The Book of Forbidden Wisdom (6 page)

Their voices carried on the wind.

“They're probably gone,” said one. “They could have left the river back there.”

“They're far ahead of us,” said the other.

“Those marks in the grass were fresh,” said Leth. “They can't be far.”

The third man, whom I didn't recognize, didn't speak.

“We should look for signs on the other bank,” said Leth.

“You said there's a reward?” said the first.

“Oh, yes,” said Leth. “Lord Kalo of Montrose is putting it up—­and the reward is land. Enough to raise your caste. I have a purse of gold to go with it—­if you bring them to me first.”

“He's a
snake,
” hissed Silky. I shushed her.

Then the third man, the one I didn't recognize at all, spoke.

“I'm going to speak freely, Master Leth,” he said. “Because I'm a freeman, and it's my right. I saw the Lady Angel yesterday, on her wedding day. And I saw the Lady Silky. You showed them all the deferences and ceremonies then, and that was right, because I could see their virtue. Now you hunt them down.”

“If Master Trey is with them,” said Leth, “the Lady Angel's nothing better than a harlot.”

There were no words for what I felt then. In a very low voice Trey said, “Sorry.”

“You won't have second thoughts when we get the reward,” said the second man.

“I think I might,” said the third man, and his voice was cool. “I'm going home. I don't have the stomach for this.”

“You think too highly of the Lady Angel,” said Leth.

“What I think, I think,” he said. “As I said, I'm a freeman. I'd wish you good hunting, but my heart wouldn't be in it.”

Leth was silent. He and the second man rode to the far bank and, for a while, cast around for prints. Then they turned back. The man going home passed close by our island—­at one moment I could see his outline clearly. We all stayed very still. Then, as he went by, Jasmine shook her head, and her bridle jingled. The man turned. Our eyes met.

He bowed his head and put his hand over his heart.

And then he was gone.

We waited. The horses' legs must have been numb with cold, but they were obedient and still. Jasmine made no further move. Cries in the night floated across the water, and from time to time I could see torches on the far shore. The island drifted; we moved with it. No one spoke. I thought of Leth with the hunting party. I wondered what had happened between the moments in the orchard, when he swore he would marry no one as long as I lived, and now. Kalo must have persuaded him of something. Or, perhaps, he simply wanted to be true to his vow. With me dead, he could marry without breaking his word.

I told Trey my thoughts.

“You may be right,” he said.

“I am right.”

Silky looked cold and miserable, but before I could pull out an over garment for her from our satchel, Trey asked, “Do you know what's ahead?”

“There's a ford a mile downstream,” I answered. “Then there's a stream that makes its way to the road. We'll have gone a long way without leaving prints.”

“Angel,” said Trey, “Kalo's spies are going to be everywhere tonight. The roads will be watched.”

“We'll freeze if we stay in the water much longer. I can hear Silky's teeth chattering from here.”

“They
are
clacking together,” said Silky. “Sorry.”

“All right,” I said. “Let me think.”

I noticed a streak of pink in the eastern sky. Dawn. Soon we wouldn't be able to trust to darkness.

I thought of my mother.

“All right,” I said. “We go north. Toward ‘Lidan country—­toward Shibbeth—­and away from here. They won't expect that.” North. My mother had always talked about the north as if it were a magic country, but nobody really knew much about the northern territories, where Shibbeth bled back into Northern Arcadia—­where, after the border-­place of The Village of Broken Women, the ancient Spiral City was supposed to be.

“We need to move fast,” said Trey, “if you really want to go to Shibbeth. They'll be watching all the ways out.”

“We won't take the country roads,” I said. “We'll go by the Old Roads.”

“But the Old Roads are
haunted,
” said Silky.

“Exactly,” said Trey. “It's a good plan.”

The Old Roads ran straight and true, and time did not eradicate them, although their builders were long gone. Except for the ghosts most thought they had left behind.

But in the end, the choice was simple. Kalo and death, or the Old Roads and ghosts.

We found the tributary with no problem, and the horses, after swimming the ford, heaved themselves up onto the bank and shook themselves like wet dogs. Silky laughed. Trey made us get off the horses and rub them down so they didn't cramp up. It was probably more work than Silky—­or, I'll admit,
I
—­had ever done. We were used to grooms brushing and blanketing and tending our mounts.

