The Forest Lord (55 page)

Choose. Choose,
Eden
. "Give me the pistol, Papa." She held out her hand, hoping that she could see well enough through her tears to grip the handle.

"
Eden."

She heard the hoarse whisper and turned toward the cage. Hartley still lived. His eyes held the only color in his face, but they lit the dusk like torches.

"Forgive her,
Eden. Let there be… no more hatred."

She dropped her hand. Lord Bradwell bent and pulled Claudia to her feet.
Eden crawled toward the cage through the trampled, melting snow, her hair trailing like mourning ribbons.

"No hatred," she whispered.
"Only forgiveness."

He smiled and closed his eyes and lay back.
Eden bent her face to the ground.

Strange vibrations beat an uneven rhythm under her knees and palms. Behind her, Cyrus Fleming swore. She turned her head and stared down the fell through her veil of hair.

Coming up the fell, seemingly alone, was Donal. He raced swift as a young calf, with leaps and bounds that should have been impossible for a boy of his size. Just over his head, visible only to those with eyes to see, was the trailing, glittering mist of unearthly flight. Tod.

"Mother!"
Donal cried.
"Da!"

He reached
Eden and she caught his wiry body in her arms. "Donal! Donal, my son—"

"The hunter let me go. Tod let Mrs. Byrne out of the house, and she told Mr. Blake that he shouldn't listen to Aunt Claudia. He went away to
America." He wriggled free and stared through the bars at Hartley. Before
Eden could stop him, he touched the metal. Pain screwed up his features, but he held on.

"Da," he said. "I'll help you." He looked straight up at Claudia, and she leaned back into Cyrus's hold. There was an instant of total silence. And then, from every direction, came the rustling of grass and the patter of little feet and the grunts and snuffles of a hundred animal voices. All converged upon the cage.

Eden
watched them with prayers of joy and gratitude. Field mice, voles, foxes, and every sort of creature not asleep for the winter arrived in their varied legions—all accepting the truce that Donal imposed with his call. Claudia shrieked. Donal smiled.

"We will protect you, Da," he said, holding out his hand so that a pair of field mice could run up to perch on his shoulder. Three grumpy badgers, awakened from their sleep, planted themselves at Claudia's feet and glared up at her. The rest formed a large, loose circle about the humans.

Hartley raised his head, and tears fell from his eyes to pool on the cold metal floor of his cage.

"They will not hurt you, Claudia,"
Eden said. "But they will not leave until you release Hartley."

"So that he may work his evil on some other innocent?"
Claudia clenched her hands, shooting glances right and left as if trying to watch all the animals at once. "He will take you away from me, and destroy you, as he destroyed my love!"

"No. He will not take me away. He will go with our son to a place where both of them will be safe from people like you."

"Safe from punishment!"
Claudia cried. "I will
not
give him up!"

An unearthly cry silenced them both. Hartley had risen into a crouch within the cage. His chest rose and fell in a deep breath. From his brow sprouted antlers, and from his mouth came another cry that shook the very dale itself.

In the distance came a faint rumbling, like an approaching storm.
Eden realized that it was not thunder but the drumming of hooves.

Out of the forest, down the fell, up from the dale dashed the
red deer, magnificent stags in full antler and their females in blazing coats. Males that should be fighting each other in rut ran side by side, bellowing challenges as they came.

Cyrus pulled Claudia against him. "
Eden, take Donal and run!"

"There is nothing to fear."
Eden took Donal's hand as the deer joined the other beasts, towering above them in their magnificence. The air rang with snorts and the tearing of earth.

But among the deer was another red-coated creature, nearly lost in the forest of stamping hooves. It continued to the very edge of the cage when the others had stopped.

A fox.
A red fox, crouching and cowering low to the earth.
Hartley knelt. He lifted his hand and spread his fingers as if in a benediction.

"Be free," he commanded.

The fox writhed, falling upon its back.
Eden was not sure what she saw, for in a single blink the fox was gone, and a man lay there in its place—a man dressed in the fashion of two decades past. He lifted his graying head.

Claudia stood rigid in Cyrus's hold, staring at the man. She spoke a single, croaking word.

"Raines."

And
Eden knew. She embraced Donal and thanked
Providence for this miracle, and for Hartley's selfless compassion. His freedom would make the miracle complete.

Claudia shook herself free. She took a halting step toward her husband, and then another, and another. The man rose to his knees. He blinked as if he had forgotten how to see with human eyes.

"Claudia?"

Eden
turned Donal away. What happened now was a private reunion, and even after all Claudia had done—after all her scheming and hatred—she deserved this promise of redemption.

But when
Eden faced the cage, she saw that Hartley lay still.

"
No
. Not yet." She lifted Donal high and pressed her cheek to his. "Call your father, Donal. Call him!"

"Wake up, Da!" Donal cried. "Wake up!"

Hartley stirred. He whispered something too low for
Eden to hear.

"He's trying, Mother," Donal said. "He's so tired."

A large, gentle hand came to rest on
Eden's shoulder. "Claudia gave me the keys," Lord Bradwell said. "Take them. I will help you."

