VII. Ercildoun
The high street was a swill of snow and mud and rotting foodstuffs as the two men trudged into Ercildoun from the south.
Nothing much had changed in Thomas’s three-year absence. Wood houses and buildings were laid out on both sides of the high street, one and two stories, in some places so tightly packed as to form a rampart of house ends with shared walls or, at most, small lanes between, leading to the narrow backland strips called rigs that extended out behind each house. Some rigs contained separate sties and stalls where byres weren’t built onto the back end of the houses; on other plots it was kilns and ovens—fire sources and cooking hearths separated from main houses and shops to protect the entire town from accidental conflagration. On this cold day their smoke combined to haze the air blue. The street smelled of wood, bread, hops, manure, pottery, and hot iron. The mingle of smells shifted as they walked toward the bowyer’s shop near the top of the hill. Nobody paid them much mind. They were dressed like any other men in their caps, heavy cloaks, and loose trousers.
Thomas counted windows, doors, footprints in the slush and people about. He watched for any of his own family, but saw no one he recognized, neither parents nor sister. Only four of the seventeen people looked at all familiar. He suspected he’d met them somewhere, sometime, but in his fuddled former life identities hardly ever stuck and everyone seemed strange. Those who glanced his way didn’t give him a second look. They don’t recognize me at all. It was both thrilling and disheartening, and he felt like a ghost wandering up the street. His own family, when they did see him, would they know him? Would they believe him when he explained who he was? They had lost their sons already, three years gone.
Three years gone.
His brain seized upon the phrase, and a flash of lightning ripped through his head, a vision of Onchu riding behind the Queen, but he managed to wrestle this fit down, throwing himself against Waldroup, who held him upright. Through clenched teeth, he muttered the riddle so that only Waldroup heard: “Three are dead, but only one gone, and two still striding in Ercildoun.”
Bracing him until he could stand, Waldroup eyed him askance. It was his first encounter with a fit since that night he’d found Thomas. “Is this going to happen a lot here?” he asked.
Thomas squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on driving the lightning out of his brain. It shrank, dwindled as if rushing away. “I don’t know,” was all he could reply. “I thought the fits had left me until Baldie reappeared. Least, I—I didn’t shout it. That’s a first time, I think. And I pushed it away. Didn’t used to know how to do that.” After a moment he gently shook off the support.
“Still, your Baldie’s from here, isn’t he? Could be the place, the memory of it, sets you off. We’d best do our business, take a room, and lie low this night,” Waldroup said. “Now, where’s the bowyer’s?”
Thomas pointed to the building beside the ironmonger’s, noticing for the first time a wooden sign hung over the door—the carved image of an upright bow and vertical arrow side by side. That was new. There had been no such signage three years past. Glancing about, he saw another over the brewster’s door, a wooden slab on which were carved what looked like a sprig of yellow gorse beside a rabbit. He couldn’t figure how that represented anything at all.
“Let’s see if your man at least has staves. You can pick one out and retrieve your bow come the thaw.” Thomas followed him to the door, but Waldroup turned and put a hand on his chest. “What’s your name then, stranger?”
“Fingal—” He paused and thought. “Fingal Coutts.”
“Good.” Waldroup opened the door. “After you, Squire Coutts.”
“Squire?”
“Would you rather be my page?”
Inside, the building was divided into a small workshop in the front, with the residence beyond a tapestry at the back. A bench occupied the center of the workshop, positioned to sit in the light from the window had the shutters been open. Along it were scrapers, a two-handled draw knife, assorted feathers, and arrows—some without fletching, some without tips. Wood shavings covered the floor like flakes of snow. It all smelled of freshly cut wood and oils.
One of the posts supporting the right-hand wall had two large pegs driven into it near the top. A bow lay across the pegs and would have formed a cross were it not for the cord strung from tip to tip and the large stone hanging from a hook at the cord’s center, the weight of which pulled the bow down. In the low light it made the wall seem to be frowning at them. The bow was polished, and crisscrossed with sinew on either side of its the center.
The bowyer emerged from behind the tapestry. Warm air from the back arrived with him. He was thin, and all of his hair grew around the sides of his head. Thomas had seen him before, but it was clear he did not recognize Thomas.
“How may I assist you gentlemen?”
Waldroup explained, “My young squire here needs to acquire a bow.”
“Ah, apprenticing in the art of warfare?”
“Cutting stone mostly, but, yes, a bit of that, too.”
“Oh, you are from the abbey?” the bowyer guessed.
“We are, but winter’s set on displacing us and it’s time to hone other skills.”
The bowyer looked Thomas up and down. “You’re tall, young man,” he said as if Thomas did not recognize that about himself. He walked to the bow that was being tugged upon by the stone weight. “This one might suit you well. I’ve been tillering it awhile now, driven out the flat places, the bit of warp. It’s good yew.”
