The Glass Casket
Page 2
“They must have been attacked,” Paer Jorgen said, and since he was the only village elder in the party, the rest of the men fell silent. “Something tore into that tent back there, and that first man, clearly he was mauled by an animal.”
Bartlett the tailor, who had examined the tent at length, nodded, wearing an odd expression. “About that,” he said. “I don’t think something did tear into that tent. I think something tore out of it.”
Tom shivered at the notion.
Wilhelm Parstle furrowed his brow. “You’re certain?”
“It looks that way.”
“Are you saying,” Tom asked, his voice cracking, “that these men, they clawed their way out of that tent?”
“Yes.” Bartlett nodded. “I think that’s exactly what they did.”
Paer Jorgen shook his head, fear evident in his eyes. “No. No, something is not right here. There is something we are not seeing. It must have been an animal—attacked while they were sleeping.”
“The tent was torn from the inside,” Bartlett insisted. “As if they were trying to escape something.”
The men stared at one another as they considered this, all momentarily speechless.
“What was it they sought up here?” Jude asked, his voice cutting through the silence. The men turned to look at him—Jude seldom spoke, and when he did, he could be counted on to say something controversial. “Does anyone know? If we knew why they were here, perhaps we could figure out what happened to them.”
Paer Jorgen shook his head. “They are royal soldiers. Their business is not our own. When it comes to the king’s city, it is always best not to question. And I see no reason why we should. It was a wolf, plain and simple. Granted, we haven’t had a wolf in these parts for years, but only this morning Mama Lune told me of a recent spate of moose killings up north in the old territories. With the mild winters we’ve had, it’s possible that the population is expanding and venturing out of range.”
“I’ll give you the first man, but what about these others?” Jude argued. “They have nary a scratch on them.”
“Mind your place, Jude,” his father chastised before the boy could embarrass him further.
Jude balked. “I’m supposed to accept that a wolf did this?”
“You dare to argue with me?” Paer Jorgen’s face was growing red as he spoke.
Jude raised a thumb. “Our purpose is the same, Paer Jorgen. I want to know what killed these men just as you do. Our people live at the base of this mountain. Don’t you think it best that we explore every possibility before we cease our questioning?”
The old man took a step toward the boy, and instinctively the others took a step away. “And what experience have you with wolves? You were barely alive when the wolves took the Flywit children.”
“I thought the Flywit children disappeared,” Jude challenged.
“You will stop contradicting me. A wolf mauled that man.”
Jude clenched his jaw. “And I suppose a wolf simply encouraged these men here to remove their clothes and lie down nice and still in the snow like that. You’re right,” he said, slinging his gun over his shoulder and walking into the woods. “That must have been it.”
Tom moved to follow his brother, but then thought better of it. His gaze fell to the bodies, so pristine, blanched the same color as the snow. There was something wrong about the tableau before him, something he could not quite place. He leaned in to take a closer look but was pulled from his reverie when his father grabbed his arm.
“Tom, Paer Jorgen is speaking.”
Tom looked to the elder, who was mid-argument. Something would need to be done with the bodies, and the men were already engaged in a dispute over what that thing was to be.
“… they may be the king’s men, but it is our mountain,” said Paer Jorgen, his lips pursing with anger.
“Yes,” whispered Natty Whitt. “The Goddess would want them to rest.”
“What does our mountain goddess care for the king’s soldiers?” Goi Tate spat. “These same soldiers enslaved her people and drove her underground. I say send word to the palace city. Let them deal with the corpses. Theirs is a sea god. Let them have their ocean burial to sate him. They’re not our responsibility.”
“But we can’t leave them out in the air like this,” Bartlett said. “We can’t leave them for the elements. Think of their bodies, what the scavengers will do to them.”
“Think of their bodies?” said Paer Jorgen, eyes wide. “Think of their souls. No, these men must be put to rest, and waiting for the king to send more soldiers is a folly.” He scratched his chin and looked over the bodies. “Of course, if it has been more than twenty-three hours, then they are unclean, and no rites can be said.”
