Old Dark Things

CHAPTER THE FIRST

  Two hundred years later

  Even in an age of petty kingdoms and vast wilds, the Eorldom of Veld was old and small and secluded. Snug between forest and mountains, it was little more than a rustic hamlet of slate and thatch, a few farms--and louring above all of this, the ancestral home of the Family Vaunt, a grey and age-worn fortress crouched on a limestone spur.

  It was the day of the cornfest and the great hall was crowded with people, young and old, men and women, all sitting in circles and weaving autumn garlands. The finished wreaths were being hoisted to the rafters, and already the hall was dripping gold and fire. A few workers sung oddly cheerless songs as they set out the tables or swept the floor. Costumed and masked players practiced before the high dais, but not with much life. It should have been noisy, happy, confused. Instead the preparations were perfunctory and silent.

  At the heart of the bustle, a middle-aged woman was shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "No, the Seneschal and the Mareschal must be seated the same number of places from the Eorl's throne. A daughter on each side of the throne. Put up more wreaths there. Straighten those two tables. Bread and butter, smoked goose and pickled mushrooms? Is that all there is for the first course? Tell the kitchens to prepare something more. I don't know what, anything. Has someone found Lilia yet? No?" She threw up her hands. "Such a shambles! Such a shambles!"

  The nearest girl grit her teeth into a smile. Fingering her apron, she curtsied. "Shall I go and look for Lady Lilia?"

  "No, no, no. I will go. She is my niece and who knows, she may listen to me. She ought to." The woman left the hall, her hem sweeping a path as she went. To meet the Eorl's sister, Ermengarde, in the halls of Toren Vaunt was to meet a force of nature. Stern-faced and bright-eyed, she never walked but strode, and her billowing dresses had a habit of knocking over chairs, baskets and small children.

  After poking her head into three rooms where Lilia sometimes hid, Ermengarde remembered the walled garden below the north wall. A few minutes later, the dappled sunlight forced her to squint as she stepped into the open air. Built on an escarpment of stone, the garden was rife with weeds and ivy. A single gnarled willow stood at its heart and behind the trunk an edge of white fabric fluttered.

  Emengarde tramped towards the willow. "Lili!" Her voice sounded a little harsher than she'd intended.

  Lilia was standing in a slant of sunlight that gilded her mousy hair and shot her dress with the palest glow. "Good morning, Aunt Erma."

  "And good morning to you. Were you practising?" Ermengarde gestured towards a shawm that Lilia was holding close to her chest.

  The young woman nodded. "But, I was distracted by the sparrows. I think life as a sparrow would be fun."

  "Yes, well unless Piebald were about. He may be lazy and spoiled, but a cat is a cat. He'd eat you all the same."

  Lilia laughed. It was a light, nervous sound. "If he could catch me."

  Ermengarde found her niece frustrating, and though she did not fully admit this to herself, this was partly because she saw in the young woman a reflection of her own solitary life; although where Ermengarde's isolation had always been fiery and wilful, her niece's was painfully shy. It was a pity. The girl was pretty in a melancholy sort of way, and Ermengarde supposed that she would be appealing to a husband if she were not so lean. It would help if she would smile a little more often, too. And stood straighter. And wore a little more in the way of jewellery. And pinched her cheeks now and then.

  "Lilia, have you selected a dress for tonight?"

  She shook her head and smiled at the sparrows. "I was thinking of taking supper in my room. I hope you do not mind."

  "Lili, please, have some sense. Tonight needs to be a happy occasion. Everyone is scared. People are talking. There are rumours, Lilia. Whispers. The way your father is now, people are talking about witchcraft. They need to see that the Heir of Vaunt is not afraid."

  "Then they can see that when they pass me in the halls." Lilia's eyes, still bright and remote, shone with an angrier light. "And let them talk. Or be afraid. Or huddle in a cupboard, for all I care. Am I not heir? Should I not be allowed to do as I please? When I please? How I please?"

  "Really Lili, how old are you?" Lilia opened her mouth to speak but Ermengarde cut her off. "No, not a word. Behave like a child, and I will treat you as one. With your mother dead, rest her poor soul, and your father's failing health, you have to behave in a manner that befits you. And part of being a Lady of Vaunt, part of being an adult, is to do things one might rather not do."

  "Yes, but..."

  "No, Lilia, listen to me. Your sister, Rosa, she has worked very hard to make tonight a pleasant diversion for the household. In fact, many, many people have worked hard." Ermengarde breathed a sigh that puffed out her cheeks. "Be present in the great hall this evening, sit with your sister, laugh, smile, drink, talk, show some kindness. Or so help me--"

  The sparrows fought and fluttered in their canopy of gold.

