“I like that one!” Niosta chortled and pointed to a corner lamppost of a wider street that had a large black hat stuck on top of the glass and metal frame.
“Some poor fellow will be missing his head gear tonight,” Grial said, guiding Betsy past the hatted streetlight. “On the other hand, tonight this lantern is going to be the warmest one in all of Letheburg! Just imagine how envious those other lanterns all around it will be, probably going all silly gossiping about it too—”
Marie giggled and rubbed her nose, and even Lizabette had a smile on her face.
“Say, will we be goin’ all around the walls again, Grial?” Niosta said.
“Of course!” said the older woman. “How else will the good soldiering gentlemen up on the battlements get their cinnamon apple pies?”
They turned onto a yet larger street, and suddenly there were clanging noises of metal and voices, as several columns of soldiers jogged by.
“It’s so nice and pretty, with the evening lanterns here, that I’d almost forgotten there’s a war going on,” Lizabette said sadly, as they sat waiting before the street crossing while the columns of soldiers passed.
“Yes,” Grial responded, and in the orange light of the two torches her eyes appeared pitch-dark. “It is always easy to forget the things that are so very wrong that they shouldn’t even be happening in the first place. Just stop and look at the lights and the sparkling snow on the roofs and all those stars overhead, and goodness, it’s like the bad things don’t even exist, if only for just a moment. It’s rather nice, I say, to stop now and then and just take in a peaceful moment or two. . . .”
Soon the soldiers had moved on and they could continue also, turning onto the big boulevard and approaching the city walls.
As they drew near, a new sound became audible, a dull roar, constant like the surf, and punctuated by crackle of flames—great bonfire-loud ones—the clash of metal against metal, and harsh male shouts of effort and pain.
It came from the battlements of Letheburg, under relentless attack.
As Betsy pulled the cart closer to the edge of the city structures where began the pomoerium, that last wide vacant space between streets and the outer walls, the girls froze with grim fearful expressions, all beauty of city lights and glowing lanterns forgotten.
“All right, dearies, make ready,” Grial said, driving them into the pomoerium that ran like an inner moat all around the city on the inside perimeter of the walls. It was at present filled with soldiers of all ranks and formations, a mess of running men and carts, of sergeants-at-arms yelling orders, and constantly moving traffic in every direction, including vertically, as supplies and men went up narrow stairways and ledges up to the top, and came down, carrying the wounded. . . .
At least, with the world being what it was, they did not have to carry their dead brothers, for the latter walked on their own, some away from the fighting, others assisting the living. No, not all the dead had abandoned the cause of Letheburg.
And right overhead, as the girls stared, there were the city walls, massive and unbreachable. The battlements with their crenelated tops of parapets were silhouetted in black against an infernal ruddy aura of what was a conflagration burning outside, just beyond the walls. It painted the sky angry red against the coming night.
The conflagration, set on purpose by the defenders of the city, was their main defense against the attacking enemy.
Grial drove the cart slowly parallel to the walls, and the girls stared in silent horror at the wounded and the dejected and the utterly exhausted soldiers. But—there was no time to think or contemplate. They were here to do work.
Grial stopped Betsy and the girls hopped out and started unloading the baskets and unpacking the cloths covering them. Inside, the baskets were filled with breadstuffs and pastries, freshly baked—all day by the girls themselves, together with Grial. Lizabette, followed by Marie and Niosta, moved out, approaching each paused or seated man who looked like he needed it, and handed out the food.
The soldiers, covered in soot, tar pitch, smoke, and blood, looked up gratefully and took the apple pies and tarts and pastries and ate them up in hungry instants, wiping the crumbs from their chins and beards. They muttered their thanks, and gave brief smiles, and often waved at Grial who remained seated up in the driver seat of the cart. She in turn waved and grinned, and called out names of individual soldiers—for remarkably she seemed to know everybody.
A few moments later, they got back in the cart, their baskets much lighter than they had been, then Grial drove Betsy onward, for another length of wall, until they came upon more clumps of wearied or wounded. And again they stopped, got out, fed as many people as they could.
