Into the Green

by Charles de Lint

  "But..."

  Lammond gave Jackin's shoulder a squeeze. "You don't think one fat merchant and a pair of preening witch-finders are going to cause me that much trouble, now do you?"

  "I... no. I suppose not. At least, if you don't think they will..."

  "If you see your friend Edrie down on Bellsilver, waiting for me with a pair of horses, you can tell her that I've things well in hand."

  "I will, sir— ah, Lammond."

  "There's a lad. Now, not a word of tonight's work is to leave your lips— do I have your promise?"

  He read Jackin's face as surely as though he could read the boy's mind: how could he talk of tonight without getting himself into so much trouble with the guard that he'd not see the light of day for a very long time again— except from the windows of their gaol? There were laws in Cathal— even if they only protected those who could afford to pay the wages of those who enforced them.

  "I promise," Jackin said.

  Lammond nodded. "Until later, then," he said.

  Without waiting for a response, he turned to consider the house once more. He could hear Jackin shuffling his feet in place behind him, still hesitating.

  "You'll be the most help by passing on my message to Edrie," Lammond said without turning.

  The boy ran off down the lane then, Corser's hoyer pacing him.

  Bewitched the dog, did she? Lammond thought. It made him wonder how she was at bewitching men. Though, naturally— even if their brains were no larger than the shelled peas Lammond assumed them to be— they would have taken precautions. Bound her with iron, or locked her in an iron-plated room. Laid upon her bosom the four-tined symbol of the Dead God Dath. And didn't witch-finders have wards to protect them against the Summerborn? Something about their own abilities being a gift from Lithun?

  No matter. Neither iron nor holy symbol nor witch-ward meant a fig to him.

  Smiling to himself, he started off across the lawn.

  31

  Tom hid in the mouth of an alleyway off Bellsilver Lane at the foot of the Hill and listened to the tale the street urchin spilled to the innkeeper. He'd first hidden there when he had spied Edrie Doonan standing on the street, holding the reins of a provisioned horse in either hand. He watched her for a few moments, marking the nervous looks she cast about herself.

  What are you up to, Edrie? he wondered. Out poking about in Lowtown with Lammond d'es Teillion earlier, and now here, as nervous as a merchant who's heard that Tave Maspic has marked his goods for plunder?

  Tom wished he weren't so drunk. Perhaps then he could make sense of it all. Or conversely, he wished he were more drunk, so that he wouldn't care. But tonight, there didn't seem to be a choice but to walk in between the two.

  Half-deciding to step forward and speak with her, he'd remained hidden when he heard the patter of quick footsteps as Jackin Toss arrived. The urchin was out of breath from his run down a back lane of the Hill. What had stopped Tom, however, was neither the urchin's arrival, nor Edrie, but the presence of the hoyer that ran at Jackin's side.

  Never mind the beast's vicious nature— Tom had seen them on the battlefields of the Continent. In the Green Isles, hoyers were worth a small fortune, and this one, without a doubt, belonged to Aron Corser. No one else in Cathal had one, which was the principal reason Corser had acquired the savage creature in the first place. Acquired it and tamed it to his hand and no other.

  So what was it doing in the company of a street urchin that Corser's own witch-finders had dragged off this very afternoon?

  Tom's head ached, trying to think of it all— then ached some more as he listened to Jackin's tale. None of it made sense.

  Edrie and d'es Teillion working together to rescue a witch?

  Tom could still remember lying on his back in an alleyway, the hard stone under him, the feel of the the swordsman's blade toying with the rags of his jacket...

  Tell me a story...

  D'es Teillion had a hunger for witch-lore. For what reason, Tom didn't know— didn't care-— but with what he knew of the man, the lore d'es Teillion acquired would never be put to good use. Not when Tom considered the things d'es Teillion had done.

  The swordsman saw him as a drunk— which Tom was; as a beggar man with a faint touch of the green curse upon him— and Tom admitted to that as well. But what d'es Teillion didn't see was that once this same drunken beggar had been a soldier, serving overseas. He had seen d'es Teillion go about his bloody work then...

