The Shepherd of Weeds (29 page)

The first chance he got, he relieved the thing of its gold pocket watch, and, whistling, he secured it to his own sacking.

When they finally stopped their tedious adventure, the former taster congratulated himself. In the distance, the gates of the Tasters’ Guild stood like a beacon to his bitter, unlovely heart. Sorrel Flux had lived, had
served
, at the Guild for many long years, and he knew every crevice of the place. But service was no longer in his future. It was to be quite a homecoming.

The large, imposing gates caused him no dismay. At the opportune moment, with nightfall, he would simply slip away without a trace. He knew a way. He had seen it used before by that wicked, duplicitous woman—Clothilde. Yes, Flux knew her well. The woman had so captivated his Director, but Flux
had seen through it all. Even then, when Clothilde called Rocamadour her home, her loyalties were suspect but her errands and absences never questioned. Hers was a position rife with indulgence. She had borne Verjouce that wretched child, departing soon after with the tiny thing through an unguarded passage—returning empty-handed and arrogant. Together, mother and infant were the source of so much bother, so much inconvenience. Had Flux been able to drown the child, as he had offered to do out of the kindness of his heart, he would not be here today, itching and thirsty. Perhaps it was not too late.

At that passage’s end, Flux knew, he might safely discard his straw stuffing—for it let out into the city’s abandoned stables.

When his opportunity came, it did so accompanied by a little, angry-sounding hummingbird flitting by his side. These awful birds, he thought. The sky is filthy with them.

umpen Gorse, corncob pipe jutting from one corner of her wide face, sun-faded patchwork skirts a broad bell about her generous proportions, stood before the pitted gates of the Tasters’ Guild. Her arms rested at her sides as she surveyed the ancient walls. The cart she had drawn—with many heavy water barrels and one trestleman—rested just behind her, and she pulled on her pipe contemplatively. She stared down the mighty walls.

“Well, Pips”—she blew a series of smoke rings—“it’s showtime.”

A patrol of Outriders, fierce shadowy robes and haunted faces beneath billowing hoods, regarded the well keeper silently from the wall.

“You there!” Lumpen’s gravelly voice shouted. “Yoo-hoo! Down here! Yes—you. I’m talkin’ to you.”

A slight tilting of their shadowy heads was the only indicator Lumpen had been heard.

“Open up!” She gestured wide. “I got a delivery here for that Dumbkin.”

Soon several more Outriders appeared beside the first patrol.

“Well? What’re you waitin’ for? How many Outriders does it take to open a door?”

There seemed to be little interest in fulfilling the well keeper’s request, and several long minutes passed in stony silence. Lumpen glared up at the servants of the Guild—hand shading her face from the drifting ash.

“Have it your way,” Lumpen shouted. She readied herself as if to go. “But that Dumbkin’s gonna be one mad little feller. He might be small, but he packs a punch—” She gestured to her scarred forehead with a stout thumb.

Still nothing.

Lumpen spat into her hands and rubbed them together briskly. She frowned, thinking.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this here water what keeps that Director of yours in ink?”

On this point, she appeared to have some success.

There was a small
pop
, followed by a well-oiled
click
.

Lumpen was genuinely confused.

A door appeared to be opening—but it hadn’t been there before. Lumpen scratched her head. The door was a small one comparatively, cut right into the hulking gates. So that was
it—it was simply expertly disguised! Not much got by the well keeper. But still, the door was confusing her, and she stared at it—at the small figure of a subrector standing within its frame. If only the slight sting in her haunch was less distracting.

Lumpen got her wish as a chilling numbness spread along her thigh and the world grew dim.

umpen’s cart sloshed as it was marched beside the gatekeeper. Her body had been flung ruthlessly upon the barrels and hung limply. The smaller doorway was designed to accommodate just these sorts of deliveries, but all the same, her head hit the doorframe with a loud
crack
as the wheels rolled through.

“Well, well,” a high, sinister voice spoke. “What a … pity.”

Snaith limped around the scene, long robes scraping the uneven cobbles. He stopped to inspect a puff of lace upon Lumpen’s pantaloons.

“It appears an unfortunate acc
th
ident ha
th
befallen Dumbcane’
th
a
th
o
th
iate. Poor thing, she would have been well-advi
th
ed by our re
th
ident ink maker to tread lightly in the
th
e time
th
.”

A barrel was pried open, the contents analyzed. Snaith inspected the remaining contents of the cart, poking swollen fingers into cork holes and between wire hoops indiscriminately until he lost interest. Water held little appeal to one bent on blight and contamination. With a curt nod to the Outriders in attendance, Snaith turned to depart, red robes flaring briefly but settling askew again upon his limp shoulders.

“Roll thi
th
abomination to the Warming Room. U
th
e it for kindling. Oh—and throw thi
th
creature”—Snaith poked Lumpen’s padded figure—“into the crypt
th.
”

Gathering his scarlet robes about him, Snaith shuffled off to his lecture hall, where—a surge of excitement spread through him—he had students that needed to be taught a lesson.

