To Green Angel Tower, Volume 1

  Simon hesitated, then said: “In a way, yes. That’s true.”

  “Hah!” Towser grinned, exposing the stumps of his few remaining teeth. He looked truly happy. “I told Joshua and all those others about the sword, didn’t I? About both swords.” He looked at the trolls again. “What are they doing?”

  “Throwing dice.”

  “Since I brought ‘em here, I should show ’em how a real game is played. I should teach ’em Bull’s Horn.” Towser rose and stumbled a few paces to where the trolls were gambling, then flopped himself down cross-legged in their midst and began to try to explain the playing of Bull’s Horn. The trolls chortled at his obvious drunkenness, but also seemed to be enjoying his visit. Soon the jester and the newcomers were engaged in a hilarious. dumb show as Towser, already befuddled by drink and the excitement of the evening, tried to explain the more delicate nuances of the dice game to a group of tiny mountain men who could not understand his words.

  Laughing, Simon turned back to Sangfugol. “That will probably keep him occupied for a few hours, at least.”

  Sangfugol made a sour face. “I wish I’d thought of that myself. I would have sent him over to pester them a long time ago.”

  “You don’t have to be Towser’s keeper. I’m sure that if you told Josua how much you dislike the task, he’d ask someone else to do it.”

  The harper shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Tell me.” From close up, Simon could see dark grit in the shallow creases around Sangfugol’s eyes, a smudge on his forehead beneath his curly brown hair. The harper seemed to have lost more than a little of his fastidiousness, but Simon was not sure that this was a good thing: an unkempt Sanfugol seemed a blow against nature, like a slovenly Rachel or a clumsy Jiriki.

  “Towser was a good man, Simon.” The harper’s words came out slowly, grudgingly. “No, that is not fair. He is a good man still, I suppose, but these days he is mostly old and foolish—and drunk whenever he can be. He is not wicked, he is just tiresome. But when I first began my craft, he took the time to help me although he owed me nothing. It was all from kindness. He taught me songs and tunings I did not know, helped me learn to use my voice properly so that it would not fail me in time of need.” Sangfugol shrugged. “How can I turn away from him just because he wearies me?”

  The voices of the trolls nearby had risen, but what seemed for a moment the beginning of an argument was instead the swelling of a song, a guttural arid jerky chant; the melody was strange as could be, but the humor so evident even in an unfamiliar tongue that Towser, in the midst of the singers, giggled and clapped his hands.

  “Look at him,” Sangfugol said with a touch of bemusement. “He is like a child—and so may we all be, someday. How can I hate him, any more than I would hate an infant that did not know what it did?”

  “But he seems to drive you mad!”

  The harper snorted. “And do children not sometimes drive parents mad? But someday, the parents become as children themselves and are revenged on their sons and daughters, for then it is the old parents who cry and spit and burn themselves at the cookfire, and it is their children who must suffer.” There was little mirth in his laugh. “I thought myself well away from my own mother when I went off to make my fortune. Now, see what I have inherited for my unfaithfulness.” He gestured at Towser, who, with head thrown back, was singing along with the trolls, baying wordlessly and tunelessly as a dog beneath a harvest moon.

  The smile that this sight engendered faded quickly from Simon’s face. At least Sangfugol and others had a choice about staying or not staying with parents. It was different for orphans.

  “Then there is the other side.” Sangfugol turned to look at Josua, who was still in deep conversation with the Qanuc. “There are those who, even when their parents die, still cannot get free of them.” The gaze he leveled at his prince was full of love and, surprisingly, anger. “Sometimes he seems to be almost afraid to move, for fear he might have to step across the shadow of old King John’s memory.”

  Simon stared at Josua’s long, troubled face. “He worries so much.”

  “Yes, even when there is no use in it.” As Sangfugol spoke, Towser came swaggering back. The kangkang of his Qanuc dicing partners seemed to have lifted the old man to a newer and more alert stage of drunkenness.

  “We are about to be attacked by Fengbald and a thousand troops, Sangfugol,” Simon growled. “That is certainly some reason for Josua to worry. Sometimes worry is called ‘planning,’ you know.”

