Beyond the Pale (19 page)

“Why did you call me your snow lady?” Her voice was stronger this time.

The knight glanced back at her again, his brown eyes somber. “Because, my lady, when I came upon you in the forest, you were as white as the drift of snow in which you lay.” He shook his head. “I feared you were dead when I found you. In truth, I half fancied you had never been a living creature at all, for your skin was as white as ivory, and when I lifted you out of the snowbank your flesh was as hard and cold as stone. But when I laid my ear against your chest, I heard the faintest sound of a heart beating. ‘Durge,’ I said to myself, ‘somehow your snow lady is alive. But if you don’t get her to the castle, and as quick as lightning, she’ll be as cold as the snow indeed. No doubt you are too late, and there is no hope, but you ought to try all the same.’ ”

Grace’s forehead furrowed. The knight, whose name was apparently Durge, seemed a gloomy fellow. “But you
did
save me,” she said.

The knight looked startled at this. “We’ll see,” he said. “It isn’t much farther now, but I imagine you cannot endure the cold any longer. I suppose it would be all the more ironic if you expired a mere furlong from the castle gate.”

She shook her head. “I’ll make it.” A thought occurred to her. “You said you found me in the snow?”

“That is so, my lady. There has been an early snow—a queer storm for a land so far south as this. I rode into a clearing, and there you were, lying in a drift as peacefully as a princess on her feather bed. Nor were there footprints in the snow around you. It was as if you had drifted down from the sky.”

Here the knight paused and cast a look at her out of the corner of his brown eyes. However, if he wondered how it was she had come to be in the woods, he did not ask her. But how
had
she gotten from the old orphanage by the highway to a snowy forest here in … wherever this was? At the moment she had no idea, but she intended to find out.

“It is a wonder anyone found you at all, my lady,” Durge said. “It is spoken that Gloaming Wood is a fey and ancient place. Few of the common folk will venture within its shadowed eaves. I suppose they fear the Little People. Though it is the mundane dangers—boar and bear and poison mushrooms—rather
than old myths that are likely to harm them.”

“Why … why were you in the woods?” Grace asked. The words came easier now.

“I am making haste to Calavere, my lady,” the knight said. “A Council of Kings has been called for the first time in long years, and the rulers of all seven Dominions ride to Calavan. I have journeyed south from my homeland ahead of my liege, King Sorrin of Embarr, to make certain things stand ready for him when he arrives at the castle. At dawn I decided to cut through the fringes of Gloaming Wood, for the way is faster, and I had hoped to find a fat stag to offer for King Boreas’s table. But winter comes early this year, and game is already scarce. I found no trace of stag in the woods. Thus King Boreas will have to make do with your company instead.”

Grace thought the stern knight had made a joke, then she reconsidered. Something told her Durge was not one for making merriment. Whoever this Boreas person was, she would almost certainly need his help to learn where she was, and it would not aid her cause if it seemed she was the reason there was no meat for his board.

Grace lifted her eyes to the dark shape that rose before them and studied it. She had seen castles before in pictures, and had been inside replicas of them at amusement parks. However, the fortress that loomed before her was neither a crumbling relic of a bygone age nor an anachronistic recreation constructed to amuse and elicit money from tourists. Somehow Grace knew this castle was
real
.

Counting, she saw the castle—
Calavere
, the knight had called it—possessed nine towers. None of them were alike. Some of the towers were tall and spindly with pointed roofs, while others were stout and square. Most were set into the many-sided wall that ringed the hilltop, while the largest dominated the center of the fortress. This last tower was a great, blocky structure as wide as it was tall, with narrow windows and high crenellated parapets. The haphazard towers gave the impression the castle had been built in many stages over several centuries with no common design. The result was a kind of stark and craggy majesty that seemed as natural and unplanned as the beauty of mountains.

Durge nudged the flanks of his soot-colored mount. “Come now, Blackalock. This is no time to dally.” The horse stretched its legs to gallop faster, yet the stallion’s gait remained smooth, even careful, and he rolled his eyes back to glance at the passenger who rode behind the knight.

