The Dread Hammer (26 page)

Guileless, Pretty, and Submissive

Ui hung Dismay’s clothing beside the kitchen hearth to dry, then she spent the night in the kitchen, ready to hide the lot of it under her skirt if anyone came, but no one did. As dawn neared she folded the shirt, the trousers and the coat, then she wrapped them up in a square of white cloth so that they looked like an ordinary bundle of laundry. She set out through the house, intending to return them to Dismay, but to her disappointment she encountered Eleanor in the dark hallway.

“Young mistress, why aren’t you sleeping?”

“And how much did you sleep, Ui? Or did you stay awake all night praying to him?”

Ui lowered her gaze. Eleanor was her half-sister and Ui loved her, but that didn’t change the fact that Eleanor was the mistress and Ui only a servant. “I stayed awake all night watching over his clothes, El, and I go now to return them.”

“He is gone.”

The hurt in Eleanor’s voice aroused Ui’s suspicion—and her jealousy. Eleanor was the mistress. If she was not a virgin on her wedding night her husband could return her to the master and demand he cut his own daughter’s throat. Ui, though, was only a servant and in fact she was
not
a virgin. At worst she would be beaten for it, but with luck her future husband would be too wise to complain. “Eleanor, did you go to him last night? Did you let him possess your demon flower?”

“No!” Then she added in a softer whisper, “I would have, if he—”

Suddenly their father’s deep voice rang through the hallway in a shout of alarm. “Steward! Steward! Come at once! Come and see!” His shout came from the direction of the locked apartment.

Ui’s heart raced with fear. “He has found Dismay.”

She started toward the apartment, but Eleanor put out a hand. “Stop! Dismay is gone. Go hide his clothes before someone asks whose they are.”

Ui ran back to the room she shared with her mother. As she arrived at the door, her mother came out. She was dressed in a yellow shift like the one Ui wore, pulled tight by a belt so the master could admire her body that was still lovely and slim. She looked past her daughter. “Ui, what’s happened? Why does the master call out?”

“I don’t know, Mama. El sent me to—”

There was no need to make up an excuse; her mother was already hurrying away to discover the cause of the commotion for herself.

Ui ducked into the room, pulled the box of winter blankets from under the bed, stuffed the bundle of clean laundry beneath them, and then shoved the box back out of sight. As soon as that was done she followed her mother, running full tilt down the hall to see what trouble Dismay had left behind him.

Ui arrived in time to hear the master shouting at the youthful manservant, Hammond. “Go, Hammond. Go now. Summon the captain of my men-at-arms, and then ride on. Find the sheriff and tell him his Hauntén demon has been here, and he must come at once.”

Hammond asked no questions, but set off to obey. Ui followed after him as he trotted down the hall. Hammond was always sweet to her, helping with hauling the water and fetching heavy bags of provisions from the cellar. So she didn’t hesitate to speak. “Hammond, what’s happened? Please tell me, what is a sheriff? What is a Hauntén?”

When he turned to look at her, fury blazed in his eyes. “Quiet, woman!” he snapped. “And return to your duties.” Then he darted outside and raced away toward the stables.

Ui stared after him, slack-jawed with astonishment. Hammond had never spoken to her like that before—but other men had. Some of the army officers who came to see her father, and even some of his men-at-arms when the master wasn’t nearby to hear. She knew then that Hammond wanted to be one of them—a man-at-arms or a soldier—and with a spike of jealousy, she wished that she could dream such dreams too.

Ui didn’t dare go near the apartment, but she also didn’t want to go to Eleanor’s room, knowing that no gossip was ever to be had there, unless she brought it herself. She wandered past the kitchen, but Cook looked as if she had chores in mind, so Ui grabbed a duster and hurried to the front room to wait for Hammond to return. It seemed to take forever, but finally she heard a clattering of many hooves on the stone driveway.

She hurried to the window, standing sideways in the shadow of the half-open shutters so she would remain unseen. She counted five men with Hammond. All were dressed in black riding tunics and loose black trousers, and all were armed with swords and bows. Three had whips coiled at their waists, and another carried a short club.

They dismounted in the court, handed the reins of their horses to Hammond, and then advanced on the front door.

Ui’s eyes went wide. Hammond had hold of the horses, the steward was with the master, and Cook was in the kitchen. There was no one around to open the door but her.

The black-clad men came up the steps to the veranda, led by the oldest among them, though he was not old. Ui guessed him to be in his thirties. He had short, curly black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were dark in an unsmiling face.

Not knowing what else to do, Ui scrambled to pull the door open for him—it would be insulting to leave him waiting on the veranda—but at the same time she tried to disappear behind the door, fearing to be noticed by such a man.

It was not her fate to escape notice that day.

Seeing no one there to greet him, the man turned, and spied her behind the door. “Come forward, bitch. Where is the master?”

Ui was suddenly awash in confusion and shame. She wanted desperately to run and hide—but she knew better. The rest of the men crowded in, so she closed the door. Then, keeping her gaze lowered, she whispered, “My master is in the heir’s wing. Will you follow?”

