The Glass Casket Read Online Free Page A

Greywitches, do we? So why do we believe that their modern sisters wield any real powers?”
    “You go too far,” Paer Jorgen protested. “I’ll not hear a single word against our Mama Lune. She delivered seven healthy children for my Louise, and once drove an angry fox spirit from my yard.”
    “Goi Rose has said nothing against Mama Lune,” Wilhelm Parstle said, trying to keep the peace as usual.
    “Placing a Greenwitch in the same sentence with a Greywitch is a wicked thing to do,” said Paer Jorgen, grimacing. “Besides, everyone knows all the Greywitches are dead now—wiped them out at the culling, we did.”
    Henry Rose nodded and raised his thumb again. “Please, I meant no harm. I bear Mama Lune no ill will. She is a good woman, and a skilled healer, but delivering a child and nursing the sick is not magic. You give her too much power.” He sighed and shook his head. “But this isn’t aboutour difference of beliefs. It is about the king and his soldiers. We must be prepared for some kind of backlash in the eventuality that a party is sent to find these soldiers. What I wonder is whether we might avoid a row by writing to the king’s people, by telling them what we’ve done and why we’ve done it. I think we’ve the best chance of avoiding any trouble that way. So I am asking you, do I have your consent to write such a letter?”
    After a moment, the three elders nodded in turn, although it was clear that none was happy about the idea.
    “Now,” continued Henry Rose, leaning forward. “Those men were sent here to find something. Does anyone have knowledge of what that thing might be?”
    The Nag’s Enders looked around the table at one another and shook their heads.
    Henry Rose nodded again. “I’m wondering if before I write that letter, it might be wise to determine what these men sought. Perhaps if we know what brought them here, then we will be better able to defend ourselves against any accusations leveled at us.”
    “But how would we do that?” asked Wilhelm Parstle.
    Henry Rose tented his fingers in front of his nose.
    “Surely their possessions were gathered. We have simply to look through them and see if they provide an answer.”
    The men all stared at the scholar, each willing the next to speak. What Henry Rose was suggesting was tantamount to sacrilege, for it was customary to return a man’s possessions to his people without so much as glancing at them. To look on a dead man’s secrets was to invite disaster.
    Henry Rose laughed. “Yes, of course, we’re back here again, aren’t we? Fine. I will do the deed myself behind closed doors, so that none of you will have to risk a thing.”
    Wilhelm sighed, glad that Henry Rose was brave enough to take on the task himself. “Their belongings are in the cellar,” he said.
    “Well,” Henry Rose said, pushing aside his plate. “Please, take me to them.”
    “What? Now?”
    “Yes, now. I don’t see why not,” he said, and then, unable to keep the scorn from his voice, he went on. “In the palace city, we used to divvy up whatever a dead man left behind. It’s a wonder any of us is alive today.”
    Wilhelm led Henry Rose down to the cellar, and Tom bit into his beer bread as he watched them go. Something was surfacing in his mind—an image of the four frozen men on the mountain, their bodies naked, untouched. He looked to Ollen Bittern, who, despite his position as village elder, had said not a word during the meeting.
    “Father Bittern,” Tom said. “Are we certain we’re dealing with a wolf? Might it not be something … something worse?”
    “You speak of forest things, boy?” Ollen Bittern asked, his brow furrowed. “No, goblins are apt to steal a child for their supper, and fairies might bewitch one to drown in Seelie Lake, but this doesn’t sound like their work.”
    Tom shook his head. “I don’t mean goblins or fairies. I mean something worse, something unknown to us.”
    “No, it was a wolf. Of that I am