Clovermead heard faint roaring on the wind. Far away a bear-priest fingered his broadsword. She felt hunger and anticipation all around her, drawing nearer.
“An insolent traitor,” said Lady Cindertallow bitterly. “But one who speaks with the ring of truth. He’s stuck to the same story since he was brought in to Chandlefort. Tansyard, you also vouch that this is the girl you knew as the innkeeper’s daughter?”
“Yes, Milady,” said Sorrel. “I will swear that she is Clovermead. I will swear again that she had that brooch before she was captured by the Mayor. She showed it to me in a mill in the Salt Heath, and I will swear a third time that this girl, who I only then realized was Milady’s very image, showed it to me in all innocence of what that brooch proclaimed her to be. She knew that it came from Chandlefort, but not that jewelry emblazoned with the Burning Bee is made only for the Cindertallows themselves.”
“Then, I am willing to believe that she is my daughter, Cabochon.” Lady Cindertallow looked again at Clovermead. Her hands shook on her reins. “What price do you demand for her?”
“I have told you, Milady. The freedom of Low Branding.” The Mayor extracted a piece of paper from his saddlebag and squinted at it. “More precisely, you will recognize Low Branding as sovereign and independent, free from all obligations financial, political, and military, or of any other kind whatsoever, to either the House of Cindertallow or the Demesne of Chandlefort. You will also relinquish your power and your titles over High Branding, the Harrow Moors, Ryebrew, Barleymill, and all other lands in Linstock east of the Chandle Palisades. You will not contest Low Branding’s right to claim suzerainty over the above mentioned territories. You will assemble your several vassals, and in their presence you will sign a treaty confirming your relinquishments. You will also swear a binding oath to Our Lady to observe the terms of the said treaty.” The Mayor carefully folded the paper and returned it to his saddlebag.
“Or you will kill my daughter,” said Lady Cindertallow.
“Yes. Or marry her.” The Mayor flicked his eyes over Clovermead’s slight figure and laughed. “I feel no desire to be joined in blessed matrimony with Miss Wickward, but I am well aware that there are certain ancient prophecies that foretell great accomplishments for the twenty-first ruler of Chandlefort. Perhaps I could claim in my wife’s name to be that ruler? Even if she died suddenly, just after the wedding? I don’t myself believe that fate can be fooled by cheap tricks, but I suspect some of your vassals would be more gullible. I can set your precious castle ablaze with faction, Milady—I say this only if you thought to let your daughter die. I don’t think you’re so callous, but there’s no use taking chances. Prudence, prudence, that’s my watchword.”
A distant growl sounded. Lady Cindertallow turned to see what had made the noise, and saw a sleepy bear licking his lips and yawning as he stood. Impatiently she turned back to the Mayor.
“Leave off your threats, Cabochon. I’ll sign your treaty.”
“You see, Lucifer?” said the Mayor. “Complexity is a slower way, but it is most effective.”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” said Snuff. He bowed obsequiously. “Complexity and patience. It’s been a long campaign.”
“Villainy works,” Lady Cindertallow spat out. “You’ve done a filthy thing, Cabochon. My family is dead. I lost twelve years with my daughter. She loved a traitorous servant as her father, while I . . . loved nothing. Sent my love out to empty space, hoped my daughter was still alive somewhere, out there, and feared she was dead.” A tear cracked Lady Cindertallow’s proud face. Her hand jerked toward Clovermead—and she clenched it back. “Your blasted city’s freedom doesn’t matter that much.”
Clovermead wanted to cry too, to comfort this woman—but Lord Ursus was coming back, had come back, and he filled her thoughts and soul. Now she felt only contempt for the old woman who would cripple her power for a useless love. The old woman would be dead soon. Clovermead laughed, Lord Ursus laughed, and they sent further instructions to the bear-priests on the details of the assault.
“I would have done anything for our freedom,” said the Mayor of Low Branding. His eyes blazed. “You would not bend to reason, Milady. You would not listen to my entreaties. You forced me to villainy—I could not win us our liberty without using it. I have no regrets. You’re a selfish woman, Milady, and you deserved your pain—”
Bears roared louder than ever and the Mayor turned to see what the noise was. Clovermead saw a ring of brown fur scrabble its claws on the Heath and move, padding in toward the Mayor’s army. They bared their teeth and snarled. The bear-priests walked with them and drew their broadswords all at once. Bears and bear-priests walked in slow and steady unison, inexorable as moving gears. Bestial snarls were their regimental music.
