The Scourge of Muirwood (2 page)

Martin sighed and let the corpse fall with a splash. He made sure the gladius was snug in its scabbard and fished his blade out of the murk and sheathed it in his belt. “We ride to Muirwood then?”

A curious look and a subtle shake of his head came as the reply. “The orb bids me further west. We must ride, while there is still daylight in this accursed swamp.”

“Not to Muirwood?”

“Trust me, old friend,” he said, his eyes intense. “There is a grove of trees we must visit. Ride with me, Martin. Tell no one what we do.”

“The king is expecting us in Comoros in less than a fortnight.” He scratched his throat and started towards his own mount. “He is not a patient man. He will take it amiss if we are late.”

The Prince was staring westward, his eyes fixed on something only he could see. “I know, Martin. But the way is becoming more clear. The swamp whispers to me. It whispers of death.” He sighed. “It whispers of my death.”

The fragrance of the Cider Orchard enmeshed with Lia’s memories and the churn of feelings she worried would overwhelm her. Throughout her childhood at Muirwood Abbey, she had fled to the Cider Orchard. The tightly clustered rows of trees made it easier to hide and escape kitchen chores. She had plucked hundreds of apples from their stems and nestled in the grass to savor them. She had witnessed the orchard blooming with blossoms or wreathed in smoky mist. The thoughts evoked memories of rushing with Sowe and Colvin to escape the sheriff’s men through the orchard. Of Getman Smith finding her there and squeezing her arm. One of her most painful memories happened there as well – when Colvin had rejected her and left her alone in the mud and dripping branches. But it was also the place where he had found her again, later, and asked for her help in saving Ellowyn Demont.

Ellowyn Demont.

The name invoked such tangled feelings – hate, envy, pity, respect, jealousy. Especially jealousy. Lia leaned against a tree trunk in the twilight, sighing deeply, stifling a sob, and clenched her fists. Colvin had found Ellowyn at Sempringfall Abbey, sentenced there as a wretched after the kingdom of Pry-Ree was vanquished. She grew up unaware of her name, known as Hillel Lavender because she worked at the laundry. But things were not as they seemed. Hillel was not the real Ellowyn Demont. For some reason, for some cruel reason, Lia had learned too late that she herself was the missing heir of Pry-Ree. She had sacrificed herself for the other girl, believing that Hillel was the true person and bound for Dochte Abbey to warn them of the coming of the Blight. But it was not Hillel that needed to go. It was Lia, her leg still throbbing and healing, her hand still aching from the arrow that had transfixed it. The injuries she had sustained were not what pained her the most. It was jealousy – pure jealousy – that the other girl was traveling by sea to Dahomey to warn the inhabitants of Dochte Abbey. She was not traveling alone, but with Colvin.

The ache became worse. It robbed her ability to think. She had always known herself as Lia Cook. It was every wretched’s deepest dream to learn of their parentage. Why had events turned out in such a way? Why was it that Colvin had been led to Sempringfall to find the girl, and not to Muirwood? What would have happened if she had been allowed to spend a year with Colvin, as Hillel had, learning languages and scriving, being able to participate in the politics of her uncle, Garen Demont, instead of shying away from them, always too fearful. Did the Aldermaston of Muirwood know the truth? Had he always known?

The jealousy coalesced into anger. The Prince of Pry-Ree, her very own father, had visited Muirwood before her birth. The Aldermaston of Tintern knew who she was. She coughed with a half-chuckle. He had even promised to tell her when she returned from Dochte Abbey. She remembered the pity in his eyes. But still, he had not told her the truth. It was the Cruciger orb, a gift left with her when she was abandoned as a baby, that had revealed the truth at last. The Aldermaston knew. He must have known. Yet he had deliberately deceived her. The anger boiled. She had to know why. Colvin was escorting the wrong person to Dahomey. The thought made her feel black inside.

