Song of the Gargoyle

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  Executed as a witch. Burned at the stake. His mother. The words seemed at first to have no meaning—or none that Tymmon could grasp. And when his mind did begin to function, some of its shock and horror must have reached Troff, who suddenly rose from where he had been, sprawled at Tymmon’s feet and, staring at the old man, began to growl softly.

  “No, Troff. It’s all right,” Tymmon said at last. But the gargoyle was not easily convinced, and it was some time before he backed away. And even then he remained sitting with his eyes rolling anxiously between Tymmon’s face and that of the old man.

  “Why?” Tymmon at last managed to ask. “Why was she accused of witchcraft?”

  The jongleur shook his head and went on shaking it for so long that Tymmon began to fear that he did not intend to answer. But at last he said, “Why? It is hard to say why such things happen. There had been bad times in Nordencor. Drought and famine and much illness, and there were those who felt the need to lay the blame for all the misfortune on some evil force. A great fear of witches had grown up throughout the countryside. I am not sure why Lucan’s lady was singled out except that she was—had always been—different. Beautiful and intelligent and gifted in all the arts—she too was one of my students for a time—but unlike the other maidens in many ways.”

  He paused again and his eyes went dim and blurred with old memories. “There had always been rumors. She was the only child of parents who were in their middle years when she was born—and her hair and eyes were dark while her parents were of fair complexion. Some whispered that she had gypsy blood, although her parents swore that she was born to them and was their true and only heir. And she had lived much of her childhood at her father’s manor in the hill country, where some said she had been allowed to roam through the woods and fields like a wild thing, playing with birds and animals, and...

  “And talking to them. It was she who talked to animals.”

  “What did you say, lad?”

  Tymmon had not known that he had spoken aloud, but it seemed that Jarn had heard him. “Nothing,” he said quickly. “And my fath—and the knight Lucan? Was he too accused of witchcraft?”

  “No. No, I do not think so. But soon after he returned to Nordencor and learned of his wife’s death, he disappeared, and the child with him. No one knew what had become of them. But there were some who said that he had been behaving wildly. Threatening people in high places and making accusations. Against his wife’s cousin, who had friends in court and church, and who, after the Lady Lianne, was next in line to inherit Lord Aylion’s lands and castle. It seemed that Sir Lucan believed that this cousin’s highborn friends had spread rumors and told lies to arouse suspicion against Lianne, so that she might die and her cousin gain her inheritance. And that the lord bishop, who was also related to this cousin, had helped to incite the people against Lucan’s lady. Sir Lucan spoke so openly of his suspicions that when he disappeared some said he had been done away with by the powerful people whom he had accused. And others thought he had ended his own life and that of the child.”

  Suddenly Tymmon could bear no more. Without plan or intention he jumped to his feet, one hand held up palm outward before his face, as if to ward off an attack. Seizing Troff’s collar with one shaking hand, he hurried across the common room of the inn, stumbling and bumping into people and furniture in his haste. At the door he turned to look back briefly to where the stranger from Nordencor still sat alone in the darkened alcove. Then he burst out into the cold night air. Starting toward the stable, he suddenly turned again and, almost at a run, crossed the courtyard to where the stone gateposts marked the entrance to the street.

  For a long time he continued to walk, with Troff trotting beside him through the dark streets of Montreff. Except for here and there where a torch burned before the doorway of an inn or the home of a nobleman, the light was so dim he could barely see the ground before him. But he stumbled on almost unaware of where he was or in what direction his feet were carrying him.

  Once when he found himself before the great gates of the city he stopped, and then hurrying forward, he threw himself against the smaller inner gate. It was barred and padlocked, and when a watchman looked down from the guard tower he called up to him, “Sir, I must leave Montreff. Now. Tonight.”

  A second guardsman joined the first. One of them held a wineskin in his hand, and they both seemed to be in a festive mood. “Why must you leave now, lad?” one called. “It is bad luck to start a journey after nightfall. Only dead souls travel the highroad at this hour. Ghosts and demons and...