“Go.”

She scurried past them, taking swift, mincing steps as her mother had taught her to do when dangerous strangers were in the house.
Be guileless, pretty, and submissive. Don’t offend, or such men will demand the master beat you.

She did not dare look back, but she listened to the clacking of their boot heels. She imagined their eyes on her. Her filmy dress was only a slave’s veil after all, designed to show her figure. She wanted to shrink away into nothing, but since she couldn’t manage that, she mouthed a prayer instead, addressing it to the woman god, the Dread Hammer, asking for protection.

Her prayer was answered.

The apartment’s double doors stood open, and when the steward heard them coming, he looked out. Ui caught his startled eye. He was a kindly man, who took in her dilemma with a look of alarm. His gaze shifted to the men behind her, his expression transforming to fawning relief. “Sheriff!” he cried with an enthusiasm that startled everyone, and drew all lingering eyes away from Ui. “God bless you for coming.” He subtly flicked his hand at her, urging her to disappear.

Ui ducked aside, bowing her head as the sheriff and his men tramped past.

A smart girl, Ui knew, would take this chance to slip away before someone thought to ask if the serving girl had heard anything unusual in the night. A smart girl would run to hide in Eleanor’s room until the sheriff was gone . . . but Ui was driven by curiosity, not wisdom. As soon as the last of the black-clad men disappeared into the apartment, she scurried after them, taking up a post beside the doorway, just out of sight. She heard her father, the master, speak. “Greetings, Sheriff, and God bless you. It’s to God we owe our thanks that no one in my household has yet been harmed.”

That was all Ui was privileged to hear before her mother swept out of the apartment, with such a look of apprehension on her face Ui was sure she too wanted to escape the eyes of the sheriff’s men. But then she saw Ui. Her expression shifted: first to shock, then to fury. Without a word, she seized her daughter’s arm in a bruising grip and hauled her down the hall to the servants’ quarters.

“Are you stupid?” her mother whispered the moment the door of their little room was closed behind them. “Do you want to be a whore for such men?”

“Hammond took their horses. I was the only one left to open the door—”

“Do not answer the door to strangers! Let the steward do it. Let Hammond show them in! Never show yourself to such men!”

“But—”

“What if the master invites them to stay? What if the sheriff asks for the pretty slave to be sent to his room? You are not Eleanor! Don’t imagine the master will always refuse such requests!”

“But what is a sheriff?” Ui pleaded.

Her mother snorted. “You have not heard a word I’ve said!”

“I have! But—”

“The sheriff is the King’s own servant. He hunts down heretics and he burns them.”

Ui’s eyes went wide. Her hand covered her open mouth. All her guilty ventures, from stealing Eleanor’s ivory comb, to allowing the handsome tinker to possess her demon flower, to admitting Dismay into the house, rushed through her mind. Her mother grabbed her arm again, pinching the bruise she’d made before. “What have you done?”

“Nothing, Mama!”

“Don’t lie to me. The sheriff is hunting a demon Hauntén who grants the wishes of depraved women. I know you’ve heard Cook’s stories of Dismay.”

Ui nodded. Certainly she’d heard stories . . . and not just from Cook. The tinker had told her wonderfully gruesome stories of the bloody mayhem Dismay had created in some horrid place called “The Borderlands.”

“But Mama, why is the sheriff here?”

“Because someone—something—was in the heir’s apartment last night despite the locked doors! Books were thrown down on the floor, the curtain was pulled back, the bed was wrinkled. What do you know of it, Ui?”

Ui looked straight into her mother’s eyes and lied. “Nothing! I was with Eleanor last night.”

“Doing what?”

“Just talking.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Her mother gave her a good, hard shake. “Stupid girl! What are you hiding? Tell me now!”

When Ui hesitated, her mother slapped her so hard that Ui staggered and for a moment the room went black.

“I won’t see you burned, Ui. I won’t! Tell me what you’ve done.”

Ui’s cheek was already on fire. She struggled not to cry. Her mother had taught her long ago never to cry, because the master would notice her reddened eyes and then he would want to know the guilty secret that lay on her conscience, because innocent minds had no need ever to cry. Ui swallowed and blinked. Then she dropped to her knees and reached under the bed. “It’s here.”

She pulled out the box of blankets and uncovered the bundle of clothes wrapped in white laundry cloth.

“Get rid of it!” her mother commanded when Ui explained what it was. “Throw it in the sump. No, throw it in the pond! If the sheriff finds that, he’ll burn us all.”

Ui ran past the stable, ducking behind a thicket of pomegranate as she made her way to the pond. Drawing near, she peered through a veil of leaves and was alarmed to see six farm hands working on the irrigation channel that drained the pond. They would surely see her if she tried to toss the bundle into the deepest water at the pond’s center. So she retreated, back past the stables to the sump, but a glance down the pit convinced her it had gotten too shallow to hide anything. She held her nose against the stench and considered.

