The Knight of the Red Beard

by Norton, Andre

  “Well, then, neither does yours. NordornLand, indeed. There is no such place.”

  “You do not remember? Then you really are a ninny! Do you have to have everything explained to you?”

  “I suppose so,” he said, more than a little angry.

  “Even if Holger’s village is ‘home’ to you now, you’ll never be able to go back, not if Gunnora has anything to do with it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She’s the one who’s been making you grow so fast.”

  “That’s silly. Everybody grows. There’s nothing odd or unusual about that.”

  “Except that you’re growing with unnatural swiftness. Mark my words, she has some black fate in mind for you.”

  “You must be mistaken. I know Gunnora doesn’t like me, but why would she do something like this? You may go your ways, but I’m not.”

  “Mikkel, believe me, you don’t have a choice. Quickly, rid yourself of any other iron you might have on you as well. Your golden necklace is all right. You may keep that.” Petra reached into her tunic and pulled out an ornate silver chain with a pendant bearing a large green gem.

  “That’s Holger’s!” Mikkel exclaimed. “You stole it!”

  “He stole it from me first when he took me from my people.”

  “He’s my father.”

  “If you say so. But father or no, believe me when I say he will kill you as readily as he will me. So you see, you really don’t have a choice.”

  Mikkel could only stare. Her song, about the sea-green glass. And her claims about her origins.

  “Are you really a Rock-Maiden?”

  “Yes, I am. Now will you take off that horrible iron thing from around your neck? There’s an entrance to the City ’Neath the Waves nearby.”

  Fumbling a little, Mikkel managed to unclasp his torque. At Petra’s direction, he buried both under a rock.

  “That’s better.” Petra straightened up more. Somehow, she had become nearly as tall as Mikkel, though reed-thin, and her skin had taken on a distinctly different tone, as if she were carved of alabaster.

  “My city is well hidden,” she told him as she led him away from the glade. “Be on the lookout. Somewhere around here there is a passageway, a stone tube. It will look like just another little hole where small animals make their lair.”

  Eventually, they found it, a depression in a larger boulder.

  “This is too small for anyone to go through,” Mikkel objected.

  “It is now. But watch.” With nimble white fingers, she pulled the hole open and widened it until it formed a doorway big enough that they both could walk through without touching. “Rock-Maidens can manipulate stone. We can push it into any shape we like. It grows heavy or light at our bidding and sometimes even floats if we want it to. Didn’t you ever wonder how I could manage that big grindstone back in Askepott’s kitchen? It was easy for me.”

  Mikkel could only blink. The wonders were coming too rapidly for him. He felt as if he had tumbled into a story such as minstrels spun, full of unbelievable creatures and heroic deeds. He followed Petra through the doorway and watched it shrink behind them. The air was warm. Petra took off her heavy tunic and after a moment Mikkel did the same.

  “Here,” Petra said.

  “Here” was a stone tube. A door slid aside to reveal a platform seemingly poised on air. It bounced just a little when the girl stepped onto it, and a little more when Mikkel followed her. Then it began to descend.

  “I do not like this,” he said.

  “It is nothing but a lift,” she said. “How else do you think we go in and out of the city? We come up onto the land at times.” She fingered her necklace.

  The platform continued to descend until Mikkel thought he had surely reached the center of the earth. Eventually, however, it stopped. Another door in the tube slid aside and the two stepped out into wonders that Mikkel could never have dreamed existed.

  “Welcome to the City ’Neath the Waves,” Petra said.

  Holger den Forferdelig’s wrath was nothing short of earthshaking when he learned that Petra and his valuable hostage were gone, taking the krigpus with them. The loss of his prized green glass amulet only added fuel to his rage.

  “You dared do this!” he bellowed at Askepott. He raised his fist threateningly. “You’re to blame!”

  “Dare, is it? Put your hand down,” Askepott said, scowling. “You don’t dare strike me and you know it.”

  For answer, Holger turned and smashed a table in half with a single blow. Then, for good measure, he shattered a stack of wooden platters, broke two bowls, and kicked Askepott’s tea kettle across the room.

