Mark of the Black Arrow (6 page)

They hadn’t listened, continuing to play, growing bolder and bolder until one of the older boys took a dare to spend the night beside the stone.

He was never seen again.

Bastion. Bastion had been his name.

People said he’d run off, left to make his way in the world, to escape the hard life of a field hand.

The children never played by the witch stone again.

Quentin heard a step behind him and turned with a shout.

There was nothing. He turned back around and nearly jumped out of his skin. An old man stood in his way. His skin was gray like the stone and so wrinkled it was hard to make out any of his features. Something gleamed in the folds where his eyes should be, but Quentin had never seen eyes like those of this man. He stared at Quentin, looking deep into his meat, deeper into his bone. The old man’s mouth opened impossibly large, as if his jaw dropped down forever and left just a gaping black hole in its place. He closed it rapidly, smacking his lips together.

Quentin shuddered and took a step back.

“What the hell are you doing, old timer?”

“Master is coming,” the old man said.

“Who is your master?” Quentin asked, praying that the answer wasn’t Longstride.

“Master over all this earth. Nearly here.”

“You’re crazy, old man,” Quentin said, backing up further as the hair on the back of his neck lifted. Something deep in his gut told him it would be safer to deal with Longstride than with the ancient creature before him.

Off in the distance he heard a baying, as of hounds.

“Herald his arrival,” the old man cackled, lifting hands that were gnarled, gray, and tipped with razorlike claws where fingernails ought to be.

“What does your master want?” Quentin continued to back away, terrified to turn.

“The red.”

The old man’s face contorted even further and his body jerked as though something were trying to crawl out of it. Black gore seeped from the creature’s eyes and mouth, trailing through the folds of flesh, staining tracks along the wrinkled ridges. Quentin turned and ran back in the direction he’d come, back to young Longstride. He had to go back, throw himself on the ground and beg for mercy.

A roar shook the air behind him. He was jerked up off his feet and thrown through the air. He landed hard, bones breaking down the left side of his body from shoulder to ankle in a firestorm of agony. Pushing with his right leg he tried to move, to push through the pain, to keep going. He wheezed once into lungs lacerated by broken ribs, and blood spilled out of his mouth.

Above him, something monstrous and dark appeared against the twilight sky. Then all he could see in his own fading vision were eyes that glowed red.

“And when he comes, we feast,” a booming voice said. The creature fell upon him, ripping at his chest with jagged teeth. It stunk of rotting meat as it gnawed into his breastbone, and, with his dying breath, Quentin cursed Locksley and Longstride both.

“
M
ilady, you aren’t dressed!”

Marian looked up from her cup of tea, her left hand pulling the hem of her dressing gown down over her legs as she dropped from the window ledge. It hung from her, loose and light down to her feet, like wearing air.

“I still have time, ma’am,” she said.

The housemarm swept into the room, frizzy head shaking on the end of a long thin neck like a child’s bobble.

“This will not do, child. It simply will not do.” She whisked over to the wardrobe and swung it open. “Guests will arrive very soon and you are the hostess. You must not be caught unawares.”

“I am not unaware, good ma’am. Calm yourself. Chastity will—”

“And where
is
that wayward child? She should have you sorted already.” The housemarm continued riffling through dresses,
harrumphing
loudly through her nose.

Marian held her hands up. “If you’d stop and let me—”

“This is last year’s Christ Mass gown, but with some accessories it will do.” The housemarm turned, arms full of gown, the silk and lace of it spilling over and trailing the floor. She draped the gown across the bed and turned to reach for Marian. “Now let’s get you undressed, child.”

Marian put her hands up, fighting to keep them from becoming fists. She could feel the skin on the back of her neck heat up, turning red from neckline to cheekbones, anger coloring her skin.

She hated it when people didn’t listen to her.

“I am
not
your child.”

The woman stopped short, sweeping immediately into a bow.

“Milady, I meant no disrespect.”

“And yet you gave it.”

“You must get dressed,” she pleaded.

“And you
still
give it.”

