Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “Unappetizing parrots aren't nearly as funny as a stinking crow everyone wants to eat,” squeaked Chirp.

  “Ow!” cried Herio, nearly spilling Hubba Hubba. “What did you bite me on the cheek for?”

  “It's high time somebody was bit,” rattled Hubba Hubba with a thorough shake of his feathers. “Time for your lesson, Herio! How would you like people always trying to eat you?”

  “I'm sorry, Hubba,” he said, giving a warning glance at the sparrows. “I wouldn't at all. We're just teasin'. We're relieved nothing happened to you. Nobody'd like someone out to eat them.”

  “Right. I'm convinced all over the place,” said Hubba Hubba, thoroughly ruffling his feathers and settling into an aloof posture, looking away. “How come you didn't at least pay back those awful grubby maggot people with a knot apiece on their heads to match this one? How come you ones gave them money, aye?”

  “Well they did let you go...”

  “But that monster who beaned me...”

  “Chopping wood. A huge pile, too, looked like...”

  “Hey!” chirped Tweet. “There 'tis. Castle Goll right yonder.”

  “Herio,” said Hubba Hubba as he eyed the village with the castle which loomed from its midst, “if anything happens to me, will you tell Pebbles that she meant the whole wide world to me?”

  “I'll tell her that anyway, if you want me to, but you get this straight, bird: nothing will ever happen to you as long as I'm alive.”

  “Thanks,” said Hubba Hubba, wide eyed.

  Herio gave a sharp nod. “Gateway to the pit, straight ahead,” he said with a shake of his reins.

  In short order they were crossing the drawbridge before the outer gate.

  “Well the guards at the gate are grown,” said Herio.

  “Look at them up on the wall walk,” rattled Hubba Hubba. “I'd bet not many of them shave. And by the way, Herio, your voice carries.”

  “Gaffers and boys everywhere,” said Herio as they passed into the outer ward.

  “And another half dozen men here at the inner gate, looks like,” said Hubba Hubba. “And every single boy not doing duty is busy being ordered around doing drills.”

  “Boys doing men's work and women doing boy's work, and every single one run down at the heel,” said Herio. “Well, it shouldn't be hard to get enlisted. In fact, I might get conscripted if I'm not careful, and I don't think I'd learn much. Too far away from the throne. I've got to try for some job in the castle proper. Do you reckon that witch even sent her serving men to Ash Fork...? Ow! Hey! What did you do that for?”

  “Biting you worked last time, didn't it?” rattled Hubba Hubba quietly. “You don't seem to be listening. I said your voice carries, and calling Spitemorta a witch right here where everyone can hear is probably really, really stupid.”

  “Fates, I'm an idiot! Scarcely through the gate and I've lost control of my mouth.”

  “You've just been hanging around me too long...”

  “I see why Queen Min... Oh my!...I see.”

  “See? You learn fast, Herio. A little crow bite here and there's good for you.”

  ***

  “Yann-Ber!” cried Rose as Fuzz sprang up to draw a chair for him. “This is wonderful. We didn't expect to see you.”

  “I didn't expect to find you all out here on the balcony. It was raining pretty hard when I left my room.”

  “That's why I'm soaking up the tea towels on the seat of your chair,” said Fuzz.

  “Here. Please sit. Yes. It had just quit when the service came up. So how do you feel?”

  “Demonica is so ugly that I'm still not used to humane treatment and having friends. Finding you all up here makes me feel wonderful.”

  “Rose and I were just discussing going down to see you right after breakfast.”

  “Well I've saved you that chore...”

  “Chore!” said Rose. “The only 'chore' is finding you all bandaged up and in bed rather than up here with us.”

  “With time running out, it's time with dear friends I prize above all else.” said Yann-Ber as everyone went silent. A red-eyed cuckoo spoke up from the catalpas by the balcony. “I think there's more rain coming.”

  “How did you manage to get out of bed so soon?” said Rose. “I guessed you'd have another week or better.”

  “All I was doing was boring them as a mummy, so they kicked me out.”

  “Hey!” said Rose, arresting a snicker. “You're not one bit funny.”

  “Here I am doing my best to amuse you, and you up and tell me that I missed out as a jester.”

