CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH
It was too late now to do more than grope at the drawstring about her throat, and bring up the hood. Strange that no wash of torchlight spilled over the stone as the guard paced out of the shadows. Strange that no horn sounded. Nor was there even a jingle or clatter of arms. Just a few storm-hushed footfalls. So quiet. If he had been walking any fast he'd have come on her completely unawares.
His head was bent low, and he walked while gazing at nothing but the flagstones. He seemed to be careless that his cloak flailed open on the wind, letting the sharp wind bite him. Perhaps she might easily melt away from him? Slip into the shadows, and pretend to be nothing more than a lonely chambermaid half-glimpsed, soon forgotten. But even as she thought this he looked up.
His reverie was startled. "I'm sorry. I didn't see you. Good even."
She wet her lips and replied, trying to disguise her voice a little. "Good even to you," and adding as an after thought, "good sir. I was merely," but she shied here, "was on my way to the high chambers, I..."
A smile touched his lips, and his eyes seemed to turn from an absent and inward gaze to a bright, knowing one.
"I am sorry. I disturbed you, I see. We all need a place to think, eh? A time to be alone." He gazed for a moment into the endless night. "I was lost in my own thoughts too, good maid?"
A name. A name? "Liesl." It was a name suitable for a churl, and she tried to roughen the sound in her throat. "Liesl, daughter of Lea, from Natthing Veld. The north of the valley," she added weakly.
With a nod, his brow knotted, and the skin about his eyes tensed a little. "Liesl." There was new interest in his voice. "Have we met before?"
It took every fibre of her will to stay exactly where she stood and reply calmly, "The Toren Vaunt has so many serving folk. Too many for a thane to recall all, I think. We have perchance meet. I know not."
"True. I spend as much time as any weary-worn thane in the kitchens with drink and hot stew. But your voice... your voice is familiar to me."
She risked a slight, tentative step away. "I rarely frequent the kitchens, good thane."
Pale light broke free from the clouds as the moon, a ghastly sphere above, slid into a rift between banks of frozen clouds. His features where clear for an instant. His eyes, clearly suspicious and watchful, had a frank blue colour, and his hair fell in crisp ringlets of gold. But it was his mouth that struck Lilia. For it was so unusual to see this man without a smile, so that when he wore a serious expression, his mouth had a cast of unfamiliar sadness to it.
Oh Goddesses. It was Rosa's pet. She had been cornered by rosa's pet.
She tried and failed to calm her breathing.
What was his name. Sigurd?
Oh by the Goddesses.
Before she knew what she was doing, she felt an instinct to distance herself. Lilia let her façade crumble without thinking, and took several swift paces aback. He did not break off his stare, only edging closer. It was a dance now.
"I do know you."
She moved away, and he moved to match the distance. Lilia bowed her head a little and glanced at him from hooded eyes. "You are mistaken."
"No," there was strong suspicion in his tone now. "I am not mistaken. Your voice..."
"Is alike to many of mine sisters."
"Your sister."
"A slip of the tongue. I mean only my sisters-in-trade. I have no sister by blood." She could hear the tension in her throat turning to anxiety now. "My fellow churlwifes. My--"
"Sister."
In that moment something long and silken whipped the air, thrashing in the wind, and barely whisking above their heads. The wind laughed and soughed. Looking up, he stared at a long dangle of knotted silks that was drifting free from the window high above.
She turned to run, but he was faster, and stronger.
It was as if her dress snagged on an iron hook. "Let go of me!" She struggled, but his hand snatched out and took a firmer grip on her left wrist. "Let go, I command it," she cried as he dragged her about to face him.
"And who is a chambermaid to give orders to a thane of the Toren? Let me see the hooded face of bold Liesl." Though she flailed at his groping fingers, he found drawstring of the hood and dragged the whole hood back over her shoulders.
There was no point in wasting energy now. Dishevelled, angry, fuming, she held still under his gaze. She let him stare at her face. Hair, light and billowy, now floated on the wind about her neck and shoulders. He was leaning in so close that she could feel his breath warm the skin of her cheeks.
"Will you drag me before her? Will you throw me at her feet like a doe you have shot through the heart, good thane? I think she will be pleased with you."
"Be quiet." Tilting his head back, he stared up again at the rope-of-silks, perhaps at the storm above, perhaps at the tower. Lilia could not quite tell from the angle of his eyes. "You climbed down that?"
"No, I flew."
"Please. I am trying to think."
"Think? Think? You? You, who have never had a thought or word in your head that was not to her liking? Lapdog," she spat, "Grovelling, fawning, lapdog."
His eyes flared with a violent intensity. "Is that what you think of me?"
She only laughed at that. Laughed, and laughed, and let all the tension of the descent, the fear, the thwarted escape, let it all fall tumbling out in one insane peal. When she could laugh no more she wheezed. "It is what everyone thinks of you. Dog."
"Be quiet with you." A scowl shadowed his fine features. "If any other man or woman in all the Vaunt, from the lowliest pock-ridden filth-raker, to the golden-mailed Mareshal, had found you, any of them! Mark my words, you would be on your knees before her now, and begging for mercy. Be quiet. Let me think."
"I can smell wine on your breath." Mocking words embittered her lips. "Are you drunk, good thane?"
"No. Well. Acutally, yes. Perhaps a little." His concentration lapsed a moment.
It was now or never. With her free hand she made a tight ball of a fist, and brought it up in an arc into his temple. The sudden shock of the attack was just enough, and she slithered free and ran.
He gave a violent roar. "Wench!"
