The Rising Scythe

by S G Dunster

  She was shaking by the time they arrived at the abbey. He looked at her a moment and gathered her up, helping her carefully to the ground. “It’s bed for you,” he observed. “You’re worn as a year-old stocking.”

  Right, Thessaly thought. Tired. That’s the problem.

  “Thank you,” she said, giving him a cool nod. She walked into the abbey and up the stairs to her room.

  Guzal was there, in front of the fire. She was thin, pale, and there was a bruise on her cheek.

  “How,” Thessaly asked Guzal quietly.

  She turned. Her face was wax-pale, her eyes sunken. “Forgive me,” she said. “I . . . caused you trouble when I meant to spare you.”

  “Spare me?” Thessaly frowned and knelt on the ground next to her.

  “Your father, he . . . arranged it with Duke DuCarne.”

  “Arranged what?” A cold fear gripped at Thessaly’s core. “He’s . . . he offered you to the DuCarnes for . . . magicks?”

  Guzal shook her head emphatically. “Not that. No. He offered . . . . DuCarne, he’s known for his taste in . . . in things not proper.”

  “Things not proper.”

  “No,” Guzal said, standing, “No, Thessaly!” Suddenly she was shouting. “Can you see nothing? Do you not see what lechers, what great pricks men are?”

  Thessaly sat on the bed, slowly. “You’ve serviced DuCarne as you have the crew of the Espada.”

  “And your father.”

  Thessaly closed her eyes. She hadn’t wanted that piece of truth ground into her. She’d fooled herself that perhaps Antonio had not used Guzal.

  “And before that, it was the men of the Sforza’s court. Your grandfather among them. Do you know how old I was when I was taken? Eleven.”

  “I . . . ” Thessaly was reeling. She cared for Guzal. As intensely and closely as she would care for a sister, she cared for Guzal. Guzal was sweet, and strong, and learned. For all the time they’d been together, since she was fourteen, she’d not looked the situation in the eye. She couldn’t.

  She’d rescued Guzal.

  But not early enough. She should have rescued her long before.

  “Guzal...” Thessaly said, then stopped. She forced herself to look Guzal in the eyes. Whiskey-colored, almond shaped, lovely. And young. Like her. Just like her. “Guzal, why did Papa have you . . . service DuCarne? I thought the abbey would finally be a safe place for you.”

  “Lessons,” Guzal said simply. “Your lessons, Thessaly.”

  “No,” Thessaly said. “I knew . . . I knew what he wanted with you, but Papa paid coin for my lessons, surely?”

  “DuCarne did not want coin.”

  Thessaly turned away. She couldn’t stand it.

  I am evil, she thought. Evil in my lack of advocacy. In my willing blindness.

  “I’m a slave,” Guzal went on. Her voice was quiet again. “When your father paid Francesco Sforza for me, it was with the understanding that my body was the commodity. I am good at sewing and styling hair. I learned that well in the Sforza court. But my primary purpose, Thessaly,” she gave her a dull look. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is not your fault. Here I am shouting at you.”

  “And DuCarne paid for his convenience as well,” Thessaly said slowly, “by having his woman give me lessons. So he could charm another woman.”

  “Charm,” Guzal replied, shaking her head, her light eyes gleaming. “You know nothing of men, Thessaly.” She sobered. “Pray you never do.”

  Thessaly was angry. It burned slowly, gradually, but it took her over like a wide wave of fire.

  She lay on the bed, aching with the anger she felt. “He’s a pustule,” Thessaly finally said. “A great, bursting pimple. I sit there at books and lessons and learning, and you . . . . Guzal, all that time . . . .”

  “It’s my lot,” Guzal murmured. “I’ve liked it better on the Espada than at court. Those men love me truly. Or I believe they do. And here at the abbey,” she shrugged, “I just assumed it was the same. My body, your lessons. What I did not know was that this time my body was not to be used for pleasure. Instead I was stripped bare, ridden through a wood in the dark, and thrown in a dank hole. I still don’t know, Thessaly.” She gazed at her, eyes wide, frightened. “It was odd, and the women came. They bled us and chanted. It was truly evil. I felt it, here.” She touched her chest. “It’s different than your workings. It had . . . it took from me. It did not ask, it took. And . . . I saw them. They put one of us . . . a . . . a young girl . . . to the dagger, bled her. I never saw her after that.” Guzal was shivering now, hunched over. “I never knew that’s the use he’d have of me, DuCarne, when I walked into the Tor to pay the price for your lessons.”

