War in Hagwood Page 19

  “You’ve a rare calming way with my precious pudding,” she muttered eventually, with grudging respect.

  “Me heard his mam crooning them words over him,” Grimditch explained. “Long ago, before the hillmen come.”

  The nursemaid stared at him, then returned her charge to the cradle.

  “There’s clothes and milk there,” she said over her shoulder. “Gabbity keeps her promises.”

  The barn bogle eyed the bundle she had brought in, but first busied himself with the pail of milk. Taking it in his hands he put it to his lips and drank the green contents down. The guzzling, slurping noises he made would have revolted the nobility but Gabbity’s table manners were not much better so she paid them no heed.

  Creamier, cleaner, and much richer than that of ordinary herds, the milk of a faerie cattle was a feast in itself, nourishing and invigorating. If Grimditch’s hair had not been shorn, it would have started to curl and grow thicker than ever.

  Grimditch let out an enormous belch. “That’s better than nibblers,” he grunted, lying on his back with contentment.

  Gabbity cackled. “You’ve never had better than that,” she declared. “Even the nobles have a noggin of it most nights. Now put some cloth on your back. I’m tired of seeing your naked, bony carcass. You barn bogles would gad about as stripped as the day you was borned if left to your own ways. We’ll have none of that here; you can’t be meeting the High Lady in naught but a bandage.”

  Grimditch sat up and turned his attention to the bundle. Unfastening the belt that bound it, he unrolled a suit of clothes that made him gasp with glee. There was a clean linen shirt with lacy cuffs and a pair of dark-burgundy velvet britches with gold buttons. Then there was a matching waistcoat with even more gleaming buttons and a beautiful frock coat of the same sumptuous stuff, richly embroidered around the pockets and lapels. Finally, there was a long pair of warm woolen socks and shoes of soft leather that were polished to a shine as glossy as a beetle’s wing.

  “Oh missus!” he sang, jumping into the britches and clambering into the shirt. “’Tis fancy fiddle faddle trappings for sure!”

  The nursemaid watched him stumble around the chamber as he hopped on one leg, pulling on the long socks that stretched up past his knobbly knees.

  A faint smile lit her wizened face. “Them belonged to Prince Alisander,” she said, “when he was but a boy. He got into more mischief than even you’re capable of. A bonnie little elfin princeling he looked in it—such a painful long age ago. Everyone adored him. That’s what made his crime all the more ’orrible.”

  “Me, wearing royal clobber?” Grimditch marveled as he buttoned the waistcoat up wrongly. “Me always knowed me was refined and a nob.”

  Gabbity shrugged. “I couldn’t think what else would fit,” she said. “It’s much too grand for such a beast as you—may as well stud a cow pat with diamonds. I pray M’Lady won’t mind.”

  The barn bogle tried to pull on the shoes but they were too narrow for his large feet so he cast them aside. He was more than happy with everything else. He pulled on the velvet frock coat and whimpered with pride and pleasure, stroking his cheek against the soft sleeves.

  He looked extremely ridiculous in this new finery. The clothes were not a perfect fit—they were slightly too baggy, for he was very scrawny—but he loved them passionately. Capering in giddy circles, he whirled around and the tails of his coat flapped wildly.

  “Prince Grimditch!” he shouted. “King of barns and ruler of all things that scratch in the hay!”

  He jigged about until he was out of breath then let out a long and blissful sigh and danced across to the nursemaid. To her astonishment, he puckered his lips and gave her a big wet kiss on the cheek.

  “Thank you, missus,” he said. “Like as not me’ll be stone dead after I meet your foul Lady. But Grimditch is grateful for the pretty clobber, even if ’tis only for a short while.”

  Gabbity was too stunned to slap him for being so audacious. She touched her cheek tenderly. It was the same place that Rhiannon had struck so violently earlier that day. She could not remember the last time anyone had shown her the slightest dab of gentleness and affection.

  “What dust there is in here!” she exclaimed, rubbing her eyes quickly and turning away.

