The Banished of Muirwood

by Jeff Wheeler

  He shut the gate door in her face, and she heard the locks click back into place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Shame

  Maia rested her forehead against the heavy wooden door. It was already almost twilight. She knew she would not make it back down to the village with her remaining strength. Nor could she wait outside the abbey all night without falling asleep. She slapped the door repeatedly with the flat palm of her hand. Receiving no answer, she rang the bell again. It clanged loudly, the sound vibrating under her skin and shooting down her spine. There was no answer on the other side.

  Not knowing what to do, she knelt against the foot of the door, pressing her cheek to the wood. She was so tired. She slammed her hand against the door, then listened for sounds on the other side. There were obscure noises, the tramping of feet or boots, but no one came near the door. The sunlight melted away, bringing shadows. Smoke shapes snuffled at her in the emerging darkness, and she shuddered at their presence, enduring the discomfort. She blinked rapidly, trying to keep her mind clear of the fog of sleep. Beyond her lids, she sensed a primal power, like the waves of the sea, churning against her, threatening to sweep her away with its might.

  Maia rose and yanked the bell again, sending the noise clanging into the night. She was so tired and filthy.

  Please, Aldermaston. Please come.

  After some time passed, she heard boots come to the door, and the porter opened it again. He looked at her peevishly. “Away, brat! The Aldermaston will not see you until morning. Go!” He gestured at her in annoyance.

  She shook her head. “I cannot go. I must see him tonight.”

  He scowled at her. “I can give you a lantern.” He drew one out from behind his back and offered it to her to take.

  She folded her arms, refusing it. “I do not need light, I need the Aldermaston!”

  He snorted, shrugged, and slammed the door in her face.

  “Please!” Maia begged, pounding on the door again. If only she had thought to take one of Jon Tayt’s throwing axes, she could have started hacking away at the hinges. Again she knelt at the door, feeling the tide of power rise inside her, threatening to wilt her resolve. She bit her lower lip, desperately hoping the pain would distract her from her dark thoughts. Her knees ached from the position, but she was determined not to drift asleep.

  Time passed slowly, the night’s chill seeping into the stones and wooden door. She could see her breath in the moonlight. Struggling to her feet, though the pain felt like knives shooting down her legs, she tugged on the rope again, clanging the bell.

  Please come. Please. I need help.

  She saw a glimmer of light under the crack of the door just before it opened. There was the porter again, frowning and holding a lantern. He stared at her, his expression stern as an owl, and then motioned with a jerk of his chin for her to follow him into the courtyard.

  Her relief was wary, but she obeyed and followed. The inner courtyard was small, and they passed a gate of iron, which he closed and locked behind them. Each iron pole was topped with an ornate spike. The courtyard was paved in stone with small stone flower boxes along each side, overflowing with hardy mountain wildflowers. Leerings were set into each of the boxes, emanating a soft glow. She could hear the pattering of a fountain, and when she peered farther into the courtyard, she found the source: eight light Leerings encircled a water Leering that spewed a tall fountain onto the tiles beneath. The water drained from grates at the edges. Across the small courtyard, several dark-haired and olive-skinned learners watched her, but they kept to the shadows and spoke amongst themselves. She could not hear their comments over the splashing of the fountain.

  The porter swayed the lantern and brought her to a small stone building built into the cliff side adjacent to the abbey. She craned her neck as she followed him, taking in the sight of the anvil-shaped mountain that towered overhead, making her feel insignificant.

  She passed another Leering and felt it glaring at her as well. The eyes accused her. She did not feel that she belonged here.

  The porter approached the door and rapped on it firmly. It was opened by an older man with silver hair, a prominent nose, and a stooped back—another servant, judging by his appearance. He waved for Maia to follow him inside, but before she did, she gripped the porter’s arm.

  “Thank you,” she said humbly.

