6. The Tombs Have Rats and Pell Confesses to Breaking the Weather

6. The Tombs Have Rats and Pell Confesses to Breaking the Weather

In the morning the snow lay thick on the effigies that lined the north side of Grey. They faced outward toward Black Tower, their stone faces worn away to soft lumps. One or two of them had deeply carved eyes that were now dark holes, staring eternally at the palace center.

Each effigy stood atop a pedestal, and each pedestal had once borne a name, though like the faces, these names had been erased by time and wind and water. These were the Tombs of the Ladies. There had been no Lady in Grey for centuries, and the bones of them had been bones so long that they were now dust, but the tombs were maintained nonetheless.

Old Monkshood LXXIV felt as if he had been dust that long as well. It was his task to keep up the tombs, but nowadays, what with arthritis and long naps, his version of maintenance was sprinkling them with water to wash off the dust and running a rake around the brown grass at their feet, whether it needed it or not. Nothing lived on that side of Grey, so usually it didn't need it. But when Monkshood got up in the cold dawn of unexpected winter, there were tracks all over the light snow. They seemed to come from the tombs themselves, and though the Ladies would not have had feet that small, for a moment he worried something had come back to life.

The statues were named for their Ladies. Away to the north were crumbling effigies of Ladies of Black, Red, and Blue, now all white under the snow, and having no names Monkshood had ever learned, but the one nearest the south wall was Deer, for the antlers that still showed through her hood. Tallest of the Ladies was Madam Carrion; smallest of the Ladies was Yew. Monkshood was standing near her when he discovered the tracks, and when he straightened (painfully, as everything was those days), something seemed amiss about her hollow, leftmost eye.

It looked full. Perhaps with dirty snow, he thought, but then he looked more closely, and found two eyes staring back from a socket made for one. The eyes were little, beady, and black, nestled in soft grey. With a hoarse bark, he jumped away, and his arthritis protested. Groaning, he straightened, clutching his back, and looked at Yew's unaccustomed number of eyes.

It was a rat. As he watched, it wriggled out of the socket and plopped onto the snow. The rat scampered away, leaving a fresh line of tracks, as a noise rustled from Yew. Another grey rat poked its head out of the grey stone and leapt down. Then another, then another, until Yew seemed to be weeping rodents.

Monkshood turned and, moving both quickly and carefully on account of his back, headed for Grey House to tell the women.

In the huge, drafty kitchen, Yarrow and Arnica were tossing logs into the fire while the apprentices came downstairs in the cold dawn. At the worn oak table, Servant was measuring out barleymeal for the gruel. The apprentices lined themselves up against the wall—Ban's head knocked against a ladle—and waited for Yarrow to speak. Pell was twisting her linen apron in her fingers. Would Yarrow ask about the weather?

"We will eat in the kitchen this morning, girls," said Yarrow. "Grith, fetch the bowls and spoons. Ban, the honey and curds. Pell—"

"If I may," said Pell. "I have something to confess, Mother Yarrow."

Grith and Ban went about their tasks while Yarrow threw one more log in the fire, then set the kettle on its iron arm to boil. Pell waited in silence. She did not meet the other girls' eyes, though their curious gazes prickled her neck. It was rare for Pell to make a real mistake, let alone have anything to confess. Ban and Grith probably savored the idea of Pell's punishment, for, friendly as they were, all three competed for the women's favor. Arnica gave it freely and took it back just as freely; her approval and her punishments weighed as heavy as the wind. But Yarrow's good opinion was the prize at the end of a race you had to run every day, and Pell was an excellent runner.

"Come over here then, girl," said Yarrow with a sigh. She straightened her wimple as she led Pell to a quieter corner of the kitchen. "Now, what's this you've done?"

Pell inhaled slowly, hoping the extra time would grant confidence. It didn't. "I brought winter."

Yarrow's heavy eyebrows lifted themselves a fraction. "You brought winter?"

"Yes. I accidentally took something from the old woman's room, and I—I broke curfew last night to return it."

One corner of Yarrow's small, wrinkled mouth twisted up. "The weather pays attention to the tricks of a girl in grey, does it?"

"It was a book. It seemed important. The apprentice told me not to touch it."

"Of course he would, girl. All apprentices think their own trade is the most important."

"But if it's an heirloom of the name—"

"The guardians' work doesn't rely on books, girl, only on strength and steel. I say keep it to amuse yourself, if you like, or take it to the Archives, if that's more to your taste, but either way, the seasons move at the word of the Ladies, and they're silent. This is just some jog of the wheel, I'm sure. Now, I was about to tell you to stir the gruel so Servant can go about bringing in the laundry. After, if you find your conscience still pricks, speak again and I'll give you penance."

This was not satisfying. Pell had a keen sense of justice, and decided to return the book when she had a spare hour. But at least she would not be punished. The gruel was stirred with an avid care to which it was unaccustomed, and came out of the pot smooth and unscorched. They were just sitting down, and Pell was scooping curds into her bowl, when a cold wind swirled around them and Monkshood coughed from the outer door.

"Shut that, man, or this goes up your nose!" said Arnica, brandishing the ladle.

"Come in, Monkshood," said Yarrow.

Men were unusual in Grey House. Monkshood had left the tombs only once that Pell knew of, when something pained him and he wanted Arnica to doctor him. In the two or three years since, tasks and age had withered and bent him till he looked like the trunks of ivy on the house's south wall.

