Straw Into Gold (10 page)

"The Grip is tracking us by the river."

"No, wait," Innes said. I paused, my chest heaving. "He couldn't possibly follow us across the ice. Not even the Grip could do that. He must have guessed which direction we would take."

I nodded. "We're not the only ones who know that the queen might have the answer to the riddle."

"And we're not the only ones who know that the queen lives in Saint Eynsham Abbey."

"So he knew we would go there before we knew it ourselves."

"He knew," Innes agreed, and at my groan, he reached out for my shoulder."You do have to admire his skills," he said.

"Let's work our way back to the river," I said, then stopped. Behind us, billows of the blackest smoke rushed into the air, seething and boiling into the cold blue. "Da's cottage," I said half aloud.

"Burning," Innes said."I can smell it."

I watched for a time as the smoke lobbed higher and higher and then was blown into long, dirty wisps by the wind. "This way," I said.

Long through that day, long past the time when we could still feel the warmth of the bread and cider in our guts, we fought our way through woods thicker than any I had ever seen, even in Da's phantasms. We went slower now, and wherever we could, we crossed granite outcroppings, changed our angles, used the ice of every tiny stream—anything to fool the Grip. We hardly spoke. We thought of nothing but reaching the river that seemed to curl always away from us. I began to wonder if there had ever been a time when we were not struggling past trees that stretched their jagged branches to swipe across our faces.

An hour before sunset—the end of the second day since we had heard the riddle—we found the river again. The water was open here, squeezed by close banks into a rush of white and dashing against its stone shores so loudly that we had to shout at each other. The mist thrown up by the rushing water soaked our faces and soothed our scratches. It had coated every tree with ice, and the trunks reached to the sky in white columns, holding up a canopy of gilded branches to the sunset.

The water thrummed, thrummed against the bedrock of the river, sending its heady vibrations up into the living stones and then into us; our muscles tingled with it. The sounds surrounded us like mountains. The huge, white, humpy river flowed with silky, quick ease, and who knew for how long it had been doing that, running day after day, unmoved by a hunt—or by a flight.

The banks were too steep to climb, and there was no ice to walk on here, so we followed the high banks along the river as dusk shadowed into the trees. And just when it was too dark to see the branches ahead of us, I saw the warm light of hearth fires through windows and knew that we had come to a village, perhaps Saint Eynsham itself.

The lights of the village lay below us like blowzy stars. They flickered redly and now and again blinked when someone paused in front of them. Peaty smoke hovered in patches, scenting the air for a moment, then disappearing, then scenting it again as we came closer. All was as quiet as the dark: a startled cackle now and again from a hen suddenly awakened, two dogs baying back and forth at each other, a shutter slammed to—that was all the peaty air carried to us.

I felt again a secret thrill, coming up on a darkened village to discover the answer to a riddle, an assassin at our heels, our very heels. My heart beat like a wild bird's, and as to holding myself to a walk—I could hardly keep from dragging Innes after me, especially as the lights came nearer.

"A child is crying," Innes said suddenly.

"We're near the first house, close enough to throw a wicked turnip over it."

"If we had any wicked turnips, we would not be throwing them away. But we need a place to sleep. A haycock, or a church would be better. Or a stable, if it is apart from the house. And no horses."

"I see just the place."

We spent the night in a mill—"You seem to like mills," said Innes—having dragged sacks around us for bedding. The nurse's herbs had closed Innes's wound well, so just a speckling of blood dotted the bandage. I settled him down, one sack under his arm to hold it still, and before I had dragged my own sacks into place, he was asleep. I lay down beside him, shivering into his warmth.

And I fell instantly into a dream.

It was a dream that I remembered as soon as it came. I was being held tightly, tightly, by someone who loved me more than all the world, in a room that was thick with quiet and shadow, so thick I could hardly breathe. Perhaps there was something over my mouth or perhaps there was not enough air. Then the shadows fled out of the room, leaving a nothingness that filled with sudden light. It brought with it a screaming, or a roaring. Both. And then suddenly whoever held me was gone, and the light grew brighter and brighter, and I realized with terror that I was absolutely alone in the world. That there was no one but me and this appalling light. Then a rush, and I was torn away.

