When Beth pushed Maggie through the doors she found herself in a large hall. It felt like a place daylight never fully reached. Cooking fires burned at various places on the stone floor. Long shadows danced on the walls and cinders rose. Without a chimney, smoke wafted to the ceiling, seeking escape through the many holes in the roof. This was only moderately successful, and the grey haze gave the space a murky quality. Daylight should show through the roof holes, but it was only void beyond. The entire place smelled of cooking, unwashed bodies and soot. Maggie thought this once might have been a quite wonderful hall, but now it was so dirty and dark and neglected that the very walls seemed to lean away from the inhabitants. Women, children and old men sat on stools at trestle tables, drinking from cups. Beer, from the smell. In an alcove in the far recess of the hall, several thin, unattended children played with sticks or bones.
An enormous woman in a long dress and apron and stout boots crusted with muck stood near the largest cooking fire. A scarf round her head covered her hair. Her face was red and sweating.
“Come on,” said Beth. “Introduction time. But first, let’s deal with your dog. Bunny! Bring me something to tie this dog up with, a rope or something.” Bunny, in the same sort of dress the enormous woman wore, ran into the courtyard and returned with a length of rope. “Good girl,” said Beth. She handed the rope to Maggie.
Feeling she had no choice, Maggie tied the rope to Badger’s collar and knotted a loop into the other end. Beth snatched the leash from her and dragged Badger away into the shadows, Oso following, with her tail between her legs.
“Don’t hurt him,” Maggie called.
Beth laughed, but Maggie heard no cry from either dog, which gave her hope. When she returned, Beth shoved Maggie in the direction of the enormous woman. The woman examined her in such a way – lifting Maggie’s arms, running her hands over Maggie’s thighs and back – that Maggie feared she was deciding which part of her to throw in the bubbling cauldron hanging over the fire. The woman then stood back and regarded her. Maggie felt very much like a heifer at a fair.
“What have we got here?” asked the enormous woman.
“Maggie,” said Beth. “And I claim her. Winnie meet Maggie. Maggie, meet my mother, Winnie.” She put her hand on Maggie’s shoulder.
Her mother cracked Beth across the knuckles with a wooden spoon. Beth shrieked and dropped her hand. “I say who gets what, where and when. You’ll obey and behave.”
“That hurt,” Beth mumbled.
“As well it should.” She stirred the great pot, which had begun to boil over. “Now, Beth, tell me what you brought me, and how.” Beth recalled the story of Maggie’s abduction, adding a great many flourishes about how difficult it had been to track her and how fierce the dog was.
Winnie put up her hands. “I’m too hungry for this folderol.” She regarded Maggie. “Most people have the sense not to come through our woods, or they’ve the good sense to run when they see us coming. Those who don’t, well, we’ve got work for ’em, don’t we, children?” Her sons and daughters avowed they did.
Chickens and rabbits roasted on a spit turned by a podgy young man. Winnie checked the meat and pronounced it ready. The smell of the sizzling fat was mouth-watering, even under the circumstances. Winnie told them to get their bowls.
Beth ordered Maggie to sit and stay put. She fetched bowls of food, while Maggie tried to catch sight of Badger. She heard whimpering, and laughter, and then a yip. Maggie’s veins turned to fire and when she heard another yip she could stand it no more. She’d rush them and grab a knife. She’d hold a knife to the fat woman’s throat and … Seeing nothing but red mist, she leaped from the stool. Her hand closed round the skillet’s handle, but no sooner did she feel the heft of it then something that felt like an oak tree landed between her shoulder blades and she was face down on the stone floor.
Beth hauled her up by the collar. “See what you made me do? Here I am being all nice and polite and you act like an animal. Oso acted like that at first, but she doesn’t now. Damn near wore myself out beating that dog.” She shook Maggie like a baby squirrel. “You do something like that again and I’ll cut the tendons on your ankles.” She brandished one of her knives close to Maggie’s eyes. “Understood?”