Dry-mouthed and shaking,
Eden let Donal down and fitted the first key to the padlock. The door opened and she flung the lock aside. She crawled into the cage and grasped the iron collar; using the second key she carefully removed the collar from his neck. She grasped Hartley by the sleeves of his coat, pulling and tugging him to the door.

"Help me," she begged. "Soon you'll be in a place where you can heal. You must try. Damn you, Hartley, try!"

He moved almost infinitesimally.
Eden redoubled her efforts. Her father reached in when Hartley was near the door and helped her pull him onto the wet grass. Donal bent beside him, laying his small hand on Hartley's matted hair.

There was no time to let him rest. His only chance at recovery lay in his own land.
In Tir-na-nog.
But she did not know how to find the way.

"Donal, think very hard.
Did your father ever tell you how to get to the land of the Fane?"

"Yes, Mother. I can show the way."

Thank God
. "Help me carry him into the forest," she asked Lord Bradwell.

"And Claudia?"

Eden
glanced over her shoulder. Two people were locked in a weeping embrace, oblivious to the world around them.

"She is a danger no longer. We must go."

Together, with Donal leading the way, she and Lord Bradwell carried Hartley into the wood, to the heart of the Forest Lord's realm, where the Grandfather Oak spread his limbs in benevolent rule.

Of course
,
Eden thought.
The gate is here
.

She and Lord Bradwell laid Hartley down.
Eden stretched out on the bed of leaves beside him.

"Come, my love," she whispered. "Your gate lies here, but I cannot open it. You must do it. Take our son, and teach him… teach him to be happy." She turned his face and kissed him.

His lips moved on hers. He opened his eyes—those unearthly, mysterious eyes like wet summer leaves—and smiled.

"Thank you, Eden," he said. He lifted his hand to stroke her hair. "I… cannot repay you.
But I…
I shall never forget you."

She need hold back her tears only a little while longer.
"Nor I you.
Come." She tugged at his arm. Her father pulled him up. Hartley faced the oak. He murmured words in a language
Eden didn't understand, and the air before the vast trunk began to shiver with eldritch light. Lord Bradwell gasped.

"The gate," Hartley said. He looked at
Eden. "Once I go… I cannot return."

"I know." She smiled for him. "Your life is all that matters now.
And Donal's."
She pushed Donal gently toward his father. "Donal, you will go with your father to a very special place, where you will be happy and no one can ever hurt you."

"No, Eden," Lord Bradwell whispered.

"Can't you see? It is the only way. I know that now."

Hartley took Donal's hand. "This is a gift I do not deserve. Ah,
Eden—"

She covered his lips with her finger. "You must go quickly.
Quickly."
She turned her face away.

But he caught her face in his hands and turned it again and kissed her. Her tears mingled on their lips.

"You will have love,
Eden. You will have it because no mortal… was ever more deserving." He bent his head to Donal. "Will you come with me now, my son?"

Donal planted his feet. "Is Mother coming, too?"

"Not… now, Donal.
We must go first. You will like Tir-na-nog—"

"Mother!"
Donal began to cry, as he so seldom did.
Eden maintained her composure with the greatest effort of her life.

"I will be along soon," she said, stroking Donal's hair. "Please, go with your father." She nodded to Hartley, and he lifted Donal into his arms, though the effort cost him dearly.

A flash of sparkling light whirled overhead. Tod appeared, circling them joyfully.

"We go!" he cried. "We go home?"

"Yes," Hartley echoed.
"Home."

In a heartbeat Tod had flung himself through the shimmering gate and vanished. Hartley cradled the weeping Donal to his shoulder and looked one last time at
Eden. "Be happy," he said. He faced the gate again, gathered his strength, and stepped through.

Eden
fell to her knees. Lord Bradwell knelt beside her and held her like the true father he had never been before.

"It is my fault," he groaned. "Oh,
Eden, this is my doing. I did not believe that love could ever be part of what I started six years ago."

Eden
covered his hand with hers. "No, Papa." She tried to smile. "You are not to blame."

"I do not deserve your affection. Oh, my dear, if only I could suffer in your place."

She shook her head. No one else could endure this unbearable loss—and she would endure, for the sake of those who still needed her.
For the servants and tenants and beasts of Hartsmere.

"We need not remain here,
Eden," her father said. "I am not without resources now. I have friends and connections throughout
Europe. We can travel on the continent and forget this place."

Forget
.
Eden bent forward to touch the bark of the Grandfather Oak. She was obscurely comforted to feel its rough reality, to know that it had sheltered the man she loved. A part of him lived on within that magnificent old gentleman.
And in this forest.

For as long as she lived, she would preserve what he had loved. No ax would ever touch these trees, nor
hunter invade
its borders.

And every time she came to this place, she would know that the two she loved more than life itself were happy and safe on the other side.

That certainty must see her through all the years to come.

"I no longer try to escape what I fear, Papa," she said. "Hartsmere is my home. I will stay."

She settled against the tree and closed her eyes. After a time, Lord Bradwell left her, and beasts large and small crept from the shrubbery to pay her homage. Even they did not see her weep.