Thornbear (Book 1) (12 page)

“Well, if you won’t talk about that, tell me what you think of our new guest, Lady Alyssa,” she enjoined him.

He lifted his brows, “I had no idea she was coming. She was a surprise.”

“She’s very beautiful,” noted Grace, stating the obvious for Gram’s benefit.

“She wasn’t unattractive,” he responded noncommittally.

Grace watched his features. “She was very elegant, not to mention graceful, when she settled into the quarters that the Countess set aside for her. The men were falling all over themselves to do her the favor of carrying her things. She seems to have a lot of allure for a girl her age.”

“Girl?” said Gram curiously. “How old is she?”

“Moira told me that Alyssa had just turned sixteen before she left Gododdin,” answered the stuffed animal.

Gram chuffed at that, “Then she’s hardly a girl anymore.”
And she’s only a few months older than me,
he noted silently. Sixteen was also the age at which most people began to treat you as an adult, although in Lothion children were still considered under the rule of their parents until they reached the age of nineteen.

“That’s true,” said Grace, “in fact, her mother probably sent her here hoping she might catch some young lordling’s eye. The Count and Countess can introduce her into polite society, allowing her to begin the search for an appropriate husband.”

He laughed, “You mean Matthew? I don’t think he’s very interested in her. She would have done better in the capital.”

“But Cameron is much closer to Gododdin, which has to be a factor in any parent’s mind,” reminded Grace. “Plus, it is well known that the Count is probably the most powerful figure in Lothion’s politics, aside from the Queen herself.”

“Mother says our good Count has made himself a political hermit; if he has any potential sway, he is no longer using it,” lectured Gram. The words surprised him. He hadn’t realized how deeply his mother’s lessons had sunk in.

“There are other eligible young men in Castle Cameron besides Matthew Illeniel,” Grace told him.

Perry Draper maybe,
thought Gram.
He’ll be knighted most likely. George Prathion might be a possibility, as well. He’s only a little older and he’s close by.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” he admitted, missing her point entirely.

She tapped his shoulder, “I’ll leave you here. I’d rather not go all the way to the workshop, so as to avoid walking back.”

“Sure thing, milady,” he said, depositing her on the stone cobbles with a mock bow. “It wouldn’t do to get dirt from the yard on your delicate paws.”

“Why thank you, milord,” she replied, covering her mouth with one paw and doing her best to affect a coquettish look. Gram laughed and turned away.

He stepped across the threshold and crossed the yard, but the workshop was still locked. Matthew had enspelled it to prevent anyone other than him from opening the door, so Gram waited. He knew his friend would be along shortly. Matthew had been spending most of his evenings in the shop.

Sure enough, Matthew appeared within a quarter of an hour. He gave Gram a wary look as he approached. “It isn’t ready yet.”

“You’ve been at it for a while now,” observed Gram. “They say your dad did the original enchantment in less than a day.”

Matthew glared at him, “This is a bit more complicated than what he did.” He didn’t open the door.

“Aren’t you going inside?” asked Gram.

“It isn’t ready for you to see it.” He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Gram sighed, “I’m not going to be able to see the magic anyway. I just want to see what the blade looks like.”

“It doesn’t look like much of anything yet,” said the young wizard.

“Let me in,” Gram insisted.

Matthew held up his hands, “I’d rather you wait, Gram. It doesn’t look like you’re expecting yet, and I don’t want you to get upset.”

Gram’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do to it?” he hissed. “Let me see it.”

“Will you calm down? People can see us out here,” cautioned his friend.

“Then let’s go inside, Matt!” said Gram with some emphasis.

“Fine, but you have to promise to keep your head.”

Gram knew better than that, “I’m not promising anything until you show me what you’ve done.”

Matthew didn’t argue any further, he opened the door and let his friend inside before he could get any more upset. Once the door had closed behind them, he paused to say a few words in Lycian, the ancient tongue used by wizards when casting spells.

“What was that?”

