“Naturally, since her true nature would still be revealed if she bared her breasts,” Nathelion remarked.
“Aye, and she seemed keenly aware of my intent, judging by her desperation. She refused, making every kind of offer to be rid of me, saying how her father was a powerful man and that I could have my weight in gold if I left her unspoiled. When it didn’t work, she even said that there was a knight coming who would cut me to pieces if I didn’t run.”
“You were not fooled by her lies, of course.”
“Lies, they seemed, indeed.” Molgrimin nodded. “Tricks of the forest lady.”
“So, what did you do? It clearly didn’t work to threaten her with the sword.”
“Nay, it did not. And I was getting really tired of standing there and listening to her whimpering. So, I put the sword in the ground and jumped at her. She was of a very timid frame, slender and elegant like, and she fell at once under my weight.”
“You wrestled her to the ground?” Nathelion gasped. “You wrestled a lady to the ground!”
“Aye, I did, I did. I had to reveal her before I could slay her. And though I had her pinned down, she did seem awfully fierce in her struggle to be free, almost proving to me that she was the forest lady. I tore off the top of her dress and tried to have a look at her back, but she was wild. She bloody tore my own clothes as bad, somehow managing to pull my pants down, growling like a lioness! I couldn’t get around to look at her back; she always had a hand in my beard or in my face, fending me off. But I ripped her dress all the way to her navel and used my hands to feel her up instead.”
Nathelion said nothing.
“But her back wasn’t hollow at all, and it didn’t feel like bark either. Very soft, actually, smooth as bloody cream, and my hands found no tail when I groped at her bottom. Ye can imagine how awkward I felt when I realized my mistake.”
“I don’t think I can, Molgrimin.”
“Anyway, just before I had the time to get off and apologize, we both kinda froze as another entered the clearing. ‘Twas a knight who had emerged from the trees, clad in finery as if he were going to a ball, and he had this horrified expression on his boyishly handsome face that I will never forget as long as I live. I was quite embarrassed; the woman had managed to pull my pants down to my knees. ‘Cecilia!’ the knight exclaimed, breathless. Aye, I shan’t forget how upset he seemed. Nor how desperate the lady became. She nearly choked trying to speak to him, finally managing something like, ‘William, it’s not like ye think!’ The knight seemed like a fool, though, screaming ‘I have eyes, Cecilia, I have eyes!’ as if we couldn’t both see it. Aye, I said as much, but then he pulled his sword and charged at me all of a sudden. I had just enough time to pull my pants up and run!”
“You didn’t fight him?” Nathelion wondered.
Molgrimin shook his head. “I figured that I had done enough harm there. The lady was crying rivers as we both ran away, calling for this Sir William as if she were dying. Might’ve been cold, of course, since her dress was in rags. We moinguir aren’t bothered by the cold, so I wouldn’t have known if she was freezing.”
“How did you get away from the knight?”
“It was difficult, that. The lad was a bloody good runner, and my pants kept falling off. Anyway, my more practical height was to some advantage as we ran into parts of the woods where the branches hindered him. He shouted the vilest threats after me. Aye, can ye believe that he threatened to geld me, of all things?”
“I guess the moral of the story,” Nathelion summarized, “is not to tear women’s clothes off against their will.”
“Aye,” Molgrimin nodded heedfully. “Aye, a valid point. Ye be wise to see the lesson here.”
Nathelion grinned at the moinguir’s revelation and took a swallow of cider. The common room had slowly emptied while they had talked, and aside from Sir Conrad and his squire, only a handful of patrons remained. It still sounded like there were more, though, thanks to the three loud men conversing in a corner. Nathelion had heard them discuss something for a while, though he hadn’t listened intently.
“Ah,” Molgrimin emptied the last of his cider. “I think I’ll have some sleep while I can.” The moinguir had eaten the pie already, down to the last crumb. He belched and pushed his chair back to get up. “Ye should do the same, Nathan, if we’re to ride for Richard’s Defense on the morrow.”
“Early tomorrow,” Sir Conrad told the dwarf when he passed their table. “No late sleepers. We meet here.”