Once the horses had stopped shivering, we continued our journey. Trey took charge again, riding forward confidently, as if he'd been here before. We wove through the trees as dawn broke, and then we were in open country. After a long detour around a farm, we found ourselves pushing through undergrowth that came up to my stirrups. The morning sun cast long shadows, and everything was bathed in yellow light.

“I love this time of day,” said Silky. “I could
eat
anything this light touches. It's like golden syrup. And I really like golden syrup.”

“We have to be quiet,” I said. I didn't mean to be sharp with Silky, but I needed her to concentrate.

We came out of the shrubbery, and the Old Road was in front of us, grassy and overgrown.

“This will lead us out of the country,” said Trey. “But it's going to be three days of hard travel.”

I set foot on the Old Road before Trey and Silky did. I was the one who had caused all the trouble; I was the one who had needed rescuing. I felt that I should be the one the ghosts got first.

I urged Jasmine forward.

No ghosts.

A moment later, we were all on the road. The future nudged at me, and I did not look back.

 

W
e rode in silence. The road was unnervingly straight—­it didn't go around hills, it went through them, as if moving all those tons of earth had been nothing. I thought for a moment about those ghostly builders who couldn't be bothered with going over hills but who just charged straight through them. As a ­people, they must have been very powerful. And they must have been very impatient too.

There had been no sounds of pursuit since we had climbed onto the Old Road, but once, off to the west where the sky was still inky, we saw flickers of light on the hills—­men on horseback with torches. Then they were gone.

Everywhere, as night gave way to day, the birds joined in the dawn song. Our long shadows stretched out to the left. I looked at Silky and Trey; I thought that they looked washed out and tired, and I was sure I looked no better. Any romance that might have attached to our wild night ride was gone, and we were just shabby fugitives now, going from somewhere to nowhere.

I thought about Kalo hunting us down. I thought about what he'd do. If he caught us on the road, he might kill Trey outright, without waiting for a tribunal. I realized that it looked bad—­Trey had taken away a land-­rich virgin on her wedding night and ruined her for a match. Kalo would be, in the eyes of others, merely protecting the family honor.

Leth, whom I had dishonored too, might be even worse. I thought about his shallow eyes, and I couldn't imagine that any pity lay behind them. It would be convenient for Kalo if I were dead, but for Leth, it was more personal. He would make sure Trey and I would pay before we died.

As for Silky—­if Kalo let her live, he would make sure she was a broken thing. He would marry her to a ‘Lidan, to be branded and silenced, and I had no doubt she would not last long. ‘Lidan women whose husbands or fathers thought they talked too much were bridled. Unsatisfactory brides were sold or traded for cattle to whoever would have them. I knew that Silky was strong, but, in Shibbeth, her strength of character would only end in servitude.

We could never return—­not to Kalo, not to Leth, not to my father. Not unless we came wielding the power behind
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom
.

F
or a moment a vision of
The
Book
came to me, my mother stroking its pages, but I shook the image off.

I had promised.

T
here was no sound beyond that of the birds and the click-­clack of our horses' hooves when they struck parts of the road that were still hard and black. No rustles in the underbrush. No shouts of discovery.

“We need to put in more miles before we rest,” Trey said.

“But where are we going?” asked Silky.

“The Old Road meets up with the Great North Way,” said Trey. “We'll follow it.”

“Are we
doomed,
Trey?” asked Silky.

“No,” he said shortly.

I understood her fear. The Great North Way was the finest feat of engineering left by the old ones, but it was also considered to be especially haunted. But there was something else very much on my mind.

“This rescue marks you, Trey. This may end terribly.”

“Yes,” he said. “There are, however, no circumstances under which I wouldn't rescue you, Angel. You should know that.”

He picked up his reins and was about to urge Bran on when I reached out and took his hand in mine. Silky gasped at behavior a chaperone would have called wanton.

“You're my brother now, Trey,” I said.

“I don't want to be your brother,” he said shortly.

I was going to release Trey's hand, but he pulled his away first.

Silky, meanwhile, was watching us curiously. “Are you going to marry Trey, Angel?” she asked. “Because you
did
just touch him. That means a wedding, right?”

