A man who collects skulls will covet mine, Erstwhyle thought. There had been that one lord, five years back, who had tried to take it.
“Have no fears,” Erstwhyle whispered lightly. “We’re under protection of the guild.” The Bards’ Guild was a fellowship of performers—jesters, musicians, acrobats. Guild members protected one another. Any lord who harmed a guilder would earn retribution. Entertainers would quit coming to his realm or, in extreme cases, might subject him to ridicule from afar. Puppeteers might show him as a buffoon, or bards might put his failings to song.
On three sides of the room, enormous hearths were laid out. A wagon could have parked inside one. Smoke lingered in the air, a blue haze that smelled of rare sandalwood.
Erstwhyle strode forward, his small hooves clacking on the floor. Gasps arose from the crowd. Onlookers fell silent or began to whisper, “What is that?”
At the lords’ tables, a feast was laid out—whole swans and platters of bread. Venison pies and sweet rolls. Mushrooms stuffed with garlic and rye crackers. Pitchers of ale and flagons of dark amethyst wine. Oranges from southern lands and the last of the year’s good apples baked into tarts.
Nostrils flared. A deep hunger stirred in Erstwhyle. His kind could not resist wine.
The floor was of polished marble, deep crimson with turquoise veins. A pentagram made of silver and encircled by copper marked off the central floor, as if Crydon hoped to summon a pack of demons.
No less than two hundred lords and their ladies were in attendance. The ladies all wore pointed caps that streamed peacock feathers and taffeta. Their brightly colored dresses of rose or sapphire lifted their bosoms. The men wore leggings and tunics embroidered with gold thread.
Prince Crydon perched upon a pedestal rather than a normal table, as if he were looking down in judgment from above. His face was cowled in a royal blue robe such that Erstwhyle could not discern his features at all, only a pale, pointy nose.
Crydon clapped his hands. “Please me!” he ordered.
Erstwhyle glanced back at Baron Blunder for ideas. It would have been simpler if the prince had called for a song, or asked for a jest. Instead, he left it to the entertainers.
“A song!” Erstwhyle said. He raised his lute and began plucking the strings.
“No!” an angry voice called. It was the red priest, Typhos, eyes blazing. “Not his kind!” the priest said. “He seeks to enchant you all. Beware!”
Erstwhyle fought for control. The red priests had killed his people, murdered them in the night for their supposed sins. That was their way—to purify the earth by washing the sinners in their own lifeblood.
“I know no magic,” Erstwhyle said. “I have no power, unless you find my songs enchanting.”
“Kill the creature!” the priest cried, rising from his chair. But those nearby pulled him back down into place, demanding his silence.
Prince Crydon merely nodded, a sign for Erstwhyle to play.
He opened with a soft tune, “Dancing Among Moon Shadows.” The song was the stuff of legend, for the proper fingering required an exceptionally rare degree of virtuosity. He sang it now in Dangolian, and the hearts of the locals melted.
The song was dark and haunting, like cloud shadows on a summer night, and began with sounds like wind sliding through trees and the serenade of crickets. As he played, Erstwhyle whistled the tune of nightingales so low, it came as if from a dream, and thus he began to skip and swirl in dance. His hooves slid across the marble floor, and the lords and ladies fell quiet, as if under a spell.
Soon, the plucking of strings evoked the sound of rain, big liquid drops falling into the song, skittering over stones, a rolling rollick that set him to frolicking. His hooves clattered upon the marble like hailstones falling. And Baron Blunder beat on a big drum: the crashing sound of thunder and lightning.
People cheered as he swirled, dancing and playing, and many stood with mouths agape, for they had never seen an artist become one with his music. There is a reason why it was said that satyrs were in league with the devil. That fear led to the deaths of Erstwhyle’s parents and village, all wiped out in a single night.
People began to clap in time, and his small hooves slid over stone as if he skated upon ice. The room was in an uproar as the song reached its crescendo, but he was not ready to let the crowd go yet, not while he had them by their throats.
