The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades (7 page)

She was bitterly aware that in the robes of a White Sister she would have outranked both Murther and Skuldigger handily. They would not have dared address her without first sending a servant to ask her permission.

“And what brings you to Three Roads, Emerald?” Mistress Murther inquired as sweetly as could anyone whose mouth was shaped like hers. All the screaming bad temper of their first meeting was now forgotten, apparently.

“I am on my way home.”

“Way home to where, Emerald?”

“Newhurst, mistress.”

Murther beamed. “Well! Did I not say that our encounter must be good fortune? I happen to be on my way to Grandon, and Doctor Skuldigger will accompany me only as far as Kysbury. Newbury is close by my road. I will let you ride in my coach, because any company is better than none. You will enjoy learning how the gentry travel.”

“No!” The unexpectedness of this offer had sent presentiments of danger prickling all the way up Emerald’s backbone. “I mean, I couldn’t possibly impose on you like that, mistress…very kind…other arrangements with my friends.” She had walked into a trap. She was not sure what sort of trap, but the sensation of a gate falling behind her was unmistakable.
Snap
!

Murther turned away quickly, as if to hide a smirk of satisfaction. “Come, Doctor. I should know better than to expect courtesy from the lower orders.” She swept away with her red skirts brushing the dust and her bejeweled hand still resting on Skuldigger’s arm. The ghastly sorcerous whistle faded as she moved out of range.

Emerald stared after her, struggling to understand her own unease. She had refused the offer too abruptly, but why had that been such a blunder? For all Murther knew, she was traveling with seven brothers and six grandparents—for all Murther
should
know, that is. If she had other information, then she must be another accomplice in the obscure Oakendown plot. She might have seen Emerald on the road, bouncing along in a farmer’s wagon with only a boy for company; in that case her poxy chestnut mares ought to have reached Three Roads first, but the spectacular coach had not been parked in the yard when Wart and Emerald arrived.

Just
what
was going on?

“T
HAT ENDS TODAY’S CONCERT, MY LORDS AND ladies.” Wart sprang to his feet, archlute and all. The sun was setting, and Honest Will Hobbs would charge for every candle stub. “We thank you for honoring us with your attention, and I do believe that your generosity has provided almost enough to buy every one of these young nightingales a real meal in the commons this evening. From the look of them, it is a treat long overdue. I rashly promised it to them and I shall have to dig deep in my own pouch if the tariff exceeds the take. You, Ginger, take the hat around and see if some—Ah, thank you, mistress! And you, your honor…”

As the audience dispersed, Wart turned to Emerald, grinning happily. “Haven’t sung for my supper in years! Even if I don’t get to eat any of it.”

“Why did you bother?” She fell into step beside him as he headed for the main lodging, closely convoyed by the choir. They were anxious to see if he would be true to his word. She was determined to get some truth out of him.

He shrugged. “I suspect Honest Will feeds them the plate scrapings, and not much of those. I’ve been hungry in my time. Who were your friends?”

She smiled to hide her anger. “I’ll tell you when you stop lying to me.”

Wart turned to the boy he’d named Ginger and held out a hand to get his hat back. “How much did we make?” He scooped out the coins. “That should do it. Off you go, all of you. Tell Honest Will you’re eating at my expense tonight. He knows I’m good for it. You, Freckles, wait a moment.” As the rest of the boys vanished in the direction of the kitchens, he said, “What do you know about the lady and gentleman who were talking to Mistress Emerald here a little while ago?”

Freckles looked worried. “Not much, y’r honor. She ’rived in that coach soon after you did. He and ’nother lady came in just after, but their coach left right away.”

Wart shot Emerald a cryptic look. “Well, that’s a start. Who’s the other lady?”

“Just a lady.” The boy scratched his tangled mop. “Haven’t seen her since she got here.”

“Not your fault. I’d guess that for a groat you could find out their names for me, couldn’t you? And maybe other stuff too?”

Freckles nodded so eagerly that he almost shook a few off. “Yes, sir, y’r honor! I’ll ask. I seen the gentleman around before with the Marshal.”

Wart stumbled over a rut and recovered. “Which marshal is that?” His voice had risen half an octave.

“Marshal Thrusk, y’r honor—Baron Grim-shank’s man from Firnesse.” He looked curiously at Wart and muttered, “’E’s a rough sort, y’r honor.”

“Yes. Yes, I know he is. So you be careful.”

Wart stopped, only a few feet from the door now, and watched as his young spy ran off. He had lost color. Emerald found his pallor strangely worrying. She had assumed that Murther and Skuldigger—if those were their real names—were in league with Wart—if that was his—and thus with Mother Superior. If there were two factions involved, then she had some rethinking to do.

