Abeke opened her mouth to shout for help. Devin stuffed one of the cloths into her mouth.
“Put her in passive form,” he told Abeke, “or I will cut your throat.”
She had no choice. She held out her arm pleadingly, and Uraza disappeared in a blitz of light, forming a tattoo on Abeke’s arm, right next to where Karmo’s hand held her in place.
“There was an easier way,” Karmo said into Abeke’s ear.
Devin held out his arm, and Elda immediately vanished into passive form. It was like an instantly obeyed order.
“Don’t look so angry, Abeke,” he said. “You’re going home.”
13: Lord MacDonnell
BECAUSE MEILIN LIKED ORDER, SHE LIKED GLENGAVIN. Although the others were horrified by what had happened to the musician the night before, Meilin could see where MacDonnell was coming from. The harpist had known the rule. She could have approached MacDonnell with their predicament and asked for a solution.
“If you like him so well,” Rollan said over an impressive breakfast, “why don’t you convince him to let us go see Rumfuss?”
Meilin daintily bit into a crumpet. She chewed it and swallowed it entirely before answering, “That is my plan.”
Finn, on the other side of the long and mostly empty table, looked up from his own meal. “Hospitality is very important in the North, and if we hope to impress Lord MacDonnell into allowing us access to Rumfuss, we must convince him that we are worthy. Where’s Abeke?”
Meilin had just been wondering this herself. Abeke had not returned after going after Uraza this morning. It was possible she’d gotten into trouble. But it was also possible that Abeke was hunting for Rumfuss on her own or otherwise doing something for the Conquerors.
Meilin didn’t know how long it would take for her to trust Abeke. All she knew was that it hadn’t happened yet.
“She went out this morning and hasn’t come back yet.”
Finn narrowed his eyes. “That seems troubling. Meilin, why don’t you, Conor, and Rollan go speak to MacDonnell while I look for Abeke? I can move about the castle more safely than you three; I know more of the customs.”
“And what is it you want us to do?” Rollan demanded. “Be charming?”
As Lord MacDonnell entered the room, Meilin stood up and patted her hair. “I don’t have a problem with that.” She called loudly, “Lord MacDonnell! Good morning!”
Behind her back, she gestured for the others to join her.
MacDonnell seemed pleased to see them. He boomed, “How are you liking that kilt, Conor? It looks fine on you! You’d be a good addition to Glengavin. You and your wolf.”
“Briggan is not really mine, my lord,” Conor said. “If anything, I suppose I’m his.”
“Where is he at this fine morning?”
Conor held up his arm. Briggan was frozen in mid-flight in the tattoo.
“Let that wolf loose!”
Conor released the wolf with a brilliant flash. Immediately Briggan frisked around him. Playfully, the wolf took Conor’s hand in his mouth. He looked ferocious when he pretended to bite Conor, but he meant it all in good fun.
Meilin glanced up to MacDonnell to see what he thought of this.
The older man’s expression had gone very un-jolly, but it snapped back into good cheer when he noticed Meilin watching. “What’s your surname, boy?”
“You mean my last name?” Conor blushed, and Meilin felt bad for him. “I don’t have one. I’m just a shepherd’s son, my lord.”
“No shame in that,” Lord MacDonnell said. “What’s your father’s name?”
“Fenray.”
“If you were from Glengavin, you’d be Conor MacFenray,” Lord MacDonnell said. “Mac means son of.”
Conor tried it. “Conor MacFenray.”
“You could pick any old last name, you know,” Rollan said from just behind them. “Who says you have to have your father’s name? I’d pick something like SuperStrongGuy. Rollan SuperStrongGuy. Or Rollan FALCONMASTER.”
Both Meilin and Conor raised their eyebrows. Rollan was a long way away from being a falconmaster.
