“Oooo. There he is,” said a female voice. This declaration was followed by a giggling.
Alain whirled around. Two of the kitchen girls stood at the stable doors, thrown open to admit more air. Light streamed in around them, showering their disheveled hair in dust motes. Hay drifted down from the loft to settle in the empty buckets they carried. One of the girls sneezed. The other giggled again.
Alain blushed, but he marched forward resolutely nonetheless, heading out through the door. He refused to be cowed by a pair of serving girls no older than he was, girls who would never have looked at him twice if there had been more single men than old Raimond and witless Lackling about.
The blue-eyed girl dipped her shoulders as he passed, enough that her shift slipped down to reveal a tantalizing expanse of flesh.
He stumbled on even ground.
“Isn’t your name Alain?” asked Blue-Eyes.
They only meant to tease him. He knew that. And yet, he could not help but stop. “Yes.” He knew he was still blushing.
“Have you heard about the ruins up behind on the hill?” asked Blue-Eyes as she straightened up. Her friend, whose eyes were a nondescript hazel, giggled again, then covered her mouth with a hand to hide her crooked teeth.
“I’ve heard of it,” said Alain cautiously.
“Withi, you daren’t do it,” said the friend in a choked voice.
Blue-Eyes cast her a scornful glance. “I’m not the one who won’t dare.” She looked back at Alain. “Where do you come from?”
“Osna village,” he said proudly, but they looked blankly at him, never having heard of such a place. “It’s called Dragonback, too, for the great ridge—”
For some reason this sent both girls into wild laughter, as if he had said something indecent.
“Dragonback, is it now?” asked Blue-Eyes finally. She was the prettier of the two, although she had an open sore on one lip and her hair was more grime than color. “I’ll be walking up to the ruins at sunset, this evening. They say at Midsummer’s Eve the ghosts of daimones walk abroad!” She blinked those blue eyes at Alain and put her hands on her hips, thrusting them provocatively forward. He knew he was flushing again, however hard he tried not to. Withi was one of the girls the men-at-arms took up into the hayloft. She had never had time for him before today.
He took in a breath. “Deacon Waldrada at last week’s sermon said it wasn’t devils or daimones who built those ruins. She said it was the people of the old Dariyan Empire built them, long ago, even before Taillefer was emperor over all these lands. That it was men, like us. Or maybe elves.”
“Oooo. What a fine learned young man we have here. What was your father? The abbot of “Dragonback” Abbey, making dragonback with a sweet innocent village lass?” She laughed, and Crooked Teeth laughed, too.
“My father’s a merchant, and a good, decent man! He served the old count in his time. And the brothers of Dragon’s Tail Monastery are dead, killed in an Eika raid this spring. The Lady scorns those who laugh at the misfortune of others!”
“Huh!” said Crooked Teeth disdainfully. “You sound like a cleric yourself. Think you’re too good for us, don’t you? I’m leaving, Withi.” She swung her buckets out with a flourish and departed in the direction of the well.
Withi lingered. “I’m still going up there.” She followed her companion but paused and looked back over her shoulder with a grin. “If you’re not too scared, you could meet me there. I might just show you something you haven’t seen before.” Then, to Crooked Teeth: “Wait for me!”
Digging out the latrines was such filthy work that he was relieved when Master Rodlin called him in. Sergeant Fell had brought a company of soldiers back to the fortress and Alain helped unload their wagon. Then he washed his face and hands and rinsed down his boots before going to supper.
Chatelaine Dhuoda had ridden east to escort Lavastine’s cousin’s wife to Lavas Holding for the remainder of her pregnancy. Because of the summer heat and the absence of lord and lady in the hall, Cook had set up two trestle tables out behind the kitchens. The party of young soldiers took up all of one table, where they boasted of their great exploits and ate their supper of wheat bread and pease porridge and roasted fish and berries with equal gusto. Sergeant Fell sat at their head, tolerant of their high spirits.
