The Dread Hammer
Page 24
Her mother snorted. “You have not heard a word I’ve said!”
“I have! But—”
“The sheriff is the King’s own servant. He hunts down heretics and he burns them.”
Ui’s eyes went wide. Her hand covered her open mouth. All her guilty ventures, from stealing Eleanor’s ivory comb, to allowing the handsome tinker to possess her demon flower, to admitting Dismay into the house, rushed through her mind. Her mother grabbed her arm again, pinching the bruise she’d made before. “What have you done?”
“Nothing, Mama!”
“Don’t lie to me. The sheriff is hunting a demon Hauntén who grants the wishes of depraved women. I know you’ve heard Cook’s stories of Dismay.”
Ui nodded. Certainly she’d heard stories . . . and not just from Cook. The tinker had told her wonderfully gruesome stories of the bloody mayhem Dismay had created in some horrid place called “The Borderlands.”
“But Mama, why is the sheriff here?”
“Because someone—something—was in the heir’s apartment last night despite the locked doors! Books were thrown down on the floor, the curtain was pulled back, the bed was wrinkled. What do you know of it, Ui?”
Ui looked straight into her mother’s eyes and lied. “Nothing! I was with Eleanor last night.”
“Doing what?”
“Just talking.”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Her mother gave her a good, hard shake. “Stupid girl! What are you hiding? Tell me now!”
When Ui hesitated, her mother slapped her so hard that Ui staggered and for a moment the room went black.
“I won’t see you burned, Ui. I won’t! Tell me what you’ve done.”
Ui’s cheek was already on fire. She struggled not to cry. Her mother had taught her long ago never to cry, because the master would notice her reddened eyes and then he would want to know the guilty secret that lay on her conscience, because innocent minds had no need ever to cry. Ui swallowed and blinked. Then she dropped to her knees and reached under the bed. “It’s here.”
She pulled out the box of blankets and uncovered the bundle of clothes wrapped in white laundry cloth.
“Get rid of it!” her mother commanded when Ui explained what it was. “Throw it in the sump. No, throw it in the pond! If the sheriff finds that, he’ll burn us all.”
Ui ran past the stable, ducking behind a thicket of pomegranate as she made her way to the pond. Drawing near, she peered through a veil of leaves and was alarmed to see six farm hands working on the irrigation channel that drained the pond. They would surely see her if she tried to toss the bundle into the deepest water at the pond’s center. So she retreated, back past the stables to the sump, but a glance down the pit convinced her it had gotten too shallow to hide anything. She held her nose against the stench and considered.
There was the little glade close beside the road. She’d gone there more than once to meet the tinker. Hammond went there too, she knew, but he would surely be too preoccupied with the goings-on in the house to venture out there today. So she took the side path around the house to the laundry court where she and her mother hung the fresh washing in the sunshine. Then she went on through the herb garden and into the orchard, and finally, she ducked into the wild copse that shielded the estate from all prying eyes that passed along the road.
Ui had meant to bury the bundle deep within the fallen leaves beneath a thicket, but as she looked around she heard the creak of a wagon and its grinding wheels approaching along the road. Suddenly, she knew just how to get rid of the bundle. With great caution and as little noise as she could manage she made her way through the thicket, until she was only a couple of feet from the road, but still hidden from sight. Two oxen plodded past, their huge heads nodding. The wagon they pulled was of good size, with a wooden bed and a canvas bonnet. A young man sat alone in the driver’s seat, his face hidden in the shadow of a broad-brimmed hat.
Suddenly, Ui wasn’t so sure this was a good idea. What if the man saw her? What if someone else was riding in the back of the wagon?
Then again, the sheriff would surely burn her if he found the bundle.
She waited for the wagon to pass. Thanks be to God the rest of the road was empty. No—thanks be to the Dread Hammer! She whispered a second brief prayer to the woman god, “Please watch over me.” Then she scurried out of the thicket, ran up to the back of the wagon, and tossed the bundle lightly up and over the backboard. It landed with a soft thump.
She expected to hear the voice of someone in the back of the wagon cry out in surprise, but no one did. She darted back into the thicket. Her heart hammered so hard it made her dizzy. She peered after the wagon, dreading to see it roll to a stop, but to her relief it kept on at the same steady pace. She watched until it grew small with distance. Then she hurried back to the house, to find her mother in the laundry court pretending to be busy hanging dry laundry on the line. “Ui!” she said in a frantic whisper.