  The second interrupted, “What is your haste, you young rascal? Are the sheriff’s men after you that you must leave the city in the dead of night? Stay where you are. We will be down to question you further.”

  But the steps of the guardsmen were slow and unsteady on the winding stairs that led down from the tower, and long before they reached the ground Tymmon and Troff had faded back into the darkness and disappeared in the maze of crooked streets.

  They went on wandering until, little by little, Tymmon’s wild thoughts calmed and his mind became somewhat clearer. At last he paused and pulled Troff to a stop beside him. “Tomorrow, then,” he whispered. “We will wait and go tomorrow. And now we will go home and prepare.” He looked around. In the darkness the street was unfamiliar.

  “Where are we, Troff? Where is the White Boar? Take us home, Troff.” Without hesitation the gargoyle turned, sniffed the air, and trotted off confidently. And it was not long before they saw ahead of them the torchlit courtyard of the inn.

  Inside the familiar walls of the harness room Tymmon sank down onto his pallet and crouched forward, his arms hugging his chest as if to confine and quiet his pounding heart. For a while Troff stood beside him breathing heavily on the back of his neck and trying to lick his hidden face. At last Tymmon straightened and, taking Troff’s collar in both his hands, pulled him close.

  “That’s why he would not tell me,” he said. “It explains everything. Why he renounced his knighthood, and left Nordencor. And why he would never tell me the reason. Even after that day when he let slip that he had been born to the nobility, and even after I began to reproach him so angrily for what he had done.”

  Tymmon leaned forward and, putting his arms around Troff’s neck, laid his head on the gargoyle’s back and thought for a long time. He thought of how blind he had been to blame Komus for cruelty and even cowardice. How blind to think, as he had sometimes done, that his father had given up his knighthood because he had no stomach for bloody battle. When all the time he had acted out of the greatest bravery. The bravery to oppose, all alone, even the most powerful evil forces, as he had done in Nordencor when he accused the high lords of the court and church. And as he had probably done in Austerneve with his songs and stories and advice to the old king.

  When at last Tymmon lifted his head from the gargoyle’s back, he wiped his face fiercely, swallowed hard, and said, “We are going tomorrow. We are going back to Austerneve. I don’t know if he is still alive, but if he is we will find him. And if he is not I will find those who took him and kill them. I will kill them, Troff. I will...

  Rising suddenly, he went to where his pack sat in the corner of the room and took out the Spanish dagger. Holding the gleaming weapon by its blade so that its hilt formed a cross, he knelt down below the window and held the weapon up before his face, in the manner that knights-to-be held their swords during the vigil on the night before the oath-taking. Looking up at the cross and beyond it to the dim and misty sky, he swore a solemn oath. An oath that he would not rest until he had discovered his father’s fate. And that if he were no longer alive, he—Tymmon, son of Sir Lucan of Nordencor—would revenge his father’s death, or die in the attempt.

  He remained kneeling until his knees ached fiercely—just as a candidate for knighthood’s knees were said to ache during the night of his vigil—and then he painfully regained his feet. Before he climbed into bed he turned to Troff, who had been watching his
oath-taking with close attention, and reminded him to sleep well and deeply as they would be leaving Montreff in the morning.

  But Troff, who usually responded to any mentioning of travel with enthusiasm, seemed troubled. Pushing his great ugly head into Tymmon’s lap, he moaned softly, begging him not to be angry. And when Tymmon explained that his anger was not against him it seemed to comfort him but little. It was a long time that night before either of them slept.

  Tymmon rose early the next morning. There was much to be done. After uncovering his hoard of coins from where he had hidden them under Troff’s bed of rags and straw, he went first to settle his account with Harcor, the landlord.

  “Well, lad,” Harcor said. “I will miss you and so will my guests. But I do not fear for your future. You have a gift that will sustain you if you use it wisely.”

  “I know,” Tymmon said, putting his hand on Troff’s head.

