Shadowfell (20 page)

‘Now?’

‘The sooner the better, Neryn. The boy’s coming up later today; let’s get this done while there’s nobody about.’

I tied my shawl around my shoulders, then fetched my cloak – Flint’s old cloak – from the peg where it hung beside his black Enforcer garment. ‘How do you know he’s coming today?’ I asked.

‘A signal. I need to speak to him briefly. I’ll do so outdoors. He won’t see you.’

‘But he does know I’m here.’

‘As I told you, the place is used to shelter folk who need it. The lad knows I’m not alone. No more than that. The less I tell him, the safer for all of us. Ready?’

‘Just my shoes . . .’ I moved to fetch them, but Flint was ahead of me.

‘Sit down.’

I sat on the edge of the bed. He knelt beside me, holding each shoe in turn as I slipped my foot in. As he tied up the cords, I waited for him to make some comment on the tiny neat stitches, the unusual lining, the fact that the shoes were remarkably unscathed from the trip along the lochs and up the valley. But he finished fastening them in silence, then, when I would have got up, he put his hands around my feet for a moment. The warm strength of them jolted something deep inside me. Part of me woke up, a part I had not known existed.

‘Neryn.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry. Sorry I can’t tell you more. Sorry we have to move on when you’re still not yourself. Sorry I can’t give you time. But there is no time.’

My heart was thudding; my cheeks were warm. I could think of nothing to say, but I managed a nod.

Flint rose to his feet. ‘Come, then,’ he said, holding out a hand. I took it, and we went outside together.

We walked up the hill. Flint set a good pace, and quite soon my legs were aching, but I gritted my teeth and went on. Our breath made little clouds in the cold air.

‘Fix on a goal you can manage,’ Flint said, pausing while I caught up. ‘That rock up there – perhaps another ten steps. When you reach it, choose the next goal.’

I climbed to the rock. I chose the next goal, the trunk of a long-fallen pine, from which limbs had been hewed, perhaps to fuel our hearth fire. By the time I reached it I was breathing hard.

‘Rest now,’ Flint said. ‘You’ve done well. If you feel faint, bend over and put your hands on your knees. It might help to wrap your shawl over your mouth and nose. The air’s chill; you’ve been used to the fire.’

The kindly tone was misleading. He waited exactly as long as it took for me to get my breath back, then said, ‘Now we’ll walk up as far as the trees. You go first.’ As I began to climb, he spoke from behind me. ‘You can do it, Neryn.’

The band of trees was perhaps thirty paces away, straight up the steep path. A goal. I would do it. I would be strong enough.

At ten steps I felt Flint’s arm come through mine. ‘That’s enough on your own,’ he said.

His body was warm against me. His touch gave me strength. We walked up to the trees. Their leafless limbs were alive with little birds searching for dried-up berries or nuts the martens had missed. We turned to look down the hill. Now we were clear of the rocky outcrop shielding the hut, the valley was revealed below us under a sky streaked with high cloud. Down there, about a mile to the north, lay a blackened, empty place. A broken wall. The crumbling ruins of houses. A row of sad hawthorns. I remembered helping decorate them with ribbons, in spring, to honour a deity whose name was no longer spoken. There had once been a fair wood around that place. Many of the trees had been burned along with the settlement, but an outer ring still stood, sad witnesses, mute guardians.

‘Corbie’s Wood,’ I breathed, slipping my arm out of Flint’s.

Gods, there was the remnant of Grandmother’s house, and there the lone blackthorn beneath which Farral had died. There was the spot where the Enforcers had camped after the rout was over, waiting to see who would come back, waiting to see whether they had missed anyone. Far up the hill on the other side of the valley was the cottage where we’d found refuge, Father and I. The place where I’d tended to Grandmother over those last sad seasons; the place from which Father had gone out, day by day, to find what work he could to keep us from starving; the makeshift home to which he’d returned each time sunk deeper into despair. My heart ached with grief.

