Mistress Raspberry smiled at her. “Not too learned to be amazed to understand you without conversing in Pan-elvin. Odd that I never heard that the Dark Pilgrim’s swans could speak.”
“There are situations where it is best to remain silent,” Anastasia replied. “And then too, we were ensorcelled to obey our master without question by the wizard who sold us to Brown, and that was after we had already changed to swans—but never mind, for it is a complicated matter and of no current importance.”
“No current advantage in speaking of it either,” Mistress Raspberry said hastily and in a low voice as a man bearing a large blacksmith’s hammer approached them. “We must be careful here. From what I’ve heard, magic is forbidden in Frostingdung. Comforting sort of rule, isn’t it?”
“I should say so!” Bronwyn said, for though she had no magic herself, she couldn’t imagine what life would be like without people who had, so that one could, if absolutely necessary, do things only possible by magic, such as talking to animals, getting places quickly and changing inappropriate items into more suitable ones. Of course, magic had caused her trouble from time to time—well, all the time, if one counted the curse—but just the same she felt it was needed and liked having it available.
Mistress Raspberry greeted the hammer-bearing villager with a quick nod, which he returned. Smiles apparently weren’t customary here, judging from the faces of the other passersby. Even if they had been, with a set of teeth like Mistress Raspberry’s, a nod was a more civil expression. “Tell me, my good man,” she said, slowly and distinctly, “which road does one take to reach the capital, if you please?”
“I couldn’t tell you, I’m sure. Never been there myself. Never have. Never will. Never want to,” the man replied. He spoke in a language very similar to Argonian, except that he tended to stress the second syllables of words rather than the first, and his accent had a hard sound to it. He stalked past, edging away from their party a little, as if afraid they’d soil his hammer.
“Helpful chap,” Bronwyn said.
Another man strolled by and Mistress Raspberry repeated her question, receiving an even less courteous reply than she had from the first man, despite her offer to pay the newcomer well for his assistance.
The third man she asked didn’t even bother to answer. “Well, really,” she said.
“I’ve a good mind to give them dancing lessons,” Carole said, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
“Not here. We’d be jailed at the very least for breaking their silly rule. If we must resort to that, it’d be safer if I inquired of the animals, though I dislike the idea of entering my sister’s adopted country on a diplomatic mission only to break a law of the realm first thing.”
“I don’t see that it matters,” Carole said. “It’s a stupid law, and besides, the way these people act, no one will ever know we’re here anyway.”
“Perhaps someone more used to meeting strangers would have better luck,” Jack said winningly. “Give me the money you would have wasted on that smith, great lady, and I will learn the way to the capital.”
“My sword thirsts to assist you,” Bronwyn volunteered. Her sword had absolutely no feelings one way or the other in the matter. She, however, hated to let the one person who had been consistently friendly to her out of her sight. One never knew when Carole would decide to dunk one in something liquid, or when Anastasia would fly into a royal swanly conniption. And Mistress Raspberry was cool and dry, though she had maintained an air of respect for Bronwyn’s rank and person. That was more than the princess could say for some people.
“No, my dear Highness,” Jack replied. “You must stay here. This task calls for expert skulking in true gypsy fashion and your most impressive height ill suits you for it.” He swaggered off, hesitated, and returned for a moment, adding confidentially, “However, since this town is even more strange to me than usual and I have not my tribe to back me up, you might ask your sword for me to stay thirsty, and if you hear me shout—”
She nodded, and he was off with a flutter of faded tatters and a flash of dirty heels.
“For being so vastly ignored, I somehow feel dreadfully conspicuous,” Mistress Raspberry remarked, setting her valise on the ground and plopping down beside it right there on the beach. Bronwyn and Carole followed her example. Within the next quarter of an hour, three women passed by them on the way from one little whitewashed house to another equally unprepossessing one on the opposite side of the village.
“Well,” Bronwyn said. “We can’t blame them for being so chatty, I suppose. This is a frightfully busy and exciting city.” She even looked longingly after the pirate ship, now faded to a bump on the horizon.
