The Tasters Guild (13 page)

It was a delicate affair to avoid the thorns that threatened the canvas raft from every angle. As the whirring of the paddles commenced with a swift yank from Axle on a pull cord, Rowan huddled down, keeping warm. The stream had widened a bit. Casting a dark eye about the wood, rain drenching his face and robes, he found himself wistful for the perilous windwhipper ride over the Lake District he had endured with Ivy at the beginning of their adventure.

Despite her warm toes, Ivy noticed that the temperature seemed to have dropped, and her teeth began chattering. Axle, too, felt the cold despite his thick greatcoat. The rain had varnished each sinister barb of the hawthorns into a crystal spear. He began to imagine a fire, a place to make camp, and looking at the children—and seeing two pale faces—it suddenly became imperative to get them warm.

Shortly, Axle’s heart surged to see a break in the overgrowth. There was one particularly enormous tree root that grew up and over itself, before plunging into the earth beside the stream. It was a natural foothold, and there was a small place to make shore beside the muddy bank. Behind the gnarled root, a space above the stream beckoned—Axle was sure he saw a soft inlet of green moss.

Axle tied up the skimmer—there was no hope of manipulating it back into its tight packet with frozen hands. Hopping through a gap beside the mud-caked tree root, Axle helped Ivy disembark, and the pair turned to assist Rowan.

By now the gnarled root upon which they stood was quite slick, and Rowan was having trouble finding his balance. The stream had exposed the old tree’s root system, and its bare tendrils clawed at the eroding bank in gruesome shapes. Fistfuls of earth rained down on the travelers as more of the ledge gave way. Rowan was forced to crawl his way up the unforgiving wall, and came finally to lean against the old hawthorn trunk. Amid the heaving, muttering, and splashing, no one heard the strange creaking (and then splintering) from somewhere deep within the ancient tree. A thorny branch suddenly snaked itself around the former taster, pulling him tight.

“OWW!” Rowan shouted, struggling against the barbs that pricked his skin, and then standing quite still.

Which was worse? The taster could not decide if it was better to be soaked to the bone—and freeze to death—or to be trapped by a wicked, mean-spirited tree. Somehow they both seemed preferable to landing at the dark gates of Rocamadour. Either way, as he lazily turned the topic over in his mind, it became clear to him that he was stuck.

A
s every apotheopath in Caux knew, some plants are good, some bad, but all are powerful when harnessed. It was this harnessing of Caux’s forests and glens that apotheopaths practiced, for healing and ultimately good purposes. And it was another truth that these natures—indeed, plants themselves—were again awakening, after a long, and at times fitful, sleep.

Two things happened simultaneously.

First, Rowan recalled Axle’s earlier statement that the hawthorn tree binds people and imprisons their unfortunate souls, and in the vague recesses of his brain, he remembered some of his lessons concerning lost travelers in these very woods. And, second, he began to feel quite unfortunate himself, as several more spiky branches advanced upon him, encircling his chest, compressing.

“Axle … Ivy …,” he wheezed. “The tree—I can’t breathe!”

The pair watched in horror as the tree flexed with an ancient strength, maneuvering the unfortunate taster toward a
new and terrifying opening that had materialized within a hollow in its mighty trunk.

“Hawthorns!” Axle spat bitterly, casting about the skimmer for his sack. He emerged with a shout, brandishing a steely ax.

Quickly he set about chopping.

It was quite a fortunate thing that Axle’s ax had been carefully sharpened, for the first few strikes found their mark and left bitter gashes in the ancient wood, and the tree seemed to loosen its grip on Rowan. But the ax was a small one; a few more swings and the trusted tool soon dulled.

“Ivy—” Axle called. “Pull!”

The ax left less and less of a mark, but Ivy managed to help free Rowan—and as the taster shrugged off the final lasso of barbs, a bitter creaking accompanied the tree’s retreat. With great effort, and emerging scratched and tattered, Axle and Ivy managed to half-drag Rowan to the grassy area, an inexplicable oasis in the tangle of the wood. Around them the wet of the bark made the forest a dirty brown, dark slashes of damp upon the thick hawthorn trunks. From everywhere, the smell of earthy decay.

Yet—above, through the crisscrossing branches, a sliver of moon, and with this, Ivy realized that it had stopped raining, and the storm had passed.

