Dark Waters of Hagwood Page 21

  “War?” Tollychook cried. “What war?”

  “The War for Hagwood,” he replied with grave solemnity. “Against the Tyrant of the Hollow Hill—She who is deathless. Her reign is drawing to a close, but only if we do not stumble, here at the critical hour. My children brought word that She was abroad in the forest, in disguise, and that you were with Her. I knew you were in great danger and so I dispatched the hawks to fetch you.”

  “Thank you,” Liffidia said. “They saved us just in time.”

  “Give me a thumpin’ right shock though!” Tollychook added.

  Bufus folded his arms and scowled. “What’s it to you if She were to kill us anyhow?” he asked the Tower Lubber. “Why should you care? We live clean across the far side, way over yonder!”

  “Anyone who can draw Rhiannon Rigantona from Her echoing halls and compel Her to conceal Her cold beauty and creep about Her realm is worth the regard of all,” the stranger replied. “Great must be Her fear. Yet for what reason I can only guess. Tell me, does She believe you know the hiding place of the enchanted casket? The one in which Her heart still beats?”

  The werlings shifted uneasily. Then Liffidia said, “Not us, but a friend of ours. She thinks Finnen knows.”

  “And does he?”

  “No idea!” Bufus shrugged. “Be just like him though to try and get all the glory himself. Thinks he’s summat special that one does.”

  “Oh, stop it,” the girl told him. “We don’t even know where he is or what’s happened to him!”

  “Probably killed and murdered by now,” Tollychook said gloomily. “Hacked and slashed to bits by that cruel lady. Poor old Finnen.”

  Bufus gave the nest a bad-tempered kick. “That’ll be it,” he agreed. “And so the big secret would’ve died with him. Typical, the great useless nit! Now we’ll never be rid of Her. What hope is there now? None at all!”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” the Tower Lubber replied with a mysterious edge to his voice. “Whether your friend knew the great secret or not, he was not the only one.”

  “Stupid Gammy Tumpin?” Bufus sneered. “We might as well surrender right away if it’s left up to that lummox to save us!”

  The Tower Lubber shook his head. “I was not speaking of one of your own kind,” he said.

  “Who then?” Liffidia asked. “Who else knows where the High Lady’s heart is hidden?”

  The Tower Lubber paused, then said simply, “I do.”

  “You?” Liffidia cried. “Then what’s taken you so long? Why haven’t you done something?”

  “Yes!” Bufus shouted. “Why haven’t you smashed that gold box open and fed Her heart to your ruddy crows?”

  “You’re not on Her side, is you?” Tollychook asked unhappily. “Doesn’t you want to see Her stopped?”

  “See Her?” the Tower Lubber repeated, his tone suddenly becoming hard and angry. “If I could have my eyes restored but for an instant, then to see Her perish would be worth these many long years of relentless night. Gladly would I have endured the unending torment of these accursed pegs if I could but watch Her die at last and look upon Her final terror! That sight would be vision enough to keep my midnight world bright and dazzling till the end of my days.”

  “You really don’t like Her,” Bufus commented wryly.

  “Who do you think it was put out my eyes and whose foul sorceries set these lumps of timber in their stead?” he answered. “Lodged firm in their sockets they are; no power can remove them, and never am I free of the pain!”

  “What She do that fer?” Tollychook gasped.

  “And why haven’t you had your revenge already?” Liffidia asked. “If you know where the casket is …”

  “The box is enchanted,” the Tower Lubber explained with a weary sigh. “Without the key it cannot be opened by any force. We should have done that deed long ago, and ever since we have regretted, most bitterly, the craven tenderness of our own hearts. But in those far-off days, we were not so steeped in blood as the cruel High Lady, nor had we Her appetite for cold murder. It was our folly to believe flight and concealment would be enough and Her malice would wane with time. We were wrong.”

  “So who’s got this key?” Bufus snapped.

  “The one who kept it safe and secret is now dead. Where the key may be now, I do not know. Yet we can be certain it has not fallen into the hands of Rhiannon Rigantona, for if She possessed it, She would not be so afraid. She would have the key melted in the old forge and Her immortality would be assured.”

