Ravenwood

by Andrew Peters

  The effect was instant. Two jellylike eyes shot open. “What? What’s going on? Call the fire brigade!” Jobby Jones leapt off his bed surprisingly quickly for someone of his size. As his pudgy hands tried to wipe the liquid filth from his face, he finally recognized Mucum. “How dare you! I’ll have you reported for this!”

  Mucum stood his ground, folding his arms. “Oh yeah? You already did.”

  The rest of the sewage workers stood and stared. Waking the gaffer with a bucket of Dendran’s finest produce was not an everyday event.

  Jones took in Shiv’s face, split in half with a wide grin. “And infants are not allowed in here!” he screamed. “You lot, get back to work, unless you fancy having a day’s pay docked from your wages!” Usually, the threat was enough. Today was different. This show was too good to miss. Nobody moved. The staring continued.

  Jobby Jones floundered. His authority was being questioned! “I’ll deal with the rest of you later.” A stubby finger pointed at Mucum. “But you should be in jail!”

  “Shut it, Grandad. I was locked up, thanks to you. You know what we call Dendrans like you? Sap-sucking traitors. I hope the reward was worthwhile.”

  “No one talks to me like that.” The man’s face went purple as his eyeballs nearly burst from their sockets.

  “I jes’ did. Our little conversation is over.” Mucum towered over Jobby Jones. The only thing that had ever held him back had been fear of losing his job. Too late to worry about that now. Mucum pulled his arm back and bunched his fist up. He was going to enjoy this.

  The look of sudden terror on his boss’s face was good, but the crunch as the boy’s fist connected with that pompous nose was even better. The gristly sound was followed by a spray of poppy red blood soaking into the boss’s once white shift. Jobby Jones fell backward like a sapling snapped in half by a hurricane. The thump as he hit the ground echoed around the chamber.

  “That was for my friend Ark and also for all the lads you treated like squit for too long!” Mucum felt pleased with himself. Justified violence made him glow all over.

  Shiv clapped and jumped up and down on the spot. A cheer went up around the sewage station and suddenly he was surrounded by his fellow workers.

  “Buddy holly, we thought you was skivin’ off,” said one of the lads.

  Little Squirt piped up. “The guards kept comin’ round each day, givin’ us the evil eye and askin’ us where you and Ark both was. Real glad to find out he weren’t a ghost! But I didn’t say nothin’, not to no one.”

  “All you lot, listen up. Ark and I need yer help,” said Mucum, wiping his hand on his tunic. “The country’s in danger and there’s gonna be a fight …”

  Ten sets of ears pricked up.

  “… a big one. Are you up for it?”

  “Do boar squit in the woods?” said Little Squirt, speaking for them all.

  “I fink they do!” Mucum responded with a smile. “That’s settled, then. Phlegm and Biley, tie up the old gaffer. Shiv, can you be ready to scream again?”

  “Shall I do it now?” Shiv opened her mouth to reveal a terrifying black hole. Every apprentice put their hands over their ears.

  But before Shiv could let rip, Mucum grabbed her and gently put his hand over her lips. Who needed weapons with a pair of lungs like that? “Later, my little lovely. I’ll tell you when. The rest of you gather around. We’ve only got a few hours. ’Ere’s what we’re gonna do….”

  Ark stopped on the woodway by the shrine, wondering if his coin still nestled in the watery depths. Then he was inside, enveloped by incense and musty shadows.

  “I’d recognize those footsteps anywhere!” The Warden was praying. “Could it really be you?” Only two days before, she had conducted Ark’s funeral, reading from the Wood-Book: But a Dendran dieth, and is laid low: Yea, the Dendran giveth up the ghost, and where is he? Her words had not taken one ounce of grief from the Malikums nor stemmed their rivers of tears. There had been no body, only a shroud filled with goat meat: a sacrifice for the ravens. The Holly Woodsmen had sneered at her request to lead the ceremony. Such archaic rituals were falling out of favor.

  Ark walked across the kirk floor and knelt by the Warden, allowing her gnarled fingers to read the map of his face. “You have cheated death once more!”