T
he ground was crisp and even imparted a slight crunch as the threesome set up camp in the darkness. Beneath a tarp, Axle unpacked the remnants of their lunch and started to contemplate dinner, while Ivy was overjoyed to discover several springform cots with the Toad’s crest upon them. Soon Rowan was resting comfortably upon one.

Ivy offered to examine the tired taster, but Rowan was already drifting off.

“Ivy, I’m fine—I just need to rest,” he assured her.

Axle had built a small fire after some deliberation and was happily burnishing his iron pan after producing a length of plump sausages.

“Do we dare have a fire?” Ivy asked, happy in the moment to warm her hands over the coals. Ivy thought of the Tasters’ Guild, its tall spire. Surely someone would be on lookout, and she said so.

“I think we must.” Axle nodded at Rowan. “It’s more
important to be dry. Besides, I’ve dug it deep enough where it won’t be easy to spot.”

Axle fell silent, a dark thought upon him. It wasn’t the subrectors at the Tasters’ Guild that troubled the trestleman currently. It was their spies and assassins.

“Axle, why would Vidal Verjouce meet my mother at the Snodgrass Toad?” Ivy wondered softly. Sitting quietly, waiting to get warm, had brought her back to this underlying question—and a sinking feeling.

Axle stopped tending his potatoes and spoke carefully.

“Ivy, your mother was—is—a woman of untested loyalties. She traveled easily in both the realms of the light and dark. We were told she was a spy, for us. But I do believe it was more complex.”

Ivy nodded. She found herself holding the charm she had received from Peps, the ribbon knotted about her neck.

“Your destiny is quite different from hers,” the trestleman said kindly.

In the silence, Ivy peered about the woods—so very menacing now, after what she’d seen with Rowan and the ancient tree. Axle continued, warmed by the fire.

“Ivy, I have been wrong about something.”

Ivy waited. It wasn’t often that Axle was wrong.

“Whosoever speaks to the trees speaks to the King
. There is much unwritten in the Prophecy, but I now see that
you
—and
not the tapestries—are the source of the plantworld’s awakening. And that is both a blessing and a curse.”

“How?” she wondered.

“Some plants are helpful, and these you can harness and use for the good of all. They will come to your aid in a time of need and gladly do your bidding.”

Ivy thought of King Verdigris. There was an old saying that he led with an army of flowers. “And the others?”

“The others—well, let’s just say some are controlling, mean-spirited, and bent on destruction. They are better off forgotten.”

“Scourge bracken?” Ivy guessed. By Axle’s silence she knew that she was right.

Ivy looked at the sleeping form of Rowan. A hawthorn had nearly enslaved and strangled him today. Could this have been her fault? Is this what she should expect when Axle spoke of the awakening of the deeper natures of the plantworld? She liked it better when such behavior was blamed on the tapestries. She would have to be very careful from here on out.

The cessation of the bleak rain brought with it two things: freezing cold and a new, discomforting silence. Ivy now realized that their entire trip had been one of much noise: the slashing rain and tumbling waters, the tearing hawthorns, and the slapping of the paddles of the skimmer. As she lay down to rest, there was nothing but the muffled brook at the end of the small clearing.

Still, she fell quickly into fitful dreams, ones of knotty
trees and hairy vines encircling their camp. Ugly, mocking birds shouted down at her awful things, and although she could not understand them, she knew they were singing of her destiny of failure.

She wrenched herself awake.

The wood was silent, the clearing desolate. Her companions slept, unmenaced. There, in the dark, she thought of Cecil. She longed for their old life at the tavern, a simpler time, when—after a nightmare—she could scurry down the low hall to take comfort in her uncle’s calming words. Occasionally she would find him still in his workshop, poring over notes or wrestling with his messy bookshelf. Together they might throw open the window and contemplate the stars, or he’d distract her with stories of the more colorful regulars. Always in these moments he would tell her to never be afraid—that in her dreams nothing could harm her.

But, as she contemplated just this, Ivy heard something. A small something, but in the new silence of the forest, it was magnified. Ivy strained to hear it again.

It was a
crunch
, followed by another tentative one, and Ivy was now certain she was hearing footsteps.

“Axle!” Ivy whispered urgently in the darkness, but a trestleman can sleep the sleep of the ages, as Axle was currently demonstrating.