They weren’t the only women or civilians doing this. The girls noted many others, also armed with carts or large bags and some pulling or driving wheeled kegs and rolling barrels of ale and beer, or dragging big-bellied kettles of hot tea set on top of wheelbarrows. Yet others came with linens and medical supplies to help clean up and bind the wounds of the hurt soldiers.
Every stop they made, it was a marvel that they never seemed to run out of apple pies. “It’s got to be Grial’s special magic!” whispered Lizabette to the others with a knowing look, as she opened her basket yet again to find a few more pies and tarts on the very bottom—even though she had been certain she had already given out the last one to that lamed soldier with the scowling jaw who merely grunted his thanks as he chewed the apple pie.
The evening meanwhile grew darker, until it was full night. The sky turned black, and the tops of the battlements appeared to be silhouetted against hellfire.
At some point they came to a spot in the wall that had disappeared entirely, and here there was a desperate barricade erected, and a very fierce battle going on in ditches just before and beyond the barricades. A cannon was positioned with its great muzzle pointing outward, and it was loaded periodically and made to fire great blazing balls covered in pitch and set aflame. A wave of the enemy dead was pouring in at the barricades, pushing at them, and yet somehow the defenders held their spots, raining fire and brandishing great torches on the ends of poles that once were pikes.
“Grial! Get back, sweetheart, it’s too deadly hot here!” someone shouted, and the girls and Grial saw an officer commander look at her—his face badly cut up, grotesque in the infernal light—and gesticulate wildly for them to move off.
But Grial smiled a wide grin and waved. And then she looked at him with her very dark gaze, and next, stared intently at the breach in the walls. Where she looked, it seemed the shadows undulated thicker, and beyond them, the enemy dead roiled, and yet somehow did not make the effort to approach.
Grial looked away then, her face illuminated with the two torches burning on both sides of the cart, and then with the same grin of encouragement she snapped the reins lightly and they again moved on, past the breach and the barricade, and onto the relative safety of the once-again-solid walls. . . .
Another quarter of an hour later, they had driven up to a large angular bulwark section of the walls, with a stairway leading up to the battlements, and here there were three of the very large city cannon positioned permanently, aimed in three directions at the outside. The cannon were firing every few minutes, like clockwork, as the artillery soldiers manning them worked madly to keep up. Smoke and tar pitch was everywhere, and the stink of gunpowder and sulfur was so overwhelming that everyone started to sneeze.
“Is it time for the good luck charm?” Marie cried in order to be heard above the thunderous din.
“It sure is!” Grial cried back.
“Oh, goody!” Niosta chortled.
They stopped the cart near the wall, and this time Grial tied up the reins and told Betsy to stand there like the excellent girl that she was, and she herself got out of the cart also.
The girls, having done this the previous night, knew exactly what was coming.
“Two torches, girlies! Each one of you take two, and follow me!”
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They did as told, and everyone, armed with yet unlit torches, carefully stepped through the snowy slush and walked up the very narrow stone stair that ran parallel to the wall and ascended very slowly upward, holding on to the walls for good measure. For indeed, there were no outer walls to contain the stair hewn directly alongside the main wall rock, and one wrong step could cause them to fall a hundred feet. Lizabette, walking up ahead, appeared to be particularly stiff and pale, for she apparently did not tolerate heights too well.
When at last they had climbed the parapet to the very top of the battlements, they ended up in the one of the few secure spots where the enemy fire from the outside could not reach, and only the friendly city cannon spat out their fireballs through narrow special embrasures. Several artillerymen nodded and smiled at Grial and the girls with infinite weariness, then turned away and got back to their labor.
Grial meanwhile, took several paces and stopped in a small clearing well away from the soldiers, so as not to be in their way. Here was the very middle of the great bulwark.
“All right, everyone, gather ’round!” she said, and then struck a flint and lit both of her torches. Next, she extended both torches to each side and lit the torch in the hand of Lizabette on one side and Niosta on the other. The girls, used each of their lit torches to light the other, and finally both in turn extended their hands to light up Marie’s torches.