“It isn’t made for someone else?” Waldroup asked.
With closed eyes, the bowyer raised his brows. “It was, in fact, commissioned. But he has quite forgotten about it.” He lifted the weight off the string and set it on the floor, then lifted the bow from the post and turned it upright.
“Who forgets ordering a bow like this?”
Now the bowyer stared straight at them, relishing the opportunity to gossip. “It is for a local man who came into wealth when his father and brothers died. He hardly remembers from week to week what he wants.”
To Thomas it sounded almost as if the bowyer was describing him; but that couldn’t be, as he had no other brother but Onchu. His sister, yes, but . . .
The bowyer continued, “He might recollect it by the time summer comes ’round again, so there’s plenty of time to tiller him another, assuming you’re a customer who pays.” He compared the height of the straight bow to Thomas. “Yes, this will be a good fit for you, young man.” He held it out.
Thomas took it. “Thank you,” he said, then as Waldroup had shown him, he laid it across his palm. The slight curve floated on his hand.
“I see you have been training him, Sir Mason.” He retrieved the bow. “You’ll want arrows?”
“Yes,” Thomas said. “I owe him two that shattered practicing.”
The bowyer smiled. “Only two? Well, then, Squire—?”
“Coutts. Fingal Coutts.”
The bowyer nodded. His eyes took in the purse hung on Thomas’s belt, the larger one on Waldroup’s. “Squire Coutts. If you return in the morning, I shall have it, and a dozen—that is, fourteen—arrows for you as well.”
Waldroup patted him on the back. “This man knows his business. That’s a fine bow to take with you.”
The bowyer bowed his head in recognition of Waldroup’s praise. “Then you’re traveling?” he asked.
“For the winter,” Waldroup said. He opened the door.
At the threshold, Thomas abruptly turned about. “The man you made this bow for. What might his name be?”
“Balthair MacGillean. Most folk hereabout call him—”
“Baldie,” said Thomas.
The bowyer gave a look of mild surprise, but he was already out the door. Waldroup smiled ruefully to the man and said, “He, ah, visited us at the abbey. As you say, seemed distracted.” Then he closed the door after him.
Thomas was headed across the wet mess of the road toward the brewster’s. “So, a coincidence, the bow of the man who almost recognized you at the abbey,” Waldroup asked as he caught up.
“But none of this is possible,” said Thomas. “I told you what happened to me. Baldie was—”
“The one that drowned, aye, I know.”
Thomas nodded grimly.
“Drowned three years past in a river, but he’s viewing the abbey and ordering a bow?” Waldroup shook his head. “We know he’s one of these servants of the elven, but even so—”
“His family’s more than the equal of mine. They’ve land to the west of Ercildoun. He has two brothers, just as the bowyer said.”
“Who also said he doesn’t have them any longer. So perhaps, after all, he didn’t drown. Maybe he was stunned, and swam to shore farther down. Someone rescued him after you gave chase for your brother. It’s an easier explanation.” He said it with the tone of someone waiting to be convinced.
“Three are dead, two still striding in Ercildoun,” he recited again, this time with understanding of his riddle. “One of those is me.”
“You were dead as well?”
“I am to Ercildoun.” He stared into Waldroup’s eyes. “And Baldie’s joined up with the alderman. He wouldn’t have done that before.”
“All right, but say for a moment he survived.” Thomas started to object, but Waldroup held out his hand. “His family dies from some plague, he inherits all, and by the bowyer’s description, it’s left him in a bad state. The alderman’s still an alderman for all that he may oversee the elven and their teind. You said your own father knows him. Why shouldn’t Balthair MacGillean’s relationship be the same as your father’s, now that he’s head of his family? What if he doesn’t know anything about the alderman’s service to these creatures?”
Adamantly, Thomas said, “He didn’t swim to shore. He was dead in the river. I couldn’t hold onto his body and he floated away, belly-down. He was drowned when the river took him.”
Sloshing through the muck, Waldroup said, “So, what, then? He and the alderman are dead men? The servants of the elven are all of them dead men? What about the people I saw on the battlefield?”
Thomas made as if to respond but gave up.
“Elven have powers, and they’re cruel, I’ll give ye that. But can they revive the dead? I’m not ready to grant them the attributes of the Christ just now.” He fell silent as they passed three other men. All nodded at one another. Once beyond them, he added softly, “Let us therefore strive not to call attention to ourselves tonight and be gone in the morning wi’ your bow. Dead or alive, I don’t crave their scrutiny.”
The brewess introduced her alehouse as The Gorse and Hare, which explained at least the symbols on the sign over the door. They bought wooden tankards of ale from her and sat at the far end of a long central table that could accommodate twenty. She did have two curtained chambers at the very back of her establishment next to where large pots hung over a low fire, which were available for a night’s stay at a reasonable price. The humid, smoky air smelled sourly of mash. Waldroup and Thomas chatted with her while she showed them the tiny sleeping arrangements. “We done all right ’ere. Used to be the byre was attached t’the back. But we went and built a second shed for stock. Turned the first into a threshing barn. ’usband tills a field farther out, but not now a’course. He’s at mill today, down on the river.”
