02 - The Land of the Silver Apples

  “You could find my lost daughter,” murmured Mother.

  “Oh, very well,” conceded the Bard. “I suppose I can be talked into a trip to the Forest of Lorn. It’s years since I talked to pookas.” He, too, had a distant look in his eyes.

  All of them sat in a daze. A few hours before, their problems had seemed overwhelming. Now, in the bright spring sunlight with the swallows dipping and warbling, a plan unfolded in front of them. Father looked transported, and Jack realized he’d never traveled anywhere, except for that one trip to the Holy Isle. The Bard smiled, remembering things Jack could only guess at, and Jack saw himself walking through a magic forest full of little men.

  “If we’re going, someone has to pack,” Pega said in her practical way, breaking into the reverie. Jack looked up. He couldn’t remember anyone inviting her along.

  “I’ll have to look after the farm,” said Mother. “I’ll ask the tanner’s wife and her two daughters to help me. They’ll welcome the chance to move out of their miserable cottage.”

  “I wish you could come,” Jack said, sorry to leave her with the work.

  “I’m a wise woman,” Mother said. “My place is with the fields, the animals, the bees, not a monastery. And besides, it will be a treat to have company to talk to of women’s things—only, don’t stay away too long!”

  “It’s settled, then,” said the Bard. “I’ll bring herbal cures to trade for lodgings, Giles can contribute candles, and Aiden his special inks. You’re coming, aren’t you, Aiden?”

  “On a pilgrimage? With a visit to St. Filian’s?” cried the little monk. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

  Chapter Ten

  THE PILGRIMAGE

  Jack hefted the eel trap and Pega the carrying bag as they set off for the stream. They slid down a grassy bank to where the water was deep and swift. Jack baited the trap with whelks and placed it in a dark side channel—the sort of place eels liked to hide. Then he and Pega sat down in the shade of some alders to wait.

  “I’m really sorry I hit you,” said Jack, looking uncomfortably at the cut on her lip.

  “You went temporarily mad,” said Pega. “One of my owners used to go insane once a month at the full moon.”

  “I’m not that bad,” Jack said, nettled.

  “It’s all right. You can beat me up as much as you like. You freed me, so you’ve earned the right.”

  “I don’t want that right! You’re weird,” Jack said.

  “Not half as weird as your sister. She gets away with things only because she’s beautiful.”

  Jack looked at Pega, surprised by the calm acceptance in her voice. The dappled sunshine spread a pattern of light and shade over her face, lessening the effect of the birthmark. On the other hand, it made her body look speckled. The way she was hunkered down didn’t help either. He imagined her going fiddip and snagging a fly with her tongue.

  “Do you mind… her being beautiful?” he said.

  “Do you mean, am I jealous? Once, maybe. When I was younger, I used to go out on May Day morning to wash my face in dew. People said it made you pretty, but it didn’t work on me.” The stream rushed past, and a dark shadow flitted along the bottom and into the side channel. “Just because I’m ugly doesn’t mean I hate beautiful things. There’s an eel in the trap,” she said.

  They hauled it up quickly before the creature found its way out. Water splashed over their feet and clothes. It was a big one, three feet long and thrashing for all it was worth. Pega cut off its head with her fish knife and stuffed the still-writhing creature into the carrying bag.

  “You’re good at this,” said Jack, who felt the air shudder with the eel’s death.

  “I once caught six in a row,” boasted Pega. They threw the trap back in. After they had four, Pega loosened the skin around the necks of the eels. With a strong, quick jerk, she pulled it back over the entire body, like someone peeling off a glove. Then she cut the eels open and cleaned them thoroughly in the stream.

  Back at the house she hung them, tail down, in a barrel over a smoldering fire. “This is something I learned from one of my owners in Edwin’s Town,” she explained. For three days and nights the eels dangled, dripping and perfuming everything with burning fish oil. But by the fourth morning they smelled delicious and would stay fresh for a long time.

  Jack felt strange when Pega blithely talked about “one of her owners.” She seemed to have been traded up and down the coast like an ugly dog. Edwin’s Town was so far to the north, they didn’t even speak Saxon there.

