Graynelore by Stephen Moore Page B

but widening, cobbled courtyard – its stones broken and loose – badly kept and overgrown with weeds and mosses. A few thin, ailing willow trees grew up among them. There was a shallow pool of stagnant water. Further in there were greater ruins. Tumbled stone slabs, and the remains of stone arches; all neglected, long abandoned in earlier times, and strangled with creepers. There were no crowds here. No lighted fires. No cheer.
    ‘Where are we going, Lowly Crows?’ I asked, not impatiently. ‘I mean…where does this all lead us?’ I was feeling for the right question.
    ‘You will know soon enough,’ she said.
    ‘I would know
now
…’ I said, and stopped walking. It brought our company up short. Fortuna and Sunfast drew quickly aside from me, as if startled by my outburst. I had not meant to speak so sharply.
    ‘What? Is this a tender trap then? Is that what you are thinking?’ Wily Cockatrice, quite recovered from the dance it seemed, had turned upon me in an instant and was hissing. The ancient crone was not to be trifled with. ‘Is our Lowly Crows the sweetmeats; a temptress to ensnare you?’
    Beside her, Dogsbeard, the fat youth, sniggered into his hand. ‘Is she luring you away from welcoming company, leading you into the unknown darkness?’
    ‘No, I…I did not mean to…’ I stumbled over my words.
    ‘Understand this, Rogrig Wishard. What we are about is no trivial undertaking. Go back to the prancing parades if you would. Go and warm yourself by its fires. Get drunk; find yourself a whoring woman; plant your worried manhood where you think it safe, and forget us…It is all the same to me.’
    ‘There is not far to go.’
    Lowly Crows had stepped between us. Her black eyes shone coldly, unblinking. Her finger ends picked at the loose threads on the arm of her jerkin in the way of a bird preening. She might have been angry with me. She was certainly ruffled and looked anxiously towards the crone.
    ‘Pah! Speak again with this cautious man, if you would,’ said Wily Cockatrice. ‘Tell him a little of what you can. He tries my patience too far.’ She passed a meaningful look between us and withdrew to find herself a temporary seat among the fallen stones. ‘Just be quick about it. We will wait here but a short while.’ Her pipe was instantly between her lips. A great plume of black smoke rose up to engulf her.
    Only a tempered sigh from Lowly Crows broke a prolonged silence.
    It was I who spoke first, if in thin whispers. ‘Give me a sword. I can tell you what to do with that. But this, this vagary – where are the answers here?’
    ‘We all desire answers, Rogrig,’ said Lowly Crows, her black eyes still shining. ‘Only we pussyfoot…and dare not put a name to our dilemma, though we all understand it well enough, I fear.’
    ‘Not I!’ I said; again I spoke more sharply than I had intended.
    ‘No?’ She looked at me balefully. Then, considered a moment. ‘And there are others.’
    ‘Others?’
    ‘Others, who are the same as us…
Like
us. Just like us,’ she said. ‘They are close by.’
    ‘How so?’ I said.
    ‘You are a stubborn man, Rogrig Wishard. You will not easily let yourself see what your own eyes are showing you. You will not allow yourself to believe what you know in your heart is true.’
    If she wanted a stubborn man, I would show her one. ‘And do you pretend to know me so very well, then: though we are hardly met at all?’
    ‘Who is pretending now? I know myself and I know my own kindred,’ she said. ‘I have followed after you for long enough. Be honest with yourself. We are not so very different.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘No…’ she hesitated. Her look was become close to anger. Though she was inwardly annoyed; as if she was uncomfortable with what she was about to say, and I was solely to blame for it; had given her no choice but to reveal herself and offer up her private testimony.
    ‘As a young child, when Lowly Crows was Lucia Hogspur, I always loved to