Song of the Gargoyle (16 page)

He was not certain how a gargoyle would take to being a beast of burden. And in truth, when the pack was first strapped in place on his back, Troff looked at Tymmon accusingly and said that he did not think he liked it. But before long it became apparent that Troff had changed his mind and was quite pleased and proud to bear such an important responsibility.

The sun was well up into the sky on a cool clear day in late spring when Troff and Tymmon left the city of Montreff and began their journey back toward the Northern Countries and Austerneve.

T
HE VILLAGE WAS CALLED
Nighmont and it lay on the highroad that led north toward Austerneve. The two weary travelers reached it in the late afternoon of their third day on the road. Days in which Tymmon had pushed ahead relentlessly from sunup until sundown.

Along the way they had eaten quickly and lightly in village markets or from the supplies stored in Troff’s pack. And they had slept wherever darkness found them—in a haystack, camped in a grove of apple trees, and once, after paying three coppers for the privilege, in a farmer’s drafty and rat-infested granary.

Each night before he fell asleep Tymmon took the Spanish dagger from his pack and knelt down, holding the dagger before his face, as he had done that first night in Montreff. Clasping the blade of the dagger with both hands, he renewed his oath and with it his fierce and angry resolve.

The anger was important. Without it he was only a boy, alone and almost unarmed, and sometimes fearful. But when the fire of hatred burned high and bright he became an avenger, a knight errant traveling on a holy quest to which he had sworn allegiance even unto death. But at the end of that third long day of travel, not only energy and resolve, but anger as well, were burning low.

Nighmont, like so many of the country villages, was only a collection of cob and wattle cottages straggling out from a central square, but its church at least had a whole roof, and some of the cottages were surrounded by tidy gardens. As Tymmon and Troff passed the first row of cottages an odd high-pitched but raspy voice called out to them from behind a small clump of thorn bushes.

“Hiya,” the unseen presence shouted. “What be you on the rope there?”

Tymmon stopped. Although the voice had seemed to come from very near, he could see no one at all behind the small bush, which was indeed strange and more than a little unnerving. It was as if they had been hailed by some invisible creature—perhaps a restless dead soul or an evil phantom. But on the other hand, Troff was looking calmly toward the hedge and saying that it was nothing alarming.

Craning his neck, Tymmon was edging silently to the left when the voice called, “I see you. I see you sneaking at us. Run, Dalia. Run. Petrus will stop them. I got me a big stick.”

Tymmon grinned. He waited a moment and then suddenly circled the bush, pulling Troff after him—and came face to face with a creature so ragged and dirty that, at first glance, it scarcely seemed to be human. But human it turned out to be. A small and filthy creature who was, at the moment, cringing back into the thorny bushes with a great knobby stick raised above its head. Stringy dirt-caked hair straggled down around a thin face, so streaked and blotched with soil that it was almost impossible to make out the features, except for the eyes—wide-set eyes, the dark irises rimmed in a wide band of white, like those of a frightened colt.

There had been someone or something else, too. Out of the corner of his eye Tymmon had caught sight of something small and dark as it flickered away into the tall grass. But his attention was now fully on the one that remained behind—who was threatening to do some serious damage with its great club.

“Now there,” Tymmon said soothingly, smiling and stretching out one hand in a gesture of peace. “We will not hurt you. But you had best put down that club or Troff, here, may become angry.” He glanced at Troff. Actually, the gargoyle did not seem to be greatly concerned. Sitting on his haunches, his tongue lolling, he was regarding the ragged child with calm interest.

The boy, for such he appeared to be although he was wearing what at first glance appeared to be a tattered gown, said nothing. But his bony face wore a frown that was clearly meant to be of a manly ferocity. And on closer inspection it became obvious that his only garment was not a dress but a man’s worn and ragged doublet which, on his short and skinny frame, hung down almost to the ground. Still brandishing the stick that was nearly as big as he was, he looked from Tymmon to Troff and back again, and then quickly away in the direction in which the smaller figure had disappeared. But then quite suddenly he dropped the club and began to pull himself free from the prickly bush.

“Coee!” he said in his strange voice, oddly cracked and rasping like that of a tiny old man. “That bush fair stabbed the life out of me.” He rubbed his arms fiercely with both hands and then once more glared at Tymmon. “All your fault, too, sneaking round at us like that. Nigh scared us to death, you did.”

