The Very Best of the Best

by Gardner Dozois

  “When she’s in the mood for it. From what I’ve heard she’s just as likely to turn the sick and needy away.”

  “If she helps some people, isn’t that better than nothing at all?”

  “I suppose.” She could tell Peter didn’t agree, but he wasn’t cross with her for arguing. “What does your father make of you visiting the witch, anyway?”

  “He doesn’t mind.”

  “No?” Peter asked, interestedly.

  “When he was small, my dad cut his arm on a piece of skydrift that he found in the snow. He went to Widow Grayling and she made his arm better again by tying an eel around it. She didn’t take any payment except the skydrift.”

  “Does your father still believe an eel can heal a wound?”

  “He says he’ll believe anything if it gets the job done.”

  “Wise man, that Brendan, a man after my own heart. Which reminds me.” Peter ambled to another bench, pausing to stir one of his bubbling pots before gathering a bundle of sawn-off wooden sticks. He set them down in front of Kathrin on a scrap of cloth. “Off cuts,” he explained. “But good seasoned beech, which’ll never warp. No use to me, but I am sure your father will find use for them. Tell him that there’s more, if he wishes to collect it.”

  “I haven’t got any money for wood.”

  “I’d take none. Your father was always generous to me, when I was going through lean times.” Peter scratched behind his ear. “Only fair, the way I see it.”

  “Thank you,” Kathrin said doubtfully. “But I don’t think I can carry the wood all the way home.”

  “Not with two hog’s heads as well. But you can drop by when you’ve given the heads to Widow Grayling.”

  “Only I won’t be coming back over the river,” Kathrin said. “After I’ve crossed Twenty Arch Bridge, I’ll go back along the south quayside and take the ferry at Jarrow.”

  Peter looked puzzled. “Why line the ferryman’s pocket when you can cross the bridge for nowt?”

  Kathrin shrugged easily. “I’ve got to visit someone on the Jarrow road, to settle an account.”

  “Then you’d better take the wood now, I suppose,” Peter said.

  Mary bustled in, carrying a small wooden tray laden with bread and ham. She was as plump and red as her husband, only shorter. Picking up the entire gist of the conversation in an instant, she said, “Don’t be an oaf, Peter. The girl cannot carry all that wood and her bags. If she will not come back this way, she must pass a message onto her father. Tell him that there’s wood here if he wants it.” She shook her head sympathetically at Kathrin. “What does he think you are, a pack mule?”

  “I’ll tell my father about the wood,” she said.

  “Seasoned beech,” Peter said emphatically. “Remember that.”

  “I will.”

  Mary encouraged her to take some of the bread and meat, despite Kathrin again mentioning that she expected to be fed at Widow Grayling’s. “Take it anyway,” Mary said. “You never know how hungry you might get on the way home. Are you sure about not coming back this way?”

  “I’d best not,” Kathrin said.

  After an awkward lull, Peter said, “There is something else I meant to tell your father. Could you let him know that I’ve no need of a new sledge this year, after all?”

  “Peter,” Mary said. “You promised.”

  “I said that I should probably need one. I was wrong in that.” Peter looked exasperated. “The fault lies in Brendan, not me! If he did not make such good and solid sledges, then perhaps I should need another by now.”

  “I shall tell him,” Kathrin said.

  “Is your father keeping busy?” Mary asked.

  “Aye,” Kathrin answered, hoping the wheelwright’s wife wouldn’t push her on the point.

  “Of course he will still be busy,” Peter said, helping himself to some of the bread. “People don’t stop needing sledges, just because the Great Winter loosens its hold on us. Any more than they stopped needing wheels when the winter was at its coldest. It’s still cold for half the year!”

  Kathrin opened her mouth to speak. She meant to tell Peter that he could pass the message on to her father directly, for he was working not five minutes’ walk from the wheelwright’s shop. Peter clearly had no knowledge that her father had left the village, leaving his workshop empty during these warming months. But she realized that her father would be ashamed if the wheelwright were to learn of his present trade. It was best that nothing be said.

