The House of Snow & Apples Read online

THE HOUSE OF SNOW AND APPLES

  By Hob Goodfellowe

  copyright (Story & Art), 2016

  TALES TOLD IN THE WINTER

  (Author's Note)

  Well, the second of these tales took a great deal longer in the telling than I thought it would. By way of explanation for the delay between the first and second installment, I wrote an entirely different book, about 100,000 words, now titled A Charm for the Nameless Child, which was supposed to be Part Two. But, very quickly, on handing it to some first readers I discovered that there was too much of a narrative jump between it and A Treasure of Bone and Promises. The only straightforward solution was to insert a couple stories between them. So, The House of Snow and Apples is now Part Two, and Part Three will be Fair Upon the Tor, with A Charm for the Nameless Child as Part Four. Some trivial things: whereas A Treasure of Bone and Promises has what I think of as a classic Peter Dickinson plot 'shape', The House of Snow and Apples has something of a Michael Swanwick shape to it—in particular I'm thinking of his excellent series of short stories, The Mongolian Wizard. There are some obvious Shakespearian elements too. I have stolen both Vespertine and Jack straight from Shakespeare (with names changed), though there the resemblance ends. This story doesn't play out much like that particular Shakespeare story, and all the other characters are entirely different. Without giving too much away, elderwood pith was, incidentally, by folk-tradition a good weapon for use against those things it is used against in the book. The circles and holes near the spring are intended to be 'cup and ring' marks. I think that will do for now.

  Hob Goodfellowe

  Melbourne, 2016

  www.hobgoodfellowe.com

  The road ahead ran down through a sheltered valley. Elms and stands of hazel evergreen overhung the muddy span, and every leaf on every branch was clasped by stillness in the descent of evening. Though the vale was not steep, it was large enough to hold a hollow at its heart. There was a twist of a brook there, coiling through its own small water-carved gully—some stray thickets of reeds—the hard broken lines of some old stone walls. Further off, grassy hummocks and tumbled stones hinted at a whole village buried beneath the quiet soil. But if something terrible had once happened to the people who lived here long ago, there was no whisper of it now. In the stillness of the evening, the noises that drifted up from the hollow were scattered, pleasant, relaxed: frogs in the reeds, a murmur of human voices, a few scattered laughs, the low of an ox.

  A little way to the north—at about the point where the road vanished over the brim of the nearest hill—a large shape emerged from shadow. It was a monster of a thing, this creature that trotted out into the open evening air. A hoof hit the wet soil, squelching out a wavelike fringe of mud around it. A few Autumn gnats flew up from the puddles, spiralling, disturbed from the slick surface of the road by that careless hoof.

  The creature stopped. It stood atop the hill, looking down at the roadside camp below. Hot breath poured from nostrils, flaring. The beast was large in its bulk, angular in its shape, and mostly horselike. Other descriptions might be used, but horselike certainly gave a reasonable sketch—even if it were also true that the creature's head looked more like a horse's skull, with skin, mane and ears, than actual living flesh. A casual observer would also have noticed the thornpricks of red light agleam deep inside its eyes. It wore no bridle, nor bit, but it did have a saddle and a rider.

  Sharp teeth reflected light as the creature spoke. "Hur. I smell magic."

  The rider leaned forward. The cool stir of a northern Autumn wind caught up her hair and her clothing. What was revealed by the passing breeze, was a young woman. She was not the sort of rider that one might expect atop a demonical looking horse. She had an open, curious expression on her face; her hair was tied into a rustic braid; and she wore what amounted to roughly cut and restitched farm-lass clothing. Her dress was knife-slit up the side with workman's trows underneath it. Old working shoes covered her feet. Her vest and blouse were of a rather plain linen. Her riding cape was of not very good quality. All her various things were much-patched. As riders in the twilight go, she was not heroic, not dramatic, and certainly not frightening. The sword belted to her left hip sat a little ungainly. The silent thrum about the blade, as if the air was a bit more alive near the metal tongue, was not quite enough to make up for an overall impression of someone who was not entirely settled into the business of travelling about by dangerous roads, chasing wild adventures and that sort of thing. Almost, perhaps. Just, not quite.