In minutes they reached the base of the hill on which the castle perched. Durge guided Blackalock onto a broad path that wound in a spiral up to the summit. For the first time they encountered others on the road, and the higher they went the more people they passed. These were all on foot, dressed in drab but warm-looking clothes cut of rough cloth. Some pushed wooden carts filled with peat or firewood, while others carried bundles on their stooped backs or prodded flocks of goats with willow switches. To Grace they all looked curiously old: their limbs crooked, their faces weathered. All except for their eyes, which seemed too young for the rest of them.

A memory crept into her mind, of old men in patched overalls sitting on a rickety front porch. Only they hadn’t been old, had they? She had seen people like this once before, while on a vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. In Appalachia there were places where people still lived under the same primitive conditions their ancestors had three centuries before, in ramshackle cabins that lacked refrigerators, running water, and electricity. Most of them had looked years older than their twentieth-century counterparts—wrinkled, gnarled, toothless. Something told Grace these people here were a similar case.

Peasants
, the word drifted from her subconscious. With great effort, she dredged up dusty recollections from her undergraduate world history course. Didn’t every castle have peasants who paid tithes of goods and labor to the lord in exchange for protection? Except, according to the course professor, the feudal system had vanished over six hundred years ago.
At least on Earth
, a disconnected voice in her mind added. However, she was still too cold to consider the implications of that. She tightened the blanket around herself and tried not to stare at the people who trudged along the road.

They came to the castle gate. This was a high arch in the wall flanked by a pair of square towers. Massive doors of
iron-reinforced wood stood open to either side. The knight slowed his horse to a walk and followed the stream of people into the opening. Beyond was a dim corridor. The sounds of people and animals echoed off the stone walls. At the far end of the passage was a raised iron grill. Grace craned her neck and saw dozens of holes in the ceiling. Their purpose was clear. Intruders who broke through the first gate would be stopped by the second and caught within the tunnel while defenders rained down arrows or boiling lead from the murder holes above. Whatever this place was, it certainly was not unfamiliar with the concept of war.

Two men stood at the far end of the tunnel, clad in mail shirts, swords belted at their hips. Like the peasants, they were small but powerful-looking, with weathered faces and young eyes. The men-at-arms collected a copper coin from each of the peasants who passed through the far archway. The knight nudged his mount forward. One of the men-at-arms looked up, then saluted, fist against chest.

“Where will I find King Boreas’s seneschal?” Durge asked.

“In the king’s stable, in the upper bailey, my lord,” the guard said and gestured through the archway.

Durge nodded and guided Blackalock toward the opening. As they passed, the guard’s eyes widened. The man elbowed his companion, who affected a similar expression. Durge kept his gaze fixed ahead. Grace cast one last glance back and saw the two men-at-arms make some strange sign with their hands. Then the horse passed through the archway and into the space beyond.

It was a courtyard. High walls enclosed an area as large as a city block. The courtyard—or bailey, to use the guard’s word—was ringed all around by stone buildings of myriad shapes and sizes, each built with its back against the castle’s outer wall. Smaller buildings of wood were scattered throughout the courtyard. It looked as if some sort of market or fair were in progress, for the entire bailey bustled with peasants and various castle folk. The hooves of livestock and the wheels of carts had churned the ground into a mire. There was as much to smell as see, and Grace’s nostrils were assailed by the odors of smoke, manure, and roasting meat. Any last doubts this place was anything but real were erased from her mind.

Knight, horse, and passenger moved through the crowded courtyard.

“What was that all about?” Grace gestured back toward the castle’s gate. “The guards acted so strangely when they saw me.”

The knight cleared his throat. “It was nothing that should concern you, my lady. They wonder who you are, that is all. You must forgive them. They are simple men.”

Grace accepted this, but she thought there was something more Durge was not telling her. A flash of silver caught her eye, and she glanced down at the ground. It was a puddle of water, a mirror to the sky above. A ghostly face gazed up at her: thin, ethereally pale, green-gold eyes like summer gems above sharp cheekbones. It was her own reflection in the puddle. No wonder the guards had stared at her so. The horse continued on, and the reflection was gone.