There was no time to breath, nothing existed but the pounding of her soft feet on hard stone, and the night like a tunnel whisking by. He came after her, and from the sound of his thundering chase he was gaining. Risking a glance over her shoulder, Lilia saw him almost upon her, his eyes intent, his fingers reaching for her. It was a mistake to look. Misplacing a foot, she wavered clumsily, then stumbled, fell.
He came down like a heavy blanket upon her. At first she thrashed, struggled, eventually she fought back only weakly. He rolled her onto her back, and put hard, strong fingers to her jaw hurting the flesh under her chin, and pushing her head back. His other hand, he raised into the air, and there it hovered, clenched into a trembling fist.
With wild eyes he looked at her eyes, to her neck, her breasts, and back again to her own cool glare. Giving one last bodily protest, she gave in to sheer exhaustion, and lay perfectly still. All she could do was hiss at him through her clenched teeth.
"Do what you will then." Her breath snagged and gurgled. "Give me to her, or claim whatever choice titbits of my flesh she tosses you. Be a good little lapdog."
How long did he kneel over her with his fist poised like a hammer, his gaze full of wild fury? It felt to Lilia like an hour went by, but it could not have been more than a few heartbeats before his fingers unknotted. She pushed him off easily, almost without effort. Crumpled to one side, he sat down on his rear, legs akimbo, not even bothering to even look up at her as she scrambled out of reach.
"What has become of me?" The high wind churned between the battlements half-drowning his words. "What will become of me?"
"Dog," and she put her back flat up against the nearest wall.
"Do not tempt me." He pointed an accusing finger. "Why do you mock me? I want only to do what is right." He paused. "It is not easy."
"Has Rosa's pet a troubled mind?" She was cruel, and in the same breath incredulous. "Does he know guilt? Remorse?" With a shake of her head, and wild stare she added, "Do you take me for a fool?"
He leaned forward, and shut his eyes in thought, before standing. "Forgiveness, my lady?" he said without emotion, "I do not know my own mind." He got up then, and took a step towards her, and bizarrely, he offered a hand to her.
"Keep away from me." Though needles of pain shot through her legs, she eased herself along the wall, trying to edge closer to the one door that might let her escape. She held herself stiffly straight as she did, watchful.
He gave a curt nod, stepped back, and turned away from her. With sagging shoulders he half-strode, half-stumbled towards the parapets. He looked for a moment as if he was going to throw himself off. He stopped short and lurched forward instead, retching over the side until thin stingy loops of saliva were all that came out of his mouth. He wiped a hand over his lips, and said, "I'm sorry, Lilia. I'm sorry. I will not raise a hand to you again. I think you have the right idea, running. It is more than I am free to do. But you can still run. It is wise of you."
Silence stretched between them. "I did not poison father," said Lilia. "If that is what they say of me, I did not." She paused. "It is a lie."
"I am beginning to think we are made of lies," he muttered.
"I will not beg, or grovel, or bribe you."
"I know. Only ask, and I will let you go."
"I told you, I will not beg."
"Just ask."
Rosa's pet looked neither proud, nor wicked, nor even dangerous. Merely sad. His eyes were bleeding with wet streaks, his was face a gleam of pale skin in the night. Wind shushed around his hair and cloak, making him look like a lank-limbed ragdoll, left for the wind to play with.
"Then I ask. Thane Sigurd, let me go free."
He hung his head a little more. "Very well. I will not follow. I will not raise the alarm."
"You know I am not the poisoner." There was a strange twinge of hope in her throat. "You know it could not be me, you could do something, you know--"
"What do I know, really? I only suppose... I suppose it must have been a natural disease. A cold-borne illness."
"You do not believe that."
"Do not tell me what is fit for me to believe."
Though it made her heart cold and her skin shiver, she forced herself to take a few steps closer to him. Close enough, to see that he was trembling and that his hands were clawed on tightly to the stone parapet. Closer still. She reached out, gingerly, and touched him, just lightly, on the upper arm.
He flinched slightly.
"You suspect her then," said Lilia. Remaining as still and hunched a gargoyle, his fingers gripped the parapet. She spoke on. "I know of a secret way out of the Toren Vaunt. You could come with me. There is nothing here. Nothing but blood and madness."
"There is Rosa."
"You would stay for her?"
"I would lay down my life for Rosa," he said sharply. He twisted and looked around at her then, his eyes were blinking fast, though if it were because of tears, or the stinging wind, or cold she did not know. "I love her. I will not betray her twice in one night."
She had no answer to that. Letting her hand slip free, she stepped away, and drew forward her hood. But before she went she paused, and said, "Though I have so often seen you in my sister's company, I do not even know your full name." A wan, humourless smile passed over his lips, and Lilia felt suddenly apologetic and foolish. "I never asked, you see. In all the years, I never asked."
"Sigurd. My name is Sigurd, son of Sigold, of Siffolk Farmstead."
"Thank you then."
"No. Give me no thanks. Just go."
With one last glance at Sigurd, she pulled the hood right over her features, and hurried away. She ghosted along the dark battlement, alone and into the shadows, into the open door and down empty stairs.
-oOo-
Lilia had spent so many hours creeping like a mouse around the Toren Vaunt, it was second nature to her. To do it again, now, seemed almost a game, almost soothing. To shrink from footsteps echoing on stone. To catch the round, delicious chatter of churl-wives, and go down another slightly more circuitous corridor. To drift through rooms unwatched, unnoticed, unmissed. To slip silent into the benighted courtyard.
A quick glance about. There were lumpish black silhouettes on the parapets, with heads and shoulders bent together, and pinpoints where the embers of their pipes burned. The forge was still aflame and hammering. Otherwise, all else was still and devoid of life.
