“And always with a Duke presiding, overseeing things.”
She smiled and reached across the breakfast table for his hand. “For me, darling. When you took to your bed yesterday, I was almost sick with worry. I know not what ails you but I shall do my level best to see you restored to full health.”
The Duke’s fingers curled around hers, returning their pressure. He had decided he would not tell her that it was a visit to a wizard’s toxic and revolting cave that had put him out of sorts. She would think him weak - if she didn’t already - and there was nothing in the world the Duke wanted more than to impress his bewitching, beautiful wife. To that end, he was arranging a special surprise for their anniversary, which was just a few short weeks away. Perhaps then she would see how much he adored her and at last would join him in the marital bed.
“Very well,” he gave in. “I suppose I could do with one more day of rest. You would not consider joining me, I suppose?”
As soon as he had said it, he knew he had made a crass mistake. She released his hand and sat back, her face hardened against him and her eyes cold.
“I have told you repeatedly I am not ready.”
“Sorry, sorry!” the Duke held up his hands in surrender. “That was insensitive of me. Forgive me or I shall just die.”
Now, there was an offer! There was nothing in the world Carith Drombo wanted more than to be her husband’s widow. But the timing was off and she doubted the weak-willed cretin was being anything other than histrionic.
“I forgive you,” she said, perhaps a little too curtly. She softened her tone with a smile.
The Duke got to his feet. “Thank you; you are too kind to me. Now, I shall return to my bed and try to clear this muddled head of mine.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Carith was suddenly stern; it startled him. Only she could get away with talking to the Duke in that manner. “You sit back down right now.” She pointed imperiously at his chair. The Duke obeyed, quivering like a schoolboy in trouble. Carith rolled her eyes and laughed. He really was a feeble-minded idiot.
“You have yet to have your peppered eggs,” she explained. “And I have made them just how you like them.”
Seven
They do not breathe, Lughor noticed as he eyed up the line of fractured foes before him. Well, of course not; they are dead. No one who had sustained such injuries could still be alive - and yet here they are, standing before me, staring at me with dead eyes - No, not quite dead, not entirely; what was animating those eyes was most certainly not human.
He fixed his stare on the man farthest to the left. A farmer, he looked like; his neck was so bent out of shape, his face was almost upside down. This one carried a pick axe. Lughor feigned a lunge and then sidestepped, slashing at the farmer’s neighbour, who wielded a garden rake of all things, slicing him from collarbone to pelvis in a single stroke. The gardener collapsed in a heap; the others did not seem to notice him go down.
There is no blood in them, Lughor noticed. His blade was clean. He swung and slashed, wheeling around, reducing the pick axe carrier and another - a cook perhaps, who was waving a cleaver in a mechanical fashion that reminded Lughor of the clockwork figures that trundled in and out of a town hall clock he had seen somewhere - to piles of bones and dirty clothes.
Three left.
Closing in, he ducked and rolled, springing up behind them and ran one through before sawing him in half. The fellow continued to fight until his upper half slipped away from his hips and he folded into a heap.
Two left.
This was easy. Lughor had barely worked up a sweat. He toyed with the next, lopping off an arm and then a leg, severing it at the knee. As the fellow toppled sideways, a final swing of Lughor’s sword sent his head bouncing across the flagstones.
Last one.
Lughor was determined to enjoy it. He tossed his sword from hand to hand, twirling it like a circus performer, beckoning to those watchful, inhuman eyes to ‘come and get it’.
The last of the villagers lumbered and lurched toward the warrior like a drunkard on a tightrope. He was armed with a knife in each hand but was unable to coordinate them into any kind of organised attack.
“That’s it,” Lughor grinned as though encouraging an infant to take its first steps. “Come to Poppa.”
The flattened face came closer. The skull, smashed like the shell of a boiled egg, revealed the brains within. Lughor was both horrified and fascinated - so much so that the fellow’s knife almost made contact with his shoulder. Lughor managed to evade the clumsy stroke at the last second.
Then he found he could not move.
Hands were clasped around his ankles. Hands that were attached to arms that were no longer attached to torsos.
All around him, the dismembered body parts of the men he had sliced apart were twitching, rolling and crawling, converging on him.
A slash of a knife struck his breastplate. Lughor staggered back. He had been hit by the flat of the blade and not the edge or point. He tried to wrest his feet and calves from the tightening clutches of the dead fingers, swinging his sword in all directions, chopping the limbs into smaller pieces.
Free at last, he decapitated the last man standing and, in a frenzy, hacked at the body until no two joints remained together.
Breathless and with sweat coursing down his face, Lughor stopped and surveyed the bloodless carnage all around him.
What the hell was that?
Around his neck, the tiny sword hung limp, just like any other cheap trinket.
***
After the hardest day he had worked in his life, Broad Shoulders would have been happy to curl up in a corner of the yard. Not even the prospect of the girls’ wholesome home cooking could distract him from his yearning for sleep. The farmer declared him an excellent farmhand and said he would be permitted to sleep in the shed that night. Had Broad been more alert, he might have suspected this boon was nothing more than a pretext to have him guard the valuable turnip haul.
