by Sarah Remy
“How many do you need?” Holder asked. He gaze lingered on Liam’s scars. “I’ll hook up my cart, follow you home.” He rocked thoughtfully from toe to heel. “It’s your lucky day. Happens I have other business in the city, so I’ll not charge extra for the hauling.”
Liam knew that was his cue. He opened his mouth to begin the back and forth of barter, but Arthur interrupted.
“Where are they? You said you’ve been busy, so where are the wee mannequins? I think it’s only fair we prod the goods before you lighten our purse, don’t you, sir?”
Arthur, Liam remembered, was a whore’s get. Likely he’d learned the way of commerce on his mam’s teat.
“Aye,” Liam agreed, more because he disliked the way Holder stared blatantly at his hands and face than because he thought the man truly meant to bilk the king’s armswoman. “We haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
Holder shrugged. “Make your choice.” He crossed the barn floor to the nearest stall and threw open the door. Arthur and Morgan rushed to peek inside.
“Four pennies for the half men,” Holder told Liam. “Six if you want full-size. And a silver for the quintain. Those are weighted differently.”
Liam looked into the stall. Gloom gathered in the corners of the close space, chased back by light through the open door. Dismembered mannequin bodies choked the old stall. Straw-plump limbs and stuffed burlap torsos were halfway to the ceiling. Hollow-eyed gourds watched the open door from their places on wooden shelves bolted into the back wall. The macabre display was as neatly ordered as the fodder in the hayloft.
“I’ve more about than usual,” Holder admitted. “Less call for scarecrows this year, what with so many fields let go fallow after the Worm. And on the estates, well. The lords haven’t got lads and lasses left to train to the sword and pike.”
“Those are winter gourds. How do you keep their heads from rotting?” Arthur demanded.
Holder smiled. “Old family secret.”
But Liam had spied the sliver of bone mortared into the back wall above the highest shelf. He thought it was the bone that had made his skin itch when he’d entered the barn. He could feel it now, the imperfection of nature foully twisted. It was a vocent’s spell, extremely old by the feel of it. The preservation magic was near to failing. Another generation and it would be gone for good. Liam wondered if Holder knew there was a fragment of a man’s thighbone in the barn, a whiff of necromancy about his straw men.
Then he caught the farmer looking again at the scars on his hands and knew Holder did.
“Four is all we need, for the nonce,” Liam decided, stepping away from the stall. “Half men.” He set his jaw. “At two pennies each.”
Indignation wrinkled Holder’s brow. “I took you for an honest man, but I see you’re intent on thievery. That’s good straw. The burlap’s been treated to last no matter the weather. There’s none better than me at the craft—the armswoman knows it, else why come to me year after year?”
Arthur wrinkled his nose behind Holder’s back. Liam ignored the page’s dubious sneer.
“Aye, because you do know your craft,” he agreed coldly, “and because—up until today—you’ve not had it in your head to fleece the king. I know well what the armswoman paid in the past, man.” It was a lie, but one that made Arthur nod minutely. “Two pennies a man or nothing.”
The diminutive man puffed his chest. “Three pennies,” he countered. “Less than three and you do me insult under my own roof. I’ve not worked my fingers to nubs all winter only to earn half wage.”
“You said yourself business is bad. But I’ve no wish to offer you insult, Holder.” Liam jerked his chin at the pages. “Let’s go, then.”
They were almost out of the barn before Holder swore.
“Two and a half!” he cried, grabbing the wide-brimmed hat from his head and tossing it to the barn floor. “Two and a half, but you’ll take five of my wee men, because Lane’s never asked for less than six for her yard and I’ve no desire to see you again tomorrow when she sends you back for the other three.”
Liam smiled briefly out at the blinding sun then flattened his mouth before wheeling to shake Holder’s hand. “Done,” he said. “Five it is.”
Holder’s grip threatened to bruise but the farmer managed to keep irritation from his voice when he said, “There’s well water under the tree by the house. Go and refresh yourselves while I tack the pieces into straw men and ready my wagon. It won’t take long.”