“I'm running from marriage, Silky,” I said. “Remember?”

“I just
wondered,
” said Silky. “I've always wondered why you and Trey didn't just—­“

“Silky.”

“Sorry.”

Throughout this exchange, Trey rode with his head bowed, and I found I didn't want to know what he was thinking.

We began gently jogging the horses, but the road was slow going in places. The edges had crumbled away into a hard black scree that embedded itself into the horses' shoes.

“Maybe we're safe,” said Silky. “Except for the
ghosts,
of course.”

“You heard those men,” said Trey. “There's a reward out—­word will spread quickly. I doubt they'll give up pursuit that easily with land at stake. And with gold to go with it.”

I thought of the kind of land reward Kalo could offer, and I knew Trey was right. Kalo could easily raise someone's caste or even set up a freeman for life.

We continued jogging. Ahead of us, I saw a puddle filled with yellow and red butterflies drinking. Jasmine, never breaking stride, waded through the puddle, and butterflies scattered like blown petals.

Bran jumped over the water.

“If you hadn't taught Bran to jump over puddles,” I said to Trey, “he might not have refused at the river. You taught him to go over water, not through it.”

“Jumping puddles is fun,” said Silky, plunging into the conversation. “Squab and I do it all the time. And he's not afraid of
anything
.”

“Too dumb,” I muttered.

The sun was getting high. A deer made its strange coughing noise from the shade of a copse.

I
don't know when the echo began.

But I knew, when I heard it, that we had been lazy and foolish and loud. We should have pushed the horses harder, and we should not have spoken at all, much less chattered idly. I should have shushed Silky, whose high, clear voice traveled.

Now I made a signal for silence.

“What's the
matter
?” asked Silky, without so much as waiting to take a breath.

I was right. She would have been doomed with a ‘Lidan husband. A ‘Lidan husband would have kept her universally bridled. At that moment, I wanted to put a hand over her mouth myself.

“Lady Silky,” said Trey. “Be quiet.”

Silky looked bewildered, but she held her peace.

A small miracle.

“Someone's following us,” I whispered to Trey.

I looked around nervously. Yellow creepers and low green thorn bushes grew right up to the black scree. The horses could not breast their way through growth that thick—­we were stuck on the road.

“I don't hear anything,” Trey said finally, and Silky nodded her head in agreement.

But as we walked, I heard it again. A slow-­moving horse whose hoofbeats were being masked by our own.

I moved away from Bran, reached down and grabbed Squab's reins, and jerked until he came to a halt. On my left, Trey pulled up Bran.

And then the sound was clear as the morning bell on the Montrose estate.

Clip.

Clop.

Clip.

Clop
.

Then nothing.

We stood, our horses at a halt, and looked at one another. Squab chose that moment to stretch out his neck, delicately pull off the leaves of a wick plant and eat them one by one. I had told Silky a thousand times not to let Squab eat when his bridle was on, but this didn't seem the moment to bring it up.

It was Trey who broke the silence.

“We keep moving until we can get off the road,” he murmured. “Then I'll wait for the follower.”

“No, Trey,” hissed Silky. “It could be
ghosts
.”

“Silky.”

“It
could
be.”

“That's not the sound of a ghost,” he said. “That's a solid sound.”

“It's all right, Silky,” I said. “We'll let Trey set an ambush.”

“Angel?” Silky was taken aback.

“What choice do we have?” I said. “Trey can handle it. And if we stay, we'll just be in his way.”

Silky looked skeptical. I was skeptical myself.

It wasn't clear to me what Trey could possibly know about ambushes.

We began walking the horses again, looking for an opening in the undergrowth. And then, as I looked carefully at Trey, I was suddenly less unsure about the plan. I saw someone who probably could overcome a single horseman. Maybe even two. He had grown into himself, and he was tall and broad shouldered.

Trey wasn't a child anymore.

The thought worried at me. For a moment I saw through Kalo's eyes—­and Leth's. I really was the virgin stolen away on her wedding night. This man had asked me to go with him on the night of my wedding day, and I had chosen to go. He was almost eighteen, and we had gone away together—­no chaperone in sight. Suddenly I wondered if I would ever see Violet again, my lemon drop friend, and, if I did, whether or not she would turn away.