  “Kathrin?” Peter asked.

  “I should be getting on. Thank you for the food, and the offer of the wood.”

  “You pass our regards onto your father,” Mary said.

  “I shall.”

  “God go with you. Watch out for the jangling men.”

  “I will,” Kathrin replied, because that was what you were supposed to say.

  “Before you go,” Peter said suddenly, as if a point had just occurred to him. “Let me tell you something. You say there are people who believe the Sheriff can fly, as if that was a foolish thing, like the iron road and the winking bridge. I cannot speak of the other things, but when I was boy I met someone who had seen the Sheriff’s flying machine. My grandfather often spoke of it. A whirling thing, like a windmill made of tin. He had seen it when he was a boy, carrying the Sheriff and his men above the land faster than any bird.”

  “If the Sheriff could fly then, why does he need a horse and carriage now?”

  “Because the flying machine crashed down to Earth, and no tradesman could persuade it to fly again. It was a thing of the old world, before the Great Winter. Perhaps the winking bridge and the iron road were also things of the old world. We mock too easily, as if we understood everything of our world where our forebears understood nothing.”

  “But if I should believe in certain things,” Kathrin said, “should I not also believe in others? If the Sheriff can fly, then can a jangling man not steal me from my bed at night?”

  “The jangling men are a story to stop children misbehaving,” Peter said witheringly. “How old are you now?”

  “Sixteen,” Kathrin answered.

  “I am speaking of something that was seen, in daylight, not made up to frighten bairns.”

  “But people say they have seen jangling men. They have seen men made of tin and gears, like the inside of a clock.”

  “Some people were frightened too much when they were small,” Peter said, with a dismissive shake. “No more than that. But the Sheriff is real, and he was once able to fly. That’s God’s truth.”

  * * *

  Her hands were hurting again by the time she reached Twenty Arch Bridge. She tugged down the sleeves of her sweater, using them as mittens. Rooks and jackdaws wheeled and cawed overhead. Seagulls feasted on waste floating in the narrow races between the bridge’s feet, or pecked at vile leavings on the road that had been missed by the night soil gatherers. A boy laughed as Kathrin nearly tripped on the labyrinth of criss-crossing ruts that had been etched by years of wagon wheels entering and leaving the bridge. She hissed a curse back at the boy, but now the wagons served her purpose. She skulked near a doorway until a heavy cart came rumbling along, top-heavy with beer barrels from the Blue Star Brewery, drawn by four snorting dray-horses, a bored-looking drayman at the reins, huddled so down deep into his leather coat that it seemed as if the Great Winter still had its icy hand on the country.

  Kathrin started walking as the cart lumbered past her, using it as a screen. Between the stacked beer barrels she could see the top level of the scaffolding that was shoring up the other side of the arch, visible since no house or parapet stood on that part of the bridge. A dozen or so workers—including a couple of aproned foremen—were standing on the scaffolding, looking down at the work going on below. Some of them had plumb lines; one of them even had a little black rod that shone a fierce red spot wherever he wanted something moved. Of Garret, the reason she wished to cross the bridge only once if she could help it, there was nothing to
be seen. Kathrin hoped that he was under the side of the bridge, hectoring the workers. She felt sure that her father was down there too, being told what to do and biting his tongue against answering back. He put up with being shouted at, he put up with being forced to treat wood with crude disrespect, because it was all he could do to earn enough money to feed and shelter himself and his daughter. And he never, ever, looked Garret Kinnear in the eye.

  Kathrin felt her mood easing as the dray ambled across the bridge, nearing the slight rise over the narrow middle arches. The repair work, where Garret was most likely to be, was now well behind her. She judged her progress by the passage of alehouses. She had passed the newly painted Bridge Inn and the shuttered gloom of the Lord’s Confessor. Fiddle music spilled from the open doorway of the Dancing Panda: an old folk song with nonsense lyrics about sickly sausage rolls.

