Cobweb Bride (28 page)

But in a few minutes—speaking of the devil—Jenna herself came running from up ahead. And she took them further up the path to where Vlau, Claere, and Emilie were concealed in a hedge. The two girls were lying motionless—
one very sick and one very dead
, thought Percy—and Vlau stared at Percy and the others with amazement.

“How did you manage to escape?” he asked.

Percy only snorted.

But Gloria lifted up the blanket in the back proudly, revealing an unconscious young man partially clad in black armor, and thoroughly trussed up, and she pointed at Percy, and then at a cast-iron skillet sitting on top of an ebony chest plate.

The look on Vlau’s face was priceless.

“Enough foolery, put the two girls back in the cart, and let’s get going before the patrol returns—and at which point we may not be so lucky.” Percy watched them all settle in. She then took the reins with newfound confidence, hid a smile, and said, “Whoa, Betsy.”

For some reason, despite the stunning events and the relentless cold and the wind and
everything
, she felt herself buoyant as a snowflake, light as a feather. . . .

She felt herself flying.

B
eltain awoke in blue twilight. He inhaled deeply, with a shudder, and the freezing evening air entered his lungs.

His face, everything, was numb. Also, for some reason he could not move, and he was still in the forest. There were soft female voices all around him, lilting, rising in girlish chatter, and the deep natural silence was punctuated by the crackling sounds of a nearby fire.

He opened his eyes wide, and there was the golden glow on the ground, diffusing the bluish shadows of the tree trunks with warmth, in a small diameter of about fifteen feet.

He was lying under a burlap blanket, in the cart—the
cart!

Everything came rushing back.

With a visceral jolt of awareness, he struggled to rise, realizing immediately that he was bound.

God in Heaven! The last thing he remembered was reaching down for that peasant girl to pull her up to his saddle.
 . . . She had been a strange brazen thing, and they had exchanged some pointed words—something about chopping off arms and legs and the philosophical impotence of Death. . . .

He recalled lifting her up, and then she did something—
she hit him!

Beltain felt a cold fury mixed with chagrin, as he realized in those brief seconds that, not only had she hit him, but she had
knocked him out
.

A thickset peasant girl in a woolen shawl had accomplished what no tourney knight, no battle opponent had ever managed to do to the undefeated champion Lord Beltain Chidair since he was a small boy, fencing with wooden swords—

His
sword!
And for that matter, his horse! And where the hell were his men-at-arms?

With a parched groan, he turned his head, seeing a face immediately loom over him, while the other girlish voices around the fire quieted down.

The girl looking down at him, illuminated by the warm gold glow and bluish shadows, was likely no older than sixteen, and had a plain oval face, with no particular or distinguishing features—so nondescript indeed, that the only way he recognized her was by her woolen shawl, of an unmistakable older style, but vintage quality. The shawl was pulled back somewhat, revealing a few wisps of dark ash-brown hair over a pale forehead.

And then she said, “Good evening, Sir Knight.” And her voice—its strange, compelling combination of mockery and command, coupled with a semblance of indifference—her voice quickened him and invoked a dull rage.
 . . .

“Where am I?” he managed to croak through his parched lips. “What happened? How did you—”

“To be honest, I am not entirely sure what happened,” she said, continuing to lean over him, and he watched her reddened nose and her frost-chapped lips moving, and the escaping vaporous tendrils of her breath. “Now, try not to struggle too much, or the ropes might give you a burn eventually. For now, you’re not going anywhere. It seems, you’re somewhat beat up, but it’s none of our doing. I venture, the reason you passed out was because you were already hurt pretty badly, even before I—hit you. For which I apologize, but I’m
not
at all sorry.”

“Have you any idea who I am? Or what you’ve done?” he said.

“Let me get you some tea first, then you can berate me properly.” And then she was gone, and he heard the girls whispering, a few stifled giggles, and moments later she was back with a mug of hot brew.

She placed her hands underneath his head, and her touch was firm but more gentle than he expected, as she lifted him enough to put the mug to his lips. Warm tea water hit him like heavenly balm, and he swallowed in reflex, gulping at least six times before coming up for air.

Oh, how cold he had been—only now was he able to sense the true extent of it. . . . And now, oh, how he ached all over, stewing in a dull general agony of many days’ worth of battle bruises, since earlier that morning when he had collapsed for a single hour of sleep that his father had deigned to allow him, before having to return to his duties. How he had slept in that hour like a dead man! And yet the sleep had done him so little good, after the wrestling bear-hug with the Imperial knight, an embrace that had nearly crushed his ribs, the night before. . . .

“They will come looking for me,” he mused, moving his lips wearily, and at the same time imperceptibly tensing the ropes on his feet and his wrists, bound together mercifully before him (as opposed to being bound behind his back, which would have forced him to lie contorted on his side). He tested the bonds and they were too well tied, unfortunately. He could do nothing to escape them, not in his present condition.

“I’ve no doubt they will,” the girl said, putting the mug back to his lips. And again he drank. And then, things slipped away. . . .

The next moment he remembered coming to again, it was dark. Blue early evening had turned to deep indigo night.

The little fire still burned, but the voices had quieted, and there were a few soft snores coming from all around him, and in the cart.

Beltain made no sound, did not remember moaning, but again, the girl was back, looking into the cart and leaning over him. She must have been on lookout duty, or tending the fire while others slept, because she was so quick to appear nearby—quick to rise, quick on her feet, like a wild forest animal.
 . . .