Pushing away from the smooth-bark of the apple tree, she strode towards the Manor house. It was dusk and torches shone in sconces on the walls. She walked furiously but with a limp. She knew she should not, that her leg would throb that night as she tried to fall asleep, but she did not care. The Abbey walls seemed luminous that night, as if the very stones radiated moonlight before the silver orb appeared in the sky. She loved the Abbey with all her heart. It was part of her. Beneath her hunter’s garb, she wore a soft, woven chaen shirt. It reminded her of the maston vows she had made inside. She was a maston, as her father and her mother had been. Being a maston was part of her heritage.

Lia reached the manor house and thrust open the door. Something caught her eye in the corner outside, some movement. She glanced but saw nothing. From the corner of her eye, it had seemed like a person – a man wearing hunter garb. She paused, staring at the spot, but she could see nothing. She shook her head, realizing that there were many knight-mastons wandering the grounds since the battle. It was probably one of them.

She approached the Aldermaston’s door and opened it without knocking first. She regretted it instantly. The Aldermaston looked haggard at his desk, his eyes red with veins and swollen with lack of sleep. His left hand trembled on the desk, a sign of his age and the strain he had endured. He was talking to Garen Demont, her uncle.

“I am sorry,” she offered as their heads turned towards her.

“Is something the matter, Lia?” the Aldermaston said.

“I am sorry for interrupting you,” she said, nodding respectfully at Demont. Her eyes blazed as she stared at the Aldermaston. “I must speak with you.”

“Come in then, child.” His eyes became wary, seeing the flush on her cheeks and the brooding anger in her eyes. “Shut the door. Have you met our hunter, Earl Demont?”

Garen Demont was younger than the Aldermaston, but he was much older than Lia. He was not excessively tall, but he was fit and trim for a man nearly fifty. He had survived the battle of Maseve as a young man, escaped the kingdom and fought for foreign kings in turn. But he had returned at last to challenge the king for his family’s birthright and defeated him at the battle of Winterrowd. Lia had been there and recalled seeing him there, perched on a wagon the evening of the battle, all blood-spattered and filthy as he announced their victory in a humble manner. She had not seen him since then until he had arrived at Muirwood to defeat their enemies. His knights had traveled through the Apse Veil, the barrier within each Abbey that allowed someone to pass from one location to another.

His hair was dark and unruly. A maston sword hung from a scuffed leather belt at his hip. He did not have a beard, though the bristles had reformed already and he looked ready for a shave again. He looked at her curiously and bowed his head towards her.

“We have, Aldermaston. Briefly.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “I hope you are recovering from your injuries?”

Her heart burned inside of her. He was the only family she had left. He was her uncle, in blood, and he did not know it. She started to tremble.

“What is it you wanted to tell me?” the Aldermaston asked pointedly.

She glanced at him, seeing his eyebrows fold with intensity. He sat back in his chair, wincing with pain as he moved.

“You wish me to speak it now?” she asked, nodding towards Demont.

He gave her a shrewd smile. “Please do.”

Her heart throbbed in her chest. What would Demont think of her? How would he react to her news? As she began to speak, her mouth would not open. The force of the Medium slammed into her, cleaving her tongue. She could say nothing. Even breathing was difficult. Her mind whirled.

“Lia?” the Aldermaston asked mildly, but she could see knowledge in his eyes. He knew exactly what was happening to her. Was he doing it to her? Or was the Medium preventing her because it did not want Demont knowing?

She shook her head violently, feeling tears prick her eyes. The thought of something else to say loosed her tongue. “Do you have…any word from Colvin?”

“No,” the earl said, startling her. “Not directly. But we do have word
of
him and of my niece.” He looked at the Aldermaston, who nodded curtly. “The king of Dahomey sends us word demanding the release of his sister, Pareigis, into his custody. He has informed us that he will keep my niece and the Earl of Forshee as hostages at Dochte Abbey until we relent.” His face hardened with anger. “Our attempts to…contact…the earl have all been thwarted. If the news you brought from Pry-Ree is true, my dear, that the Blight is coming and it will strike soon, then we must make a decision now on how to save them.”

