Grayling's Song (6 page)

“Make way! Make way!” Blue-coated soldiers in tall buckled boots and iron helmets, with war hammers and sharp swords at their waists, marched toward them, followed by a man mounted on a fine black horse. His sun-darkened face was crisscrossed with angry scars, his mouth was hard and tight, and his nose . . . his nose was silvery, stiff, and shiny. Like metal. Nay, it
was
metal! His nose, lost no doubt in some battle or duel, was now made of metal, fastened to his face with a black leather band. A metal-nosed warlord with a band of bullies. Grayling shuddered and backed away.

He pointed to Auld Nancy, Pansy, and Grayling. “Take these three and chase the rest of the rabble away,” he directed his troops in a voice, thought Grayling, that could freeze fingers and toes on a summer day. “I have need of their magic.”

“We are not
that
kind of witch,” Auld Nancy said again. The soldiers poked at them with their swords and waved branches of holly and bay to protect against evil in case the three women were indeed
that
kind of witch. Grayling could sing to the grimoire, Auld Nancy make weather, and Pansy—well, what could Pansy do?—but they could not overpower a troop of men with horses and weapons. And Desdemona Cork was gone.

A soldier prodded Grayling toward a wheeled cage woven of hazel branches and banded with cold iron, hitched to two tired-looking horses. She kicked at him, but he swung at her with a switch of holly sprigs. The toothed leaves caught her beneath her right eye and left a jagged cut. She yelped as she was shoved into the cage, and her basket was lost behind her.

There came a trembling in her pocket. “Not now, Pook,” Grayling whispered. “Anon, but not now.” But indeed the mouse leaped from the pocket, shook himself, and became a goat, eyes bulging and beard a-waggle. With a furious bleat, the goat disappeared, and a raven, cronking, soared into the sky.

The soldiers stared at Grayling a moment and then backed away, waving their holly branches fiercely. Auld Nancy snorted. “We are not that kind of witch,” she repeated.

Grayling held the hem of her skirt to her bleeding cheek. “Auld Nancy, be there nothing you can do to stop this folly?”

“I can stop and start rain, send clouds scudding away. I have at times even called snow, but how might that be helpful?”

“What if you smote the metal-nosed man with lightning? Were he struck, the rest might run.”

“Lightning,” said Auld Nancy with a shudder. “I have never been adept with lightning.” There was a long pause. Grayling felt a niggle of hope. Finally Auld Nancy said, “I will try, although I fear my skills, while dazzling, are imprecise. I once set fire to a lady's wig, which she cast off, revealing herself bald as an egg.”

“Auld Nancy,
please.
”

Auld Nancy began to chant in a rumble so low Grayling had to struggle to catch every word.

O spirits of the storm,

Let wind meet clouds

And fire meet earth.

Let a storm spring forth

And shafts of fire come down

To assault our enemy and strike him low.

I call wind and water, earth and fire.

So might it be.

Dark clouds filled the sky, crashing and slamming into each other, and rain poured down. As Auld Nancy chanted on, jagged streaks of lightning split the sky. Great shafts of blinding light struck a cart full of cabbages, two hay wagons, and a signpost, and set them ablaze with tongues of fire. The soldiers' horses whinnied and scuffled. Thunder crackled, but the rain doused the fires, and the warlord with the metal nose, untouched and unharmed, laughed a laugh that chilled Grayling's heart.

“Take them,” he shouted, and the soldiers, hiding behind each other, succeeded in pushing Auld Nancy and Pansy into the cage with Grayling. They closed a wooden door, fastened it with a lock of iron, and turned away.

The company started toward the town, the metal-nosed man on the fine horse in the lead, followed by the horse-drawn wheeled cage carrying Grayling and her companions. After a while they turned off the road onto a broad trail that led up and up and up. The wheels
thump thumped
on the rough and rutted path and clattered over a bridge. Grayling slumped in a corner of the cage as they shook and jounced on the rough road, wondering where they were headed and why.

he company slowed
as they passed beneath a towering arch of stone as dark as the start of a nightmare. Night had fallen when they came to a stop. Candles shone from the windows of a great house, but the yard was lit only by the sliver of moon that escaped the clouds.

Grayling stood and pressed her face against the branches that served as the bars of their cage. She could see little in the moonlight, but she could hear the bustle of their arrival. Horses clopped and whinnied and huffed, footsteps rang on stone or squelched in mud, soldiers called back and forth to each other, and no one paid attention to the prisoners.

Thus ends the first day of our trek together,
thought Grayling,
captured and caged like dancing bears.
If only Desdemona Cork had not left them! She could have enchanted the soldiers—perhaps even the man with the metal nose, if such could be enchanted. The captives would likely be in a fine house right now, supping on partridge and elderberry wine, instead of in a cage in the cold with their bellies woefully empty.

Then there was silence, until a man's voice said, “You stay here and guard them.”

“Why me? Be you afeared of them witches?” another voice asked.

Scuffle, scuffle,
Grayling heard, and then there was quiet again except for the snuffling and spitting of the man who had lost the scuffle.

Auld Nancy moved to Grayling's side. “I found a bit of spider web for your cheek,” she whispered. She clucked in concern as she gently applied the web to Graylings's cut with her warm hand.

“You,” said a voice both cold and stony. “You witches, I have use for your magic.”

“We,” said Auld Nancy with an impatient sigh, “are not that kind of witch.”

The voice came closer, and so did the speaker, the warlord with the nose of metal. He thrust his face against the branches of their cage and shouted, “I need witch magic, and but for you three, I find no witch, no magician, no wizard abroad in the land!”

