As they walked across the broad span of the bridge, the members of the party were able to look out over the stone parapets at the lustrous black-gray waters careering toward them from the right, rushing away on the left. Mustard-yellow willow leaves and the pellucid domes of bubbles swirled on the river’s surface. Where the bridge poured itself onto the opposite shore, two strong gates reached across the road, meeting in the middle. To one side stood a slate-roofed edifice constructed of the same hoary granite as the bridge. It was small in diameter, but quite tall.
“That is the toll-house,” Eoin murmured in Jewel’s ear. “Fall back beside me, and say no word.”
At the distance of a bowshot from the toll-house there arose an artificial hill, perfectly cone-shaped. On its flat top crouched a structure resembling a haystack, which was, in fact, a huge pile of kindling and dry logs, thatched to keep out the rain. In times of danger, this beacon fire could be lit by a flaming arrow sent from the toll-house. It would be seen by fortified settlements within eye-view of the beacon, on hilltops farther away. On the pinnacle of the toll-house perched a watch-turret whose narrow windows faced every direction, and atop the turret, under its own tiny roof, hung a bell.
A helmeted sentry dressed in the colors of Narngalis came out of this robust edifice. He stood facing them, with his back to the gates, similarly barring their path. His tabard was the color of black raspberries, bordered with orpine and emblazoned with the sigil of the sword.
“Travelers, hail,” he recited in a voice like river-gravel. “The toll is tuppence a head, be that head sixteen Winters’ age or more.”
“Hail, sir. Well met,” Leofric greeted the official in his congenial manner.
Eoin and Jewel hung back to the rear of the party, but try as they might, they could not get behind Cat Soup, who always managed to slip adroitly into last position. Goodman Leofric was in the lead, and as he fumbled with the knot in the drawstring of his belt-purse, the drubbing rhythm of fast-approaching horses came up the road from the south.
Cold claws of dread laid hold of Eoin, and the galloping hoofbeats throbbed in the blood through his temples. In a foment of panic, he could only shuffle from one foot to the other, trying desperately to maintain his charade of indifference, itching to throw his coins at the feet of the sentry, grab Jewel, and make a dash for the hedges bordering the road on the northern shore. Jewel showed no signs, but he understood her well enough to be certain she, too, had picked up the rumor of swift riders, and knew what it might mean.
“For myself and my wife.” Leofric’s four copper coins dropped clink! into the upturned hand of the sentry, who stared past the Narngalishman, shading his eyes with his other hand.
“Riders from Rua, eh?” he said. “King’s men, by the look.”
The marshman stepped forward and dropped his pennies into the still-open palm. The bridge guard stood aside, pushed one of the gates ajar, and motioned for him to pass, along with Jewel and the family from Fiddler’s Hamlet. Simultaneously, he called out to his fellows in the toll-house—
“Sigeweard! Hunfrith! Look lively and show yourselves. Here’s riders from Cathair Rua, and they look to be in a mighty hurry.”
A clatter as of spilled ironmongery emanated from the unglazed windows of the toll-house and somebody let fly a curse. By this time, the entire party had stepped off the bridge, but the gritty voice of the sentry shouted, “Hey, you there! Stop!” and everyone came to a halt.
Eoin felt the muscles in his scalp slide on his head-bones, of their own accord.
They all turned around, to see two other sentries emerging from the toll-house, while the first strode toward Cat Soup, beckoning and snapping his fingers, saying, “You, sir, may not pass. You have not paid the toll.”
A surge of relief made Eoin weak at the knees, yet it was mingled with mounting horror at the riders’ relentless approach. The old man began to protest. Paying no heed to his objections, the sentry indicated with a wave that the rest of the party might proceed unhindered. As they set off, they heard Cat Soup insisting, “I have no money, but I have special powers and can tell you things that will be greatly to your benefit!”
The bridge guard rolled his eyes. Wearing a look of boredom, he continued to conduct the beggar back through the gates. It took great effort on Eoin’s part to resist taking Jewel by the hand and making a dash for freedom. Each step seemed unbearably slow, as if they all waded through knee-deep mud. His ears twitched, for he kept expecting to hear someone call out from behind, bidding him halt immediately.
On the northern side of the Canterbury Water, the road was paved with flagstones and cobbles.
