"Oh, would we now?" asked Kaylan Potter mockingly, behind her.
She whirled, already on the defensive. Kaylan and three of his friends lounged idly against the door to the common room. Kaylan and his friends were almost fully adult; journeymen, not 'prentices, tall and strong. They looked enough alike to be from the same family, and indeed, they were all distant cousins, rawboned, muscular and swarthy, in well-worn smocks and leather vests and breeches. She wondered, frantically, if she was in for another attempt like the one Jon and his friends had made. Her heart raced with sudden fear. Surely not right here, where she'd thought she was safe-
No. Her heart slowed, as the young men made no move towards her. No, they were older and smarter than Jon. They wouldn't risk their tavern-privileges by trying to force her on the doorstep in broadest daylight. Elsewhere, perhaps, they might have made some sort of move-but not here and now.
But they were not particularly amused at her description of them-by implication-nor her assessment of their parents and neighbors.
"We'd see, would we?" Kaylan repeated, looking down his snub nose at her. "And just what would we see? We'd see a braggart, foolish girl-child with her head full of foolish fancies getting her comeuppance, I'm thinking. We'd see a chit with a head too big for her hat learning just what a little fish she is. We'd see a brat who never was able to win even a village Faire fiddling contest learning what it means to brag and fall. That's what I think we'd be seeing, eh, lads?"
The other three nodded solemnly, superior smirks on their dark faces.
Her heart squeezed in her chest; she felt her face grow hot, then cold.
"Oh, aye," said Thom Beeson, his hair falling into his eyes as he nodded. "Aye that I'd say, seein' as the wee chit couldn't even win the Harvest Faire fiddlin' contest four years agone, and her only competition a couple of old men, a lad claimin' t' be a Guild 'prentice, and a toy-maker."
She gathered all her dignity about her and strode past them, into the tavern. There wasn't anyone in the common room but Maeve, who was sweeping the floor with a care that would have been meticulous in anyone but her. The four young men followed her inside and threw themselves down on a bench, their attitude betraying the fact that they figured they had her cowed. "Now, how about beer and a bit of bread and cheese for some hard workin' men, wench," said Kaylan carelessly. "You can be a first-rate servin' wench even if you're only a second-rate fiddler."
She held her temper so as not to provoke them, but it was a struggle. She wanted to hit them-she wanted to throw their damned beer in their smug faces. And she didn't dare do any of it. Thom was right, damn him. She had lost the Harvest Faire fiddling contest four years ago, and it had been the last contest their little village Faire had held. She'd never had another chance to compete. And they all remembered her failure. So did she; the remembrance was a bitter taste in her mouth as she filled their mugs from the tap and took them to the table.
She thudded the filled mugs down in front of them, so that they foamed over, and turned on her heel.
"So, what else were you going to show us, wench?" Kaylan asked lazily. "Is it true that you're takin' after your mother that way?"
Someone else had been spreading tales, it seemed. Already she was judged-
"Or are we gonna hear more boastin'?" Thom drawled. "Empty air don't mean a thing, wench. If ye could fiddle as well as ye can yarn, ye might be worth listenin' to."
She lost the tenuous hold she had on her temper.
She spun, let the words fly without thinking about the consequences. They had challenged her too far, in a way she couldn't shrug off.
"What am I going to show you?" she hissed, her hands crooked into claws, her heart near bursting. "I'll tell you! I'll do more than show you! I'll prove to you I'm the best fiddler these parts have ever seen, and too good for the likes of you! I'll go fiddle for-for-"
"For who, wench?" Thom laughed, snapping his fingers at her. "For the Sire?"
"For the Skull Hill Ghost!" she snarled without thinking. "I reckon he'd know a good fiddler when he heard one, even if a lout like you doesn't!"
Thom threw back his head and laughed. "From braggart t' liar in one breath!" he said derisively. "You? Fiddle for the Ghost? Ye'd never dare set foot on Skull Hill in daylight, much less by night! Why, ye never even step outside th' building oncet the sun goes down! I bet ye're so 'fraid of the dark, ye hide yer head under the covers so's th' goblins don' git ye!"