  Ahead lay the Winged Man, its sign containing a strange painting of a foreboding figure rising from a hilltop. If she passed the Winged Man, she felt she would be safe.

  Then the dray hit a jutting cobblestone and rightmost front wheel snapped free of its axle. The wheel wobbled off on its own. The cart tipped to the side, spilling beer barrels onto the ground. Kathrin stepped nimbly aside as one of the barrels ruptured and sent its fizzing, piss-colored contents across the roadway. The horses snorted and strained. The drayman spat out a greasy wad of chewing tobacco and started down from his chair, his face a mask of impassive resignation, as if this was the kind of thing that could be expected to happen once a day. Kathrin heard him whisper something in the ear of one of the horses, in beast-tongue, which calmed the animal.

  Kathrin knew that she had no choice but to continue. Yet she had no sooner resumed her pace—moving faster now, the bags swaying awkwardly—than she saw Garret Kinnear. He was just stepping out of the Winged Man’s doorway.

  He smiled. “You in a hurry or something?”

  Kathrin tightened her grip on the bags, as if she was going to use them as weapons. She decided not to say anything, not to openly acknowledge his presence, even though their eyes had met for an electric instant.

  “Getting to be a big strong girl now, Kathrin Lynch.”

  She carried on walking, each step taking an eternity. How foolish she had been, to take Twenty Arch Bridge when it would only have cost her another hour to take the further crossing. She should not have allowed Peter to delay her with his good intentions.

  “You want some help with them bags of yours?”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw him move out of the doorway, tugging his mud-stained trousers higher onto his hip. Garret Kinnear was snake thin, all skin and bone, but much stronger than he looked. He wiped a hand across his sharp beardless chin. He had long black hair, the greasy gray color of dishwater.

  “Go away,” she hissed, hating herself in the same instant.

  “Just making conversation,” he said.

  Kathrin quickened her pace, glancing nervously around. All of a sudden the bridge appeared deserted. The shops and houses she had yet to pass were all shuttered and silent. There was still a commotion going on by the dray, but no one there was paying any attention to what was happening further along the bridge.

  “Leave me alone,” Kathrin said.

  He was walking almost alongside her now, between Kathrin and the road. “Now what kind of way to talk is that, Kathrin Lynch? Especially after my offer to help you with them bags. What have you got in them, anyways?”

  “Nothing that’s any business of yours.”

  “I could be the judge of that.” Before she could do anything, he’d snatched the bag from her left hand. He peered into its dark depths, frowning. “You came all the way from Jarrow Ferry with this?”

  “Give me back the bag.”

  She reached for the bag, tried to grab it back, but he held it out of her reach, grinning cruelly.

  “That’s mine.”

  “How much would a pig’s head be worth?”

  “You tell me. There’s only one pig around here.”

  They’d passed the mill next to the Winged Man. There was a gap between the mill and the six-story house next to it, where some improbably narrow property must once have existed. Garret turned down the alley, still carrying Kathrin’s bag. He reached the parapet at the edge of the bridge and looked over the side. He rummaged in the bag and drew out the pig’s head. Kathrin hesitated at the entrance to the narrow alley, watching as Garret held the head out over the roiling water.

  “You can have your pig back. Just come a wee bit closer.”

  “So you can do what you did last time?”

  “I don’t remember any complaints.” He let the head fall, then caught it again, Kathrin’s heart in her throat.

  “You know I couldn’t complain.”

  “Not much to ask for a pig’s head, is it?” With his free hand, he fumbled open his trousers, tugging out the pale worm of his cock. “You did it before, and it didn’t kill you. Why not now? I won’t trouble you again.”

  She watched his cock stiffen. “You said that last time.”

  “Aye, but this time I mean it. Come over here, Kathrin. Be a good girl now and you’ll have your pig back.”

  Kathrin looked back over her shoulder. No one was going to disturb them. The dray had blocked all the traffic behind it, and nothing was coming over the bridge from the south.

  “Please,” she said.

  “Just this once,” Garret said. “And make your mind up fast, girl. This pig’s getting awfully heavy in my hand.”