Maggie nodded. “Badger …”
“What? Oh.” Beth turned and yelled, “Leave that dog alone or I’ll throttle the lot of you!”
She dropped Maggie, who fell to her knees, pain spiking up her thighs. It was her fault the dog was here, just as it was her fault, apparently, that Kyle was here. She deserved the pain. Beth put her hands under Maggie’s arms and lifted her back on the stool. “Stay,” she said. Maggie hung her head. There was copper-tasting blood in her mouth; she must have cut her lip when she fell. She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Eat,” Beth said.
Maggie chewed on a piece of rabbit meat. It was tough and stringy.
“Right, then.” Winnie, her hands on her hips, stood in the middle of the room and the firelight made a gargantuan shadow on the wall. “Should Beth be given the girl to keep as a pet?”
Beth looked so angry it seemed sparks flew from her eyes. She stood and addressed her mother. “Given? Am I not Beth Castoff, eldest daughter of Winnie Castoff, and the one you have chosen to take your place when the time comes, may it not be for a long time yet?”
“It is true.”
“And so, as the next Robber Queen –”
“You’re not Robber Queen yet, my girl,” said Winnie.
“But I am the chosen of the Castoff Clan and as such I claim this one as my servant, as is right.” She nodded at the podgy boy turning the spit. “You have Steven there, and I, too, should have someone to help with the work, to care for my fire.”
Although some arguing went back and forth about the nature of Castoff laws and the right uses for a woman, in the end it was decided. Maggie would be given to Beth. The band of Castoffs drank and ate. Tim produced a harp on which he played plaintive airs until complaints from the others persuaded him to play something festive. The children in the alcove, six in all, came forward at last. They crawled into laps and were petted like kittens and fed scraps of food. They were handled roughly but not without kindness and, with their wide-open curious stares, seemed unafraid.
People wandered off to various corners of the hall. Although Maggie thought it should be late morning now, the darkness inside the hall made it night again, or, she suspected, always. Perhaps these people slept inside, during the perpetual night, when it was day outside, and woke when the sun set. Some people claimed spaces portioned off from the main hall with blankets, others simply fell onto blanket-covered straw. “Come on,” said Beth. “We’re over here.”
She picked up a torch and a bowl of scraps and led Maggie to a far corner of the hall where a heavy blanket served as a sort of doorway.
“After you, my pet.” Beth held the flap up and winked.
The room’s walls were stone and wood, ramshackle and bowed, but they afforded more privacy than the blankets many of the others used. A straw bed, covered in quilts, hunkered in the corner. There was a leaded window through which no light passed, encased almost completely in vines, and stone stairs that ended at a pile of rubble, with a cushion and a few candles on the lower step. A trunk and a chair upholstered with what once must have been a soft-blue brocade but was now a patchwork of grey and rusty stains stood next to the stairs. Inside a series of cages on the wall by the entrance pigeons perched on branches. Several books sat atop a stool by the bed.
The pigeons startled as the women entered. Beth put the torch in an iron holder on the wall. There, at the back of the alcove, were Badger and Oso. When Badger saw Maggie, he jumped up from where he’d been curled and dashed forward, only to jerk back when he reached the end of a chain fastened to his neck and secured to a link in the wall. Maggie went to him, kn
elt and took off the scarf tied around his face. She let him kiss her face while she rubbed his ears. “Good boy,” she whispered. “Good boy.” It was hard to keep the tears back.
Oso wriggled and whined, but dared not come forward until Beth told her she might. The dog ran to her mistress and sat at her feet, chin tilted up, her eyes blinking. Beth grunted and rubbed the top of the dog’s head roughly.
“You’ll sleep with me and my little pets tonight,” said Beth. She looked at Maggie and Badger, who was in convulsions of wiggling joy. “You can unchain him. It’s just a latch. But if he tries to run I won’t be responsible.”
Maggie unlatched the chain from Badger’s collar. Badger tried to crawl into her lap. Even Beth had to laugh. “He seems to like you, all right.” She looked down as Oso, still cringing at her feet. “Maybe I should get a better dog.”