  He snorted again and ambled back toward the gates. Maia followed the crow-beaked man into what she assumed to be the Aldermaston’s residence. Her stomach churned with uneasiness and shame. Even though she was frigid with cold, she felt a bead of perspiration trickle down her cheek. She wiped it away. Her mouth was dry.

  The old man said something to her in the language of Mon, which she did not understand.

  “Dahomeyjan?” she asked him.

  He shook his head and then stopped at a door that was already open. Within, Maia saw a short, stubby man with a full beard and slight stubble on his head dressed in the gray cassock of the Aldermaston order. He was standing, gesticulating to two other men while speaking vehemently in a language she did not understand. The men nodded and departed the room. The Aldermaston, who still looked agitated, beckoned for Maia to enter.

  He had dark eyes and a snapping temper. He spoke in Dahomeyjan. “I am told you are rude and disobedient. Also that you do not speak our tongue. You are from Dahomey then?”

  Maia swallowed, feeling even more ill at ease now that she was here in the Aldermaston’s house. This was not the beginning she had hoped for. “Forgive me for arriving at such a late hour, Aldermaston.”

  He scowled and observed her more closely, his brows furrowing. “You are not from Dahomey,” he said upon reflection. “Though you speak the language well. What other tongues do you speak?”

  She stared at him, wondering how much she should reveal. “May we speak privately, Aldermaston?” She nodded toward the still-open door.

  “I do not intend for this to be a long conversation,” he replied curtly. “I had a learner break his arm climbing one of the walls today, and the healer says it needs to be set, which will be excruciating. My stomach is growling for the supper I have not yet eaten. There are scrolls to read, tomes to engrave, and punishments to dole out this evening, my dear. I do not have much time to spare. But you were persistent. Is it money you need?”

  Maia shook her head no.

  “You are not a maston, though. You did not give the porter a sign.”

  She shook her head no again.

  He walked around the edge of the desk and pulled at the strands of his beard. “My porter believed you were obdurately seeking alms. I typically make such visitors wait a day before speaking with them. I have learned in my six years as Aldermaston that delaying a day will make the majority of your problems fly away.” He grimaced and then clasped his hands in front of his portly belly. “What do you seek? You are not even twenty by the look of you.”

  “I am not,” Maia confessed.

  “Where are you from?”

  She sucked in her breath. “I am from Comoros.”

  His brows needled like daggers. “Comoros?” He coughed, looking at her as if she had said she had somehow dropped down from the moon.

  “I am Princess Marciana. Please call me Maia.”

  “The bastard?” he asked curtly, coughing again.

  She bowed her head and nodded.

  “This is not at all what I suspected. Indeed!” He shook his head incredulously and scratched his bearded throat. His fingers were fidgety. He grabbed one of the scrolls off the desk before setting it back down just as abruptly. He looked down, then back at her again, sharply. “Can you prove your claim? Do you have a signet ring or some other way I can identify you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Please, Aldermaston.” Her insides churned with dread and shame. She should flee. She should leave. How could she reveal he
rself to a man so distracted and contemptible? She tried to master her unpleasant emotions. “I need your help.”

  He shrugged, obviously perplexed. “With what, may I ask?”

  She stepped closer to him, dropping her voice lower. “Help me,” she whispered. “I . . . I . . . am . . .” She could not say it. Her tongue was too thick in her mouth.

  “What?” he asked, crinkling his brows. “Speak up!”

  She tried to make the sounds, but her throat locked up. She was miserable with shame. “I am not a maston. I wish to be one, as my parents both were, but my father has denied me. Aldermaston, I am a hetaera. Please . . . you must help me. I am so very tired . . . so very weary. When I fall asleep, I am not myself. It . . . takes over. Help me!”

  His eyes and mouth widened as if she had sloshed a pan of boiling water on his face. He walked around her swiftly, went to the open door and slammed it shut. He turned, staring at her in unbridled fear now. “What did you say you were?”

