The Shepherd of Weeds (9 page)

It was therefore of no concern to Dumbcane what need the evil Director had for the ink. He did as he was tasked, toiling to produce the thick, shadowy liquid.

He wore the telltale signs of his new trade—splattered from head to foot in dark, sticky ink, he was more shadow
than person. Whereas before, in his small shop on the Knox, he had been free to follow his own devices, establishing for himself a routine of night-working and late-sleeping, together fueled by bitter tea and burnt toast. He had lived alone, done his illicit business for the most part alone, and had to answer—in the true way of a thief—to no one.

Now he was employed. And his employer was none other than the most fearsome of all tyrants, Vidal Verjouce, the Director of the Tasters’ Guild. And what of Dumbcane’s wages? The currency he was paid in was an agreeable one—his life. Or rather, that he might continue to possess it.

But his was not a life of inexplicable woe—no, that distinction was saved for the small trestleman the Director had captured, and kept for his amusement in his chambers atop the tallest spire in the city. That was an existence that even the deceitful, conniving Dumbcane pitied. The small man was confined in what appeared to be a filthy birdcage beside a shattered window and was nourished—it seemed—upon nothing but frost and rime.

In through this open window came the bitter winter, its winds whipping about the evil man’s offices. It was a wind from the mountains and it spared nothing—battering the small man’s cage around at whim; whipping the Director’s stringy hair about his head, vexing the strange, squatting creatures that hovered about him.

These creatures, Dumbcane realized—borne of scourge
bracken and black and shiny like an oil stain—were tiny monkeys. They had appeared in chittering clusters as the Director’s power grew, replacing his earlier disciples, the swarm of wasps that had crowned his head. Ink monkeys, fanciful and grotesque, with small, gleaming horn buds upon their loathsome foreheads and bony spiked tails. But if Vidal Verjouce took notice of the wind, of its inconvenience to his hair and robes, or of the awful black ink monkeys that gnashed their teeth upon his shoulders, Dumbcane could not see.

Each day, Dumbcane would endure the soul-withering trudge to the evil man’s chambers with a small ampoule of ink (and often a stale crust for the trestleman, which he attempted to furtively deliver; more often than not, the ink monkeys would fall upon the bread and fight viciously among themselves for the pleasure of tearing it to pieces). He produced sample after sample of the tempestuous ink, but it was never right.

His arrival always drew a gallery of jeers from these tiny monkeys and a piercing gaze—a truly dreadful one—from the eyeless Director. This blank stare, one of malice and arrogance, was made truly more horrible with the knowledge that Verjouce was
responsible for his own blindness
—having removed his own eyes so as to devote himself more fully to the sense of taste.

Each night, Dumbcane would retire to his straw pallet, where sleep for the most part eluded him. Beside his bed, a
lump of charcoal and a selection of blank scrolls to occupy him—for old habits die hard.

For so many years, Dumbcane was bent before great works of art, producing perfect counterfeits. His posture was stooped, his eyes ruined with the excruciating details of his illegal pastime. To keep his forger’s hands fit in Rocamadour (and without stolen manuscripts to reproduce), he had taken to scribbling, sketching, drawing anything that caught his fancy upon the page.

Just the other night, he had found himself staring blankly at the parchment before him. He had set about to sketch the mundane—his own chair, the iron claw feet of the legs grasping at perfect, glassine spheres in their long talons.… But in a cruel twist, the forger found his hand, quite on its own, producing the perfect likeness of Vidal Verjouce’s ruthless face.

Dumbcane had felt instantly chilled and feverish.

The dark, inky pits of the Director’s eye sockets pooled with shadow and, even here, seemed to be watching him.

So it was, that in returning from Lumpen Gorse’s well, Dumbcane dared now to imagine the new expression—one of satisfaction—upon his employer’s fearsome face. For Dumbcane’s journey had been an utter success! With the water from that peculiar woman’s well, Dumbcane now had his missing ingredient for his ink.

Dumbcane’s entourage arrived before the massive iron-studded gates of the Tasters’ Guild, where he and his party of Watchmen waited beneath the looming gargoyles.

The massive portals finally creaked and began their laborious opening. From on high, a regiment of Outriders supervised their entry—and Dumbcane’s gut lurched about his rib cage fearfully. He dared not regard their harrowing visages, their shadow mouths. For they had paid the ultimate price to the Guild and its ruthless Director. They had forfeited their tongues and were left with nothing behind their wild beards, nothing but a gaping black hole and guttural, rudimentary language.

The city of Rocamadour was silent as they finally passed through, joining the Guild’s frozen fountains and walking along the ash-strewn streets. The cart was unloaded, the horse dismissed. And as Calyx trudged home to the stables, Dumbcane rushed—for the first time with a hopeful heart—to his treasured inkworks.

alyx knew the way by heart. There wasn’t a stone beneath his feet he was not familiar with, but where once the proud warhorse was shod in silver shoes, he now made do with worn and poorly forged irons. The stables were through a shifting maze of small, winding streets that climbed ever upward and were designed with a sluice of water carved in their midst. Against the backdrop of the walled city rose the foothills of the Craggy Burls, immense jagged mountains with many buried secrets.