“Well done!” Grial cried out with a smile. She held her torches up, and her face was lit up ruddy and orange on both sides.
“Now, make a triangle, ladies!” she said. “Remember, exactly as we did last night!”
The girls nodded with enthusiasm, every one’s expression serious and intent.
“Lizabette, you stand here to my right and face out in the same direction as that big cannon muzzle.”
Lizabette nodded and stood so precisely that she was straining.
“Niosta, you get on my left side, dumpling, and you be sure to look out the same way as that other big old cannon that’s facing thataway.”
“Yes, Ma’am!” Niosta said with a grin and did as told.
“And Marie, you stand right here in the middle, close to the wall, sweetie! Don’t be afraid, nothing will fly over it in this exact spot, nothing, I promise you! Now turn and look directly out!”
Marie, the most timid of them all at this point, took a deep breath and did as she was told.
Grial gave them a moment to gather their breath. She was smiling lightly, watching them.
“Now, raise your torches everyone! And repeat after me, three times: Earth, sea, and sky! Guard and keep us safe!”
The words were spoken, loudly and enthusiastically. Niosta brandished her torches and even jumped up and down a few times for emphasis. Lizabette stood, fixed motionless, and straight as a board as she spoke each word precisely so. Marie swayed slightly with fear but spoke all of her words nevertheless.
“Oh, well done!” Grial exclaimed again, and then raised her own torches high, brandishing them, her brimmed hat flopping slightly in the wind. And then, curiously, she did something new that was not done the night before—she turned to each of the girls and named them thusly:
“Earth!” she spoke to Lizabette. “Sea!” she called Marie. “Sky!” she named Niosta.
And indeed, each of the girls realized that they had been in fact swaying like the sea, fixed like the earth, or buoyant like the heavenly air.
“Oh!” Niosta said in wonder. “How did you do that?”
“How did I do what, pumpkin?” Grial was grinning at her, and the torchlight danced in her liquid black pupils. “Why, it is all your own doing, you know! I’m just standing here watching all three of you do it yourselves!”
And Marie smiled back, and for the first time forgot to tremble. “Will the magic now keep Letheburg safe, Grial?”
“One should certainly hope so, at least for the rest of this night!” said the older woman. And then she lowered her hands and stuck the torches into the piled up snow, extinguishing them on the stones underfoot. The girls followed suit.
“And on that note,” Grial said, “who’s up for some apple pie?”
“Me! Me!” Niosta and Marie replied.
Lizabette’s brows went up archly. “I thought there weren’t any more pies left!”
Grial snorted. “I certainly beg to differ! Let’s go down and look in those baskets!”
They got back to Rollins Way by the time the moon was high up in the partially overcast sky, and everyone was more than ready for bed.
As Betsy and the cart pulled up to the corner near the little alley and the house, Niosta was still wiping her mouth and her pie-stained sticky hands against her dingy coat, and smacking her lips. “Oh, that was darn good! Best apple pie ever!”
She was so busy picking her teeth with a wood splinter that she never looked to see who was waiting for them at the door of Grial’s house.
One of the two small shadows leaning near the doorway separated from the wall. And then, “Sis!” cried Catrine. “Jupiter’s balls an’ entrails! You’re alive, Niosta! An’ so am I!”
It was indeed Catrine, and next to her, somewhat shyly silent, Faeline.
“Grial!” Catrine exclaimed next, while her sister whooped and came hurtling down the cart to hug her.
“Oh, goodness!” Grial said, halting Betsy and grabbing on to her brimmed hat with one hand in a slap of surprise. “Is that another of my favorite Cobweb Brides? So glad to see you, girlie! And I see you’ve brought a friend!”
“I’m Faeline, Ma’am,” said the blond girl bashfully, stepping away from the wall, and wiping the back of her nose with a mitten. “I’m from Chidair Keep and town. We’ve escaped the dungeons, and floated on the magic river with lords and ladies, and then got to see Death Himself!”
“Well, gracious be!” Grial smiled, giving her an intent look-over. Meanwhile Lizabette and Marie waved and everyone exchanged greetings and jumbled chatter.