Liam realized his throat was indeed dry as straw dust, either from the unfamiliar attempt at bartering or the disquiet of nearby bone magic. He thought Holder might need a moment to himself to regain face. The tension in the man’s shoulders suggested Liam might have come out ahead in the game after all.
“What’re in these? More of your mannequins?” Parsnip asked. The lass had been wandering about the barn, eyeing up the debris on the long table, apparently disinterested in the exchange. Now she stopped in front of the remaining two stalls, puzzled. “Why have you locked them up?”
Chapter 6
There were bars of iron across each of the doors. Large, thick-shanked locks kept the bars in place. Theist sigils decorated both lock and iron bar, but the temple magic was gone cold; old, Liam thought, as the bone fragment in the stable wall, but less potent.
“Not my straw men.” Holder regarded the closed rooms with resignation. “Those, in there, that’s my nuncle’s work. Ferric soldiers, my da called them. Behind those doors, lass, a vocent’s army falls to rust. The Holder brothers were venerated craftsman, awarded land and title and the throne’s recognition in silver. That is, until the Aug ordered the magi burned at the stake or hanged from the highest towers or buried still screaming in deep earth.” Holder wagged his chin at the locks. “Great-grandfather bred the Hennish cattle, aye, and his brother, my nuncle, was one of only a handful accomplished enough at the forge to smith the Automata, the great metal monsters who walked in the magi’s service.”
Arthur’s eyes were wide as saucers. “The walking machines,” he said. “But they’re dead and dismantled, their clockwork pieces scattered. Gone still and lifeless when their wicked masters were put down, without the bone magic to animate them.”
Thinking of Mal, Liam shifted uneasily. Holder caught his eye then turned and spat deliberately into the straw.
“Kingsmen took my nuncle off in chains to face charges of treason, and he a loyal man. Afterward they destroyed his forge, and his home, and carted away what pieces of the Automata they could carry. The rest are there. A priest set words into the locks while Grandfather wept over his brother’s loss.”
“Can we see them?” Parsnip demanded. “I want to see them!”
“Hush!” Liam scolded. “That’s a bloody history, Parsnip. One better forgotten.” But he couldn’t keep from glancing furtively at the sigils in the iron.
Holder grimaced. “A different time, to be sure. Good men tried as monsters and evil lurking about in the guise of good men. No, lass. Nuncle’s closets are shut tight. I wouldn’t open them again if I could. I’m loyal to throne and temple; my da never let me forget what happens to those who aren’t.”
“It’s hot and I’m thirsty,” Morgan said quietly. “Shall we go and taste the well?”
Liam nodded. “Build our men and settle your wagon,” he ordered the farmer. “But don’t take overlong about it.”
Holder looked as if he’d like to spit again, but instead he gathered up his hat, set it firmly back on his head, and did as he was bid.
Pages and horses both drooped visibly when they at last rode away from Holder’s property. Holder’s well was deep, the water sweet, but the tree had been scorched by the same fire that had gutted the homestead and the blackened trunk and split branches provided little shade. They drank, washing dust from their faces while they waited, subdued. By the time Holder appeared around the corner of his barn, cheerful red wagon strapped to another doe-eyed black cow, Arthur and Morgan were grown fractious an
d Parsnip skittish.
Liam cast an eye over the inside of the wagon as Morgan whistled their horses to hand. He counted the five straw men twice over then checked to make sure their limbs and pumpkin heads were securely attached. Holder, standing alongside his cow, long whip in hand, grunted.
“If you’re satisfied I’ll be having one penny now.” He held out calloused palm. “The rest on delivery. As is usual.”
Liam sorted a shining coin from Lane’s pouch without comment. If he flung himself onto the gray’s back with more force than necessary, none but the gelding noticed. The horse forgave him the small show of temper. The gray liked Holder and his whip no more than Liam did, and was eager to be off toward home and supper.
Morgan and Arthur and Parsnip rode ahead down the lane. Holder and his wagon trundled behind, quickly joined by his brindled hound that appeared all at once from the crop. Glad to be quit of the barn and its worrisome past, Liam brought up the rear.
