Ash (19 page)

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wered, “There is a price for everything, Aisling.”

“What is this price?” she asked.

He said: “You shal be mine. That is the oldest law between your people and mine. But you must agree to it freely; if you do not, then I wil not grant your wish.” The way he spoke gave her the impression that he had said those words many times before.

With his hands on her shoulders, she could feel the pulsing of her blood within her as if it were rushing up to meet his skin, and the price did not seem so high. Part of her thought,
at last
, and that part would have given herself up at that very moment. In a trembling voice, she asked, “When must you have payment?”

“You wil know,” said Sidhean, “when the time is right.”

“Then I wish it,” she said quickly, before she could lose her nerve. She felt his fingers tighten on her shoulders, and she wondered if he were imprinting himself on her: Would the mark of his hands be visible? For now they were surely bound together.

“So be it,” he said, and then he stepped away from her—she felt the absence of him like a black cloud blotting out the daylight—and he bowed, and that disconcerted her more than the knowledge that she would have to pay.

Several days before the grand hunt, Ash began to see wagons full of crates and rugs and rolled-up canvases driving down the 159

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road from West Riding into the Wood. The shopkeepers in West Riding were nearly as thril ed as her stepsisters about the hunt, for it meant good business for them, and each time Ash visited the milliner’s to pick up another fril or tassel for Ana or Clara, there was fresh gossip about what Prince Aidan would announce at the feast after the hunt. But though the entire vil age was abuzz with preparations, she did not see the huntress, and at times she wondered if she had imagined their conversation that hot day by the river.

There had been no sign of Sidhean since the night she had struck the bargain with him, either, and she wondered whether her wish real y would be granted. Sometimes she hoped that it would not, for in the light of day, with her hands raw from scrubbing the stairs and her dress stained with wash water, it did not seem that she had made a wise choice. But the night before the hunt, after she had banked the kitchen fire and finished washing the supper dishes, she opened the kitchen door and sat down on the doorstep. She looked out at the twilight garden and felt a thin but bright thread of excitement within her. Tomorrow, she knew, her life would change.

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Chapter XIV

sh was awake well before dawn on
the morning of the hunt.

She slept fitful y al night, waking nearly every hour to A see that it was stil dark, and when she finaly gave up on sleep she felt groggy and slow. She went into the kitchen to make tea, and as she waited for the water to boil she watched daylight creeping into the cracks around the shuttered windows. Just as she was taking down the teapot, there was a knock on the kitchen door. She went to open it, apprehensive about what she might find. The early morning sky was flushed pink over the Wood, and the air smel ed of the last of summer, that scent of slowly fading grasses combined with the first hint of cool winter. On the doorstep at her feet there was a satchel made of finely tooled leather, drawn shut with a gold silk rope.

The tassels glowed in the morning light as if they were on fire.

Just then she heard the kettle begin to whistle, and she hurriedly picked up the satchel and brought it inside, leaving it on 161

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the kitchen table while she made her tea. Then she took the satchel into her bedchamber and emptied the bag onto her bed. There were riding breeches made of creamy leather and a tunic of dark green, embroidered at the cuffs and collar in rich gold thread that matched the pattern of leaves and vines tooled into the leather satchel. There was a brown hooded cloak made of light wool, and brown leather riding gloves, and at the bottom of the satchel there was a pair of riding boots finer than any shoes Ash had ever worn. She sat down on her bed and pulled the medal ion out of her pocket, and looking at the luminous, smoky stone she whispered, “Thank you, Sidhean.”

After she dressed, she wound her hair up and pinned it tightly at the nape of her neck, and when she looked at herself in the square mirror hung on the back of her door, her eyes were unusual y bright. She wondered how her absence from the house would be explained that day. She felt as though she had stepped into an enchantment, and her heart raced. She went outside, her new boots molding to her feet as they touched the earth for the first time as if they were feeling their way into existence and waiting at the garden gate was a gray mare, her coat speckled with white on the right shoulder in a pattern of stars. The mare arched her neck as Ash approached, her brown eyes flecked with gold. Her saddle and bridle were made of fine dark brown leather, and the saddle blanket was woven of gray and white wool that nearly matched the horse’s coat. In the corner of the blanket a name had been embroidered in black: Saerla. “That must be you,” Ash said to the mare, and when she put her hand on Saerla’s neck, she felt a deep sense of calm.