I woke up, panting, filled with dread even as the dream receded. It had been as familiar as a memory.

The light that filtered through the wheat dust showed high morning. From outside came the sounds of a village at work: the creaks and groans of wooden wheels across gravel, the lowing of oxen, the brilliant notes of a blacksmith's hammer, the voices of folks passing beneath, voices that sounded urgent, even fearful.

I woke Innes, and we brushed the mill dust from ourselves—as much as we could. "I missed the dawn," yawned Innes.

"You'll wake to others."

He smiled ruefully. "There was a time when I was surer of that than I am now."

"You'll be sure of it again." I laughed. "Even I'd be surer of it if we had another jug of hot cider." Then I turned to the ladder and saw the startled face of a miller staring at us. A long moment passed.

"We haven't disturbed but a few sacks of meal, and those set right easily," I said.

He continued to stare at us.

"We needed a place for the night. A place to sleep."

Still the miller did not move, standing on the ladder, a sack of flour slung over his shoulder. He stood as though sculpted, and I began to wonder if he might be deaf.

"We're on our way to the abbey at Saint Eynsham," I said, trying to fill the silence with words.

Then I knew that the miller was not deaf.

"Saint Eynsham? The abbey at Saint Eynsham, you say?"

"Yes, Saint Eynsham Abbey."

"And is this one blind, then? Have him step into the light. It is you. To be sure, it is. There won't be a soul in this village that doesn't look at you and know the truth of it. You're the ones Lord Beryn's Guard warned about."

"Lord Beryn's Guard?" asked Innes.

"Wasn't it noontime just yesterday that Lord Beryn's Guard came questioning for two boys on their way to Saint Eynsham Abbey? And didn't they rush through our village like locusts, searching them out? And didn't they promise to come back with torches if they heard of us hiding the two of you?"

"No word needs to reach them."

"You'll not be understanding, boy," said the miller, shaking his head. "Not understanding at all. The one who finds you is promised riches beyond his imagining."

"So have you found us, then, for riches beyond your imagining?" asked Innes quietly.

"Me?" said the miller, surprised. He looked at us for a long time, his face considering. "Me?" he said again. Then he seemed to come to a decision. He clambered heavily up the ladder and unloaded the sack off his shoulder. "How would I be knowing if two boys were hidden in my flour mill, hidden till nightfall so they wouldn't be spied by anyone else who would give them away? Now, how would I be knowing that indeed?" And the miller waddled down the ladder and hurried out.

I settled back down on the meal."I wonder if he'll bring us food."

"We should not stay here."

"Didn't you hear him? He's telling us to wait here so that no one will find us out."

"He's telling us to wait here, that's true enough."

"Innes, we have to trust him. We still need to find the way to the abbey. And if Lord Beryn's Guard is looking for us, and the Grip, we'll be caught if we blunder about in daylight."

"We'll be caught if he brings someone back with him."

I ignored that. "We've four days left after today. If Saint Eynsham is close, that will be time and enough to reach the abbey, hear the riddle's answer, and return to Wolverham."

"Time enough if Eynsham is close, if the queen will see us, if she will have the riddle's answer, and if the king will let us return with it."

"Let us return with it? Of course he will." I paused, exasperated. "Innes, is this a game?"

"Never in life, Tousle. Never a game."

"But it is a game," came a new voice from the ladder. I jerked up.

First came the miller, red-faced, not looking at us. Then, huge and dark, the King's Grip. I stood and looked at the miller, but he would not meet my eyes. He held his hands out, then clasped them. "Riches beyond imagining," he said weakly, and climbed back onto the ladder.

"Remember, miller," called the King's Grip after him, "you are to tell no one about these boys. No one. Not even Lord Beryn's Guard."

"And my reward?"

"Is greater than your imagining."

The miller nodded and descended.

"Another mill," smiled the King's Grip."Well, the merry chase comes to an end, as all merry chases must. And a merry chase it has been, boys. A merry chase indeed. And all done so quietly that none will know that it was done at all. Even the mill will seem to have simply caught fire and fallen into itself."