Ui saw Cook standing with her arms crossed just inside the doorway, so she pouted at her mother, saying, “I went all the way out to the cutting garden, but I couldn’t find the knife in the hutch. How am I supposed to cut fresh flowers without a knife?”
“One of the gardener’s boys must have stolen it again,” Cook called from inside as she went back to work. “High time you learned to carry your own knife, Ui.”
“Go inside the house and wash your flushed face,” Ui’s mother snapped. “Eleanor is asking for you.”
But Ui found that Eleanor was busy.
The captain of the master’s men-at-arms stood watch at the doorway to the inner court. Outside, the steward served tea to the sheriff’s men who sat in the shade around the fountain. The master and the sheriff sat apart. Eleanor stood trembling before them, shielded from the gaze of the other men by a screen that had been moved from the front room.
Ui peered at her between the slats of a half-closed shutter. She stood with her gaze fixed on the floor, wearing the same green gown she’d worn last night. Why hadn’t she worn something ugly? Not that it mattered. Given the high blush in her tawny cheeks and the shimmer of her glossy black hair, Eleanor wouldn’t look plain even dressed in rags—but at least she’d learned the vital skill of acting simple.
Ui heard her whiney whisper, sounding as if she were on the edge of tears. “But what is a Hauntén, Papa? I don’t understand.”
“It’s a kind of demon, daughter. An enemy of God.”
Eleanor’s lovely hand went to her mouth as she gasped. “We must be in danger! Oh, Papa, what should we do?”
“We rely on our own men-at-arms, daughter, and the valor of the sheriff. Be at peace.”
The sheriff shook his head. “Enough. There’s nothing to learn here. She has the innocence of a small child.”
The master scowled. “I warned you she would know nothing.” He waved his hand in dismissal and Eleanor scurried back into the house, ducking past the captain who stood watch at the doorway. When she saw Ui, she pressed a hand against her heart, and they traded a conspiratorial smile.
Outside, the sheriff was speaking to the master. “I think the demon must have come here by chance, seeking food, and sleep. If your daughter had spoken a prayer to summon him—”
Ui jumped as the master’s hand came down hard against the arm of his chair. “Summoned him? You make this accusation?”
“I have made no accusation.”
“To even suggest she did such a thing—it’s intolerably insolent! My daughter has had the utmost supervision, and would never commit treason against our King.”
The sheriff answered this in a cold, determined voice. “I meant only that if some woman here had summoned the demon, you would not now be alive—and that would be grievous for the King.”
The master wasn’t mollified. “You have done enough here, terrifying my daughter and my concubine. I invite you now to leave.”
The sheriff, though, was a brave man and not easily put
off. “There are other women in your household.”
“My slaves? You want me to parade them before you as well?”
“No, Master. It’s pointless to talk to such stupid cows unless they feel the fire at their feet. With your permission my men will search the servants’ quarters for any sign of heresy.”
The master said nothing for many seconds. Ui didn’t know how the sheriff could endure his angry glare, but endure it he did. Finally, the master said, “Make your search. And then be gone.”
We hope you enjoyed this sample of Hepen the Watcher, by Linda Nagata. For information on print and ebook versions visit:
Mythic Island Press LLC (MythicIslandPress.com)
or the author's website MythicIsland.com.
Books by Linda Nagata
Stories of the Puzzle Lands
The Dread Hammer - Book 1: a fairytale of love, war, murder, marriage, and fate
Hepen the Watcher - Book 2: a fairytale of exile, rebellion, fidelity, and fire
The Nanotech Succession is a collection of four stand-alone novels set in a shared science-fiction story world, beginning in the present day and reaching into the far future. Following the timeline of the story world the books are:
Tech-Heaven
The Bohr Maker (winner of the 1996 Locus Award for Best First Novel)
Deception Well
Vast
Other Story Worlds
Goddesses & Other Stories (a short-fiction collection including the 2000 Nebula Award winner for Best Novella)
Limit of Vision
Memory
Skye-Object 3270a (young adult)
About the Author
Linda Nagata grew up in a rented beach house on the north shore of Oahu. She graduated from the University of Hawaii with a degree in zoology and worked for a time at Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui. She has been a writer, a mom, a programmer of database-driven websites, and lately a publisher and book designer. She is the author of nine novels including The Bohr Maker, winner of the Locus Award for best first novel, and the novella “Goddesses,” the first online publication to receive a Nebula award. She lives with her husband in their long-time home on the island of Maui.
Find her online at:
MythicIsland.com twitter.com/LindaNagata
facebook.com/Linda.Nagata.author
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