Patricia Briggs

by The Hob's Bargain

  The hob returned too soon for my peace of mind. With him he brought an armful of greenery. He sat at my feet and, whistling cheerfully, wove a tight circlet of rowan that he placed on my head before selecting wildflowers and tucking them around it.

  “What is the earth spirit like?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember much about him,” he replied, selecting some mountain aster from his booty. “Though I recall he’d associated with humans a long time. ’Twasn’t much like the mountain; she’s fair wild, she is—almost as informal as the water spirits, though they tend to be vulgar.”

  “The fisherfolk are like that, too.” I asked him something that had been bothering me. “After I talk to the spirit, will I be bound to it—as you are to the mountain?”

  He dropped the flowers on the ground in surprise. “Of course not. You’re a human, not a hob. No elemental would ever take a human for a servant—too obstreperous.”

  I blinked at him, uncertain whether I felt more incredulous or insulted. “And you’re the very paragon of tractability, I suppose?”

  As quickly as that, his merry mood was gone. He tucked the last of the flowers in my hair and let out a slow breath. “The mountain commands and I obey.”

  My, but didn’t he sound happy.

  “If I felt like that about it, I wouldn’t obey,” I commented.

  “That’s why elementals avoid humans,” said the hob.

  I WALKED BAREFOOT IN THE HOB’S CLOAK AND A SARONG of silk and moonlight with circlets of flowers around my head, my wrists, and my ankles. Caefawn walked in front of me, occasionally warning me of sticks and thorns—sometimes even before my feet found them first.

  I wondered if what I was doing would offend the One God more than my being mageborn already had. My father said Tolleck, the new priest, was very young, but blessed with a gift enabling him to speak to the One God. Father’d smiled at me and said it gave him hope, seeing how a priest that close to the One God was a good man.

  “Caefawn?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I won’t be worshiping this spirit, will I?”

  The moonlight allowed me to see his eyebrows raise. “No, indeed. Though I’ve heard of one or two elemental spirits who tried to require it. Not healthy for anyone concerned—even if the gods don’t get involved. Just be respectful.”

  I stepped on another sharp rock, and swore.

  MY FEET WERE SORE BY THE TIME WE REACHED THE OLD snag. In the night the ancient oak looked eerie, full of shadows and of silver where the light touched it.

  “It’s over here,” I said, starting for the field.

  “Wait here,” he said, and stripped his cloak from my shoulders. “This is close enough. You don’t want to force yourself on it.”

  “That’s right,” agreed a boyish voice. “It wouldn’t do to force yourself where you aren’t wanted.”

  The boy perched casually in the branches of the old snag. He wore rich-looking clothes of light-colored velvet; I couldn’t tell whether they were pink or blue. One of his arms was twined in the branch above the one he sat on, the other rested negligently on one hip. Not what I’d expected of an earth spirit.

  “I have to go a lot of places I couldn’t, if I went only where I am wanted,” I replied sharply—forgetting the one piece of advice the hob had given me. Be respectful, he’d said.

  “I have to go a lot of places I couldn’t, if I went only where I’m wanted,” he said, repeating my words in a high singsong voice. It sounded even stupider the second time.

  I swallowed my words and waited until I could speak calmly. Ridicule, I told myself sternly, was a childish game. Responding meant you lost.

  “Spirit,” I said calmly, even respectfully, “I have come to find out why you sent your servants to attack us.”

  He bounced off the tree to crouch at my feet. He was so close I could smell the herbs on his breath.

  “Killed and maimed the earthen, you did,” he said in a sad voice. “Poor dead things.” He said it in Caulem’s voice.

  In the tree, his face had been in shadows, so I had no warning until he was crouched in front of me and I looked into my husband’s brother’s face. But looking out through Caulem’s clear eyes was someone else entirely.

  “How dare you?” I grabbed the top of his shirt by the shoulders. “How dare you take the form of my kin?” I didn’t yell, but rage thickened my voice. “It does not belong to you.”

  “Aren,” warned the hob, his tail wrapping my ankle for the second time this night. It must have been a habitual gesture, but I found it distracting. My anger cooled enough for me to better consider my actions.

