Rise of the Ragged Clover

by Paul Durham

  “No,” she said, and cast her eyes to Truitt. “The time has come for the Earl’s natural heir to reveal himself.”

  Rye’s eyes widened as she turned to her friend.

  “It seems to be the only option,” Truitt said quietly.

  “It’s the best option,” Malydia interjected. “You are already better suited to lead than our father ever was.”

  “She’s right,” Rye said. She couldn’t believe that she found herself agreeing with Malydia on anything, but she’d always known Truitt to be compassionate and selfless.

  Truitt remained silent.

  Rye thought for a moment before saying more. “But nobody knows Truitt is the Earl’s son,” she said finally.

  Malydia pursed her lips. “Perhaps you are cleverer than you look,” she said. “That, of course, is the problem. It is why we need our father alive. We need him to acknowledge Truitt as his rightful heir.”

  “How will you get him to do that?”

  “That will be my challenge, when the time comes,” Malydia said. “In the meantime, we keep Truitt’s identity secret. Whatever Slinister’s plans for my father may be, there’s nothing more inconvenient than an heir with unknown intentions.”

  “I’m a gongfarmer’s boy,” Truitt said quietly. “My intentions are to help the link children, and the rest of Drowning’s outcasts who are unable to help themselves.”

  “And yet such pure intentions are unfathomable to men such as our father and Slinister,” Malydia said bitterly. “And because of that you will always be a threat.”

  “What about you, Malydia?” Rye said. “Aren’t you an heir with unknown intentions?”

  Malydia gave her a tight, sarcastic smile, and opened her palms. “I am a Lady Longchance, but still a lady . . . nothing more. Ladies are not heirs by right. Any title would have to be bestowed upon me. And truth be told, an Earl of the House of Longchance is more likely to bestow his title upon a half-witted nephew or war-crazed son-in-law than a lady of the line.” Malydia shook her head, and her lips curled into a jeer.

  “To put it more simply, Rye, our other dilemma is Slinister and his men,” Truitt said. “As long as those fork-tongued snakes maintain a stranglehold on Longchance Keep, they are a threat to both the Earl and ourselves. If they remain in Drowning, our chances to succeed are slim.”

  Rye chewed her lip. She still distrusted Malydia, and preferred not to speak of Harmless or the Reckoning in front of her. Not that it mattered—Harmless’s plan was of little use without Tam’s Tome. Rye cupped her head in her hands and cursed herself silently.

  Then a sudden memory struck her like a foot in the gut.

  Rye made her decision without hesitation. She didn’t trust Malydia, but as Truitt said, in dire times, you needed to take friends where you could find them. Rye pulled her head from her hands and eyed the Lady Longchance carefully.

  “I can help you with your snake problem,” Rye said.

  Malydia’s sickle-like eyebrow raised in curiosity.

  “I may be able to get rid of the Fork-Tongue Charmers. But first, I need you to get me into Longchance Keep.”

  14

  Serpents of Longchance Keep

  The stone steps were carved steep and uneven, slick with cave moss and difficult to climb in the dim light of Malydia’s lantern. Rye stumbled twice, but Truitt was behind her to put a reassuring hand on her back. By the time they reached the top, Rye was eager to leave the winding, claustrophobic wormhole that was even narrower than the Spoke’s tunnels.

  Rye ducked to squeeze through a small door, then wriggled on her belly to make it under some sort of low-hanging canopy. Only when she followed Malydia out past a frilly dust ruffle did Rye realize that they had exited the Spoke behind a palatial bed.

  Rye had been here before. It was the Chamber of the Lost Lady in Longchance Keep.

  Malydia climbed to her feet, brushing the dust and dirt from her brown leather coat.

  “Look familiar?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Rye said coldly. “I have a very vivid memory.”

  She adjusted the choker around her neck. It was in this very spot that Malydia had torn it from her throat, right before Truitt helped Rye escape the Keep. Ordinarily, she would have no desire to come back. But Rye recalled that Longchance Keep was also home to the only library in all of Village Drowning. One that happened to house a copy of a very rare and illicit book. Tam’s Tome.

  “We need to keep our voices down,” Truitt warned.