  "Magic?" she said. "Do you mean, like a sorcerer?"

  Dapplegrim snorted. "More like a bundle of sorcerers. A bevy. A nest of them. A whole sackful."

  "All camped together? In the wilds? Down there in the gully?" She sat back in the saddle then. "Perhaps we ought to go around? I don't think I really trust magicians. Not really. The sort of person who grasps and grasps after power? It's, well it's—"

  "Suspect?" said Dapplegrim.

  "Exactly."

  He shook his head, and his mane stirred with the motion. "No. I don't much trust sorcerers and witchling-men neither, but I'd prefer to know what a scrum of magicians are doing camping on the roadside together than sneak by and be ignorant. Could be there's something dangerous about. Like a demon, or monster, or something. You know, other than me." He took a deep in-draught of air, taking it into his nostrils, throat, lungs. "Reckon it'll be safe enough. There's a stink of oxen and ale, wheat, barley, salt in casks too. If there's a score of magicians down there, there's also score of workaday folk. Them witching ones can't be up to too much mischief. Really bad mischief tends to want more secrecy."

  "Alright. I suppose it'll be safe to go down there then, but cautiously."

  Dapplegrim launched himself into a quick trot. His tail whisked as he pulled his head a little higher. "You? Me? Incautious? Never."

  They had been travelling together for some three weeks now, the girl Caewen, and her uncanny horse-creature. As it turned out, being in the company of a talking, slightly deathly looking horse, all black and grey dapple, with sharp teeth, and dull red eyes—well, it did make for safe passage along lonely roads. Of course the company was not without its problems also. People in towns and villages and lonely wayside cottages were surprisingly predictable in their reluctance to open their doors to a young woman atop a talkative, red-eyed horse. In the town of Awer, the Auldermen had kindly, if nervously, asked Caewen to move along as soon as it pleased her. By which, the Auldermen meant it would please the folk of Awer if she moved on very soon. Outside Hilth they'd been reluctant to so much as open the gates for her and Dapplegrim.

  The gate-warden had gawped down at them from the palisade, eventually managing to say, "Here now. What's this? A young lass, sword-belted, riding a dragon?"

  But it wasn't Caewen who answered him, it was Dapple. He snapped back, "Dragon? Dragon? Hur! Do I look like a dragon to you? Do you see scales? A nasty beak? A snout? Flames? Why, a dragon would be ten times larger. A dragon would've knocked your gate down already. And make no mistake."

  "Might be best not to talk about knocking down gates," had been Caewen's whisper.

  After a period of argument, and then some promises from Dapplegrim to obey certain town rules about not eating people, dogs, pigs or cats, the men on the gate did allow them to enter. Even if a jittery youth with a cudgel was given the job of following them about, at least they were able to stay at the town inn. Of course, Dapplegrim did somewhat have himself to blame for uneasy welcomes. In the stables at Hilth, he would periodically raise his head above his stall, and mumble through a mouthful of hay, "Hur! Dragon! I never!" at the reluctant guard, adding things like, "A dragon would've eaten you up in a single bite by now." This probably did not help the situation.

  Nonetheless, all in all, if the journey had been at times wearying, at other times frustrating, it was still a wonderful thing to be doing. Caewen had the wind and the vast blue sky, the stars at night, and the green hills too. More than once, she had breathed the cool air and looked up at the sky, at swallows minueting far above, and wondered to herself why anyone would want jewels and gowns and grand houses when the wide free world was so beautiful.

  All in all, it had been a good three weeks.

  And yes, perhaps she was a touch guilty about being so happy to escape the village of her birth, but she was happy. It wasn't like she hadn't stopped at home to give her parents most of the goule's hoard of treasures. That heap of coins was more than ten years hard farming would fetch at market. And she had assured her family that she would be quite safe with Dapplegrim as a friend. They had taken one look at the beast and agreed with her. The flickering recollections of her family mused up the thoughts in her head. She sighed, inwardly, then pulled her thoughts away from home and family. She was away from the root cellar now. Away from the dingy place where she had hidden from the unkind lord of the village for all those years. As Dapplegrim trotted in the light of evening gold and dusky blue, she thought to herself: Well, here I am—travelling, free, and seeing the world. There are worse places to find oneself.