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Before she departed, she looked back at the house, and there was a woman in white standing in the kitchen doorway. Startled, Ash went back up the path, and as she drew closer to the house she saw that the woman’s face and hair and hands were ghostly pale, and she had eyes the color of gold. Remembering the fairy woman pul ing her into the enchanted circle, Ash felt a tingle of fear run down her spine. “Do you have everything that you need, Aisling?” asked the woman, her voice rippling like the notes of a half-forgotten melody.

“Yes,” she answered.

The strange woman said, “There is one thing you must remember: Those who know you will still recognize you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Ash said, and the woman turned to go back into the kitchen. “But wait—what wil —wil my stepmother and stepsisters see you?”

“They wil see what they wish to see,” the woman answered.

“Now, go.” And she closed the kitchen door behind her.

Through the window, Ash could see her taking down plates and bowls and teacups, apparently preparing to serve her stepsisters and stepmother their breakfast. Ash went silently back to Saerla, who was watching her curiously. She put her foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle, and when she was astride the horse she looked back at the house, but the woman could no longer be seen through the window.

She rode across the meadow, heading toward the main road into the King’s Forest. She had ridden this way with Kaisa several times before, and she knew where the hunt was to be staged, but this morning she saw everything with new eyes.

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Fresh tracks showed that many wagons had passed this way recently, but in the early morning the path was empty but for her and Saerla. The horse moved with a smooth grace that told Ash she had been given a hunter of extraordinary skil to ride, and as they entered the King’s Forest the mare raised her head and whinnied as if she were coming home. Ash rested one hand on the horse’s muscular neck and felt the animal’s moving body beneath her palm, and she saw herself riding with Sidhean one night, her hand on his waist and the moon shining coolly over a grand, glittering palace. She blinked, and the vision was gone. It was morning: The sun shone down in long beams of light, raising the dew from the ground in misty breaths that lingered in the hollows between tree roots.

Ash’s first glimpse of the hunting camp was not of a grand open field, but of smal tents pitched beneath the trees, and men and women in green and brown turning their heads to look at her as she rode past. She could sense when she was drawing near to the central hunting camp, for the tents became larger, and the people moving around them walked more briskly, as if they were on a schedule. At last the path turned and broadened into a large clearing in the forest, and on the far side of the clearing there rose a great pavilion, the wal s striped in tan and blue, and from the pinnacle flew the King’s stan-dard. The canvas wal s of the front of the pavilion were rolled up, and inside dozens of workers were laying down carpets over the grassy field. On one side of the clearing, hunting horses were tethered to a rope stretched from one tree to another, and their flanks gleamed bay and brown and black and gray in the sun, which was beginning to peek over the tops 164

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of the trees. One by one the horses turned their heads to look at Ash and Saerla, and Ash could feel the mare tense beneath her, but she merely arched her neck and let out her breath in a low whinny.

Opposite the line of horses, some of whom were being tended by men and women dressed in brown, several marquees had been erected, each of them with a flag flying at its peak, and many with their front canvases drawn aside like curtains. Inside some of the marquees she could see the men and women of the hunt in their green and brown liveries, and amid al the activity the sight hounds, with their whiplike bodies and velvety eyes, roamed free. Ash dismounted and led Saerla toward the line of hunting horses, where she found a young man dressed in brown with a dark green armband. She said, “I am looking for the huntress; do you know where I might find her?”

He turned from currying one of the horses and looked at her inquisitively. “Who are you?” he asked.