  Harcor laughed. “That gift also. But I spoke of your own talents. Farewell, then. And Godspeed.”

  Tymmon started away and then turned back. “Sir. The old man in the checkered coat? Has he arisen?”

  The innkeeper scratched his head. “The old minstrel? He did not spend the night with us. I do not know where he has gone.”

  Tymmon nodded. “Well, if you see him, sir, will you tell him—tell him that Hylas of Nordencor bids him goodbye. And thanks him for—and thanks him for his message.”

  Later, when the shops had opened their doors, Tymmon visited the market and made several purchases. Among them were a water gourd, a supply of foodstuffs, and two new leather packs, one designed to be carried by a small donkey. Back in the stable he divided his old belongings and new purchases between the two packs. Then he called Troff to him.

  He was not certain how a gargoyle would take to being a beast of burden. And in truth, when the pack was first strapped in place on his back, Troff looked at Tymmon accusingly and said that he did not think he liked it. But before long it became apparent that Troff had changed his mind and was quite pleased and proud to bear such an important responsibility.

  The sun was well up into the sky on a cool clear day in late spring when Troff and Tymmon left the city of Montreff and began their journey back toward the Northern Countries and Austerneve.

  THIRTEEN

  THE VILLAGE WAS CALLED Nighmont and it lay on the highroad that led north toward Austerneve. The two weary travelers reached it in the late afternoon of their third day on the road. Days in which Tymmon had pushed ahead relentlessly from sunup until sundown.

  Along the way they had eaten quickly and lightly in village markets or from the supplies stored in Troff’s pack. And they had slept wherever darkness found them—in a haystack, camped in a grove of apple trees, and once, after paying three coppers for the privilege, in a farmer’s drafty and rat-infested granary.

  Each night before he fell asleep Tymmon took the Spanish dagger from his pack and knelt down, holding the dagger before his face, as he had done that first night in Montreff. Clasping the blade of the dagger with both hands, he renewed his oath and with it his fierce and angry resolve.

  The anger was important. Without it he was only a boy, alone and almost unarmed, and sometimes fearful. But when the fire of hatred burned high and bright he became an avenger, a knight errant traveling on a holy quest to which he had sworn allegiance even unto death. But at the end of that third long day of travel, not only energy and resolve, but anger as well, were burning low.

  Nighmont, like so many of the country villages, was only a collection of cob and wattle cottages straggling out from a central square, but its church at least had a whole roof, and some of the cottages were surrounded by tidy gardens. As Tymmon and Troff passed the first row of cottages an odd high-pitched but raspy voice called out to them from behind a small clump of thorn bushes.

  “Hiya,” the unseen presence shouted. “What be you on the rope there?”

  Tymmon stopped. Although the voice had seemed to come from very near, he could see no one at all behind the small bush, which was indeed strange and more than a little unnerving. It was as if they had been hailed by some invisible creature—perhaps a restless dead soul or an evil phantom. But on the other hand, Troff was looking calmly toward the hedge and saying that it was nothing alarming.

  Craning his neck, Tymmon was edging silently to the left when the voice called, “I see you. I see you sneaking at us. Run, Dalia. Run. Petrus will stop them. I got me a big stick.”

  Tymmon grinned. He waited a moment and then suddenly circled the bush, pulling Troff after him—and came face to face with a creature so ragged and dirty that, at first glance, it scarcely seemed to be human. But human it turned out to be. A small and filthy creature who was, at the moment, cringing back into the thorny bushes with a great knobby stick raised above its head. Stringy dirt-caked hair straggled down around a thin face, so streaked and blotched with soil that it was almost impossible to make out the features, except for the eyes—wide-set eyes, the dark irises rimmed in a wide band of white, like those of a frightened colt.

  There had been someone or something else, too. Out of the corner of his eye Tymmon had caught sight of something small and dark as it flickered away into the tall grass. But his attention was now fully on the one that remained behind—who was threatening to do some serious damage with its great club.

