by Jo Spurrier
‘Anyone else harmed?’ Aleida asked, turning from one nun to the other with beady black eyes.
‘A few of the girls tried to defend us, and took some bruises for their trouble,’ Sister Lodova said, her face flat and stony. ‘It’s kind of you to call and enquire, Mistress Blackbone, but Lord Belmont’s castellan has sent word to his master, and I’m sure he’ll be taking the matter in hand.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Aleida said. ‘But that doesn’t mean I won’t take steps of my own.’ She glanced across at me then, and gave me a nod.
I knew what that meant. ‘You’ve told me the facts,’ Aleida went on to the nuns, ‘but what do you think? Did the girl set this up?’
I couldn’t linger to hear the reply — I had a job to do. With a leap and a flap of wings, I took to the air and flew out of the solar.
Circling the courtyard, I spotted a little girl perched on a windowsill, playing with a dolly. She was about five, I guessed, a few years older than my youngest sister, Maisie. I was prepared to scout out Kara’s room by myself, but I figured there was no harm in asking.
I glided down to land on the far end of the windowsill and the little girl yelped in surprise, clutching her doll close and pulling her bare feet in to hide them under her skirt.
‘Good morning,’ I croaked in the crow’s harsh voice.
The little girl frowned at me. ‘Birds don’t talk,’ she said in a scolding tone.
‘I do, but I’m not really a bird. I’m trying to help my friend Kara. Do you know her?’
The lass nodded. ‘She’s mean sometimes. And Mam said she ran away.’
Well, that was a kinder way to put it to a little one than saying she’d been kidnapped. ‘She shouldn’t have been mean to you,’ I said. ‘But I’m worried she’s got lost in the forest. My friend and I are trying to find her. Can you tell me where her room is?’
She studied me with a very serious little face. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Dee,’ I said. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Jenna. Can I touch your feathers?’
I hopped closer and let her stroke my back, and then I spread my wings for her inspection. ‘Gentle, now. I need those feathers to fly.’
‘Kara’s room is just down the hall,’ she announced. ‘But there’s cats around. I’d better come with you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘If you hold out your arm, I’ll hop onto it.’
When she held out her hand, I jumped onto it with a flap and she gave a little shriek of surprise. I tried hard not to let my talons dig in, and kept my wings half-spread for balance as she slowly turned away from the window and started down the hall. I just hoped that no adults or older children would come across us, or there’d be quite some explaining to do.
She brought me to Kara’s room without incident. It was a tiny chamber with a narrow rope-slung bed and a straw mattress covered with coarse, woven cloth. At the foot of the bed was a wicker trunk, and that was all — no ornaments or decorations, no rugs or wall hangings. Not even a candle stub. There was nothing in here to identify the room as Kara’s. ‘Are you sure this is the right one?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll open the shutters so we can see.’
Kara’s boots were gone, I noted, once the early morning light spilled into the gloom. ‘Can you open that basket-chest for me?’
Inside were only a few spare garments, very nondescript. Actually, they looked much like the plain dresses and chemises I’d seen people here wearing yesterday. So, she’d gotten dressed in her own gear, boots and all, before running to face the ruffians at the gate.
I hopped onto the bed. ‘All right then, let’s see if we can find some hairs.’
Together we fossicked through the sheets and found several long, blonde hairs. I could have carried them in my beak if I had to, but Jenna twisted them together for me into a neat little bundle. ‘Here you go.’
‘Thank you, sweet,’ I said, taking it in one foot.
‘Are you a witch?’ she said.
‘Yep. But I’m one of the nice ones.’
‘But witches are all evil, aren’t they?’
‘Some are, but I’m not. Thanks for your help, I have to go now.’
‘Wait!’ she said, her voice wistful. ‘Can I go with you? I want to fly and see everything, too.’
‘Sorry, my sweet, no,’ I said. ‘Wait ’til you’re big and grown, all right? Maybe then you can fly.’
