Philip nodded and accepted a cloth full of food and flask of water from Una’s quick hands. “Thank you. I’ll try to be back by supper, if that’s all right with you.”
“If you’re not, I’ll save some. Have a good time, Philip. You work hard.”
As he wandered toward the woods, Philip walked with a swagger. He might not live an exciting life, but his hard work was recognized and appreciated. Not every apprentice could say that. He knew Angus was mistreated, and Aubrey didn’t have a sympathetic father. For all Tom Fletcher’s deficiencies as a teacher, he was a good man.
Philip followed the trail into the forest hoping he wouldn’t accidentally take a divergent path in the wrong direction. His focus was so concentrated on not making a wrong turn, he didn’t hear the footsteps behind him. As he found yet another fork in the path, a hand touched his arm.
“Don’t you know this forest is inhabited by horrifying creatures that will torture you and eat you for supper?”
With an embarrassing cry of alarm, Philip whirled. “You startled me!”
“You’ve been crashing through the trees like a wild animal. I never knew someone could walk a path and make so much noise.”
“I should get you for that….”
She spun in place and fled. Dodging tree branches, rocks, and fallen logs, Dove flew through the forest as silently as the mists that floated through the trees each evening. Philip pounded after her. Not as familiar with the paths, his faster speed was checked by stumbling and stopping abruptly when faced with a tree branch about to knock his legs from beneath him.
To his surprise, she raced across the field toward the cliffs. The flat grassy fields being easier to traverse, he gained on her once he exited the forest. “I’m going to catch you!”
“Prove it!” her little high-pitched voice retorted.
At the cliffs, she scrambled down the rocks as though carried by invisible arms. Philip was much slower, and even though he followed her path, she darted out across the sand several minutes before him. His laughter rang out as she paused, crossed her arms, and tapped her foot, waiting impatiently for him to continue his pursuit.
“I’m coming, and I will get you! You should run while you can.”
“That sounds strange to hear from someone still hugging the cliffs for dear life. What fun is a chase if no one is chasing?”
Even as she said it, he realized that she’d never been chased in good fun before this. He wondered, as he tried to increase his speed, if the child invited the persecution that caused some adults and older children to pursue her, driving her from the village as her own private form of sport. Somehow, as he glanced at her impish posture, he knew it was so. People had no idea how they played into her self-designed games.
The moment he reached the sandy shore, Dove raced around the cove into the open wide beaches that the local fishermen loved. By the time Philip rounded the corner, she was gone. He glanced everywhere but there was no sign of the child. Old, fisherman Guy pointed to the top of the hill that sloped gently down the beach. “If ye’re looking for the waif, it’s gone up there. I’d stay away if I were you. That one is evil it is.”
Angered at the ignorance surrounding his new friend, Philip called his thanks and raced up the hill just in time to see her dash across the last few yards of the meadow and into the trees. His feet flew across the field, hoping to arrive in time to see which direction she took. At the entrance to the Wynne Holt, he stopped to catch his breath, glanced around him, and tried to find the path she’d chosen. A twig snapped behind him. He spun in place just quickly enough to see her cloak flapping behind her in the breeze she created with her speed.
She was much faster than he’d ever imagined. However, on the field, he had the advantage and, after a minute of dodging and chasing, he grabbed her shoulders, stopping her. “You are not easy to catch,” he gasped, panting.
“You won fairly. You wouldn’t like it if I didn’t try.”
“Why do you say that?”
Despite not seeing her face, Philip knew her eyes rolled. She tossed her head. “I may be repulsive, terrifying, and just a girl, but I’m not stupid.”
“No,” he chuckled at the indignant posture she assumed, “you are not stupid.” He collapsed on the ground, arms behind his head and one leg crossed over a bent knee, still exhausted from the chase. “How are you not tired?”
“I am, but I rested while you crawled down the cliff.”
“Climbed.”
“So you say.”
“So,” Philip said, ignoring the jab at his slow descent, “Bertha said something about you getting oysters for supper.”
“Not until just before sundown. They’re better if they’re fresh. I got a bad one once, and well…”
“Why did you go down the face of the cliffs? I would think the dragon—”
Dove shook her head violently. “Oh no, the dragon never leaves her lair. She has eggs— well, at least one egg. Sometimes her mate flies in, but only at night. That’s why she was so nasty the other day. You threatened her babies.”
“Baby dragons?”
“Well, not yet. Bertha says it takes years to hatch the eggs. That’s why the dragon stays in her cave.”
Curious, Philip sat up and peered closely at Dove. “Has Bertha ever seen the dragon’s mate?”
“Lots of times. She is always wandering the village at night or helping Biggs at the castle. It flies over the clearing when it brings its mate food.”
“It flies?” His eyes widened in awe. “Oh, I’d love to see that.”
“Saturday, when you go home, you could come to the clearing with me, and we could watch for it.”
The temptation was too irresistible. “I’ll be here. What kind of food does it bring her?”
“I don’t know, but maybe we’ll see! I’ve never gone at night before. I’ve wanted to but…”
“Oh ho, ho,” Philip laughed, teasing Dove. “The fearless, cloaked Ge-sceaft of Wynnewood has a fit of nerves.”