  “Now there,” Tymmon said soothingly, smiling and stretching out one hand in a gesture of peace. “We will not hurt you. But you had best put down that club or Troff, here, may become angry.” He glanced at Troff. Actually, the gargoyle did not seem to be greatly concerned. Sitting on his haunches, his tongue lolling, he was regarding the ragged child with calm interest.

  The boy, for such he appeared to be although he was wearing what at first glance appeared to be a tattered gown, said nothing. But his bony face wore a frown that was clearly meant to be of a manly ferocity. And on closer inspection it became obvious that his only garment was not a dress but a man’s worn and ragged doublet which, on his short and skinny frame, hung down almost to the ground. Still brandishing the stick that was nearly as big as he was, he looked from Tymmon to Troff and back again, and then quickly away in the direction in which the smaller figure had disappeared. But then quite suddenly he dropped the club and began to pull himself free from the prickly bush.

  “Coee!” he said in his strange voice, oddly cracked and rasping like that of a tiny old man. “That bush fair stabbed the life out of me.” He rubbed his arms fiercely with both hands and then once more glared at Tymmon. “All your fault, too, sneaking round at us like that. Nigh scared us to death, you did.”

  “I am sorry,” Tymmon said. “I just wanted to see who had called to me. You did call to me, did you not?”

  The little boy shook his head. “No. Not to you, I dinna. Called to him there on the rope.” Narrowing his eyes and stooping forward into a crouch, the boy crept nearer to where Troff was sitting. “What be ye, beastie? A lion? Nor a bear maybe?”

  “A dog,” Tymmon said, quickly before Troff, who seemed greatly amused, could be tempted to answer for himself. “He is my dog, Troff.”

  “No!” the boy said. “Truly? Only a dog, be it?” Turning, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Come back, Dalia. There be naught to fear. It be only a boy and a great lump of a dog.” Then without waiting to see if his summons was answered he turned back to Tymmon and asked, “And what be your name, boy?”

  “Tym—” Tymmon began and then, “Hy—” And then stuttered into silence. He had told no one his real name since he had given it to the farmer outside of Austerneve, with such disastrous results. But somehow it felt ridiculous to give a false name to this small tattered scrap of humanity.

  The little ragamuffin regarded him critically. “Doan you got a name, boy?”

  Tymmon grinned. “Boy is fine,” he said. “You can just call me Boy.”

  The child shrugged and said that Boy would do, but that he, himself, had a real name. It was Petru
s, he said, and he was six or seven years old—he’d forgotten which—and he had lived in Nighmont for a long time and before that on his father’s farmplace, and Nighmont was a fine village but that the country had been better, and there had been cows there and chickens and lots of milk and eggs. He had, it seemed, a great deal to say on any number of subjects. His sister, Dalia, on the other hand, who eventually came creeping back from her hiding place, appeared to be two or three years younger, and said nothing at all. They were orphans, Petrus said rather proudly.

  “Orphinks,” he said actually. “We be orphinks, Dalia and me. Since a long time. Since the lord’s soldiers came with horses and swords and axes to take our mule away for the lord’s war. Only our father tried to hide our mule so the knights deaded him, and our mother too when she tried to help him. And they would have deaded us too, only I hid us under a straw pile.” He looked down at his little sister, who was leaning against him and staring up at Tymmon with dark-rimmed eyes. Huge eyes that gleamed like those of a small wild beast amid a great tangle of dirty and matted hair that hung down over her forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” Tymmon said. “I’m sorry that you have no...

  But Petrus interrupted. Shrugging, he said, “It be all right. I take good care of her. Doan I, Dalia?” He gave his sister a punch on the shoulder and she immediately hit him back with both tiny fists and then danced away out of reach. Petrus grinned. “She be a fierce one. I learn her. I learn her how to fight.”

  Suddenly losing interest in the conversation, he edged nearer to Troff and poked at the pack on the gargoyle’s back. “What you got in there? Bread, maybe?” Putting his face close to Troff’s, he repeated the question. “You got bread on your back there, Dog?”