Straw Into Gold

by Gary D. Schmidt

  "If it be folly, Lord Beryn, it is folly on my head and mine alone. We will send the boy to bring back the riddle's answer."

  Surprised and angry, Lord Beryn rose to stand beside the king. I was amazed at how large he was. His shoulders topped the king's head, and the black hair that bearded him made the king look almost like a boy. "Any number of answers will do for such a riddle," he growled."It is folly to do what you are doing."

  "Only one answer will do," insisted the king.

  Lord Beryn grunted and turned to me. His hand reached out across the table like a bear's, and grabbing my shirt, he yanked me to him. "And is this the boy to find the answer, then?" He looked at me and laughed. "This puny boy, to answer a king's riddle?" The Great Lords roared.

  And then, suddenly, Lord Beryn was staring at the chain Da had put around my neck, then at my face, then back at the chain. His own face was a contortion. Then, with a rough pull, he covered the chain with my shirt.

  "Majesty," Lord Beryn said, "perhaps your first thought was the best. Perhaps this boy does indeed show himself the rebel, and he should be held."

  "Rebel or not, he will have his chance to solve the riddle. There is the king's word on it."

  "Then, my lord, let me add my merriment to the issue." Another Great Lord rose—already he swayed with drink—and motioned to the soldier who had led me in. He whispered into his ear, swaying the while, and in a moment the soldier was gone.

  "My lord," began the king, and he looked at me—and his look was anxious.

  "Allow this one merriment, Majesty. Just this one." The Great Lord paused, cleared his throat, winked at Lord Beryn, and swallowed a gulp of wine. "If we are to send a boy to learn the answer to the riddle, then he must go with a companion. One suited to guide and to lead. One who will help him seek out that which is hidden."

  Another of the grinning Great Lords stood, holding his overflowing cup above his head. "One to tread the lonely road beside him. One to ease his way in the darkness."

  Yet another stood, holding his cup high too, but the Great Lords dissolved into guffaws when he fell backward over his chair. He staggered up, lifted his cup again, and called, "One to..."

  But he never finished, for the laughter of the other Great Lords rose to a shriek when the soldier dragged the blind boy into the room. The golden walls echoed with their spewing, echoed with their rollicking guffaws. When the soldier pulled at the chains so that the boy sprawled to the floor, their laughter deafened. I knelt down and held him by the shoulders. "Well," he said, so quietly that only I could hear, "at least I am out of the snow."

  But Lord Beryn again did not laugh; instead, he turned with thunder to the drunken lord. "Of all the boys to choose, you choose this one. Fool. And again a fool." He looked at the blind boy, then turned to the king. "This smacks of design. You must end this whim, this prank."

  "It is neither whim nor prank," answered the king, and turned back to me. "Seven days," he said. "You both have seven days to find the answer to this riddle. If you do not return by the morning after the seventh day, the rebels will hang and you two be declared outlaw and hunted down with dogs. It is an answer you must find."

  "By the morning after the seventh day," I answered,"we will return with the riddle's answer."

  "This one will keep the time!" another of the Great Lords scoffed, pointing at the blind boy. All the other lords careened into laughter again as the boy stood by me silently. He looked ahead as though he could see, and the king's eyes never left his face.

  With a scoff of disgust Lord Beryn threw his hands into the air."Fool," he cried again, and the floor vibrated with his stomping. But at a sign from the king, the guard grabbed both of us and dragged us through the lighted rooms, until once again we were on the parapet. He unlocked the chains from the blind boy's wrists, who winced at the sores that had formed there. "If it had been my choice, it would have been better to slit open your throats now," snarled the guard, and with his foot he shoved first me, then the blind boy, down the stairs and into the courtyard.

  The snowfall had thickened while we had been in the castle, and only a few of the crowd still remained. They cast long looks at us, afraid to approach because of the king's warning but curious nonetheless. The soldiers, grumbling and cursing the cold, were prodding the rebels into a tighter and tighter group until they sat huddled against each other, the snow covering them and the wind tearing out racking coughs from their throats.

