Guardian of the Green Hill (14 page)

“Let's go. We have to find some place to run to … while I can still run.”

“But … I have to change!” Finn hadn't even glanced at her lovely new dress. No, it wasn't hers, because the knife man had the money, for a while anyway.

“Now! It will be back in my bag in a minute.”

“So leave the bag.”

“No! Come on, I'll tell you when we're safe.”

How much danger they were in was debatable. Meg was in none, having done nothing, and in a town accustomed to fairy tricks, Finn could probably merely explain that he'd been given enchanted money, and after a good laugh (and return of his ill-gotten goods), he would be released on his own recognizance. But Finn thought he would end up in jail or the pillory, or be beaten by the knife man, and for him there was nothing else but to flee.

Meg looked helplessly from Finn to the shopgirl. She desperately wanted to go with Finn, but …

“You're the Lady's kin, aye?” the girl said with a crooked grin. “Go with your young man, then, and good luck to ye. You can pay later.” She had a young man herself and would do anything to go with him. She showed them the way to the back door and stood laughing at the front of the shop with her hands folded as the knife merchant pounded on the door.

Finn pulled Meg along at a breakneck pace, looking for sanctuary before the weight of the bill returned to his bag. There'd be no running then.

“Here,” he said, yanking her into an alleyway. There was a large sky-blue wagon with empty traces for horses. The white lettering on the side read
FENODEREE'S MOWING AND CARTING
. They scrambled into the wagon and covered themselves with empty sackcloth, and just in time too, for Finn's fifty pounds were back.

They lay in silence for a moment, panting, expecting sounds of pursuit. Meg, acutely aware of the mucky floor, was almost in tears to think that her beautiful dress was already ruined. Snuffling discreetly, she said, “Now, why can't you get rid of the bag?”

“'Cause there's something else in there that won't come out.”

“Won't?”

“I don't know what it is. Well, that's not really true. I know what it is, I just don't know what it does, and it must do something.”

He handed her the bag. She opened it and noticed white knobby things in the bottom of the bag. She reached in and—

“Eeek!” She'd never known people really said “eeek” outside of mouse encounters in books until she herself said it. A hand just barely on the right side of decomposition (if such a thing exists) reached up to grasp hers in a perfectly friendly, manly shake. Then it dropped free and pulled itself back into the bag like a hibernating whistlepig woken too early and curled up, apparently to sleep.

“What is it?”

“Well, a hand, of course. A skeleton. But I have no idea what it does.”

“It seems … friendly.”

“I know, and when it shook my hand, I saw someone attached to it for just a second, a man. So you see, I don't really want to give up the bag until I know what that hand is all about.”

There was a sudden sound of clanking metal and banging wood, and they ducked their heads back under the sackcloth, sure they were about to be pounced upon. By the time they realized horses were being hitched, they were already off. They decided it would be too awkward to announce their presence just now, but agreed that if the wagon didn't stop in a few minutes they would jump off and chance the consequences. So they lay low, their heads jostling together as they jogged to parts unknown.

They didn't go far. Hooves tramped and harnesses jangled for only a few minutes before they stopped and heard a heavy form dismount from the front. They hunkered anxiously, sure the driver would look in the back, but no, they heard him walk away immediately. Meg peeked out and caught a glimpse of a retreating hulk, a massive man covered in a hooded cloak completely at odds with the weather. His legs, bulging with mighty calves, were bare, as were his hairy feet. He carried what Meg first took to be a weapon, a wicked curved blade on a long wooden haft, but she then realized it must be a scythe for mowing. The wagon was parked outside a tavern on the outskirts of town. The cloaked man went inside.

“Okay, it's safe,” Meg said, and helped Finn haul the bag out, though as before, it felt light to her and she was of dubious assistance. Grunting and sweating, Finn was dragging the bag to the tavern when he spotted a group of men on horseback riding toward them. Among them was the knife merchant. Certain it was a posse come to round him up, he cast about frantically for a hiding place. There was a door on the side of the tavern, and he pulled and twisted the knob, but it was locked. The posse rode closer. The stables were nearby (for in days of yore it was a post tavern), and the riders would no doubt leave their horses there while they refreshed themselves in preparation for fresh pursuit. Of course the knife merchant had already forgotten Finn and was only intending to have a pint with his mates before the mowing competition, but to Finn everything was about Finn, so he was sure they were out to get him.

