The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards

by N. D. Wilson

  James hooked his legs on a crossbeam and dangled upside down, smiling at his mother. She smiled but shook her head. Isa covered her mouth. And then the expression on her brother’s face changed.

  Frank watched James swing upright, hop onto the crossbeam, and shinny up to the very top of the mast. There was no barrel crow’s nest. He hung with one leg and one arm hooked around the pole and held his free hand out from his temple to block the sun.

  The mob below, for the most part, didn’t notice. A few had begun to climb rigging to the other masts. Others were ripping at the deck saplings and throwing them overboard. Meroe was still shouting and bullying men into wakefulness.

  A long, sharp whistle from James drew Meroe’s eyes up.

  “Sails!” James shouted. “A pair!”

  For a moment, the deck calmed, and then a mob of shouting men rushed to the rail to strain their eyes at two shapes on the horizon.

  “Empire red!” James’s words carved a silent moment into the crowd below him.

  Meroe’s voice ripped through it. “All backs, belowdecks!” He moved through the crowd like a giant, slapping heads as he went. “Pull oars for open sea!”

  Men ducked away from him, but no one moved toward the ladders.

  “Below!” he roared again.

  A tall, slender man jumped onto the leaf-covered rail. He scowled at Meroe and then looked back to the coastline.

  “Enough of oars!” he shouted, and dove into the sea. More men followed quickly after, and more after them. The press at the rail grew, and bodies tumbled, dove, and somersaulted off the ship in dozens. All the while, Meroe raged, and as those who had at first held back saw how few their numbers were, they, too, ducked beneath and around the anger of their bearded captain and lunged out into air and then the sea.

  It was the closest thing to a stampede that Frank had ever seen, and all of it took no more than a minute. James and Meroe stood together in the center deck, and only slender aspens stood with them. The rail had given way under the rush, and now it leaned, split in places, off the side of the ship. Hundreds of bodies flailed and splashed in the water, struggling toward land that was farther away than it had looked from the deck.

  “No more than half will reach it,” Meroe said. “Less.”

  “How many would have lived free if they’d stayed?” James asked.

  Meroe said nothing. His hope was splashing away.

  Frank turned to Monmouth and nodded toward the stairs. Dotty and Hyacinth and the girls were already descending from the bow.

  Standing at the rail, with the rustling of leaves and the snapping of sails to fill the silence, the small group looked at each other. Meroe stared at the sea and the distant cliffs.

  “This is trouble,” Frank said. He reached out and took Dotty’s hand. “Hot and fresh and that’s for sure.” Meroe looked back at him, and his eyes were empty. He lifted one leg to the rail.

  “Hold now,” Frank said, grabbing his arm. “Jump if you like, but you have a head as well as your bulk, and you’re not built for swimming. Where will our wits get us?”

  “Chained, like as not,” Meroe said. He flared his nostrils and looked from the water beneath him to the sails on the horizon. He lowered his foot from the leafy rail. “My first craft, and captained for a single night.” He turned to James. “Spread every thread of sail. We run straight at them.”

  Henrietta sat up suddenly in her blankets, unsure of where she was. Beo was whining, scratching at the door. The inn. The little room was even dingier in the daylight than it had been the night before. Zeke was already gone. So was Henry. And her backpack. BACK SOON, H was carved into the door.

  “No, they didn’t,” she said, and jumped to her feet. She pulled the door open, and Beo tumbled into the hall, sniffing.

  Zeke was walking up the stairs, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “Where’s Henry?” Henrietta asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Not much now,” Zeke said. “But a lot last night. A galley got burned and sunk, and there was fighting in the streets. Zeb says the townspeople will lay low until tonight and then go for the other galley. Everyone’s hoping Caleb will show up and get the city guard organized. I don’t know where Henry is.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know.” Zeke reached the hall and stood beside her, scratching Beo’s ears. “I saw the note, the same as you.”

  “Back soon?” Henrietta sneered. “What kind of note is that? He could be doing anything.”

  “Could be,” Zeke said. “Are you going to take the dog out, or should I?”