  -oOo-

  The campsite was dotted with wagons, each piled with goods. Oxen and horses stood tethered, here and there about the hollow, pulling at the rich rank grass with hungry mouths.

  As Caewen and Dapple trotted nearer, they passed close to one of those broken walls that had been visible from above. From the look of it, there must have once been something like a fortified village here. Ivy hugged the tumbled stones in scragg
ly mats, and a few escapee descendants of garden flowers spotted the earth.

  "I wonder if any of the traders are going north or south?" said Caewen. She looked at the shapes of people around two blazing campfires. "We could send a message to my family, if any of them are going that way. Let everyone at home know we're safe."

  "Yes, sounds good," said Dapplegrim, distracted. He looked around. "You know, there really is quite a stink of magic here. I wasn't joking before. It's quite a stench." Caewen understood the wariness. A number of years spent with that old, foetid warlock Mannagarm would make anyone suspect of sorcerers.

  As they came up on the camp a wide-set man with a tuft of soft curly brown hair and a carpet of stubble running over several weighty chins detached himself from the campfire to meet them.

  "Welcome!" he said, arms thrown wide in a slightly affected manner. "We've a cook-fire to share and stories to share too, and good beer by the lashing, if you've a coin for the latter that is... the beer being the thing we weary ones insist on payment... that is... for..." He slowed in his words when he set eyes on Dapplegrim. "I see. Beg me, for assuming. That is, I expect you would be wanting to join them?" He indicated a bent knuckle towards a cluster of folk around the other fire.

  Caewen looked. Men and women, old and young, in various states of fine, rough and vagabond clothing sat in a rough cluster.

  "Them?" said Caewen.

  "The weirdworkers," replied the trader. "That is to say, I presume you are..." he waved a meaty hand at Dapplegrim. "You are a worker of the arts?"

  Caewen was about to say no, she was not actually a witch or wizard-lady, when Dapplegrim interrupted her. "Well of course she is a powerful magician. How else do you think she'd have bound a great and monstrous demon of the dark forests to her will? And don't get any ideas. Hur. Why she could turn you into a stone. Or a newt. Or a newt made of stone." Rather unconvincingly he added. "Or a stone made of newts."

  "Er. Right," said the trader. "I'm Endric, by and by, if you pleases you. You're welcome to join them as are travelling south for the meeting. I understand the moot is yet some days off."

  "Thank you," said Caewen.

  As Dapplegrim moved to trot past the man he shot the trader Endric an overwrought glare. "Stone made of newts!" Dapplegrim hissed, though he was grinning as he said it, and the wagoner seemed more bemused than frightened.

  "Be nice," said Caewen. "Behave. We don't need a repeat of Charkling Tump East."

  Dapplegrim snorted. "How was I to know the sheep belonged to someone?"

  "Sheep always belong to someone. Have you ever heard of a wild sheep in the woods? Sheep don't survive wolves and bears without someone looking after them. That's one of our rules now, remember? Sheep always belong to someone."

  "Yes, well. Hm. Hur." Dapplegrim, after all, was only half-horse, and only half his diet was grass and apples and straw. The other half... well... his teeth were good for meatier things too.

  At the small gathering of the weirdworkers, as Endric had called them, Caewen and Dapplegrim stopped and Caewen dismounted. A number of faces turned their way, some frail, some fat, some thin and wretched, some pale, some dark. People from all over the lands were here, from a great many nations, all stations and all walks of life. Rich and poor. Some sat in elaborate robes. Some sat in rags. They had been conversing quietly, in knots of twos or threes, but the talk had ceased when they saw a new arrival. Their stares were attentive, though perhaps not intensely interested.

  "Hello," said Caewen. And then she remembered something Mannagarm had said about a wizard moot he had attended once, long ago. "Just so you know, I am not the sort to sleep under hedges. Um. If that is of any interest. Um. At all."

