Never Kiss A Stranger (22 page)

Alys’s attention was torn from the fantastical view by Tiny’s polite instructions. “Just undo that rope there on your side, milady—take it from the peg, that’s it—but hold on tightly lest we spill sideways!” The girl seemed to find the idea of this amusing—Alys did not. And so she gripped the rough rope in her palms until her fingertips tingled.

“Now just let us down easy. One hand, then the other. Hold tight to me, little Layla!” Tiny began to release the rope into the carved pulley over her head, and Alys did the same, her eyes flicking to the girl periodically and also over her own shoulder at the ground that was inching up to meet them.

The ride was smooth and slow, and by the time the platform came to rest on the forest floor, Alys had decided she much preferred the lift to the twisting rope ladder. She watched as Tiny tied off first her own rope and then Alys’s—presumably to keep the machine out of use to younger hands—and then followed the miniature girl off the conveyance and toward the nearest fire.

Ella was nowhere to be seen, and Tiny went without hesitation to a small black iron pot set near the side of the fire. She lifted off the lid with a hooked instrument and peered inside. In those brief seconds, Alys took the opportunity to study the girl in full daylight. Her hair was straw colored, much like Alys’s own, and she immediately
recalled the village woman in Pilings’s mention of Ella and her daughter. The Pilings woman had alluded to the fact that there was something wrong with Ella’s girl, but all that Alys could tell was that she was of unusually small size for her age—more along the lines of an eight-year-old.

Tiny turned her face toward Alys with a smile, and Alys was fascinated by the girl’s impossibly light colored, gray-green eyes. In the forest light, with Layla on her shoulder, she indeed looked to be a figure from folklore, a fairy, an elf. She was enchanting.

“I was right—here’s some porridge if you’d be wantin’ it, milady.”

“I would love some,” Alys said.

Tiny went to the base of the tree, where one of the small, rounded huts crouched and walked straight in, whereas any other person her age would have needed to duck. She emerged a moment later with a wooden bowl and a spoon, as well as a clay jug. The earthen vessel seemed a burden, and so Alys approached her with her hands out.

“Let me help you—”

“Not at all, milady,” Tiny said cheerfully and swerved around her toward the fire. “‘Tis unwieldy more than heavy. And I don’t need as much help as you would reckon.” She set the jug by the fire and Layla hopped to the ground, at last coming to greet Alys. Tiny removed the lid of the pot once more and began scooping its contents into the bowl.

Not knowing what else to do, Alys sat on the ground. Obviously it was the right choice, for Tiny brought the bowl and jug to her, without directing her to any proper seating. Alys took the offered meal with a smile of thanks.

Tiny stood above her, beaming down, her hands folded
at her waist. Alys was not used to being watched so closely whilst having a meal, but she knew not what else to do, and so she saluted Tiny with the spoon and tucked into the bowl of warm grain.

It was bland, with perhaps a hint of some sort of sweet syrup, but it was hearty and heavy in her stomach, and Alys thoroughly enjoyed the first hot breakfast she’d had since leaving Fallstowe.

“Did Ira really throw you down the comin’-up?” The question burst from the girl, as if it had been growing and growing inside of her and she could simply no longer contain it. “And did you really get caught in his snare?”

Alys forced the mouthful of porridge down her throat when it threatened to stick somewhere halfway. “The comin’up?”

“The hill on the edge of the village. When someone approaches, they have to climb it, and they always call out—”

“Coming up,” Alys finished with a wry smile. “Clever. And yes, he did, and yes, I did. Is that how he usually behaves toward visitors? String them up and then throw them out?”

“Mercy, yes,” Tiny giggled. “Although most don’t make it past the snare. We haven’t had a proper visitor in ages, and never a true
lady.”
There was a hint of awe in the last word. “Were you a lad, Ira’d most likely had the brothers hand you a sound pummelin’ and then taken anything you were carrying.”

“I see,” Alys said, her hopes for any sort of amicable relationship with the old man being whisked away into the treetops with Tiny’s words.

“He’s simply protecting us, you see,” Tiny rushed to assure her. “Ira’s not cruel. He knows that for us to keep on living here like we are, intruders must be dealt with.”

