Old Dark Things

CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH

  As Kveldulf and Sigurd tramped over the small bridge that leapt the reedy bed of the river Woodbourne a cheerful greeting went up on the outer gates of the Toren. Guards brandished sun-glittering spears, as they called to one another on the battlements. A horn sounded. Three short, awkward blasts like goose-calls. Sigurd put his hands about his mouth and called out, "Halloo." Immediately, several guards ushered themselves out through the gate, their faces beaming smiles.

  "Sigurd! You fiend-defying dog." A man with a heavy, dour face that was moulded into an oafish smile came striding ahead of the rest. "We feared the worst. As soon as Rosa heard you were missing she went to her room, and has stayed there all morning."

  "Ekard. How glad am I to see you!" And the two men clasped hands.

  "Radewin came back a little after his son." Ekard's hairy eyebrows rose into arches. "The old hunter spun an unlikely story about a great hairy beast. The Gloaming Beast the churls are calling it now... if it be the same wolfish monster that has been savaging the stock."

  Kveldulf wondered if anyone noticed his own smile turn frigid at the mention of the beast.

  "Yes. We barely escaped its jaws. It is a wolf grown to monstrous size. Old gap-toothed Radewin and his son escaped then? That is good."

  Kveldulf forced his smile to warm a little as he watched Ekard's expression shift into an uncomfortable frown. "To tell the truth I suspected the old huntsman of having gone mad, and inventing some tale of strange beasts to hide an accident or crime. I owe him an apology. "Where is Meinard?"

  Sigurd frowned. "Dead. The wolf got him."

  "And Lothar?"

  Sigurd said nothing then, but shook his head, losing some of the gleam in his eyes. Finally, he muttered, "The same."

  "Blackest ice." Ekard shrugged, "Meinard didn't have much family, but someone is going to have to tell Lothar's wife... weeping halls of the frozen."

  "They both died well."

  "He who dies well, is still dead," said Kveldulf. It was the first thing he'd said. Many curious glances took him in as he spoke.

  "True," said Sigurd. "You are right. Whoever tells Lothar's wife that her husband will not be returning needs to remember that."

  "Yes," said Ekard, true enough. But, Sigurd, you need to go to Rosa. She was in a terrible worry over you... I have sent one of the men to her room, but she will want to see you."

  "Rosa," said Sigurd, "Yes." He and Kveldulf, and a few accompanying guards, walked through the gateway into the mud-and-straw courtyard beyond. Sigurd started to say something about going into the keep, but it turned out that Rosa was quicker than they were. Standing on the steps of the keep, her velvety, deep red dress was dull in the cloud-grey light. Her face was a little paler than Kveldulf recalled, and her eyes were blinking rapidly. She started forward at the same moment that Sigurd met her eyes, before stopping and affecting an air of forced nonchalance. "You are well," she called out to them, in a rather formal, if trembling voice, as soon as they were near enough to hear clearly.

  Kveldulf walked off a little to one side, and, glancing about, was immediately aware of the many eyes that furtively watched every gesture and expression of Rosa and Sigurd. The guards and the courtiers, stable-hands and servants alike knew about them. That much was obvious. The rumours about them must be thick as wet fog.

  "I am well." Sigurd stepped a little closer to where she stood on the stairs, and then taking one of her slender hands in his, he said, "That a lady of the Vaunt should worry for one of her humble thanes..."

  "It is but my duty to care for my father's men."

  "Yes," said Sigurd and his smile seemed a little more tired as he murmured, "your duty. Yes."

  "We are both aware of this," she said, quietly enough that most of the lingerers and eavesdroppers wouldn't have been able to hear. "You must be weary and cold. You should come indoors."

  "Not at all. Kveldulf helped me safe to a cottage in the woods that he knew of. A kindly old spinster let us stay the night, and there we were quite safe, warm and well fed."

  Rosa's eyes glistened, and she daubed a hand against one cheek. "Then, Kveldulf, if you would kindly accept my thanks, as I seem to owe you thanks again. And Sigurd, you should kindly let the treasurer know to whom of my father's subjects he may direct a gift to, this spinster in the woods."