An uneasy hubbub spread among the ranks. Officers tried to reassure their men, but they would not be steadied. The bear-priests set their blood-net over the army and sent terror among the Mayor’s soldiers. The men fell from their perfect lines into disarray and stumbled toward the walls of Chandlefort. Clovermead smelled fear on them, rancid panic, and she growled with delight. It would be a pleasure to hunt down this fat prey.
“Cabochon, what is this treachery?” asked Lady Cindertallow with alarm. “Call off your filthy beasts.”
“I didn’t call them,” said the Mayor. For the first time Clovermead saw him look worried. His eyes found Snuff. “Lucifer! What are you playing at? Tell your servants to get back in line.”
“Lucifer didn’t order them forward,” Clovermead growled, her tooth snarled, Lord Ursus roared. She kicked her horse forward and grinned with pleasure. “I did. I have found a better vessel for my plans than you, Mayor. She will be the twenty-first lady of Chandlefort and she will serve Me. All Linstock will be my hunting range.” Clovermead bellowed with laughter. “And much more besides. Mayor, your services are at an end. Cindertallow, you have bequeathed Me an excellent daughter. Little prey, I thank you both for your stupid squabble.”
Clovermead gave the final order, and the bears and bear-priests leapt forward.
Chapter Eighteen
The White Doe
Snuff swung down from Featherfall, drew his sword, and loped between Clovermead and the parleyers. Slack jawed, the Mayor watched as Lord Ursus’ bears and bear-priests smashed into his disintegrating army. The bear-priests had killed half the patricians in his honor guard in the first seconds. The rest fought valiantly against the sudden treachery of their companions, but they were already outnumbered. The bear-priests’ swords mowed them down.
“Dear Lady!” Lady Cindertallow swore. She stood high in her stirrups and her eyes flickered quickly over the chaos. “To me!” she yelled to her Guardsmen. Her voice was as loud as any trumpet. The Yellowjackets kicked the flanks of their horses and brought them to a gallop.
Clovermead’s shadow grew long and dark. Lord Ursus was her shadow, and where her shadow fell, all light was extinguished. He sprang up in front of the Guardsmen. He was a hill-high monster who pawed the ground and left festering gobs of darkness on the Heath. He roared, and from his mouth spewed evanescent visions of men and horses screaming as the flesh fell from their bones, howling as their bones fell apart, and shrieking to the last as they crumbled into dust.
The Yellowjackets’ horses neighed wildly and bolted for the castle gates. Their wide-eyed riders tried to rein them in but with no great vigor. Terror pursued them; terror lent their flight yet greater speed. Jubilantly Clovermead’s fearful shadow roared its conquest of the Salt Heath.
The Mayor’s shocked idiocy fell from him as abruptly as it had seized him. “Ride, Milady,” he said to Lady Cindertallow. He smiled grimly and gripped his lovely, useless sword in his clumsy hands. “This is my folly to pay for, not yours. Get behind your walls.” He laughed. “They’ve kept you safe from me for twelve years, Melisande. They won’t fail you now.”
“Catch her, Snuff,” Clovermead commanded. She galloped toward the Mayor as Snuff advanced horribly fast on Lady
Cindertallow. Lady Cindertallow drew her blade and parried Snuff’s sword as it lashed at her neck. Then she riposted and hewed at Snuff’s chest. Their blades whirled in a deadly dance. Lady Cindertallow was an expert swordswoman, and she was fighting on horseback, but Snuff had Lord Ursus’ speed and strength in him. He fought and fought and he never grew tired.
Sorrel snaked out his blade to snap Waxmelt’s leather bonds. Waxmelt held up his freed hands and Sorrel tossed him a dagger. The innkeeper swung down from his horse as the Tansyard kicked Brown Barley forward to join Lady Cindertallow. “The Cyan Cross Horde,” he cried. “Mother! Father!” Furiously he swung his sword at Snuff, and the bear-priest hastily turned his blade from Lady Cindertallow. Now Lady Cindertallow and Sorrel fought jointly against Lucifer Snuff. The bear-priest’s blade pirouetted effortlessly to ward off both opponents.