  Thessaly was seared by her words, and a sudden picture came to her mind. Ships coming and leaving. Lady DuCarne’s probing stare when they met. And bones. Piles of bones, pure white, stripped bare. A hand reached over and took one, a lady’s hand, delicate of skin but with calluses on the fingertips from strings.

  “Medicine,” Thessaly whispered. “The wytches used the girls for medicine. The ships come. The girls disappear. The ships bring . . . people who buy. Who buy them, but not whole. No, not whole.”

  The thought itself, the idea itself, brought a haze, a blackness. Thessaly stood, shaking again. “We must go to my godfather Henri. He’ll believe me. He knows the magicks, and he’s the one who has charge over these counties. We must ride to him now.” Thessaly shivered. “You are not safe, Guzal. You were there. You saw. DuCarne will not let you go. Not when he’s using craft that black. And now that I know, and the Dumenon men—”

  Guzal shook her head wildly. “We escaped. That is all. We escaped, on our own. I shall stay at the abbey. The girls of the Dumenon know well not to stray toward town now.”

  Thessaly shook her head. “The price for this sort of . . . dealing. DuCarne, does he know of it? He must. And he must make riches, selling medicine to those who pay. And this small corner of the world, a perfect place. Away from the eyes of King Henry, away from all, and yet, teeming with ships. Anyone who wishes can come and—" She was pacing, her mind going too fast, and yet too slow.

  It was too much. Too big. Thessaly understood that Lady DuCarne knew her abilities. Knew what she had likely seen. And she’d danced with the women. They knew. They, of the DuCarne household. They, who made the medicine.

  “No,” Thessaly said. “We’re in it. We’ll disappear soon, one night. We’ll be put to the knife, and nobody will know other than that we went off on some ship.”

  “The Dumenon—“

  “Are smallfolk. Not listened to. And superstitious. We have to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “My godfather Henri,” Thessaly said.

  It was the only option. Henri, her godfather, who knew of her skills. Who believed in magicks. And, Thessaly thought, her hope rising, heart beating fast with it, he would have enough knights, enough people. He could bring the matter straight to the King’s court.

  Guzal gave her a fierce, skeptical look. “Clear to Taunton? How? On what mounts? With what guide?”

  Thessaly immediately knew. “Come,” she said. “We must be quick. We must be quiet. On no account do we stop and talk. On no account do we make ourselves known. I have been hid in a vale, and you have been here at the abbey. Let them think we’re gone a few days more. Nobody has seen me return. Come, Guzal. Quick.”

  “What of the others, Beatrice and Rosalie?”

  “They have families. Protectors, here on the continent. Surely nobody would dare dispose of them. And they have no knowledge of all this. They are safe.” Thessaly said a silent, fervent prayer that it was true.

  They walked out onto the stairway.

  And immediately met Father Raymund. He waited there as if he expected them. He sidestepped to block Thessaly’s way as she tried to move past. “You cannot leave here,” he said in his usual smooth, quiet tone, but with an unmistakable firmness. “You are in danger. This time, you would not come
back. There are huntsmen in the woods, and they do not seek venison.”

  “Aye,” Thessaly said. “They seek us.”

  “You stay behind these walls.”

  “They are not safe enough,” Thessaly said. She opened her mouth, hesitated, and then spoke. “It’s medicine,” she said. She took a deep breath and said the ugly phrase her aunt had mentioned in passing during a lesson wherein Thessaly had gotten too curious. “Qan Dermani. They took the girls. Not for sport, but for medicine. Now I know, now Guzal knows, they won’t rest. They’ll take all of us.”

  Raymund’s eyes narrowed, flinching as she said the old, corrupt words.

  “Surely not,” Raymund finally replied. “DuCarne is an adulterer. And aye, a murderer to hide his sins. He will burn for them. But there’s no wytchery in it. And you ought not to know such vile words.” He took her arm. “Up to your room for some rest. The both of you. It’s not a matter for maids.”

  Thessaly struggled to contain her frustration, desperately trying to keep a hold on her floes as well. They bulged, spread, crashing over her. “You must believe me, Father. I was with them. The coven. They offered me . . . they offered me the scythe.”