The old man looked to Dr. Temper, who winced. “It’s difficult to tell with precision, but I would say they have been here a while. More than twenty-three hours. There’s no way rites can be said.”
“Then”—Paer Jorgen cleared his throat—“then we must burn them.”
The other men nodded their assent.
“What will we do with the ashes?” Tom asked. “We can’t offer them at the Mouth of the Goddess.”
“You are right. That we cannot do,” said the old man. He ran a hand across his forehead, and then nodded. “Yes, yes, that will have to do. The cimetière. We will bury the ashes out in there in the old necropolis.”
The cimetière was a primordial place. To the east of Nag’s End, beyond the confines of the village and through the forest a way, it was the ancient walled burial grounds of the old ones who’d lived and died long before man walked the earth. The thought of the place made Tom uneasy. He’d played there once or twice as a child, careful to skirt the wall that circumscribed the fetid place, never touching the ancient stones. The idea of burying anyone out there, ashes or no, gave him a bad feeling.
“Is that sacrosanct?” Wilhelm Parstle asked.
Paer Jorgen sighed. “If their bodies have turned, our hands are tied. Without the rites we cannot cleanse them, and unclean, they cannot rest at the Mouth of the Goddess.”
“Their kin won’t take kindly to a funeral pyre,” said Goi Tate.
“It’s the best we can do under the circumstances,” said Paer Jorgen. “We must burn them, and then we must lay them beneath the stones. We cannot risk their spirits becoming restless. We cannot risk them rising again.” The old man shuffled through the snow, stroking his beard, lost in thought.
“That wood,” Tom said, remembering the confounding mass they’d seen upon arrival. “Perhaps we could use it for a pyre.”
His father turned his gaze back toward the camp and squinted. “Yes, the wood. What in the name of the Goddess can it be?”
Paer Jorgen shook his head and turned to walk away. “Midday is upon us. We must get to work.”
As Tom gathered the wood from the great mound at the center of camp, he tried to quiet the growing fear in his chest. Beggar’s Drift was part of the Black Forest, a dense, wild place that surrounded Nag’s End on all sides. As such, Tom knew it would be prudent to return to the village before nightfall. Although no one had seen a goblin or fairy for generations, the villagers were inclined to believe they were still out there, and while forest things might silently stalk a man by day, they were said to hunt them as prey only at night. Tom didn’t know whether he believed the forest lore, but people who wandered into the woods at night did tend to disappear, and even skeptics like Henry Rose kept within the village bounds once darkness fell. Jude was the only person Tom knew who was reckless enough to brave the night woods with any frequency, but then his hunting skills were second to none. Tom liked to believe that if something was hunting his brother, the hunter would quickly turn prey.
Twilight was nearly upon them when Jude emerged from a thicket of trees, his rifle at his side, a worried expression on his face.
“Where have you been?” Tom asked, lifting a bundle of wood.
“I was scouting the area. I wanted to se
e what was on the north slope of the mountain.”
“Did you find anything?”
“I don’t know,” Jude said, his face still etched with concern. “The land up here is strange, unsettled. There are places where it looks as if something has erupted out of the ground. There are curious piles of ice and snow. I told Paer Jorgen about it, and he just mumbled something about wolves and sent me away. I don’t know, Tom. Something happened up here. Something I can’t for the life of me understand.”
Just then, Tom heard his father call out for them. Bending to lift a final piece of wood before going to speak with his father, Tom noticed something small glimmering in the snow beneath a log. He scraped the powder away with a gloved finger to reveal an unusual coin. It was a circle enclosing a smaller circle. They were linked by seven spokes, empty spaces between them. He was leaning in to examine it more closely when he found himself suddenly queasy, as if beset by a noxious force. For a moment, he thought he might be sick. But he heard his father’s voice calling him again. He slipped the coin into his coat pocket and hurried over to the older man.
