“In sooth?” replied the secundus. “Singularly intriguing. You know, Agnellus, I came across a case like that several years ago in the eastern provinces.”
“And was my lord able to counteract it?”
“I was. It was not easy, but in the end the curse was broken. You know what I always say …”
“That I do, my lord—For every question there is an answer. It is simply a matter of searching.”
“I regret not being informed of this man’s visit. I think I might have helped him.”
“He was a pauper.”
“No matter. I have enough to eat, a roof over my head. I might have asked for small payment, or none. But do not inform Primoris Virosus of any generosity on my part, or he will rebuke me for failing to feed the coffers of the sanctorum!”
His assistant chuckled. He murmured, “Perhaps my lord might remedy the queen’s madness.”
“The queen is not mad, Agnellus—she’s eccentric. Royalty is never mad.”
“She has this fad for the color green. Her gardeners are kept busy stripping any stray flowers from the plants, plucking any leaf that dares to show Autumn colors.”
The taper-wielding novice chimed in. “Sir, I heard the queen had a blue phase last year.”
“’Tis true!” said the druid’s assistant. “Ach! The poor gardens. She had bluebells planted everywhere, cornflowers and hyacinths, lavender and lilac, lupins and delphiniums. But that was not enough—she ordered that the leaves were all to be painted blue.”
The novice gasped.
“The plants all died, of course,” continued Agnellus, “but she learned her lesson and now she generally allows leaves to exist in their natural state, even when she enjoys some other color phase. Autumn, however, is proving vexatious for her.” He sighed. “It will be a grand thing for the queen’s household when she progresses to a new color. Her servants look pale and thin, for they are always eating weeds.”
“With luck,” said Clementer, making a respectful sign toward a marble statue of Ádh, “she will next choose white.”
“White?” echoed Agnellus. “I can scarcely think of aught one can eat that is white. Cauliflower, perhaps?”
“Bleached-flour bread and clotted cream would put some meat on their bones.” Thoughtfully, Clementer tapped his finger on the table. “Perhaps I should suggest the change to her, subtly of course.”
His assistant beamed. “Ah,” he said as the ramifications of whiteness dawned. “They would be permitted to eat tripe! And”—he scratched his head—“white onions, parsnip soup, pallid fishes and vanilla jellies, smooth curd, pale cheeses, almond paste, blancmange, milk sauce, milk puddings—by the right hand of Ádh, the catalogue makes my tonsils drip!”
The novice, poised by the oriel window, uttered a muffled exclamation.
“What is it?” asked Clementer.
“My lord, I thought I saw something moving down in the courtyard. A small figure, somewhat eerie.”
“Perhaps you did. There have been reported sightings of eldritch creatures haunting the sanctorum these past three or four months. Pay no heed. They are seelie and will do no harm. Someday they may vanish as inexplicably as they arrived.”
The novice bowed.
All afternoon Eoin sat alone in one corner of the tavern, his hood pulled forward over his face, lost in a reverie. Those who spoke to him received monosyllabic replies and were soon rebuffed. At one point, someone came in proclaiming the news that the Star had been stolen from the Iron Tree by an unknown thief, but Eoin paid no heed to tidings that did not affect him. The dreary light of day was now failing. Eoin settled his bill, giving the landlord some extra coin to help pay for the damage inflicted by the brawl earlier in the day.
“Sain thee, sir, you are generous,” said the landlord.
“Will you sell me your tunic and cap?” Eoin asked in confidential tones. “I do not wish to be mistaken again for the other man.” A bargain was struck. Eoin swapped his dark brown tunic for the voluminous russet one and crammed on the stocking cap to cover his hair. Then he hastened out into the streets.
The rain was dwindling, although the clouds still rode low and dark, chariots of shadow. As he strode, Eoin untied the green kerchief, Lilith’s gift, and stuffed it into his shirt with his moneybag. He did not go to the stables to view his newly acquired prize, nor did he head for the camp of the marshfolk at the Fairfield. Instead, he made his way through the wet streets toward the palace of King Maolmórdha.