“Thrusk can’t hurt you here,” she said.

Wart looked at her disbelievingly and licked his lips. “He could, you know! Death and flames! He could ride in here with a dozen men at his back and do anything he liked. Grimshank may be only a baron, not a duke, but who’s going to bring his henchmen to justice if one unknown youth dies in a drunken brawl? This is absolutely the worst thing that could have happened, the one thing we—he won’t know my name if he hears it,” he muttered, as if speaking only to himself. “He might not remember my face—spirits, it’s been four years! But the poxy lute will remind him. Flames and death!”

“Four years ago? Getting our stories a little confused, aren’t we? You told me you were thirteen then.”

“Almost thirteen…” Wart’s puzzled frown turned into a fierce scowl. “I’m a month older than you are!”

“Oh!” He wasn’t lying. Boys matured later than girls, of course, but he certainly didn’t look more than a tall twelve or thirteen. “
And just how do you know my age, Master Wart
?”

“I’m a good guesser. Let’s go in and eat while there’s still something there to gnaw on.”

“No.” At the end of a hard day, her resentment boiled over. “You are lying to me now. You have lied to me several times, and you have certainly not told me the whole truth of who you are and why or where you are taking me and who put you up to it. Now I’m going to ask some questions and you are going to answer them, or I shall go straight to Mistress Murther and tell her I shall be delighted to accept her offer of a ride in her coach.”

Wart screwed up his eyes for a moment as if resisting a twinge of pain. Then he snarled at her. “No, I will not answer your questions. But you obviously know when I’m lying, so I’ll tell you two things. One is that I’m the best protection you have got or can get, and the other is that you are in truly terrible danger. So you’d better just trust me. Now let’s go in and eat.”

“I’m in danger?” Emerald yelled, “and you won’t tell me why or how or who? That is the most arrogant, insufferable—”

“It’s too late,” Wart said miserably. “Telling you would make the danger much worse, believe me. And if Thrusk and Grimshank turn out to be involved, that is sheer disaster. Everything will fall apart.”

T
HE COMMONS HAD BEEN AN ECHOING BARN even when almost empty and would be unbearably noisy any evening, with wagoners and drovers all shouting for service from the over-worked staff. Now it had been invaded by thirty skinny, hungry boys, shrilly clamoring for what they regarded as their due—the choir had doubled in size on the way in. Wart pushed his way into the riot to find out who was cheating whom.

Still seething, Emerald headed across to the gentles’ dining room where best board was provided. This was a much smaller chamber with a single long table flanked on either side by benches and bearing two glimmering candles to brighten the evening shadows. The dozen or so guests already present were almost all men, and she paused in the doorway while trying to decide whether she should go in or wait for Wart. No doubt delicious odors were wafting from the loaded platters the hurrying servant wenches were delivering, but after a whole day in the wagon she could smell nothing except garlic. The cloying stench of glamours was not a real odor, of course, any more real than the rattling of good luck charms was a real sound. She could detect a faint screech from Mistress Murther’s sorcery and see the lady in question sitting alone at the far end. King Ambrose would be having much less trouble suppressing the elementaries if fewer people were deceived by such quackery.

“Aw?” The melancholy noise right at her shoulder made her jump.

“Doctor Skuldigger!”

“Emerald?” Skuldigger attempted to smile at her, although with his spaniel eyes the result was gruesome. “Forgive my prying. My associate, Mistress Murther, is convinced that the reason you shun her is that you can detect sorcery and her good luck charm distresses you.”

That was certainly part of it. “I am sorry if I gave offense. I have promised to drop in on an elderly aunt and stay some days with her.”

“Aw?” He raised his silvery brows in surprise. “Then you cannot in fact detect sorcery as the White Sisters can?”

Wart’s dire warnings rang in her head. “If I were a White Sister, Doctor, then I would not be traveling in my present style.”

He sighed. He could not have looked sadder had he witnessed his entire family dying of some terrible disease. “Of course. Your sorrows are your own business and I should not meddle. However, pray grant me a moment to explain. You met Mistress Murther in Oakendown, yes?

“We are anxious to obtain the services of a Sister, and I am sure that you know how much in demand they are these days. We explained that our patron, a most distinguished member of the nobility, is grievously worried that he may be the victim of a curse planted upon him by unscrupulous enemies. Aw? We offered to pay a substantial sum—a very substantial sum, I should add—for a Sister to come and inspect his residence. It may be that there is nothing to this tale and then she would find no hex, aw? But success or failure would not affect the payment of the money.” He blinked his droopy eyes at Emerald.