She stepped quickly down the flight of steps that went from the great entrance to the yard, and then out onto the flagstoned yard. With a glance left and right, she turned towards the narrow muddy way that led to the storage sheds. A few hurried paces, and she was through the door and had it shut safely behind her. With no light to guide her, Lilia had to fumble past barrels, boxes and rusted tools. Scraping the barrel against stone made a sound like claws on slate. It was enough to make her flesh creep with the fear of discovery. Her ears pricked and she looked up, blinking into the marl-pit darkness, listening. Somewhere in the distance... what was it? A muffled shout in the night? A few heartbeats of silence passed and then a sudden clamour of horns and voices of alarm echoed through the rough stone walls of the little shed. Watchmen cried from parapet, to court, to gate. She could not make out the roll of syllables, but guessed them well enough.
She breathed a sigh, "Hurry, or all is lost," she told herself, and then, with a half-hearted smile, "or I am lost, anyway, I suppose. More to the point." She crouched into the hole, dragged at the rusted lip of the barrel with her fingertips, and wrenching at it, concealing the hole behind her.
Down into the darkness on hands and knees, she crawled. Jagged edges cut and chaffed her fingers. Tangles of roots choked her. The air grew stifling, then hot, and cold by turns. The tunnel seemed endless, a downward, ceaseless descent into the bowels of the world. Inch by inch, the closeness, the tightness began to play on her mind. Scrape, scrape, scuffle, and scrape, and claw, and scrape, and gasp for air, and scrape again.
She had no warning when the blackness changed from close, wet and cold, to airy, wet and cold. Her eyes blinked franticly to take in the new dim, feathery grey of trees, and the trickle of cloud-dapple moonlight. Her lungs enjoyed long draws of sweet air.
Up above her, the Toren still rang with bells and horns.
She began to weep. A few soft sobs, and then a halting trickle of tears over her cheeks. Anger. Misery. Fear. Hope. It all fell away from her like leaves from an autumn tree. She curled up in the earth, and she was nothing more or less than alive. The tears trickled and soaked into the earth.
She remember that there was a ferny dell a little way off. Close enough to walk to in a daze, far enough that the men of the keep might take hours to hunt so far into the forest, assuming they thought she had gone out the front gate. Even if they had dogs and horses she should be safe for a few hours at least.
She stumbled to her feet and shambled through the wooded landscape.
The dell was over-canopied by holly, and enwalled by ivy and stood over by several grand old pines. The bracken scratched her skin, the earth smelled musty, the air was cold, but for beds Lilia would not have given up that wooded glen for the best silk and down-stuffed thing in the best chamber of the Vaunt.
Lilia found a place where the pine needles were dry under one great spreading tree, and she hauled herself into the resin-smelling space there. For the first time in days, she could let herself rest.
The night passed her by, over and around her. On tiny padded feet it scurried near her. On lacy wings it fluttered above her skin. With a damp, and sensitive nose, it sniffed the cuff of one sleeve, then ambled away to root for grubs in some other corner of the night.
-oOo-
She was sitting up, awake in the morning light, when the first snowflake touched her cheek, vanishing the mo
ment it did. Wrapping her cloak a little tighter, Lilia sat with her knees tight up to her chest. The snow came only lightly at first, like stars falling one by one from the sky.
The light was greyed by the banks of clouds. And cold. So very cold. There was no warmth in it at all.
Looking this way and that, Lilia stared aimlessly into the middle distance.
Remembering her stolen food, she undid the satchel with numb fingers, and drew out a red napkin-wrapped parcel. Laying each fold of the napkin open she danced her fingers above the small morsels, touching this, hovering about that. Choosing a round of savoury cheese she lifted it to her lips, bit, smiled, and closed her eyes as she chewed slowly, so slowly. Licking her lips she picked up a slice of salted mutton.
Nearly half the bread, and almost all the strips of died meat were gone when Lilia realised that she was going to eat everything in one sitting. She forced herself to wrap up the package again. There was the obvious problem of where to go, of survival, and the next few days ahead. Worries and fears danced in the front of her skull. It was easy to get lost in the maze of tomorrows. As easy as it is to get lost in a forest.
As she sat there in the cold, shivering, she noticed something faint and far away.
At first she thought the sound was no more than wind or her own imagination playing tricks. Then, it came again. Clearer. Nearer.
Lilia sat bolt upright, her eyes wide open, her mind turning over every scrap of sound that came drifting through of the woods.
Again, there is was.
How far? Not more than a few hundred paces perhaps? Tense in every fibre and muscle, Lilia felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the wintry air.
With some difficulty, she persuaded her weary, stiffened legs to take her weight. Her toes were numb and painful.
There was a light dusting of snow on everything. Sparkles of ice flecked her eyelashes, and made it difficult for her to see. She had to blink faster and faster to clear her vision. The snow would make her unfairly easy to track.
There was no time to wait. Not even time to think. The barking and baying of the dogs echoed again. This time, she made note of the direction, and turned her back to it. Fragile snow shook loose and showered her as she shoved through branches. Again, the cry filled the air.
In all her life, in all her dreams, in all her fantasies, Lilia had never been so sickened, and nerve-wracked by the howl of dogs and the blare of a hunting horn.
The next few moments would forever fix in her memory as a headlong flight through a coldly beautiful world of white, holy green, and charmed ice-glitter. The snow grew heavier with every passing moment, and soon formed itself into small drifts that were hard to plough through.
She ran. Until her feet were filled with pain. Until her arms were cut by gorse, her shins by sharp stones, her fingers by rough bark. Until she felt she could run no farther. And then she stumbled a little farther still.
Yet the dogs that bayed on her trail had gained on her. They were close.
Hard-pressed muscles gave up on her. She fell and felt her fingers sink into the crust of snow. Her hair fell in a loosened veil about her face.