I leapt from the windowsill and circled over the roof, dropping down into the courtyard again. I glided into the solar to make an awkward, hopping landing nearby with the tangle of blonde hairs clutched in one foot.
‘Look, I don’t care what you find,’ Mother Ellendene said. ‘I’ve sworn blind to Lord Belmont that young Kara couldn’t have opened the doors, and I’ll continue to swear it. I don’t care if you get a signed blessed confession out of her, as far as I’m concerned she didn’t do it. She wouldn’t be the first young lass to make a foolish decision out of love and desperation, and I don’t believe she deserves to have her life ruined for it.’
Aleida’s crow shrugged with a flutter of wings. ‘It’s a fair call. But I’ll tell you, I’d be more concerned about her surviving the next few days. Stupid decisions do have a way of compounding themselves to worse and worse situations.’ She turned my way then. ‘All done?’
‘Yep,’ I said.
‘Good. Well, we’d best be off,’ she said to the two nuns. ‘But you mind what I said about that witch out there — I have a feeling she’s naught to be trifled with.’ Then, with a clack of her beak and a flutter of wings, she was gone, and I was right behind her.
Beyond the abbey, the sun was rising fast. Once we were clear of the walls, Aleida swung around so that she was behind and above me. It was an awkward spot; I couldn’t see her at all and when I tried to twist around to glance back at her she just clacked her beak at me in irritation. ‘Straight ahead, Dee! We need to get back swiftly.’
‘But I can’t see you.’
‘Of course not, I’m guarding your blind spot.’
She never explained what she was standing guard against, but we returned to the wagon without any trouble. By the time I swooped in through the open half-door, Aleida was already back on her feet, bringing out a few crusts to thank the birds for their trouble, while I held on to my crow a little longer, until Aleida could retrieve my prize. She tucked my crow gently under her arm to untangle the hairs from my talons, and then I settled back into my body and opened my eyes.
It was always somewhat disconcerting, coming back to one’s own flesh after borrowing, finding yourself suddenly larger and heavier and more ungainly than it seemed you ought to be. Sometimes you felt half-blind, what with eyes only on the front of your head and not the sides, and half-deaf, too, without a beast’s fine-tuned hearing.
By the time I felt solid enough to sit up, Aleida was perched at the tiny table inside the wagon, with a book open in front of her and a feather quill in her hand. I shuffled across to peer over her shoulder and found her drawing out a rough map.
‘Go get Maggie harnessed, will you, Dee?’ she said. ‘The nuns had a map of the region, and I need to get it copied down while it’s fresh in my mind.’
‘Yes, miss,’ I said.
Outside, while I set about dressing Maggie in the collar, hames and breeching and all the rest of it, Toro came over with a soft snort, his ears pricked.
‘Hey,’ I said to him softly. ‘How good’s your hearing? Did you catch what that messenger said earlier?’
He gave a soft nicker, and I scowled, annoyed with myself for asking a foolish question. He could manage a yes or no easily enough, but an open-ended question was hopeless. ‘Scratch that, let me start over. One of your bandit friends had a daughter — a girl called Kara. Do you know her?’
He fell very still, head up and ears pricked attentively, and gave two sharp snorts. Yes.
‘Well, I’m guessing her father got taken by the witch at the same time you did. Wa
s he the one who escaped with you?’
He snorted a no, and shook his head for good measure.
‘Oh. Well, Kara went into town to buy some supplies and see if she could find any news of her da . . .’ In brief words, I told him the tale of how she’d ended up in the Haven. ‘Only she’s determined to help her da if she possibly can, and told us she’d get out and hunt for him by hook or by crook. Well, she’s gone and managed it — she was taken by this new pack of bandits last night . . . only I’m not sure if she was stolen away or if it was just meant to look that way. Anyway, you’d know this forest pretty well, wouldn’t you?’
He regarded me steadily for a moment, and then snorted yes again.
I glanced towards the wagon. ‘So if we knew roughly what direction she’d gone in, you might know where the bandits would be holed up? You could help us find them?’
