The Nethergrim Read online

  “Did I?”

  “Edmund!” His mother sounded louder and closer amidst the clack of bowls being stacked for the wash. “Did you hear me?”

  Edmund thunked down his breakfast and reached for bow and quiver. “Yes, Mum!”

  “The threshing, Edmund, you see that done before your father gets back. If he catches you—”

  “Just going now!” Edmund did not stay to hear the rest. He thrust back the door and leapt into the sunshine. Almost everyone was going south, dressed up in their humble finest, but Edmund turned north up through the square. Short and shaggy Nicky Bird lounged at his ease on the steps of the hall. Martin Upfield leaned against one of the yew trees—Katherine’s cousin on her mother’s side, a great bush-bearded hulk of a man almost twice Nicky’s size.

  “No, he’s just sitting up there with his head in his hands.” Nicky whittled at a stick of wood. “No helping him.”

  Martin looked up over Baldwin Tailor’s roof toward the distant top of Wishing Hill. “So who found ’em, then?”

  “Your cousin Katherine. Says she was giving one of the horses a run about this morning, and—Edmund! Did you hear about the pigs?”

  “No.” Edmund kept moving, unwilling to stop in case he betrayed too much of what he knew. The day promised to be fine, as fine as anyone could ask so late in the year, and he would not waste a moment more.

  By the time he had gone half a mile up the Dorham road, he had come to regret his choice of shoes in bitter earnest. He jogged awhile, then loped, then walked. The country north of the village broke up into hills, banded rows of crops rolling eastward to the river and pasture rising west into the foothills of the Girth. The village was halfway through harvest, half the fields cut to stubble but the rest still bursting with growth—acre after acre of wheat, oats and barley mixed in the furrows with beans and pulse. Tomorrow they would all be back to it hard, bent first in the lord’s fields, then their own, trying with all their might to reap and bind and thresh enough to last them through to spring. Knowing it gave the day a special shine—for the sheer stupid joy of it he nocked and loosed an arrow. It shanked and spiraled in the wind, landing sideways in the pasture. The cattle nearest by spared him a look, then got back to grazing.

  Edmund followed the inside wind of the road, between a pair of pasture hills crowned with oaks going scarlet with the dying days. He caught a blur of motion just beyond them—Katherine hurtling at a full driving gallop through a strip of open pasture on the back of a dark gray horse. Her hair streamed out behind her, nearly the same shade as the horse’s mane and tail, a triple banner giving full account of their speed. She held a lance couched in the crook of her arm, which she lowered in one smooth action to point at the cross-shaped device at the near end of the pasture. From one arm of the cross there hung a weighted sack; a round shield had been bolted to the other with a red dot painted on the boss. She leaned into a crouch, bracing herself in the stirrups—and struck the target square in the middle, swinging the weight out, up and over her ducked head as she thundered past.

  The horse saw Edmund coming first. He twitched his ears and snorted, thumping one great hoof into the turf.

  Katherine raised her free hand. “Edmund! Sorry—I suppose I must be late.” She tightened the rein and rode over to the railing.

  Edmund looked over at the device, still spinning from the impact. “What happens if you miss?”

  “I don’t miss.” She handed him the lance butt-first. “You remember Indigo, don’t you?”

  Indigo’s massive flanks heaved in and out. His mane hung damp with sweat down his hard-muscled neck. In full sun his coat had a sheen like blue slate from the white hairs that grew amongst the black. Edmund was no more a horseman than most peasants, but he knew perfection when he saw it. He considered reaching out to stroke Indigo’s long, straight nose, but one look into the stallion’s eyes told him how very bad an idea that would be.

  Katherine leapt down. “I like your shoes.” She hooked a finger in the reins and led Indigo back across the pastures, to the stables and cottage at the heart of the farm. Edmund walked alongside, savoring the feeling of carrying her lance, still warm on the end from her grip.

  “Papa, Edmund’s here!” Katherine pushed back the stable door.