Catrine told them the whole story in a breathless torrent. Grial listened thoughtfully at the same time as she guided Betsy into the pitch-black alley around the corner and the back yard, with only the two torches on the cart to light the way, and the girls walked alongside in excitement, everyone having forgotten sleep.
Betsy was unhitched, rubbed down and placed in her warm stall, and still Catrine was talking, occasionally interrupted by Niosta and the others.
At last they made it indoors, and were in the cheerful front parlor of Grial’s house, seated on the sofa and the chairs.
“. . . An’ so, there was this nasty-creepy disappearin’ water from the River Lethe that makes you forget stuff worse’n a drunken sailor with a bashed-in head, an’ turns out everyone’s drank it, even some damn fool Gods!” Catrine was saying. “And then the blasted fools drank it again, or should I say the Ladyship who thought she was the Cobweb Bride drank it again, and suddenly, smack as anything, there she was! She remembered she was this big ol’ golden Goddess, by the name of Dimmeeter! An’ then she told stink-for-brains Death to drink, an’ he did—good thing too, since all he remembered was no better than a steamin’ bowl of poo—and so he went all black as soot and became this big ol’ God of the Underworld, none other than Hades himself! And then, and then—oh, oh! And then there was all this stuff about another rotted Goddess by the name of Persephone, who’s none other ’an the blasted Sovereign of the Domain! And then, Percy Ayren was there too, and the Black Knight, who, it turns out, is not all that bad, an’ not too bad lookin’ if you know what I mean—”
Niosta and Lizabette and Marie all exclaimed variously at the mentions of the latter.
“—and finally, Hades told us he’ll take us anywhere we wanted, so Sybil an’ Regata an’ Faeline an’ me all decided, what the hell, to come here to Letheburg! So we tell the ol’ goat where we wanna go, close our eyes, an’ next thing we know, we’re on a street in Letheburg! Sybil an’ Regata took off home to see their folks, and me an’ Faeline, we just came here!
An’ so, here we are! Been waitin’ for you for hours! Can’t feel my arse from the cold!”
Catrine stopped talking, took a big breath and let it out. She then folded her arms in satisfaction and looked around her with barely contained pride and excitement. Everyone was looking in rapt amazement, while Faeline, who already knew the events, just picked her grimy nails.
Grial had been listening to the tale with interest as she bustled around the parlor adjusting furniture and closing shutters for the night. And now as soon as Catrine was done, she came to a stop in the middle of the room. There was something very unusual in Grial’s very dark eyes, and in her intense expression—more unusual even than her normal eccentric mannerisms.
Grial looked at Catrine, then gazed around the room, and exhaled what felt like a long-held breath.
“At last . . .” she said softly, and her face was transfigured.
The seated girls looked up at her.
“At last . . .” Grial repeated, this time in a louder voice. “It is done. At last my lips are unsealed.”
“What do you mean, Grial?” Lizabette stared at the older woman, for some reason straining to see her, to see her strangely set-in-motion visage and her chameleon face with its familiar frizzy mane of unkempt hair. . . . Indeed, for a moment there, did it only seem so, but was it moving like snakes?
But Grial was not to be properly seen, not any longer—for now she was changing before their eyes.
The cheerful room around them, lit by a few candles, was suddenly thrown into deep shadow. And the nature of the light dimmed a few degrees from golden candle glow to cool silvery moonlight. There could be no moon indoors naturally, and indeed the window shutters have just been closed . . . and yet it felt as if the moon was here—she rode the sky and somehow shone through the roof and ceiling of the little house, and filled the parlor with her cool radiance. . . .
As this uncanny sense filled them all, Grial appeared to stand taller and straighter. And her patchwork dress with its filthy apron began to dissolve around her, to be replaced by a fine noble cloth of flowing darkness, a classic long chiton that came down in folds around the statuesque woman, to lie at her sandaled feet. Grial’s hair was now a perfect ordered crown of curls, symmetrical and severe. And her face was abysmally beautiful.