He’d only recently begun to understand that, when it came to learning, history might be just as important as proper speaking and weapons practice. The Down’s lore that had served him well as a lad was but a sliver of a much larger whole. Much of what he’d swallowed down as the way of the world he’d gotten on the Widow’s hearth, either from the old woman herself or passing travelers who took no notice of the grubbing lad bussing tables or tending stable.
He knew from the Widow how to cut a good stout with a thinner brew and serve it up with a smile, which part of the sheep to let stew the longest, how to tend the winter tubers so they came from the soil ripe and plump, and how to chivvy a man back out into the cold when he’d had too much to drink and ignored last call. He’d learned from experience how to soothe a restive gelding and avoid a stallion’s strike. He could walk a mare through a gas colic and see her right at the end of it, he knew a man’s status in the world from the state of his horse’s tack, and he knew to put a pinch of salt in each bucket of mash to keep an animal from foundering.
Aye, Liam thought, staring between the gray’s long ears at the back of Holder’s wagon, there’d been a great deal of happiness on the Downs, up above the world and as removed from flatlander woes as any sparrow in the sky. While not easy, an orphan’s lot in Stonehill had been simple.
Until Mal had come seeking Avani, swathed all in black leather, wielding fancy words and a sharp sword with equal skill. Even before Liam had known Mal for the magus he was—the last vocent, the most powerful man in the kingdom but for the one who sat the throne—he’d known he must be a hero. Despite his size and crooked nose Malachi Doyle cut a striking figure amongst Stonehill’s shepherd folk. He’d treated Liam with quiet respect, the sort a stable boy hadn’t realized existed, even as Stonehill fell to pieces about their ears and the dead rose up and Liam was near to pissing himself in fright.
Hardly a day had passed before Liam knew he’d willingly lay down his life for such an unusual man, just as Mal risked his own for Liam on the Downs. As easy as that Mal had Liam’s loyalty, and later his pledge as squire. It was Liam who’d kept Mal alive aboard The Cutlass Wind, Liam who cajoled the magus until he sipped at the red wine that kept him calm over deep water, and Liam who kept Mal from doing himself harm when the wine ceased to work.
In Roue he’d killed his first man for Mal, and his second, and sometime after his third and fourth. It hadn’t been as difficult a chore as some men seemed to find it, nor pleasant, either. It was a thing he did for his master, like tatting up the holes in his trousers or reminding Mal to eat on the days he forgot. He’d been proud of his service; so easily Liam had given the vocent his heart.
More difficult to take it back again when things began to go sour. More difficult by far.
They rode past the gray stone obelisk without remarking. The flowers were dried in the sun. Holder snapped his whip at the black cow’s haunches, urging her faster. Arthur rolled his shoulders up about his ears and looked forward. His discomfit made him seem much younger than his years. Morgan, recognizing his friend’s sorrow, glanced at Liam before beginning to sing. It was a foolish lay about frog and a princess—one recently popular in Wilhaiim’s taverns—much too bawdy for good company but the lad’s voice was so sweet and innocent as he sang that even Parsnip couldn’t complain.
They stopped at Flossy Creek, again to water their horses and splash their faces. Even the farmer seemed grateful for the respite; he scooped up handfuls of cold mud from the creek bed, rubbing the muck beneath and above the cow’s eyes, then again on her spine over the base of her tail.
“Keeps the flies off,” Holder explained when he saw Liam watching. He pointed to where his brindled hound rolled on the bank. “Even Bear knows the way of it.” The farmer smiled reluctantly when the hound rooted in the mud. When she rose again she was head-to-toe muck, her stripes hidden beneath a layer of brown, her pink nose startling against the dirt on her snout.
It was the hound that alerted them first to trouble, although that night as he lay awake on his cot listening to the sound of the barracks settling Liam wondered if he knew the danger before even she did. It seemed impossible, but he recalled missing a stride as his heart leapt in recognition an instant before Bear lifted her wedge-shaped head, sniffing the air, and then began to bark.
“What is it?” Parsnip asked, staring down at the hound and then up across the crop. The chestnut danced briefly beneath her but settled again, too hot to make much of the noise.
“Pheasant, likely,” Morgan suggested, but he frowned. “It’s too early in the day for deer.”