  Lilia's lips were pressed into a thin line. Eventually she nodded--slowly--almost with pain. "Very well."

  "Thank you." Ermengarde shrugged and left Lilia to herself.

  Upon returning to the great hall, Ermengarde found an entirely different scene to the one she had left--the disarray was resolved, the tables were set, the trenchers and platters were all laid out. The younger of the Eorl's two daughters, Rosa, stood watching the players. She held a bouquet of barley and the last of the autumn wildflowers. On her brow was a matching harvest crown.

  As soon as she saw Ermengarde, Rosa smiled and her eyes brightened. "Erma, how are you? I have been organising the churls. I hope you don't mind. Most everything is set."

  "Mind? Don't be silly. You're a blessing. Are the players ready?"

  "Yes. It's a lovely tale. I chose it myself. Very beautiful. Very tragic."

  At length Rosa gave Ermengarde a curious look. "You found Lilia?"

  "I did." She shook her head. "That sister of yours..."

  Rosa turned to Ermengarde and laid one hand across her left shoulder. Her fingers felt soft and warm through the linen.

  "She will grow up in time." Rosa's gaze was drawn suddenly to the other end of the hall. "Oh, I think I see Sigurd. Will you excuse me?"

  Ermengarde's eyes weren't what they had once been. By squinting, she could just make out the young man standing at the far end of the hall. He seemed to be talking to a grim, foreign-looking stranger "Go, go. I'll look after things here."

  "Thank you." Rosa gave her a quick hug.

  "Oh, leave an old woman to her cross temper. Go."

  Ermengarde turned back to watch the actors and was soon lost in her own thoughts. She remembered two sisters playing. That had all been so long ago. She heard the sounds of giggling an chatter, and wondered at how things had been allowed to come to this strange place.

  -oOo-

 

  Kveldulf's immediate impression of the Toren Vaunt was of a fortress so often rebuilt that it had become a rambling magpie nest of limestone. The whole fortress looked as if it might have grown out of the earth after a fresh rain.

  Once inside its walls, the fortress succumbed a little to proximity and lost some strangeness, though, seemingly to balance this out, it gained some shabbiness. Guards in the oxblood livery of Vaunt stood wrapped in cloaks against the cold under old, smoke-blackened timbers. Children played with dogs in the courtyard. In one hall a workman was repainting a carved pillar. In another, a man was repairing a leaking roof with tar, and doing a poor job of it. Black splotches were already dribbling the floor and walls where he worked.

  Kveldulf followed his host and would-be employer, their feet drumming a rhythm on the old stone and timber floors. They climbed a flight of stairs and entered the inner hallways, twisting this way and that.

  It was plain in Sigurd's voice that he was happy to be home. They had been on the road for five days, through forest and meadow and forest again. "We are almost at the great hall."

  Kvel
dulf nodded but said nothing.

  They were passing now through a barrel-vaulted chamber, crammed with pillars. Kveldulf glanced up and stopped, arrested by a bas-relief above the door. A serpentine creature with two foreclaws and a head something like a monstrous shaggy lizard was sprawled over the wall. It reared itself over a small rider. The man was dressed in the armour of Kveldulf's father's father's time, and the surface of the stone was pitted and old. Though the horse was turned away from the creature, the rider sat twisted, with an arrow notched. There were old runes running along the length of the serpent.

  "A lindorm," said Kveldulf. "I haven't seen one of those for a long tell of years."

  Sigurd stopped also. He looked up at the creature. "You've seen similar carvings?"

  "Carvings?" said Keveldulf. He cleared his throat. "Yes. Carvings."

  "Lindorm? Hmm. Is that some old word for dragon? It is very old, you know. The carving. As old as the fortress they say. Older maybe. I suppose it's the oldest thing in the Veld. That..." and he pointed at the man, "is Feold, the first Eorl of Vaunt, slaying the worm Andreki. There are caves in the spur, and the Toren Vaunt was built over Andreki's lair." He shrugged. "Or so the story goes. In the tomb-shrine there is a yellow bit of bone that supposed to be a last piece of Andreki. It's thicker than my arm."

  Kveldulf's eyes danced along the runes. "Let all know that Farold, son of Feold made this."

  "Sorry?"

  "The carving was the work of someone named Farold. Or paid for by him."

  "You can read the heathen letters?"

