The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (34 page)

They were a plainer and grimmer lot than those I had traveled with from the city. They were country folk, I suppose, and were less inclined toward talk; indeed, they seemed disposed not to speak at all and instead were intent only on sleep. As if rest were somehow a possibility! The coach hurtled over roads that grew coarser by the mile. All the same, the other travelers folded their arms and bowed their heads, appearing as if they had fallen into the deepest repose. Though more than once, on the edge of my vision, I noticed one of them stealing a glance at me through cracked eyelids, only to clamp his eyes shut if I looked at him directly.

Hoping to find at least one other willing to pass the time in conversation, I made an effort to speak to the man who sat on the bench beside me. Unlike the others, he did not seem to sleep, and I thought perhaps he was from the city like myself. His coat was fashionably cut, and on his right hand was a gold ring carved like a lion’s head.

I got the impression he was young, but I could not see if he was handsome or not, for there was little light inside the coach and he kept his hat on. Nor did it matter. My attempts at conversation were futile, my questions unanswered. I gave up and resigned myself to silence.

Nearly all of that leg of the journey was conducted in the night, so there was no scenery for me to look at out the windows. My head began to ache incessantly, as did my shoulders and spine, and I could feel the force of the night pressing inward, as if the coach were an egg being crushed in a dark hand. It was difficult to breathe.

I must have fallen into a kind of stupor—not sleep, for it had none of sleep’s wholesomeness or recuperative properties—for when the coach came to a stop, my head went up and my eyes opened. Red light flickered in through the windows as the coach’s lanterns swung without, and the illumination cast sharp shadows across the faces of my fellow travelers. The young man sitting next to me reached a hand inside his coat.

Outside, voices spoke—the deep voices of men. What words they uttered I could not tell, but by their tone they seemed to want something. We all sat motionless, straining to listen.

“Well, I’ve not time for any sort of inspection,” we heard the driver say. “I’m pushing my timetable as it is.”

There was a silence, then again the voices spoke. There were at least three of them. They were pressing for something.

“By God, the night is too short for this, Captain,” the driver said, his voice rising so we heard it clearly. “I’ve shown you my papers. I’ve got nothing aboard save the mail and seven travelers. I thought it was the business of brigands to be interfering with the post, not the king’s own soldiers. If you want to detain someone on the road, why don’t you make it the highwaymen? A good evening to you, Captain!”

The reins snapped, and the coach lurched forward. We all remained frozen, waiting for the sound of hooves pounding after us in pursuit. But there was only the rattle of the wheels and another crack of the reins. After half a mile the man beside me removed his hand from his coat. I glanced at the other travelers, and they glanced at me, and I could see that all of us were making a count, though there was no need.

Our number was eight, as it had been ever since the stop at Morrowset.

After that no one pretended to sleep, and we all sat rigid as the coach rattled onward. What sort of land we traveled through now I could not tell, for the lanterns’ illumination reached no more than a few paces from the coach. We were a tiny island of light adrift in a dark sea.

A few more times we stopped at some silent post to deliver the mail. On such occasions we would get out and stretch our legs, and once we took a bit of cold tea and toast that had been set out for us on a table in the deserted public room of an inn, as if left there by ghosts.

It was after one of these stops that we returned to the coach to find our number had been reduced by one. The young man in the fashionable coat who had been sitting next to me was nowhere to be seen. When the driver asked if all were aboard, we told him our number. He nodded, then climbed into his seat and whistled to the horses.

We spoke no more of it. But after that, we slept.

F
OR SOME HOURS I must have been unconscious, for when I opened my eyes again, the light of a pale dawn gleamed through the windows of the coach.

It seemed we had passed through a door to another world sometime during the night. Gone was the cultivated countryside that surrounded Invarel, with its picturesque villages, broad green fields, and manor houses and well-tended groves nestled behind high walls.

Instead, the land I saw was a wild, half-formed place: all heather hills and ridges of gorse speckled with bog and marsh. The practice of enclosure had not reached out so far into the hinterlands (County Westmorain being closer to Torland than Invarel), and the only walls I saw were rough lines of fieldstone drawn upon the landscape, not to exclude people but merely to prevent cattle and sheep from wandering. A series of low fells glowered in the distance, shreds of mist catching on their tops.

The road dropped into a dell and followed alongside a small river for a mile. Then we crossed a bridge and so came into the village of Cairnbridge: a small collection of solid stone houses with slate roofs. We made our stop at the lone inn, which stood across from the village green. The coach did not linger; its timetable left no time to spare. I was the only one to disembark, and the other passengers did not bid me farewell.

I looked around, but at this early hour the village was silent. A gray cat eyed me but ignored my little clucks and coaxings and instead slunk down the alley next to the inn. Mr. Quent had written that I would be met at the station, but I could not detect a living soul in view.

There was nothing to do but wait. However, anxious to move after so many hours of confinement in the coach, I left my bags on the step of the inn and walked across the village’s one cobbled street to the common green. I let myself through a gate in the low wall and stepped into the field beyond.