“What is it, Father?” he asked when he reached him.
“You and your brother take Natty Whitt back to the village. His mother will be missing him, and yours will need help with preparations for supper. An emergency council must meet when this business is done, and your mother will need the extra hands.” Tom nodded, and his father continued. “Send up Maura King’s boy, and that lout Olin Gent. Have them bring crates to fetch back the dead men’s things.”
Tom did not envy the boys their task, for he knew that as they packed the belongings, they would need to work quickly, making sure to avert their eyes lest they incur the luck of the dead.
“It will be dark soon,” Tom warned.
His father nodded. “Then you’d better be quick about it, hadn’t you?”
He gathered Jude and Natty, and the three trudged back down to their quiet village, Tom secretly glad to be missing the rites.
Once the fires were lit and the bodies slowly burning, the rest of the men would join them in the tavern, all but two—the pyre watchers—who would stay behind to guard the dead that night. At dawn the bones would be ground and mixed with ash before being taken to the cimetière and buried in the ancient clay, stones laid carefully atop.
Just in case.
2. THE EMPEROR
BACK AT HOME, Tom washed quickly and hurried downstairs to help his mother, Elsbet. She was chopping forest mushrooms with a large butcher’s knife when he came in, and she shook her head when she saw him.
“Awful business, this. Think of their mothers.”
“Where’s Jude?” Tom asked.
“Catching a rabbit for the pot.” She motioned with her head toward the door that led to their backyard, and to the dense woods beyond. “Thank the Goddess there’s something he can do.”
Tom disliked it when his mother spoke so of Jude, but he knew better than to argue with her.
“It was awful,” Tom said, and picking up a potato, he began peeling.
“Natty said it was a wolf.” Elsbet clucked. “What a crisis. A wolf is the last thing we need these days. I hope it’s gone back north to the territories. What’s wrong? Why are you looking like that?”
Tom sighed. “Mother, I’m not sure it was a wolf.”
“Of course it was a wolf. And he said it must have been quite a one, to lay low five men like that. Must be these winters. They’re breeding up there. And they come down here to fill their bellies, and just look what happens. Hasn’t been a Nag’s Ender killed by a wolf since before you were born.”
“What about the Flywit children?” Tom said, still peeling, his mind wandering to the bloody twin caverns where the first man’s eyes ought to have been.
“The Flywit children? No, they were taken by goblins. Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Tom Parstle. It’s many a human child that were snatched by hungry goblins before Mama Lune put up our village barrier. Thank the Goddess for her, I tell you. Not a wicked thing been through there since, but wolves are a different matter. Wolves are just like us—animals born of the Goddess. They don’t care one whit about protection charms. Oh, what are we going to do?” She set her knife down, clearly upset.
Tom hated to see his mother distressed, and laying a hand on her arm, he tried to comfort her. “Don’t worry, Mother. If it is a wolf, then it’s probably gone north since then. Paer Jorgen said he heard something’s been killing moose up there. Must have been our wolf.”
Elsbet sighed and then picked up her knife and resumed chopping. “Sounds awful to say it, but I’m more than a bit relieved it was those soldiers and not one of our own. Could have been a child. Just think of it. Biddy Holmson lets those triplets run dog wild among the trees all day. Goblins and fairies may catch their prey by dark, but wolves eat when wolves are hungry. They’d likely eat a child for breakfast as not.”
Tom nodded and remained silent, having learned years ago that when he didn’t know what to say to his mother, it was best to say nothing at all.
“Fool men,” she continued. “Going up to Beggar’s Drift like that. Who does such a thing, and in the middle of winter? That’s what you get.” She shook her head as if to say that had she been in charge of things, such mistakes would not have been made.
That night, after the fires had been set and the dead soldiers’ things stored in the tavern cellar, the men of Nag’s End gathered at the inn. Decisions had been made up on that icy mountain, decisions that ran counter to the king’s way, and now those decisions would speak for the whole of Nag’s End.
