This cast everything in a new light. I needed to get back up to the farm and look at things again.
“’Ave yeh seen anyone around these parts today?” Denna asked. “We’re looken for moi uncle.”
Schiem shook his head. “Can’t say as Oi’ve had the pleasure.”
“Oi’m really worried about him,” she pressed.
“Oi won’t lie tae yeh, dearie,” he said. “Yeh’ve got reason tae be worried ef he’s alone in these woods.”
“Are there bad folk around?” I asked.
“Nae like yeh’re thinkin’,” he said. “I dan’t get down here but once a year in the fall. Forage for the hogs makes it worth moi while, but only just. There’s strange things in these woods. Especial off tae the north.” He looked at Denna, then down at his feet, obviously unsure as to whether or not he should continue.
This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to know about, so I waved his comment away, hoping to provoke him. “Dan’t go telling us faerie stories, Schiem.”
Schiem frowned. “Two nights ago, when I got up tae—” he hesitated, glancing at Denna, “—attend tae moi personals, I saw lights off tae the north. A big wash o’ blue flame. Big as a bonfire, but all o’ a sudden.” He snapped his fingers. “Then nothing. Happened three times. Sent a chill roight down the middle of my back.”
“Two nights ago?” I asked. The wedding had only been last night.
“Oi said two nights, din’t Oi?” Schiem said. “Oi’ve been making my way south ever since. Oi want nae part of whatever it es making blue fire in the night up there.”
“Schiem, really. Blue fire?”
“Oi’m not some lying Ruh, spinning stories to scare yeh out o’ pennies, boy,” he said, plainly irritated. “I spent moi loife in these hills. Everyone knows that there’s somethen out in the north bluffs. There’s a reason folk stay away from there.”
“Aren’t there any farms out there?” I asked.
“There’s no place tae farm on the bluffs, unless yoor growen rocks,” he said hotly. “Yeh think Oi dan’t know a candle or a campfire when I see one? Et was blue, Oi tell ye. Greet billows o’ et,” he made an expansive gesture with his arms. “Loik when yeh pour liquor on a fire.”
I let it go, and turned the conversation elsewhere. Before too long Sheim gave a deep sigh and got to his feet. “The pegs’ll have picked this place clean by now,” he said, picking up his walking stick and shaking it so the crude bell clanked loudly. Pigs came trotting up obediently from all directions. “Loo pegs!” He shouted. “Pegs pegs pegs! C’man ye counts!”
I wrapped up the remains of the cooked pig in a piece of sackcloth, and Denna made a few trips with the water bottle and doused the fire. By the time we were finished, Schiem had his sounder in order. It was larger than I’d thought. More than two dozen full-grown sows, plus the young pigs and the boar with the grey, bristling back. He gave a brief wave, and without any further word headed off, the bell on his walking stick clanking as he walked and his pigs trailing in a loose mob behind him.
“Well that wasn’t terribly subtle,” Denna said.
“I had to push him a bit,” I said. “Superstitious folk don’t like to talk about things they’re afraid of. He was about to clam up, and I needed to know what he’d seen in the forest.”
“I could have gotten it out of him,” she said. “More flies with honey and all that.”
“You probably could have,” I admitted as I shouldered my travelsack and began to walk. “I thought you said you didn’t speak bumpkin.”
“I’ve got a mimic’s ear,” she said with an indifferent shrug. “I pick up things like that pretty quickly.”
“Surprised the hell out of moi…” I spat. “Damn. I’m going to be a whole span of days getting rid of that accent. Like a piece of gristle in my teeth.”
Denna was eyeing the surrounding landscape despondently. “I guess we should get back to beating the bushes, then. Find my patron and find you some answers.”
“No point, really,” I said.
“I know, but I can’t give up without at least trying.”
“That’s not what I mean. Look…” I pointed to where the pigs had rooted around in the dirt and leaves, going after some choice morsel. “He’s been letting his pigs graze all over. Even if there is a trail, we’d never find it.”
She drew a long breath and let it out in a tired sigh. “Is there anything left in that bottle?” she asked wearily. “My head still aches.”
“I’m an idiot,” I said, looking around. “I wish you’d mentioned it was bothering you sooner.” I walked over to a young birch tree, cut off several long strips of bark, and brought them back to her. “The inside of the bark is a good painkiller.”
“You’re a handy fellow to have around.” She peeled some off with a fingernail and put it in her mouth. She wrinkled her nose. “Bitter.”
“That’s how you know it’s real medicine,” I said. “If it tasted good it would be candy.”
“Isn’t that the way of the world?” she said. “We want the sweet things, but we need the unpleasant ones.” She smiled when she said it, but only with her mouth. “Speaking of,” she said, “how am I going to find my patron? I’m open to suggestions.”
“I have an idea,” I said, shouldering my travelsack. “But first we have to head back up to the farm. There’s something I need to take a second look at.”
We made our way back to the top of Barrow Hill, and I saw how it had come by its name. Odd, irregular lumps rose and fell despite the fact that there weren’t any other rocks nearby. Now that I was looking for them, they were impossible to miss.
“What is it you needed to look at?” Denna said. “Realize that if you attempt to go inside the house I might be forced to physically restrain you.”
“Look at the house,” I said. “Now look at the bluff that’s sticking out of the trees behind it.” I pointed. “The rock around here is dark…”
“…and the stones of the house are grey,” she finished.
I nodded.
She continued to look at me expectantly. “And that means what, exactly? Like he said, they found barrow stones.”
“There aren’t any barrows around here,” I said. “People build barrows in Vintas, where it’s traditional, or in low, marshy places where you can’t dig a grave. We’re probably five hundred miles away from a real barrow.”
I walked closer to the farmhouse. “Besides, you don’t use stones to build barrows. Even if you did, you wouldn’t use quarried, finished stone like this. This was brought from a long ways off.” I ran a hand over the smooth grey stones of the wall. “Because someone wanted to build something that would last. Something solid.” I turned back to face Denna. “I think there’s an old hill fort buried here.”
Denna thought about it for a moment. “Why would they call it barrow hill if there weren’t real barrows?”
“Probably because folk around here haven’t ever seen a real barrow, just heard about them in stories. When they find a hill with big mounds on it…” I pointed out the oddly shaped hillocks. “Barrow Hill.”