Chapter 6
The Alderman’s Daughter
Enough argumentation. Enough theorising.
After so many years it does naught but sicken me.
I tell you this. All I know of ‘good’ and ‘evil’—those nebulous, unwieldy words—can be captured in a single sentence:
somewhere a child is dying, and those who might save it do nothing.
The Musings of Architect Aeluwe Eneban, approx. YBC 200
Dusk settled over the village as Llewyn returned to the inn.
He took the arm of one of the tumblers—the ram-horned youth—and demanded Afanan forcefully enough for the words to pierce the Grey Lady’s shroud.
The boy darted up the stairs while Llewyn ordered an ale and dropped into a seat in the corner of the room, toying with the last faceted stone in his pocket.
Afanan had what he needed, he was sure. But would she be willing to part with it, without bargaining for the opportunity to seize the fiend’s power for herself?
The troupers began a show of pipe and drum while a pair of youths, including the cat-eyed girl, spun cartwheels across the makeshift stage. A gaggle of children squealed and clapped their hands at the antics—Siwan, the alderman’s daughter, most ebullient among them.
‘Shouldn’t you be tramping about the woods?’ Afanan glided into the seat across from him.
Llewyn fixed her with a long, judgemental stare.
‘What?’ She grinned. ‘You didn’t expect me to sit around and do nothing all day, did you?’
He gestured to the troupers. ‘Are they under your sway, as the wraith was?’
‘Oh, if only,’ Afanan said. ‘It would be much easier to get things done. And so much less squabbling over who should take which role. I am a member of their troupe, genuinely. I write the plays they sometimes put on. True, they also provide me with cover, and the life of a trouper gives plenty of opportunity to gather spirits from the countryside. But I, in return, provide them with protection.’
Llewyn glanced at the tumblers, who had grabbed one another by the ankles, tucked themselves into an absurd ball, and now rolled about the stage.
‘Fine, I’m sorry for spying.’ Afanan shook her head. ‘I don’t fault you for banishing it, but I am upset that you did so just when things were getting interesting. That’s where the fiend is, isn’t it? That stone?’
‘I would tell you of it, if I thought that might dissuade you. But I think it would only make you salivate.’
‘Again! The insults! I am not a slavering dog, hungry only for power.’
Llewyn sipped his ale. It was bitter. Ashen-tasting. After what he had seen in the forest, it would be some time before any pleasure would be as sharp as it ought to be. ‘Then why are you here, sorceress?’
‘Because that thing is dangerous,’ she said, the mirth gone from her expression. ‘But it deserves to live, gwyddien. Just as you and I deserve to live. As even the wraith I sent after you does, until it finds its rest. As all things deserve to live, for their own sake.’
‘And you would give it a life in bondage?’
‘A life under guard,’ Afanan corrected. ‘A life kept safe, both from those like your Grey Lady, who would destroy it as a threat, and from the harm it would do if allowed its freedom.’
‘You want to know what I found?’ Llewyn said, his voice turning hard and biting as iron. ‘It gave me visions of what it does to the children it takes. You noticed their absence, but did you notice the crows, Afanan? Why do so many flock here, did you wonder?’
He saw pity in her eyes. Pity she seemed to extend to all creatures—mortal, fae, fiends, and undead alike—no matter how monstrous.
‘I can understand why that would outrage you,’ she said. ‘I know some gwyddien lore—’
‘It does not deserve to live,’ Llewyn said. ‘You have prisms. I need one. Will you let me kill it, or will you stand in my way?’
‘We can work together. There’s no reason—’ Afanan began to say, but bit off her words when Siwan, the alderman’s daughter, bounded over.
‘Hello again, master!’ she said. ‘Did you see the tumblers? Weren’t they funny!’
Llewyn stared back at her, astonished. He touched his ring.
Afanan looked from the girl to Llewyn, as baffled by her ability to intrude as he was.
‘You made my papa nervous,’ Siwan said. ‘That’s why he let me come see the tumblers.
’ Then, more quietly, cupping a hand around her mouth, ‘What were you talking about? Maybe if I talk about it next time he won’t let me have some fun, he’ll get nervous again and change his mind.
’ She giggled, her grin full of mischief.
the Grey Lady said.
A shout sounded from outside the inn, cutting through the music and laughter.
‘Gwyddien!’ the alderman’s voice called, muted by walls and windows. ‘Lyn son Phylip! We call you by name and cast you from Nyth Fran!’
Afanan straightened in her seat. Her hands twitched up her sleeves, likely seeking hidden gemstones. The tumblers rolled to an awkward halt as the jovial air in the room died into an agitated quiet. Siwan stepped back from the table, all the mirth gone from her face.