Four minor gates were set into the palace’s outer walls, primarily for the use of servants, guards, and tradesfolk. To one of these—the same one from which Jarred had been turned away—Eoin came.
“What’s your name and business?” demanded a sentry through the iron bars.
“My name is Eoin Mosswell. I bring information about the man sought by the king.”
“Enter.”
A key clattered in a lock. A bar slid back. Metal screeched on metal and the gate unclosed, admitting the eel-fisher, only to clang shut at his back.
Half an hour later, it opened again.
Bestowing a nod on the sentry, Eoin slipped out. His purse of winnings was still concealed beneath his jacket, and the jarring of his step down onto the pavement caused him to clink like a treasury on legs. The postern screamed on its hinges and clanged shut, fettered and clamped, racketing as if it were an arsenal on wheels. The gate sentry watched him disappear down the road in the direction of the Ace and Cup.
The sun had already set.
Having collected his Grïmnørslander gelding. Eoin led it through the streets in the direction of the Fairfield. Although the rain showers had passed, the clouds remained. They cloaked the skies from horizon to horizon, muffling the aerial lamps of the night. Crocus yellow radiance glowed from windows and fanned from the lamp Eoin held in his hand. It gleamed off the drenched flagstones of the pavement, the puddles, the runnels trickling and chortling in the gutters.
Eoin’s route took him past the high walls of the sanctorum. In the dimness, the gory walls glimmered pale gray. The lamplight momentarily revealed the baleful eyes of marble cockatrices glaring from plinths and pillars. Distantly, the bootfalls of sentries crunched along a wallwalk.
Few citizens were abroad. The street running alongside the sanctorum was deserted save for a man in rags picking about in a gutter. Spying a traveler with a horse, this beggar composed his features into their most pitiable expression and made ready to ask for money. As he approached Eoin, the deep, solemn pealing of a bell boomed out from a lofty belfry within the sanctorum.
Forgetting his purpose, the beggar quickly looked up and made a sign to ward off evil. He grabbed Eoin’s arm.
“By the bones of Ádh,” he said fearfully, “’tis the passing bell! I have never heard it ring at such a late hour!”
Eoin stopped in his tracks. A queer horror was crawling up between his shoulder blades. “What’s the passing bell?” he whispered.
“That’s the bell they ring when someone dies,” said the beggar, and, abruptly abandoning his enterprise, he began to scuttle away.
The sonorous, foreboding peals reverberated through Eoin’s being as though his skull were cast of bronze and a mighty hammer were striking it from the sky. Irrationally, Eoin felt compelled to stand still and count the strokes.
“But there is no light in the belfry!” shrieked the beggar, gibbering with fear as he rounded a corner and finally disappeared from view.
The brass tongue in the bell’s mouth made its voice call out doom, doom, doom. Conceivably it had been purposefully designed that way, to pronounce the name of one of the Fates, he who presided over death. Eoin counted the strokes. They ceased at thirty-seven. As the terminal vibrations thrummed away out over the city, Eoin realized the bell had numbered the years of his life.
All sensation seemed stolen from his limbs. It was an effort just to breathe. Yet an overwhelming urgency forced him to raise one foot and set it down, raise the other and set it down, a
nd then he was walking, using all his strength, but slowly, as though pushing against some invisible force. Dread squatted like a metal idol on his shoulders.
Off the walls of the houses and courtyards the horse’s hooves echoed sepulchrally. As Eoin drew near a side gate, it sprang open and a small figure came out, garbed in dark raiment and a scarlet cap. The horse flattened its ears, rolled its eyes, and refused to go forward. The face of the figure could not be glimpsed, shadowed as it was by a deep cowl, but it looked to be a wizened man the size of a seven-year-old child. As this incarnation slowly paced, he chanted in a language Eoin had never heard. Judging by the key and the tempo, the chant was unmistakably a dirge.
“Ach, I’ve seen such wights aforetimes,” the reappeared beggar spluttered startlingly in Eoin’s ear. “Fear not. They’re seelie enough if no man meddles with them.”
Other voices joined in the requiem, and two lines of short, similarly garbed figures came into view. Six more solemnly followed. They were bare headed, for they carried their hoods in their hands. On their shoulders they bore a small coffin, the lid of which was askew. Behind the coffin-bearers came two more queues of cowled figures, child sized, chanting dolorously.