"Liar, liar," taunted Kaylan, wagging his finger at her. "Little girls shouldn't lie t' their betters. Little girls should know their place. Specially when they're old 'nuff t' be big girls." He grinned, insinuatingly. "Specially when there's big boys as can give 'em things, an' do nice things for 'em, if they've got the wit t' be nice back."
If she'd had any notion of backing down, those words put the idea right out of her head.
"I'll show you who's a liar!" she shouted, too angry to keep her voice down. "I'll show you who's the better around here! I'll go tonight! Right now! Then we'll see who's the coward and who isn't!"
She dashed for the stairs, and took them two at a time, grabbed her fiddle from the shelf, and pelted down the stairs again as fast as her feet could take her without breaking her neck. She burst into the common room to see Jeoff just entering from the kitchen, alerted by the shouting. He turned around to see her hitting the bottom landing with a thud.
"Rune!" he called, holding out a cautionary hand. "Rune, what's a-goin' on?"
"You tell him," she spat at Kaylan, as she headed out the door, fiddle in hand, at a fast, angry walk. "You started this, you bully-you tell him."
By then she was out the door, and the walk had become a run, and no one of Jeoff's girth was going to be able to catch up with her. She pelted down the dirt road as hard as she could run, her fiddle case bumping against her back where she'd slung it, her heart burning within her and driving her to run even faster, as if she could outdistance the cruel taunts.
At least her parting sally should get Kaylan and his friends into a situation they'd have a hard time explaining themselves out of. Jeoff wasn't going to like losing his help for the night.
She took the road away from the village, deeper into the forested hills, slowing to a walk once she was out of sight of the inn and it looked as if there wouldn't be any immediate pursuit.
By then, her side hurt and she was winded and sticky with sweat and road dust. And by the time she reached the place where the Old Road joined the new one, she'd had ample chance to cool down and think about just how stupid she'd been.
The Old Road represented a more direct path through the hills-but one that was never taken after dark. And, more often than not, local travelers avoided it even in daylight. Hence the overgrown condition of the Old Road, the grasses sprouting in the eroded ruts, the bushes creeping up onto it a little more every year. Even though the Old Road would save the weary traveler several miles, no one took it who had the slightest chance of being on it after the sun went down.
For there was a ghost that haunted the place, a vengeful, angry ghost; one that inhabited the Skull Hill Pass. It was no legend; it had been seen reliably by the few very fortunate souls who had managed to elude his grasp by fleeing his pursuit past the running water of the stream at the foot of the hill. The new road had been built fifty years ago, or so Rune had been told, after Father Donlin went up on the hill to exorcise the Ghost, and was found up there in the morning, stone cold dead, with a look of utter terror on his face.
That, in fact, was how most of the victims were found; and no one who ever went up there at night returned alive. Those few who had escaped death had been going down the hill when the sun set, having miscalculated or suffered some mishap on the road that had delayed them past the safe hour. There had been five victims besides the Father that Rune herself knew about, and stories spoke of dozens. . . .
No one knew how long the ghost had been there, nor why he haunted and killed. Granny Beeson, Thom's grandmother, and the oldest person in
the village, said he'd been there as long as she remembered.
And now Rune was walking straight up the haunted hill, into the Ghost's power. Deliberately. Seeking the Ghost out, a spirit that had killed a holy priest, as if her music had a chance of appeasing it.
With more than enough time, as she climbed the uneven, root-ridged track, to regret her impulse.
She squinted through the trees at the setting sun; she reckoned by the angle that once she reached the top of the pass, she'd have a little more than half an hour to settle herself and wait for her-host. There seemed fewer birds on this track than the other, and they all seemed to be birds of ill-omen: ravens, corbies, blackbirds, black boat-tails.