  "Of course."

  Turning from Sigurd, she touched a hand to Kveldulf's arm and glanced a light kiss on his rough, bristly cheek. "It seems," she whispered, "I now owe you two lives. We have much to talk of. Call upon me in a few hours. I should like to speak with you, and may need both your witch-lore and your knives. The witch who was in my rooms, the one you followed. I have heard some whispers of who she may be. It is, how can I put it? Unexpected, if true."

  Before Kveldulf could answer, Rosa withdrew and said to Sigurd, "Perhaps you are hungry then? Tired? In need of sleep, or medicines?"

  "No," his voice lowered to a gentler, reassuring tone, "I am neither hungry, nor tired, nor badly injured. That is the truth."

  "Then I am happy."

  Sigurd turned his bright eyes to Kveldulf and with an apologetic smile said, "I would like to spend some time with Rosa. Do you mind? We could meet over a mug of ale later?"

  "Do I mind?" His mind elsewhere, Kveldulf had to repeat the question to understand it. "No, of course not. Not at all."

  "Shall we meet this evening, in the great hall?"

  "I look forward to it."

  Rosa smiled. "And if you will call on me in the afternoon perhaps?"

  "Certainly."

  -oOo-

  There lingered a moment of silence, as Kveldulf climbed the steps, and then vanished into the yawning arch of the keep. Sigurd watched him leave, then turning to Rosa said, "Shall we walk to the millpond and talk for a while? We used to spend so many hours there in summer, but recently--"

  "Yes," said Rosa, "I think I'd like that."

  Close enough to brush one-another's shoulders, they strolled out through the frowning gates, then down the road to vale and village below. All the while, Sigurd savoured her silent presence. He felt that nothing in the world, not the icy sky, or the leaden stone of the fortress, or the winter-blackening woods could sap his contentment in this moment. Rosa, though, remained wrapped in her own private melancholy. She would not smile at him, and kept her bright black eyes turned down and fixed on the flagstones of the road.

  Sigurd gazed at her long enough to trace his eyes over every curve of her face and neck, and, receiving only the briefest flicker of an acknowledgment in return, began to worry. "Are you troubled? You seem somewhat--how do I put it? Your mind seems elsewhere. Your eyes are sad."

  "Oh, I am but worn and spent from a morning of fitful tears and dark worries. All morning I imagined I heard strange, wild cries on the air." She shot him a brief ironic smile, "and all the while you were eating a fine breakfast in a warm cottage."

  Sigurd did not quite know how to respond to that. He watched her intently as she adjusted and readjusted the thick ermine-trimmed cloak that was wrapped about her shoulders. Try as he might, he could not fathom her mood. Her face was anxious and beautiful and pensive all at once. The complexity of her expression was confusing for him.

  As they passed over the grassy sward that separated fortress from millpond, Rosa said, "You cannot imagine what it is like to be such a helpless thing. Some of the thanes went into the woods to look for you with pitch-torches and spears. But I? I, who love you more than anything else? I was left in a cold room, alone, fearing the worst. I would have given all I own and shall ever own to simply have been allowed to go looking for you."

  "I am sorry," said Sigurd, with the feeling that he ought to apologise, but without clearly knowing why, or for what.

  Rosa laid her hand on his arm and said, "No. It is enough for me that you are here alive, safe. Let us speak of other things."

  The stony presence of the Toren Vaunt slowly ghosted away as they walked. The wide slope of muddy grass, rich wi
th the fresh smell of rain, spread out all about them then. At the bank of the millpond, the grass was wild and tufted. Beyond the last grassy tuffets, the gusting wind ruffled stands of bleak reeds and grey waters alike.

  Sigurd's brow knotted as he lowered his voice. "What would you speak of?"

  "Perhaps that which we have not spoken of since spring. That which we must not speak of. Us."

  That made Sigurd pause in mid-step. "Your father has made himself clear on the matter."

