The Skeleth Read online

  Lady Isabeau held forth the flower crown. Katherine curtsied and lowered herself down, only to find the crown jerked back before it touched her head.

  “We will accept the boy, but not the girl.” Lady Isabeau turned back to the crowd. “Choose another.”

  “What?” Surprise forced sharp questions from Edmund. “Why not Katherine? What’s wrong?”

  “By ancient custom, the king and queen of Harvestide must be chosen from the folk of our villages.” Lady Isabeau stepped away from Katherine. “This girl has no parents residing in the villages of Elverain, and since she is unmarried, that means she is without standing among you. She is a maid of this castle, and ward of my husband. She is no longer one of you. Choose another.”

  The folk of the barony muttered to one another, and even Lord Aelfric shot a bemused glance at his wife. Edmund felt sick, but there was nothing he could do.

  “That’s better.” Lady Isabeau’s face broadened into a smile once the votes were called and Luilda had won. “What a goodly girl, this one. A fine wife and mother she will make to some townsman, a good example for the younger girls.”

  Luilda fairly skipped up to Katherine’s place. “Ooh, isn’t this fun?” She took Edmund’s hand. “Too bad you’re so short, but we’ll make it work!”

  Lady Isabeau crowned Luilda, then rounded on Katherine. “What are you doing still standing here? There are pots to wash—back to the scullery with you!”

  Edmund wanted to shout at the injustice, to cast a mighty spell, to walk right up to Lady Isabeau and clout her on the ear. Instead he stood helpless in his stupid, scratchy crown and watched Katherine hang her head low and scurry away.

  Lord Aelfric took the arm of his wife, and raised his wispy voice as loud as it would go. “My people, we shall now retire for the evening. Enjoy the plenty of our feast. Hail to the king and queen of Harvestide.”

  The lord and lady exited to the left, while the Harvestide king and queen ascended to the right. Edmund wanted to take off his crown and throw it at whichever snooty Northend boy thought his father had bought it for him. Luilda Twintree giggled and simpered on his arm, throwing winks across the hall at Lefric Green and blowing kisses to her family.

  “Now, sit here, right here, my boy.” Lord Wolland patted the seat of Lord Aelfric’s chair. “I want to hear all about your exploits. Beats talking about pigs all night!”

  Edmund led Luilda to Lady Isabeau’s chair. He drew it back, and bowed. “My queen.” He took Lord Aelfric’s seat and shot a furtive look along the table at Ellí, who continued to scribble in her books as though he were not present. Servants came and bowed before them and set out the next course of the feast, more sumptuous than anything Edmund had ever seen in his life—roast venison, goose in almond milk, and jellied eels sliced out in strips.

  “Now then, Your Grace, attend me over here.” Lord Wolland snapped his fingers. “You must tell me your tale! Is it indeed true that you traveled to the lair of the fabled Nethergrim?”

  Edmund felt the heat of many gazes from up and down the length of the high table. “It is true, my lord.”

  “Ha!” said Lord Wolland. “And look at you! A nine days’ wonder. And what did you find there?”

  “The Nethergrim, my lord.”

  “Not dead after all, eh?” Lord Wolland shot a knowing wink at his companions.

  Richard Redhands made sure his snort was heard by one and all. “You see, my lord? I have always said that old Tristan was a charlatan.”

  Lord Wolland scanned the crowd seated at the tables before them. “And that tall girl, the serving maid, she came with you?”

  “Katherine saved my life, my lord, more than once,” said Edmund. “We would all have been overrun by bolgugs, but she took up her sword, and—”

  “A sword? Pah!” Richard Redhands waved his spoon. “What utter twaddle! How could some peasant wench—”

  “She saved my life, sir knight.” Edmund cut across Richard’s words and ignored his vicious glare. “She did everything folk say of her, and more, if you want truth.”

  Lord Wolland roared and thunked his goblet on the table. “By the cloven crown, even the maidens are a danger here! How old is this girl?”

  “Fourteen, my lord,” said Edmund. “Like me.”

  “And her last name is Marshal.” Lord Wolland took up Richard’s dirk to carve himself some venison. “By chance, is she related to a John Marshal?”