  “Over here, child.” Katherine’s father, John, the Marshal of Elverain, stood in the middle of a paddock, walking a very young horse in a wide circle on a lunge line. He twitched a whip, no more than a touch, and the horse changed his gait, bringing his hooves up high in a handsome trot.

  “Papa.” Katherine sighed. “You are still not dressed for the fair.”

  “Not yet. You go on ahead with Edmund.”

  “It’s in your honor, Papa!”

  “Yes, yes.” John clicked his tongue. The horse on the lead reversed his course, stepping back around the circle in the opposite direction.

  Indigo whickered and stamped. He pricked his ears toward the stable, then ducked his head and walked in on his own.

  “Well, don’t be too long.” Katherine followed Indigo inside. “Stay here a moment, Edmund. I’ll be right back.”

  Edmund leaned Katherine’s lance by the door, his mind racing through grown-up and manly things to discuss. As lost for words as he got around Katherine, he had an even harder time with her father, a real and proper hero from his younger days, though you could never tell by looking.

  “Good morning to you, Edmund.” John Marshal flicked the whip behind his horse to correct the stride. “I see that you are entering the tourney.”

  “Oh. Well—I’d been thinking about it.” Edmund had thought only to keep his longbow from his brother’s greedy clutches. He had not considered what carrying it with him would mean.

  “I wish I had time to watch, but I’m sure Lord Aelfric will be dragging me about all day, trying to press my hand with every noble guest in the hall.” John gathered up the whip and brought the young horse to a stop. He looked down at Edmund’s shoes. “I must say I don’t agree with these new fashions you young folk wear. You could take out someone’s eye with those things.”

  Edmund shifted from foot to foot. “I liked that horse Katherine was riding, Master Marshal. He looks ready to be given as a warhorse any day.”

  “Oh, he is.” John Marshal led his horse to the paddock gate. “I’ve only seen his like once before in my life. He’s only four, though, and we usually pass them on to Lord Aelfric when they turn five.”

  He reached down for a canvas bag and fed his horse a carrot. “Between you and me, it will be hard on Katherine when the day comes. That horse loves her and cares nothing for anyone else in the world. My only fear is that the knight who finally gets him will find he’s got himself a steed who will resent him all his life.”

  Katherine came around the side of the stable, on the path that led down from the cottage. “I had no time to do much with my hair. Do I look all right?”

  She had woven a bright blue ribbon into her braid that matched the color of her dress. Edmund tried to speak. He thought for a moment he would find the right words, some compliment that would not come out a blurting jumble. The moment dragged.

  Katherine smoothed down her dress. “I don’t?”

  “You look lovely, child.” John led the yearling to the stables. “You two go on ahead and enjoy yourselves.”

  “Lovely.” Edmund seized on the word. “Lovely, no question.”

  Relief tinged Katherine’s smile. “Oh, good, thank you. I was afraid I looked a fool.” She turned and made to hop the fence, then changed course and used the gate. “Papa, I laid out your good shirt and breeches. You wear them, and don’t be long!”

  “Yes, child.” John shut the door. Katherine flashed Edmund a long-suffering smile and skipped onto the road, as high as her skirts would allow. Edmund wanted to skip right along beside her, but men should not skip, and he had never felt more nearly a man in his life.

  Katherine spoke over her shoulder. “I have a surprise!”

  “You
do?” Any surprise seemed a happy wonder, whatever it might be. “What is it?”

  “Tom! He’s coming with us!”

  “Oh.” No—some surprises were not happy at all. “But—how? Why?”

  “His master threw out his back again, so he’s sending Tom to sell his fleece. Isn’t that wonderful? It’s the very first time he’s ever even seen a fair!”

  “It’s—” Edmund did not trust himself to say anything Katherine might want to hear.

  “We have to make sure to show him a good time.” Katherine pointed. “Oh, there he is!”

  Tom stood at the juncture of the road with a path that ran off into the western pastures. At his feet lay a pair of sacks, each of them larger than himself. Even from a distance he looked exhausted—but then, he usually did.

  “I heard the story going round about how you said you found Hugh’s pigs.” Tom struggled one of the sacks over his skinny shoulders. “Everyone seems to believe it. Thank you.”

