44. Yarrow Is Reunited with Peregrine and We See Some Old Friends

After several hours, Yarrow stumbled down a short flight of stairs and into the familiar quiet of the West Passage. Before, she had feared it because Yellow Tower lay at its end. But by now its cobblestones were like old friends. The blizzard had piled snow against one wall, leaving the other nearly bare, and she sat down and curled up against it, shivering with cold and relief.

The earth shook again, but it was brief this time. The tremors had come with increasing frequency, until they no longer scared Yarrow in themselves. But did they mean anything? She did not know anything about the Beast, beyond old stories and the few songs Arnica had taught her about it. There weren't many, since it had been Goldenseal learning. The Beast was no concern of the Yarrows and Arnicas; every Lady-day they sang a lament for the Lady it had killed, but the creature itself was the guardian's business.

But who was the guardian now?

If the Beast was back—if the tremors were part of that—well, so be it. Yarrow had been partly eaten by a Lady, eaten meat in her turn, heard frogs lament a life she did not understand, and seen blood leak from the roof of a tower. How much worse could the Beast be? Certainly no worse than this winter.

She found herself humming the Lullaby of Reeds. Sacrilege . She forced herself to stop. If she sang it to herself, that was one more buttress of her life taken away. I want to go home with a clear conscience, she thought. Or at least as clear a one as possible. Duty, she told herself, though not sure why she did. The image of the two falling Ladies hung before her eyes. Duty.

Her tangled skein of thoughts led her back to the Beast and the guardian. Was it that apprentice now? Had he become Hawthorn? Not with her say-so, unless he'd come in secret to Old Yarrow. Only a Mother of Grey House could confer that title.

No guardian, nobody to stand against the Beast. Nobody to do their duty.

It might… it might be bad, then. If he was still in Grey, she would find him. She would make him guardian. The Beast would be vanquished, become just a story again, and all would be well. Black could wait.

She stood and turned toward Grey, at this distance little more than tumbled heaps of white fringing the South Passage. She could reach it that day if she hurried. Ignoring her sore body, she began walking.

The earth shook again. Then again, more strongly. Again, and Yarrow was about to run, when over her shoulder she saw the huge white form of a hollowman coming down the Passage. She halted. The pilot might be convinced to give her a ride. On its back a pink tent swayed. A head in a white hood peeked over the side. Could it be—?

"Hello, little Mother," said Peregrine, grinning at her. Tertius's great nostrils let out a steaming whuff of greeting. "I heard about the train and I hoped you'd find your way to Black, but here I find you in the Passage instead. Much the worse for wear, too, it seems." He spat vibrant orange into the snow.

"I'm not going to Black Tower now," said Yarrow. "I'm going to Grey."

"A coincidence indeed! So am I. In fact, I've got your mead with me. Fish-carts don't move well in the snow. Care for a nip to stave off the cold?" While he spoke, Peregrine had unrolled the rope ladder for her, and Yarrow was climbing up.

"Maybe," said Yarrow. She flung herself down on the cold white platform and sighed. The cloud of her breath rose up like a tree trunk and spread into the wintry air. "Yes. Please."

Peregrine went into the tent and came out with a bottle of dark green glass. He uncorked it and handed it to her. "Bit cold now, but it should do the trick."

Yarrow took a long swig from the wine bottle. As always, it singed her mouth and throat, but then hot blood coursed into her veins and made her head spin, and she giggled. Peregrine laughed too, and drank some himself. Tertius resumed its plodding gait. With a scritch of tiny legs on fabric, a dragonfly perched on the tent.

"What have you been up to, little Mother?" said Peregrine. "You look the worse for wear, if you don't mind my saying."

"Doing what a Yarrow must," she said. She drank more.

"And a Yarrow must make herself look as if she got in a fight with six cats?"

"We need to go faster," said Yarrow. "I hate to inconvenience you, but I have to get back to Grey and confirm the guardian's apprentice."

"Pale fellow? Green robe?"

"Have you met him?" If the apprentice had dared to sneak out of Grey entirely—

"No, but the story's all over the Great Tower."

"What? What has he been doing?" Something useful for once, she hoped.

"She's Hawthorn now," said Peregrine.

Yarrow nearly dropped the bottle. Golden wine sloshed out and made a fragrant, sticky mess of her hands. "What?"

"Easy, little Mother," said Peregrine. "You think someone's stepped into your territory, I take it? Well, it's no such matter. Hawthorn went to the Lady herself— the Lady, you understand. Herself . I don't know the rights of what happened then, but she confirmed the guardianship."

Yarrow's shoulders sagged in relief. "Then she's already back at Grey—the new Hawthorn. I'm glad someone hasn't been wasting time."

"Oh, the Lady put her in prison."

Yarrow did drop the wine this time, but picked it up before more than half was spilled.

"Don't worry, little Mother," said Peregrine. "She's escaped. At least that was the rumor in the cellars. She and her little squire."

"What squire?" said Yarrow. "She didn't have one in Grey. It's not even an office."

"Can't say for sure. Anyway, they escaped. The whole tower is scandalized."

"Well, where is she then?" said Yarrow.

"Not much point in escaping if you're just going to stick around the Great Tower, is there? Nobody knows where she went, but I'd assume she's heading to Grey herself."

Thank the Lady, Yarrow thought. I am so tired.

She let the Beast lapse back into the realm of childhood fears. Based on her limited experience with the new Hawthorn, the guardian would be vigilant (if a little persnickety) about her duties, so Yarrow need not worry. The bigger question was whether Hawthorn would be manageable—whether the authority of the Mother would go unchallenged. Going all the way to Black Tower, just to avoid the Mother's confirmation? That did not speak well for Hawthorn's sense of duty to the house. But Yarrow was tough. Once the Beast was out of the way, well, Hawthorn had better watch her step.