  Grimditch glanced over at the locked door and his spirits sank. “When She gets back,” he began in a solemn voice, “that’ll be the end for Grimditch. If She don’t finish him, he’ll be given to the hot pincers and spine stretchers.”

  The goblin nursemaid nodded. “M’Lady’s never spared no one,” she said. “Some of the deeds She’s done …” Her words trailed off; many of the things she had seen her mistress do were too horrible to repeat.

  Normally, Grimditch would have wailed and howled with self pity and despair, but ever since the werlings had found him in his barn he had become a different bogle. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, his thoughts turned to the small but brave Gamaliel. He wondered how Master Tumpin was faring in the caves beneath the Crone’s Maw and if he had found the friends he had gone searching for down in that frightening darkness. Then he felt horribly guilty for having stolen the pretty little key from the wergle pouch and wished he could undo that crime.

  Gabbity saw his face fall—as well it might. Only pain awaited him, poor beast. Death would be a welcome release when it was eventually granted.

  “Missus,” the barn bogle began, “them lully words what the littl’un likes so much—while there’s time and still a tongue in this head, me’ll learn ’em to you. Puts the shiniest smile on the mite’s face, them do.”

  The nursemaid blinked at him. She had forgotten what it was to be selfless, to put others beyond her own desperate need. Here was a lowly barn bogle, a creature she had always detested as nothing more than a leeching straw dweller, about to meet an undoubtedly gruesome and drawn-out end, yet his only thought was to teach her a lullaby to soothe and calm her beloved little lordling. A stab of shame made Gabbity wince and she chewed her gums uncomfortably as her long-neglected conscience began to smolder.

  “Don’t stop here waitin’ for M’Lady!” she blurted suddenly. “I’ll unlock the door and you run out—as fast as them skinny legs of yours can whisk you. Fly from this blasted hill! Gabbity can tell you the quickest path, one that dodges the guards and other curious eyes. Don’t you stop running till you’re clean on the far side of the forest and even then don’t stop.”

  Grimditch gaped at her. Had she gone mad? Or was it some cruel trick to confuse him and raise his hopes?

  “Stop standing there like a stuffed gnome on a stick!” she urged. “Get going and save your scabby skin. This ain’t no trap—’tis your only chance.”

  “Why you doing this, missus?” the barn bogle asked skeptically. “If Grimditch escapes, then your witchy Queen will have your head. Be you more stupid than you be ugly?”

  A smug expression appeared on the nursemaid’s warty face and she ran a preening hand as far up the spire of her white hair as she could reach. “When M’Lady returns,” she told him in a boastful, conspiring whisper, “She’ll find the wind is changing and might blow Her clean away ere long—and it’s Her own Gabbity what set the weather cock to spinning.”

  “You been sat in this dark room too long, missus,” Grimditch answered with a roll of his eyes.

  She cackled and bustled him toward the door. “Just you do as Gabbity tells you and run out of here as though your heels was on fire,” she ordered. “I’ll tell Her you darted off hours ago so She’ll reckon you’ve gone a good distance by now. It’s a good hope you’ve got of getting clear.”

  The barn bogle looked into her yellow eyes and saw that she meant it. She really was setting him free. He gasped and clapped his hands and hopped from foot to foot. He would have capered around her if she had not pulled him closer to the door and jabbed a knobbly finger at it.

 
“When you’re through that,” she instructed, “turn left first, then straight to the big tapestry with the two serpents woven all over it, then …”

  Gabbity paused and pressed an ear against the wood. Her wizened brows knotted together and she drew back sharply. A familiar tread was striding down the passageway beyond.

  “’Tis Her!” she exclaimed in a hiss. “M’Lady is returned!”

  Grimditch leaped backward and hugged himself. “No, no, no, no, no …” he warbled. But Gabbity was not to be beaten so easily.

  “Quick!” she commanded, half dragging him back across the chamber. “Climb into that big chest and keep quieter than a dried-up corpse till M’Lady has gone.”

  Fizzing with fear, the barn bogle wrenched up the heavy lid of the chest and leaped inside without bothering to see what he was jumping onto. The lid closed on top of him with a thud and he crouched in the cramped darkness and waited.

