The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards

by N. D. Wilson

  “I do not know Darius,” Coradin said. “But the queen has no life to lose. Still your tongue. No more words.”

  “She has some kind of life,” Henrietta said. “And she’ll lose it.”

  Coradin drew the sword over his shoulder and twisted in his seat, setting the butt against the back of Henrietta’s head. He raised it.

  “Okay, okay,” Henrietta said. “I’ll be quiet.”

  The man began to resheath his sword.

  “You are going to die, though,” Henrietta added.

  In one motion, the big man’s arm came down and around. For the second time that night, the sword hilt cracked against Henrietta’s skull. For the second time that night, she forgot that the world existed. She forgot who she was or that she was. She knew nothing.

  Frank sat cross-legged watching the flames dance in three galley lanterns on the planks in front of him. Beams popped, and aspen leaves brushed against his arms as the ship rode the sea’s uneven back. They were all gathered around, all watching the lights. And they had all eaten, but not much. Crusts and cheese had been dropped through the hatch before dark. Most of a night had passed since then.

  Meroe groaned. His shirt was off, and the wound in his side had already begun to seep through the fresh bandage Hyacinth had bound tight around his middle. He pressed a fist against it and inhaled deeply. His face calmed.

  “Dad,” Penelope said. “What’s going to happen to us?” She was leaning on her mother.

  “Couldn’t say,” Frank said.

  “Nothing good,” said Dotty.

  Frank leaned over and kissed Dotty on the cheek.

  “Frank Willis,” she said. “I can’t remember when we’ve been in worse trouble.”

  “Can’t you now?” he asked. “I think that I can. Dots, love, we’ve held hands a little closer to death’s brink than this.”

  James plucked himself an aspen sapling and stripped off its leaves. Monmouth yawned and stretched out on his back.

  “I should swim,” Meroe said. “Out the death hatch below. This captain will not free us.”

  “Trailing blood out of that wound?” Frank asked. “You’d be chumming for sharks and every other meat-eater.”

  Isa sighed and leaned her head on Hyacinth’s shoulder.

  “How long since we heard a sailor’s tread?” James asked. “We should go above.”

  “Soon,” Frank said.

  “We are still sailing south. South.” James bent the aspen, but it did not break. He cinched the slender trunk into a knot and threw it into the shadows. “The morning will see us in Dumarre.”

  “What will they do with us in Dumarre?” Isa asked.

  “Nothing good,” Dotty said again.

  “Monmouth,” Penelope said. “Do you have another forest in you?”

  The slight wizard sighed and tucked his hands beneath his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t know that I had the first one. What good would it do?”

  Hyacinth began to hum quietly. It was a song from her own childhood, a song her mother had sung, standing on the roof of her house, watching the sea, waiting for the return of her father.

  Frank leaned his head back against a timber and breathed slowly. He reached out and pulled his wife and daughter against him. The tune was distant and familiar. When Hyacinth began to softly sing the words, he knew their meaning, though the language was long forgotten, nothing more than a painful memory of childhood lessons. The song was full of sweetness, thirsting for reunion, sorrowful, bending beneath separation.

  Frank shut his eyes and listened to the creaking ship. He listened to the gentle lilt in Hyacinth’s voice and Penelope’s breathing as she sank into sleep.

  James stood up, and Frank opened his eyes. His nephew looked at him and then looked at Meroe. Frank nodded. Meroe nodded.

  “Monmouth,” James said quietly. He tucked a long knife into the small of his back. “Come with me.”

  The wizard quickly found his feet, and the two of them moved away. They did not climb the ladder. They both disappeared down into the floor, down into the slave hold, down to the death hatch.

  The water was barely cool, and its temperature told James just how far south they had already come. Too far. The currents were mixing. Before long, the water would be warm. He bobbed beneath the surface, filled his mouth, and then spat out the salt water against the ship’s side. Monmouth slid through the water beside him. The moon was low, scraping its light across the sea and painting the aspen galley silver. In the east, the horizon had begun to gray.

