Winterling

by Sarah Prineas

  But he was bound by his oaths to her. He trembled, furious.

  “I am doing this for your own good,” the Mór said. “You are mine. Your struggles against your thrice-sworn oaths will only lead you to harm.” The fox-maid appeared at her shoulder with a little box made of pale wood. The Mór put the shifters into the box and closed it, and the maid took it away. “Now,” the Mór said, “about Gwynnefar. What has she said to you?”

  “Oh, lots of things, Lady,” Rook spat out. “She asks a lot of questions.”

  “Hmm.” The Mór reached down and stroked the tangled hair of the other fox-girl crouched at her feet. The girl trembled under her touch. “What sorts of questions?”

  “She asked about her father and mother. And about the hunt.”

  “Dangerous questions,” she mused. After a moment, she went on. “You have a puck’s keen vision, Robin. Can you see what she is?”

  Rook waited a sullen moment before answering. “She is the daughter of a human man, of course,” he muttered. He remembered how she’d hit the wolves with the branch. “She’s a warrior, and her grandmother is a healer. She is the true Lady’s daughter.”

  The Mór’s eyes narrowed. “Not the true Lady. I am the true Lady of this land. Laurelin was weak, too young and foolish to rule. She wouldn’t even wear the glamorie, as was her right. She was a healer, not a huntress.”

  Rook said nothing.

  “Still,” the Mór said, leaning back in her chair. “It is as you say. Gwynnefar is Laurelin’s daughter. As such she could be very useful to me. At the very least I can use her to open the Ways that are closed to me. But I have not yet decided how else she will serve me. Until I do, you will answer none of her questions and you will watch her for me.”

  “Find somebody else to do it,” Rook snarled. “I don’t want to.”

  The Mór raised her eyebrows. “I don’t think you have any choice about it, Robin.”

  He felt the bindings of his thrice-sworn oath to her tighten around him. “What do you want with her, anyway? She doesn’t know what she is. She’s of no use to you.”

  “Even though you are young, you see more than you should, Robin. Your puck-brother was the same way.” The Mór hunched her thin shoulders. “As I am sure you have noticed, my power grows weak. My people are wildling. My glamorie is failing. The lands slip into winter. Gwynnefar opened the Way. She does have power, Robin, and I want it. She could be a strong and loyal ally. But if she fails me . . .” The Mór’s face hardened. “I took power from her mother. I can take it from the daughter as well.”

  Fer woke up underwater. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. She took a breath. No, not underwater. It was the shimmering silk of her tent, turning the light greeny blue and watery.

  She lay on the camp bed under clean silk sheets and a moss-green coverlet. Across the tent was a carved wooden chest; her backpack rested on its lid. On the floor was a carpet of a darker blue than the tent walls, with sleek blue and green fish swimming across it. From outside the tent came the sound of birdsong and distant voices talking. The air smelled of sun-warmed grass and wood smoke.

  She gave a sigh, put her hands behind her head, and gazed up at the sloping tent ceiling. Things weren’t as wonderful here as she thought they’d be. She couldn’t forget about the bloody death of the stag in the clearing. He hadn’t really been an animal, had he? Her stomach twisted just thinking about it. The Lady was beautiful and noble, though, so she must have a reason for the hunt, something Fer hadn’t understood. Still, it made her feel sick and shivery. It was almost like she could still feel the stag’s blood, seeping into the earth, tainting the land.

  The hunt was wrong, but other parts of this place felt right, down to her bones in a way that home never had. The fern opening under her fingers in the springtime forest felt right. Rook was right, even if he was snarly. Her father’s note had said Fer belonged here. And maybe that was right too.

  Thinking of her father made her think next of her mother, who had been the Lady’s closest ally. Fer still didn’t know enough about her parents, or what had happened to them. It was time to find out. Fer sat up and flung off the bedclothes.

  A rippling at the tent flap, and a thin girl about Fer’s age ducked inside. She was dressed in a simple white shift, had bare feet, and wore a black feather tangled in her red-brown hair.

  “Hi,” Fer said. Somebody who could answer her questions. The girl didn’t say hi back. “Hel-lo,” Fer said again.

