The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades Page 4

  The stench was becoming nauseating, suggesting to Emerald huge quantities of rotting meat. Not being attuned to magic yet, her companions were noticing nothing amiss. But there must be qualified Sisters in some of the nearby trees, and they should be within range of anything this powerful. Anyone conjuring spirits right here in First Grove ought to have raised a hullabaloo audible in the next county.

  She disentangled herself and stood up. “You get into bed. I’ll be back in just a minute.” She headed for the door.

  Out on the platform, she could hear faint voices from neighboring trees, so she was not alone in the forest; she could see a few lights. Yet the stench of magic was even worse than before. She could detect air and death and a hint of time, but the combination felt gruesome and evil. She stood in the still night, almost gagging on it, barely able to concentrate well enough to try and locate it. It must be very close, perhaps right in this very tree. There was nothing below her, just the stair. Above her the steps went on, winding up to higher branches and the smaller huts.

  Suddenly she saw the glint of eyes, too many eyes, up in the bracing that supported her sleeping cabin. A magical creation could be just as real and just as dangerous as any natural peril. When it saw that she had seen it, it came at her, scampering down out of the dark—a spider the size of a sheepdog with outspread legs like cables, mandibles big as daggers, eight eyes shining. It came on a wave of sorcery that was absolutely mind breaking.

  Fire people might scream with rage, water people with fear, and air people just for the sake of the noise, but Emerald had always believed that earth people never screamed. She was wrong. She screamed at the top of her lungs. She hurled herself back into the dormitory, still screaming, and slammed the door against the horror outside. The six postulants, already very perturbed, quite understandably panicked. Three of them leaped out windows. A moment later came the sickening thump of a body hitting the ground.

  6

  Sentence

  LATE THE FOLLOWING MORNING, SISTER EMERald was released from the meditation cell in which she had been confined overnight. She was led across the grove by way of many trees and bridges, coming at last to a large, mossy building set very high in one of the great forest giants. The tree was centuries old, and its buildings looked almost as ancient. She was taken to a gracious, dignified room, furnished with antiques, lined with ancient books. On this hot summer day it was cool and pleasant, bearing a homely smell of lavender and beeswax. Her guides—or perhaps they were jailers—showed her in with-out a word and then departed, leaving her alone with a white-robed woman, who sat writing at the big desk.

  Emerald sank to her knees on the threadbare rug and waited as she had been taught, with hands clasped and eyes downcast. After a few moments of silence, she dared to glance up. She had expected the Prioress, but this was Mother Superior herself, the head of the Companionship. There could be no appeal from whatever verdict was to be announced here.

  Eventually the older woman replaced her quill in the silver inkstand and sat back to frown at her visitor. She wasted no time on pleasantries. “I have read your entire file, Sister—every report on you in the last four years. Your record is impressive. You were an exemplary student. I have also read the statement you gave last night, and that makes no sense whatsoever. Do you wish to recant?”

  Mother Superior’s control was the most perfect Emerald had ever met. Even here, high up in the ancient, enduring tree, with only insubstantial spirits of air and time around, any slight traces of the other elements should be as obvious as flying camels, and yet the lady was revealing no imbalances at all. She might be an earth person, or water, or fire, but Emerald could not venture a guess.

  “I spoke only the truth, mistress.”

  Mother Superior drummed fingers on the desk. “Magic? Giant spiders conjured in the middle of Oakendown? This is rubbish! Nobody but you sensed anything at all, child. A dozen Sisters were so close to your location that they could not have missed detecting what you claim. So monstrous a sorcery must leave a taint that would linger for days, yet our most expert sniffers can find no trace of one. What you are claiming is rank impossibility!”

  Someone was lying. Perhaps many people. Something terrible had happened in Oaken-down and truth had been among the slain.

  “May I speak with some of these reverend ladies?”

  Mother Superior stiffened as if she could not believe her ears. “Are you accusing me of lying to you?”

  “No, mistress.” She was, of course. “But I am being accused—of falsehood or insanity or something. Do I not have the right to face my accusers?”

  “There are no accusers,” Mother Superior said menacingly. “Except me. Now, will you recant this absurd nonsense?”

  Alas, Emerald had not been so named without reason. An emerald was a very hard jewel. The earth-time disposition was always marked by extreme stubbornness. “I regret I cannot tell a lie, my lady.”

  She met the angry stare and held it until Mother Superior reddened and looked away. Fingers drummed again. The decision was made.

  Before it could be announced, Emerald said, “May I ask how the children are?”

  “The one who fell will survive. At worst she will have a slight limp. However she required such extensive healing that there can be no hope of her ever joining the Companionship. The others suffered a very considerable fright and are being counseled.”

  “I am truly sorry for what happened to them. I deeply regret my weakness in giving in to panic, but—”

  Mother Superior pursed old lips. “If you had truly seen what you said you saw, then nobody would blame you for panicking.” That was almost an offer of a second chance.

  “I did see it, and I cannot say otherwise.”

  “Then I have no choice but to expel you from the Companionship. As is our custom, we shall provide transportation back to wherever you were recruited. You will be granted room and board until arrangements are made.”

