Nobody's Son Read Free Page A

question? “Maybe I can’t. Maybe I’ll die.” He twisted the haywire between his fingers, then stuffed it abruptly back in his pocket. “I go because I must. This is what has been given to me. This is my only gift. I am no general, no lover, no wizard nor duelist, no hero nor thief. I am only Shielder’s Mark, who waited all his life to go to the Ghostwood, and went.”
    Mark fell silent. The stewpot bubbled above the small yellow fire. Beside his boot, squirrel-pups mewled at their dozing mother’s side. Shade’s tail swished across Husk’s face and the old woman sneezed. Then she laughed. “Better to go with fate than wisdom. Odds be, tha’lt die with a shriek in thy throat, but perhaps not. Still, tha must be shrewd!” She dumped a ladle-full of stew into a wooden bowl. “Bend ear a while, and hear an old owl’s screeching.”
    “Gladly,” Mark said. “Tell me about Stargad!” The favourite stories of Mark’s boyhood had been about Stargad. Not so much the later triumphs, but the early days, learning bladework under his uncle’s stern, fair eye. Earning at last the famous sword that perished with him in the Ghostwood. “Did he have Sweetness? Did it sing, like the old stories say?”
    “Not singing, exactly: more whizzling, windsome: reed-hollow. Witched the ear and made the heart drunk with a cider oozed from emptiness.”
    Mark glanced down at the sword belted at his hip. An excellent blade, won on a bet from a travelling duelist. But what was it, compared to Invincible, or Scalpel, or Sweetness?
    A name , Mark thought for the thousandth time. He needed a name for his sword. Protector? Valiant? Victor? But who wanted to be less valiant than his weapon? He imagined introducing himself: “Shielder’s Mark, good sir! And this is… Victor !”—Baring his scabbard with a swirl of cloak.
    Folk would think you mad.
    He tried to get Husk to tell him of the Red Keep, but she would only warn him not to stay longer than a day, then ask him of the outside world, for she was parched with a thirst only his tales of farm-hands and dull everyday chores could slake.
    Once she started up and touched his cheek, frowning. “Tha’rt like… I cannot filch it back to mind,” she murmured. “Did thy father come thruff the Ghostwood, once upon a time?”
    Sudden tightness clenched at Mark’s heart. “My dad were too great a coward to stick by his wife and child; I doubt he came here,” Mark said coldly.
    The crone glanced at him with interest. “Aye… there’s a coal that’s not yet embered,” she cackled. “But this is the Ghostwood, Shielder’s Mark. Here thy shadow throws tha : feet run not to the light ahead, but from the dark behind.” She barked again with laughter lean and tough as wire. “Well an’ well, little clod: I did not mean to hurt tha.” She laid a brittle hand on his arm. “A candle this night was, to an old hag drownt in shadows, Shielder’s Mark. I have summat for tha, if tha’lt take it.” From around her neck she took one of her wooden charms, pressing it into Mark’s hands with her dry old fingers. “No longer do I understand the meaning in this wyrm,” she said, tracing the pattern of the serpent with her fingers. “Mayhap ‘twill serve tha for a luckpiece.”
    “You honour me,” Mark said soberly. He lifted the loop of cedar bark and placed it around his neck. The charm he tucked beneath his shirt.
    “Tha shalt come to the Tower soon, to the one black night in the heart of hell.” Wearily Husk pointed to a place by the fire. “Lay thy head down, boy. Mayhap a sleep by my fire will do tha more good than any charm I give tha.”
    All traces of Husk’s mad gaiety had fled. Mark felt cold and lonely and very small, not a hero at all: A young bloody fool, pissing away his last living day with a pack of squirrels and a motherly madwoman .
    Once more Husk stared at him with strange, frustrated almost-recognition. “Cloud of blossoms, such thinkings are,” she