The Skeleth Read online

  “Forgotten history is often repeated.” Ellí picked up the Paelandabok and handed it to Edmund. “Go to the tower near your village. Find out what you can.”

  “Me?” said Edmund. “Just me?”

  “Once my spell ends, I’ll be under watch again.” Ellí gave Edmund a pleading look, just as she had done out on the moors. “Edmund, it’s up to you.”

  Edmund looked at the Paelandabok, then at Ellí. A sinking feeling came over him. “And we’re taking the book. We’re stealing a precious, irreplaceable book.”

  Ellí nodded her head. “I’m afraid we must.”

  “Come on, then.” Edmund sighed. “It’s not as though I’ve never done it before.” He reached for the handle to the door—then leapt away again.

  Ellí rose from her chair. “Edmund, what is it?”

  “Hear that?” Edmund pushed Ellí back into the corner of the chamber. “Someone’s coming!”

  Stealthy footsteps shuffled to the threshold. Even though Ellí’s spell still held, Edmund found himself pressing back toward the wall. The door swung slowly wide without a creak, and someone stepped into the room.

  Edmund nearly dropped the book in his hands.

  “Isn’t that your friend?” Ellí stepped wide to let the newcomer pass on by. “The serving maid?”

  Katherine wore her ill-fitting workdress, and the candlelight showed her dark around the eyes, the hollowness swollen by the shadowed whirl of Ellí’s spell. She peered about her in wary confusion at the burning candles on the table, coiled and ready to bolt. She went back to the door and listened, and then with a look of tight fear on her face that made Edmund want to pop from the shadows and announce himself, she crept to the other end of the table and sat down in Lord Aelfric’s carved and cushioned chair.

  Ellí nudged Edmund. “Has that girl lost her mind? What is she doing here?”

  The fire lit along the curve of Katherine’s chin and sparked in the depths of her eyes. She pawed through the pile of parchments set in front of Lord Aelfric’s place at the table, then pulled one out and set it before her. She leaned on one arm, staring down at it, then tucked back a strand of hair behind her ear, and Edmund saw the look of rising horror on her face.

  Edmund came near to Katherine, passing around behind the backs of the chairs. She held a single scroll of parchment, elegantly scribed and fixed with a waxen seal. Her dark eyes scanned the words, once and then again.

  Ellí nudged her way up beside Edmund. “What is that she’s got? What does it say?”

  Katherine put down the scroll, pale to her lips. She picked it up again, turning it to the light of the candle. Edmund read it over her shoulder:

  From Edgar, Baron Wolland, to his most noble and excellent peer Aelfric, Baron Elverain, greetings, health and honor,

  The Stag has been flushed from cover. The Duke of Westry sits in chains beneath the Spire at Paladon. Your name is whispered in council, amongst others whom His Grace the King has long suspected of treachery. Your rigid loyalties have cost you, as I have always told you that they would.

  In the name of our long friendship, I extend one chance to you, one hope before the stroke that will fell not just you, but your legacy. I shall soon depart to visit your lands, traveling by an unexpected route. We will use the distraction of a tourney as a reason for my visit. When the time is right, I will ask you for something. You will give me what I want.

  I offer you one chance only. Seize my hand—or fall, and young Harold shall fall with you. The king will not be merciful to traitors this time.

  Do not think too long on this. I do not have the luxury of patience.

  Given under my signet, from my castle at Norn, upon the quarter day of Woodmoon, in the fifteenth year of the reign of His Grace our glorious King,

  Edgar

  By the way, if there is anyone who knows what you have been plotting these last few years, I would keep a close eye on him.

  Chapter 10

  Tom’s shock fell away, leaving a blank hollow in his gut. The great hero he had sought was a blind old man, his best hope no hope at all.

  Tristan shuffled closer, feeling out until he touched the bars of his cell. “There is no light.” Sounds grew edges—Tom breathing, Tristan breathing. A sweet and floral scent hung ill at ease in the lifeless air.

  “No.” Tom remembered the noble rank of the old man before him. He bowed. “No, my lord.”