The dejected cart sat in the dim light of the dismal city as the Outriders prepared to dispose of it. Between them, the tiny figure of Aster flitted around Lumpen’s prostrate form.

Revenge is mine!
she rejoiced.

But, in the way of revenge, it did little to quench the burning embers of hate in her heart. Instead, she sought ways to fan them further, ways to spread her small, insistent brand of misery.

High above the scene, on a quiet perch over Lumpen’s doomed cart, Dumbcane was sketching feverishly on a section
of the wall. He was always sketching these days, propelled by vivid dreams and strange voices. His interests in calligraphy, in ink, were supplanted by this newfound passion—he was a man possessed.

His subject of late: a particularly gruesome statue atop a stretch of a section of Rocamadour’s thick wall. It was a hulking, winged gargoyle, ripped from the imaginings of a despot, and occupied a portion of the barricade often patrolled by the Outriders.

It had somehow eluded him, this grotesque but intriguing piece, until he began to be ravaged by its image in his dreams. Its pointed, twisted ears were pierced with bones; its teeth looked capable of tearing away at its own stony flesh. It stood three times the scribe’s size, a specter over the dark city. Its wings appeared to be torn from the devil himself and slapped upon his broad back at irreverent angles.

It was a great work of art, thought Dumbcane.

He admired the creature’s talons now, upon the very edge of the partition, and remembered his vision of the previous evening. Guided by the words of the lady of the fountain, dictated by his dreams, the scribe removed from his pocket a small penknife and began chipping away at the mortar that secured the demon to the wall.

n the Lower Moors, the scarecrows milled about restlessly, congregating in small, rustling groups. The distant tree line was heavy with Caux’s birds. The townsfolk, rallied by Peps, looked pale and drawn. Ivy, studying her friends, saw faces tense with worry. Evening came, with no word—nor sign of Cecil. Skeins of gloamwort twine were strung around the encampment, spilling their faint glow in the absence of fire.

Springform tents had sprouted up—regal, billowing white structures that supplied a surprising amount of comfort—but Ivy preferred the counsel of the two albatrosses to four canvas walls. Someone—Gudgeon, Ivy thought—had sewn a banner that now rippled upon a pole atop the largest tent—a familiar three-pronged leaf. The sprig of poison ivy blazed across a white background of the flag.

“What now?” Ivy asked Lofft as she sat against his folded wing. Shoo hopped upon the earth at her feet.

“We wait.” His voice sounded tired.

“For what?” she wondered.

“For morning,” Klair answered.

Ivy pulled her knees to her chin and huddled between the enormous seabirds. She thought of the trestleman Peps—so much rested on his bravery. Would he and Lumpen succeed in opening the gates? Her eyes, heavy now, shut upon the barren scene, the green of her flag a beacon in the barren moor. A weightless blanket of down enveloped her; Klair had tucked Ivy beneath her wing, and, nestling her close, guarded her as she slept.

The morning did come, uneasily—not in glorious color or ripe with possibility. This one brought a layer of settled ash and dismay, and a dim light the color of gangrene.

It also brought with it a small warbler.

Even the worst of news, when delivered in sweet birdsong, can sound agreeable, and it was to this melody—the melody of betrayal—that Ivy awoke. She saw at once that the gates remained closed, and Lumpen had not returned.

Rowan, Rue, and Grig gathered to listen to the warbler. He had been sent ahead, a scout.

Teasel’s report was long, for there was much he had discovered. On several occasions, as he sang, the poor bird
looked on the verge of expiring, and Shoo was forced to prod him gently with his beak. Klair and Lofft filtered the warbler’s exclamations and urgent
peeps
as a cold feeling of dread swept up Ivy’s spine.

The warbler’s news was this: they had been betrayed. A small hummingbird—one, in fact, known to Lumpen, and privileged with information from the caucus of the birds—had taken vengeance upon them. She had joined forces with the Guild. They knew of Ivy—and they were ready.

But Teasel saved the worst news for last.

Within the blighted city, something sinister was amiss. The remaining students had been herded into a lecture hall—one marked with a strange symbol.

“Ask Teasel to describe the symbol,” Ivy commanded.

After an explosive burst of song, Lofft replied, “Teasel has never seen such an image in his small years, he says, having spent most of them in the regrettable parlor of Mrs. Mulk. But he describes a set of horns upon an animal of the pasture. And a swarm of insects issues forth—a swarm of bees.”

“An ox head!” Rowan realized.

“Snaith!” Ivy and Rue gasped. “That’s the door to Snaith’s classroom. Irresistible Meals!”

The scene of Ivy’s scourge bracken poisoning. Ivy knew personally that nothing good could come from that deadly course.

t was as if a bolt of electricity had coursed through the camp. Teasel’s news galvanized the Lower Moors, and collectively, everyone awaited orders.