  "Yes."

  "The Freer has puzzled over those marks for years. He thinks they tell of a secret treasure. He's spent hours tapping on walls. And it's just a stonemason's boast?" Sigurd laughed. "All those nights squinting at books! All for a crafter's mark! What a fool he'll feel. Oh, he'll squirm."

  They passed through the doorway and into a world aglow with autumn. Sigurd waved at two women who were standing at the receding end of a long hall. His smile grew. "The Lady Rosa." He indicated the other, beside her. "And Ermengarde. Her aunt. The Good Eorl's sister." The slender young woman, Rosa, waved back. She hugged the older woman, and then started towards them. Sigurd stood transfixed.

  The woman was graceful, clearly self-possessed and quite beautiful. As she approached she threw a furtive smile to Sigurd. He in turn straightened his back and raised his chin; the way men in the presence of a pretty woman will tend to do. Standing next to the young knight, with his well-arranged features, Kveldulf felt clumsy and rustic. His three-day beard suddenly itched and he was sure his doeskin cloak smelled worse than usual. The three longknives dangling from his belt, and all the other other odds and ends, bags and pouches, made him feel as if he were some common tinker come begging for work.

  "You have returned, and so soon."

  Sigurd sketched a bow. "For you... how shall I say it? I am winged in your service."

  "And I am as undeserving of your service as ever." She turned to Kveldulf. A strand of blonde hair fell across her face. She brushed it behind an ear. "And this must be the... ah... huntsman that so many travellers have spoken of." Her eyes lowered. She looked around, surreptitious. Quietly, she said, "So long as rumours are kept in check, we shall keep your work here a secret. But look at this. I am being impolite." She extended a pale hand palm-down and Kveldulf took it in his callused fingers. "I am Rosa of Vaunt, Second daughter to the the Eorl Fainvant, and Lady of the Veld."

  "Kveldulf Kaldulfsson."

  "Consider me honoured." She let go, and glanced again at Sigurd with her bright, dark eyes. "Shall we walk? I will explain a little of our troubles along the way. My father," began Rosa in her restrained voice, "is ill. Deathly ill. The sickness came upon him about a month ago. One day he was hale enough to hunt boars, the next he could barely stand. My dear mother--may the White Goddess cherish her--fell sick with a illness a year ago." Rosa paused then, added, "A very suspiciously similar illness, I'm afraid. Mother took a long time to die. The suffering was..." Rosa cut herself off, forced a smile, and said good evening to a passing maid.

  Kveldulf waited until they were out of earshot of the servant. "And you suspect witchcraft?"

  "She touched a hand to her throat. "I am not acquainted with witch-lore. It is the churls who are whispering it. They are afraid, and before fear turns to accusations and accusations to nooses, I would like to find out the truth. One way or another. Hence, when we heard traveller's weaving tales about your work at Muschenbroek, Sigurd and I decided that he should fetch you. For even the Goddess's own Freer will not linger in the Eorl's bedchamber now. He fumbles and mutters his prayers just long enough to say a few benedictions each day, and then off he hurries himself off." She shook her head. "Feeble little man."

  Sigurd scowled. "That man is a coward. Scurrying about with his robes flopping between his legs like a dog's tail. He should stand by your father's bed and aid the Eorl in his hour of need. But no, he is off hiding in his shrine."

  "Sigurd." Her voice had a note of restraint. "We state our thoughts too boldly sometimes. He is the Goddess's man."

  "And what of that? A man, is a man, is a man. We are born, we eat, we drink, we love, we bleed, we crap, and we die. He is no closer to the Lady than you or I."

  "Heresy," whispered Rosa. "Many would call that heresy." She frowned. "Be careful, Sigurd." Casting a look at Kveldulf, she added, "We do not even know what company we yet keep."

  "Company that is trustworthy," said Kveldulf. "You may speak as it pleases you. I'm not one for screaming about heretics. Not me."

  "I see," she said. "Well, as it was, initially, I suspected poison. But my father is guarded morning, noon and night. His food is tasted always before serving. There are always four guards around his bed. And yet he withers and withers." A door came into view in the hall ahead of them. "But we are here now and you can judge for yourself."

  The smell was strong, wafting down the hall before they had even passed the guards on the door. Rosemary, garlic, and vinegar mixed in the air, not quite concealing a diseased under-odour. From the ceiling's timbers hung a hundred folk charms and amulets tied up with twine and ribbons. From the doorway, the Eorl's skeletal form was visible in bed, his ribs wheezing up and down, under a thin sheet, ghost-like behind gauze bed-curtains that stirred in the cloying air. The guards who stood around the bed in the room looked tired, and not a little anxious themselves.