  He dropped her arm as if it had burned him. His dark gaze bored into hers.

  “I danced with them,” Thessaly said. “I—I drank of their blood.”

  He blinked. “Wytchery,” he repeated.

  Thessaly lifted her chin. “Aye,” she said. “Wytchery. And of the worst, blackest sort. I must go to my godfather Henri. He knows. He’ll . . . he will believe and bring men to take them. He’ll put an end to this.” She paused as a low pounding thunder shook the walls.

  Hoofbeats. Louder, louder as they approached.

  A scream.

  It came from just outside. Father Raymund went quickly down the stairs to the window.

  “Knights,” he said. “DuCarne’s.” He gazed up at Thessaly, and suddenly, shuddered. “You,” he said.

  “I . . . was wrong,” Thessaly said. “I wanted a teacher, and I thought I’d found one.”

  “Wytches are to be burnt.”

  “And I burn,” Thessaly cried. “Every day, I burn. But these people will not stop at your abbey walls. They will climb them. They will . . . take us.”

  He took a deep breath, ran his hands over his beard. His face cleared, and he nodded. Thessaly let out a held breath in relief.

  “Through the kitchens. The stables in back. Take the Dumenon ponies, and let them have their heads. They shall ride straight to the vale. Your godfather is in Taunton?”

  Thessaly nodded.

  “There’s a quick way across the wilderness. The men of the tribe will know it. Find Brian Dda and take the kinship with you. You must not ride alone.”

  “What shall you do?” Guzal shouted, covering her ears. The sound was deafening now. Shouts, a mob charging down the street.

  “I shall let them in,” Father Raymund said, “so that they don’t burn us down and slay all the kitchen staff.” Another scream, a third. He hurried to the door.

  “Father—“ Guzal said.

  Thessaly grabbed her hand and pulled her through the refectory, the kitchens, through the cloister to the stables. People were running for the abbey grounds where the knights were fanning out, charging the garden, trampling the wheat field. Thessaly and Guzal ran against the flow of Fathers, Sisters, servers, kitchen girls, stable-hands—two minnows upstream.

  The Exmoor ponies stood at the stable’s southern end. Thessaly ran down the stable’s length, climbed a stall’s side, and leapt onto one, grasping the ratted mane as the animal startled, rearing a little. Guzal mounted more carefully. They took off through the open stable door, through the field, past the dovecote, then into woods.

  Thessaly thought she heard a shout not far behind, but she knew they couldn’t afford to look or worry. They had to run.

  The animals were nimble, quick through the brush. “Ride low,” Thessaly called to Guzal.

  There were soon noises behind them—crashings, loud voices, calls, a hollow, metal blast of a horn.

  We’re being hunted, Thessaly thought. Foxes to their holes.

  Raymund had said to let the animals have their head, to go to the vale.

  But the knights were following them. They couldn’t go to the vale. They couldn’t lead them there. Straight into the Dumenon? At the abbey, they had been using their swords.

  Thessaly’s thoughts were as wild, leaping like the ponies, but not near as nimble and shrewd. What do we do? She thought. The bound floes in her were loosed, burning her core with a heat like cinnamon. The loose crashed around, tossing her like waves.

  What shall I do? What shall I do?

  There were crashings on either side, now. They were being herded, hemmed in. Guzal drew up her animal short, and it danced on its back legs, rearing. Guzal, pale, face set, tumbled to the ground.

  Thessaly followed suit, landing painfully on her knees. They ran for a thicket, burrowing into the dirt, as the animals danced, snorted, and then took off into the brush again.

  The crashing and hoofbeats grew loud. A charger leapt so close, Thessaly could count the nails in its shoe. Thessaly pressed her face into the dirt, counting heartbeats, waiting for the world to still and settle.

  It grew quiet. Guzal and Thessaly clung together, shivering. “I’m sorry,” Guzal murmured.

  “Stow you,” Thessaly spat. “If you say another sorrowful thing, if you beg pardon one more time, I’ll take a bite out of you.”

  There was a long pause, and then Guzal spoke shakily. “You’ll well like my blood. It’s flavored with cowberry and honey. Many a fine lord has said as much.”

