She smiled almost like the girl she had once been and gave him a kiss that brought a blush to his cheeks.
“You be coming along soon,” she told him.
“Aye. Soon as I’m sure there are no other poor souls out this night.”
As his wife departed the tower, Jem heard the keening of the wind. Aye, it was going to be a bad night. The outdoor festivities were probably already moving into the warmth of the inn’s public rooms. Not everyone could fit there, of course, but most of those with wee ones would be looking for their own beds soon, anyway.
Puffing on his pipe, he poured hot water from the kettle that always hung near the fire into the wooden pan, and washed the dinner bowls and spoons. There was still soup left in the big pot that hung to one side of the fire, and he decided to leave it where it was. ’Twas a cold night, and he might be wanting that bit of victual before he crawled into his bed.
He was just puffing the last of his pipe when the gate bell rang, a tinny but loud clang that was supposed to wake him even when he was soundly asleep.
Muttering just because he felt like muttering, he stomped across the room and pulled his thickest cloak off the peg. Wrapping it tightly around himself, he went down the circular stone stairway until he reached the tower’s exterior door. There he picked up a lantern that was never allowed to go out and stepped out into the night’s bitter cold.
The bell clanged insistently once again. Jem shook his head. Could he help it that he was no longer a boy who could run up and down the stairs? He was lucky he could still swing the gates open.
He opened the port in the gate and peered out.
Three mounted men, faces invisible beneath hoods pulled low. One of the men held what appeared to be a dead woman in front of him.
“What business?” he demanded gruffly, already thinking he might let these strangers freeze out there. He didn’t like the look of this at all.
“Open the gate, Jem Downey,” said a familiar voice. “This woman is hurt and needs attention.”
Jem peered out again, and as the nearest horse sidled, he recognized the cloaked figure. “Why, Master Archer!” he exclaimed. “’Tis a long time since you darkened this gate.”
“Too long, Jem. Are you going to let us in?”
Of course he was going to let Master Archer in. There was always a gold or silver coin in it for Jem, and the man had caused nary a whisker of trouble any of the times he had passed through town.
He quickly closed the porthole, then threw his back into lifting the heavy wood beam that barred the gate. He might have arthritis in every joint, did Jem, but he still had the strength in his back and arms.
The bar moved backward, out of the way, and Jem pushed open one side of the gate.
As the three riders started to enter single file, Master Archer, still concealed within his cloak, tossed Jem a gold piece.
“Mark me, Jem Downey,” Archer said. “There are fell things abroad. Do not open this gate again tonight. Not for anyone.”
“No, sir.” Jem bobbed his head. “Not for anyone.”
Then he stood, gold piece in hand, watching the three ride down the cobbled street toward the inn and the harvest celebration.
“Fell things, hmm?” he murmured to himself. When Master Archer said it, Jem believed it. All of a sudden he realized he was still standing outside the wall with one side of the gate open.
Unexpected fear speared him, and he looked quickly around. Snow was falling lightly, but the barren fields were empty as far as he could see.
Still…He hurried to close and bar the gate. As he locked it, an eddy of wind washed around him, chilling him to the bone.
Maybe he wouldn’t go to the harvest festival at all. Someone ought to keep a weather eye out.
The public room at the inn was crowded to the point that no person could stand or sit without being pressed tight against another. Good fellowship prevailed, however, so none minded the continual jostling.
Nanue Manoison, the most recent and probably last of the traders to come up the Whitewater River this year, held the attention of everyone in the room. One of the butter-colored people of the west, Nanue came every year to buy Bill Bent-back’s scrimshaw, and wheat from the harvest for the more crowded western climes. This year he would get scrimshaw, but no wheat.
He held the entire room rapt as he spoke of his trip east and the strangenesses he had beheld. Strangeness that ensured he would not be back this year, even if the weather took a turn for the better.
“It was like nothing I had ever seen,” he was telling the crowd. “My captain wanted to turn us around, he became so afraid. But I reminded him that we were five stout men and had little to fear on the river.”
Heads nodded around the room. Leaf smoke hung in the air.
“But,” Nanue said. “But. I tell you, my friends, it is not just the early winter. The farther we came down the pass, the eerier became the riverbank. First the deer disappeared. Never have I sailed a day on that river without seeing at least one or two deer come to drink or watch us from the shore. Then I realized that we barely heard any birdsong. None. All of you know that even in deepest winter there are birds.
“I know not where they have flown or why. But if the birds have gone, some evil is afoot, you mark my words. Some true evil. The last three days of our journey, I saw nothing living at all. And every league of the way, I felt we were being watched.”
The room became hushed. Then there was a mumbling, and finally a voice called out, “I felt it, too, Nanue Manoison. In my fields these past two weeks, trying to save what I could. It was as if I was being watched from the woods.”
“Aye,” others said, nodding.
“And the fish are gone,” someone else said. “We can fish even through the ice in winter, but there are no fish. It’s as if the river is poisoned.”
Someone else harrumphed. “Now don’t you be saying such things, Tyne. We drink the water safe enough. If ’twere poisoned, we’d be as gone as the fish.”
“It’s just an early winter,” said a grizzled voice from the farthest side of the room. “Early winter. Me granddad spoke of such in his time. It happened, he said, the year that Earth’s Root blew smoke to the sky for months, and ash rained from the heaven for many days. Maybe ’tis Earth’s Root again.”
Tom, who was standing as near Sara as he could, listened with wide-open ears. Just then, the front door of the inn flew open.
Startled, Tom turned and saw a cloaked man entering with a bundled woman in his arms. Behind him came two even taller men, faces invisible within their hoods.
“Why, Master Archer,” said Bandylegs, hurrying to greet the newcomers. “Oh my, what trouble have we here?”
“The woman is ill,” said Master Archer. “The child with her is dead. We need your best rooms, Master Deepwell. One for the woman, and one for my friends and myself.”
“Well, don’t you know, it’s as if I’ve been saving them for you,” Bandylegs said, heading for the stairway. “Two rooms with a parlor between. It’s dear, though, Master Archer.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“Fine then, fine,” said Bandylegs hurrying up the stairs with the men behind him. “Sara?”
“Aye, Dad?”
“Hot water and towels. This poor ill woman will be needing some warmth.”
“Aye,