“Now that we’re across,” said the goodwife to her husband, “I should like to rest over there beneath the trees. The children are hungry, and ’tis high time we had a bite to eat.”
Aware that the family’s provender was scarcely ample, and desperate to get away from the converging riders, Eoin spoke rapidly. “Alas, we cannot tarry with you, for we must make haste. We are grateful for your kindness and hope we may meet again.” He bowed, and when he looked up he saw by their facial expressions that he had eased them of a burden—yet also they were concerned for the welfare of their companions.
“Take this, child.” The goodwife thrust a wedge of hard cheese into Jewel’s hand. The marsh-child thanked her with a polite curtsey and thus they took their leave.
From the bridge, the road barreled on, straight as a javelin. The land to either side had been tamed into hedge-bordered fields and meadows, interrupted by copses and spinneys and laced with slender brooks. Eoin and Jewel strode along as fast as they could without actually breaking into a run. “With all speed we must reach that bend up ahead,” the marshman muttered fervently. “Even a slight curve will suffice to put us out of view of the bridge.”
Neither of them dared to look back, but Eoin felt as if his ears had somehow lengthened, stretching behind him like the ears of a hare, straining to pick up sounds of hoofbeats. It could not be long until the horsemen caught up with them. Just before they reached the bend they risked a glance back toward the bridge. One of the gates, left ajar, had swung wider on its well-oiled hinges, revealing a clear view. Outside the toll-house, four riders had drawn rein. They wore the uniform of the King’s Guard, emblazoned with Slievmordhu’s sigil of the Burning Brand. Still on horseback, and in the company of the toll-house guards, they were grouped around the beggar. Indeed, Cat Soup appeared to be the focus of attention. One of the riders was leaning down, speaking to him. Then the beggar spoke, and the riders were obviously heedful.
“He is betraying me,” said Eoin, suddenly. “He recognizes me from a chance encounter in Cathair Rua, and he is telling the king’s cavalrymen.” Jewel gasped. Fear shadowed her eyes of glacial blue. “Hasten!” cried her step-uncle. “Once around this bend, we’ll be hidden from their line of sight and we can leave the road once more.”
Even as they fled around the curve in the road they heard it start up again—the clop and clatter of iron crescents on flagstones. After jumping the ditch on the left, they ran alongside a berry-ornamented hawthorn hedge until they found a stile. This they vaulted swiftly in their terror, and were thus able to keep sprinting on the other side of the hedge, along the margins of a field, concealed from view of the road.
From behind them the sharp drumming of a fast-moving cavalcade grew louder. In front loomed a belt of old pines, probably planted long ago as a windbreak. The two terrified wayfarers plunged into the verdurous twilight beneath their boughs, with the clap of iron on stone racketing through their heads. The marshman threw himself to the ground, pulling Jewel after him. The cacophony crescendoed to its peak, as if the horsemen rode across their very spines, but no iron-shod hoof planted itself in the sumptuous carpet of pine-needles, no harsh voice shouted a command, and as the hammering of hooves faded up the road the wayfarers opened their eyes and sat up.
They listened.
In the branches above, a blackbird sang a poignantly b
eautiful melody. The wind crooned through the dark green needles. There was a muffled thud as a pine-cone hit the ground.
Nothing else.
“They will return,” said Eoin, his eyes flicking nervously from side to side as he scanned their surroundings for hints of any further peril. “I daresay they will eventually guess our strategy and come hunting. Let’s go! We must hasten from this spot, but we must not return to the road. Not in daylight. We’ll wait until dusk.”
As they picked themselves up and resumed their journey, Jewel said, “But Uncle, this is likely to be the very region the old man warned us about—the field called Black Goat, with its reputation as a haunt of unseelie wights. It will be too perilous here. Let us go back to the road at once.”
“You are invulnerable, little one,” her step-uncle reminded her.
“Except against mistletoe,” she amended.
Paying no heed to the interruption, he repeated, “You are invulnerable, and I can take care of myself. The need for speed and secrecy is paramount. We shall take our chances off-road during daylight hours and return to the road at nightfall. And we shall stay wary at all times.”
He was determined, and in the end she gave way to his decision.
