He screeched and flung the club in reflex. It sailed across the stream and struck the ground near the wolf’s feet, and the thing vanished as though by magic. He stood stock-still for an instant, staring. He had not imagined it, surely?
No, Rollo was raving, bellowing and teeth bared, flecks of foam flying from his muzzle. There were stones at the stream’s edge; Ian seized one, another, scraped up a handful, another, stubbing his fingers in haste on the rocks and frozen soil, holding up the front of his shirt to make a bag.
The more-distant wolf howled again; the near one answered, so close that the hairs rose up straight on the back of his neck. He heaved a rock in the direction of the call, turned, and ran, the bundle of rocks clutched hard against his belly.
The sky had lightened into dawn. Heart and lungs strained for blood and air, and yet it seemed as though he ran so slowly that he floated over the forest floor, passing like a drifting cloud, unable to go faster. He could see each tree, each separate needle of a spruce he passed, short and thick, soft silver-green in the light.
His breath came hard, his vision blurred and cleared, as tears of effort clouded his eyes, were blinked away, welled back again. A tree branch lashed his face and blinded him, the scent of it sharp in his nose.
“Red Cedar, help me!” he gasped, the Kahnyen’kehaka coming to his lips as though he had never spoken English or called upon Christ and His mother.
Behind you. It was a small voice, quiet, perhaps no more than the voice of his own instinct, but he whirled at once, stone in hand, and slung it with all his force. Another, and another, and another, as fast as he could fling. There was a crack, a thump, and a yelp, and Rollo slewed and skidded, eager to turn and attack.
“Come-come-come!” He seized the big dog’s ruff as he ran, dragging him round, forcing him along.
He could hear them now, or thought he could. The wind that comes at dawn rustled through the trees, and they whispered overhead, calling him this way, then that, guiding him as he ran. He saw nothing but color, half-blind with effort, but felt their embrace, cool in his mind; a prickling touch of spruce and fir, the skin of white aspen, smooth as a woman’s, sticky with blood.
Go here, come this way, he thought he heard, and followed the sound of the wind.
A howl came from behind them, followed by short yips, and another of acknowledgment. Close, too close! He flung stones behind him as he ran, not looking, no time to turn and aim.
Then there were no more stones and he dropped the empty flap of shirt, arms pumping as he ran, a harsh panting in his ears that might have been his own breath, or the dog’s—or the sound of the beasts behind him.
How many of them? How far to go? He was beginning to stagger, streaks of black and red shooting through his vision. If the village was not nearby, he had no chance.
He lurched sideways, hit the yielding branch of a tree that bent under his weight, then pushed him upright, setting him roughly back on his feet. He had lost his impetus, though, and his sense of direction.
“Where?” he gasped to the trees. “Which way?”
If there was an answer, he didn’t hear it. There was a roar and a thud behind him, a mad scuffle punctuated with the growls and yelps of dogs fighting.
“Rollo!” He turned and flung himself through a growth of dead vines, to find dog and wolf squirming and biting in a writhing ball of fur and flashing teeth.
He dashed forward, kicking and shouting, punching wildly, glad at last to have something to hit, to be fighting back, even if it was the last fight. Something ripped across his leg, but he felt only the jar of impact as he rammed his knee hard into the wolf’s side. It squealed and rolled away, rounding on him at once.
It leaped, and its paws struck him in the chest. He fell back, struck his head glancingly on something, lost breath for an instant, and came to himself to find his hand braced beneath the slavering jaws, straining to keep them from his throat.
Rollo sprang onto the wolf’s back, and Ian lost his grip, collapsing under the weight of reeking fur and squirming flesh. He flung out a hand, seeking anything—a weapon, a tool, a grip to pull himself free—and gripped something hard.
He wrenched it from its bed in the moss and smashed it against the wolf’s head. Fragments of bloody teeth flew through the air and struck his face. He struck again, sobbing, and again.
