Chapter 22
Vile things
Gwen was not feeling particularly heroic.
She watched the body of the sea monster sink beneath the waves in a pool of its watery, plum-red blood, wondering distantly why she felt no triumph or relief at having defeated it again.
She’d managed to keep hold of her sword this time, which she supposed counted as a good thing. And she was alive.
Also supposedly a good thing.
And Isobelle, who had insisted on coming with her again, was unhurt – that, at least, Gwen could be glad of with no reservations.
The first time she’d killed the beast, there had been a feast in the town square.
This time, as Henry expertly guided his ship back to the docks so that Gwen and Isobelle could disembark, there was no celebration.
A few of the townsfolk had turned out to watch, but they did so silently, drawn back against the buildings as though they might protect them from the thick miasma of fear that permeated the air.
Many of the shutters in the nearby houses were locked up tight, and some slammed shut as they walked up the harbour road towards the centre of town.
Isobelle was talking – Gwen forced her attention to the girl at her side with an effort.
‘And that move you did, where you used the mast to brace yourself and launch at its head as it tried to come up the side of the boat …’ Isobelle gave a long, gusty sigh of admiration. ‘You really are spectacular.’
Could Isobelle not feel the heavy, sinking dread that was so tangible to Gwen?
‘It worked, at any rate,’ said Gwen. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t remember these fights if it comes back again. For all we know, it learns faster than I do.’
Another window shutter banged shut, near enough to make both girls jump. Gwen glanced at the house, uneasiness prickling between her shoulder blades. ‘The monster’s dead – it’s not coming back right this second. Why are they still so frightened?’
She knew the answer, though, even before Isobelle replied.
‘It has to be Bingleton’s spell on the town,’ Isobelle said in a low voice. ‘I know, I know, you don’t believe in magic, but—’
‘I just fought a sea monster that rose from the dead,’ Gwen said, trying not to shiver as she heard the words coming out of her own mouth. ‘I think this is where I have to admit I was wrong.’
The taproom of the inn was deserted when they arrived.
Even Rosamund’s son had abandoned his place behind the bar.
The empty room had an eerie feel, with the fire burned down to coals, and only the meagre light filtering through the bubbled glass of the windows to illuminate the place.
The shadows in the corners seemed to stretch long fingers up towards the raftered ceiling, and the air was heavy with the ghost of the laughter and cheer that had once filled the space.
Gwen felt Isobelle shiver beside her.
‘Right,’ Gwen said, giving herself a mental shake. ‘Let’s go upstairs, I want to change. I got sea monster gunk all over my jerkin, and we’ve no Olivia to magically get the stain out if we let it sit.’
The next morning, Gwen opened her door and nearly fell over an object on the floor of the corridor.
She managed to leap over it and catch herself against the wall – the object was a tray, with a few dishes of food.
A couple of doors down stood Hilde and Sylvie, the latter of whom wore a viscous splodge of goo trailing down her skirt, and a mutinous expression.
She had not managed to avoid tripping over the tray outside her own door.
Isobelle’s door opened and she stood blinking in sleepy confusion. ‘What’s going on?’ she mumbled, looking down at her tray and then back up at the others.
Gwen stooped to retrieve a small piece of parchment on her tray, and then padded down the corridor to join the other girls.
‘Please enjoy your breakfast without having to leave the comfort of your rooms!’ the note said. ‘We are happy to provide this service to your room for every meal.’
Gwen sighed and handed the note to Isobelle, who read it with a frown, lips moving silently. ‘It seems we’re no longer welcome downstairs for meals,’ she said. ‘They can’t let us starve, I suppose, but they don’t want to be in the same room as us.’
‘But why?’ burst out Hilde. One door down, an angry, incoherent protest rose from behind the door.
Jane was not a morning person, and was almost certainly still in bed.
Hilde moderated her tone, scowling. ‘We have done nothing – you have killed their monster, not once but twice, and exposed the villainy of their lord!’
Isobelle crouched down and poked a tentative finger into the porridge.
Or tried to, anyway. It was so congealed that her finger made a little dent in its gloopy surface.
She grimaced. ‘Ordinarily I would be delighted by the option of room-based service. But they must’ve left this at dawn. It’s ice cold.’
They gathered up the trays, brought them to Gwen’s sitting room, and divvied up what was edible. Sylvie arrived late, having had to change her dress – the porridge was no more enjoyable as a fashion accessory than a meal – and when she came in, she had Jane in the crook of her arm.
Isobelle gave a wordless exclamation as she saw Jane’s face. Normally pink-cheeked and cheerful, her rounded form fairly vibrating with energy, Jane now sported shadowed eyes, a drawn expression and shoulders that drooped.
‘She had nightmares all night long,’ Sylvie explained, leading Jane to a chair by the fire.
Jane mumbled a groan and slid from the chair so she could lie on the floor in front of the fire like a large, grumpy cat.
‘What sort of nightmares?’ Gwen asked, carefully staring at a spot on Jane’s skirt; she could feel Isobelle’s eyes on her, but refused to give Isobelle the satisfaction of looking at her.
‘I kept getting lost, and every time I turned around, that cursed map at the centre of town was there – but the THOU ART HERE kept changing places, and never told me where I really was, and …’ Her brow furrowed wearily.
