CHAPTER THE THIRD
Ermengarde waved her hand at the gossip as if hoping to swat the words dead. The Freer was grinning his stupid, half-in-doubt smile as he tried to get her attention.
"Not now, not now." Ermengarde left him looking shocked and offended. She squeezed past the chairs. "Excuse me... pardon me... very sorry." By the time she reached the great doors, Lilia's footfalls were already fading.
She listened and followed. Shaking her head, Ermengarde began to mutter as she paced; wording and rewording what she was going to say. The first reprimand was too harsh. The second too lenient. Rejecting one after another, she was already at her wit's end as she stepped into Lilia's walled garden. Dim, cloudy moonlight chased over the ground. The air was full of the strains of a shawm, notes that mingled with the rustle of the old willow. It was a strange melody, wandering and haunting, despite being difficult to catch.
"Lilia."
The music stopped.
The young woman lowered the shawm from her lips. Her voice shook. "Please, Aunt Erma, just go away. I want no company. I want no kind words. I want no angry words. And most of all I want no questions. I want to be alone."
"To do what?" Ermengarde placed her hands on her hips. Stand in the dark and play your songs and forget yourself?" Shaking her head, she crossed the garden, swishing through the autumn leaves, and put a hand on Lilia's arm. "Poor child. Here, look at me. You've been crying."
Lilia turned to her slowly. Her hair was loose and a handful of mousy brown strands crisscrossed her eyes.
A sound that began a wordless whisper formed into "Ermaermaerma," and then trailed away. Lilia took a deep breath and used it to say: "Erma, you're far to good for me. You've always been far to good for any of us. You don't understand. You should leave me alone. For both our sakes."
That was a strange thing to say. Ermengarde put her other hand on Lilia's shoulders.
The young woman began to tremble. Drawing her niece closer, Ermengarde found herself in an accustomed role. The child and her aunt. So much had changed and so much had not.
The moment stretched, and the wind whispered to the shadows. Sniffing and regaining composure, Lilia pulled away. She was still shaking, and still clutching the shawm to her chest. "Erma?"
"Yes, dear?"
"I do not want you to worry about me. If something should happen, it will not be your fault. It will never have been your fault. We are all masters our own lives. I want you to understand that. Never blame yourself..."
"I'm sorry if I don't follow you, dear."
"I sometimes feel life is an illusion. As if I am watching someone else's story. I sometimes think that the fortress, the riches, the wealth and power are nothing more than fakeries. I run and pick things up and hold them to make sure they are real. Do you ever feel that way?"
If Erma ever did, she certainly didn't want to admit it. She tutted instead. "Don't talk nonsense, Lili. Look, we'll clean you up, and I'll tell everyone you were just feeling a turn of illness. We can say it was women's problems. That will stop the men from asking about it, at least. And your poor sister... I am sure she is very worried about you."
"Yes," said Lilia her voice colder. "Rosa. My poor sister. My poor, poor sister." When Lilia suddenly titled her head and laughed at the cloudy sky, Ermengarde took an involuntary step back.
"Dear child," she whispered.
"Dear, poor Rosa. So sad, so helpful and so worried about me. I had almost forgotten about poor Rosa. Thank you, Aunt Erma. I am sorry for you. Sorry for all of you. I want to be alone. I will not return to the feast. That is the last thing I will say about it."
"Very well." Ermengarde opened her mouth to add something else, then held the thought, so that, with a shrug, she said instead, "but I will go back to the hall. What shall I tell your sister?"
"Tell her I enjoyed her play." Lilia looked down and kept her gaze fixed there. "I found it illuminating."
"Goodnight, then." Ermengarde turned, hesitated and marched away. Lost in thoughts, she did not notice the shape waiting in the shadows just inside the corridor.
-oOo-
Kveldulf stood perfectly still. As soon as the middle-aged woman was out of earshot, he edged towards the open doorway to the garden. He could smell the crisp night. Who was the older woman? A relative? An advisor? He would ask Sigurd. He risked a glance into the night air.