“Yes,” Carole said, watching how the few people who came in and out of houses had all sorts of business with one another until they passed near the strangers, whereupon they grew tense and silent, their backbones visibly stiffening. “Isn’t it?”
“For a fishing village,” Mistress Raspberry remarked, “they don’t seem to be doing a great deal of fishing. See there, most of the boats are upended, and look,” she said and reached out to pull a silken gray strand of cobweb loose from one of the fish nets, “these nets are dry. They look as if they’ve been hung about for ornament and haven’t seen a fish in years.”
“So they’re not only snobbish, they’re also lazy,” Carole said. “So what?”
“Nothing, I suppose, except that I wonder if they eat seaweed, like your aquatic friends, Carole. I don’t see any gardens or animals or anything else to eat here, do you?”
“It’s a holiday,” Bronwyn said, “And they’ve all given up eating and speaking to outsiders to honor one of their gods.”
Another, woman bustled by, and with one look at Carole’s brown rags, Mistress Raspberry’s pointed ears, and Bronwyn’s battle gear, fled. Carole expected her to make a sign against the evil eye and thought her own party might well do the same. This village didn’t feel right, somehow. Though she’d thought at first these people looked just like any others, on closer observation she saw that they didn’t: they were much less attractive than the average Argonian. Every single person here seemed to be squatty, even the tall ones, and frowning. They possessed back sloping foreheads, protruding noses, retreating chins, and more hair in their eyebrows than on their heads. But as she waited, she saw that several people who did not come near the beach were slightly better-looking. These people were either quite elderly or very young and wore golden bracelets which, even at a distance, she could see bore pretty scrolled designs. “Now look, those are nice. Perhaps they don’t fish here anymore, but just make those bracelets to sell. I wish I had some money. Those are the prettiest things I’ve seen in this whole dumb village.”
She heard a chuckle behind her and turned. A small, wrinkle-faced creature with youthful freckles across her nose, withered cheeks and a catlike, triangular chin, stretched out a hand to stroke Anastasia’s feathers. The swan, usually not one to encourage familiarity, seemed oddly inclined to accept the gesture. The hag held out her other arm to Carole. One of the bracelets clasped the crone’s bony wrist above her heavily veined and knotted hands. Though the patches on her dirty dress were neatly sewn, there was certainly nothing from her bare feet to her raggedly cropped hair to indicate sufficient affluence to purchase such a trinket.
“You can have mine, missy,” she said, her voice oddly young and melodious. “Free, tee hee, but it’ll cost you.” She jabbed her finger sharply at Carole as if to point out the jest and tittered again. At least she was easily amused, Carole thought sourly.
“That’s nice of you, but you’re not making any sense at all, you know,” she informed the hag with a little frown of disapproval, just so the poor old thing would know that at least one person around here was in touch with what was what.
“Oh, am I not? Tis a slave bracelet, missy! And I’d give it to you freely but it would cost you your freedom, it would! Hee hee! Do you get it now?” Behind her, a growl and a bark and a small do
g, some sort of terrier perhaps, popped from between her knees to give Anastasia a piece of his mind. Mistress Raspberry said something quickly in a strange tongue that made the woman look sharply about her, hushing the dog and the lady at the same time. “Speak the Tongue, do you, madam? Shouldn’t do that hereabouts, or you’ll get arrested for practicing magic and win one of these bangles for your very own, if you live to wear it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I performed no magic. The Tongue, as you call it, is only a language.”
“Ah, you know that and I know that but—” Up what passed for a street in the village Jack came, followed by several burly men. “I’d best go. You too, if you know—” but they were not to know whatever it was she would have told them. One of the men called to her and she hobbled quickly away, her aged legs covering an amazing amount of territory in a short time.