There was the little glade close beside the road. She’d gone there more than once to meet the tinker. Hammond went there too, she knew, but he would surely be too preoccupied with the goings-on in the house to venture out there today. So she took the side path around the house to the laundry court where she and her mother hung the fresh washing in the sunshine. Then she went on through the herb garden and into the orchard, and finally, she ducked into the wild copse that shielded the estate from all prying eyes that passed along the road.

Ui had meant to bury the bundle deep within the fallen leaves beneath a thicket, but as she looked around she heard the creak of a wagon and its grinding wheels approaching along the road. Suddenly, she knew just how to get rid of the bundle. With great caution and as little noise as she could manage she made her way through the thicket, until she was only a couple of feet from the road, but still hidden from sight. Two oxen plodded past, their huge heads nodding. The wagon they pulled was of good size, with a wooden bed and a canvas bonnet. A young man sat alone in the driver’s seat, his face hidden in the shadow of a broad-brimmed hat.

Suddenly, Ui wasn’t so sure this was a good idea. What if the man saw her? What if someone else was riding in the back of the wagon?

Then again, the sheriff would surely burn her if he found the bundle.

She waited for the wagon to pass. Thanks be to God the rest of the road was empty.
No
—thanks be to the Dread Hammer! She whispered a second brief prayer to the woman god, “Please watch over me.” Then she scurried out of the thicket, ran up to the back of the wagon, and tossed the bundle lightly up and over the backboard. It landed with a soft thump.

She expected to hear the voice of someone in the back of the wagon cry out in surprise, but no one did. She darted back into the thicket. Her heart hammered so hard it made her dizzy. She peered after the wagon, dreading to see it roll to a stop, but to her relief it kept on at the same steady pace. She watched until it grew small with distance. Then she hurried back to the house, to find her mother in the laundry court pretending to be busy hanging dry laundry on the line. “Ui!” she said in a frantic whisper.

Ui saw Cook standing with her arms crossed just inside the doorway, so she pouted at her mother, saying, “I went all the way out to the cutting garden, but I couldn’t find the knife in the hutch. How am I supposed to cut fresh flowers without a knife?”

“One of the gardener’s boys must have stolen it again,” Cook called from inside as she went back to work. “High time you learned to carry your own knife, Ui.”

“Go inside the house and wash your flushed face,” Ui’s mother snapped. “Eleanor is asking for you.”

But Ui found that Eleanor was busy.

The captain of the master’s men-at-arms stood watch at the doorway to the inner court. Outside, the steward served tea to the sheriff’s men who sat in the shade around the fountain. The master and the sheriff sat apart. Eleanor stood trembling before them, shielded from the gaze of the other men by a screen that had been moved from the front room.

Ui peered at her between the slats of a half-closed shutter. She stood with her gaze fixed on the floor, wearing the same green gown she’d worn last night.
Why hadn’t she worn something ugly?
Not that it mattered. Given the high blush in her tawny cheeks and the shimmer of her glossy black hair, Eleanor wouldn’t look plain even dressed in rags—but at least she’d learned the vital skill of acting simple.

Ui heard her whiney whisper, sounding as if she were on the edge of tears. “But what is a Hauntén, Papa? I don’t understand.”

“It’s a kind of demon, daughter. An enemy of God.”

Eleanor’s lovely hand went to her mouth as she gasped. “We must be in danger! Oh, Papa, what should we do?”

“We rely on our own men-at-arms, daughter, and the valor of the sheriff. Be at peace.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Enough. There’s nothing to learn here. She has the innocence of a small child.”

The master scowled. “I warned you she would know nothing.” He waved his hand in dismissal and Eleanor scurried back into the house, ducking past the captain who stood watch at the doorway. When she saw Ui, she pressed a hand against her heart, and they traded a conspiratorial smile.

Outside, the sheriff was speaking to the master. “I think the demon must have come here by chance, seeking food, and sleep. If your daughter had spoken a prayer to summon him—”

Ui jumped as the master’s hand came down hard against the arm of his chair. “Summoned him? You make this accusation?”

“I have made no accusation.”

“To even suggest she did such a thing—it’s intolerably insolent! My daughter has had the utmost supervision, and would never commit treason against our King.”

The sheriff answered this in a cold, determined voice. “I meant only that if some woman here had summoned the demon, you would not now be alive—and that would be grievous for the King.”

The master wasn’t mollified. “You have done enough here, terrifying my daughter and my concubine. I invite you now to leave.”

The sheriff, though, was a brave man and not easily put off. “There are other women in your household.”

“My slaves? You want me to parade them before you as well?”

“No, Master. It’s pointless to talk to such stupid cows unless they feel the fire at their feet. With your permission my men will search the servants’ quarters for any sign of heresy.”

The master said nothing for many seconds. Ui didn’t know how the sheriff could endure his angry glare, but endure it he did. Finally, the master said, “Make your search. And then be gone.”