The howls grew steadily louder. Harsher, more excited. She knew her mind was surely retreating behind walls of insanity when the bays and barks began to sound like laughter. At first mocking, then strangely pleasant, then it sounded like the air was full of peal upon peal of silvery laughter.
When the touch of gentle fingers pressed her cheek, and warmth flowed into her flesh, she did not understand. When the cry of hunters and hounds faded away to another world, she did not know why. Only when she looked up, did it all fall into stark, terrible relief. Where had the hounds gone? Who was caressing her cheek? Why had the air turned warm? It all made sense when she gazed up into those eyes of green shadow, and autumn gold, and winter silver.
He had changed his autumn garb of fiery colours for silken greys with snowy trims and a crown of glorious ice. He smiled at her with his knowing, beautiful face.
"I knew you would return to me," he said. "I knew your heart was true to me. I never doubted."
Lilia could but whisper one word through her cold chapped lips. "Alraun."
-oOo-
"The hounds had her scent, my lady. They shall have her trail again soon. That I assure you." His faintly pocked skin looked bloodless beneath ill-trimmed black stubble, and he shivered visibly now. Sigurd wondered if he trembled from the cold, or from the glare of Rosa. They had hunted together many hours, Hrothar and he, and Sigurd knew the man well enough. Superstitious, for one. Not good around women. In fact, a little afraid of them. Though he was usually never worse than nervous, when Rosa set her dark eyes on the Master-of-Hounds, he shivered as if the Night Queen herself had breathed into his soul.
She sat in the saddle of a palfrey, its coat so dark a roan it almost looked black. A dress of scarlet, velvety cloth, trimmed with the plush red of squirrel, hung luxuriant about her. The air seemed lighter where she sat, as if sunlight struggled through the clouds just to bathe her face. And yet despite the glow of sunlight, the snowflakes that fell on her blonde, ribbon-bound locks refused to melt.
All of the hounds were circling a patch of snowy ground in front of them, snuffling, and burying their noses in the leaf litter and thin crusts of snow. Occasionally one howled in frustration. Now and again, one of the dogboys let the air resound with a crack of a whip. But nothing could press the pack on any farther.
This went on until the air was thick with the rising smell of horse sweat, steam from the flanks of the coursers, and the white breath of hunters.
"And what of the tracks, my huntsman?" said Rosa after a span of heavy silence. "Or has your lumbering about muddied her footprints as well as her smell?"
"No, m'lady." Although Hrothar replied quickly he would not step any closer. He looked at Rosa as Sigurd imagined a man like him might stare at a kennel puppy that had been born with a green pelt. She fixed him with her bewildering eyes. He managed to stammer, "I mean only that, that, the tracks, m'lady. The tracks, they do not go on, you see. They stop right here. No farther, m'lady."
"Your majesty."
"M'lady?"
"Your majesty."
"Of course, your majesty."
Calm lay on the forest for miles around it seemed, disturbed only by the din in this small glade. "Sigurd," she said at last, "what do you think of this?"
He held his face impassive, perhaps too consciously so. He must have almost looked waxen.
"The scent is cold, the hounds are baffled." He paused, then added, "your majesty. There are no tracks to follow." Out of the corner of his eye, Sigurd caught Hrothar shrinking away from them.
"Has she turned into a sparrow and flown off? Has she shrunk into a field mouse and scuttled into a hole? Has she become mist and vanished on the wind? How can hounds, which can hunt a deer over bare rock, not follow my clumsy sister through... through... this muck." She waved a hand at the snowy landscape.
Sigurd nodded, but said only, "Was not your sister familiar with the wild sprights? I only wonder--"
At that Hrothar nodded vigorously. "All know of your sister's witching ways. All know sprights will steal mortal girls. The air here is accursed. I feel it in my bones, I do."
"That may well be." Rosa tightened her grip on the reins, and nudged her heels into the palfrey's flanks. "But, Sigurd, if you do wonder..." Her eyes settled on him, but he could not read their black depths, "well, if you do wonder, I consider, and think, and I worry deeply. If she has gone to that woodland ghaist, the Alder King, then the whole Veld may yet be in danger. Still, we have clearly lost her train. Let us ride back to the Toren. I have no wish to freeze any longer in this weather."
"That would be sensible," said Hrothar, his voice tempered with cautious gratitude.
"I neither addressed you, Master-of-Hounds, nor did I suggest that you and your dogs, and kennel-reeking hunters should return. Persistence is a quality no hunter should lack, I think. Perhaps a
few more hours in the cold will teach you something about it."
His voice became small and withdrawn. "Your majesty."
Turning to Sigurd she said. "If my sister has gone back to that heathen spright, then let him have her. We are done with her. We want nothing more to do with Lilia. Her name shall be struck out. All records of her scoured. It will be as if she was never born." She reined the palfrey a little too roughly, and caused it to stamp and resist the bit, before giving in, and stepping lightly about in a circle. "Come, Sigurd. Ride with me. Master-of-Hounds, see to your charges and continue the hunt, if you please."
Sigurd shot a look at Hrothar. There was a look of real fear in those grey eyes of his.
Sigurd made sure he rode just a pace or so behind Rosa, and always to her right. It was his proper place, and he was determined to remain proper. He looked straight ahead, at the trees in their growing cloaks of white, at the earth, and the muddy path they picked along, through the wild woods.
When Rosa spoke it was with a voice so low that Sigurd had to strain to catch the words. "This bodes ill for the Veld."
Glancing at her, Sigurd had the momentary impression that he rode with a stranger. Who was this woman? Straight of back. Bright of eye. Her skin so soft and white. Her hair so combed and blonde and glossy. She did not look like the happy, blush-cheeked Rosa he had fallen in love with. She looked like something else. Something more than herself. Something regal and powerful, and perhaps, something that was forever beyond his understanding.