  “Everything that goes to earth belongs to me!” the creature screamed. He was a wicked caricature of the boy I’d known. “You have not the right to deny me any form I choose, human.”

  “What is this?” A man’s musical bass stroked my ears.

  The being who wore my brother-by-marriage’s form pulled from my grip and ran into the shadows whence the voice had issued. “It hurt me!” he cried piteously. “Oh, Master, save your poor shaper from the dreadful thing. Ow, ow, my shoulders. See where it bruised me?”

  The moon came out in her full glory just before the new creature stepped out from the rye field. He was taller than either the hob or I by a good head, and his golden antlers were taller yet. Like me, he was clothed in a simple sarong, though his merely wrapped around his hips. I still couldn’t tell how it stayed on. I reached up to make certain mine was still where it belonged.

  The elemental’s features were broad, with wide cheekbones and full, sensuous lips. His chin and lower jaw were coated with a dense beard that looked as much like moss as it did hair. Large, dark-colored eyes gazed upon me solemnly. His hair was shoulder length, wire-thick, and curly. His feet were cloven hooves.

  “So you abuse my servant?” he said. There was no accusation in his tone, but I bristled anyway, ignoring the way the hob’s tail tightened painfully around my ankle.

  “Your servant wears the body of my kin, who died this spring.” Anger at the shock and the sacrilege added an edge to my words.

  The earth spirit made a chiding noise through his teeth, turning to the boy who crouched at his feet. “Is it so?” He didn’t seem to need an answer, because he continued, “For shame, shaper. Go and change. Wear no more the forms of shades just to torment the living.”

  The boy cast me a malevolent look. “She hurt me, Master. Wilst punish her?”

  “Go, now, child.”

  The boy hissed, but he left by the same path through the rye his master had taken earlier.

  “Are you going to punish me?” I asked. I heard the hob draw in his breath at my challenging tone. Either that or he was laughing. In the darkness it was hard to tell.

  “The fledgling was in the wrong,” said the earth spirit. “I apologize for him.” There was regal concession in his voice, but no real apology.

  “You’re not the one who owes me an apology,” I replied.

  The hob shook his head. This time I knew I heard a choked-off laugh. I ignored him.

  The earth spirit spared Caefawn a glance, then turned to me. “Who are you, and why do you come to me here?”

  Ah, here was the chance to use the speech I’d practiced all the way here. “I am Aren of Fallbrook. I’ve come to find out how we have angered you, that you sent your earthens to attack us.” There it was, my speech, all of it.

  The spirit shrugged his wide shoulders and dropped to the ground with sudden grace. I stood feeling awkward for a moment, but when the hob sat down as well, I did the same. The night enfolded us in its secrets while I waited for the spirit to speak.

  “Where are the dances?” he asked after a while. The dark voice was heavy with sorrow. “Where the songs to gladden my heart? Where the thanks belonging to the earth? I am bereft.” The pathos in his voice was so heartfelt that tears gathered in my eyes, though I didn’t understand the reason for his sadness.

  He continued to speak. “My ears have
not heard the spring songs for so long that I do not even have the memory of them to hold. Yet the children of the village continued to rip my skin with their iron and forced me to bear them fruit whilst I could do nothing but sleep. But I am awake now. Should they not pay the price?” Wrath lit the bass reaches of his voice, and his eyes glowed green and brown with a light of their own. The strangeness of it reminded me how powerful this spirit could be. I’d seen the mountain cause an earthquake, and Caefawn said the earth spirit was stronger.

  “What you say is true,” I answered carefully, the germ of an idea beginning to sprout. “The songs were lost long ago, when the bloodmages bound the magic.” His teeth peeled back from his lips at mention of the bloodmages (he had white teeth, large and flat). The glow in his eyes grew more green than brown. Good, it liked bloodmages as well as the hob—that was, not at all.