Clovermead ducked under the Mayor’s clumsy blow, swung a long paw at his gray mare’s head, and tore it off. Clovermead growled in joy at her own strength and backhand smashed the Mayor off his dead steed onto the Heath. He rolled a dozen feet. Clovermead sprang lightly onto the ground. “On your feet,” she ordered him. “Fight me to the end.” Her snout twitched at the smell of blood coursing from his gashed, broken arm. Her teeth lengthened, hungry for his flesh.
Waxmelt tried to join in the fight against Snuff. He thrust his dagger toward Snuff’s back—and Snuff whirled and kicked him in the stomach. Lady Cindertallow sliced shallowly into Snuff’s arm. Waxmelt sagged to the ground. Howling and enraged, Snuff ducked under Sorrel’s sword, struck sideways, and sent Lady Cindertallow’s blade spinning away. Snuff slashed once more against Lady Cindertallow and struck her helmet. She cried and fell off her horse, unconscious, joining Waxmelt on the hard stones of the Heath.
Clovermead padded toward the Mayor. Her golden fur lengthened, and her teeth and claws grew sharp and long. Her bones stretched and her muscles expanded. Her yellow dress shredded from her enormous body and lay in rags on the heath—she was eight feet high and four feet thick, and still growing. Her ears unfurled, huge and high, and her nose grew large and sharp. She fell on all fours as her arms turned into forelegs. A tail poked out the bottom of her back. Her claws cut through the earth, caught on a pebble, and squeezed against the rock, which crumbled beneath the killing pressure of her paws. Clovermead roared with joy. The helpless, pathetic little girl was gone at last. Only the bear remained.
“Did you always mean to do this?” the Mayor asked, stumbling to his feet. His broken arm hung loose and ugly. Clovermead sniffed for fear and was disappointed to find none in him. He held his sword out, hopeless but defiant.
“At some point, Mayor,” Ursus growled through Clovermead. “Prey is prey. But I had not meant it to be so soon. Not till the little Cindertallow found my tooth. She was very strong and she was very hungry. I knew then that if I had her, you were dispensable.” Clovermead laughed with joy that she could be useful to her Lord; Lord Ursus guffawed at the Mayor’s trust in him. “Twelve years spent for this, Mayor! Poor fool.”
“Poor fool, indeed,” said the Mayor. “It seems I was imprudent.” He sadly made the crescent sign. “I pray that Our Lady will forgive me.”
The name sent Lord Ursus into a rage, and there would be no more playing with the man. Clovermead leapt at the two-legged meat—
And the air twisted before her. Sister Rowan appeared between the bear and the Mayor. Clovermead roared with anger, unable to turn aside. Her teeth bit at the air and her claws sank deeply into Sister Rowan’s side, her arms, her leg. The nun fell beneath Clovermead’s weight, her eyes fixed on Clovermead. There was no recrimination in them, no pain, only forgiveness. Her blood seeped up Clovermead’s claws and onto her fur.
The sun vanished. Clovermead looked up to see the moon shining in the sky. Its cool rays slashed at the shadow on the land. Clovermead howled in agony. She closed her eyes against the light of the moon—
Clovermead ran in her dreamland northern woods. Lord Ursus ran by her side. The moon glared on them as they ran, and its reflection from the snow sliced at Clovermead’s eyes. Lord Ursus recoiled from the brilliance. He groaned and moaned and snapped uselessly at the white circle above. He cursed, but his curses were soundless in the light.
She gave her blood freely, said Clovermead in wonder. She was willing to die for the Mayor—even for him. She acted like a hero.
How could she do that? Lord Ursus raged. Why? I didn’t expect—He saw Clovermead listening to him and he clamped his muzzle shut. He tried to smile. Prey can be foolish, little cub. Sometimes they throw themselves into your mouth. It only means they deserve to be eaten.
But that isn’t heroic, said Clovermead. That isn’t exciting. There’s no challenge to killing if you can’t hunt them down. She shook her head bewilderedly.
Never mind, little cub, said Lord Ursus. Other hunts await you. Can you smell the doe?