Rollo was whining, a high keening noise—no, it was him. He bashed the rock down once more on the battered skull, but the wolf had stopped fighting; it lay across his thighs, legs twitching, eyes glazing as it died. He pushed it off in a frenzy of revulsion. Rollo’s teeth sank into the wolf’s outstretched throat, and ripped it out, in a final spray of blood and warm flesh.
Ian closed his eyes and sat still. It didn’t seem possible to move, or to think.
After a time, it seemed possible to open his eyes, and to breathe, at least. There was a large tree at his back; he had fallen against the trunk when the wolf struck him; it supported him now. Among the twisted roots was a muddy hole, from which he had wrenched the stone.
He was still holding the stone; it felt as though it had grown to his skin; he couldn’t open his hand. When he looked he saw that this was because the stone had shattered; sharp fragments had cut his hand, and the pieces of the stone were glued to his hand by drying blood. Using the fingers of his other hand, he bent back the clenched fingers, and pushed the broken pieces of the stone off his palm. He scraped moss from the tree roots, made a wad of it in his hand, then let the curled fingers close over it again.
A wolf howled, in the middle distance. Rollo, who had lain down by Ian, lifted his head with a soft wuff! The howl came again, and seemed to hold a question, a worried tone.
For the first time, he looked at the body of the wolf. For an instant, he thought it moved, and shook his head to clear his vision. Then he looked again.
It was moving. The distended belly rose gently, subsided. It was full light now, and he could see the tiny nubs of pink nipples, showing through the belly fur. Not a pack. A pair. But a pair no more. The wolf in the distance howled again, and Ian leaned to one side and vomited.
Eats Turtles came upon him a little later, sitting with his back against the red-cedar tree by the dead wolf, Rollo’s bulk pressed close against him. Turtle squatted down, a short distance away, balanced on his heels, and watched.
“Good hunting, Wolf’s Brother,” he said finally, in greeting. Ian felt the knot between his shoulder blades relax just a little. Turtle’s voice held a quiet tone, but no sorrow. She lived, then.
“She whose hearth I share,” he said, careful to avoid speaking her name. To speak it aloud might expose her to evil spirits nearby. “She is well?”
Turtle closed his eyes and raised both brows and shoulders. She was alive, and not in danger. Still, it was not for a man to say what might happen. Ian didn’t mention the child. Neither did Turtle.
Turtle had brought a gun, a bow, and his knife, of course. He took the knife from his belt and handed it to Ian, matter-of-factly.
“You will want the skins,” he said. “To wrap your son, when he shall be born.”
A shock went through Ian, like the shock of sudden rain on bare skin. Eats Turtles saw his face, and turned his head aside, avoiding his eyes.
“This child was a daughter,” Turtle said matter-of-factly. “Tewaktenyonh told my wife, when she came for a rabbit skin to wrap the body.”
The muscles in his belly tightened and quivered; he thought that perhaps his own skin would burst, but it didn’t. His throat was dry, and he swallowed once, painfully, then shook the moss away and held out his wounded hand for the knife. He bent slowly to skin the wolf.
Eats Turtles was poking with interest at the bloodstained remnants of the shattered stone, when the howl of a wolf brought him upright, staring.
It echoed through the forest, that howl, and the trees moved above them, murmuring uneasily at the sound of loss and desolation. The knife drew swiftly down the pale fur of the belly, dividing
the two rows of pink nipples.
“Her husband will be nearby,” Wolf’s Brother said, not looking up. “Go and kill him.”
Marsali stared at him, scarcely breathing. The sadness in her eyes was still there, but had somehow diminished, overwhelmed with compassion. The anger had left her; she had taken back Henri-Christian, and held the fat bundle of her baby with both arms against her breast, her cheek against the bold round curve of his head.
“Ah, Ian,” she said softly. “Mo charaid, mo chridhe.”
He sat looking down at his hands, clasped loosely in his lap, and seemed not to have heard her. Finally, though, he stirred, like a statue waking. Without looking up, he reached into his shirt and drew out a small, rolled bundle, bound with hair twine, and decorated with a wampum bead.