  The weather was perfect when they set out. Birds were caroling from every field and tree. Brother Aiden informed the villagers they passed that they were on a pilgrimage, and everyone smiled and wished them luck. Pilgrimages were highly thought of, the longer the better. You could go to Canterbury or Rome or even Jerusalem, having glorious adventures on the way. Everyone respected you, and if you got martyred on the way, you went straight up to Heaven.

  Giles Crookleg walked with his rolling gait, stamping along with more enthusiasm than anyone had seen in him for a long time. This was the life, he declared. He should have been a wandering monk. Lucy rode astride Bluebell, who was loaded with trade goods, as well as the Bard’s travel harp. The Bard and Jack walked on either side with their staffs. To passersby, these appeared to be ordinary walking sticks, but with his, the Bard could make a wind blow an enemy off his feet or a bear fall asleep. He promised to teach Jack these skills when they reached the Forest of Lorn. Brother Aiden brought up the rear with Pega.

  When they got to the top of a hill, the last place they would be able to see the village, they turned and looked back. It was a peaceful and satisfying scene. Threads of smoke came from a dozen houses, with an especially large plume from the fire pit where the blacksmith made charcoal. “I lay a protection on this valley,” said the Bard. He chanted a spell in a language Jack didn’t know. Brother Aiden blessed the village in Latin.

  Jack squinted to make out his house at the other end of the valley. It shimmered in a warm haze rising from the fields, and from this roof, too, came a wisp of smoke. Mother was baking oatcakes. Not for her was the freedom of a jolly pilgrimage. Chickens and geese had to be fed, weeds pulled, and plants watered. Someone had to supervise the boys sent to help. Jack felt sad leaving her behind, but her joy would be great if he returned with his lost sister.

  “I would not leave the village unguarded long,” the Bard said now, shading his eyes and looking toward the sea. “Some say the dragon ships are moving again.”

  “Filthy pirates,” said Father.

  “May darkness fall upon their eyes. May storms tear open their sails. May they be stranded on the trackless deep with nothing to eat but the wind,” said Brother Aiden. It sounded suspiciously like one of the Bard’s curses and not the usual prayers the little monk intoned.

  Jack was silent. He knew Thorgil was out there somewhere—burning and plundering, no doubt. He had tried to find her again with farseeing, but the vision had eluded him.

  “Is it true they turn into wolves?” asked Pega.

  Jack remembered Olaf One-Brow panting on the ridge above Gizur Thumb-Crusher’s village. “Yes,” he replied.

  “We must go on,” said the Bard. He led the way down the other side of the hill, and soon all trace of human habitation disappeared. Jack’s spirits lifted. While he’d explored most of the land around the village, this was new and he liked it: No fields, no houses, and no evil-tempered sheep. Heather, gorse, and broom lay on either side, with woodlands crowding the valleys. The road was deeply rutted and crossed by streams. In some places it disappeared entirely. The king was supposed to maintain it, but Jack’s village was of no importance and no one bothered to improve its connection to the outside world.

  Just think! I might see a king, Jack thought happily. Bebba’s Town was famous for Din Guardi, a fortress larger, older, and grander than any other in the kingdom. The royal court made its home there. Knights rode around on horses as grand as J
ohn the Fletcher’s, and sometimes they engaged in tournaments for the entertainment of the locals.

  I’ve already seen a king, Jack thought. Ivar the Boneless, and what a disappointing wretch he was. A Saxon lord will certainly be more noble.

  Their progress was slow. Giles Crookleg, in spite of his enthusiasm, had to rest frequently, and the Bard also tired easily. Lucy demanded constant attention. She was cross about her travel clothes, which were sensibly roomy and mud-colored to hide the dirt. “You have to hide your presence from your enemy,” Father explained. It was the beginning of a long, meandering story involving a giant called Bolster, whose wish was to enslave a princess to wash his clothes. At each stop Father pointed out a huge rock Bolster had thrown or a log he had used for a toothpick.

