Tuesday is here! It’s time for Part Five of The Shape of Family. Checking back in with Claire and her retinue today.
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The Shape of Family
Part Five – Sun-Baked
by Rick Cook Jr
After she was alone, sated for the night, Claire tried not to let it get to her. Any number of reasons why the girl would be late. She tossed and turned all the same with a stomach churning worries, and by morning when her Wings first stirred she couldn’t tell if she’d slept or just kept her eyes closed hoping for it.
Claire pushed up from her bed, mouth dry, head pounding. She hadn’t meant to drink. That damned Combs wouldn’t take no for an answer, bordering on insubordination.
Bordering but never crossing that line.
Private Hughes came into her darkened room with a pitcher of water and Claire’s spare uniform, clearing her throat to announce her presence. Claire pulled the sheets over her body. Hughes had seen it all before, but it was indelicate.
“Ma’am, breakfast is being served in the common room. Still no sign of Scout Mollen.”
“Leave it,” she muttered, sitting up, feeling unsteady and wishing they hadn’t outlawed herbal medicine, too. “And find me some mint.”
“Ma’am?”
“Dismissed.”
Private Hughes nodded and closed the door behind her, silencing the world once again. Hardly any sleep, missing a scout, coming to a complete dead-end for their investigation thus far… Not a great start.
She drank half the water and dumped the rest on her head, gritting teeth over the chill. Damn, but she was awake now, shivering as she dried off and pulled her hair back in a tight bun and dressed. They’d have to get their uniforms laundered when they stopped tonight.
She took a few deep breaths in the darkness and threw open the curtains for the sunlight outside, squinting at its sunrise brilliance. At least they had business in Stalbridge; it would give Renee a chance to catch up.
She rubbed her eyes and stared around the small trading village. Stalbridge, what do you know?
She spied the chapel some distance away, its steeple standing high above its peers. Good a place as any.
She booted open the door to her private room and stepped out into the upstairs hall of the inn. The barracks on the edge of town held the Kingsguard, and this was one of very few inns in the kingdom. One of very few left standing, anyway.
A few merchants scuttled about the hall, nodding at her, clutching their papers to their threadbare chests. She remembered clothing fit to shame the prince once upon a time. Now they were lucky to afford a second set of traveling gear.
“Pleasant roads, Captain?” a balding merchant asked as she passed him by.
“They’ve seen more peaceful days,” she answered, nodding to him as she walked down the narrow steps into the common room and sat at a table by herself.
Maggie smiled as she dropped a brew of tea steeped in mint with a greasy helping of bacon and biscuits on the table. It was a good smell even though it made her stomach burble. Maybe that was Maggie, though.
“Where’s your little’n?” Maggie asked, taking a seat across from her.
She sipped the mint tea and grimaced. “No sugar?”
“Supposed to get our ration last week.” She shrugged. “The merchants are always a day late, a few coins short.”
“Honey?”
“Yes?”
Claire grimaced again. “You know what I mean.”
Maggie grinned. “Used up in place of the sugar.”
Claire sighed. “It’s fine.”
“So which twin is with you?”
“The good one is supposed to be here.”
“Something happen?”
She shook her head, sipping the tea and nibbling at the bacon. “She’s got a couple hours. I’ll just enjoy the quiet when they aren’t around.”
Maggie grinned. “I wish I could get ‘em both here at once. I don’t totally believe they’re two different people.”
Claire returned the smile. “Pretty elaborate prank.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her. Them.” She settled back and wiped at the table with her rag. “Will you be moving on today?”
“Little bit of business at the chapel first.”
Maggie’s eyes widened and narrowed, almost too fast for Claire to catch. “Really? What’s old Mason done to get your interest?”
“Nothing. We’re tracking some criminals and the rumor is they found a new god.”
“Ah, so a little research, then, is all?” Maggie sighed in what Claire thought must be relief. Was there something here? Surely not her Maggie?
“Mags?”
“Hmm?” she mumbled, sipping at her own tea.
“You noticed anything unusual in town lately?”
“’Sides the merchants coming whenever it pleases ‘em? What else?”
She leaned in to whisper, “There’s been some increased activity in the bloody wood of late.”
Maggie’s sharp intake of breath appeared genuine. “The creatures?” she asked.
“That and some other oddities. You heard about the wolf, surely?” Thinking of that made her skin prickle.
