“Wretched piskie. This for your mortal pet!”
Maeve’s head snapped up and Padric recoiled at the wrinkled, sallow, slack-skinned face of an old woman. She lunged at him, wide eyes full of yellow hatred. In a blink she was on him, hands grabbing for his neck, knocking him backward. The water rushed in around his head, the sudden, numbing cold stealing the breath from him. He was under and she clung to him, squeezing his throat, white hair floating in a dreadful cloud around her, the surface of the water, so far above, lit by blue fire.
Too damn fast! The gruagach had Padric under the water before Rosheen could react. The water churned as they struggled, Padric’s feet kicking up from beneath in a panic, but his head did not surface. The crone had him tight. Rosheen was barely a match for a skinchanger on land and they were stronger in the water. Rosheen seethed, cursing the cruelty of gruagach and the stupidity of humans.
She focused on the pool, filling it with her anger, pouring her rage into the Water, polluting it with her wrath. She bundled her fury, allowing it to grow heavy and sink to the bottom. Rosheen let loose a frenzied cry of release, violently jerking her ire back into herself. The water erupted from the pool, spitting forth with wet concussion, showering the woods with muddy Earth. The gruagach was thrown backwards into the air, striking a tree with snapping force and landing face down on the forest floor. Throttling old sow.
Padric choked, coughed, gagged up sticky water and spat it out. His ears were stuffy and throbbing, his body numb and shivering, but there was air and he drank it in gasps. He was lying in thick mud at the bottom of a depression, the horrible creature and the drowning water having been ripped away from him. He turned his head and came face to face with a pale, bloated thing. A cry gurgled in his throat and he jerked away from the corpse, rolling to his feet. The eyes were large, clouded over in milky death, the pale blond hair tangled with debris, rank with mud. The small, bare feet stuck out from under a log, where the body was jammed. Maeve. The real Maeve, left to rot at the bottom of a forest pond.
Padric looked up and saw Rosheen still hovered above, her gaze fixed on a crumpled heap lying just out of the bowl that was once the awful pond. The heap twitched unnaturally and the crone’s head jerked up, hair hanging wet and lank beside the sunken, grinning face. The pretender’s face. She cackled wetly in her throat and lurched upright, her features twisting, elongating. The skin split, tore and peeled back, falling with the child’s dress to the ground. An emaciated black goat stood in the pile of ruined flesh and rags, its dead eyes burning with otherworldly malice.
It turned and sprang away into the woods. With a snarl, Padric rushed after it, leaping up and scrambling out of the muddy hole. He heard Rosheen call his name, but he paid no heed and continued his pursuit. The goat was blacker than the night and Padric could see it darting between the trees ahead of him. He ran on, leaping shadowy logs, ducking the phantoms of low hanging limbs. He slung his pack off on the move, plucked his axe from inside and discarded the rest, never breaking stride. The wooden haft felt good in his hand, the iron head jumping into view with every pump of his arm, pulling him forward. Faster he ran, the black of his quarry a smudge on the natural dark of the night forest.
Blood pumped in swelling waves upon his eardrums, his wet clothes heavy, cold and clinging, but still he ran on. The goat darted into a dried creek bed, but Padric stuck to the higher ground above, seeing his chance. With a burst of anger fueled speed, Padric pulled even with the fleeing creature and leapt sidelong into the creek bed, raising the axe high. He brought the blade down hard, catching the beast in the flank. The force of the swing and the weight of Padric’s fall buried the blade deep, spinning the goat, kicking as it fell. The axe haft left Padric’s fingers as he plunged hard into the rocky creek bed, his palms skinned raw, his shoulder bashed by the stones. He rolled and slammed into the root chocked embankment, scrambling to his feet. Something, white and naked, was crawling away, down the creek bed. Padric found his axe amongst the mud, plucked it from the ground and stalked over to stand above the thin, wretched, bleeding thing attempting to escape. It rolled over to face him, a little girl’s grime-covered cheeks and pleading eyes staring up.
“Padric…,” she said, her voice hopeful and innocent.