Mistress Raspberry rose to meet the men accompanying Jack, her brush of foxy hair and olive cloak spreading with the salt wind. The men were well dressed in a fabric that looked like fine linen, their clothing simply cut but sturdily made. The hand of one of them was clasped around the back of Jack’s neck, as if the man intended to pinch his captive’s head off. Bronwyn and Carole stood up too. Bronwyn stepped a little in front of Mistress Raspberry, her shield covering the three of them and her hand on the hilt of her sword.
“No loitering,” the middle man said, half-shouting, and flinging his arms seaward, as if to physically push them all back into it.
“You needn’t shout,” Mistress Raspberry said testily. “I can hear and understand you quite clearly.”
He looked surprised and doubtful and glanced back at his friends, who regarded the lady and her companions as if expecting them to start drilling themselves into the ground at any minute. “Well,” he said, “if you can understand me, understand this. Just pop yourselves into that little boat of yours and go back same as you came.”
“I beg your pardon,” Mistress Raspberry said in a tone that said plainly that she would do no such thing, “but I doubt my sister, your Queen Lily-Pearl, would share your distaste for my society.”
“Empress,” the man on the right said, licking his lips.
“Eh?” asked the third man, the one who held Jack.
“Empress. Lily-Pearl’s Empress now, not Queen. Emperor Loefwin invested her last year, remember?”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” Mistress Raspberry said.
The middle man was not convinced. “Anybody can come in off the sea and claim to be related to the Crown. The Empress has a sister.”
“Aye, and a mother too,” the lip-licker said ruefully.
“I’ve seen them both myself. The Empress’s sister is not one to go joyriding on foreign sailing ships. She’s a Princess, married to Prince Loefrig…”
“I’m so pleased for her,” Mistress Raspberry said.
“And she doesn’t have pointy ears.”
“Well, then, since you’re such an intimate of my family, and recall my sister’s physical characteristics in such detail, perhaps you can also recall,” Mistress Raspberry smiled her saw-blade smile, “if she has pointed teeth.”
While the bold one in the middle was busy being nonplussed, his lip-licking companion nodded several times. “Yes, well, that proves it, Murdo. She’s got the teeth. Yes sir, she’s ...”
The third let go of Jack’s neck. “Proves she’s good solid ogre stock, at least,” he conceded.
The lip-licker nodded. “Pointed teeth are a sure sign. They say Loefwin’s grandfather, King Gawdauful the Goblin, was married to a woman whose teeth were so pointed she bit her lip once and bled to death.”
“I—er—we, that is, seem to have made a mistake, Madam,” Murdo said. “You appear to be, after all, at least a suitable sort of person to set foot on our shores. But we three are guardians here while the young Lord is at court with his men, and we have to be careful, you see. If you are related to the Imperial Family, I trust you’ll speak of our diligence to the Empress, and not hold our questioning you against us?”
She inclined her head graciously, but the gold flecks in her eyes sparkled.
“But then,” Murdo continued, “I suppose we’ll know soon enough if you’re who you claim, won’t we? Your sister will be expecting you, and no doubt will send soldiers for you.”
“No doubt she would if she’d known I was coming, but I’d planned my visit to be a surprise. I had no idea these shores were so… hospitable.”
“Nice of you to notice,” the lip-licker said, his eyes darting from her to her companions, lingering rather longingly on the fluff-feathered, beady-eyed Anastasia. “Maybe you’d tell us what a nice lady like you is doing in the company of these ragamuffins? Have you brought the contents of your dungeons to share with your sisters for sporting purposes?”
Bronwyn answered, “Keep a civil tongue in your head, foreigner. Can’t you see when you’re outnumbered? I just happen to be Her Ladyship’s woman at arms, Wyndy the Warrior, and these two are Her Ladyship’s personal midgets and chief advisers. They are,” she said significantly, “five hundred years old, collectively.”
“Hmph,” Murdo said. “They’d have to be practicing magic to live to that age.”