  The harper waved his hand in apology. “I know, and I do not criticize him as a war-leader. If anyone can think of a way of winning this fight, it will be our prince. But I swear, Simon, I sometimes think that if he ever looked down at his feet and noticed the ants and fleas he must kill with every pace, he would never walk again. You cannot be a leader—let alone a king—when every hurt done to one of your people galls as though it happened to you. Josua suffers too much, I think, ever to be happy on a throne.”

  Towser had been listening, his eyes bright and intent. “He is his father’s child, that’s certain.”

  Sangfugol looked up, annoyed. “You are talking nonsense again, old fellow. Prester John was the very opposite, as everybody knows—as you should know better than anybody!”

  “Ah,” Towser said solemnly, his face unexpectedly serious. “Ah. Yes.” After a moment’s silence, when it seemed he might say more, the jester turned abruptly and walked away again.

  Simon shrugged off the old man’s strange remark. “How can a good king not hurt when his people are in pain, Sangfugol?” he asked. “Shouldn’t he care?”

  “Certainly he should. Aedon’s Blood, yes!—otherwise he’d be no better than Josua’s mad brother. But when you cut your finger, do you lay down and not move until it is healed again? Or do you staunch the blood and get on with what you have to do?”

  Simon considered this. “You mean that Josua is like the farmer in that old story—the one who bought the finest, fattest pig at the fair, then couldn’t bear to slaughter it, so he and his family starved but the pig lived.”

  The harper laughed. “I suppose, yes. Although I am not saying that Josua should let his people be butchered like swine—just that sometimes bad things happen, no matter how hard a kind prince tries to prevent it.”

  They sat staring into the fire as Simon thought about what his friend had said. When Sangfugol at last decided that Towser would be safe in the company of the Qanuc—the old jester was laboriously teaching them ballads of dubious propriety—the harper wandered off to sleep. Simon sat and listened to the concert for a while until his head began to hurt, then went to have a few words with Binabik.

  His troll friend was still talking with Josua, although Sisqi was now practically asleep, her head propped on Binabik’s shoulder, her long-lashed eyes half-closed. She smiled muzzily as Simon approached, but said nothing. The two lovers and Josua had been joined by the burly constable Freosel and a thin old man Simon did not recognize. After a moment he realized that this must be Helfgrim, the onetime Lord Mayor of Gadrinsett who had fled from Fengbald’s camp.

  As he watched Helfgrim, Simon remembered Geloë’s doubts about him. He certainly looked anxious and unsettled as he spoke to the prince, as though at any moment he might say the wrong thing and bring some terrible punishment down on himself. Simon could not help wondering how far they should trust this twitchy old man, but a moment later he chided himself for such callousness. Who knew what torments poor old Helfgrim had suffered that made him look the way he did? Hadn’t Simon himself wandered like a wild animal in the woods after his escape from the Hayholt? Who could have seen him then and still thought him reliable?

  “Ah, friend Simon.” Binabik looked up. “I am glad to see you. I am doing a thing for which your help will be needed tomorrow.”

  Simon nodded to show his availability.

  “In truth,” Binabik said, “it is being two things. One is that I must teach you some Qanuc, so that
you can be talking to my folk in battle.”

  “Of course.” Simon was pleased that Binabik remembered. It made it more real, to hear it spoken in the serious presence of Josua. “If I have the prince’s leave to fight with the Qanuc, of course.” He looked at Josua.

  The prince said: “Binabik’s folk will help us most if they can understand what we need from them. Their own safety will also be best served that way. You have my leave, Simon.”

  “Thank you, Highness. What else, Binabik?”

  “We must also be collecting all the boats that belong to the folk of New Gadrinsett.” Binabik grinned. “There must be two score of them all counted together.”

  “Boats? But the lake around Sesuad’ra is frozen. What good will they do us?”

  “Not the boats themselves will be doing good,” said the troll. “But parts of them will.”

  “Binabik has a plan for the defense of this place,” Josua elaborated. He looked doubtful.

