Never Trust a Dead Man

Page 10

And yet...
He closed his eyes and turned, slowly, and listened to the beating of his heart. He remembered Elswyth tracing her finger over his heart, setting her spell on him, saying, "Seven days, and you will have to come to me." And when he had questioned her, she'd said he'd be drawn to her irresistibly. "You will," she'd said, "be unable to  keep from finding me." Only one day had passed, and the tug was so faint he hadn't felt it; but he'd followed it when his mind had been too occupied to keep track of his feet. He opened his eyes and found that he was once more facing the direction he'd been unwittingly heading.
There was too much danger in the uneven ground to walk with his eyes closed, but Selwyn tried to rid his mind of any thoughts, and he began walking.
Farold roused himself at dusk.
Selwyn had indeed found the road beyond the meadow, but shortly thereafter he'd felt himself inclined to leave again. Now he was walking on what was little more than a path through the woods
"I hate to be the one to have to tell you," Farold said in his usual accusing voice, "but are you aware that we appear to have accidentally wandered slightly out of Penryth?"
"Yes," Selwyn said.
"We are, in fact," Farold pointed out, "in a forest."
"Yes," Selwyn said.
"Is this because you've narrowed down the list of suspects to knife-wielding bears or miller's-assistant-hating wolves?"
"I'm looking for Elswyth," Selwyn muttered, expecting an outburst.
Instead, Farold practically purred, "Well, and who could blame you for missing her - sweet, lovely young thing that she is."
"Oh, shut up," Selwyn said.
He kept walking until long after dark, and Farold kept shut up for very little of that time.
Selwyn's only relief was when periodically Farold would dart away after some flying insect. But he always returned.
Still, it was Farold, with his superior bat ability to find things in the dark, who finally said, "Houses up ahead."
Selwyn stopped, and Farold veered off sharply to keep from smacking into the back of his head.
"Oh, this makes sense," Farold complained. "Hike for mile after mile of wilderness, then stop at the first sight of civilization."
"Shhh," Selwyn said. He could just barely make out the dark shapes of a cluster of houses, but not a one of them had a light showing, not this late at night. There were fewer houses than in Penryth. That and the way the tiny village was practically carved out of the woods made him think he might be in Woldham. He had never been to Woldham before, but he'd heard about it, and about the witch who lived there. So that was Elswyth, even though the stories he'd heard had made him think the witch of Woldham was shriveled and hunchbacked. And she only had one good eye, he remembered. The stories definitely said the witch of Woldham had only one good eye. But perhaps, being a witch, she had found a cure. Or perhaps, being Elswyth, she had just pretended to be blind in one eye, for some reason clear only to Elswyth.
"Which house is hers?" Farold hissed, lowering his voice, but not by much.
"How should I know?" Selwyn snapped.
Farold swept off ahead of him and fluttered about the nearest house, trying to peek in through cracks in the shutter.
"Farold," Selwyn called, not daring to raise his voice. "Farold, get back here." All he needed was to wake someone, to be run out of this village, too. Somehow, he had the feeling Elswyth would not speak up to defend him.
Farold, naturally, ignored him.
But standing there in the dark, listening to hear if Farold's little bat wings made any sound, Selwyn felt a slight tug to the left. Elswyth, he thought. He headed in that direction, and in a moment Farold was once more by his side.
"Are you guessing, or do you know?" Farold asked.
"Shhh," Selwyn told him again.
"But - ," Farold started, for Selwyn was walking beyond the small group of houses, heading for a path that led once again into the woods.
"Do you want to upset the village folk?" Selwyn asked. "Do you want to upset Elswyth?"
That quieted him.
Selwyn obeyed the sensation that drew him to a path he hadn't even seen. The path wound among several trees, then led up to a lone house surrounded by a stone wall that stood shoulder high. But he wasn't drawn to follow the path up to the gate, though he felt Elswyth was very close; he was drawn to circle to the side. Then he was drawn to climb the wall.