“Aye, we know,” said Auld Nancy. “'Twas an evil force took them, and we think we can set it to rights if you would but free us.”

“Free you? Nay! I need gold, and I need more armed men. You will use your spells, your curses, your powers, whatever you possess, to see that I get them.” A tiny ray of moonlight shimmered off the tip of his nose, and Grayling shuddered. “I need the Earl of Whetstone's soldiers to turn and run. And the earl himself I wish gone—whether he dies or leaves the kingdom or just,
whoosh,
disappears, it is up to you, but I want him gone.” He slowly paced the breadth of the cage and back, his steps echoing through the courtyard like funeral drums. “I want a cloak of invisibility, a binding spell, and an assortment of poisons that act quickly and surely.”

Auld Nancy stamped her foot. “You do not listen. We do not have such powers and cannot—”

The man slammed his hand against the branches of their prison. “You will do as I tell you, or you will remain caged like monkeys until the flesh falls off your bones.” He stalked off, shouting over his shoulder, “You will have no food nor drink until I get what I want. And if you remain stubborn, I will have you disemboweled, one by one.”

There was a short silence, and then, “I'm frightened,” Pansy said with a snuffle, “and terribly hungry. What do we now?”

“At the moment, there is nothing
to
do,” said Auld Nancy. “We are at that man's mercy, may maggots build nests in his hair!”

Grayling considered their situation. Likely her mother would know what to do or rather what to tell Grayling to do, but her mother was partway to being a tree. Roots and rutabagas! Grayling herself would have to think of something. In frustration she shook the sides of the cage.

“Gray Eyes,” said a voice from above. A raven had landed on the roof of the cage. “Gray Eyes,” it repeated, “this Pook is with you. Is there aught he can do?” With a cronk and a shaking of his feathers, the raven became a mouse again. He fell through the bars of the cage and landed with a tiny
ooof!
at Auld Nancy's feet.

Auld Nancy studied him. “Can you not change into something useful—a strong knife, mayhap, or a torch?”

“Or a joint of beef?” asked Pansy.

Ignoring them both, Pook asked again, “Gray Eyes, is there aught that this Pook can do for you?”

“Certes,” said Grayling, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I wish to be gone from here! How will you make that happen?”

After a moment of silence, the mouse said, “There are two things this Pook might do. One, turn himself into a mad bull and tear down this cage. Two, this mouse can remain a mouse and chew through it.”

“Oh, Pook, you
can
help me! Which will you do?”

More silence. “This mouse is compelled to tell the truth. He does not in fact know how to change into a mad bull, so he shall immediately commence chewing. A hole large enough for you to climb through should take”—the moon reflected in the mouse's tiny eyes as they shifted this way and that around the cage—“a month or so.”

“A month? Oh, mousie, a month? 'Twill not do. We will be long dead ere a month has passed.” Grayling slumped against the cage.

“Nay, mistress, do not despond,” said the mouse. “Trust this mouse and wait here.” And he skittered away. Grayling smiled through her tears.
Wait here? Where else?

The three sat together on one side of the cage. Grayling huddled against the warmth that was Auld Nancy, comforted by the familiar aroma of sweat and smoke and sausages. The others dozed, but Grayling, plagued with visions of disemboweling, could not rest.

Some time had passed when she heard a sound, the sound of the wind stripping the grain on a wheat field, or a thousand tailors scissoring cloth, or . . . or . . . or an army of mice chewing through hazel branches—
chiff chiff,
chiff chiff, chiff chiff!

She peered through the darkness. Indeed mice beyond counting were at the other side of the cage, tumbling over each other, gnawing and tearing their way through the branches that served as bars. The noise grew louder as their number grew.
Chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiff.

Auld Nancy woke and assessed the scene. “'Tis well done, mouse,” she said, “but let us make some noise to drown out the chewing lest the guard hear.”

Pansy yawned and said, “Can you not call thunder and lightning?”

Auld Nancy shook her head. “Nay, nothing that would bring attention to us or illuminate what is happening. Nay.”

“My mother,” said Grayling, “has a song with
chiff chiff
s that she sings as she slashes chive blossoms from their stems. We could sing it loudly.”

The mice chewed on.
Chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiff!

“What be that sound?” called the guard. “What are you doing in there?”

“We,” Grayling said, “are but singing a song with much
chiff chiff, chiff chiff, chiff chiff
ing.”

“Chiff chiff, chiff chiff,”
sang Auld Nancy. She knocked Pansy with her elbow, and the girl shouted,
“Chiff chiff!”

“I do like a song,” said the guard. “Sing so I can hear.”

So Grayling sang:

Do not go to the field, my girl, today.

'Tis August and the men are cutting hay.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff

Go silvery scythes.

Harvest is underway

And I wish you would

Not go to the field today.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.

The mice went
chiff chiff, chiff chiff,
Auld Nancy and Pansy sang
chiff chiff, chiff chiff,
but Grayling was silent a moment as she remembered Hannah Strong singing while she snipped greens in the garden. The sun had lit streaks of bronze in her hair and roses in her cheeks, and her fingers were swift and supple.

“You witches be fine singers,” their guard called out. “I vow I can hear the sound of the scythes cutting the hay.”

Grayling sang louder as she continued her song and the mice continued their
chiff chiff
s.

Her own true love was in the field that day—

His hair was gold and eyes were moonlight gray.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff

With silvery scythe

He swung but swung astray.

He cleaved her head

And laid it in the field of hay.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.

Chiff chiff, chiff chiff.