  “With an act like that, you sure did.”

  “Well, I'd better warn my son about the calling, then...”

  “What?” said Rose, suddenly setting down her cup. “I must not have heard you right...”

  “You mean about my son...?”

  “You mean you and Demonica...?”

  “Good grief, no!” said Yann-Ber. “Then you didn't know. Just because she was waiting out in the hall with you... Well, of course she wouldn't have said anything to you before speaking with me, at least... Yuna said nothing to you about us, did she?”

  Rose and Fuzz both shook their wide-eyed faces.

  “Well, I do indeed have a son, by Yuna,” he said as he launched a detailed explanation of his brief marriage and the triangle with Karl Veur.

  They listened raptly to his tale in spite of their stunned looks.

  “So this is my question,” said Yann-Ber with a sigh, as he swirled his tea in his cup. “Before I make all this irreversible by asking Father for his cooperation with sending Karl-Veur to Niarg, do you think I have the right to ask Karl-Veur to take such a horrible risk?”

  “I'm confused,” said Fuzz. “Didn't we examine every bit of this before we got on the boat? Have you asked Karl-Veur yet?”

  “Oh, he's agreed to do it, but I asked him before I'd learnt of his marriage to Yuna and of my son.”

  “What does Yuna say?”

  “She seems to approve, but I can't imagine why.”

  “Well, I can't either,” said Fuzz, “but if your brother and she agree to this, shouldn't that free you from feeling undue responsibility?”

  “Oh, it should, but I've caused Yuna more than enough grief for my conscience to handle already, and Demonica...” he paused to shudder, “Demonica is beyond belief. I was no match for her, yet I send Karl-Veur. He can't possibly carry out this ruse except in the most superficial sort of way, and Demonica is treacherously persuasive. If she can't get what she wants with her obvious charms, she has an endless magical repertoire and no conscience at all. I think he trusts his complete loathing of her to protect him, but I can't imagine anything like that managing to save him.”

  “I see your point,” said Fuzz, “but wasn't it your being revolted by her that led to your escape?”

  “What escape? Look at me. Demonica simply wins, even when she loses.”

  ***

  “I'm grateful for your advice, Hubba, even if you do bite,” said Herio with a laugh.

  “Since you seem to be right every time, I might actually learn enough in time to keep us out of trouble.”

  “Whoa Herio!” squeaked Chirp from Gwynt's saddle. “If Hubba Hubba's head swells any more with that knot on it, it'll burst open right next to your ear.”

  “So what?” tweeted Squeak. “It's been doing it, the whole ride.”

  “ Yea,” chirped Tweet. “like, they eat me...pop! I'm murdered...pop! You think it's funny...pop...!”

  Hubba Hubba suddenly fluffed up like a pine cone and took three beak clacking lunges down Herio's back at the cantle of the saddle, sending Chirp, Tweet and Squeak into giddy flight.

  “Wow!” cried a girl, leading a goat. “Look at the vicious crow.”

  “Keeps the sparrows off the unicorn,” said a passing vendor with a stack of straw hats. “What's that you're riding, kid, a Dulish-cyflymder?”

  “He is...” said Herio.

  Hubba Hubba went sleek a
nd self-conscious as Chirp, Tweet and Squeak quickly fluttered back to sit like bumps along the back of the saddle.

  “That tall tower won't have any kindly old wizard living in it,” rattled Hubba Hubba. “Probably either Ugleeuh's mother or Ugleeuh's daughter. I saw both of them in action. You won't like either one, Herio. Are you sure you wouldn't rather just join their army?”

  “We need information,” said Herio. “That means working inside. They're not going to tell soldiers anything. Let's see if I can't rent a stall for Gwynt. Then I can start asking around about jobs in the castle. Why don't you all wait in the top of the oak outside the stable. It's the only tree in sight.”

  He set out at once, straight across the inner ward for the steps to the main entrance of the castle. At the top of the steps, two armored toughs about his age crossed their halberds in front of him. “State your affairs snot face!” cried the larger one.

  “I'm Herio, orphaned by the battle at Ash Fork,” he said, not altogether certain that he'd heard right, “and I'm here to offer my services to the queen.”