The footfalls were quickening now as she turned instead to wake Rowan, and she had little time to shake her friend
before the unwelcome arrival was upon them. She felt about her side for anything with which to defend herself, finding nothing more than a long fork that had previously been used to toast Axle’s dinner.

“Who’s there?” she shouted in a voice she hardly recognized, waving the dinner fork. It was, however, enough to wake Axle, and so it was that in the dim light of the morning, the three travelers faced a startling sight.

For an odd moment, Ivy thought she was still sleeping. In the way of dreams, she knew Axle to be by her side—but also there he was, standing, cut and bleeding from a crosshatch of deep scratches, at the edge of the clearing. She was seeing double.

“Peps!” Axle sputtered. His brother stood before them, a living statue, as pale as his marble bust.

Axle sprang from bed stammering a litany of questions at the mute trestleman, none of which expressed much pleasure at the reunion.

“Did I not tell you to under no circumstances attempt to follow us?” He stamped a little foot. “What were you thinking? You might have been discovered!” Axle looked around for any signs of such, finally gazing uneasily at the stark sky through the knit of thorns. “There are eyes everywhere,” he said with a scowl.

Rowan sneezed, and the noise of it reverberated in the uneasy silence that followed. Indeed, it seemed that Peps was not alone. Quite silently, stepping out on twelve front toes, came Peps’s companion.

“Six!” Ivy cried.

The tomcat settled himself before the smoking fire pit, while together Rowan and Ivy brought Peps one of the cots. Axle attended to a small enameled teapot while muttering under his breath.

“I don’t know what you were thinking—you have endangered us all!”

After a moment in which Six began an awkward preen, Peps finally spoke. “Trindle’s dead!” he whispered. “Poisoned! While he slept!” He fell again into a bitter silence as Ivy looked nervously around.

“Poisoned?” Rowan asked, alarmed.

“There, there.” Axle’s voice took on a note of kindness. He handed his brother something that smelled suspiciously like brandy. “A nice cup of tea.”

“And the rest of them—Rhustaphustian, everyone—all gone!” Peps took a long swig from the delicate cup and held it out for more. “Poisoned, every last one!” he howled.

“Who did this?” Axle asked sharply.

Peps paused miserably. “They wore the robes of the Tasters’ Guild, but red,” he squeaked. “They were Watchmen.”

T
he storm in which the three had left had prevented Trindle’s houseboat from departing—much to Peps’s disappointment. After a brief moment of despair, the trestleman resolved to make the most of the delay and create as much of a nuisance of himself as possible at the Toad, a task into which he delved with characteristic aplomb.

Finally tired from his mischief, he made his way below the hotel to the houseboat, where, because of the late hour, he retired without seeing Trindle. As Peps tried to sleep, the enormous cat crept up on the bed—as was his habit. As Peps drifted off, he was vaguely aware of losing the battle for space with Six but was too tired to care. He rescued a pillow from Six’s clutches and crept down off the mattress, falling into a deep sleep beneath the bed.

“That cat saved my life!” he said, and after a short pause, he indicated he would enjoy some more of Axle’s brandied tea.

The Guild’s assassins had boarded the boat and fanned out
to quickly dispatch the captain and crew. Seeing only a mangy cat in Peps’s quarters, they continued on their appalling errand.

“Assassins?” Ivy was horrified.

Peps continued. He had listened until he was quite sure they were gone, and only then did he emerge from beneath Six. He rushed to the captain’s quarters, but he was too late for Trindle. Dismayed, the trestleman scrambled to the elevator in the pitch black, feeling about desperately for the lift switch.

At the Snodgrass Toad, he shouted until he was hoarse, but no one answered.

“The selective-hearing tribunal!” Ivy gasped. “They couldn’t hear you!”

Peps nodded. “But the assassins could—and I was nearly captured!” He looked around dramatically. “I ran to the grand hall with Six and up the stairs—the ghastly Watchmen right behind us. I never thought I’d long for the time of Outriders, but these were dreadful men. Sinister, calculating—completely organized. They would have had me, too, had I not earlier in the day—in a stroke of genius—untacked the entire stairway carpet. As the Watchmen pursued us up the marble steps, the rug slipped out from under them, and they landed in a heap at the bottom! Six and I escaped to the roof tracks.”