Finally he speaks. “We’ll head out first thing tomorrow.”
There is an old saying in these parts: “Never trust a faerie with something to gain.” But sometimes, there is no other choice.
Late the following afternoon, Isbe finds herself covered to her knees in muddy snow, her toes completely numb, as she makes her way down the long private road that leads to Binks’s estate. Knowing that Aurora is in trouble makes Isbe too feel trapped, as though the earth itself has risen up to bury her alive.
As she and Gil approach, a long caravan made up of three mule-driven wagons winds closer, rattling noisily. Isbe turns to Gil as they move out of the way to let the procession pass. “What’s with the wagons? He’s not leaving, is he?”
“Not that I can see. But the wagons are piled up with furniture,” Gil says wonderingly. “Never known a faerie to move . . .”
Isbe huffs, frustration rising inside her. “Excuse me, sir,” she says, calling out to the driver and turning her face upward, to where the mule driver must be seated. The wagon comes to a clunky halt. She can’t tell what the driver looks like, of course, but she can guess by the smell of him that it isn’t nice. “Can you tell me what you’re doing with all this furniture?”
“Payment,” the man grunts.
“For?”
“Won it fair and square, got the documents to prove it.”
Isbe gapes. “You mean to say that you won these things by gambling for them?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?” the man replies, his breath reeking of dried herring. “Now move out of the way. We’ve a long journey.”
The caravan rumbles away. Isbe’s curiosity and unease grow as they approach the manor itself. Gil describes its impressive size and the flashy, bright-colored drapes that line the front windows—a rarity even among royals. It takes a long time for someone to answer the front gate, but finally metal slides against metal. “Were you scheduled?” a man—a servant, presumably—asks dryly.
Isbe nudges Gil, who clears his throat.
“Lord Barnabé is not expecting us, no, but we come on important business from . . . from the palace,” Gil announces.
The servant sucks in a breath. He disappears, and for a moment, Isbe is sure they’ve been refused. Then the gate begins to lift, and the heavy door grinds open.
“In. In,” the servant barks.
Isbe and Gil shuffle forward. The inside of the home is somehow colder than it is outside.
“Follow,” says the servant, his voice echoing within the cavernous entry hall. So they do. Their soggy footsteps slosh and echo on marble, and Isbe loses count of how many turns they make.
And then she hears the screaming.
No, not screams—more like squeals . . . amid men’s overlapping voices, angry and excited.
The servant grunts. “Fights,” he says, as if that explains everything. “This way.”
The squealing gets louder now, and then Gil says, “Oh! Oh.”
There’s another sound beneath that of the squeals . . . a shuffling, a grunting, a groaning, a . . . snorting?
“What?” Isbe demands impatiently. Gil doesn’t answer, clearly too stunned to speak. “What is it?”
“Gah!” shouts a male voice, not Gil’s. “Absalom, NO! Go for the neck!”
More grunting, like something part metal, part beast, being dragged roughly across a bumpy surface.
There are multiple men in the room, many of them in heated argument. Large ale goblets clatter against wood as the men slurp and slosh, laugh and shout. Isbe can tell there are flung-open windows that must be facing the outdoors: a courtyard, where the screams are coming from. By the way sound travels, she guesses this is some sort of spectators’ room. One voice stands out from the rest: “Who are they?” Lord Barnabé.
“Business from the palace, sir. About the sleeping sickness,” the servant explains.
Before the lord can reply, there’s a wild sound—a cross between a howl and roar, then a loud thump. Gurgling, gleeful laughter squeaks from Lord Barnabé’s throat, strangely high-pitched, as though he’s wearing a too-tight collar.
Then Isbe can smell it: blood and bodies and mud and something animal. It reminds her of when she sometimes used to follow the military squads on their boar-hunting missions. They’d perform these hunts to train for battle, forced to wrestle the wounded animals in hand-to-hoof combat. She would hunch over Freckles’s muscular back from a distance, weaving her fingers through the mare’s coarse mane, listening with disgust and fascination.
“Boar fighting,” Gil confirms.
A wave of nausea rises in her chest. Humans fighting wild animals as a form of training is one type of gruesome, but setting the beasts against each other, simply for sport, is sick and cruel. “Lord Barnabé. Binks,” she says loudly. “We are here on a matter of some urgency.”
“Gentlemen, one moment,” Binks says irritably. Then, to his servant: “Show them to my private quarters.”
Isbe is immensely relieved to exit the spectators’ room and its offensive smells and sounds. She can tell the next room is heavily upholstered because of the way it seems to swallow up their footsteps. She doesn’t trust heavy upholstery. It hides things.
As they’re offered seats in Binks’s office, Gil reaches over and squeezes her hand. “Short,” he whispers hurriedly. “A bit of a belly, large nose, ridiculously dressed including a chaperon with a feathered tail trailing down the back of his head . . .”
He stops talking and lets go of her hand as Binks enters the room moments later, closing the door.
“So,” he announces, sitting down almost silently. Isbe imagines he has trained even his chair to wear a poker face, to reveal nothing. “What business do you seek here?”
“We’re here for answers,” Isbe blurts out. “About the sleeping sickness.”
“What help do you think I can give you?” Binks asks stiffly.
Gil is the one who answers. “Faerie magic, sir,” he says. “We thought someone like you might know something about this affliction we’ve been hearing of.”
Binks taps something against his desk. Possibly a large ring. Isbe longs for Aurora, as she has moment after moment, day after day, since leaving the palace—especially at times like these, when her sister would have been by Isbe’s side, slyly tapping everything she was seeing into Isbe’s palm.
“Hmmm,” Binks says at last. “I’m afraid I simply can’t help you.”
Isbe sits forward. “But—”
“However, since you’ve come all this way, may I at least offer some entertainment in the form of a game? I’d invite you to my gaming room, but it’s woefully low on furnishings at the moment.”
“We’re not here to play.” Isbe can barely contain her fury. “My sister, the princess, may die. We need your help.”
Binks taps again. He must be wearing several heavy rings. Isbe begins to realize he is lightly hammering a sort of pattern. “Who did you say you were again?”