  Liffidia’s spirits sank. “Then what hope is there?” she asked. “We’re no better off than we were before. She’s still going to destroy our homes, and we can’t stop Her. What can we do?”

  The Tower Lubber reached out with his large hands. “Come with me,” he said.

  “Where you going to take us?” Bufus demanded.

  “To the answer to all your questions,” came the intriguing reply. “And to tell you more of this dark business than you ever dreamed of. Have you finished your breakfasts?”

  Liffidia had not even peeled the shell off her egg, but she was no longer hungry and placed it at her feet. Tollychook looked at it and wondered if he could manage just one more, but there was no time. The Tower Lubber was anxious to be gone.

  And so the werlings allowed themselves to be lifted by his great hands and were carried in the crooks of those long arms as he made his way to where the stone steps wound downward. Very carefully, he began the long spiraling descent into the tower and, as he passed into the gloom within, he spoke of the days of the High King: King Ragallach, who defeated the troll witches.

  “Well loved by all the Unseelie Court was he,” he told them, his voice echoing around the curved walls. “He was just and fair and ruled for many years. Only in one regard did his wisdom and judgment ever fail him—his children. Where those three were concerned, he was as blind as I am now.

  “Alisander, Morthanna, and Clarisant. They were the names of the young prince and princesses, and he doted upon each one. But no, the youngest, he loved her the greater. The Queen perished giving her life, and so the King lavished his surplus love upon Clarisant. Morthanna, the middle child, knew this only too well, and it was as vinegar to Her. She became a strange, silent, and sullen girl.”

  “But the Wandering Smith told us of this!” Liffidia exclaimed.

  The Tower Lubber halted in surprise. “You knew Gofannon?” he said, astonished. “My children brought me the sorrowful news of his death. You spoke with the last of the Puccas before he was slain by those monsters of thorn?”

  Liffidia and Tollychook nodded.

  “Him said as how that Morthanna done killed Her dad,” the boy blurted. “And She put the blame on Her brother so the Redcaps shot him as he tried to swim off in the Lonely Mere. Poisoned arrows—as if ordin’ry ones weren’t bad enough!”

  “And that’s when She claimed the throne and became the Lady Rhiannon,” Liffidia added.

  “What else did he tell you?” the Tower Lubber breathed, his voice tremulous with excitement.

  A corner of Bufus’s mouth twisted skeptically. “Come off it!” he snorted. “That phoney gypsy tried the same. Told us she were a friend of him as well, but all the time …”

  “I understand your doubt,” the Tower Lubber tried to reassure him. “But know this, when the Smith was killed, he was on his way here! It was to me he was journeying.”

  “To you?” Bufus cried.

  “To me.”

  “Prove it!”

  “What did he say of the Princess Clarisant?”

  Liffidia and Tollychook thought back to their time around the Wandering Smith’s campfire. Tollychook frowned deeply, but as usual he could not recall much beyond the stew that had been bubbling over the flames.

  It was Liffidia who finally said, “I do remember. There was a suitor. A prince from another realm. He came to court Rhiannon, but, instead, he fell in love with Clarisant. Lady Rhiannon would have had them both killed, but the Sm
ith helped them to escape.”

  The Tower Lubber murmured something inaudible under his breath then cleared his throat and said, “Yes, the lovers fled the Hollow Hill. Clarisant and Tammedor. Gofannon aided them and they disappeared into the wild forest, never to be seen again. Rhiannon Rigantona hunted and searched, but they were never found.”

  “Tammedor …” Liffidia repeated. “It’s a lovely name. And did they live together happily, back in his realm? I’m so glad they got away safely.”

  Bufus put his finger down his throat and pretended to be violently sick, but stopped when he heard the Tower Lubber’s answer.

  “They did not run far, and neither did they live together happily. They could have—the Smith gave them that chance—but they knew there was more at stake than their own futures. Clarisant would not abandon her late father’s subjects so completely. She chose to stay, to be close by when the time came. When the denizens of the Hollow Hill finally realized what Rhiannon was truly like, she knew she would have to be ready to take the throne from her sister.”