  Henrietta looked down at Beo, her pillow through the night. He seemed frantic. Clearly in need.

  “I’ll do it,” she said, and she walked down the stairs, whistling for the dog. Whining, with his nose in the air, Beo thumped down behind her. At the bottom, she stopped. The front door was open, and two men cautiously slipped out, carrying a long shape wrapped in cloth—man-size and bending in the middle. Outside, the men trundled it quickly into the bed of a wagon and tucked it beneath a canvas tarp. More shapes waited in a row beside the door.

  Blinking, she hardly noticed that Beo had slipped past her until the black pony-dog shot out the front door and was gone.

  “Beo!” Henrietta yelled. “Sorry,” she said to the men loading the wagon, and she ran out of the inn just in time to see Beo galloping across the square.

  Slapping bare feet on cold cobbles, Henrietta began to run after him. Henry had said that Beo knew the way. They were supposed to follow him into the hills to the Chestnut King. He couldn’t just run off.

  “Beo!” she yelled again, and then slowed, panting. The dog disappeared into an alley mouth. This was her fault. Henry probably wouldn’t say it, but he would think it. Why hadn’t she paid attention? Not that she could have stopped a dog that size anyway, if he really wanted to be somewhere else. But he’d always obeyed her, ever since her long trek with Caleb and his men.

  Maybe he would come back. Henrietta raised her hands to her face and pushed back her hair. It fell forward again, too short to stay tucked behind her ears. She had the horrible feeling of having slept in her clothes, along with the stiffness of having slept on the floor, combined with the loud smell of dog. And now she was sweating, and her hair was awful, and Beo was gone.

  She shaded her eyes against the low sun and stared at the other side of the square, hoping to see a big, galloping Beo erupt from some street or other. Hoping that he’d just needed to stretch his enormous legs.

  The sun glinted on a tall man’s silver helmet. She turned. It glinted on three silver helmets. The men in black entered the square, and each turned in place, looking for something, sensing. Smelling. One held an ax, another carried a long sword on his back. After a moment, the three walked quickly across the square, toward the street where Beo had gone.

  Henrietta’s feet staggered backward. “Oh no,” she said quietly. “No.” Biting her lip, she turned and ran to the battered inn.

  Henry tromped slowly around the outside of the city wall. He didn’t want to try to get back in through the same gate, past the same soldiers. Most of the day, this side of the city would be cool and damp, a place for moss to grow in shadow. But now the morning sun pounded against the smooth stone face of the wall, and Henry walked beside it.

  He hadn’t eaten anything. He hadn’t had anything to drink, and his back was soaking with sweat where the pack, bulging with a warm breathing body, pressed against it. And the tip of the black scabbard banged into his thigh with every step. He stuck out his tongue and caught a drip of sweat off the tip of his nose. His father had said to wait no more than a day. But Henry wanted to eat breakfast and leave. It was taking every inch of his willpower to keep from clawing at his jaw, the only cold—painfully cold—spot on his body. He hoped Zeke and Henrietta were up and ready. He could leave a note for his father with Zeb.

  The raggant bellowed in his ear.

  Henry stopped and looked around. Crickets were buz
zing in the tall grass, but he could hear nothing else. And then Beo appeared from around a bend in the wall, running like a giant greyhound. The animal overshot Henry, turned, and looped around, rolled onto his back, writhed for a second, and jumped to his feet. Henry waited. Henrietta and Zeke had to be behind him. Where were they?

  Beo nosed Henry in the belly, forcing him to stagger backward. Then the dog turned and began to trot away from the city toward the hills. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at Henry. His tree-branch tail wasn’t wagging. He wasn’t playing. After a moment, he trotted back, sealed his lolling tongue in his mouth, and stared up into Henry’s eyes with his ears forward.

  “Where’s Henrietta?” Henry asked. “What’s going on?”

  Beo walked behind Henry and butted into the back of his legs. Then he bit Henry on the ankle.

