The Chestnut King

by N. D. Wilson

  “When’ll he be back?”

  “You think we should strike?”

  “Where’s your father?”

  “You think we should burn the ships?”

  “What would your father say?”

  “How you live in all that fire?”

  “Shame on us if one red-shirt still breathes in the morning. What say you, Henry?”

  Henry couldn’t answer anyone. His story was too big, and his eyes, his mind, his heart were on the pile of sagging flesh and feathers in his lap. The men from the table all leaned in, facing him, watching him watch the raggant. Rows of others crowded behind them, drinking, fuming, chewing on threats and questions.

  A small, steaming glass was slapped onto the table. Zeb nodded at the raggant. “If he’s got a spark of life, that will shake him up. Works on sailors pulled from the wracks.”

  Henry rolled the raggant onto his back and picked up the little glass the innkeeper had given him. The liquid was brown and as thick as syrup, cool to his touch despite the steam.

  Squeezing the raggant’s lips, he tipped the glass.

  “Just a drop there, lad,” a gruff voice said. “Don’t be melting his tongue.”

  One fat, slow, string-trailing bead fell into the raggant’s mouth. The questions stopped while every man watched. Henrietta chewed slowly. After a moment of silence, the gruff voice spoke again. “Right then, two drops, and then give him up. More than three would kill a plow horse.”

  Biting his lip and swallowing hard, fighting his own tight throat and hot eyes, Henry eased two more drops into the raggant’s mouth. After a few seconds, men began to shift and whisper with disappointment.

  “He’s gone, lad. Noble beast. Pity.”

  “No,” Henry said. He tipped in two more drops, and then a third. “No.” He set the glass back on the table and bent over his raggant. It was his raggant. His. His mother had bonded it to him. It couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t let it. Henry looked up and around the room, at all the stern and angry faces waiting to see if he would cry. His eyes went black, and the room became a bedlam of influence, traces and strands and histories and breaths pouring from every man, mingling together into a single mob of anger at the ceiling. He turned his eyes down to the raggant.

  It was still. A translucent gray web pooled limply around it.

  “No,” Henry said again. He ran his right hand, his glowing burn, around the rough animal’s face. He sent his heat into its belly. There was something there. Something pulling at his palm from beyond the skin and bones. The bond between the two of them had not been broken. The animal couldn’t be dead. Not yet. The room was full of life and strength, but Henry needed none of it. He poured his own heat into the animal; he let the pull take his strength; he let the bond grow.

  The raggant’s back arched. His nostrils chuffed and flared. Writhing, his wings thumped into Henry’s chest. The creature sneezed, again and again, and on the seventh sneeze, two clouds of dandelion down erupted from his nostrils.

  The raggant opened his eyes. Then, levering his front legs onto the table, he flared his damaged wings, knocking Henrietta’s bowl onto her lap and thumping Zeke in the face. Eyeing the men around the table, he bellowed, long and loud and furious.

  The gruff sailor laughed. “Vicious, isn’t he. He’ll be wanting a drink with that fire in his belly.” The man slid his dark, foam-topped pint forward carefully, watching the raggant’s eyes as he did.

  The raggant quieted, dangling his black tongue out of his mouth. He dipped it through the foam and into the sailor’s draft. His lips followed, and he slurped noisily.

  “Innkeep, water!” the sailor shouted. “In a bowl for the beast!”

  When a wooden bowl full of water banged onto the table, Henry tried to pick the raggant up. The animal flapped hard and shook, kicking and butting, rolling his eyes and looking for something to bite. But Henry didn’t care. Blinking against the beating wings and grinning happily, he dunked the raggant’s head in the water.

  Immediately, the animal went limp, burbling. Henry let its rear sag onto the table, and then he let go completely. Tucking his wings back, the raggant kept his face in the water with his tongue lolling out. His horn and nostrils peeked above the surface, and he sprayed sailors with every breath.

  Henry sat down and sighed.

  “I thought he was gone,” Henrietta said.

  “That he was,” said the gruff sailor. “That he was. Your cousin here’s got a bit of spark.”

  “No.” Henry shook his head. “Rags had a little life left.”

