The Scourge of Muirwood (11 page)

A fresh breeze brought the telltale musk of seawater. Lia looked up, inhaling the smell. She withdrew the orb again and summoned its power, asking it to find her shelter where she might sleep safely until dawn. She needed a cave, a warren, fallen tree – something that would hide her from sight and allow her a chance to rest before searching for a ship at Doviur. The orb responded to her need, the spindles pointing clearly towards the seashore.

Lia followed the trail it offered, weaving through the last vestiges of forest until it opened into a sweeping range of lush hills. In the distance, she could hear the foam and churning of the surf as the ocean collided with it. The sky was ablaze with myriads of stars and a moon as bright as a torch. The air was cooler and she tugged her cloak around her throat to fend off the chill. She descended the hill, seeing the flat slate of sea in the distance, the moonlight rippling off the crests. The land pitched down lower and she slowed her walk, glancing at the orb to guide her to a safe path. The hill ended abruptly, revealing a jagged cliff down to the thrashing surf below. The orb guided her to a small, steep path down the edge of the rocks. There was enough light to see, but her heart spasmed with worry and she moved stealthily down the edge. The cliffs were made of chalk and flint and crushed easily against her hand and boots. Noises from the ocean echoed off the slabs of stone, filling her with the apprehension of falling. Partway down the hillside, she noticed the giant maw of a cave – black against the silvery cliff. She stumbled slightly in the wet grass and went down but skidded to a halt, her heart thudding in her throat. Carefully she scooted down the hillside towards the exposed cave. The Cruciger orb affirmed it was her destination. The ocean reached the mouth of it on one side, rushing in, swirling, slinking back. A large moss-covered boulder was mired in the thick grassy growth higher up. It was singular seeing the massive boulder there, apart from the cave, apart from the rock. As she approached, she felt the Medium emanating from it and realized, with fascination, that there was a Leering carved into the rock, hidden by the moss.

The ground leveled out in front of her and she approached the hidden glen quickly. The boulder was taller than her, rounded on one side and flat on the other. Cautiously, she lifted her hand and touched it. To her relief, it was pure – untainted by the Blight. In her mind, through her Gift of Seering, she could see other mastons who had used the cave for shelter. The Leering had been there for hundreds of years, protecting the entrance to the cave which water had hollowed out. Using her thoughts and will, she activated the Leering’s protection and set it to guard the entrance by frightening away anyone who wandered nearby. In her blood, she felt the Medium churn awake and the cave emptied of seawater. The Leering repelled the salty water as it did intruders and she noticed the entrance dry out. The waves crashed further away, against the cliffside instead of at the breach. She was grateful to the Leering and thanked it in her mind before stepping off the grassy hill and into the sand and pebbles of the wash.

Using the orb for light, she entered the cave and found a spot of dry sand where she stretched out after removing her rucksack and bow and settled down with her cloak as a blanket. She set the orb in the sand and summoned fire into it, using its glowing surface to warm her hands and body. Weariness engulfed her and she lay her head down, banishing the light from the orb with a thought and felt the darkness shroud her. She could not see, not even her hands before her face, but she could hear the murmur of the sea foam. In the darkness, she thought of Colvin.

Her memories flitted this way and that, like little butterflies scattering over a well-known patch of sunny grass. The first journey was through the mist to the cave where Maderos lived, a spot where the boulders floated in the air, suspended by the Medium’s power, where she had helped him find shelter from the sheriff of Mendenhall. She remembered next crouching over his body as Almaguer’s men had kicked him and abused him. In her mind, she saw Colvin as she walked away from the fire consuming a stand of oak trees after summoning it to destroy the evil men. He had caught her and carried her to a safe place where she slept. She remembered the promise of meeting again at Whitsunday, a whispered promise that he had not fulfilled because of his duty to find and protect Ellowyn Demont. She sighed deeply, jealous of the year the two had spent together, and jealous now of the time they were together in Dahomey.