  Henry jumped forward and spun around. “Ow! Beo! We can’t start now. I have to eat something. We need Zeke and Henrietta. I want to bring the cupboard.”

  Beo crouched and curled back his lips, ready to bite again. But he didn’t need to. The raggant bit Henry on the ear and didn’t let go. Yelling, Henry twisted and slapped at the animal. He tripped and fell to his knees. With his mouth open in pain, he managed to get his hands back around the raggant’s head. Gripping its blunt horn and lower jaw, he pried the creature off. Furious, he began to shrug off the pack, but Beo filled his mouth with the hood of Henry’s sweatshirt and tugged him onto his side. Knocking the dog away, Henry stood up.

  “Fine,” he said, keeping his head away from the squirming raggant on his back. “Fine. I’ll come. And let’s hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Beo bounded away through the tall grass, toward the hills. Henry stuck his thumbs in his pack straps to keep the raggant from thumping against him and began to jog after the dog, watching his feet, picking his way around stones and boulders and the occasional scrub tree as he went. Beo never let him get within fifty yards. He would perch on a bank or a log, sniffing at the air while Henry struggled to catch up. And then he would jump down and tear away.

  By the time the pitch of the ground had finally steepened into a true slope, Henry’s legs were burning, and twin knives were digging into his sides. The pack straps were digging into his shoulders, and his thigh was tender where the sword tip had been counting his steps. Henry staggered to a stop beneath a tree and whistled at the dog. Above him, the trees thickened, and a track of rubble like a creek bed lined the fold between the two halves of the hill.

  The raggant was wheezing in his pack. Henry unslung him and set the thing in the shade.

  “What’s your problem?” Henry asked, rubbing his legs. “You’re not doing anything.”

  Beo appeared well above Henry on the hill. He barked.

  “Hold on!” Henry yelled. He pulled his sweatshirt over his head and double-tied the arms around his waist. Then he turned and looked back down the hill at the city of Hylfing, sitting on its small plain between the mountains and the sea. Were Zeke and Henrietta down there? What were they doing? Probably eating breakfast. They had their own plan. He remembered the first time he had ever seen the city—in a blustering storm, pounded by lightning, un-breaking. Parts of it were still blackened from that struggle, and one spot, on one of the city’s hills, was blackened from a newer fight. But this time, Caleb and Mordecai were not within the walls, and red-shirts ruled. Hylfing had fallen.

  Again, Beo barked. He kept barking. He was coming back down the slope. Henry picked up his pack, and the raggant grunted. He eased his arms into the straps, raised the weight slowly to his sweaty back, and turned away from the city, his city.

  “I’m coming, Beo.” His legs weren’t easy to start, but he did it. “No biting. You, too, Rags.” He glanced over his shoulder. Something moved on the slope below him. The sun had glinted against something bright. While Henry watched, a man rose from behind a large stone. He stood, realizing that he’d been seen, and the sun shone on his helmet. A sword handle like Henry’s sprouted above his shoulder. Two other men rose beside him. They couldn’t have been more than three hundred yards away.

  Henry’s blood ran cold. They’d been stalking him. What had happened to Zeke and Henrietta? Anger and frustration and fear and humiliation all throbbed inside him. He was sick of making mistakes, sick of being surprised and hunted and beaten. He was sick of surviving. He could draw his sword and run back down the hill. Beo would fight with him. He could die right now. No more dreams, no more fear of death. Death itself might be better. His father would find some way to beat the witch. Henry reached up and gripped the sword strapped to his backpack. The fingerlings watched him do it.

  Beo thumped to a stop beside him, and a growl rolled out of his chest. Henry couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not unless he had to, and he still might have to. He had no idea how far away the chestnut tree was, only that it was probably much farther than he would like. His father had given him a job. His mother and family were on their way to the witch. He couldn’t just die to get it over with. He wanted his death to hurt the witch; he wanted it to push her that much closer to the brink of her own nothingness.