  The girl ducked her head and kept her eyes lowered. Didn’t she talk? Crossing to the wooden chest, the girl dumped Fer’s backpack on the floor and opened the chest’s lid. From inside the chest she took slim black pants and a black shirt like the ones the Mór wore, and soft leather boots, and carried them to Fer.

  Fer swung her legs over the side of the camp bed. “I brought my own stuff,” she said. Pulling her nightgown down to cover her legs, she stood and fetched her backpack. She opened it and showed the maid-girl. “See?” She pulled out her jeans and a clean T-shirt and her patch-jacket. “And I have shoes.” She pointed under the bed, where she’d left her sneakers, the socks balled up inside them. “Do you not talk at all?” she asked.

  The girl’s eyes grew wider, and she gave a trembling shake of her head.

  Fer shrugged. She couldn’t ask the girl any of her questions, then. “Turn around while I get changed.” While the girl stood with her back turned, Fer pulled the nightgown over her head and got dressed. Sitting on the bed, she dug through the backpack. She’d forgotten to bring a hairbrush.

  The girl reached into the pocket of her shift and brought out a comb. Her quick fingers pulled at Fer’s hair.

  “I can do that,” Fer said, reaching for the comb.

  The girl kept firm hold of it, pushing Fer’s hand away, picking out the twigs that had gotten tangled in Fer’s hair, carefully combing out the snarls.

  “My name is Fer,” Fer said. “I wish you could tell me your name.”

  The girl’s hands stilled. Then she untangled something from Fer’s hair and held it out to her. Fer took it. A twig. The girl reached out and tapped the twig, then nodded.

  “Oh!” Fer smiled. “Your name is Twig?”

  The girl nodded again, but didn’t smile back. She finished with Fer’s hair and stepped away.

  Fer turned to face her and felt a faint connection spin out between herself and the other girl. Just like the stag in the clearing, but not so strong, just the merest cobweb of a thread. Fer closed her eyes and felt the other girl’s half-wild heart fluttering with fright in her chest.

  Fer opened her eyes. “It’s all right, Twig,” she whispered. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  Twig’s eyes widened, she flinched away, and in a flash she was gone from the tent, breaking the thread.

  Fer frowned. That was strange.

  She ran her hands over her head. Her hair felt smooth, for once, pulled back into one neat braid. And tied at the bottom end of the braid—Fer pulled it around in front of her to see—was the black feather the Lady had given her the night before. The maid-girl’s quick fingers must have taken it from Fer’s backpack.

  Fer looked up. Ducking under the tent flap, holding a tray, was Rook.

  He would talk to her, anyway. Not like the strange maid-girl. “Hi,” she said, giving him a smile.

  He looked blankly back at her and set the tray down on the bed. “Here’s food,” he said.

  Mmmm. Fer looked the tray over. A cup and a pot of something hot. A loaf of bread, a little wooden bowl of honey, and an apple. Crossing her legs, she pulled the tray closer and broke open the bread, then spread honey on it. She took a big bite. “Want some?” she asked Rook, who stood by the tent flap with his arms folded.

  He shook his head, but didn’t speak.

  From outside the tent came the sound of banging and comings and goings. In the distance, a horse whinnied. “What’s going on out there?” Fer asked.

  Rook gave half a shrug. “Did you perhap
s notice that we’re living in a bunch of tents here?”

  Fer took another bite of bread and honey. “Why are we living in a bunch of tents, Rook?” she asked. “Why doesn’t the Lady live in a castle?”

  “The Lady is on a progress,” he answered.

  “What’s a progress?” Fer asked. She poured out tea, chamomile from the smell of it. She added honey to that, too.

  “She’s traveling, along with her retinue,” Rook said. “Her guards and servants and all her people, the whole lot of us. The Lady has brought the spring to her own land, so we’re getting ready to move to the next place so she can do the same thing there.”

  Next place? Fer froze with a bite of bread and honey halfway to her mouth. She’d be able to return to this place, wouldn’t she? Return to the Way and go back to Grand-Jane, as she’d promised? “Where is the next place?” Fer asked.

  Rook shrugged stiffly. “It is wherever it is,” he said, his voice rough. “We’ll know when we get there.”

  “Can I get home from there?” Fer asked.

  “Full of questions, aren’t you?” Rook sneered.