“But this is impossible.” muttered Eoin. “Wights are immortal. They do not truly die—yet this looks to be a funeral!”
The inquisitive beggar tapped the side of his nose knowledgeably. “It’ll be one of their mockeries.”
“Why do they do it?”
“’Tis a death portent.”
Nausea billowed through Eoin’s belly. The dwarfish cortege had by this time turned out of the gateway and was proceeding down the street in the opposite direction. The notes of the dirge rose like smoke from a cremation.
“I want to see what lies in that coffin,” blurted Eoin. “Hold my horse for me, and the job’ll earn you sixpence. Run away with it, and I shall catch you before you have gone three steps.”
“Give me the halter,” mumbled the beggar. “But I warn you—those of their kind take offense if mortal folk try to speak to them. They might hurt you if you do.”
Without reply, Eoin threw him the rope halter and strode after the procession. As he came up to it he peered into the coffin. White heat seared through him.
The figure lying there wore his own face.
He knew he was seeing his own death portent. Amid his silently screaming terror, he burned to learn more about his destiny. Heedless of the beggar’s warning, he spoke to the coffin-bearers in sick and quavering tones, saying, “When shall I die?”
They answered him not.
He overtook the leader, but when he reached forth his hand to touch him, the entire procession immediately disappeared and a violent wind came barreling down the street. Ear-splitting thunder galloped across the rooftops, shaking the tiles, and the whole sky blinked repeatedly, dark and dazzling with surges of sheet lightning.
The beggar dropped the halter and made off without his sixpence. Eoin had to run after the panicking horse. By the time he caught it, the freak storm had subsided and the streets of the city lay seemingly vacant in the dark.
The clouds thinned and tore. Away to the east they drifted, as Eoin found his way to the campsite of his father at the Fairfield. Cluster by cluster the stars were revealed, seed pearls sewn on the silk mantle of night.
The moon was rising.
Fionnuala had left Jarred alone.
Like any caged animal, like any prisoner in a cell, he walked up and down. The walls of the hovel seemed to be crushing him. He yearned to be out, free and away over the leagues intervening between the city and the marsh; longed to put forth wings to carry him home to Lilith and Jewel. What would the king do if it were discovered that not one but two descendants of Janus Jaravhor existed? For sure, he would want both Jarred and Jewel placed under his governance. The thought of his guileless daughter enmeshed in the dangerous political intrigues of the court, surrounded by jealous and conniving courtiers, subject to the whims of the mad queen, the ineffectual king, and the manipulative Druid Imperius—this concept made him sick to the stomach. The idea that she might be forced to somehow unlock the sinister Dome made him want to tear down the door with his bare hands, to break free and run to scoop her in his arms so that he might carry her to safety. Each moment spent waiting for Fionnuala’s return unrolled slowly, black ribbons stretching to eternity.
At last the door swung open. Darkness had spun a web from lintel to threshold. A figure pushed through it. Jarred had expected to see Fionnuala, but it was her half brother who entered. Fionnbar Aonarán was easily recognizable despite the fourteen years that had elapsed since Jarred had seen him. His build was slight, his face lean and pinched beneath his thatch of blond hair; however, his skin and clothes were cleaner than Jarred recalled.
“Good evening, Jaravhor,” said Fionnbar Aonarán.
Jarred scowled. “That is not my name.”
“And yet it is, sir,” the fair-haired young man asserted. “You are given vigor by the blood of a sorcerer. You, sir, are the key to the Dome. I have spoken with Fionnuala, and I say this to you: when you return to her, as you are sworn to do, come with us to unseal the Dome. We three shall live among riches forever.” He fixed Jarred with an unblinking stare; the look, Jarred deduced, of a fanatic.
“Aonarán,” said Jarred, “that I shall never do. If you have spoken with your sister, she told you, no doubt.”
“Well, sir,” said Fionnbar, without altering his fixed gaze, “you might change your mind.”