  Emerald rose. Proper decorum required that she now curtsey, back up three steps, curtsey again. Angrily she just spun around and marched to the door.

  7

  Trials

  THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE THE MOST MISERABLE of her life. She was cut off from the only world and friends she had known for the last four years, abandoned in the heartless confusion of Tyton, outside even the familiar gatehouse. She had no money and nothing to do. Once or twice she saw Sisters she knew going about the Companionship’s business in the town, but she could not bear to approach them in case they spurned her—or worse—offered sympathy.

  Each dawn and sunset she had to report to the clerks at the gatehouse door. This involved joining a shoving, elbow-jabbing scrum with a hundred other people to reach the tables and a shouting match when she got there. Once a clerk had established that no transportation had yet been assigned to her, he would give her a token to exchange for food at a tavern. The food at Peter’s was worse than the food at the Silver Hind, which was much worse than the Acorn’s, and that was fit only for pigs. The fine fare of the refectory was not available to outsiders, which is what she now was. Gone, too, were the soft white robes. The drab gown and bonnet that she had been given in their stead were coarse and shapeless. The shoes pinched her feet.

  Worst of all was the bitter taste of injustice. Something very wrong had happened in Oakendown that night. She knew she had detected a genuine magic; she was quite certain that Mother Superior knew she had. Others must know it also. A postulant had been injured, five others terrified half out of their minds, but the elaborate denial showed that much worse events must be involved. If Emerald were not so implacably stubborn she would have joined the chorus of liars and been spared this unfair banishment. On the second morning, when she saw the southbound stage leaving with half its seats empty, she realized that this was still what she was expected to do. She was being given a chance to write a note, begging for forgiveness and claiming a change of memory. Alas, earth and time were unbending rulers. Or was stubbornness on
ly pride?

  After Oakendown’s serene solitude, the milling crowds seemed an unending nightmare, haunted by a pervasive reek of magic. She could rarely find a seat in the dining rooms without being close to an amulet of some kind. Most of those were merely phony good-luck charms—useless and relatively harmless—but several men tried to strike up friendships with her using glamours. Those sorceries were intended to make their wearers irresistible, but to her trained talent the results were as repulsive as hot dung heaps. Two of her encounters with magic were more noteworthy.

  On the second evening, as she was bracing herself to fight her way into the mob at the gatehouse, a sudden odor of hot metal made her spin around. She would not have been surprised to see a huckster wheeling a brazier roasting chestnuts or even a farrier bearing a red-hot horseshoe in his tongs. What she observed instead were two dapper young men in green and silver livery. Curtly, but not roughly, they were clearing a path for an older man. She guessed at once that they were Blades and what she was detecting was the binding that kept them loyal to their ward, whoever he was. As they went by her, she glimpsed the gleaming cat’s-eye gems on the pommels of their swords. They had no need to draw those weapons or display their renowned skill at using them. Their self-assurance alone was enough to make the bystanders yield, and in a few moments they and their ward had been passed through the door into the reception halls beyond. Emerald had never seen Blades before and probably never would again. They were a reminder of shattered dreams, for every novice in Oakendown hoped for an assignment to court one day, and she had been no exception.

  The evening meal token also bought her a place to sleep, but the inns packed their guests in two or even three to a bed, four or five beds to a room. On her first night, Emerald was last to arrive and thus had to sleep nearest the door. Her five roommates seemed to spend the entire night climbing over her to get to the chamber pot. She vowed that henceforth she would retire right after eating.

  Even that precaution was not proof against misfortune. On the third night of her exile, having been assigned a berth in the Acorn, she reached the room first and claimed a snug corner. Five women followed her and settled in with the usual jokes about bedbugs and snoring. One place seemed destined to remain empty, but just as they agreed to snuff out the candle, another woman bustled in, carrying a large carpetbag.

  Hearing what seemed to be a continuous note blown on a very shrill whistle, Emerald sat up. “Pardon me, mistress, but are you wearing a sorcery of some sort?”

  At a guess, the matron was the wife of a prosperous merchant—large, middle-aged, and surprisingly well dressed to be residing at the Acorn. Perhaps it was the best she had been able to find with the town so full. She simpered across the beds at Emerald. “Merely a charm of good fortune.”

  “Mistress, you have been gulled. That is no good-luck charm.”

  The woman glared. “It came from the Priory of Peace at Swampham. The brothers’ prices are quite outrageous, but they have a countrywide reputation.”

  The lady would have done better hiring the brethren’s magic to improve her teeth and remove her mustache, but to say so would require considerable tact.

  “I never heard of that priory, mistress, or even of Swampham. But I do know something about magic. I know that there is no such thing as a true good-luck charm. All that any sorcery can do is drive away spirits of chance. They are so fickle that such charms rarely make much difference at all, and even if they do, they will keep away good luck just as much as bad.”

  “She’s right!” one of the other women said. “If your charm worked, goodwife, then you wouldn’t be in here with us.”

  The others laughed.

  “Ask it for a room full of handsome men-at-arms!” said another.

  “Insolence!” shrieked the woman with the amulet. “Nobody asked your opinions! Mind your own business, all of you.”