Flint laid his hand on the small of my back. His touch made me start with some violence; I had been far away. The hand was instantly removed, and that, somehow, was the worst thing of all. I stood cold and alone, looking down over the ruin of my old home, not knowing how to tell Flint I needed the warmth of human touch, an arm around my shoulders, a hand in mine. I longed to believe, just for a little, that I had a friend.

‘We’d best walk back now. You’ll get cold,’ Flint said.

‘I want to go down there.’ My voice was thick with unshed tears. ‘When it happened, there wasn’t time . . . we couldn’t . . .’ I had not dreamed this could hurt so much.

‘It’s not safe.’

I looked again at the place where Corbie’s Wood had been. Nothing lived in that deserted spot now save sad ghosts.

‘Flint.’

‘Yes? Come, we must keep moving; tell me as we go.’

I slipped my arm through his again, unasked. In a landscape of death and loss, he was alive; warm, strong. ‘When you said we would move on . . . you meant going north, didn’t you? How could we do that without passing by Corbie’s Wood?’

‘There’s a track up beyond those trees that follows the ridge and comes down further north. You may even remember it. You and your brother must have roamed about these hills in summer, as children do. It leads past a place called Lone Tarn. That way’s safer. More remote.’ He glanced at me. ‘It’s a hard walk.’

‘I’ll manage,’ I said.

We were passing an outcrop of rocks cloaked in thorny bushes when Flint made a little sound under his breath. A moment later I found myself thrust down into hiding.

I crouched between the rocks where Flint had put me; there was no need for him to say,
Be quiet
. I didn’t see him unsheathe his knife, but it was in his hand as he moved on down the hill.

I waited, imagining the possibilities. Local people hunting for me in the hope of winning a payment in king’s silver. Wild dogs; hungry wolves. Enforcers. No, Flint would not have left me on my own. I made myself breathe slowly.

‘Neryn.’

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Not Flint’s voice, but that of someone smaller and stranger. ‘No!’ I whispered. ‘Not now!’

‘Now, yes, now!’

‘Quick, before he comes back!’

Faces peered from the cover of the thorny plants. Eyes peeped out from the chinks and cracks of the hillside. Voices spoke from pools of rainwater. From the time Flint brought me here, I had seen not a trace of the Good Folk. Now they were everywhere. ‘Now, now, talk now!’ they pleaded. ‘Now, while
he
is not near.’

‘Shh!’ I hissed. ‘Keep quiet and stay hidden. This is not the time.’

‘Danger! Peril!’

‘Hide yourselves
now
!’ I ordered.

And now the wind brought voices from down the hill, Flint’s and that of a younger man.

‘. . . early,’ was all I caught of Flint’s speech.
You’re here early.
The boy. It was only the lad come before Flint expected him. I breathed again.

‘. . . message . . . coming up toward the pass. Many . . .’

‘How long . . .’

The men’s voices faded; they had moved away. The Good Folk had obeyed my command and merged back into the land, invisible to human eyes. I knew they were still there watching me. My skin prickled with their closeness.

I waited, crouched in my bolthole and growing colder by the moment. I imagined myself walking in Corbie’s Wood. I pictured myself kneeling by Farral’s grave – a grave marked by a pile of stones placed there long after the Enforcers had moved on, satisfied that the place had been cleansed of both the smirched and the rebellious. We had come out from hiding then, we sad survivors, and laid our dead to rest. We had hidden the pieces of our broken lives in our hearts and crept away. In my mind I sang the old song for my brother.
Hag of the Isles my secrets keep; Master of Shadows guard my sleep
.

‘Neryn.’

Flint was here. I struggled to my feet. My cramped legs did not want to hold me. He caught my arms to stop me from falling.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I did not mean to be so long. It’s safe now. Come, let’s get you home.’

‘Home,’ I croaked. ‘I’d laugh at that, if I was capable of it.’ Gods, my legs felt like jelly. I clenched my teeth and took a step.

‘I’ll carry you,’ Flint said.

‘No! It’s only a cramp.’ I made myself move forward. ‘Is he gone?’ I murmured as we headed back down to the hut.