  Thessaly’s snort stirred the rich dirt around her face. She rose to a sitting position. “We’re in a fix,” she said. “They’ll come back with hounds. They’ll come back around and find us.”

  “I wonder how long it’ll take for people to come to the abbey’s defense,” Guzal muttered. “The town’ll be razed. They shot a boy bringing water to the kitchens. I saw . . . I saw the arrow go through his chest.” She shivered.

  “It’s a far cry from the fine courts of Milan,” Thessaly said.

  “Aye. There, it’s a knife in the head during chapel.”

  Thessaly eyed her. “Sometime you shall have to tell me of the things you’ve seen.”

  Guzal shook her head.

  They waited for a long while, keeping still and quiet.

  A dog’s bay. A melancholy, chilling sound that raised the hairs on Thessaly’s nape and turned her belly to cold water. “I never knew before how a deer felt,” she muttered.

  “I’d like to not know how a haunch feels, put to table.”

  Thessaly took a deep breath and gave Guzal a nod. “We shall go, then,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere away from them.” She closed her eyes, and sent out her floes: breath, following the winds that blew around the trees, tracing them.

  All at once they showed up, glaring in her sight—red-orange bodies, heat and flesh, steaming, churning, charging. She could see them, and as she drew back, as she rose above with the breezes that gusted out to see, she saw where they were, where she and Guzal could go. “To the southwest,” Thessaly said. “There’s a stream there. We’ll follow it a ways to take the dogs off our smell.”

  “Should they meet us on the way—“

  “They shan’t,” Thessaly replied mulishly. “I can see. I see where they are, Guzal, and they move fast, but we can run through them. There’s two companies, moving in from the abbey side and the Minehead side, and we’ve got to get through before they close in on us.”

  Guzal didn’t argue. She followed Thessaly as they ran through the woods. Bare feet, Thessaly suddenly realized. She’d taken off her shoes and had rushed, hadn’t put them back on. The needles carpeting the ground pricked at the soft flesh, but she could see what was coming at them, and knew that bleeding soles were preferable. She kept her sight wide and high o
n the wind, so she could watch the warm waves of men charge through their woods. It was dizzying, to run on earth and see from high above at once. It was like that feeling she had at times laying on the ship’s deck and staring up at the sky, feeling somehow that the world was reversed, that she was a bug clinging to a thin shell of earth about to fall straight down through the heavens.

  She and Guzal were ants, scampering through the forests, while waves of flesh and fire collided toward them.

  A sharp scent stabbed her: sage. It chased through her suddenly, like a drink of strong spirits, firing all her floes at once, making her stumble and fall.

  “What, Thessaly?” Guzal said frantically, circling around, kneeling beside her, breathing in gasps. “Have you twisted an ankle?”

  “No,” Thessaly said, sitting quickly. “No, just—“

  “There,” a calm, musical voice sang. “Found you.”

  She seemed to appear out of the brush itself, leaves flowing and changing into a woman on a brandy-colored steed. She came into the open and circled around, standing between them and the stream. The trickle in the background was loud in the thick silence, the snap of sage still lingering in Thessaly’s nostrils.

  She lowered the censer and gave Thessaly a cool, snappish sort of smile. She rode well in spite of the heavy load she carried in front. Dark, lovely, pale, her curls falling in disarray down her back. Bulbous . . . because she was greatly with child. Why had Thessaly been unable to recognize her in the circle?

  Glamors, Thessaly thought. “My Lady,” Thessaly said, standing carefully. Guzal dusted off her skirt and moved closer to Thessaly.

  “My Lady,” Lady DuCarne said, chuckling. “Titles. Yours is the girl from the Spice Islands, then, and yours,” She nodded at Guzal, “the pale worshipper of idols.” She clucked to the animal, dismounted carefully, and held the reins. “Strong spirits, both.” She gave Thessaly a lingering stare. “Fine vintage. And rare talent. Blood far more potent than my small circle knew how to deal with. But they are they,” she smiled. “And I,” she raised a hand, “am I.” A searing pain struck Thessaly in the breast. Guzal screamed and clutched at her chest as well.

  “Heart’s blood,” Lady DuCarne said. “The best medicine. Oh, don’t worry now,” she added as wetness seeped down Thessaly’s front. The world blurred, the floes in her sight fuzzed, sharpened, and went out. “I’m far from finished with either of you.”