“And have I brought you favor?”
“Thou dost promise great change. The Spanish promise change, but also destruction. Since I could not arrive here alone, by bringing thee I hoped for a balance. The King of Troy seemeth to agree.”
“But I have no signs. I have no power, and nothing to tell!”
“I confess to possibly making a bad decision.” The Pilgrim stretched out his arms. “One of many. We shall see.”
Reynard flushed at this. “I would flee now and take my chances with the ocean!”
Widsith shrugged this off as well. “What chances do either of us have, or this town, or any humans on this island? Cardoza hath suffered a defeat, but it is apparent someone here favoreth his presence, even without most of his soldiers, and not just for his few horses.” He stopped and rubbed his chin. “And what about me, boy? Dost thou sense great currents aswirl?”
“The Eaters favor you,” Reynard said. “I have nought else to say of your measure.”
“Eaters favor me because of the ancient pact.”
“With Guldreth?”
“With the Travelers and the Crafters, I presume, but I have never had it explained. If the Travelers show no interest in thee, on behalf of the Crafters, I fear the island will be finished with all this coast and Zodiako… Except for Cardoza. And that I do not comprehend.”
They had found their way back to the outskirts of Zodiako, where quiet and shadows ruled as dusk fell, and arrays of candles gleamed on posts and rails at the crossings.
“Who hath command o’ the ghosts?” Reynard asked.
“Spanish ghosts seem of no interest to those just beneath the sky—and so they are free to leave, if they can find their way. I mislike such thoughts. I equally mislike condolement. Let us see if Maeve will have me now.”
Dana and Maggie invited them into the blunters’ sanctuary, which, while intact, still smelled of smoke. Of burned flesh.
“Maeve is in the temple,” Maggie said. “We will ask questions, then takest thee to her.”
The two women walked around Reynard. Maggie touched his hair. Reynard jerked back, not liking to be treated like a child. “The fold-keeper, the old man outside the barn, keeper of goats and sheep, gave us his judgment after meeting thee. He seeth things clear.”
“He doth burn tobacco and breathe it,” Reynard said with a pinched face.
“A foul habit,” Dana said. “He proclaimeth thou art followed by a gray wisedom, an old woman with ancient ways. Who might she be, boy?”
“Troy saith not,” Widsith told them. “His line is clean.”
The women ignored this and waited for the boy’s answer.
“Perhaps my grandmother,” Reynard muttered. “If she be here, she will prove a comfort.” He hoped her spirit would not find a trap.
“The fold-keeper told me thou sleep’st in peace,” Maggie said. Dana stepped back and let her mother take charge. “Around the fold, seest childers?”
“The spirit babes? Aye.”
“Aloof, or friendly?”
“They smiled and played and vanished.”
“Friendly, then,” Maggie said.
“What are they?” Reynard asked.
“Nobody knoweth, boy,” Maggie said. “But they do like to flit in the dusk and play, if their larks be play. Thou’lt know if they be not friendly. We put thee in the fold for the judgment of the old man, but also the childers. Doubtless Widsith relied upon that old faker.” She pulled up a cane chair and sat between Reynard and Widsith, then leaned forward, face in hands. “We lost thirty-seven townsfolk, five blunters, and one drake,” she said.
Sad silence.
“Maeve taketh it hard,” Maggie said. “We are all like sons and daughters to her.” She stood from the chair and walked toward the door. “Creatures and tenebria are disturbed. Visitors we have not seen in a thousand years come from the center of the island, and the Travelers seem not to know what to do with them! And now Widsith’s return bringeth thee.” She studied them critically. “What news could charge the krater lands, and our lives, after so long calm breath and gentle winds?”
Reynard wondered if he should tell them of the man with the white shadow, or the man with the tall feather. He decided he would hold such in reserve for when he felt more trusted, more a part of this group—if that could ever happen.
“We are done here,” Maggie said, grim expression showing her dissatisfaction with this conversation. “Do what thou must.”
“Maeve hath condoled with mourners at the temple,” Dana said. “She tells us to send thee there.”
Maeve
THROUGH DRIFTING SMOKE, on the way to the temple, they passed under the walkway’s painted boards, each displaying a scene from the town’s long history. Reynard wished there was more time to study them.
The next to last board was freshly painted with a vivid landscape of lava and burning forest.
“No doubt Travelers will again seek thee out, in their own time,” Widsith said. “As for Maeve—appear of some use, for my sake.”
They paused at the end of the walkway. The last board, beyond the flames and lava, was sanded to a blankness. Widsith reached up and touched it. “The Crafters’ tale rolls on. Watch and learn, young fisherboy.”
To Reynard, however, the blank board seemed to point to something less conclusive.
Across a flagstone path, the nave and transept of the temple were embraced by more than twenty enormous, twisted oaks.
“Canst thou feel it?” Widsith asked softly. “I have been gone too long. I know not what more I can do for her.” He pushed open the central doors. Inside, the transept to either side seemed dark and empty. Down the aisle that defined the nave, floored with packed dirt and stomped-down rushes, the pews were also empty. At the far end, near the altar, a single candle outlined a lone dark figure kneeling on a pillow. Even from here, Reynard could tell the figure was spectrally thin, and Widsith seemed both saddened and frightened by what they were approaching.
Reynard counted sixty pews, and looking up, estimated that the arched roof was a hundred feet above them. Even in England this would have been an impressive structure. But there were no stained-glass windows, no sculptures, very little ornamentation.
The end of each pew supported a stand on which a single book was placed. All the books looked as if they might have been Bibles and were very old. Some stands closer to the altar carried not books but scrolls, brown and fragile and even older.
They came to the end of the pews and the space before the altar.
“I am here,” Widsith said.
The spectral figure got up from her knees. A dry, whispery voice said, “And welcome, to be sure.”
The figure turned and Reynard saw a woman so old the fat of her face and neck had melted away and parchment flesh stretched tight on her cheeks and chisel nose. A thin aura of white hair stuck up from her age-spotted crown. She might have been a corpse in a reliquary, not that he had ever visited such. Her eyes were bright enough, but looked more like tiny stones than human eyes. She held up a skeletal hand heavy with five great gold rings, and crooked her pointing finger to invite them forward. Her knuckles made soft little snaps, as old knuckles do.
Reynard held back, but Widsith did as she bid, and embraced her with extraordinary delicacy.
“Who be this… young creature? ” Maeve asked.
“He is called Fox,” Widsith said.
“Reynard,” the boy corrected.
“Greetings, Fox—Reynard. Sorry to meet thee in such sad times.” She stepped away from the pillow where she had knelt and walked around Reynard with a fluid grace he would have thought impossible. “Hast shown him to Guldreth?” she asked, her voice like leaves blowing along a road.