“Well, he’s not been exactly welcoming,” Alys mumbled.

“It’s your title, milady. Forgive me, for sayin’.” Tiny stepped toward Alys and then sank into a cross-legged seat across from her. Layla immediately went to the girl, who produced nuts from her apron pocket as if she’d put them there earlier for that exact purpose. “Ira doesn’t fancy anyone of noble birth.”

“Neither I nor my family has ever wronged Ira, that I’m aware of.”

“Of course not,” Tiny said mildly. “But the village where Ira is from was ruled by terrible people. We’ve all come from such places. Ira simply wants us all to be able to live here in peace. He’s a good leader.”

Alys was quiet for several moments, trying to comprehend Tiny’s explanation. “So all of you here—the wood people—are from villages that turned you out for one reason or another?”

Tiny nodded. “Turned out or they left for fear of punishment. Some couldn’t pay their dues, others were accused of crimes—it’s different for us all.”

“What of your family?”

Tiny smiled impishly. “Guess.”

“I couldn’t,” Alys said, shaking her head. “Your mother has been so kind to me, and you are a darling.”

Tiny laughed. “It’s me, though. We lived in a place called Pilings when I was born. I was very, very small—never grew much after. The folk were feared of me for a curse. The pigs took ill, and they blamed me.”

“Blamed you? When you were a baby?”

Tiny nodded and held out her arms. “Don’t I look like a changeling?”

“No!”

The girl shrugged and looked away into the forest.
“Mam and Papa wouldn’t have the talk. Papa had heard of Ira and his little village, and they welcomed us. It’s been a good home. All I’ve ever known.”

The truth of this little knot of people in the wood became stranger and stranger the more Alys learned.

“So you owe fealty to no overlord?”

“Oh, I’m certain we owe it, we just don’t pay it.” Tiny stood, and Layla hopped up on her shoulder. “Ira says we own these woods, and I believe him. Come, milady, and I’ll take you to your man. I’m certain you’re wanting to see him, and Linny’s just come down from her tree.”

Piers felt as if every muscle in his body had been stretched beyond its limit and then snapped back. His head pounded and his left hand felt as though it was smoldering. He opened his eyes and saw thatch above him, rolled his head to the left to look at his hand and saw that it was contained in a sort of package that looked like wide, flat leaves, glistening wet and heavy. His arm was angled up on a crude bolster.

He couldn’t feel his first two fingers at all.

He didn’t know where he was—in some sort of a hut, obviously. He vaguely remembered Alys coming back for him, with strange men, but he did not recall walking to a village, or having his wounds tended to. Where was she now? Where was
he,
and what had his caregiver done to him? Why couldn’t he feel his fingers? Had the bite Layla’d given him festered? His heart pounded. He couldn’t tend a dairy properly with one hand, couldn’t milk.

Piers heard his own whimper as he tried to bring his right hand across his body, frantic to remove the organic bandages.

“Still there, me friend,” a rough voice said, startling Piers. “Although for how long, I know not.”

The old man sat on a stool not two paces from where Piers lay on the floor of the hut. Piers had not noticed him, blending into the dark skins that made up the walls as if he too were comprised of old, tanned leather. The man worried a small object in one palm.

“Where am I?” Piers asked hoarsely.

“My village. Linny’s tending you best she can, but the bites were old, sealed over, trapping the poison inside.” His deep set eyes seemed to bore into Piers’s. “The monkey?”

Piers nodded. “Where’s Alys? The woman who was with me?”

The old man shrugged. “You mean
Lady
Alys, do you not?”

“Where is she?”

“What are you doing with the likes of her, friend? She told me you were a dairy farmer, and though I was not obliged to believe her, your hands tell a clearer truth than any of her kind would recognize—the calluses, the scars. It was me own life’s work, many years ago. Does she have aught to accuse you of? What is your worth to her?”

“I don’t owe you any explanation.
Where is she?”

“I beg to disagree, friend. Were it not for my Linny, you’d likely be dead right now. I am showing you a great deal more hospitality than most would a stranger, so aye, you do owe me a bit, and I’d collect. Why are the pair of you together in the thickness of my wood?”

“We’re only passing through. On our way to London,” was all Piers would say. He didn’t care what this Linny had done for him, he wanted Alys, and he wanted her now.

