Hobgoblin Night: Mask and Dagger 2

by Teresa Edgerton

  Well, things continued on in that wise for quite some time. But as popular as the minister was, there was never any hint of impropriety and he never showed a speck of preference for any of the unmarried women. That being so, the men of the parish began to relax. And then . . . it was more than a year after he came to Bruwikk . . . word spread through the town that the minister was a-courting Torgun Haele.

  That caused a stir, you may well believe. Torgun was the local beauty—a lively little green-eyed brunette with creamy skin and a cozy figure—and her father owned a large and prosperous farm, which Torgun was like to inherit, being the only child. No less than five fine young fellows were vying for her favor already, lounging about the Haele farm morning and noon, all for the chance of speaking to Torgun alone, maybe, or snatching a squeeze and a kiss behind the barn, and she had yet to choose between them—though until Mr. Fenn tossed her the handkerchief, as the saying goes, she had displayed a marked partiality toward Cyneric Magnusson.

  Cyneric was a big, fair, sullen man, attractive enough in his glowering way; Torgun thought a man so fierce and jealous would make a passionate lover. And he owned a farm almost as large as her father's, besides making a good living as a blacksmith, so between them (reckoning in Torgun's inheritance) they would make the wealthiest couple in the parish—a prospect which appealed to the young lady and her parents near as much as it appealed to Cyneric himself. You could hardly say that Torgun was a mercenary girl, but she was intensely practical, and she had yet to meet any man that she liked better than Cyneric. Once Mr. Fenn began to call regularly, however, she started to question whether Cyneric was as deeply attached as she had once supposed, or just surly and ill-tempered by nature, and she thought she might be willing to forgo the pecuniary advantages of the match in favor of a more amiable mate.

  Ah, but Cyneric went into a powerful rage, the first time Torgun turned from him to bestow her brilliant smile on the clergyman instead. His face went nearly black with the sudden rush of blood, and an ugly red light came into his eyes. He had despised Mr. Fenn since first laying eyes on him and his opinion had not improved—and to lose Torgun, with her bright face and her brown curls and her no less attractive acres and herds, to lose all this to a meagre, ginger-haired, posturing little dab of a foreigner, that was not to be borne! However, his cloth—to say nothing of his reputation as a sorcerer—afforded the minister a certain protection, and young Magnusson lacked the nerve to confront Mr. Fenn directly, or to offer to settle the matter in the usual manner.

  The minister had to be "got rid of"—Cyneric had set his heart on that—but not by any violent means.

  Accordingly, he set out to raise public opinion against Mr. Fenn. It was no wholesome influence, said Cyneric, that the minister exerted in Bruwikk. Far from expelling evil tendencies, the foreign clergyman had brought a plague of hauntings and manifestations with him.

  "The dead can't rest quiet in the churchyard with a black sorcerer reciting the litany up in the pulpit," growled Cyneric, with the red light still glittering in his eyes. "Nor a decent woman's not safe, giving her heart to the likes of him. She's flirting with eternal damnation. "

  Well, plenty stopped to listen to this kind of talk, but none felt disposed to raise an outcry and drive the minister out; nor was pretty Torgun Haele inclined to credit such "wild talk." About all that Cyneric accomplished was to gain the minister's attention. One sharp, resentful glance from Mr. Fenn, when Cyneric slouched into church on Sunday, was enough to convince the young farmer that the clergyman sorcerer meant to do him harm. If he had been eager to send Mr. Fenn packing before, he was desperate to do so now.

  Now it happened that Cyneric was no stranger to the dark arts himself. There was bad blood in the Magnussons which disposed them toward witchcraft of the simpler sort: Cyneric's grandfather had gained a reputation as a warlock and horse doctor in his time, and an uncle—a great slovenly brute with one twisted shoulder and a pair of massive hands seamed with white scars—still carried on a trade in charms and dirty little curses. As a matter of pride, Cyneric had always steered clear of that side of the family, kept what distance he could between himself and his disreputable relations, but now—when he believed that he was in danger of losing Torgun and a good deal more besides—Cyneric sacrificed that pride of his, and went to visit the uncle, up at his ramshackle cottage across the glacier.