But I had liked the rescue.

No—­it was more than that:

I had liked being rescued from marriage.

T
he Echo-­horse must have come closer, because now we could all hear it clearly.

Clip.

Clop.

Clip.

Clop
.

Inexorable.

I felt sick.

Minutes passed, and the undergrowth on either side was as thick as ever. The Old Road took us through a copse of trees, and the branches met over our heads.

The air was close.

And then the way became broad, and the vegetation receded, and all at once I could see half a dozen places where we might be able to get down from the road and plenty of places where we would be hidden from view.

“Now,” said Trey, and the horses scrambled down the bank.

We didn't have to go far; a wall of variegated vegetation soon camouflaged us. Squab immediately started munching on a string of vines.

“Silky,” I whispered, annoyed.

“What?”

“Squab's eating again.”

“He's
hungry,
” she said. “As am I.”

“Stay here,” said Trey. “I'm moving closer. And please, I beg of you, Silky, be quiet.”

She opened her mouth, thought better of it and closed it.

Trey turned his head toward us for a moment before moving forward.

“If this goes badly,” he said, “get out of here.”

“Don't let it go badly,” I said. “Keep yourself safe, Trey.”

We focused on the road. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. The only noise was the light breeze tossing the ends of the branches and the sound of Squab chewing.

The time passed. No one came for Trey to ambush.

O
ur mistake, of course, was to look so fixedly at the Old Road.

They came from behind.

I turned in time to see a fair man on foot, his face partially concealed by a hood, burst through the bushes. He pulled me off Jasmine before I could react. Jasmine reared and plunged as I wrestled with the man, almost overwhelmed by the smell of charcoal and unwashed clothes. I saw Silky reaching for the crossbow, but then another man was in the clearing, and before Silky could fit a bolt to the bow, he had dragged her off Squab by her hair. I saw her raking her nails over his face as they went down together.

Then Trey was there; he had galloped from the road, and he almost threw himself from Bran. The man holding me pushed me down, wheeled around, his leg high, and kicked Trey in the temple.

Trey fell.

The fair man then came for me again. I pushed at him hard, and when he fell to one knee, I kicked him and caught him in the chest. A moment later he dragged me to him and held my arms down. His breath was foul. He started screaming in my face, spitting out words.

“You be Lady Angel Montrose. Ain't you? You be the harlot. Ain't you? Ain't you?” Each word was accompanied by that foul breath and spittle.

And then he punched me.

I wanted to crawl away. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Silky was trying to get to me, but the man who had her continued to hold her by her thick gold hair. Then she flung an elbow back and caught her assailant in the ribs; he released her for a moment, and the crossbow, which had fallen to the ground, was instantly in her hand.

“It's all right now,” she said to me softly, even as her attacker was reaching out for her. “I've got it.”

She breathed out evenly and took the shot. The bolt hit the fair man holding me; it entered the back of his neck and burst through his throat. The tip of it grazed my cheek, and his blood spattered my face.

Silky turned to the other man, who, seeing his comrade go down, had hesitated. She was strong with a crossbow, and in a moment she had fit another bolt into the slot, but, with a great cry, the man ran away through the thickest part of the vegetation.

My assailant lay dead on top of me. Silky came and helped me push him away. She was distressed.

“There's blood
all over you,
” she said.

I wiped my face with the hem of my shirt. “Not mine,” I said shortly, out of breath.

“I never thought I'd kill a person, Angel.” She looked woeful for a moment, and then she looked at my cheek.

“My bolt
scratched
you,” she said. “I meant it to stop inside him.”

“A scratch is just a scratch,” I said. “You saved me.”

“Of
course
I saved you,” she said, and she burst into tears. I knew she must be feeling the beginnings of bloodguilt, and I wished I could figure out a way to help her. But one dealt with bloodguilt alone.

Trey was groggy, although what he said mostly made sense. We decided that the second man probably wasn't going to come back.

Squab hadn't gone far, and Silky walked over to him and took his reins. He nuzzled her with his big old shaggy head, and I thought of how I loved my little sister.

I walked over to Silky and hugged her, and she looked up at me in surprise.