Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee (beach read book txt) 📕

Dro. He pushed off his hood, picked up the cupand drained it. “The third of a loaf,” he elaborated to the boy, “and a coupleof slices of that sheep you’re burning over the fire.”

“Wealways burn the sheep here,” said the boy wittily, “to be sure they’re properlydead before you eat them.”

“I’mrelieved you take the same precautions with the bread.”

Somebodylaughed. Somebody else mimed a man trying to acquire a bite out of a live loaf.The boy filled Dro’s cup again and went off to the hearth, shouldering his way,murderously flourishing the meat knife, through the singers. As some of theraucous chorus broke off, Dro caught a couple of bars of perfect music, sheerand fine as a shining fish glancing through river mud. The sources of the musicwere firstly strings, tuned high as clouds, then suddenly also a pipe tunedeven higher. Dro partly inclined his head, waiting for the next exquisite bar,but the howling song started up again and the music submerged in it.

The boywas back and slapped down a platter.

“Stickthis fork in it. If it goes baaa, I’ll put it back on the spit for a while.”

Dropierced the mutton with the fork and a dozen voices bleated along the length ofthe table.

“Betterfetch the shepherd,” said Dro, “before the wolf gets his flock.”

He beganto eat, economically. A little silence gathered.

Eventuallysomeone said:“It’d be a lame wolf, wouldn’t it?”

A neighbourjogged his elbow. “Shut up, idiot. I recognize who he is now.”

“Yes,”said another. “And I do, too. I thought he was a legend.”

Dro wenton economically eating.

One ofthe men said to him: “We’ve guessed who you are.”

Dro satback and smiled enigmatically at no one. “Am I to be the last toknow?”

Theyshuffled. Somebody said, as somebody always said, “Don’t think I want to sharethis table with you.”

But noneof them moved away. Indeed, one or two more were edging over from other partsof the room, drawn as if to the scene of a lurid crime.

Dro wenton eating and drinking, slow, and oddly isolated from the whirlpool he wascreating. He was as used to this as to rough ground, as to the pain that walkedwith him. Used to it, and able now and then to use it in turn.

Theremarks came gently, cautiously, laying ripples of emotion over the warm air.

“What doyou think of yourself, doing what you do?”

“How doyou sleep nights?”

“Hesleeps all right. There’ll be plenty with cause to thank him.”

“Andplenty who won’t thank him.”

“Plentywho curse him, eh, Ghost-Killer? How many curses fly down the roads with you?Is that what keeps you looking young?”

“You werelamed by a malediction, isn’t that so?”

“No. Notthat way. One of his victims stuck a claw in him at the gate out. He hasn’taged since then.”

Allaround the spinning currents of these unanswered sallies, the room grew quieterand quieter. Dro heard the singing fade out, but the music went out too. He didnot look about, just waited for the cue that must inevitably come. He finishedwhat he wanted of his meal, and was drinking the last stinging mouthful fromhis cup when the cue dropped into the pool.

“Well,you’ve had a wasted journey to this place, Parl Dro. We haven’t any deadalivehere.”

“Oh, butyou’re wrong,” he said, and they jumped at his immaculate voice, which had beensilent such a while. “Half a mile back along the road. The leaning house withthe stone tower.”

He couldhave portioned the silence with the boy’s meat knife after he said that. It wasnot exactly that they knew and had been withholding it from him, more that theyhad suspected, and the confirmation chilled them. Of course, there was no needto tell them it had been another place he was making for altogether, that thiswas an unscheduled task.

The firstof the men who had baa-ed, said very low, “He means the Soban house.”

Anotherof the men added, “That’s Ciddey’s house. There’s nothing there. Exceptpoverty, a little kiss of madness.”

The boyin the leather apron was at Dro’s shoulder, leaning to refill Dro’s cup. Droput his hand over the cup. The boy poured words instead.

“TheSobans were the masters here five years ago. Old Soban and his two daughters.But they lost their money and the village bought the land.”

“Theylost their money because the father drank it. He was drinking it before Ciddeywas old enough to bite.”

“Then he’dsell things,” said the first man. “Botched-up rubbish—ridiculousstuff.”

“Therewas a wonderful thing, supposed to come from some foreign place, wasn’t there?And it was just a couple of old scythes welded together. He’d get the smith tohelp him, Soban would. The carpenter, the mason. Everyone—”

“Someonetold me,” said another of the men, “he sold Ciddey’s baby teeth as a charmnecklace.”

“That’scrazy.”

“Ciddey’scrazy too. Pity, because she’s nice-looking enough. We leave her to herself,for old time’s sake. She lives alone in that house.”

“Notquite alone,” said Dro.

“Thefather drank himself into the graveyard years before,” the first man said. “Doyou mean him?”

“I don’tthink so.”

“Therewas a story,” said the first man. “The girls played about with herbs. Witchcharms, poisons maybe. They got sick of the father drinking and... saw to him.”

“And that’sa lie,” said someone.

Dro wasaware of the singing group detaching itself from the hearth and swarming over.The minstrel who had played the exquisite music was beginning to appear infragments, now a threadbare red sleeve, now a dirty green sleeve, now a darkgold head and a long nose, between the shoulders and gesticulations of thecrowd.

They wereexcited, and nervous. An event was happening in the midst of uneventfulness.The musician, staying clear, carefully keeping his head down over retuning thepeculiar instrument beside the spits, showed a desire to remain uninvolved, andthereby a derivation not of this village.

“Therewas the second daughter,” someone said finally, just behind Dro’s left ear.

“Ciddey’ssister? Nothing funny there.”

“Yes,there was. Didn’t Cilny Soban run off and drown herself in the stream the northside of the mountain? Not exactly what I’d call normal.”

“It’strue, Parl Dro,” the elderly boy said. “Two herders found her in the morningwhen they were taking the cows up to graze.”

“Cilny waslying at the bottom of the stream, she was,” said the first man dolefully, “butthe water’s so clear in the spring you could see straight through. One of theboys is a