She tried to think if any of the ghost's other victims had been female. Maybe he only went after men-
But, no. Granny Beeson had said that two of the dead had been lovers running off to get married against the girls' parental wishes, so the thing killed women too.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she berated herself. If I live through this, I am never going to let my temper get me into this kind of mess again. Not ever. I swear.
But first, she was going to have to survive the rest of the night.
CHAPTER FOUR
As sunset neared, the few birds that had been about made themselves vanish into the brush, and Rune was left alone on Skull Hill without even a raven for company. It might have been her imagination, but the trees seemed a little starved up here, a strange, skeletal growth, with limbs like bony hands clawing the sky. It seemed colder up here as well-and the wind was certainly stronger, moaning softly through the trees in a way that sounded uncannily human, and doing nothing for her confidence level.
She looked around at the unpromising landscape and chose a rock, finding one with a little hollow. She spent some time pulling up some of the dry grass of last year's growth, giving the rock a kind of cushion to keep the cold away, and sat down to wait. As the crimson sun touched the top of Beacon Hill opposite her perch, and crept all-too-quickly behind it, she began to shiver, half with cold, and half with the fear she had no difficulty in admitting now that she was alone.
Of all the stupid things I've ever done, this was one of the stupidest.
It was not a particularly spectacular sunset; no clouds to catch and hold the sun's last rays. Just the red disk sinking towards and then behind the hill, the pale sky growing darker-deepening from blue to black, and all too soon; the stars coming out, brightest first, pinpoints of cold blue-white light.
The wind died to nothing just at sunset, then picked up again after the last stars appeared. Rune took out her fiddle with benumbed fingers, and tuned it by feel, then sat on her rock and fingered every tune she knew without actually playing, to keep her fingers limber. And still nothing happened.
She was tired, cold, and her fear was fading. Her bones began to ache with the cold. It would be so easy to pack up, creep down the hill, and return to the inn claiming that she'd fiddled for the Ghost and gotten away.
The idea was very tempting.
But-that would be a lie and a cheat. She swore she'd do this; she pledged her word, and even if the villagers thought her word was worthless, that didn't make it so. If she broke her word, if she lied about what she'd done, what would that make her? As worthless as the villagers claimed she was.
Besides, they probably wouldn't believe me anyway.
The moon appeared, its cold silver light flooding over the hills and making them look as if they'd been touched with frost. She marked time while it climbed, keeping her fingers warm by tucking them in her armpits, and taking out the fiddle now and again to make sure it was still in tune. There was a great deal more life around here than there had been in the daylight-unless her presence had frightened everything away until she stopped moving. Owls hooted off in the distance, and a few early crickets sang nearby. Frogs croaked in the stream below her as bats and a nighthawk swooped through the pass, looking for flying insects. And once, a great hare loped lazily down the road, pausing in surprise at the sight of her, and standing up on his haunches to take a better look, for all the world like a white stone garden statue of the kind the Sire had in his pleasure-garden.
At the sight of him, she lost the last of her fear. He was so quizzical, so comical-it was impossible to be afraid of a place that held an animal like this.
She chuckled at him, and he took fright at the sound, whirling on his hind feet and leaping into the underbrush in a breath.
She shook her head, relaxing a little in spite of the chill. There was no Ghost, most likely, and perhaps there never had been. Perhaps the "ghost" had been no more than a particularly resourceful bandit. Perhaps-
The moon touched the highest part of her arc, marking the hour as midnight, just as the thought occurred to her. And at that moment, absolute silence descended on the hill, as if everything within hearing had been frightened into frozen immobility.
The crickets stopped chirping altogether; the owl hoots cut off. Even the wind died, leaving the midnight air filled only with a stillness that made the ears ache as they sought after the vanished sounds.
Then the wind returned with a howl and a rush, blowing her shirt flat to her body, chilling her to the bone and turning the blood in her veins to ice. It moaned, like something in pain, something dying by inches.