With a flourish he struck a transition into a new song, one of his own making. He sang:
Hey, no, die diddily,
Hey die-diddily, yay.
The time has come
For lute and drum
To spirit us away!
Though Erstwhyle looked as if he only had the legs of a goat, the truth was that they had the strength of a hart, and so he now did something that no human acrobat could manage. He leapt backward into the air and did a quadruple somersault, landing with a clatter onto the table—right in front of Typhos.
As he did, he reached into a small pouch that he wore around his belly, pulled out a handful of deer poop, and tossed them down. It all happened so fast, even those closest to the priest did not see it. To the observer, it appeared as if Erstwhyle had landed so hard, he’d pooped. The dry round pellets bounced on the table, falling onto a platter of cooked swan, rolling onto guests, and plopping into wine goblets.
The priest’s eyes blazed and he threw himself backward with such force that his chair crashed to the floor. Women nearby shouted. One baron rose up and looked as if he’d pull his dagger.
But all around the room, others guffawed at the priest’s expense. Erstwhyle glanced at Prince Crydon from the corner of his eye. The prince shook with mirth.
“Pardon me,” Erstwhyle told Typhos with mock sheepishness. “Nerves.”
Then he danced on the table, kicking over goblets and shoving platters aside. The priest went red.
Baron Blunder shouted, “Here now! What is that creature? Is it human? Is it a goat?”
That was the question everyone asked when they saw Erstwhyle, and as he danced nimbly over the tables, women stared at his privates and giggled, and bold men laughed out loud. He was all goat in the nether regions and wore nothing but his fur. From a distance it almost looked as if he wore animal hides for trousers. As he sashayed about, he wagged his tail in time with the music.
He was just warming the crowd up for some of Baron Blunder’s comic juggling tricks, when Prince Crydon spoke.
“Where is the girl? The Ship of Fools carried three? A giant, a demon, and a sweet young girl.”
The sound did not come from one place. Instead it rose like the snarl of distant thunder and began to crackle. The language was more like the hiss of a snake than anything human.
Erstwhyle was struck with an unnatural fear, for the words made his very bones rattle. He wanted to answer with his whole soul, but could not understand the question.
The crowd hushed. Prince Crydon reached out with a bony finger and made a “come hither” gesture. Erstwhyle was too frightened to move. His hips merely quivered. But he was drawn across the room, like iron to a lodestone, and found his hooves skating over the marble floor until he stopped in the midst of the pentagram.
The Dark Prince hissed his question again, but still Erstwhyle could not understand.
A third time the hissing came, rushing forth like waves upon a shore.
Suddenly he understood.
“She grew sick,” Erstwhyle said, mustering his courage. “We had to leave her behind, days ago.” He peered up at the cowled face, trying to discern whether the prince believed him.
The prince nodded as if he understood, then pointed toward the door, which groaned as it swung inward, hinges twisting with powerful force.
There stood Amilee in a pale blue dress that seemed torn from the sky of a lost summer. Her face was slack and her eyes blank, as though she were entranced. A pair of burly guards held her.
“Ah, there’s the girl you were seeking!” Erstwhyle knew he had been caught in a lie. �
��She seems to be much recovered.”
Again Crydon hissed. Amilee slid across the floor on unwilling feet until she landed next to Erstwhyle.
“Tell me everything,” Crydon demanded in his serpentine voice. He pointed a finger down at the girl, and a green flame spouted from her forehead. Ghostly plumes formed, half fog and half fire, swirling in a tempest, as if all her dreams of green fields, all her hopes and longings, broke out as one.
The prince opened his mouth—a vast black cavernous mouth—and the green fog swirled up into it. Suddenly his eyes blazed within the hood, a cold piercing light.
“I shall have her,” he whispered, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere. It circled, hissing in dark corners, then lashed back from the opposite direction.
“Wait,” Erstwhyle begged. “Please!”
“She is an outlaw,” Crydon said, “child to my enemies.” He reached for her, and Amilee began to surge into the air, rising toward him like a dying ember rising into the night.
