as entertainment if you wanted.”

“And that?”

Edmund tried to catch Katherine’s eye to smirk at her, but she seemed intent on finding their way through the crowd. He turned to follow Tom’s direction. “What are you looking at?”

“That big tent where the woman is shouting inside.”

“Oh, that? That’s the court.” Edmund stopped—he thought he felt something brush at his side. He clapped his hand at his belt and glared around him, but it was only an ox being driven past for sale. He looked back at Tom. “The Court of Dusty Feet—Lord Aelfric sets one up for every fair. There’s more trouble for him to hear about in one day than he usually gets all year.”

“—stole my pigs!” The shouting woman could be seen through the opening of the tent, but the person she jabbed her finger at could not. “I swear to you, my lord, and I bring ten solid folk to swear on my name that I am no liar! My pigs, good porkers, stolen and gone!”

Edmund laughed. “Oh, no—more missing pigs!”

“So Lord Aelfric’s in there?” Tom bent down to peer beneath the flap. “I’ve never seen him before. Does he leave the castle very much?”

“I must remind you, good woman, that I merely sit in my father’s name.” The answering voice had a highborn accent but sounded clear and young. “I judge for your lord, but I am not your lord. I would ask you again to address me as a squire for the sake of propriety. Clerk of the court, you will note her claim and take the names of those who swear for her.”

Edmund looked inside the tent. A ring of angry relatives surrounded the woman, all of them glaring at a cringing, road-dusted man with the look of a traveling tinker about him. A platform stood at the opposite end, upon which had been set a thick oaken chair. Its occupant could be called boy as easily as man, sixteen and sandy fair, with what Edmund thought to be an ill-advised attempt at a beard.

Edmund shook his head at Tom. “No, that’s his son, Harold. Aelfric must be training him at law by letting him sit as judge for the day, so he knows how it works when he inherits.”

Katherine dropped her sack into Edmund’s arms without so much as a warning. “Oh, let’s go in for a while!”

“What? What for?” Edmund staggered under the unexpected weight. “Why on earth would you want to stand around in a court? There’s a whole fair to see!”

“Let’s go in—just for a bit! Let’s go in! How do I look? Do I look all right?”

“I can’t see you right now, I’ve got a sack in front of my face.” Edmund managed to maneuver the sack to the ground without spilling it. “Why don’t we sell Tom’s things first so we don’t have to carry them around?”

“Good idea. You do that—you’re good with money, no one better.” Katherine arranged her skirts and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “I just want to know about the pigs. Could be important. See you soon!” She plunged into the tent.

Edmund shrugged at Tom. “I don’t understand. Pigs? Who cares?”

“I truly am sorry,” said Tom. “I know you wanted to come alone with her.”

“There’s still the feast and the dance.” Edmund heaved up his load, and took his longbow back from Tom. “I thought I handled all that with the honey cakes rather well, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t know, but the cake was very good. Thank you, by the way.”

It did not take long to sell the fleece, once Edmund had prevailed on Tom to let him pretend that they were his and go stand somewhere out of view. Tom had the disturbing tendency to agree with anything every haggling fat-face of a merchant said to him, nodding like a yielding little lamb and saying that yes, they did look a bit off, now you mention, and no, I suppose it’s not fair of me to foist such junk on a man of your elder years at such a price. Edmund gently shoved his friend aside and got to business, and by the time he heard the fanfare of trumpets from the field north of town, he had two marks, three pennies and a farthing to press in Tom’s hand, along with a pair of empty sacks.

He saw Katherine coming, and made a point of letting the money clink into Tom’s open palm at just the right moment. “So, what of the missing pigs?”

“More than just pigs. Cattle and cats, goats, favorite dogs.” Katherine walked with them out on the lane that led from the town up to the castle. “There’s even a man from Roughy saying he’s missing a daughter and both his sons.”

“Well, that’s just a jumble.” Edmund shrugged. “Nothing to connect them.”

“That’s not what Harry said.”

Edmund shot her a look. “Harry?”

Katherine fidgeted with the tassel of her belt. “I heard that his friends call him Harry.”

“I can’t think of anything that would eat both cattle and dogs, let alone children,” said Tom. “What did folk say about it?”

“Well, someone said the Nethergrim, but everybody laughed.” Katherine sounded odd—unlike herself, with a giddy, girly trill in her voice Edmund had never heard before. “Harry got angry about it—said it was wrong to speak of such a thing today of all days, when we have gathered to honor the men who slew the Nethergrim and made the north safe for us all. I think he even looked at me when he said it. You should have seen him—he handled it so well, put it all together as clever as you like. He’s going to tell his father all about it, told everyone he would make sure that the land was safe, and not to worry. You should have seen him!”

Edmund had to look to make sure that clouds had not come in. The sun shone as bright as before, the sky the same full blue and the world around him dancing in high holiday, but he could no longer feel the joy of it.

“Oh, look, there’s Papa!” Katherine waved. Her father did not seem to see her. He stood beneath a brightly colored canopy next to the stern, stooped figure of Lord Aelfric of Elverain, looking obviously uncomfortable amongst the crowd of noble guests gathered to soak in his unwanted glory. Lord Aelfric was making a speech, but his creaky old voice did not carry far.

“We should go and watch.” Katherine grabbed for Tom and turned to push into the crowd. “And then when Harry comes to join them, we can tell him all about what we found up on the hill last night. I could even lead him up there myself, and—”

“No, no!” Edmund wanted more than anything to avoid another brush with Harry. “We should take Tom to see the archery tourney. He’s never seen one before!” He tugged Tom the other way, off toward the dozen targets that had been raised on open ground below the castle.

Tom looked from one friend to the other, his long arms stretched out wide in both directions. He did not seem to care which way they dragged him.

“Well—all right, then.” Katherine let go. “For Tom.”

They turned back across the field, finding a place along the strip of trees beside the archery lists. A crowd of men, none of them rich or noble, stood at the other end with longbows in hand. A few at a time stepped up to the mark, shot three arrows at the butts and earned the praise or joking scorn of their fellows.

“A good day for it, I suppose.” Katherine fluffed out her skirts to sit in the grass. “Not much of a crosswind.” Tom lay back against a walnut tree. He reached out to pluck a blade of grass and started chewing on it. Edmund found a spot on a boulder that had soaked up some heat from the day, and sat atop it with his longbow laid across his lap. One of his neighbors stepped up to shoot—Jordan Dyer took his stance, drew back and hit within a hair of the bull’s-eye.

“Good one, Jordan!” Edmund clapped along with the crowd. He felt an idle wish that he practiced more himself, enough at least that he could enter the tourney without looking a fool. The trouble was that just about everyone in the village was a crack shot—they started drilling at the targets once a week as little kids, and the men were bound by Lord Aelfric’s laws to keep at it until they were sixty. There were no such laws in Bale, the town where Edmund had lived until he was ten. By the time Edmund had moved to Moorvale with his family, the boys his own age were so good that there seemed no point in trying to catch up.

“You’re right—better than a speech.” Katherine settled back against the boulder, her shoulder resting just near Edmund’s foot. “You’re coming to the feast for sure, then?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.” Not for all the world.

“I’m a little afraid of it, to be honest. The dance, I mean.”

“Why?”

“There are going to be rich girls there, noble girls with their dainty little hands, wearing gowns that cost as much as Papa’s house.” Katherine looked down at her own hands, then tried to hide them up the sleeves of her dress. “I know what people say about me. I’m afraid I’ll just stand by the wall all night.”