  “My eyes retain one power.” Tristan’s voice was a worn keepsake, an old and long-loved robe. “I can still tell night from day, and torchlight between. I fear that my welcome is an empty thing, yet you may have it gladly.”

  Tom leaned against the bars. Fright and confusion met and danced in him. He hung his head.

  “You have suffered.” Tristan felt out with his fingers. Tom had never known someone wholly blind, but guessed that for such a man, touching was something like seeing. He held forth a hand for Tristan to grip through the bars.

  “Young, but tall.” Aged and worn though it was, Tristan’s hand still carried the impression of matchless strength. “And somewhat underfed, I fear.”

  “I forgot—here, my lord, your food.” Tom held out the bowl. “It’s not what a great lord will be used to eating.”

  “I am an old campaigner.” Tristan dug the wooden spoon into the bowl and ate the porridge without the slightest hint of complaint in voice or face. “You may lay trust that I have survived on shorter commons than this.”

  Tom looked over his shoulder, listening for the jailer. He reached out and rattled the door of Tristan’s cell, then stuck his finger in the lock.

  “I did try that myself—a few times.” Tristan hummed in mirth. “Alas, this door was one of the only things in the castle I was able to build as sturdily as I had planned.”

  “Forgive me for asking, my lord, but why does everything look so broken-down in here?” Tom succeeded in doing nothing but pinching his finger in the tumblers. “The whole castle, I mean.”

  “I have been told many times that I made a better hero than I do a lord,” said Tristan. “I trust too easily and see the good in everyone.”

  Tom gave up on the lock. “I cannot think that is much of a flaw, my lord.”

  “That is what I always said, but Vithric never missed a chance to mock me when my trust proved misplaced.” Tristan did not truly seem to be reproaching himself. “I am about to do the very same thing again, right now. You tell me that you came here with my old friend John, and though he is not here to speak for you, I am going to take you at your word. It is an old habit, and one that has gotten me into the worst sort of trouble.”

  Tom made a furtive, futile search of the bars, hoping against hope to find some flaw, some way to get Tristan out. He found them all to be perfectly sound, built from hard iron and set with skill into the stone. “Was there a prisoner here, my lord? Before you, I mean.”

  “No, no.” Tristan’s joints crackled as he lowered himself down to sit on a stool by the door. “This was meant for a storeroom, a treasury of sorts, a place to guard a thing, not a person.”

  “The box.” Tom remembered the pallid glow, the keening wail, the rows of glowing, waving, jointless limbs. “The thing that held those creatures.”

  “Indeed so,” said Tristan. “Vithric told me that they are called the Skeleth. We found their casket right here, between these two slabs that must once have been places to lay out the honored dead, and when Vithric made me understand how dangerous were the creatures held within it, I made sure to keep it locked away as best I could. Only three ever knew of its existence—Vithric, John and myself.”

  Tom peered into Tristan’s cell. The two raised slabs were solid, but empty, and the broken-down furnishings scattered about on the floor would not have looked out of place in the humble dwelling of a peasant. A burst-open sack of dried lavender was the source of the floral scent. It had l
eaked out half its contents by the central pillar, spilling onto the iron ingots, pink over rust.

  “We two have one comfort,” said Tristan. “I know every brick and plank of this castle, and I never bothered with listening holes or things of the like. If we keep our voices low, we may speak without fear of being overheard.”

  Tom did not know where to begin. He opened his mouth to speak, but his thoughts tumbled over one another—the horrible, flickering creatures; the jerking bodies of the men; the wizard-woman chanting; the screams; John Marshal’s face, dead but moving. Then he remembered why John had come to Tristan in the first place. The Nethergrim had returned, and Tristan’s old friend Vithric was its servant. It was too much, all too much. The words did not come.

  A rat skittered out across the floor of the cell. Tom watched it make a few darting forays near Tristan’s feet to lap up gobbets of fallen porridge. He did not know what use it was to conceal the sound of his weeping, but he tried.