  Between them they hatched a scheme.

  "You'll need to raise a body from the churchyard," said Petter Magnusson. "And that's no simple deed. You must be bold, cunning, and resolute."

  Cyneric declared, in his blustering way, that he was all those things, and only required instruction.

  "Very well then," said the uncle, speaking low and confidential, though there was only the two of them present. "Then listen carefully and do exactly what I tell you, for if you should err in any way once you've begun, or turn coward and hang back, it will be you going down under the earth with the worms, and the dead man walking abroad." Then he proceeded to tell Cyneric precisely what to do.

  Cyneric went home across the blinding white snowfields, not entirely resolved to do the deed. But he kept thinking what he would do if he was in the minister's place: a man who possessed (and was possessed by) weird powers, a man who had an enemy and rival active in the parish. Judging Mr. Fenn by himself, there could be no doubt that Cyneric stood in peril of his life. By the time he had crossed the glacier and arrived at his own green farm, Cyneric had made up his mind.

  ***

  First thing in the morning, just as soon as he had donned his rough workaday clothes and before he ate his breakfast, Cyneric went down to a little grove of ash trees that grew on a bony sort of ridge between his farm and the Haele holdings. He broke off a piece of ashwood, a branch about eighteen inches long and an inch thick, and very carefully stripped off the bark. Taking out the big horn-handled knife that he always carried with him, he began to carve certain signs in the wood, the dark runes which his uncle had taught him. Then he used the knife to make a small cut in his sinewy left arm, inside the fold behind the elbow, and draw a few drops of blood to consecrate the stick. That was a trivial thing for a man as hardy as Cyneric Magnusson, but it seemed to him, as he watched the bright blood fall on the pale stripped ashwood, that he lost something more vital than a few drops of blood—he all but swooned, as big and tough as he was, and he felt weak and light-headed for some little time afterwards. When all this was done, he had nothing left to do but to wait for Friday night, as his uncle had instructed him.

  Cyneric spent the intervening days in a feverish state, his skin hot and dry and the blood throbbing in his ears. He thought maybe there had been a bit of rust on the blade of his knife, rust that had gotten in through the cut in his skin and made him ill—or maybe he had been assailed by some diabolical spell sent by Mr. Fenn, meaning to render him harmless. On Friday, however, his old strength came surging back, and he was more determined than ever to raise the body.

  The moon was still young, just a thin splinter of light, but the night was clear and blazing with stars. The bells in the steeple had just finished tolling the hour of twelve and were proceeding into the short series of changes that marked the beginning of a new day, when Cyneric entered the churchyard and squatted down behind one of the tombstones, that he might not be seen by the bell ringers when they finished up in the belfry and left the church. He had a long wait—or at least it seemed so to Cyneric, hunkered down on the cold earth—before the door of the church opened and the sexton came out, a small stooped figure, well bundled-up against the night air after his sweaty exertions up in the belfry, and two boys following after him, equally cloaked and muffled, the steam rising off of them in great clouds in the frosty air. When they had disappeared from sight around a bend in the road, Cyneric came out from behind his tombstone and searched among the marble tablets and the wooden markers for the grave of a certain man that he knew, a fisherman who had died but a season before.

  "Go to the grave of a m
an you knew in life," his uncle had cautioned him. "You must choose very carefully, for if the man was older than you are now on the day that he died, why, his ghost will be that much stronger, and he is likely to get the better of you, for the dead are weak or powerful, depending on how many years they spent alive upon the earth."

  When Cyneric found the fisherman's grave, he bent down and placed his wand of ashwood on the mound, and began to roll the stick back and forth, chanting some words that his uncle had taught him. At first, nothing happened, and it was dull, tedious work, besides stiff and uncomfortable, half-squatting over the grave. But at last the earth began to stir, to crack and hump up, like something was burrowing underneath. With rising excitement, Cyneric continued to roll his stick and chant the spell. A queer sound, a sort of glutinous sputtering, rose up out of the grave, and Magnusson could just make out the voice of the dead man, begging to be allowed to rest in peace, pleading to be left asleep in the earth.