With a booming chuckle — always the booming! — Lord MacDonnell led them to an open courtyard in the center of Glengavin. On the grass and under the covered stone walkways, more than forty soldiers in kilts were training. Only, Meilin would not have guessed it was training if Lord MacDonnell hadn’t told them. Because instead of engaging in mock battles, the men copied music into decorated books, practiced harp and lute, and recited ballads at each other. Only a few of them had spirit animals, but when they did, the spirit animals seemed content to help them with these strange tasks. Next to one man, a shaggy Highland cow stood patiently as her human partner used her massive horns to hold her elaborate knitting. Another man was aided in his harp-playing by a stoat. It plucked the low notes. He plucked the high ones.
Rollan said, “Sweet merciful chicken. What are they training for? Becoming a princess?”
“War,” Lord MacDonnell said.
“War against princesses?”
“War’s useless if you don’t know how to live with peace,” Lord MacDonnell boomed. “Not very long ago, Glengavin had the best soldiers in Eura. But our skill was meaningless. We were almost destroyed by war. All we did was murder each other, and for nothing. Cattle! Glory! We were great warriors, but we didn’t know what to do if we weren’t fighting.”
Meilin raised an eyebrow. Finn would have liked to hear this description. “So you turned to the arts.”
“Exactly,” Lord MacDonnell said. “Now we spend equal time on training in the arts as we do keeping our muscles fit.”
“That’s a sweet story,” Rollan spoke up. “But what about those musicians last night? The ones that are now scrubbing pots?”
Cheeky, Rollan, Meilin thought. Be careful.
But Lord MacDonnell merely said, “Disorder leads to war, and I won’t risk more war. My castle, my law. It’s not difficult to follow the rules.”
They stopped to watch two men who were laughing and playing chess.
Lord MacDonnell said, “Will you young heroes know what to do when the battle is over? You’re spending your childhood saving the world. What happens when it’s saved?”
“We should be so lucky,” Meilin said.
Conor said, “I know what I will do. I will return to my family’s farm with enough money to pay off our debts, and then I will take my place among my brothers as a shepherd, just like my father before me.”
No, Conor, Meilin thought. You’re forgetting Briggan. You can’t take a wolf among the sheep.
Rollan’s eye briefly caught hers, and Meilin knew that he was thinking the same thing.
“My lord,” Meilin said, “speaking of saving the world — the Great Beast, Rumfuss. There’s a rumor he’s locked in your gardens.”
MacDonnell continued to stare at one of the chess players for a moment, then turned to Meilin. “Indeed he is.”
He said this very simply, the same way one might say, “It’s a touch rainy today,” or “I’m wearing new shoes.”
She tried to sound quite collected. “We really would like to speak with him.”
MacDonnell shook his head. “Only I am allowed to hunt in the gardens. Even if your hunt is just for a word with the Great Beast. It’s for the best — he’s a miserable, grumpy creature. He’d likely trample you.”
“Sir, it’s important,” Conor said. “It’s why we’ve come all this way.”
“To collect the talismans. To recapture the power of the Great Beasts. To destroy the invaders.” MacDonnell said all this dismissively, like he didn’t believe it. “Finn told me last night why it is you seek Rumfuss. The Greencloaks are wrong, if you ask me. No man-made machination could possibly fix soured relationships with spirit animals. Sometimes, things have simply gone too wrong.”
“How can you believe that with such conviction?” Meilin asked.
MacDonnell frowned for a moment, then drummed his fingers together.
“I’ll tell you a story. When I was a boy, I was cruel and proud. I was the son of a warrior lord. I knew who I was. I knew what I had coming to me.” Lord MacDonnell’s gaze was far away. “I dreamed of the animal I would summon to be my spirit animal. The North is full of animals that would increase my glory. And yet, when my summoning ceremony happened, I didn’t call a hound or a horse or even a fighting badger. I called a hare.”
Meilin remembered her own Nectar Ceremony. She had been so stunned and disappointed to see a panda instead of a more agile animal.
“I was furious,” Lord MacDonnell recalled. “A hare! An overgrown rabbit!” Now he ducked his head, and Meilin realized that his expression was one of shame. He had to consider for a long time before he could continue. “I tormented my spirit animal. At best I dismissed him. At worst I taunted him. I knew I was being terrible, but I didn’t care. Part of me wanted him to lash back at me. To prove his mettle. But he was loyal to a fault — he swallowed my harsh words and did my bidding like a servant rather than a spirit animal.
