02 - The Land of the Silver Apples

  “I can’t allow it. I’m sorry.”

  Father Swein signaled to his slaves. Father stood squarely in their path. Crookleg he might be, but he would not back down from a righteous fight no matter how many men opposed him. Jack had never been so proud of him.

  “I can’t allow it either,” Jack cried, standing as tall as possible with his ash wood staff in his hand. The slaves guffawed, and Father Swein permitted himself a smile.

  Pega burst out of the willow, dragging Lucy after her. “I’ll lift her up to you, Jack. Grab her hands.”

  But Lucy—perverse as always—screamed, “Let me go, froggy! I hate slaves touching me!”

  Pega dropped her at once.

  “Pega—” Jack pleaded. But help came from a most unexpected direction.

  Brutus was one of the men sent to subdue Father. When he caught sight of Lucy, he halted in shock. “Back! Back!” he ordered the others. “This is one of the Fair Folk.”

  “The Fair Folk are accursed demons!” thundered the abbot. “Obey me at once, or I’ll hand you over to King Yffi!”

  Brutus planted himself beside Father. “I’ll not move an inch!” he shouted, once more the hero and not the buffoon. “My mother served the Fair Folk, and I shall do no less!” The slaves stared openmouthed at him.

  “Move, you scum, or I’ll have you all burned alive!” roared Father Swein. They surged forward and joined battle.

  Jack knew Father and Brutus couldn’t hold out against so many, and now the men in the well were swarming up the ladder. He trembled with rage at the treachery of the abbot. Come forth, his mind called as he grasped the thrumming staff until his knuckles whitened. Break down these walls. Cleanse this foul place. He didn’t know what forces he was summoning, only that his cry sank into the deep places of the earth and echoed in vast, buried caverns that had never seen the sun. The staff shook in his hand. His hair crackled.

  Thunder rolled through the ground. The stones groaned beneath Jack’s feet, and a shudder caused everyone to stagger in the courtyard. Jack fell to his knees. A second quake sent rocks tumbling in clouds of disintegrating plaster. Jack saw St. Filian’s Well split in two. Water burst out in a great plume and dashed itself against the wall. Jack was thrown onto the willow. He grabbed branches desperately as he fell down.

  When he sat up, he saw a river foaming through a break in the wall. The flood was so huge, he couldn’t hear the slaves screaming. He could only see their mouths opening and closing. Water cascaded into the pit, going on and on, not filling it up, but plunging into a freshly opened chasm at the bottom. It swept up poor Guthlac and carried him along. One tongue flicked out and caught Father Swein as neatly as a frog picking a single fly out of a swarm. With a scream, the abbot was dragged off.

  Now, for reasons Jack did not know, the flow gentled and the foam subsided into a crystal arc of water. In the gap of the wall, standing on the arc as though she had no weight at all, was the elf lady. Brutus sank to his knees. Lucy clapped her hands with glee.

  The lady held out her arms, and Lucy ran. Jack tried to catch her and so did Father, but he was too injured to stand. The elf lady swept Lucy up and, with a triumphant cry, leaped into the waters. The last of the stream slithered over the edge like the tail of a snake and disappeared.

  Jack ran to the pit and looked down. The hole was black and bottomless, empty of any trace of life. And dry.

  “She’s gone. Drowned. Dead. My poor little girl,” groaned Father, lying on the ground.

  A few monks and slaves stood at the edge of the pit, and two slaves had been lowered on ropes to explore. Everyone else was either injured or milling helplessly in a daze through the rubble. Most of the courtyard walls had fallen down. Beyond them, Jack could see fallen roofs and smoke. “You think your loss is great?” wailed one of the monks. “We’ve lost our abbot. What shall we do? He was our guiding light!”

  “To Hell with Father Swein,” Giles Crookleg muttered.

  “Where’s that hospital monk?” cried Jack. He was worried about Father’s injuries. The slaves had beaten him severely, and his crooked leg was bent at a different angle. Father had to be in agony.

  “You tell ’em, Giles,” Pega said. “I never saw a better cut-purse than that abbot.”

  “Can’t anyone here set bones?” shouted Jack. But the chaos was more than anyone could cope with. Both inside and outside the courtyard, Jack heard moans and curses.