"You did," Farold asked, his voice uncannily loud right by Selwyn's ear, "notice the clear path and the gate with the simple latch? I wouldn't even bring it up except - "
"Shhh!" Selwyn hissed, ready to strangle him. "Would you please stop making so much noise?" He swung himself over the wall. And put his foot down in a wheelbarrow that was on the other side. The wheelbarrow tipped under his weight, dumping him and a load of clay pots onto a makeshift fence of sticks and twine. This fragile fence collapsed under him, landing him on top of a prickly raspberry bush. He rolled to get out of the bush, and rolled onto another. "Ouch, ouch, ouch," he gasped, unable to stifle entirely his outcries of pain. He kept rolling, and took down more of the little fence. There must have been pie tins strung up on the other side to keep the sheep away, for there was a dreadful metallic clatter as they came down. Selwyn knew it was sheep the gardener was trying to keep out, because a cluster of them immediately gathered and began to bleat "Meee-eee-eee-eee" at him and tried to get at the raspberry bushes.
Farold whispered into his ear, "Oh, all right, if you say so, I'll try to be more quiet."
"Shhh," Selwyn told him. "Shhh," Selwyn told the sheep.
The door to the house was flung open, throwing out into the night a glow that Selwyn recognized as witch light. A cranky voice yelled, "You damn young hooligans! How many times do I have to tell you to keep out of my garden?"
But at the same time, a hand whacked him hard on the back of the head: Elswyth, right beside him, and not the woman who was yelling at him from the doorway after all. "Quiet!" Elswyth commanded him in an intense whisper. "You sound like a hysterical snake."
The figure in the doorway - all Selwyn could make out was her silhouette - raised her arms. A broom came flying out of the doorway, untouched by the woman's hands, over the stoop, over the yard, over the sheep, straight at where they crouched among the ruins of the raspberry fence.
"Good-bye," Farold said, flitting off into the night.
Elswyth made a gesture, and the broom ignored her and went straight for Selwyn. Though the witch in the doorway stood with her hands on her hips, the broom began beating at Selwyn's head and shoulders just as though she was standing right there, holding on to the handle.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!" Selwyn ducked and covered his head.
Elswyth abandoned him, too, scrambling up and over the fence at a speed amazing for a woman her age. She popped back up from the other side and hissed at him: "Stupid fool! You going to stay there and let it beat you senseless?"
"Too late!" Farold called.
Selwyn had hoped that if he didn't fight back, the broom would leave him alone, but apparently that was not to be. He climbed back over the wall - difficult as that was with the broom beating him all the while. But as soon as he dropped over onto the other side, the ill-tempered broom let him be and returned to the witch in the doorway.
"Hooligans!" she shouted again, and slammed the door shut.
But still Selwyn was not safe.
Elswyth smacked his head yet again. "Fool!" she said. "What did you think you were doing?"
"I was looking for you," Selwyn said.
"And I," Elswyth said, "was looking for one of the ingredients I need for one of my spells: milk stolen at midnight from the she sheep of a witch, and you ruined that for me."
"Sorry," Selwyn said. "You could try again later."
She smacked him again. "How many times a night does midnight come to your village?" she demanded.
He hadn't meant later that night; he'd just meant to point out he hadn't ruined the spell permanently for her.
"Fool," she repeated yet again. "Why did you want to see me? Are you ready to start your seven years of service? Have you proven who murdered the bat?"
"Not exactly," Selwyn admitted.
Farold snorted. "He's narrowed down the list of suspects," he said. "He now knows it wasn't him or me."
"What do you want?" Elswyth asked.
Selwyn guessed that now was probably not the best time to be asking for favors, but he couldn't wait. He said, "People were suspicious of me as a pilgrim because they didn't know me, and they were wondering why I was asking so many questions."
Elswyth smiled.
Selwyn knew he was in trouble.
Chapter Thirteen
"So," said Elswyth, "are you asking for a new disguise, or for a new plan entirely?"
"Some suggestions might be helpful," Selwyn said hopefully.
He should have known better.
She said, "Advice costs the same price as a disguise: one year's service. But if I have to stand here and listen to your whole boring life story so that I can figure out your best course of action, that's six additional months for every time I yawn."
