THE CURRENT WAS carrying me toward it, and I doubted it was imaginary. I fought and scrambled out of the water, already reaching into my sack for my soaked boot. But two more ogres pounded toward me from the bank.
Hideous! Pocked, cloud-white skin; small eyes; no lips; smiles revealing broken teeth; twice my height, thrice or more my girth.
I’d never see the real Willem again. Or Drualt or Lady Mother. I was supposed to cook a barley soup for the Ships in the morning.
I drew Mama’s kitchen knife.
The ogres laughed, sounding like boulders crashing together. The battle spell fell over me. Lady Mother spoke in my ear, Courage, Perry. Strike hard.
I ran at the closest ogre as it ran at me. I ducked its hand, stabbed its thigh through its breeches. It felt real and spouted seemingly real blood.
It howled. Jumped back.
But another ogre grabbed my knife arm and lifted me above its head. Using all my strength, I kicked its eye with one foot, its nose with the other.
It dropped me. I landed on the grass, the wind knocked out of me, but I jumped up anyway. Before I could run, the first ogre caught my wrist and pulled back a fist as big as a lantern.
With every shred of energy I had, I yanked free and ran, praying their huge legs were slow.
Not slow.
But I was quicker. The ogres’ bellows diminished behind me.
Could a specter take the form of a living person? Or did my vision mean Willem had died?
As I ran, I wondered if the pasture around me teemed with ogres and other monsters a specter had made invisible, who would overwhelm me as soon as I stopped. But at last my lungs gave out. I fell to my knees. The ogres were out of sight behind me. I opened my sack and, quick as I could, donned my magic boot. Then I sheathed Mama’s knife and stepped, heading away from the Eskerns.
During the step, I exulted. I’d overcome three ogres and survived a specter, and nothing could catch me now.
The boot bore me up and down hills, through woods of oak and maple, beginning to leaf out. I flashed across meadows and through streams. The air, sweet, the wind, whooshing but not raw. All beautiful, except, for an instant, three gryphons in a meadow, tearing into the carcass of a horse.
Wild horses? Descendants of the Lakti’s steeds? That we could tame?
The boot stopped at the base of a mountain, less steep than the Eskerns, pleasing in its gentleness. I’d learned Old Lakti geography. This was one of the seven Kilkets.
I checked the siege engine constellation, which had traveled only a little above the horizon. I still had time.
I surged over the mountain, up and down foothills, then ended in a field, divided by a stream, strewn here and there with round stones.
An owl hooted. Did that signify monsters or no monsters?
The bird subsided. If we did cross the Eskerns despite the monsters, we could build here. I picked up a round stone, tossed it in the air, caught it. We could line a road with such stones, as the Lakti did.
Oh! Perhaps they had. The stones’ arrangement might not be haphazard. My heart picked up its pace. If a specter wasn’t deceiving me, this had been a road! Ancient Lakti had walked here. Where might it lead?
I remembered to change my magic boot, but I didn’t drop it into my sack, just in case. Willem’s shell revealed nothing to worry me, so, all senses alert, I followed the stones.
I hurried through the pine forest that bordered the field. When I emerged, I gasped. A castle in ruins!
Of course this might be the work of a specter, too. Still, I approached. The drawbridge had rotted, so I crossed the dry moat and dashed between the gatehouse towers. The iron portcullis had frozen with rust, luckily above my head, but the big oak door hung crookedly, making a gap too small for me to squeeze through. I pulled hard, heard a groan, and won three inches. I was in.
The moon illumined heaps of broken slate atop chipped floor tiles. I stood in the great hall, where the roof had caved in. Grass pushed up here and there. A throne tilted on the dais, with two legs sunken through the boards.
As I surveyed the chamber, a shadow crossed the hall. I looked up at the blackness of a dragon, sharp against the starry sky. If I’d had a bow and arrow, I could have shot its unprotected belly.
It flew over again. Did it smell me? See me? There was no place to hide.
The dragon circled back twice more and then stayed away.
I pictured the hall restored. A king who resembled Willem filled the throne; a minister stood by, holding a stack of documents; the fireplace blazed; a hound slept; a cat stalked a mouse.
Returning from my imaginings, I picked my way across the hall and into the kitchen, where crockery was scattered in shards across the crooked worktable, but the metal platters, a dozen silver and a small gold one, needed nothing more than polish.
I thought of my family’s poverty, the widespread poverty of the Bamarre, and the cost of weapons, armor, horses. Into my satchel went three silver platters and the gold one.
After that, I knew which chamber I most wanted to find, and in that chamber, which relic, if I were lucky. I stepped carefully to the tower at the end of the great hall, hoping to find the lord or king’s study.
Instead, I discovered the counting room. Like all satisfying tales of treasure, gold and silver coins spilled across the floor, with here and there a scrap of burlap from the sacks that had once held them.
I grabbed fistfuls of gold and silver, added them to my sack, and hoped the seams would hold.
The study should be in a tower, too. I followed a corridor with gaping walls that opened on ravaged apartments. A few minutes took me to the next tower, and there was what I believed to be the study, judging from the leg of a desk or table and a fragment of filigreed wood that could only have been part of a chair back. And there, protruding from rubble, the corner of a book!
I dug cautiously, removing fragments of this and that, and soon reached my prize, which had been protected by the leather stitching, the leather-over-wood covers, and the bronze bosses on the corners of the covers. Lord Tove used to occupy himself with just such a volume in his study—the sole book he kept there.