  A small man, heavily hidden under furs despite the clammy air, left the Eorl's bedside and started towards them. His bald brow wrinkled and his eyes blinked furiously. "Lady Rosa," he hissed, "this is no time for you to fuss over the Eorl. Come in the mornings. In the afternoon he needs his rest and..."

  "My father's tongue is not rotted off yet, August. Let me speak with him."

  "Though I apologise, I must also point out that your father requires his utmost repose. I really cannot allow you--"

  A thin voice rasped out in a high, cold note. "Apothecary, let my daughter to my bedside come."

  The short man tugged at a silver necklet he wore, before stepping aside saying in a clearer, louder, humbler voice, "As it pleases you," and then leaning close to Rosa, he nearly spat: "Please, please come only in the morning from now on. You will kill him with your attentions."

  Rosa's lips curved with a smile. "Of course." She moved smoothly past him and to a gap in the curtains. Kneeling there, she took one of his blue-veined hands in her two.

  The Eorl's voice rattled. "And what brings you to an old man's deathbed?"

  "Father, please. You are not dying. We have brought a man. He will help. Are you feeling better?"

  "Better?" The old man began to laugh, then coughed. "Do not lie to me. Do not lie to yourself, sweet daughter. I am dying. The Lady knows it. I am no longer of the mortal earth." His words dwindled away then, but came back a moment later. "I have been dreaming. I hear the voices of the dead. My mother and my father too... my wife... old friends, long lost to wars, and some I did not know are
dead. They scold me for holding onto life. They scoff at my fears. I am not long for this world, dear daughter." With a trembling hand he reached out and stroked her hair. "Pray for me, my beauty. My treasure."

  She said something in a low, soft voice.

  Sigurd stood by the door, his arms folded, staring bleakly. "Will you help us? Truth be told, I fear for Rosa. Her mother first and now her father... who next?"

  Kveldulf breathed the air, tasted it, a little surprised: there were scents of something unnatural. Not the charms or the tokens left about the room; a few of the amulets did possess smalls scraps of magic, like watered blood smeared into dead wood, but for all that, the folk-charms remained weak and clumsy. More or less, ineffective. There was something else hiding in the air. Kveldulf had assumed that there would be no sorcery at work here. He had been planning to sniff the air, look about, declare the illness natural, and be on his way. It was the usual way this sort of job played out. Desperate people look for a desperate remedy. But more often, in Kveldulf's experience, death was the world's way of cleaning house. Disease's don't have to be malign and witch-sent to kill. But not here. Not now. He was forced to wonder. He decided to stay for a night, and look about the room with his other eyes. It was the only way he could be sure.

  Rosa was over by the beside, but Sigurd was still standing near enough to ask a question of. "What of the other sister? Has she shown any signs of illness?"

  Sigurd looked at the floor. "Lilia? I do not know. I don't know anyone who would, except, maybe the lady Ermengarde. As I said, I fear for Rosa. It is not for me to say more."

  Kveldulf studied the man's expression, which remained uncomfortable. "I shall need a private place, a room to myself. Somewhere near these chambers would be best. I work my best finder's craft in the nighttime, and it will be easier if I am near the Eorl."

  "I think the groomsmen's rooms are empty. No one wants to sleep near the bedchamber anyway. And to be honest, if nothing can be done until later tonight, then I guess I'd rather not stay here too long either. So, perhaps, I'm no better than the priest, eh?"

  Kveldulf looked over a the bed. "The Lady Rosa will stay?"

  "She will. For an hour or two. She tries to keep up his spirits, when she can."

  They left the sickroom and walked away in silence. Passing a window, Kveldulf slowed his pace and paused. A distant, familiar sound drifted to him in a few snatches, dim-heard. The window was covered with a greasy leather curtain to keep the cold out, and Kveldulf pulled it aside so he could look into the dusky afternoon light. Smoky fires in the hamlet below threw drunken shadows. Somewhere a dog barked. A little farther off a smith hammered at his anvil. Cowbells clanged. And beyond it all, over hill and gully, somewhere in the autumn wood a wolf was howling.

  Sigurd peered around Kveldulf's shoulder. "Is something amiss?"

  "No," said Kveldulf. "I was just listening to the wolves. I've been in the south and east so long. I've not heard wolves in quite some years. " He let the curtain fall back, and kept walking.