  “Poor old Hugh—he loved those pigs, especially Bossy.” Katherine heaved up the other sack before Edmund had a chance to offer. “But let’s not think of it today. Let’s have us some fun!”

  They walked the Dorham road around the hills and down into the village. By then the moving crowd had swelled until Edmund could see at least half the people he knew in the world ranged out in a stream going south—some on carts, a few riding, but most of them walking the seven miles down to Longsettle and then over to the castle.

  “I really could take one.” Edmund could not bear the thought of being seen by his neighbors walking empty-handed while Katherine hauled a sack in her finest dress.

  “Take Tom’s then. He’s been carrying longer.”

  Edmund sighed. He dropped behind Katherine’s back and held out his longbow to Tom in exchange.

  “Sorry about this.” Tom shifted his load onto Edmund’s shoulders. “I didn’t know I’d be coming.”

  Staying angry with Tom was like kicking a starving puppy. Edmund bore up under the weight as best he could. “You know, I suppose it makes some sort of sense that your master takes you for granted. What I object to is the thought that he takes us for granted, too.”

  “I have to sell all this for two marks at the least.” Tom leaned back to stretch as he walked. “But I can’t remember how many pennies to the mark.”

  “We’ll help.” Katherine nodded back over her shoulder. “Edmund’s good with money.”

  The weight, in truth, was not so very much. “Of course I will.”

  They turned through the square, joining the West Road for a few yards and then south past the step of the inn. Edmund held his breath, but saw no sign of his mother.

  Wat and Hob seemed to have decided that they had better things to do than drink in the tavern all day—they ambled up ahead, passing a wineskin between them. The Longsettle road wound up against Lord Aelfric’s private hunting chase, then down between the fields in the broad basket of the valley. The Swanborne stream made its silly music under the footbridge, giggling all the way down to meet the Tamber. On such a day even the distant moors had a kind of cold majesty.

  “Katherine—Katherine!” The voice came shrill from behind them. Edmund moved aside to let a wagon pass, and found his brother sitting with his stupid little friends on the back, their legs all dangling in a row.

  “Have you decided, Katherine?” Emma Russet was far too pretty to be only thirteen, and mean as a badger because of it.

  Katherine muttered something under her breath. She unbent her back to look up. “Good morning, Emma. Decided what?”

  “Well, who it’s to be, of course.” Emma stretched a hand to point at Tom and Edmund. “The slave or the runt?”

  Katherine flushed dark. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She looked down again.

  “Oh, it’s Bony Tom, it must be!” Tilly Miller tittered in her hand—Emma’s best friend, her shadow, her echo. “He trades her a kiss for every hot meal!” She was the youngest of Geoffrey’s gang of friends by some years, and had been following Emma around for as long as Edmund could remember.

  Geoffrey nudged his own best friend, mouse-brown little Miles Twintree, then flung the soggy core of a half-eaten apple at Edmund’s feet. Miles did the same, though he looked somewhat guilty. The kid from across the river—Peter Overbourne, that was his name—did not bother to aim wide, nor was it only a core that he threw.

  “Ow!” Edmund dropped Tom’s sack in surprise, spilling a pile of fleece onto the road.

  “That’s a lovely dress, Katherine.” Miles’s big sister, Luilda, passed on a following cart, holding hands with Lefric Green. “Did you inherit it?”

  “What? You—” Katherine balled up her fists, glaring at the back of Luilda’s head. Wagon and cart trundled on into the trees.

  Katherine sighed. “Why is it I can never think of anything to say back?” She knelt to help Tom pack everything in again.

  “That kid Peter’s the worst of them.” Edmund rubbed at his chest where the apple had struck. “Geoffrey’s turned into an utter brat since they started running about together.”

  Tom beat some dust from a fleece. “I know why folk make fun of me, but I can’t see why they do it to the two of you.”

  “I’m too big, and Edmund’s too small,” said Katherine. “I run about dressed like a man most of the time. He likes books a bit too much for a village where hardly anyone can read.”