Lackling sat alone at the end of the other table, which was set beside the first. If the soldiers hadn’t been too busy flirting with Withi and Crooked Teeth and a black-haired woman, they would likely have chased him off. Alain sat down beside the halfwit and was rewarded with a smile and one of the boy’s incomprehensible phrases as greeting.
“So,” said Sergeant Fell, continuing his news. He had a dramatic facial scar on his left cheek that had not been there when he and the others marched out. “Then the count tells us we’re to be riding east to join up with the king’s progress—”
“Nay,” exclaimed Cook. “Say it’s not so! Count Lavastine has decided to swear loyalty to Henry?”
Alain caught in his breath. He set his spoon down, porridge only half eaten, to listen more closely.
“I think not,” said the sergeant. “I think he only wanted to beg aid from Henry, because these raids have been so bad. But it never came to that. For then a lad rode in from the west, saying the Eika have raided again.”
Cook rubbed her chin. “But they’ve burned both monasteries along the coast, we heard. There’s nothing else rich enough along there to tempt them, I’d thought.”
“Not only along the coast, but if they was to sail in along the River Mese, they’d come up past St. Synodios’ Monastery which was richly endowed by the count’s grandfather and indeed all the way to this very holding.”
“When I was a lad,” said old Raimond in his querulous voice, “we followed the laws set down by the church. Our faith was enough to keep those barbarians away from Varre.” He clapped his tin mug down on the table for emphasis. “Before Henry took the throne as wasn’t his to take. When I was a boy, Eika raided all the way west and south to Salia, and laid it waste, we heard. We even got Salians come up hereabouts, running from them.” Raimond was so old that he was bald and his beard was mostly stray wisps of curling hair. “That was when Taillefer’s last daughter was still alive. Biscop she might be, but neither her prayers nor the Salian king’s soldiers would drive the Eika off. Had to pay them, in the end.” He clucked, pleased at this manifestation of the Lord and Lady’s dislike of the Salians. “Those were hard times, I don’t mind saying.”
One of the young soldiers laughed. “How would you have known about goings-on in Salia when you’ve never set foot outside of Lavas Holding?” He snorted, pleased with his retort, and called for more ale.
Sergeant Fell swatted him in the head. “None of your impudence, Heric! You give the old man respect, you hear? If you live so long, I’ll be amazed!” The other soldiers chuckled. “My old uncle said the same thing, that the Salian king had to pay the Eika to leave and that they left only after they’d plundered the countryside. Well, then, Cook, I don’t know what is meant to be done about Lady Sabella and her banner, or the king’s progress. I do know that we’ve been sent by the count’s order to ask Biscop Thierra to offer up church’s gold, for we’ve need of more weapons and more supplies. There are too many Eika and too many raids this year. Count Lavastine must have aid.”
Withi paused beside the sergeant and leaned close enough that her clothing brushed his. “Is it true that Eika are dragon’s get? That they have skin scaled like a snake’s? And claws?”
Alain shuddered. Withi’s interest seemed uncouth.
“I’ve heard a worse story,” said the sergeant, settling a hand on her hip. “If you’re brave enough to hear it.”
“I am!”
He grinned. “Well, then. It was once told me that Eika came about by foul magic, and a curse. That a great dragon was killed and as it lay dying it cursed any who might dare profane its corpse. But all the women of the village had heard stories of the great
power of the dragon’s heart—power they could use to charm any man they wished, so they had been told. They cut open the dragon’s body and pulled out the heart all bloody and steaming hot. They cut it into many pieces and shared it out between them.”
“They ate it?” Withi made a face, pulling away from the sergeant’s casual embrace.
“Ate it, every bit. And soon enough all those women were pregnant, and when they gave birth, they gave birth to monsters!”
His audience was hushed, and every person in the hall jumped when he spoke the word “monsters.” The sergeant chuckled, pleased with the success of his tale. “So these monstrous children, it is said, ran away into the north and were never seen again. Until the creatures we call the Eika came raiding.”
“I saw one dead,” said Raimond, undaunted by this story. “Saw no claws, but his skin was as tough as leather, and it shone like polished gold.”