  I looked through the snow for Da, but he was not there. Shivering and wet, I knew he must come. He must.

  But he did not, and suddenly I felt my eyes welling. It seemed that this morning—this day I had waited for—had been a lifetime and more ago. Now I was carrying a death sentence. If only I might find Da, I could drop it like a weight and ride back home.

  And then I looked at the rebels, and at the two young girls who watched the blind boy so closely, and knew I could not.

  "I'm not the best one to judge direction," said the boy, "but I do think that we might choose any rather than stay here."

  "Any that lead from the castle," I agreed."For now. But we will be back here after seven days."

  "We will." He nodded. He turned to the rebels. "Seven days. We will be back after seven days." At his call, the two girls clasped each other tightly.

  "It would be best to go back to the horses," I said.

  "Horses?" He held out his hand to stop me."I don't ride horses. They're afraid of me."

  "They're afraid of you?"

  "They are."

  "You're sure of this?"

  "Yes."

  "These are very gentle horses."

  "They would have to tell me so themselves, if they expected me to ride them."

  I took him by the elbow and, holding my arm across my face, walked down the deserted way in the growing darkness. We kept our faces from the wind that cut at us, but I looked as much as I could for Da. Perhaps he had gone back for the horses and was waiting at the stalls. "Not far," I called, and the blind boy nodded in return.

  But Da was not at the stables. Neither were the Dapple and the Gray. The stableman was there alone, boiling a stew over his forge. The steam of it rose in the horsey air.

  "My da has been back for the horses?" I asked.

  The stableman looked me up and down.

  "Who are you, then?"

  "My da and I stabled our horses here this morning. The Dapple and the Gray. Just this very morning. For two silver coins."

  "Boy, I have been at this forge since before dawn. Well before. And in all that time there's not been one single horse brought here. Not a single one, the pity of it."

  "That's a lie," I cried, and his face hardened. He set down the wooden spoon that had been stirring the stew and picked up a long column of black iron from the fire, glowing yellow-white at the tip.

  "You'd best be careful about your words, boy."

  "My da and I brought in two horses this morning. The Dapple and the Gray. We stabled them there, and you filled up their troughs from the feed box behind you."

  The stableman moved aside."There's no feed box behind me, boy. You brought no horses in here. And as for silver coins—I haven't seen one outside the king's pocket in a dozen years." I looked into the stables; they were empty except for the cobwebs that stretched across their corners. It had been a long time since a horse had stood there.

  "Away with you both. Do you think I don't know what you're about? You smell good food and concoct a story to get at it. Away with you."

  "There must be another livery nearby," suggested the boy.

  "No other," said the stableman. "Now be off. I don't mind spitting a couple of boys, especially just before my dinner." He twirled the poker in his hands.

  I took the boy's elbow and backed away, the stableman following and thrusting the hot iron to hurry us along. We backed into the street, and the wind and snow struck us full in our backs as he barred and bolted the door.

  Darkness fell with all its heavy weight. The wet of sl
oppy snow. Silence. Awful silence.

  "We'd best find a place out of the wind, some alley," the boy said.

  I looked around almost panicked, still half expecting Da to step out of the dark. "It's impossible to see anything in this snow," I cried.

  He did not answer, and I felt a sudden shame come upon me.

  "This way," I said, taking his elbow again, and the wind shrieked us down past the livery, past closed shops, past lighted houses, and finally to the cold granite portico of what must be a nobleman's house. We backed ourselves into an angle of the wall, hunched down, and shivered into each other.

  "It would be good to know each other's names before we freeze to death," I chattered."Mine's Tousle."

  "Innes," he answered, "and we won't be freezing to death. Not when there's the riddle to be solved."

  I closed my eyes and then began to laugh. Innes poked at me. "The snow is coming down and us barely out of it, lying against stone as frozen as the north wind itself, and you're laughing. You must be either a lunatic or a madman."

  "No, no. Neither of those. It's just that I've been waiting for this day for as long as I can remember."