  Edmund hesitated, unable to read Lord Wolland’s deep-set eyes. “She is his daughter, my lord.”

  Lord Wolland’s smile broke wide upon his face. “Then I do not find this girl’s deeds such a wonder, my lords, for I knew her father well, and it seems that the apple has fallen near the tree.” He popped a bite of the venison into his mouth. “Indeed, I had hoped to look in on John Marshal as I passed through Elverain, so that we might talk over old times together.”

  Edmund could not guess the meaning of the looks exchanged between the lords and knights at the table. “Oh—I’m afraid you can’t meet with John Marshal, my lord. He is gone away.”

  Lord Wolland took a sip of wine. “Is he indeed? That is most unfortunate. Tell me, my boy—do you know where he was bound?”

  “To Tristan, my lord. To his castle at Harthingdale.” As soon as the words were out of Edmund’s mouth, he wished that he had thought instead to lie.

  All trace of jollity vanished from Lord Wolland’s eyes, though the smile remained fixed upon his face. “To Tristan.” He set down the dirk, but turned it over and over on the table. “And why is that?”

  “They are old friends, my lord.” Edmund tried not to stammer. “Perhaps they wished only to see each other again.”

  “See each other.” Lord Wolland let forth with a laugh, softer and more barren than before.

  A servant approached with a jug of wine, made a bow and poured it out for the nobles. It gave Edmund the pause he needed to duck out of the conversation before he caused any more trouble. He tried to get Ellí’s attention, acting as though they had never met. “Elísalon.” He could not quite say it the way that she had, but he still liked the sound of it. “That’s a Mitiláni name, isn’t it? From away south?”

  “So it is, and so am I,” said Ellí, with only the faintest trace of an accent.

  Edmund leaned past an annoyed Luilda to get a closer look at what Ellí was doing. “What are you writing about?”

  Ellí stoppered her inkwell. “I’m working on a translation. This is in the Dhanic language, of the most ancient form. Not one in a thousand can read this, but if you really are some sort of wizard, perhaps you might be able to assist me.”

  Edmund read the words on the page in front of Ellí. Tsalamemyu. Idhak tsaluri . . . He resolved their meaning into his own language, then tried not to gasp aloud.

  “No.” He shook his head and made sure that his lie carried along the table. “I’m afraid I can’t understand that at all.”

  He sat back in Lord Aelfric’s chair, staring down at his feast without hunger. He turned over the words again and again in his mind: I am being watched. Meet me in the cellar, tomorrow night at sunset. Come alone.

  Chapter 7

  Katherine crept along the cold, swept passage. “Indigo?” She looked about her and kept her voice to a whisper. “Indigo, where are you?”

  An enormous gray head stuck out over the door of a stall at the far end of the stable. Indigo fixed Katherine in one dark eye. He snuffed at the air and twitched his ears, then drew back from view.

  Katherine took a careful glance behind her. The stable stood half again as high as the one on the farm back home, a single row of stalls graced by decoration that far surpassed what she would find within the dwelling of a prosperous merchant. Boys shouted and heaved outside, hauling up a whole morning’s worth of dung and carting it away in barrows, their voices ringing flat against the sides of the castle wa
lls.

  Remnants of Katherine’s old life greeted her no matter where she chose to look—Soot, Yarrow, Bluebell, all the mares from Papa’s farm, squashed with their foals into stalls meant for one. It set her teeth on edge; any fool could see that the foals should be kept out in pasture, a stony hillside in the lee of the wind where they could find their stride and strength. They should be outside, eating grass grown on limestone, learning the scents of the meadows and the sights of field and wood. Someone should be checking them for sickness, someone should be watching them grow and waiting for just the right moment to wean them from their mothers.

  Anger gave way to sorrow. “Forget me.” Katherine picked up her rags, her wash bucket and her bundle of ash-and-soda soap, then turned her back on them. “You’re not mine. You never really were.” She hurried past heads thrust out in greeting, ignoring the whinnies and snorts and invitations to play. It felt like a millstone pressing down upon her back—everything her papa had trained her to do, everything she had wanted to become, all wasted, all useless, all for nothing.