  “Courage, Tom,” said Tristan. “All is not lost.”

  Tom trembled. “How do you know that?”

  Tristan stood again. “We are here speaking, are we not? Who knows what may yet come of that? Tell me what you know, and let us see what we can make of it.”

  Tom started where the pain was fresh. “A wizard-woman turned the men of your valley into monsters.” His voice wavered and broke. “Two dozen hired brigands hold your castle, the women and children cower in fear down in the village, and you’re—you’re—”

  “Stone blind?” Tristan’s laughter had yet more power than his grip—soft and simple, joyful and unconquered. “So are you, down here, or near enough to it. Perhaps you will come to understand. Let us be silent for a moment. Do not try to think of anything. It may help you to close your eyes, despite the darkness.”

  Tom shut his eyes.

  “Do not hide from your fear,” said Tristan. “Do not flinch from it. Let it find you. Let it show you what it wants you to see.”

  Tom beheld the faces of his friends, Katherine brave and Edmund quick. Thinking of them made him think of all the other folk in the north with friends, with family. He stopped grieving over John Marshal and the other monster-men, and remembered the direction they were going when last he had seen them—eastward, back into settled country, back toward the towns and villages of the north, toward his home. He clenched the bars.

  Lord Tristan touched Tom’s fingers. “I will not lie to you. I felt horror as my sight began to fail me, I pitied myself and wept bitter tears for what I was about to lose, but I remembered that I had led three hundred people in to settle this valley, and while I lived I would be an aid to them. Let us now put aside our despair, for it serves no cause.”

  Tom could hold it in no longer. “My lord, Vithric is alive.”

  He hesitated then, unwilling to speak further, for at his words Tristan’s face lit up with a joy that stunned him with its strength, and felt like an act of murder to crush.

  “He faked his death many years ago.” Tom forced the words out. “He is a servant of the Nethergrim. Two weeks ago, he tried to kill me and six other children.”

  Tristan’s face froze. “That cannot be.” He stared at nothing, slack and befuddled, like an old man who had lost his grip on the world. “It cannot be so.”

  Tom grieved for the world in which he lived, where telling a simple truth could be an act of cruelty. “It is so, my lord.”

  Tristan put his head in his hands. He blinked and blinked. “Of course. Yes, of course. That is how Warbur Drake knew that the Skeleth were here.”

  He looked up to the mold-rimed ceiling of his cell. His milky eyes strained and failed to fix. “And now at last I see a darkness.”

  Tom felt his fingerhold on hope slipping once again. “My lord, your people—you said that while you lived, you would be an aid to them.”

  Slowly, and with every sign of pain and struggle, Tristan roused himself again. “So I did.”

  Tom spoke from his heart and hoped it would not sound like an insult. “Courage, my lord. All is not lost.”

  Tristan took his own words back without the slightest show of anger. “Indeed so. Truly so. We are here, Tom, living now, so let us do what we can here and now.”

  Tom rubbed his tear-pricked eyes. “I will help, my lord, any way I can.”

  “Our enemy’s greatest advantage is their position here within these walls.” Tristan’s voice regained its calm power. “We must gather all we know of their numbers, their habits and weaknesses. It may give us a chance to overthrow them.”

  Tom raced through everything he had seen on his way inside. “I counted two dozen brigands, my lord, give or take a few. Some of them guard the walls, but they already look restless and bored.”

  “Good. It is as I hoped—they lack discipline.” Tristan stroked his beard. “Warbur Drake is gone? The woman you saw, the wizard.”

  “She left with the creatures.”

  “Our situation improves yet more,” said Tristan. “Who is in command? The young knight?”

  Tom shook his head. “No, a man called Aldred Shakesby. Old, with a bald head and a scar that runs from eye to lip.”

  “Ah.” Tristan raised his brows. “That is also good. Very good.”

  “Why?”

  “I know the man,” said Tristan. “He was the steward of this castle, the man I hired to ensure all ran smoothly here in the valley.”

  Tom drew in a breath. “Then you have been betrayed from within!”