The fields across which they were passing looked innocent enough, though rather wild and neglected, knee-deep in a profusion of weeds and wildflowers. Amaranth-pink blooms climbed the tall stems of common fumitory, the delicate albino racemes of shepherd’s purse trembled, brushed by the corner of Jewel’s cloak, and the sepals of charlock, bright yellow, glowed like warm butter. There was prickly crowthistle, too, grown lanky from the fierce need to reach for sunlight from amongst the shadows of its neighbors. Its blossoms perched on their stalks like colonies of purple birds.
Screened from the road by hedges and windbreak plantations, the wayfarers plowed on, stopping now and then, when Jewel’s exhaustion overwhelmed her. Eoin was anxious to keep moving. He strapped his pack to his chest and bade his niece climb on his back, so that he might carry her. She went to sleep on his shoulders and almost slipped off.
Whether it was the fragrance of the wildflowers or the fact he had not had a good night’s sleep for more than a month, or whether due to the aftermath of the terror engendered by the king’s horsemen, or some other reason, Eoin, too, began to be affected by somnolence. With his lids sagging, he plodded stubbornly on, partially supporting himself on his blackthorn staff. His right arm, supporting Jewel’s weight, was locked painfully into position; his knees creaked; his head throbbed. His sole notion was to keep moving north while staying out of sight of the road. It did not occur to him that after the single burst of speed and noise from the horsemen passing by, there had been no sign of them again. The king’s riders had not doubled back to search for him and Jewel.
This was because, unknown to Eoin, the riders were not pursuing these two refugees at all. They were merely delivering a letter from Primoris Asper Virosus, the Druid Imperius of Slievmordhu, to the Druid Imperius of Narngalis. The letter had nothing to do with any descendants of the Sorcerer of Strang. At the toll-house Cat Soup, whose half-demented brain had not recognized Eoin, had been spinning the king’s men a tale of his “unusual powers,” of how he “knew” what was in the letter they carried, and they had better beware, for it was not to the letter bearers’ advantage. Because of everyday association with the Sanctorum of Slievmordhu, the soldiery of Cathair Rua were highly superstitious. Unlike the Narngalish toll-house guards, they were inclined to believe the old man, even though they feigned skepticism. Before they rode away they tossed him a couple of coins, with which he paid the toll, and crossed over the Canterbury Water.
Eoin, however, was unaware of this and in his miasma of weariness, or enchantment, he was also unaware how far he had strayed from the road.
A gray gloaming crept over the fields. On her uncle’s shoulder, Jewel stirred. “Should we not be returning to the road now?” she murmured sleepily. “ ’Tis getting dark.”
“Aye.” Eoin veered to the right, then stumbled.
“Put me down,” said Jewel. He let her slide from his back, and flexed his stiffened arms, passing his staff from hand to hand.
“Come on,” he said grimly, looking about as if he, too, had just awoken. “We must head due east. Somehow I’ve blundered too far from the road. ’Tis nowhere in sight.”
He reinstated the pack on his back and again, they set off.
A wall of cloud, iron-gray, stretched across the western sky. As the twilight thickened, translucent steams arose stealthily, and the weeds through which the wayfarers were wading looked taller than they had appeared by daylight. Their leaves now seemed blackish instead of green, and amongst them nightshade proliferated, heavy with orbs of poisonous fruit. Hidden beneath the rank growth were rocks and odd-shaped things, ready to turn one’s ankle if stepped on. And instead of birdsong, a weird, acute melody was spurling across the fields, thin as a razor’s edge.
In the distance, a cluster of red-gold lights flared. “Look yonder,” said Eoin. “Bonfires on some hilltop. Perhaps folk are making merry there.” Gold-tinged smokes haloed the remote blazes. If the fires had an uncanny look, the travelers were too weary to note it.
The mists that had been conspiratorially exuding from the ground floated ingenuously across their line of sight. They dimmed the lights and ultimately obscured them completely. Without reference to the descending sun, the marsh-man felt even more disoriented. He wondered if he had stepped on a Stray Sod—an eldritch piece of turf with the power to disorient any mortal creature that set foot on it—and muttered an age-old protective rhyme under his breath: “Hypericum, salt and bread, iron cold and berries red . . .”
The humid haze commenced to slowly circulate, and Eoin was vigorously reminded of his encounter with the blue-eyed woman-seeming wight. That had all been glamour, nothing but an illusion created at the whims of supernatural beings for the purpose of luring mortal men to their deaths. I’ll not fall for that trick twice, he decided, yet an inexpressible horror pressed on him. It struck him that for some while he had heard scant sound of Jewel beside him, swishing through the weeds. “Stay close,” he said, turning toward her, but she was no longer there.