“Neither of you has any claim on me yet. You have not fulfilled your part of the bargain.” As he spoke, the clop-clop of hooves on flagstones approached the door from the street.
“Come,” said Fionnbar, stepping outside into the night. Jarred followed him. Fionnuala was standing nearby, holding the reins of one of the most magnificent horses Jarred had ever seen. By the sleek lines of the body, the long, fine legs, the slim, taut waist, he knew it to be a racehorse of high-quality bloodstock.
“Where did you get such a steed?”
“That is of no consequence, sir,” said Fionnbar. “Make haste and mount, I pray, for we stand exposed here in the road.”
Jarred leapt onto the horse’s back. It skittered and pranced backward. Both Fionnbar and Fionnuala hung off the reins to control it.
Fionnuala said, “Pull your hood well forward. Say no word until we are clear of the city.”
She took the left side of the horse’s head, her brother took the right, and they began to lead the steed down the street.
The night sky was clearing. It looked like a roof smeared with pitch, against which handfuls of silver sand had been dashed. Through a tangle of byways they went, just as Fionnuala had described. Most were narrow, filthy. Some appeared like tunnels; the upper stories of the bordering houses leaned so far over the thoroughfares that they almost met overhead. They were deserted in the main, but whenever a solitary scavenger happened to hail the trio with the horse, Fionnuala would respond with some plausible reply to deflect their curiosity.
Half-blinded by his hood, Jarred was scarcely aware of passing out through a crumbling gap in the city walls. He was impatient to move faster. Each plodding step was a torment. Beneath him, his mount sensed his restlessness. It twitched nervously, shying at every sudden sound, eager to run. Finally they came to a halt beneath some trees on the road leading out of the Fairfield. Desultorily, a few leaves drifted down. A weird, eldritch melody threaded out of the night, and the songs of frogs were whirring from the direction of the Rushy Water.
“Safe! Here we part,” said Fionnuala, looking up at Jarred. “But we shall meet again, shall we not? Say that you swear it.”
“Once is enough,” said Jarred.
Fionnbar and Fionnuala released the horse’s head.
“Until we meet again,” said she, sullenly.
“Hasten back to us, Jaravhor,” said Fionnbar.
Jarred gripped the reins and shifted his weight forward. The racehorse need
ed no other urging. Its rider felt the powerful muscles bunch beneath him, and with an explosive leap the steed was off, its hooves thrusting the ground away and behind at a breakneck pace.
The wind tore Jarred’s hood from his head. His lawless hair streamed along the wind current like waterweed in a flood.
Farther down that same road, Eoin Mosswell was jogging along on the horse he had won from Fridleif Squüdfitcher. His mood was somber. The eldritch mock-funeral weighed heavily on his mind, and he brooded, wondering how many days of life might be left to him. For he was not foolish enough to believe the wights had been merely performing some meaningless prank. He understood enough about the ways of eldritch things to be certain his days were numbered and his doom was looming nigh. Those who saw their own funeral enacted by wights always died within a twelvemonth.
In addition, Eoin pondered his own recent actions. It was not without regret that he relived, in his mind’s eye, his brief interview with one of the king’s stewards. On his way to meet with the king’s servant, he had wondered how to ensure that the king’s men would find Jarred. He wanted to be certain there was no doubt about his rival’s identity. There existed a chance that some other man staying in the Fairfield might answer to Jarred’s description, or that Jarred had already left the Fairfield for some reason and was heading home, or that he was on one of his mysterious tours of the city, in which case he would be hard to track down. To avoid confusion, Eoin had told the steward where Jarred made his home—in the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu.
“I know the man you seek,” he had said.
Eoin’s heart told him it was a despicable act of treachery, yet he had not been able to endure the prospect of Jarred receiving a reward merely for presenting himself at the palace and providing some information. What information? he wondered. It irked him unbearably to visualize Jarred being well-off. Wealth, Eoin thought, was the one asset he possessed that Jarred did not. By telling the king’s steward Jarred’s name and where he lived, Eoin had not hoped to enrich himself. Indeed, he had not been paid so much as a groat; he’d been told he would receive his reward only if and when the wanted man was brought to the palace.
The Iron Tree: Book One of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 46