  Jack didn’t mind the slowness of their trip. The longer it took, the more he could soak up new sights and smells. They passed a rookery of crows, gathering in the late afternoon. The birds came from all directions, in ones and twos and threes, until they covered a giant oak so thickly, you could hardly see the leaves. The air was full of caws, warbles, hiccups, and croaks, and the Bard listened attentively, though he didn’t reveal what he learned.

  The pilgrims camped under an ash tree and ate onions, smoked eel, and travel scones. The scones had been made in a most unusual way. Pega had kneaded a dough of coarse wheat flour, butter, and salt. This she patted out onto a flat stone and attacked with a wooden mallet. She pounded and folded again and again until the dough was covered with little blisters and had a silky sheen. The scones were baked on a griddle and would not grow stale or hard, Pega said, for several weeks.

  Now, under the tree with the fire snapping and the stars twinkling, the travel scones were as good as Yule cake. Even Lucy liked them. They drank cider, and Brother Aiden produced a sack of homemade ale, which Jack and Pega were allowed to taste. “You won’t find that anywhere,” said the Bard. “It’s from a secret recipe. You’ll never guess what’s in it, my girl.”

  “I will so,” said Pega, but her eyebrows raised with surprise when she tasted it. Jack couldn’t begin to describe the flavor. It was like wind off a moor, the moon on a lake, a leaf uncurling in spring.

  “This is incredible,” he exclaimed.

  Brother Aiden preened visibly. “One of my ancestors was captured by a Scottish king. He was promised his life, the hand of a princess, and a bag of gold if he would reveal the recipe. He preferred to die.”

  “That’s what I call a serious cook,” Pega said with approval.

  “I feel like singing,” announced Father, and at once he gave them a hymn:

  Praise we now the Fashioner of Heaven’s fabric,

  The majesty of His might and His mind’s wisdom,

  Work of the World-warden, Worker of all wonders,

  How He the Lord of Glory everlasting,

  Made first for the race of men Heaven as a rooftree,

  Then made He Middle Earth to be their mansion.

  Jack was astounded. Father never sang! Not once in his life could the boy remember it happening, yet his father’s voice was deep and good, a real bard’s voice.

  “That was written by Brother Caedmon long ago. You performed it extremely well,” said Brother Aiden.

  Father blushed like a child. “I learned it on the Holy Isle. No better place.”

  “No better place,” agreed the little monk. “Give us more.” So Father sang about the Creation and the naming of animals by Adam and the sailing of Noah’s ark. He had memorized dozens of hymns. The wonder of it was how they had lain in his mind so long, waiting for this night.

  “You do surprise me, Giles,” said the Bard. “All this time I thought Jack got his musical talent from his mother.”

  “I learned the hymns of Caedmon because they were in Saxon and I could understand them,” Father explained. “Also, because he’d been a farm brat like me.”

  “He used to run from parties, afraid someone would ask him to sing,” Brother Aiden remembered. “Went out to sleep with the cattle. Then, one night, an angel came to him in a dream and taught him that first poem. We should all be so lucky!”

  Father told them about how he’d been taken to the Holy Isle as a child so the monks could cure his deformed leg. They failed, he said, but they’d given him a glimpse into a world where all was orderly and beautiful. For the first time ever Jack heard his father speak without a trace of self-pity. He was simply happy to relive that supreme experience of his life.

  The Bard struck up his harp and began a ballad they all knew about a rascally elvish knight and a clever village girl. He took the part of the knight and Pega was the girl. Then they all sang together, except Lucy, who had nodded off to sleep. Eventually, they all stretched out under the ash tree. The stars shone between the branches like fruit on the great tree Yggdrassil.

  That night Jack dreamed of music so fair, he thought his heart would break, but when he awoke at dawn, the memory of it had vanished.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE LADY IN THE FOUNTAIN

  Bebba’s Town more than lived up to Jack’s expectations. The marketplace was crowded with tradesmen and animals. Rope-makers, tanners, and metalworkers displayed their wares. Woolen cloth, belt buckles, knives, iron griddles, and pottery lined the square, along with cages of wrens, finches, doves, and pigeons destined for someone’s dinner.