  Fer examined Rook, and he gave her a narrow-eyed stare in return. He looked different than he had before. More sullenly surly, if such a thing was possible. “What’s the matter, Rook?” she asked. Had something happened?

  He didn’t answer, just ducked out the tent flap. Fer heard his voice, and another voice answering. After a moment, he poked his head back inside. “Shift yourself,” he said. “They’re to take down the tent now.”

  Gulping down the last of her tea and shoving the apple into her backpack, Fer got to her feet. She buttoned up her jacket and followed Rook outside.

  The sun, round and orange, was setting, throwing long, black shadows across the field. How could it be evening, when she’d just woken up and eaten breakfast? Time must pass differently here than it did at home.

  She took a step forward and the tent behind her collapsed. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw two short men with spiky black hair and white muttonchop whiskers coiling ropes and collecting tent pegs. The men had pointy noses and flattish faces; they reminded Fer of badgers. One of them nodded to her, and the other gave her a half bow. Fer nodded back. Two other badger-men were folding up her camp bed and carrying the wooden chest to a waiting wagon. Rook took her backpack and handed it to one of the men, who added it to the wagon.

  A white horse galloped past, riderless, trailing a silver-chain bridle from its mouth. Across the wide meadow, all the silken tents had been taken down. Fer saw Twig, with another brown-haired maid-girl just like her, climbing onto the back of a goat with huge, curling horns and a pair of saddlebags over its back. In the orange light of the setting sun, the goat’s hair looked like flickering flames.

  She followed Rook across the field. At the edge of the forest, where the evening shadows grew thick and dark, the Lady’s retinue was gathered, milling around. All her people, Rook had said. The others, Grand-Jane had called them. Some of them, the ones on horseback, were tall and slender, almost like people, but too beautiful and too frail, with nut-brown skin and paper-white skin and skin tinged with the green of forest ferns. They wore masks made of bark and leaves and what looked to Fer like the fluttering wings of butterflies. Others were short and thin as saplings and rode goats and wore masks with six goat horns and a toothy goat mouth; others with whiskers and fur masks over their faces rode deer, clinging to the antlers; still others looked like naughty, sharp-faced boys and girls and crowded onto the backs of sturdy, shaggy ponies.

  Other animals slunk around the riders and their mounts. A deer, a pair of greyhounds, a bristle-backed boar, a few cats, and—Fer caught her breath when she saw it—like a low shadow flowing along the ground, a sleek panther. Two wagons pulled by lop-eared goats stood in the middle of the throng. In the deepest shadows, Fer spotted a brown bear standing on its hind legs, as if watching over them all.

  At the front of the retinue was the Lady, dressed all in black with a glowing crown on her head. A crow perched on her shoulder. She rode a different horse, this one as white as moonlight, with a long, braided mane and a tail that brushed the ground. Three gray wolves chased each other around her horse, wrestling, mock biting, tumbling each other under its legs. The horse stood steady, like a marble statue.

  The last flames of sunset burned out in the sky.

  Chapter Eight

  Fer followed Rook to the edge of the restless crowd, where a tall black horse, maybe the same one the Lady had been riding during the hunt the night before, was waiting. It wore no bridle and had no saddle. Its eyes, Fer noticed, were yellow, just like Rook’s. Did horses usually have yellow eyes?

  Rook went to the horse’s head and lowered his own head, speaking quietly to it. Then, giving Fer a look of strong dislike, he pointed at the horse’s back.

  “Get up there,” he ordered.

  She looked him over. “Rook, what is the matter with you?” she asked him for the second time.

  He frowned. “When the first star appears, we leave. If you’re late, you’ll be left behind.”

  The horse stamped a hoof and tossed its long, tangled mane, almost like it was telling her to hurry up. The horse’s back looked awfully high off the ground. “How do I get up there?” she asked.

  Rook blew out a sigh and left the horse’s head. Bending, he made a step out of his laced fingers. “Put your foot here,” he said, “grab the mane, and throw your other leg over.”

  Fer stepped into his hands and jumped up as he lifted, throwing her leg over as he’d said. The horse’s back was sleek-black and slippery; she started to slide off the other side. She grabbed the mane with both hands and clung to it.

  The horse snorted and shifted under her. She squeezed her legs. Its back was so wide; it was like perching on a slippery wine barrel. She glanced down, and the grassy ground seemed very far away. She squinted. It was far away.