  This was the man who had a sudden compassion for a witch and went to rescue her? The man they called the Gentry Butcher on the Continent because he only took on assassinations of the wealthy and those in positions of power? They said he had no heart, and with what Tom had seen, he didn't doubt the truth of that rumor for a moment.

  If he closed his eyes, he could see it again: a late night on a foreign street, and there was old Tom sitting drunk in an alleyway— not a beggar then, nor even so old, just another soldier on leave who'd had a pint too many to make his way back to camp. D'es Teillion stopped the lord and his two guards on the street, directly across from the mouth of the alleyway in which Tom was sitting.

  The guards died first— d'es Teillion killed them quickly, almost negligently.

  And then he toyed with the lord.

  Cut the poor bugger to pieces.

  No clean death, that. It had been torture, plain and simple. Tom knew nothing of the man who died that night, but what evils must a man commit to deserve such a death?

  And his murderer was the man who went to rescue Angharad tonight?

  Meant to have her blood bathe his blade, more likely. Meant to steal all her witch-lore, then leave her lying in some back lane, bleeding from a hundred wounds. And who would care? She was just a witch, wasn't she?

  But whether he wanted to or not, Tom cared.

  She'd been kind to him. For no reason except that it was in her nature to do so. How was she to know the pain she woke in him? How was she to understand how the green could be a gift to some, but a curse to others?

  He could feel it stir inside him. The belling of the stag, ringing in his inner ear. If he closed his eyes, Arn's light shone bright against his eyelids, as it did from the eyes of the stag.

  Moonlight.

  And wisdom.

  And mystery.

  Oh, Tom's head ached.

  How could he help her? He wasn't a soldier any more— he wasn't even a man. How could he stand up against d'es Teillion's sword? It was a fool's dream to even consider it.

  But he remembered her kind eyes.

  He remembered the longstone in the green and the face that was etched in its stone. Other eyes— just as kind as the witch's, but infinitely more dear to him.

  The one those eyes belonged to...

  He had failed her. And no matter what he did, he could never pay the debt he owed her. The past was irrevocable. Done was done, as his dad used to say, before-

  Enough, Tom told himself. Done was done.

  He watched Jackin hurry off, the hoyer still accompanying him. Edrie stood with her horses, gazing up the lane to where Corser's house stood on the Hill.

  Done was done.

  But while the past couldn't be changed, could not past wrongs be set right? If he'd failed the one, could he not try to help the other? Might that not balance some scale? Might not the dreams finally haunt him no more?

  Oh, he would fail— he knew that. But if he could at least help Angharad escape... if he could buy her enough time to win free— even if the coin paid was his own life... would the attempt itself not count?

  I, too, lost all hope, the stag never tired of telling him. I, too, suffered.

  As had Angharad, he realized. But must she suffer more?

  He wondered if he would have the time to tell her that he had lied to her. That he remembered that traveler's tale not for the strength of the love that Cony and the beekeeper's daughter had shared, as he had told her he had, but for the same reason she remembered it as well: f
or what he had lost. For the sadness.

  All he had was the memory of love— ringed black and shadowed by what he had done.

  He moved deeper down the alleyway, taking a circuitous route that would bring him up the Hill, but well out of Edrie Doonan's sight.

  All he had was neither the love nor the sadness, but the knowledge of his own cowardice which he hadn't been able to spend in either war or the bottle.

  Perhaps he could spend it now.

  32

  Aron Corser wasn't long in coming to see the new Summerborn that his witch-finders had acquired for him.

  "She's a pretty one, isn't she?" he said as Dagor made way for him in the doorway.

  Angharad studied him in the torchlight. So here was the monster. A fat, pompous merchant, with pig's jowls and a weasel's shifty eyes. In his pudgy hands lay the fate of the green.

  She could have wept at the injustice of it, but was determined to give them no additional pleasure at the indignity she suffered. A tinker was used to the jeers of the housey-folk. They had imprisoned her body, she was damned if she'd give them her heart or her soul.