Knowing how patient she could be, Selwyn hurriedly said, "A new disguise, please."
"Rich merchant and his dog," Farold whispered in such a tiny voice he was probably trying to sound like the voice of Selwyn's own mind.
Ignoring him, Selwyn explained to Elswyth, "The problem is that the villagers aren't used to strangers. So I thought I might do better disguised as someone they know. Can you do that? Can you make me look exactly like a particular person?"
"If your description is good enough," Elswyth assured him. "We'll get a bucket of water so you can see your reflection and you and the bat can guide me as I make the changes. Of course, that takes more time, so I'll have to charge you two years."
Why wasn't that a surprise?
"Well, that's brilliant," Farold said. "Two years to disguise you as a particular person, and how many to make sure that you and that particular person don't both walk into the same particular room at the same particular time?"
"I was thinking," Selwyn explained, "it would have to be someone who doesn't live in Penryth anymore."
"Like you and me," Farold said.
"Like Alden." Alden was his neighbor Thorne's eldest son, a few years older than Selwyn and Farold, and gone with the passing of last year, when he'd left to seek a more exciting life than that of a farmer.
"Alden?" Farold said, giving a little bat hoot, "Alden Thorneson?" - even though there was only one Alden in the village. "What makes you think anybody would talk to him? I don't think even Thorne would be happy to see him back, good-for-nothing bully that he is. No body likes him. Even more than nobody likes you. Why, I could tell you stories - "
Elswyth groaned - loudly. "I'm sure you could," she said. "But I'd have to charge you six months for every yawn, too." She gave a great yawn, then smiled sweetly and said, very demurely, "Excuse me." Turning to Selwyn, she asked, "So, is this Alden Thorneson your choice, or just a passing thought?"
Selwyn hesitated as Farold shook his head frantically. He probably shouldn't go around looking like someone about whom he didn't know important things. "What kind of stories could you tell?" he asked Farold. "Tell me one thing, the worst"
Farold concentrated for a moment. "All right. He burned down Holt's smithy."
"That fire was caused by a lightning strike during a storm," Selwyn said.
Farold just looked at him.
"Wasn't it?" Selwyn asked.
Elswyth said, "Just because a fire starts during a storm doesn't mean the storm caused the fire."
"Exactly," Farold said. "The old biddy makes sense." He wrinkled his large bat nose, obviously begrudging even this praise, and added, "Sometimes."
Elswyth bared her teeth at him.
"Still..." Selwyn said, unwilling to believe that anybody could be that destructive. Holt had lost everything in that fire. "What makes you say Alden started it?"
"The two of them never got along. Alden liked to think up ways to torment Holt, like the time he poured grease on the firewood Holt kept out back, so that when Holt went to use the wood, the fire smoked and stank, and it was near impossible to tell which pieces had grease on them and which didn't, so Holt ended up having to cart the whole load away and chop new. Holt was always complaining to Thorne about one bit of nuisance or another that Alden was causing, and the more Holt complained, the more Alden plagued him."
Selwyn was about to say that this was little more than the kind of thing that had gotten him accused of killing Farold, when Farold continued, "But the night of the fire, I was coming home late from the tavern, dodging from one doorway to another trying to keep at least a bit out of the rain. I saw Alden coming out of the smithy, with no light on behind him to indicate it was late business he was up to. It never occurred to me he was doing worse than bending horseshoe nails, but he must have put a hot ember someplace where it smoldered halfway through the night, till just about the time the thunder and lightning started. And then..." Farold waved his wings, indicating the blacksmith's shop going up in flames.
"It might have been more of the usual baiting he was up to," Selwyn pointed out. "And just coincidence about the timing."
"Except," Farold said, "then why was it - when I confronted him - he was willing to pay me not to tell anybody I'd seen him?"
Elswyth gave a hoot of laughter. "You blackmailed him? The obnoxious little bat is a blackmailing bat?"
"No," Farold said. He readjusted his wings. "I just ... accepted money from him ... not to tell anybody what I'd seen."