  “Then where is she?” Liffidia asked. “How did she manage to avoid being found and captured all this time?”

  The Tower Lubber made no reply. They had reached the tower’s largest room, and when the werlings were carried in, they forgot all about the High Lady and the mystery of the vanished lovers.

  Staring at the scene before them, Liffidia smiled, Tollychook gulped, and Bufus laughed.

  In the past the chamber had been the guardroom, but now it served a far better purpose. It was an infirmary.

  The flagstoned floor was strewn with straw, and nests of all sorts and sizes were occupied by injured or sickly birds. Near the center of that strange hospital, a contented-looking hen sat upon an abandoned clutch of rare falcon eggs, and a plump, sleepy duck was keeping two patients warm beneath her wings. Scurrying across the room, half hopping, half running, four magpies, a thrush, and a jackdaw fed orphaned and demanding chicks while an elderly rook kept watch from the ledge of the one large window and croaked directions as to who needed feeding next.

  “This is my work and I delight in it,” the Tower Lubber said. “Here, the kestrel may lie down with the wren, and little jenny need have no fear. All are safe until they are made well and return to the harsh outside.”

  A clear trail wound through the straw, and he began to follow it unerringly.

  “This is wonderful,” Liffidia declared, enchanted. “Tending to these poorly birds, nursing them and healing them. There’s so many!”

  The Tower Lubber chuckled, and the tremors ran down his long arms, jiggling the werlings.

  “This is not many!” he laughed. “Two months ago was a different tale. Starling flu was at its worst, and this place was fuller than an egg. You should hear nigh on four hundred starlings cough and sneeze! Ah, but we lost many dear friends in that epidemic. Do you see my helpers? I could not do this without their aid. Each one has been through their own sickness and elected to remain here afterwards. I am sorely grateful.”

  As he spoke, a peculiar, pink creature came scudding toward him, chattering and clucking in a state of great agitation. Bufus had to stuff his knuckles in his mouth to keep from shrieking with laughter. It was such a ridiculous sight, and his sides ached and his face turned a violent shade of purple as he fought to control himself.

  It was a chicken, but the strangest fowl that any of the werlings had ever seen. Not one feather grew on its body or wings. It looked as though it had been freshly plucked and was ready for roasting, but there it was, a bundle of pimply skin scurrying straight for them, its bright busy eyes fixing them with a stern and scolding glare. To keep out the chill and the damp, the Tower Lubber had made a brown woolen smock for the poor bird to wear but it looked very comical and only emphasized the rest of its nakedness.

  The Tower Lubber tilted his head to one side and patiently listened to its frantic jabbering.

  “I know you are weary,” he said. “You toil long hours, and the sparrows have not been through here this morning to clean and clear away the dirty straw and yesterday’s leavings. I know such work is beneath you, but I had another use for our little cousins this day. They have done great service, and I sent them to their homes to rest. They will return tomorrow as usual and be more industrious than ever.”

  The chicken let out a disparaging cluck and lifted its pink parson’s nose in the air to show what it thought about that, then bustled away.

  “She has no respect for the sparrows,” the Tower Lubber whispered to the werlings. “Believes them to be silly, irresponsible, and rather common. They, of course, think she is too haughty for her own good and constantly fly to me with complaints about some slight or insult. I have to remind them both that the care of our charges should come first, but they’re always forgetting that and will squabble over the most ridiculous matters. Worm share-out was the last big quarrel, and before that it was nesting sites. The sparrows want to dwell closer to the tower, but the magpies and rooks won’t suffer them to roost in any of their trees, nor any other for quite a distance. She always sides with the magpies. Healing the sick is sometimes my least difficult task.”

  “What happened to her feathers?” Liffidia asked softly, so that the bird should not hear her. “She must have been very ill to have lost them all.”

  Unable to contain it any longer, Bufus took his hand from his mouth and exploded with laughter.

  “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” he guffawed.

  Liffidia and Tollychook threw reproachful glances at him, and many of the surrounding birds looked up at the boy crossly.