  Meanwhile, Gabbity hitched up her dirty skirts, pelted to her stool, snatched up her knitting, and tried to look as calm and composed as possible.

  Behind her, the lock clicked and the door swung open.

  Rhiannon Rigantona entered her private chamber. A dangerous light was glinting in her eyes as they fell upon her old nursemaid. At her shoulder, the owl’s small tongue licked the corners of his beak.

  The High Lady moved silently through the shadows, all the while keeping her gaze trained on the goblin, like a cat circling a petrified bird.

  “Gabbity,” she said at length, “I am returned.”

  The nursemaid gave a little start as if she had been unaware of her sovereign’s entrance.

  “M’Lady!” she greeted as warmly and as convincingly as she could manage. “The little lordling has been such a prize this day, but then he’s never no trouble, the priceless jewel. Only woke the once, there was an ear-blistering racket a short whiles afore—did you hear it? Summat frightful it were. Enough to wake the stones, it was.”

  “I heard it,” her mistress answered with silken menace. “Indeed, I was the cause.”

  Gabbity’s glance flicked back to her knitting. The hostility in that voice was unmistakable and it set her hands trembling.

  “You know best, M’Lady,” was all she could find to mutter in reply.

  Rhiannon moved a step closer. “How absorbed you are with that knitting,” she observed. “Always so busy at it.”

  “’Tis my only amusement, M’Lady—eats up the long hours, it does.”

  “It is selfish of me to consign you to this room. Keeping vigil here, you see so little of the court.”

  “Why … I’ve seen enough of it in my time to last me a good whiles yet, M’Lady.”

  “Nevertheless, I believe the time weighs heavily upon you in here. You must crave companionship.”

  “Bless you, M’Lady. But my rosy dumpling here is the best company I could wish for.”

  “You cheer me. I am pleased you are not so weary of your post that you are forced to seek the society of others.”

  “Why, M’Lady! There’s none in this whole hill I’d rather sit with.”

  “Are you sure you would not like to mingle with the noblest blood of the court? The great houses are not completely without interest. What of Lord Limmersent, or even Lord Fanderyn? Why, Gabbity—you have dropped several stitches.”

  The knitting needles fell from the nursemaid’s shaking hands and she lifted her terrified gaze. The expression on the High Lady’s face cut into her like a sword of ice.

  “M-M-M’Lady!” she began.

  “Did you truly believe your commonplace plot could ensnare me?” Rhiannon spat. “It unraveled before it could even be spun. The traitor Fanderyn is dead and the key you gave him is destroyed. The rest of your pathetic band will be captured and turned on the wheels of my vengeance very soon. But I have selected a special fate for you, Gabbity.”

  The nursemaid could only stare at her and shake. The owl clicked his beak with satisfaction.

  “How long have you fussed and fetched for the royal line?” Rhiannon asked, but she continued without waiting for an answer. “You were my mother’s nurse when she was a child, were you not?”

  The High Lady paused and cast her eyes around the shadowy chamber.

  “They were dark years, when the troll witches rampaged through the forest. Yet Winnifer, my mother, thrived in these deep mansions and grew to marry the High King, my father. Unto you, they entrusted the care of their firstborn, Alisander, my brother—and then myself.”

  Rhiannon’s eyes grew dark and her nostrils flared at the memory. As a young elfin child, when her name was still Morthanna, she and her brother would creep from the hill at night to gaze down at the dangerous forest. The terror of the marauding witches thrilled and excited the royal children. They were desperate to catch a glimpse of them charging through the trees upon the backs of their huge wild boars as the tales described. Yet they saw nothing but the rustling treetops and heard only foxes barking in the distance.

  One night, Morthanna stole out alone and ventured down the hillside. But she explored too far into the crowded trees; the troll witches quickly captured her and she was taken to Black Howla.

  The headstrong child’s haughty arrogance and dark, accusing eyes amused the leader of the powerful sisterhood and a strange, secret alliance formed between them. Falling under Black Howla’s corrupting spell, she became furtive and solitary and sneaked into the forest as often as she could to learn the hidden and sinister arts.

