Mccormick Templeman - The Glass Casket

“You go too far,” Paer Jorgen protested. “I’ll not hear a single word against our Mama Lune. She delivered seven healthy children for my Louise, and once drove an angry fox spirit from my yard.”

“Goi Rose has said nothing against Mama Lune,” Wilhelm Parstle said, trying to keep the peace as usual.

“Placing a Greenwitch in the same sentence with a Greywitch is a wicked thing to do,” said Paer Jorgen, grimacing. “Besides, everyone knows all the Greywitches are dead now—wiped them out at the culling, we did.”

Henry Rose nodded and raised his thumb again. “Please, I meant no harm. I bear Mama Lune no ill will. She is a good woman, and a skilled healer, but delivering a child and nursing the sick is not magic. You give her too much power.” He sighed and shook his head. “But this isn’t about our difference of beliefs. It is about the king and his soldiers. We must be prepared for some kind of backlash in the eventuality that a party is sent to find these soldiers. What I wonder is whether we might avoid a row by writing to the king’s people, by telling them what we’ve done and why we’ve done it. I think we’ve the best chance of avoiding any trouble that way. So I am asking you, do I have your consent to write such a letter?”

After a moment, the three elders nodded in turn, although it was clear that none was happy about the idea.

“Now,” continued Henry Rose, leaning forward. “Those men were sent here to find something. Does anyone have knowledge of what that thing might be?”

The Nag’s Enders looked around the table at one another and shook their heads.

Henry Rose nodded again. “I’m wondering if before I write that letter, it might be wise to determine what these men sought. Perhaps if we know what brought them here, then we will be better able to defend ourselves against any accusations leveled at us.”

“But how would we do that?” asked Wilhelm Parstle.

Henry Rose tented his fingers in front of his nose.

“Surely their possessions were gathered. We have simply to look through them and see if they provide an answer.”

The men all stared at the scholar, each willing the next to speak. What Henry Rose was suggesting was tantamount to sacrilege, for it was customary to return a man’s possessions to his people without so much as glancing at them. To look on a dead man’s secrets was to invite disaster.

Henry Rose laughed. “Yes, of course, we’re back here again, aren’t we? Fine. I will do the deed myself behind closed doors, so that none of you will have to risk a thing.”

Wilhelm sighed, glad that Henry Rose was brave enough to take on the task himself. “Their belongings are in the cellar,” he said.

“Well,” Henry Rose said, pushing aside his plate. “Please, take me to them.”

“What? Now?”

“Yes, now. I don’t see why not,” he said, and then, unable to keep the scorn from his voice, he went on. “In the palace city, we used to divvy up whatever a dead man left behind. It’s a wonder any of us is alive today.”

Wilhelm led Henry Rose down to the cellar, and Tom bit into his beer bread as he watched them go. Something was surfacing in his mind—an image of the four frozen men on the mountain, their bodies naked, untouched. He looked to Ollen Bittern, who, despite his position as village elder, had said not a word during the meeting.

“Father Bittern,” Tom said. “Are we certain we’re dealing with a wolf? Might it not be something … something worse?”

“You speak of forest things, boy?” Ollen Bittern asked, his brow furrowed. “No, goblins are apt to steal a child for their supper, and fairies might bewitch one to drown in Seelie Lake, but this doesn’t sound like their work.”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t mean goblins or fairies. I mean something worse, something unknown to us.”

“No, it was a wolf. Of that I am certain.” The old man’s mind seemed somewhere far off, and when he spoke again, he did so slowly, choosing his words with care. “I am an old man who no doubt clings to the old ways, but I do not like the direction this meeting has taken. Five men died up on that mountain today. In my opinion, you men did the right thing by setting them alight. I stand behind you on this. Not a one of you will face punishment. We will take to arms before we let a distant king tell us how to lay out our dead. And yes,” he said, raising his hand as if to stop any questions that might come, “I do consider them our dead. Those men came to our land, and they died on our mountain, and we are responsible for their bodies. Obviously, we weren’t able to perform rites, and so we weren’t able to lay them at the Mouth, but you did the best you could by them, and moreover, you did the best you could by us, by Nag’s End. I’ll not have some … scholar”—he spat the word as if it were poison—“telling good people they’ve done wrong.”

He looked at the men who sat around him, and they smiled back at their elder, relieved to have someone defend their actions so vociferously. Seeing the admiration in the men’s eyes, the other elders, Paer Jorgen and Draeden Faez, nodded their agreement.

“I think we three can stand together on this sentiment,” Paer Jorgen concluded, raising a gnarled finger.

Tom, still unconvinced they were dealing with a wolf, spoke up again. “You say it was an animal born of the Goddess that killed those men, but then why were there no tracks around the bodies?”

Paer Jorgen narrowed his eyes at Tom. “There had been fresh snow. The tracks would have been covered.”

“Of course,” Tom said, the words seeming almost to slip from him. “The scavengers.”

“What’s that?” Paer Jorgen asked, growing increasingly cross.

“Scavengers,” said Tom, unable to contain himself, for suddenly he understood what had bothered him up on that mountain. “Why was there no evidence of scavengers? If they’d already been up there several days, then why were four of the bodies untouched? And what of the winter rats? What of the snow beetles?”

The room grew silent, all eyes on Tom.

Tak spoke up. “Tom’s right. There wasn’t anything. There should have been something, but there wasn’t. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Perhaps the snow provided a barrier,” said Ollen Bittern. “Whatever the reason, we will keep it in mind.”

Paer Jorgen cleared his throat. “Research will need to be done, of course, and oracles consulted, before we can speak more freely. We will need time.”

The men agreed, and with that, they clinked their tall mugs and moved on to lighter topics, the meeting officially adjourned. When Henry Rose returned from the cellar, he was met with questioning eyes.

“Did you find anything, then?” Paer Jorgen asked.

Henry Rose sucked on his bottom lip.

“Nothing of interest, no. It’s difficult to say, but as far as I could tell, there is nothing of use to us down there.”

Paer Jorgen nodded. “It was nice to think that our mountain might conceal a secret treasure trove, but it is, alas, unlikely. A disappointment, yes, but then we are Nag’s Enders. We are born of disappointment.”

Henry Rose bid Tom farewell and thanked the Parstles for their hospitality before heading out into the night. What Tom did not see, what no man saw, was that inside his winter undercoat, buttoned fast against the wind and snow, sat the soldier’s logbook, pressed like a lover’s secret over the scholar’s trembling heart.

It wasn’t until the next day that Tom saw Rowan’s enchanting stranger, and when he did, something stirred within him. He was passing through the village square when she caught his eye. Extraordinarily beautiful, she moved with the grace of a spritely fawn, and as she came to perch on the low stone wall that surrounded the village well, Tom felt certain he’d seen her somewhere before—as if she were a girl from a dream, or a story told to him long ago.