Erstwhyle had never seen such powers.
“No!” Baron Blunder shouted, distracting the prince. Amilee fell, a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“No?” the prince simpered.
Guards lunged and grabbed Baron Blunder. He was huge, but not strong. Three guards pulled him down, dragging him back in a chokehold.
“No!” Erstwhyle urged. Amilee had done nothing. There had to be some justice in the world.
Erstwhyle knelt above Amilee. “Please, oh Great Prince, do her no harm. She was but a child when her parents were outlawed. Take me instead.”
Prince Crydon glared down. Erstwhyle could not see his face, but the prince’s eyes seemed to bore through him. “What would I do with you?” he asked, the words hissing and snapping in far corners.
“My head,” Erstwhyle said lightly. “It has served me well all of my life, and it would serve you well.”
“I need no counsel,” the prince replied. “The fools in my court give counsel enough.”
“Then use it for a sconce,” Erstwhyle said. “Imagine—with my horns, it would be the jewel of your collection.” He raised his hands in an expansive gesture, and the glowing eyes of the dead seemed to peer down.
Erstwhyle reached up, stroked his own horn, as if polishing it.
Prince Crydon laughed, and suddenly a spell was broken. It was not the portentous laugh of a demon, the distant snarl of a dragon. It was the laugh of a commoner, of a peasant at an inn enjoying a mug of ale with friends after he has heard a good jest.
“A fine offer,” Crydon said. “As noble as I have ever heard. Such nobleness should be honored. You win, satyr. The thousand gold guldens shall be yours. I have never met a man who could match your skill with the lute, and that leap was stupendous. Though I find your sense of humor to be rather coarse . . .”
Erstwhyle cocked his head and wondered. Had this all been an act? Had the prince simply sought to unman the troupes that played before him? No, it couldn’t be. Erstwhyle had heard too many dark tales. Yet he wanted to trust his luck.
The prince reached down and took a golden goblet from the pedestal. A servant raced forward to fill it with deep-red wine.
“This goblet has been in my family for six hundred years,” the prince said. “The weight of the gold alone is worth more than a thousand guldens.” He stood and stepped down from the pedestal, then leaned forward to hand the golden goblet to Erstwhyle. Before he did, he raised it in the air. “A toast, to the greatest fool in all the land!”
“Huzzah!” the lords and ladies shouted, raising and draining their own mugs. “Huzzah! Huzzah!”
Erstwhyle saw the prince’s face then—black eyes filled with madness, too full of light, a small black beard over a manly chin, a leering grin. There was an expression on that face that Erstwhyle had never seen before.
Hunger?
Rage?
The prince lowered the mug to the satyr’s lips. Erstwhyle dared not refuse. The wine was swirling in the cup, raging in a torrent, a tornado funneling down into an invisible drain. It was as dark as blood.
He gingerly took a sip. It was the sweetest wine that had ever touched his lips, made from summer-ripe cherries.
Wine does not affect satyrs the way it does humans. It does not absorb so slowly into the body. Instead, the liquor slammed into Erstwhyle’s brain, pounding like a hammer. Not only was the wine sweet, it was stronger than anything he’d ever tasted.
In an instant he was swirling and struggling to remain upright. People laughed and pointed. “Look at the goat man!” a woman scorned.
Erstwhyle grinned drunkenly at her.
“A song!” someone else shouted, and Erstwhyle took up his lute and began to play.
He capered about the room, spinning as the wine had spun, weaving and playing, lost in song. As the crowd started to clap, he sang:
Me mother was a milkmaid
Me da a Billy goat.
And on the night I was born
they took me for a mooncalf
And threw me in the moat!
Hey, no, die diddily,
Hey die-diddily, yay.
The time has come
For wine and drum
To bear us all away!
Erstwhyle danced as the people applauded. He searched the room for Baron Blunder, but saw only grinning skulls along the wall. He peered about for Amilee, but smoke stung his eyes and he stumbled, and in a moment he forgot where he was, lost in song . . .