  Cyneric felt a momentary twinge of conscience, because he had liked the fisherman and had no reason to work him an ill turn, alive or dead. But he remembered what his uncle had told him—that he must not, on any account, draw back once he had begun—so he just went on, despite the gurgling and the pleading of the corpse, he just went on rolling the stick back and forth across the humped up grave and reciting the words.

  Then the earth began to fall away, and the livid face of the corpse emerged, riddled with worm holes, and the yellow maggots just falling out of its hair, the mouth all slobbering and drooling . . . and then the hands, groping, groping, with bones shining white through the rotting flesh. A kind of ooze came out through its mouth and its nose, a thick, gluey, bubbling mixture of mud and mucus, and it was that made the dead man choke and sputter. Cyneric knew that was the corpse froth, and that he was expected to lie down on the grave, on top of the dead man, and lick the mud and the spittle away with his own tongue.

  He almost lost his nerve at that, but he steeled himself to the task, and at last climbed on top of the corpse, stuck out his tongue, and began to lap up the loathsome mixture, gulping it down, as thick and as nasty as it was, though his gorge rose and his stomach clamped tight. When he had done that, he rolled off the grave, and vomited it all back up again.

  Then Cyneric removed his shoe and one wool stocking, and using his knife (which he had been careful to clean this time) drew some blood from his right foot, three drops of blood that he used to moisten the tongue of the dead man.

  At once the fisherman's corpse kicked its feet free of the earth and attacked him, flailing and clawing with its bony hands, drawing back its blue lips and gnashing its rotten teeth. But Petter Magnusson had warned his nephew that this would happen, and Cyneric was prepared. He threw his arms around the corpse and wrestled with it . . . it must have been an hour they struggled there, heaving and panting on the cold ground, first one on top and then the other. Finally Cyneric proved to be the stronger, and the dead man gave up all at once, collapsing with a dull whooshing sound, like a deflating bladder.

  "Now you are mine to command," said Cyneric, and the ghost admitted that this was so.

  ***

  In the morning, Cyneric felt mightily pleased with himself. He had the dead man standing up in his old oak wardrobe, just awaiting the right moment to strike, he had succeeded where a lesser man must certainly have failed, and pretty Torgun Haele and her farm would soon be his. He went about his daily tasks, ever so jaunty, whistling a tune under his breath, and when it came time to eat the hearty mid-day meal that his comfortable old housekeeper had prepared for him, he sat down and ate with an excellent appetite.

  Unfortunately, he had made a mistake in taking a corpse from the Bruwikk churchyard right under the minister's nose. For besides that the disturbed grave caused a great deal of consternation and speculation throughout the town (which Cyneric had naturally expected), the Reverend Mr. Fenn was there on the spot, to view the grave and recognize the signs of malicious witchcraft. Some folks said afterwards that it wasn't so much what he saw there, as what Mr. Fenn smelled: a harsh, heavy odor, most unpleasant, like brimstone or bull's piss. However it was, he knew right away the ghost had not taken a fancy to walk on its own—someone had summoned it, and that someone meant mischief. The minister spent a thoughtful hour in the churchyard, examining the grave and drawing his own conclusions.

  He went on home, still considering the matter, read a bit out of his Black Book, made certain preparations of his own, and then dismissed the problem from his mind, confident that he could handle the ghost whenever it chose to appear.

  ***

  That Sunday afternoon, between the two services morning and evening, Mr. Fenn went to dine with Torgun Haele and her parents. As it was a minor festival as well as the Lord's day, several of Mr. Haele's relations had been invited as well. They were all assembled in the big dining parlor at the Haele farm when the minister arrived, all in their holiday dress—though none so dainty or so elegant as the clergyman himself, with his white hands and his immaculate linen, and his soft auburn curls tied back at the nape of his neck with a black satin ribbon.