They were all Cobweb Brides, he remembered then. This was still the forest.
 . . .

“My men
 . . .” he said. “I would not have allowed any harm done—to you. We simply take you back home with us. My father—his instructions are not to allow any of you to pass—”

“And why is that?” she whispered, arranging the cheap burlap blanket over him, tucking it around his head and under his chin, fingers grazing his jaw where there was a growing dark stubble. “Why not let Cobweb Brides pass? Are you as wicked as they say you are, O black knight and your black father?”

“His name is Hoarfrost—he is the Duke, Ian Chidair, and they call him Duke Hoarfrost—”

“And what do they call you, son of Duke Hoarfrost?”

“Beltain.”

“Bel-
tain
,” she repeated. “Not at all as frightening as
the black knight
.”

“And your name? You are?”

“I am,” said perversely. And then she turned away and left his side.

Beltain closed his eyes and slept.

He awoke again, still in pitch darkness, this time because of snow. Silence and cold snowflakes covered his cheeks, and he felt utterly numb, as though the whole world itself was trying to bury him in winter. There was no wind, but enough powder had come down to put out the tiny fire, and sprinkle the blanket.

He should have felt more cold, but instead there was a solid weight of a body pressed against him, warm wool on all sides.
 . . . And he craned his neck just barely, enough to realize
she
was sleeping at his side, wedged in a half-seated position between him and the wall of the cart. Her voluminous shawl was pulled over them both, and the snow piled harmlessly on the outside.

Somewhere on the other side of him, from deep in the cart, someone coughed—a phlegmy rasping sound of profound sickness that did not bode well.

And for some reason, hearing it, he coughed also.

The girl next to him woke up. He sensed her tensing, shifting her weight. Then her dark silhouette rose up somewhat, so she was now in a seated position, and the shawl covering momentarily left him—replaced by an in-pouring of cold—as she seemed to look out over their campsite, in the darkness.

She lay back down eventually, and the shawl was also back in place, covering him.

And then a warm hand reached out, and he felt its feather-light touch on his forehead, as she swept snow from his brow, then lingered, warming his forehead with her palm.

And in that strange warmth, he submerged immediately, into a morass of dreams.

V
lau Fiomarre huddled in the snow, at the foot of the cart, in the darkness. They had given him what looked to be an empty potato sack to lie on, and another rag of a blanket to cover with.

The notion of “warmth” had become a distant thing of the past. He was numb, and he hardly cared.

The Infanta lay just above, in the cart. He was
aware
of her utter silence, her non-being—just as he had been aware of her, every waking moment, ever since this morning when they had emerged from hiding in the snow.

Indeed, knowing where she
was
had become an obsession.

His entire existence, all the unrelenting hell of it, had been reduced to this one focus, one single-minded duty. He had to take her there, they had to find Death’s Keep, at which point—at which point he knew not what, but it had to be achieved, this one remaining purpose
 . . . for her sake.

Earlier, when the cart had come upon them, he was oddly relieved, because now their world had expanded to include others—he could observe her lying there, and walk beside her, knowing that she was in the relative safety of a minor crowd, and the reduced functionality of her frozen limbs could be preserved a few hours longer.
 . . . And this safety in numbers was also a comfortable illusion that allowed him to pretend she was
not
what he had made her into—since the girls had assumed she was merely sick and not
dead
.

All except one. The one called Percy, who was in charge of the group, silently and firmly.

She had known somehow, known
what
Claere Liguon was without knowing
who
she really was. How did she know?

And then Vlau thought of the most recent moments of terror, when the black knight and his men had come upon them. His first instinct had been to flare into action—for in a fight he could be deadly lightning—but he knew he had no means to fight properly on their behalf now, no weapons. And his body had been ravaged by the punishment of the Imperial guards, and then the prison, and lately, the relentless hours of trudging through the cold.
 . . .

In such a state of weakness he could not risk
her
.

Those other poor girls running in all directions, deeper into the forest—it was probably what had saved them both, as they hid, just off the path, after first running forward alongside it, directly
through
the thick hedge growth, for endless insane moments—and all the while he was carrying her. . . . What had also saved them was the girls’ obvious footprints left in the snow, pointing elsewhere, leading the hunters away.

The two of them, in the hedge, had left fewer traces that could be observed among the twisting roots. In addition, Vlau had swept away his own footprints, covered the Infanta with snow, packing it tightly around her, then covered himself, and tried not breathing, while the forest crashed all around them with the violence.
 . . .

And then, their impossible luck had held, and the black knight was no longer a threat. How and why had it come to pass? Was he indeed defeated and captured miraculously by that peasant girl? No, it did not make any sense, none of it. But then, none of it mattered.
 . . .

Why was he doing this now? Why follow the dead one? What release could be had at Death’s Keep, if any, for either one of them? What new illusion?

He had no answers, only an endless burning rage that had no quenching. He hated her and himself, and he did not know how to be rid of her, how to wipe her from his mind—so he had to stay at her side, follow her, and
know.
 . . .

He lay thus, burning in a fever, in the icy cold of the night.

At some point, sleep took him in its soft delirium, and he dreamt of snowdrifts rising all about him, and softly falling flakes of pearl whiteness, and her pitiful shape swaddled in a cape, and underneath it a plain servant’s grey gown covering her fragile limbs. In his dream he lay against her cold body, full length, covering her with his own, while the snow piled up around them and the silence grew, rich with lavender twilight. . . .