  Returning here made Rye’s skin crawl. Somewhere underground, Darwin and Poe were leading Folly and Quinn through the Spoke to the wine cellar of the Dead Fish Inn. They’d wanted to join Rye, but it was agreed that five children wandering through the Keep would be much too suspicious. Malydia had argued vehemently that it was too dangerous for Truitt to accompany them as well, but he’d insisted on coming. Rye wasn’t sure if he distrusted Malydia’s intentions for Rye, or simply feared what might happen if he left the two rivals alone. Either way, Rye was glad to have him along.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” Malydia said. She stepped behind an ornate folding privacy screen decorated with embroidered leaves and partridges.

  Rye could see Malydia’s silhouette as she changed clothes behind the screen. She rolled her eyes at the young noble’s vanity. But when Malydia emerged, Rye was surprised to find that she was wearing the ill-fitting frock and shoes of a servant.

  “Better to keep a low profile,” Malydia explained as she undid the pin in her hair. Her carefully coiffed bun came undone and the jet-black locks fell well past her shoulders. She mussed her hair with her fingers. “As long as I look like a serving girl, I might as well be invisible. The Fork-Tongue Charmers speak freely in the Keep, as if I’m not even here. For all they know I’m content cooking their meals and washing their linens. They’d never think that I—a girl—would dare to plot against them on my own.”

  Rye couldn’t picture Malydia bussing her own dinner plate, never mind scrubbing someone else’s undergarments. But the thought gave her a twinge of satisfaction.

  “I’d suggest that you change your attire too,” Malydia said, eyeing Rye’s filthy coat and mud-caked boots. “But you already seem to fit the bill just fine.”

  “Someone’s coming,” Truitt said in alarm, and rushed from where he was listening at the door to join Rye and Malydia.

  They all hurried behind the changing screen as the door burst open. Malydia held a finger to her narrow lips and pinched her face in concern. The voice that called out in a harsh whisper belonged to a woman.

  “Lady Malydia,” it said. “Is that you back there?”

  Malydia’s eyes flashed with relief. She stepped around the side of the privacy screen.

  “Hildie, you nearly frightened us back into that hole in the wall.”

  Rye peeked out from behind the screen to find Malydia’s nanny. The nanny’s wide eyes blinked out from her work-weary face.

  “The hour is getting on,” Hildie said slowly. “I was worried when you hadn’t returned.” She looked at Truitt and Rye in wonder.

  “No need to worry, Hildie,” Malydia said, placing a hand on her shoulder as she passed by. “You remember my brother?”

  “Of course,” Hildie said with a curtsy. “G’ evening, Master Truitt.”

  “And this,” Malydia said, with an unenthusiastic flick of her chin, “is Riley O’Chanter. We weren’t expecting her.”

  “Yes, I remember,” Hildie said, and offered Rye a warm smile. “It’s lovely to see you again, Miss Riley.”

  “And you,” Rye said. She hadn’t seen Malydia’s nanny since Longchance Keep was attacked by the Bog Noblins. Rye was glad to find her still in one piece.

  “Hildie,” Truitt said, “we need to get Rye to the library. How are the corridors?”

  “It’s late, so the serpents are just waking up.”

  “Fork-Tongue Charmers,” Truitt said to Rye, by way of explanation.

  “Night crawler
s, the whole lot of them,” Hildie said, shaking her head. She nodded toward the door of the bedchamber. “These stairs are quiet for now. But a big crowd of them have gathered in the Great Hall while the rest make mischief in the other towers.”

  “There’s no other way to the library except past the Great Hall,” Truitt said, tugging his lower lip in thought.

  “It will only get worse as the night wears on,” Malydia noted.

  Truitt’s face was resolved. “Then let’s not waste any time. We find Rye’s book and then lead her back out through the Spoke. If we are lucky, the Fork-Tongue Charmers will be nose-deep in their mead and too foggy to notice.”

  The last time Rye had been in the Keep, it was ransacked by a Bog Noblin named Iron Wart. Although Longchance’s servants had surely cleaned up since then, the castle hardly looked much better now. Chairs were overturned in the hallways and dirty platters and goblets lay piled in corners outside bedchambers.

  Hildie shook her head in dismay, turning up her nose as she led the children silently down the stairs.

  “Filthy brutes,” she whispered. “It’s impossible to keep up with them. Fortunately, as long as we keep the cook fires hot and their bellies full, they’re not the most demanding masters.”

