By the Light of the Moon (2 page)

With a trumpet fanfare, the Green Gate to the north admitted a royal hunting party back into the safe arms of the city. A line of strapping young men, and those under the illusion they still were, rode through the cobble streets on their fine horses, making peasants jump out of their way. Deer carcasses were carried behind them, dead rabbits and pheasants hung at their belts and at their embroidered saddles. They seemed to be in high spirits amongst laughter, whooping and cries for ale — not the safest mood for the by-standing peasants who quickly got out of the path of their fine horses’ hooves.

At the first opportunity, however, one man fell behind and steered his horse off into a side street. He knew his departure would be noticed but he could make his apologies later. The young king seemed to enjoy contrition. The nobleman breathed heavily through flaring nostrils and rubbed his face. His glove was bloodstained and the moment he remembered that, the young man cursed, flung the finely ornamented leather away from him against a wall and spat in his hand. In his mind, his face was disfigured by the blood smear; and his left hand held on tightly to the reins while his right hand tried to wash it away without mirror or sponge.

The streets in this part of Lauryl were almost too narrow for a rider and he had to slow his stallion to a temperate gait. Peasants pressed themselves against walls to make way for him. In a better mood, he might have tossed them a coin for it, but not that evening. He had places to be and peasants were the last thing on his mind.

When he finally stopped in front of a shabby building, his horse whinnied with recognition. There was no place to rest the stallion in the narrow street. The rider wrinkled his nose. He shuddered, but then tied the reins to the outdoor staircase he intended to climb. The ramshackle structure gave the appearance that a single tug from the powerful horse might bring down not only the rickety stairway, but the entire building, tumbling into a dusty ruin; a heap of wood, straw and clay.

He gave it a little tug just to make sure and the frame shook, but that was all. He rarely visited these parts of Lauryl and it was near impossible for him to imagine what would possess a person to live like this. He shook his head silently, patted his horse and then carefully stepped onto the lowest stair. It had held his weight before, and the old crone who inhabited the upper floor had proved useful.

“Witch?” He called out impatiently and didn’t wait for an answer as he pushed open the door. The interior was dimly lit, a single room, stuffed full of bottles and books and other containers. He had to blink several times until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The familiar smells of herbs and concoctions, of earth and sweat and poverty invaded his nose but they were an almost welcome bouquet against the reek of piss and stray dogs outside.

“There you are,” he exhaled nervously, when the shadows revealed the white-haired old woman he had come to see. He barely stopped himself from making the sign against evil spirits in front of his chest; she had appeared so suddenly and yet hadn’t moved at all. She was just sitting there, on a leather pouf gently combing through the straw-like hair of a scrawny street girl who was kneeling between the crone’s legs. In that moment, she inspected the comb, caught something between her thumb and forefinger and dunked them into a cup of some liquid. A little disgusted, the young man kept his distance. Delousing.

“What can I do for you, young sir?” the old woman rasped, finally looking up from her task. The nobleman had never called her by given name — Iris — and she had never corrected him. He looked out of place in her small, dingy room but she was used to that.

“Tell me about the girl again,” he huffed, as he twitched with nervous energy. At home, he was given to pacing when he was angry and concentrating. The two steps this way and two steps that, which he had at his disposal here, would hardly relieve that need.

“I have told you all I know,” the witch insisted, as she patiently ran the comb through the hair of the girl, who stared at the young nobleman with large, liquid eyes. He didn’t like it and after a moment’s hesitation, tossed the girl a coin.

“Go get my horse some water,” he ordered and the girl rose to her feet with uncanny grace, picked up the coin without letting her eyes stray from his face and finally left the room. The young man shuddered.

“Tell me how I can make her agree to it, then,” he got out impatiently once they had their privacy. His eyes turned back to the old woman whose predictions he had come to put a certain tacit amount of faith in, and finally he dropped down on a chair.

“What happened today?” Iris asked, not unkindly, as she cleaned the comb, and then her hands. She rose from the low seat to potter around with a kettle.