  Oh, but to lose the green...

  To lose the music her fingers called from her harp's strings...

  "A pretty one, yes," Dagor said, "but dangerous beyond the confines of this chamber."

  The witch-finder hadn't touched her while they waited for Hoth to bring the merchant down from his bed. He'd merely stood in the doorway and kept up a cheerful one-sided conversation as to what she could expect from this night's work, smirking at the stoic face she put forward.

  "Dangerous," Corser said with a titter. "Oh, yes, I know that. Though she's not so dangerous now— is she?" He nodded to Hoth. "Still, best get to it and remove her witcheries immediately. We wouldn't want her to win her way free, somehow, before we'd first procured those lovely bones."

  Angharad couldn't suppress the shiver that traveled up her spine.

  Her witcheries.

  Her fingerbones.

  Oh, Ballan, give me strength to endure.

  Hoth drew a long knife from its sheath at his belt. Cruel irony, Angharad thought, as she recognized the steel for what it was— a tinker blade.

  "Hold her, Dagor," he said to his brother by the door as he moved further into the cell.

  But there was something wrong with Dagor. Hoth and the merchant turned to look at the man's suddenly wide eyes. Dagor's mouth opened, lips trembling convulsively, and then they all saw the long length of steel that protruded from the center of his chest, the cool metal wet with his blood.

  Hoth took a step forward, tinker blade raised up in his fist. The sword length withdrew from Dagor's body. The witch-finder pitched forward, striking the metal floor directly at Angharad's feet. Filling the doorway now was Lammond d'es Teillion, bloodied sword held negligently in his hand.

  Hoth gave an inarticulate howl and charged the swordsman. Lammond flicked his blade once, and the witch-finder's blade left his hand to clang against the floor— accompanied by the fingers of the hand that had been holding it. A second flicker of the sword and Hoth's throat was opened. Blood sprayed in wide arcs as the witch-finder lifted his hands to stay the flow. A third flicker of the sword drove the blade straight into Hoth's heart. A moment later he fell to his knees, still clutching his throat, then sprawled over his brother's body.

  Lammond turned to Corser. The merchant stood cowering in a corner of the cell. Weaponless, he tugged at the pouch that was tied to his belt. When he had it free, he offered it up to the swordsman.

  "T-take it..."

  Lammond's eyebrows rose to ask the question his voice did not.

  "It... th-there's a fortune—"

  Lammond's sword flickered out once more, cutting the pouch free so that all the merchant held was its strings. The pouch fell to the floor and spilled its contents across the floor. Angharad stared at the tumble of fingerbones that lay there.

  "I think not," Lammond said.

  "Th-the guard..."

  "Will do nothing. Who is summoning them? And there are no witnesses, now, are there? Do you think I'll run to tell them of the night's work? Or will your prisoner?"

  "I... I..."

  The man fairly blubbered with panic. His eyes bulged, showing their whites. His fat body shook. ]Looking at him, Angharad could almost feel pity. But then her gaze moved to the spill of fingerbones that lay on the floor of the cell, and all pity fled.

  "Such a cozy place you have here," Lammond said.

  "I'll wager sound doesn't carry far from it. Wouldn't want to trouble your loving family with the screams of those you're torturing here below, now would you?"

  "P-please..."

  The sword in Lammond's hand moved back and forth in a short arc. From time to time a drop of blood made its way to the very tip and fell free.

  "Let me tell you a story," Lammond said. "It might amuse you. There was a man once and he had three sisters. Their father had run off; their mother had died of a sickness—" He gave Corser a serious look. "This will happen, you understand, in the squalor of a slum. A place like Cathal's Lowtown. Though of course, being wealthy, you'd be able to afford the best healers, wouldn't you? So this is all foreign to you."

  "I... I don't... "

  "Patience, now. It's not a long story, nor a particularly original one. The man was the youngest child— a good six years junior to the youngest of his sisters. And they were beautiful, those sisters— almost as beautiful as your prisoner, here. Do you know what happened to them?"