  “I’ll try,” said Pega. “One of my owners—”

  “I’ll do it,” said Brutus. He broke off several willow branches and squatted down beside Father. “This is going to hurt, sir.”

  “I don’t care. She’s dead. My poor, poor child!” raved Father.

  “I don’t think she is dead, sir. I saw the Lady take her.”

  “Lucy’s drowned. We must pray for her soul. Get me onto my knees.”

  “You’re not in any shape to be on your knees. Hold him,” Brutus ordered two of the unhurt slaves. To Jack’s surprise, they obeyed. There was something about Brutus, when he wasn’t actually groveling, that commanded obedience. Jack gritted his teeth as he watched. If only he’d learned healing spells from the Bard instead of how to summon whatever it was that had just happened. Father screamed as Brutus moved the bone into place.

  “Wish I could have used poppy juice,” grunted the slave. “No time.”

  “Pain is good! I deserve it! It’s all my fault!” cried Father before he passed out. Brutus seemed to be doing a good job, as far as Jack could tell. Father’s leg was straighter and more normal than it had ever been. Brutus bound it to the splints with rope.

  “There!” he said, sitting back. “I’m sorry to have hurt him.”

  “Will he—will he be all right?” said Jack.

  “I hope so.”

  “You did a champion job,” said Pega, inspecting the splints. “Where did you learn this skill?”

  “From my mother,” replied Brutus.

  “Hoy!” shouted the slaves from the pit. They were quickly drawn up.

  “Black as Satan down there,” one of them said. “Can’t go no farther without a torch. Without a lot of torches.”

  “Does the hole go straight down?” asked a monk.

  “Turns to the side,” said the slave. “Big enough for an army.”

  “And bone-dry,” added his companion. No one said anything for a few moments after this announcement. The thought of a passage so big that it could hold an army was disturbing enough. How can it be dry after all that water? thought Jack.

  “Oh no! The injuries are even worse here.” Jack saw Brother Aiden, climbing over the rubble. He was followed by the hospital monk with a gang of helpers. “Move the injured to the fields,” the little monk ordered. “No one sleeps inside tonight. The earthquake may return. Giles!” Brother Aiden bent down and felt Father’s pulse. “He lives, thank Heaven. That’s a handsome job of bone-setting.”

  “Brutus did it,” said Jack.

  “Really? I could use your help, young man. We’ve got broken bones all over. Did anyone die?”

  “The water took Lucy, Father Swein, and a patient who was already dead,” said Pega.

  “Not Lucy!” cried Brother Aiden. “I knew about the abbot, but not the poor child. What a terrible fate!” The injured were being laid on planks of wood and carried away. Jack stood guard over Father to be sure he was moved carefully.

  “Lucy has not drowned,” Brutus said.

  “You keep saying that. I saw her swept away, and believe me, nobody could survive that,” Pega said. “It was the strangest thing, Brother Aiden. Lucy actually ran toward the water.”

  “She was called by the Lady,” said Brutus, “and the Lady took her.”

  “I saw it too,” said Jack.

  What Brother Aiden was going to say was interrupted by the thunder of horses and riders galloping into the courtyard. “Company, halt!” bellowed a man in a helmet. The horses pulled to a stop, their heads tossing, their flanks wet with sweat. “Din Guardi s
hook like a rat in a dog’s teeth, but it stood firm. We saw smoke coming from the monastery. Where’s Father Swein? Good God! This must have been the center of the earthquake.”

  “The abbot is dead,” said Brother Aiden, looking even more like a small brown sparrow beside the burly warriors. “I’m the art master from the Holy Isle.”

  “Ah!” said the horseman, obviously impressed. “It’s good fortune you are here to step into his sandals. What caused this upheaval? Was it demons?”

  “It was him!” shouted the hospital monk, pointing at Jack. “The slaves saw him just before the earthquake. He was mumbling charms and waving a wizard’s staff. And to think I wasted St. Oswald’s head on you,” he said, shaking his fist at Jack.