  A few of the expressions twisted into puzzlement, others looked away with a shrug. They all seemed to say: oh, some upstart of a nobody has walked in among a crowd of proper magicians—alright then. And the crowd promptly ignored her.

  "It really does stink of magic here," said Dapplegrim, under his breath.

  "Quiet, you." She could feel herself blushing a little. "Of course it stinks of magic. There's at least a dozen magicians isn't there?" The lack of a single word from the company left her feeling awkward, a little embarrassed too. Maybe she ought to encourage Dapplegrim to go back to the traders? They seemed friendlier. But as she looked at the merchants and tinkers, sitting apart, she realised that she had picked her bedfellows, and now she had to grit her teeth and tolerate them. At least it would only be until dawn. "Dapple?"

  "Yes."

  "You keep saying that, about magic, but what does magic smell like?"

  "Oh, sort of like the smell of gold and lead mixed together, or the smell before a oceanic storm out of sight from land, or the smell of the first drop of rain on dry soil if there is also blood in the soil from a battle fought seven years ago. Sort of like that."

  "I see," said Caewen, though she really didn't. "How would you know what a storm at sea smells like?"

  "Questions, questions," said Dapple, rolling his eyes. "I just know."

  "Alright." She undid the saddle, pulled down their bags, and set about brushing down Dapplegrim whilst he glared at one sorcerer after another. Then, making herself something to eat from their travel-box, she sat down on an old fallen piece of masonry to have her dinner. As she was finishing off some seedbread, mustard and cold meat, one of the magicians got up and walked over to her. The firelight was behind and a little to the left of this person, so Caewen wasn't able to see any details clearly until the stranger were nearly at her feet.

  "Oh," she said, without catching herself. "You're a child?"

  The girl, who looked to be about the age of fourteen—maybe a year or two older—sat down crosslegged in front of Caewen. She wore a travelling gown of vivid fern-green velvet, and had a curious foxish expression. Her hair was a red tint of fair, and her eyes matched the colour of three dark green stones she wore on her throat. "You're not so very old yourself. And besides, appearances are deceiving," said the child with an off-cadence lilt.

  "Is that so?" said Caewen.

  "For one," said the child, "I am no child. For the second, you are no binder of spells, nor spirits, nor folk of the air, are you?"

  "Well, you see—"

  Dapplegrim cut her off. "I'll not have you insult the great and powerful—"

  "Be quiet with you," said the child who was not a child. A pause. She laughed. "I know a magician when I see one. I've had a long enough life to learn how to see the spark of magic inside a person. You," and she tilted her head and considered, "yes, you have a little ancestral native talent, but it is sleeping in you. Have there been many sorcerers, witches, magicians, cunningmen, cleverfolk or the similar in your lineage?"

  "None that I know of," said Caewen.

  "Hmm. Your bloodline might be hard to open then. Some talent, but locked away tight. You might need a powerful key to open it. Blood drunk from a raw dragon's heart. Nine years' teachings from a bodiless voice in a cavern. The water of a nine storms caught, and drunk from a raven's skull." A shrug. "Teachings and charmings of that ilk."

  Caewen frowned "I don't really follow what you mean. And why did you say you're not a child? You look... I couldn't say for sure, but young. Somewhere about fourteen? Fifteen? And not more than a slip of a lass, at that." She wondered then if the girl was not of mortalfolk. "Are you some sort of dwarfie creature?"

  "Oh no, I am no Dwarghe, nor Awvish Folk. I am of mortal womb born, and mortal myself, but... well, appearances are deceiving. Why, look over at Old Cartholom the Alchemsmith. He's the one all in grey and black. Hawkish nose and great beetling brows. Wooly robes the colour of gritty stone. How does he look to you?"

  "Stern," said Caewen, and after studying him a while, "and alone. He isn't in anyone's company."

  "Watch him then. But don't stare. Don't let him know you are watching him. Just watch."

  So Caewen did. Out of the corner of her eye, she kept her focus on the birch-thin man, sitting stiffly in the dark. As she watched, Cartholom seemed to glance about, checking if anyone was paying attention to him, then, with a flash, a red face peeked out of a corner of his robe and he fed it a bit of bread from his hand.