Young Heric snickered again. “Like polished gold! More like it was armor stolen off a Salian body. I heard they steal women, and what would they need women for …” Here he paused to measure Withi up and down with a grin. “… if they were dragon’s get? They’re men just like you and me.”
“Oooh,” said Withi in her most scornful tone, “and I suppose that you think the old ruins back up the hill were built by men just like you and me, and not by daimones and devils and other ungodly creatures?”
“Hush, Withi,” said Cook in a brisk voice.
Heric laughed, as did some of his comrades. But the sergeant did not. “You’ve not seen the Eika yet, Heric,” said the sergeant, “or you’d not laugh. Nor is it ever wise to laugh at the things left on this earth by creatures we do not know.”
An indefinable hush settled over the older men and women, a taut attention, that the young soldiers seemed unaware of.
“I hear,” continued Withi defiantly, “that if a person goes up to the ruins on Midsummer’s Eve, you can see the ghosts of them who did build it.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Heric, winking and nudging his fellows, “Just to see what I might see.” They snickered and coughed.
“You’d not joke,” said Raimond, echoing the sergeant’s grim words, “if you’d been there yourself. Ai, I recall it clearly. There was a girl, back these many years, who went up to those ruins on Midsummer’s Eve. On a dare, it was.” His gaze was sharp suddenly as he looked right at Withi. “She came back at dawn half crazy, and pregnant, too, or so we found out in due time. And she died bearing the child she’d taken from whatever haunts up there!” Hands shaking, he gripped the handle of his cup and banged it on the table for emphasis.
“What?” scoffed Heric. “She gave birth to Lackling here?”
“Nay, and you’d not laugh, boy. One of the men from the country took the child away.”
“Now you listen to me, young Heric,” said Cook in the assured voice of one who rules her domain completely. “It’s true enough, what Raimond says. It happened not so many years back either, for I knew her when we were both girls. She was a pretty, black-haired slip of a thing. Her parents were Salian, fled from the Eika raids. She did go up to the ruins, though everyone said she shouldn’t, and she told me—” Here Cook’s husky voice dropped to a whisper and every stray conversation at the two tables vanished as does a snowflake in fire. Everyone strained forward to listen. “She told me that the shade of an elf prince come to her, one of the Lost Ones, and lay with her, right there in the altar house, and that it was his child she bore.” No one, not even Heric, made a noise. “But the Lord and Lady grant it not to those of mortal frame to have concourse with the Lost Ones, for they are not believers. So she paid the price. She died three days after birthing the child.”
Alain stared at Cook. Sergeant Fell had told a tale to frighten and amaze Withi. Cook’s story was different. Certainly she was telling the truth. She was of an age to be his mother. He had black hair, and his features were sharper and a little foreign, or so everyone in Osna always said. What if this black-haired Salian girl was his mother, and the shade in the ruins truly his father? A Lost One! Wouldn’t that explain why the Lady of Battles had come to him? He had always felt different— and it was often said the elvish kind were daimones in truth because unlike mortal men they did not die in the natural course of years, and if killed by accident or violent death, they were not succored into the Chamber of Light but damned to wander this world forever as dark shades.
“I’m going anyway,” said Withi stubbornly.
“I’ll go, too,” said Heric with a leer.
“You’ll not!” said the sergeant, “and that by my order. We’ve no time to waste. We ride to Biscop Thierra at dawn.”
“None of you are brave enough to go,” declared Withi with a contemptuous toss of her head.
“I’ll go,” said Alain, and then started, surprised to hear his voice so loud in summer’s drowsing endless afternoon that melded into the long bright evening.
Everyone stared at him. Most of the men-at-arms laughed, eyeing him where he sat, the only person among them to keep Lackling company. He was nearly as filthy as Lackling.
Old Raimond snorted but said nothing.
“Who’s this stripling?” demanded Heric. “Enough of a chickling to grow some down on his cheek but not more of a man than that! Or hoping to become one!” He chuckled at his own joke, although no one else did.