  “Jewels fit for a queen,” shouted a metalworker, holding up a brooch studded with garnets as Lucy rode past on Bluebell. Lucy rewarded him with a smile. “By the Lady, she’s a bonny lass,” the man said to his companion, and they both gazed after her with admiring eyes.

  Pega followed, her head bowed to hide her birthmark, but there was no concealing her scrawny form. The metalworkers looked away, and one spat to the side, a way of averting a curse.

  Next to a grassy lawn a man boiled onions in an iron cauldron. He fished them out with a pair of tongs and lined them up on a table. The Bard bought a dozen, and they feasted on hot, steaming onions sprinkled with salt.

  “This is delicious,” Father said, licking his fingers. “Who knew onions could taste so good?”

  “It’s the spring air,” said the Bard.

  “And the crowds,” said Brother Aiden. “I love being surrounded by people. Look there. You can see the outline of the Holy Isle.”

  Jack squinted at the horizon and saw a pale shadow in the deeper gray of the sea. This was where Olaf and Rune, Sven the Vengeful and Eric Pretty-Face—and Thorgil—had slaughtered the innocent monks. It was hard to believe his friends had committed such atrocities, but they had. He must never forget it.

  “How can one forgive people who are evil?” he said aloud.

  If Brother Aiden was surprised by the sudden shift in conversation, he didn’t show it. “We must forgive our enemies. If someone strikes us, we must turn the other cheek. Eventually, God’s goodness will prevail.”

  That was all right if it only involved getting slapped, Jack thought. Northmen didn’t just slap people, they cut off their heads.

  “It’s better not to get hit in the first place,” the Bard advised.

  “Now we must find a place to spend the night. You may like crowds, Aiden, but thieves and cutpurses like them too.”

  “We can reach the hostel at St. Filian’s by afternoon,” said the little monk.

  “That’s fine for the rest of you. Priests aren’t happy when they see people like me on their doorstep,” said the Bard. “I’ll stay at Din Guardi. They don’t like me there, either, but they’re afraid of me.”

  The houses grew more humble as they walked. These were built low to the ground with sagging grass roofs. Small gardens huddled behind ramshackle fences. To the right the cultivated land gave way to sand, and beyond, rising from a rocky shelf jutting out to sea, was an enormous fortress.

  Its towers were of dark, distempered stone, and it squatted like a patch of night on the fair coast. Most impressive was a hedge of ancient yew trees standing between the pilgrims and the fortress. The
trees massed together so thickly, they looked like a wall and gave Jack an unpleasant feeling, though he didn’t know why.

  The Bard frowned as though he, too, found the view distasteful. “That is the fortress of Din Guardi,” he said. “It has been there since time out of mind. They say one of the old gods built it.”

  “Old gods?” echoed Jack.

  “The guardians of the fields, the earth, the trees. The ones who were here before people came. Most of them are asleep and better left so.”

  “Who lives there now, sir?” asked Jack.

  “King Yffi.”

  “A real king?” said Jack, thrilled by the idea of a court with knights and horses and banners.

  “He’s a brute. Din Guardi is no place for children, and you’re better off at the monastery.” The Bard laughed. “But Yffi lays a fine table, and I like throwing him into a panic.”

  The road presently turned away from the coast and through a flowery meadow beside a rushing stream. They stopped to allow Bluebell to rest, and both Lucy and Pega waded into the water to wash the dust from their feet.

  “This is where we part company,” the Bard said. “I’ll meet you here on the morning of the third day. That’s more than enough time for Father Swein to winkle out a demon. And, Jack—”

  The boy looked up at the man’s sharp tone.

  “Don’t do anything foolish. Remember where your staff comes from and—well, you know what I’m talking about.”

  Jack understood, though he didn’t think the Bard had anything to worry about. His staff, a copy of the old man’s more powerful one, had called fire from the heart of Jotunheim. It still thrummed with power—faintly, to be sure, but still there. Jack had tried to do interesting things with it, such as lift a boulder into the sky or turn back the tide, but all he’d managed was to expel mice from a grain bin.