At last he found an answer. "How so, your majesty?"
"Oh Sigurd, not you." She looked down at her hands clasped over the saddle. Blinking rapidly, she fixed him with eyes that were wide, glistening. "Not you. When we are alone, just you and I, do not make me rule over you. I cannot be that alone."
He nodded, and said, "Rosa."
"Thank you. Oh, goddesses, thank you. But how so, you asked before? How so? She will goad the wildwood king. He has already threatened the Veld with his messenger. She will beguile him with stories of injustice. Of a throne rightfully hers. Of a sister who cheated her out of her riches, and dutiful churls, and soft beds."
"You think so? Lilia... she always seemed to me such a... how can I put it? A shy and trembling thing. Surely, she is without ambition to rule. Perhaps she will be happy to hide away in the lonely wilds?" A thought occurred to him. "Maybe she will goad the Alder King the other way?" The idea brightened him. "Maybe she will persuade him to give up any pretence of rulership over the Veld altogether?"
"No. Oh, Sigurd, you've such a fine heart, and such innocence. You do not know how bitterness can blacken the soul. No. If I were her?" And Rosa seemed to consider this a moment. "If I were her, I would prod the Alder King with every hint and veiled whisper, and word-by-word, I would inch him into revenge." Her voice deepened. "Even to war, if it took that. It may come to that. War." That last word hung like a spectre in the air, which neither Sigurd nor Rosa were willing to look at squarely. "We must be ready, dear Sigurd. We must, for our lives and so many other lives depend on us. There may yet be harsh, strange days ahead for the Veld." She furrowed her brow. "To rule is a heavy burden."
"The folk will love you, Rosa. They will follow you in whatever you choose to do."
"Yes." She smiled and the air briefly rippled with the glow of her presence. "Yes, absolutely, they will."
-oOo-
Alraun.
How could one name resound with both joy and horror? Hope and fear? Love and loathing?
A hand of bone-ivory grace reached for her, fingers extended, waiting... expectant.
"You have your shawm too, I see. Would you like me to return the charms to it, or would you rather have a newer toy? I can weave something wonderful for you out of morning mist and cobwebs."
She shook her head at him, swallowed hard a few times.
"Lilia, my dear, my beautiful mortal. Why are you greeting me with such silence? Why do you cower there unmoving? Have they tortured you? Hurt you? You know you are safe with me. Here." He gestured. "In my domain, nothing would dare harm you. I would not allow it. Come then. Stand. Put yourself in my sheltering arms."
Slowly, Lilia did rise to her feet, but she did not take his hand. Certainly, a part of her desperately wanted to. Instead, she held herself as self-sure as she could manage. It was painful, just looking at him. She closed her eyes to block him out.
Still his voice sang on. "Come to me. Be mine, forever and ever." Now the inflection turned a little more hurt, a touch petulant. Like a child scolding an uncooperative toy, he said, "Why do you defy me with this silence? End this foolishness. Come to me. Now." He grabbed her. Warmth flooded into her through his fingertips. Her wrist tingled, her fingers felt alive, her blood ran hot.
When she opened her eyes, she was staring right into the depth of his. Those bright, silvery-green orbs were without whites or pupil. They looked as if they were entirely iris. He was closer now. His breath excited her lips. It was not quite right to say they kissed. He kissed her, and she did not do a good job of resisting. She gave in to him. Let him slide his arm about her waist. It was all there for the taking. Comfort. Shelter. Eternity. Love too, at least, after a fashion.
"I am sorry, Alraun. I did not come looking for you. I will not go with you."
His voice was amused. "What?"
Twisting, and then putting some force into the movement, Lilia squirmed out of his grip. Two quick steps put some distance between them. "I will not. No."
"Lilia, my queen-to-be, why these games?"
"No." The word wavered a little, but she shook her head and said more firmly, "No."
At that, he cocked his head to one side, and his eyes studied her with curious intensity.
It took a moment to fumble with her belt, but soon enough she was able to wrap her fingers around it. A long graceful thing, cold and metallic. The shape of it was so familiar it was like clutching a memory.
"Your shawm," said Alraun. "Your lovely shawm. Would you want me to fix it for you after all?" He really didn't understand. There was no comprehension in his eyes. He was all games and trivialities and nothing underneath.
"No. I do not."
"But, you love your shawm, my lady Lilia. I know you do."
"I do." She shook her head. "No, perhaps I did. Your gift to me. It was love when I needed it. It was you when I needed you. It was all the things I'd ever hoped for. It was."
"Let me make it so again."
"No. You are not listening. It was. It is not now. Here," and she thrust it at him, held on outstretched fingers. "Take it back. I want it not."
"It is yours. The Alder King has never taken back a gift, once given."
"You already took all the magic from it." She almost snarled this. "If you will not have it back, then let a magpie have it." Before he could do anything, before she could think about what she was doing, herself, she screwed her fingers tight about the silver pipe, arched her shoulder back, and put all her strength into one twirling movement. It was not much more than a vanishing sparkle of silver as it sailed on the air, then was swallowed by snow. There was not even any sound as it landed and vanished.
All was silence.
It started first in his eyes. It spread over his face, to his skin and hair. It infused his crown of ice turning it sharp and prickly, it made his hair lash as if the air were full of wind. It washed over him like a tide, but Lilia did not step back. She stood in the face of his anger.
"No mortal in a hundred lifetimes has dared throw aside a gift of mine." He reached out for her again, but his fingers did not close on her flesh. The tips of his fingers twitched, mere inches away, as if in indecision. "Troublesome girl. Contrary creature. No mortal has ever so obsessed and frustrated me."