  All was quiet until they reached the base of the stairs. The main chambers of the Keep echoed with voices, loud and harsh. Somewhere close by, Rye heard heated yelling followed by coarse laughter.

  Malydia peered around a corner. “Clear for now,” she said, waving them forward.

  They all crept down the main corridor. A plush feather mattress had been dragged from a bedchamber and lay propped at one end, an uneven red bull’s-eye smeared on its face and punctured with arrows. The Earl’s artwork hung in broken frames on the walls, and Rye paused when she reached the largest—a grandiose self-portrait painted by Morningwig Longchance himself.

  The painting had been defaced—the canvas of the Earl’s eyes cut out and swapped for two rotting tomatoes impaled on arrows. Rye cringed at the portrait’s mouth. A cow’s tongue from a butcher’s shop was nailed over the likeness of the Earl’s smug smile, dangling obscenely and split down the middle like a Fork-Tongue Charmer’s.

  A clucking at Rye’s feet startled her. Several hens scuttled past her ankles. She looked to Malydia in disbelief. Across the hall, a goat gnawed on a tapestry.

  “They’ve rounded up all the village livestock for themselves,” Malydia said. “Apparently they don’t mind sharing a roof with them.” She flashed Rye a mischievous smile. “Watch where you step.”

  Rye looked down, where her boot had just met a soft pile. She wrinkled her nose. “Now you tell me.”

  “Snakes up ahead,” Hildie said quietly, and pressed a finger to her lips.

  Malydia turned to her brother. “Truitt, you stay here,” she whispered. “Find a shadow and disappear into it. Hildie, Rye, and I will work our way past the Great Hall.”

  “I’m coming,” Truitt said. “You may need my help.”

  Malydia shook her head adamantly. “Too risky. They might overlook Hildie and a couple of serving girls, but you’ll stick out like a sixth toe. Wait, and be ready to get Rye back to the Spoke quickly.”

  “I’ll be fine, Truitt,” Rye reassured, although she wasn’t entirely comfortable heading on with Malydia alone.

  “Then Rye will stay with me,” Truitt said. “You know what Tam’s Tome looks like, Malydia. Bring it back to us.”

  Malydia looked at Truitt harshly, then Rye. A demanding voice interrupted their standoff.

  “Washerwoman!” a man called. “Our platters and mugs are empty. Fetch those serving girls and come refill them!”

  Down the corridor, a Fork-Tongue Charmer with dark circles under his eyes had staggered from the doors of the Great Hall. He shook the mug in his fist.

  “Step lively now. I won’t ask twice!”

  Hildie swallowed hard and turned back toward Rye and Malydia. “Come, girls,” she said theatrically, as loud as her timid voice could muster. “No more dallying.”

  She turned her back to the Charmer, pulled off her apron, and handed it to Rye. “Put this on over your clothes,” she whispered, eyeing her oversize boots and weather-beaten leather coat. “You look more like one of them than a serving girl.”

  Rye pulled the apron over her head and tied it around her back. As she did, Malydia pressed her hand to Truitt’s chest and pushed him toward the wall. After a lifetime of well-practiced lurking, he easily blended into the shadows of a bend. Rye tried to give him a reassuring nod as his brown and blue eyes disappeared from sight.

  Hildie hurried forward, Malydia trailing behind her subserviently. Her quick glance back at Rye told her to do the same.

  Rye could see the orange flicker of flames from inside the Great Hall as they approached the enormous double doors.

  “I thought I saw another of you?” the Charmer said, eyeing them. His glare was unforgiving.

  Rye tried to make herself small.

  “Yes, sir. I sent her off to stir the pots,” Hildie said quickly, maneuvering herself between the Charmer and Rye as they passed.

  “Not a bad idea,” the Charmer said gruffly. “There’s a chill in the air tonight. Something warm would fill the belly nicely.”

  Hildie offered a tight smile but kept her eyes on the floor as she ushered Rye and Malydia into the Great Hall.

  “Quickly, girls. Gather up the plates and bring them to the scullery,” Hildie barked, then dropped her voice to a whisper and pressed her lips near Rye’s ear. “And whatever you do, keep your head down.”

  Despite the nanny’s warning, Rye couldn’t help but gawk.