I found myself in the company of a pair of red cows, but they paid me no heed as they chewed a meal of grass. I walked along the wall, and as I went, I, too, derived sustenance from the little field. The air murmured through the grass, and a crow let out throaty calls, watching me with bright black eyes from its perch on the wall.

As I walked, I felt a kind of peace such as I had not felt in many days, indeed, not since that terrible day of my mother’s passing. It was strange that in a place that was in every way alien to me I should feel so comforted. Even the heathland that I glimpsed beyond the village, forlorn as it was, did not dim my spirits. Rather, I felt a sort of muted wonder at its starkness, and in the morning light my eyes attempted to discern all the subtle shadings of russet and gold, of gray-green and loamy brown.

My wandering had taken me around the perimeter of the commons to the far side, and it occurred to me that I was now a good distance from the inn and that someone looking for me might not easily notice where I had gone. I started directly across the field, picking up the hem of my dress as I went, for the grass was wet with dew.

As I approached the center of the field, I came upon a stump. Its size was remarkable, and I paced around the edge. Given its circumference, the tree for which it had served as a foundation must have been of an enormous size—indeed, must have dominated the entire field. I attempted to count the rings in the stump, but there were far too many.

As I examined the stump, I noticed the outer bark was blackened and cracked, and the hard soil around it was devoid of grass. My gaze caught a rusty edge that jutted from the ground. I bent closer; it was the head of an ax, broken in two.

A wind sprang up, and the grass hissed and tossed. The crow spread sooty wings and sprang off the wall, letting out several harsh calls as it rose into the sky. I clutched my bonnet against the wind and stood.

A hand touched my arm.

I let out a gasp and turned around. A man stood before me. He was short and bandy-legged, dressed in a brown jacket, his head crowned by a shapeless hat. He peered at me with a leathern face.

“I’m supposing ye must be Miss Lockwell,” he said, the words so thick and slurred I wondered if he suffered from some impediment.

It took me a moment to find the power to speak. “Are you Mr. Quent?”

“Mr. Quent, she thinks I am! Saints and stones guard me.” He shook his head. “Nay, I keep the grounds up at Heathcrest. I was told to come fetch ye. I would’ve been here sooner, but the mare threw a shoe, and I had to heel it on back an’ fetch the old gelding.”

I was, I confess, relieved to discover that this was not my employer, though for this feeling I chided myself. What did it matter if Mr. Quent was handsome or homely? Besides, I had no reason to think ill of this fellow. His manner of speech was not a defect, I had determined, but merely a thick west-county accent.

Having recovered my manners, I thanked him for coming and learned that his name was Jance.

“This tree must have been magnificent when it was alive,” I said, looking again at the stump. “Do you know what happened to it?”

“Mrs. Darendal will be wondering after us,” he said. “I warrant we’d best get going. The carriage is at the inn.”

“I just need to retrieve my bags from the steps, and I will be ready to go, Mr. Jance.”

“No mister,” he said. “It’s only Jance.”

“Of course,” I said, and I followed him across the commons. Above, the crow floated in circles like a bit of ash on the breeze.

T
HE CARRIAGE TURNED out to be an old-style surrey, with a seat for two suspended between four large wheels, and the gelding attached to it was far more than old, being an ancient thing I was sure was older than me.

We made our way at a pace I could have easily beaten afoot. Not that I had a wish to proceed faster, feeling some trepidation now that I was so close to meeting my new employer. What if he did not think I had the right look or the proper manner about me?

Only that was foolish. He had not been able to arrange for any other governess, and beggars could not be choosers. No matter what he thought upon our meeting, he would simply have to make do with me.

This thought cheered me, and after that I enjoyed the ride, gazing with interest at all the sights around me. We passed several crofts and farms and the ruins of an ancient-looking stone chapel. At last we made a slow ascent up and around the shoulder of a broad hill, and as we neared the top I caught my first view of Heathcrest Hall. As its name suggested, it stood upon the high point, all alone save for a nearby tumble of stones.

I cannot say I found the house welcoming at first sight. It was too stern for that, all broad plinths and thick columns and brooding lintels—features constructed not for grace but rather for strength to withstand fierce elements. It was nothing like the airy houses of the New Quarter. All the same, after some study, I thought it handsome in its way. Old-fashioned, to be sure, even a bit dull. But comforting too. I could imagine that, no matter how the winds might howl, within those walls one would always be protected.

Gamely giving up what seemed its final breaths, the horse pulled the surrey up the hill, and we halted before the house. Jance unloaded my bags and without further words freed the horse from its harness and led the poor creature away. With nothing else to do, I picked up my satchels and went to find Mrs. Darendal.

When several knocks on the front door yielded no response, I let myself in. The front hall was everything I would have expected of a country manor: a room that ran the full length of the house, heavy-beamed and paneled with wood. There were as many heads of stag and boar on the walls as there were ancestral portraits, so that one got the impression all were held in equal regard. I could have made a bedchamber of the fireplace that dominated one end of the hall. Seeing no one about, I started that way to make a closer examination of it.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” said a low voice.

I turned and saw no one else in the room, though to my left a large stuffed wolf, mounted upon a pedestal, gazed at me with glassy eyes.