“Bear!” Holder snapped his fingers. The hound came immediately to heel, her barks stifled behind her teeth, but she shivered as she did so, tucking her tail between her legs.
“Bear and her kin hunt more dangerous game,” the farmer said, grim. “The sidhe folk grow bolder each day, but I’d not thought to find one aboveground before sunset.” Holder set a hand on the hound’s head, restraining. Together they glared into the wheat. “No offense intended, young man.”
“None taken.” Liam felt mortification stain his cheeks. Then he huffed laughter as the wheat split, making the horses jump and Arthur curse, and birthed a foursome of hectic brown birds. “Only turkeys, after all, come for water.” He’d never disliked anyone so much as he disliked the farmer and his knowing sneer. He stopped Arthur when the lad reached for his mace. “Let it be, they look parched, poor things.”
“Not the birds, sir,” Arthur hissed. “Look there!” Holder’s cow began to bellow. Morgan cried, “Get back!”
The barrowman slunk out of the crop a finger’s length behind the last turkey, crushing amber stalks beneath bony feet as it grasped after feathers, crouching low to the ground, naked in the loam. No larger than a child, it carried a primitive bronze knife between its sharp teeth and wore an incongruous fur cap pulled down over greasy, matted hair. Its chest was sunken, its ribs stark as fence rails, its flat black eyes large and lidless. Liam knew the creature for one of the lesser sidhe, little more than an animal, as unlike the elegant aes si Faolan as Arthur’s pony to the king’s finest destrier.
Greed made the barrowman careless. Intent on the hunt, it had eyes only for the scattered flock. Bear was off the road and through the turkeys before the sidhe realized its mistake; the brindle hound snarled as she sprang. The turkeys squawked and took awkwardly to the air, wings beating. The sidhe made no sound as it scuttled sideways away from the Bear’s snapping jaws. Holder loosed a shout as he swung his scythe but the barrowman was faster. Severed stems of wheat fell where the creature had stood a heartbeat earlier, but the sidhe had vanished back into the crop as quickly as it had appeared.
Without waiting for her master’s permission, Bear hurdled after.
“Skald’s balls!” Arthur crowed. “An ugly bugger, weren’t it? And cat quick!”
Holder squatted in the dirt between road and field. “Blood,” he pronounced, stirring a finger through fallen wheat. “Look here. And here.”
Liam tossed his
reins to Morgan and went to see for himself. The fresh smear of scarlet on broken sheaves made his heart sink. Fat red drops, still wet, besprinkled ground and crop both.
“Not Bear’s,” the farmer said. “Barrowman was gone before she touched down.”
Liam parted the amber wall with a hand. The wheat felt warm against his fingers. The splatter led straight back before disappearing again in the sheaves.
“Turkey, mayhap,” Arthur suggested. “It was after a bit of supper.”
“That’s an awful lot of blood for a turkey,” Parsnip argued, standing in her stirrups for a better look. “Besides, the birds are all there, in one piece—” she pointed to where the turkeys, irate, watched from a safe distance “—and it hadn’t anything on it but the knife and funny hat.”
“It was a trapper’s bonnet,” Holder agreed, straightening. He scanned the fields, expression thunderous. “Happens George Farrow, who makes his living in the fur trade, rents land just over that way.” He pointed west across wheat.
Liam remembered the patch of green against gold, the distant farmhouse sheltered in a shady copse, and the raven circling indolently overhead. The raven was gone now, the sky unbroken by wings or cloud.
“I’m going after my dog,” Holder declared. “I lost her brother to a barrowman earlier this season. I won’t lose Bear, too. She’d be back by now, that one, if she’d lost the trail. She knows her job.”
“Wait. I’ll come with you,” decided Liam. He turned from the bloodied wheat to his three charges, saw their excitement, and crushed it. “Parsnip, ride ahead, as fast as you can. Send the guard to Farrow’s cottage; tell them to look for me there. You two—” he beetled his brows at Arthur and Morgan, ignoring their scowls “—get the cow and cart safely to barracks, let the armswoman know you’ve brought home her goods.”