Yarrow sipped more wine and passed the bottle to Peregrine.

"Do you ever think about it?" she said. "The Beast, I mean."

Peregrine shrugged. "It's always been a matter for Ladies or for Grey. And the thing itself only comes about once every three or four lifetimes. How long since the last time? Four hundred years?"

"I don't know," said Yarrow. "A very long time, even for Grey. The guardians always take it so seriously, but it's not a part of life. It's not grain or fruit or children. It's a story we tell each other that just happens to come true every so often."

"Seems like it should be more serious than that," said Peregrine. "Shouldn't it?"

"The Goldenseals know about the Beast," said Yarrow automatically. But Peregrine was right. Why should only they know it, if the matter was so great? Why shouldn't the Mother? Were the names that important that their wisdom should die with them? "The rest of us don't think of it," she added, trying to sound as if that made it all right.

"The Ladies think about it all the time," said Peregrine. "Aside from each other, it's the only thing that can kill one of them, it seems." He passed the bottle back. "Some of them dream about killing it, I hear, because if you vanquish it, you get a wish."

"What sort of wish?" said Yarrow.

"The stories in Black say it grants a wish ‘of its own body.'"

"Like a miracle."

"Oh, nobody really knows." Peregrine accepted the bottle from her. "One story says that, at the command of a Lily guardian, it filled the South Passage with water so the palace would always have a fresh supply."

"That doesn't sound like a wish of its own body ."

"Well, it used its blood for the water. Then it died. Another story says that the first time it arose, the Lady who killed it asked for the Great Tower, and the monster built it from its own corpse. And another one says that a guardian asked for companions, and the Beast made parrots for her."

"I wouldn't have used my wish on something like that, " said Yarrow.

"Then what would the little Mother wish for?" said Peregrine.

"That would depend on what the Beast really is . I wouldn't ask a bird for milk or a guardian for a song."

"An evasive answer. You might as well be a tutor."

Yarrow took a long pull from the bottle, finishing it off. She thought of Blue Tower, now Ladyless, and the red smear of Roe's blood on the white wall, and the nameless frogs in the dark. She thought of the white birds in the air around Yellow Tower. She thought of Grey House, empty and growing emptier, the molding beds, the chairs of vanished women in the refectory. Over and over she had done what a Yarrow must do, and yet over and over, things had only gotten worse. It was supposed to be enough to be Yarrow. Everyone had always made it seem so. And yet it wasn't.

"Change, maybe," she said. The word was unfamiliar in her mouth. "I might ask for change."

Peregrine laughed. "Change? To hear a woman in grey speak like that! What kind of change, little Mother?"

Would she wish for it? Was it the wine talking? The inside of her head revolved in lazy circles. There were too many half-formed thoughts in Yarrow's mind. They crowded to her lips like hens seeking crumbs. What could she say that was honest? The world must change, for I cannot . But that was nothing she could say to this man. She was spared the necessity of answering when Peregrine brought Tertius to a sudden halt. Yarrow pitched forward, knocking her head on the platform. The wine bottle rolled and fell to smash, glittering, on the cobblestones.

"What is it?" said Yarrow, sitting up.

Peregrine only pointed ahead of them. Blocking the Passage from one side to another were dead bodies: people, but also things like deer with high ebony spires for heads. Stuck through the body of a bluish person was a long spear from which a black banner waved, bearing a yellow bird under a golden eye.

"Beekeepers," said Peregrine. "What were they doing out here, with hives and everything? And that's the Obsidian Lady's banner. Why would she kill her own crofters?"

Among the dead, something glittered in the sun. Its shape was familiar. But more important than that, someone had to do something about the bodies.

Peregrine unrolled the rope ladder and both of them climbed down. Every single body had been brutally hacked. The smell of blood was thick and sharp. Little things crunched underfoot; in all directions, thousands of dead bees were scattered.

If the deceased is a beekeeper from Black, Yarrow thought. If the deceased… Beekeeper from Black. Then—then what?

It had been so long since she had recited any of the lore. If she had forgotten it—but after a shaky moment she found the right room in her memory, the right image, and the answer unfurled in her mind.

Nothing. If the deceased is a beekeeper from Black, you did nothing. The beekeepers were one of the only groups who traditionally took care of their own dead. But that didn't seem right. It was not right, it wasn't. Not when they had been slaughtered like this, with none of their own to care for them. Yarrow began singing the Lament for Gardeners. It was not perfect, but it was as close as she could get. Better that than nothing at all.

As she sang, she walked toward the glittering thing. It was clutched in the hand of a trout-faced person near the rear of the group, who seemed to have been defending themselves with it. Roughly five feet long, the object was shaped like a near-triangular dagger, with a grip nearly a third of its length and fitted for gigantic hands. Red leather bound the grip, and red stones peeped from among the prickly gold vines that formed the pommel. More vines ran along the center of the blade. Obviously, it was made by or for a Lady. Then why did it look so familiar?

Of course. Gently, Yarrow eased it out of the dead person's hand. It was very heavy. The point had to drag on the ground, for she was too short to carry it easily. Still singing, albeit with a strained voice, she took it back to Tertius where Peregrine was waiting for her. The Lament ended just as she reached him.

"I don't carry weapons," he said. "I'm a Butler."

"This needs to go back to Grey," said Yarrow. "It's the guardian's steel."