Elsbet served the men rabbit stew and was more generous than usual with her pour. Wilhelm was among those who had made the decision to build the funeral pyre, and since Wilhelm wasn’t used to any trouble, she worried for him.
“More ale, then?” she called to the men from behind the bar, but no one answered. They were all busy listening to Rowan’s father, Henry Rose, speak.
“My good men,” he chuckled, dabbing a napkin at the corner of his mouth. “All I’m saying is that Nag’s End is steeped in mountain ways, antiquated beliefs—and although I worship at the Mouth of the Goddess, I’m afraid I do not believe in goblins, ghosts, and ghouls.” A wave of murmurs swept through the room, and Henry Rose, who had been born in the palace city, once again recognized his place as a foreigner in his own village. “What I am trying to say is that just because you believe something does not make it so, and that just as you ask the king’s people to respect your customs, we must admit to ourselves that we have violated theirs.”
Paer Jorgen shook his head. “You may not come from the land of the Goddess, but you’re in her province now. Her flesh and blood rests just below the surface of the earth. Her magic surrounds us. You have only to look about you.”
“But that’s just it,” Henry Rose laughed. “I see nothing. No witch can produce a spell to impress me; no augur has proven accurate enough in my opinion to be rightly called divination.”
“You say no witch can produce a spell to impress you?” asked Paer Jorgen, leaning in. “What about the protection that surrounds our village? The perimeter hasn’t been breached for years.”
Henry Rose rolled his eyes. “As far as I am concerned, there is no spell, only empty air defending us against creatures that were never there to begin with.” Henry, noticing the displeasure of his brethren, pushed a lock of white-blond hair from his eyes and raised a thumb. “Please, I mean no offense. I may not have been born in Nag’s End, but I consider you all my people. Truly, I am one of you. I make the sign of the Goddess when a murder of crows flies northeast to southwest. I am careful to cross the sash to the left when I open the morning curtains. These are the ways of the mountain folk, and I honor them, but let us think clearly for a moment. Has any man among you actually seen the dead walk? Or seen a Greenwitch turn herself into a cat? I mean, we no longer believe in Greywitches, do we? So why do we believe that their modern sisters wield any real powers?”
“Goi Rose has said nothing against Mama Lune,” Wilhelm Parstle said, trying to keep the peace as usual.
“Placing a Greenwitch in the same sentence with a Greywitch is a wicked thing to do,” said Paer Jorgen, grimacing. “Besides, everyone knows all the Greywitches are dead now—wiped them out at the culling, we did.”
Henry Rose nodded and raised his thumb again. “Please, I meant no harm. I bear Mama Lune no ill will. She is a good woman, and a skilled healer, but delivering a child and nursing the sick is not magic. You give her too much power.” He sighed and shook his head. “But this isn’t about our difference of beliefs. It is about the king and his soldiers. We must be prepared for some kind of backlash in the eventuality that a party is sent to find these soldiers. What I wonder is whether we might avoid a row by writing to the king’s people, by telling them what we’ve done and why we’ve done it. I think we’ve the best chance of avoiding any trouble that way. So I am asking you, do I have your consent to write such a letter?”
After a moment, the three elders nodded in turn, although it was clear that none was happy about the idea.
“Now,” continued Henry Rose, leaning forward. “Those men were sent here to find something. Does anyone have knowledge of what that thing might be?”
The Nag’s Enders looked around the table at one another and shook their heads.
Henry Rose nodded again. “I’m wondering if before I write that letter, it might be wise to determine what these men sought. Perhaps if we know what brought them here, then we will be better able to defend ourselves against any accusations leveled at us.”
“But how would we do that?” asked Wilhelm Parstle.
Henry Rose tented his fingers in front of his nose.
“Surely their possessions were gathered. We have simply to look through them and see if they provide an answer.”