“I just … I simply can’t seem to gain the king’s favor,” he got out in a rush of frustrated honesty. “Whatever I do, he doesn’t take any notice. He just watches and cheers on some of the other bloody sycophants!”

The old woman poked at the fire in the cast-iron stove and then turned around to him with a low shrug.

“People find it easier to flatter those beneath them, sir,” she said.

It took him only a moment to understand and it made him shake his head wearily, but not without a trace of satisfaction.

“That’s treason,” he replied with a sigh, looking bored while the old woman shrugged. He was a good hunter, one of the best in the party and he was known for his favorable looks all over court. With his blond hair waving in the wind, sky-blue eyes and noble features, the young Sir Fairester outshone many. There was a grace in his masculinity that few possessed and he knew how to use it to his advantage with women and men alike.

He untied the hare from his belt and tossed it onto a table. Not unlike the king, he was not averse to flattery.

“The point is,” he continued, “he won’t ever grant me my own lands or title. So … we have to go back to the girl. She wasn’t that ugly. Strange, but not ugly.” He sighed again and ran his hand through his blond hair. “I hardly even have to see her once we’re married. So tell me; you said you know. How do I make her mine?”

There was shame in that question. A man who had little difficulty seducing almost any woman at court had fallen short with that particular cold fish. Maybe it was the mountains or the colder climate in the east, but he didn’t think she’d even smiled at him once.

“You paid me for revealing your most likely path to greatness, Sir,” Iris crooned, lifting one strange little flagon to her eyes, inspecting its content before she reached for another. Letting him wait, she finally met his eyes again and cocked her head to the side.

In that moment, the little girl entered again. Her feet were bare and dirty and she smelled of hay.

“Keep her away from me,” Fairester sneered with mild distaste. “You want more payment, then?”

“I would never … young sir. But wooing a woman; there is no one way, no one potion. I cannot do it from here … ”

The little girl smiled and sank onto the leather pouf in the corner, as she watched the proceedings with the same quiet focus that had made the young man so uncomfortable before. Already he wanted to leave again.

“You want to come with me,” he stated as he eyed the witch. “You want employment.” Considering her living conditions, he couldn’t blame her. Even the lowest seemed to have a desire to better themselves. “All right. You will wash, and I will send someone with robes. You can come as my adviser.”

“Sir is too kind.”

“Keep the rabbit,” he said, getting up from the chair with another sweeping glance around the shabby little room. He reached into his pocket, placed two smaller coins onto the table and put his purse safely away again. “I will send word when I know more about the departure.”

Before he hurried outside and with his hand on the door, he looked back, his eyes darkening.

“You had better do your part, witch, or you might find the sharp end of my generosity. Understood?”

When the woman nodded and bowed, he left with a feeling of satisfaction. The old wooden stairs creaked as he hurried down to find his horse brushed and watered, and happily munching on some hay. He patted the stallion and then mounted, a head full of plans and strategies as he gave the animal’s flanks the sharp ends of his boots.

At that moment, a lithe little form melted out of the shadows at the other side of the road, smiling, as she set to follow him through the narrow streets.

• • •

Back inside, the little girl slipped off the pouf to kneel back in her original position. Silently, she waited until the wizened woman brought back the comb and the bowl with the sharp-smelling liquid. Unmoving and with her hands resting on her thighs, her eyes scanned the room; the door, the place where the man had settled down, the dead hare he had slapped onto the table, even the places on the ground where his feet had stood.

Moving more slowly than the girl, Iris finally sat back down, placed the bowl on the low shelf to her side and dunked the comb into the liquid. She picked back up where they had been interrupted. Her hands were efficient and gentle as she scraped the comb’s teeth over the girl’s scalp, trapping the tiny vermin eggs. The domestic scene was not interrupted by tears or complaints. The girl simply sat, her large, liquid eyes finally closed as she turned her head this way and that at the old woman’s tugs and gentle pushes.

“It worked, then,” the girl finally said, not moving to look up.

“So it would seem.”