His question took her by surprise, and she realized that, of course, she was a stranger asking for admission to see the King’s Huntress on the first day of the season’s first grand hunt. She said, hoping that he would believe her, “I am—my name is Ash. She invited me to join the hunt today.”

Perhaps it was her horse that convinced him, or her fine clothes, for it could not have been her words, but he merely shrugged toward the line of marquees. “She’s over there somewhere,” he said. “I’m not sure where.”

“May I leave my horse here?” Ash asked.

He glanced at Saerla and said, “She’s a beauty.” He pointed 165

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toward the end of the line and said, “Tether her down there.

Does she need to be fed?”

“No,” Ash answered, for she did not know what a fairy horse disguised as an ordinary one would eat. “But perhaps some water,” she said in an afterthought; water would do no harm, would it?

“I’l bring her some water,” the man said, and then turned back to his job.

“Thank you,” Ash said, and led Saerla down the line and tethered her next to a black gelding who laid his ears back when they approached, putting as much space between himself and the fairy steed as possible. Ash looped the reins over the rope, and then walked toward the line of marquees. The first was empty, and the second was closed off, the front flap tied shut.

At the third, several men were sitting around a table, eating, and Ash hesitated outside until one of them looked up and caught her eye.

“I am looking for the King’s Huntress,” she said to them.

“Can someone tell me where she is?”

One of the men stood up and said, “I’l take you to her.” He was tal , dressed in hunting green, and his dark hair was streaked with gray. He led her down the row of marquees until they came to the second-to-last one, which was grander than the others. Inside there was a long table, part of it covered with maps of the Wood, and around the table several chairs were scattered. The huntress was standing at the end of the table talking with another young woman, who was dressed similarly in hunting green. At the other end of the table a man in black was seated, leaning back with his feet propped up on another 166

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chair. He looked over at Ash as she entered, and she saw that a thin but prominent scar ran down his left eyebrow and partway down his cheek.

“What have we here?” he asked, and when he spoke, Kaisa looked up.

“This woman is looking for you,” said Ash’s escort to Kaisa.

Kaisa seemed surprised but pleased to see her. “I was not sure if you would come,” she said.

Ash was conscious of the other people in the marquee looking at her, and she felt constrained and shy. “Thank you for inviting me,” she final y said, and Kaisa, who smiled at her, seemed to understand the reason for her awkwardness.

She turned to the man who had brought Ash to the tent and said, “Thank you, Gregory. Has the lymer returned?”

“No,” he answered. “I’l send him to you as soon as he does.”

“Thank you,” Kaisa said, and then the man nodded to her and left. She gestured toward the other woman and said, “Ash, this is Lore, my apprentice.” Lore’s dark blond hair was braided in a thick plait down her back, and she stepped toward Ash and extended her hand over the table, giving her a measuring look.

For a moment Ash hesitated, and in that moment she saw Lore’s look change slightly, as if she found Ash amusing. Feeling as though she had something to prove, Ash reached out and grasped the apprentice’s hand firmly and said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” said Lore. “You are the girl we saw in the forest that night, aren’t you?”

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Ash felt herself coloring a bit as she answered, “Yes.”

Kaisa glanced at Lore out of the corner of her eye, but merely asked in a low voice, “Wil you need a horse today?”

“No,” Ash said. “I have a horse with me—she is with the others.”

Kaisa raised an eyebrow, and Ash was nervous that she would ask her where she had acquired the horse and her clothes—but she did not. Instead, she shifted the map that she had been examining on the table, and tapped her finger on the parchment. “This is where we are,” she said. Ash came to stand next to the huntress and looked down at the map; Kaisa was pointing at a clearing in the southern part of the King’s Forest. In the north, the trees trailed off the top of the map as if the Wood went on forever. Quinn House was an irregular mark near the bottom, and there was the meadow, and the path from the meadow that led to the twisting line of the river.

“I sent the lymer out this morning with bloodhounds to find the stag I’ve been tracking,” Kaisa continued. “He went north of us, and he should be back soon.”