The Land of the Silver Apples - Farmer Nancy. Страница 40

An older woman fussed over the Bugaboo. “You didn’t run into trouble, did you, Buggiekins?” she asked.

“No fear, Mumsie! The Forest Lord is as predictable as moonrise. He was busy getting tree roots to work on the rock slide.”

Mumsie suddenly noticed Pega. “Now I know why you were so late!” she cried. She whisked Pega into an enthusiastic hug, which the girl struggled to escape. “Feisty little darling, aren’t you? Come along with me. We’ll get you out of those rags and into something nice.”

“Jack!” wailed Pega, fighting desperately.

“Please, sir,” Jack appealed to the hobgoblin king, “she’s afraid.”

“ Ismy little forest flower shy?” crooned the Bugaboo fondly, extricating her from his mother’s arms. “ Isshe a dear little fledgling peeping over the edge of her nest?”

“I’m not a flower! I’m not a stupid bird! You’re strangling me!” Pega shouted.

The king put her down and stood back, grinning widely—a hobgoblin could grin very widely indeed, Jack observed. Pega immediately ran and flung her arms around the boy so tightly, he could hardly breathe.

“I see I have shown a lack of courtesy,” the Bugaboo said, bowing formally. “I had not realized you were her brother. I would never have associated such beauty with—well, you mud men can’t help how you look. The point is, I should have asked your permission first. Dear boy—Jack’s the name, isn’t it? Dear Jack, would you grant me the sublime honor of courting your adorable sister and of hopefully winning her hand in marriage?”

“Marriage?”shrieked Pega.

Jack looked from one face to another. Everyone was smiling, and the women were giving soft little hoots of encouragement. “Um… er…” Jack said, his mind racing wildly.

Pega sank to the ground and burst into tears as though her heart would break. The hoots vanished instantly. A flock of will-o’-the-wisps darted down to watch. “I thought,” she gasped between racking sobs, “I thought I’d overcome it. All my life I’ve feared to look into a stream, to see my face staring back. I’ve seen everyone turn aside and spit when they saw me. No master kept me if his wife became pregnant, for fear I would mark the child. I tried not to care. I prayed for understanding. Why? Why was I cursed with such ugliness? What had I done to deserve it?”

She rocked back and forth. No one moved. Jack, Thorgil, the hobgoblins, even the will-o’-the-wisps seemed paralyzed by such grief.

“Brother Aiden told me I had a beautiful soul and that in Heaven I would shine like the morning star. And then Jack freed me from slavery.” Pega looked up, her blotchy face transformed by adoration. “I vowed to serve him all my days and never, never to indulge in self-pity again, but I did not dream of such cruelty! I’m not a flower. I’m not a baby bird. No one could want to marry me except as a joke.”

The Bugaboo hunkered down next to Pega and attempted to take her hand. She pushed him away. “Please don’t cry, my little toadstool. I meant no joke. I don’t even have a sense of humor.”

“He’s right. He couldn’t get a cackle out of a jackdaw with the stories he tells,” said the Nemesis.

“I was drawn first to your voice,” said the Bugaboo. “I thought it was the Elf Queen invading our land and went out to—um, well, never mind what I was going to do. We’ve never got along with elves. But when I saw your face, I fell in love at first sight. ‘It’s the moonlight,’ I told myself. ‘In the daylight she’ll look like any other mud woman.’ But the sun only revealed more loveliness.”

Pega looked up. Her face was wet with tears, and she wiped her nose on her sleeve. She was trembling with emotion. “You’ve been spying on me all this time?”

“Yes! And who would not?” cried the Bugaboo.

Pega laughed weakly. “I guess—to you—I look pretty appetizing.”

The hobgoblin king grinned, stretching his rubbery mouth to its widest. His speckled face beamed with joy.

“Oh, Lord,” said Pega, looking down again.

Jack decided it was time to step in. “I may not be her brother, sir,” he said, “but I’m most definitely her guardian. In our lands courtship proceeds slowly. The lady needs time to get used to her suitor.” Jack knew this wasn’t true in real life, but he’d heard of such things in stories.

“Marriage is a trap,” Thorgil interrupted. “The minute any girl gets tricked into it, she loses everything. She loses the sweet joys of battle and of braving wild storms in search of good pillage. She spends her life doing degrading tasks—cooking, weaving, sewing, scrubbing—all the while chasing after smelly little brats. There is no honor in this. You and I need to have a talk, Pega.”

Everyone stared at the shield maiden. Finally, the Bugaboo said, “The Forest Lord should have taken this one. But I do understand the rules of courtship. Forgive me for being impulsive, my darling mugwort.” He took Pega’s hands, and this time she was too dispirited to reject him. “I will wait for you as long as it takes. For the rest of my life, if necessary.”

All the women present hooted with pleasure, and one or two wiped her eyes. Pega merely looked depressed.

“And now it’s time for dinner!” cried the Bugaboo to cheers and applause.

“Finally,” grumbled the Nemesis.

The hobgoblins scurried around, setting up trestle tables and hauling out trenchers, knives, and spoons. They set out what appeared to be giant acorn cups, flattened on the bottom so they would not tip over. Jack picked up one and examined it.

“From the Forest Lord’s own oak tree,” explained Mumsie.

“Without his knowledge, of course,” said the Bugaboo.

“You keep talking about the Forest Lord,” said Jack. “Who is he?”

“One of the old gods,” replied the hobgoblin king. “He was here first, with the Man in the Moon, the Wild Huntsman, and the yarthkins.”

“He hates men for their slaughter of his children,” Mumsie said. She looked very solemn, and Jack saw that she was not the ridiculous creature she seemed, but someone deep.

“His children?” the boy asked.

“The trees, the grass, the moss, as well as the beasts and birds. The Forest Lord rules the green world. For those who harm his subjects, he has an abiding hatred. That’s why he tried to take your friend Thorgil.”

“What’s that? What are you saying?” Thorgil said, suddenly waking up.

“You killed the fawn that trusted you,” the Bugaboo’s mother replied, not in the least cowed by the shield maiden’s anger. “No one hunts the Forest Lord’s creatures in the heart of his kingdom, not even us. What the animals do with each other is according to his laws. The fawn would have fled from a wolf, but not from you. Such a betrayal of trust sent a shudder through the forest. All the animals became a little less trusting. It was like an assault on the Forest Lord’s realm.”

“You knew Thorgil was in danger, and you left her to die?” Jack had begun to like the hobgoblins, but to leave someone helpless to be slowly eaten by moss… that was barbaric.

“She had earned her fate.” Mumsie’s eyes, so like pools of dark water, showed no trace of regret.

“We saved the other one,” said the Bugaboo, perhaps wanting to lighten the grim mood that had overtaken the festivities.

“One of your stunning examples of stupidity,” declared the Nemesis. “He was being dragged into the river by vines—served him right for trying to hack through them. He thanked us by complaining that we were being too rough.”

“Wait,” said Jack as a happy thought occurred to him. “His name wouldn’t be Brutus?”

“I see you know him,” said the Nemesis.

“Know him?” said Pega, for the first time moved from her moody silence. “He’s my friend.”

“Oh, dear! I wish we’d kept him,” said the Bugaboo.

“What did you do with him?”

“Nothing bad,” the hobgoblin king replied hastily, attempting to put his arm around her. Pega wriggled away.