  A towering blaze raged in the Great Hall, but not from the fireplace. Instead, a massive pile of furniture burned in the center of the chamber like an enormous campfire. The largest table Rye had ever seen, the one where she had once dined with Malydia, had been reduced to embers. Rye saw the glowing metal of Longchance’s gilded chair among the burning wreckage, black plumes billowing up toward the cathedral ceiling and disappearing into the night sky.

  Rye blinked to clear the smoke from her eyes, but the flames weren’t playing tricks on her. Stars twinkled high overhead, through a gaping hole that had been punched in the Great Hall’s roof. Over the fire, the ornate chandelier had been bent and twisted into a makeshift spit, the well-charred carcass of an enormous boar skewered garishly from mouth to tail. A Fork-Tongue Charmer stepped forward with a plush footstool and pitched it atop the kindling, kicking up a rain of embers that sent a comrade cursing as he brushed sparks from his beard.

  Everywhere she looked, men with shifting eyes and hard faces lounged on the floor or in broken chairs. Some fixated on their dice games, others on the playing cards and gambling chips. But most seemed perfectly enamored with the enormous goblets in their fists. The Hall buzzed with the crackle of fire and the music of edgy conversations.

  Malydia coughed to get Rye’s attention and flashed her a stern look. She had already collected several bowls in her hands.

  Rye crouched and began to retrieve some plates from the mess scattered across the floor. Judging from the caked remains, they’d been there for days. She flicked her eyes around the transformed Hall as she stacked them.

  “Slinister’s brung in Thorn Quill,” a nearby Charmer was saying. “Wants the Crest to be ready for the final touches on the next Black Moon.”

  “Not wasting any time, is he?” a different Charmer replied.

  “He’s been waiting his whole life, guess’n he don’t want to wait a minute longer’n he has to.”

  Their words made Rye straighten as she tried to hear more.

  “Take this one,” a voice called. Rye flinched in alarm as a plate was dumped onto her pile.

  Rye just nodded and muttered, “Yessir,” under her breath.

  She smoothed her long bangs in front of her eyes to cover her face. She should probably just collect as many plates near the door as she could carry and get out, but the snip
pet of conversation had her mind racing. Thorn Quill was here. He was the owner of the tattoo shop in the Shambles who she’d once seen working on Slinister. What crest was he putting the finishing touches on? It could only be the High Chieftain’s Crest—the tattoo that only the High Chieftain of the Luck Uglies could wear.

  Rye worked her way around the fire, adding more plates onto her stack as she went. She glanced over her shoulder. Malydia still hovered closer to the door, her mismatched eyes wide in disbelief and anger at Rye’s indiscretion. Rye ignored her and continued forward. The heat of the fire had already made her brow moist.

  “Gibbet said anything yet?” a Charmer was asking.

  “Nothing,” another answered. “Ain’t moved. He just sits there pale as a ghost without blinking, that blank look on his face.”

  The man named Gibbet was propped in a chair, his shoulders slouched and hands dangling loosely between his legs. Rye recognized him immediately. He was the Fork-Tongue Charmer who had pursued her and Lottie onto the tree house roof back in the Hollow. The one she’d seen attacked by the Shriek Reaver. His companions must have saved him. Or had they? His face seemed as lifeless as the boar on the skewer. His head lolled to one side, eyes staring at something far in the distance. His jaw was slack, his skin sickly and devoid of color. If he was breathing, his lungs filled so shallowly they barely rustled the thin shirt over his chest.

  “You know what he looks like? A great big butternut squash,” the first Charmer observed. “Same color.”

  “That’s no way to talk about a brother,” a familiar voice said harshly.

  The words made Rye stop and catch her breath. It was the voice of Slinister Varlet.

  Slinister sat atop an overturned cupboard, a hand on his knee, boots flat on the floor. He was shirtless, and Rye recognized the stringy gray hair and spidery ink-blackened arms of Thorn Quill as he tapped his sharp metal tools into the flesh of Slinister’s broad chest. It must have been extraordinarily painful, but Slinister didn’t flinch. He no longer wore a mask or garish hat atop his head, but he stroked the long and elaborate braid that fell from the crown of his scalp like a cat’s tail. The rest of his head was shaved smooth, covered only by tattoos and an enormous crescent scar over his ear—one rendered courtesy of Harmless himself.