“I avoid it on principle. Just as you refused to enter this corner of the woods before you knew it was safe, I am not willing to offer myself as bait when I don’t know what they eat.”
“Speaking of eating, I dropped my lunch when I took off after you. Let’s find it and eat. I’m hungry.”
That night, Philip arrived with thirty shucked oysters in a pot of water. He brought it to Una and told her what Dove had said about cooking them, but Una refused to touch them. “Get them out of here, Philip. They aren’t safe to eat. I’m not going to have that Creature’s hands in my food.”
Dejected at the rebuff of his offering, Philip took the oysters down to the tavern and gave them to the keeper’s wife. This time, he was careful not to share Dove’s part in the gift. He simply poured them into an empty bowl and reminded her to wash them well. “I’ve got to get back to Una. Enjoy.”
Philip walked slowly back to the fletcher’s cottage, unaware that he’d just set a village scandal in motion.
Chapter 6
The Past
The moon shone full on the path as Philip stumbled through the woods to the clearing. Across the tiny field, he saw the outline of his cloaked friend and smiled. She scanned the sky, giving no sign that she’d heard his approach. Well, that is until her voice carried over the sounds of the night birds. “Did you bring a horn too?”
He carried his woolen winter blanket and spread it on the grass in the middle of the clearing as she approached. “We can lay here and look up at the sky until it comes.”
“If it comes. I can’t lie there, and you know it.”
“Why ever not?”
Dove’s gloved hand flicked impatiently at him. “You know why not. I can’t possibly keep myself covered lying flat on my back. My hood would fall back, and you’d see me.”
Truly, Philip had not considered the idea. After all, he wasn’t accustomed to hiding his face, and the circumstances weren’t something he’d ever encountered. “Well, what if you lay with y
our head at my feet. Then I couldn’t see you, unless I sat up, and you’d know if I tried. I promise I won’t try to look— not if you don’t want me to— but it’s so silly.”
She hesitated. Dove was unaccustomed to trusting anyone. Even Bertha the midwife did not have the child’s complete trust. However, she was intelligent enough to realize that if she did not give a show of faith— something to demonstrate her growing trust in him— he’d quit trying, and she’d learned that she liked having a friend. She liked having someone who thought he understood her— even if he truly didn’t.
“I’ll do it if our heads are touching top to top.”
“Because at my feet, I could still sit up and see you if I was fast enough, and if you were engrossed in something else.”
Had he been able to see into the oversized hood of her cloak, Philip would have watched her flush a deep crimson. “I know I’m being rude, but—”
“But I know that for you to concede that much was more than you’d ever intended to do.” He stretched out diagonally from one corner and patted the blanket. “Lie down then and tell me about how Bertha found you, and what you remember from before that, and how you like living with the midwife.”
He felt her settle, her hood swooshing against his hair, and then her soft voice started telling her story. “The first thing I remember was my modor racing through our village carrying me— protecting me from the rocks, sticks, and dung they threw at us.”
“Why?” The question was instinctive.
“Because, as I have told you over and over and over, people do not like us. We are evil. We bring evil to others. ‘Purge the evil from among you.’”
“That is from the Bible. Broðor Clarke has quoted that to us, but he mumbled so much I don’t know what it means.” As he spoke, Philip’s eyes wandered over the skyline waiting to see the dragon soar across the moon on his way to his mate. “What is your next memory?”
“When my modor died. The sores were bad and painful. We get sores before we die. People were worse than ever, saying that she brought illness to the village with her sores. They said it was her vengeance.”
“You remember them saying that?”
Her head shook violently, and as it touched his ever so slightly, Philip felt the motion. “No, I just was giving you the full story as Bertha has told me. All I remember was her shoving me into Bertha’s arms and screaming ‘forgive me’. Then she jumped from the bridge, splashed into the water, and drowned.”
Philip started involuntarily. People who committed suicide were believed to be demon-possessed. She’d already admitted that ‘her kind’ was thought to be walking demons. How could someone so intelligent— so childlike— be so dangerous, and yet she did say her mother committed suicide… “Was your modor in her right mind at the time?” The words were as tactful as he could manage, though his voice sounded strangled.
“Of course not! Who kills themselves without cause? She was eaten with pain from her disease and the misery of this life.”
“What disease—”
“Bertha didn’t know. She’d heard that our kind gets these sores, and they eventually kill us. She checks me for them often, but I have none.” There was a slight pause before she continued in a whisper, “If you are worried.”
“If they are the disease of ‘your kind’, as you put it, then it’s not something I need to fear, is it?” Philip sounded more confident than he felt.
“Why do you risk it? Why talk and play with someone so dangerous? I often think about it.”
Philip hesitated. Should he explain, or would Dove feel used? “I’ll explain another time. You were telling me about how you came here.”
“Well,” she continued, aware that he’d changed the subject but content to leave it for now. “After my modor died, Bertha tried to find someone to take me, but the village was ready to stone me. So, she decided to take me and leave. She made me the first cloak as we traveled—”
“Wait. If your modor was so feared, how did she manage to find a husband to take her?”