  "Well," he said, "next time wait for a day with better weather." Then he pressed his chin to his chest and tried to fall into sleep.

  Chapter Three

  A sheet of water came cascading toward us, and my mouth opened wide to warn Innes—just in time for it to dash in and set me gagging. After having shivered through most of the dark, it seemed too hard that we should be wet through now.

  "Beggars at our doors! At our very doors!" outraged a voice above us. "Off with you. Off with you! You'll not be sleeping here!"

  We both stood, me still coughing. My head was fusty, and I was so cold that my legs would hardly straighten. I held my hands up; they trembled.

  "You're the boy who—Off with you both, before I set the dogs out."

  Innes turned his face to the voice above us. "How large are the dogs?"

  "Innes," I whispered, "are dogs afraid of you too?"

  "Terrified." He smiled.

  I looked up. "You don't need to set the dogs on us," I called. "We're not about to rob and murder you."

  "Rob and murder is what the king would do if he found you sleeping at my doorstep. I'll not be risking it."

  "A loaf of bread, then," asked Innes, "to see us on our way?"

  The shutters clapped to with a startling crack, and as I looked down the narrow street, I saw that all the shutters were tight. The houses looked fearful in the pale light of the heatless sun.

  Back home there was oatmeal and cinnamon. Warm milk and down quilts. And hot embers. But here I could feel my wet clothes stiffening with the cold, and my stomach made sounds no stomach should ever make.

  "I think we should try to get back to my da's house," I said. "Da will be sure to be there."

  "Is it far?"

  "Far enough. He must have gone, and taken the horses back."

  "We still have the riddle."

  "Da will solve it. There's not a single day that goes by without him setting a riddle."

  Innes nodded slowly. "There's no making a mistake. You are sure he can solve it?"

  "With one eye closed," I said, then stopped and put my hand to my face. "Innes, I'm sorry. That was..."

  But he waved it away."If your da cannot solve it with one eye closed, I'll solve it with two. Now, with both yours open, can you find the city gates before the dogs come out?"

  We tottered past the houses, the shops, the livery, and came again into the square. Walking out of that quiet street and into the square was like walking out of a quiet barn into a storm: You turn the corner, and the suddenness of the noise smacks at you like a flail.

  The square was as full as it had been yesterday, as if the procession had never happened. Cart horses had already tramped the new snow into slush, and plashing cart wheels were showering icy water against the merchant stalls. There was all the clamor and bantering and sheer cackle of the place, but it was nothing to me beside the smells that scented the air: sausages, sweetmeats, bacon rinds, pork roasts.

  "And bread," said Innes. "Smell the heat of it."

  Together we stepped out into it all ... and suddenly everything was as quiet as a deserted chancel.

  A farmwife haggling over the freshness of her late-fall turnips saw us—and stilled. The clothier hawking his Persian silks froze as if the air had iced around him. Even a beggar, hugging his tatters close to himself and holding out a gnarled palm, quieted his endless plea at the sight of us.

  We walked through a square of statues, and whispers followed us like fog.

  "That's the one. That boy."

  "Sure, he is."

  "See the mark across the other one's eyes."

  "Turn away from them. No, do not offer it."

  Though every eye in the square was upon us, we both knew that we were absolutely alone. Everyone leaned away from us as if we were lepers, as if to touch us—even to speak with us—would infect them with the king's death sentence.

  But still, there were the smells, and though I tried to keep my eyes away from an apple cart, I could not. When the farmer saw the hunger in my face, he turned away. I suppose he feared to give me—or even sell me—a single one of his windfalls.

  "It is suddenly very quiet," said Innes.

  "It is."

  "Are we being stared at?"

  "I suppose some dog somewhere in Wolverham is not looking at us."

  "Does the dog have a bone he would share?"

  I took his elbow, and we strode out across the square. But after a frozen night with little sleep and no food since yesterday noon, I could not take my eyes from the apples. The lovely, blushing, ruby red of the apples. I could hear the sharp sound of the bite, even taste the dry sweetness of it. I put my hand to my mouth as if holding one, and as soon as I let go of Innes, he crumpled.