“I think Oso’s a fine dog.”
“Always running off. That’s why I keep the pigeons in cages. Man who had them first said they’d come back home if I let them fly, but when I let some of ’em out they just disappeared.” She seized a bird from the nearest cage, held it by its feet and swung it about. “I hate it when things run off.” She kicked Oso and the hound rolled away, whining.
“Well, maybe if you didn’t treat her like that!”
Beth whirled and raised her hand. “You mind your mouth, or I’ll feed you your teeth.”
Badger’s lip curled. “Easy. Beth’s not going to hurt us.”
Beth stuffed the flapping bird back in its cage and then sat on the leather trunk and regarded Oso, who slunk over to her on her belly. She pulled her knife from her belt and held it against Oso’s throat. “I do this every night, don’t I, girl? I tickle you with my sticker and remind you who your mistress is.” The dog trembled and panted. Beth put her knife away and turned to Maggie. “And on what do you base your opinion that I won’t hurt you?”
Maggie noticed her pack lying near the trunk and wondered what was still inside. “I don’t think you’ll beat us,” she said, “because if you do, you might make us do whatever you want, but you’ll know we do it because we’re afraid, not because we respect you, or like you.”
“You talk too much.” Beth set the bowl of scraps on the floor and Oso looked at it, trembling, but didn’t move. “Let your dog eat if you want.”
“I’d rather they both ate.”
Beth snorted and made a small gesture with her chin. Oso dove on the food. Maggie gave Badger the signal and both dogs hungrily gulped the meat and vegetables, but they minded their manners and didn’t snap at each other.
Maggie said, “It seems our dogs have become friends. We might even do the same.”
Beth stood and, turning her back, stripped off her heavy sweater. The shirt she wore underneath pulled up. Her back was a mass of scar tissue. Maggie’s hand flew to her mouth. Criss-crossed white ridges where the flesh had healed unevenly, and what looked like burn marks. A lot of them. Beth quickly pulled her shirt down.
“What are you gawking at?”
“Nothing.” Maggie felt as though she’d seen something more intimate and fragile than skin, something she had no right to see.
Beth went to the pile of straw and kicked it until she was satisfied. “You lie next to the wall.”
“I’m happy on the floor, if you’ve a blanket to spare.”
“No need. There’s room for two.” Beth picked up a candle and held it to the torch until it lit. She extinguished the torch, using a large tin snuffer hanging from a chain and placed the candle in a hurricane lamp with a mirrored backing. From its perch on a delicate table it cast a surprisingly bright and comforting glow.
Maggie lay down and scooted as far over to the wall as possible. Badger curled up at the end of the straw, keeping his eyes on Beth. “Is it okay if he sleeps there?”
Beth looked over at Oso, who had squinched into the far corner. “Come,” commanded Beth. Oso’s head came up and she looked questioningly at her. “Come, stupid.” The dog crawled on her belly. Beth snapped her fingers and pointed to Badger. “Go. There.” For a moment, Oso didn’t seem to understand, and it was plain the not knowing put her into fits. She trembled even more.
“Useless dog.”
“Tell her it’s okay,” said Maggie softly. “She wants to please you. She just doesn’t know how.”
From the look on Beth’s face, Maggie feared she’d beat her and the dogs bloody.
“S’all right,” mumbled Beth to Oso. Still the dog did not move.
“She’s not allowed to sleep near the bed, am I right?” said Maggie. “She’s just afraid she’ll do something wrong.”
“Soft, that’s what you are.” She pointed at the spot near Badger. “Get over there, you.”
Oso did as she was told, with her tail between her legs. Beth then flopped down on the straw next to Maggie and pulled the blanket over them both. “My little pets, all here together and safe, and grateful for it, too, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” said Maggie. The woman smelled like she hadn’t washed in months. “But, do you always sleep with your knives on?”
“Always.” Beth’s smile, missing a tooth on the left side, flashed in the candlelight. “You never know what’s going to happen around here.” She sat up, leaning on an elbow. “Hey, I’ll bet you can read, can’t you?” Maggie said she could. Beth reached for one of the books on the stool. “Good. You can make yourself useful. Read this to me.”