  “Thoroughly.” Tristan paused to laugh softly at himself. “Vithric once told me that my great weakness was that since I never lied myself, I had little skill for detecting falsehoods in others. He told me that many times—how I wish I had listened!”

  A voice from up the stairs cut across what Tom was going to say in answer. “Boy—you down there!” The jailer’s chair creaked, and his keys jingled. “How long does it take to give the prisoner his slop?”

  “I’ll be right up!” Tom called back, then whispered to Tristan: “My lord, I’m afraid of what will happen to your people under the thumb of these brigands. Help me find a way to free them.”

  The jailer stepped onto the stairs above. “Boy!” Lantern light swelled out through the mouth of the staircase.

  Tom seized Lord Tristan’s scar-horned hand between the bars. “Help me, my lord. Please. What do I do?”

  Tristan’s sightless eyes searched in darkness—then widened. “The food.” He turned to Tom. “My steward was late with the harvest. How much food is there in the castle?”

  “Almost none, my lord.”

  Tristan dropped his voice at the approach of the jailer. “Tom, a well-defended castle has dominion over all the land around it, but only if the men who guard it have enough to eat.” He felt out for his bowl of pottage, but bobbled it and knocked it over in the putrid straw.

  An idea came to Tom with such speed and force that he could hardly believe he had thought it on his own. “Yes, my lord. I understand.”

  The jailer bent down his head to emerge in front of the cell. “Come to have a look at the great hero, have you?” He raised the lantern to show Tristan groping about him, more than a foot away from the place where he had dropped his meal. “Ha! Get your fill of this old buzzard while you can, boy. I doubt he’ll have much time left to squawk.” He mimed the act of hanging, sticking out his tongue over his jowls.

  Tom knelt by the bars and felt his long arms through. He scooped up the bowl before the last gooey dregs could leak out. “Here, my lord.”

  Lord Tristan turned at the sound. “I thank you again.” He had splashed some of the porridge in his long white hair, so that it hung down in a clump over his ear.

  Tom placed the bowl in Lord Tristan’s blind grip. He dropped his voice low, so low that he was not sure Tristan’s old ears would hear. “I think I have a plan.”

 
“I put my trust in you.” Lord Tristan turned away, shuffling off into the dark.

  “Come, boy, don’t test my patience.” The jailer turned away, lantern in hand. “Don’t think anyone will care an Anster farthing if you disappear, so you’ll want to keep me happy, and hop when I say hop. Come to think of it, I’m going to send you over to the hall for my share of that ale I saw them hauling in.”

  Tom followed the jailer over to the stairs. He could not help looking back one last time. Lord Tristan crouched by the pillar, doing his best to shoo the rats away from what remained of his porridge—and eating it with a finger, for the spoon was lost somewhere in the straw.

  The jailer turned around and snorted. “Sorry sight, hey? All them fancy stories, and then you see him. He should have died back in the old days, in his glory. Hanging him would be a mercy, you ask me.”

  Chapter 11

  A shadow crossed Katherine’s back: “Girl! Quit that mooning!”

  Katherine blinked. She reacted, but too late. A laundry-stick smacked hard across her knuckles, causing her to drop the tunic she was washing with a splash into the tub.

  “You look what you’re about, you hear me?” Goody Bycross, head laundress of Castle Northend, loomed in at Katherine’s shoulder. “You make a mess of my lord’s good shirt and I will make you wish you were never born.”

  Katherine rubbed her hand. The cut that ran from finger to finger had healed almost clean, two weeks after she had gotten it by cracking a bolgug on the mouth with the pommel of her sword beneath the mountain of the Nethergrim. The strike of the laundry-stick had opened it again, and gotten lye soap under the skin. She looked down at the angry, itching slash, then balled up her hand into a fist and rounded on the head laundress.

  “You mind your place, you great thick strumpet.” Goody Bycross set her teeth—not an old woman yet, though she already walked with her shoulders hunched. She waggled the laundry-stick at Katherine. “Don’t you dare face up to me!”