He was distracted by a murmur in the crowd of tiny people, the courtiers all so carefully dressed in their rude homespun, ornamented with what looked like bits of butterfly wing and flecks of crystal and metal and feathers so small they might have come from the breasts of hummingbirds. They were all turning toward the roofcrest in anticipation. Even Chert found himself holding his breath.
Like the Grand and Worthy Nose, she came riding a bird, but this one was either more successfully trained or the restraints were hidden: the snow-white dove had no band around its wings. The tiny shape atop it did not teeter in a boxy covered saddle like the Nose, but rode directly between the dove’s wings with her legs curled beneath her and the reins little more than a sparkling cobweb in her hands. Her gown was brown and gray, rich with ornament, and her hair was dark red.
The dove stopped. All the courtiers and guards had gone down on their knees, including those on the shoulders of Flint and Chert, although Chert could feel the needle-fine point of one of the soldiers’ pikes resting against his neck—perhaps as a precaution. Even the Grand and Worthy Nose had prostrated himself.
Beetledown was the first to raise his head. “Her Exquisite and Unforgotten Majesty, Queen Upsteeplebat,” he announced.
From what Chert could make out, the queen was not so much pretty as handsome, with a fine, strong-boned face and eyes that looked up to him without any discernible fear. Chert found himself bowing his head. “Your Majesty,” he said, and for a moment there was no incongruity. “I am Chert of the Blue Quartz family. This is my… my ward, Flint.”
“The child we know of already.” She spoke slowly, but her Marchlands speech, although a bit musty in its sound, was far clearer than Beetledown’s. “We give you both welcome.”
The Nose laboriously lifted himself from his abasement and came forward, chattering something.
“Our adviser says there is a wicked scent about you,” the queen reported. “I smell it not, but he has always been a trusted help to our person. He is the sixth generation of those who are First to the Cheese—his nostrils are of true breeding. But we also can see no wickedness in you or the boy, although we think there are other stories in the child, stories untold. Are we right, Chert of Blue Quartz? Is wickedness absent in truth?”
“As far as I know, Your Majesty. I did not even know your people still existed until an hour ago. I certainly bear you no ill will.” Chert was realizing that the size of a queen meant little. This one impressed him and he wanted to please her. Wouldn’t that make Opal spit if she knew!
“Fairly spoken.” Queen Upsteeplebat waved; two of her soldiers sprang forward to help her down from the dove’s back. She looked up briefly at the windowless stone walls all around. “This is a place well-chosen for a meeting—although it is long since we or our predecessors have used it for a gathering of this sort. You will forgive us, Chert of Blue Quartz, but we are unused to the manner of speaking with giants, although we have practiced the old ways to be ready for just such a day, unlikely as we thought its arrival.”
“You speak our tongue very well, Majesty.” Chert snatched a look at Flint. The boy was watching, but he seemed to think this no more interesting than any other conversation between adults. Why had they invited Flint in the first place? What did they hope to get from him?
The queen smiled and nodded. “Though our folk live in your shadows, and make our lives often beneath your tables and in your cupboards, generations have passed since we have spoken, one to the other. But times now demand it, we believe.”
“I’m a bit confused, Majesty. Times demand what?”
“That your folk and ours should speak again. Because we of the high places are frightened, and not just for ourselves. That which we had thought asleep—we had in our royal keeping too much knowledge to think it dead—is now awakening. That which we so happily fled long ago now reaches out again . . but it is not only the Sm ‘sni ‘snik-soonah who must fear it.” The rapid click seemed a sound that only a squirrel or a mockingbird should be able to make.
“Not only who?”
“My people. Rooftoppers, in your tongue.” The queen nodded her head. “So you must help us decide what is to be done. The boy finding Beetledown—we think we sense the Hand of the Sky in it. Certainly it has been a stretchingly long time since any of the giants has seen us against our will. We cannot help thinking that perhaps it truly is time for us to make common cause with your kind. Perhaps you will not listen to us and we must flee again, although fleeing will do us little good, I fear, but perhaps you will listen. That alone will not save us, but it would be a start.”
Chert shook his head. “I don’t understand any of this, I’m afraid. But I’m trying. Because the boy caught one of your people, you Rooftoppers want to make common cause with the big folk? Why?”
“Because although we have lived hidden in your shadows for long years, Old Night is a shadow that will cover all, and none of us will find our way out again.” The royal mask seemed to slip a little; for the first time, Chert could see the fear she had hidden. “It is coming, Chert of Blue Quartz. We would have guessed in any case, but the truth has been directly spoken to us by the Lord of the Peak…” Watching her speak so gravely, so carefully, Chert did not doubt that she was an able ruler Despite her size, he could not help finding her very admirable. “The storm that we have feared since before my grandmother’s grandmother’s day is coming,” said Queen Upsteeplebat. “It will be here soon.”
“May the gods protect us,” murmured Raemon Beck, but the young man didn’t sound as though he believed that they would Ferras Vansen stared in silence at the valley spread before them. It disturbed him, too, but it took a moment for him to understand why it seemed so particularly frightening. Then he remembered the old woman’s house and what he had found there. He had been only eight or nine years old that day, already nearing a man’s height but thin as a bowstave. He had thought himself very brave, of course.
Ferras’ mother was concerned about the widow who lived on the next farm, perhaps because with her own husband so short of breath these days and barely able to get out of bed she had been anticipating her own upcoming widowhood. She at least had children, though, the old neighbor had none. Now they had not seen her for several days and her goats were wandering across the green but summer-dry hills. Fearing the old woman might have become too ill to take care of herself his mother sent Ferras, her eldest, across the dale to look in on her with a jug of milk and a small loaf.
He recognized something in the silence of the place while he was still yards away, but without quite understanding what he sensed. The little wooden house was a familiar place —Ferras had been there several times with his sisters, bringing the old woman a baked festival sweet or some flowers from his mother. The old woman had never had much to say, but she always seemed happy to see the children and would always press some gift on them in return, although what she had to spare was seldom anything more than a shiny wooden bead from a necklace that had lost its string or a bit of dried fruit from one of the stubby trees in her dooryard. But now some new element was present and young Ferras felt the hairs on his arms and neck rise and tingle.
The wind was in the other direction or he would have smelled the body a long time before he reached the threshold. It was high summer, and as he pushed open the ill-fitting door the stench leaped out and clawed at his nose and eyes, sending him stumbling back, gagging and wiping away tears. Still holding the jug, generations of crofter thrift preventing him from spilling a drop of milk no matter the circumstances, Ferras paused a few steps from the house, uncertain what to do. He had smelled death before he knew well enough now why they had not seen the old woman lately. Still, with the first shock lessened, he felt a powerful tug, a wondering, a needing to know.