“Open, you … you…” He couldn't think of a word cutting enough for the stubbornly locked door.

“Finn, look!”

The bag stirred, and the skeleton hand dragged itself nimbly out and scurried like a gecko up the door. It paused and seemed to look (if a hand can look) at Finn, then grasped the knob, and gave it a twist. The door swung open. Finn hardly had time to be amazed before Meg pulled him and his burden into the cool darkness inside.

The room was fragrant with hops and fermented apples, oaken casks, and honey mead. It was the taproom, which is why it was locked, for you can't leave alcohol lying around unguarded on a festival day. Meg perched on a squat barrel, brushing the dust off first, though she knew her lovely new dress was already past hope. She looked at Finn, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“I know what it is,” she said. The hand, no longer needed, returned to hibernation.

“What is it, then?”

“It's a skeleton key!”

“What?”

“You know, a key that can unlock any lock. I always thought they meant a real key, and I never knew where the skeleton part came in, but it makes sense, doesn't it?”

Finn admitted it did.

“Let's test it,” Meg said, looking around. She spied a small wooden chest bound in iron with a padlock on the front. “Here, open the bag by the lock.” He did, and the hand obligingly crept out and fiddled with the lock until it fell open. Then, as before, it returned to its hemp cave. The chest didn't have anything particularly interesting in it, only six simple bottles of amber liquid labeled
MACALLAN FINE AND RARE, 1926
. No treasure. How disappointing. They locked it up again.

“Well, I can't get rid of it now. Can you imagine what I could do with something like this?”

Meg had visions of Finn's new life of crime: housebreaking, robbing banks, emptying Fort Knox. “I think you ought to give it back.”

“To the little kid? But he gave it to me!”

“Yeah, but I bet it was his father's. That must have been his wagon we got into, right? So that's him in the tavern. Let's just give it back to him.”

Finn had no desire to part with his new treasures.

“Seriously, Finn, how long can you carry around a fifty-pound bag? I mean, if you can't get rid of the bill and you can't get the hand to come out unless it wants to, I don't see what else you can do.”

Finn, not easily deterred, spent the next few minutes pulling with all his strength at the hand, which remained placidly affixed to the bottom of the sack like the most determined limpet.

“I give up,” he said at last. “Why is it always like this for me? I mean, you get all the fun, and I get … this.” He gestured to his dashing black eyepatch, which, when the thought of what lay beneath wasn't giving her the willies, Meg rather liked. “And now, someone gives me a magic gift, but it might as well be a curse. I can't do anything with it. I bet the little brat is laughing at me. I wish I'd kicked his toy wagon to pieces!”

It was Meg's turn to say “there, there,” and though she refrained from patting him, she felt so maternal it almost brought tears to her eyes to see him so upset. He was right, it wasn't fair. She hadn't asked for any of her fantastic experiences, hadn't asked to be able to see fairies, or find the Green Hill at will, or be the heir apparent of the Guardian. She didn't want it. It all just fell into her lap. And here was poor Finn, dying to be a part of it and thwarted, often violently, at every turn. She tried to come up with some way to make amends, almost as if it were her fault, but she couldn't think of anything. She could give him the weatherstone, if Silly would let her have it back, but even though that was interesting and decidedly magical, it didn't serve any particular purpose.

So she did the best thing she could, which was offer silent sympathy, and it seemed to work, for after a while Finn's bitterness and self-pity faded. He took a surreptitious swipe at some moisture in the corner of his eye, then let go of the bag and said, “As soon as the knife guy and his friends leave, I'll give it back to Mr. Fenoderee. You're right, it's probably his anyway, and his boy just took it. Mr. Fenoderee looked strong enough to carry a hundred-pound note if he had to. I just hope the little guy doesn't get in trouble. Here, I see light coming through the wall. I bet we can see into the tavern.”