  At the soft clop-clop sound of hooves on grass, Fer looked up. The Lady, sitting straight and tall on the marble-white horse.

  “Good evening to you, Gwynnefar,” the Lady said with a smile.

  Fer gulped. The Lady was so, so beautiful and queenly. Her crown, Fer realized, was made of oak twigs woven together, with green leaves budding from it. “Hi,” Fer said. “Good evening, I mean.” She felt herself staring and tried to look away, but couldn’t.

  The Lady’s smile sharpened. “I hear my dearest friend’s daughter has questions to which I may have answers.”

  She’d heard about Fer’s questions? Had Rook told her? Fer shot him a quick glance, but he stood with his head lowered, his hand resting on the horse’s neck.

  “We will have more time to talk once we’ve arrived,” the Lady said. She opened her mouth to say something else, then cocked her head, as if scenting a change in the breeze. “Ah. It is time. It’s going to be quite a ride, Gwynnefar.” She glanced at Rook. “Don’t let her fall off, Robin.”

  “I won’t,” Rook said sullenly.

  The Lady smiled across at Fer as if they were sharing a secret joke. “He’s not the best mannered of my people, but he will do as he’s told. Won’t you, Robin?”

  Rook nodded.

  The Lady gave Fer another smile, then leaned forward and spoke into her horse’s ear, and it turned and trotted toward the front of the retinue. Fer watched her go, then rubbed her eyes, blinking.

  Rook left the horse’s head and stood looking up at its back. After taking a deep breath, he grabbed the mane and the back of Fer’s jacket and pulled himself on, scrambling until he was sitting behind Fer.

  He didn’t know any more than she did about how to get up onto a horse, did he? Robin, the Lady had called him. “Is Robin another one of your names, Rook?”

  Without answering, Rook wrapped an arm around her waist, holding the mane with his other hand.

  Around them, the retinue stilled. Shadows dropped from the eaves of the forest trees. Overhead the sky was deep blue-green where the sun had set, with black n
ight creeping up from the opposite horizon.

  A star blossomed in the east.

  A horn sounded, a single winging note, and the gathered riders spurred their mounts.

  At first they rode slowly, following the path through the darkening woods. They gathered speed, and the jolting rhythm turned to a gallop, the leaves and ferns and trees rushing and then flashing by in a blur of green and brown. The horse raced in a headlong, plunging run, its mane whipping across Fer’s face like ribbons. Its hoofbeats on the path went ba da la DUM, ba da la DUM. Fer clung to the mane and caught quick, lurching glimpses between the horse’s ears of the path ahead. Other riders dashed past, crouched low over the necks of their mounts, casting Fer curious looks over their shoulders and nodding to Rook, behind her.

  The horse strained, galloping even faster. Fer felt its muscles bunching and smoothing beneath her legs. She closed her eyes. Rook wasn’t supposed to let her fall off, but he didn’t seem to be doing much to keep her on. Hold on and don’t fall off, Fer told herself. Hold on and don’t fall off. She clung to the mane with all her strength.

  A jolt, and the horse’s gait smoothed. Fer’s eyes flew open. The forest flashed past again and disappeared, and they were bounding through the night sky. Her stomach lurched. Stars whirled past; bits and rags of clouds swirled around them and disappeared. Looking down, Fer saw stars below them too, and velvety black darkness. The other mounts and riders rushed around them, shadows in the night. The horn sounded again, a thin ringing in the distance. Far ahead gleamed a white light, brighter than the stars. The Lady’s crown, blazing the way, leading them.

  Fer caught her breath. The horse’s run was like rocking now, and she was balanced, relaxed, really riding, not just holding on. For a moment she saw herself as she must look—a wild girl on the back of a wild horse galloping through the air. Excitement bubbled up inside her—faster, faster!

  The horse’s muscles bunched and strained again, and they raced into a blinding fog that streamed around them. The wind howled past, snatching the breath from Fer’s mouth. The wind grew colder until the horse was snorting out great clouds of steam. Its mane slashed Fer across the face; her eyes watered from the wind. The wind was strong enough to cut right through her, but the patch-jacket kept her warm. The fog flashed past and they were in icy darkness again.