The Land of the Silver Apples - Farmer Nancy - Страница 22

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Now, for reasons Jack did not know, the flow gentled and the foam subsided into a crystal arc of water. In the gap of the wall, standing on the arc as though she had no weight at all, was the elf lady. Brutus sank to his knees. Lucy clapped her hands with glee.

The lady held out her arms, and Lucy ran. Jack tried to catch her and so did Father, but he was too injured to stand. The elf lady swept Lucy up and, with a triumphant cry, leaped into the waters. The last of the stream slithered over the edge like the tail of a snake and disappeared.

Jack ran to the pit and looked down. The hole was black and bottomless, empty of any trace of life. And dry.

“She’s gone. Drowned. Dead. My poor little girl,” groaned Father, lying on the ground.

A few monks and slaves stood at the edge of the pit, and two slaves had been lowered on ropes to explore. Everyone else was either injured or milling helplessly in a daze through the rubble. Most of the courtyard walls had fallen down. Beyond them, Jack could see fallen roofs and smoke. “You think your loss is great?” wailed one of the monks. “We’ve lost our abbot. What shall we do? He was our guiding light!”

“To Hell with Father Swein,” Giles Crookleg muttered.

“Where’s that hospital monk?” cried Jack. He was worried about Father’s injuries. The slaves had beaten him severely, and his crooked leg was bent at a different angle. Father had to be in agony.

“You tell ’em, Giles,” Pega said. “I never saw a better cutpurse than that abbot.”

“Can’t anyone here set bones?” shouted Jack. But the chaos was more than anyone could cope with. Both inside and outside the courtyard, Jack heard moans and curses.

“I’ll try,” said Pega. “One of my owners—”

“I’ll do it,” said Brutus. He broke off several willow branches and squatted down beside Father. “This is going to hurt, sir.”

“I don’t care. She’s dead. My poor, poor child!” raved Father.

“I don’t think she is dead, sir. I saw the Lady take her.”

“Lucy’s drowned. We must pray for her soul. Get me onto my knees.”

“You’re not in any shape to be on your knees. Hold him,” Brutus ordered two of the unhurt slaves. To Jack’s surprise, they obeyed. There was something about Brutus, when he wasn’t actually groveling, that commanded obedience. Jack gritted his teeth as he watched. If only he’d learned healing spells from the Bard instead of how to summon whatever it was that had just happened. Father screamed as Brutus moved the bone into place.

“Wish I could have used poppy juice,” grunted the slave. “No time.”

“Pain is good! I deserve it! It’s all my fault!” cried Father before he passed out. Brutus seemed to be doing a good job, as far as Jack could tell. Father’s leg was straighter and more normal than it had ever been. Brutus bound it to the splints with rope.

“There!” he said, sitting back. “I’m sorry to have hurt him.”

“Will he—will he be all right?” said Jack.

“I hope so.”

“You did a champion job,” said Pega, inspecting the splints. “Where did you learn this skill?”

“From my mother,” replied Brutus.

“Hoy!” shouted the slaves from the pit. They were quickly drawn up.

“Black as Satan down there,” one of them said. “Can’t go no farther without a torch. Without a lotof torches.”

“Does the hole go straight down?” asked a monk.

“Turns to the side,” said the slave. “Big enough for an army.”

“And bone-dry,” added his companion. No one said anything for a few moments after this announcement. The thought of a passage so big that it could hold an army was disturbing enough. How can it be dry after all that water?thought Jack.

“Oh no! The injuries are even worse here.” Jack saw Brother Aiden, climbing over the rubble. He was followed by the hospital monk with a gang of helpers. “Move the injured to the fields,” the little monk ordered. “No one sleeps inside tonight. The earthquake may return. Giles!” Brother Aiden bent down and felt Father’s pulse. “He lives, thank Heaven. That’s a handsome job of bone-setting.”

“Brutus did it,” said Jack.

“Really? I could use your help, young man. We’ve got broken bones all over. Did anyone die?”

“The water took Lucy, Father Swein, and a patient who was already dead,” said Pega.

“Not Lucy!” cried Brother Aiden. “I knew about the abbot, but not the poor child. What a terrible fate!” The injured were being laid on planks of wood and carried away. Jack stood guard over Father to be sure he was moved carefully.

“Lucy has not drowned,” Brutus said.

“You keep saying that. I saw her swept away, and believe me, nobody could survive that,” Pega said. “It was the strangest thing, Brother Aiden. Lucy actually rantoward the water.”

“She was called by the Lady,” said Brutus, “and the Lady took her.”

“I saw it too,” said Jack.

What Brother Aiden was going to say was interrupted by the thunder of horses and riders galloping into the courtyard. “Company, halt!” bellowed a man in a helmet. The horses pulled to a stop, their heads tossing, their flanks wet with sweat. “Din Guardi shook like a rat in a dog’s teeth, but it stood firm. We saw smoke coming from the monastery. Where’s Father Swein? Good God! This must have been the center of the earthquake.”

“The abbot is dead,” said Brother Aiden, looking even more like a small brown sparrow beside the burly warriors. “I’m the art master from the Holy Isle.”

“Ah!” said the horseman, obviously impressed. “It’s good fortune you are here to step into his sandals. What caused this upheaval? Was it demons?”

“It was him!” shouted the hospital monk, pointing at Jack. “The slaves saw him just before the earthquake. He was mumbling charms and waving a wizard’s staff. And to think I wasted St. Oswald’s head on you,” he said, shaking his fist at Jack.

“It could have been worse,” said the Bard, leaning back in the chair King Yffi had provided in his room. His feet extended toward a brazier full of coals near a deep, narrow window. A spring storm blustered outside. Rain occasionally splattered through and made the coals hiss. “It couldn’t have been muchworse, mind you, but worse.” The old man sipped thoughtfully at the chamomile tea Pega had made him.

“It wasn’t my fault,” protested Jack. He’d spent the past night and most of the day in King Yffi’s dungeon. Only Brother Aden’s appeals had released him. Jack’s cell had been a dark, terrifying place hollowed out of rock, where he could hear the howls of unknown creatures and waves booming not far away.

“I warned you, just before I left: ‘Don’t do anything foolish.’”

“You did say that, sir. I remember,” said Pega.

“Oh, be quiet,” said Jack.

“Never use anger to reach the life force, lad,” the Bard scolded him. “It turns on you when you least expect it.”

Jack felt horrible. Because of him, St. Filian’s Well had been destroyed and dozens of people had been hurt. Father wouldn’t be able to walk for months and had gone mad with grief. Jack couldn’t imagine how they were going to tell Mother about Lucy.

“King Yffi wanted to roast you over a slow fire—St. Filian’s pays him well for protection—but I threatened him out of it.” The Bard tranquilly drank his tea. The sun had set, and the long, rectangular window faded from silver to lead. The old man smiled as a swallow struggled into the opening and sat there, drying her wings.

“Thank you, sir,” muttered Jack. Just because the king wasn’t going to roast him didn’t mean something else awful wasn’t planned. Guards stood outside the door to make sure no one wandered.

“Yffi has an interesting decision to make,” remarked the Bard. “I don’t think he knows it yet.”

Probably deciding how much pain I can endure,the boy thought.

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