  He thought of Petronio’s confident attack, of ravens and boars. “I was lucky. The wood had work for me. But now I’m scared.”

  Though she was only an old, blind woman, the Warden could still give comfort. “The branch has led you this far. It will not drop you now. I promise. The good Goddess looks after Her own.”

  Ark nodded, wondering if he should tell her about Corwenna and who he really was. But now was not the time. “I have to fight for Arborium. Dendrans and others might die.”

  “And you want my advice?”

  “I don’t know what I want. At least tell my parents I’m alive, for now, and not to worry about Shiv.” He got up to leave.

  “Ark. Stop. I feel the anger in you and the evil that is abroad. If you let this hatred lead to murder, you will be no better than those who seek to defeat you.”

  Ark pulled away. “What? Let them maim and mutilate, while we turn the other cheek?” He felt the phial around his neck like a cold chill, urging him to destroy each and every traitor.

  “I didn’t say that. The taking of life is only for Diana.”

  Ark winced as he heard the word. Maybe it was all right to use his grandmother’s name. She was the one who created this place from her dreams. It truly was a wood of wonders.

  The Warden continued. “But as for fighting, the holly script is clearly on the side of the just!”

  It was an answer, of sorts. Corwenna would happily wipe out every enemy with a smile on her face. But Ark was brought up as a Dendran. Years of kirk could not be so easily dismissed. “You might be right,” he said, his heart unaccountably lighter, ideas beginning to whir like sycamore seeds.

  “Be guided by your be-leaf!” whispered the Warden, though the door had already swung closed. Ark was gone.

  Half an hour later, he met Flo at the top of the lift. “Time to make a quiet visit to the palace. Are you sure your crew is ready?”

  “Oi be sure, moi good friend. We is about to have some fun, warghhh!”

  Fun was not a weapon as far as Ark knew. All that Corwenna had given him before he left was a bag of juicy red apples and a whistle that apparently no Dendran could hear. What was he leading his friends into? The odds did not bear thinking about.

  Soon, they were approaching the palace, weaving their way through the expectant crowds. The pleasure gardens surrounding the palace were normally closed to commoners. Now Dendrans from all woodwalks of life were leaning over the far parapets to take in the bird’s-eye view of Hellebore. The outer courtyard of the castle was laden with tables, each piled high with the best that the harvest could offer, and much more besides from the King’s own stores. Soon, the feast would begin. “Yow don’t warnt to come in with me boi the back way?”

  Flo could find her way through plumbing systems with her eyes closed. And there was plenty of kit to pick up once the rest of the Rootshooters arrived.

  “No, thanks, Flo. I need to see if Corwenna’s training works. See you there in half an hour.”

  “Yow’ll be all right?”

  “Absolutely!” Perhaps by sounding confident, he would be. Flo gave a last wink, then turned to join the throng. It was now or never. There were the steps up to the enormous oak doors guarded by the same sneering soldier. It was nearly dusk, the low light softening the air. The lantern parade was beginning. As the first lamps flickered, throwing trembling shadows across the ground, Ark stepped out from the crowd. He was in open territory. Corwenna had taught him to be still. How could you be still and move at the same time? There was only one way to find out.

  The soldier was bored and annoyed that this evening he’d have to let the commoners inside. Surely he was there to keep the plebs out? There was a sudden breez
e and the doors behind him blew open. “Buddy latch loose again!” he muttered. “I’ll stick a twig up the royal carpenter’s nose!” He slammed them shut.

  Ark couldn’t believe it. His every footstep had been lighter than air, his whole mind focused on keeping slow and unnoticed. Briefly, the soldier’s eyes had trained directly on him. Ark knew he’d been spotted, until those same beer-stained eyes slid away and he was in! Amazing! From far off, he felt Corwenna whispering encouragement. But congratulations weren’t in order yet.

  He slipped unseen into the depths of the palace, using the memorized map to guide him, flattening himself against walls as servants rushed past, trays piled high with food in preparation for the feast a couple of hours hence. The map had shown where the King’s personal guards would be positioned, and where the soldiers, brought down from Moss-side specially for the event, were on guard. Finally he followed the echoes of far-off music through the brightly lit passageways until he came to the right door. He peered up and down the corridor. Clear. He pushed the handle and crept in.