  Kicking his legs, James surged up against the hull and grabbed two fistfuls of young aspens. He twisted them quickly around his wrists, braced his feet against wet wood, and began to climb.

  For Monmouth, it seemed easy. The aspens never gave way in his hands. But James struggled, constantly slipping as his slender holds tore free from the ship’s side. By the time one hand had reached the rail, he was fighting to keep his breath even and quiet, praying that he wouldn’t fall and rouse any sailors with his splash.

  Monmouth slipped over the rail like something part snake and part cat. Clenching oak instead of aspen, James pulled himself up in time to see Monmouth lowering a body gently down beside the double tiller. James rolled softly over the rail and sat on the deck, breathing hard.

  Monmouth held up four fingers and pointed down the length of the ship. In the moonlight, James could see two bodies stretched out in sleep, and two more sitting beside the deck hatch, swords across their knees.

  Drawing his knife, James crept forward to the stairs and moved silently down to the center deck.

  Henry sat in the sun. His dream was fuzzy around the edges but crystal clear where it needed to be. The baseball diamond was almost perfect. Almost. The infield was grass, and the reddish earth of the base paths was freshly combed beneath crisp chalk lines. The outfield fence was boarded and painted with local sponsors. Those kept changing for some reason. His subconscious mind was having trouble settling on endorsements. The bleachers were changing, too, from a few aluminum rows behind home plate to stands that would work better in a minor-league park and everything in between.

  The dandelions were a bigger problem. At first they’d sprouted everywhere. He’d worked at it, and now they disappeared whenever he looked at them. But as soon as he looked away, he just knew the outfield was erupting with gold.

  He was standing on the pitching mound.

  Three more problems. He had no glove. He had no ball. He had no players.

  He tried to make a glove appear, but his mind wasn’t buying it. The stupid cop had his glove, and no dreaming could get it back. And he didn’t know where his baseball was. The bald faerie had probably taken it. Again, his mind knew the ball was gone and wouldn’t help out with any imagining. And players … why couldn’t he conjure up players? One of them could bring a ball and some bats, and he could borrow a glove.

  He stared at the plate and tried to imagine a catcher. Something moved in his periphery, off in the completely golden left field. He turned, and the dandelions rushed into hiding.

  It was his grandmother. She walked slowly, and her eyes were closed. The sun was on her face and playing in her braided hair.

  Henry smiled, watching her face while she walked toward him. She stopped on the grass beside the mound and opened her eyes.

  “Your hair is really white,” Henry said. “Are you actually here?”

  She smiled at him, and for some reason, both joy and sadness mingled in her eyes. Then she nodded.

  Henry laughed. “The faerie said no one could dream-walk into this place.”

  “Nothing could keep me away,” his grandmother said. “Not from this. Though I do not dream-walk.”

  “Not from what?” Henry asked. He stepped off the mound and sat down in the grass.

  His grandmother smiled. “Thirteen years ago, at this dark hour of the morning, a boy child came into the world. Your mother, Hyacinth, sang over you, weak from the struggle but flushed with the triumph. And
when I saw you in your father’s arms, I wept.” She lowered herself to the grass beside Henry. “You fought your mother long, but when you came, you were as swift as a sunburst.”

  “Today is my birthday,” Henry said. Sadness rolled over him. He’d forgotten. And he’d pictured a feast like the one at his christening. Aunt Dotty had promised him pies. “Wait.” He looked into his grandmother’s face. “You’re talking. Are you sure you’re real? You’ve never been able to talk in a dream.”

  “For me,” his grandmother said, “this is no dream. I am as real as I have ever been.”

  Henry sat perfectly still. Something heavy sank inside him. Something he refused to look at or think about. “What’s going on?” he asked, and his voice was quiet.

  His grandmother squeezed his hand. “A dream-walker returns to the body when the dream is done.”

  Henry shut his eyes. He wanted to wake up. He didn’t want to hear any more. It wasn’t true. He was making it up. The faerie said no one could come. Suddenly, he could see his grandmother’s face as it had been in the witch’s garden—weak and pale. He opened his eyes, shocked.