  “Well, do you feel better now?” Askepott asked sarcastically. “Maybe you’d like to tear my kitchen apart entirely. Of course, then you’d go hungry. . . .”

  “Silence, witch,” Holger growled. “Maybe I’ll let you live, if you tell me where they’ve gone.”

  “So you can send men out looking for them? You’ll do that in any case. As it happens, I have no idea where they’ve gotten off to. Young Ridder Red Fox took his kitte out to let him go. He was ready to find a mate, and that wasn’t likely, cooped up here in your stronghold. I gave him leave to go, and that’s all I did. I didn’t know that Petra had gone with them until she turned up missing. And that’s all.”

  “Don’t believe her, husband.”

  Gunnora the Golden had come into the kitchen unnoticed until she spoke up. The woman fixed Askepott with a malevolent eye. “She is up to something. Getting up in the middle of the night, having tea, serving meat pasties on a platter, more than one person could reasonably eat. She’s been entertaining—somebody. Or maybe something. And I know it can’t be good.”

  Askepott returned Gunnora’s glare, adding a measure of dislike of her own. “Jealousy does not become you.”

  “Jealousy, is it!” Gunnora laughed, a cold and brittle sound. “You think you own so much Power! You are nothing compared to me.”

  Holger was staring uncomprehendingly first at one, then the other of the quarreling women. “Keep your differences to yourselves,” he ordered. “If you are going to be no help in bringing back what is mine or in acquiring what you covet, then keep quiet.”

  Gunnora merely shrugged and turned away. Askepott took a broom and began sweeping up shards of shattered pottery. Holger stormed out and began calling his men, organizing a search party. A few of the women started to sidle into the kitchen, now that the violence seemed to have passed, at least for the moment.

  “Well?” Askepott demanded of Gunnora. “Are you going to help? If not, then please leave so that I may put to rights what your husband has smashed.”

  With a sniff and another hate-filled glare, Gunnora turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen and into the common room. Probably she is headed for her private chamber and her books, Askepott thought, to see what kind of mischief she can do to me.

  “Here,” she said to Lotte, handing her the broom. She was probably the best of the lot. “You take charge. I must go and compose myself for a while.”

  “Yes, Askepott,” the woman said. “All will be cleared away by the time you return.”

  And maybe not, Askepott thought as she hurried down the corridor past the younkers’ room to her own quarters. There she kept her special kettle, the one she consulted when situations required it. If ever there was such an occasion, this was it.

  She wished for a companion like Weyse. Doubtless Zazar invoked the little creature’s help when she stirred the divining mixture. However, since she had none, she would just have to do the best she could.

  She locked the door behind her and set a chair against it in case somebody tried to open it anyway. Then she began taking jars from the shelf and measuring ingredients into the kettle, stirring and singing a tuneless, wordless song. As she stirred, the contents liquefied, and became a mixture of colors never blending, but swirling in the wake of her paddle. When she judged the time to be right, she took another jar fro
m the shelf and extracted a few bits of thread from those stored therein. She dropped the threads into the kettle and stepped back as the mixture foamed and belched forth a cloud of smoke.

  A few more experimental strokes with the paddle, and she was satisfied that the pattern had solidified. A bright red streak dominated the design—not unexpected. Young Ridder Red Fox. Another thread, green, must be Petra with her cracked-brain song about the sea-green glass. They had doubtless run away together, but why those two? Why not Mikkel alone, or Petra with the other girl? Or, for that matter, Petra alone? She peered closer, to read all that the kettle had to tell her.

  The streak of red bore a black edge. Nearby, a gold streak. That could only be Gunnora. Askepott knew she had done something to Mikkel, but until now she thought Gunnora had merely accelerated Mikkel’s growth as an idle exercise in magic. Now she knew better; Gunnora had a purpose in mind.

  She gave the kettle another stir. It was plain as daylight for anyone who knew how to see. Gunnora had brought harm to Mikkel.

  But why?

