Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(44)

Foxbrush worked his jaw back and forth until he could crack his mouth open and speak through the stickiness. “Where am I?” he demanded hoarsely.

She frowned and stood up, backing away a little. “Da!” she called over her shoulder, never taking her eyes off Foxbrush. “The wasp man is awake!”

“Don’t bother him!” rumbled a voice from without.

Foxbrush, however, could not understand any of his words and heard only the growl. He began to tremble anew and cried out, “I’m not hurting her, I swear! I’m merely lying here all . . . sticky. And I would like my clothes, if you please!”

“Stop talking,” the girl said, making a disapproving face at him. “You chatter like a bird.”

“Are you bothering the man, Meadowlark?” the voice rumbled again. There were footsteps, a curtain of woven reeds was pushed rustling aside, and Foxbrush had his first real glimpse of the man who had met him by the black fig tree.

He was a terrible sight.

Like the girl, he was crowned with a mass of red hair, which had crept down over time to give him a full, curly beard as well. But between forehead and mouth there was nothing to disguise the disfigurement of his face. One of his eyes looked as though it had been nearly torn out long ago, and the scarring and puckering of his skin had closed over it so that he was partially blind. The other eye too was surrounded by scars, and a large chunk was gone from his nose. The skin was tight and white in places, as though it had healed without the aid of stitches.

And when he grinned hugely, as he did at the sight of Foxbrush sitting upright on his pallet, clutching the skin pelt and dripping oozy medicine, he was by far the ugliest man Foxbrush had ever seen.

“Ah! You are awake indeed,” the stranger said, ducking his head to step into the chamber, which was quite small and lit by only one window and the light that made its way through many chinks in the walls. Stooping so as not to knock his head on the ceiling, he put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and looked Foxbrush over. “And much improved already, by the look of you.”

He addressed Foxbrush in the same language as the child’s, though with an accent nearer to Foxbrush’s own. Still, it was an accent far more clipped than Foxbrush was used to hearing, though Foxbrush recognized most of the words.

“Please, sir,” Foxbrush said, his head light and throbbing at the temples. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“I am Redman, and you are in the Eldest’s House,” the stranger replied and crouched, bringing his head nearly level with the girl’s. “You had a nasty encounter with the Twisted Man and were all over wasp welts when I found you. My oldest girl here, Meadowlark”—he hugged the child to him—“has tended you with silver-branch sap, which is a great cure for wasp stings, if a little hard to wash off.”

The girl did not shift her solemn dark eyes from Foxbrush’s face. Her gaze made him more nervous. He tried to blink and found his lashes heavy. “Sap?” he managed to croak.

“Sap.” Redman nodded. “And a few herbs and bits and pieces Meadowlark mixed with it. Nothing too foul, I promise you.”

As the man spoke, Foxbrush’s gaze began slowly to rove about, taking in his strange surroundings. He saw the walls made of stones, sticks, and mud. He saw the thatched roof and heard the birds roosting and the mice scurrying above. He saw the dirt floor covered with fresh rushes, the doorway hung with reeds, the pile of skins on which he lay, the pelt across his lap.

“Where are my clothes?” he asked, his voice a whimper.

“We had to cut them off you,” said Redman. “Hymlumé’s scepter! So many buckles and buttons! I never saw the like, certainly not around here. You see what’s left of them there.” He indicated a pile of fabric neatly folded in a corner of the tiny room. Foxbrush, turning sad eyes that way, saw that most of the buttons had, in fact, been removed, leaving gaping holes in his shirt and trousers.

The remains of his shoes, he realized, were adorning Meadowlark’s small feet. He could see the toes of her right foot peeking out through a hole in the seam.

Foxbrush looked down at his nakedness and the ooze that covered his torso and arms. “What am I to wear?” he asked, a little desperate.

“Why, those of course, if you want them. They’re still quite good enough for wearing, if not so fine as they were,” Redman said. “Or we’ll provide you with something more comfortable if you like. But look here . . .”

He reached out to the pile and took something from its depths. It was the scroll, a little battered but still in one piece. Redman unrolled it, scanning up and down the page. Surely such a wild beast of a man would not understand the content therein! But Redman’s eyes—or at least the good one that Foxbrush could see—were intent, and his mouth moved a little as he struggled with the words.

The stranger turned to Foxbrush, holding up the scroll. “You had this writing on you. I can almost make it out, but it has been such a long time, and I have never been good with my letters. Tell me, is it yours?”

Foxbrush nodded. It was too dark in the room for him to clearly see the verses of the ballad, but he recognized the scroll well enough.

“Is it a message?” Redman persisted. “From the North Country, perhaps?”

“No,” Foxbrush said, shaking his head. “No, it’s mine. My cousin gave it to me.”