He raised the axe, brought it down, destroying Maeve’s stolen face.
Padric found his way back to the woodsman’s camp, dragging his feet wearily into the firelight. The woodsman lay sprawled face down in the soot, the seax hilt-deep in his back. Padric did not have the will to pull it out and slunk down next to the fire. His clothes were sodden and cold, his nose ran, his throat was sore, his hands scraped and bleeding, his shoulder stiff and aching, every discomfort making itself known in the pleasant warmth of the cook fire.
“I found your pack,” Rosheen said behind him. “Back in the woods a ways…drug it as far as I could.”
“Thank you,” Padric muttered.
Rosheen sat down next to him, said nothing.
Padric tried to keep his eyes from the woodsman’s body, but his gaze kept flitting back to the pitiable sight. A man stabbed in the back by one he thought to love.
He had wanted to kill the man himself, not an hour ago and now he lay there, next to an uneaten supper, boiling over to sizzle in the flames.
“He was careful,” Padric said wearily. “Had me touch iron when I came.” He snorted bitterly. “Never thought to test his own daughter.”
“It is the gruagach way,” Rosheen said sadly. “Force men to distrust strangers while wearing the face of a friend.”
Padric nodded, suddenly very drowsy. “Not all Fae have forgotten their hatred, I suppose.”
“None have forgotten,” Rosheen replied. “But most have forgiven. The gruagach never will.”
FOUR
Pocket sneezed again. The ladder began to shake and teeter as his stomach lurched. He gripped the top rung tightly, wrestling with it to remain upright. His legs quivered from hours of climbing up and down again, over and over, always starting from the top, working steadily downward. There was a moment of blissful triumph each time his feet finally hit the stone floor, only to be dashed by the presence of yet another tapestry sitting patiently beside its brethren, waiting to be dusted. Up again to the very top, where the next long, heavy, acrid smelling beast was tethered, to start anew, beating the dust of years from the fibers.
Pocket’s nose was runny and raw, his nostrils clogged with a sharp, gritty crust. His eyes were horribly irritated, the lids sandy and dry. His whole body itched where the mites had fled the tapestries only to find a new home in his hair and clothes. He tried assuming a feathered form, to help resist the scratchy particles, but his body only sprouted a few pitiful downy tufts that instantly molted and fell away to drift slowly down to the castle floor, sixty feet below.
He had worked in the Great Hall most of the afternoon and into the night. The Mumbler said he needed to have the tapestries dusted and the floor swept by the fourth crow of the morning. At least, that is what Pocket thought he said. It was always difficult to tell with the Mumbler. Whatever the specific instructions, Pocket wanted to be done before dawn. By tradition, only the knights were allowed to attend the funeral, but Pocket trusted in his ability to remain unnoticed. So he labored steadily on, starting on the left wall and working his way across. Up, slowly down, and across.
He had not eaten since supper and took only a small respite when he completed the eight hangings on the left wall. He had dragged the ladder around to the right side, taking a moment to survey his handiwork. While cleaning them, nose deep and personal, the weaves were nothing but multicolored blobs, but from a respectful distance the tapestries were a majestic menagerie of champions, battles, sorcerers and kings. Pocket had seen them all many times, but never so clean and never from his own hand. He loved the large, heroic images, depicting the greatest moments of the Order’s history. From the Barbarous Times through to the Founding, that was the left wall. On the right, the Battle of the Unsounded
Horn to the Building of the Roost still waited for Pocket’s attention.
Now, hours later, he was almost done; halfway through the Reclamation of the Seelie Court, next to last. There were knots in his shoulders and a bad crick in his neck, but Pocket knew he would finish in time for the ceremony and that was well worth the discomfort. Coalspur was gone, and while he had not lived during the times captured in the threads of the tapestries, he was surely one of the greatest knights ever to grace the ranks of the Order. Grand Master Lackcomb trusted none other with so much and Pocket wondered how the old war bird would get on without him. Not that Pocket would ever ask. Lackcomb frightened him.