“I agree that we must do something,” the Aldermaston said, then paused as a racking cough exploded from his lips. It took several moments to regain his composure. He slammed his elbow on the table and leaned forward, expelling his breath roughly. “But releasing the Queen Dowager will do more harm than good. It is a ploy. If what your allies in Hautland have said is true, there is an invasion army assembling. The negotiations are an attempt to distract us from their true aim. We must send word through every village in the kingdom. We must forsake these shores before it is too late.”

Demont’s brow furrowed with consternation. “Is there nothing then that can halt the Blight?”

The reply came as a deep chuckle, wet with phlegm. “Certainly there is. We must abandon all pride. Share our food with the poor. We must act, in a word, with one heart and one mind. But as you well know that has not happened since the days of King Zedakah. Too many mastons have been killed. Too many Abbeys have fallen. How does one stop a rockslide, my lord Earl? We must flee from it before it engulfs us. Lia can guide us to the safe haven in Pry-Ree. There is an Abbey there. They know the way.”

“Yet you will not tell me where it is,” Demont stated simply, his look piercing.

“Not yet, my lord Earl. Continue to send your knights throughout the realm. Those who will listen must come to Muirwood. If our enemies learned where the rallying point was, our escape would be compromised. Bring them to Muirwood.”

“What of my niece?” Demont asked, stepping closer, his voice more firm.

Lia’s heart throbbed painfully.

“Lord Colvin is an able maston. He is her guardian.”

Demont said nothing for a moment. He rubbed his jaw, causing a scratching sound from the bristles on his chin. “Until tomorrow then, Aldermaston. I beg leave of you. It is time to rotate the guard over Pareigis. Even without the kystrel she is dangerous.”

The Aldermaston nodded. “You are wise not to underestimate her. Until tomorrow.”

Demont strode from the room and shut the door softly behind him. Lia watched him go, her stomach sick with worry. She turned back to the Aldermaston.

“Send
me
to Dochte Abbey,” she said in a low voice.

“You are not fully recovered, Lia. It is a long journey.”

She frowned deeply and approached his desk. “I will use the Apse Veil. I can be there tonight and warn him. The orb would show me the way.”

The Aldermaston studied her carefully, his expression guarded. “None of Demont’s mastons have successfully crossed the Apse Veil to Dochte Abbey. If it were a matter of strength in the Medium, I would suggest you try yourself. But my heart tells me that Dochte has already fallen.”

“What?” Lia demanded, planting her palms on the desk. “It is the oldest Abbey in Dahomey. If it has fallen, why have we not heard?”

He twisted the tips of his beard. “I have asked myself that question. If the Abbey were burned, we would have heard. But if it were corrupted from within?” He raised his eyebrow at her. “If the Aldermaston succumbed? Dahomey is an ancient kingdom. If Pareigis is a hetaera, then we must assume her family is as well and that the king of Dahomey has been seduced as well as the royal family. Their show of ability with the Medium is done by kystrels. The missives that I have received may have been sent deliberately to put my mind at ease – to assure me that they have not fallen when they already have. Perhaps I have been ignoring the signs all along.” His words sent a chill through her body and she shivered. “Perhaps we are the last kingdom to fall.”

“The last?” she whispered.

“I fear it may be,” he replied softly.

She swallowed, bewildered. Then she looked at him pointedly. “Why did you not tell me?”

“Tell you what, Lia?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

She was about to say
Ellowyn Demont
, but her jaw froze and her tongue clove in her mouth again. She struggled against the surge of the Medium. But moving her mouth was like trying to lift a boulder with a spoon. She grit her teeth in frustration, unable to say the words.

The Aldermaston leaned back in his chair, his shoulders slumping with exhaustion. “Now do you understand?” he whispered. “I cannot speak of what we both know to be true. Neither can you.”

Lia surrendered against the feeling. “But you are an Aldermaston,” she said. “Why will the Medium bind us in such a way? It is not…natural.”

“Is it any less natural than how Colvin used the Medium to bind Seth’s tongue? The curse was removed eventually, but he went without speaking for a year. Imagine what Martin and I endured these many long years. Seth should be grateful that an
irrevocare sigil
was not used
with
the binding or he would never have spoken again, in this life or the next.” His eyes were serious.