At the far end of the bailey was a wall that was darker and older-looking than the others. There was a second gate in this wall, and it was toward this that Durge steered his horse.

“We are going to see Lord Alerain, my lady,” the knight said. “He is the king’s seneschal, and so is concerned with visitors to the castle. I must announce myself to him, and he will be able to see to your needs.”

Grace gave a jerky nod. It was not as if she had any other suggestions.

They passed through the gate and entered a smaller courtyard. The upper bailey was quieter than the lower bailey. This was the oldest part of the castle, Grace decided, for here the stonework looked heavier and more weathered. Against the far wall rose the high, square tower she had glimpsed before. It must have been the hill fort’s original keep, although its layers of different-colored stone indicated that the tower had been expanded many times in its history. Stone wings stretched from either side of the main keep and turned the corners to encircle the courtyard on all sides.

In the center of the upper bailey was a thick and tangled garden that looked like a tiny forest. Even in this wintry weather, Grace caught the faint perfume of flowers on the air, and from somewhere in the garden drifted the music of
water. She sighed. It was a peaceful and private refuge. Even the thick stone walls were comforting rather than confining.

There were fewer people about the inner courtyard—men-at-arms and others Grace took for servants. Durge asked a grizzled guard to direct them to the king’s stable, and the fellow pointed toward a long wooden building. As they approached the structure, Grace caught the rich scent of horses.

The knight brought his horse to a halt and dismounted, then reached up to help Grace. She was stiff and clumsy and nearly fell, but Durge caught her in strong arms and set her on the ground.

A sharp voice emanated from the stable. “And the next time I catch you sleeping, boy, you can clean all the stalls yourself—and without the benefit of a rake, mind you!”

“Yes, Lord Alerain,” answered a youthful and contrite voice.

A figure stepped from the shadows of the stable. He was a lean, precise man of later years. His white hair was closely cropped, and a neatly trimmed beard adorned his pointed chin. His garb was fine but understated, all in shades of maroon and black, and a cloak was clasped at his neck by a simple—but large—gold brooch. He cut an imposing figure, yet there was something grandfatherly about him all the same. Perhaps it was the preoccupied look in his watery blue eyes. He started toward the keep, an intent cast to his face.

“Pardon me, Lord Alerain,” Durge said.

The seneschal looked up, searched for the source of the voice, saw them, and approached. He studied the knight, then seemed to make a decision. “The earl of Stonebreak, I presume?” he asked in a formal tone.

“You presume correctly,” Durge said.

A smile broke through Alerain’s stern expression. “Then I have not lost all my skill. Well met, my lord. You have the look of your father, Vathris keep him.” He reached out and gripped the knight’s hand. “It seems Embarr is the first to arrive for the council. Is King Sorrin far behind you?”

“At least a fortnight, my lord. Though it would surprise me little if his traveling party were delayed by bandits, or lamed horses, or a fallen bridge.”

Alerain scowled at this. However, his eyebrows were too
bushy for the expression to be genuinely fierce. “You Embarrans! Such a gloomy folk—always expecting the worst of things. I’m certain King Sorrin will arrive in good order.”

Durge shrugged. “If it pleases you to say so, my lord.”

The seneschal rolled his eyes but let it pass. He glanced at Grace, who was still wrapped head to toe in the blanket. “Tell me, my lord, who is this who accompanies you?”

“I cannot truly say, Lord Alerain.” Durge gazed at her with his solemn eyes. “I came upon her half-frozen in the snow, in the eaves of Gloaming Wood.”

Alerain gave the knight a sharp look. “You ventured into Gloaming Wood?” The seneschal shook his head. “You are a brave man, Sir Knight. Or, if you’ll forgive me, a foolish one. You might have become as lost as this poor lass.” He took a step toward her. “Now, what have we here?”

Grace opened her mouth, but Alerain clucked his tongue to silence her. “Do not fear, my child. We’ll get you out of that damp blanket and into something dry at once. There will be plenty of time to tell us your name after you’ve warmed yourself by a fire.” He reached a hand toward her.