  No one in the Unseelie Court suspected the young princess’s terrible secret. Their attention was trained elsewhere. The troll witches were growing stronger and more deadly. It was as if Black Howla knew where the defenses of the Hollow Hill were weakest and was informed precisely when and where to strike. Distrust and anger filled the subterranean halls but King Ragallach refused to believe any of his subjects would betray him. Nobody surmised the traitor in their midst was the brooding princess who lurked in the corner of their war councils, watching and listening so she could trade war secrets for evil lessons from the troll witches.

  And then Queen Winnifer was taken abed with a third child, but her confinement was different from before—she sickened and wilted daily.

  A sneer formed on Rhiannon’s face as she remembered and when she next spoke it was in a hissing, hate-filled voice.

  “Let there be truth between us,” she said. “Here at the end of your … devoted service, it seems appropriate you should finally know one or two of my secrets. Do you recall when my mother was heavy with my sister? Of course you do. You and the Lady Mauvette were always at her side, fretting and worrying and administering physic and your foul reeking herbs.”

  Gabbity’s face was a picture of bewilderment. “Your mother the Queen was unwell,” she spluttered. “We did all we could to save her from that malady. At first ’twas only a chill, but she sank deeper into that fever, that terrible, sweating consumption what drained her lovely life away. Her saving was beyond us; it were a marvel your sister survived her birthing. Your poor dear father was so distraught.”

  “As was I,” Rhiannon countered. “But something had to be done. I already had a brother. I had no wish for a second, and a sister would have been worse—as indeed she so proved.”

  Gabbity shook her head in confusion. “What are you saying?”

  “There was no fever!” came the monstrous, boastful confession. “Black Howla supplied me with what was needed and I set to work. It was so easy, just five drops a day into the stinking gruel you gave my mother.”

  The goblin nursemaid choked and clutched at the knitting on her lap. “You poisoned her?” she cried.

  “It was meant for the unborn thing within,” Rhiannon said scornfully. “Yet my foolish mother poured what was left of her strength into her belly so that my sister should live. She chose to sacrifice her life for Clarisant—I never und
erstood that decision. How could she be so weak? I despised both her and the child all the more for it. As for my father … there was only one sun and one moon for him after that—his devotion to Clarisant eclipsed all else. I was no longer his favorite.”

  “Curse you,” Gabbity breathed, crooking her little finger and drawing a snake shape in the air.

  The High Lady laughed. “Save your crude oaths,” she taunted, “till you hear how I eventually plunged Alisander’s dagger into my father’s back.”

  The nursemaid let out a cry of horror. “Then your princely brother was innocent!” she uttered with shock. “You let the Redcaps and the spriggans slay him for that crime!”

  “Two birds for one throne,” Rhiannon explained with a smile. “And now I have further news for you. My misplaced sister and the suitor she absconded with have returned to Hagwood. Don’t excite yourself. She is now even more hideous than you, and I have already had him killed. Very soon she shall follow in his dead footsteps. The whole court shall witness her final moments: I am going to empty the Hollow Hill, and none shall miss that long-awaited and long-postponed spectacle.”

  Gabbity could scarcely believe the list of depravity and madness she was hearing. Rhiannon had always been a cruel and vicious ruler, but no one in the court had ever imagined she was guilty of being in league with the troll witches, or that she had murdered her own parents and brother.

  The goblin’s stricken look of horror amused the High Lady greatly. She watched every dreadful admission register on that wizened face, savoring the expressions of shock and pain. Then she moved close to the cradle and reached inside.

  “As for this little lordling,” Rhiannon began, with an even more bitter edge in her voice. “He has served his purpose well, but I tired of him long ago. I want a new one. Mortals breed so swiftly and so carelessly. There will be plenty more.”

  As she caressed the plump, sleeping face she dug her nails into his cheek till he squirmed and began to cry out despite his deep slumber.

  “Leave him be!” Gabbity wailed. “Have you no heart?”