Colvin had returned at last, surprising her one night in the kitchen. She squirmed at the memory of shouting at him, itching and healing from a poisonous sap that had stained her. Another memory – despite the dirt, the tattered hunters garb, the spots of mud and grime, he had let her hold his hands to warm and comfort him in a cave beneath the Muirwood grounds. She savored the memory, the intimacy of the moment. But not as much as she savored another cave, made of ash and charred wood – high in the mountains of Pry-Ree. She would never forget that dark frigid night, huddled together in the husk of a fallen tree so huge its roots had forged a cave. It was a moment she would always remember – the night he had finally confessed his love.

Closing her eyes, she reached out to him with her thoughts.
Colvin?

He was so far away, in another country, in an Abbey that could no longer be reached by the Apse Veil. If the Medium could connect worlds, could it not bridge such a distance?

There was nothing in reply. No flicker of thought or awareness other than her own. Her heart twisted with pain at being away from him. She would have given all she possessed to find a way to be with him at that moment. It was a desperate yearning, a craving so strong it stung her eyes with tears. In the quiet of the cave, it felt as if she were all alone in the world.

Lia shifted in the sand, sitting up and feeling her emotions swell inside her. The weight of it came crashing down on her. What if they failed? What if
she
failed? What was she supposed to do at Dochte Abbey? Warn them that the Blight was coming? But would they listen to her as a wretched and not Ellowyn, who had the appearance of a lady of rank? In her mind, she had clung to a secret wish that after rescuing Colvin and Ellowyn, they would return to Muirwood and ask the Aldermaston to marry them and bind that marriage with an
irrevocare
sigil before the end came. The binding would last forever and Colvin would be hers. That is what she wanted, even more than learning to read and engrave.

The doubts began to play with her then. The sneaking doubts that poked at her, jabbed her with icy fingers.

What if Colvin changed his mind? What if Pareigis won and managed to turn over Muirwood to the Aldermaston of Augustin before she returned? What if there were no Abbeys left by the time she and Colvin met?

Her heart raced. Her blood pounded in her ears. She had not known who she truly was when he had left her. He had been in love with her for most of his life – at least in love with the
idea
of her. She would be sixteen. He was twenty. In her mind, she had imagined there being time to marry. If not Muirwood, then Tintern surely. The Aldermaston in Pry-Ree knew her true identity. Would he perform the binding ceremony? But what if the Queen Dowager learned of Tintern’s existence? What if there were no Abbeys left in the world?

Lia squeezed her hands together, pushing another thought into the aether.
Colvin, can you hear me? Colvin, my love, can you hear my thoughts? I am Ellowyn Demont. Please hear me – I am she. I am coming, my love. I am coming for you.

She paused, holding her breath – listening to her thoughts, her insights, her connection and strength with the Medium.

She heard nothing save the crashing of the waves.

* * *

Lia abandoned the shelter at dawn. She used the Leering at the mouth of the cave to summon water to drink and bathe in. Her hair was an impossible mess, but she held it up and let the water splash on her neck and then soak her hair. Long ago, Colvin had held up her hair while she bathed. The memory made it difficult to think. She wiped the soot from her face, cleansed the ash from her hair and brought fire to summoning, enough to make the water steam. A seagull looped in the sky above her, as if curious about the human invading its cliffs.

Lia squeezed the water from her hair, arranged her cloak and rucksack. She found some bread that Pasqua had packed and ate it hungrily along with strips of cool beef and broke off some cheese from the small slab. In her rucksack, she saw the bundle she had packed and opened it quickly, staring at the apple she was saving for Colvin. She stared at it, studying the splotches on the skin and then held it to her nose and smelled it. There was the scent, the reminder of Muirwood. Her thoughts turned to the Cider Orchard, at the trees which produced the fruit she held in her hand. Somehow the Queen Dowager was claiming Muirwood through its fruit. The price of cider had tripled. Perhaps she was arranging that – buying up all the casks after it left the grounds. She had come to Muirwood for Whitsunday and had offered free cider to those who had been allowed to dance around the maypole. The Aldermaston of Augustin had been drinking the cider. It was the drink that Marciana was offered in the tower in Lambeth.