  The high-ceilinged room was empty, apart from a set of trestles set up along one wall, piled high with cutlery and clean platters. Looking down on the space was a small alcove set into the wall like a miniature minstrel’s gallery, and straight ahead of Ark were wooden double doors. In a few hours the lords and ladies of Arborium would sit down to their own feast in the inner courtyard just on the other side.

  “What think yow?” said Flo, suddenly stepping out from behind a curtain.

  Ark stifled a shriek. “Apart from nearly giving me a heart attack, this space should work well.” If Corwenna and her spying birds were right, they might stand a chance. “We haven’t got much time.”

  “That be whoi Oi brought along a couple a good ’uns.” Three more Rootshooters appeared as if from nowhere. In their long arms they held bundled lengths of heartwood.

  “Will it be noisy?”

  “Yow keep a lookout. All this music they be practicin’ for the dancin’ is makin’ a right din. Don’t think no one will worry about a few hammers and saws joinin’ the orchestra!”

  Flo was right. But worrying wasn’t an easy habit to give up. “And the others have brought up the magnets?”

  “Yas! They be already in place. Us Rootshooters never forgets. Do Oi look loike a dreamy girl?”

  “No. You’re right.” Ark suddenly noticed that Flo had hair. “Is that a wig on your head?”

  Flo laughed and the wig moved.

  “Oh! It’s alive!”

  “Whoi, of course he is!” The wig suddenly sprouted eight legs and jumped off her head to land on the floor.

  “Help! It’s a spider! It’s going to kill us all!” Ark backed into a corner. A mealworm might be bigger, but this thing made horrible clicking noises as it moved toward him. “Wahhhhhh!” he wailed.

  “Quoiet down, yow scaredy-cat! He is nought but moi pet spoider, Harold. But yow can call him Harry. ‘E is going to help us get on the web!” The spider gave a single disdainful look at Ark with its multiple eyes and then scuttled through a hole that one of the Rootshooters made by levering up a floorboard.

  “I’m not going to call him anything,” said Ark. “Just keep that insect away from me!” He was more than nervous. In two hours, the feast would begin. If they weren’t ready, they might as well hand over their country on a wooden platter. As the Rootshooters began work, Ark cracked open the door and crouched down to wait.

  Without thinking why, he took the raven feather and laid it before him. Then he reached around his neck to untie the leather strap holding the phial. His hand trembled as he reached toward the stopper. But there was no time for doubt, even when the stopper plopped from its end and a thin trail of vapor rose up.

  He tried not to smell it, but his nostrils caught a stench that almost made him gag, his mind now choked with images of bursting boils, and pus, all things rank and decomposing. Quickly, before he lost the will to do it, he dipped the sharpened quill deep inside the phial until it sucked up several drops of shadow ink. It was done — the phial was back safely around his neck, the feather hidden deep inside his sleeve — though for what purpose, he still did not know. Ark prayed he would never have to find out.

  They’d tested the engine half an hour earlier. Now the flypod stank with the nervous sweat of male bodies. Soldiers, attached by safety harnesses to the curving walls of the hold, checked their weapons carefully. A jammed breech could mean the difference between life and death. Lady Fenestra walked between them, gossip falling silent as she passed by.

  She finally squeezed through a small hatch to the storeroom, where Petronio was resentfully taking stock of the equipment. “Not long now!” she said.

  “And I’m stuck in here counting pairs of boots!” Petronio was furious.

  “If all goes well, the Moss-siders will do all the work for us. Better a battle where you don’t lose a single one of your men, but still win, hmmm?”

  Petronio could see the logic of her words, but his heart burned for action.

  “My men will provide backup if anything goes wrong. Now, you must promise me you won’t do anything stupid!”

  Petronio wondered if she could make out the bulge of the g-gun 100 in his doublet. “I promise,” he said, his eyes meeting hers defiantly.

  “Good. There will be much work for you when this is all over.” She turned to go.

  Petronio wasn’t bothered about the far future, and as for his promise? Of course he wouldn’t do anything stupid. But he might do something smart.