“One morning, I woke and he was gone. I had driven my spirit animal away.” Lord MacDonnell closed his eyes. “Since then, there is a hole in my heart that nothing can fill. All joys and entertainments seem empty, and I’ll never know what the hare and I might have accomplished together. I am going through the motions of leading my people, but nothing truly matters to me. I’m a shell. A creature that was Lord MacDonnell.”
I will never let that happen to Jhi and me, Meilin vowed. I must treat her better.
“But part of being a leader,” MacDonnell said, straightening a bit, “is thinking about what you want in the future, not what you wanted in the past.” He motioned to the chessboard. “This game teaches that strategy. I train my men to be masters of it, so they might succeed where I have failed.”
“Chess?” Rollan scoffed. “All chess ever taught me is that I should always play cards.”
MacDonnell ignored this and turned to Conor. “Play a round with me?”
Conor’s head jerked up, utterly horrified. He stammered, “Oh, I don’t . . . I’m not really good at chess.”
Lord MacDonnell was already pulling out a chair at one of the unoccupied chess tables. He arranged his kilt all around the chair so that nothing too embarrassing was showing. “As I said, Briggan is a great leader. And this game is a lesson all leaders should learn.”
Meilin, not at all convinced, offered, “You can do it.” But she was thinking: Not him! Conor was the least schooled of any of them, except for maybe Rollan. And at least Rollan had street smarts. What had Conor ever learned of strategy and leadership in a sheep pasture? He was going to blow their chance to hunt Rumfuss.
“You summoned Briggan, Conor. That means your destiny demands that you become a great leader,” Lord MacDonnell said. “Begin.”
Conor moved a pawn across the beautifully painted chessboard. Lord MacDonnell charged out with a knight. Conor inched out another pawn. Two moves later, one of his pieces fell to Lord MacDonnell. Conor slid his queen out to defend himself. Lord MacDonnell peacefully murdered one of Conor’s bishops. Conor threw more pieces in the direction of Lord MacDonnell’s king. Lord MacDonnell took several more victims.
Just like that, it was over. Lord MacDonnell checkmated Conor’s king. He stood up.
“Not quite, Conor,” he said.
I knew it, Meilin thought miserably. I could have done this with my eyes shut! What is the point of being on a team if you are the strongest one?
“Please, my lord,” Meilin broke in. “We desperately need to speak to Rumfuss. If I could —”
“No,” Lord MacDonnell said. “Do not ask me again today.”
Just then, Finn burst from the fortress onto the grass of the courtyard. To Meilin’s surprise, he didn’t have Abeke with him. Instead, he had that absolutely ridiculous black cat, Kunaya.
“Abeke is gone,” Finn said. “All I could find was the cat.”
Meilin snapped, “I knew it!”
“Look,” Finn interrupted. He touched the cat’s neck. A piece of string was tied around it — no, not string. Abeke’s elephant hair bracelet. Several frantic knots were tied along its length. “A message.”
“What does it say?” Conor asked.
Finn’s face was serious. “‘Help.’ And then: ‘Devin hunts Rumfuss.’”
14: Hunting
“HE HUNTS?” MACDONNELL ASKED, VOICE CURIOUS, LIKE HE thought he’d misheard the punch line of a joke. Finn repeated what the knot code said. MacDonnell’s face didn’t change, but when he spoke again, his voice had gone dark. “Hunting. In my castle’s gardens, where I alone am permitted to hunt.” He pursed his lips. “They take advantage of my hospitality and break my law.”
“And they have Abeke!” Rollan added, irritated that MacDonnell seemed to find hunting more offensive than kidnapping. He turned to the others. “Why are we standing here? We’ve got to help her.”
“I’m certainly not allowing more people to break my law and hunt on my land,” MacDonnell said, as if this should have been obvious. “My soldiers will stop them. Trunswick won’t be allowed to leave Glengavin.”