  Chapter Fifteen

  DIN GUARDI

  “It could have been worse,” said the Bard, leaning back in the chair King Yffi had provided in his room. His feet extended toward a brazier full of coals near a deep, narrow window. A spring storm blustered outside. Rain occasionally splattered through and made the coals hiss. “It couldn’t have been much worse, mind you, but worse.” The old man sipped thoughtfully at the chamomile tea Pega had made him.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” protested Jack. He’d spent the past night and most of the day in King Yffi’s dungeon. Only Brother Aden’s appeals had released him. Jack’s cell had been a dark, terrifying place hollowed out of rock, where he could hear the howls of unknown creatures and waves booming not far away.

  “I warned you, just before I left: ‘Don’t do anything foolish.’”

  “You did say that, sir. I remember,” said Pega.

  “Oh, be quiet,” said Jack.

  “Never use anger to reach the life force, lad,” the Bard scolded him. “It turns on you when you least expect it.”

  Jack felt horrible. Because of him, St. Filian’s Well had been destroyed and dozens of people had been hurt. Father wouldn’t be able to walk for months and had gone mad with grief. Jack couldn’t imagine how they were going to tell Mother about Lucy.

  “King Yffi wanted to roast you over a slow fire—St. Filian’s pays him well for protection—but I threatened him out of it.” The Bard tranquilly drank his tea. The sun had set, and the long, rectangular window faded from silver to lead. The old man smiled as a swallow struggled into the opening and sat there, drying her wings.

  “Thank you, sir,” muttered Jack. Just because the king wasn’t going to roast him didn’t mean something else awful wasn’t planned. Guards stood outside the door to make sure no one wandered.

  “Yffi has an interesting decision to make,” remarked the Bard. “I don’t think he knows it yet.”

  Probably deciding how much pain I can endure, the boy thought.

  Pega, busy as usual, had laid out a small table with bread and stew from the fortress kitchen. Jack noticed four trenchers and wondered who else was coming. Father was housed in Din Guardi’s infirmary, and the Bard said he’d been given poppy juice to calm his mind. “Giles has a long recovery ahead,” the old man said. “I fear his leg is the least of his problems.”

  “Why are you treated so well, sir, when King Yffi is a Christian?” Jack asked, noting the richness of the room and its furnishings. “I thought they hated pagans.”

  “Yffi is like a wall covered with fresh plaster,” explained the Bard. “He appears Christian on the outside, because it brings him wealth. Inside, he’s the same brute who slew the rightful ruler of Din Guardi and enslaved his wife and child. Most creatures can be ruled by kindness, but now and then you meet one like Yffi who responds only to fear. Fortunately, I know how to supply it.”

  “But…” said Jack, trying to sort out his thoughts, “I thought he was a king.” In all the stories the boy had heard, such beings were noble from birth.

  Pega laughed out loud. “You were hatched under a gooseberry bush. Kings are only successful thieves.”

  “That’s not true!” Jack said hotly.

  “There, there,” the Bard said. “Not all rulers are corrupt, Pega, although your experience has taught you to believe it. Ah! There’s Aiden. Now we can eat.”

  The little monk was wrapped in a wet cloak that steamed in the warm room. “What a day! I asked the monks of St. Filian’s to clear fallen stones, and they replied, ‘That’s the slaves’ job.’ Everything was the slaves’ job, I soon discovered. What do those men do all day? They certainly don’t spend time in the library, and when I looked into the chapel, it was deserted.” Brother Aiden unwrapped the cloak, transforming himself from a fat partridge into a skinny sparrow. Pega hung the cloak near the coals to dry.

  The little monk produced Jack’s ash wood staff. “I expect you’ll need this soon, lad.” Brother Aiden exchanged a meaningful look with the Bard. “The king’s guards were afraid to touch it after they arrested you. Hot lentil soup! You’re a wonder, Pega!” he cried before Jack could ask why he would need the staff.

  They sat down to eat. The soup was flavored with onions and the new spice Father had called pepper. It was delicious! Jack thought he could eat pepper every day and twice on Sunday. The Bard saved a scrap of bread for the swallow in the window. She showed no fear whatsoever, but hopped forward and took the food from his hand.

  When they were finished, Pega brought out a special treat she’d made in the fortress’ kitchen, an omelet sweetened with honey. “If only Father Severus were here,” Brother Aiden mused after they had settled around the brazier to bask in heat. “He’d get those lazy monks off their backsides. He could frighten a wolf into saying prayers.”

  “Who’s Father Severus?” Jack asked.

  “The man who saved my life,” replied the little monk. “I was a starving child, lost in the Forest of Lorn. I remember eating bark.”