"You burned the mill," I accused.

"The mill, and the little cottage in the woods. Not a beam worth saving by now. Unlike the king, I always keep my promises."

"So the king never meant to give us the seven days," said Innes.

The Grip laughed roughly, his arms crossed in front of him. "It's not just your eyes that are blind," he mocked. "And you be still," he said to me. "It hardly suits my purposes to kill, though those purposes may change."

"The king did promise us seven days," I insisted."Seven days."

But the King's Grip laughed again. "He did indeed."

"I've heard the riddle too," said Innes."Even if you take Tousle, I'll still solve it and be back in the courtyard."

At this a deep and guttural guffawing from the Grip filled the mill."I've no doubt that you will, boy, blind as you are. No doubt at all."

"Then you will have failed."

"I haven't followed you across a frozen countryside for a riddle."

"You're not from the king at all," said Innes suddenly.

"Ah, not so blind after all," agreed the Grip. He leaned back against the wall.

"From Lord Beryn, then," said Innes.

"It is fitting that Lord Beryn's living memorial should be more perceptive than the king himself—though there is no great challenge there." The King's Grip was sneering. "He sent me to guard you on your way."

"A lie," I said.

"No, no indeed. There's the great joke of it. He
wants
you to solve the riddle. But when he sent me after you, he had not considered that Lord Beryn might send me to find you for a very different reason." He fingered his sword.

"The king sent you to guard us?" Innes said wonderingly.

"To guard us from what?" I asked.

"You still do not see. Not even now. To the Great Lords you are a past revealed, a maze unraveled, a darkness illuminated. You are a threat."

"Now
you
speak in riddles," said Innes.

"If riddles are the stuff of the king, then they may be the stuff of the King's Grip. This much is certain: The reward that each offers is no riddle."The smile never left the Grip's face. He stood with arms crossed, as powerful as a mountain torrent, playing with us like the silvery fish it washes away.

"Would Lord Beryn have us killed?" asked Innes.

"He would."

"And you would kill for money, for a reward beyond your imagining." The scorn in Innes's voice was as heavy as a millstone.

"Death comes with war, disease, old age, and money, boy. Only the money brings pleasure—sometimes the war."

"So," I said, "either protect us in the king's name, and take his reward, or kill us in Lord Beryn's name and take his reward. Who offered more?"

"A bold question, young Tousle. Boldly stated, and worthy of you. Would that I could do both and collect two rewards."

"No," said Innes suddenly."No. If he had come from the king to protect us, he would not have played this game. If he came from Lord Beryn to kill us..."

"I would have done it. Not blind at all."

"Tousle," said Innes urgently, "the people in this village, they fear Lord Beryn's Guard, not this man. And he wants the Guard not to know about us. Don't you see? Whatever he is doing, neither the king nor Lord Beryn knows about it."

The smile dropped from the King's Grip. "Be still, boy, or the hand that blinded you will be the hand that silences you forever. Yes, riddle upon riddle, this day of the world. The game thickens and thickens."

He drew his sword and grabbed my arm."I have a better tale to tell, a tale hidden from all but a few. The hidden tale of a tiny little man with a long tipped beard who came into the castle unnoticed by the king, by the Great Lords, by all of Lord Beryn's Guard. A tale about rooms of straw, a spinning wheel, skeins of gold thread, and the hands not of a queen but of a little man. Bales and bales of gold so fine, so perfect that no one had ever seen its like."

And then I knew."It's Da you want. Not us. Da."

"For years I've looked for him, boy, for years. Not a day has gone by when my spies did not haunt the palace, Wolverham, the countryside. For thirteen years they have stood in shadows, along dark paths, by the city gates, watching, waiting. Thirteen years is a long time to wait. Then, at the king's procession, the news came. He was back, and with a boy. But he was gone before I could reach him, vanished before I could even leave the castle." He grabbed my arm even harder. "But by chance or design, the boy was left behind."

"By design. To answer a riddle."

"Damn the king and damn his riddling. Do you think I run his errands like a hound? Or fly from the hand of Lord Beryn like a falcon to make his kill?"