Then it changed, and whipped around her, twisting her garments into confusion. It swirled around her, picking up dead leaves and pelting her with them, the center of a tiny, yet angry cyclone that was somehow more frightening than the pounding lightning of the worst thunderstorm.
It lashed her with her own hair, blinded her with dust. Then it whisked away to spin on the road in front of her, twisting the leaves in a miniature whirlwind less than ten paces from her.
Her skin crawled, as if there were something watching her from the center of the wind. Malignant; that was what it felt like. As if this wind was a living thing, and it hated every creature it saw. . . .
She shook her hair out of her eyes, hugged her arms to her body and shook with cold and the prickling premonition of danger. She couldn't take her eyes off the whirlwind and the swirling leaves caught in it. The leaves-it was so strange, she could see every vein of them-
A claw of ice ran down her spine, as she realized that she could see every vein of them-because they were glowing.
She'd seen foxfire-what country child hadn't-but this was different. Each leaf glowed a distinct and leprous shade of greenish-white. And they were drawing closer together into a column in the center of the whirlwind, forming a solid, slightly irregular shape, thicker at the bottom than at the top, with a kind of cowl-like formation at the very top.
Kind of? It was a cowl; the leaves had merged into a cowled and robed figure, like a monk. But the shape beneath the robe suggested nothing remotely human, and she knew with dread that she didn't want to see the face hidden within that cowl. . . . The wind swirled the apparition's robes as it had swirled the leaves, but disturbed it not at all.
Then, suddenly, the wind died; the last of the leaves drifted to pile around the apparition's feet . . . if it had feet, and not some other appendages. The cowl turned in Rune's direction, and there was a suggestion of glowing eyes within the shadows of the hood.
A voice, an icy, whispering voice, came out of the darkness from all around her; from everywhere, yet nowhere. It could have been born of her imagination, yet Rune knew the voice was the Ghost's, and that to run was to die. Instantly, but in terror that would make dying seem to last an eternity.
"Why have you come here, stupid child?" it murmured, as fear urged her to run anyway. "Why were you waiting here? For me? Foolish child, do you not know what I am? What I could do to you?"
At least it decided to talk to me first. . . .
Rune had to swallow twice before she could speak, and even then her voice cracked and squeaked with fear.
"I've come to fiddle for you-sir?" she said, gasping for breath between each word, trying to keep her teeth from chat
tering.
And it's a good thing I'm not here to sing. . . .
She held out Lady Rose and her bow. "Fiddle?" the Ghost breathed, as if it couldn't believe what it had heard. "You have come to fiddle? To play mortal music? For me?"
For the first time since it had appeared, Rune began to hope she might survive this encounter. At least she'd surprised this thing. "Uh-yes. Sir? I did."
The glow beneath the hood increased, she was not imagining it. And the voice strengthened. "Why, mortal child? Why did you come here to-fiddle for me?"
She toyed with the notion of telling it that she'd done so for some noble reason, because she felt sorry for it, or that she wanted to bring it some pleasure-
But she had the feeling that it would know if she lied to it. She also had the feeling that if she lied to it, it would not be amused.
And since her life depended on keeping it amused-
So she told it the truth.
"It was on a dare, sir," she stammered. "There's these boys in the town, and they told me I was a second-rater, and-I swore I'd come up here and fiddle for you, and let you judge if I was a second-rater or a wizard with m' bow."
The cowl moved slightly, as if the creature were cocking its head a little sideways. "And why would they call you second-rate?"
"Because-because they want me to be, sir," she blurted. "If I'm second-rate they can look down on me, an'-do what they want to me-"
For some reason, the longer she spoke, the easier it became to do so, to pour out all her anger, her fear, all the bottled emotions she couldn't have told anyone before this. The spirit stayed silent, attentive through all of it, keeping its attitude of listening with interest, even sympathy. This was, by far, the most even-handed hearing she'd had from anyone. It was even easy to speak of the attack Jon and his friends had made, tears of rage and outrage stinging her eyes as she did.
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