He tried to edge away, when fingers like bands of steel gripped his wrist.
The man sitting to the right said, suddenly, “Here! Watch it!”
The looked down. He was overflowing the cup. The foamy puddle was spreading on the table.
A big growling red-bearded face turned to him. “You simple, boy?”
The man who had him tightly by the wrist spoke, much more softly. “Now, now. I’ll deal with this.”
The other shrugged. “Very well, m’lord.” He turned back to his food and drink.
Meanwhile, the first man still had the boy in an unbearably tight hold by the wrist. He glared out from under heavy brows. “Well?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Sorry, Thegn of Moliagul,” corrected a thinner, narrow-faced and watchful-looking man from across the table.
“Thegn of Moliagul. No. Yes. Sorry.”
The Thegn shot a glance at the letter. “Were you reading this? Over my shoulder?”
“No, sir–Thegn, I mean. No, Sir Thegn.”
“Just Thegn will do,” muttered the Lord Moliagul. He narrowed his eyes in consideration. “No. Of course you weren’t reading it. How could you?” He seemed to think to himself for a moment.
“No, Lord Thegn, no… I mean, Thegn, that is–“
The Thegn glanced over at the thin, watchful man. “But you were looking at it,” he mused. “And that that alone is impolite.” He then spoke, mostly to himself apparently. “Still, you can’t have been reading the words. Why’d you make that little noise then?” He narrowed his eyes.
“The letters are pretty is all. I haven’t ever seen letters like that. All fancy loops and whorls.”
He considered this for some time before saying, “I suppose that you ought to be careful about your little huffs and ahs then.” Turning again to the thin man with alert eyes, he said, “Here, what do you make of this one?”
The boy found himself receiving something of an appraising look. “Thin build. Won’t grow out to be much of a fighter for hand-to-hand butchery, but he might grow into an archer’s frame. Give him a few years and he might be a serviceable bowman.” A small disinterested shrug. “I expect.”
“That so.” The Thegn let go rather forcibly, so that the boy stumbled backwards and had to desperately hold tight the jug. He just barely stopped it from slipping and smashing on the floor. The Thegn then said, “I might have put out an eye for punishment. Spying on your betters. But, an archer needs both eyes. Consider your wretched self lucky today, boy. My master-at-arms has saved you some pain. Don’t let me catch you nosing into things that aren’t your concern. Not again, not ever.”
“Yes, Sir Thegn. I understand, Sir Thegn.”
“Just and simply Thegn will do.” The man lost interest then. He went back to scrutinising the letter, furrowing his brow in concentration and wriggling his lips behind that massive profusion of a beard.
The boy hurried away, taking himself to a far corner of the room. He put the jug down on a table and–glancing about–he found a way that led him to a back door. This left him on a deserted lane that stank of rotten vegetables. He picked a direction–more or less at random–and dashed off at a sprint.
Soon, he found a thoroughfare he recognised, and tore along it, skipping over puddles that were already turning icy in the late afternoon cold. Stars were appearing overhead, and somewhere distant, silvery hornpipes were playing music. In celebration of the coming night, he guessed. These were lands beholden to the Goddess of the Night. The people here were night-folk, and many of them had blood in their veins from old lineages that made them far more comfortable sleeping through the day and waking in the evening.
As the boy ran up the street he saw movement ahead, and then a number of pale shapes, four abreast appeared at the top of a rise in the cobbles. There was a murmur of a marching song, and the boy noticed other people moving off the road to wait, deferentially. He did the same, finding himself standing next to a girl, about his age, perhaps a bit younger. She had big eyes that were dark and he thought her quite pretty, in a pale, northernly sort of way. Her clothes were raggedy, and she would clearly not be sleeping in one of the big warm half-timber houses of Baght Town tonight.
“Look,” she whispered. “A marching parade.”
She was right, after a fashion, though there was nothing very festive about the march. A boy walking at the front of the soldiery carried a banner that showed a leaf-bare white tree on a grey field. Beside him walked another boy beating a kettle drum. Behind them came the first of the soldiers, great, huge boggarts walking four abreast. They were bigger than the boggarts from the ivy-ruins, and the hair that covered them was white as moonlit snow. Each of them wore armour of black and silver, and despite their strange dog-like legs, they kept a good pace. These were trained and war-ready creatures. It was these boggarts that were singing the marching song, soft, wordless and almost without even moving their lips. Now and then, the song rose to a dog-like howl, then faded back away again. Behind the boggarts came what the boy guessed must be knights from somewhere very distantly north. They did not look entirely human. They even reminded the boy somewhat of the long, fragile face of the Fane-Queen, though these faces were sharper and more angular, their ears more pointed, skin paler, and hair and eyes both as black as ink-dyed silk. They wore their hair long, braided, luxuriant. The horses they rode were tall, proud and just as heavily armoured as the riders. At the end of the eerie knights came a rabble of gangly creatures. It wasn’t right to say that they were boggarts–they seemed too long-limbed, too scrawny and scraggly–and their faces had an even more wolfish look to them. They panted as they loped, showing pointed teeth. They went by half-stooped. One of the white-skinned knights rode behind them, cracking a whip over their heads from time to time.
“What are those?” asked the boy, gesturing at the spare, lanky creatures.
“Gangrelfolk. They had to be rounded up and forced into Our Lady of Night’s great army, or so my friend says. Wild things. They’re not to be trusted.”
“Oh.” More creatures and men and women came afterwards, and the march of weird troops seemed to keep on forever until the boy was desperate to keep moving. Every minute that passed seemed more urgent. He knew where to look for Athairdrost. He also knew that Athairdrost had indeed sent his white ghaists to hunt the four companions. They needed to keep moving.
If the boy hadn’t been worried about drawing attention, he might have tried to push his way up the street regardless, picking his way along the edge of the troops. But no other spectator was moving. It was too much.
Finally, the last of the strange foot-soldiers marched by, and another handful of the weird pale-skinned knights on horseback brought up a final rearguard. The boy watched them go. How can the lands of the south ever stand against such an army? A fear slipped into his ribs. What does it matter if they did snatch away Athairdrost’s Old Great Spell? How could it matter when such strange and frightening soldiers were marching?
He had only dim notions about the Kingdom of Brae, which lay somewhere south of Wurmgloath–but–he couldn’t imagine that any mortal kingdom had half as many knights as he’d just seen. And he was certain that those eldritch folk had magic in their blood and would fight with the force of coldness and night-darkness besides. How can anyone stand against that? Queen Night’s domain will spread over all the Clay-o’-the-Green. It will be as it was in the very oldest stories, when there was no day, only night.
“Why can’t we just share?”
“What?” said the girl. He eyes had a flicker of blueish-green light to them. He hadn’t noticed before, but now that she was looking right at him the glow was obvious. She was clearly of some night-blood folk, or descended from such.
“Nothing,” he said, quickly. “I meant only–war seems so pointless doesn’t it? So much death. So much killing. For what?”
“So that our Glory and our Joy, Our Lady of the Night can be restored to her rightful place enthroned. The Day cretins are horrid, awful, cruel and nasty. You can’t feel sorry for them. They’re monsters. They rape and murder. Don’t you hear the stories?”
“I suppose I don’t.” He smiled sadly at her, then said, “Well, goodbye. I hope you’re not caught up in a battle.”
“I hope I am. One day, I’m going to put myself forward for Our Queen’s warrior-ladies, and I’ll kill a hundred sun-snivellers. No, a thousand.” She swung her arm back and forth, swinging an imaginary sword.
“I suppose you might,” he said and walked away, more slowly now, and in a place of deeper thought.