Close Kin
“That’s what happened to the woman you loved,” she said shortly. “You lost her to a goblin. Your band was doing well, and then the goblins came. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Seylin was stunned by the conjecture. He couldn’t deny it. Marak was right: he certainly wasn’t fooling her.
“You need to leave,” begged the scarred woman. “You must have seen the goblins, but you don’t know what they’re like. They’ll follow you and find us. They’ll capture Irina and me, and we’ll die down there with them. They use elf women to make monsters. They—they breed them to monsters, to make more. I’m sorry about the woman you loved. What a horrible way to die.”
Seylin looked down at the meat he was cutting, thinking of the woman he loved. Emily had endless fun with her monster babies. A few weeks before he left, she’d been babysitting Bony’s twins. The two boys had ram’s horns, and they kept butting heads. The little boys running at each other had looked so hilarious that Emily had laughed till she cried. Sable’s information about elf women and monsters was technically correct, but it wasn’t anything like the goblin life he knew.
“Seylin, please leave,” she urged, “before it’s too late for Irina and me. Oh, I know, you think we don’t have much of a life, but it’s a good life, really. We’re free.”
“Sure, it is,” grumbled Irina. “I just love my life.” She hacked savagely at the shoulder, carving out strips. “My dress stinks of blood, and my hair’s all greasy, and I can’t even take a bath.”
“Don’t be absurd!” replied Sable. “Think what it would be like if the goblins came. We still have stars. We can look up and see the sky.”
“Nice for you,” retorted the blond girl. “I don’t have time to look up. I’ve got all that cloth to weave because Thorn’s in a hurry for his new cloak. What’s stars got to do with it, anyway?”
“Goblins live underground,” explained Seylin. “They live in what you’d call large caves.”
“Oh,” said Irina, absorbing this. She pulled her thin cloak around herself, leaving a bloody handprint on it, and glanced longingly at her own cave. “Are the goblin caves warm?” she asked wistfully.
“Irina, think!” cried Sable. “Don’t you understand? You’d be bred to monsters, to die having a monster child!”
Seylin opened his mouth to protest this, but Irina cut him off.
“I would not,” she stated complacently. “I’m not old enough to be married.”
“Fine,” said Sable sarcastically, “for another six months! Irina, you’re so stupid!”
Irina just smiled. That was what they always said when she won an argument.
“Em, think! Consider others for once in your life! Stop being so selfish!”
The two women and three children had been making their way steadily toward home, moving from one wayside inn to the next at a comfortable pace. The weather was worsening, and Ruby insisted that the children should be safe in the kingdom, but Emily doggedly refused to give up her quest.
“Take them home if you want,” she declared. “I’m staying outside.”
“You know I can’t do that. Marak assigned me to guard you.”
The door opened, and a very wet Jack scampered in, wrapped up in a towel. “We’re ready to get out,” he announced, hopping up and down. Ruby caught him in her arms and began drying his hair.
“You stay in there by the fire,” she ordered. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“What’s a minute?” demanded the little boy.
It never ceased to amaze Emily that the twins were so trusting and affectionate with the old gargoyle. They clung to the teacher like burrs. No child in the goblin kingdom would do such a thing. They all knew about Lore-Master Ruby.
“You’d better do what she says,” she warned Jack. “If you don’t, she’ll make your tongue a foot long, and it won’t fit in your mouth anymore.”
The boy looked shocked at this, but Ruby just patted his head.
“That’s ridiculous,” she told him calmly. “Run along now and wait for me.” Regaining his confidence, he dashed through the door. They heard a loud splash as it closed.
Ruby immediately turned and gave Emily a glare that could have blistered skin. “How dare you!” she hissed. “You’re trying to frighten those little children!”
“I am not,” protested the young woman, looking blank. “You work that spell all the time!”
“I wouldn’t do such a thing to a poor little orphan.”
Emily jumped to her feet, her patience at an end.
“You did it to me more times than I could count! And I’m an orphan, too!”