“Jewel?” he called, squinting through the murk and mist.
“Jewel!” No voice answered. He panicked, and started to run.
Alone in the dark, Jewel was beating through the tares, calling out the name of her step-uncle. She could not understand how the two of them had become separated. Clammy tentacles of apprehension crawled across her flesh. Spying a rowan tree that stood alone, laden with its Autumn jewelry of scarlet beads, she hurried to shelter beneath its branches.
I shall wait for him, she thought. It is safe here, beneath the rowan.
She was too tired to walk any farther. The wighting hours were upon the land and she knew there might be trows about, or worse. Trows were apt to abduct folk. They did not harm them, but they kept them, trowbound. If that should happen, her invulnerability would avail her naught. At all events, trows and other minor unseelie creatures were unable to approach rowan wood.
“Uncle!” she called into the night.
The thin music was joined by distant voices, singing.
The fog had become so dense that Eoin could not see where he was going, and he was forced to lurch to a halt.
As the vapors thickened, the singing sprang up around him, louder than before. He knew then that he was surrounded by wights, who at best would hinder and mislead him. He turned back, heading in the direction from which he thought he had come, but a hedge barred his way. Its ends, if ends it possessed, were lost in the mists. Eoin was certain the hedge had not been there earlier, and this reinforced his suspicion that he had inadvertently stepped on a Stray Sod.
The hedge was of cypress, not prickly hawthorn, so he left his staff propped against it, pushed his way in amongst the springy foliage, and began to climb. As he ascended, however, the hedge-top never came any closer. It was a
s if the cypresses were growing taller, the higher he went. Eventually he surrendered and jumped down, before retrieving his staff. Striking out to the left, he made his way along the line of the hedge, bewildered and alarmed by the loud chorus of eldritch song issuing from all sides.
Foremost in his mind was the desire to locate Jewel. His heart was thundering like a rampage of mad horses, and every breath puffed in short, shallow gasps. He must find Jewel, protect her. Guilt was ripping his spirit apart. She was lost alone in the wilderness, and it was his fault. He had catapulted her into this predicament, and now he had failed her.
The aqueous gases clung to him stickily, chillingly. Damp, intangible wool pressed on his eyes. He began to stumble, and every time he did so, jeering laughter broke out. After a while he could endure the invisible mockery no longer. He sat down and took off his pack, then brought out his tinderbox.
A spark jumped from his flint and steel onto the curls of dry bark in the box. A flame flowered. Light blossomed.
A pile of jagged stone ruins leaned suddenly out of the nearby darkness. The radiance of the tiny tinder-fire flowed over it like rose-water, describing savage perforations and rude projections. The openings gaped to reveal the interior of this relic, which was filled with wildly gamboling figures, ludicrous mockeries of human shapes. Many possessed long-snouted heads, splayed hands, skinny limbs, and monstrous feet. Others were perverted to the degree of indescribability.
Eoin picked up his staff and sprang to his feet, but as he was about to escape, he was intercepted. Right in front of him capered an incorporation of the macabre; it looked like a black buck-goat, with horns a yard long, flaming eyes, and a long, twirling tail. Around the marshman it bounded, attempting to grasp him. Choked with terror, Eoin comprehended that instead of hooves, its forelegs terminated in hairy paws.
The numinous music and singing squealed from every point of the compass. It streamed into the ears of the mortal, flowing down his canals to his cerebellum, and down nerve fibers to his toes. Absurdly, his feet danced, compelled to move in rhythm with the eldritch minstrelsy. These wights, with their musical tricks, were making him look like some awkward, jiggling clown! His terror changed to fury. He was being forced to perform like a string-puppet, and this monstrous goat-thing appeared to be trying to lead him in the dance. But if it gripped him, what then? Would he be made to dance endlessly in some eldritch place, forever lost to mortalkind? In the past, he had survived many an encounter with wights, some tricksy, some malevolent. And he might do so again! With a surge of anger, forgetting he no longer wore an effective amulet, he brought up his fist with the cudgel of blackthorn and lashed out at the bizarre actuality leaping before him.
The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 6