  “We don’t fit.” Edmund heaved up his sack. “We never will.”

  “So long as we’re all together, I don’t care.” Katherine led them onward down the road. Her words hung in the air, and after a while “all together” was all that seemed to matter.

  Chapter

  5

  Edmund had learned since moving to the village that everyone resented the town that had sprung up around the castle. That’s how they said it—“sprung up,” though from all he knew, the town was more than a hundred years old. People had long memories in Elverain, long enough to tell muddy stories of a time when things were different, though there was no one left alive who had ever seen it. What seemed to bother them most was the name—the town was called Northend, which gave the idea that it was somehow the north end of everything, though of course any number of villages were yet farther north, off the king’s highway and up the old roads. Edmund did not dislike Northend at all, a well-kept and prosperous place made of tall, narrow houses of wood and plaster clustered tight and bounded by even narrower alleys and cross streets. At its center was the large cobbled square where the highway came north out of the flat, fertile fields of Quail to end where it met the Longsettle road. Bright banners and pennants had been hung about the square in the baronial colors, dark green and silver-white, above a noisy crowd that milled to and fro amongst the many stalls that had been raised there. Lord Aelfric’s castle stood north of the town, old and massive and squatting lonely on the crest of a treeless hill.

  Tom stopped abruptly by the first of the houses. Edmund took the pause to let his sack down to the road. “You all right?”

  Tom did not look all right in the least. “I’ve never seen so many people.”

  “You’ll be fine—we’ll look after you.” Katherine took him by the arm. They followed the road in between the best-made houses in Elverain. They were soon surrounded by hawkers and merchants of all descriptions.

  “Fine linens!” A short man with a braided beard bellowed from his stall. “Shifts, dresses, and headpieces, or buy it by the bolt! The finest Westry flax, spun into linen light as a feather. Approved by the renowned Weavers’ Guild of Tambridge! Step right in!”

  “Candles!” called a young woman, pointing to a stall full of elegant tapers. “Lovely white wax, brilliant light! Made in the famous beehives of Anster. Come get your candles!”

  “Honey cakes!” cried the man from the next stall, who looked like the young woman’s father. “Delicious pastries covered in sweet Anster honey! Nothing so delicious in all this world!”

  Kathe
rine stopped and reached into her belt. “Oh, I love those!”

  “I’ll get them!” Edmund dug out a tiny wedge of silver—one piece of a penny that had been cut into fourths. He bought two cakes and—a stroke of genius!—gave the first to Tom. Katherine beamed at him as he held up the other before her.

  “Potions!” shouted a man as he came between them, carrying a box full of all manner of vials and jars. “Potions of all descriptions and efficacies! Potions to help you sleep, potions to keep you up all night! You, my lad!” He looked Edmund up and down, then over at Katherine. He drew Edmund aside.

  “I’ve just the thing for you—you look like you could use the help.” He swirled a crystal vial full of rich red liquid. “A few drops of this in her wine and before you know it, she’ll be waiting for your hand. Just six pennies, but a whole lifetime of joy! What do you say?”

  Katherine stomped over and led Edmund away by the sleeve. “Whatever it is, he doesn’t need it!”

  The man gave Katherine a dark look. “You mind that one, my boy. More trouble than she’s worth.” He turned his back before Edmund could think of a retort.

  Tom stared around him as though looking for some path of escape. “What do I do?”

  “The first thing you do is keep your hand on your purse.” Edmund pulled him out of the worst of the bustle.

  “Why? I don’t have any money yet.”

  “It’s just a good habit.” Edmund cast about him for a likely-looking merchant. They had laid things out in a different pattern than they did for the regular fair in the spring. This fair had a wild, haphazard character, more ale tents and makeshift gambling halls than proper merchants, and far too many folk who just seemed to loiter and look, neither buying nor selling and so quite likely there for a less savory purpose.

  “That one looks promising.” Katherine stood up on her toes. “Over here.” She shouldered up a sack and pushed them off toward the corner of the square in the fullest sun.

  Tom craned around him, his green eyes wide. He pointed. “What’s that?”