  “It is not just being a plan.” Binabik was smiling again. “Not just an idea that has landed on me like a stone. It is a certain Qanuc way that I will show to you Utku—and that is a great luckiness for you.” He chuckled with self-satisfaction.

  “What is it?”

  “I will tell you tomorrow as we are at our boat-hunting task.”

  “One other thing, Simon,” Josua said. “I know I have spoken of it before, but I feel it is worth asking again. Do you think there is any chance that your friends the Sithi will come? This is their sacred place, is it not? Will they not defend it?”

  “I do not know, Josua. As I said, Jiriki seemed to think that his people would need a great deal of convincing.”

  “A pity.” Josua drew his fingers through his short-cropped hair. “In truth, I fear we are just too few, even with the arrival of these brave trolls. The aid of the Fair Ones would be a great boon. Ha! Life is strange, is it not? My father prided himself that he had driven the last of the Sithi into hiding; now his son prays for them to come and help defend the remnants of his father’s kingdom.”

  Simon shook his head sadly. There was nothing to say. The old Lord Mayor, who had listened silently to this exchange, now looked up at Simon, examining him closely. Simon tried to see some hint of the old man’s thoughts in his watery eyes, but could make out nothing.

  “Wake me up when it’s time to go, Binabik,” Simon said at last. “Good night, all. Good night, Prince Josua.” He turned and walked toward the doorway. The singing of the trolls and lowlanders around the fire had quieted, the tunes grown slow and melancholy. The fire, dwindling, set red light shimmering along the shadowy walls.

  The late morning sky was almost empty of clouds. The air was bitterly cold; Simon’s breath clouded before his face. He and Binabik had been practicing a few important words in the Qanuc speech since first light, and Simon, showing greater than usual patience, was making good progress.

  “Say ‘now.’” Binabik cocked an eyebrow.

  “Ummu. ”

  Qantaqa, trotting beside them, lifted her head and huffed, then found her voice for a short bark. Binabik laughed.

  “She is not understanding why you are now speaking to her,” he explained. “These are words she hears only from me.”

  “But I thought you said that your people had a whole different language that you spoke to your animals.” Simon banged his gloved hand together to keep his fingers from turning into icicles.

  Binabik gave him a look of reproach. “I am not talking to Qantaqa as we trolls are speaking to our rams, or to birds or fish. She is my friend. I speak to her as I would to any friend.”

  “Oh.” Simon eyed the wolf. “How do you say ‘I’m sorry,’ Binabik?”

  “Chem ea dok.”

  He turned and patted the wolf’s wide back. “Chem ea dok, Qantaqa.” She grinned hugely up at him, panting steam.

  After they had walked a little farther, Simon said: “Where are we going?”

  “As I was telling the night before: we are going to go and collect the boats. Or rather, we are to be sending the boat-owners to the forge, where Sludig and others will be breaking the boats up. But we will give each person one of these—” he displayed a wad of parchment scraps with Josua’s rune printed large on each, “—so that they know they are having the prince’s word that they will be repaid.”

  Simon was puzzled. “I still don’t understand what you’re going to do. Those people need their boats to catch fish, to feed themselves and their families.”

  Binabik shook his head. “Not when even the rivers are now so thick with ice. And if we do not win here, it will matter little what plans the folk of New Gadrinsett are having.”

  “So are you going to tell me what your plan is?”

  “Soon, Simon, soon. When we are finished with this morning’s work, I will take you to the forge and you will then be seeing.”

  They strode along toward the settlement.

  “Fengbald will probably attack soon.”

  “I am certain,” said Binabik. “This cold must wear down the spirits of his men, even if they are having payment from the king’s gold.”

  “But they’ll be too few to lay siege, don’t you think? Sesuad’ra is quite large, even for a thousand men.”

  “I am agreeing with your thought, Simon.” Binabik considered. “Josua and Freosel and others were speaking of this last night. They are thinking that Fengbald will not try to besiege the hill. In any case, I am doubting that he knows how sad is our preparedness or scant our supplies.”