The farmer’s daughters insisted on feeding the handsome youth before he turned in. Philomeny brought him a patchwork blanket, which led Gartha to suggest he might like a wash, which led Droosa to offer to launder his clothes.
Before he could think to offer resistance, Broad found himself pecked at by a swarm of female hands, fluttering around him like moths. He was soon denuded of all his garments and stood, knees together, with his hands protecting his modesty. The girls took it in turns to throw pails of water over him - they set up a chain from the well, refilling the buckets and passing them along the line, each taking her turn. Giggling and laughing, they performed this office until the youth was thoroughly drenched and waterlogged at the centre of a wide puddle of mud. The farmer appeared with his pitchfork to put an end to the commotion. The girls tore themselves away, carrying Broad’s jerkin, leggings, boots and all indoors and commenting on his toned and muscular physique, which they had now viewed from every angle.
The farmer snatched up the blanket and was about to fling it at the lad when his eyes dropped and he noticed something. “What’s that?” His eyes dropped again.
“What’s what?” blinked Broad. He ran a hand through his long hair, wringing water from his tresses.
“What’s that you’ve got down there?” the farmer nodded.
“Oh! That! You must have seen one of those before! After all, yours has got you seven daughters.”
“No! Not that! That!” The farmer pointed quickly.
“What?” Broad was confused. “Are we or are we not talking about my ring? I guessed you must have had one yourself to give to the lady who became your wife and the mother of your children.”
“Yes, the ring! Let me see it.”
Broad held out his hand. The farmer leaned forward, unwilling to step in the mud puddle his daughters had created.
“Let me see it,” he beckoned.
Broad grimaced. “I can’t,” he was apologetic. “It doesn’t come off. Sorry.”
“Where did you get it?”
Broad bit his lip, wary of saying too much. Again. “It was my mother’s,” he lied. “She-”
“Hmm,” said the farmer, already forming ideas of ways to get a closer look at and take possession of the bauble. “Here!” He threw the blanket at the lad’s face. “Cover yourself up; I’ve got girls in the house.”
Broad was about to point out it was those very girls who had rendered him naked but the farmer was shuffling toward the house. Broad wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and tried to get comfortable in the shed, among the turnips and their earthy smell.
He had to force himself to stay awake until the sun went down, at which time he undid the clasp and released Shade from the ring.
“What happened to your clothes?”
“There were these girls,” Broad began but Shade wasn’t really interested; he rose in the air and swooped around the shed.
“Stinks in here,” was his assessment.
“Not me!” Broad asserted. “I’ve had a wash.”
“Happy birthday. Is there anyone to eat around here?”
Broad shrugged his broad shoulders. “They’re all in good health, it looks like.”
Shade let out a roar of frustration. “Gah! This is why we should move to a city, where people die around the clock. Out here in the sticks, people seem to live forever. Must be all the fresh air. Hey, perhaps you could arrange a farming accident?”
Broad was appalled. “I shall do no such thing, and you know better than to ask.”
Shade slumped and came back to ground level. “I suppose one night won’t hurt... We are moving on tomorrow, no?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I have to work off that rabbit I let get away. He was going to be their dinner. I took food from their mouths.” Broad hung his head. Shade cuffed him across the crown.
“You idiot!” He gestured at the mountain of turnips. “The work you’ve done should mean that trickster owes you a thousand rabbits! Have you noticed a shortage of food around this place? Have you?”
“Well... no. I’ve been well looked after.”
“You’ve paid your debt. I vote tomorrow we move on - but please take me to where there are lots of people. Improve the odds, at least.”
“Um, I suppose...”
Shade was about to cuff the idiot across the top of the head again when the door opened. In an instant, Shade was on the ceiling, blending into the shadows.
“Are you awake?” whispered Philomeny. “I thought you might like your jerkin. I’ve cleaned it up and mended a tear or two.”
Broad got to his feet. Philomeny saw his blanket was open and giggled. Broad wrapped himself up and apologised. He reached for his jerkin and almost dropped the blanket altogether. He peered at the stitching. “You’ve done a good job,” he said. “You’re quite the seamstress.”
Philomeny giggled. “Thank you, kind sir.”
She made to leave but stopped and looked coyly over her shoulder. “When the time comes, I hope you will choose me.”
“Choose you?” Broad called after her. “What for?”
But the girl had slipped away into the night.
Broad shrugged off the blanket and put his jerkin on, very pleased with its renovated condition. The door opened again and Droosa’s head poked in. She gasped and giggled to see the youth wearing nothing but his waist-length jerkin. Broad heard her; he snatched up the blanket and covered himself.
“I’ve washed your leggings,” the girl blushed. “And I’ve patched the knees. I’ve also taken the liberty of adding padding to them. For your comfort.”
“Thank you! That’s very thoughtful.” Broad reached for the trousers and almost dropped the blanket again. “Oops!”
Up on the ceiling, Shade clapped his palm to his face.