  The strange-looking chicken had heard his laughter, but it pretended not to notice and hurried to the farthest part of the room where it busied itself over nothing and did not look back, but a tear rolled off its beak and its exposed skin turned a deeper pink.

  “It was not illness that robbed my matron of her feathers,” the Tower Lubber said softly. “When she was young, she and her family strayed into Hagwood. Too far they wandered and were pounced upon by a band of Redcaps. She saw her four sisters eaten in front of her, but somehow she managed to escape and found her way here.”

  “But they’d torn her feathers out first?” Tollychook whimpered. “Them dirty horrors!”

  The Tower Lubber shook his head. “No,” he said. “She did that to herself. The torment of that day is always with her. She pulled out her feathers to punish herself for surviving when her sisters did not.”

  Bufus lowered his face in shame. He knew exactly how that felt.

  The others said nothing, but the infirmary was far too lively and fascinating a place to remain silent for long.

  A crow with a broken wing was cawing at one of the magpies who had brought it a wriggling beetle and an argument began in which the insect fell to the floor when the magpie answered back and promptly escaped down a crack between the flagstones. The two birds began squabbling, and the Tower Lubber chuckled softly.

  “He had asked for a well-rotted mouse anyway,” he told the werlings.

  “This is the best place I have ever heard of,” Liffidia declared. “I used to be so scared of birds, and I hated hawks, but now … I almost wish … oh, it doesn’t matter.”

  The Tower Lubber continued on his way, never veering from the path between the nests. Occasionally he would stop and give his attention to a sickly house martin who had been too ill to migrate for the winter or a pigeon with a bandage around its head and tell them they would soon be cured or listen to their grievances about the food or tut at their lack of visitors. When he came to a morose-looking merlin, he knelt down and whispered comforting words, but the unhappy bird tucked its head under one wing and refused to be consoled.

  “What was the matter with him?” Bufus asked when they had moved on. “He looked hale enough.”

  The Tower Lubber replied in a confidential murmur.

  “That poor unfortunate is perhaps my most troubling charge,” he said. “He has developed a fe
ar of heights, and the malady has now grown so bad that I cannot lift him any higher than my knee. When I try, his head swims and he begins to shake. I don’t know what to do about that one.”

  “How sad,” Liffidia said.

  Their host carried them through the length of the infirmary, and the werlings enjoyed every instant. They were sorry when they reached a wide archway at the far side of the chamber. Liffidia wanted to be set down in order to go help feed the chicks, hug the chicken, and cheer up the merlin, but she remembered there were more important matters to attend to.

  Under the arch, the Tower Lubber took them down another flight of steps and to a stout oaken door with rusted hinges whose piercing squeaks set their teeth on edge. Then suddenly they were outside.

  At once there came a frightful honking as a dozen white geese came rushing up to greet them.

  “Best warnsmen there are,” the Tower Lubber said. “At the first sign of danger they create such a riot and can deliver ferocious nips. They’re my fine guardians, and I bless the days each of them was hatched.”

  The geese waddled around him, pressing their heads against his bent and buckled body and nibbling at his pockets in search of treats.

  “No time for play,” he told them gravely. “I’m taking our guests to the glade. Stay here and keep watch, my vigilant sentinels. I fear that the hour we have long dreaded is upon us. Now, more than ever, I need you to remain at your posts, alert and watchful. The enemy will be coming, and we shall have war.”

  CHAPTER 15 *

  THE LOST PRINCE

  THE GRASSY PROMONTORY UPON WHICH the broken watchtower was built was a steep ridge, but a sloping path zigzagged down toward the forest’s lower fringe.

  “I tread this journey every morning,” the Tower Lubber assured the werlings. “So do not fear that I will stumble. There is not a stone nor an anthill that I do not know.”

  “What’s in this glade then?” Bufus asked. “Why’s it so special?”

  “You will know soon enough,” came his cryptic reply.

  Liffidia looked about her. She gazed into the distance across the moor. The mist was already melting in the sunlight, and the mountains beyond seemed impossibly far away. She found herself entranced by the colors, and suddenly she felt more sorry for the Tower Lubber than ever.