Pocket craned his neck around to the completed wall and gazed at the tapestry depicting the renowned charge that broke the Red Cap army of King Sweyn the Third during the opening years of the rebellion. Leading the knights, beak spread wide in a silent war call, was Mulrooster, first Grand Master, his glaive held high, embroidered goblins fleeing before him. Pocket had tried for years to adopt the features of a coburn. Sometimes he managed to produce the beak and the wattle. Once he even got a comb to sprout atop his newly feathered head. The feet were the most challenging and there were days Pocket dreamed of strutting around on talons, spurs clicking proudly, but try as he might, he could never get the form to hold. It would not matter if he did, Pocket would never be able to attain the height and powerful build. All in the Order were coburn, daunting and proud. Even the burly human clansmen that lived near the Roost were shorter than the knights by a head and less deep in the chest. Pocket would forever be small, barely reaching the waist of the shortest knight.
He finished the final tapestry quickly and fetched his broom. The Mumbler had not said anything about laying fresh rushes, or so Pocket thought, so he swept the stones as fast as he could, finally completing the tedious chore. He wanted to nab something from the kitchens before the funeral and maybe get a little sleep.
Off he went, using one of the small servant’s doors, and scampered down the narrow spiral stair. He emerged in the Under Hall, where several of the castle’s human servants were busy setting up tables; rallying points for the many platters of food that would be taken up for the feast in the Great Hall later in the morning. It was still quite dark outside, the windows of the Under Hall revealing nothing but lonely blackness. Pocket could not help but grin excitedly, thinking how strange and wonderful it was that the Roost was so busy at an hour when every inhabitant would normally be slumbering.
The servants were groggily going about their work with only a few muttering communications, ignoring Pocket completely as he ambled across. Of course, there was nothing strange about that. The humans rarely spoke or looked at him.
Years ago, Sir Corc had explained the reasons for their negligence during one of his brief stays at the castle, and Pocket had come to accept his place…eventually. He spent a long time trying to look like a human child, hoping to fit in, but he never got it quite right. His ears were over large, sticking out from the sides of his shaggy head, the hair even creeping onto his cheeks. His eyes were too round, his nose too wide. His mouth, ever smiling, dominated the lower half of his face, with thick teeth, slightly bucked, which may have been a result of Pocket’s two month obsession with becoming a rabbit. The rest of him did not fare much better. His fingers were heavy and blunt, his limbs squat and strong, far different from the thin, fair, near-hairless human children who liked to play with him until their scowling parents came to lead them away. By the time Pocket gave up trying to look like one of them, his clumsy attempt at humanity had settled, becoming his permanent form. Now he had to concentrate greatly to hold the slightest change. In the end, he was no more a human than he was a coburn. If he had it to do over again, Pocket would have much rather been a rabbit.
At the far side of the Under Hall was yet another winding stair, which Pocket took down to his second favorite place in the castle. The warm, fluffy smell of baking bread, mixed with the salty sweet aroma of pine nuts, was carried on the heat from the ovens, pulsing off the stone walls. Large archways served as openings into the massive kitchens that hunkered beneath the castle, well-appointed and filled with sweating cooks. Pocket trotted along, watching the chaotic preparations and went straight for the last archway at the far end. He turned and entered the kitchens, confident that he would find one of the few people in the castle to ever pay him any mind.
“Moragh!” he near shouted over the din of chopping knives, boiling pots and moving bodies. “I am finished!”
The old woman turned her large form and fixed him with a single bright eye, a knowing smile curving the lip underneath. The other half of her face was slack, the eyelid drooping, the lip turned down in a permanent frown, a result of the seizure she had suffered years before Pocket was brought to the castle. He loved that face, a constant reminder that not every human that scowled at him would rather he were elsewhere. Or dead.
“Did you spread fresh rushes?” she asked, her voice high and airy.
Pocket made a point of not looking away. “The Mumb-,” the frown spread to the other half of her face. “Master Bannoch, did not say I was to.” The thumb and index finger of his left hand toyed idly with the opposite finger. “They only bring in more bugs to eat at the hangings anyways.”