Maggie’s head waggled up and down, eyes animating with interest. “Turned into a boy, didn’t he? I confess I dared not believe it.”
“I have it on good authority.”
Maggie’s eyes glistened with the possibilities. “What else? The merchants never gossip. Never do anything they can’t add a price to.”
“Just a horse without a rider found in the bloody wood.”
“Not so strange, is it?” She clearly wanted to ask more about the wolf, but Claire was thinking about the horse again. The clever, keen, stubborn horse.
“Not so strange, I suppose. All I’ve got, though.” She wouldn’t mention the bandersnatch. No reason to. They never came to the villages.
They also never attacked in daylight.
“Well, Captain, I’ve got duties to tend. Thanks for bending my ear, it’ll keep the tavern for another couple weeks spinning your tales.”
Claire laid a coin on the table next to her half-finished breakfast. “You should be tipping me,” she joked.
Maggie picked up the coin and it disappeared with a flourish into her apron pocket. “I believe I do, every time you come to town.” She winked and blew a kiss with her back to the Winged Riders and left Claire to cover her blush behind another sip of tea. The nymph!
Breakfast ended and Sergeant Combs stepped before her table, in full riding gear. “Morning, Captain,” he said with a wink. “How’s the iron gut?”
“Rusted and leaking,” she said as she stood. “Everyone ready?”
He nodded, stepping aside so she could take point. “We can ride at any time.”
“We’ll canvas a bit, first. You and Hughes knock on a few doors, show the papers, give ‘em something to think about. I’ll take Private Tanner over to the chapel to talk to Father Mason.”
He grimaced. “Tanner? Fellow’s got no manners.”
She laughed as they filed out of the inn. “But he’s got a pretty face and you know how Mason is.”
“Am I not pretty enough, Captain?” he asked, and to Claire it seemed half a joke.
Hughes came up beside him with the rest of the Wings, tying her hair in imitation of Claire. She said, “Begging your pardon, Sergeant, but you scare children.” This set the rest of the Wings to snorting with laughter.
Claire cleared her throat and her Wings fell to silence. “The rest of you go on to the barracks, keep an eye out for Scout Mollen, resupply. You know the drill.”
They saluted and departed. She and Private Tanner walked the central road, avoiding the wagon ruts with foul-smelling water.
“Anything I should know going in, Captain?” Tanner asked.
“Just give old Mason something to look at if it seems like he’s not talking.”
He sighed. “’Join the Winged Riders’ my mother said. ‘You’ll be the envy of the kingdom.’”
“You’ll be in stocks you keep mouthing,” she warned.
He grinned. “Oh, you know me, Captain. I complain a lot but I get the job done.”
This wasn’t the first time she’d asked him to use his pretty face to get what she wanted. Wouldn’t be the last, either. She nodded.
The town was mostly empty at this hour. Too early for the tradesmen, too late for the field hands. Maybe she should have gotten her Wings up and talked to the farmers on their way out.
She waited for Tanner to push open the big double chapel doors, noting the squeak of hinge in one door. Unusual for the house of Gods to go negligent.
“Eyes open, Private.” They entered the chapel, domed ceiling giving way to the altar with patterns of the Hundred splayed all around. Through dusty windows shone a meager light, filtering the place in a thick amber glow.
In the center of it stood Father Mason. Waiting for her it seemed.
“Good morning, Captain Claymonte!” he proclaimed, holding a hand outstretched in greeting. Claire stepped forward and shook hands with the elderly priest, surprised as always to feel the raw strength in his grip for a man so old and frail-seeming.
“A good morning to you, Father,” she said in return, letting his bony hand go. “How have the Hundred been treating you?”
“They demand much, as always, and I am ever in their service.” Rote. “What brings you to Chapel? Come to give the Hundred your spiritual self at last?”
She grimaced. “Maybe next time, Father. You remember Private Tanner?” She held her hand out towards Tanner and the handsome man stepped forward, shaking with Mason, flashing him a grin that stole hearts.
Mason gave a flummoxed little smile as he let go Tanner’s hand. “Of course, of course. Always a pleasure to see you, Aldwin.”
“And you, Father.”
“I’m afraid we come seeking some criminals. Heretics, as it were.”
The bluster on Mason’s face was genuine, she’d have bet her rank on it. “No heretics in my town, Captain. I’ll not hear a word of it.”