“I’ll be up and drunk already by the time that ye rise,” Molgrimin grumbled. “Mighty drunk.”
A serving maid soon came to take away the dwarf’s stoop, and she asked if Nathelion wished for some more cider. His attention was on the three men, though. Their conversation seemed very odd...
“I’m telling you, it was my mother-in-law! I saw her!” the palest of them said. He seemed shaken, desperately trying to convince the others of his story. “I always knew she’d go to hell, but I never thought she’d come back!”
His two friends were laughing at him. “Really, Tobern,” one of them said. “This...” He had trouble getting any words out, choking back on laughter. “You get thrown out, and...the best excuse you have to explain it is...your mother-in-law’s ghost?” Both men roared with laughter. “We all called Elsbeth a witch, sure. You take it too seriously.”
“She’s there!” Tobern barked. “I saw her, damn you! You can almost smell her vile perfume if you go there. Her presence is like a shadow over the whole place. I knew we shouldn’t have moved into that damn family house.”
“You’ve lived there for years, Tobern, and the witch has been dead for longer. Suddenly you’re spooked? Just tell us how you upset your wife! Did she find out about your little slattern... Ah, was it the brunette one?”
“Mary has nothing to do with it. I haven’t even told her why I’m not at home. It’s her bloody mother! She has come again, I’m telling you!”
“Because the rocking chair rocked?” one of his friends asked. “In that case, I think my own house might be a bit haunted, too.”
“It didn’t just rock. I told you what happened!” Tobern growled. “I was going over the numbers for the wool in the evening, sitting by the table next to the hearth. Suddenly, this chill came into the room, and the fire started fluttering like mad. My candle went out at once, though there was no wind, just the cold. You couldn’t have missed the sense that something was wrong. The shadows just looked...different. Then the chair started rocking, slowly, calmly like, but its silent creaking could have deafened me. I thought to run at first, but I froze. You’ll know what it is to be paralyzed by fear if you ever happen to experience what I did then. With the rocking chair in the corner next to the door, there’s no avoiding it in getting out. I tried to gather my thoughts, breathe a bit calmer, and think on how the chair could be moving like so, something smart.”
Tom took a few deep swallows of cider, drinking as if he hadn’t for weeks. Draining the stoop, he set it down and continued. “I don’t know where I had the courage from, but I got up and walked slowly over to that chair. I had to know, somehow. Maddest thing I ever did. I put my hand on the armrest to stop the chair from rocking. And then she was there, glaring at me with the most needling eyes any of you can imagine, and her face was...all gray shadows. I pulled my hand away and stumbled backward. Mary’s knitting basket caught my foot. I bloody fell. I thought her gaze alone would kill me.”
He shook his head. “She opened her mouth, wider than ought to be possible, a black gape that could swallow an infant’s head. The sound that came from her throat was a long, ragged hiss that seemed to build forever. It came from hell — that, I’m certain of. Straight from the hells. I got away, though. I ran into the fields like a damn lunatic. But I shall never forget her face, and I shall never be free from that unearthly sound.” He shook his head again and seemed to sink into himself. “I’ll never go back there. I’ll be worse than dead, I know it. She’s there...”
One of his friends had dozed off from the drink, and the other tried to elbow him awake. “It’s a darn nice house, Tobern. If you’re sticking to that story of yours, then you’re twice a fool. The story is ridiculous, so there’s that. Second is this: that house is too damn fine to abandon even if it were haunted. Try to get together with Mary again, or I might just take her on myself and laugh about this together with your mother-in-law.”
The friend who had gone insensible didn’t wake up, but he groaned absently when the other one slapped his cheeks. Tobern sneered.
“Ah, you’re bloody useless, both of you. Get out of here and let a man think!”
His friends rose, or rather one of them rose and pulled the other to his feet. “Yeah, we’re leaving. We got homes to be at, just like you. Mark me, Tobern, you’ll tire of pies soon enough no matter how good they are. And Mary might tire of you as well.” He walked away slowly under the weight of his drunken comrade, and Tobern glared after them. Then he turned to stare down into his stoop instead.