He undid this, and leaning over, spread the cured skin of an unborn wolf over the baby’s shoulders. His big, bony hand smoothed the pale fur, cupping for a moment over Marsali’s hand where it held the child.
“Believe me, cousin,” he said, very softly, “your husband grieves. But he will come back.” Then he rose and left, silent as an Indian.
37
LE MAÎTRE DES
CHAMPIGNONS
The small limestone cave we used for a stable was home at the moment only to a nanny goat with two brand-new kids. All the animals born in the spring were now large enough to be turned out to forage in the wood with their mothers. The goat was still getting room service, though, in the form of kitchen scraps and a little cracked corn.
It had been raining for several days, and the morning broke cloudy and damp, every leaf dripping and the air thick with the scents of resin and soggy leaf mulch. Luckily, the cloudiness kept the birds subdued; the jays and mockingbirds were quick to learn, and kept a beady eye on the comings and goings of people with food—they dive-bombed me regularly as I made my way up the hill with my basin.
I was on my guard, but even so, a bold jay dropped from a branch in a flash of blue and landed in the basin, startling me. Before I could react, it had seized a fragment of corn muffin and darted off, so quickly that I could scarcely believe I’d seen it, save for the racing of my heart. Luckily I hadn’t dropped the basin; I heard a triumphant screech from the trees, and hurried to get inside the stable before the jay’s friends should try the same tactic.
I was surprised to find that the Dutch door was unbolted at the top and stood an inch or two ajar. There was no danger of the goats escaping, of course, but foxes and raccoons were more than capable of climbing over the lower door, and so both doors were normally bolted at night. Perhaps Mr. Wemyss had forgotten; it was his job to muck out the used straw and settle the stock for the night.
As soon as I pushed open the door, though, I saw that Mr. Wemyss was not to blame. There was a tremendous rustle of straw at my feet, and something big moved in the darkness.
I uttered a sharp yelp of alarm, and this time did drop the basin, which fell with a clang, scattering food across the floor and rousing the nanny goat, who started blatting her head off.
“Pardon, milady!”
Hand to my thumping heart, I stepped out of the doorway, so the light fell on Fergus, crouched on the floor, with straws sticking out of his hair like the Madwoman of Chaillot.
“Oh, so there you are,” I said quite coldly.
He blinked and swallowed, rubbing his hand over a face dark with sprouting whiskers.
“I—yes,” he said. He seemed to have nothing further to add to this. I stood glaring down at him for a moment, then shook my head and stooped to retrieve the potato peelings and other fragments that had fallen from the basin. He moved as though to help me, but I stopped him with a shooing gesture.
He sat still, watching me, hands around his knees. It was dim inside the stable, and water dripped steadily from the plants growing out of the cliffside above, making a curtain of falling drops across the open door.
The goat had stopped making noise, having recognized me, but was now stretching her neck through the railing of her pen, blueberry-colored tongue extended like an anteater’s, in an effort to reach an apple core that had rolled near the pen. I picked it up and handed it to her, trying to think where to start, and what to say when I did.
“Henri-Christian’s doing well,” I said, for lack of anything else. “Putting on weight.”
I let the remark trail off, bending over the rail to pour corn and scraps into the wooden feed trough.
Dead silence. I waited a moment, then turned round, one hand on my hip.
“He’s a very sweet little baby,” I said.
I could hear him breathing, but he said nothing. With an audible snort, I went and pushed the bottom half of the door open wide, so that the cloudy light outside streamed in, exposing Fergus. He sat with his face turned stubbornly away. I could smell him at a goodly distance; he reeked of bitter sweat and hunger.
I sighed.
“Dwarves of this sort have got quite normal intelligence. I’ve checked him thoroughly, and he has all the usual reflexes and responses that he should have. There’s no reason why he can’t be educated, be able to work—at something.”
“Something,” Fergus echoed, the word holding both despair and derision. “Something.” At last, he turned his face toward me, and I saw the hollowness of his eyes. “With respect, milady—you have never seen the life of a dwarf.”