“He has the wildcat,” Finn said quietly. “Even if you manage to take him, it won’t be without significant losses to your soldiers.” He motioned to the soldiers, who were pretending not to eavesdrop, though they were doing a terrible job — in his distraction, one soldier had knitted his sleeve into the Highland cow’s hair.
MacDonnell, who had already lifted his hands to clap and signal his soldiers, hesitated.
“You wouldn’t want to be down men, should you have to defend Glengavin from the Conquerors, sir,” Conor said, then reached down to the chessboard. He put his fingertip on MacDonnell’s king piece and slid it toward MacDonnell himself.
MacDonnell took a deep breath, one that seemed to make his already broad shoulders even broader. “A wise move, Conor — Briggan is indeed making you a good leader, even if you aren’t a good chess player. But what will my people think, if I allow you and your friends to break my law?”
“What if we did you some sort of favor in return for permission to break the law? A — a boon?” Conor said.
“Such as?” MacDonnell asked, and Conor furrowed his eyebrows in thought. “I have no need for your money —”
“The hare,” Meilin said, stepping forward. “What if we find your spirit animal?”
“The hare for Devin Trunswick and Rumfuss?” MacDonnell’s eyes widened. “Deal. But I warn you — he’s not a friendly boar. Even if you find him, I doubt he will speak to you. You may arm yourselves from my stock, just in case.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Rollan said. He spun around. “Hey, can I borrow this?” he asked, diving toward the soldier knitted to the cow. He grabbed the soldier’s sword; when the soldier moved to stop him, the cow mooed irritatedly and shuffled away, dragging the man with him.
MacDonnell, who looked a bit overcome with the prospect of the hare returning to him, had a soldier lead them through the palace and down a wide staircase to the gardens. As they came into view, Rollan had to hide his surprise. When Rollan thought of gardens, he thought of little patches of grass with flowers. Maybe a fountain. Maybe even a tree, if it was a really fancy sort of garden. And what lay before him was exactly those things — except times a thousandfold.
The gardens stretched out toward the horizon. The section farthest away was a swath of gray almost the same color as the late morning sky. Somewhere was the wall that kept Rumfuss contained — but Rollan certainly couldn’t see it among the thick trees, climbing vines, and flower beds so ruffled and colorful they looked like ladies’ dresses cascading from their boxes.
“All right, what’s first?” Rollan asked. “The hare, Abeke, or Rumfuss?”
“I had a dream about the hare,” Conor said. “I think I know where he is. Finn, come with me, we’ll go after the hare. Meilin and Rollan, you guys go find Abeke.”
After Conor and Finn had hurried into the gard
en in search of the hare, leaving Rollan and Meilin on the steps, the two began searching the perimeter of the castle for Abeke.
Meilin was already clacking around with plans and possibilities. “There’s no place to keep Abeke locked up in a garden, is there? She has to be inside somewhere.”
“Surely not in their rooms — even Devin Trunswick isn’t that stupid,” Rollan said.
Kunaya wrapped herself around Meilin’s legs several times. Meilin looked down, clearly annoyed at the distraction. “Maybe a closet? Or another guest room? I wish every door in this castle wasn’t closed — Kunaya, stop rubbing on me!”
Kunaya bit Meilin on the leg, an action that made Meilin hiss and Rollan grin.
“You ridiculous cat!” Meilin snapped.
Suddenly Rollan felt a flash of intuition so strong that he knew Essix must be near. He said, “What if she’s not just a ridiculous cat? Kunaya was the last one to see Abeke.”
“Follow a cat?” Meilin said. “That is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had.”
Rollan said, “Oh, trust me, it is not. Let’s go.”
He started after Kunaya, and the little cat, looking pleased that they understood the game, bounded down the path ahead of them.
They rounded the corner of the castle. The carriage house came into view, a small but tidy building with a thatched roof. Kunaya shot into the dim interior, where carriages were lined up. The cat wove around the wheels, a blur of motion, ever faster. Meilin and Rollan had to hurry to keep up with her.
And then she stopped. With her tail crooked into a curl, she meowed smugly.
“Kunaya?” a voice called out, sounding just a little tearful.
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