  “Like her troubles are over or something, aye?” said the smaller one. “Well, if you want to join the army like the rest of us, you need to go see the sergeant of enlistment in the back part of the outer ward.”

  “Well thanks, but I thought I'd offer my services as a servant...”

  “Aw! A coward, aye?” said the larger.

  “Nay! He's just a dog,” laughed the smaller. “He wants to fetch.”

  “He could be hired hand to the gong farmer.”

  “The privy?” said Herio, enthusiastically. “How do I get there?”

  Both guards broke out with laughter. One of them looked aside and whistled to a guard at the door to the gardens. “Hey Elmer!” he hollered. “Dog, here, wants to farm the gong hole. Let him in to go see crazy old Fustus.”

  “Great. Thanks,” said Herio, turning to leave. “I'll see you fellows when you come down to the privy to eat and bathe.”

  The door opened to a path to the back of the castle. Herio sped by the bushes searching for anyone, anyone but Fustus.

  “Hoy!” barked a scullery maid from a recess in the wall as she heaved a slurry of slop at some chickens. “Who let you in?”

  “The two gong faces at the main entrance...”

  “Why?” she said, not looking the least amused.

  “I want a job waiting on the queen...”

  She set down her pan and stared him up and down with cold grey eyes as she dried her hands on her apron. “Might well be a job, but I don't think you ones really want hit...”

  “Waiting on the queen herself?”

  “Last knave didn't last long...”

  “Can you get me the job?”

  “Oh I can, just as sure as I'm standing here a-looking at ye.”

  Chapter 127

  “How's the king holdin' up...?”

  “Fates!” cried Aeron, jerking aside the reins to send little old Jigs trotting great zigzags across the breadth of the road. “Probably awake now, Owain. You nearly pitched him out on the road, a-sending me across those ruts like that.”

  “I can't believe hit, but he looks asleep to me...”

  “Hit's a jolly wonder, but he did say he was powerful tired. I offered to stop the wain and let him sleep, but he said, 'No need,' and hit sure looks hit. I hope he's all right. Hey, what did ye find? Has Spitemorta sicked her armored nursery on us, yet?”

  “No sign at all. Where's Llewyrch? Has he been back yet? Hit's getting to be evening.”

  “Nope, and I had the idea he'd be back here before you ones. Are we that far away from the ferry? He was just going to check and see if old Morgan or his good for nothing nephew Stanford were there, not cross the bloomin' Loxmere...”

  “Stanford won't. I could 'ave told you that. He went to Ash Fork...”

  “Well what about Morgan, then?”

  “Oh, he was ornery enough to go, all right, old skinflint, but even that crazy man Brutus wouldn't 'ave expected some withered up old hunchback to be out there a-stumbling about with a pike. Can't ye just see hit? 'Hoy you Ashforker! What kind o' coin you ones got jingling?' And speaking of seeing, Aeron, you haven't seen anything unnatural since I've been gone, have ye?”

  “'Unnatural?' Well you were the one out looking for Spitemorta. What the ding-dong blazes do you mean by 'unnatural?'“ said Aeron, pulling Jigs over the side of the road to talk without their voices carrying. “Are you saying Llewyrch ran into something like that?”

  “No, I think I'm asking you if he did. I went back five league or better to the brow of Henheath Crown, so I could look out over the countryside. There wasn't anybody to be seen, except for an old well-to-do couple 'way off heading toward Castlegoll. So I caught up with them to find them a-hurryin' to the gates before they got kept out by the new curfew...”

  “What new curfew? How come we don't know about it? We just came from there. And how come we didn't meet them? Shouldn't we have run into them earlier...?”

  “Hit was today. This morning. Spitemorta announced on her skinweleriou that there are man-killer trolls on a rampage all over the country. She said Niarg bred 'em and deliberately turned them loose...”

  “Now wait, Owain. I want to get something straight. How come we missed this well-to-do couple?”

  “They live this side of Henheath Crown, 'way off the road. They have the largest heard of cattle in all of Goll. They own all of Henheath and then some...”

  “The Buwcharglwyddi?”

  “That's right, the cow lords. And to answer your next question, they've got their very own skinweler...”