“Do continue, Doctor.” She wished Wart would appear. This morbid old man frightened her.

“Alas, the Sisters are grossly overworked nowadays,” Skuldigger mourned. “Our mission did not prosper. But if you do have this ability, Emerald, I can promise that a patron such as I have described would offer you the same generous terms as he would a qualified Sister. His house is large, but I assure you that you could visit every corner of it in less than a day. Do not fear that your journey would be unduly delayed.”

He did not seem to be lying, but there was too much minor magic in the room for her to be certain of that. She suspected he was hedging his words most carefully.

“Who is this noble patron, Doctor?”

“It would not be advantageous for me to reveal that information at this stage in the proceedings.” Skuldigger groaned. “I can, however, promise you that the honorarium he would be willing to pay—for less than two days’ effort, I stress—would be at least a thousand crowns.”

Emerald gulped. “That is princely!” She and her mother could live comfortably for two years on that.

“Indeed, and I will go further. Should you succeed in uncovering such a hex as I have mentioned concealed upon his premises, a wealthy aristocrat such as he would certainly consider a bonus of an additional thousand as fair reward.”

Spirits! With that kind of incentive in the offing, it would take unusual honesty
not
to find a hex or two in the attic.

But…
Truly terrible danger
Wart had said, and she knew she must choose between them—the brash boy, who had certainly deceived and entrapped her, and this distinguished gentleman with his so-carefully chosen words. Fortunately Wart appeared at her side then, still wrestling the archlute. Youth and old man eyed each other with equal suspicion.

“I thank you, Doctor,” she said, “for your most generous offer. I beg you to allow me time to consider it in the light of my other obligations.” She bobbed a curtsey.

Wart offered her his arm—the first gentlemanly gesture she had seen from him. She laid her fingers on it and together they paraded into the dining room.

T
HE DECISION COULD NOT BE POSTPONED FORever. Next morning, when Emerald emerged from the inn in the mean, clammy light of dawn, she found the yard in predictable chaos, with scores of men and boys trying to harness or saddle at least a hundred horses. She had slept badly, tossing all night, and now was at the end of the line. She must choose. To remain here at Three Roads was not an option, unless she wanted to starve. Lacking a cloak, she shivered in the chill air.

At the far side of the yard at least a dozen youngsters were determinedly trying to help Wart put Saxon between the shafts. They were getting in one another’s way and making the horse nervous. Closer to hand, Mistress Murther’s grooms and coachman were attending to her team, with her two men-at-arms assisting. The smelly little wagon and the opulent coach could not have presented a greater contrast. Common sense insisted Emerald should grab at Doctor Skuldigger’s fantastic offer. Why was she so suspicious? What seemed a great fortune to her might appear trivial to people who could travel in a coach like that one.

She had told Wart about that offer, but he had still refused to reveal any more about himself. She remained convinced that he was somehow in league with Mother Superior. Since she had no idea what Mother Superior was up to, that conclusion was hardly helpful. Most of what he had told her had been true. Murther and Skuldigger’s truthfulness she had been unable to judge—which was suspicious in itself. But a thousand crowns was a fortune. It would be salvation to a girl without a penny to her name.

The coach was closer, so she went to it first. There was no sign of Mistress Murther yet, nor the woebegone Doctor, but perhaps she could gather information from the flunkies—exactly who Murther was, for example, and where she lived. It was the sort of vehicle she would expect only the King or maybe a duke to own. It had real glass windows and the body was slung on leather springs to give a smooth ride. A carriage like that one ought to have its owner’s arms emblazoned on the doors, but even the men’s livery bore no insignia. Very odd! She approached confidently, weaving between horses and men and vehicles, until she was within twenty paces or so of her destination. She stopped suddenly, causing a groom leading a big roan to curse at her and then mutter an apology as he went by.

Magic! Murther’s magic or another like it?

Going more cautiously now, Emerald dodged around a couple of wagons and drew nearer. In a few moments she had it worked out. What she was hearing did not come from Mistress Murther lurking inside the coach. It came from the coachman and his helpers, as if all five of them were wearing the same sort of amulet as their mistress. Whatever it was, the magic gave Emerald goose bumps; it would still prevent her from detecting falsehood.

Watching the men, trying to analyze the elements of the spell, she noted that they were a curiously glum lot. Other crews in the yard were talking, joking, even cursing, but Murther’s men slouched around in sullen silence. Recalling Mistress Murther’s permanent pout, she wondered why this strange sorcery should make its wearers so morose.

She went on past the coach without stopping.

Wart was already sitting on the bench in his wagon. His smile seemed genuine—and welcome. “Good chance, Emerald!” He had to shout over the racket as a four-horse dray loaded with lumber went clattering past, heading for the gate. “Have you made your decision?”

