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“The Hand that pulls you through Hell’s gate,” said Script Master.
Bear Boy grimaced. “Who wants such a hand?”
“Robbers,” said the girl, “wanting gold.”
Script Master nodded. “The story goes so: There once were nine Giantess sisters who built a castle and secured a treasure hoard inside it. They ruled for as many years as there are berries on the rowan tree. But end-times always come. During the final war — war that extinguished their breed — the eldest sister buried her gold beneath these stones. No Giant since has walked the earth. And no human has uncovered the treasure.”
Dancing Bear turned on the man a peevish, disapproving stare.
Bear Boy: —What? You don’t like his stories? You’ve heard enough of them.
The bear ignored her boy, gobbled the last of the bread, then licked at the mantle of crumbs across her legs.
Bear Boy: —Ungrateful brute.
The little Beggar spoke up. “They cursed the gold. The She-Giants made it invisible.”
“What’s the use of gold you can’t see?” asked Bear Boy.
Script Master laughed himself into a coughing fit. He pounded his chest. “A brilliantly stupid boy you are! My best farces come out of your mouth. Why not an unseeable treasure? Let’s say a trickster sells to a greedy man the map for a treasure that is not there, but what the trickster does not know …” The hairy man stared into the distance. He grinned. He did not talk for a spell.
The children ate their pears and looked at each other with considerable hostility.
“Invisible gold,” Bear Boy muttered.
“The Baneful Hand holds gold,” the girl insisted. “It is a hand given to the Devil.”
The boy scoffed. “What fool gives his hand to the Devil?”
“My Grandmamma did so, for the gold.”
“Stenchy old ewe your granddam is. She has gold like the Virgin Mother has warts.”
The Beggar grew still again, watchful in that way of hers. “Grandmamma is not a sheep.”
“Shall I crack your empty heads together?” shouted Script Master, suddenly intent on their quarrel. “The gold is like any gold, see-able by any treasure hunter. And the Hand came to be before your old granddam was born, in the reign of the Mad Queen, when three Learned Men arrived at this ruin bearing with them drawings of an infernal machine.”
He leaned his back against a warm stone and, unperturbed by its ghosts, positioned himself to spin a yarn.