“I hope,” Droosa fluttered her eyelashes, “when the time comes, you will remember me.”
“Remember you? What time? When?”
But Broad’s questions went unanswered as Droosa withdrew to the house.
The rest of the girls followed in succession and, piece by piece, Broad’s garments and belongings were restored to him, all in cleaner and renewed condition - with the notable exception of his weapons.
“Daddo has those,” the seventh visitor confided, handing over Broad’s second boot, newly soled and heeled.
“Is he cleaning them?”
“I doubt it,” the girl - Pethory - laughed and skipped away.
“Is that the last of them?” Shade groaned, floating to the floor. “Tell me that was the last of them.”
Broad did a quick count on his fingers. “I think so.”
“Then let us leave this place. You owe these people nothing. They have taken advantage of your good - and by ‘good’ I mean ‘dim-witted’ - nature long enough.”
“Can’t it wait?” Broad whined. “I’ve been toiling over turnips all day long and my legs are out of breath.”
Shade groaned. “All right; we’ll wait a couple of hours. Give that lot chance to go to sleep. The sooner we’re away from here, the better.”
“You’re just thinking about your belly,” Broad scowled.
“Says the man whose belly is full,” countered Shade. “It’s all right for you. You don’t have a restricted diet.”
Broad gave up. He bedded down among sacks of something knobbly and turned his back on Shade.
Charming, thought Shade.
***
Gonda could not help wondering if she was making a mistake. We ought to keep moving, she told herself over and over. They won’t find us if we keep moving.
But the boy was exhausted. Even though she had carried him all day, he was pale and drowsy, limp in her arms like a puppet with cut strings.
And then the tavern hove into view, The Star and Donkey - its cracked and painted wooden sign had never looked more welcoming - like an oasis in a desert. Here, they could rest and refresh themselves. They need not stay for long, an hour or two-
Gonda stopped short of going in. People were looking for a girl and a little boy. Even if no one this far from home had heard about them, someone might come along and ask, and people would remember and tell them, “Yes, she was here, and she had a kiddie with her, and he didn’t look well, poor mite.”
She whispered to the sleeping child that everything was going to be all right and she wouldn’t be long, and she would be back with food: bread and cheese or something.
She stole into the stable and stashed the boy in the hay that was heaped high in a corner. The boy did not stir; with a bit of luck, she would be back before he woke and he wouldn’t know she’d been gone, and they could be on their way and-
She stopped again before going inside. She had never been in a tavern before but she had a good idea that they didn’t just give away food and drink for the asking. They would want money and money was something she didn’t have.
Damn it.
While Gonda stood perplexed about what her next move might be, two men staggered out of the inn, arm in arm, and singing raucously. She had just enough presence of mind to step aside to let them pass. They halted their dirty ditty in order to swig from the earthenware jugs that were hooked on their fingers.
“Not a dreft lopped,” said one with a stricken look.
“Not a drip loft either,” commiserated the other. They were inconsolable. While one grieved, the eye of the other fell on the girl. He thrust his jug in her direction.
“Here, take this beastly thing and tell your boss to fill it to the top next time, the rotten swindler.” This comparatively lucid sentence was punctuat
ed by a beery belch. Gonda recoiled but accepted the jug. The drunkard exhorted his companion to relinquish his empty vessel.
They staggered away, burping and hiccoughing, and launching into an encore of their ribald refrain. Gonda puzzled over the jugs. What am I to do with these? They’re of no use to me; I’ve enough to carry with the boy-
An idea flashed across her mind like lightning on a cloudy night. She strode into the tavern; her ears were assaulted by the din - the place was packed with men, all of them drinking - no, quaffing was a better word! - and engaged in raucous conversation and boisterous laughter. Gonda pressed her way through to the long, low table that separated the drinkers from the drinks. She elbowed and ‘excuse me’d until she could place the jugs on the table. Sideways on, she looked up into the face of a giant of a man behind the counter.
“Hello,” the goose girl smiled. “I’d like a job, please.”
***
Lughor boiled water from a stream and bathed the wounds he had received at the hands - at the severed hands - of the men at Tullen Spee. They had not put up much of a fight, that was true, but had there been just a few more of them, they might have overwhelmed the warrior through sheer weight of numbers. You wouldn’t want to be up against an army of them, Lughor reflected.
They were difficult to kill, even though they were already dead. What was driving them? What force was keeping them going?
He tried to remember all he could about the fortress at Tullen Spee. It had obviously been built as a defensive measure and, having seen some action, had been abandoned, and left to rot in ruins. What had happened there? Was it linked in some way to the half-dozen once-deads who had accosted him?
Once-deads...
The term was vaguely familiar, like a childhood fear mostly forgotten.
Something about Tullen Spee and the once-deads...
And the sect...
Wishing he had paid more attention to the tales of the old folk, Lughor wracked his brains.
Bah!
It was useless. He would have to ask someone or look it up in a scroll or something. But ask whom and look where?
Navarin, Thunder and Shade Page 6