A loud hiss suddenly cut through the common room. Tobern spilled his drink and fell out of his chair in horror — and Nathelion jumped too. But soon, Sir Conrad’s raw laughter was heard, and the knight let go of the fat house cat’s tail to let the animal run bristling into the kitchen. Tim sniggered also, and Nathelion couldn’t help but grin.
“You think that’s funny?” Tobern spat as he got to his feet, throwing the chair back upright again.
“You noticed?” the knight asked through his guffaws. “A bit tragic, too, seeing grown men act like little girls.”
The man quickly turned red. Yet he saw Sir Conrad’s sword along with the mail and his embroidered clothes, and perhaps those sights made him bind his wrath. “Very well, sir,” Tobern said indignantly. “I’m afraid you have come a bit too early to the Harp; the looting and raping haven’t started yet. I know you must have difficulty getting a woman now, while you need to rely on your charm.”
Nathelion thought the knight’s temper would be roused by that, but Sir Conrad only grinned calmly. “Don’t say that. I hear there’s one sitting in a big, fine house in the whereabouts. Husband ran away from ghosts. I’m sure she must be starving for a man with a spine.”
Tobern clenched his fists until the knuckles whitened, and for a moment, there seemed to be the threat of violence. Instead, the man stalked off through the common room and up the stairs.
Tim laughed loudly, though he grew silent when the knight turned on him. “What’s this, Tim? You seemed awfully spooked last night. You think one haunted house warrants less laughter than another?” The squire looked down, and the knight called over to Nathelion, “You should get some sleep as well, blademaster. You never know when Tim will see another ghost and wake the inn.”
When both of them were gone, Nathelion was left alone in the common room save for the serving maid who cleared the tables. He let her take away the rest of his pie, and he sat holding his stoop while she swept the floor with a broom. After a while, he emptied it a final time and got up — though he didn’t seek out his own room. He heard the serving maid giggle behind him when he made his way through the kitchen and to the door he found there.
Cindy opened it in her nightgown after he had knocked twice and was about to leave. Her smile wasn’t as wide now, though it was much warmer than before, and her golden curls gave off the light from the candles behind her. She was just as soft as she had seemed, and her lips bore a searing heat like he hadn’t even imagined.
15
It Answers Not to the Runes
Molgrimin was already growing gloomy as he made his way to his room. With Nathelion, he could laugh, certainly, and forget about a thing or two. But in solitude, only memories were his company. And they were bad company.
He was your own brother! his father’s voice boomed in his remembrance.
I know what I did. My crime will take me to the abyss. It was fortunate, then, that the abyss was where they were headed. His room was small and dark, with a neat but stiff bed. He lay down and stared up at the ceiling, where shadows were made to move by the shifting of the clouds outside the single window. He did not know how much time passed before he stopped seeing them and instead saw only memories.
They had been looking for prey that day, wandering the sweeping wide woodlands that had become their home for the season. And they had found nothing to outweigh a hare. Hy liked to run after those, of course, but it was not the sport they sought.
“I think he’s caught a scent,” Kartyvas said when Hy stopped to sniff around among the rice on the ground, the lanky dog padding excitedly from one spot to the next beneath the broad spruces that stood around them in serene majesty. The crowding evergreens spread their thorny branches and musty smell under the sinking sun of the Vale.
“About bloody time.” Arjomag spat and readjusted the heavy rifle against his shoulder. “Let him follow it. See if it gets us anywhere.”
Kartyvas rapped out a command, and the dog bounded away among the trees, following whatever trail it had found.
“Better not be another hare,” Ryferuv said, and he slapped at a mosquito that searched for blood on his cheek. His hand left behind a bloody smear. “Ah, I hate these bloodsuckers. Don’t they bother ye?”
“Ye stink too much,” Arjomag said, and Kartyvas grinned at him. So did Molgrimin. He wasn’t as impatient as the orange-haired moinguir with the parted beard, though the mosquitoes did assail him as much, especially now in the evening, coming out in swarms. Their bites would not distract him.