  Rosa's head jerked suddenly around, her eyes glistened with emotion, but before Sigurd could say anything more she looked up at the sky. "Of course, I love him dearly, and yet..." She wrapped her fur trim a little tighter. They were still perhaps just within earshot of Finold's Gate, and the men who strode its battlements. Sigurd looked over his shoulder at those outer gates, and thought he caught the guardsmen momentarily forgetting pipes, their attention caught by Rosa's raised voice.

  "And yet?" whispered Sigurd. He lowered his voice still further to encourage her to do the same.

  "Even though our witch-hunter has drawn out the poison of the curse, I still fear that the harm has been done. Father is not long for this world. His soul will fly, as sure as the last of the summer butterflies will die come winter." She stepped across a hoof-churned tract of grass, hitching her skirt as she did. "If he should die before any formal arrangements are made--"

  "Everyone knows who he intended you to marry. Our damned Freer has been sure of that."

  "And yet father has sent no formal messengers. No wax-sealed offer has been dispatched. No treaty signed. No replies in kind. Never in words so clear has he said: "Rosa is offered in marriage to the son of the Lord of Alebrand”. Unless you have heard different?"

  "No."

  "I wonder if he has not delayed because of guilt? I wonder if he has not seen the error in his judgement, but been too proud to take back his first decree?"

  "It is possible," said Sigurd. "People might see it that way, if we suggested it."

  "And if my beloved father should die, then it will fall to whomsoever rules the Vaunt to decide our fate."

  "Lilia."

  A furtive smile curved on her full lips. "Perhaps."

  "But Lilia is..."

  Rosa's eyes dared him to speak. "But Lilia is what?"

  Sigurd licked his lips. "No doubt your sister will be more inclined to allow you your own free choice in the matter." He creased his brow. "I have vested too much faith in the word of the Freer. I see that now."

  "Blame not yourself. What a poor priest he would be if he were not able to make people place their faith in him?"

  They wandered to the rushy banks of the millpond. The water looked cold. It smelled cold. Like a mirrored bowl of ice and iron matching the grey sky above. Reflected along the far shore, a line of old, bent willows stood with barely a leaf left to them. Over it all, watched the old mill with its walls of stained stone and its windows like eyes. Cobwebs as thick as clouds were slung under its eves and billowed in the wind. The grim, tireless wheel dipped and turned as waters sluiced past, as it always had, as it always would.

  Rosa stepped a little closer to him, but Sigurd still felt too aware of the gaze of the men on the outer gate, or the possibility of passers-by. He used an excuse of examining the millpond and forest beyond to step away.

  "The willows are as bare as bone, now. And even the oaks are less russet than brown. Winter's first days are truly upon us soon."

  "How the village and land look so different season to season," said Rosa, though she was looking nowhere but at Sigurd.

  "I already long for the buds and flowers of May."

  "I remember laughing in the warm sun on this bank. And you, with me." She paused and looked out over the waters with fond eyes. "Last summer."

  Sigurd smiled and looked down at the mud and dewy grass. "And we talked."

  "And dreamed."

  "And once or twice, I think we kissed."

  "Four kisses" said Rosa. "I remember each of them." Peace filled the air for a time, the wind caressed only the thinnest branches of the trees, and all else was still. "Look." Rosa pointed at the reeds of the far bank. Something sleek and white and graceful glided through the draping willow branches.

  "A swan," said Sigurd.

  "I have always loved swans," said Rosa. "They are such delicate, beautiful creatures to look at, and yet grown men are often afraid of them. I have heard it said that swans sometimes attack and drown swimmers. Just think of that: a fragile looking swan can kill a full-grown man." She clutched her arms tight about her shoulders. "They seem such frail things."

  Sigurd stared for some time at her. He let his eyes wander over the detail of her beautiful face. A few stray strands of her ash-fair hair caught in the breeze and drifted free. Though he felt he loved her, and though he felt he knew her better than anyone alive, he found himself wondering what she was thinking about behind those dark, sparkling eyes. When he spoke he said, "And so swans are not so well loved by many. Admired? Yes. Feared by small children? Certainly. But seldom loved. If they were not such nasty, hissing creatures, more people might love them. Fear or love? I know which I would choose."