He felt her shrug. “I don’t know. Bertha assumes I was illegitimate, but she could find no rumors to support her idea.”
“I think the town would have spoken of it if you were. I imagine your fæder died before you were born or before your modor moved to that village.”
Dove pondered the theory for a minute before she continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “We walked for days. She carried me much of the way, I think, but I do remember being very tired. Several villages were places she wanted to stop, but they either had a midwife, or I inadvertently showed myself, and they recoiled. We eventually came here. She tied me to a tree in the forest, came into the village alone, found that there was a dying midwife, and we moved into that midwife’s cottage.”
“You appropriated a cottage?”
“The other midwife sent for Lord Morgan’s steward, who changed the tenancy to Bertha Newcombe.”
“Wait a minute. Did you say she tied you to a tree and left you in the forest? What if an animal had attacked you or you hurt yourself?”
“And if she had taken me into the village,” Dove answered with forced patience, “I would likely have shown myself again, and we would have had to keep walking. As it is, here I am safe. No one knows what I am, I can hide amongst the trees, and Lord Morgan has implied that he wants me left alone.”
“Well,” Philip said indignantly, almost forgetting and sitting upright. “Sorry, it’s a habit. Anyway, people don’t leave you alone. They’re terribly cruel.”
“You never were,” she said softly. “There was once a little girl around my age who waved at me when she saw me. I don’t see her anymore, but since meeting you, I often hope to see her again. I’d like to wave back next time.”
Philip didn’t want to hear stories of friendly little girls. He wanted to hear of her childhood and how she’d learned to keep covered. “So how did Bertha keep you covered when you went to a birth?”
“I never went.”
“What!” The word echoed in the clearing, silencing the night creatures. A bat soared overhead. They caught their breath simultaneously and then resumed their regular breathing again. The silhouette was much too small to be a dragon.
“Women who are struggling through birth do not want the village terror at their feet or their head, silly.”
“How will you ever learn—?”
Patiently, Dove explained, yet again, that she was little more than a pet. “Bertha values life enough not to leave me to the mercy of those too afraid of me to allow me to live, but not so much that she’ll risk her livelihood.”
“So, she left you alone, at three years old, in her cottage, every time she went out?”
“Until I was in my fifth or sixth year. I don’t remember. By then, I shied away from people, knew to keep my hood over me, and could put on my gloves without help.”
“Why didn’t you leave?” The story shocked and haunted him.
“I couldn’t. She tied a rope around me. I couldn’t get to the fireplace or the door.”
Philip’s stomach churned. The idea of tying a little girl, a baby almost, to the house and disappearing for hours horrified him. His mother had once jerked a woman’s hair and pulled the screaming woman away from beating a child. He didn’t want to think of what his mother might do in Dove’s case.
“I can’t imagine.”
“Stop pitying me. I didn’t like it; but I’m alive, she feeds me, and she keeps me safe. That’s more than someone like me should hope for.”
“Is that what she tells you! That you’re—”
Dove’s gloved hand clapped over his mouth. Her hood hovered over his head, and he felt the slight warmth of her breath on his face as she whispered, “Shh. I hear someone.”
Chapter 7
Conspiracy
He blinked twice. With Dove’s face so close, even with the hood shielding her, it seemed as though he could see her lips, and they looked normal enough. Then her words slammed into his
consciousness. “Someone or something?” he rasped back to her.
“Listen! Two men. I hear them talking. I thought I heard them say Lord Morgan.”
Philip jumped to his feet. Before he knew what happened, she tossed his blanket over his head. “Follow me.” Her voice was nearly inaudible.
Why he listened, Philip didn’t know. Since when did he take orders from little girls? She was only nine while he, an apprentice of four years, was nearly a man. In two years, he’d— her voice broke through his thoughts once again. “Did you hear that? They said they’d climb the castle wall at the southwest corner.”
“What are they doing? Why climb a wall?”
“Keep close. Maybe they’ll say.”
They followed for half a mile before the men spoke of anything significant again. As they heard what the men planned, Philip and Dove stared at one another in shock and dismay. He grabbed her hand and pointed to the west. “Let’s go around and run. We’ll tell the guards.”
The children crept through the trees to the edge of the Wyrm Forest, and then onto the road that led from Wynnewood to the castle. At the bridge, they paused, panting, before hurrying onward and up to the castle. The castle road was steep as it reached the castle gate, and the children were tired. Near the tree where Philip had left Liam and his sack of grain, they paused. Philip’s voice sounded hoarse as he gasped for air. “We can’t go running up to the guard. He’ll shout for us to stop, and the men, if they’re anywhere close, might hear.”
Dove nodded. “You go. I can be quieter, but I’ll startle him. Give me your blanket. With that, they might mistake you for me.”
Fear slowly gripped him as Philip waded quietly through the moat, raced to the castle wall, and then flattened himself in the shadows of it, creeping toward the gate. He shivered with cold in the night air. At the corner of the gate, he saw the guard leaning against the opposite side of the arch and took a deep breath. It was time.
Philip stepped onto the path and cleared his throat. “I came to see head archer Peter. He knows me.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
The Annals of Wynnewood Complete Series Page 5