"I want you not," said Lilia. "I need you not. You may have me not." She remembered then the line from the play, and with an odd, half-mad smile she added. "Therefore pursue me not."
"I shall destroy you."
"No. You will not. I
deny you, Alraun, prince of wild nothings."
"I shall ruin all you ever loved."
"Then ruin yourself, for you are all that I have loved."
"I shall rain wrath on the homes of your friends. Your family. Your folk. I shall take every pretty mortal maiden in all the Veld for my pleasure. I will torture and twist every child, man and old elder into misshapen, laughable jesters fit only to dance in my court."
"None of them want me, or love me. You would revenge yourself on them?" She laughed, right in his face. "Besides, have you even that power? How long has it been since you walked from your wildernesses and glades. I don't think you have the potency that you remember. You have faded, Alraun, and are fading even now as I look at you."
"Are you so sure? Perhaps we shall see." And he reached for her again, but she did not flinch. She would not let him see her tremble, nor cringe. Standing fast, she only stared furiously at him. The touch seared her arm. She gritted her teeth against a scream.
"The lass said, no."
And the burning was gone. Eyes now wide open, Lilia saw Alraun edging away from her, his cloak of woven snow drawn suddenly tight, as if it might shield or hide him. Glancing about, and blinking furiously, Lilia knew she must have looked a confused idiot.
Alraun was incredulous. "You were not alone? I see. You came here to trick me. Betray me. Trap me. With him."
"No," said the other. He stepped closer, passing under the shadow of an old oak. A doeskin cloak fell in dull curtains from his shoulders. In one lazy hand he held a knife of black iron. "I am hunting other prey. But you were shining with enough magic to attract the wandering dead." He grinned as if he had cut a bad joke. "But, the lass did say, no. So, king of the faer of this woodland, let me be blunt. Bugger off."
Touching a hand to the burn on her arm, Lilia twisted her neck to look at him clearer. She gave a start of surprise. The witch-hunter. Rosa's hired man.
"Very well then," said Alraun and he turned his fiery eyes on Lilia. "Your curse shall be to see my revenge destroy all that you once knew, and know you are the root of it. Your curse shall be to hear the wailing of your kin, as I make their souls my playthings. Yours will be the life lived in shame and self-loathing. I will be revenged upon you, through the misery of everyone you ever knew."
"And what of him?" She felt her face twist into an ugly expression. "How can you threaten to ruin the Veld if you have not the power to overcome just one mortal man?"
"That one?" A cruel smile lit his wild eyes. "My dear Lilia. That one is no more mortal than I am. Trust him, and you trust to the kindness of wolves."
With a rustle of leaves, a swirl of snow, and a twist of scornful laughter, the king of the faer folk was gone, and Lilia was alone in the woods with the hunter.
Turning to him, she held her chin up a little, and with all the defiance she could gather, she said, "Will you slit my throat here, or drag me back to her, kicking and screaming? For that is how I shall go."
"Her?"
"My sister."
"Rosa? That one did her best to have me killed, lass. The men she sent to kill Snoro did their best to do it for me too."
"Oh." Then feeling absurd she added, "I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "I know of an old woman. She seems kind enough, and her home not far from here. She'd be pleased to have some help about the cottage over winter, I expect." His smile was strangely ironic. "Indeed, I think you may be safer with her than anywhere else for a hundred miles."
"Wait. What did Alraun mean when he said you are not mortal?"
"She's a bit of a handful, at times. But she cooks a nice stew. Brews good tea."
"You look normal enough. What did he mean?"
"Well, are you coming?"
"Not until you tell me. What did Alraun mean by that?"
"Helg. Her name is Helg."
"Well?"
He frowned. "You should not ask questions that you'd rather not hear the answers to. That's as wise as I ever get, lass."
Lilia pursed up her lips and put on her best displeased expression. "Very well then," she said at length. "Then I suppose I am not going with you."
He pinned her with a stare. "I have been alive two hundred years. At night, a huge spectral wolf comes out of my soul while I sleep and runs wild, savaging anything it feels like savaging. Including faer kings. Including weird witch-dwarves. Including obstinate ladies."
"You could at least try to make something up that was more plausible."
"Grief be on me." He rolled his eyes. "Come on. Helg's place it not far off, and if you stay out here you will freeze to death."
She considered that and accepted the truth of it. "Very well. If that is how you will be. Lead on, brave hero."
His voice turned a note colder. "You can call me a lot of things, but never call me that."
"You saved me did you not," she smiled, almost playfully, "heroically I'd have said?"
He stalked off into the woods without another word. A deep sense of relief suffused Lilia as she watched the hunter walking off. Somehow, she had escaped both Rosa and Alraun, though how far she could trust this wild man she had no idea. For now it did not matter. Any port in a storm, as they say. She hurried after him.
"Wait," she said, running to catch up, and to her surprise, he did.
-oOo-
"Well, look what the wolf dragged in."
Lilia stretched up on tiptoes, and peeked around the hunter's shoulder. The cottage was cramped, but filled with a warm flame-hued light. A shambling, crooked old body filled up the lower half of the doorway.
"Well my, if it isn't a lady of the Veld come to have high tea with Helg? Come in, come in. No use letting the north wind in while you're at it either. He's a bad guest, and never cleans up after himself."
Following Kveldulf, Lilia found the hut both stifling and enlivening after the brisk winter air. The door shut with a dull click of its wooden latch.
"So, Kveldulf, you any closer to catching your own tail?"
"Somewhat."
"Bah." The woman waved one swollen-knuckled hand at him. "What am I to do with you?"