In her mind, the pieces clove together making a whole. The Queen Dowager was corrupting the kingdom through Muirwood’s cider. Was there a poison she was adding to it which enabled her to control the minds of others? Such a harmless thing, a cup of cider, an innocent thing. But what if it was being twisted to serve her purposes?

The Medium whispered to her as she stared at the Leering. Yes, there were poisons. Dahomey was the land of poisons and serpents and subtlety. In her mind, she saw a symbol – two intertwining serpents forming a circle. She had seen it before, in her mind, when Kieran Ven had shared with her when the Blight would strike. In the deepest reaches of her thoughts, she realized that the symbol was connected to the coming of the Blight.

Just as clearly, she realized that she was going to where that symbol would be found.

The middle of an orchard of apple trees was a peculiar place to hold a meeting, but Martin did as he was told and patrolled the edges of it, alert for signs of intruders, while the Prince and the Aldermaston inspected the fruit and conferred quietly together. A few awkward learners had ventured towards the rows of trees to spy, but Martin waved them on with a growl in his voice and a curt nod to move on. After making the rounds twice, he ventured back into the trees and easily found them.

The look on the Aldermaston’s face alarmed Martin. He had a chalky pallor, his eyes intense on the Prince’s face. As Martin approached, the Aldermaston gave him a look full of daggers, his teeth baring into a hiss. “We are not finished speaking,” he said tightly, unable to control his anger at the interruption.

“It is all right,” the Prince said. “I wish him to know.”

“But
I
do not wish it,” the Aldermaston replied stiffly. His face was warped with angles and wrinkles, with an expression of emotions flashing hot and cool across his brow. “I have never encountered someone so Gifted in the Medium. If what you say is true…”

The Prince gave him an arch look, then a twisted smile. “If? You doubt already? That does not bode well for me, Aldermaston.”

He clenched his jaw and his fists. “I am reeling from what you have told me. The preciseness of your visions. The way you describe events that have not occurred as though they were in the past. I am unfamiliar with the Gift of Seering. I do not mean that I doubt your word.”

The Prince approached a thin tree and rubbed his hand along the bark. He stared from the base and up the trunk to the first crown of limbs. “My grandfather had this Gift. My own father did not or else he would not have plummeted to his death from Pent Tower. I cannot imagine choosing that fate.”

“But to know of your own death…beforehand. How have you endured it?”

The Prince stared at the bark closely, his fingers slowly stroking it. “The same way you will learn to,” he answered softly. “It is a burden to know the future. And a blessing. Look at this tree, Aldermaston. The fruit is nearly ripe. Soon you will harvest it. You have that knowledge because you have seen it before. The ripening and the harvest is a familiar experience. So it is with the future.” His voice grew husky. “This grove will be a place dear to her heart.” He winced saying the words and Martin caught the glint of an unshed tear in his eye, invisible to the Aldermaston.

The Aldermaston bristled, his emotions flaring to anger again. “Your…your daughter, as you said.”

The Prince turned and looked at him, a penetrating look. “In time, you will care for her as if you had been permitted to rear your own. She will heal the chasm in your heart that was breached when your lady died last year. Though I cannot expect it of you now.”

The Aldermaston was like a huge gray stone. His face impassive, his eyes speaking quite loudly,
How can you ask this of me?

The Prince plucked a bud of ripening fruit from the stem and held it close to his nose, smelling it. He turned it over in his hand several times. “What else would you know from me before we leave for Comoros?”

“Tell me of my enemy. Tell me of the woman who will bring about my death.”

“She is hardly a woman yet. The Queen of Dahomey is with child, I believe.”

“Yes, I did hear that she was.”