He found peace here, in the woods and in the slow hunt. It was why he came so often — came often and stayed longer every time. They had lived in the hunting burrow for two months now, eating what food the Vale of Talons had in its woods and its rivers and upon its plains. For him, it was a sanctuary of sorts. He was slow to anger here. In Kast-Harnax, with its busy halls and echoing passages, unrest stirred within him. And the outbursts that he could seldom control made his friends shy and wary of him. His father said there was a bear in him — and he said it proudly — yet Molgrimin knew it brought King Mauroc more grief than he would let on. And perhaps worry, too. Molgrimin shared it.
To hear the runemasters talk, the bear was the blessing of the war god: a great and rare spirit endowed upon those who had received his stern favor. Yet Molgrimin had never seen the blessing in his hot temper, only a chain that kept him from a peaceful life. He had never gone mad with rage like in the sagas, but it had been close at times. He’d brawled more than he cared for, had fought too many for too little. His father liked that the bear was in the Goldenfury’s blood, but he preferred it as an anecdote while his wild son remained at a distance. A name to be called upon, perhaps, and not the liability Molgrimin was in Kast-Harnax. It often grieved him — but not now. These were the moments when he needed no sorrow.
“Ye’ll find yer bull soon enough, Ryferuv,” he assured his friend. His fiery companion was an excellent marksman, if often a bit too quick on the trigger, and he wanted to hunt big. Now a moose was the target.
“Nay, Molgrimin.” Ryferuv grinned, his two gold teeth gleaming in the dwindling sunlight. “Not soon enough.”
“Not soon enough since it’ll have its damn antler up yer ass before ye notice it,” Arjomag said in his harsh voice, but they all shared the laugh.
They had been friends since childhood, and now, in their youth, they knew each other as brothers. Kartyvas was the clever one, a copper-haired moinguir with a neatly oiled beard and eyes as sharp as his aim. It was Arjomag who amused them most, though, with his rough humor and bitter tongue, aye, and he was the oldest too, so maybe he was the wisest. Ryferuv was bored easily, but he also knew where to find excitement, and he knew, quite shockingly, how to deal with women.
Molgrimin himself was...well, he had his name and then his bloody temper. They weren’t the best of merits, but in the hunt, none of that mattered. He found peace, and it was a damn sweet thing.
“He went t
his way,” Kartyvas said, and he pointed past a few spruces that still shook from the dog’s advance.
They followed the dog at a slow pace, a casual stroll just to keep him within earshot, and walked along the high places to get glimpses of him. If Hy found something, he’d let them know.
“So, how long is it since ye spoke with Ingathain?” Kartyvas asked, and Molgrimin at once became uncomfortable.
Four months, twenty-three days, and soon maybe nineteen hours, if it isn’t twenty. “A few months,” he answered simply, as if every morning did not come and every night not pass without thoughts of his betrothed. He loved her more than he dared admit and more than he dared hope that she could love him. She was an auburn-haired beauty, with the largest and clearest eyes that he had ever seen. And her smile always made him forget about anger and violence. Yet how long could she stand to smile for him? Her manners were mild and wonderful; his were not. When thoughts of her and the bear mingled, only dread filled him. So, he avoided her until such time as his courage would be great enough for him to confess to her his love and his concern. Gods, if that time ever comes...
It would have to.
In two years, they were to marry and move into the great hall that his father had prepared for them in Wylomralf’s Spears, close to both Kast-Harnax and the Vale. A good place. He had already visited it — grudgingly and at his cousin’s urging — and surprisingly enough, he had allowed himself to be impressed by the roaring hearths in the feast hall, the pure springs in the bathhouse, the excellence of the kitchens, and the views from the soaring, high balconies. And the furnishing had been all done, and after his tastes, too: stout and durable pieces of oiled oak and wide furs of bear and moose on the floors. He could see having a family there. No, he loved seeing it. More and more, he found that it was the reason for which he drew breath. If only it weren’t for my bloody temper, he thought, not for the first time, cursing that bit of his fate.
The Unchosen: Book One of The Queen Beyond Page 17