“You misunderstand me. Come, let us talk.” She wanted to ask after a glass of wine to take the edge off her hangover, but she bore it well. It took no time at all to fill him in on the details.
“I wouldn’t believe it if it was anyone else,” he said. “A cult forming in our countryside. Does the Hundred not provide?”
“I know, Father. It is madness. Lunacy.”
“Perhaps not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve not heard anything specific, and tossed it as rumor besides.”
“Anything at all will help, Father. What do you know?”
He sat down on a bench and Claire followed suit. Tanner took to standing, back to them both. Father Mason admired the soldier’s backside. Clever.
“You were going to tilt a rumor mill at me, Father,” she prodded when he’d had a moment to admire.
“Yes, yes, of course. Your man here is a good soldier, you know it?”
“I do. Private Tanner has served me well.”
“Yes, well, I don’t doubt it. Let me see,” Mason said, rubbing at his lips. “I go into Maggie’s for a sip now and again, as you know.”
She nodded. Sips. She’d have laughed.
“Yes, well, they have the best honeyed ales. Anyway, the merchants gather and sometimes they talk. Not to anyone else, mind you, but when they’ve had enough of Maggie’s mix they do get louder.”
She let him talk. Father Mason was a preacher, and preachers had their own way in all things.
“It was a couple of weeks back, they talked of chanting in the Red Forest between here and Valebrook out west. You know Valebrook? Of course you do, and if you didn’t you’ve got your Twinners.” He cleared his throat and watched Tanner as he spoke. “Chanting. Singing. At first they thought it birdsong, and then they thought perhaps the wind was playing cruel jokes, bringing the Hundred Verses to them on the wind.”
The Hundred Verses. Save us all from that, she thought. She nodded and he continued.
“But the farther they went the louder it got. Not Stalbridge. Not Valebrook. None of the little dales or glens between. And the music wasn’t any chapel song they’d known.”
“Between here and Valebrook,” she mused. There was nothing between but pig stalls and farmland. “You’re sure that’s what they said?”
“Clear as a dinner bell. They even repeated some of the words in the songs.”
That piqued her interest. “What were they?”
“Mostly just repetitions of sun, and light, and shining. As of people remarking upon the weather.”
A cult. Not the first one. Probably not the last. The citizens of the kingdom had enough to worry over without inventing new boogeymen and religions, and yet they kept on doing it.
“Well, Father Mason, you’ve been a real help to us.” She stood and watched his face, distracted again by Tanner’s bottom. “We were going to ride for Bottle Creek but I think we’ll see what’s out the other way.”
His brows rose as he turned to regard, then lowered. He blinked a few times in rapid succession and smiled. “Heretics,” he said, standing to ferry them out of the chapel. “In our neck of the woods. I just dared not believe it.”
Something about that struck her as funny, but she couldn’t quite pin it down. “Well, we’d best be moving on, Father. Long ride to Valebrook.”
“Do be careful, Captain. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to your, erm, retinue.” He cast a last glance at Tanner, eyes greedy, and shook hands with them both a final time.
“Hundred watch over you,” she said, but the doors closed on her before she had finished.
“Am I a ham to that wolf or what?” Tanner said as they walked from the chapel back to the inn. She gave him a commiserating shrug.
Hughes and Combs still banged on doors and entered shopfronts. Claire would send Tanner on to relieve Hughes and have Hughes draw her a bath. A good soak would banish the headache and the stomach gurgles.
The sun beat down when she ordered Tanner away. The telltale sound of hurried hooves upon the earth. It wasn’t Scout Mollen. Too solid, too spaced out. She knew each of her horses and their strides.
She stepped to the front of the inn and gaped as Marie Mollen rode up on that confounded black horse and rolled off of the beast into Claire’s arms, spouting gibberish in her exhaustion, her jacket ripped, blood seeping from a wound on her back. The horse snorted and just lay on its side in the soft grass aside the road, puffing and heaving, her coat slick with sweat, her mouth foamed. On the point of exhaustion and dehydration. Several ugly wounds peered out from her flank and legs, as well.
“What in the name of the King happened?” she whispered, carrying the girl into the inn as Marie fell unconscious in Claire’s arms.
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Come on back next week for Part Six, in which we’ll see what the creature known as the Bandersnatch is up to!
Panning For Clouds 