  "Oh." Caewen started. "He has a squirrel in his robes."

  "Many squirrels. He likes them. Keeps a family of squirrels about his person. Not what he first appears, yes? Dull, and sour and grim: but with a family of squirrels running up and down his trousers."

  Caewen turned her face to study the girl. "And you are not what you seem?" She gave herself a moment, then said, "I'm Caewen of Drossel, and this is my friend, Dapplegrim. We rather are what we seem though I'm afraid. Not a lot of secrets."

  "Names? Names? You shouldn't gift away your names like that."

  "Why not?"

  "You really are not an ounce of a magician are you? I was wondering if maybe you were cloaking your arts? Hiding them down deep. But no." She shook her head. "Listen. Names are special. Names are how we dominate things... how we take away their mystery. What is thunder without a name? It is a terrifying miracle sent by gods. With a name, it becomes mere thunder. What is a snake without a name? It is an assassin born out of the earth, mysterious. But a name reduces it to an adder, or a grass-snake or a milk-snake. Now, the name has taken away the poison, if it is the right sort of name." She affected a country voice. "Oh, that's just a milk-snake. That's no nameless terror at all. Not even poisonous."

  But Caewen still wasn't really certain that the girl had properly answered her question. She wasn't quite sure that the girl was not playing games with her. "So what do they call you then?"

  "Many things. The Witchling-in-Green. The Penitent Witch. If you want something more like a name as you think of them, call me Tamsin."

  "Alright, Tamsin, how old are you then? If you don't mind me asking?"

  "She's very, very old," said Dapplegrim, cutting in. He took a sniff of the air. "Older than me. Older than anyone else in this valley, or the next, or the next. Old as old. Old as rock."

  "I am that." She gave a pixieish smile, slyly. Though shifted where she sat too, perhaps a little self-conscious. "It would be fair of me to warn you that it will do you no favours in the standing of other, more reputable, magicians to be my friend. I am not merely disliked. I am quite despised. It is one thing to achieve grand old age and long life with magic, but it is quite another thing to achieve everlasting youth. I have done some things. If you knew what, I suspect you'd not want to talk to me either. Though in my defence, my worst... hmm... crimes were very long ago."

  Caewen considered this. "How long ago?"

  "A very many years ago. I was at my worst when men heaved up temples of raw stone, when they lived in round huts, when they used flint more than they used bronze, and iron was not yet know, nor steel. You see, I lived quite some time. But I am the Penitent Witch now, you see. Going here and there. Travelling about. Trying to make up for a few of the things I did so many years ago. I have a lot of blood to wash off my fingers." A sigh. "There are things that..." and she paused before adding with a more bitter note, "well, things that I regret."

  Dapplegrim meanwhile had been running an eye over the others in the gathering. "There's a moot on then, is there?"

  "The Seven-Year Moot. Yes." Tamsin seemed neither impressed nor deeply interested. She shook her head, dismissive. "There will be the usual squabbles and arguments, and petty accusations, alliances made and broken, and a great deal of noise-making. But nothing much will come of it. Still, I have my own reasons for going, as I suppose we all do. There are matters I must put before the moot. It would be wrong not to. Whether anyone will listen to me? I cannot say. Though I fear, perhaps it is a wasting effort." She smiled, and it was a childish smile. Like a smile for a bowl of cream and cut fruit in summer. "If you want my advice, you probably ought not go there. If you are a pretender magician, someone will work it out, and that someone may decide to punish your for the insolence. We magicians are people too, after all, and people can be petty and nasty and jealous of their self-importance."

  "I'll take your advice to mind."

  Dapplegrim added, "We both will."

  The conversation lulled. Haltingly, they chatted a little about the road south, and how fast Tamsin was expecting the travellers' train to progress, and when and where they might stop along the way. Privately, Caewen thought that she and Dapplegrim might as well travel with this wagon train for a day or three, although the two of them would need to talk about that later privately.

  As the night lengthened, the voices around the fire dimmed off to sleep, one-by-one. Tamsin said goodnight, and stood, stretched, then walked to the place where she had set out her own travellers' bed and canopy beside a tethered pony.