  She looked again. The gold streak that was Gunnora had sent tendrils out as if attempting to ensnare the others. She recognized the gray streak that represented herself, and knew that with Mikkel’s absence she had now become the prime target of Gunnora’s enmity. Colored specks dotted the space just out of the reach of the tendrils—two dots of different reds, dots of yellow, blue, green, orange.

  The realization hit her with the cold force of an avalanche. Gunnora. And the bracelet. She is closer to it than she has ever been. What you covet, Holger had said.

  Of course she has gotten him to promise to include the bracelet as part of the trade, Askepott thought. He all but said it aloud, there in the kitchen.

  All the pieces were there, and had always been but only now did everything become clear. Either Gunnora believed Askepott had the bracelet and was hiding it from her, or she thought she could force Holger to hurry the trade of the boy for the ship if she put him under a spell that made him grow too suddenly, and made it seem as if his life were about to be cut short.

  Zazar and I were careless, she thought, dazed. It is only luck that kept Gunnora from seeing the bracelet with her own eyes. She did say she smelled it. Now, with Mikkel vanished, she has nothing. Holger has nothing.

  In which case, though Holger might not dare harm her, Gunnora would have no such compunctions.

  Why hadn’t she consulted the kettle before now? Because, she told herself with a trace of self-contempt, she had thought she knew it all and had everything under control. Not so.

  Askepott knew one thing with great certainty now; she had to flee for her life.

  The contents of the kettle abruptly arose from the sides and folded in on itself, destroying the pattern. Askepott stepped back just as the muffled explosion sent up another cloud of smoke and an orange glow.

  No time to lose. But how to get away? As she began to gather her few belongings, Askepott also began to formulate the beginnings of a plan. She knew where she must go—but how to get there?

  Fifteen

  Ashen NordornQueen, with the good priest Esander at her side, gazed at the young Sea-Rover standing before her, wondering how to get him to talk to her.

  Tjórvi resolutely refused to meet her eyes.

  She tried again. “Are you happy here? Are you content?”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “You don’t look either happy or contented.”

  “I am, Madame.”

  “Then why do you never smile? Your tutors tell me that you do your work listlessly, forever staring out the window as if wishing you were many miles away.”

  “I am sorry, Madame. I will try to do better.”

  “Tjórvi, you make me sad. I have tried everything I know to make your life comfortable and pleasant. But you will have none of it. Do you miss your home in New Vold so much? Would you rather return there?”

  “My father has bidden me stay here, Madame.”

  “He will change that order if I ask him to. So I ask again, would you rather return to your home?”

  “I will do as I am bid, Madame.”

  Esander spoke up. “You called me to this interview because I may have a slightly better understanding of a boy than you do, Your Majesty. May I break in?”

  “Yes, of course. Please do.”

  Esander turned to the boy. “Now, Tjórvi, you miss Prince Mikkel, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  For the first time Tjórvi’s unnatural composure slipped and Ashen thought his voice wavered a bit.

  “Do you think you should have been the one the Wykenigs took as hostage?”

  “I—I offered myself, sir. They wouldn’t take me. Instead, they left me to drown. Or freeze.”

  “And yet you live.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tjórvi looked down at his shoes.

  “And you feel it is somehow unfair, even disloyal, that you are here, safe and sound and warm in the Castle of Fire and Ice, eating your meals at Mikkel’s place, living in his quarters, wearing his clothes, while Mikkel is—”

  “It isn’t fair!” Tjórvi burst out. “If it hadn’t been for me, Mikkel wouldn’t have stowed away on the GorGull and none of this would have happened!”

  “I see. And you think that you are solely to blame.”

  Tjórvi brushed away a tear. “For what happened to Mikkel, yes, sir, I do.”

  Esander appeared to change the subject. “Tjórvi, have you ever heard of the Web of the Weavers?”

  Tjórvi blinked, a little taken aback. “Something, sir.”

