William draped the wet cloak over two stools near the fire in Brother Snail’s workshop to dry. The monk was washing his hands in a bowl of water after spending the afternoon weeding and digging in the herb garden. The hob stood by the open doorway to catch the last of the daylight while he scraped the mud from an ironshod shovel. An assortment of gardening tools — a hoe, a rake, and a three-pronged fork — stood against the wall nearby, all cleaned and ready to be put away for the day.
Brother Snail looked at William with a frown. “This boy Robin sounds very strange indeed. But generous, too, giving you half of his bread and cheese.” If the monk had been disappointed with William for breaking his Lenten fast, he had said nothing.
William sat on the floor near the fire. He pulled off his boots and held his feet in their soaked stockings out to the warmth.
“He gave me the other half of the loaf before he went on his way,” William said. He leaned over and felt for the pocket sewn inside the cloak and pulled out the bread.
Only it wasn’t bread.
William stared at the dark, seething mass in his hand in stunned silence, then with a yell flung it away from him. He scrambled to his feet, his whole body going hot and cold in waves. He wiped his hand on the leg of his trousers to try and get rid of the feel of the damp, rotting mass of . . . what was it? To his horrified gaze it looked like the remains of a small animal, long dead and crawling with maggots. A couple of maggots dropped from the fold of the cloak and squirmed on the floor.
Brother Snail looked up, startled. The hob threw down the shovel and hurried over to see what the matter was.
“Will? What is it?” the monk asked, drying his hands on a small rag of linen. He saw the remains on the floor and caught his breath. “Blessed God, what is that?”
“It’s what Robin gave me . . . it’s the bread,” William said. I ate part of that, he thought, appalled. His stomach heaved, and he ran for the door. He stumbled around the corner of the hut and hunched over, retching.
A hand grabbed William’s hair, not roughly, and pulled it back from his face. Whoever it was stayed with him until every last thing in his stomach lay on the grass beneath the blackthorn tree.
“Better?” Shadlok asked somewhere above him.
William slowly straightened up. His body trembled and tears rolled down his face. He wiped his mouth with the back of his shaking hand. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.
Shadlok was watching him with a frown. “The one-eyed cook’s food has not improved, by the look of it.”
William shook his head. “It wasn’t Brother Martin’s cooking. Maybe God was punishing me for eating cheese on a fast day.”
“Why would He do that?” Shadlok sounded mystified.
“Because it’s a sin,” William said. Shadlok raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“Are you all right, Will?” Brother Snail asked anxiously, grabbing his arm.
“Maggots are never a good thing to eat,” the hob said, climbing up to sit on a low branch of the black- thorn and patting William on the head in sympathy.
“Maggots?” Shadlok said, sounding surprised. “Why did you eat maggots?”
“I didn’t,” William said, feeling his stomach tighten ominously. “Well, I did, but I didn’t mean to.”
“Would somebody care to explain what is going on?” Shadlok said evenly.
“Come with me,” Brother Snail said. “I will show you.”
Shadlok followed the monk into the hut. William leaned against the tree and breathed in deeply and slowly, trying to calm the chaos in his belly. It didn’t make any sense. Robin had handed him maslin bread and cheese. It had been warm and fresh, and it had tasted good. Better than good, it had been the best thing he had eaten in months. He’d seen and touched the second half of the loaf when Robin took it out of his bag. He would have wagered his soul that it had been bread, plain and simple.
So where had that rotting abomination come from? If it wasn’t divine punishment on him, then how had Robin managed to trick him like that?
“Maggots and black fur,” the hob said softly, poking the contents of William’s stomach with a long stick where they lay beneath the tree. “Not bread at all.”
William stared at the mess at his feet in revulsion. Then he began to retch again.
A short while later, William sat and shivered by the fire. Brother Snail gave him an infusion of crushed fennel seeds in warm water to sooth his stomach.
“So,” Shadlok said softly, his eyes wide and gleaming with anger, “the king has come back. I am just surprised he has waited this long.”
Brother Snail went a shade or two paler. “You think this boy Robin was the Dark King in disguise?”
Shadlok nodded. “He covered his true appearance with glamour and tricked William into seeing and tasting bread, when in truth he was eating . . .”
“Don’t say it, please,” William interrupted quickly, putting a hand to his mouth. He couldn’t bear to think about what he’d eaten. His stomach rumbled queasily.
The hob, sitting across the hearth from William, said, “I wonder why he didn’t just kill you.”
“He made a fair attempt at it,” William muttered.
“No, he only meant to frighten you,” Shadlok said.
“Well, he succeeded.”
Shadlok gazed into the fire. The flames were reflected in the pale depths of his eyes. “Comnath enjoys the hunt more than the kill. Like a cat with a bird, he plays with his prey and finds new and more unpleasant ways to torture it.” He looked from William to the monk and let his gaze linger on the hob for a moment. The harsh lines of his face softened slightly. “But it is me he wants to destroy. He will hurt me in whatever way he can, and that includes coming after those close to me. None of you are safe now. You least of all” — his gaze shifted back to William — “because you and I are bound together by his curse, and because you dug the angel from its grave and helped Bone to die. He will make you pay for that.”
William remembered the first time he had seen the king, in the Hollow last winter, with his unnaturally green eyes and dark red hair, startling against the pallor of his skin. As the boy Robin, the king had been almost unrecognizable. Almost, but not quite: The king could not fully disguise his eyes. If William had been paying closer attention, those green eyes would have given him away much sooner. I should have trusted my instincts, William thought in frustration. I knew there was something not quite right about him.
“Isn’t there any way to stop him?” William asked. “We have to fight back.”
“Oh, we will fight him, human, make no mistake about that,” Shadlok said softly, “but it will be two of us against the whole of the Unseelie Court, and I do not care for our chances.”
“Three of us,” the hob said, patting his chest.
A rare smile lit Shadlok’s face. “Your bravery does you honor.”
The hob looked delighted by the fay’s praise. His face creased in a wide grin, which showed two rows of sharp teeth.
“Make that four,” Brother Snail said.
William looked at him and felt a rush of affection. The monk might have the heart of a bear, but his thin body with its twisted spine and humped back was frail. He would be of no use in what was to come, and they all knew it. And what chance would the hob stand against one of the Dark King’s fay warriors?
The truth was, William and Shadlok stood alone in this fight.