  The next stalls she passed bore the marks of long residence. Spare bridles sized just so hung from the posts, and blankets of matching colors lay folded with care upon the trunks. Here and there leaned a lance, as much the steed’s weapon as the rider’s. Many of the stalls bore the names of their occupants carved into the beams above: Firebrand, Sword-of-Glories, Dauntless. Katherine knew them all, remembered every warhorse as a spindle-shanked colt who followed his mother everywhere. She had birthed them, trained them, coaxed in them a fire, a love of the charge and the clash of arms. Though they were all grown up into fierce, proud stallions, they still nosed out to snuffle for the touch of her hand. She forced herself to hurry past. She could spare little time, and so could enter at only one door.

  “Indigo.” She raised the leather loop from the door to his stall. Indigo nudged aside to let her in. He put his nose to her in greeting; she gave him half the carrot she had saved from breakfast.

  “Are you well?” She lingered at his side, stroking his neck though she knew how he hated to be bothered at his food. “How are they treating you?” He had not grown up the same color as his mother—white hairs amongst the black made him look like a thundercloud, a deep slate that in some casts of light really did hint at blue. He had grown up perfect, the finest horse of war she could ever hope to train. He had the stride, the strength and the proven fire. They had proven it together.

  “We should be training with the lance right now, out on the pastures back home.” Katherine ran her hand over his withers. “We should be practicing the turn and charge—but look at me. What am I, now?”

  She set her rags and bucket by the door, and tried to drag her ill-fitting workdress into shape. Indigo took his chance to shove his face into her belt, looking for the other half of the carrot.

  “Get off, you great silly!” Katherine nudged him away, then reached for the brush that lay in the corner of the stall. “I can’t stay long.” She swished it along his muscled neck and down each of his forelegs. He blinked and stretched his lips, enjoying the attention as he always did, but that only made her feel worse.

  Indigo was not hers anymore, not even to raise and train. Her papa was marshal of the stables no longer. None of them were ever going back to the farm. Home was home no more.

  “Papa, come home safe.” It was not the swirling chaff that made her eyes water so. “Come home soon.”

  She felt a prodding at her arm. “You must think me a fool.” She stroked the whorl of fur between Indigo’s eyes. “I fear for things that have already happened, and for things that may never happen at all.”

  Indigo tossed his head up and down. He bent to drink from his trough.

  Katherine whistled, then warbled a song to hold the misery at bay, her voice always weaker than she thought it should be, breaking and trailing to a lisp over the ends of the notes. Papa would come back. All would be well, even if they had to live somewhere else, even if they had to make their living a different way and never trained horses again. She could wallow deeper into the mire of her worry, or rest upon all that had proven good.

  “Tom is free.” She swished the brush along Indigo’s broad, straight back, then down his muscled hock. “Did you know that? His stupid old master will never find him now. Lord Tristan will take him in and take good care of him, I’m sure of it. Maybe he’ll make a man-at-arms of him, somehow. Wouldn’t that be grand?”

  Indigo turned an eye on her, big and brown, full of what she would always say was sympathy.

  “Papa won’t be long.” She reached for the curry comb and swept it in tight circles through his coat. “He’ll have a talk with his old friend Tristan, and together they’ll set everything right. You’ll see.”

  She spun out her tale of dreams come true for her own hearing. “And Harry, too—I’m sure he’ll return before long.” She whisked bits of chaff from Indigo’s withers. “You’re promised to be his, but he’ll still let me train you, so in a way, you’ll still be mine.”

  Indigo whickered, then blew out a snort. Katherine spoke no more of Harry, or of where her thoughts of him always led. There were some dreams she dared not speak into anyone’s ear, not even Indigo’s.

  She bent down and took one raised hoof in her hands. “I’ve no right to ask for an easy life just because of what we did up in the mountains.” She scraped the mud from the insides of his metal shoes. “It doesn’t work like that, does it?”

  Indigo nuzzled at her side. Dust drifted in the sunbeam.