“Just a precaution,” said the young wizard.
To keep people from hearing anything if you start yelling,
he thought to himself. “It’s over here in this case.” He brought out a long wooden box, bound and reinforced with iron. There were no visible locks, but he had enchanted it to ensure that no one else could open it. He lifted the lid and waited while Gram took a look at the interior.

“Where’s Thorn?”

“That’s it,” said Matthew. “I haven’t finished assembling it yet.”

“Assembling?” said Gram quietly. His throat seemed to have gone dry. The interior of the box held a vast collection of tiny pieces of metal, most of them smaller than the nail on the end of his pinky finger. “It’s not a puzzle, Matt. Swords are supposed to be forged, not
assembled.
”

“Well, this one is different,” said his friend.

My life is over,
thought Gram, feeling a cold sweat beading on his forehead.
There’s no way she can forgive this. I can’t even forgive me for this.
“What have you done?” he moaned. “I can’t show this to my mother. She’ll have me exiled!”

“Now, Gram, that’s an exaggeration,” said his friend soothingly. “Besides, you don’t have to worry. No matter how this turns out you, still have the duplicate on the wall. She’ll never even know if we don’t put the original back.”

“I’ll know!” shouted Gram, beginning to panic. “Do you think I can hide something like this from her? I can’t! I’m a terrible liar, and she can read me like a book. Even if I
could
keep it a secret, I couldn’t bear it. It would kill me!” He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at it as if he were considering pulling it out by the roots. “I’m dead.”

Matthew patted his shoulder. “You aren’t dead. So far everything is going according to plan, it’s just taking me longer than I anticipated.”

Gram shrugged off his friend’s gesture, “This was your plan?! To cut it up into a thousand-thousand little pieces? If you had told me that, I would
never
have agreed to this!”

The wizard nodded, “Well, that’s why I didn’t tell you, of course, but just wait till it’s finished. You’ll never be able to tell when you look at it.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“Look,” said Matthew, reaching down and holding up two nearly identical pieces of metal. Holding them together with his fingers, he mumbled a few words and then handed them to Gram. “Can you tell where they are joined?”

Gram’s eyes were sharp, but he couldn’t find a seam. “No,” he admitted grudgingly.

“This will be like that, times a million,” explained Matthew. “Trust me.”

“How much longer before it’s finished?” said Gram, daring to hope that his friend could do what he said.

“Three or four months at least,” said Matthew.

“Months?!” exclaimed Gram. “You realize my mother is bound to visit within that time, or even finish and return for good. How long do you think I can fool her?”

His friend gave him a stubborn look. “You’ll thank me when this is over, and no matter what happens, I swear to you that this will be worth it.”

“I’ll be the world’s happiest man, living alone, just me and my fantastic sword—in
Dunbar
!”

Matthew rubbed his chin, imitating his father who frequently rubbed his beard when he was thinking. “You know, my friend, you are learning faster than I expected. I think you’ll master the art of sarcasm soon if you keep progressing at this rate.”

Gram growled and struggled to keep from pummeling his friend.

Chapter 11

The next morning Gram took Pebble out for a ride. His tutor had left to return home for a month, and that left him with an abundance of free time between breakfast and lunch each day. He didn’t mind, though, geography and history were not something he would miss. When he was younger he had also been forced to spend his afternoons learning arithmetic and studying literature, but Rose had relented on the math front once he had demonstrated enough skill to balance an account book.

Literature was something she had hoped he would grow to love, but by the time he was fourteen she had finally given up on that as well. History and geography were non-negotiable, however, as she felt no nobleman could get by without both knowledge of where his enemies and allies lived and an intimate understanding of everything that had gone before.

He was looking forward to a month without supervision.

Pebble tossed her head, looking back at him sideways from one of her big brown eyes.

“I don’t care,” he told her blithely, leaving the reins slack and letting her have her head. “You’re in charge today, Pebble.

Pebble chuffed loudly, blowing out a lungful of air and easing to the right. She meandered easily, taking a comfortable pace that wouldn’t tire her and stopping frequently to munch on particularly sweet looking patches of clover or grass.