Clovermead sniffed and found the familiar, elusive scent. It was divine—a drug, as desirable as ever. There was powerlessness and fear and hurt in it, and once more Clovermead was vibrantly aware of her own power, her bravery, and her ability to cause pain. She loved what she had become. Heroine, villainess—those were just words of prey. She could do as she wished, perform more glorious actions than any she had read of in her books. Now she lived, as she had never done in sleepy Timothy Vale. Now she was divine to everyone she murdered, for she had the power of life and death. Thrusting all thoughts of Sister Rowan out of her mind, the cub Clovermead roared with joy and ran.
Lord Ursus paced her as she accelerated. Clovermead salivated and dodged trees. The pines grew thinner and smaller as they raced along bare slopes of snow and stone. She spotted the doe’s delicate hoofprints. White wolves sprang into the wake of the two bears, howling their hope for carcass meat. A black vulture flapped after them. Jackrabbits scampered into their holes and eagles soared south, disdaining the scene of murder.
Lord Ursus and Clovermead rounded the hill, and below them she saw Snowchapel again. The valley was thick with pearly mist and every droplet glowed in the extraordinary moonlight. Down by the temple the nuns of Snowchapel lined the Pool’s edge and sang a hymn to the moon that throbbed through the mist. Its silvery harmony beseeched Our Lady to dispel fear and darkness, and Clovermead cried from the ceremony’s sheer beauty.
Strike the doe down! Lord Ursus’ urgent growl broke the hymn into jagged discords. Consume her! Put an end to the moon-gibberish.
The doe came into sight. Clovermead roared and she smelled the doe’s terror stronger than ever. The scent was an urgent pungency in her nose and heart and stomach and thrilled nerves. The doe was an old white deer, winded from the chase. Her lungs pumped madly and she stumbled on slippery roots beneath the snow. Clovermead pounded closer.
Kill her, said Lord Ursus. Do it now.
The moon shone down brighter than ever and there was no darkness where Clovermead’s thoughts could hide. Sister Rowan said I could always draw the tooth, she told herself, but I don’t think I’ll want to after I’ve killed the doe. I’ll want the tooth in me, Lord Ursus with me, forever and ever. I love the taste of blood too much already—after I’ve killed this prey, I’ll never be free of blood-thirst. I will be strong, I will be powerful, and the little girl will never get in my way again. Our Lady will never bother me again. The light will never hurt me again and I will rest in darkness forever.
But I don’t want to be a bear. I don’t want to be a monster. I didn’t know what power and adventure were when I wanted them. They’re not worth having. I want to be Clovermead Wickward of Timothy Vale again. If I have to be silly and weak, I don’t mind.
I do mind. Clovermead Wickward was hunted. Clovermead Wickward was stolen. Clovermead Wickward was lied to by her own father, who wasn’t her father, was deceived by everyone she met. In her foolish innocence she was a plaything for the powerful and she was contemptible. The Mayor and Snuff were right to laugh at me. Better to serve Lord Ursus and be strong. Better to be fear
ed. Better to kill—and it was so lovely to kill. I am so hungry, Clovermead cried. I am so thirsty. Teeth and blood, I can’t withstand the temptation of flesh.
Sister Rowan is dying or dead. Sorrel will die. That stranger they say is my mother will die. Father, Waxmelt, Daddy, will die. I tried so hard to keep him alive. Snuff will kill them, Lord Ursus will eat them. I will kill them. But I love Father. In spite of everything, I love him.
All the more reason to kill him quickly. Love is the worst weakness of all.
I’ve never seen anyone stronger than Sister Rowan when she stood between me and the Mayor. She was stronger than hunger, stronger than thirst. She was stronger than fear.
I think her strength came from outside her.
Dear Lady, help me, Clovermead cried out. She stopped running and Lord Ursus roared in fear. I am weak, Lady. I will always be weak by myself. Please, give me your strength, which doesn’t kill. Give me the strength that keeps me from killing. Against all her hunger, against all her thirst, against all her hatred and cruelty and pain, Clovermead drew in her claws. Crying, Clovermead looked again at the white doe.
Light was everywhere. Lord Ursus was far away and his musk dwindled as the glimmering moon cleansed Clovermead. There was music, singing, and the light faded enough to let Clovermead see the world again. The music went on.
Clovermead saw a small, old woman leave the gates of Snowchapel as the nuns sang her farewell. She walked slowly but steadily along a thin, curving trail up the steep slope. Light throbbed around her.
In the Shadow of the Bear Page 21