  “I have become one . . . undeliberately. I was not trained in an abbey. I have been banished for many years. My father sent me to Dahomey, to a forgotten abbey where I found the hetaera’s Leering—”

  “Stop!” he said, holding up his hand. He bit his forefinger, muttering to himself in another language. It was a long moment before he looked at her again. “And you came here? To Cruix Abbey? Why? Why here?”

  “I do not want this thing inside me,” she moaned, wincing, clutching her breast. “It takes an Aldermaston to cast away a Myriad One.” She wrung her hands together miserably. “I was hunted by the Dochte Mandar in Dahomey and fled across the mountains. I have not slept in three days trying to reach this abbey.”

  “Sit down,” he ordered.

  She looked at him in confusion.

  “You are ready to collapse. Please, sit down.”

  Maia nodded and gratefully seated herself in one of the many wooden chairs. Her shoulders slumped. He walked up behind her.

  “Close your eyes. You cannot see the maston sign. I will Gift you.”

  Relieved, she obeyed and bowed her head, allowing him to press his thick hand against her head. This was a Gifting. She began to shiver. Her stomach twisted into knots, and she felt the terrible urge to retch.

  “Lady Marciana,” he said in broken Dahomeyjan. “Ah . . . I place upon you a . . . a . . . Gift. Yes, a Gift. By Idumea’s hand, I . . . sense in you . . . the presence of one . . . the . . . presence of a . . . Myriad One.” She heard his breath begin to pant, and she felt the churn of power swelling up inside her. Not here! she pleaded in her mind. Help me!

  “By Idumea’s . . . hand . . . I bestow . . . a . . . Gift. Of Knowledge.” His breath came in short gasps, as if he were racing up a stairwell. “You must . . . seek . . . the High Seer. She . . . is . . . she . . . calls . . . all the new . . . Aldermastons. She anoints them. Only one . . . with the Gift . . . of Seering . . . can name . . . ungh . . . name . . . the Myriad One . . . vested . . . inside . . . you. Seek her . . . in . . . Naess.”

  The Aldermaston jerked his hand away from her head and continued to breathe in huge gulps. Maia whirled and saw his hand was covered in blisters, as if he had grabbed a burning kettle by the handle. He gripped his wrist with his other hand, sweat streaking down his face. He stared at Maia with fear. He was trembling and quite pale.

  “Not . . . my . . . abbey,” he groaned. “Please! Not mine!” His look was not angry, only desperate. “Go! You must go! Now!”

  Maia rose from the chair. “I did not seek to bring evil here,” she said, staring at his blistered palm.

  “I know it,” he muttered. “I saw into your heart. But you are a hetaera. You are bound to a Myriad One. You must learn its true name in order to send it away. Only someone with the Gift of Seering can know that.”

  “But I thought all Aldermastons—”

  He shook his head violently. “No! But three days ago, the whispers of the Medium bade me to hold vigil. Not just to go without sleep for three days, but also to go without food and drink. I did not understand why. It weighed on me. I was so busy and tired. If I had held vigil, I may have been strong enough in the Medium to help you tonight. I cannot send this one away. It is too strong. You are too strong in the Medium. Stronger than me. Your lineage . . . child . . . it is powerful.”

  “Aldermaston!” she begged, seeing his face blanch.

  She felt a familiar heaviness wash over her. She remembered the powerful force of the waves as they crashed against the hull of the Blessing of Burntisland. No matter how strong the sails or taut the ropes, the ship had been thrashed about unwillingly. It was as if those waves were buffeting her. She tried to walk against the current pulling at her, but it felt as if her clothes and skin were too heavy for her to resist.

  He raised a trembling arm, his face beaded with sweat. “I . . . rebuke . . . you . . .”

  The tidewaters of power swelled inside her, sweeping her under the crest. She heard a voice. Her own voice, but it was not her speaking.

  “You know too much now, Aldermaston.”

  “Depart!” he croaked hoarsely.

  Maia heard herself laugh. “You cannot banish one who is already banished. No man can tame me, Aldermaston.”

  “The High Seer is a woman,” the Aldermaston said angrily. “The Dochte Mandar will bring you to Naess.”