"I've something that may interest you."
"Hmmm?"
Kveldulf turned and looked at Lilia. The elderly woman, too, turned her one eye on her.
"Perhaps later," said Kveldulf.
"What? Is it somewhat you will not speak of in front of me? Does it concern me then?"
"No," said Kveldulf. "But it may very well frighten you."
"So," said Helg. "To what do I owe the honour of this little get-together?"
Lilia let her shoulders heave with a sigh, and opened her mouth, but before she could utter a word, Helg cut her off, "No, no, wait. On second thought, just let me get some tea pipping and poured. Talk's always better with a nice nip of tea to mull over. I'll be just a bit." She began clattering about with a kettle and some clay mugs and in short time three mugs of steaming tea were laid out on the table.
Lilia sat down, and lounged forward, enjoying being warm, absently tracing her fingertips along the grooves and cuts on the old table. When the tea arrived, she blew steam from the lip of her mug before taking a sip. The gust of hot vapour almost seemed to make phantom shapes in the air. Then, taking occasional mouthfuls of tea to wet her throat, Lilia recalled the last few days in words. She drew for them word-pictures of Rosa in her rage, the cell, the descent, and Sigurd with his drunk, sad eyes. Of Alraun she said less. That was more personal, more painful, something she needed to think about herself before she spoke more than a few scattered words about it.
When she was done she let the last of the tea trickle into her mouth and, after putting the mug down, she said, "and so, now I am here."
"Better than alone in the wild woods with that Alraun, missy," said Helg with a sad shake of the head, "or up in the Toren, with your moonstruck, power-hungry peacock of a sister plotting to burn you alive. Siblings these days, eh Kveldy?"
He looked at her as if she were mad, but said, after settling
himself a bit, "It sounds to me that we need something with a little more fire than tea."
"I've a jug of Jon-o-Lotho's herb brandy."
Kveldulf smiled. "That would do."
"Over on the shelf. By the pot of rosemary. And Kveldulf, when did you last trim that beard of yours? It's beginning to look like a pair of wrens could make a nest in there."
"A few days back. Lilia?" He proffered the brandy jug. She nodded, and he poured a measure into her now empty mug. "I have been... distracted."
"No man should ever be so distracted that he lets himself look like a wild trolde." Helg drained her tea, and smacked her lips. "Here, I'll have a bit of that, too." She took the jug in one gnarled hand, and filled her mug almost to the brim. "So, what's been eating you?"
"That is what I'd like to discuss alone." He looked squarely at Lilia. It was not an unkind expression, but there was little warmth in his eyes.
"Very well," cut in Helg before Lilia could raise her voice, "we'll chat about it later."
"There is this something else I'd like you to look at," and Kveldulf began to root through his beltpouch. "Ah, here it is." Onto the table he laid a small bundle wrapped up in a piece of soft goatskin. Untying it revealed several broken sherds of pottery.
"You have the oddest hobbies," said Helg. Her one eye lazed over the fragments, but it was her nose that began to twitch. The skin about her nostrils wrinkled. "Here now. What is it you have there? Smells strange and bleak."
"This is all that remains of Snoro's last potion."
"Ah, yes. Poor Snoro," said Helg. "Can't say I'm going to miss him, but you know. Still, bad way for things to turn out."
"You know?"
"You are not the only one who can see the unseen, Kveldulf, nor hear the unheard." Lifting one pottery sherd gingerly, as if afraid of poison, Helg held it above her hair-specked upper lip, and sniffed. "Wormwood," she said, "some hensbane, lacehouse, nightsorrel, cat's gallows... hmmmm... swamp-mallow too, some other scents mingled in there."
"Could you brew a similar potion?"
A shrug. "Perhaps. Anything I made is unlikely to be exact. Why?"
"This," and he traced a finger over one of the sherds, "is my cure. Or so Snoro claimed."
"Why not go just back to the little hunchback?" asked Lilia suddenly. Both Kveldulf and Helg looked at her, and she retreated a little into her chair. "It's no secret now, I got my father's medicine from him, though he was selling the poison and curses to my sister, as it turns out."
"The poison sold to one. The antidote sold to the other." Helg sighed. "Clever little bastard. Too clever by half, though"
But Kveldulf was blunt. "The little hunchback is dead."
Lilia nearly dropped her mug. Some drops sluiced onto her fingers, and she wiped them away. "Snoro, dead?" She felt her face blanch. "How?"
"Your sister. His ghost was wailing about it. Still is, probably. Ghosts can take a while to go to forget themselves and go to sleep in the earth. Decades, sometimes centuries."
Helg snorted. "Well, the way I see it, good riddance." Kveldulf and Lilia both raised quizzical glances at Helg. She took a sip of the brandy. "Don't look at me like that. Snoro sold more curses than he did cures. Eventually, something that wasn't his pet raven was going to come home to roost."
"And it has," said Kveldulf.
Helg turned squarely to Lilia then. "The truth of it is that your sister clearly wanted your mother and father dead. Why? I don't know. Lacking other means, she went to Snoro and bought his poisons and curses. But when you turned up on his doorstep innocently looking for a cure, Snoro got greedy. If he could sell you just enough nostrum to keep your father alive, he could keep stringing you both along." One eye squinting at the bottom of her mug, Helg made a sour face. "Finished already. Not bad stuff this." She poured herself another measure and offered the bottle around. "So if you've worked out that Snoro must have been double dealing, then it is very probably that someone else did too. Someone who had a great deal to lose, if Snoro should spill his secrets."
With a hand raised to her mouth Lilia said, "Can I have been such a naïf? And poor Snoro. How did she kill him, I wonder?"
"With a knife," said Kveldulf.