It was here that Calyx’s stall was located, at the very end of the impressive arched corridor of the old stables of the King.

A rancid smell permeated the area, one of neglect. For Calyx, the war steed, the triumphant one, was now forced to dwell in his own filth. On good days he was brought hay, but
his leather grain bucket drew nothing but mold and dust from the sodden floor.

The sound of his cushioned hooves upon the sawdust and straw stopped finally, for he had reached the end of the corral. There had been a time when many hands awaited his triumphant return from battle. His coat was immediately brushed to a high gloss, his mane braided with flowers, and his bin filled with sweet oats and honey. But there hadn’t been a soul this way—save for the subrector Civer, who replaced his hay and straw begrudgingly but afforded Calyx no luxuries.

Now as Calyx advanced into his darkened stall, he suddenly spooked.

The compartment was spotless. And in it, filled to the brim, was a new, generous sack of oats and sweet barley. But that was not all! Arranged before him was an old, familiar set of garments. His war finery—his exquisite saddle, a thick, cushioned saddle blanket, and a velvet drape for his broad chest—deep and dark as the blue of the night sky. Reins embroidered with the finest silver, bells of exquisite tune for his mane.

As he reared and whinnied, a voice spoke. The voice, from long ago, the voice of his lost master.

“Calyx,” Clothilde soothed. “I have returned.”

She brushed him. She equipped him. Her own dress, a perfect match to his garments, like the skies above, so dark—so rich.

Clothilde’s first order of business upon returning to Rocamadour had been to dispatch the subrector Civer, whose failures as a stable hand Clothilde held to be a capital offense. The next stop: her vault.

Her private vault was located on the far side of the city, an area mostly reserved for maintenance needs, supply barracks, and medicines for the Infirmary, as well as a storehouse of food staples and linens. The day could be passed quite successfully here without encountering another person—only rarely did the occasional Outrider pass through—and for this reason it was a favorite spot for students wishing to avoid class without interruption. It was also, Clothilde knew—in the rows of squat stone doors, each more dreary than the next—the perfect place to hide something, should the need arise, as it had once, a very long time ago.

Through one of these very doors, at the end of a wide, dusty hall, sat a forlorn bookshelf. A winding staircase led down from the enchanted hallway to a small chamber strewn with stuff, memories of a discarded life.

Against one wall was a wardrobe of massive proportions, decorated with intricate carvings by some ancient artisan. Guardian beasts and large soaring birds intermingled, each carrying a tattered, torn scroll, a fragment of illegible wording. Within the wardrobe hung untold dresses, in every color imaginable—a few even managing to be new, undiscovered
colors—intricate gowns woven from magical looms by ancient haberdashers. But Clothilde passed these by without a glance.

Against another wall, in discarded piles, were dozens of enormous leather-bound books, of the sort Axle (and Dumbcane) would consider priceless. These, her favorites, had been spared the ravishes of an evil fire. They were dust-covered and lonely, but Clothilde ignored these, too.

At the very end of the vault was a chest that sat snugly between two enormous marble urns—one of dark Rocamadour stone, the other white—relics from her grandfather’s rule. Each was etched with small glyphs and scripts in the old tongue. The large trunk sprang open easily to her touch, and, gripping it on both sides, Clothilde peered inside.

Soon she was rifling through the chest’s contents—jewels and amulets, a crown. Her silvery hair fell forward, and, annoyed, she paused to secure it—a flash of her gleaming hairpin. At the bottom of the chest, she found what she was looking for—a shrouded package.

It was wrapped carefully in rich fabric, which she unfolded and allowed to fall to the floor. In her hands now, a saddle of exquisite beauty, to match the darkest blue sky and bejeweled with the very stars themselves. The saddle of her warhorse, Calyx.

Smiling her particular unhappy smile, she wrapped the saddle again carefully, and the glowing stars were extinguished
briefly beneath the weaving. In a corner, she retrieved her spear and a long coil of leather—her whip.

The Tasters’ Guild, by all outward appearances, did not possess any weaknesses. But Clothilde knew better. Somewhere, she was sure, there was a crack in the mortar.

Now, though, in the stables with her beloved stallion, as she spoke her gentle words, curiously, a small light—that of a golden star—pierced the blue velvet of her hem. It twinkled and glowed at the reunion of the two warriors. Its beam shone upon the bony ankles of the stallion, blinked against the dust motes and the rock wall. As she braided his mane and combed the knots from his long tail, a few more glowing pinpricks appeared on her gown, in the shape of one of Caux’s many constellations. From afar, the old stall twinkled and shone as Clothilde readied her steed.

Here also, at the lonely end of the stables, lay a small, forgotten door. Its existence was unknown to nearly all but Clothilde—she had lived in Rocamadour and was privileged to the city’s many secrets.

The trestleman Peps was not.

f entering the dark gates of Rocamadour uninvited was an impossibility, departing them without permission was an exercise in futility. Still, what choice did Peps D. Roux have? When Ivy and Rowan had left him for Pimcaux, in the depths of the catacombs beneath the city, he straightened his spine, flung back his stout shoulders, and set his tiny feet on the path to rescue his brother. Axle was imprisoned by the tyrannical Vidal Verjouce, and Peps needed urgently to get word to Cecil Manx.