The book was a collection of folk tales. “Any story in particular?”
“I don’t care. Just read a damn story.”
Maggie opened the book at random. It was a story called, “The Snow-daughter and the Fire-son.” “What about this?” She held the book so Beth could read the title but, rather than reading the words on the page, she told her, “It’s called ‘The Frost King.’”
Beth looked hard at the illustration of a young woman in a diaphanous gown with her arms raised high over her head, in the middle of a snowstorm. From the woods a man wearing a crown, riding a horse, watched her. Beth pointed at the title on the drawing, which said, The Snow Maiden. “Is that what that says? The Frost King?” Maggie lied and told her it did. “Read it then. That’s a good picture.”
Maggie tucked away the knowledge that Beth was illiterate and read the story. It was about a brother made of fire and a sister made of ice and how no matter how they loved each other, they were doomed to do each other harm.
Maggie’s voice caught on the last sentences and she shielded her face in the blanket so as to hide her tears.
“What are you blubbering for?” asked Beth.
“I’m thinking of my brother, of Kyle.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about him,” said Beth.
“I can’t help it. I’m here to find him, and I keep making a mess of it and making everything worse and I’m afraid I won’t find him at all and even if I do, I don’t know what I can do if he’s with her.” She fairly spat the last word.
“Well, he was fine when he left here.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MAGGIE STOPPED CRYING AND TURNED TO BETH. “He was here with you?”
“I found him, half frozen in the woods, waffling on about being called by her – the One Who Lives in the North.” Beth chewed on her lip. “Thought he was daft. Not that it mattered.”
“Did he tell you about elysium?”
“He did. No time for that nonsense around here, and he didn’t have none or I’d have found it. Told me that’s what caused those pretty silver swirls on his skin. I liked them.” She sounded wistful, then scowled and cleaned her thumbnail with the tip of a knife. “I didn’t want no man pushing me around and they’re apt to get like that. I wasn’t having it. He wanted to go so good riddance.”
Maggie had to keep her wits about her. “You did the right thing.
”
“How do you figure that?”
“It’s not right to keep something that doesn’t want to be kept.”
“What a load of horse droppings. Something belongs to you, you keep it tied up tight.” Beth snorted. “Your brother wasn’t much in the end. Thought only of himself. Running off to his woman in the north. I know you’re fond of him, but he thinks only of himself. I’ve done you a favour. He was pretty, though, I’ll give him that. He don’t want to stay, well, to hell with him. I kicked his ass out into the snow and no regrets.” She tucked the knife back into her belt, blew out the candle and rolled over, kicking Maggie in the shin in the process. “Now, go to sleep. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Maggie stared up at the ceiling and after a few minutes Beth fell into a deep sleep, snoring like an overfed bear. The darkness felt like an imposed, unnatural thing, perhaps the heart of despair made manifest, sucking all the light. If it was always night here, what regulated the days, if you could even call them that? They had arrived, she was sure, near daybreak, so presumably the sun rose outside. She had seen the silvered gleams on the horizon. But here, it was impossible to tell what time it was, only that it was dark.
High overhead, up in the exposed rafters of the ruined roof, something moved. Maggie strained to see. Two things. Dark. Barely visible. Her heart beat more quickly. One of the things grew bigger, stretched out. Could it be? It was. Ravens, two of them, stretching their wings, bobbing up and down. Letting her know they were still with her.
* * *
MAGGIE DREAMS …
She tries to reach the prince, trapped in a tower atop a glass mountain. She has tried once, and twice, and a thousand times more. Each time she falls, tumbling and twirling in the unforgiving air. She falls to her knees, atop a mound of bones, and screams and screams and then looks down at her feet and sees they have turned into the feet of a lynx, with razor-sharp claws. Her hands, too, are lethal paws. She places one in front of the other, and starts up the glass mountain again.
The Grimoire of Kensington Market Page 17