The old man whistled a high note. “London, eh? What business would the likes of a poor farmer such as yourself have that would call him to London?” When Piers
only glared at him, the old man pushed. “I can see that you’re not the sort of man who takes easily to being questioned, but I have me own interests to protect. You ken?”

“I don’t make bargains, old man. Tell me where she is.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed and he looked sideways at Piers. “Even under threat of your own life?”

Piers stared at him. “Don’t bluff. Kill me or tell me where she is. I’m tired of talking to you, either way.”

The old man looked at Piers a long while, a faint smile on his thin lips. “I know not where her highness is at this moment. I threw her out on her titled arse last night, her filthy animal with her. No need to thank me.”

Piers tried to sit up, his hand throbbing in time to his pounding heart. Alys alone in the wood? He would kill the old man himself if he could just get up.

“Don’t get yourself in a lather,” the old man admonished gruffly, and half rose to push Piers gently but firmly back onto his makeshift bed with one wrinkled and stingy palm. “A kindhearted woman of the village took pity on her, and I’m certain her ladyship is but a stone’s throw from us. If she cares aught for your welfare, ‘tis likely her voice will abuse both our ears before long.”

Piers lay back, but only because he was truly too weak to continue the ruse of a struggle. He realized how very vulnerable he was.

“Of course she cares for my welfare. She was the one who found you, wasn’t she?”

“Why
would
she care so for you, that was my question, lad! Is she your lover?”

Piers turned his face away. “No.”

“Are you her escort? Hired to gain her the city?”

“No. I go to London for my own purposes.”

“And those would be?”

“Fuck you,
friend
,” Piers sneered.

“So that’s how it is to be, eh?” the old man said mildly. “Well. I have my own idea as to why you’re going to London, and my wager would be that it has aught to do with this pretty little bauble in my hand. Would you agree?”

Piers turned his head back toward the old man and saw his father’s signet ring pinched between leathery finger and thumb.

“I’ll kill you,” Piers breathed.

“You’re in no condition to be making such threats. But, what you will do is tell me how this ring came to be in your possession, and what you plan to do with it once you’re to London.”

Piers struggled to rise once more.

“Now, if you keep on with that nonsense, I’ll just rap you on your skull and you can go back to sleep until you’re feeling more cooperative.”

“Give me back my ring,” Piers demanded, his words coming out like hacking barks before he deteriorated into a fit of coughing on the woolen ticking.

The old man waited patiently until Piers caught his breath. “You stole it, thinking you could sell it?” The old man chuckled. “Any fool would know that this ring belongs on the hand of a noble. A commoner come to the city with it would be jailed before you could name a price.”

“I didn’t steal it. It’s mine.”

The old man shook his head and tsked. “No need to lie to me, friend.”

“Give it back! It’s all I have.”

“Piers?” Alys’s voice seemed to call from below him, if that was possible, since he was nearly certain he was lying on the ground.

“Alys,” he tried to shout back, but his voice had wearied to a faint whisper.

“Now see there? It’s not all you have,” the old man said, all trace of smile gone from his face as he stood with a slight groan. He stepped to the bottom of Piers’s cot and looked down at him, Piers’s signet ring disappeared into his tight fist. Small, hollow footsteps sounded from the other side of the hut.

“I’ll not leave here without that ring. It belongs to me,” Piers whispered.

“I don’t know how you came across it,” the old man said quietly, gravely. “But this ring will never again leave my possession. I know you stole it, you see. I know, because it once belonged to me own daughter, now dead a score and four years.”

He turned and walked into the shadows that draped the corners of the hut.

Alys approached his cot with a noticeable limp, and Piers nearly wanted to weep at the familiar sight of her golden hair and her bright smile. She glanced nervously at the old man as he passed, but neither one spoke to each other.

In a moment, Piers heard a rolling rattle and then he was alone with Alys.

She dropped to her knees at his side, her small hands reaching for his face. “Piers, how are you feeling?”

He looked up at her, his breath caught painfully in his chest. He didn’t know what was happening, or what the old man meant.

Seek your blood on your journey to the king, my son. There you will find the answer which will save Gillwick and yourself.