  “Either way,” Zeke said, “I’d say he’s got a lot now.”

  Henry plowed through his stew, dropped his spoon, and puffed his cheeks. Now that he was done and the raggant was calm, the men around him expected answers. A barrage of the same questions poured down on him.

  Henry held up his hands. “Hold on, hold on!” he yelled, but no one so much as paused for breath.

  Behind him, the innkeeper whistled sharply, and the room died.

  “Okay,” Henry said. “I’m alive, and my cousin is alive.” He patted Henrietta’s shoulder. “You know that much. My grandmother is alive, too, and safe in another city. My father and Caleb are in Endor searching for a way to kill the witch. They will be coming here if they can. The witch is somewhere far south in a big city.” He looked at Henrietta. “What’s it called?” She shrugged, and he looked back at the group. “The emperor’s city.”

  “Dumarre?” a sailor asked. “Mordecai knows this?”

  Henry nodded. “He thinks she’s controlling the emperor.”

  “And why does he think that?” someone shouted.

  “The emperor’s got enough evil of his own,” said another. “They’d make quite the pairing.”

  “Have you heard of fingerlings?” Henry asked the room.

  Voices died. Finally, someone cleared his throat. “My gran told stories. Gave me night sweats.”

  “Aye,” said another. “Old Endor tales—fingerlings and witch-dogs.”

  “Well,” said Henry, “there were fingerlings with the soldiers here. More in Endor tracking my father.”

  The first sailor scrunched up his face. His eyes looked young, but his skin looked like worn shoes. “With the finger and all? Really?”

  “Really,” Henry said. “I killed two of them. They were wearing black, and they keep their hair knotted to hide the finger.”

  The room was silent. After a moment, someone shouted. “Hoy, he’s got a knot!” A group scuffled in the corner, and a man was passed forward. Rope-hardened hands doubled the man over and pressed his face to the table.

  “Name’s Harold!” he yelled. “Only ten fingers and all on my hands!”

  His hair was brown and knotted in the back. A long knife appeared in someone’s hand and the hair knot was gone.

  “See!” Harold yelled. “Nothing! I’m no witch-finger, you clods!”

  Hands released him, and he straightened, his hair falling unevenly around his face.

  “Do I look that bad?” Henrietta asked.

  Henry snorted.

  “Yes,” said Zeke.

  “To the ships!” a sailor shouted, and a dozen voices joined him. “Burn the serpent galleys!”

  “Wait!” Henry yelled. “Just wait! If the witch is killed, then the ships and soldiers will leave!”

  “And if she isn’t?” a man asked. His skin was softer than the others, one of the shopkeepers. “What then?”

  Henry scratched his jaw. He didn’t like to think about that option. If she wasn’t killed, then everyone could figure out what to do after he was gone.

  “Right!” the shopkeeper shouted. “Up, Hylfing! Two moons of credit to any who stand on the galley decks with me tonight!”

  Gradually, the shouts and laughter died. Lanterns around the inn were snuffed out, until only a few flickered through the mob of shapes and voices. The doorway opened, and cloaked and hooded whispering men slipped out in clusters, moving down toward the harbo
r.

  When the inn was empty, an aproned Zebudee moved through the room, relighting the lanterns and wiping tables. Henry sat quietly between his cousin and Zeke and watched the still-panting raggant blow bubbles.

  “Not a good idea,” Henry said quietly.

  “Why?” Henrietta asked. “After everything else, why not burn the ships?”

  “Some of ‘em will die,” Zeke said. “And if the ships burn, nothing changes.”

  The innkeeper wiped the table in front of them, steering well clear of the raggant and his bowl. “Oh,” he said. “Don’t blame them for rushing to a fight, not with what they’ve seen. Old Amram’s house burned. You lot left in the flames, and the rest marched off like slaves to market.” He pointed at Henry. “You see the board from end to end. They see only red-shirts in their city with sword and torch. Let the bulls charge; they’d buckle under guilt if they didn’t.”

  “What about you?” Henry asked.

  Zeb winked. “I sees a bit more than most.” He straightened up and flipped his rag over his shoulder. “You’ll be needing rooms.”