“You!” scoffed the ugly old teacher, turning to the door. “You’ve never suffered a day in your life. You’ve never been a thing like these children.”
Emily gritted her teeth as the door slammed, her face on fire. Then she grabbed her cloak and marched from the room.
Outside, snow was falling softly in a quiet night. There was almost no wind at all. Richard had gone to the stable yard to eat a bag of nuts after Ruby had pointed out the mess he was making with the shells. He looked up at Emily’s furious expression and cracked a walnut with a rock.
“What are you and the lady fighting about this time?” he asked cheerfully, holding out the nutmeat.
“She’s not a lady,” growled Emily, taking it, “and I wish you’d stop calling her that.”
“Sure she is,” replied the young goblin, “as you’d know if you’d seen as many of ’em as I have. There’s women and ladies, let me tell you, and they’re hardly the same thing. It’s their respectability that makes the difference. You can see it with half an eye.” He cracked a nut between his teeth and spit out the shell.
Emily thought about this as she took a nut from his bag. “My sister’s a lady,” she reflected. “I’m not,” she added with a sigh.
“But you’re fun,” said Richard generously, “and that’s saying something. You’re an enlightening person to be around.”
Emily smiled to herself. Although he had had no schooling, Richard loved big words, and she enjoyed listening to the creative uses he found for his ambitious vocabulary.
“Ruby says I wasn’t ever like you and the twins, that I never had a hard day. But that’s not true. I’m an orphan just like you are.”
“Well, now, I don’t know that you could really call me an orphan,” objected the goblin, “since I never had a mum or dad to lose. Mr. Simmons raised me, and a fine job he did. He took care of me right along.”
“I thought you’d always been in the streets,” remarked Emily. “Did this Mr. Simmons take you into his house?”
“Took me into his van, was more like it,” asserted the boy. “Traveled with me the length and breadth of this isle. Showed me off in every little hamlet along the way, at a copper a peek or tuppence for the family.”
“You mean he turned you into a sideshow?” demanded the astonished young woman.
“The one-and-only Devil Boy,” announced Richard with gusto, smacking open another nut. “The only authenticated Fiend from Hell ever to be kept in captivity. With fangs, claws, and horns—that’s my ears—and a cow’s tail sewed in my trousers. We’d park, and he’d drum up a crowd and then pull back the curtain, and I’d be in a cage, clutching at the bars and snarling. For the grand finale, he’d launch into a church hymn, and I’d screech and fall into a faint. We did it right, let me tell you. He was a most assiduous showman.”
“But—I mean—was he kind to you? You said he took care of you. Did he?”
“That he did,” replied the boy good-naturedly. “He made sure I understood my part. Kept me down to one meal a day, but it was all for the good of the act. ‘Richard, my boy,’ he’d say while he was tucking into a leg of mutton, ‘me old heart bleeds to keep this from you, but no one ever paid their brass to see a well-fed Devil Boy. Skin and bones, that’s what they come to see, and we got to give them what they want.’ He was laborious, was Mr. Simmons, most laborious indeed.”
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“And he made you sleep in a cage?” exclaimed Emily in disgust.
“’Course not!” Richard laughed. “No, the cage was just for the act. At night, he locked me up in a box so no one could steal a peek at me. Evenings, I’d sweep the van and tend the fire while he’d take a pull at a bottle and tell tales about his missus that ran off with a fortune-teller. We were amiable together, the two of us, and life was benevolent.”
“Then why’d you leave?” Emily wanted to know.
“I didn’t. The lads broke in and stole my box on a bet. When they got back to their place and let me out, they fell on the ground laughing. They made me the lucky-touch of the gang. It was the lads that taught me to pick pockets, to lift the nose-wipes and wallets and such. Didn’t we have some jolly times! Didn’t we just! But two of their best were pulled and tucked up proper. Put in lavender—hanged,” he added at Emily’s baffled expression.
“The lads said I’d turned their luck, and they drove me away. That’s the lowest I ever was. I thought I might as well do myself in. But that’s when I found my family, and I’ve been in charge of ’em ever since. Though it’s nice to see the lady taking such good care of ’em now,” he confided. “It’s hard work raising a family.”