He shifted his weight from hoof to hoof, and tossed his head. He was thinking about it, I guessed, and not quite sure if it was a good idea. We were all but strangers, after all, and not exactly friendly ones. Just less unfriendly than the folks we’d helped him escape from yesterday.
Eventually, his huge head swung back towards me, and he snorted twice.
‘Good thinking, Dee,’ Aleida’s voice said from above, making me jump. She was leaning on the wagon’s half-door with her elbows on the wood and a silver bowl in her hands. ‘I’ve got the compass and the map sorted. Let’s get moving.’
Aleida had me take the reins, and we sat on the footboard with the silver bowl and her rough map between us. I peered at the page, trying to puzzle out the drawing. ‘So the road heads roughly west until it hits . . . what’s that?’
‘The locals call it the Scar,’ Aleida said. ‘Some rocky ridge that cuts through the forest.’
The compass, as Aleida called it, was pointing dead west. It was made up of a single feather floating on water in the bowl, with Kara’s hair wound tightly around the quill. An enchantment made it point straight towards the hair’s owner. ‘Oh, that’s a neat trick,’ I said, looking down at it. Then, ‘Huh . . .’
When my voice trailed off, Aleida glanced up at me. ‘What?’
Part of me wished I hadn’t said anything, but it was too late now. ‘Simple spell, is it? Quick and easy?’
She gave me a puzzled look. ‘Yeah?’
With a click of my tongue I urged Maggie onwards and steered her towards the forest. ‘It’s just that yesterday, we were talking about family; and I remembered that back when we first met you said you couldn’t find your kin, after you left Gyssha.’
‘Mm,’ she said with a noncommittal tone. ‘And?’
I turned to look her over. ‘You could have found them, if you’d wanted to. Couldn’t you?’
She leaned back, hands in her lap, looking out past Maggie’s ears, and gave a quick sigh. She almost sounded amused. ‘Yeah. You’re right.’
I’d never expected her to admit it so readily. ‘But, but . . . why? Your sisters, your mother — don’t you want to see them again? Don’t you care? I mean, do they even know what happened to you?’
She sat very still, the only movement her fingertips restlessly pressing against her thigh. ‘They probably think I’m dead,’ she said at last. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time someone hung themselves in a cell rather than face the axe. And I wasn’t lying, it did hurt, going back to my old neighbourhood and finding them gone.’
‘But you could have followed them. It would have been easy! I just . . . I don’t understand how you can be so cold-hearted.’
She patted my leg. ‘I know, kid. I . . . hmm.’ Trailing off, she stood, head tipped up to peer at the sky, or what we could see of it through the huge trees that lined the road.
‘What is it?’ I said, and Maggie tossed her head, feeling my hands grow tight on the reins.
‘An eagle, I think. Odd place for it.’
I frowned, puzzled. ‘Is it? You borrowed an eagle yesterday.’
‘Yes, but I found him hunting over the fields and brought him down under the trees. That’s why it took so long. They don’t soar over forests when the beasts they’re hunting are on the ground under the trees.’ She watched it for a moment longer, then opened the wagon door and picked up her skirts to step over the silver bowl. ‘We’ll have to talk about this later, I’ve got a few things to take care of. Follow the road, and keep your eyes peeled. Tell me if you see anything even slightly strange, all right?’
‘Um, okay,’ I said, glancing up at her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Oh, a little of this, a little of that,’ she said, and vanished inside, closing the door behind her.
I settled back, pursing my lips, and shifted the wand in my belt. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d just used that black speck as an excuse to leave the conversation behind.
Maggie tossed her head then, shortening her stride, and I realised my hands had grown tight on the reins. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, making them soften.
I turned all my attention to our surroundings, then, thinking of the nether beastie I’d seen off last night and the mounted griffin back in the town — and the eagle, the one Aleida insisted was out of place. I’d seen how much damage her eagle had done the day before, and shuffled back a little so I was sitting closer to the wall of the wagon. At least the bird wouldn’t be able to swoop down on me from behind.
