He put one of the two fires between them, then drifted farther away. Spying Cardden, he launched himself in that direction, only to find, seated close to his father-in-law, the vaguely familiar gray-haired man with the broken nose, the skinwalker who had directed the taking of the latest teind at the old abbey. For a fleeting instant he was watching the girl, the other Janet, walk forward on a leash and into the ring.
The man looked up at Thomas’s approach, and stood. Cardden’s gaze traveled from him to Thomas. The man said, “So you’re the young farmer we’re all hearing about. Old Cardden here can’t stop singing your praises, you know.”
The man’s name was Baggi, and he referred to himself as a magistrate of Roxburghshire. Among his duties he oversaw Gospatrick, the sheriff Thomas had met only a handful of minutes earlier. Baggi’s wife, introduced next, sat across the table from the two men but seemed barely there at all. She said nothing when introduced, gave the slightest of nods of recognition, and observed Thomas through dark and fearful eyes that looked bruised from lack of sleep. The wine they were being served was full of sediment that needed to settle, but she drank hers down almost as fast as it was poured as if she might be able to drown in it. Everything in her manner hinted to him that she knew her husband had transmuted into someone else. She would have sounded insane, of course, had she voiced her fears, and he could not let on to her that he knew her secret, much less her husband’s, though he would have enjoyed an opportunity to learn what she knew, how she had determined it. She was likely doomed, he thought. No way could he aid her nor even acknowledge that he understood, without dooming himself, too.
Baggi was watching him closely, his head tilted in perplexity. “I have to say, it feels to me as if we’ve met, Husbandman Lynn.”
“I think not,” Thomas said honestly. “Although I believe I have seen you about the town. I’ve gone there numerous times now, for a plow and other items.”
“Ah, likely that is it, then. You were a soldier, you? Your father has been, ah, explaining.”
For one beat of his heart, Thomas thought Baggi meant his real father. He’d not yet spotted Ercildoun’s latest alderman, but took the moment of glancing around to cement his resolve. “I fought, yes, for King David, for the Empress Matilda.” He borrowed the rest from Waldroup’s story. “I was fighting in Wales and that ended in stalemate, so I sailed to France with others seeking more employment, and fought there until that was exhausted.” At that point, Cardden stood, gave him a proud look, then walked off to engage with other guests. He knew this story already. Inwardly, Thomas was relieved that Cardden hadn’t interjected how he’d worked on the new abbey. That was a problem he must shortly resolve.
“Well, and you survived with all limbs intact. That’s rare good fortune for a professional soldier.”
Thomas almost said that was because he was an archer, but stopped himself. An archer was likely still someone these creatures sought. “I was . . . careful,” he said. “And even so . . .” He touched the scar at his hairline. “Just barely.”
“You’ll have witnessed many who were not, I’m sure,” Baggi replied, his blue eyes solemn.
“What, battlefields sown with bodies? There is no other kind.” He paused to drink some of his wine, pulling together his story before he continued. “But one of the soldiers had been a stonemason hereabouts, and between wars I apprenticed myself to him. A full two years we made our living working stone. He claimed to have worked on your new abbey.”
Baggi cocked an eyebrow. “Your father-in-law said that you worked on our abbey.”
Of course he had. “No, no,” Thomas replied. “Then I’ve confused him with my tales of war. Janet—that is, his daughter and my wife—didn’t wish to hear these things, as she’d lost a soldier of her own.”
“Yes, I knew of this. But—”
“Things got a bit confused, because, you see, I didn’t.”
“Mmm. Tell me, Husbandman Lynn. This mason to whom you apprenticed . . .”
“Ah, well, he died, didn’t he? In France.”
“You returned to war?”
“We did. But, I don’t know, the taste had soured for me. I’d seen too much slaughter. So I took my recompense from the king and came here, where I can plant something in the soil that lives instead of dies. My friend chose the battlefield again and was not so lucky this time. A shame, as he’d always hoped to return one day and see the new abbey. Truth be told, I haven’t yet seen it myself. So much to be done.”
Baggi listened, taking his measure, then responded, “That was well expressed, young man. I congratulate you on joining this good family through so lovely a maiden.” He glanced Janet’s way. “She is a prize.”
