49. Hawthorn Meets Yarrow

49. Hawthorn Meets Yarrow

Hawthorn walked most of the night, stopping for an hour or two of sleep in a deep crevice. Toward Grey, the earthquake damage was more and more severe: the walls had fissured like bread crust, and the floor of the Passage itself was scored and riven. She woke up to another tremor, and when she escaped the shivering wall, saw that the sun was just rising. From Black Tower, it shone down the Passage toward her even as the rest of the palace was dark. It illuminated the high, sheer face of the South Passage, and for one fearful moment Hawthorn wondered if the bridge over the river still stood.

Well, only one way to find out. She went on. The sound of the river chattering over stones and bones made her thirsty, but on no account would she drink from it. Leaving the food with Frin had been all right, but she could have taken at least a little water.

The Passage sloped down toward the river, where the pale bridge reached over the channel, laden with tilted houses. It seemed more or less unharmed, but at its head was a huge white shape, wearing a smaller pink shape like a hat. It blocked the bridge entirely. Could it be—yes, it was a hollowman, with three tents on its back: something she had only seen paintings of. It lay with both arms tucked under it, asleep—until Hawthorn's foot disturbed a pebble, and then the hollowman's great eyes opened slowly, and it chuckled inanely.

"What is it, Tertius?" said a sleepy voice from within the pink tent. Someone poked a head and shoulders out, clad in the shiny green garment of the Butlers Itinerant. He squinted at Hawthorn. "Well, what are you supposed to be, all aglow like a lantern?"

"I'm Hawthorn," she answered. "Can you move him, please? I'm trying to get to Grey."

"Hawthorn…" said the butler. He grinned. "Oi," he said over his shoulder into the smaller red tent. "One of yours is in the Passage."

"I have a very bad headache," said a proper, fractious voice that Hawthorn knew instantly. "If you could keep it down—"

"Come on out and say hello," said the butler. He put up his white hood and got to his feet, stretching in the cool winter sunrise.

The little girl in grey, the one who had shouted at him, given him candy, and stolen his book, emerged from the tent on her hands and knees. Girl no longer, apparently—she wore the wimple of the women. How much had Grey changed since Hawthorn had left?

Glaring down at her, the woman said, "Oh, it's you."

"It is," said Hawthorn. "Do you mind moving your hollowman?" Where would a woman of Grey even get a hollowman? She hadn't thought there were any around anymore.

The woman rubbed her temples with her fingers as if trying to smooth away her unpleasant expression. "Its name is Tertius."

That was exactly like a woman in grey. Insist on the rightness of little things, ignore the big picture.

"All right," said Hawthorn. "Do you mind moving Tertius? I'm trying to get to Grey, and it's blocking the bridge."

"Oh, I can give you a ride," said the butler. "I'm heading that way anyway. That's why Yarrow is here."

"Yarrow?" How had someone Hawthorn's own age ascended to the motherhood so quickly? Something horrible must have happened back home. Forgetting the hornet for a moment, Hawthorn cursed herself for not leaving the beekeepers sooner.

"Yes," said the mother, her tone daring Hawthorn to ask one more question. "And we were never properly introduced. Your name is?"

"Hawthorn."

Yarrow's tongue worked her left cheek as she squinted. Hawthorn took this for deep offense, since Yarrow should have confirmed her succession, but that was only part of the truth. Yarrow was suffering the effects of too much honey wine, and couldn't quite assemble the mildewed bits of her dampened intellect. And the sun was very bright.

"Indeed," she said. "And you're coming from—?" She nodded up the length of the Passage toward the sharp bulk of Black Tower, glowering and lamplit in the dawn.

"I am."

"Where the Lady confirmed you?" Yarrow meant to ask solely from curiosity, but her tone and expression had to fight their way out of her brain, and arrived in the open air tired and belligerent.

"That's correct. And the Beast is nearly here, so I need to go to Grey, get the steel, and fulfill my duty."

Hawthorn's impatience did her no favors with Yarrow, who, nevertheless, intended to be helpful, and tried to do so by saying, "Oh, the steel isn't in Grey."

That took Hawthorn aback. "Then where is it?"