Gram leaned back and watched the world slowly pass. The sky was blue and the air still warm with the last of summer’s heat. It would begin to get cool in a few more weeks, but for now it was perfect. White clouds drifted by, undisturbed in their course by anything other than the occasional hawk flying across the vaulted skies.

His horse had been wandering across a wide pasture, following a short wicker fence that was more of a suggestion than a real border. The grass grew taller close to the places where the posts were set, and Pebble took her time stopping at each to nibble at the tender greenery.

It was a moment before he became aware of the noise that was disturbing his peaceful reverie.
What was that?
Now that he was listening, he heard nothing. He pulled on Pebble’s reins, so that she would stop, and the gentle mare patiently waited while he listened.

There.
It was a grunt, followed by a deeper sound, coming from his left. That direction led away from the farmer’s cot and into a vast pasture, one only interrupted by a thin stream that wandered through it. Gram gave a tug on the reins, nudged Pebble with his heels, and the mare began walking, heading to the left.

A loud bleating noise helped him to identify the source of the original sound.
One of the farmer’s sheep must be in trouble.
He urged Pebble forward, and she increased her pace. Soon he could hear the light burbling of the stream.
It must have fallen into the brook.

The land rose gently in front of him, disguising the fact that the stream bank was close by, but Gram was familiar with the area. He slowed Pebble down before they reached the edge. The small stream had cut the earth away there, leaving a steep bank that led down on this side, before gently sloping up on the other. An unsuspecting animal, particularly one moving at a run, might easily slip and hurt itself there.

Dismounting, he dropped the reins, giving Pebble a familiar look. “Pretend I just tied them to a stump,” he told her.

She gave him a steady look that he took to indicate agreement. She wouldn’t wander far. The grass was tall, and she had plenty to occupy her anyway.

Gram waded through the waist high grass until he could look over the edge. Sure enough a large ewe was there, lying on a large boulder. From the look of things he guessed she had stumbled over the edge and tumbled down the five or six feet to land on the hard stone. It was a bit of bad luck since such a short drop probably wouldn’t have injured her if she hadn’t landed badly.

Damn stupid sheep,
he thought.
She should know this pasture well enough to remember where the stream is.

There were plenty of easy places to walk down, so he had little difficulty reaching her. The ewe was bleating at him regularly now, crying in pain and fear. “Easy girl,” he told her. “Just rest easy, we’ll have you safe in a minute. Let me see where you’re hurt.” Carefully, he lifted her body so that he could slide her away from the rock, checking first to make certain she wasn’t caught somehow.

There was blood on the stone, but her legs were free, so he eased her away to set her on the smooth ground beside the water. He examined her there, feeling her legs to see if they were broken. “You might have broken something when you fell,” he suggested aloud, talking softly to calm her. “Don’t worry, though. If you can’t walk, I can carry you home. We’ll make sure you’re alright.”
Unless the bone’s come through, the farmer will probably put you down if that’s the case.

Her legs seemed intact, and he found no broken bones, but the blood puzzled him. The wind shifted, blowing in his face. It had been at his back before. Pebble gave a loud whinny, sounding fearful.

“Hold on, Pebble!” he called, hoping his mare wouldn’t turn skittish and leave him to walk. “I’ll be back up there in a second.” Searching through the thick wool for the source of the blood he found three long gashes.

That’s the problem,
he noted silently,
her muscle’s torn.
His subconscious mind was nagging at him then, trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t quite bring the thought fully into the light of his consciousness.

The light flickered, a shadow passing across the sun for a split second.

Gram dropped down on all fours above the ewe and then rolled to the left across the damp sand as a giant cat sailed through the air above him. He had acted without thought, before his mind could even register the meaning of the signs, the claw marks on the ewe, Pebble’s warning when the wind shifted, or the change in light. His body had moved on its own.

The panther looked to weigh almost as much as he did, a monster that was probably over a hundred and fifty pounds. It had landed gracefully, twisting before it had even reached the ground, preparing to spring again.