But here was another, poking up from the debris, this one smaller and thicker. I freed it as well, and pushed the two volumes into my satchel without opening either one. The night was bright, but not bright enough for reading.
Outside, the siege machine constellation had almost half crossed the sky. I should start for home, but I hated to leave without seeing more, and my boot carried me so quickly.
Remembering my geography, I decided to travel east toward the Haun Ocean through what had once been the elf queen’s land.
After six steps, the boot, to my surprise, took me through cultivated fields, where I glimpsed a few cottages, too small for people, but not ruins. Smoke rose from one.
Specters again?
The boot deposited me on a low hill, where I smelled the sea. Not far off, a beach slid into the dark Haun Ocean, but before that another castle rose—with towers, battlements, moat, drawbridge, guardhouse—not a ruin. Distance made size difficult to judge, but I felt almost certain that this edifice was smaller than our castles.
Had the elves remained despite the monsters?
Had the Lakti been cowards to flee?
I started back, through the glorious countryside. How splendid it would be to live here, despite the monsters, in the kingdom of liberty.
Would anyone agree with me?
Would Willem want to live here, if we ever found each other?
I had no idea. And the Lakti guarded the pass. Might they let us leave?
No.
By the time I neared home, the siege engine constellation was close to setting. I took out the magic boot and buried my satchel with the castle treasure in the soft earth under the oak tree on the knoll that overlooked Gavrel. Then I pushed dead leaves over the spot and hoped no one would be able to tell.
My family was now wealthier than they had ever dreamt of.
I put the snail shell to my ear. A voice!
Mistress Chavi, the widow’s daughter, said, “It’s a sacrifice to give up your sleep.”
“I’d hate to miss Lord Tove’s daughter if she arrived at night.” This voice belonged to Joram, the young man soldier, who in fact rarely lost sleep to guarding.
They’d slipped outside to woo each other!
How might I get home? Soldier Joram would be suspicious of any Bamarre out before dawn, even an old lady.
His sword clanked.
If he caught me, he’d question me for hours, at the least. Soldier Kassia would, too. They’d interrogate my family.
Would they send for Lord Tove?
They might, even though I was only old Nadira.
Soldier Joram said, “But if we do find her, I’ll be sorry to leave Gavrel.”
“Did you know Mistress Peregrine?”
He didn’t say yes or no, although the truth was no. “Excellent athlete. Lord Tove and Lady Klausine adore her.”
“A paragon?”
“No one liked her.”
The brightening sky dimmed the last of the constellation. Might I run behind the houses? If I reached the privy, I’d have my excuse to be out.
I couldn’t tell exactly where they were, so I edged closer to the village and halted not far from the first cottage.
“I could teach you archery,” Soldier Joram said.
Now I could hear they were behind the widow’s house.
Mistress Chavi tittered, a sound I hadn’t known a Lakti could make. “I could teach you to embroider.”
He laughed.
Why were they behind the house?
To avoid being caught. Several small spruce trees grew back there, beyond the backyard fence. They could hide in the shadows.
What would my family feel when they woke up in a few minutes and found my pallet empty?
They’d be frightened but might be glad I’d gone, except for Drualt.
Was there an excuse I could make to explain arriving by the road?
I could think of nothing.
Pink smudged the horizon.
The widow’s home was four houses farther than ours. Perhaps I could reach our privy without being seen or heard, if they had eyes and ears only for each other. Once inside, I could wait for them to leave.
If they had been listening intently, they’d have heard me as I darted from shadow to shadow of trees and bushes. The privy door hung ajar. I could squeeze in. I squeezed—
—and heard a squeal. Out rushed a hedgehog.
“Who goes there?”
I pictured Lord Tove’s eyes glittering when I was brought before him.
What to do? I froze.
I remembered Lord Tove’s fist.
My muscles bunched. Soldier Joram wouldn’t have the chance to beat me.
He repeated, “Who goes there?”
Don’t be hasty. Think.
If I were innocent, I’d recognize the guard’s voice and be frightened, but not as terrified as if I were guilty.
I called, “Only old Nadira, begging your pardon.” I hid my magic boot under my cloak.
Had they heard me come? I didn’t think so, or he’d have shouted sooner. No crime in my visiting the privy.
Mistress Chavi stayed in the shadows, but Soldier Joram approached. I heard our gate latch lift.
He loomed over me and fairly shouted, “What are you doing here?” Guilt was making him dangerous. He knew he shouldn’t be with the widow’s daughter.
My family would be listening and would be frightened. I covered a yawn with my hand. “What a night, Master. Did you ever fall asleep in the privy?”
He crossed his arms.
“The hedgehog and I surprised each other. Voices woke me from my sleep, but I didn’t want to disturb you and”—I whispered pointedly—“the young lady.” I was becoming as crafty as any other Bamarre. “Beg pardon, I’m sure.”
He stared, the realization dawning that I’d threatened to tell about the tryst. After a pause, during which I planned how to take his sword from him if I had to, he stepped back. “Go home, Grandmother.”
When I opened the cottage door, Annet glared at me, and Mama and Poppi came down the sleeping loft ladder, both glaring too.
Why were they angry? For all they knew, I’d been home through the night.
Drualt hugged me.
I couldn’t help smiling. “A little victory.”
Poppi frowned. “Did you really fall asleep in the privy?”
People did. In the middle of the night, folks were half asleep.
I just shrugged, then added, “Begging your pardon.”