Emily thought about being a child on the streets and looking after two hungry babies. Ruby had spoken the truth. Emily had never been what they were.
“I suppose I should let her take you home, where you’ll all be safe,” she admitted. “It is the unselfish thing to do. But I just hate to give up like this.”
Richard nodded wisely. He’d heard all about Seylin, elf-hunter and erstwhile member of the King’s Guard.
“You’re wanting to follow your soldier,” he said. “I don’t blame you a bit.”
Emily sighed. “I just wish I knew what Marak wanted me to do.”
“I wouldn’t let a king’s ideas make up your mind,” counseled the boy. “You do what you think best, and I’ll back you against anybody. Kings never would have cared for me, let me tell you. If they’d caught me, they’d have made me dance at the end of a rope.”
He held up a nut and tried out the newly learned Fire Spell on it. When it burst into flames, he dropped it into the snow.
“What’s he like, anyway, the ugly people’s King?” he asked with pensive curiosity.
Even Emily’s glib tongue and fertile imagination balked at the impossible task of describing Marak.
“He’s a good King,” she mused, trying to think of what to say. “He’s fair, and he hardly ever stays angry very long. He’s married to my sister,” she added parenthetically. Richard’s pale golden eyes almost popped out of his head.
“A King and your sister!” he exclaimed. “That makes you royalty, doesn’t it!”
Emily grinned. “You could say that my life has been pretty benevolent,” she replied.
The argument continued the next day in the carriage. They weren’t very far from the goblin kingdom now, and the weather was awful. Ruby kept the carriage as tightly sealed as possible, but it was still very cold. She stayed in her regular form so that she could hold the twins close and keep them warm.
“We’ll be home tomorrow if we travel through the night,” she pointed out. “Em, I expect you to do the right thing for these little ones.”
“But she wants to follow her soldier,” protested Richard.
“Stop encouraging her,” the teacher ordered him firmly. “The King commanded us goblins not to interfere in Seylin’s work, so I’ll thank you to be a good goblin and not interfere.”
“I’ve got nothing against kings—live and let live, that’s my plan—but I’ve never let their orders worry me.”
“You wait until Marak gets his hands on you,” declared Ruby. “You’ll be singing a different tune then.”
The goblin boy turned pale at these words and stared despondently at his boots. “I’ve said I’ll back her, and I’ll back her,” was all he would answer. “No king has a hand on me yet.”
Emily didn’t speak. She thought about the elf girl’s book in their pack and Marak Whiteye’s betrayal of his mother’s dreams, about their unexpected discovery in London and Ruby’s growing fondness for the little humans. The quest hadn’t been a failure. They had found some valuable things. But they hadn’t found what Emily really wanted.
“Marak knew I was hunting for Seylin when he let me out,” she said slowly. “He told me I would find what he wanted me to find.”
“And you haven’t found one hint about where Seylin is,” observed Ruby. “Not in this whole long time.”
“That’s true,” agreed Emily, her heart sinking. “Maybe Marak doesn’t want me to find him. But you don’t know, Ruby. Maybe he does. He could have just made me stay in the kingdom.”
“How long are you going to drag us around while you try to make up your mind? I hardly call that responsible behavior.”
The carriage stopped. They were changing horses. Emily leaned forward and lifted the leather flap over the window to peek at the village outside.
“You’re right, Ruby,” she said, amazed to hear herself say the words. The old goblin was amazed to hear them, too.
“So you think I’m right,” she remarked suspiciously. “Right about what?”
“That it would be irresponsible to drag you around. I know Marak wouldn’t want that. And I think—or, rather, I know—that it’s about time I did something Marak wanted. He’s been like a father to me, and I can’t say that I’ve done much in return.”
“Then you’ll come back to the kingdom,” declared Ruby triumphantly.
Emily hesitated.