“And you have?” I asked, not so much in challenge as curiosity.
He closed his eyes against the morning light, nodding.
“Yes,” he whispered, and swallowed. “In Paris.”
The brothel where he had grown up in Paris was a large one, with a varied clientele, famous for being able to offer something for almost any taste.
“The house itself had les filles, naturellement, and les enfants. They are of course the bread and butter of the establishment. But there are always those who desire … the exotic, and will pay. And so now and then the madame would send for those who dealt in such things. La Maîtresse des Scorpions—avec les flagellantes, tu comprends? Ou Le Maître des Champignons.”
“The Master of Mushrooms?” I blurted.
“Oui. The Dwarf Master.”
His eyes had sunk into his head, his gaze turned inward and his face haggard. He was seeing in memory sights and people who had been absent from his thoughts for many years—and was not enjoying the recollection.
“Les chanterelles, we called them,” he said softly. “The females. The males, they were les morels.” Exotic fungi, valued for the rarity of their twisted shapes, the strange savor of their flesh.
“They were not badly treated, les champignons,” he said, abstracted. “They were of value, you see. Le Maître would buy such infants from their parents—there was one born in the brothel, once, and the madame was delighted at her good fortune—or collect them from the streets.”
He looked down at his hand, the long, delicate fingers moving restlessly, pleating the cloth of his breeches.
“The streets,” he repeated. “Those who escaped the brothels—they were beggars. I knew one of them quite well—Luc, he was called. We would sometimes assist each other—” The shadow of a smile touched his mouth, and he waved his intact hand in the deft gesture of one picking pockets.
“But he was alone, Luc,” he continued matter-of-factly. “He had no protector. I found him one day in the alley, with his throat cut. I told the madame, and she sent the doorkeep out at once to seize the body, and sold it to a doctor in the next arondissement.”
I didn’t ask what the doctor had wanted with Luc’s body. I’d seen the broad, dried hands of dwarves, sold for divination and protection. And other parts.
“I begin to see why a brothel might seem safe,” I said, swallowing heavily. “But still …”
Fergus had been sitting with his head braced on his hand, staring at the straw. At this, he looked up at me.
“I have parted my buttocks for money, milady,” he said simply. “And thought nothing of it, save when it hurt. Bu
t then I met milord, and found a world beyond the brothel and the streets. That my son might return to such places …” He stopped abruptly, unable to speak. He closed his eyes again, and shook his head, slowly.
“Fergus. Fergus, dear. You can’t think that Jamie—that we—would ever let such a thing happen,” I said, distressed beyond measure.
He drew a deep, trembling breath, and thumbed away the tears that hung on his lashes. He opened his eyes and gave me a smile of infinite sadness.
“No, you would not, milady. But you will not live forever, nor will milord. Nor I. But the child will be a dwarf forever. And les petits, they cannot well defend themselves. They will be plucked up by those who seek them, taken and consumed.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and sat up a little.
“If, that is, they should be so fortunate,” he added, his voice hardening. “They are not valued, outside the cities. Peasants, they believe the birth of such a child is at best a judgment on the sins of his parents.” A deeper shadow crossed his face, his lips drawing tight. “It may be so. My sins—” But he broke off abruptly, turning away.
“At worst—” His voice was soft, head turned away, as though he whispered secrets to the shadows of the cave. “At worst, they are seen as monstrous, children born of some demon who has lain with the woman. People stone them, burn them—sometimes the woman, too. In the mountain villages of France, a dwarf child would be left for the wolves. But do you not know these things, milady?” he asked, suddenly turning back to face me.
“I—I suppose so,” I said, and put out a hand to the wall, suddenly feeling the need of some support. I had known such things, in the abstract way one thinks of the customs of aborigines and savages—people whom one will never meet, safely distant in the pages of geography books, of ancient histories.
He was right; I knew it. Mrs. Bug had crossed herself, seeing the child, and then made the sign of the horns as protection from evil, pale horror on her face.
The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 647