  “We don’t have any money,” Henry said. “We can’t pay you.”

  “I think I have a dollar in my pocket,” said Zeke.

  “I don’t know what a dollar is,” the big man said. “But you can keep it to yourselves. I have more than rooms and food for you lot.” He dug into his apron pocket and glanced around the room. The place was empty, but he still leaned forward and whispered. “Given this for Mordecai, but you’re like to do as well.” He dropped the big chestnut cube on the tabletop. “Fat-Faerie gave it to me.”

  “Franklin?” Henry asked. He slid forward and grabbed the glistening cube.

  Zeb nodded. “And he was with your sister, Miss Una.” He looked at Henrietta. “And your little sister, too, the spunky lass. And the fish-faced boy.”

  “They weren’t taken?” Henrietta asked. She leaned over Henry’s shoulder.

  “Well,” the innkeeper said. “It seemed that they were. But not by the red-shirts.”

  “Writing?” Henry asked. He squinted and rotated the cubed nut. “Nudd,” he read. “Lord of the Second World, monarch of Glaston’s Barrow.” He looked up suddenly. “Is this from the Chestnut King?”

  “Straight from the tales,” said Zeb. “And no other.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Henry York Maccabee, seventh son of Mordecai, lay flat on his back in his bed. He was physically exhausted, beaten, and drained. He was also physically unable to relax. His toe bounced beneath the blanket. The fingers of one hand ran gently across the burn on his jaw, refusing to scratch. The fingers of the other rubbed and twisted the metal square on its leather string around his neck.

  The raggant snorted and snored and butted against Henry’s hip. Every so often, Henry reached down and gently massaged the animal’s coarse skin, tracing lines between the burns, reassuring himself of the life beside him. He needed to find someone to take care of the animal. He needed his mother and her balms. Or Aunt Dotty. Where were they? The window was open, and a crisp breeze carried in the rumbling lullaby of distant surf. Zeke was snoring lightly in his bed, and Henrietta was silent on her trundle, arms around Beo. The dog occasionally twitched or moaned and dragged a toenail across the plank floor, but was generally quieter than the raggant.

  Henrietta had absolutely refused to sleep alone in a room and then had absolutely refused to take either one of the boy’s beds.

  Gently shuffling the raggant off his side, Henry sat up and crossed his arms. For a while, he’d waited and listened for an attack on the galleys in the harbor, but the men had either given up on the idea or were waiting until deep in the wee hours. He hoped they’d given up. The fight seemed pointless to him.

  Henry wondered if the innkeeper was still awake. He could creep down and beg for more stories of the wild faeren and their king, the faeren that had shunned the green men and incorporation into districts and The Book of Faeren entirely—the faeren that had disappeared into shaded woods. He replayed the man’s description of the faeries that had taken Frank, the two girls, and Richard. If Frank hadn’t put up a fight, he had to have been radically outnumbered. But the innkeeper’s stories—stolen babies, scorched cities, missing herds, curses, vanishings—none of them made the Chestnut King seem like the kind of someone that Henry would like to approach for help. But then, all of the stories were old. The innkeeper said that he hadn’t believed the Faerie King existed, not until he felt the strange chestnut in his own hand and read the writing in the grain.

  Filling his lungs with the fresh breeze, erasing the smell of dog and burned raggant feathers, Henry glanced at the little table where he had left his baseball, his leaning sword, his folded stack of Endor papers, and the Chestnut King’s bizarre message. He claimed Fat Frank for himself? Why? Henry scrunched his lips, suddenly wondering if Frank had been happy about it, about belonging to faeren again. Was that why he hadn’t fought? Or was fighting just hopeless?

  Henry shut his eyes and envisioned the writing on the chestnut, the smoky, swirling letters. The message had sounded a little like faeren messages Henry had received, but shaping letters in a grain was much different than using a typewriter. Henry knew he wasn’t supposed to go straight to the king. His father had told him to try the queene first. She was more likely to be helpful. But his father hadn’t known about the chestnut. He hadn’t known that Anastasia and Una and Richard and Fat Frank were already with the Chestnut King. And he had told him to find Fat Frank. The two of them were supposed to try for the queene together, but what chance did they really have? Frank wasn’t even faeren anymore, and Henry was just a kid with a problem. Of course, he was Mordecai’s kid with a problem, but who knew if that would help?