  How long had it been since he had last eaten?

  "Innes!" I knelt down and slipped my hand under his head. "Innes, Innes," I whispered. "Innes!"

  He smiled weakly. "Here."

  "Innes, can you get up?"

  "Tell the dog that I really would be grateful for the bone. I really would."

  Then a shadow fell over us, dark and full, like a sudden eclipse. But when I looked up, there was no moon crossing the sun, but a face soft as a new leaf. It was a pudgy face, but the softness was not in that. And the cheeks did bulge some, but the softness was not in them either. It was in her eyes. And then she spoke, and it was in her voice too.

  "By the good Saint Christopher himself, king or no king, I'll not let a child fall from hunger beside my own cart." She knelt beside me, soiling her cloak in the dirt of the slush, and with hands as big as shovels, she reached under Innes and lofted him close to her bosom. She peered down at him quietly, quietly; then she stood, hefting him as though he weighed nothing at all, as though she had carried him like this every day of her life. She turned, and I followed her to her covered cart and up three steps. Inside, she laid Innes down, gently, gently down, onto a cot and swaddled him with burlap.

  "Wait here," she said to me, and went out and down the steps. I sat on the edge of the cot and felt Innes trembling beneath the covers.

  She came back in just a moment, two steaming mugs in one hand. "Take one," she said to me, and as I drank it—tea and ale—she reached beneath Innes's head and lifted it. "A bit at a time. A bit. There. A little more. There."

  The taste of it was spring sunshine, summer dew, fall frost. It was hard not to slosh it all down at once.

  "You'll both be wanting some bread, would you, with sweet butter?" the woman asked.

  "We'll be wanting it," Innes whispered.

  "With some honey seeped in?"

  "With honey seeped in," I answered.

  When she handed half a loaf to me, I ate it all with hardly a breath between bites, the honey running down my cheeks and stickying my hands. Innes too ate quickly, his face always to the woman, as though he c
ould watch her.

  When we finished, she went outside with a bowl and returned with steaming water. She took a cloth and washed Innes's hands, then laid her own hand aside his head and guided it down onto the cot. Gently, gently she washed the wound across his forehead, dabbing at the dirt and dried blood until it shone pink and clean. Then she drew the burlap back, drew the rags of his shirt away, and washed the wounds across his chest, pulling away when he winced, returning even more gently.

  And all the while she sang, a low, soft, swaying melody that set even the beating of my heart to its slow rhythm. I lay down on the floor beside the cot, the woman balled more burlap for a pillow, and I was asleep.

  When I woke, Innes was still asleep. He had drawn his legs up almost to his chin and looked as if he could sleep through the Apocalypse. Still, the woman put her finger to her lips so I should not wake him, even if I could have. She sat at the back of the cart, stirring something in the crockery she held in her lap. It was a lap large enough for three, even four children to climb into.

  I almost climbed in myself, wondering what it might be like.

  She poured whatever she was stirring into a wooden bowl. "Here, then, eat this," she said, handing it to me. "It's hot," she warned,"just in from the kettle," but I spooned it steaming into my mouth. Oatmeal. It was oatmeal. And it was spiced with cinnamon. It burned at my tongue, but there was a pleasure in feeling the heat of it pour down into my chest.

  The woman smiled broadly. "It's a joy watching you eat," she said. "A joy such as I haven't had for this many a year. By Saint Julian himself, it does me good."

  "Has he left any for me?"—this from Innes, who hadn't been so deeply asleep that the smell of food would not wake him.

  She poured some into another bowl and handed it to him."It's quite—"but he had already taken a heap into his mouth.

  He yelped, took in a great breath, and yelped again. "Hot," he said.

  The woman reared back; I watched the laughter bubble and churn in her belly, flow upward to set the broad shoulders shaking, quiver into her neck, blow out her cheeks, and then spill out from her lips in a great cascade that filled the cart and set it rocking on its wheels.