Lilia's expression turned from worried to a little bit sickened. "And how do you know that?"
"Questions, Lilia." He raised a finger. "Questions that you don't want to hear the answer to, remember. I heard his ghost wailing about it. That is enough to know. She slew Snoro, cut out his heart, and had him buried at the crossroads."
"That is a cruel way to treat a soul," said Helg, and she narrowed her one eye. "Perhaps he deserves it. "He was a monstrous little filth-worm," she muttered, "a real misery heart. But all the same, it is a cruel way to do to a soul."
Kveldulf nodded in silent agreement. "Could we have that word now? I am keen to be out and hunting. Every hour is pressing."
"Very well, very well. Let's go out by the hedge, if you are so keen, and then you can be on your way."
Lilia started. "Wait. You're just going?"
"I must. I have things to see to."
"But I thought--"
He shook his head, and said, "Helg will look after you better than I could."
The door shut behind Helg and Kveldulf when he gave it a good, solid jerk. The building had settled and the lintel was slightly askew from the door. Lilia stared at the door, considered for a second whether it would be polite to eavesdrop, then got up, crept to the door and put her ear to it.
The conversation was hushed, as if they were afraid of being overheard by birds and insects. There was a roll of low sentences that she could not catch.
"It is true," said Kveldulf in an insulted, and louder voice, "I am not deluded."
"Are you really sure of yourself?"
"I am. I have spoken to her. All these years I have swung from sureness to doubt, but now I am in no doubt. Her scent grows stronger every day since that night. She hides herself form me no longer. She takes greater risks and chances. Already she is hunting cattle and horses, and soon she will begin hunting people again. It is the same as before. I shall either have to move on... or be done with her, once and for all. I am tired of the endless hunt."
"And how do you propose to be done with her, as you put it?"
"I've an idea."
"Really? A whole idea rattling around in that wildman's skull of yours? Do tell."
His tone was tainted with affront as he replied. "To this day I have hunted the wolf. Always seeking. Always tracking. Always a few moments, hours, days too late."
"And?"
"When I was speaking to her, she woke and vanished."
"So?"
"Do you not see what that means. All this time I believed she was somewhat else. A demon. A spirit. A god. But she is no different to me."
"And that would mean what?"
"Somewhere, hidden away in the Veld, she sleeps in human form. This must be why it sometimes took her days or weeks to catch up with me. Somewhere, there is a woman, older than I maybe, but without a wrinkle on her, who sleeps away the hours so that her soul can stalk the night. It is the sleeping woman I must hunt. Not the wolf. It is the woman who must die, for the wolf cannot."
"And how will you kill her. Your human body doesn't seem easy to kill."
"That I'm unsure of. I thought Snoro's potion might help. Gnissa said something too, about the Freer knowing how to kill her. I don't know what he meant by that though. The Freer doesn't seem very likely to know much that is useful at all. It surprises me."
There was a stretching silence then, and Helg spoke more hushed, "Be careful, Kveldulf. And come to me when you need food." A chuckle. "Or water to wash with. You smell like you've been sleeping in a hole with a family of badgers."
"Aye. Farewell for now. And please... consider the potion. If you can fathom how to make it..."
"I will, but I cannot make promises. Now, off with you."
Lilia scrambled away. No sooner had she settled herself on the
stool, smoothed her dress and straightened her back, than Helg eased open the door.
"That one's heading for a bad end. A bad end I tell you." She seemed to be talking more to herself than to Lilia. "Well?"
"Sorry?"
"Oh, play not the fool with me. You were at the door listening. How much did you catch?"
Lilia felt a blush chase over her face. "I... enough to be a little afraid of Kveldulf. Not enough to know what exactly I should be afraid of. He is a strange one. Much stranger than I thought."
"Humph," and Helg sat herself down at the table. "Oh, deary me. What a place this has become. When I was a little girl, the Veld was such a quiet vale. In your grandfather's time we saw barely a glimpse of Alraun and his ilk, and Snoro had not yet come wandering, la-de-da, out of the north to set up his shop. Your grandfather, you know, he was a good man. A good Eorl. Did you know him?"
"No. He died befoe I was born."
"Hm. Hm and so. Well," said Helg, with a resigned breath, "can you weave?"
"I usually tangle the shuttle," Lilia admitted. "I spent very little time at the loom."
"Do you stitch? Churn butter? Mend buckets?" To each she got a slight shake of the head. "Dear Ladies of Dark and Light, girl, what have they let you do in that fortress, run around with the dogs all your life? Do you even know how to cook a chicken?"
"I'm fairly sure I've seen it done. In the kitchens."
"Ladies both, do save me," said Helg. "Well, I am old and frail, so whatever you can do to help will be much appreciated. I'm afraid we can't have no prissy ladying about here. You'll need to help me with some of the chores."
"I will." Lilia nodded. "Whatever I can do."
"Good. Good."
"That is, so long as you will also help me."
"Help you?" Helg's eye turned suspicious. "To do what? Keep you fed? That might already be more than you are worth from the sounds of it."
"To reclaim my rightful place as the Lady of Veld. The throne is mine. I will have it back."
"Dear ladies, deliver me again. I've a mad witch-hunter to the left of me, and a would-be queen to the right. Whatever happened to the nice old days when a old woman could have a well-earned nap in the afternoons?"
"The Eorldom is mine. I will have it back."
"Dear Queens of Night and Day." Helg rolled her eye. The flesh about the other socket twitched in time. Where has that brandy got to? I need another good, strong drink."
Lilia smiled, and drained her cup. "You haven't said, no."
"What?" said Helg.
"I note that you haven't said, no."
"Hm. Noted that, did you? Well, we shall see. First, pass the brandy."