  Now I have said that Mr. Haele's farm was large and prosperous—on account of this, and on account of being the wealthiest farmer in the district, old Haele had certain pretensions to gentility. The parlor had a fine fieldstone fireplace, but Farmer Haele thought this too primitive for use. Instead, he had bought an imported stove, a highly ornate creation with a white glazed finish, very prettily painted with flowers and birds, and there it sat in one corner of the dining room, an incongruous contrast to the rest of the heavy old-fashioned furnishings.

  Though the day was a warm one, the minister surprised everyone by begging Mistress Haele to instruct her servants to light a fire in the stove. As the farmer's wife was as enamored of Mr. Fenn as any of the other women, she sent at once for one of the kitchen girls and instructed her to kindle a little fire. When dinner was announced, Mistress Haele's guests all sat down at the table in the dining parlor, feeling rather warmer in their finery than they might have wished, but on the whole good-humored, what with the company, and the very good dinner laid out before them.

  Mr. Fenn took a seat between Torgun and her mother, and his conversation was as light and witty as ever, seeming to include every female in the room though he spoke directly only to his dinner partners. Torgun had not much to say, caught up in admiration of the dapper little man beside her, wondering when he would finally ask her to marry him. But her mother was feeling flirtatious, grinning and winking and pouting at Mr. Fenn, as the mood struck her, in a manner most embarrassing to behold.

  Right in the middle of the soup course, there came a loud thump on the hearth, followed by another thud, rather squishy sounding, as though something heavy and soft had come down the chimney, followed by a second something which landed on the first something. Before anyone had a chance to go and look what had caused the disturbance, a pair of hairy legs leaped out of the fireplace and began to stump around the room, one following the other, circling the table, to the great consternation of Farmer Haele, his family, and his guests.

  The ladies all screamed, and two of the youngest swooned. The men began to shout, loudly asserting that "something ought to be done," though no one felt inclined to get up from the table and take any action. As for the minister, he just went on spooning up his turtle soup, apparently unperturbed, while the legs continued to race around the room, dropping bits of rotten flesh as they went, and everyone screamed and fainted.

  When he had reached the bottom of the bowl, Mr. Fenn put down his silver spoon, and wiped his mouth and his fingers on a linen napkin, most fastidiously. Altogether at his ease, he rose from his seat, took a piece of chalk out of a pocket in his frock coat, and bent down to mark some signs on the floor. Then he scooped up some salt from the silver cellar at one end of the table, and sprinkled it in a wide circle around the mysterious symbols he had sketched on the floor boards.

  Mr. Fenn stepped aside just as th
e horrible hairy legs came around the table again. When they landed inside the circle of salt they just keeled over, landing on the floor with another pair of thumps. They lay there twitching and jerking, unable to get up again, snared by the minister's spell.

  "I will dispose of these items after the cheese and sweet course," said Mr. Fenn, marvelously calm, as he resumed his seat and picked up his napkin. "In the meantime, let us continue to dine."

  Pale-faced and quivering, but afraid to disobey him, the other guests all picked up their spoons again, and forced down a few more mouthfuls of soup. When the girls came in to remove the bowls (nervously eyeing the legs in the circle, you may be sure), Mr. Fenn engaged one of them and whispered in her ear. The wench nodded, left the parlor, and returned a few minutes later with her arms full of a big, black covered pot, half filled with water, which she placed on the fancy stove to boil.

  With a mighty effort at composure, Torgun's father rose from his chair and picked up a carving knife, preparing to carve a joint of beef. But then there was another thud, much louder than before, and a headless trunk with two muscular arms landed on the hearth, jumped out of the fireplace, and began to move clumsily around the room, using its hands as though they were feet. The women all blushed and averted their eyes, for the trunk had not a stitch of clothes on, and though in an advanced state of decomposition it was undoubtedly the body of a man—and a virile one at that. The male parts hung down, blue and flabby, and flopped against the floor as the body heaved itself around.

  Much to the dismay of the observers, the trunk avoided the circle where the legs still lay twitching, and went thumping and banging around the table for quite some time, while Mr. Fenn coolly drank a glass of wine. Between sips, the minister kept up a courteous flow of conversation, while Mistress Haele all but swooned in his face, and Torgun sat rigid and silent.