They both fell silent, with only the scraping of the comb and the soft wet noise of fingers being dunked in liquid every now and again. Night was falling outside and the noises of the city began to quiet down, exchanged for the more domestic sounds from the floor below them and the surrounding houses.

“He is not very nice, is he?” the strange child finally said again, wrapping her skinny little arms around her knees so that she could look down at her dirty feet and wriggle her toes.

“He is who I have,” came the response. Quiet, impatient. “Are you staying for supper? It appears I am cooking rabbit.”

The girl wrinkled her nose and shrugged, but she didn’t make a move to leave when Iris put the comb away and got up to inspect the animal she had been given. It was fat enough, old and likely not as tender as it could have been, but it was a gift and a free meal. She efficiently slid her knife along the furry belly as she started to skin it.

“He only cares about the title … ” the girl finally said again, as she watched the woman’s hands, red with the specks of blood where the skin didn’t come off cleanly. She seemed somewhat hypnotized by the effect, by the breakable little bits of flesh and skin that parted a living thing from a dead thing.

She only looked up when the woman’s hands stilled and she realized that she was being stared at. She lifted her eyes to meet the woman’s head-on and without apparent shyness or fear.

“I am not trying to find that girl some childish ideal of a husband,” Iris offered in a clipped voice that crackled with age and frustration. “It is not up to me to make her happy. That’s not on me, Maeve.”

The girl Maeve stared back and narrowed her eyes in warning. After a long moment, the old woman looked away first, back down at the half-skinned carcass.

“He is who I have,” Iris finally repeated with a shrug. “And you — you have been here for too long if you start picking up vermin like some human. Since when is that safe, then?”

Again, the girl only offered the old woman a glance that might have made the hairs rise on anybody else’s back, but the experienced witch just paused the knife and raised her brows, unimpressed.

“What?” Iris asked the girl.

“You don’t have any love for her?” Maeve had gotten to her small, dirt-specked feet and leaned against the table. Her tender little fingers moved to Iris’ arm and the old woman didn’t pull away.

“No,” Iris answered quietly. “And don’t look at me like that. You call her my sister but you’ve never let me meet her, so … don’t put that on me. You have no right — you know that — no right to call yourself mother to either of us.”

Maeve looked stricken. A heartbeat later, she nodded but her eyes had lost none of the silent demand. Iris was used to it — but it would never stop feeling entirely too strange to see a child’s face with her mother’s ancient expression. Caught in a stalemate, they both fell silent, listening to the harsh sounds of the knife parting flesh from bones.

• • •

Devali was fast. Her legs were short but muscular and in the busy evening hours, she had an easy advantage against a horse. Fairester was easy to follow back to his family’s city estate; a large house and well protected. Devali, however, didn’t mean to attack anyone. She just swished her skirts and walked up the servant’s entrance.

However much the head of staff had meant to send her away, by the time she leaned against the doorframe in a way that ever so accidentally exposed the sliver of skin between her tight blouse and her skirts, he had forgotten all about that. Devali was given fine maid’s garb and by the next day, had secured the job of knocking at the young lord’s chambers at night to take him that last drink he’d rung for.

Niamh had been right. Humans were easy. So very easy.

A robin was chirping its song across the white-blue pre-dawn light. Mist was rising from the ground, damp and crisp and only just reaching the lowest branches of the apple trees. Dew turned spider webs into intricate jewelry, too delicate to touch.

A young woman stood on a field, her eyes closed as she breathed in the cool morning air that had left infinitesimal drops of water in her crown of messy red hair. Fresh and perfect, she could imagine herself soaking it up, drawing it inside of her as though she could store freedom like food or drink or knowledge.

It was too late to hide; she could hear them coming. Horns sounding in the distance, the hard drumming of iron-clad hoofs, tearing into the damp morning earth. The occasional shout or command was still the only human sound heard in the waking world where pantlers and chambermaids, butlers and stewards were just stretching their limbs against the breaking morning, rousing themselves before the bustle of activities their long, hard days held in store. Outside the castle, however, the voices and shouts were an unwelcome and jarring intrusion in an otherwise silent world.