“He’s the stableboy,” said Cook, not unkindly.
Alain found that, once noticed, he did not like the attention. He had grown comfortable with anonymity. He lowered his gaze and stared fixedly at the table.
“He’s the only one brave enough to go!” said Withi.
“Heric!” The sergeant looked annoyed. “If you’ve a mind to act like a fool, I’ll see you’re whipped in the morning. Here, girl. I’ve a better idea for your entertainment tonight.”
Alain looked up to see the sergeant draw the girl closer against him, but Withi had a mulish look on her face now, and she shoved him away. “You may all laugh, but I’m going.”
Heric stood up. “I won’t let any stableboy—”
“Heric, sit down or I’ll whip you right here!”
Heric vacillated between drunken pride and the fear of immediate humiliation. Finally he sat.
Lackling burped loudly and, when everyone laughed, blinked good-naturedly into their attention. Sergeant Fell went back to talking of the Eika raids and of the count’s plans to protect his lands and villages along the coast.
It was easy enough for Alain to slip away, once the sergeant had gotten into full flood about the latest devastated village and the rumors that a convent much farther east—over the border into Wendar—had been set upon by the Eika. He had heard that all the nuns and laywomen had been raped and murdered except for the ancient abbess, who had been set free with her feet mutilated to walk the long, painful road to the nearest village.
It was finally twilight, a handful of stars coming to life against the darkening sky. It had to be true! Only by visiting the ruins on a night when the shades of the old builders might return could he learn the truth.
He changed into his clean shirt—for Aunt Bel was too proud to send him away with only one—and pulled his old linen tunic on over it. After some hesitation, he borrowed a lantern. Then, taking a stout stick from the stables, he set off on the track that wound around the earthen walls and four wooden towers of Count Lavastine’s fortress and up into the wooded hills behind. Of Withi he caught neither sight nor sound. He walked alone except for the night animals: an owl’s hoot, the flap of wings, a shriek, then a sudden frantic rustling in the undergrowth.
It was terribly dark and there was no moon, though the stars were uncannily bright. Eventually his eyes adjusted. He dared not use the lantern yet; oil was too precious. It was a fair long walk up along the hill and curving back into the wilder wood beyond. By the time the path led him up to where the tree line ended abruptly at the edge of the ruins, the bright red star—the Serpent’s Eye—rising in the east ha
d moved well up into the sky.
Alain paused at the edge of the trees. The forest ended abruptly here, thick, ancient trees in an oddly straight line at the clearing’s edge. No saplings encroached on the meadow beyond. Though it had taken uncounted years for the old buildings to fall into such complete ruin—many generations back, long before the Emperor Taillefer’s time, even back to the time when the blessed Daisan first walked on the Earth and brought his message to the faithful—still the forest had never overtaken the stones. There was something unnatural here.
He felt all at once that the stones were aware of him.
An outer wall of stone—still almost as tall as he was—circled the inner ruins. The craggy height of hill rose above it, trees straggling along its slopes. It was far quieter here than it had been in the woods. As he stared, a shadow flitted above and vanished into the trees. He gripped the stick more tightly in his left hand and picked his way carefully across the uneven ground to a gap in the wall. It looked like a sally port or servant’s entrance, or something more arcane, unknowable to men. Now stone had fallen from the wall to partially block it. If the gap had once been shuttered by a door, that door was gone. He climbed carefully over the tumbled stone and paused at the top, staring into the ruin.
The stone itself gave off light, a pale gleam like the phosphorescence of foam and weed on the waters of Osna Sound. And the stars shone unnaturally bright. Indeed, some few of the constellations he knew—taught to him by his father who, as a merchant, needed to also be a navigator—glittered with an eerie brilliance, as if some unseen power called brighter fires up from their depths.
More shadows played among the ruins than ought to. Distinct shadows covered the ground at strange angles impossible to trace to any of the fallen walls. The air stirred, shivering, a faint noise….
He froze, terrified. A silent shape winged across the ruins, and he relaxed. It was only an owl.