  What would the queene look like? Fat Frank with curls? Did the faeries think she was beautiful? Did they ever get to see her? Or maybe she looked just like any other queen but shrunk down in the wash? What did any other queens look like? It’s not like Henry knew. He’d seen Magdalene, Eli’s sister, Queen of FitzFaeren. Maybe she would look like her—small and hard, but lovely. Lots of very white hair.

  Henry’s mind drifted away, again watching the Arrow of Chance, relic of FitzFaeren, flying from Caleb’s bow. He was again pulling it out from beneath a floorboard in the old attic. Only this time, he couldn’t, because the stupid little diamond-shaped door wouldn’t shut, and the whole attic was under six inches of water, and the diamond-shaped door grew bigger than the entire wall, and the empty grass world was a sea, and the old house was floating away, sailed by gerbils.

  The empty world was gone, and it had taken the gerbils. Henry was in darkness, bodiless, a dandelion flame and a slow-moving gray rope. He couldn’t run from that rope. He knew that. It followed him, and others followed it. He was tired of running, tired of scrambling away. He wished that he had stayed with his father. Mordecai would not be running away. He was looking for ways to advance, ways to surprise, ways to win, not ways to survive. Everyone was surprised that Henry had survived, as if not dying was victory. He didn’t want to survive anymore. He wanted to play baseball in the sun. He wanted to sit with his mother in her courtyard and listen to her voice and feel her hand on his head and hear stories of his brothers, the three he could never meet, and James and the two who still sailed faraway seas. He wanted time with his father, time enough to do nothing but watch the world and wander the woods of Badon Hill, time enough to learn how to be what he was. He wanted to teach Richard baseball.

  Sensing nothing but two floating influences, golden and gray, Henry ached. He couldn’t have those things by running. He couldn’t have those things by hiding.

  His dreaming mind turned and focused on the gray trail that streamed out from him and away into the darkness. Paths can be followed two ways. Prey can double-back on the hunter.

  Henry, nothing more than a spinning dandelion soul, began to move, and the emptiness brightened around him. The world filled in, and his body took shape around the golden fire. H
e stood on the cobbled hill in front of the charred ruins of his mother’s house beneath the moon’s silver. His nostrils filled with the stink of burned histories, the walls that had known generations. Was he really here? Was he dream-walking or imagining? He didn’t know. His body felt less than tangible, but at least he had one.

  The gray strand was floating away from his face. He turned to follow it, but someone pinched his cheek. Grandmother Anastasia smiled at him, her full white hair braided back from her smooth, sun-darkened skin. In dreaming, only her eyes seemed old, the spark inside them sharpened by all they had seen, all they had struggled against, all they had searched for, all they had found. Looking at his grandmother, Henry knew that Magdalene of FitzFaeren was not the only queen he had ever seen. And this one shared his blood. She took Henry’s left hand in hers, kissed it, and stood beside him. Interlocking her fingers with his, she pointed at the trailing gray thread in the air, and the two of them stepped forward. The world spun into a blur of color. Only the dead rope remained clear to Henry’s eyes. He let his right hand, his burning hand, trace it through the confusion.

  And again the world was still. Henry and his grandmother stood hand in hand at the peak of a large hill. A ruined watchtower gaped jagged teeth at the sky behind them. Loose stones were scattered over the hilltop eaten and half-eaten by green turf. The air was warmer here, and beneath them, spread out miles into the distance, lit only by the moon, the land fell away and narrowed, dropping until it was all that separated two great seas, and then widening, growing back into a continent, rising into hills and distant mountains.

  Long, gated walls guarded both ends of this land bridge, the outposts of a great city. The city itself looked to be rooted in stone, rising like a mountain range broader than the land itself, its walls and gates staking claim to the seas on either side. Ten Hylfings could have nested within its walls, twenty within the harbors. Towers and palaces competed with each other for precedence. Great statues straddled the battlements, and red banners flew at their heights. Ships and galleys and barges crowded within and without the harbors.