  "Choice," said Rosa beneath her breath. "You, who have free will in this, choose lightly. I, whose life is chosen for me, have spent hours dreaming of the choices I might have made."

  "My choices have not always been easy or wise." Sigurd gave a cold, dry laugh. "The life of a thane is not so enviable. It is cold, and dull, and wet with mud and blood and the stinking gore of stupid, pointless fighting. And when there is no fighting, then there exists only endless boredom. No, do not envy my lot, Rosa." He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably and looked across the iron-cold pond with its one white swan drifting like a ivory ship behind the tangle of branches. "Come, let us not speak of such things. I do not know why you even want to bring this up. Let us speak of happier things: of summers to be, wines yet undrunk, and songs yet unsung. Though the days seem dark, we may find some happy thoughts to enjoy." He searched for something else to say, and alighted again upon the ghost that had haunted them for so long, "Your father... you are right. Something has held him back from marrying you off. His conscience? You are right to say nothing firm has been set. Perhaps there is hope if he passes soon." It was as Sigurd said this that he realised just what he had said. In words as plain as day he had told Rosa it would be a good thing for her father to die, and quickly too. He waited for the inevitable admonishment, the angry disbelief, but she did neither. Instead she stared at that swan. Perhaps she had not even heard him?

  They stood for a time by the lake, as the clouds thickened overhead, and the wind chased ripples over the waters, and ruffled the swan's immaculate plumage. After dipping its foraging head into the cold depths one last time, the swan looked once at Rosa and Sigurd, water dripping from its neck. Then it spread its bright wings, and flapping and pushing its legs awkwardly through the water, it climbed to flight. It circled higher, and then glided away southwards, Rosa craned her head back, watching it until the blaze of white was reduced to a grey speck. As the swan vanished, Rosa's hand sought Sigurd's, and clasped his fingers tightly.

  "It flies south," said Rosa. "Gone."

  "The swans will return in summer. They always do. And we can spend all the long lingering days here feeding them scraps of bread from the kitchen floor. The summer will be just as it was."

  "No. You are only half-right. The summer is eternal. But are we as timeless as the turn of seasons, Sigurd?" She breathed a sigh and shook her head. "You are too kind. Too kind with everyone, but especially with me. Maybe the summer will be as it was, be we shall not."

  They stood by the pond for a while longer, their fingers twined together, their breath mingling upon the cold air.

  "There," said Sigurd, pointing at the far bank. "By the bridge. I see another swan. Our summer is not gone yet." Rosa looked up in time to hear Sigurd say, "No. I was mistaken."

  A trace of white moved swiftly beyond th
e willowy tangle where the bridge met the wooded road. As the white spectre moved into view, it did so not with fragile elegance, but with a quick, awkward gait that took her up the rise of the stone bridge in a few hurried steps. At the crest of the bridge she stopped, and looked at them, her pale dress falling still about her in many silken folds.

  "Lilia," said Rosa in a curious tone. "I wonder where she has been this morning to be hurrying around on her own?"

  For a moment all three stood motionless, aware of each-other, but seemingly unwilling to acknowledge it. Standing deathly still Lilia, held them in a distant stare, just as Rosa gazed back across the corrugated waters. Just when it felt to Sigurd that the sisters' silent glares must be about to fracture, the pale apparition that was Lilia broke off her gaze, and made a bolt quickly for the gates to the Toren Vaunt.

  They watched her go.

  "Let us return to the Toren," suggested Rosa. "I am exhausted and need rest... and..." She gave Sigurd an apologetic smile, "there is something I have to do before meeting Kveldulf this afternoon. I'm so sorry. You're barely back and I am making excuses to be alone. Sometimes I mistreat you."

  His first reply was a plain smile and a slight shake of the head. "Not at all. Shall we return then?"

  "Yes. Yes, that we should. Thank you, Sigurd. Sometimes I do not think you know what you mean to me."

  "Oh, well," he waved a hand and tried to joke. "I only mean to mean what I mean."

  "Yes," she said. "But don't we all?"

  And they walked back to the fortress with Lilia, a pale slip of a shade, diminishing swiftly ahead of them.