“Wart, I need the money!”

His face fell. “Don’t believe in the money. Skuldigger is known to consort with Thrusk, Grimshank’s man, and you know what I think of those two. I can’t find out any more about Mistress Murther. Anyone rich enough to drive that carriage ought to be armigerous—and if you look very closely at the door, you can see that it used to bear a device, but it’s been painted over. I could make out a swan and two badgers and those are not Grimshank’s arms. It may mean only that Murther has just bought the vehicle. The boys haven’t seen it around here before.” He shrugged. “Or her. And the other woman seems to have disappeared altogether, but Skuldigger certainly arrived with another woman. Emerald, I’m sure your friends are up to mischief.”

“I’m sure you are!”

His boyish face colored. “If you go with them, you may be heading into terrible danger.”

“And if I stay with you I will not?”

“I told you that you were safer with me. I repeat that:
You are safer with me
! Am I telling the truth?”

Safer, not safe. She nodded, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. The sun was touching the roof ridges, so the world would warm soon. The sky was a glorious blue already. Saxon rattled his harness and stamped his great hooves, anxious to be gone.

“Wart, you’re telling me what you think is the truth, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right. Whoever’s behind you may have lied to you.” Mother Superior had lied to her.

Wart opened his mouth to protest and then shut it with a click. That was a bad sign—he was more or less admitting the truth of what she had just said. “What do you want?”

“The whole story.”

He shook his head. “I swore I wouldn’t tell you. And if you’re right, I may not even know the whole story. I’m sure I don’t.”

“Then I will take my chances with Doctor Skuldigger and Mistress Murther.” She turned away. She was bluffing, because being shut up in the carriage with all that shrieking sorcery would be unbearable torture.

But Wart didn’t know that. “Emerald! Come back!” He showed his teeth angrily. “I’ll bend my promise this far. I will tell you
why
we’re doing this and
why
it matters and
why
I can’t tell you any more than that.” He pulled a face. “I shouldn’t! I don’t like the situation any better than you do and I’m in much worse danger than you are. I almost hope you will run away from me, because then I’ll be safe. Safer than I am now, anyway.”

Burn him, he was still telling the truth! Emerald tossed her bundle into the wagon and lifted the edge of her skirt to climb over the wheel.

He turned Saxon out the gate onto the sunlit trail, but he had barely cleared the corner of the stockade before a shrill voice shouted, “Wart!” The boy he called Freckles came running.

Wart reined in Saxon, although with some difficulty, for the horse was frisky and eager. “What’s the tumult, m’hearty?”

“The Doctor promised me a whole penny if I’d keep watch and see which road you took!”

Wart laughed and reached in his pouch. “Then this is your lucky day. Here’s another for telling me you’re going to tell him.” A coin spun through the air.

“You want me to tell him wrong?”

“No. Tell him the truth. Be the good little boy your mother would be proud of.”

Freckles curled his lip in disgust at this insult and examined his new treasure. “Me mom says telling truth is stupid and gets you in trouble.”

“Go back and tell her she’s wrong this time.”

“Dunno know where she is.”

“Then keep it a secret. I suspect the nasty Doctor will have more than one spy watching me, so you won’t get your money from him if you tell him lies. And don’t forget how I said you could earn a silver groat.” He thumped the reins down on Saxon’s back and the wagon rattled forward on the south road. “Beautiful morning!”

“Speak!” Emerald said menacingly.

“I hear and obey, Your Grace. Don’t you know that a little knowledge is a
dangerous thing
?”

“I’ll risk it.”

He shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. We are serving the King’s Majesty. You did not volunteer for what you are doing, but you will be well rewarded at the end of it. If you die, then your family will be compensated. Will that satisfy you?”

It ought to surprise her. Curiously, it did not. One of the few conclusions that she had reached in the night was that young Wart talked a lot about the King’s Blades and claimed to know at least two of them. If someone other than—or as well as—Mother Superior had put him up to this escapade, one of those men was probably the culprit. “No.”

“You are safer not knowing.”

“I don’t care. You promised.”

He sighed. “You’ve heard about the Night of Dogs. There have been other attempts on the King’s life since then.”

“Three, I heard.”

“More than that.” The wagon was leaping and bouncing as Saxon raced along the road, feeling his oats from the previous night. He would soon tire and slow down to his usual amble, but in the meantime his passengers might be beaten to pulp. “That’s a state secret and I am telling you the truth. Do you still want me to go on?”

State secrets could be dangerous things to know. They were not normally passed on by juvenile stable hands. “Yes.”