***
He woke in the dead of night. He did not wake all at once. He first became aware of a scraping and wondered what it was. But his mind was groggy, and he went back to sleep.
Moments later, he felt a jolt and heard scraping again. Then he felt a tug.
Someone was pulling him by his left hoof. Outside. Through the snow.
The wine had so dulled Erstywhyle’s senses that he could not react and merely fell back into a stupor.
“Get the door,” someone said in a gruff voice, and he was pulled along through a doorway. He managed to open his eyes a slit. A burly soldier in chainmail had him by the foot. The chamberlain’s aide carried a torch, leading the way. They entered a strange room that smelled of copper.
“Leave him,” the soldier said, dropping Erstwhyle. The fat soldier wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve.
The aide had carried the torch to the far door and stood staring at it. “Shall I fetch the butcher?” the lad asked. His voice sounded buoyant and jolly.
Erstwhyle suddenly realized that something was very amiss. Wake up! his senses warned. Wake up! But his muscles wouldn’t move. So he continued breathing steadily, as if he were fast asleep, and closed his eyes.
“Don’t rouse him,” the soldier said.
“Perhaps we should tie the creature,” the aide suggested.
Erstwhyle recognized the voice as that of the aide who had helped him earlier. He felt so betrayed.
Both men squatted over Erstwhyle, and he wished that he had a knife, but he had not been able to carry any weapons into Crydon’s hall. He nearly moaned when he realized that he no longer had his goblet either.
Where is Amilee? he wondered. And Baron Blunder?
The soldier finished tying his wrists, then went to Erstwhyle’s legs. Afterward, he grunted and rose. The door scraped the floor as they opened it, and chill air blasted into the room. Then they were gone.
Outside, the chamberlain’s aide asked cheerfully, “What do you suppose satyr tastes like?”
The soldier laughed. “Sort of like goat,” he said, “with maybe a bit of fool thrown in.”
Erstwhyle lay still as their footsteps receded, crunching over ice-covered snow.
He knew this place now. The coppery scent he’d detected was blood, blood so thick that it had seeped into the dirt floor. He was at the shambles, the kill shed where the king’s butcher slaughtered animals.
He couldn’t imagine that someone would want to eat him. It seemed so . . . unnatural.
Erstwhyle stilled his heart and found his throat feeling tight and dry. Satyrs get drunk more quickly than do humans, but the effects wear off more quickly, too.
He pulled hard upon the leather cords that bound him. They were stiff and icy.
Human feet are easy to tie, because they are so large. Not so with Erstwhyle’s sharp little hooves. He kicked at the bonds and struggled free, stumbling to his feet. Then he pulled at his hands.
As a satyr he was stronger than a human; his training as an acrobat had made him stronger still. Now he strained. The friction warmed the cords. With every twist and pull, the leather stretched. In moments he broke free.
He opened the door and stood looking out. The chill air had teeth as sharp as a wolf cub’s. A thick fog covered everything, as dense as gruel, yet the full moon provided a gloomy light. A dog was barking at the castle gates, and in the distance he could hear horns blowing—not the deep throaty call of war horns, but the high song of hunting horns.
Amilee!
He imagined her running through the cold night, barefoot and naked, while Crydon chased her upon his charger with a boar’s spear in hand, dogs yapping wildly on her trail.
It would not be a fair hunt in the snow. She would not be able to escape, not with her footprints providing a clear trail. She would not be able to outrun him for long before the cold took her.
Yet what could Erstwhyle do?
The castle gates would be closed, the drawbridge up. With his horns and hooves, he could not just sneak out, even in this fog.
Urgency swept through him. He wanted to help Amilee. He needed to be sure that Baron Blunder was alive. He wanted vengeance. He could not do everything at once.
Amilee and the prince were far away, and he didn’t know where Baron Blunder might be. He decided to check the Great Hall.
A satyr’s eyes are better than a human’s in the dark. Though the night was fast coming to a close, the shadows were deep. He made his way through town, stepping more quietly than a human could in the snow, for his sharp hooves made very little sound.
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