All around the periphery, at the bar and in the booths, jollity reigned. Tankards clanked together in toasts, voices raised in boasts and friendly argument. The light was dim and flickering. It was a room meant to be cut off from the rest of the world, where men (and a few rougher women) could escape from their homes and sheep and fields, all the things they loved but which plagued them to death, and gradually drown their sense of responsibility and obligation.

Thus were the edges of the room, all mirth and song. But in the center there was a heavy, empty space devoid of sound and good cheer. Seated at one end of a long table with plank benches was a huge hunched form, broad and shadowed, partly obscured by a cloak. There was no one near him, and when the barmaid came to refill his cup, she moved with brisk efficiency and quickly blended back into the crowd. He might have been surrounded by a phalanx of guards, so strictly did the revelers of Gladysmere keep their distance. He raised the cup to his lips and his hood fell back.

“What is he?” Meg gasped, but of course Finn had no idea.

His size alone should have given them a clue to his unnatural origins, for his back stretched twice as broad as even the village blacksmith's, and his head might have been an oak stump. In some ways, he resembled the Rookery brownie, though on a far more massive scale—his hair was thin and lank, his skin sallow gray and leathery, his eyes huge watery pools. But his nose jutted forward in something that was almost—but not quite—a pig's snout, and small tusks curved up from his lower jaw, forcing his lips out so he drooled a little. His scythe was propped on the table beside him and might have been another reason why patrons kept their distance.

Everyone in the tavern watched him while pretending to ignore him. Meg, sensitive to the suffering of others, felt his sadness and, perhaps worse yet, his absolute acceptance of this treatment. She could see why everyone might be afraid of him, but since they weren't fleeing in terror, they must be used to his appearance. Why couldn't one single person sit with him?

“Is that Mr. Fenoderee?” Meg asked. “Is that the little boy's father?”

Finn made a few unintelligible noises. If that's the kid's father, it sure explains how the kid got hold of a bag of magic tricks, Finn thought. And here I assumed he was just some village kid. What had the boy looked like? A pink piglet?

“I'm not going to walk up to that ugly thing and hand him the bag,” Finn said at last.

Meg remembered why she didn't like Finn some of the time. “He's got to be a fairy. I thought you wanted to see fairies. Anyway, I don't think there's any harm in him. He's sad. And lonely.”

Before Finn could answer, they heard the subtle grating of a key sliding into the lock. They barely had time to duck behind some of the larger casks when three men came in.

“Ugh,” said the first, a prosperous farmer named Smythe. “'E sure makes me lose my appetite.”

“But not your thirst,” said the second, also a farmer, called Jonas, as he tapped a spigot into the bunghole smartly with a mallet and caught the escaping spurt in his glass. Smythe and the third man, a tightly muscled bruiser named Tansy, shouldered forward to fill their own.

“Easy there, Tansy. Gotta be ready for the mowing. It might be in the bag, but still, you won't mow many rows if you're so befuddled you chop your own leg off.”

Tansy swigged down his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“It is all arranged, then?” Jonas asked.

“Aye, same as last year.”

“And the year before, and before that. Don't you think it's high time we thought of something else? Fenoderee's bound to catch wise by now.”

“That dull lunk? He wouldn't notice a bumblebee on his own pig snout, not if it stung him. Trust me, if it worked last year, it will work this year, and we'll have most of our hay mowed for nothing. That's a fortnight's work, all done in the space of a day. How can you argue with that?”

“Ain't arguing,” Tansy said. “Fenoderee'll lose and mow your fields fast as a fairy. You'll beat the others to market and get top price. Nice for you, but what if he catches us?”

“He'll never know,” Smythe insisted.

“I'm the best mower in the county,” Tansy said with becoming honesty, “but to look at him, I don't think I can beat him. His arms are half again as long as mine, and that scythe o' his has a blade twice as long. And he's a fairy, so he's got powers beyond me.”