  “I’ve done that,” Pega said brightly. “One of my owners—”

  “Let him tell the story,” said Jack, who wanted to hear about the Forest of Lorn.

  “My memories are shadowy, but it seemed something was hunting me. I had made a nest in a tree like a bird. Father Severus had been sent into the forest to do penance, and he spotted my hiding place. I was afraid of him at first. I was afraid of everything, but he left food at the foot of my tree. Gradually, I learned to trust him.”

  “Were your parents dead?” asked Pega.

  Brother Aiden sat back and frowned. “I don’t remember. I can still speak their language.” He said something in a whispery voice that seemed more like the wind blowing through a forest than human speech.

  Jack’s hair stood on end. “That’s Pictish!” he exclaimed. He didn’t understand the words, but their sighing, hissing quality brought back evil memories. He’d heard them in the slave market where the Northmen were trying to sell him. He remembered the small, painted warriors materializing from the twilight. Their skins seemed to writhe in the firelight. The pictures on their bodies—a wolf with a man’s head in its jaws, a deer devouring a snake, a man being crushed beneath the feet of a bull—spoke of a world of pain. They were like the drawings Brother Aiden made on his parchments.

  “You’re a Pict!” Jack said, now understanding the monk’s smallness.

  “I am,” replied Brother Aiden.

  “How can that be? They’re savages! They eat people!”

  “Are you quite through?” said the Bard.

  “I guess so,” Jack said.

  “Well then, I must say you’ve been insufferably rude. You know nothing of Aiden’s people, yet you believe the worst of them.”

  “I saw them, sir. The Northmen were bartering slaves for weapons, and the Picts were feeling the captives all over to see how fat they were. They almost took me! It was horrible.”

  “And the Northmen’s slaughter of the monks wasn’t?” The Bard’s eyes snapped with anger.

  “Of course it was,” Jack said, desperate to make the old man understand, “only the Picts were worse. Unnatural, you see. Even Olaf One-Brow hated them.”

  “The list of people Olaf One-Brow hated, and who hated him, would
reach from here to the next village.”

  “I’m not offended,” said Brother Aiden, unexpectedly coming to Jack’s defense. “Many people find the Old Ones disturbing. Modern Picts are no different from anyone else. They wear clothes and live in houses. They speak the language of folks around them and marry their sons and daughters. The Old Ones…” Brother Aiden’s voice trailed off.

  “Live as their ancestors did a thousand years ago,” the Bard finished. “Naked, painted, secretive, they come out only at night. People say light makes them weak.”

  “They’ve lived in darkness so long, it has made them fear the sun,” agreed Brother Aiden.

  “The Picts I saw were covered in designs,” said Jack.

  “I have a couple.” Brother Aiden bared his chest to show an ornately decorated crescent moon intersected by a broken arrow. Beneath it was a blue line with five short lines crossing it at right angles. “You needn’t be worried by me, Jack. I haven’t eaten anyone in ages.”

  “I—I’m sorry,” Jack stammered. He found it hard to associate the gentle monk with the savages he remembered at the slave market.

  “This mark is how I got my name.” Brother Aiden indicated the blue line.

  “It’s a rune,” the Bard explained. “It means aiden, or ‘yew tree’ in Pictish. The monks of the Holy Isle thought it as good a name as any.”

  “Now I must attend to prayers,” said Brother Aiden. He stopped by the window to say good-bye to the swallow. “I’ve often wondered where they go in winter. Some say they fly to Paradise,” he said, stroking the bird’s head.

  “I’m curious,” said Pega, holding out the warmed cloak for Brother Aiden to put on. “Why was Father Severus doing penance?”

  “He had an unfortunate encounter with a mermaid—but I don’t want to indulge in idle gossip,” Brother Aiden said. “Tomorrow will be a long day. We should all get a good night’s sleep.”

  “What’s wrong with idle gossip? Would he prefer busy gossip?” fumed Pega later as she fluffed up her bedding. The Bard might be honored with a goose down mattress, but the courtesy didn’t extend to Jack or Pega. The meager piles of straw would hardly take the curse off the stone floor. “I’ll bet Father Severus fell in love with that mermaid,” said Pega. “They say Sea Folk marry humans to gain souls.”