  Caewen untied a sleeping roll and bedded down next to Dapplegrim's warm bulk. She put her head onto the hard ground and felt the exhaustion thread through her muscles and bones. She blinked a few times, looking up at the star-powdered sky, but her thoughts immediately detached themselves and drifted away into images without focus. Her eyelids fluttered and she was asleep within moments.

  -oOo-

  Caewen came awake with a start. It was dark still. Night shadowed the ground. A few thin clouds troubled the starry sky, reaching out like groping fingers from the east. Why had she woken up? A movement stirred near her head. She froze. Something was creeping up close to her. It stopped, then jumped and landed with a light patter on her chest. Then it peered closely down at her face. She almost cried out in alarm, but managed to stop herself—forcing her body to remain motionless, she blinked and tried to take in what she was seeing—immediately in front of her face was a red squirrel with tufty ears, a twitching nose and liquid eyes, all lit up in the moonlight.

  It rubbed two tiny paws over its face, as if itchy, and then it spoke—though its lips did not move and the voice was a deep, fragile man's voice. It was difficult to be sure whether the words came from the squirrel, or from the air and darkness.

  "I saw you watching me," said the squirrel.

  "I'm sorry." Caewen felt a brush of fear. She had been sleeping on her back, and could not tell if the grey magician was awake, or standing, or waiting in the night-shadows nearby. "I did not mean to offend."

  Whiskers flicked. "Oh, that's alright, alright. But you ought be more trepidatious. You seem a pleasant girl. I'm not angry, am I? Am I? No. Just, tread with caution, you hear me? Hear me? Some persons don't like being looked at. And no one much likes your company, either, either, neither, neither. Step with heedfulness around that one."

  "Tamsin?"

  "Is that what she called herself? Yes. The Bloodspeaker. The Necromant of the Old Hill Cave. Lady of the Carven Pillars. She's a lot of other names. Worse. Those who live long lifetimes gather nicknames and folk-callings like dandelion fluff in summer. Be cautious of that one."

  "But she seems... I don't know. Sad? Regretful? Are you sure—?"

  The squirrel grew irritated. It chittered. Words bloomed around it like flowers in the night air. "Don't ask that. Don't ever ask a sorcerer that. Sure? Sure? I'm not sure of anything. That's what magic does to you, it does. Uncertainty. Everything could be this, or it could be that. A bird could be a fish, or it could be a seed that will grow into a tree that sprouts more fish, or it could be turned to living ivory, or nine unreadable letters painted on a piece of stone. Nothing is certain. I only know this much—be careful of that one. She's not innocent. Oh, she claims to have changed her ways. But does a rich thief ever give up dreams of glittery adamants? Does a milk-fed cat give up its wish to catch some tasty, tasty squirrel? Oh," the squirrel whispered, "Oh, how I hate cats." The creature sniffed. "Or, does a well-fed squirrel leave acorns where they lie?" The voice murmured then, and made a sound like licking of lips. "Hmmm. Acorns." The creature shook its little head. "But I distract myself. Nature is nature. Magic is magic. Hunger is hunger." The squirrel twisted and took a hop away in that fluid sort of way that squirrels do with a tail bobbing. Caewen allowed herself up on an elbow, and looked around. The grey sorcerer with the hooked nose was definitely lying down and he was snoring loudly. It was the sort of snore that isn't easily faked: deep and resonant in the nose and throat. His red squirrel jumped and skittered over the grass and stones, until it vanished itself inside the folds of the man's clothing. It took one last peek back at Caewen, then was gone.

  "That was odd," said Caewen to herself.

  "Hur. What was?"

  Her heart took a jump before she realised it was Dapplegrim. "Oh. You. I forget you don't much sleep."

  "That little squirrel was talking just now. You didn't hear it?"

  "No, but that doesn't mean it wasn't speaking. Might have been speaking in your head." Dapplegrim's eyes were catching the moonlight. They shone with the colours of the bordertimes between Autumn and Winter—dull and red, with gleams of moonsilver all through. "Enchaunters and suchlike can speak in thoughts." He shook his mane. "And folk think I'm spooky. Hur."