Dragonswood (9 page)

It made sense, I supposed. Though it was less dramatic than the wicked role I’d cast him in before I’d come to trust him, when I’d imagined him to be one of the witch hunter’s spies, first showing up in Harrowton the day she arrived, then at the harvest feast just before she rode in.

“The midwife accused me.”

“Hmm,” he said. “After she herself was captured by the guards, as I remember.”

I nodded. “It was my father who’d accused her.”

He raised a brow. “Then you were tried.”

“At my trial the fishmonger said I hexed his pregnant wife so his boy was born with a harelip.”

He laughed. “What powers you have, Tess.”

I put my hand on the stone hearth. Recalling the trial did not bring me to laughter. “May I go now?”

“I offend you,” he said. “I’m sorry for it. Go on with your story if you would.”

I’d not talked about my trial to anyone but my friends, who blamed me for all their misfortune, so it was a burden and not a release when I’d told them. But I told him all. I do not know why, perhaps because he’d let me hold the pearl and spoken so tenderly of his mother, or because he had asked and was willing to listen. The fire warming my skin, the huntsman at my side, I went on.

“Tidas Leech said he’d spied me in Dragonswood dancing with Satan.” I shifted on my feet. I would not mention his accusation that I’d danced naked and
kissed Satan’s arse,
as he’d put it. I nearly choked when I recounted Joan Midwife’s chilling lies that I’d murdered my mother’s infants one by one that I might suck powers from their tiny bones.

Would Joan have said so at the trial if I hadn’t blamed her for Adam’s death and called her a witch myself? She’d pointed at me in order to take the charges off her own back, so all was a tangle of lies.

Last I told him how the witch hunter had me hung up by my arms for hours, and twisted the agonizing thumbscrews while I was strapped to the witch’s chair. I caught him staring at my thumbs. This time I did not try and hide them.

“Go on,” Garth said in a gentle tone. He could see this was painful for me.

I did not speak for a long while. At last I confessed in a low whisper how I’d betrayed my friends to the witch hunter.

“You named them?” he asked, astonished.

I nodded miserably.

The room fell silent.

He’d asked. I’d told.

Garth’s face was hard. An odor filled my nose. Rotting meat. My skin. My clothes. The smell of what I’d done to my friends. Garth would not speak nor look me in the face.

I left.

The next morning the huntsman was gone.

Chapter Fourteen

I
T WAS A
full week before he returned. Mistress Aisling stayed with us and doctored Tom. He was still fevered, but she said he was ever so slowly improving. I made meals, minded the kitchen, and when my work was done, walked alone in Dragonswood.

I did not feel as constricted in the musty hunting lodge as I had at home. Still, I am a girl who prefers trees over walls, the sky over a roof. I breathe more freely in the wood, so I took my chance and left to explore a part of Dragonswood I’d not been in before. The forest was all mystery in October. Long moss bearded the branches. Through the greenery I spied a family of deer. The underbrush crackled as they sped away. The buck had brought his good wife with him and a little fawn. I saw the white flick of the doe’s tail. How I love the deer. Their quietness and quickness is like the water, placid and cool until stirred, then they rush and rush.

We were farther from the coast in this part of the wood, but when I climbed a tall pine, I thought I caught a scent of the sea. From on high I took in snowcapped Morgesh Mountain, the northernmost point of the refuge. The fairy castle DunGarrow was somewhere at the base of that mountain. I tried to imagine the fey kingdom. Did the fairies dance in the high meadow under the stars like the stories said? I’d seen only a few fey patrolling the refuge on dragonback. Now I was in their wood by day, the part Garth Huntsman watched over for them. Perhaps they had no need to patrol the woods here.

My longing to be alone in the wildwood increased. The second day I rushed through my chores, scrubbing the flagstone kitchen floor with such speed, Poppy stood in the doorway laughing. “Why in such a hurry, Tess?” she asked.

“I’m not,” I said, not bothering to look up. I could not explain my longing even to her. I did not understand it myself. I planned to explore a little farther my second day out, and could not wait to leave.

At last I pocketed an apple and quit the lodge. At midday, mist still hung over Dragonswood. I ran and ran until my lungs ached, then stopped to eat my apple. Taking secret paths, I crossed a crooked stream. All along I noticed my surroundings so I could find my way back. Climbing a hill, I followed a songbird, hopping branch to branch like the girl in “The Whistler.” My cauliflower ear began to hum like a hive of honeybees, or was the sound coming from somewhere deeper in the forest?

As I climbed, the humming turned to a whisper.
Tessss
…

I looked about in the wavering shadows.

Come away.

The boughs seemed to pull me farther in.
Tess. Come north
.

“Who calls me?” I whispered, though the voices came only to my crippled ear, and they weren’t likely to be human. My feet followed a narrow path where pale sunlight patterns fell.

Tessss…

Prayers whispered in church sounded thus, but this was not God’s holy house. Were fairy folk moving invisibly through the woods? In my wandering, I might have passed beyond the huntsman’s domain. I was alone. Trespassing. Would I be drawn in only to be fey-struck or turned into a Treegrim as Meg feared?

