Something Red by Douglas Nicholas

Road,” but he faltered after a few bars: a sinister meeting upon the road ran too near the fears that had come to lie across his soul.
    After a bit he realized he was staring at the keys but seeing the forest path. He wrung his hands, forcing the tension from his fingers; he drew in a sharp breath. He began again, essaying “Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight,” singing along a little as Molly had taught him, and the sound of the grimly triumphant old ballad drifted out the window: If seven king’s-daughters here ye hae slain, the melody rising, falling, its sinuous curves echoing faintly from the monastery walls, filling the darkening bailey.
    He thought of leaving this refuge for the ice-clad road, the drifting snow, the unknown thing that ranged the woods. He sang the old song of evil overthrown, and his fingers danced over the keys, though his hands were cold, and his heart was chilled.
If seven king’s-daughters here ye hae slain,
Lye ye here, a husband to them a’.

CHAPTER 4
    T HE NEXT DAY, A REQUIEM Mass for Brother Athanasius was said, and then he was interred in the brotherhood’s crypt. During Mass Hob stood again in the back of the chapel. Afterward the covered litter was borne from the chapel, the monks pacing behind, save for one who went before the bearers with an iron truncheon in each hand. He struck these together with a ringing clank, keeping a grave slow time, one stroke for each step. Hob followed them out, to stand watching them cross the frozen ground toward a small archway in the farther reaches of the bailey. All who were about other business paused to cross themselves and stand in prayer a moment. The archway, so Molly had told them, led to the crypt itself, far down a side tunnel, in a shadowy silent chamber hollowed from the mountain, where past members rested in niches in the rough-hewn gray rock. Here thestill, cool air never grew warm, never grew cold, and the monks’ footfalls were muted by rock dust from long-dead predecessors’ picks. In accordance with the brotherhood’s rules, no one save the officiating priest and the brothers themselves had been allowed to attend that interment.
    Out in the cold, in the sun-bright bailey, all was commotion and hurry, the jingle of harness and clatter of hooves. Molly’s troupe was preparing to resume their journey, and the party of pilgrims had elected to accompany them, for a little way at least. The pilgrims now stood waiting in a cluster near the open smithy door to take advantage of the heat from the forge. Their staves were leaned against the smithy wall. They drew woolen and sheepskin cloaks closer, they clapped mittened hands together. Their scrips were slung around their shoulders, and each of these satchels was bulging with fare from the monastery kitchens. The monks never asked for recompense for board or lodging, but any pilgrim of substance left a donation behind, and the largely self-sufficient monastery had never lacked.
    There were a score or so of the peregrines, come from Carlisle, most of them burghers, guild-brothers in the tanners’ guild. Their leader, Aylwin, a thickset man in middle age with a slab-cheeked cheery face, had come with his brother and one of his sons, and their three wives. A fairly prosperous free farmer from just outside Carlisle had also joined their party.
    Now the wagons were ready to roll, and each pilgrim took staff in hand and trudged forward through the opened inner gate. Molly’s troupe began in their usual order: Molly in the ox wagon with Hob at the ox’s bridle to help guide the great beast, then Nemain, then Jack with the mare bringing up the rear. Molly brought the ox through the capacious doors to the outer ward. Hob had to keep hauling on the cheek strap of Milo’s bridle, the ox repeatedly turning its head in wistful attempts to begin a turn back to the stable.
    Molly halted the ox just short of the portcullis, and the pilgrimscame crowding up to either side. The double escort of eight