‘There was something about a giant piece of cheesecake on a stick too, but …’ A faint flush touched her pale cheeks. ‘I guess that’s not actually scary.’
Gwen let her breath out, but she felt no urge to laugh. ‘Nightmares are nightmares whether they seem silly by the light of day or not,’ she murmured. Jane gave her a wan smile.
‘Some fresh air will do us good, even if it is cold.’ Isobelle rose and went to the window, opening the shutters. One slipped its hinge and fell to the floor with a clatter – Hilde jumped, letting out a shriek that made everyone in the room start.
Hilde, clutching her hands to her chest, blinked, and swallowed, and blinked again. ‘Ach, I have not any excuse … I do not know what is wrong with me this morning.’
This time, Gwen did look at Isobelle. And she found in the other girl’s eyes the same creeping dread that was rising in her own body.
It wasn’t just the townsfolk being affected by fear. It was spreading.
Before anyone could speak further, a commotion outside brought them all to the window.
‘Why, it’s Sir Orson!’ exclaimed Jane, peering down at the town square, where indeed, the handsome young knight was in a heated argument with another man. Gwen recognised the bright colours of the town crier from the night of the party.
Sylvie, who had hung back as the others crowded around the window, elbowed Jane out of the way so she could see. ‘We’d better get down there,’ she said uneasily. ‘He looks like … Oh dear, we’re too late!’
For Orson had struck out with his fist, knocking the town crier down in a heap.
They hurried downstairs, across the empty taproom and out into the street. The crier, not much hurt, was on his feet again, but could not retreat due to the fact that Orson had the collar of his bright tunic clenched in his fist.
‘Orson, what the hell are you doing?’ Isobelle cried, rushing forward. She reached out, as if to pull Orson’s hand from the man, but Orson stepped back, holding up his free hand to bid Isobelle halt.
Gwen came up beside her, staring at the young man. His eyes were blazing with anger, his handsome features drawn back in a snarl.
‘If you’d heard the things he was saying,’ Orson panted, ‘you’d have done the same. Vile things – things no one should say about any woman, much less one who—’
‘For the love of – I do not need you to defend my honour!’ Isobelle spluttered.
Orson reined himself in somewhat, drawing in a breath through his nose and back out, clouding in the frigid air like the snort of an angry bull. ‘Not you. Gwen.’
Gwen felt her cheeks warm in consternation and embarrassment both, as all eyes turned to her. ‘I don’t need you to defend my honour any more than Isobelle does,’ she managed to say.
‘Tell them,’ Orson said, giving the man a shake, still holding his collar. ‘Tell them what you were saying.’
The town crier, a reedy, tall man with a long nose and thin lips, pressed his mouth closed so tightly it all but disappeared. It made him look like a surly stork.
Orson shook him again until Sylvie stepped forward and laid a hand on the knight’s arm. Orson took another few steaming breaths and muttered, ‘He was shouting it up and down the streets. The sea monster, the necromancer, all of it … saying it is Gwen’s fault.’
When Gwen had ridden in the Tournament of Dragonslayers, she’d grown used to taking bone-jarring blows, hits so hard she couldn’t think or see or feel her body afterwards, even as she maintained her seat in Achilles’s saddle.
She felt like that now, all over again, only without the solid bulk of her horse to cling to.
She staggered back a step and found Isobelle there, taking hold of her arm. She concentrated on that and not the ringing in her ears.
‘Gwen’s fault?’ Isobelle’s voice was so loud it could have been called a shout, if her tones weren’t so well bred.
‘What the … Gwen is here trying to help them! She doesn’t have to be, we could have left, we could have …
I mean, we weren’t even here when the monster showed up, it was already here before we arrived! ’
The town crier had found his voice again, for he snapped, ‘Yeah, but it weren’t rising from the dead! It weren’t coming so close to the town we could see it from the windows of our houses!’
Isobelle let out an incoherent sound of outrage and let go of Gwen so she could charge up to where Orson held the crier. ‘It hadn’t risen because no one had killed it yet!’
The sounds of their argument faded into the background as Gwen, her body still unsteady from that invisible lance hit, found her gaze drifting from the drama unfolding in the square, and towards the houses that surrounded it.
Some of the shutters were cracked a mere inch – she saw the glitter of eyes here and there beyond them.
More than a few houses sported charms hanging over their doors and windows, wicker things bent into the round shape meant to protect against the evil eye.
Not a single other person was out on the streets.
It was a different place from the one that had welcomed them. It wasn’t as simple anymore as the townsfolk being too afraid to talk about the sorceress. Now, they were too afraid to … to live here at all. But with nowhere to go, they could only huddle behind closed doors.
Paralysed.
Gwen knew the feeling, all too well.
‘Let him go.’
Gwen’s voice croaked, barely audible, and yet it stopped the arguers – all six of them, for the girls had joined in – instantly. Orson didn’t move, but his grip must have relaxed, for the town crier slipped free, stumbled back and fled.
Isobelle turned an incredulous stare on Gwen. ‘But—’
‘It’s not his fault.’ Gwen’s eyes swept the empty street again, then she turned back for the inn. ‘It’s easier to be angry than afraid.’