“Show yourselves.”

Sounds like stray breezes hissing through grass, blowing in me and through me.
Tessss
. Skin tingling, I could not disobey the call, but followed. I willed it so and could not turn.
Tessss
. On I walked, damp ferns wetting my skirts.

The voices faded. My ear went deaf again and I found myself alone. My body ached, full of strange longing. Why would the fairies tempt me only to leave me alone again?

I brushed against a hunched crabapple tree, bare and fruitless. Not a Treegrim. Still, I was frightened. I turned and ran back toward the lodge, fleeing from myself or the wilderness or both.

T
HAT NIGHT WE
ousted Cackle from the kitchen and boiled water so we might take turns bathing in the great metal tub. “I’ll go last,” Meg said, preferring to sit at Tom’s bedside with Aisling.

It took a great deal of boiled water to fill the tub. Poppy and I added just enough cold to get the temperature right. I washed Poppy’s hair while she hummed, poking and popping the bubbles.

“You have gentle hands,” Poppy said.

I was still stung by Garth’s rejection, still shamed by his silence and by his leaving the very next morn.
He rode off to be apart from me.
Poppy’s kind remark touched something raw.

“I’m sorry I dragged you away from home,” I whispered.

“I know,” Poppy said. I poured a cup of warm water over her tipped head to rinse her soapy hair. Her eyes were closed. She did not see my tears.

The tub had cooled when she was done. We added more hot water. Poppy did not offer to scrub my hair, but stayed in the kitchen to talk, the steam rising between us. I had a deal of trouble getting the dirt off my arms.

“Like trying to remove dragon scales,” Poppy said.

I scrubbed at the dirt till my arms were cherry red.

Poppy gave a nod. “Scales gone. I wonder what the princes’ arm scales look like?” she mused. “They can’t just scrub them away, you know.”

“Grandfather said the Pendragons’ scales are a mark of their power and their bond with dragons.”

Poppy frowned. “Not everyone admires them.”

Was she expressing her own opinion? I wasn’t sure. “I wouldn’t mind scales so much.”

“Tess. You don’t mean it. Think of…
Princess Augusta
.” With the whisper of her name, shadows moved along the kitchen wall. Queen Lucinda’s last babe—the one that killed her.

“Do you think it’s true what they say about her?”

“It must be.”

No one on Wilde Island had ever seen Queen Lucinda’s youngest child. But it was said that she had scales on her face, dragon eyes with slit pupils, and clawed hands. Folk said Augusta killed her mother, scratching her insides with her claws as she was being born. That very night four years ago the babe was whisked away to Dragon’s Keep. She’d been there ever since.

The bathwater was chill when Meg came in, worn from tending to Tom’s needs. Her skin pallid, dark rings around her eyes. Poppy and I said not a word, but boiled up more water, that Meg might bathe in warmth as we had. Together we washed her hair.

Meg slept after her bath. Poppy and I dried our long hair in the study by the fire.

“Do you think Queen Lucinda ever came here?” Poppy asked.

I held my damp hair close to the fire’s warmth. “It’s a man’s refuge.”

“And a boy’s,” Poppy said.

I thought again of the rocking horse in our room and nodded. Soft light spread through the study. There were a few poetry books on the shelves. “She might have come here, I suppose.”

“Ask Garth Huntsman what the queen was like,” Poppy said, fluffing her hair.

I shook my head. “You ask him when he returns.”

“He talks to you, not so much to me.”

Not anymore he won’t.

Poppy sighed. “They say she was beautiful, with flaxen hair and deep green eyes. Sad to think she died in childbirth.”

“Even a queen is a woman like anyone else,” I said with a heavy heart. So many died that way. I thought of how strong Mother was even though she appeared so frail.

Prince Arden left for the crusades right after his mother died. Broken-hearted, people said. We were all sad to lose her.

We roasted chestnuts in the fire.

“I dreamed of the fairy kingdom last night,” Poppy said. “I often dream of it. All your stories you’ve told me, I suppose, but this time…” She paused to pull a steaming chestnut from the fire. “The dream was brighter than ever before. The fairies were dancing. I heard no music, only the soughing wind through the trees, and there were beasts circling, owls in the sky, deer and foxes down below. A black bear came right up to me,” she said.

“And then?”

“That was all.” Her large blue eyes were on me, questioning.

“We’re closer to DunGarrow here than we’ve ever been before. Maybe that’s why you dreamed of it.”

Poppy offered me a nutmeat. We ate by the hearth, the fire tilting with the night wind blowing down the chimney.

G
ARTH RETURNED A
few days later and went straight-away into Tom’s room to see how the man was improving. He was cold when I came into the room, and would not look at my face.

He avoided me all the next day and the next. One morn he came in from the chicken coop with straw in his hair and fresh eggs crooked in his arm. He did not say a word when I thanked him for the eggs.

I was familiar with a man’s anger and knew how to duck a fist. This chilly silence was new, and baffling.
God’s teeth. If he does not speak with me soon, I’ll shout
.

