Текст книги "The Land of the Silver Apples"

Автор книги: Nancy Farmer

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 thatbad,” 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 fiddipand 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 John 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.”

“Oldgods?” 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.

“We should follow him,” Pega said as the Bard strode off.

“He can take care of himself,” said Jack, annoyed that she’d thought of it first. “He battled Frith, Half-Trolls, and she was a lot more dangerous than this Yffi sounds.”

“An adder is smaller than a wolf, but it can kill you just as dead,” the girl retorted.

“There’s St. Filian’s,” called Brother Aiden, pointing at a patch of white beyond a grove of pines on a hill. Behind the dark green branches Jack saw a wall of dazzling brightness that lifted his heart. As they drew nearer, he realized that it was a collection of buildings, all of the same shining hue.

“It’s beautiful,”he said.

“Aye, it is,” Brother Aiden said, pleased. “The brothers paint it with lime to give it that color.”

Jack gazed at the buildings in wonder. The monastery was buzzing with activity. Family groups waited to be admitted, monks bustled around shouting orders, slaves carried firewood. Slaves?thought Jack, amazed to find them here. Very soon Brother Aiden had them settled in the hostel, which was divided into stalls by movable partitions. One of the monastery slaves laid down dried heather for beds.

For all the beauty of the outside walls, the air inside was foul, no doubt due to the latrine at the far end of the building. The place was dank and cold, and the only light came through an open door.

“I didn’t know monks were allowed to keep slaves,” Jack said.

“Only ones who have lost their freedom through crime,” Brother Aiden said. “Serving the church is supposed to improve their souls.”

From what Jack saw, it seemed the church had an uphill battle. All the men were marked from earlier punishments—whip scars, missing ears, slit noses. Two had withered hands, which Brother Aiden said had come from trials by ordeal. “They had to carry a glowing piece of iron nine feet or plunge their hands into boiling water to pick up a stone at the bottom,” he said. “Afterward the wound was bound up. If it didn’t fester in three days, they were considered innocent. These, clearly, were not.”

Jack felt sick when he looked at the twisted flesh of those hands.

“It’s a merciful punishment,” the little monk explained. “Most thieves are put to death.”

“There’s nothing merciful about it,” Pega muttered under her breath.

They joined a line outside the abbot’s office, to make an appointment for Lucy’s exorcism. A young monk sat at a table to write down names, the type of complaint, and the expected payment. Whole families accompanied sufferers, some to console them and others to restrain them. One man shouted obscenities and was tied into a blanket to keep him from hurting anyone.

Father held Lucy in his arms to protect her from the sight of raving lunatics. When they got to the table, the recording monk said, “I can see why you brought this one. She’s ugly as sin.”

“Not her,” said Brother Aiden, putting Pega behind him. “The little girl. We fear she’s possessed.”

The recording monk smiled and reached up to touch Lucy’s hair. “I find that hard to believe.”

“She sees things that are not there and has delusions of being a princess.”

“I ama princess,” Lucy said, pouting.

“It seems harmless enough,” the recording monk said, “but I’ll put you down for half past matins tomorrow. What do you barter for her treatment?”

Brother Aiden brought out a small bag and withdrew delicate paintbrushes tipped with marten fur and bottles of brightly colored pigments. “I was the art master on the Holy Isle,” he said.

“Oh! That means—oh, my! Father Swein will be so delighted. Are these the secretdyes?”

“They are.”

Jack looked at Brother Aiden curiously. This was the first he’d heard of him being famous.

“I’ll see you’re admitted right away,” said the young monk. “Shoo! Go away! Come back later,” he told the waiting crowd. A pair of monastery slaves detached themselves from a wall and advanced menacingly on the patients and their families.

“Come in!” cried the young monk, unlocking a door. Brother Aiden, Jack, Giles, Lucy, and Pega found themselves in a delightful courtyard surrounded by high white walls and rosebushes. In the middle was a fountain bubbling noisily into a stone bowl. From there, the water spilled into a channel and disappeared through a hole in the wall.

“That’s the real St. Filian’s Well,” the young monk informed them, “but it’s too small to treat the mobs who come here. We’ve diverted the water to a larger pool. We can treat hundreds during the peak season.” He disappeared through another door after bidding them to sit and enjoy the roses.

Father put Lucy down, and she ran at once to the bubbling spring. He hastily scooped her up again. “You can’t play in it, dearest. It belongs to St. Filian,” he told her.

“No, it doesn’t. It’s hers.”She pointed at a spot near the stone basin.

“Hush, my lambkin, we don’t want to make the saint angry.”

Lucy settled into Father’s arms and watched the spot. Jack wished the Bard were with them so they could trap whatever-it-was under the old man’s cloak. He was convinced Lucy really saw something.

Jack approached the spring cautiously. He could see nothing except the sweet alyssum and lavender planted around the edge. The courtyard was heavy with perfume, and a haze of bees moved among the flowers. And yet something wasthere. He could sense a quickening in the air, a flicker of a creature too swift for him to see.

Jack’s staff thrummed in his hand. His hearing caught at a murmur too low to understand but rising and falling as though it were speech. “Come forth,” he whispered. “Reveal yourself, spirit of this place. Leave shadow behind and walk in the light of day. I call you by wood, by water, by stone.”

The air beyond the fountain shivered and faded, as a meadow dims when fog rolls in from the sea. It was very like mist, except that it occupied only a small area. It drifted in a lazy circle, growing more distinct until Jack was able to see a shape condensing in the middle.

It was a lady dressed in white, an exquisite being whose feet made no impression on the flowers she trod. Her hair was pale gold and her skin was as fair as moonlight. She bent toward Jack’s companions, beckoning them with her hand. Father couldn’t see her, nor could Pega. Brother Aiden looked uneasy. Lucy watched with great attention.

The lady turned and saw Jack. Instantly, she thrust out her arm, and pain shot through Jack’s chest as though he’d been struck with an arrow. The staff dropped from his hand. The sky arched overhead as he fell backward toward the ground.