‘Mm.’ Flint’s answer was not much more than a grunt. After a moment he added, ‘We’ll talk inside.’

Once in the hut, with the door closed behind us, I resisted the urge to sink down on the bed. I hung up my cloak, then went to sit on the bench by the table. I wanted my strength back. I wanted the old Neryn back, the one who could walk many miles between sunup and sundown, and make her own fire, and catch her own supper.

Flint was a sombre-looking man at the best of times. Right now he was grimmer than usual, his mouth a thin line, his jaw tight, his eyes forbidding questions. He put a log on the fire, filled the kettle, set it to boil. He took off his cloak – the silver stag gleamed in the firelight – and hung it beside mine. He came to stand by me, arms folded. Neither of us had said a word since we came in.

‘I thought I heard you talking to someone up there.’

I had not expected this. He must have exceptionally sharp hearing. The voices of the Good Folk were small, and I was sure I had not spoken above a whisper. ‘I was saying a prayer for my brother,’ I told him. A half-truth.

‘Mm-hm.’ Flint just leaned there looking at me.

‘Was that the boy who usually comes here?’ I asked.

He nodded.

‘What did he want?’

‘Nothing important,’ Flint said.

Now that was more than half a lie, I thought. ‘I heard him say something about someone coming up toward the pass.’

‘I could deny that, as you denied that you were talking to someone. We could keep playing this game until time caught up with us.’

I said nothing. His approach to information was to share only what he thought I needed to know. He did not need to know about the Good Folk.

‘You look tired,’ Flint said. ‘You’d better rest.’

‘I will be strong enough,’ I muttered, not sure if I was angry with Flint, or with myself, or with King Keldec and the whole benighted realm of Alban.
A day
, I thought.
Just one day when I don’t have to think about any of it. One day when I can go outside and walk around and feel the sunlight without looking over my shoulder. One day when I can talk to Flint, and talk to the Good Folk, and talk to anyone who comes by without guarding every word
. It didn’t seem much to ask. But it was. It was impossible.

‘Rest first,’ Flint said. ‘We’ll have another walk later. But . . .’

‘But what?’

Now there was a look on his face that really troubled me. It was an Enforcer look, and his tone matched it. It was all hard edges. ‘Tomorrow I must be away all day. I need a promise from you, Neryn. You mustn’t leave the hut while I’m gone. Not even out to the privy – you can use a bucket. If anyone comes, if you hear anything at all, you must stay inside and keep silent. Not a sound. Do you understand?’

‘I understand why people are afraid of Enforcers,’ I said, making myself look him in the eye. ‘Where are you going? It’s because of that boy, isn’t it? The message he brought?’

Flint sighed. ‘You need not know the details. Just as I need not know exactly what you were doing before, when I left you on the hill up there. I find myself hoping . . .’ He lost the thread of what he was saying, or perhaps thought better of it. ‘I’ll brew you a herbal infusion. Warm you up.’

‘Whatever the message was, it’s upset you. Is someone coming here? Someone who is a threat to me?’ I thought again. ‘Or to you?’

He was setting cups on the table, his movements precise. For a man with such big hands, he was remarkably deft. I liked watching him work. ‘You understand why I cannot tell you that,’ he said.

I did, of course. What I didn’t know, I couldn’t pass on. ‘If you can’t tell me that,’ I said, ‘tell me what you were going to say before.
I find myself hoping . . .
Hoping what?’

He kept his attention on the brew he was preparing. ‘Hoping for one day, a single day, with the world to rights. A day when I need not worry about whether you are safe; a day when I can open doors and shutters and let the sun in. A day when there are no battles to be fought, when right and wrong are as clear-cut as light and dark.’ Flint grimaced. ‘It will be a long time before we see such a day. Never, perhaps.’ He went to fetch the kettle from the fire.

I considered this remarkable speech while Flint finished making his brew and set a cup before me on the table. It startled me that his thoughts had run so close to mine. He seated himself opposite me, his own cup between his palms. He was avoiding my gaze.