  “So what will he do, then?” Simon tried to think like Fengbald. “I guess that he’ll simply try to overwhelm us. From what I’ve heard about him, he’s not the patient type.”

  The troll looked up at him appraisingly, a twinkle in his dark eyes. “I think that you have thought well, Simon. That is seeming most likely to me, also. If you could lead a force of spying men to Fengbald’s camp, it is only sense that he has sent spies here as well—Sludig and Hotvig think they have seen evidence of this, tracks of horses and such. So, he will know that there is a broad road that leads up the hill, and while it is something we can be defending, it is not like a castle wall where stones can be thrown down from above. I am guessing that he will try to overwhelm the resistance with his more strong and fearsome soldiers and drive all the way to the hilltop.”

  Simon pondered this. “We have more men than he may know, now that your folk are here. Maybe we can hold him longer than he thinks.”

  “Without doubt,” Binabik said briskly. “But ultimately we will fail. They will be finding other ways up the slope—also unlike a castle, the hill can be climbed by men of determination, even in this cold and slippery weather.”

  “Then what can we do—nothing?”

  “We can be using our brains as well as our hearts, friend Simon.” Binabik smiled—a gentle, yellow smile. “That is why we are now hunting for boats—or rather, for the nails that are holding boats together.”

  “Nails?” Simon was even more puzzled.

  “You will see. Now quick, give me the word that is meaning ‘attack’!”

  Simon thought. “Nihuk.”

  Binabik reached over and gave him a little shove on the hip. “Nihut. With the sound of ‘t,’ not ‘k.’ ”

  “Nihut!” Simon said loudly.

  Qantaqa growled and looked around, searching for an enemy.

  Simon dreamed that he stood in the great throne room of the Hayholt, watching Josua and Binabik and a host of others search for the three swords. Although they were hunting in every corner, lifting each tapestry in turn and even looking beneath the malachite skirts of the statues of the Hayholt’s former kings, only Simon seemed able to see that black Thorn, gray Sorrow, and a third silvery blade that must be King John’s Bright-Nail were propped in plain sight on the great throne of yellowing ivory, the Dragonbone Chair.

  Although Simon had never seen this third sword from any nearer than a hundred feet when he had lived at the Hayholt, it was remarkably clear to hi
s dream-vision, the golden hilt worked in the curve of a holy Tree, the edge so polished that it sparkled even in the dim chamber. The blades leaned against each other, hilts in the air, like some unusual three-legged stool; the great, grinning skull of the dragon Shurakai stretched over them, as though at any moment it would gobble them down, sucking them out of sight forever. How could Josua and the others not see them? It was so obvious! Simon tried to tell his friends what they were missing, but could find no voice. He tried to point, to make some sound that would draw their attention, but he had somehow lost his body. He was a ghost, and his beloved friends and allies were making a terrible, terrible mistake....

  “Damn you, Simon, get up!” Sludig was shaking him roughly. “Hotvig and his men say Fengbald is marching. He will be here before the sun is above the tree line.”

  Simon struggled to a sitting position. “What?” he gurgled. “What?”

  “Fengbald is coming.” The Rimmersman had retreated to the doorway. “Get up!”

  “Where is Binabik?” His heart was beating swiftly even as he fought toward full wakefulness. What was he supposed to do?

  “He is already with Prince Josua and the others. Come now.” Sludig shook his head, then grinned with fierce exhilaration. “Finally—someone to fight!” He ducked through the tent flap and was gone.

  Simon scrambled out from beneath his cloak and fumbled on his boots, snagging a thumbnail in his chill-fingered hurry. He swore quietly as he threw on his outer shirt, then found his Qanuc knife and strapped on the sheath. The sword Josua had given him was wrapped in its polishing cloth beneath his pallet; when he unwrapped it, the steel was icy against his hand. He shuddered. Fengbald was coming. It was the day they had talked of for so many weeks. People would die, perhaps some of them before the gray sun even reached noon. Perhaps Simon himself would be one of them.

  “Bad thoughts,” he mumbled as he buckled his sword belt. “Bad luck.” He made the sign of the Tree to ward off his own ill-speaking. He had to hurry. He was needed.