  “Why, nobody has...”

  “Not until now, anyway. But getting back to my question, have you seen anything strange? These trolls eat people and are supposed to be out at night...”

  “Oh go on! That's just Spitemorta trying to control everyone.”

  “Probably, but have you seen...?”

  “Owain, I can't swallow the crown o' Niarg would breed up a mess of trolls. The throne of Niarg was never outright mad. Hit's Spitemorta as is mad...”

  “Well, of course I know that, Aeron, but aren't we out here a-being careful? And what if just by accident the monsters really do exist and the queen's merely using them to point her finger at Niarg?”

  “But people eating trolls don't just appear out of the air. If they're real, how did they get here?”

  “Spitemorta and Demonica,” said James before sitting up to peer over the cart's sideboards.

  “My, Your Majesty!” said Aeron, turning smartly about. “You 'bout had me playing leapfrog with Jigs's rump, if ye know what I mean.”

  “So Sire, you think these trolls are real and the queen and her grandmother did hit?”

  “Oh, it's a fact,” said James as he stepped over the seat with Llafn Da and sat beside Aeron. “My sweet wife and her thoroughly dangerous grandmother brought those things by ship from the Eastern Continent.”

  “To turn loose in Goll?” said Owain. “That witch!”

  “Now you're catching on,” said James. “I don't really know but just bits and pieces which I put together from what I overheard between Spitemorta and Demonica and even from Brutus and Samuel. What I learnt from Samuel came out in a tight little discussion we had in the dungeon.”

  Suddenly they all looked up in alarm at a crashing of sticks in the brush.

  “Something's way wrong at the ford!” cried Llewyrch, hurriedly dismounting in their midst. “The ferry's gone and in hit's place there are two tents full of border guards on the Goll side. Outside of them, there's not a living soul for miles, and hasn't been for a good long spell. And not a single Elf to be had on the other side.”

  “What are you saying?” said Aeron, “old Morgan lives right there at the ford.”

  “Not now.”

  “How do you know about the Elves across the river?” said Owain.

  “Old Ned here swam and I hung on,” he said, patting his unicorn's withers. “We sw
ung well wide of the guards to avoid being seen when we crossed. Then we went a good league on into the Jut's grasslands and swung a wide arc. Hit's what took me so long. Nobody, nobody, nobody. No one's left footprints anywhere on the Niarg side for weeks, only really old ones...”

  “What kind of tracks...?”

  “What do you mean, 'what kind of tracks?' Unicorn and people, whether Elf or Human, they're too old to say...”

  “Well, did any of them look like, maybe troll?”

  “Where'd you come up with that idea? Nothing caught my eye as being anything like that...”

  “Well, that's something, then,” said Owain. “at least this involves only Elves and Humans.”

  “Unless these trolls have feet just like people!” said Aeron.

  “Oh go on!” said Llewyrch with an irritated look. “Let's not dream up extra upsets. Trolls have 'way bigger feet...”

  “Spitemorta's the worst thing,” said James. “What's the quickest way across?”

  “Righty-o, Your Majesty,” said Owain. “Shouldn't we talk as we travel?”

  Aeron gave Jigs's reins a shake.

  “So where do we cross?” said James. “We can't so much as let the border guards suspect we're out here. Where'd you cross, Llewyrch? Would that be a good place?”

  “I'd go further north. They came back into view just as I was getting to the far side. Where I came back across would work all right, but I'd leave the road a lot sooner or they might hear the racket made by the wain a-bouncing along. Hit's kind o' still. The sound of its hammering potholes carries a long way.”

  “If we went further,” said James, “would there be a shallow place where we could just ride across?”

  “I don't know of any, and I'd think if there was, everybody and his pup would be a-usin' hit.”

  They fell silent for a time, watching the countryside in shadows cast by the bright half moon as they listened to the pounding of the cart over the ruts.

  “May we rest for a bit, Your Majesty?” said Llewyrch as Aeron halted Jigs. “This wain's making me nervous. We don't want them to come looking for us. Let's pitch it off in that gully yonder. Nobody will see hit 'til morning. Let's double up on the unicorns, put the packs on Jigs and strike out across country for the river...”