  Turning, Henry dropped his hand from the sword and began to run. His legs, which had felt like mud, fired with adrenaline. The knives disappeared from his sides, and hunger was forgotten. Beo loped in front of him, slashing back and forth across the hillside to cut the angle. But Henry, chin down and lungs pumping, gutted his way straight up the hillside, over rocks and logs. He could never keep up the pace, not for more than a few minutes, if that. Even adrenaline runs out. But now, with fury and fear fanning the flames, the only race he could run was a sprint. They wouldn’t catch him. Not now. Not ever.

  The trees were growing closer together, the spotted hillside was becoming a ridge, and the ridge was becoming a wood. Henry threw up his arms and plunged into brush, behind the black shape of his uncle’s dog.

  Antilly Johnson hurried through the streets of Henry, Kansas. She didn’t know what else to do or where to go. When she turned toward the old Willis barn, she stopped. Patrol cars surrounded the property with their lights flashing. Beyond them, enormous news vans blocked the street, and a burned-out wheat field had been turned into a parking lot. A crowd hundreds strong blocked her view of anything more than the swirling lights, but there was water running in the street.

  Tilly would have normally ducked away. She hated crowds. But she couldn’t. Not now. She moved around a line of cars parked against the curb—a few of them with out-of-state plates—and shouldered her way into the back of the crowd.

  She tried saying “excuse me,” but no one noticed; no one moved out of her way. So she dug her arms in between laughing, shouting, or tiptoeing people and forced herself through the seams.

  The ground became softer as she went, and soon mud was slopping over the tops of her shoes and sucking at her feet when she lifted them. The front of the crowd was being held back by a blend of cop cars and cops, yellow tape, and camera crews. Some fat kid with freckles was standing in front of a very proud-looking father, staring into a camera lens and mumbling into a microphone.

  The Willis property was a swamp. From the road to the irrigation ditch was sloppy with water. The hole where the house had been was invisible. A short waterfall splashed inches above the swamp’s surface, spreading ripples in every direction. The old barn looked like it was floating.

  Behind the barn, a mob of farmers was arguing with state troopers while two backhoes worked to keep the water out of the irrigation ditch.

  “Salt water!” an old farmer screamed, and he threw his cap into the flood. The crowd laughed.

  Tilly pushed her way toward the closest state trooper. “Sir,” she yelled. “I’m sorry. I tried to call.”

  He put his hand to his ear and moved closer to her. “What’s that?”

  “I tried to call—”

  The trooper dropped his hand and nodded, smiling and pointing at the news vans. “Channel Four took out a pole.”

  “I trie
d to call the hospital!” Tilly yelled. “My mother won’t wake up, and she’s having trouble breathing. I need an ambulance!”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The captain stood on deck, watching the green and leafy galley chop methodically through the waves toward his own pair of ships. The galley was moving slower than he would have expected with so much cloth spread to the wind, but then he didn’t know what to expect from a five-tiered craft sprouting with branches and flickering leaves. He was an old man, a sailor almost from his birth. His beard was whitened with sun and salt, his eyes had bleached to a pale blue, and his bones were as toughened as the ship’s beams beneath him. He had been a ship’s boy, a hand, a gunner, a mutineer, a merchant, a galley slave, a commander of fleets, all before he had become the pirate that he now was. He had gone down into the sea with a ship’s wreckage more times than he could count, and had seen more of the sea’s secrets than he cared to tell about. But he had never seen anything like this.

  His ship was a three-tiered galley, pirated in one of the southern seas. Two black guns, roughly forged, burdened its upper deck, and a crew of thieves and murderers and men conscripted from the harbor inns of three continents pulled oars for him.

  His other ship was a little merchant vessel taken only the day before, sailing with a sparse crew until a new crop of men could be gathered in the harbors. Both of his ships flew the imperial flag. He could think of no reason why they shouldn’t. It was his business to do to ships what the emperor did to countries. And he did not think of himself as a pirate. He was simply a servant of the sea, and he took whatever it gave him.

  He nodded slightly, and a young sailor beside him began to twitch and swing the signal flags at the little merchant ship. It was the faster vessel and nearer to the strange galley. After a moment, bright flags waved on the merchant’s stern.