"I've got it."

" You've —?" Why did the mother of Grey House have the steel? She must have taken it for protection when she left Grey, there being no other weapons in the tower except certain holy, rusting spears. The beekeepers had gone all the way there, been told it was missing, and ridden halfway back when they were attacked. They had died for nothing at all.

"I didn't take it," said Yarrow hastily. Her headache hadn't cleared, but she had learned in the last ten seconds how to adjust her life around it. "We came upon some beekeepers who had it. They must have stolen it, I don't know why. I was only taking it back to Grey. You can have it."

She moved stiffly into the tent—proudly, Hawthorn thought—and returned with the weapon. Its blade flashed in the morning light, the rich colors of its hilt aglow. The steel: unnamed, for it needed no name, gift of the Lady of Red, Hawthorn's heritage. She accepted it from Yarrow, expecting to feel a thrill of importance, a tingle of rightness from the blade as it came back to its proper home, but there was nothing, only a warm spot on the hilt where Yarrow's hand had been.

"And my book, too," said Hawthorn. Though she knew now that the beekeepers had succeeded in their mission, and the steel had not been lost to the maze around Black, the residue of her anger and grief clung to her, and she could not see past them.

"Book?" said Yarrow, in whose mind the little volume occupied barely a fraction of the space it took up in Hawthorn's. "Oh. Yes. Just a minute."

Again she went back to the tent. The butler had stood there the whole time, his eyes swiveling between them as they spoke, an expression of amusement on his face.

"My name is Three Peregrine Borealis," he said. "It's a pleasure to meet a friend of Yarrow's."

"We don't really know each other," said Hawthorn quickly.

Yarrow reappeared with The Downfall of the Thistles in her hand. A tiny, shabby book, it was the most beautiful thing Hawthorn had ever seen.

"I'm sorry," said Yarrow. "I truly did not mean to take it. But when you startled me, it just—I must have put it in my sleeve out of habit. I hope you haven't needed it."

"No," said Hawthorn, touching the cover lovingly. It blurred behind a mist of tears. "I haven't."

A crow cawed somewhere in the Passage. Peregrine seemed to take it as a sign, and went about rousing the hollowman.

"We must be off," he said. "I've many deliveries to make. Are you coming, Mistress Hawthorn?"

"No," said Hawthorn, not liking the sound of many deliveries . "I'll be all right."

The hollowman got up on its elbows, then rose to a standing position. As Yarrow was lifted into the air, she said, "I look forward to working with you, Hawthorn."

In spite of everything, Hawthorn remembered that this small woman was the same person who had given her candied angelica after her master's death. The only person, in fact, who had shown her any kindness in that horrible time.

"And I with you," said Hawthorn.

She put the book in her pack. When she opened the flap, Yarrow saw the fragments of the green mask, and her expression went very grim. But she said nothing.

The hollowman jolted away, rattling the contents of its stomach. Hawthorn followed, passing it about halfway over the bridge when it stopped and Peregrine knocked on someone's door. When she reached the far shore and looked back, Yarrow was watching her go.

Once free of the bridge, the Passage continued its course up the side of the canyon. Over the centuries, both Blue and Grey had built themselves out into overhanging ledges, but the Passage itself was clear, and carved a straight line through the rock. Seen from across the river, it looked like a near-vertical staircase, but when Hawthorn reached its foot, she saw that it actually was no worse than some of the stairs inside Black Tower. In fact, it was a good deal broader, and probably much safer at the moment.

Deep landings broke the stairs at regular intervals. After a few minutes of climbing, she was tired, but committed herself to resting only every other landing. Since there were ten of them, that gave her five rests. When she sat for the first one, she took out Downfall and opened it to a random point. Old Hawthorn's familiar spidery handwriting rambled down the page.

ask re: story variant

Age? Ylw twr archives: earliest mnscrpt 4000 years

very close now, I feel it. M. Yarrow holds key, the old fool

What had she been investigating? Old Hawthorn had made several trips to other tower archives, and she had never taken her apprentice. She had only said that she was visiting friends. Bewildered and a bit hurt, Hawthorn closed the book, stood up sooner than she'd meant to, and went on climbing.