  41• ALL THE KING’S MEN

  The work was done. Ark hoped Mucum and Shiv were ready. Now came the most dangerous test of his skills. They had all agreed that trying to convince the King at this stage was folly. Better to produce hard evidence. That was why he was now standing right outside the King’s private chambers. A second ago, his breath shallow and his feet rooted in shadow, all the two guards had noticed was a slight smell of mustiness.

  Their eyes went wide with recognition. It couldn’t be! “Buddy holly! How did you get in ’ere, again?”

  “The ravens ‘ad you for a bite to eat!” the second soldier chimed in.

  “And they spat me out,” Ark snarled. “I don’t taste so good these days! Now, I told you once before that the King is in grave danger.”

  And as before, the first soldier did what his training dictated. The left hook was fast, a clenched fist powering through the air. Explanations could come later. The King was in grave danger from an around-the-U-bend sewage worker.

  “Please don’t do that,” asked Ark in a reasonable voice, his eyes connecting with his attacker the moment before the punch made contact.

  Who could refuse such a reasonable request? Though it went against the grain, the soldier suddenly liked the boy’s politeness.

  “Have you gone hazelnuts?” shouted the second soldier at his befuddled colleague, as he lashed out with a kick that should have snapped several of the boy’s ribs.

  Ark neatly stepped to one side, watching a foot do no more than disturb a few particles of dust. “I mean the King no harm. It is Councillor Grasp you need to worry about.”

  Something in the voice, in the silky tones that delivered it, made both soldiers pause. Ark was suddenly glad of Corwenna’s skills. Like mother, like son. If he slowed them down for a second, maybe he could tell them a story with more truth than the Councillor could ever guess.

  Five minutes later, he’d won them over. Skeptical Dendrans were a tougher business than mealworms and boars. Such minds took a great deal of convincing. “The point is,” he concluded, “are you with me and with Arborium?”

  “When you put it like that.” A short while before, the first soldier’s instinct was to put down the interloper. Now he hung on his every word.

  Ark was flabbergasted. Perhaps truth was the simplest weapon. It was how you applied it that mattered. Before the boy left, one of the soldiers actually shook his hand, though the other still cast suspicious glances up
the corridor as Ark strode away.

  “You don’t think it’s a bunch of make-be-leaf?”

  “Nah. I heard Grasp talking to one of his inside men the other day. He shut up quick when he saw me. Didn’t think about it at the time. Makes sense now.”

  “So you’re sayin’ we put our lives on the line for a treenage squit shoveler.”

  “Basically, yeah. This job ain’t up to much, but I kinda like livin’ in the trees. I’ve heard horror stories about Maw and I don’t want that lot takin’ over ’ere, thank you very much!”

  Two hours later Ark stood quietly on a balcony overlooking the main inner courtyard of the castle. The moon was finally full, filling the space below with pale light. For some, it was a silver coin that would fill their coffers when the night was done. But for Ark, it was a staring eye of truth, unblinking and bright, soon to uncover dark deeds.

  He studied the scene. A long damask-covered table ran around the square, the oak-leaf pattern spilling across the white cloth. Laid on top was the best that Arborium had to offer: great sides of oak-smoked boar and wooden bowls of apple sauce jostled with pitchers of first-flush wine and moon-shaped crusty loaves baked from scaffield wheat. At the courtyard’s heart, a tall, copper-clad fountain sprouted sprays of water from its many sculpted branches as courtier children, young princes and petticoated princesses squealed and splashed each other.

  At the four corners of the high battlements that surrounded the castle, great lengths of string dived into the sky, held taut by gilded leaf-kites riding the stream of wind currents far above. The kites symbolized the ideal of Arborium, bound to the earth yet dreaming of the heavens above.

  The great and the good were assembled, paying homage to their king and raising endless toasts to the successful harvest. Among such jollity, it was hard to imagine that the future of their world hung in the balance. With every duke and earl and their armed retinues well on the way to drunkenness, the timing couldn’t be better. The King looked at ease, laughing at one of Grasp’s jokes. The Councillor sat on his left, with Commander Flint on his right. Quercus was surrounded by death dressed up as loyalty.