Moragh turned back to one of her colossal ovens, taking up a long, flat, wooden paddle and retrieved several loaves of swollen bread. “He is yours to deal with, then. I’ll not step in for you again.”
“Yes, Moragh,” Pocket said, knowing the Mumbler would be too busy today to catch the oversight. Pocket’s finger drifted up to dig some of the sharp grit from his nose.
“Here now!” Moragh’s reproach was quickly followed by a well-placed snap of a rag, whipping the offending digit. “None of that!” She handed the rag over so that he could blow his nose and went back to her loaves.
With a long practiced jerk, Moragh slid the bread neatly off the paddle onto the cooling rack and turned back to him, her cheeks ruddy from the fire. “Have you eaten?” she asked, a meaty fist punching into her sizable hip. She pushed air out from between her lips causing them to flap rapidly and shook her head before Pocket could answer. “Child, child.”
Pocket smiled. She always called him that, even though she had named him not long after he learned to walk, claiming he was always in her apron pocket. Reaching up, she snatched a sausage hanging from the rafters of the low ceiling. She then took out a long knife and cut a thick hunk from one of the loaves she had just removed from the oven, buttering it thickly with a single swipe.
“This for now, while it is still warm,” she instructed, handing the bread over. “And this for later.” She pressed the sausage into his hand. Finally she pushed her way to the opposite wall, weaving through the press of kitchen servants with the ease of long practice. There she opened a wooden hatch, revealing a series of shelves exposed to the chill winds that always blew in the highlands surrounding the castle. From this special larder she grabbed a sizable clay jug and, shutting the hatch once more, made her way back. She handed it over as well. “Enough to share. But mind you bring me back the jug.”
“I will,” Pocket told her through a mouthful of moist bread. He looked beyond her and saw the other kitchen staff casting quick, disapproving looks in their direction. Some of them landed on Moragh’s back, but most were meant for him directly. “Moragh,” he said quietly, causing her to lean down to his eye level. “They are all angry at us again. Maybe you should take these back.” He held up the jug and sausage.
“You will not be telling me what to do in my own kitchens.” She smiled, her good eye winking. “And neither will they. Off with you, now.”
Pocket left the kitchens, chewing happily on the fresh bread, the jug of milk clutched beneath his elbow, cool and sloshing. He made his way back down the way he had come, but instead of ascending the stairs to the Under Hall, he passed them up, entering the long dark hallways that connected the lower reaches of the castle.
The Roos
t was old, over seven hundred years if the tapestry in the Great Hall was to be believed, but Pocket knew every turn. He often wished he would come across some forgotten vault or hidden passage, expanding his world, but after close on nine years, none such had been discovered.
He made his way assuredly, taking the time to produce a candle from his pocket, lighting it with what he knew to be the last burning torch in the passage. It was not long before he came to a sizable, round chamber, where a great construction of wooden stairs and platforms hugged the inner walls, spiraling upwards. When Pocket first discovered this place, some time ago, he was not entirely sure where he was, but quick exploration confirmed that he was inside one of the Roost’s many drum towers. The find had saved his life. Moragh had looked out for him as best she could, but the years passed and the older Pocket grew the more dangerous the servants’ quarters became, full of spiteful looks and vicious intent.
Pocket went around behind the first flight of stairs and crawled between the wooden support beams, working his way towards the stone of the tower wall. Now he was just beneath the first landing and could stand upright. Going over to the little curtain he had hung from the woodwork above, he pushed it aside, entering the nook he called home. He set the milk jug on one of the wooden beams he used for a shelf and plopped down on his little bed; a feed sack stuffed with feathers on the floor. With the help of his candle and clumps of old wool he kept in a box, he kindled some coal inside the bronze brazier, quickly warming the confined space. He sat for a moment, plucking his tiny wooden horse from the mattress and galloped it across his lap, clicking his tongue to the rhythm of its hooves.
The Exiled Heir (Autumn's Fall Saga) Page 7