"Sit," said Arnica. "Grith, some tea."

"None, thanks," said Monkshood. "It's news I'm here to give."

"And?" said Yarrow, sipping her own tea.

"Rats," said Monkshood. When this single word did not convey the depths of his confusion and horror, he went on. "It's rats in the tombs."

Yarrow and Arnica were silent, clearly expecting more. Monkshood spread his fingers as far as they went, which was not far, and shrugged, having come to the limits of his verbal ability.

"There are always rats in the tombs, Monkshood," said Yarrow. "What is so unusual now?"

"It's that they're out of the tombs." The warmth of the fire seemed to unbind an ancient skein of courtesy in his mind, for he added, as if it were a question, "Mother?"

"Not so unusual, I think," said Yarrow, but her composure had soured into confusion.

"Lots of 'em," said Monkshood. "Crawling—crawling out of Yew's head, and as I passed, out of Madrona's and Hawthorn's too. Wherever a hole was. And fleeing, the rats were fleeing." Then, after a moment, "Mother?"

Arnica gulped her tea, which scorched her mouth. She swore volubly at the tea, the cup, and her own tongue. Yarrow took a tiny sip.

"It's just rats, after all," she said.

"It's—it's odd, Mother," said Monkshood. "I think… it's very odd."

"Oh, what's the harm in looking," said Arnica. "Be good for you to take a little walk."

Yarrow groaned and stood. "I think, Monkshood, you and I will go look at the tombs. Ban, my cloak is upstairs. Be back quick and you'll have the rest of my honey. Grith, my pattens are also upstairs. Be back quick and you'll have the rest of my curds. Pell, come along with me."

"Better you than me," Arnica whispered to Pell as she hurried into her cloak.

Outside, winter had settled over Grey like a crow claiming a carcass. A flurry had snowed over Monkshood's footprints, but the sky was now a clear white, with only a few flakes to be seen in the air. The gables and dormers of the house were heavy and sullen against that cold purity, and the tower seemed to hunch into itself for warmth.

Yarrow charged ahead through the kitchen courtyard, followed more slowly by Monkshood, and lastly by a scrambling Pell, who had no pattens and tried to step in the trail left by the other two. That courtyard opened onto a series of others, all lined with crumbling colonnades or long-abandoned stables, hemmed in by peaked roofs like knives lying on their backs. At last Grey House's tattered fringes gave way to the Tombs of the Ladies. Monkshood lived there in a little ramshackle hut with a trickle of warm smoke in its chimney, and he looked longingly at it as they passed.

There were no rats to be seen, but tracks showed they had been moving even after the newest snowfall. Yarrow poked around the effigies, glancing here and there, trampling the delicate rat tracks, her mouth held firm and irritated. Monkshood dared not go home without her dismissal, and only stood in the snow like yet another statue: if he sat down in that cold, his joints would freeze up and he'd never be shifted. A jewellike dragonfly, shining darkly against the snow, landed on an effigy and twitched its wings.

"Hm" was all Yarrow said. She touched the face of Yew with a gentler hand than she used on the living. The statue's gaping eyes were little rounds of midnight in the winter light. Why some effigies were hollow and others weren't, Pell had no idea. She had learned the litany of their names and deeds, but the circumstances of their burial were known only to women in grey, not to girls.

"All well?" said Monkshood. "Mother?"

"I see no sign of things amiss," said Yarrow. "Only that the lichen sprouts between their toes. See that each is cleaned by morning. Come, Pell." They turned to go.

Perhaps being on his own ground made Monkshood bold. Perhaps he only wanted to warm his freezing toes by his little fire. But he stood as straight as he could and said, "It's a bad sign."

Yarrow grunted. "Nothing in the litanies about it."

"It smells of guardian business," said Monkshood. "It's something the women don't know: it's guardians. But there isn't one."

"There's that apprentice," said Pell. Yarrow looked down on her, stone-faced, and she shrank into her itchy cloak. "I only mean," Pell said, because sometimes it helped to explain oneself, "it might be time to—"

"The boy should have been to see me at once," said Yarrow. "If he hasn't, he doesn't want the name of guardian. And that's that."

"No guardian?" said Monkshood. "No guardian in Grey?"

"There are a lot of things we don't have here anymore," said Yarrow. "And we survive. It's what we do. Come, Pell." She turned. The sudden flick of her cloak startled the dragonfly away.

Monkshood seemed about to argue, but closed his mouth and waited for the woman and girl in grey to leave. It was a bad sign—but the women knew many things. One had to trust them. With a sigh he went to get his own toothbrush and some warm water. It took him far into the night, working by the light of a weak lantern, but in the morning every effigy was clean of lichen, and Monkshood's hands were coiled up into painful shapes. But Yarrow did not come to see whether he had done it.

"What do you think happened?" said Pell as they went back to the kitchen.

"Could be flooding in the tombs," said Yarrow. The clink-clink-clink of her pattens nearly drowned out her voice. "Bet that apprentice would also say it's a sign."

"A sign of what?"

"A sign that old women are tired of questions," said Yarrow.

"Yes, Mother," said Pell.

Snow was falling again as they reached the kitchen. Servant was cleaning up the breakfast bowls.

"Help her, girl," said Yarrow, shrugging out of her cloak. "Then find me in the slabroom. It's time you learned a bit."

No breakfast, then. That was for talking back.

"Yes, Mother," said Pell.