Framed by the stone archway, the eldest daughter of the Eorl knelt in the autumn leaves, clutching a woodwind of some sort. Something like a flute, he guessed. It seemed to Kevldulf that she was crying. The folds of her ivory dress were rucked about her legs, and spread over the ground like spilled moonlight. Staring past her, he searched each shape and shadow. For sometimes shadows are more than shadows and the sough of wind is more than the sough of wind.
The air of the garden had a powerful and strange smell to it. Different to the Eorl's room. Older. Wilder. And yet Lilia was alone.
He could wait, and perhaps he would discover what else was haunting the garden, but there was a strong risk of discovery. He was not well concealed and the Eorl's daughter would only have to look up to see him. He felt a frown crease his face. It would not do to be found spying on the heir of the Eorldom.
As he was about to go, Kveldulf's gaze happened to glance again passed the instrument.
He paused.
In the moonlight the pipe was a delicate strand of rock crystal and silver paint. Too fine. Too flawless. Only twice before in his long life had Kveldulf seen craftsmanship to match the instrument. He stared hard at its lineaments.
As he stepped away from the doorway, thoughts pattered around in his head. He would have to see the object closer, touch it, perhaps smell it, even press his tongue to it to get a true sense of its materials. The question lingered. If it were not the work of mortal hands, by whose hands was it made?
-oOo-
Lilia dried the tears with the back of a hand.
Running her numb fingertips along the length of the shawm she smiled sadly and lifted it up. Wetting her lips first, she blew a long, noteless breath to warm the pipe before letting her fingers draw out a melody. She played her strange notes, wandering and haunting, despite being difficult to catch. She imagined that the song held yearnings... hopes... dreams... needs... and because she imagined it, it did.
In the garden, in the darkness, he appeared, at first a shadow, then a dream limned in starlight, then real. A gentle hand reached out and brushed her cheek. She let the song ease away, let the shawm stray from her lips. She stared into his deep, bright eyes.
"I..." she began.
He crouched down so that she could lean into his arms. "I know."
They held together in the garden while the leaves of the willow swarmed around them. Their breath blended together; she could still taste the after-taint of wine on her own, even as she inhaled his, sweet and wild.
"When will you come to me?" his voice was wind in the trees. "When will you give up this filthy hovel? Please. Please. Give yourself to me."
"Soon."
"Recall the vow I made when we first met. I am impatient. You haunt me day and night. I can remove you from all cares. And death. And age... sickness... regret. Those things are nothing to me. They will be nothing to us. Let me be your king and I shall take from everything that has ever made you weep." His thumb touched a tear away from her cheek.
The wind stroked the willow.
"No. Not yet."
"When?"
She shrugged in his arms. "My father will soon be dead. All the healers in the world cannot save him. Soon I shall be the Lady of Vaunt and there shall be no voice in the Veld stronger than mine. If I should choose a lover... a husband... who would say a word against me? Who could say a word against me. You might walk in my house, openly. You could yet sit upon a throne beside mine. Your kingdom and mine... we could be one."
His eyes flickered with an unknowable light of thoughts.
Sometimes she found his expressions difficult to interpret. Occasionally
it seemed to her that he mimicked joy, or love, or laughter--as if he could not quite feel these things, but had studied them assiduously. She shook the thought away. Searching his face with hunger, she wondered what emotion filled his eyes now? What was writ across his timeless face? Fear? Mistrust? Confusion? Hope? She wanted to know him deeply enough to read the truth.
"But you could come away with me tonight. Away from here forever."
"No." She said. "Not today. I cannot run away tonight. If we wait, then we can be together. Joyful and freely. Together we can be happy here." She straightened her shoulders and said more firmly, "I cannot go with you now. Not yet. There are things I must yet do."
"What things?"
"Secret things."
"Secret from me?"
"Secret from everyone."
He held back his answer a long time before saying, at last. "I understand." He stroked gentle fingers over her cheek. Though, as he held her, Lilia worried if he ever understood anything she said at all.