  “We faced the Nethergrim itself.” She rubbed a hand under his chin, just the way he liked best. “We might have made all the north safe for years to come—that’s our reward, that’s our thanks.”

  Indigo pushed his head against her. She stroked his black mane. She felt like herself again.

  “Papa will be home soon, and all will be well in the end.” She took up his tail to comb it straight. “I really shouldn’t worry so much.”

  A voice broke loud over the silence of the stable. “No, no, run along, now. We’ll see to his horse ourselves.” The hinges of the stable door creaked, and autumn wind raced down the passage. “What, does your lord not attend to his own steeds, at times? Ha! You surprise me not a bit.”

  Footsteps approached—soft shoes, then hard boots, then the plodding clop of hooves. Katherine looked left and right for a place to hide. She considered simply leaping out, babbling an excuse and scurrying past with rags and bucket, but then the men started talking again, and what they said froze her to the spot.

  “I believe we are alone, Father.” The second voice sounded young, with a highborn accent to match the first. “What news of his grace, our king?”

  “You leave the king to me, Wulfric my boy.” Lord Wolland’s voice seemed to roll with the easy rhythm of his tread. “Keep your wits on the task before us. Winter seeps across the world; we have time for one lunge, one throw of the dice, then all must wait for spring.”

  Katherine dared to peek into the passage. Two men approached, Lord Wolland and a young knight who was broad of shoulder almost to bursting from his armor. Flecks of spittle clung to the mouth of the horse led by the young knight, a warhorse of masterful size whose stumbling gait spoke of the last heaving lunges of exhaustion.

  “The folk of Rushmeet have shut their gates, barring all passage on the bridges.” Wulfric steered his hard-breathing mount into the stall right next to Indigo’s. “I was received in Quentara with ill humor and much suspicion.”

  “Good! I am most glad to hear it.” Lord Wolland sauntered in behind them, and shut the half-height door. “A lesson for you, my son: It is good to have an enemy who suspects nothing, but it is better still to have an enemy who suspects the wrong thing.”

  Katherine kept her breaths slow and soft. She pressed herself into the corner of the stall. Indigo twitched his nose, then pinned back his ears. He fixed a dark eye i
n the direction of the nobles, as though he could see right through the wall and despised what he saw.

  Lord Wolland leaned on the rail of the stall, so near to the corner that Katherine could see his elbow protruding into the passage. “I sent you with orders, my boy—have you fulfilled them?”

  Wulfric’s words came at a plodding pace, as though he was weighing up each and every one. “They are fulfilled, Father, though I feel the stain upon my honor for my part in it.”

  “You sat too long at the feet of the bards, my boy!” There sounded the slap of hand on armored shoulder. “You are coming to manhood, and it is time to cast off the fancies of youth. Honor is a tool. You use it to bind your enemy’s sword into his scabbard, while your own blade remains free to hand.”

  Wulfric jingled the harness as he untacked his horse. “Yes, Father. But can we not have our victory another way?”

  “Another lesson, my son: Never rest on chance, when you can reach for certainty.” Lord Wolland’s voice sounded so incongruously plum and cheery that Katherine could hear the smile on his face. “Without the aid of Madam Drake, too much would depend upon taming our good friend Aelfric.”

  “Aelfric is weak, my lord and father.” Wulfric heaved up the saddle and set it over the rail of the stall. “His lands are less than half the size of yours. He would be a fool to oppose us.”

  “But that’s just what he is, my son—a fool. A stiff, steadfast, honorable old fool.” Lord Wolland spoke in indulgent tones, as though describing a dear friend. “This much I know of Aelfric—he is not easily moved, even when he thinks all hope is lost. Indeed, for such a romantic as he, lost causes are the best causes. Why do you think he held up the banner of the Stag in the old wars, right to the bitter end, though it nearly cost him everything?”

  “For honor, Father.”

  Lord Wolland clapped his hands, as though a jester had earned himself supper with his jokes. “Ha! Never mind, my son—for all his honor, Aelfric will break, just as we wish. You see, he has acquired a great weakness in these latter days, one that I intend to exploit for all it is worth.”