Though I stayed alert, miles passed with no more excitement than the passing of an occasional woodcutter or swineherd, ushering his charges through the dark trees. I could hear Aleida pottering about inside, rummaging through crates and clinking glass bottles together — whatever it was she was doing, the rocking and bumping of the wagon didn’t seem to be a bother.
The whole time, Toro had been trailing behind us, but when we reached a fork in the road and the floating feather guided us towards the left-hand path, he suddenly trotted forward and swung in front of Maggie, making her throw her weight into the breeching, jouncing the wagon to a sudden stop.
I leaned forward in consternation. ‘What?’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’
He snorted, tossing his head, while above me the door opened. I glanced up to see Aleida looking out, irritation on her face. ‘What—’ she started, then pressed her lips together. ‘Oh.’
A few moments later, we were both on the ground, watching the chestnut creature as he stamped his feet and lashed his tail in frustration, ears flat to his head.
After a few moments Aleida rolled her eyes and shook her head. Leaning on her staff, she hobbled past him to the edge of the road, where the ground was a little softer, and started scratching in the dirt with the tip of her walking stick. By the time I realised what she was doing, she was nearly halfway through drawing out the alphabet, letter by letter.
Toro realised it too, falling still with a nicker. Then he hurried over, nudging her aside to paw at the earth with one forefoot. In crude, misshapen lines, he scratched out a single word. AMBUSH.
Aleida came a little closer. ‘Mm,’ she said. ‘I wondered if that might be the case. Whereabouts? Around this scar that cuts through the forest?’ He answered with a quick double snort. ‘All right. How far? Just stamp your foot. Six? Miles, I’m guessing? I see. That’s maybe half an hour away, at this pace. And they’ll have lookouts?’
Toro just twitched his shoulders, like he was trying to dislodge a fly. I took it for a shrug.
‘Yeah, right,’ Aleida muttered. ‘Who knows what these idiots will do. Still, we should probably assume a basic level of competence.’
‘But after yesterday they won’t be foolish enough to attack us again,’ I said. ‘Surely?’
‘Maybe. But maybe we want them to? Might be the easiest way to draw them out where we want them, it’d be a right pain to chase them down if they turn tail and run. Easy enough to cast a veil, if we look like wagoners hauling barrels of ale they’ll be falling over themselves to come after us.’
‘Is that easy to do?’ I said, thinking back to the ritual last night, and how much it ha
d drained her.
‘Illusions are always easy, Dee,’ she scoffed, but then she hesitated and looked up at the sky again.
I followed her gaze and saw it once more. The dark speck of an eagle, circling high overhead. Though the trees did arch over the road here and there, there were enough open patches that the bird could see us — assuming my teacher was right, and not just being paranoid.
‘I should take a bird and go scout them out first,’ Aleida said. ‘Make sure Kara’s actually with them before we go charging in. If they left her back at camp, that’ll be our job half done. Hop up, Dee. Let’s go.’
As soon as we set out Aleida ducked inside again, only to return moments later with a little basket of tiny glass flasks, each one sealed with cork and wax and holding about a dram of amber-coloured liquid. There were about eight or ten of them in total. ‘Shove a couple in your pockets, Dee,’ Aleida said as she started tucking the flasks away in her clothing.
I picked one up gingerly. ‘What is it?’ Knowing her, it wasn’t anything I’d want to spill carelessly.
She gave me a tight smile. ‘Just a little something. I don’t want to have to do any fighting if I don’t have to, so if swords come out, start throwing these around and they’ll soon have other things to think about. Oh, and give me your hand, I’d best give you a charm against it.’
Taking my hand, she laid it on her knee and painted a sigil on the back of it with a tiny brush and some strange, glittering ointment. ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘I know that one. Melusine’s Shield, right?’
‘Yep.’
We’d used that one before, back at the cottage when we’d burned off a load of noxious plants after clearing out the walled garden — it gave protection from agents in the air. ‘So, what exactly is in those flasks?’