  * * *

  Kathrin stood in the widow’s candlelit kitchen—it only had one tiny, dusty window—while the old woman turned her bent back to attend to the coals burning in her black metal stove. She poked and prodded the fire until it hissed back like a cat. “You came all the way from Jarrow Ferry?” she asked.

  “Aye,” Kathrin said. The room smelled smoky.

  “That’s too far for anyone, let alone a sixteen-year-old lass. I should have a word with your father. I heard he was working on Twenty Arch Bridge.”

  Kathrin shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t mind walking. The weather’s all right.”

  “So they say. All the same, the evenings are still cold, and there are types about you wouldn’t care to meet on your own, miles from Jarrow.”

  “I’ll be back before it gets dark,” Kathrin said, with more optimism than she felt. Not if she went out of her way to avoid Garret Kinnear she wouldn’t. He knew the route she’d normally take back home, and the alternatives would mean a much longer journey.

  “You sure about that?”

  “I have no one else to visit. I can start home now.” Kathrin offered her one remaining bag, as Widow Grayling turned from the fire, brushing her hands on her apron.

  “Put it on the table, will you?”

  Kathrin put the bag down. “One pig’s head, and twenty candles, just as you wanted,” she said brightly.

  Widow Grayling hobbled over to the table, supporting herself with a stick, eyeing Kathrin as she opened the bag and took out the solitary head. She weighed it in her hand then set it down on the table, the head facing Kathrin in such a way that its beady black eyes and smiling snout suggested amused complicity.

  “It’s a good head,” the widow said. “But there were meant to be two of them.”

  “Can you manage with just the one, until I visit again? I’ll have three for you next time.”

  “I’ll manage if I must. Was there a problem with the butcher in the Shield?”

  Kathrin had considered feigning ignorance, saying that she did not recall how only one head had come to be in her bags. But she knew Widow Grayling too well for that.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “Of course.” The widow hobbled around the table to one of the rickety stools and dragged it out. “Are you all right, girl?”

  Kathrin lowered herself onto the stool.

  “The other bag was taken from me,” she answered quietly.

  “By who
?”

  “Someone on the bridge.”

  “Children?”

  “A man.”

  Widow Grayling nodded slowly, as if Kathrin’s answer had only confirmed some deep-seated suspicion she had harbored for many years. “Thomas Kinnear’s boy, was it?”

  “How could you know?”

  “Because I’ve lived long enough to form ready opinions of people. Garret Kinnear is filth. But there’s no one that’ll touch him, because they’re scared of his father. Even the Sheriff tugs his forelock to Thomas Kinnear. Did he rape you?”

  “No. But he wanted me to do something nearly as bad.”

  “And did he make you?”

  Kathrin looked away.

  “Not this time.”

  Widow Grayling closed her eyes. She reached across the table and took one of Kathrin’s hands, squeezing it between her own. “When was it?”

  “Three months ago, when there was still snow on the ground. I had to cross the bridge on my own. It was later than usual, and there weren’t any people around. I knew about Garret already, but I’d managed to keep away from him. I thought I was going to be lucky.” Kathrin turned back to face her companion. “He caught me and took me into one of the mills. The wheels were turning, but there was nobody inside except me and Garret. I struggled, but then he put his finger to my lips and told me to shush.”

  “Because of your father.”

  “If I made trouble, if I did not do what he wanted, Garret would tell his father some lie about mine. He would say that he caught him sleeping on the job, or drunk, or stealing nails.”

  “Garret promised you that?”

  “He said, life’s hard enough for a sledge-maker’s daughter when no one wants sledges. He said it would only be harder if my father lost his work.”

  “In that respect he was probably right,” the widow said resignedly. “It was brave of you to hold your silence, Kathrin. But the problem hasn’t gone away, has it? You cannot avoid Garret forever.”

  “I can take the other bridge.”

  “That’ll make no difference, now that he has his eye on you.”

  Kathrin looked down at her hands. “Then he’s won already.”