“I’m just going to do one more thing,” she said. “I’ll ask in this town about Seylin, and if I don’t learn anything, I’ll give up. It won’t take any time. We’re stopped for a few minutes anyway.”
“I’m coming with you,” asserted the teacher. “I’m not falling for one of your tricks.”
Emily stood on the frozen ruts of the little road, struggling against tears. A man passed them, leading their tired team to the stable.
“Ask him,” whispered the squirrel on her shoulder.
“No, not him,” she answered. “I’ll just go a little farther.” I don’t know why, she thought. This is completely hopeless. Seylin, why didn’t I listen when you came to talk to me? How could I just send you away?
The door of the inn opened, and a girl came out. She was warmly dressed, and her fair hair was held neatly in a large blue bow. She looks happy, thought Emily forlornly. She looks like I used to look. As the girl passed by, she glanced over and gave Emily a friendly smile.
“Excuse me,” said Emily. “Have you seen a young man here in the last several months, very handsome, with black hair and dark eyes? Or wait—maybe you would have seen a very large, furry black cat instead.”
The girl stopped and stared in surprise. Then she impulsively seized Emily’s hand.
“You must mean Seylin!” cried Jane in delight. “Tell me, can your squirrel talk?”
Chapter Ten
During the morning meal, Sable kept trying to catch Irina’s eye, but the blond girl wasn’t paying attention. Irina was dwelling on the unhappy fact that Thorn always gave her less food now than Sable had given her in the past. She knew he’d always handed Sable her food, but she didn’t see why he had to pick on her. Irina glanced up to find the black-haired woman once again looking at her significantly.
“What do you want?” she burst out. Everyone shifted to stare at her and then at the dismayed Sable. “Oh!” Irina added in a tone of discovery. “I remember now! Thorn, the ugly woman wanted me to remind you that the flour stores are running low.”
Sable certainly hadn’t intended the reminder to come out like this. Thorn turned, eyes narrowed, to study his dead wife, but Sable had such a look of surprised alarm on her face that he couldn’t help laughing at it.
“Well, now you can do something for me, puppy,” he said. “I want you to remind the ugly woman that I don’t
need her help running this camp. You tell her I already knew about the low stores. I’ve been waiting till we had enough food laid by to take the men out hauling flour.” He turned to Rowan. “If the weather’s not too bad, tomorrow night should be a good time. We’ll go south this year. We haven’t been that direction in a while. Last spring, I saw a place that might serve us well. It looked like they should have something.”
The next night, the four men of the band set out to haul flour. Seylin wondered just exactly what this would mean. Normally, under the elf Kings, the elves had bought their flour from a nearby mill. They didn’t bring grain, not having their own fields, but they sent representatives to place an order and then bring home the flour in sacks. This was one of only a few situations that required elves to interact with humans, and it was also one of the few that required money. Seylin wondered considerably about money as they walked along. He’d never met anyone less likely to have it.
They came to a comfortable farmhouse at some distance from a village. Candlelight shone through one window, and Thorn and Rowan crept up and squinted at the room that lay within. Then Thorn beckoned, and the company went to the low door. It wasn’t locked. Thorn opened it, and they walked right in.
A smoky, rustic kitchen lay before them, with onions, herbs, and dried sausages hanging from the rafters. A small fire crackled on the grate, and an old farmer sat alone at the kitchen table, drinking a mug of beer. He rose at their intrusion.
“Now then,” he said with wary dignity.
“Soft without but fierce within, live in caves like goblin kin,” chanted Thorn. Seylin looked at him in amazement. He was speaking elvish, and his accent was terrible. Seylin glanced back at the farmer. The old man was gone. Before he realized what had happened, a white rabbit scurried across the table, heading for the door.
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” exclaimed Seylin. “You didn’t have to do that!” He looked through the door, trying to remember the countercharm, but the rabbit was already gone.
“Yeah, I know,” grunted Thorn, walking to the fire. “We could have handled him easily, but why dirty our hands with human trash?” He surveyed Seylin with a conceited look on his face. “You thought you were the only one who knew magic,” he gloated.