  There was another silver laugh. “I know. I intend them to. Foolish man. You thought a little gate and door could keep me out? We are many. We are one.” She began to chant the dirge from the tome. “Och monde elles brir. Och cor shan arbir. Och aether undes pune. Dekem millia orior sidune.”

  “No,” the Aldermaston groaned. “Please, no!”

  “Och monde elles brir. Och cor shan arbir. Och aether undes pune. Dekem millia orior sidune.”

  “No! I beg you, no!”

  “Och monde elles brir. Och cor shan arbir. Och aether undes pune. Dekem millia orior sidune!”

  Maia felt the waves of power crest inside her, a sensation that set her fingers tingling. She was still conscious, though her awareness had been shoved into a corner of her own mind. She struggled to regain control of her body, but it was like shoving one of those sea waves. There was nothing to push against.

  Boots pounded down the corridor, and the door of the Aldermaston’s chamber flew open. He had sagged to his knees, one hand resting on the table, the other quivering as he tried to hold up the maston sign with his hand.

  “Aldermaston!” someone shrieked. “The abbey! The abbey is burning!”

  There has never been a time in which mastons have not been persecuted. There is a never-ending war, you see, between the mastons and the hetaera. The hetaera, whose order has prevailed and survived for many thousands of years, received a mortal wound in my generation, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is her constitution, great-granddaughter, she may endure for centuries before she expires.

  —Lia Demont, Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Princess of Comoros

  There was a soft tap on her bedchamber door. Maia looked up from the window seat from which she had been watching the commotion in the bailey below. She rose and walked to the door and opened it. There was her chamberlain, Nicholas Creed, crushing his velvet cap in his hands. He looked miserable.

  “What is it, Nicholas?” she asked with concern. “Is your wife well? Is it one of your children?”

  “Lady Maia,” he said dejectedly. “I bring ill tidings.”

  Maia’s face blanched. “Is my mother dead?”

  “No! No, by the Blood, no!”

  Maia sighed in relief.

  She heard the sound of boot steps ascending the stairwell. “What is it, then, Nicholas?”

  “I must let them take you away, Lady Maia. You are to be removed from the palace.”

  Her heart started to wail
in protest. “Where?” She seized his arm. “Am I being sent to Pent Tower?”

  “It is not as bad as that.”

  “You look so grave, Nicholas. There is more news you have not told me.”

  He bit his bottom lip. “They will be here shortly to take you. I cannot spare the blow. Forgive me, Lady Maia, but this is none of my doing. Your lord father, the king, is sending you to be a lady-in-waiting to your stepsister, Lady Murer.” He cringed when he said this.

  Maia stared at him in disbelief. “What do you say? Nicholas, I do not understand.”

  He swallowed, scrunching the velvet cap even more. “Your father has signed an act naming Lady Deorwynn’s children as his legal and lawful heirs. He has declared Lady Murer Princess of Comoros. You are now . . .” He started to choke on the words. “You are now to be known as Lady Maia, the king’s daughter.”

  “My father signed this?” she said in astonishment. “I am now considered his . . . his bastard?”

  Nicholas Creed nodded miserably. “I am on assignment from His Majesty’s chamberlain. While you have been forbidden to wear your state gowns and such, you will now surrender all of your clothes, your badges, your dishes, your treasure. They will be given to Lady Murer. You will wait upon her at Hadfeld Manor.”

  Maia’s legs trembled beneath her. “Hadfeld is the manor of Lady Deorwynn’s mother and father!”

  “Yes. They are your masters now. You are forthwith forbidden to use the title of princess in any correspondence or to insinuate that title in any form, per your father’s command. Ladies Murer and Jolecia are acknowledged as the true princesses of the realm and their brothers as princes.”

  She watched as the men reached the top of the stairs and began marching down the hall toward her.

  “Who are these men?” Maia demanded.

  “They are here to take your gowns and clothes, to prevent you from despoiling any. Including the one you are wearing.”