“Not at all,” Mistress Raspberry said coolly, to Bronwyn’s astonishment. “A difference in diet, climate, the sort of work one does, can often produce radical changes in life span and stature. Just because such long lives aren’t customary here…”
“Here now,” the one who had held Jack said. “Who’s saying they aren’t? Why, our folk live as long as any midgets—”
Murdo gave him a withering glance. “Pringle, watch what you say. It’s not like anything smacking so of magic is a thing to be proud of. What about the bird?” he asked Mistress Raspberry. “I suppose you’ll be telling us it’s your lord and master.”
“Certainly not,” Mistress Raspberry replied, and added with a lack of veracity worthy of Bronwyn, “She is my steed, presently lamed. I presume you have adequate mews for her. If not, a stable will have to suffice, though I assume gentlefolk hereabouts ride swans just as they do elsewhere?”
Murdo said nothing but jerked his head back, indicating that the other men should step aside with him, which they did, the three of them talking in low voices and casting glances towards the strangers from time to time. The glances weren’t exactly hostile, but they weren’t exactly friendly either. The ones they gave Anastasia were more covetous than anything else, Jack thought.
“Why, of all people, did you have to fetch them”?” Carole asked him.
He shrugged and hung his head. He was disgraced. He was unfit to lead his people, now or ever. It seemed he could not even skulk properly. “Forgive me,” he said sadly—but charmingly. It was always wise to be charming when seeking forgiveness. “The pub of this town is also headquarters for these constable people.”
They’d seized him the minute he walked in the door, which he had to do since there were no windows on that building, just white wash. They’d demanded to know where he came from and what he was doing there. That was when he’d led them back to Mistress Raspberry and the security of Bronwyn’s sword.
Chapter 6
The inn was neither a busy nor a merry place, and after the strangers had been served their supper, Jack knew why. They’d been fed a bowl of gray-white goo with black speckles, a basically bland flavor, and a bitter aftertaste. The food was served to them by Murdo’s wife, a woman no less well-dressed and no more attractive than her husband. If wolverines had suddenly lost their fur, stood on their hind legs and donned clothing, Jack thought, they would have looked a lot like Murdo’s people. The children were just as bad, all seven of them, the eldest looking a year or two younger than Jack, the youngest a baby passed back and forth like an oversized ball between its brothers and sisters. They were as clean as their parents, but snarled at each other constantly and took turns pinching and whining at their mother.
When the meal was over, Mistress Raspberry dug
into her dress pocket and extracted a piece of gold. “This ought to cover it,” she said, trying to hand it to the woman.
Goody Murdo examined it as if it might be dirty. “Oh, I doubt that, milady,” she said. Though she hadn’t been told of Mistress Raspberry’s claim to kinship with the Frostingdungian Empress, she treated her with the deference due to her silk-embroidered, lace-trimmed woolen gown and to the topaz brooch clasping her cloak.
“What? That’s enough gold to pay for two good horses and some left for a loaf besides.”
“Maybe where you come from, madam,” the lady said, wiping her hands on the underside of her spotless apron. “But here we pay in iron.” Her husband shot her an unfathomable look and she added quickly and with a generosity that hardly seemed typical of these people, “But I’m sure once you’ve been able to trade for our local currency, you’ll pay up. You could sell that nice bird you have to raise money, and have enough cash to get by for a while and to buy bracelets for your slaves. Them
coins you have would do nice to coat slave bracelets,” she added approvingly.
“Yes, we met an old woman who said she was a slave and showed us her golden bracelet. But why do your slaves wear such expensive jewelry?”
“Mercy, milady, gold isn’t that pricey here in Frostingdung. Iron’s the thing, has to be, considering. We get both from our mines, and for a long time the slaves wore bare iron. But the Empress, when she was just a Princess, said what this country needed was a bit of sprucing up, and ordered all the iron bracelets dipped in gold. It does have a nicer shine to it, and one can make the bracelets a bit lighter, and save money, by coating them. Which old lady would it have been that you met, milady?”
“Oh, very old, with a d—”
“Glitha. That will be enough,” Murdo said. “Our guests will be too tired for your chatter. They’ll be staying here tonight. You should show them to bed. The lady sleeps in the big room, the two women servants in the next, the manservant in the smallest.”
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