“I am sorry,” Tymmon said. “I just wanted to see who had called to me. You did call to me, did you not?”

The little boy shook his head. “No. Not to you, I dinna. Called to him there on the rope.” Narrowing his eyes and stooping forward into a crouch, the boy crept nearer to where Troff was sitting. “What be ye, beastie? A lion? Nor a bear maybe?”

“A dog,” Tymmon said, quickly before Troff, who seemed greatly amused, could be tempted to answer for himself. “He is my dog, Troff.”

“No!” the boy said. “Truly? Only a dog, be it?” Turning, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Come back, Dalia. There be naught to fear. It be only a boy and a great lump of a dog.” Then without waiting to see if his summons was answered he turned back to Tymmon and asked, “And what be your name, boy?”

“Tym—” Tymmon began and then, “Hy—” And then stuttered into silence. He had told no one his real name since he had given it to the farmer outside of Austerneve, with such disastrous results. But somehow it felt ridiculous to give a false name to this small tattered scrap of humanity.

The little ragamuffin regarded him critically. “Doan you got a name, boy?”

Tymmon grinned. “Boy is fine,” he said. “You can just call me Boy.”

The child shrugged and said that Boy would do, but that he, himself, had a real name. It was Petrus, he said, and he was six or seven years old—he’d forgotten which—and he had lived in Nighmont for a long time and before that on his father’s farmplace, and Nighmont was a fine village but that the country had been better, and there had been cows there and chickens and lots of milk and eggs. He had, it seemed, a great deal to say on any number of subjects. His sister, Dalia, on the other hand, who eventually came creeping back from her hiding place, appeared to be two or three years younger, and said nothing at all. They were orphans, Petrus said rather proudly.

“Orphinks,” he said actually. “We be orphinks, Dalia and me. Since a long time. Since the lord’s soldiers came with horses and swords and axes to take our mule away for the lord’s war. Only our father tried to hide our mule so the knights deaded him, and our mother too when she tried to help him. And they would have deaded us too, only I hid us under a straw pile.” He looked down at his little sister, who was leaning against him and staring up at Tymmon with dark-rimmed eyes. Huge eyes that gleamed like those of a small wild beast amid a great tangle of dirty and matted hair that hung down over her forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Tymmon said. “I’m sorry that you have no...

But Petrus interrupted. Shrugging, he said, “It be all right. I take good care of her. Doan I, Dalia?” He gave his sister a punch on the shoulder and she immediately hit him back with both tiny fists and then danced away out of reach. Petrus grinned. “She be a fierce one. I learn her. I learn her how to fight.”

Suddenly losing interest in the conversation, he edged nearer to Troff and poked at the pack on the gargoyle’s back. “What you got in there? Bread, maybe?” Putting his face close to Troff’s, he repeated the question. “You got bread on your back there, Dog?”

“Not much,” Tymmon said. “There was food in the pack, but it is almost gone now. I was hoping to buy a meal here in the village. Is there an inn, or perhaps a bake shop nearby?”

“Buy? You got money?” Petrus moved closer so that Dalia squeezing in front of him was almost standing on Tymmon’s feet. “He got money, Dalia. To buy food with. We show you where to buy food. Dalia and me will show you.

There was, it seemed, no real inn in the village of Nighmont, but there was a house on the square where food was sometimes provided for travelers. “Mistress Ino’s house,” Petrus said, seizing Tymmon’s hand while Dalia danced ahead of them on tiny bare feet. “We be taking you there, Dalia and me.” And when they reached the square the two of them ran eagerly ahead to a stone house somewhat larger than its neighbors, and pounded on the door.

It was opened by a neatly dressed village woman, her full cheeks framed in a clean white wimple. She was smiling as she opened the door, but when she saw the two children her face hardened into a frown. Shaking a large wooden spoon in a threatening manner, she shouted, “Shoo, scat, you ragamuffins. Be off with the two of you.”

The children ran, disappearing like scattered sparrows, and when Mistress Ino’s attention shifted to Troff and Tymmon her anger changed to puzzled curiosity.