  His grandmother’s eyes were wet.

  “I did this,” he said. Grief surged up inside him. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have gone into the garden. I shouldn’t have gone into her dream. You didn’t want me to; you tried to stop me.” He shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Shhh,” his grandmother said, and she slid closer to him. Her arms went around his shoulders. “You were right to challenge her. I am an old woman, fearful for her grandson. I forgot who you are. I should not have tried to stop you.”

  Henry opened his eyes and sat up, breathing hard. “But you died.”

  His grandmother smiled. “I die.”

  “Then we can stop it,” Henry said. “You can go back to your body. The raggant almost died.”

  “Henry,” his grandmother said. “Long your grandfather has waited for me. He was taken by this same witch, when your father was young. And when your father was imprisoned by the faeren, I wandered too far in search of him. My soul and body were torn. In life I am blind; in dreaming, mute. My waking mind staggers along its road, and my speech is cloudy. Look at me, am I not becoming whole again? The last strand stretches between body and soul, it is tearing even now. I must journey after my husband and elder sons and all those who have carried my love and gone before.”

  “But you’ll be dead,” Henry said.

  “In one world,” said his grandmother. “But not in another. Would you have me for another Nimiane? Flesh afraid to pass to dust? A seed fearful of the flower?”

  Henry shook his head. “But what will I do?” he asked. “How can I tell my dad? Will I ever see him again? I can’t even get through a dream by myself.”

  Grandmother smiled. “You have gotten through more than dreams. You have done well, and your blood suits you. Do not do as I did. Do not forget who you are.”

  “Who am I?” Henry asked. “I’m a boy with nightmares, a burned hand, a witch’s blood in my face, and her voice in my head.”

  Henry’s grandmother tipped up his chin and stared into his eyes. “You are Henry York Maccabee, seventh son of Mordecai Westmore, seventh son of Amram Iothric, in the line long faithful to the Old King, bone from my own bone, blood from my own blood. You are the pride of your father and the glory of your mother, a fire green and gold and a curse to darkness.” She dropped her hand. “May you never need to be told again.”

  Henry sat silently, trying to find words, trying to feel like anything more than a beat-up kid.

  “Henry,” Grandmother said quietly. “I have already visited your father this night and kissed his hand and kissed his head. I have wiped his tears.”

  Henry fought back a sob and bit his lip. “Where is he? What’s he doing?”

  “Caleb and Mordecai, my two sons of thunder, look down on the city of Dumarre. But you shall see them soon enough.”

  “I will?” Henry asked.

  Grandmother nodded. “You will. But now it is time for your birthday gift, and then you must wake.”

  “Why?” Henry asked. “I don’t want to wake up. I want to stay with you. I don’t want a gift.”

  Grandmother’s eyebrows rose, though she smiled. “You must wake because your name awaits, and your blood is called. You must have a gift because I must give one.”

  She stood and pulled Henry to his feet. The field was all dandelions, but Henry didn’t care. Again Grandmother took Henry’s face in her hands and smiled into his eyes. She wiped his tears with her thumbs, and then she leaned forward and kissed him on the head. Turning his face, she stared at his jaw, and then bent and pressed warm lips to his cold burn.

  Straightening, she lifted his right hand. “Sweet boy,” she said, and then laughed with beautiful, wet eyes. “You are a prince among weeds.” She kissed the back of his hand and then his palm where the dandelion bloomed. “It is your birthday, and here is your blessing. For you may the weak have love and the strong have fear. For you may the darkness break. May your life be a truth, and your death a glory. It is your birthday, and here is your gift.” She lifted his necklace from his shirt and gripped the worn silver pendant. “What strength I have left in this world is yours. What love I have left in this world is yours. What courage, what sight, what joy, what hope, all that remains of me and in me, all that remains of your grandfather now becomes yours. You are heir to it all. May it strengthen your arm and brighten your fire.”