“Milady, the feast…”

Marian put up a finger. “Do
not
‘milady’ me again.”

The woman’s mouth opened to speak, stopped, then shut. They stood eye to eye, neither of them blinking.

Time ticked away.

The housemarm’s mouth opened again.

The door to the room crashed open as a stack of luxurious fabric came stumbling through on two legs.

“Oi! Some help here, princess,” a muffled voice called from behind the fabric.

Marian turned away from her staring, moving toward the door, when the housemarm pushed past her. The older woman reached the stumbling fabric and grabbed an armful of it, hauling it into her grip to reveal a mountain of curly hair atop a pleasantly round face that broke into a smile.

“Sara!” the newcomer said cheerfully. “Glad you could come. We could use your wiry arms and extra hands.”

“How
dare
you speak to the Lady Marian in such a manner?” the housemarm’s mouth barely moved as she hissed. “I should have you lashed.”

Chastity’s face crashed like thunder across the hills.

“How dare you talk to
me
like that?” She pushed past with the shove of a rounded hip. “And good luck with having me lashed.” She paused with a sly look. “I just might enjoy it.” She dumped the dress onto the bed, winking at Marian where the older woman couldn’t see.

The housemarm strode over, determined to regain some semblance of control, and began carefully laying the fabric she held across the end of the bed frame. Marian didn’t recognize what it could be—to her it was just mounds of cloth. Sara straightened, and peered with accusation at Chastity.

“Why isn’t she ready yet?” she demanded, sweeping her hand toward Marian.

Chastity locked eyes with her. She turned her head slowly, pointedly looking down at the mountain of fabric that lay on the bed, then turned her eyes back up to stare holes in the older woman’s face.

“Could be that the dress just arrived,” she replied. “Could be that she didn’t need to be ready yet. Could be I was off in the stables having a go with one of the groomers.”

“You are a disrespectful, low-born…”

Red crept from Chastity’s jaw up to under her eyes and her mouth made a hard line. “Careful with the next word you say. I’ve a feeling it just may be insulting.”

“That is
enough
.” Marian stepped up. Both servants turned toward her, Sara’s face twisted as if it had been boiled, Chastity’s glowing with a smirk.

Marian pointed at the door. “I am sure that on such a festive day your services are needed elsewhere. Chastity will see to it that I am properly attired, and positioned at the ballroom entrance before the first guest arrives.”

The housemarm stood stiffly, and didn’t bow. “Yes. Milady.” Turning on her heel, she marched out of the room.

Chastity waved her fingers toward the door. “Yes,
milady
,” she sang, voice laden with mockery.

“Don’t smirk,” Marian said. “It’s unbecoming.”

“Only for a lady,” Chastity replied. “For us low-born,
disrespectful
types it’s quite the fashion.”

Marian smiled in spite of herself. Chastity could always be counted upon to lighten the mood, and Marian’s had been much in need of lightening lately. For the past fortnight she’d been troubled by dark dreams that caused her to waken, startled, in the dead of night. Once up, she found it impossible to return to slumber. Exhausted much of the time, she felt like a ghost, haunting the castle, roaming the halls when all others were fast asleep.

It had been liberating in its own way, though. The silence found in the deep pockets of night allowed her time to think, and to explore the place where she lived. The castle was built long ago by a sect of masons who constructed a myriad of cubbyholes and pass-throughs that were not revealed on their plans. In recent days she’d discovered two new hidden passageways on the lowest level. They’d been built by her ancestors long ago, one tucked into a wall beside the kitchen, part of it following the back wall of the larder. The stilted smell of vegetation filled its still air.

Another could be reached from inside the privy, of all places, behind her own bedchamber. That one led to a steep, twisting incline that led down to the unused and musty dungeon located deep in the bowels of the building. From the looks of both, she was the only one to have disturbed the dust on their floors for quite some time.

Chastity shook out the skirts of the dress, interrupting Marian’s thoughts. The piles of cloth began taking shape.

“Still no whispers about the meaning of tonight’s festivities?” Marian asked.