  The sorcerous racket was Emerald’s business if she hoped to sleep tonight, but she did not try to explain that. “I can’t imagine what business you have at Oakendown, mistress. If you try to speak with the Sisters while wearing that horror, they won’t listen to a word you say.”

  But the problem was Emerald’s not the woman’s. She dressed and went down the creaking stairs to ask the innkeeper for another berth. She was directed to another room, but the beds were already filled, so she spent the night in a grubby blanket on a dirty floor. Her roommates all snored loudly.

  On the following morning, the clerk found a note beside her name. “Ah, yes…Lucy Pillow. Greenwood Livery Stable. Ask for the Duke of Eastfare’s man.”

  To leave Oakendown was tragedy, but she assumed that anything would be better than this shadowy nonexistence in Tyton.

  8

  The Open Road

  THAT ASSUMPTION SOON BEGAN TO SEEM RASH. In the chilly dawn, the Greenwood yard was a clanking, clattering confusion of men and horses, reeking of ammonia, messy underfoot. Enormous animals were being led around, frequently at a run. Harnesses jingled, men shouted and cursed. In among the carts, drays, and wagons stood several grand carriages, but none of the footmen or postilions attending them would admit that his outfit belonged to the Duke of Eastfare.

  By a process of elimination, she eventually arrived at a large gray horse harnessed to a shabby little wagon. The fresh-faced, cheeky-looking boy holding its harness strap was peering around, frowning. When he saw her horrified eye on him he said, “Pillow?”

  “You may address me as Mistress Emerald.”

  “And I may not.” To call him a youth would be premature. His shirt, breeches, and jerkin were all old and tattered, his floppy cap sat on hair of polished straw hanging down over his ears. He was only a finger-width taller than she was, although he drew himself up very straight to make the most of it. “You’re the biddy going to Newhurst? Jump in.”

  This was too much! “You expect me to ride in that?” The rig had no protection from the weather and its only seat was a plank across the front without even a back to lean on. It was loaded with two huge barrels, one behind the other, and a few anonymous cloth-wrapped bundles tucked in around them. It reeked. Even in that stinking yard, it reeked.

  The boy shrugged. “It’s good enough for me, missee. Run alongside if you prefer.”

  So that was it! Now Emerald could see the plan: If the rack doesn’t work use red-hot irons! Having failed to subdue her victim with one humiliation, obviously Mother Superior was now trying something worse. Earth-time people rarely lost their tempers—they preferred to store grudges until they found a suitable chance to take revenge—but Emerald would certainly have resorted to violence now if the old hag were present. A handful of stable mire in the face would be a very promising opening. As she wasn’t there, the only available victim for anger was this impudent brat. Emerald assumed he was in on the plot, although he did not seem to be laughing at her. Not yet, anyway. But there was quite a glint in his eye and he was likely to be better at roughhousing than she could ever be. Discretion prevailed—she restrained her temper.

  “What is that appalling stink?”

  “Garlic. You must know garlic!”

  She did, but this was ridiculous. Those two great hogsheads could hold enough garlic to flavor every meal served in Chivial that year. Who would ever be transporting that amount of garlic around? The stench would be one more torment.

  The boy laid one hand on the front wheel and vaulted over it. He grinned down at her triumphantly from the bench. “Coming or not?”

  She tried to quell her anger enough to think rationally. He expected her to share that narrow bench with him, and most stable hands had very little idea what a bathtub was for. The garlic should provide some protection, depending on the wind. He was probably richly infested with fleas and lice, too, but after three nights in the cheapest inns of Tyton she must be well inhabited herself. He wasn’t scratching too obviously.

  If she refused he would drive away and she would be trapped. The Companionship would claim it had paid its debt. I
t had offered her transportation—who ever promised her padded seats or shelter from the weather? She would be stuck in Tyton with no money, no friends, no-where to stay, nothing to eat. So she must choose between this whelp and Mother Superior; between his smelly wagon and complete surrender. She wasn’t even certain that surrender was still an option. Perhaps she was just being punished out of spite. Furious, she stalked around to the other side, tossed her tiny bundle of possessions aboard, and climbed up beside him.

  He smiled innocently at her. “Welcome aboard!”

  “What’s your name?”

  “My friends call me Wart.”

  “Ug! Then what do your enemies call you?”

  “Sir!”

  He flashed an enormous grin to show that he had thought that up on the spur of the moment. She had to admit that it wasn’t bad.

  “Then until I know which I am, I’d better call you Sir Wart.”

  “No! I mean, please just call me Wart, mistress.”

  Why should her feeble joke alarm him so much?

  Wart drove through Tyton standing up, so he could see over the horse. He did not speak, being intent on navigating the narrow, crowded streets. Admittedly the clearance was often closer than hairsbreadth, but his clenched teeth and the gleam of sweat on his face suggested that he lacked experience at urban driving. How could he have experience at anything? This was probably the first time his mother had let him go out alone. Once the horse had ambled out through the town gate, though, he sat down and began to whistle. When he wasn’t whistling he chattered aimlessly about crops, herds, fine weather, and bad news of Baelish raiders attacking the coast.