  Henry felt heat rush into him, the heat of a lifetime of summers, the laughter of a lifetime of feasts, the love of wind and grandchildren. He felt old, like ripened grain, like the burned field, and young as the morning.

  His grandmother was gone, gone from his dream, gone from the world. He opened his eyes and blinked up at the empty blue sky.

  “The young green wakes with tears on his cheeks,” a deep voice said. “I am impatient for my gift.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Henry sat up, blinking. He was on the crest of a very large hill. A landscape of emerald pastures divided by hedges and streams and lanes was spread out beneath him. Beyond the pastures, sprawling to the horizon, there was a forest of finger-leaved trees. Behind Henry, a square tower loomed, crowning the great hill. It seemed empty at its base. Each face was arched with a doorway, meeting in a hollow, vaulted center.

  Across from Henry, seated on a living chair plumed with broad-fingered chestnut leaves, a huge faerie with a beard on his chest and a belly on his lap was fingering Henry’s baseball. His hair and beard were deep brown, and wrinkles traced lines on his skin like a wood grain. He looked up at Henry, and his eyes were long tunnels that led through lifetimes. He pulled a red handkerchief out of a pocket and flicked it into the air. It flared its four corners and settled slowly onto Henry’s lap.

  “Dry your eyes, little green,” the big faerie said. “And then we will speak of your father’s gift.”

  Henry took the red cloth and set it on the couch beside him. He felt no shame in the tears on his cheeks. None at all. They would dry themselves. Sorrow still ached inside him, but there was more than sorrow. He felt full, crowded with blood and heat. And he felt calm. There was new strength inside him, and he was wealthy with a love for the world, for the smell of the breeze and the texture of the stone, for the height of the hill and the deep moss green of the fields that spread beneath him, for the gently journeying clouds wandering far from their mother the sea. He had smelled his aunt Dotty baking bread and heard his mother singing in her garden, he had stood beside his father and his uncles, he had seen his sisters smile and heard his cousins laugh, he had felt a ball hit the sweet, sweet spot on a wooden bat, and he had held a breathing frog in his hands. He had seen the raggant fly. These things and a thousand others made him rich. A quiet song was pulsing through him, a dandelion telling its story of ash made green and green made gold. A story of death and separation, of strength and reunion and death aga
in. The story was his name.

  Henry couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could only sit, and with every sense and more straining inside him, he could feel.

  “You, lad, have a strange look about you,” the faerie said. “The world is in your eyes.”

  Henry blinked and inhaled slowly, and filling his lungs was like walking through a quiet, whispering crowd.

  “You are Nudd,” he said. “The Chestnut King.”

  “You would call your king by his name?” a voice said behind Henry. Jacques stepped into view, and his bald head was flushed with anger.

  “He is not my king,” Henry said, looking up. “He is my brother.”

  Sputtering, Jacques raised his hand to slap Henry, but the big king laughed.

  “Jacques, begone with you and your anger. I would speak with my little brother.”

  The bald faerie froze, and the color faded from his face. He sniffed and adjusted his eye patch.

  “Jacques …,” the king said, and the faerie turned on his heel and walked silently back into the tower. He wound quickly through three of the doorways and disappeared.

  When he was gone, the king set the baseball down on a low table beside him and laced his fingers together on his belly.

  “Jacques is right,” he said. “You do thieve a liberty. But my faeren underestimate your weed. The little golden lion can do more than roar, as you have shown many.”

  Henry’s eyes were on the low table. The baseball sat beside Nimroth’s remaining tattered pages, two or three at best. Coradin’s sword was leaning against the table, and Henry’s hoodie hung from its hilt. But it was something else that really held his attention—a folded piece of paper, loosely open, with a wilted dandelion draped around it.

  “My letter,” Henry said. “How did you get my letter?”

  “Ah,” the king said, looking down. “How do I acquire many things? Few among the lesser faeren believe that I ever lived, let alone that I still draw breath. There is little difficulty in sending my own among them. Even less when they are slight, such as Thorn.”