By late afternoon, half a dozen locals had gathered around the long table with their tankards, talking of this or that. The bowyer himself arrived and sat among them, and Waldroup bought him a tankard.
The bowyer made introductions to the others, telling them that Waldroup and Thomas were stonecutters working on the abbey but that Waldroup was a sometime knight and “Fingal” his squire. One of the men asked how long they’d been on the job, and Waldroup replied that he’d arrived after fighting too long in France, while “Fingal turned up early this summer and has been working the quarry since.” It was the truth, and if anyone in that group was looking for news of someone who’d vanished three years ago, those facts should have put them off the scent. It was clear that none of the men recognized Squire Coutts.
After a while, Waldroup leaned close to the bowyer. “I have to ask again. That fella whose bow you’re selling us—you’re certain he won’t mind? Don’t want to stir up trouble with a local laird.”
The bowyer laughed. “Balthair? I don’t even know why he wants one. I doubt ’e’s ever as much as braced a bow. It’s what I said to him, too. I swear, unless I remind him, he won’t even take notice that he ordered one. If he purchases it, it’ll just lie there and rot in the castle.”
“You said his family all died?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Troubled clan, the MacGilleans, and God’s smited Balthair in particular. Three years back, lad was fishing with two friends—well, a friend with a half-wit brother—and those two drowned. Devastated their family, the Rimors. Never recovered the bodies, even. River took ’em and probably washed them out to sea. Baldie did all he could to save ’em, but the idiot one pulled his brother under. Some as thought that boy had the gift of prophecy, but really, he didn’t know up from down.”
Thomas made to stand, but under the table Waldroup grabbed his wrist and held him in place.
“That’s terrible,” he said, “to have your children die before you.”
“True enough. Family didn’t want to believe it. For a long time they held out that the boys would return somehow. But that sort of hope is like a purse with a hole in the bottom. Sooner or later, you got nothing left.”
Waldroup nodded. “That would seem to be a terrible fate dealt to the Rimor family, not this other fellow.”
Thomas kept his eyes downcast, not daring to look up just then for fear of them flooding with tears.
“Oh, it was,” the bowyer said. “Near broke their mother. But Baldie, now, he survives that, and we’re all saying how lucky he is, you know, when not two months later his father falls into a well, breaks his neck. One of his brothers is so distraught he hangs himself, and the other—so far as anyone knows—drowns himself in the same river that Baldie crawled out of. History’s repeating wheel of tragedy, innit? The perversity of things.”
“Turned all around,” agreed Waldroup. “I can see how with all that going on, he might forget about ordering a bow.”
“Oh, well.” The bowyer glanced aside. “I’d not quite come to that yet. There’s still more to the tale. Ya see, our Baldie went and got married last year. To the daughter of that family what lost their sons.”
Thomas couldn’t help himself from saying her name. “Innes?” His horror was plain. The others at the table stopped their conversation and stared at him.
The bowyer said, “That’s right. Innes Rimor. So, you do know these families, then.”
“I . . .” He gave Waldroup a painful look, then got up and walked into the back.
Expectations swung slowly to Waldroup, who replied, “He’s a sensitive lad, our Fingal. I believe he encountered that very girl on the road to the abbey. I know he was watching everyone on the street when we came into town today, hoping to see her again.”
“Last summer, was it? Turned his head, I imagine. She was a beautiful girl, would hae been with child then, though.”
“Was beautiful?”
The bowyer looked at the table, displaying the few remaining hairs on top of his head. The other men glanced away as if they had other things to consider. The bowyer tapped the edge of his tankard. “I shouldn’t be saying all this. She lost her newborn just this month. Three weeks old when it withered and died. Midwife says it was a hard birth, too, so she’ll have no others. Daren’t even try, and the poor girl only seventeen. Gone mad, she has.”
“Jesus have mercy.”
“Indeed, I expect it’s only prayer to Him that’s kept poor Balthair sane amidst all that death. It’s a curse for sure. But now you understand why he won’t notice if the bow goes elsewhere. Somewhere far away is better.”
Waldroup drank his ale down and stood. “Don’t think I’ll tell young Fingal that, as I know he did fancy her.” Now the men looked up at him, nodding, agreeing that anybody would have fancied her. To the bowyer, he added, “In the morning, then, sir.”
“Oh, yes.” The bowyer emptied his own tankard and stood. He smiled. “Small beer in my case. Can’t afford to muddy my faculties, can I? Not tonight. Arrows still to fletch, hmm?” He turned and headed for the door. The others pretended not to watch Waldroup retreat into the back, and whatever counsel they kept, they kept it to themselves.