  “It’s said that the Weavers work the strands of our lives into their Web, and try as we might, we can neither foresee what direction our lives will take, nor change what the Weavers have foretold for us. Oh, they don’t occupy themselves with trivialities such as whether you’ll have porridge or toasted bread for breakfast, but the great events of your life—they are, for the most part, given to you as choices.”

  “Then,” Tjórvi said slowly, “the Weavers decided that Mikkel would be taken, and I would not?”

  “You boys could have stayed behind and attended Earl Royance’s wedding, and still the Wykenigs would have attacked and sunk the GorGull. I think that the moment the Wykenig ship appeared on the horizon, the general shape of your futures were sealed. And once they captured the skiff, it was inevitable that you would stay behind while they captured Prince Mikkel. The variables? At that point, several. You could have drowned, or frozen to death. The little warkat could have attacked the Wykenigs and both he and Prince Mikkel would have perished at once. Tell me. Do you think you could have changed any of this?”

  Tjórvi was frowning, trying to work out what the priest was telling him. “I—I don’t think so.”

  “Of course you couldn’t.” Esander’s voice was very kind. “It was as it was. All the protesting in the world, all the avoiding attending meals in the Hall, all the trying to make yourself invisible—they are for naught. Nothing will ever change what has already happened. Had you ever considered that you are valuable to Ashen NordornQueen and Gaurin NordornKing and that they want you to let them love you?”

  “I—I don’t see how they could.”

  “Ah, but we do,” Ashen exclaimed. “You were Mikkel’s friend! In many ways, you knew him better even than I, or his father. You were the last person from our world to see him. And you are my foster son Rohan’s boy. Please, please, let us in.”

  Tjórvi bowed to her, awkwardly, but still a bow. “I must think on what the priest has told me. Forgive me, Madame.”

  “With all my heart.”

  “And be assured, young Tjórvi, that my door is ever open to you if you want to come and talk with me some more.”

  Tjórvi then took his leave and Ashen and Esander exchanged glances.

  “Do you think you have gotten through this shell of defense he’s wrapped around himself?” she asked.

  “Perhaps I’ve made a crack in it, Your Majesty. But that is
more than we had before this interview. I think, in time, he will be reconciled to the fate that landed him here, while it placed Mikkel out of anyone’s knowledge.”

  “Then I shall be content. Thank you.”

  The Duchess Ysa was growing impatient. Surely Zazar had had sufficient time to solve the riddle of the strange bracelet. She had not descended from her tower in several days and finally Ysa decided to make the arduous climb again. She took with her a basket of delicacies.

  How Zazar managed the climb on almost a daily basis, Ysa could not fathom. She had to pause frequently and catch her breath, a stitch in her side threatening to stop her entirely. Alfonse hovered beside her, occasionally pawing at the basket until she resumed the climb. At last she reached the door and rapped on it.

  “Go away.”

  “Zazar, it’s me. Open the door at once.”

  “Or what? You’ll huff and puff and blow it to Iselin?”

  “Of course not. I want to talk with you, that’s all.”

  “And you came all this way to do it. Oh, very well.”

  The door opened and Zazar grudgingly let the Duchess into the chamber she used as a workroom and in which she also received infrequent guests. “It wasn’t locked.”

  “I am not accustomed to entering someone’s rooms uninvited.”

  “When did that change?”

  “Please. Let us not be enemies. See? I’ve brought you something.”

  “Give it to your dog.”

  “I’m sorry you are in such a short temper, but I really did want to talk with you.”

  “Very well, then.” Zazar settled herself in her chair beside the fire, and indicated that Ysa should occupy the one facing. “Talk.”

  The Duchess brought out a flask of wine and set it on the hearth to warm. “This is a special vintage,” she told Zazar. “It comes from my own vineyards.” She arranged some spice cakes on a small platter along with several jars of preserved fruit.

  “Then I’m honored.”

  “Yes. Well, once we’ve gotten comfortable, you can tell me what you’ve learned about the bracelet of teeth.”

  “I could, but I won’t—other than to tell you that it is an artifact of Power that you have no business having in your possession. It is extremely dangerous, both to the possessor, and to those against whom it can be used.”