‘Gwyddien!’ Trefor called again. ‘Come out! We command you by your name! Lyn son Phylip!’
‘Does that actually work?’ Afanan whispered.
Llewyn shrugged. ‘I’m careful about names.’
‘Naturally.’
Llewyn drank the rest of his ale in a long swallow, sighed, and stood. This was not the first time an astute villager had found out his fae nature. It rapidly complicated things, and had a tendency to turn them violent. Letting the bastard yell himself hoarse wouldn’t solve anything.
Considering the complicity of the village, violence might be warranted, here. Yet he would not slaughter anyone in front of children. They had known enough horror, growing up in this place.
Llewyn crossed to the doorway—followed by curious, frightened eyes that kept drifting away and back again.
The alderman stood in the muddy commons before the inn.
Light from the windows met the flickering torches of the crowd behind him.
He carried a staff adorned with half a dozen horseshoes.
The elders who had met him at the forest clearing were beside him, each with their own iron—the woman a skillet, the man an old rust-bitten sword.
They led a mob of a dozen more people who clutched rakes and pitchforks and torches.
Llewyn bade the Grey Lady release her shroud.
The villagers recoiled, their murmurs rising to astonished yelps.
He would have been a vague silhouette in the doorway of the inn, the details of his appearance slipping through their minds from one moment to the next.
Now they saw him fully: a scarecrow of a man with a long sword of pale, sharpened wood at his belt.
‘Gwyddien!’ Trefor’s voice caught in his throat, but grew steadier as he spoke. ‘Be gone from Nyth Fran! We are simple folk. We have no interest in the long, twisting games of you fae folk!’
‘I’m no more embroiled in the affairs of dark powers than you, Alderman,’ Llewyn said.
Trefor stepped forward and began swaying his staff from side to side. The horseshoes hanging from it clanked together. ‘Be gone, gwyddien!’ he wailed. ‘Be gone!’
‘I saw what lives in the woods.’ Llewyn stepped forward. ‘I know what it takes from you. You pay too dearly for protection.’
A low droning sound issued from deep in the alderman’s throat. The old woman behind him held aloft her skillet and took up his chant, followed by the old man with his rusty sword.
‘This is absurd,’ Llewyn muttered. He crossed the dozen paces between the inn and the mob and drew his ghostwood blade.
The magic that bound it to him made it dull or sharp, rigid or supple at the motion of his will.
With a single swipe he cut the alderman’s staff in two.
The horseshoe-laden end thumped to the earth.
The mob gasped and backed away as Llewyn seized Trefor by the front of his shirt.
‘I’m going to kill that thing, for your sake and the sake of your children,’ Llewyn snarled. ‘Try and stop me, and you will pay with broken bones and bruises that will ache for weeks. Now send these people back to their homes and let me—’
‘Papa?’ Siwan’s voice rose from the inn, tight and panicked. Llewyn glanced towards her, his attention drawn away from the mob for a moment. The alderman twisted and pulled away. There was a blur in the corner of Llewyn’s vision as the old woman brought her frying pan down.
The blow to the nape of his neck set lights bursting behind his eyes. His skin screamed as if it had been scraped with a hot coal. Panic rose as he rolled, lashing out half-blind with his ghostwood sword, willing it dull at the last moment.
The weapon met flesh with a meaty thwak. Llewyn scrambled to his feet while the old man howled and doubled over, clutching his ribs, his rusted sword fallen to the mud.
‘You see?’ Trefor shrieked, backing away and gathering Siwan to him. ‘He assaults our elders! Come, good folk of Nyth Fran, bring your iron to bear!’
The mob slowly advanced, shouting and lowering their makeshift weapons to drive Llewyn towards the inn. He reached for the anatase in his pocket and willed his sword to be blunt but flexible.
‘What’s this now?’ Afanan cried from the doorway.
Seven of the troupers, including the young boy with ram’s horns, emerged from the inn and formed an arc behind Llewyn.
Their hands rested on cudgels or knives at their belts.
Afanan led them, toying with a white jewel pinned to her cuff.
‘Is this how Nyth Fran treats its guests? I had looked forward to spending a few days here, but I see now we are not welcome.’
‘Be rid of them all!’ the bruised elder croaked, limping to his feet. ‘They stand with the gwyddien!’
‘A wild accusation!’ Afanan said.
‘It is true!’ Trefor said. ‘He burns at the touch of iron.’
‘That old biddy bludgeoned him with a frying pan,’ Afanan pointed out. ‘Who wouldn’t be rattled?’