  I continued slowly. “Like you, the world we know has slept. My people were kept in ignorance and fear by the bloodmages.” How nice to have a villain ready to hand. Caefawn gave me a grin from behind the spirit’s shoulder. I hoped the elemental wouldn’t read me so easily. “That the earth and water have guardian spirits has been kept secret from us. Generations have been taught that the earth is dead.”

  The spirit had begun shaking his head as I finished the last sentence, his action exaggerated by the stronger movement of his antlers.

  “Life cannot come from a dead thing,” he snapped.

  “Does spring not come from winter? And winter is the season of the dead,” murmured the hob.

  “Be silent, servant of the mountain. Do not seek to twist my thoughts with your trickery.” There was menace in the guardian’s fierce glare.

  “My lord,” I said, aspiring to twist his thoughts with my trickery, “I tell you we were taught it was so—by those who should know better. This spring the bindings were torn from the land, and our world is reawakening into something that we no longer have means to comprehend. We have no memories to guide us, only the vague shadows of stories that have changed with the centuries. If we have offended you, hurt you, it is out of ignorance, not intention. We are willing to learn.” I felt a strong urge to cross my fingers against the lie of the last sentence, as if I were a child speaking to her parents. It startled me when I realized that, other than the last sentence, I’d told the earth spirit nothing less than the truth. “We must learn—and we need you to teach us. We don’t have the songs anymore.” Still true.

  “I care not what songs they sing,” he replied harshly, but the fierce glow of his eyes faded. “Only that they are sung for the rebirth of spring, the promise of summer, the bounty of harvest, and the death that is winter.”

  Four ceremonies. Holy mares of the One God, how could I get four pagan ceremonies out of the village? Everyone knew how jealous the One God was of His worshipers. There wouldn’t be many willing to risk angering Him in this time of need—especially when it was me telling them they had to. Caefawn would have a better chance. Let him try to explain to the villagers the difference between giving thanks and worshiping.

  “Summer solstice is past,” commented the hob.

  “There will be no autumn harvest,” said the spirit ominously. He waved his hand, and the plants around us began to wilt and die.

  I fervently wished the hob would be quiet. He seemed only to irritate the spirit.

  “Stay your hand,” I said. Then, remembering I was here as a supplicant, I added, “Please. This will do you no more good that it does us. Where will your songs be if the land dies around you? You are the guardian of this land, not its destroyer.” I hoped that was true. “Two weeks from tonight we will have a celebration here—beside this tree. A celebration of the reawakening of the land, of freedom from the yoke of the bloodmages, a welcoming feast.”

  How I was going to pull it off, I didn’t know. Maybe the priest would be able to help—if he didn’t burn me as a heretic first.

  “A feast,” said the spirit, obviously experiencing one of his mercurial mood changes. “A feast!” He bounded to his feet. “I will stay my hand for a fortnight. After the singing and dancing are over, I will reconsider.”

  He didn’t walk away so much as blend in with the plants of the field. Caefawn stood up and offered me his arm. I took it and began the long walk home.

  “SO,” I SAID, SOME HOURS LATER, “YOU CAN SEE WE have a problem.”

  I sat in the private dining room at the inn. With me were Kith, his father—who was recovering from his wounds—and Tolleck the priest.

  Tolleck groaned and held his head. “My dear, this is impossible! The village is already divided to the breaking point over the changes we’ve been forced to make. If I tell them we have to hold a feast to appease an earth elemental, they will likely burn me just before they do the same to you.”

  “Could you pronounce another reason for a feast?” asked Albrin. “I think the harper could be trusted to write songs that praise the earth without letting it slip that the earth is a real creature.”

  I shook my head. “I think he’s going to be there. It’s a little hard to hide a man with antlers and hooves. Someone is sure to notice him.”

  Tolleck laughed, but no one else did.

  “The problem is belief,” said Kith. “People will do amazing things to ensure their survival. But the villagers cannot conceive of a creature powerful enough to destroy all the crops.”

  “I don’t really think a demonstration is in order,” I said dryly. “It’d be like one of the serfs approaching Lord Moresh and saying, ‘Excuse me, but I don’t think any of the rest of the serfs believe you have the power to cut off my head.’”