“None.” Chastity shoved her arms down the bodice of the dress and wadded the skirts until they bunched against her chest. “Drop your kit and hit the floor, princess.”

Shrugging out of the shoulders of her dressing gown, she let the thin fabric fall, catching it at her waist. She glanced at the door, making sure it was closed, though it wasn’t her nudity she felt she needed to hide.

“She’s gone, princess.”

“She might return.”

“After that tongue lashing?” Chastity shook her head, tight ringlets of hair shimmering. “She’ll find something better to do with her time.”

Nevertheless, Marian glanced again at the door. Chastity placed a hand on her arm. It was warm against the skin.

“Do you want me to throw the bolt?”

Lips pressed tight, Marian shook her head.

“No, let’s just get this done.”

The nightgown dropped as she released it, falling into a pool at her feet. The sunlight from the window washed across her legs, leaving tiny black shadows under the edges of the raised scar tissue that lashed across otherwise perfectly formed limbs.

Chastity shook the dress into which she had shoved her arms, the skirts whispering against her skin. Marian knelt as she was supposed to and the room went away in a muffle of fabric that dropped over her head. Panic fleeted behind her now-blind eyes, a tiny rabbit of emotion nearly too fast to feel. The fabric tightened around her as Chastity wrestled to get the dress over her head.

The girl said something Marian couldn’t understand through the swaddle of cloth that persisted in hooding her.

“What?” She yelled to be heard.

“—
tand fup
!”

Marian stood, twisting as she did to push through the folds. Light flooded in as the fabric parted and the dress slipped down her body.

Chastity stood close to her.

Very
close.

The act of slipping on the dress left Marian pressed against her friend, the shorter woman’s breath warm on her collarbone, her hands lightly on Marian’s hips. Marian became completely aware of how… busty her friend was compared to her own lean frame and modest bosom.

The servant girl continued to pull and tug the dress into place, entirely unfazed by the intimacy. Chastity had been helping her dress for years. Together they’d walked the road from girl to woman.

“Have you asked the king directly?”

“What?” Marian said.

Chastity stepped back, studying her from top to bottom.

“Have you gone to the king and said to him, ‘Oi! Why all the madness of a feast? What are you on about?’”

Marian smiled. “His Majesty wouldn’t let even
me
talk to him like that.”

The girl laughed. “Probably not.”

Marian stood still as Chastity continued to work on the dress, pulling here and tugging there. It was almost soothing.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

It was strange, though—the king, her uncle, usually kept her in his confidence. Not all sovereigns treated their relations in such a way, particularly female relations. She’d heard the king’s cousin Henry kept all of his siblings and children at a distance, for fear that they would one day topple him from his throne. He married off all his sisters and daughters save his youngest, whom he sent to a remote school in the crags of the north. There was rumor that he’d had his older brother poisoned as a teen. Of course other rumors said the brother had plotted to have his throat slit, and that Henry had simply struck first.

Even the king’s own brother, her Uncle John, lived far away in Ireland and was never mentioned by Richard. He’d been sent away by her grandfather because of some scandal, but Richard had not brought him back. The allure of power seemed to make sovereignty an uncertain thing, causing even good kings to act strangely toward their kin.

Yet she and Richard had shared a close bond ever since she was a child. Whenever her parents left their villa and took her to the castle, he always found time to spend with her, sometimes even making visiting dignitaries wait as he played hide and seek with her in one of his many gardens. Her father always said his brother loved her like the child he never had.

Their bond had strengthened when he’d taken her in after the fire that destroyed her life. His was the first face she saw after awakening from her injuries. He’d raised her as his own. Grief, his over the loss of a brother and sister by law, and hers over the loss of her parents, tied them together.

Once she was well enough, he finished her education, including the skills of horsemanship and swordplay her father had insisted she learn. He’d also taught her the intrigues of the court, including her in matters of the highest importance. Never had he kept anything from her. Not alliances, not military actions, not the quelling of unrest, and not the dispensation of boons. This time, however, whatever his purpose might be, it seemed as if the king kept counsel only with himself.