Wart sighed. “Are all girls so stubborn?”

“Are all boys so secretive?”

“Probably not. You must know this better than I do, but I’m told that not all White Sisters sniff magic quite the same way—that the same spell may seem different to different Sisters. Is that right?”

“Yes. It’s very personal. What seems a scent to one may be a sound to another, or a cold feeling, or almost anything.”

He nodded. “Lately the attacks have been getting more subtle. Two weeks ago someone slipped a poisoned shirt or something into the royal laundry basket. The White Sisters detected it and the whole batch was burned, but it’s a safe guess that the purpose was to kill the King.” Wart shot her a wry glance, as well as he could while the wagon was bouncing so hard. “I trust you are a loyal subject of His Majesty?”

“Of course!” If such an evil could be smuggled into the palace, then the spider monster she had seen in Oakendown was not so surprising after all.

A coach went rattling past them, but not Murther’s coach. It vanished southward in a cloud of dust. Then two horsemen…Last night’s residents at Three Roads were scattering to the four winds. Three winds, actually, as little but sea and salt marsh lay to the east.

“The problem is,” Wart said grimly, “that the magic got past two Sisters without being noticed and almost past a third. A similar booby trap turned up in the royal stables a few days later, and that one was even harder to detect—had it not been for the laundry warning they would almost certainly have overlooked it.”

“This is nonsense you are talking.”

“Oh? I’m lying?”

“No, but you have been misinformed. If the sorcery was powerful enough to do real harm, that is. If all it was designed to do was produce a faint itch, say, or a bad smell, well, then it might slip by. But a White Sister should recognize anything fatal at least twenty paces away. Easily!”

“Saxon, you idiot! Slow down!” Wart rose to peer over the horse, then sat down again, as much as bouncing could be classified as sitting. “Yes, that’s what I was always told—anything powerful enough to worry about will show up to the sniffers like a dead pig in a bed. But that isn’t true anymore! Whoever the conspirators are, they’re managing to mask one magic with another, a magic-invisibility spell, you could call it.”

“Rubbish!” she protested. If what he said was true, then the entire Companionship of the White Sisters might find itself useless! “It can’t be done.”

“Why not?”

“Because the second magic—the magic wrapping, call it—would be detectable also, so you’d need to put another layer around that one and then another….” But was that necessarily so? The wrapping itself need not be a major sorcery, just a deception spell, and if the elements could be properly balanced, perhaps it would not show up very much at all. She had never heard such a thing mentioned in Oakendown, but even the possibility might be a forbidden topic, best never discussed. “Maybe it could be done,” she admitted, “but it would be very difficult. It would need a team of very skilled sorcerers and…”

“And?” Wart waited for her to finish the thought.

“Oh no!” Horrors! “And a White Sister?” The novices and postulants at Oakendown were kept well away from magic until they became attuned to the natural flow of the elements. Sorcerers could never develop the same abilities because they were constantly in communion with spirits. The two crafts were direct opposites.

Wart sighed. “More than one. At least two, but the more the better. Suppose you want to kill the King and you devise a booby trap—a petition, for example, a roll of parchment, or a fishing rod, something he will handle in person. Suppose you then cloak its magic in a magic wrapping. You might find that the package would deceive two Sisters, yet still be detected by a third. Grand Wizard of the Royal College of Conjurers says that there must be at least two Sisters working with the conspirators, and he would guess four or five.”

She could find no flaw in the logic. Sorcerers trying devise a magic wrapping would be like blind people trying to paint a picture. Only White Sisters could tell them how effective their work was, or how it should be improved.

“But we all take vows not to use our skills for evil purposes or for our own enrichment.
They
do, I mean.”

Wart let the wagon rattle on—a little slower now—for several minutes before he spoke. He twisted around to stare back past the barrels. With the sun low in the east, the scrubby landscape was more obviously rolling than it had seemed the night before. A solitary flock of sheep grazed off to the west. Three Roads was no longer in sight.

“Renegade Sisters?” he said at last. “I didn’t say they were cooperating willingly, although we think at least one of them must be.”

“I refuse to believe
any
White—”

“We know of one who was kidnapped right out of her house. A former Sister, married, had a young baby. The baby went with her. I think she could be made to cooperate, don’t you?”

Emerald shivered as if the day had suddenly turned cold again. “Would they really do that?”

“They’re traitors!” Wart yelled. “They’re trying to kill their king—and if they’re caught, they will be hanged, drawn, and quartered!” He lowered his voice again. “They’re evil enough and desperate enough to do anything you can imagine and a lot of things you can’t.
That
is why I mustn’t tell you any more.
That
is why I have already told you far too much.”