And so they stood awhile in the hushed night, alone but for a gathering of small nocturnal things. Wild creatures were always drawn to him; there were mice in the leaves, two pale owls on the wall and on top of a stone urn, there was an old, fat, raven, black as the spaces between the stars.
BEFORE THE VELD
"No," they said, "Auxentios? Never heard of him"--"The old hierophant? Just a pilgrim's story"--"There's a good herbal two streets down, the best in all Pyreathium maybe, go there"--"Don't go chasing shadows."
By evening Kveldulf had given up. He was in an inn, drinking--getting drunk, really. He did that a lot these days. It chased away the dreams, sometimes, if he drank enough.
Things swayed when he got up, but not too badly. The stairs were steep, though he still was able to scale them to the top, then stumble along the corridor, turn into his room. He locked the door of course. He always did. Even in remote and peaceful places. He was still just sober enough to take the chalk and stones out of his bag. Black dyed chalk and old stones cut with runes. He drew things on the floor and put the stones in particular places. It would hopefully be enough to keep her at a distance for one night. The power of the symbols and runes was weak, and couldn't banish her completely, but at least with the ward laid out, she was often held back, forced to hunt somewhere else, somewhere, anywhere, away from Kveldulf. It was the best he could do.
Drunk, he ignored the bed and lay down in the middle of the chalk and stones. Spittle gathered in his beard as he began to snore.
He was too deeply asleep, too miserably drunk to hear the cat. It was hungry and quiet as it came in through the window. It nosed about the room, looking for mice, then sniffed his satchel and found some smoked meat wrapped up in greased skin. As the cat dragged the meat towards the window it knocked two stones out of place and erased one of the chalk symbols. The cat escaped with its stolen banquet.
Minutes passed.
He woke.
The night was black.
There was a scream. Somewhere. Down below. In the taproom, he thought.
Kveldulf crawled to his feet. His head hurt. In the glisten of starlight from the window he could just see that something had broken the ward. He gathered his things in a just-woken haze and packed them quickly, before gingerly opening the door.
Blood. Too recent and too thick to even begin congealing. All down the hall. Wet. Slippery. Kveldulf was too drunk for this. The hall looked like a well of darkness with fire at the end. There was more blood on the stairs, and in the taproom there were bodies. A fallen cresset had set fire to a rug. The flames were already licking up the far wall. Near the door were a set of clear paw prints marked out in red. Huge. The size of a bear's feet, but they didn't belong to a bear. They belonged to her.
The red prints went out through the front door and Kveldulf went after them. He drew his silver dagger. It would not kill her, but it might wound her just enough to chase her off. He'd chased her off before.
There was a smell outside, lavender and stranger spices. It whispered away down the road.
Then came more screaming. A man's voice, then a woman's. Bells starting tolling, heavy, clanging temple bells and reverberating gongs. Kveldulf followed the sound, but he stopped when he saw the men-at-arms, a dozen of them in the purple and gold of the Emperor's service. He didn't want to be caught or questioned. That always went badly. They never did let him lay out the wards once he was locked in a gaol. And there were always more deaths when the wards weren't set down right. She would run wild every night, free from all bindings, savage, killing and devouring whatever she pleased. Then she would come and kill the gaolers and tear open the iron bars and laugh her wolfish laugh at Kveldulf as he chased after her into the night screaming at her to kill him too. Screaming with wretched, pathetic impotence until his throat was so ragged the words croaked.
So Kveldulf did what he'd done so many times before. He turned and he walked away. There was no point in this.
Two hundred years ago, when they'd first met, he'd lost the knife of old bone, the one weapon that he knew could have killed her dead. And then, for two hundred years she'd followed him. A nightmare that chased him through places where even demons daren't go. Two hundred years of this. Unable to run from her. Unable to hide. Unable to even die. She had done something to him to stop even that escape. And tonight he was too drunk. Too tired. Too sick of it all. Tonight was her night. He accepted this and stumbled off.