“Madam,” Tymmon said, bowing, “I am traveling northward through your village and I would very much like to
buy
”—he stressed the word carefully—“some food for myself and my dog.” As he spoke he reached into his belt, took out his bag of coins, and jingled it in his hand.

At that Mistress Ino’s smile returned, and chatting pleasantly about the weather, she led the way into the cottage. Within a few short minutes Tymmon was seated before the kitchen fire eating meat pies and blood pudding. And at his feet Troff feasted on a ham bone and bread scraps soaked in gravy—not to mention a small meat pie which Tymmon slipped down to him when Mistress Ino was looking the other way.

There was, it seemed, no place to rent a room in the village, but “My husband and I own a hay barn on the outskirts,” the woman said, “and for a copper more you could spend the night there. The roof is sound and the hay makes a soft resting place.”

The copper changed hands and not long afterward Tymmon and Troff were on their way to the hay barn through the gathering darkness. Following Mistress Ino’s directions they had just sighted the old barn, when Tymmon suddenly realized they were not alone. From somewhere behind him a small raspy voice whispered, “Did you have meat pies? Did you?” and at the same moment a tiny cold hand grasped Tymmon’s thumb. Tymmon glanced down in surprise. The voice had been that of Petrus, but the hand belonged to his sister.

“Mistress Ino’s meat pies be the best in the whole world,” Petrus went on, catching up to trot along on the other side of Troff. “Mistress Ino’s meat pies be famous. We had one once at Eastertide. Dinna we, Dalia?”

Tymmon looked down at the two small faces. In the thickening twilight he could make out little more than blurred ovals, but it would have taken a much greater darkness to hide the hungry gleam in the two pairs of eyes.

A few minutes later, and back once more at Mistress Ino’s, Tymmon bought two more meat pies, started out the door, and then went back to buy another two. And when the orphans again appeared out of the darkness he gave them all four—one for each of their small dirty hands.

They disappeared then, drifting off into the darkness eating noisily. But the next morning when Tymmon awoke in a bed of soft, sweet hay, it was to look up into two pairs of eager and hungry eyes.

“Morning.” Petrus was smiling broadly. Then he dropped down on his knees, crawled to where Troff still lay sprawled on his side, and whispered into the gargoyle’s ear, “Morning, Dog.” Troff opened one eye and grinned. And Tymmon, sitting up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and then sat with his chin on his knees and stared at the two small human scarecrows.

In the clear morning light they looked amazingly small, and quite unbelievably dirty, caked and smeared and blurred with soil of every color and description. Not to mention thin and hungry. Tymmon shook his head, sighed, and went on staring. An idea was forming itself inside his mind. It was a wild, foolish, and impractical idea and later he tended to blame it on Troff although he could not clearly remember what the gargoyle had actually said on the subject.

After a while he pulled his coin purse out of his belt, opened it, and peered inside. Then he thought for a while longer before he turned to Troff and said, “Not much left. We will have to try some more exhibitions.”

Troff, his head cocked, rolled his eyes and agreed with far more enthusiasm than was necessary.

“I don’t know how successful we would be in the small villages, but at least they might give us food. And if we stayed a few days in a larger town like Bidborn, we might earn enough to manage.” He shook the purse, sighed again and, lowering his voice, went on. “I thought we had enough for the whole trip but not with four mouths to feed. And we would have to buy them something else to wear, or we would certainly be taken for beggars.”

Petrus was sidling nearer, pulling Dalia after him. “What you saying about Dalia and me?” he said, his brows knit suspiciously. “What you saying about begging?”

Tymmon grinned. “I was telling Troff I was thinking of taking you with us to...

Petrus jumped back, almost jerking Dalia off her feet. “No. Not begging,” he said. “You not be taking us begging for you.”

Tymmon grinned. “I do not blame you at all for not wanting to be beggars, but that is not...

Petrus shrugged. “Oh, we be beggars, all right. Dalia and me, we been begging since our folks got deaded. But we not going to go begging for someone else again. Last harvest time a beggar lady came to Nighmont and took us to another place to beg for her. But she starved us and put lye on our arms and legs to make sores so the rich people would feel sorry for us, so we ran away and came back to Nighmont. So we not be begging for anyone else never no more.”