Thomas had carefully outfitted his tale to place himself as far from here as possible, and could only hope that Cardden had not mentioned the fit he’d suffered or the riddle he’d spouted that day. Magistrate Baggi’s reaction led him to believe that nothing had been revealed, and he’d now provided Baggi a dead end in the hunt for Stroud’s killers.
He said, “Thank you, I think so, too, sir. And now I must meet the rest of my new father’s guests.”
Baggi and he went separate ways. Baggi’s wife watched him dolefully over her cup but never uttered a word. He found himself circling near the widow again, and veered quickly away.
Between her and Baggi, he wove a complicated path through the room, into and around the many conversations taking place, none of which he truly cared to engage with. Maintaining his uncomplicated façade and covering up his gaffe with Cardden was proving exhausting.
Satisfied that Alderman Rimor must have departed, he sought Janet, and circuitously headed for her. But when he came around the tables once more, he found a man standing half-hunched over between her and Cardden. It was his father.
Alderman Rimor wore an overtunic backed with squirrel fur, an indication of his great wealth and standing. Up close he looked more withered and unhappy than he’d seemed from a distance at the abbey. His skin was gray, almost bloodless. Years had passed, of course, but this was more than that: a body wasting away. Either the encroachment of the Yvag was draining him or the creature had chosen to occupy someone already suffering from some infirmity. He guessed that his father was dying. Was it the loss of his sons? Probably that and the madness of his only daughter. Thomas thought of Onchu, of Innes, of his mother—all of them absent here because of the stranger lurking behind this ashen, familiar face.
He focused upon the center of that rich overtunic and only with great effort raised his sights to look into the eyes of his father. Those rheumy eyes met his squarely, coldly, without any hint of recognition, just as Janet had anticipated. Peripherally, she watched him with worry. He introduced himself to the alderman and tried hard to repress the keen awareness that something unholy stood before him, animating his father’s corpse.
Rimor gestured to Janet. “You’ve married, um, this one, have you not?”
“Yes, sir. I have that good fortune.”
Cardden interjected, “And they are to have a child!”
“Oh, well, then further congratulations are in order,” said Rimor. “I’d not heard. I can still remember the excitement of making babies, mmm-hmm.” His crooked smile was, in fact, lewd. His tongue moistened his lips.
Whatever the Yvag referred to, it surely wasn’t any memory of his father’s. His father, the widow—he wondered if all the skinwalkers were depraved by nature. He asked as innocently as possible, “And what became of your babies, sir? I imagine your children are all grown, no?” He glanced about. “Any here with you?”
“Oh, no, no. The boys—both taken, too young.” He waved at the air as if dismissing them. “My daughter . . . eh, gone in another sense.” And he placed a hand beside his head and twisted it back and forth. “We have severed ties, you might say: mine to her and hers to the world as we know it.”
Thomas’s hands, behind his back, curled into fists. “She is ill, then?” he asked calmly.
“What?” He blinked as if having lost track of the conversation. “No, I banished her to a place where she can keep company with other madwomen who’ve married invisible saints and demigods. Perfect place for her. She’s of no consequence to me or anyone. No more babies coming out of her now or ever. Still, she did increase our holdings.” His expression soured further. “For nothing. Our line is quite likely to perish when I do and that is that.”
“Then I wish you good health, sir, in this new year.”
The sagging face sneered. “Might as well wish a dog a good kick.”
Thomas said, “Beg pardon, sir,” and stepped back. He caught Janet’s eye and shook his head that she should let him be. Then he turned about and crossed the hall.
He strode down the stone steps and out into the chilly night. One wagon was just departing. He stared after it.
What sort of creature inhabited his father, that it left not a trace of that kind and decent man he’d known? The Yvag seemed to loathe everything, as if, finding itself in a deteriorating shell, it railed against the short time left to grind a few more humans to pulp before it would have to depart. He would be doing it a favor if he slew his father’s body, setting both free. What he truly wanted right then was to murder it. The urge took hold of him to ride to the Abbey of St. Mary’s, locate their new lair, and slaughter all of the sleepers at one go. Having worked on it for more than half a year, he knew the abbey’s layout, the entrance to the crypt. And why not? Why shouldn’t he go and—