We breakfasted in the kitchen; all but Tom, who was still too weak to join us. Meg’s head drooped over her platter. “Alice dearly loved an egg,” she said. Her lip trembled and her eyes welled up.

“Now, now, Meg,” said Poppy. “You are overtired. Let Tess seethe you some chamomile tea.”

I’d just sat down to my breakfast, but as the one who’d separated Meg from her little girl, I sprang up to make the tea. When it was hot I filled Meg’s cup. Her eyes were still puffy from crying when she left the table.

“Come, Poppy.” The leech threw on her cloak and took her helper out to search for herbs, nettles would be my guess. I was glad to see them go, but once they were out the door, I felt Garth’s eyes on my back, and was loath to turn around. I filled his ale mug, sloshing some on the table. When he’d seen me as the hero who’d rescued Tom, he’d enjoyed my company, and even let me hold his mother’s pearl. Now I was a low worm, a betrayer who’d given my friends over to the witch hunter. I’d likely never live it down. Why had I told him? I’d have given anything to take it back now.

The bowls needed scrubbing. Tying on an apron, I pulled the wash pan from its hook.

Garth said, “Tom is better. I’m glad for it.” So we were speaking again? I stood with the wash pan. Suddenly dumb as a toadstool.

He drummed the table. “Is Meg always so tearful?”

“Meg? Why, no. It is only that she misses Alice.”

“Who’s Alice?”

I told him.

“Tom and Meg have a child?” he asked, surprised.

“Alice turned three this summer.”

“So you broke up their little family when you betrayed her to Lady Adela.”

“I did.” I was surprised it did not hurt to say this honestly and true. It was like the relief of a splinter coming out.

“Is the child in danger?”

“I do not know.” The question struck me with force. I’d worried so much about my friends, the danger I’d put them in, and then over Tom’s illness; I’d had no time to think of Alice.

Garth went outside. Paced. Was Alice safe with her grandparents? The witch hunter wouldn’t go as low as to take Alice as bait the way she’d taken Tom, would she? Turning clumsily, I knocked a platter to the floor.
Not Alice
. My hands were awkward as I scooped spilled egg onto the platter.
Not little sunny-faced Alice.

Garth came back in. “We are friends?”

“If you like,” said I, looking up at him confused.

He took my wash pan and headed for the well. The larks in the yard abandoned the puddles as he rushed by. I cleared the rest of the table. I did not care about my spilled breakfast now. My throat was closed. I wouldn’t have been able to swallow it.

Garth returned with the wash pan, sloshing water on the sideboard where he set it down. He took up his ale, emptying the mug in three gulps, and then stood halfway in, halfway out the door, arms crossed and back against the frame. I was all over hot and prickly. Why stare at me that way? Why not just leave?

All through breakfast I’d wished he’d look at me instead of Poppy. His eyes were on me now, gold brown and all too clear.
He studies me
as a man might inspect a market fish to see if it’s spoiled
. But what he said next surprised me.

“How much do you want to amend the wrong you’ve done to your friends, Tess?”

I
PULLED
M
EG
out of the sickroom to speak with her. She wept with joy when I told her the huntsman and I would ride back to Harrowton for Alice. We’d forged a plan together. Garth had business in the south, he said, and wouldn’t mind a companion on the trip, a small rider coming back. I had not asked him what his business was, I didn’t care. Brightness filled me as we laid out our plan, as if I’d drunk a tankard of sunshine.

Poppy joined us in the hall. “But won’t you be in danger?” she asked.

I could not deny it, but was happier than I’d been in ages. I’d hungered for a chance to make it up to my friends and sweep my soul clean of its crime. I hugged Poppy, smiling for the first time in a long while. “Garth will keep me safe. Never you worry about it.” Then Meg embraced us both so the three of us were in the hall, arms around one another when Mistress Aisling left Tom’s side to see what all the noise was about.

Garth planned to ride out as a cloth merchant. I took some amusement in it since it was my former suitor Master Percival’s profession. The trade had been my idea. It seemed to suit our needs. Cloth merchants will sometimes ride town to town investigating new dyeing methods or visiting weavers of repute. For my part I must go as his wife. A man does not ride alone with a woman unless she is his wife. I was willing to play this game for a short time—the closest I would likely ever come to marriage. My black kirtle, though newly clean, was unsuitable for a guildsman’s wife. Mistress Aisling kindly offered her fine blue gown and her fur-lined riding cloak besides. I refused at first, but she persuaded me, saying she had a second gown in her bags, and she could use my cloak while I was gone.

So it was we left the hunting lodge next day on a windswept October morn. It took a week for three leper girls to walk along the coastal road from Harrowton to Oxhaven, but we’d spent a deal of time each day begging and searching for food, so our progress was slow. Garth and I planned to make haste on horseback. Three days’ journey down and three back, if the weather didn’t hinder us. Packing food aplenty in the saddlebags, the huntsman also brought coin to pay for a meal or sleep under a tavern roof if a storm drove us in.