  “I’ll seek answers from the temple,” said Tolleck, rising to his feet. “Perhaps something will come to me. You were right to talk to me first. Give me a day or two to think about it before you do anything.”

  I rose when he did, and shook his hand. “Thank you.” I hope he knew I was thanking him for his support as well as for coming here.

  Tolleck started toward the door but stopped before he reached it. “You’d probably better let Merewich know about this. He’s been running the village longer than I’ve been alive. If anyone might have an idea about how to get them to…celebrate the earth, it would be Merewich.”

  I FOUND MEREWICH EATING COLD OATMEAL IN THE kitchen of his home. He was alone except for his wife, who rocked in the chair before the small kitchen fire.

  Creak back, creak forth, sigh. Creak back, creak forth, sigh. I was there for only a few minutes and it was enough to make me creak along with her.

  “Two steps forward, one step back,” sighed Merewich after he’d heard me out. He sighed at the same time his wife did. “You’ve already talked to Tolleck?”

  “Hmm.” I watched him eat the unappetizing gray stuff and noticed it was almost the same color as his skin. He needed a rest—perhaps Melly could send over one of the former serfs (whom she’d taken over like a hen with chicks). “I thought he might be the best one to decide if…well, if the ceremony might bring the wrath of the One God down upon our village.”

  “Gods,” exclaimed Merewich blasphemously. “I wouldn’t have thought about that, but I suppose if I can believe in hobs and earth spirits, I’d better worry about the One God, too.”

  He quit eating and rubbed his face briefly with his hands. “Right. I’ll speak with Tolleck. Perhaps you’d better go talk to Wandel. Tell him he needs to come up with some songs of praise, hmm?”

  I FOUND WANDEL TRAINING IN THE SMALL ENCLOSURE behind the inn. I recognized some of the drills Koret was using for the patrol, but Wandel did them much faster than any of us. He saw me when I came through the stable door, but he finished his pattern before he acknowledged me. It was a long pattern, and it gave me a chance to study him.>

  What manner of man was he? Had he ever been the man I thought I knew—a musician with a talent for storytelling who could charm honey from the bees? Had he only been the king’s assassin and spy?

  His concentration was so
intense I could almost touch it. I could see it. Like the ghosts in the woods, it looked like a foggy mist, but it clung to Wandel’s body, moving as he did. The ghosts had glowed, but Wandel’s spirit shimmered with fire and passion.

  “People,” the hob had told me last night on our way home, “have body, soul, and spirit. The soul is immortal, the body is not, but the spirit can be either.”

  Seeing Wandel’s spirit didn’t tell me anything about him I didn’t already know.

  “Aren,” said the harper, wiping the sweat off his forehead with one arm.

  “Merewich sent me to you.” As soon as I tried to clear my sight, Wandel’s spirit faded from view. Apparently I had better control over this new facet of magic than I had over my visions.

  The harper listened to my story from beginning to end. A smile of awe grew on his face as I wound to a close.

  “The Green Man,” he said softly. “Who’d have thought—but I suppose we have legends popping up all over. Why not the Green Man? I know a number of songs already, but I can come up with a new one or two.”

  I liked Wandel. He was the only other person in the valley who found the wildlings fascinating rather than terrifying. Or at least in addition to terrifying, I thought, remembering yesterday’s ghosts and the earth guardian.

  “Merewich wonders if you can come up with any way to make the village more amiable to a celebration of the earth spirit. If you do, he’d like you to tell him, Koret, or Tolleck.” I turned to leave.

  “Aren, I’m sorry,” he said suddenly.

  I knew what he was talking about, and it wasn’t the Green Man.

  I turned back to him. “The king is dead. The world in which you made your vows to him is dead. Leave Kith be.”

  “Kith is dangerous. He knows it.”

  “And we need him!” I snapped. “Do you think the danger will be over when the raiders are gone? The hob doesn’t. He’s not nearly as worried about the raiders as he is about other things. Things like the hillgrim that attacked me. The wildlings are back, and most of them don’t like humans very well—if they ever did.”