The Land of the Silver Apples, стр. 16

The pilgrims camped under an ash tree and ate onions, smoked eel, and travel scones. The scones had been made in a most unusual way. Pega had kneaded a dough of coarse wheat flour, butter, and salt. This she patted out onto a flat stone and attacked with a wooden mallet. She pounded and folded again and again until the dough was covered with little blisters and had a silky sheen. The scones were baked on a griddle and would not grow stale or hard, Pega said, for several weeks.

Now, under the tree with the fire snapping and the stars twinkling, the travel scones were as good as Yule cake. Even Lucy liked them. They drank cider, and Brother Aiden produced a sack of homemade ale, which Jack and Pega were allowed to taste. “You won’t find that anywhere,” said the Bard. “It’s from a secret recipe. You’ll never guess what’s in it, my girl.”

“I will so,” said Pega, but her eyebrows raised with surprise when she tasted it. Jack couldn’t begin to describe the flavor. It was like wind off a moor, the moon on a lake, a leaf uncurling in spring.

“This is incredible,” he exclaimed.

Brother Aiden preened visibly. “One of my ancestors was captured by a Scottish king. He was promised his life, the hand of a princess, and a bag of gold if he would reveal the recipe. He preferred to die.”

“That’s what I call a serious cook,” Pega said with approval.

“I feel like singing,” announced Father, and at once he gave them a hymn:

Jack was astounded. Father never sang! Not once in his life could the boy remember it happening, yet his father’s voice was deep and good, a real bard’s voice.

“That was written by Brother Caedmon long ago. You performed it extremely well,” said Brother Aiden.

Father blushed like a child. “I learned it on the Holy Isle. No better place.”

“No better place,” agreed the little monk. “Give us more.” So Father sang about the Creation and the naming of animals by Adam and the sailing of Noah’s ark. He had memorized dozens of hymns. The wonder of it was how they had lain in his mind so long, waiting for this night.

“You do surprise me, Giles,” said the Bard. “All this time I thought Jack got his musical talent from his mother.”

“I learned the hymns of Caedmon because they were in Saxon and I could understand them,” Father explained. “Also, because he’d been a farm brat like me.”

“He used to run from parties, afraid someone would ask him to sing,” Brother Aiden remembered. “Went out to sleep with the cattle. Then, one night, an angel came to him in a dream and taught him that first poem. We should all be so lucky!”

Father told them about how he’d been taken to the Holy Isle as a child so the monks could cure his deformed leg. They failed, he said, but they’d given him a glimpse into a world where all was orderly and beautiful. For the first time ever Jack heard his father speak without a trace of self-pity. He was simply happy to relive that supreme experience of his life.

The Bard struck up his harp and began a ballad they all knew about a rascally elvish knight and a clever village girl. He took the part of the knight and Pega was the girl. Then they all sang together, except Lucy, who had nodded off to sleep. Eventually, they all stretched out under the ash tree. The stars shone between the branches like fruit on the great tree Yggdrassil.

That night Jack dreamed of music so fair, he thought his heart would break, but when he awoke at dawn, the memory of it had vanished.

Chapter Eleven

THE LADY IN THE FOUNTAIN

Bebba’s Town more than lived up to Jack’s expectations. The marketplace was crowded with tradesmen and animals. Rope-makers, tanners, and metalworkers displayed their wares. Woolen cloth, belt buckles, knives, iron griddles, and pottery lined the square, along with cages of wrens, finches, doves, and pigeons destined for someone’s dinner.

“Jewels fit for a queen,” shouted a metalworker, holding up a brooch studded with garnets as Lucy rode past on Bluebell. Lucy rewarded him with a smile. “By the Lady, she’s a bonny lass,” the man said to his companion, and they both gazed after her with admiring eyes.

Pega followed, her head bowed to hide her birthmark, but there was no concealing her scrawny form. The metalworkers looked away, and one spat to the side, a way of averting a curse.

Next to a grassy lawn a man boiled onions in an iron cauldron. He fished them out with a pair of tongs and lined them up on a table. The Bard bought a dozen, and they feasted on hot, steaming onions sprinkled with salt.

“This is delicious,” Father said, licking his fingers. “Who knew onions could taste so good?”

“It’s the spring air,” said the Bard.

“And the crowds,” said Brother Aiden. “I love being surrounded by people. Look there. You can see the outline of the Holy Isle.”

Jack squinted at the horizon and saw a pale shadow in the deeper gray of the sea. This was where Olaf and Rune, Sven the Vengeful and Eric Pretty-Face—and Thorgil—had slaughtered the innocent monks. It was hard to believe his friends had committed such atrocities, but they had. He must never forget it.

“How can one forgive people who are evil?” he said aloud.

If Brother Aiden was surprised by the sudden shift in conversation, he didn’t show it. “We must forgive our enemies. If someone strikes us, we must turn the other cheek. Eventually, God’s goodness will prevail.”

That was all right if it only involved getting slapped, Jack thought. Northmen didn’t just slap people, they cut off their heads.

“It’s better not to get hit in the first place,” the Bard advised.

“Now we must find a place to spend the night. You may like crowds, Aiden, but thieves and cutpurses like them too.”

“We can reach the hostel at St. Filian’s by afternoon,” said the little monk.

“That’s fine for the rest of you. Priests aren’t happy when they see people like me on their doorstep,” said the Bard. “I’ll stay at Din Guardi. They don’t like me there, either, but they’re afraid of me.”

The houses grew more humble as they walked. These were built low to the ground with sagging grass roofs. Small gardens huddled behind ramshackle fences. To the right the cultivated land gave way to sand, and beyond, rising from a rocky shelf jutting out to sea, was an enormous fortress.

Its towers were of dark, distempered stone, and it squatted like a patch of night on the fair coast. Most impressive was a hedge of ancient yew trees standing between the pilgrims and the fortress. The trees massed together so thickly, they looked like a wall and gave Jack an unpleasant feeling, though he didn’t know why.

The Bard frowned as though he, too, found the view distasteful. “That is the fortress of Din Guardi,” he said. “It has been there since time out of mind. They say one of the old gods built it.”

“Oldgods?” echoed Jack.

“The guardians of the fields, the earth, the trees. The ones who were here before people came. Most of them are asleep and better left so.”

“Who lives there now, sir?” asked Jack.

“King Yffi.”

“A real king?” said Jack, thrilled by the idea of a court with knights and horses and banners.

“He’s a brute. Din Guardi is no place for children, and you’re better off at the monastery.” The Bard laughed. “But Yffi lays a fine table, and I like throwing him into a panic.”