  "N-no. I... "

  "Why, lords used them. One was twelve, one was fourteen, and one was fifteen. And the lords used them. Came drunk to the slum where the four of them lived; spied them and thought, won't we have some fun with these urchins? For who would care what they did with these children? Would you care, merchant?"

  Corser bobbed his head eagerly. "Oh, yes. I would—"

  The sword flickered up to dance before the merchant's eyes. Lammond's own gaze was dark with sudden anger.

  "Don't lie to me. Never lie to me."

  "I... I... "

  "You wouldn't care," Lammond said then, continuing in a calm voice once more. "As they didn't. And didn't they have a time, that night? There were six of them— six drunken lords. And when the children protested, why, they'd hit them. Wouldn't you, merchant? To stop their damnable wailing?"

  "I... "

  "And if events grew somewhat out of hand and one of the children were to die... well, it was no great loss, was it? Street urchins come a dozen for the penny, don't they? And what if that death were somehow... amusing? What if violence grew more appealing than carnal pleasure? Wouldn't it be... interesting to see how long it took another to die? To cut her once. And again. And again, until she bled from a hundred wounds and still lived? Wouldn't that be something?"

  "I... I never... "

  Lammond shrugged. "So they died— all three of them."

  He fell silent then, his expression still mild, his gaze fixed on the merchant who continued to cower against the wall, blubbering and sobbing. Back and forth wove the blade in his hand, tip pointed at the floor, the occasional drop of blood still falling from it, glistening in the torchlight.

  "And the man?" Angharad asked finally. "The man that was that boy? What happened to him?"

  For she understood Lammond's story. She knew whose sisters had died so tragically.

  The swordsman glanced at her. "Well, he was lucky, wasn't he? He'd been hidden by his sisters in a cupboard of that hovel, hidden when the lords first came hammering at their door. He got to watch the whole affair through a knothole. He survived."

  "Lucky?" Angharad said softly. "I don't think so."

  Lammond shrugged again. "It all depends on your perspective, Ann Netter."

  Angharad shivered at the calmness of his tone. There was an almost beatific look in his eyes— an otherworldliness that had nothing to do with the green.

  "I... I don't understand," Corser said finally. "What does... does th
is have to do with me?..."

  "I think it's rather simple," Lammond said. "You're all the same, aren't you? Lords and merchants alike. You buy whatever you need, and if you can't buy it, then you take it."

  "I never hurt a child like that... "

  Corser's voice trailed off as he glanced at Angharad.

  Lammond's eyebrows rose quizzically. "Nor a witch?"

  "B-but... "

  "Of course," Lammond said. "They're not human, are they? Doesn't matter their age. They're witches. You would never hurt some poor urchin child, would you?"

  "I... "

  "You would never make a profit from the suffering of others, would you?"

  "I'm... sorry... "

  Lammond smiled. "I'm sure you are— at this moment. But it makes little difference, given your past history, given what you were about to do to this woman in this very room. Though of course it wasn't to be your hands wielding the knife blade, was it? You'd merely stand by and... watch."

  "No. That is... "

  "We're much alike, you and I," Lammond said. "We both make our livings from the suffering of others." He lifted his sword until its tip was inches from Corser's eyes. "I hire myself out to rid the world of vermin such as yourself. It's"— he smiled—"what I do. Happily, there are those who will pay me for my work. Pay me well."

  "Wh-who... ?"

  "Hired me to kill you? Why, no one. You brought this on yourself. Occasionally— when I'm bored, and there doesn't come an assignment for a while— I work for myself. For you see, whether I'm paid to or not, I mean to rid all the world of your kind."

  Angharad had been studying him as he spoke. He was mad, of course. It was a terrible thing that had happened to his sisters— a terrible thing that the six-year-old he had been had seen what he'd seen. He had survived, yes, but not with an intact mind.

  She considered the merchant, trying to decide if she should attempt to stay Lammond's killing stroke. But when she looked at the fingerbones spilled upon the floor of the cell, when she remembered his amusement as his men had been ready to go about their work, she found that she couldn't.